of beef and other things

Well, despite meticulous preparations, my little steak dinner Saturday night did not go off without a hitch. I (probably irrationally) blame Publix for the rotten potato, and my own sorry self for the slightly overcooked filets...at least they were still delicious and tender, and overall the meal went acceptably according to plan. I ended up using almost all Manchego for the gougères, which turned out delicious. I took a cue at the last minute from my little Julia Child compendium and made a riff on her baked tomatoes provençal, filling them with smoked trout and topping them with garlicky bread crumbs.

first course

The baked potato fans could have used a little practice first, and I have extra gorgonzola topping still in the fridge waiting to be used on a non-rotten potato...one of those between the two of us turned out to be more than enough, though. They were tasty. I also turned to Julia Child for a new spinach preparation: you sauté the spinach just til wilted and then let it "braise" for 5 minutes or so in a little cream, which never binds to it as in (what I know as) creamed spinach. So it turns out lighter but still tastes like cream, which is never a bad thing!

High on the list of the meals that tempt me away from my resolution not to use the oven on ~95 degree days are red enchiladas. I use the beef variation of the recipe in Best International Recipe and few things taste better to me with a dollop of sour cream and a squeeze of lime juice. Unable to help myself, I made a batch for lunch today---yes, in the middle of the day, using a 400 degree oven for half an hour. But the smell of the beef cooking in the sauce alone makes it worthwhile. I love that these, unlike other enchiladas I've tried, do not totally fall apart upon reheating, and leftovers actually taste at least as good as fresh. As you can see in the picture, they also lack that greasy sheen characteristic of many Mexican restaurant enchiladas... as far as enchiladas go, I consider these quite healthy: tomato sauce, lean steak, calcium-rich cheese, and whole grain corn tortillas!

R.I.P. Sourdough seed culture #2: 7/5/2011-7/12/2011

Well, I spoke too soon. I'm going to do some serious web-scouring research before undertaking this again, because sourdough is maybe not as straightforward as I thought. I was dissuaded from moving to phase 3 on Thursday night after realizing that the description it had to match was "active and bubbling" (whereas I only really had bubbly starter), and by means of Youtube I confirmed that active starter actually bubbles up and moves continually like a little swamp in a bowl. Alas, that was the last I saw of any bubbly action, because for the past four days I've been nursing a very flat and bubble-less mess, pinching my nose through the awful smell (it went from pleasantly acidic to filling much of the house with a sewage-like odor), to no avail. Once I can get that smell out of my memory (and fully out of the kitchen), perhaps I will try again, with the pineapple juice this time and a very clear idea of what kind of "activity" I need to be looking for.

On a happier note, M's birthday is this weekend, and I gave him a choice of "menus" for a nice meal. He chose the least adventurous (i.e. no cuts of meat I've never even purchased before), perhaps wisely. :P I guess the unifying theme would be French-inspired? For apps, gougères (Michael Ruhlman's ratio); first course, a summer tomato salad probably with green goddess dressing; filet mignon with a red wine pan sauce, sides of blue cheese baked potato fans (they sound a little kitschy but it's an ATK recipe and looks worth trying) and braised leeks (ATK). For dessert he just wanted a classic yellow birthday cake (Smitten Kitchen's, I've used this for cupcakes before and it was excellent) with CI's foolproof chocolate frosting and perhaps also vanilla ice cream. Since cupcakes apparently aren't manly enough, I will halve the cake recipe and slice one layer horizontally so it's still a layer cake, but more reasonable for two people. It remains to be seen whether I can pull all this off at once: I have at least made the pâte à choux, steak, and leeks before. I've also made a few cakes in my day, so no problems there as long as we don't have any unreasonable expectations as to the appearance... Should be fun.

miscellaneous goings-on

1) Sourdough bread is finally within reach after years of lazily wishing I could make it: I've captured wild yeast! This is my second go at Peter Reinhart's seed culture --> mother starter method for creating a sourdough starter, and unlike last time, it's going very well. I can't remember what happened with my attempt a year ago, except that nothing did: I didn't see much bubbling/activity at all, and so gave up after a few days. This time, however, things are looking bubbly and smelling pretty acidic, so I'll probably be moving to phase 3 of the seed culture tonight. I can't wait to try a rye loaf first.

