cook blog

Divine Dining Redux #4 – Meatballs in a Creamy Mushroom Sauce

November 28, 2008 by greg 2 Comments

It’s been two months since my Divine Dining dinner and I have yet to post all the details of that wonderful meal. I can’t believe I’ve let this lag so long. I have another dinner to tell you about too so let me finish this up so I can move on. Let’s talk about the main course we enjoyed back in September. I served a homemade meatball on top of a bed of garlic rutabaga and potato mash with a rather simple sage-infused creamy mushroom sauce. They were excellent if I do say so myself and really not hard to make.

The meatballs were made from a mixture of ground beef and ground pork. I used 2 pounds of beef and 1 pound of pork. To this I added 2.5 cups of bread crumbs, 4 cloves of chopped garlic, 8 chopped sage leaves, 1 cup loosely packed fresh parsley, salt, pepper and Italian herb seasoning to taste. I also accentuated the flavors with a dash of worschester sauce, a dash of nuoc mam Vietnames fish sauce. This sauce smells really strong but you don’t notice it in the dish. It just ads a dimension to the overall flavor that is almost imperceptible. Don’t be afraid of nuoc mam. Finally I added a dash of hot sauce. I used a homemade habanero sauce I had on hand.

It couldn’t be simpler. I just mixed all these ingredients together well in my KitchenAid and formed good good-sized meatballs by hand. They were placed on a baking sheet and cooked in a hot (425 °F) oven until browned. Be careful not to overcook them as they could get dried out.

The sauce was made by first sautéing chopped mushrooms, onions and garlic. You can use as much or little as you like of these ingredients. I don’t recall exactly my proportions but I guess I used one small package of white mushrooms, one small onion and 3-4 cloves of garlic. Season with salt and pepper as these are cooking down. Once the mushrooms and onions were softened, I added a healthy branch of sage to the pan and added heavy cream to cover the mushrooms. This was cooked for just a few minutes until the sauce thickened a little bit. You could added white wine to this dish also. That would be good.

I was fortunate this year to have a bumper crop of rutabagas in my garden. I love the combination of this hearty root vegetable with potatoes. I just diced up both the rutabas and potatoes and boiled them until tender. To that was added a healthy dose of roasted garlic, milk and cream, salt, pepper and butter. Mash just like you would do to the potatoes.

Filed Under: beef Tagged With: divine dining, meatballs, pork

Lamian Noodles, sort of

November 24, 2008 by greg Leave a Comment

Lamian (also called la mien) are hand-pulled Chinese noodles. I have been fascinated with the plethora of youtube videos showing Chinese artisans stretching and pulling these noodles. I so wanted to try this myself. The dough is seemingly simple but if you don’t have the right ratio of gluten in the flour it will never have the right stretchy consistency to pull the noodles no matter how much you knead it. It also needs a pretty high hydration to be pliable enough to stretch. I tried this just using all purpose flour but it was not stretchy enough. I need to get some lower-gluten pastry or cake flour to make these noodles. I resorted to rolling out the dough and cutting the noodles with a knife. They turned out really tasty but I still want to try pulling them some day.

I made the dough using about 3.5 oz of all purpose flour and 2 oz of water. The dough was kneaded for about 25 minutes the allowed to rest for a few hours. It was kneaded by hand again for 20 or so minutes but it just wouldn’t become stretchy and relaxed enough to pull. It was silky smooth though and made for a great texture in the final product.

I made this soup very simply. I used a Korean beef dashi powder to make a broth and cooked some sliced carrots and celery in the broth for just a few minutes before serving. The noodles were cut and immediately thrown into a pot of salted boiling water. They were cooked for about 3 minutes, strained out and placed into large bowls. The soup was ladelled on top of the noodles. Meanwhile I quickly stir fried some thinly sliced sirloin tip, garlic and a bit of chili sauce. This was placed on top of the soup. It was YUMMY, filling and perfect for a cold winter’s day.

