Spherification Attempt #4 (01/19/09) - Success!!!

This will be a short post. We've been over this before. Spheres. Chemicals. No reason for it, but it's fun. And, as you know, I've been messing around with this for a few months. Each time, a fatal mistake has killed my attempts - whether a bad taste, bad texture or just plain bad. Well, no mas. I should have stuck with Adria's recipes to begin with because he is the man.

So I decided to do mango caviar - basically just really small spheres the size of beluga caviar. I followed the directions from the texturas website to a "t," and it worked out just fine. The texture was right, the taste was nice and they looked really cool. I didn't really use them for anything but experimentation, but I can imagine that they would be really cool in a cocktail, on ice cream or even in a salad.

Either way, I feel good about it. Finally.

A Note: I apologize for the long break in between posts. That's, unfortunately, going to happen given the swells in my work schedule. Hopefully I'll keep you guy interested enough to check back periodically!

Pesce (Dupont Circle, 1/13/09)

Finally!!! A really good fish restaurant in D.C.! I have to tell you, I’ve been to a lot of restaurants in this city that are supposedly known for their fish. I’ve done Oceaniare and Hook. I’ve had Grillfish and Black Salt and Kincaids. But every time I go to one of these places where the fish is supposed to be the focus, it’s disappointing. To be honest, I was starting to think that I’m not a fish kind of guy. I’d leave these places completely unsatisfied, wishing that I had ordered something with legs or wings. And my growing disdain for fish in restaurants has not only made it tough to eat healthy when eating out but it has also suppressed any urge I might have to cook my own. How can I be inspired by another piece of sea bass?!

But on Tuesday night, J and I met up for a little impromptu date and decided to walk along P Street in Dupont until we found something interesting. Café Japone wasn’t going to happen, and neither of us is really into pizza – especially when trying to eat healthy. Eventually, however, we came across a tiny little place called Pesce. We entered the restaurant, finding it about half full with a generally older crowd, and took our seats. It was cozy and warm and perfect for a quiet Tuesday night.

There is one menu at Pesce. When you’re ready to start paying attention, they bring over a big blackboard on which they have scrawled the day’s catch, prop it up on a chair next to your table, and invite you to stare at it awkwardly until you decide what you want. J and I chose to start with an appetizer – the Pesce Trio – which featured eggplant caviar (a fancy name for babaganoush), tuna ceviche and crab with avacado. Every single bite was fantastic. The fish was really fresh and the textures of the three different pieces were wonderful – especially when eaten with their fantastic crusty bread.

For mains, J went with an arugula salad, having already eaten a little bit at work. It tasted like arugula. And I opted for the cod. The COD, for chrissake! When have I ever ordered cod anything? When I think of cod, I think of cod oil. And when I think of cod oil, I think of 1950s tv characters and the mean old aunts that used to make them drink it. But here I was, ordering fricken cod and regretting it before the words even left my mouth.

As you can almost certainly tell given the tone of this post, my fears were unwarranted and, in fact, totally off base. This was, quite possibly, the single greatest piece of fish I’ve ever had. It was fresh and flavorful, crispy and light. The potatoes and chive sauce that it served with, combined with wonderful mushrooms, made this a perfect dish. Perfect. We left feeling satisfied but not stuffed, and we weren’t set back too much in the wallet.

I can’t tell you how excited I am. I really do love fish. I just needed to find a real fish restaurant in D.C. It looks like Pesce fits the bill.

Four Sisters (Falls Church, 1/11/09) - Phở Que

Tucked away in the utter mess that is the Falls Church "Seven Corners" area is a sight unlike almost anywhere else in the country. There, I'm sure off some incarnation of the ubiquitous Glebe Road, is the Eden Center - an all-Vietnamese shopping district to which members of the community flock from far away. Speaking from the perspective of a white, Jewish dude from the Baltimore suburbs, it's weird. Nothing is in English, most of the wares available for sale have uses to which I'm not privvy, and I think that they have the neon market cornered. It is a little dreamland -fairytale, really - of weird letters, spooky dolls, interesting haircut options and awesome, awesome food.

An unlikely candidate for all-Vietnamese anything, I was first taken here by J's brother and girlfriend who insisted that this was the place for Phở. Pronounced "fuh," Phở is a very basic soup, composed mainly of chicken (in the case of Phở Na, my favorite), rice noodles and broth. It is traditionally served with a few accoutrements on the side - lime, basil, bean sprouts, hoisen sauce and, the most important, siracha - Asian chili garlic sauce. Over the last two years, J and I have fallen in love with Phở. It is healthy, filling and soul-warming - an especially important combination in these winter months. Add some garden rolls and a little bar-b-qued pork and you've got yourself a nice little Saturday.

