Cooking for Mom

My mom was in town for the past few weeks to help out with the wedding planning, so I had a rare opportunity to cook for her on Mother's Day. Since we were doing engagement photos on Mother's Day, we actually decided to cook dinner for my mom on Saturday. My mom didn't really have any preference as to what she wanted for dinner, so it was up to us to decide what to prepare and serve. We spent a good part of the morning deliberating various options but ultimately, Karen came up with the fabulous menu that follows.

We began our dinner with a simple fennel and orange salad. It was crisp and refreshing and a nice way to start off our meal. Plus, it was fun to suprême some oranges.


For the main course, Karen decided to go with surf and turf. The "surf" dish was roasted sockeye salmon with roasted plum tomatoes and caramelized lemon slices, courtesy of Dave Lieberman. Not only was it a fabulously colorful dish, it was quite delicious as well (even though I did overcook the salmon a little bit this time). We used Meyer lemons in the dish, which added a bright, citrusy flavor.


The "turf" component of our meal was a roast of the Bay Area-favorite Fred's Steak. Not the prettiest thing to look at, but in this case, looks are deceiving - it was wonderfully tender and flavorful as usual.


We didn't neglect our veggies. In fact, we had two sides of vegetables. The first was a side of roasted purple cauliflower:


We also enjoyed some tender asparagus tips, which we roasted with garlic and sesame oil.


Yes, it was a lot of food. Probably too much, but it was a lot of fun to cook for my mom. Of course, we didn't forget dessert. For the sweet ending of our meal, we had macerated strawberry and raspberry shortcake with a little bit (okay, a lot) of whipped cream and mint chiffonade.


It was a very hearty and satisfying meal. I have to give kudos to Karen for putting together such a fantastic menu. My mom loved the dinner and is looking forward to many more meals cooked by us in the future.

Mad Knife Skillz

For the most part, I think of myself as having relatively decent knife skills. I can finely dice a onion without much effort, debone a chicken, julienne a potato, cut a carrot into a brunoise, etc. - not half bad for an amateur chef like me.

Well, despite what I think of my knife-wielding skills, I got taken to school this past weekend. My mom, who's in town visiting, wanted to make some low bock gow or turnip cakes for Karen and me. Most recipes for low bock gow call for grating the daikon radish that goes into the cake. However, my mom prefers to cut the radish instead so that it does not get too wet and soggy while it's being cooked.

Watching my mom slice the daikon into a fine julienne was most impressive. Each cut was very clean and precise, and all of the strips were nearly uniform in thickness. While I'm pretty sure that I could duplicate the end product, I seriously doubt that I could do it with the same blinding speed in which she took apart the radish. As Karen can attest, my mom was wickedly fast, even though she was just using a cheap cleaver and not my fancy Shun santoku. While she isn't as crazy fast as Hung from Top Chef 3, she was definitely impressive for a non-professional chef.

I guess that I'll need to go to Costco and buy a bag of potatoes on which to hone my skills. Maybe one day, I'll be as fast as my mom with the knife. At least I should have the right genes.

La Fleur de Bretagne

Did you know: Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, brussels sprouts, kale, collard greens, and kohlrabi are different cultivar groups of a single species, Brassica oleracea or Wild Cabbage?

While it would be a stretch to call either Karen or me a huge fanatic of cauliflower, this so-called flower of Brittany, has been making it on to our dinner plates with increasing frequency. Though cauliflower is typically steamed or boiled, we've recently prepared it in a couple of different ways that we've both enjoyed.

After returning from our trip to Mexico, Karen made a cauliflower and bacon soup using a recipe from one of our favorite San Francisco restaurants, Range. The soup was really easy to make and very delicious - the smokiness of the bacon paired very well with the cauliflower. It was a perfect way to enjoy this vegetable which is at its peak of sweetness during the winter.