Filed Under: Chinese Tagged With: lamian, noodles, soup

Divine Dining Redux #3 – Creamy smooth gazpacho

October 15, 2008 by greg 1 Comment

When most people here in the US think of gazpacho, they think of a chunky, tomatoey, thin cold substance that reminds me of bland salsa. However, the authentic dish in Spain is nothing like that. It is creamy, and rich, and delicious. What makes it so? Two things that have been neglected here: bread and olive oil. Let me tell you how gazpacho should be.

First, let me give credit where credit is due. I got this recipe from Lynne Rossetto Kasper’s America Public Media radio show, The Splendid Table. It was passed to her by David Rosengarten who was a guest on her show recently. David’s recipe can be found here in its entirety. I doubled his recipe and it was more than enough!

I started with about 4 oz of day old French bread. This was ripped into pieces and soaked with cold water for a couple of minutes. The water was squeezed out. The bread is important as it helps to thicken the soup.

Next I chopped up about a pound of ripe garden fresh tomatoes, a medium sized sweet onion, about a cup and a half of cucumber (peeled and seeded), a large green bell pepper and a large red bell pepper.

Everything was placed in the blender and 2 tsp of sherry vinegar was added. The mixture was puréed while pouring in 1/2 cup of good extra virgin olive oil. That makes it rich and creamy.

Once puréed, the mixture was seasoned with salt and pepper and then strained through a seive. The soup was chilled well before serving. I garnished it with more of the basil oil I described in my last post.

Filed Under: Spanish Tagged With: divine dining, gazpacho, soup

Divine Dining Redux #2 – Linguini a la Carbonara

October 2, 2008 by greg 1 Comment

Thanks everyone for being so patient as I navigate my busy life. I promised to be back with details about my dinner so here you go.

My second course was a pasta dish. I was inspired to make a carbonara based on a post over at Peter Minakis’ Kalofagas Greek food blog. If you haven’t been there before, you are missing out.

I followed his recipe pretty much as written except I doubled it. Instead of Romano cheese I used parmigiano reggiano. I did use pancetta. Worth the extra cost, definitely.

Ingredients (four small portions)

Linguini (I used a good artisan dried linguini from the market ~4 oz)
4 egg yolks
1/3 cup grated parmigiano reggiano
4 cloves garlic
1/2 cup diced onion
1/4 cup diced pancetta
splash of white wine
pasta water
black pepper
chopped parsley

The pasta was placed in a large pot of salted boiling water to cook. In a large pan was added the pancetta. It was cooked until rendered and crispy – but not darkened. The onions and garlic were added to the pan and cooked down until softened. While the onions were cooking the egg yolks were beaten and the cheese was whisked in. A splash of wine was added to the onions. When the pasta was cooked it was added to the onion/pancetta mixture along with a bit of the pasta water. The water contains some of the starch and helps thicken the sauce. You can always add more later if you don’t have enough to loosen the sauce. The heat was turned off and the egg/cheese mixture was mixed with the pasta. Finally the chopped parsley and cracked black pepper were added.

That’s it! Easy as pie and oh, so tasty.

Filed Under: pasta Tagged With: carbonara, divine dining, linguini

Divine Dining Redux #1 – Roasted Beet Salad with Basil Oil

September 25, 2008 by greg 1 Comment

As promised I will be posting details of the dishes I prepared for a five course dinner last weekend. So, let’s start with the first course, shall we? Inspired by a classic caprese salad I created a roasted beet salad with fresh chèvre, balsamic vinegar and basil oil. I was dying to use some of the plethora of beets I have maturing in my garden right now. This turned out better than I anticipated.

