Well, this is a quick and simple recipe (well, not really a recipe…more of a technique) for something that typically isn’t super easy to pull off: cooking a duck breast with crispy skin and at the same time keeping it medium/medium rare. (More after the jump). Continue reading
So, last week was a whirlwind of preparation and cooking. The birthday party went very well. There were a little over 30 people that ended up attending and the food turned out pretty well if I do say so myself. Here are some pictures that my lovely wife took while I was busy getting stuff ready. Enjoy!
An overview of the table. Most of the food was mine though some of the guests did bring dishes as well.
White beans with kale braised in chicken stock and vermouth.
This might be my favorite of everything that I made: hard cooked eggs with tarragon shallot mayonnaise wrapped in a tomato slice and butter leaf lettuce. You eat them as a wrap…
Duck and fig terrine with mixed onion marmalade, pickled corn with jalapeno and sweet and sour dilled pickles.
Herbed goat cheese…I added fresh herbs to goat cheese, mixed it, and re-rolled it into a log.
Roasted peaches with fennel in a roasted lemon broken vinaigrette. This turned out way better than I thought it would!
So, those were some of the dishes that I made last week. They were all pretty easy, though it took a lot of time. The terrine was by far the most complex dish and was very involved. Otherwise, everything else was pretty straight forward.
Two loaves of rye, two multigrain, and two country French. The good news is that the food for the party is almost done. Coming up…recipes for mixed onion marmalade, pickled cucumbers and corn, and peach butter. Also, a couple simple salads: roasted potato with arugula, basil, cherry tomato, and pecorino cheese and a roasted peach and raw fennel salad with a broken lemon vinaigrette. There’s more, but all of that is forthcoming. Also, if I think about it or if Tara thinks about it, I’ll post a picture of the food in total at the party. Have a great weekend!
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am cooking for a friend’s birthday party on Saturday. 30-35ish people will attend, so I’ve been cooking pretty much non-stop since I returned home from vacation. Well, either cooking or shopping for ingredients. Regardless, it’s been a busy week. Yesterday was pate and terrine day so I made chicken liver pate (my own recipe) and a duck and fig terrine (which is a recipe from My Paris Kitchen by David Lebovitz). I completely misjudged how long these things would take and I was way off…the wrong way.
The pate was the quicker of the two as it just involves quick cooking the chicken livers in a bit of oil and then combining the ingredients into a food processor and processing until very smooth. You then simply place the pate into a ramekin or container and top it with something that will seal in the pate from the air to prevent spoilage. If you do this, it will last about a week or so in the refrigerator. Based on my experience and based on what I’ve read on the subject, pates tend to benefit from a day or so in the refrigerator so that the flavors can meld and the pate itself can firm up a bit. At any rate, you can seal your pate with clarified butter (as I did) or you can use chicken or duck fat or some sort of gelee. Clarified butter is sort of a pain to do but in my opinion, it’s a lot easier than rendering chicken or duck fat. So, I went with the clarified butter. Though if you look closely at the picture of the pate with its protective butter coating, you will notice little flecks of white in it. That means I didn’t do that great of a job clarifying the butter. I’m pretty sure this was due to the fact that I was losing patience and very tired when I finally got to that stage. Hopefully you will fare better in this regard.
There are lots of ways of making chicken liver pate, with a myriad of suggested methods and ingredients. This recipe is easy to pull off and, in my opinion, it’s pretty tasty. Go ahead and dip your big toe into the pate pool and try it. Serve it with some dark, crusty bread or crackers and some onion marmalade or a similar sort of sweet and savory spread.
Almost forgot…in my opinion it’s important to go with organic chicken livers here. They are a bit more expensive but I’ve used both organic and regular chicken livers and I have to say the color difference alone is amazing. The regular ones are paler, almost red gray, and they have little fatty deposits that are visible and need to be removed. The organic ones, by contrast, sport a very vibrant and deep blood red/burgundy color and generally they are absent of any fatty deposits. It’s a pretty amazing contrast. At any rate, I think it’s worth going organic here. I bought mine at the meat market and they ordered them for me and I simply picked them up the next day. If you don’t want to go through that trouble, use the regular ones…just be sure to remove the whitish/yellow fatty deposits before proceeding.
