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

Active time: 25 min Start to finish: 1 1/4 hr

Servings: Makes 4 to 6 (side dish) servings

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.

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.

Pancakes on the Weekend

We had two fancy pancake breakfasts on the weekend - the recipe behind them should not be forgotten! From Gourmet (02/08), these are orange chocolate chip pancakes. I made a thin blood orange syrup to go with them on Saturday morning (not too sweet), which was divine.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons grated orange zest
1 rounded cup semisweet mini chocolate chips

Accompaniment: 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, mixed with 3 tablespoons orange marmalade (I didn't make this, but it sounds good)

Preparation

Whisk together all ingredients except chips until just combined.

Heat a griddle over medium heat until hot and lightly brush with additional oil. Working in batches, pour a scant 1/4 cup batter per pancake onto griddle and sprinkle each pancake with about 1 1/2 teaspoons chips. Cook until bubbles appear on surface and undersides are golden-brown, about 1 minute. Flip with a spatula and cook other side, about 1 minute more. (Lightly oil griddle between batches.)

Maritime East

A new restaurant has come in just up the street, and since it got great reviews for its seafood, we went for an early dinner yesterday evening before heading to the theatre (Wishful Drinking) for a classic Thursday date night.

They are still working out the kinks in terms of service, which was very attentive, basically knowledgeable and friendly, if somewhat inexperienced. We started with pain au levain and baguette with sweet butter - full marks for the bread - and ordered dungeness crab gratinée, which was highly recommended and served on Pink Lady apples and avocado. It was divine. Our second starter was the seafood chowder with pancetta, which was rich and thick with fingerling potatoes, sliced finely, leeks, mussels and white fish - also excellent.

For mains, we ordered the two top recommendations: sturgeon with pork belly in a puy lentil gravy (fantastic) and the whole oven-roasted fish, which we think was turbot, served with fennel, black olives, oranges and sweet onion (very good).

All in all, we'll be back. It was a superb meal, though pricey ($102 with tip, no wine; no desserts).

Sunday Veggie Dinner

I've decided that, when I have time, I should use this space as an informal "food diary" just to keep track of recipes we've tried and meals we've made. Archivally useful for me; potentially boring for you.

In any case, here is a first entry:
Last night P made his best latkes ever (served with sour cream and Gravenstein applesauce made of, you guessed it, apples and nothing else - isn't the simple food movement wonderful?) from the recent Gourmet recipe (12/07) and I decided we needed vegetables to go with them. Taking a page out of Mom's book - lots of different veggies, each cooked separately and presented for colour - we fried up some red chard (I'd forgotten, since we use rainbow so often, that it is red, red, red - almost like beets!) with onion (G 11/07) and I sauced some baby carrots with butter, mustard and sugar, which was really tasty (G 12/07).

Tonight I am going to make a pinto-bean chili with our Oaxacan mole rojo (G 11/07), served over garlicky mashed potatoes and parsnips (G 11/07); tomorrow we are taking leftover coconut flan to S's with a movie (Wings of Desire) and the makings for an Alice Waters salsa verde over thick spaghetti. He's providing wine, good parmigiano and hot-and-sour soup for appys. Very fusiony!

Blast from the Past: Exotic Erotic and our House Chicken

After a week of steak in Alberta (summer 2006) we'd had enough of meat for awile; ever since we've been primarily vegetarian at home when cooking just for the two of us (the exception: a few slices of bacon never hurt).

But, back in Toronto (1999-2001) meat was still on the menu, and we were rather fond of this romantically-named "Exotic Erotic Chicken." It remains unclear to me the precise connection between this name and the dish, but here it is, since we are still so close to Valentine's Day:

Exotic Erotic Chicken

Step 1
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon paprika
1/8 teaspoon each, cayenne, ginger, nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon each, basil, chervil, pepper
1 teaspoon salt
4-6 chicken breasts, skin removed

Preheat oven to 325F. In a large frying pan, over medium flame, melt butter. Put flour, spices and herbs in plastic bag and shake. Add chicken, one piece at a time, shaking to coat. Add chicken to pan and brown on all sides. Drain chicken on paper towels, then place in a baking dish (or return to pan after making sauce below in the chicken pan).