A couple of weeks back, I headed out in the rain to the Sunnyvale Farmers' Market, where I picked up three heads of cauliflower for dinner: a purple head, an orange one, and a head of Romanesco. Each of these varietals has an interesting characteristic. The color of the purple version, the type that we previously had with ratatouille, comes from the presence of anthocynanin, an antioxidant that is also found in many different types of berries and red wine. The orange varietal has 25 times more vitamin A than the common white version. And the romanesco is, well, just cool - the fractal pattern is quite fascinating, especially to a math guy like me. We cut up the florets from each of the three heads into bite-sized pieces, tossed them with olive oil and sea salt, and roasted the vegetables in a 400° F oven for 20 minutes. This was also delicious - the two of us polished off more than half of the cauliflower.

The other day, I was shopping at Safeway and noticed some items that I had never previously seen in their produce department: baby cauliflower.


They came in several different varietals, including white, purple, orange, and green.




Somewhere between the size of a ping-ping ball and a tennis ball, these little veggies looked like they came in individual serving sizes.


So, you might ask how many of these miniature flowering heads I picked up. Answer: Zero.

Why?


Yep, you read that right... $3 each... I think that works out to about a dollar a mouthful. At that price, I think that I'll just stick to the normal sized versions.

Looking Forward to 2008!

Like many of you (at least I hope!), I'm looking forward to a great 2008. This is going to be quite a big year for me. As many of you already know, Karen and I got engaged a few months back and are in the midst of planning our wedding. We haven't set a date yet, but we are looking to getting married in the Bay Area sometime toward the end of the summer or the beginning of the fall. Over the next few months, I'm sure that you'll see some posts chronicling the trials and tribulations of our wedding planning. Of course, not all of it will be bad - I'm sure that we'll have a fun time tasting wedding cakes and sampling delicious food as we go through the process of selecting a caterer, so stay tuned!

I'm also looking forward to an exciting year at work. Last year, I picked up a lot of new tasks and additional responsibilities, so I hope to continue expanding my role in my immediate team and in the larger organization. I'll likely be doing some travelling, both for work and for leisure, which should give me the opportunity to expand my culinary horizons, as well as to continue my airline food reports.

Of course, I will continue to blog about our food adventures. Work and wedding planning permitting, I will try to post at least as frequently as I did last year. I recently joined up with the Foodbuzz Publishers Program, which will hopefully motivate me to write more often. And yes, I still owe you "The List" of restaurants - hopefully I will be ready to share it with you very soon.

Anyways, I'm pretty excited to see what 2008 will hold. I look forward to your continued comments and encouragement which make writing this blog so fun and enjoyable, so keep them coming!

Catching Up.... On Thanksgiving

After being out of town for most of the past two weeks, I'm back at home for a bit, so I can catch up on my blogging.

First, some pics from our Thanksgiving dinner. Since there was only two of us, we made a small-ish (12 lbs.) turkey. Instead of doing something overly complicated, we simply put some compound butter under the skin, stuffed some aromatics in the cavity, and roasted the bird, basting it periodically with butter using my mom's tried and true technique. We ended up with this:


The sides (clockwise from the upper left): baked squash hotdish, bread stuffing, braised leeks, and cranberry compote.


To go along with dinner, we had a bottle of 2006 Peju Sauvignon Blanc. We managed to enjoy our Thankgiving dinner without stuffing ourselves silly, unlike a couple of nights later...

Getting Ready to Feast Tomorrow

I just got done with the last of my Thanksgiving Day grocery shopping. I'm glad that I took the day off to relax and avoid the mad evening rush at Safeway that inevitably happens the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. As I picked out a fresh turkey for tomorrow night's dinner, I was asked by two different people on how to select and prepare the turkey. I was happy to help, though a bit surprised - it's not like I was wearing a Butterball Turkey Hotline cap or anything like that.

Since it'll only be the two of us for dinner tomorrow, we're going to keep it simple. The menu for tomorrow is (tentatively):

• Roasted Turkey (not sure what I want to do quite yet - the last time, we made a miso butter-rubbed version)


• Bread stuffing (I'm not a huge fan of stuffing, but Karen likes it)


• Cranberry compote (both of us will be making our own variation)


• Braised leeks (Karen loved the leeks that we had at Ad Hoc, so I thought that I would make some for her)


• Baked Squash Casserole

Hmmm... I guess that we'll be having a lot of leftovers...

