Although I wanted the food to be good, I also really want to make sure I can hang out when we have friends over. The past couple of times we've had people over I feel like I spend too much time in the kitchen, and I think from that standpoint dinner was a success.
The food was okay, definitely not great, but scaling to larger quantities is not something I'm used to. So to feel like things weren't horrible and my planning was good; it went okay.
Since we had all week off, I'm including two weekends, I just didn't have time to finish the post last week. We're also coming up on the end of the normal CSA share - the final share is this week- and then the winter share starts. Get ready for rutabaga.
Sourdough Pretzel Rolls
mustard smoked cheddar sauce
Positive - It's been a really long time since I've made pretzels; it went pretty smoothly.
Negative - I only had one, I thought they might have been on the dry side and maybe dense; but again I had one small one.
I really should have used a scale when dividing them, a couple were pretty small.
Basically you just boil the rolls in some alkaline water before you bake them. Used 3/4 cup baking soda to ten cups of water - maybe I'll actually buy some lye next time, I'd like to see the difference.
Kielbasa Canapes
Thyme and White Wine mustard and sauerkraut
Positive - Baking off the pie dough went fine. This batch of sauerkraut tastes great, maybe I just haven't eaten much, and the kielbasa was really good at room temp.
Negative- The mustard is still really hot. I put a tiny bit on most of the canepes and tried to warn people, but I think some just had too much mustard.
I did have some issues rolling out the dough since it's so moist. It was sticking to everything and I just had to keep putting it back into the freezer.
The crust was a bit too flaky, some fell apart after one bite, so they should have been smaller so you only had to take one bite...but I guess if it's more than one bite, then it's not a canape.
Short Rib and Wild Mushroom Pate 'Schnitzels'
balsamic gastrique and red wine reduction
Sweet Potato and Creamed Collard 'Gratins'
Thyme and Smoked Rye Breadcrumbs
This was the main - the idea was to make a bitterballen into a flat shape, so I called them schnitzels, since German is more Gretchen's style. I could have just called them croquettes or milanese, or whatever. Basically the idea was to take braised short rib and mushroom pate and bread and fry it.
Gretchen's into gratined anything, but I wanted to be able to plate this in individual portions without having a million ramekins going on, so I basically made sweet potato puree and creamed collards separately and then plated them next to each other in the center of the plate and topped them with a mixture of thyme and smoked breadcrumbs to give a crunch like a gratin topping. The idea was also that the simpler flavors would be a better compliment to the bigger flavors of the pate and braised meat.
The meat croquette went next to the sweet potato puree and it was plated on top of a streak of the red wine reduction. The mushroom croquette went to the left of the creamed greens, and the gastrique was drawn as a line next to it.
Positive - I think the best thing on the dish was the gastrique. I reduced down a lot of balsamic vinegar and honey with some thyme to a syrup and then mounted it with butter. The result was roasty and chocolately, but still acidic.
I think the mushroom pate came out ok, there was something 'sharp' flavored about it though.
Again, the planning/timing was the best part about this. I felt relaxed and in control for the most part while making this, and for the most par,t the final product was not a complete mess.
Negative - The plate could have used more gastrique and bread crumbs.
The beef mixture that was formed into the croquette was kind of a mess. I decided to add some oxtail to the short rib after testing this a couple times, thinking the extra gelatin would help everything hold together. That did work; my biggest problem was when I cooked the short rib in the pressure cooker a couple of days before it didn't completely break down - some did, but others didn't. I used these monster short ribs from a different farm than the previous week and they just took forever to cook. I was working on this after work and it was taking too long. I took them out hoping it would be okay and the next day and I wasn't able to pull them apart.
I made the decision to put the parts that didn't break down in the food processor with the oxtail meat and turn it into a pate more or less. This isn't really the texture I wanted but at least it wasn't all chunks. Of course, this wasn't without it's issues- I thought I had pulled all the oxtail bones out, but one ended up in the food processor. When I pulled it out it looked intact, but I found a bone chip in one of the croquettes.
The breading/fry job was pretty terrible. I didn't let the oil get hot enough to brown the first batch of croquettes fast enough - luckily they didn't fall apart.
I could have used some bigger beef flavors. I did a fairly standard braise with all of the flavors I'm always using- mirepoix, homemade tomato paste, fennel seed, coriander, fresh thyme, oregano, red wine, beef and chicken stocks. Maybe it was underseasoned or not browned enough.
The mushroom mixture was fine I think, I only had one of these, so I don't really remember.
The texture was similar to the first time I made it months ago (as opposed to two weeks ago). I'm glad it was firmer than last week, it really helped to do the breading. I used a pound and a half of mushrooms (mixture of crimini, portobello, and button), maybe a half to three quarters of a cup of shallot, some conjac, an egg and a half, and a 3 tablespoons. I also baked it longer. If I was serving this as a spread I'd definitely cook it less.
Bitterballen w/ Eggs and Sauteed Spinach
Smoked Cheddar Mustard sauce
Leftovers dominate the rest of the week, so you'll see a lot of balsamic vinegar and cheddar sauce all over the place.
Positive - I did a better job of frying these than the ones from the previous night.
Negative - I should have probably waited to make the leftovers - it was just really rich the morning after having a really rich dinner.
Cauliflower Puree and Grilled Bok Choy/Kale stuffed crepes
Roast cauliflower florets with Smoked Cheddar/Mustard Sauce
Balsamic Honey Gastrique
Stuffed crepes and korean style pancakes are fast becoming the new grain salad.
