Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Local Luxury Dinner Party: Secondo e Contorno

This is the fourth post in the Local Luxury Dinner Party series. The party was part of the Next Food Blog Star competition hosted by Foodbuzz. While I didn't advance in the competition, the party was still fabulous!

The main course for our Local Luxury Dinner Party was inspired by the deliciously simple meal I enjoyed during restaurant week at Sportello. Barbara Lynch’s casual spot served up sirloin with local potatoes and salsa verde.

Sportello Sirloin, August 2010 Restaurant Week
I was in luck; during my shopping trip to the farmers market Stillman’s at the Turkey Farm had NY strip steak. I picked up three steaks – enough for reasonably sized portions for four diners. Atlas Farm had some freshly dug early season potatoes and hard neck garlic. The challenge prompt for the dinner party was “new and exotic tastes” which meant thinking of a unique vegetable for the side. Something green caught my eye at Atlas and I knew it fit the bill! I picked up two heads of Broccoli Romanesco and headed home with my purchases.

Fresh Romanesco at the market

Because this was the third course in the meal, I either needed to cook it all ahead of time or have it all ready to cook while we ate the first two courses. To make things easy I left the potatoes unpeeled and the garlic cloves whole. Because the romanesco looks so stunning whole, that saved some prep time too. As you could see in a photo in the previous antipasti course post, I cooked the steak on the stovetop while the first course was being enjoyed. That gave me time to let the steak rest before slicing. The romanesco steamed while we ate the ravioli. Roasting the potatoes was the easiest part of the meal! I threw the washed and halved potatoes into a baking dish along with the garlic cloves. All they needed was quick toss with olive oil and a little salt. The potatoes went into the oven when the guests arrived and were perfectly roasted when it was time to serve the main course.

To top the steak, I made lime basil butter the night before the party. I harvested the last of my lime basil, finely chopped it and mixed it with unsalted butter. This gave the steak a nice bright flavor component.



With all this photography, the camera battery died right when started this course! We plugged in the battery and switched over to the phone camera for a picture of the completed plate.



The wine paired deliciously with this course (really, the whole meal).



The course was simple, light (for steak & potatoes), and didn’t fill us up completely. Close, but we still had a little room for dessert. Stay tuned for the next post: dessert!

Lime Basil Butter
Makes enough for the meal plus plenty of extra

1 stick of unsalted butter, softened
1 tablespoon finely chopped lime basil

Mix basil and softened butter together
Roll into a log shape
Wrap tightly in wax paper and freeze until ready to serve


Roasted Fingerling Potatoes and Garlic



2-3 pounds fingerling potatoes, washed and cut in half
2 heads of garlic, cloves removed and peeled
Kosher salt
Olive oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Place potatoes and garlic in a baking dish
Sprinkle with a generous amount of kosher salt
Pour in enough olive oil to coat potatoes and garlic and toss well
Cover and bake for 30-45 minutes


NY Strip Steak
I can’t remember exactly how I made this! Here’s a general overview.


Sprinkle the steak with kosher salt and let sit for about 15 minutes
Heat a skillet over medium-high heat
Sear steak on both sides and then reduce heat, letting steak cook to desired doneness
Remove from heat and top with slices of herb butter
Tent with foil and let rest for 10-15 minutes before slicing


Broccoli Romanesco




I steamed this in my vegetable steaming pot until just softened. I topped it with a sprinkle of kosher salt and a swirl of extra virgin olive oil.

Cheers!

Sunday, November 7, 2010

All the Flavor of Thanksgiving…Not the Way You’d Expect

Before I write my next post in the Local Luxury Dinner Party series, I wanted to share my fun dinner!

I have been working hard to plan meals for the week and get a lot of cooking done on Sundays. This takes away the stress of thinking of something to make every night and frees up more time for homework (well, maybe twitter and some TV watching too). Today when I pulled out my notebook to plan, I decided that I wouldn’t consult any cookbooks. I wanted to be creative and come up with my own ideas for the week.