Enjoy! Recipe follows after the jump… Continue reading
Sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t. This is one of those times when things just worked. I have not worked with Harissa, though I had tried it before. It’s a Middle Eastern chili pepper condiment/sauce that’s super hot and very fragrant. Usually it includes hot dried red chili peppers that are reconstituted and blended with other spices typically including caraway. Have I mentioned it’s pretty spicy? I tempered my glaze by adding a bit of tomato paste to add a bit of sweetness to counteract all that heat just a bit. In the end, it turned out to be one of the better things that I’ve cooked in a while…and by accident, just messing around. Sometimes things just come together and luckily, this was one of those times. I served the pork chops with a sweet corn and cherry tomato slaw with mixed herbs and a tart wilted cabbage with green apple, radishes, and onion. The sweetness of the slaw sort of played off the tartness of the cabbage and everything mingled with the spiciness of the pork. I took it easy on the Harissa as I wasn’t sure just how much would make it ‘too hot’. If I were to do it again, I’d add more to bring more heat. However, I’m including the exact amount that I used this time around, so if you enjoy things spicy, feel free to add more (though do note that a little goes a long way). Hope you enjoy this as much as my wife and I did. Oh and as an extra bonus…this recipe is very, very easy and very, very quick. It follows after the jump… Continue reading
So, it’s been a while. I received messages from a number of you and was able to get back to everyone. However, the for the past week or so, my wife and I travelled to the Great North Woods of Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We didn’t really have Internet access so that explains the radio silence. However, I did do some cooking while on vacation and this is a big week for cooking as I am going to do a party for a close friend this weekend. So, lots to do and will report back this week! Lots of recipes coming up then…some mine, some from others that I used and enjoyed. I’m getting back into the swing of things now, and hope to have the recipes begin to flow sometime either later today or tomorrow…so stay tuned. Hope all was well with everyone while I was away.
This is an easy and inexpensive, though tasty, side dish. Enjoy! Recipe follows after the jump. Continue reading
This year, I have bought, cooked with, and eaten more Jersey tomatoes than I care to admit. If you read this blog regularly, you know that I’ve also been making a good amount of bread of late. Frankly, I made this salad because we had leftover French bread that I made the day before and had a number of tomatoes that needed to be used rather quickly. Panzanella was exactly what the doctor ordered given what I had on hand at the time. Couple the bread and tomatoes with a bit of arugula, onion and herbs such as basil and parsley and you are in business! I used both lemon juice plus a splash of white wine vinegar to flavor the salad. Add that and a good amount of your best olive oil, allowing the bread and vegetables to mingle together for about 20-30 minutes prior to serving, for maximum flavor. Since we used day old bread and toasted it in a pan for a while, the bread retained its crunchiness despite marinating for that long.
Also, I did a bit of research on Panzanella salad to get a feel for its classic preparation and there are a few variations that I didn’t try (but sounded really good). Among other things, adding some chopped anchovy, capers, different or additional herbs, mild or spicy peppers, or olives (or any combination) would be great. Really, as long as the ingredients are fresh and of good quality, you won’t go wrong here. Salads are great that way…very forgiving and certainly a great platform for experimentation with flavors. So, use your imagination and what’s in season with this one!
Ingredients:
½ half loaf of good quality crusty bread (day old)
1 Large heirloom tomato, cut into large pieces
2 Large tomatoes, quartered (or cut into eighths depending on actual size)
15 Grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
½ Sweet onion, sliced very thinly
1 Cup arugula, chopped coarsely
1 Cup Basil, chopped coarsely (or simply torn)
1 Cup Italian Parsley
Juice of 1 lemon
1 T white wine vinegar
Approximately 1 Cup olive oil
Coarse sea salt and freshly ground pepper
Instructions:
Serve salad on plate with a bit of olive oil drizzled over the top.