The Eden Center offers a number of different Phở options, but, for many years, the Four Sisters restaurant had the champion. Cheesy and plastic, this place was teaming with Vietnamese families looking for authentic cuisine and slurping this stuff up by the gallon. J and I have gone on a number of occasions - each time making sure to bring a native speaker along to do all the ordering for us. It felt as thought the dream would last forever, but as these fairy tales go, something evil was afoot.

It seems that the proprietors of Four Sisters decided that they had outgrown Little Saigon and wanted to crossover into the "mainstream." So they packed their stuff and moved to another, let's be nice and call it "less charming," part of Falls Church - right across from the multiplex cinema and next to the pottery store. J and I had heard that they had "expanded," so after a gathering at a friend's house in the area, we hit up the new digs in search of the Phở we had grown to love so dearly.

I will say this - the food remains excellent. We had, as you can see, an order of the garden rolls, big bowls of Phở, and some bbq. It all had the same great, unique flavors, hitting every note. But something is truly amiss at the new location. It's just....tooo.......nice. The floors are stone, and a big flat screen tv flashes blinding lights from behind the bar. There are bottles of wine displayed (albeit, crap wine) and a really nice bathroom. Gone are the jade-colored, plastic chairs and rickety tables. Even the famous painting of the four sisters, which was displayed so prominently in the old location, has now been relegated to a spot on a wall that you really need to seek out to see.

And, not surprisingly, the throngs of Vietnamese families who waited impatiently at the old place had not followed. This really scares me. Those who don't know the food won't hold this place to the standards it once had to meet in order to be the best at the Eden Center. People will flock to this place, ask the waiter what they should order, and leave thinking that they're really open-minded. Meanwhile, the place will cut corners, try to appeal to more Western tastes and generally blend right into the scenery. I bet they do really well here, but I am sure that the food is going to suffer. The Brothers Grimm would not be happy with the ending to this fairy tale.

Leg of Lamb (1/10/09) - The Goose is Loose

Meet Oma. She’s my grandmother, and she is effing awesome. My Dad calls her “Goose.” Every year, she gets on a plane in her native Germany and flies across the ocean to spend a couple of weeks at my folks’ place. Not all that remarkable until you are informed that she has been around since 1907. That, for all you who like me specifically avoided math in school, makes her 102 years old. But now, every year, she’s just lounging at the ol’ homestead, getting some much deserved rest and indulging in American Chinese food. “I love zee zrimps!”

Oma remembers the day when she was forced to leave Germany to escape the rise of the Nazis. She and my grandfather (Opa) fled to South Africa, one of the only countries accepting German Jews, where they had to create a whole new life. She and Opa eeked out a life any way they could while raising my Dad and his younger brother in a totally foreign land. Despite the tragic reason for their emigration, Oma has very fond memories of life in South Africa. “It had a very nice climate,” she told me yesterday..

They left South Africa in 1966 to return to Germany, but she retained her love of the food to which they had grown accustomed; in particular, the leg of lamb which, based solely on her description, I am imagining was delivered twice daily to every family in the neighborhood. Ok, that’s an exaggeration, but she said that they had leg of lamb all the time, and she loved it. One of the secrets to her longevity, in fact, is a diet heavy in fatty meat, along with a lot of bread, cheese and chocolate. Nothing green, because, as she is prone to remind anyone serving her such garbage, “I am not a cow.” Lamb, however, fits nicely on the centigenarian plan.

Last year around this time, when Oma was residing State-side on her annual visit, J and I wanted to make a meal that would put Oma over the moon, so we roasted our first leg of lamb. Not really knowing what to expect, we stopped by Giant and picked up what was unmistakably a leg. Hip bone, knew cap, shin, the whole damn thing, right there in neatly sealed plastic wrap. Gross. But we studded the thing with garlic, roasted it low and slow for a few hours and put the whole leg on a plate. It may have been a first attempt, but Oma loved it and as been talking about it ever since. In reality, when not answering direct questions, Oma has only a few default lines of conversation. Give her a break; she’s 102. That the lamb made it in there could very well have been a fluke, but J and I decided to repeat the performance with an improved recipe – Leg of Lamb 2.0!!!

