culinary pimpin

[surviva316]

So I'm planning my annual dinner that I host for some people as a Christmas present. Planning the menu now, and since Boost said last time that he gets his gibblies off on helping people plan menus, I might as well talk about what I have in mind while it's still well in the future (probably Spring; hurray for spreading out the financial burden of Christmas!).

It's a bit all over the place again (especially the 3rd course, which isn't even self-consistent), but it's for loved ones who aren't necessarily foodies, so I'm trying to balance good popular fun with proper cuisine theory.

The dinner theme is A Very Special Old Pals Dinner (hahaha, I'm so punny). First course is a salad with apple cognac vinaigrette. Not totally sure yet what greens will be good with it and such, but I'm thinking of doing shaved manchego and the dressing will be something like cognac vinegar, apple, garlic and herbs.

Second course will be a Tapas al Xerez assortment. Blue-cheese-stuffed figs wrapped in {market cured meat} topped with fig and sherry reduction. Sweet Potato tempura with orange and sherry reduction. {Market small-game bird; probably duck} with a sherry cherry compote.

Third course will be (this is where I will probably make Boost upset, haha) fried catfish in a sherry cream sauce served with greens in two styles. Spinach in a garlic lime butter and bitter kale (sauteed with chiles, garlic, stock and red wine vinegar).

Fourth course will be cheese. Griddled market goat cheese (hopefully something with a rind; we used to do a miti cana at the restaurant that was awesome) with orange and sherry reduction. Cave aged goat cheese with plum, clove, and apricot brandy reduction.

Lambast away!

[surviva316]

So I'm planning my annual dinner that I host for some people as a Christmas present.

This year's dinner went very well. Much better than last year. We had several more people this year, and the Tapas course was a bit ambitious from an expoing standpoint, so the plating was nothing worth taking pictures of, but the food was executed very well.

For the first course, I did frisee, romaine and spinach mix with sour apple, dry-aged gouda and sherry vinegar. That's it. I tasted it early in the day to see what I wanted to do with the sherry vinegar, but the bitterness was so well balanced by the sweet + sour of the apple, the salty and savory of the cheese and the sherry's own acidity that I felt the need to do nothing with it. The mistake I made with this course is that I grated the cheese over the salad, whereas I should have shaved it to assure that my guests could get a piece of it in every bite. The balance was too delicate to trust that I could grate enough cheese evenly enough to get that effect. Plus, part of what makes the Beemster XO so great is its firm texture and I completely fucked that. Oh well, it was still great.

Second course, I did the sweet potato tempura in disks. Julienne woulda been much easier to present beautifully, but I thought 1/4" disks would be much better for flavor. The blood orange sherry reduction was runny, which didn't help presentation either, but I'll be damned if it wasn't delicious. Apparently tempura's super-god-damned-easy.

I did seared duck (first time I had to mess with cooking meat at different temperatures, which complicated this course a bit too) on a bed of sweet potato puree, topped with sherry cherry compote. I should have sliced the cherries in half so they could rest on the duck nicely, and I planned on expoing them with strips of orange rind, but yeah, time was an issue and sending things out hot and flavorable trumped plating. Maybe I should hire staff for next year, ha.

The last tapa in this course was figs stuffed with stilton, wrapped in bacon, topped with a fig and sherry demi. Again, if I had more time, I woulda done a bed of semi-wilted frisee to both contain the juices and give the plate a richer color palette, but NO TIME! Anyway, all things told, this was maybe my best single plate of food I've made in my hobbying history. I was worried a plate of sherry reductions, compotes and demis would be a little monochromatic--and maybe from a strict culinary theory perspective it was--but I was pleased with the results nonetheless.

My sherry cream sauce for the main course was exactly on point. I sweated onions with butter, salt and chilli peppers, then added sherry then cream and finished with paprika. Seems simple enough, but it had perfect results. I breaded the catfish in breadcrumbs and brown sugar, fried them, and added the sauce. I did the greens as outlined above, and the bitter kale was a complete facepalm. It was good enough on its own, but it had no business whatsoever being on that plate. The lime butter spinach came out very flavorful and whatever juices ran off from the fish actually went quite well with it. If I were to do it again, I'd cut out the kale and just do use the spinach as a bed for the fish, which would make for a 1000000% better plating anyway.

Fourth course was easy. This was my first time searing cheese, much less one that wasn't made for frying, but it was perfectly easy: griddle, butter, high heat, slap em' on there, once cheese starts melting, slide spatula under in one swift movement and flip on cheese tray seared-side up. Topped with the blood orange sherry reduction I'd already used earlier in that meal and through some crostinis on the tray and sent it out. I also did stilton with a plum, clove and apricot brandy reduction with crostinis. This was a reprise from my favorite part of last year's dinner, so I was disappointed that I left the reduction too runny. Again, I was rushing some things.

For next year, I'm thinking of doing Three Styles in Three Styles. Again, with a theme like that, it probably won't be all that cohesive, haha. I'm thinking First Course might be Eggplant in three styles: Eggplant and Yogurt Dip /w mint, rose water, lemon, garlic, salt; Baba Ganoush; Eggplant Tempura /w truffle honey. Second Course could maybe be bass because that's nice and flexible. I could do a coconut curry or an amok or something; something with some sort of demi or some other sweet something-or-other; and then maybe blackened sea bass. I could do complementary starches with each one. Early thoughts are pasta in a chili rosemary crema, wasabi potato salad, rice and fruit salad, goat cheese mashed potatoes, creamy risotto. I don't know, I have a ton of time.

There are a ton of ways to do desert in 3 styles: custards, chocolates, pastries, honestly anything. My fiance is thinking maybe she wants to bring in her first year as wife by being pastry chef for the dinner. She does a lot of work for a present for my family without getting much of the credit, so it's a good way to share the spotlight. Let's see what she's got!

Anyway, that's my biannual Wall of Text report on my hobby cheffing. You may all return to not giving a fuck.