My Aha! Food Moments

Every so often, each of us experiences an "Aha!" moment. During these brief flashes of insight, you make a quantum leap and suddenly have a profound revelation that changes the way you view the world. Over the past few days, I've been thinking about the "Aha!" food moments that I've experienced. I came up with a list of five such moments which I would like to share with you.

O-Toro
Date: July 9, 2005
Place: Sushi Ran, Sausalito, CA
During the summer of 2005, I had my first encounter with o-toro, the most luscious cut of maguro available. I can still remember that piece of tuna belly just melting away in my mouth like it just happened yesterday. The taste and texture were simply amazing and unlike anything else that I had ever eaten before. That utterly decadent slice of fish changed the way that I think about eating sushi. Since then, every time that I eat o-toro (which is nearly every time I eat sushi), I close my eyes and hope that I can once again experience the feeling of eating o-toro for the first time.

The Complete Dining Experience
Date: August 17, 2005
Place: Frasca Food and Wine, Boulder, CO
It was during my dinner at Frasca when I first understood how exquisite service combined with exceptional food executed with culinary precision can elevate a simple meal into an out-of-this-world dining experience.

The Corn Croquette
Date: October 1, 2005
Place: Manresa, Los Gatos, CA
Karen and I celebrated our first year together with a fabulous dinner at Manresa. Ordering the tasting menu, we were treated to a series of amuse bouche prior to our main courses. One of these amuse bouche offerings was a croquette, a small, breaded morsel meant to be eaten in a single bite. When I bit down on the croquette, I was completely surprised by its warm liquid center which released the pure and unadulterated taste of sweet corn into my mouth. Its sun-soaked flavor simply made my taste buds sing. The croquette utterly captured the delectable essence of corn and demonstrated that little packages can be full of wonderful surprises.

The Cheese Plate
Date: November 21, 2005
Place: Le Bistro de l'Olivier, Paris, France
At the end of an otherwise ordinary meal at a mostly empty bistro in the 8th arrondissement, Karen and I were both blown away by the cheese course. The plate had a couple types of cheeses and was served with a smear of honey sprinkled with lavender. The cheeses tasted fine, but combined with the honey and lavender, their flavors were elevated to extraordinary level. For the first time, I understood how good a cheese plate could be, the elements of the plate coming together to show how the whole can be far greater than the sum of its parts.

And there is one more moment, but it's certainly not the least important. In fact, it probably is one of the defining moments of my life as a foodie.

Beer Can Chicken
Date: Early Summer, 2002
Place: Chez moi, Silicon Valley, CA
One afternoon, I pulled out my copy of Steve Raichlen's How to Grill book and found the recipe for beer-can chicken. It looked simple enough, so I followed the recipe and set up my gas grill to hot smoke the poultry until it was golden brown. Taking my first bite of chicken, I was utterly amazed by the exceptional flavor and juiciness. I asked myself if I could have actually made that bird myself. It was better than any rotisserie chicken that I had ever bought at a store and it was so easy and simple to make. I even remember calling my mom to tell her about what I had made and how good it was.

The important point of this "Aha!" moment is that up until this point in my life, I considered myself to be an adequate, though unexceptional cook. Sure, I knew how to keep myself well-fed and even improvise a bit on existing recipes, but I never strayed too far from the tried and true. However, at this moment, I realized that I might have some potential in the kitchen. Perhaps I always had it in me, but this moment gave me the confidence to believe in my own culinary abilities and set me off on a course to being a foodie, a path that I'm still following today.

One of my favorite quotes from Julia Child is:

"The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude."

This moment gave me that "what-the-hell" attitude.

So folks, I'd love to hear some of your "Aha!" food moments. I hope that you will share them with me!

Makin' Some Chowdah

Now that Karen has left for the airport to head back to the Bay Area, I can share my next recipe with you. (You see, I want to have a little surprise for her when she gets home.)

Using the chicken stock that I made yesterday, I put together a simple chowder, again adapting a recipe that originally called for turkey. Made with some of Karen's favorite foods, including bacon, wild rice, and sweet corn, I thought that this soup would make for a nice "Welcome Home" meal.