Most people think of barley as something that is added to soups and stews during winter. Further, most people neither think of barley as a main ingredient nor have they ever tried it as such. Pearl barley, specifically, is considered a whole grain and has wonderful nutritional benefits. The meal which includes whole grains, greens, and protein is satisfying in its own right or can be served as a first or second course. When I made it, I served a salad to start and used this dish as the main course.
This is a great anytime meal. By that, I mean you can make this year round, using whatever fresh greens you have on hand. I received some local dandelion greens and paired them with the earthy, almost sweet taste of the pearl barley. The bitterness of the greens is tempered a bit by the creaminess of both the egg yolk and the natural creaminess you achieve by cooking grains in the risotto style. Risotto is not difficult at all but it is time intensive. It requires a lot of attention as frequent stirring is a must. It also takes about 45 minutes to an hour to make. So, this is a slow cooking meal made with care. If you’ve never tried pearl barley but you enjoy risotto, this is a great entry point for you. If you’ve tried pearly barley and enjoy both the taste and the health benefits, this is a great little recipe to add to your barley repertoire.
Notes: You MUST use fresh eggs. Since the egg yolks are raw as you add them to the dish, freshness is absolutely imperative. If you don’t remember when you purchased your eggs or if the date on the eggs has passed, do not use them in this recipe. It would be better to skip the eggs completely than to use eggs that are not fresh.
Also, cooking with alcohol can be dangerous as it’s flammable. By turning off the heat and then adding the Cognac to the pan, the chances of a flare up are mitigated. However, the chance still remains even if you use this method so it’s important to be careful and aware of what you are doing and how you are doing it when cooking with alcohol. If you are unsure or uneasy about using it, just skip it completely. Better to err on the side of safety. Recipe follows after the jump! Continue reading
Gazpacho screams summer time. Made with the freshest vegetables available during the peak of Summer, this chilled soup packs a flavorful punch and is very, very healthy. There are really no rules with Gazpacho. You can keep it chunky or puree it until silky smooth. I think the key to success with this dish is to use the very freshest ingredients you can as this is a raw vegetable soup. For me, that means going to the farmer’s market and buying the best looking vegetables you can and going from there. I used a number of vegetables from the Summit Farmer’s market and didn’t cook a thing. I seeded the vegetables so that the texture would be very smooth. However, if you don’t want to worry about that, it’s perfectly fine. Simply keep it chunky. I used homemade vegetable broth and I think that’s probably the best way to go but you can certainly buy broth. I flavored this soup with tarragon, sherry vinegar, and olive oil and gave it a bit of heat with red pepper flakes. Any herb will be great here though. You can also use whatever vinegar you’d prefer or have on hand. If you don’t want to use vinegar, add some acidity by squeezing citrus into the soup at the last minute. So, let your taste buds and your imagination run wild. You can’t go wrong with this during the peak of Summer vegetables.
Ingredients:
2 Cups vegetable broth, cooled
2 Ears corn
1 Large sweet onion such as Spanish or Walla Walla
1 Large red bell pepper
5 Fresh Jersey tomatoes, seeded
3 Green Jersey tomatoes, seeded
1 Golden Squash
1 Green Squash
1 Cucumber, seeded
4 Cloves fresh garlic
1 T dried tarragon, crushed
1 Shallot, finely chopped
3-4 Tablespoons Sherry vinegar, plus more for drizzling
¼ Cup olive oil, plus more for drizzling
Coarse Sea Salt and red pepper flake to taste
Instructions:
To serve: Finely chop shallot. Finely chop a bit of the reserved golden and green squash. Place gazpacho in bowl and add shallot, and the two squashes as garnish. Drizzle a bit of olive oil and sherry vinegar over the top. Season with a touch of coarse sea salt. Serve while cold or cool.
culinary flights of fancy 