The beet preparation could not be simpler. I love roasted beets and they are so easy to do. I just take them from the garden, trim the roots and stalks, and tightly wrap them individually in foil. No need to skin them. They were placed on a sheet and roasted in a 425 °F oven for about an hour. Once cooled the skins will slip right off. I used three kinds of beets. One is a yellow beet called ‘Touchstone Gold’. I also have a ‘Chiogga’ beet which has red and white stripes inside. These two beets are tasy and the colors hardly bleed. Unlike the purple beet, ‘Red Ace’, which will stain anything it touches. Personally I like the sweetness of the yellow beets the best but the purple ones have the most classic beet flavor. On top of the beets was placed some fresh goat cheese. A bit of balsamic vinegar was poured in the middle and the plate was garnished basil oil.

Basil oil is so easy to make. I took about a half cup of tightly packed basil leaves and 1 cup of good olive oil in a food processer and processed it briefly to chop up the basil. This was placed in a pan and heated for about 5 minute to infuse the oil with the flavor. Careful not to cook it. I heated it until the traces of water started sizzling and bubbling.

The oil was poured through a strainer and cooled. The result is a deep green colored oil with tons of basil flavor.

Next up – linguini carbonara. Stay tuned.

Filed Under: appetizer Tagged With: basil oil, beets, divine dining, salad

Divine Dining

September 23, 2008 by greg 2 Comments

This past weekend I made dinner for some dear friends of ours. Over the next week I will be posting more details on these dishes but I wanted to share with all of you what I came up with.

First of all let me share the table setting. Nothing too fancy but I did pull out the TJ Max plates that I posted recently for a Sunday Chicken Dinner.

The evening started with some cheese and crackers. On the plate is some gruyère and some aged gouda cheese along with some fresh grapes and dried apricots. This plate, by the way, was made by Bismarck artist Susan Davy. She makes fantastic artistic pottery. The glaze contains flax ash from North Dakota farms that provides for the wonderful amber colors.

I was thinking about a caprese salad for a first course but my tomatoes are terribly behind this year and the quality just wasn’t there. On the other hand I have a bumper crop of beets. So, inspired by a caprese salad I made a roasted beet version. Here we have three kinds of beets – chioga (red and white striped), yellow and purple beets. Fresh goat chese was placed on top and the plate was garnished with some balsamic vinegar and basil infused olive oil.

The second course was a classic linguini carbonara with pancetta. It turned out better than I imagined and was a hit of the evening.

My wife made homemade whole wheat rolls. The recipe was from Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Bread Bible. The dough was fermented for two days and the rolls came out light and soft.

The third course was a fresh, creamy traditional Spanish gazpacho. The recipe came from David Rosengarten who recently shared it on Lynne Rossetto Kasper’s radio show, The Splendid Table.

The main course consisted of herb infused meatballs. I used fresh sage and fresh thyme in these. They are made from a mixture of beef and pork. The meatballs were served on top of garlic mashed pototoes and rutabagas. A creamy mushroom sauce complimented the dish.

Finally – DESSERT! On a cooking/gardening forum I participate in there was a wonderful recipe from BlueMoon for a Lavendar Blueberry ice cream. This is a fantastic recipe which I’ll share with you soon.

Come back for more details on these dishes coming soon.

Filed Under: dining Tagged With: divine dining, entertaining

Oven Pot Roast

September 8, 2008 by greg Leave a Comment

It has been a long time since I’ve had pot roast. Meat so tender it falls apart in shreds. Hearty, comforting root vegetables glistening with pot juices. Aromas of thyme and winter savory wafting from the bowl. And the best part about pot roast – LEFTOVERS. A perfect meal on a cool fall day.

I started with a 2.8 pound arm roast. This one was nicely marbled with fat which is so important for a tender and juicy end product as it slowly cooks.

I seasoned the roast liberally with some salt, pepper and yellow prepared mustard. You don’t really taste the mustard in the end but it does add another dimension to the flavor that would be lacking, I think.

The roast was first seared in a hot heavy pot with a bit of olive oil for about 5 minutes on a side. This also creates another layer of flavor with the caramelized brown bits flavoring the whole dish.