Before starting to work on the soup itself, I had to prepare some wild rice. I had just enough wild rice in my pantry for this recipe, though it looks like I will need to put in an order to Minnesota for another 10 lbs bag. After the rice finished cooking, I put it aside and started the work on the soup. I started by browning up some bacon my trusty Dutch oven. The recipe called for pancetta, but unfortunately Safeway is a bit challenged when it comes to specialty items such as this.


After browning the bacon, I drained it on paper towels and removed some of the excess fat from the cast iron pot. Then, I threw in some cremini mushrooms and cooked them for a few minutes in the rendered fat.


After the mushrooms were cooked down, I remove them from the Dutch oven and began softening some diced celery, carrots, and shallots in melted butter. I cut down the amount of butter called for in the recipe in half, since I didn't see the need to use an half a stick of butter for this. After the vegetable mixture had softened up a bit, I put in some flour. As I had reduced the amount of butter, I also reduced the amount of flour proportionally.


After the roux had cooked for a couple of minutes, I returned the mushrooms to the pot and added the chicken stock and some dried rosemary.


Once the stock and vegetable mixture came to a boil, I lowered the heat and simmered the soup for 15 minutes or so. Then, I added in wild rice, the reserved bacon, the meat from the chickens that I used to make the stock, and some sweet corn.


After allowing the soup to simmer for another 10 minutes to meld the flavors together, I added the final ingredient, a cup of heavy cream, to finish off the dish. I tried some of the soup with a simple garnish of flat leaf parsley.


The chowder was delicious, very hearty with a nice silky finish. It'll definitely keep you warm on a cool, autumn evening.

As I was making the chowder, I was simultaneously baking some Amish friendship bread using a starter that Karen gave me.


Does anyone want any bread starter?

Stocking Up

With the arrival of fall and cooler weather, it's a perfect time to enjoy some warm and hearty soup. In order to make soup, you need some sort of base liquid, such as a nice chicken stock. Of course, the best stock is the homemade variety, so today I set out to make some for myself, adapting a recipe for turkey stock from the latest issue of Bon Appétit by substituting two chicken carcasses for the turkey.

A stock is basically a liquid made from simmering a few ingredients in water. All stocks are made with some sort of animal bone, often chicken or beef. The main flavor of the stock comes from the cartilage and connective tissues in the bones. The collagen in the connective tissues is transformed into gelatin during the simmering process and contributes to the resulting mouthfeel of the stock. Most stocks also contain other flavoring agents, such as mirepoix, an onion, celery, and carrot mixture (often in a 2:1:1 ratio), and aromatic herbs, such as parsley and thyme. The recipe from Bon Appétit is comprised of these components.

First, I had to prepare the mirepoix. In general, a rough dice will work; I had roughly 1/3 inch cubes in my mirepoix mixture.


I didn't have a large onion for which the recipe called so I used three medium onion halves (which conveniently allowed me to use up all of the cut onions in the refrigerator):


This recipe called for four aromatics: fresh parsley (left), dried thyme, a bay leaf, and whole peppercorns (right, clockwise from the top):


Not owning a true stock pot, I pulled out my Le Creuset dutch oven, heated up some vegetable oil, and softened up the mirepoix.


Ater a few minutes, I added the two chicken carcasses with enough cold water to cover the bones and the aromatics:


I simmered the stock for about three hours. By the end of that time, the bones were very soft and easily crushed. Removing the pot from the heat, I strained out the solids in a stainless steel bowl using a colander. I used a potato masher to press out the liquid from the mass of bones and aromatics. I let the stock cool down for a while and then used a separator ladle to remove the layer of fat that had floated to the surface.

Here's the final result, after the fat was skimmed off. (Gotta love those Cambro containers!)


I ended up getting about 7 cups of stock, so I topped it off with water (as the recipe suggested) to 10 cups. The stock can be stored in the fridge for a few days or in the freezer if you want to use it in the future. I'll be using mine tomorrow!

Edit: The San Francisco Chronicle today published an article in which Bay Area chefs share their opinions on the best way to make stock. (10/31/2007)

Ratatouille!