2) Having grown up partly in Texas, I regard Mexican food with much fondness and would never turn it down, but I don't actually cook it much. Apart from a couple of good red and green enchilada recipes and the ability to make a decent salsa cruda, I don't actually know much about what goes into more complex Mexican dishes. I am very sorry that I did not "meet" Rick Bayless sooner. Several weeks ago I checked out one of his older cookbooks (RB's Mexican Kitchen), a very thorough treatment of all sorts of traditional Mexican everyday and "fiesta" food, and I still have it (renewed twice). Most recently I made the essential roasted tomatillo salsa with chipotle chiles (except I subbed arbol chiles per one of the variation ideas), and we liked it alright; it was sweeter than I expected, though I only added a pinch of sugar. For green salsas I prefer something more like the one in CI's enchiladas verdes, which roasts poblano peppers along with the tomatillos, and adds a fair bit of cilantro, too. But the smoky shredded pork tacos (tacos de picadillo oaxaqueño, on page 150) were out of this world. Exactly what I hoped for and then some. They were a "process" as far as taco fillings go, to be sure, but this was so much more than something to dump in a tortilla and slather with cheese and mediocre salsa. In fact, the meat with the picadillo (raisins and almonds) was so flavorful that all I served it with was a little cilantro. I'm very impressed and inspired by a lot of other recipes and techniques in this book.

3) In our household we have a special occasion coming up, and for it I'm considering flambéeing (steak Diane)... On the one hand, it could be really cool and help me overcome my pyrophobia, but on the other, it could, like, destroy M's birthday and our entire apartment building. :) Hm. Might be sticking with lamb chops instead.


4) On a whim I just baked some chocolate ice cream sandwiches (well, the sandwich part) from The Perfect Scoop, and they're cooling and making the house smell nice and waiting to be completed with the chocolate-peanut butter ice cream I made from the same book last week. I'll report on the outcome of those. Well, we already know the ice cream is good.

Results and photos

Here's a rundown of our little anniversary dinner, with award winning photojournalism:

I survived, with one minor battle scar where I stupidly grabbed the end of the thermometer that had been hanging out in 350 degree oil, another round of deep frying---this time for chicken dumplings, a mix of dark chicken meat and aromatics enveloped in wonton wrappers, which are then coated in egg, then panko. They were quite tasty with the sweet-and-sour sauce, which had that nice light red, almost translucent look just like the little cup they put in your Chinese takeout. It was very easy to make (red pepper, garlic, red wine vinegar, honey, sugar, red pepper flakes, etc.)

The tuna was very good, though I next time I would salt the meat before cooking, and save a couple of the ingredients (namely cilantro and scallions) to add off heat after the sauce is done, so that their flavor is more vibrant. Shiitakes are offically my favorite mushroom. Slicing them was a bit like slicing marshmallows, but needless to say they tasted much better. Unfortunately the color scheme was unpleasantly monochromatic.

And finally, the poached pear dessert: I could have just eaten the marvelous ginger pastry cream and been happy, but all together the flavors were exotic and interesting. Not something I'd want every day, but that's okay because this would be prohibitively labor-intensive. I was very pleased with how the spicy shortbread "chopsticks" came out, and relieved at how easy the dough was to roll out. These would probably be great with any Asian-themed ice cream or sorbet. The pears mysteriously firmed up quite a bit while they rested in the fridge, though they had been pretty tender before, so that was a little sad. But it was a success all in all.

I love star anise.

Anniversary Dinner

Today's our anniversary, and in an unusual fit of ambition fueled most likely by self-deception, I am trying three new recipes---unless you count each component, in which case it's six new recipes---for one dinner. Thankfully, more than half of them are at least partially make-ahead, which helps tremendously. Two are from CI's Restaurant Favorites, and one is from Epicurious, which I bookmarked a while back thanks to a thread on Chowhound where at least 5 people in a row named that as one of their top 5 favorite recipes of all time. So, it's about time we tried it.

Appetizer: Crispy chicken dumplings with sweet-and-sour sauce. These are deep fried with a homemade sauce. I therefore trust that they will be good. I don't currently have a food processor so I'm not looking forward to mincing everything in the filling rather than having a machine whiz it around for 10 seconds, but I'll deal.

Main: Pan-seared tuna steaks with ginger-shiitake cream sauce. I don't think I've ever bought fresh tuna or shiitakes before. When I stopped by Fresh Market this morning I was pleasantly surprised that a) the few shiitakes they had left were on sale, and without weighing I picked out the last ones that looked good and had exactly enough for my recipe; and b) the sashimi-grade tuna was only $11/lb, which I wasn't expecting. I'll serve this over soba noodles.

Dessert: Asian poached pears with ginger pastry cream and spicy shortbread chopsticks. I have to say that it costs me something to make a dessert that does not contain chocolate in any of its parts, but I thought I should give Mike a break from my obsession already. Besides, this recipe looks really intriguing. I already made the delicious pastry cream last week (sans the ginger) for my cream puffs, so it's technically not new. I made the version with ginger this morning, and now I am waiting for the pears and poaching liquid to cool down before I run out for an errand. They smell delicious. I didn't splurge on Asian pears, as CI promised that regular grocery store hard-as-a-rock pears work great. It took mine a while longer than estimated to become tender, but I think the liquid wasn't quite simmering when I put the pears in. You would think by now I'd be fairly confident as to what simmering liquid looks like, but it's not the first time it's happened. Probably more a function of impatience than incompetence. The chopsticks look a bit daunting, but I think they'll add a nice textual and visual contrast.