I saw this Tyler Florence thing on Food Network where he crusted lamb with porcini powder and roasted it directly on the oven rack over a pan of potatoes and fennel (allowing the drippings to flavor the vegetables as they roasted). It appealed to me in large part because the leg was de-boned before cooking, each half of the leg being tied into a separate roast. That would make it a lot easier to handle and to carve at the end, which proved problematic last time. So J and I decided to go with that approach. I called the Whole Foods butcher and asked for the special order, requesting that he reserve the bones for me. (see gravy below)

When we got it home, J used her expertise to masterfully tie two hunks of meat into beautiful roasts. We stuffed them with thyme, studded them with garlic, dusted them in porcini, and set them to roast at 375. (You can see the whole recipe here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/roasted-leg-of-lamb-recipe/index.html) When we took them out of the oven after about 2 hours (internal temp of 170), they looked perfect. I carved them up, plated them and brought them out for Oma who, upon seeing the plate, simply said “thank you” – indicating that the serving plate was her portion and the rest of us could eat something else. She sat there, not saying much of anything, just savoring each piece. When she finished, she looked up and said in her thick German accent, “Dahn-ee-el. Zee lamb vas schmect goot. Mmmmmm.
Vundebar. Just like in Sous Afrika.” And she was excited when I told her that she could have all the leftovers – “I vill eat it tomorrow, zen.”

That’s all I wanted. Both J and I felt very fortunate for the opportunity to make my Oma so happy. She is truly a remarkable woman. Speaking with her at my folks’ place the next day, we talked about life in Germany at the turn of the last century. She related stories of the times surrounding the war, and she was able to recall the most specific details about things that had happened decades ago. She has seen more than most people on the planet, and somehow she remembers it all. I love my Oma and will be very sad when she boards her plane back to Germany in a few days. But, as I tell her every time she leaves, she’ll be back again next year. And the lamb will be waiting.


PEACH AND RASPBERRY COBBLER

In addition to the lamb, the evening yielded a few other promising dishes. Most notably was the peach and raspberry cobbler that J put together. We had forgotten to plan for dessert before I hit the grocery store, so I picked up some frozen fruit and figured we’d find something to do with it. J spent some time doing some quick research and decided to make individual cobblers with the simplest, most delicious recipe ever. In all honesty, I’m pretty sure that this was Oma’s favorite dish. She commented all night about it and reminded J the whole next day about how good it was. J gets all the credit. I don’t remember where she got the recipe from, but here are the highlights:

Ingredients:
1 package frozen peaches
1 package frozen strawberries
Juice of one lemon
1 cup flour
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup melted margarine
1 egg

Directions:
- Thaw the peaches and raspberries, mixing them with the lemon juice, and spoon into baking ramekins
- Sift the flour, salt and sugar together, add the egg and crumble with fingers
- Distribute the flour mixture on top of the fruit, and drizzle with the melted margarine
- bake at 375 for 35-40 minutes, top with ice cream and serve.


LAMB STOCK GRAVY

I wanted to use the bones from the lamb to make my own stock for a gravy. Don’t ask me why. As you can probably tell, I like to do things the hard way. “Why use beef stock from a can if you can make your own stock? All you need is about $10 worth of ingredients and 4 hours of your day?” Yeah, upon repeating it, it doesn’t sound worth it to me either, but the result was actually fantastic. Here’s what I did:

For the Stock: I roasted the leg bones at 450F with some carrots, celery and garlic. Once the bones were brown, I pulled it all out of the oven and tossed it into a pot filled with 1 ½ liters of water, rosemary, leeks, bay leaves, more garlic, salt and pepper. I let the thing simmer for about 4 hours, until it had reduced to about 2 cups of liquid, and then ran the whole thing through my strainer. There you go. Lamb stock.

For the Gravy: I started by reducing about two cups of wine by ½ over medium heat, adding in a handful of chopped shallots and about as much garlic. When it was reduced to about 1 cup of liquid, I added 1 cup of the stock and simmered for a few minutes. I removed the gravy from the heat, strained it and let it rest. In a separate sauce pot, I made a quick roux (melted 2 tbs of butter with as much flour) and slowly poured the liquid gravy into the roux pot. This thickened the gravy to a nice consistency and added a bit of nuttiness. Done and done.


ROASTED GARLIC

There cannot be a simpler recipe that yields such amazing results than roasted garlic. You don’t even need a terra cotta garlic roaster, though, yeah, I got one of doze. Ain’t I special? You just chop the tops off a few heads of garlic, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle on some salt, some pepper and add whatever other spices/herbs you desire. Wrap it in some tin foil (or place under your roaster) and throw it in the oven at 350 for about 30 minutes. It will come out brown, buttery, mild and delicious.. You can’t screw up roasted garlic and people love it.