I'm not talking about the movie, but rather the dish! My wonderful girlfriend surprised me last Friday evening by preparing this simple, but tasty French recipe for dinner. Karen opted to go with a quick version of the recipe with poultry sausage. She spent a good part of the afternoon shopping for ingredients and dicing vegetables, which included red bell pepper, zucchini, yellow squash, Japanese eggplant, tomatoes, onions, and garlic. In lieu of a hot pepper, Karen used a spicy turkey sausage with cilantro.

The recipe was very fast and easy to make. First, she sauteed minced garlic in olive oil for a few minutes. Then, she added in all of the vegetables except for the tomato and continued to saute the mixture until it began to soften, perhaps about 7-8 minutes longer. Then, she mixed in the diced tomatoes and cooked it for an additional 3-4 minutes. Finally, she put in the sliced sausage, and the chopped basil and parsley, and cooked the mixture until the sausage was warmed through, which took another 4-5 minutes.

To accompany the dish, Karen prepared some purple cauliflower that she had picked up at the Old Oakland Farmer's Market. She cut cut up the head into small florets, tossed them with some light olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roasted them in the oven while we were preparing the ratatouille on the stovetop. The cauliflower was done just as the ratatouille was ready.

The results were fabulous. The ratatouille was colorful and delicious. The roasted cauliflower was crunchy and contrasted nicely with the colors and textures of flavorful vegetables in the ratatouille. This dinner combination was definitely a winner and something that we will make again (hopefully soon).

Garlic Crab Noodles

A while back, Karen and I went out with a few of our friends to celebrate the beginning of the dungeness crab season, which starts in mid-November and runs well into the new year in this area. We chose to have dinner at PPQ Dungeness Island (2332 Clement Street; 415-386-8266), which specializes in this crustacean delicacy. The restaurant features several different preparations of crab, including roasted, drunken, and curry versions. As tasty as the crab is, a necessary component of the meal has to be a big plate of garlic noodles. The version served at PPQ Dungeness Island is very savory and pairs wonderfully with the sweet and delicate crab meat. Karen just loved these noodles and ate so much at that dinner the she coined a new phrase, garlic noodles full, to describe her state of being afterwards.

Last night, I decided to surprise her with a little treat by making her a crab dinner which included, of course, a large plate of garlic noodles. I thought that it would be an interesting twist simply to add the crab directly to the noodles to create a plate of garlic crab noodles. Yesterday afternoon, I dropped by Costco to pick up some Phillips jumbo lump crab, but they apparently were completely out of stock. Luckily, their Seafood Roadshow was taking place at the store this weekend, so I was able to obtain several nice looking king crab legs.

When I got home, I took half of the crab legs, cracked them, and removed the meat from the shell. (Helpful hint: A pair of kitchen shears come in quite handy for this task.) I would use this crab meat for the noodles. For the remaining legs, I would prepare them using the Alton Brown recommended cooking method and served them alongside the noodles. On my way home from Costco, I had picked up some fresh egg noodles from 99 Ranch Market. I prepped the noodles by quickly dunking them in boiling water, rinsing them with cold water (both to stop the cooking and to remove the excess starch), and draining them in a colander. Now I was ready to made the garlic crab noodles.

I set up my wok on medium-low heat and melted a generous amount of sweet butter. After the butter had melted, I threw in about six cloves of minced garlic and cooked them until they were just about to turn brown, about 3-4 minutes. Next I threw in the drained egg noodles and jacked up the heat to medium-high. Quickly stirring the noodles to mix in the garlic and butter, I poured in about a 1/4 cup of oyster sauce, and a small amount of granulated sugar which I mixed in with a bit of nước mắm, a Vietnamese fish sauce. I stir-fried the noodles for several minutes until they were thoroughly heated through before the final step of mixing in the king crab. Since the crab was already cooked, I didn't want to toughen the meat by overcooking, so I was careful to take the wok off the heat as soon as it got up to temperature. Here were the results:


Karen and I both really liked the noodles, but the next time that I make the dish, I think that I'll make a few tweaks. First, I'll add in some more garlic. I was afraid that I would overpower the crab so I held back a little, but I think that the dish can handle some additional cloves of garlic. Also, I might use an extra-virgin olive oil and butter mixture instead of straight butter to give the flavor a little more depth, though I'm not sure how the taste of the oil will mix with Asian flavors of the oyster and fish sauces. I also wonder if it would be good to add a few flakes of dried chiles to add a little kick to the dish. I guess that we'll all know the next time that I make garlic crab noodles.

