K & S came over for a last-minute dinner last night, and luckily we'd just picked up some beautiful cheese (including a new French goat cheese called Le Maître Seguin, a four-year old Dutch gouda called Pradero, a rich truffle cheese called Sottocenere from the Veneto and our favourite sweet apricot-ringed goat cheese) and a lovely baguette from the Cheeseboard. (Incidentally, their pizza was particularly good yesterday: goat gouda, mozz, roasted tomatoes, zucchini and garlic.)
After the first course, we made a shrimp pasta that was really very good, based loosely on a recipe in the April issue of Gourmet. Here is my version:
Boil water for pasta. Sauté (until just barely cooked) 1 lb. peeled fresh prawns in 3 tbsp. olive oil, a good sprinkling of salt and 6 gloves garlic, squeezed through a press. Remove the prawns with a slotted spoon to a bowl, and add a 15 oz. can of chopped tomatoes and 2 glasses of white wine to the skillet, and reduce to 2/3. Add a tablespoon of dried basil (wish we'd had fresh), 3/4 c. cream and 1-2 tsp. sugar to taste. Cook 1 lb. capellini (al dente); add the prawns to the sauce to reheat; mix the pasta into the sauce in the skillet. We should have served it all with parmigiano, which we had all ready to go, but we forgot! In any case, it was a delicious meal (fruit salad with rose water for dessert).
And I would be remiss if I didn't mention today's lunch, enjoyed with a glass of sour cherry juice out in the garden: cheese toasts with the pièce de résistance: mixed lettuces (well salted) with a can of tuna in olive oil (including all the oil, which makes a superb dressing) and two tbsp. of green tapenade mixed in. This is a salad (without the tapenade) that we started making in Lecchi, years back. You can add anything to the tuna-greens blend: lemon juice is excellent, apples would be tasty, as are tomatoes. . . it has to be my favourite easy summer salad!
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Tasty Dinner
We've been scanning Gourmet magazines for yummy veggie recipes and found a good one for dinner last night. I wasn't expecting great things, but the below (from March 2008) was GOOD! I think it all has to do with roasting the vegetables first. . .
zucchini rice gratin
Ingredients
1/3 cup long-grain white rice
1 1/2 pounds zucchini (about 3 medium), sliced crosswise 1/4 inch thick
6 1/2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1/2 pounds plum tomatoes, sliced crosswise 1/4 inch thick
1 medium onion, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon chopped thyme
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, divided
Preparation
Preheat oven to 450°F with racks in upper and lower thirds.
Cook rice according to package instructions.
While rice cooks, toss zucchini with 1 tablespoon oil and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a shallow baking pan. Toss tomatoes with 1/2 tablespoon oil and 1/4 teaspoon salt in another baking pan.
Roast zucchini in upper third of oven and tomatoes in lower third, turning vegetables once halfway through roasting, until tender and light golden, about 10 minutes for tomatoes; 20 minutes for zucchini. Leave oven on.
Meanwhile, cook onion and garlic with 1/2 teaspoon salt in 2 tablespoons oil in a large heavy skillet, covered, over low heat, stirring occasionally, until very tender, 15 to 20 minutes.
Stir together onion mixture, cooked rice, eggs, thyme, 1/4 cup cheese, 1 tablespoon oil, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Spread half of rice mixture in a shallow 2-quart baking dish, then top with half of zucchini. Spread remaining rice mixture over zucchini, then top with remaining zucchini. Top with tomatoes and drizzle with remaining 2 tablespoons oil, then sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup cheese.
Bake in upper third of oven until set and golden brown, about 20 minutes.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Lalime's Cafe
On Tuesday night we joined another couple for dinner at Lalime's Cafe, where I'd never been but had always hoped to go. I admit that after our recent (and fantastic) fish dinner at Maritime East and all the good reports about Lalime's great food, I had high expectations. Here are the results.
We ordered four appetizers to split: after the divine crab at ME, we thought we'd compare by ordering the crab salad, with citrus and chicory. It was hugely disappointing - a little 'fishy', too much bitter radicchio - even though our waiter had recommended it. Things perked up with the gambas al ajillo - very fresh shrimp in lovely garlicky butter, but this is something I can whip up at home in five minutes. The foie gras, seared on toast, was quite good, though, and my favourite appy, believe it or not, was the crisped sweetbreads, fantastically beefy and lovely in texture (soft and chewy on the inside, toasted on the outside), served on a simple but tasty sweet pea purée.
