What's Cooking (Take Two!)

The mackerel was fresh and purchased specifically for smoking. As an oily fish hot smoking is a perfect treatment and it worked beautifully. We turned some into a smashing pate and the rest in the kedgeree was tasty.

Phyllo triangles -- some with lobster, some with spinach. Made my own tzatziki, too.

Yummy stuff but so much waiting... wait for the phyllo to thaw, wait for the spinach to thaw, wait for the lobster to thaw, then cook everything so that you can wait for it to cool so you can wrap it, then bake everything so it's all hot again and you have to wait till you can eat it.

(And, yes, I hurried the spinach and lobster by immersing them in a bowl of warm water, and, yes, I started the phyllo defrosting yesterday. My point is still valid.)

Last night we made dinner for our friend Karl. I made the fruit salad we've been making a lot recently. A couple of Ataulfo Mangoes (Costco is selling six packs), a ripe avocado, and a Cara Cara orange. You peel and cut up the mangoes, you dice up the avocado "meat", and you make "supremes" of the orange. Slice off the peel all around the orange with a sharp knife and then cut out the perfect little wedges so the orange slices are perfectly clean. Combine and put a dab of Major Grey's Mango Chutney on each serving. The whole is so much better than the parts! When I combine those flavors something like chocolate comes out, it's a little amazing.

Then we had the butterflied leg of lamb (Julia Child & Company) -- marinated for a few hours with olive oil, lemon, garlic and rosemary and then roasted and browned under the broiler. Plus quartered Brussels sprouts cooked with thick cut applewood smoked bacon, and a roasted whole celeriac (recipe from Nopi). All with a good Chianti from Lamole di Lamole. Karl was impressed, it was a good meal.

Finished up the package of phyllo making an Egyptian meat pie: ground beef sauteed well with fennel and chorizo (couldn't find merguez today), scented with garlic and allspice, sheets of phyllo above and below, and you pour an egg and a glass of milk into it before baking. Still hamburger pie.

[Jenise]

Frank--citrus fruit and avocado LOVE each other, great combo. If you're not on a statin and can eat grapefruit, consider using grapefruit instead of an orange some time. Just as fantastic.

We've been travelling so only back to cooking at home. Last night we went meatless with a risotto. For that I combined chanterelle mushrooms (butter sautéed and frozen since last season), chopped asparagus, a small handful of peas and celery leaves. Wow, was that good! Oh, and I served oven-roasted celery on the side. Our starter was baby kale and chopped hazelnuts tossed with lime juice, roasted walnut oil, and salt. And the wine was a 2001 Brunello.

About those mushrooms... how do you prepare them for the freezer? Extra butter? Less seasoning (since you don't know exactly how it will be used)?

[Jenise]

About those mushrooms... how do you prepare them for the freezer? Extra butter? Less seasoning (since you don't know exactly how it will be used)?

These were done by the friend who foraged them and given to me already frozen, but: fully cooked, lots of protective butter fat, no other seasoning.

Thanks. I like this idea. I may even do it for dried wild mushrooms -- I find it really irritating to have to deal with grit while I'm busy prepping other things.

[Jenise]

Tonight: scallops. I'll probably make a risotto to go underneath involving fennel, chard and saffron. The flavors just appeal today.

We enjoyed loin ends yak tori with risotto and green peas. Yum!

[Jenise]

We enjoyed loin ends yak tori with risotto and green peas. Yum!

Risotto's on everyone's mind right now!

We enjoyed loin ends yak tori with risotto and green peas. Yum!

Risotto's on everyone's mind right now!

My risotto with favas, prosciutto, porcinis, Pecorino Toscano, and asparagus was interesting. On the negative side, none of the ingredients really stood out from the others. On the positive side, they all went together to provide a really deep and complex set of flavors. I'd make it again.

[Jenise]

Mike, I wonder if a squeeze of lemon or lime juice might have popped a few flavors. However, the suite of ingredients you name all sound wonderful and perfectly harmonious.