Spherification Attempt #3 (01/10/09)

I'm tired and just doing some work on this lovely Sunday evening. But I wanted to write to say that I may be nearing the end of my spherification career. I need success in both the formation of and the tasting of these culinary enigmas. For those of you too lazy (or important) to read the Attempt #1 posting, I remind all three of you reading that spherification is the process of submerging a tablespoon of puree of [insert food item] laced with a little sodium alginate (or calcic acid) in a bath of water (laced with the opposite of the alginate or the calcic) to create a sphere of liquid trapped in a very thin, gelaltin-like skin. It sounds weird, I know, but I've had them prepared by one of the top chefs on the planet, and they can be really fantastic and interesting.

Those of you who know me know that I have been very excited about achieving this feat in my humble apartment kitchen. I've talk to almost anyone who will listen to me about these damn spheres, and I've been dreaming of a neverending list of things that would be cool to "spherify." My first attempt yielded instant success in the process by which these little buggers are created. The olives were the perfect consistency, easy to form, and generally pretty difficult to screw up. But they did not taste very good because the olive flavor was crappy and way too strong. My second attempt, mentioned briefly in the New Year Blog, yielded a gelatinous blob when the strawberries I pureed failed to perform as anticipated. (Great site, though: http://www.foodrockz.com/)

On Saturday, in a brief space of time taken in the midst of cooking a huge leg of lamb and four other dishes for my 102-year-old grandmother (shout out, Oma!!!), I took on pea soup. I won't go into the recipe because I took it from this guy (http://www.hungryinhogtown.com/hungry_in_hogtown/2006/04/liquid_pea_ravi.html) and it was easy to follow. Peas, mint and water. A little salt. And, of course, the fun (all natural extracts) chemicals.

Look, it worked. As you can see above. It even looked really pretty. Shocking the peas (dumping them in an ice bath after a quick boil to stop them from cooking and preserve color) is a really great little trick. But the spheres were finicky in their formation. I'd say that only one in three created a presentable sphere, while the rest were better suited for Rorschach's patients. If not left long enough in the water bath, the skins couldn't hold the weight of the liquid. If left in just a little too long, they formed much tougher skins which are sort of weird in texture. So execution was a problem. This is much harder than the olives.

More importantly, however, it just didn't taste great. None of this stuff can be done warm (I don't think), so you're serving room temperature pea soup. Not a great start. Second, I could really taste the chemicals in the soup. It was almost like the soup had been made with really hard tap water (which it wasn't). The soup is supposed to be fresh - not taste like someone should label it with a "Mr. Yuck" sticker.

To be honest, pretty much everyone who has tried either my olive spheres or my pea soup spheres has reacted negatively. Not. So. Good. Al.

I don't know, man, they just don't taste good. It think that, assuming the formation of some decent looking spheres with a good thinkness of skin, a good pea recipe would go a long way to curing this. And it is possible that a longer bath in the clean water after the spherification process could make things a little less chemically. I'm not giving up yet. I'm just saying, I need some success in this pretty soon.

Fogo de Chao (Downtown, 01/09/09) - No Mas!!!

I'm done. No more. I've really had enough of this place. Chances are that some wide-eyed summer associates, dying to kick off the shackles of the Ramen-noodle diet in their new-found life as an adult, will drag me back to Fogo de Chao at some point in the future. Or I will cave to peer pressure when a meat-crazed friend convinces a group to head downtown to this meatatorium. But when I'm deciding, when it's on my dime, I will never choose to go back.

Look, the idea is enticing. No menus, no waiting - just a floor full of waiters dressed in "authentic" Argentinian garb, carrying around all varieties of slow-roasted animals on spits. You have a little card on your table that, when turned to its green side, invites these merchants of meat to come and keep coming, carving off a slice of this or a chunk of that. When flipped to red, the card is supposed to turn off the protein spigot - though it seems that is a formailty rarely obeyed. I admit to having been tempted by this Siren on a few occasions before. "Filet mignon wrapped in thick-cut bacon? Yes please. And come back in about 2 minutes, 'cause I'm-a want summore."