When we get lazy about planning around here, we end up eating a lot of red meat. I love to cook brisket, burgers, you name it. But for the sake of the hubby’s cholesterol, we’ve decided to have a non-red meat at home month. So that leaves us to decide on some alternative proteins. Since Thanksgiving is quickly approaching, I’ve been craving roasted turkey. When I checked out turkey breasts at Whole Foods last week I almost passed out from sticker shock. $55 for a turkey breast?!? That’s nuts! So we opted for chicken and tofu for our proteins last week.

I still had a hankering for turkey when I started planning today. I went through the ingredients in the fridge first for inspiration and remembered that I had a container of cranberries ready to be turned into sauce. With cranberry sauce in mind, I started daydreaming about Thanksgiving dinner. To me that means lots of my grandmother’s dressing (aka stuffing) with a little turkey and fixings. I figured that turkey breast would still be pricey, so I arrived on the idea of turkey + stuffing meatballs served with cranberry sauce. I picked up some pre-made stuffing mix (sacrilegious in my family), a pound of ground white meat turkey, and fresh celery. Those three ingredients set me back about $12. Added in with the ingredients I had at home, this meal didn’t break the bank. For the two of us, this will be two meals.

I used a cranberry sauce recipe from the last issue of Gourmet Magazine. The sauce, a mix of cranberries and apples, was a hit at our holiday celebration last year. I have to confess, I made mashed potatoes from a box to serve on the side. I had the box leftover from when I made a King Arthur recipe calling for instant mashed potatoes. I shouldn’t feel bad about boxed potatoes, but I usually write about local, fresh, and homemade!


The verdict on the meal? Delicious! I will definitely be making this again. Next time I’ll use a little more stuffing and add in extra poultry seasoning for a little more flavor. I think it would be fun to make the meat mixture into patty shapes and serve them on fresh kaiser rolls with cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes. Or maybe potato rolls…. So many possibilities!

I had to laugh, as I sat down to eat I pulled out the latest Saveur to peruse. In reference to my dinner, I had to make an edit to the cover:


Thanksgiving Meatballs served with fresh cranberry sauce with apple (and instant mashed potatoes)
Makes 12 2” meatballs

1/2 cup milk
1 egg
1 cup stuffing mix + a little extra (I used Whole Foods chicken flavor)
1/3 cup finely diced celery
1 lb. ground white meat turkey breast


Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with foil (I used cooking spray on the foil to prevent sticking)
Mix egg and milk together in a large bowl
Add in celery and 1 cup stuffing and mix, making sure to moisten the stuffing
Add in turkey and mix using your hands, be careful not to over mix (you’ll end up with dense meatballs)
If the mixture is too wet, add in a little more stuffing
Form into 2 inch balls and place on the greased baking sheet
Bake for 20-25 minutes, turning over halfway through the cooking time

Cranberry Sauce with Apple
Adapted from Gourmet Magazine, November 2009


16 oz. fresh cranberries, washed
1-2 apples (I used Fortune apples), peeled, cored, and diced into 1/2 in cubes
1 cup sugar
1 cup water

Combine water, sugar, cranberries, and diced apples in a medium saucepan
Bring to a boil over medium-high heat
Cook over medium-high heat for 15-20 minutes, stirring constantly
The cranberries will burst and the mixture will begin to thicken (like cranberry sauce!)
You can serve immediately with the meatballs, or to make a nice presentation, line a loaf pan with plastic wrap and spray the plastic wrap with cooking spray
Spoon the sauce into the loaf pan, cover with the plastic wrap and chill for at least 3 hours
Invert the loaf pan onto the plate and slice for serving


Instant Mashed Potatoes
Follow the directions, and if you really want to be gourmet, follow the microwave directions. I did use delicious Kerry Gold butter from Ireland to add flavor.

Serve and enjoy! I’m looking forward to leftovers tomorrow.


Summary:
Prep time: 15-20 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes total (20 minutes meatballs, 15 minutes cranberry sauce, 2 minutes mashed potatoes)
Mixing bowls, spatulas, baking sheet, measuring cups, medium saucepan, microwave safe bowl, serving utensils and plates

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Local Luxury Dinner Party: Primo

For a more traditional primo course, I decided to serve a pasta dish. The hubby loves ravioli and fall squash makes a perfect filling. I was excited to find red kuri squash at the market and planned to use that in my ravioli. Since I was challenging myself to a homemade meal, why not make the pasta dough from scratch? Sure, I’ve never done it before, but what could go wrong? Let’s just say, it was a nice luxury to have three other courses to count on just in case.