First risotto I ever had? At the restaurant atop the Omni hotel in Chicago. Bob and I were a brand new couple at the time (first date to marriage--four months), and this was one of a series of dazzling out-of-town (we lived in Los Angeles) 'dates'. So it was impressive that we walked into this fully-booked, popular restaurant with no reservation and Bob palmed some cash to the host and got us seated at a spectacular window table shortly thereafter. I remember that a New York steak of some kind followed, but the risotto was the star of the night for me, and I ate it--this is only a slight exaggeration--one kernel at a time because I wanted the dish, and the evening, to last forever. It was a complex melange of tiny diced things but it involved smoked gruyere, pencil thin asparagus and fava beans.

Last night we also had risotto. It was a mix of the leftovers from two vegetarian risottos of the previous week, dumped in my brand new non-stick skillet and allowed to sear crispy on one side, along with sauteed white chard. A tomato-French basil salad preceded it.

That's a good point, Jenise, and I had considered adding lemon juice and/or zest as I often do. It just didn't happen this time.

Dinner last night was Cajun-inspired black beans: cooked with the Holy Trinity of finely diced celery, onions, and bell peppers, seasoned with herbes de Provence, a clove of garlic, a dash of chile sauce, and tasso.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Dinner last night: a hamburger, rather ruined by the fact that. at Trader Joe's, I mistakenly grabbed a package where the largest words on the label were BLACK ANGUS BEEF 85% in big black font and missed the smaller red fine print GLATT KOSHER. The meat was tremendously salty. And I like salt--but this was too much for me.

Tonight: chicken wings, dredged in flour and coriander, and finished in a green hot sauce. Cabbage slaw with peanuts, red onion and cilantro on the side.

[Jenise]

Well, the chicken wings didn't happen. I ended up at Costco and fell victim to a lovely piece of halibut and a pair of Crab legs (for a crab and cherry tomato cocktail first course).

Tonight--those chicken wings.

Let's see what it's been this week: Monday we had just returned from a mini-vacation so we went to a nearby French cafe with our upstairs neighbor (I had a really nice piece of skate), Tuesday was a lamb bolognese, yesterday was "Salmon Day" (Pumpkin wants it every week!). Tonight I'm stag so it's likely to be simple. No idea what to do on Friday.

[Jenise]

Does he just love salmon or is he loading up on good salmon fat for health reasons? Speaking of which, Alaskan salmon should be showing up soon.

Does he just love salmon or is he loading up on good salmon fat for health reasons? Speaking of which, Alaskan salmon should be showing up soon.

Both! He is very conscious of his weight so he pays attention to eating real foods, not processed, and a good balance of grains, vegetables, and protein.

Fortunately, I like salmon, too.

[Jenise]

I made the best chicken wings last night!

I was going to do a new recipe from Food & Wine that calls for a green curry marinade but ended up with company wherein the female half gets piercing pain in her ears from spicy food (I know, doesn't sound possible, but that's what she says.) So the prep was a mashup of two ideas: remembering a long ago friend's claim that her father made the best fried chicken by presoaking it in ice water, and taking from the F & W recipe the part that recommends baking them at 500 F where I typically go about 425. So I put the wings in a bowl with a few bay leaves (my embellishment), covered them in ice water and refrigerated them for the rest of the afternoon. Then, they were coated in flour and placed on a well-oiled cookie sheet that spent about five minutes in the oven preheating (this step absolutely guarantees no sticking). The result? Couldn't have been moister, couldn't have been crispier. I'll never do them any other way.

Hm.... didn't you say that about some other technique recently, too? I seem to recall something about, "Yes, oh God, YES!"
http://forums.wineloverspage.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=50898&p=418810

[Jenise]

The Korean ones! Yes, I love those two. But the flour on the wet wings makes a crisp finish that's almost like a bread crumb coating. Quite different, especially if one doesn't have much lead time (the Korean wings require planning ahead).

[Jenise]

Tonight, a summer barbecue for two neighbors:

Barbecued roast leg of lamb
Asparagus with lemon juice, EVOO, parmesan cheese
Crisp layer of puff pastry spread with ricotta and topped with a cherry tomato salad
Purple cauliflower, watercress and roasted walnut panzanella with rosemary
Burgundian potato salad (tons of fresh herbs with shallots, white and purple potatoes)
Big bowl of fresh blackberries