Positive - This came together quickly, and tasted pretty good. I ate the grilled bok choy and Gretchen had kale.
From a visual standpoint, I was worried this was going to be too white, but the plate actually looked pretty good since the gastrique broke everything up. Since it's so reduced you can really draw sharp lines with a squeeze bottle.
Negative - You can tell we're getting to the end of the season. The flavor of the vegetables is watered down, like they don't have the right amount of flavor for their size. The bok choy was this way in particular; it was lacking an intensity in flavor.
Chicken Stock
Positive - I think I finally understand my oven in the new place, and have a better sense of how everything is going to cook. The stock tastes pretty good, and is fairly gelatinous.
Negative - While straining the stock I smelled a very strong liver smell. Turns out a couple of the livers got by me while I was cleaning out hearts, kidneys and livers from the carcasses. I usually wouldn't leave the livers in, but this stock does taste pretty good, so maybe it's a good thing?
Carrot Ginger Soup
Sauteed Spinach, Radish, Balsamic Reduction
Negative - I guess the only negative here was that I made a lot. I wish I had had some kind of wine to use in here too; it needed a little more depth; and ironically enough, I didn't use chicken stock.
Sweet Potato Risotto
Brussel Sprouts, Fried wild mushroom Pate
Smoked bread crumbs, balsamic gastrique
Positive - Again working on the leftovers. Used the leftover puree in this risotto, served it with the mushroom croquette and garnished it with the smoked breadcrumbs and gastrique.
Overall it tasted pretty good - but at this point I was getting a little bored of these flavors.
Negative- It's been a while since I've actually made a risotto with arborio rice and not some kind of whole grain since we get a ton from the CSA; so I'm not sure if the texture was ok.
With this kind of risotto I think it's hard to get a lot of sweet potato flavor.
Kolsch Yeast Focaccia
Positive - After eating at Locanda Verde I became a little obsessed with making Focaccia. So to use up our leftover roast chicken from dinner I made focaccia for sandwiches. It tasted pretty good, but there were some execution problems.
The flavor was good - used lots of extra virgin olive oil and honey from Nature's Way. When it was baking it smelled really great.
Negative - Focaccia is formed on a pan (I used the small sheet tray that came with our toaster oven). Air got trapped under the dough and the whole thing puffed up in the center, so the final product was arched shaped, and not browned in the center of the bottom. It was fine, just weird shaped
The olive oil I brushed on the top kind of ran off as the dough rose in the oven, and burned on the pizza stone.
Spent Grain Pullman Loaf
Pale Ale Yeast
The same day as the focaccia I made a loaf using spent grains Joe gave me from a batch of beer he recently made. So I put together a whole wheat dough and added in half a cup of the spent grains- it really it gives the bread a textural component, and there are usually some sugars still there that the yeast feeds on.
Positive - The spent grain wasn't as sweet as the last time which is good, but some sweetness is good in whole wheat.
Negative - I'm not feeling too confident these days about bread baking. I'm not sure what happened. I had blow outs when baking even though I slashed the dough. The dough took too long to rise so it didn't have time to cool before Gretchen cut it, so it was kind of sticky.
I think the flavor was pretty good, but the texture was strange- it wasn't dense, but not a tight sandwich loaf...I don't know. I only have had one piece so far; so not really fair to judge it right now.
Butternut Squash and Radish Top Curry
Radishes and Wheat Berries
Back when Gourmet was actually accessible to me (thanks Gourmet Live, I don't have an iPad or iPhone, what the hell) there was a thai squash curry recipe I started making during the winter since we get a lot of various squash. On Saturday I was working on Sunday's dinner at the same time, so I wanted something quick. I really don't follow the recipe any more, but the basic idea is the same.
Positive - This was fast, but I made all sorts of mistakes throughout that made the final dish kind of shitty.
Negative - The fist step here is frying the squash and cumin seeds so you get some browning on the squash and toast the cumin at the same time. I knew that there was too much to do in one batch, but I still did it....so I got no browning. Since that step took so long that some of the cumin started to burn.
The final product was just kind of bland for whatever reason. Not even the fish sauce really cam through.
You can feel these squash getting old too - they have a stringy texture that you don't get earlier in the season.
Braised Lamb Shank
Herbed Mashed Potatoes and Roasted Brussel Sprouts
Positive - Since we've started watching the Bills games at the beer garden every Sunday afternoon, it's good to have dinners that come together quickly; and this was the case here. I did the braise on Saturday afternoon, so it was ready to go on Sunday.
The lamb was pretty tender, so it was cooked enough, but really I wasn't feeling this dinner.
Negative - I was really annoyed by this dish. I put too much oregano in the mashed potatoes, the gravy was on the verge of over seasoned and the lamb shanks weren't browned enough.
This whole weekend was a little discouraging; but I've had worse.
Restaurants
For Gretchen's birthday we hit a few restaurants that we normally couldn't get to for a couple lunches and dinner. Just quickly my order of preference, without getting too in depth.
Fatty 'Cue - I had the brisket sandwich the first time I was there, but really the more Asian style dishes are more interesting.
ABC Kitchen - It's kind of like the crap I cook - but cooked by people who actually know what the hell they're doing.
Locanda Verde - I'm just not that into going out for 'rustic Italian' - it's just not my thing.
CSA
Baby Spinach
Carrots
Butternut Squash
Sweet Potatoes
Broccoli
Toscano Kale
Bok Choy
Red Batavian Lettuce
Red Radishes
Navy Beans
Spelt Berries
Wheat Berries
Coffee
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