But this past Friday night was really the last time. It is not because the service was pretty spotty. The meat guys were all over us, but ordering a drink proved a veritable oddessy. It's not that the place was loaded with tourists. I'm up for sharing great food spots with those who come visiting this fair city, even when their clothes have been "bedazzeled." It's not even that dinner for 6 with 6 drinks and 1 bottle of wine cost (gasp) $550. No dessert, mind you. I'll glady drop that cash at Mini-bar or Capital Grille when the (very rare) occasion calls for it. It's because, in the end, a restaurant must be judged on its food and the value thereof. And Fogo's food just isn't very good.

It took me a little while to come to this conclusion. I've been going to Fogo about twice a year for the last 3 or 4 years (Budda, you'll have to remind me when that first time was). But I should have been tipped off by the fact that it has a salad bar. I don't care how big the palm hearts are (in fact, who can eat an entire freakin' palm heart), it's a salad bar. Sizzler had a salad bar. In the end, you get back to your table with your big pile of nonsense and you realize, this is just boiled asparagus. No care was taken to ensure each individual spear hits the tastebuds correctly - they're about quantity. That huge wheel of parmesean looks really cool sitting there at the end for you to carve your own slice, but when I'm paying $50 a head, I want someone to carve my damn cheese for me.

But the main problem with Fogo rests squarely on that which is the most enticing to begin with - the meat. It's fine. It doesn't taste bad. It's generally hot, pretty juicy, and there's a lot of it. But come on! I can walk 6 blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capital Grille, order the Kona-crusted aged sirloin, and actually feel good about the fact that I've probably taken about 2 days off my life. And that piece of meat will leave me a pound heavier in the gut, but only fourty dollars lighter in the wallet. I leave Fogo seriously considering pulling out my teeth so I have no way to chew anything ever again. I don't care that, in the space of 30 seconds at Fogo, you'll be offerred top sirloin, bottom sirloin, tenderloin leg of lamb, rack of lamb, chicken and filet wrapped in bacon, sausages, pork, veal, what-freaking-ever. Quality surpasses quantity very quickly when performing a cost/benefit analysis. I can eat $100 worth of the best beef on the planet (wagu comes to mind) and be a happy little carnivore, but I can't (and don't want) to eat $50 worth of ok meat. And Fogo's meat is just ok. Even the bacon-wrapped filet looses its appeal once you get over the utter briliance of the conept.

The bottom line is that Fogo is the worst kind of tourist trap. It looks fancy, offers something foreign (meat on a stick) but still safely domestic (meat) and gives you more than any one person should ever eat. But, when you're sitting there with your pants unbuttoned under your shirt, reaching for a Zantac and a packet of metamucil, Fogo is just mass-produced, thoughtless food showing no personality, no skill and no restraint. And for that, you have to leave a good bit of coin on the table. So I, for one, am never going back....unless you wanna go....ok, fine, I'll go. Can I recommend the bacon-wrapped filet mignon? You can eat as much of it as you want!!!

Acadiana (Chinatown, 01/07/09) - Tunks a Lot!!!

The attorneys from my summer associate class had been itching to have a little reunion dinner – something we used to do much more often, and a tradition which I certainly miss. They are good people, all of them. So on Wednesday night, we decided to go to Acadiana, an upscale New Orleans-style, low-country place in Chinatown (sort of). Acadiana is the most recent addition to Chef Jeff Tunks’ line-up of DC restaurants which also includes DC Coast, Cieba, and, my favorite, Ten Penh. I like his places. Truly. They can all have their off days (one specific visit to Ten Penh with a few colleagues two years ago comes to mind), but they generally serve really good, interesting food at a price that doesn’t completely break the bank. They’re not cheap, but we’re not talking Citronelle or Komi prices here.

Anyway, as we had arrived with a fairly large party, we were seated at a big table in the back of the restaurant. I recognized our waitress immediately as a former bartender from Sorriso. It seems the money of working downtown had drawn her away from my favorite DC haunt. But she was quick to offer us some of the new “Obama Inauguration” drinks that had just been added to the menu, and, intrigued, we ordered. J and I both opted for “The Spirit” – a concoction of Moet, white grape juice and elderflower. It was lovely. Girly and sweet and all that nonsense. But I enjoyed it thoroughly and J said it was “the best drink [she had] ever tasted!”

As we sipped our cocktails, the waitress delivered the taste that is probably most loved by Acadiana regulars – biscuits and honey butter. Now I’ve been to Acadiana many times. We’re probably hitting double digits at this point, given the number of summer associates who like to take us working stiffs to this place for lunch. And I will admit that I am, consistently, more excited for the biscuits than anything else on the menu. The biscuits themselves are soft, always right out of the oven, and sweet and salty with the flavor of buttermilk. But it is the honey (I think?) butter that really puts these puppies over the top. It is rich and gooey, buttery and sweet. In other words – the perfect compliment to the biscuits. I limited myself to one, but I could have easily eaten the whole basket.