I did some cookbook browsing and blog searching and found the proportions needed to make pasta dough. I settled on 4 eggs and two cups of flour. I knew I wouldn’t have time to make the dough, roll it out, and fill it on the party night. That meant making the dough the night before and letting it rest in the refrigerator overnight until Thursday. I pulled out a large, shallow bowl for mixing (I was afraid the eggs would roll all over the counter). First went the flour, then the eggs into the well in the middle.


I probably could have read a few more recipes for the proper technique, but I just dug in and starting mixing. The dough was interesting…and sort of wet and not sticking together as I kneaded. Solution? Add more flour of course! Problem? All the all-purpose flour was used up. My idea? Use the whole wheat flour that‘s still in abundance in the pantry. The result? Interesting. I wrapped up my ugly ball of pasta dough and put it into the fridge to rest. I figured it could think about what it had done wrong and the next day it would be ready to play nicely.


On Thursday night during my pre-party preparations, I started by cooking the red kuri squash for the filling. I had peeled and cubed it the night before. Dealing with squash can be dangerous and you don’t want to lose a finger right before your guests arrive. A quick boil in salted water (about 12 minutes) results in squash ready for the immersion blender.


An apron is essential in keeping your party dress clean! After pureeing I mixed in a few generous spoonfuls of my homemade ricotta cheese and a dash of salt.


I set this aside and hoped for the best as I retrieved the pasta dough from the fridge. Since I don’t have a fancy non-stick pastry mat for the counter, I tore off some wax paper and tried to weight it down to stay in place. I floured the surface (I had picked up more AP flour on the way home) and pulled out my ridiculously heavy and generally unwieldy rolling pin. Immediately I could tell this was not going to go well. The wax paper was sliding all over the counter, the pasta was sticking to the rolling pin, and my hands were quickly becoming coated in dough. I called in the hubby to hold down the wax paper, but it was too late. It was already 6:35 at this point (guests coming at 7) and I needed ravioli! It was printed on the menu cards! So I rolled and stretched and pulled the pasta as thin as I could. I cut it into shapes closely resembling squares and placed a dollop of the squash and ricotta mixture in the middle. As I pressed a fork around the outside of each ‘free-form’ ravioli, I tried to talk the pasta into performing a miracle in the pot. I put it back into the fridge to rest until it was ready to cook. Here’s a look at the disastrous rolling adventure.


As we were wrapping up the antipasti course, I went back into the kitchen to bring a pot of water to a boil on the stove. While that was heating up, I added a generous amount of unsalted butter to a skillet and turned up the heat. Once it started to foam I watched for it to start browning and waited for the nutty aroma to fill the air. At this point, the water was boiling and I dropped my ugly duckling raviolis into the pot and waited with anticipation. After a few minutes they rose to the top, ready to be smothered in brown butter and served. I put two raviolis into each bowl and topped with the brown butter. As I took the dishes to serve, I told the guests that I would not be offended if they decided not to eat the ravioli. I just needed them to smile nicely so I could have a picture for the blog. The hubby will eat any ravioli, so he dug in. I had to go back to the kitchen for a steak knife.


Once you could get through to the inside, the filling was delicious! The ravioli were more like a pierogi or a dumpling. They were pretty dense. But often the cook is her own harshest critic. Maybe they were being nice, or maybe they liked the ravioli blobs, but I was the only one who didn’t clean my plate for this course.


The beauty of a multi-course meal is that there is plenty to eat if you don’t like one of the courses. With that in mind, the next post will feature the main course:

NY strip steak with lime basil butter
Broccoli Romanesco
Roasted Atlas Farms fingerling potatoes and hard neck garlic

Until then, don’t forget to wear an apron and don’t be afraid to try something new in the kitchen!

Lara @ GoodCookDoris on Foodista

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