Step 2
21 large cloves garlic, minced
5 mushrooms, sliced
3/4 cup chicken stock
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup dry sherry
4 artichoke hearts, quartered
1 cup sour cream

Add garlic to pan: sauté 2 minutes. Add stock, Worcestershire sauce, sherry and artichokes. Heat through and pour over chicken. Bake, uncovered, for 1 hour (or cook in heavy-bottomed pan on stove). Stir sour cream into sauce and ladle over the chicken to serve.

We soon invented our own "house chicken," though, which we still make on occasion for friends. We usually take boneless, skinless chicken breast, layer fontina, sun-dried tomatoes, oregano and garlic (sliced) between the "filet" and the larger section of the breast (you can cut into the breast as well to get the same effect) so as to make "stuffed" chicken breasts. A little salt and pepper, fresh lemon and olive oil make the sauce, and the whole pan (stuffed breasts brushed with sauce) goes in the oven at about 350, covered in foil. We usually take the foil off after about 20 minutes-half an hour so that the breasts brown a bit, and then we use a meat thermometer to gauge when it is well-done. Don't overcook the chicken, though, or it'll get really dry since the breasts are so lean.

This was a real hit with our friends years ago, but I wonder if we would enjoy these dishes as much now as we used to, back before we got indoctrinated in the world of Berkeley food?

Mexican Dinner

M & J came for dinner last night and, since we were talking about our recent trips to Costa Rica (but didn't want to serve gallo pinto) we thought we'd serve Mexican.

We started with tequila sunrises, "Cheaps" and freshly-made pico de gallo, which S helped me with in the afternoon - we added lots of fresh lime and salt, and chopped the white onion, tomatoes, peppers and parsley so fine that the flavours blended just perfectly.

For mains we had pozole, which P has been wanting to make ever since we were in Oaxaca in 2006. I found a recipe on Epicurious which looked good (see below) and set out to the Berkeley Bowl to pick up 4 lbs. of pork ribs. What I didn't know was that their "country ribs," which looked fantastic and were a really good deal, were boneless, so we have so much meat left over that we'll be eating pork sandwiches (with lovely sharp mustard on white rye from the Bread Garden) for awhile - there was just too much to add to the soup. No complaints here!

We served the pozole with Pacifico, chunks of avocado, diced white onion and fresh lime. And homemade chili sauce (we used about 1/2 oz. of dried paseos and arbols rather than the two ounces recommended by the recipe, and we only used about a third in the actual soup; the rest we served as a garnish so that everyone could choose their own spiciness).

Dessert was a coconut flan (not good enough for me to post the recipe, although it is the recent one from Gourmet, so be warned), bourbon (Knob Creek, thanks Adam) for the men and cutesy girly Valentine's Day sugar cookies (hearts with pink icing) that K and I made on the 14th (while the boys watched, and then ate!).

All in all, it was a very successful dinner party. Here is the pozole recipe, which I heartily recommend.

pork and hominy stew with red chiles (pozole rojo)

Ingredients

1 large head garlic
12 cups water
4 cups chicken broth
4 pounds country-style pork ribs
1 teaspoon dried oregano (preferably Mexican), crumbled
2 ounces dried New Mexico red chiles
1 1/2 cups boiling-hot water
1/4 large white onion
3 teaspoons salt
two 30-ounce cans white hominy (preferably Bush's Best)

Accompaniments:
diced avocado
thinly sliced iceberg or romaine lettuce
chopped white onion
diced radishes
lime wedges
dried oregano
dried hot red pepper flakes

Preparation

Peel garlic cloves and reserve 2 for chile sauce. Slice remaining garlic. In a 7- to 8-quart heavy kettle bring water and broth just to a boil with sliced garlic and pork. Skim surface and add oregano. Gently simmer pork, uncovered, until tender, about 1 1/2 hours.

While pork is simmering, wearing protective gloves, discard stems from chiles and in a bowl combine chiles with boiling-hot water. Soak chiles, turning them occasionally, 30 minutes. Cut onion into large pieces and in a blender purée with chiles and soaking liquid, reserved garlic, and 2 teaspoons salt until smooth.

Transfer pork with tongs to a cutting board and reserve broth mixture. Shred pork, using 2 forks, and discard bones. Rinse and drain hominy. Return pork to broth mixture and add chile sauce, hominy, and remaining teaspoon salt. Simmer pozole 30 minutes and, if necessary, season with salt. Pozole may be made 2 days ahead and chilled, covered.