Moving to appetizers, I made what was probably the weakest of my decisions that evening. Though the trio of deviled eggs (with caviar) stared me in the face, and the gas station boudin balls whispered in my ear, I’m trying to eat a little healthier. So warm spinach salad it was for me. Now, to be fair, the salad has bacon and macadamia nuts – not exactly the lightest salad on the planet. But the bacon is in the vinaigrette dressing which is conveniently served on the side, so I went very easy on it. The salad was fine – the shitake mushrooms probably standing out most. But there’s just something a little weird to me about a warm salad. It’s like when you pick up a glass of what you think is water and it turns out to be Sprite. The taste isn’t unpleasant; you just don’t expect it.

Luckily, I think that my choice for main courses fit the bill as being both healthy(ish) and incredibly tasty. I went with the roasted grouper, and, I have to tell you, it was really fantastic. To be honest, most fish that I get in restaurants tends to be pretty bland – especially white fish. Most chefs seem so scared to season fish that, on its own, has a nice but very mild flavor. But when I’m out to dinner, I don’t want to just marvel at how good your fish monger must be to get you that great piece of fish. I want to taste something. The grouper was dusted with nice, robust low-country spices, and the texture of the fish was just perfect. I don’t think I’ve had such a good piece of fish in years – and this is coming from someone who is intent on not being that “I love everything” food blogger guy.

As good as the fish was, I think the star of the plate was the oyster stuffing. Lord. As you can (hopefully) see in the picture, the stuffing was served in a hollowed out, baked onion. It includes whole oysters and a truly fantastic stuffing mixture. I can’t begin to tell you what was in it other than parsley and some type of acid (I’m guessing lemon juice), but it was g – o – o – d. The sautéed cauliflower served with the dish added not only a great flavor, but a nice crispy texture which was needed in the otherwise-soft dish.

As for dessert, the waitress brought us a few plates of samples from the kitchen. I don’t know if they were just trying to get rid of them, if it was a special night, or if they give everyone that treatment. I’m sure it was good. I didn’t eat any. I’m trying to be healthy, dammit.

Overall, I’m going to put this Acadiana experience at the top of my Acadiana experiences. The service was great, the drinks were fun and interesting, the food was outstanding and the company couldn’t be beat. The drinks made the experience a little more expensive than originally anticipated, but overall, it was a perfect evening. I’m excited to go back again sometime.

A HOMEMADE, NEW YEAR'S EVE FEAST - GREATEST HITS (12/31/08) - Polenta Cups, Fig Crostini, Brussel Sprout Hash, and Celeriac Soup

It may have been foolish to start a close-to-daily blog right before the holiday season, even if the subject matter is food. Irregular schedules and lack of time in front of a computer tend to get in the way of regular upkeep. But with the new year comes a renewed commitment to this hobby. Future posts will also begin incorporating a theme that is always prevalent at the beginning of a new year – healthy eating – because boy do I need it. That topic, however, must be delayed for the moment, as I must report on the feast of New Year’s Eve.

This year, J and I found ourselves hosts of the annual New Year celebration of my college friends. Though smaller this year than in years past due to babies (welcome Caroline!), “temporary” relocations (Scott and Adina, you’d better come back!) and unfortunate work schedules (hope it was a good one Brett!), we still had 14 people coming to dinner at my apartment. My friends like to cook, so we had arranged this as something of a pot-luck. And it turned out to be quite a feast! Pete and Lisa made some amazing, spicy jalapeño shrimp as well as some chocolate/rum balls. Ian and Ellen brought a wonderful puffed pastry appetizer, a fantastic (truly) salmon dip and a homemade cheesecake. Sarah and Tom made tabouli and a refreshing citrus green bean salad. Gary and Brooke brought the green salad as well as a number of desserts, including a Barefoot Contessa-inspired “bark” with candied ginger. Vi and Laura made a wonderfully-cheesy shepherd’s pie. And Ron and Liza made some of the biggest cookies I’ve ever seen!