Some of the other ingredients for this pot roast are shown below. I made a bed of onions, garlic and fresh herbs (thyme, winter savory and sage). A bit of red wine was used to provide moisture and flavor. I like a fruity zinfandel.

I placed the onoins, herbs and half the garlic on the bottom of the pan under and placed the seared meat on top. Additional garlic and yellow mustard were sprinkled on top and then about 1/2 cup of red wine was added. The pot was covered and placed in a 250 degree F oven for its long slow cooking. I left it alone for three hours.

After three hours a couple of cups each of carrots and rutabagas were cut into large chunks and added to the pot. The temperature was raised to 275 °F and it was allowed to cook covered for another hour and a half until the vegetables were thoroughly softened.

You can see the end product at the top. Notice how much moisture is in the pot. This comes from the onions and the meat mostly. It is a delicious broth flavored with the meat, herbs and subtly by the mustard.

Filed Under: beef Tagged With: pot roast

Pesto Pizza

September 7, 2008 by greg 3 Comments

Nothing says summer yum like a pesto pizza with fresh tomatoes. I used the same pizza dough recipe that I’ve blogged about recently. Instead of a tomato sauce I used freshly prepared pesto (all basil this time without the spinach). This was slathered on the dough and topped with mozzarella and fresh tomato slices. It was very satisfying.

Filed Under: Pizza Tagged With: pesto

From the Garden

September 7, 2008 by greg Leave a Comment

I haven’t really posted much about the food I grow. I do have a pretty good-sized garden where I grow herbs and vegetables. This season has been quite slow for the warm weather crops but the cool loving veggies have been doing great. I’ll have an overabundance of beets this year, that’s for sure. Today I managed to find a few tomatoes finally getting ripe. Some of the very slow growing sweet corn is producing an ear or two. I also yanked out a few small rutabagas and some fresh thyme and sage to throw into a pot roast tonight (blog post coming soon).

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: harvest, vegetables

Sushi and more

August 25, 2008 by greg 4 Comments

I was in the mood for Japanese cuisine and it’s been a while since I’ve made sushi rolls. They really are not that hard to make and you can put whatever you want inside. These are stuffed with crab, avocado, carrots and cucmbers.

Of course the most important aspect of sushi is the rice. Unfortunately I didn’t have a great sushi rice on hand but at least I had a sticky shorter grain rice. Actually it was too sticky and became a bit gelatinous, but it was ok. Sushi rice preparation is something that is almost an art in Japan. Right out of the steamer, while still hot, the rice is seasoned with rice vinegar usually sweetened with some sugar. The rice is traditionally cooled by fanning by hand. I like to lay out a thin layer of rice about 3/4 of the way up a sheet of nori. It helps of you wet your hands with some water to prevent the rice from sticking.

Simply lay your ingredients in the middle of the rice. Here are the cucumbers and carrots.

Next, the avocado and crab.

Real sushi chefs can roll these by hand without the aid of a rolling mat, but mine turn out best if I use a mat. The idea is to roll the sushi pulling it in tight to make a firm roll. The edge is sealed by wetting with a little bit of water.

Here is the roll all ready to be sliced.

You can slice them however thick you want them. I like a pretty good mouthful myself.

Along with the sushi I made an Asian-inspired soup. I started with a stock pot filled with kombu (seaweed), dried shitake mushrooms, garlic and ginger. This was simmered for about an hour until the mushrooms and seaweed were tender and the broth was flavored.

The broth was strained and flavored with some soy sauce, clam dashi powder, a splash of mirin and a dash of sesame oil.

The mushrooms and seaweed were sliced finely and placed back in the soup.

Served with soy sauce and wasabi, the sushi was really tasty. The soup was very satisfying with a full robust flavor yet lightness that went well with the delicate flavors of the sushi.

Filed Under: appetizer, Japanese Tagged With: seaweed, soup, sushi

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