I didn't have more than a bite of the others' mains, but G said the mussels in the seafood stew were the best she's ever had: plump and fresh, no grit, no rubber (and she eats mussels all the time and should know). D's pork was a bit too smoky for my taste, and I admit that I'm still not used to pork done medium-rare. P's duck was OK, but I think I may be losing my taste for your standard duck: maybe it would have been better - especially texture-wise - if I'd tasted it before it got too cold (incidentally, almost everything I ate was too cold - it all came reasonably hot, but things just seemed to cool off really quickly). The duck was served with a lovely confit tart, though, and I love the idea of 'double-duck': I guess we actually had triple-duck, if you count the foie gras.
My steak was very, very good: a grass-fed ribeye minimally but perfectly seasoned (though surprisingly thin - I'm used to hefty ribeyes, though I got plenty of meat), set on top of silky simple mashed potates and the best kale I've ever had: sauteed to a bright green and suffused in garlic. Very Alice Waters - everything on my plate spoke for itself, without too much complexity (as opposed to the pork, which was very elaborate in flavour). The only thing I can complain about with regards to my steak is that it took us twenty minutes after the appys to get a busboy to find our waiter so that we could order wine, and by the time it finally arrived (after another long wait and two requests) my food was cold. My wine was an extremely good and rich Spanish red, and it was a real shame that I couldn't enjoy it with hot steak.
The crowning glory of the meal was dessert, however. We ordered the banana chocolate fondue, and G & D had the noisette. The desserts are works of art: a tiny chocolate cake topped with richest ganache, 'fondue' - more a chocolate mousse - in a fanciful golden bowl of spun sugar, a perfect little square of chocolate raspberry paste, and the best rum and raisin ice cream I've ever had. I would come back just for dessert.
We ordered four appetizers to split: after the divine crab at ME, we thought we'd compare by ordering the crab salad, with citrus and chicory. It was hugely disappointing - a little 'fishy', too much bitter radicchio - even though our waiter had recommended it. Things perked up with the gambas al ajillo - very fresh shrimp in lovely garlicky butter, but this is something I can whip up at home in five minutes. The foie gras, seared on toast, was quite good, though, and my favourite appy, believe it or not, was the crisped sweetbreads, fantastically beefy and lovely in texture (soft and chewy on the inside, toasted on the outside), served on a simple but tasty sweet pea purée.
I didn't have more than a bite of the others' mains, but G said the mussels in the seafood stew were the best she's ever had: plump and fresh, no grit, no rubber (and she eats mussels all the time and should know). D's pork was a bit too smoky for my taste, and I admit that I'm still not used to pork done medium-rare. P's duck was OK, but I think I may be losing my taste for your standard duck: maybe it would have been better - especially texture-wise - if I'd tasted it before it got too cold (incidentally, almost everything I ate was too cold - it all came reasonably hot, but things just seemed to cool off really quickly). The duck was served with a lovely confit tart, though, and I love the idea of 'double-duck': I guess we actually had triple-duck, if you count the foie gras.
My steak was very, very good: a grass-fed ribeye minimally but perfectly seasoned (though surprisingly thin - I'm used to hefty ribeyes, though I got plenty of meat), set on top of silky simple mashed potates and the best kale I've ever had: sauteed to a bright green and suffused in garlic. Very Alice Waters - everything on my plate spoke for itself, without too much complexity (as opposed to the pork, which was very elaborate in flavour). The only thing I can complain about with regards to my steak is that it took us twenty minutes after the appys to get a busboy to find our waiter so that we could order wine, and by the time it finally arrived (after another long wait and two requests) my food was cold. My wine was an extremely good and rich Spanish red, and it was a real shame that I couldn't enjoy it with hot steak.
The crowning glory of the meal was dessert, however. We ordered the banana chocolate fondue, and G & D had the noisette. The desserts are works of art: a tiny chocolate cake topped with richest ganache, 'fondue' - more a chocolate mousse - in a fanciful golden bowl of spun sugar, a perfect little square of chocolate raspberry paste, and the best rum and raisin ice cream I've ever had. I would come back just for dessert.
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