At any reasonable gathering, this would have been more than enough food. But J and I decided to take on a very ambitious challenge, opting to put together an additional ten dishes from scratch. We had homemade gyozas and quail eggs dredged in coriander. There were fig crostini and polenta cups filled with both braised beef and spinach. We put together a celeriac soup topped with crispy bacon, brussel sprout hash, Greek risotto and a strawberry sorbet with sweet balsamic sauce. And we roasted an eight-pound porcini-crusted beef tenderloin over fennel and potatoes. That no one lapsed into a diabetic coma or developed severe gout is both surprising and lucky!

Pulling off this stupidly-immense feast was an exercise in stamina. It took us 16 hours over the course of two days to complete the final products, including a 13-hour marathon on New Year’s Eve day. Having never worked in the food industry, I won’t pretend to compare what we did to the absolute crush that line cooks and chefs must endure day in and day out. But, for us amateurs, it was hard - and I loved every second of it. I was braising beef at 8:00 in the morning, cutting sheets of polenta into countless cylinders at noon, and dabbling into molecular gastronomy on and off all day (my strawberry spheres failed to materialize, so J saved us with the idea for sorbet). We ground porcini mushrooms in a coffee maker, peeled about 60 quail eggs, made gyoza wrappers from scratch using a tortilla press and toasted our own coriander!

Not all of what came out of our kitchen was great. The risotto lost its creaminess when we made the mistake of making it in the early afternoon and then having to chill and reheat it before serving. The gyozas weren’t as good as the last time we made them, I think in large part because we let the dough for the wrappers sit for a while before we could turn to them. The beef was good, but not out of this world – 10 fewer minutes in the oven would have done the trick. But a few stars did emerge, and for those I will share the recipes.

POLENTA CUPS WITH BRAISED BEEF

I got this recipe from foodchannel.com, and it worked out exactly as I had hoped. I braised the beef in my new le cruset dutch oven, and it came out moist and tender. The polenta cups were flavorful and really unique. I only wish I had been able to eat a few more of them instead of staying in the kitchen working on the next dish!!!

Ingredients:
8 cups chicken stock
2 cups polenta
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 1/2 pounds boneless beef chuck-eye roast, cut in 3″ cubes
1/2 cup shallots, minced
2 tablespoons garlic, chopped
3 tablespoons tomato paste
3 tablespoons all purpose flour
2 cups beef stock or broth
3/4 cup red wine
1 teaspoon fish sauce (optional)
1/2 tablespoon whole black peppercorns, crushed
5 thyme sprigs
Salt to taste
Black pepper to taste

Preparation:
- Bring chicken stock to a simmer. Whisk in polenta.
- Cook for 30 minutes or until tender, whisking frequently. Add butter.
- Line a deep-rimmed baking sheet with wax paper. Pour polenta onto tray and spread evenly to 1” thick. Allow to cool at room temperature; transfer to refrigerator and chill for a minimum of two hours.
- Remove polenta from the refrigerator when completely chilled and firm. Cut circles into the polenta using a 1” cookie cutter. Scoop out the centers of each polenta circle with a 1/2 teaspoon measuring spoon, taking care not to make a hole in the bottom of the circle. Polenta cups may be prepared up to 2 days in advance at this point.
- Preheat oven to 350° F.
- Season beef with salt and pepper to taste.
- Heat 2 tablespoons oil in Dutch oven over medium-high heat.
- Add meat to pot, searing on all sides until dark brown. Remove meat from pot.
- Add shallots and garlic to the Dutch oven. If necessary add remaining oil. Sweat for 5 minutes.
- Add tomato paste and cook until paste becomes fragrant and dark red, approximately 3 minutes.
- Reduce heat to low and add flour.
- Whisk in beef stock, breaking up any lumps. Add wine and fish sauce. Simmer over low heat until the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.
- Add the reserved beef to the sauce and bring to a boil. Cover and place in oven. Cook until tender, about 1½ hours. (Sauce should continue to be at a light simmer while in the oven. If the sauce stops simmering bring it back to a simmer on the stove top and return to the oven.)
- Remove the beef from the sauce, cover and reserve.
- Strain sauce through a fine mesh strainer and reserve.
- Shred beef while warm, discarding any pieces of fat. Toss shredded beef with some of the reserved sauce to coat. Reserve warm.
- Warm polenta cups in a 250°F and fill with shredded beef.

WINE-SOAKED FIG CROSTINI WITH PROSCIUTTO

We were planning on doing a pear and gorgonzola ravioli, but we just didn’t have the time. Instead of wasting the ricotta that was to be used with the filling, we decided to do something a little less involved, and I think this ended up being my favorite dish. It’s a Dave Lieberman recipe (MOT alert!!!). Sweet and tangy from the balsamic reduction and smoky from the prosciutto, this dish was easy to prepare and fantastic to eat. Fourteen people went through almost two loaves of French bread in this incarnation.


Ingredients:
1 pint (about 15 to 20) dried figs, preferably Calimyrna
2 cups full-bodied red wine
1 demi-baguette (or half a regular baguette)
1 cup whole milk ricotta
1/4 pound prosciutto
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Preparation:
- Using a small knife, trim the stems off the figs and cut the figs in half lengthwise.
- Place the figs and the wine in a small saucepan, bring to a simmer over medium-low heat, and simmer about 20 minutes until figs have absorbed most of the wine and they are tender and fat. Remove figs with a slotted spoon to a bowl and reserve for later. Some reduced wine should remain for sauce; return wine to medium heat and simmer again until reduced by half and a syrupy liquid remains. Let cool slightly.
- Slice demi-baguette into 1/2-inch slices. Lay the bread slices on a baking sheet and toast lightly in the oven, about 5 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.
- Spread a tablespoon of ricotta on each crostini then lay a small piece of prosciutto on top of the cheese. Place fig halves on top of the meat and finish by drizzling the remaining reduced wine on top of the figs. (I replaced the wine reduction with a balsamic reduction, just simmering about two cups of vinegar over low heat until it had reduced by about ½ and had become sweet and thick.)
- Serve immediately.

BRUSSEL SPROUT HASH

Unfortunately, I’ve got no pictures of this one, but you’ll have to trust me. I’ve converted a number of people who swore they detested brussel spouts using this dish. I believe this was a Bon Appetite recipe, but I’m not sure. When prepared properly, the sprouts retain that amazing green color, and the bitterness cited by so many as the reason for their dislike is replaced by the sweetness of caramelized shallots and the tanginess of apple-cider vinegar.

Ingredients:
6 Tbsp butter
1 1/2 lbs brussel sprouts, shredded (cut in ½ and then cut lengthwise in 1/8 inch strips)
1/2 lb shallots thinly sliced
3 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 cup water
4 tsp sugar
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:
- Melt 3 Tbsp butter over medium heat.
- Add shallots, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
- Sauté until golden, about 10 minutes.
- Add vinegar and sugar, and brown for another 3 minutes. Then remove shallots from the pan.
- In the same pan, heat oil over medium high heat and add the shredded sprouts.
- Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
- Sauté until brown at bases – about six minutes.
- Add 1 cup water and 3 Tbsp butter, and sauté until water evaporates--3 minutes.
- Add the shallots back in, toss and serve immediately.

CELERIAC SOUP

I had never worked with celeriac (celery root) before, but it is not very intimidating. Just like pretty much any root vegetable, once you get past the tough, ugly skin, the inside becomes very easy to work with and very difficult to screw up. We served this in small glasses, topped with crispy bacon, and it looked quite elegant. But I can definitely see making this soup in the depths of winter and making a Sunday afternoon very warm and cozy. This recipe comes from the cooksister.com site. Ingredients:
1 celeriac (about 1kg), peeled and chopped
2 medium onions, peeled and chopped (or half and half onion and leek)
1 potato, peeled and cubed
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
750 ml chicken stock
100ml single cream (or milk)
50g butter
salt and pepper
2 thick cut slices of smoked bacon

Preparation:
- Prepare the celeriac first and place the peeled pieces in a bowl of water to which you've added a couple of tablespoons of vinegar or lemon juice to keep the root from turning brown.
- Heat the butter in a large saucepan and add all the vegetables. Season with salt and pepper and then allow to cook gently for about 10 minutes until they are just starting to soften.
- Add the stock, bring to the boil, then turn down the heat and allow the soup to simmer for about 25 minutes.
- Cut up the bacon into thin strips not more than 1 inch long. Heat a frying pan and toss them in - they should render enough fat that you don't need to add oil to cook them. Fry over high heat until the bacon pieces are starting to look crisp and golden around the edges. Remove and drain on paper towels.
- Check if the celeriac is tender enough to mash - if so, remove from the heat and liquidise the mixture. Return to the heat and stir in the cream or milk. Check for consistency (add more milk if the soup is too thick) and season to taste.
- Garnish each serving with a couple of bacon crisps and serve immediately.

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So there you have it. These were my favorite dishes of the ones that J and I prepared. I’d love to put some of the recipes for the food others brought up here, so if any of you are reading, feel free to post. Happy New Year!!!