The Menu - Revealed

Last week, I wrote about a menu that I created for Karen for our first home-cooked meal together. At the end of that post, I posed a few questions about the menu for you readers out there. Due to popular demand, here are the answers to those questions:

Our first dinner: Oven Roasted Chicken and Cheesy Grilled Polenta
I was a bit disappointed with my polenta as I didn't allow the grill to get hot enough before I threw on the slices of polenta. The result: very sad-looking grill marks. As Karen says, it's not grilled food without the marks. My bad. I have since done a better job with grilled food items.

Dishes that I had never made before: Maryland Crab Cakes, Cheese Filled Triangles, and Baked Macaroni and Cheese
Nope, no entrees, just a couple of the appetizers and one of the sides. If I would have known how easy it is to make the crab cakes, I would have made them earlier.

Dishes that I have yet to make for Karen: Grilled Garlic Cilantro Sea Bass and Smoked Standing Rib Roast
I haven't made the former due to the depletion of the population; okay, that along with the price and availability of the fish, but given that Whole Foods is carrying it once again (albeit for a pretty penny), I may give this dish another try or use a different type of fish, such as halibut. I haven't made the latter because of the amount of food that I would prepare. Perhaps it's time for a dinner party so that we can enjoy a nice smoked prime rib. Mmmmm....

Guest Blogging: Party with Paella

Tonight, Karen writes about our most recent cooking experiment: paella.

Growing up, I never celebrated Christmas or waited for Santa Claus to come down the chimney bearing gifts (instead I partied with Hanukkah Harry over eight glorious nights). Late December wouldn’t mean much for me if not for the unique New Year’s Eve celebration cooked up by my parents.

It all started innocently enough. When my brothers and I were young, my parents went out and celebrated New Year’s Eve in the traditional manner. They hated it. Paying exorbitant prices for the same entertainment they could get on any normal night of the year, worrying about drunk drivers, and leaving the kids back home was not their style. So they decided to defy tradition and do up New Year’s Eve their way.

And thus was born the New Year’s Eve family feast. Meals generally started around 7ish and the final course never finished before midnight. Dick Clark was often on in the background and the menu was always gut busting. Hors d'oeuvres were varied and plentiful and included rumaki, cheese, chips, artichoke dip, spareribs, and cheese puffs. The appetizer was usually shrimp cocktail (with homemade cocktail sauce). Paella stole the show as the main course (although in later years Beef Wellington was sometimes served). Without fail, dessert was a layered parfait of fruit, whip cream, and nuts. In true celebratory fashion, sparkling wine was free flowing for all. In our younger days we were served the sweet goodness of Asti Spumanti (until we grew up and learned to appreciate finer champagne).

Thanks to the New Year’s festivities, paella holds a special place in my heart. So it came as little surprise that among the gifts my parents brought from a recent visit to Spain was the Spanish Bar and Restaurant Cooking cookbook full of paella, tapas, and sangria recipes. Taking the hint, Loren and I decided we should get down to business and cook up a storm.

We decided on a paella mixta (mixed seafood, sausage, and chicken) with serrano ham added in for good measure. The recipe was fairly extensive and included clams, garlic, onions, tomato, red pepper, olive oil, chicken, paprika, rosemary, thyme, cumin, rice, chicken broth, saffron, chorizo, shrimp, and capers. We seasoned and browned the chicken as well as the garlic, onions, tomato, and pepper. Then we sautéed the rice, added the chicken broth, and sprinkled in the saffron. Here was our first mistake - we used saffron threads but did not steep them first. As a result, the paella never got that deep yellow color we were expecting.

Next we were to transfer the rice into a paella pan (which we didn’t have) and mix in all the other ingredients. I don’t think we were prepared for the massive quantity of food resulting from the recipe but did the best to distribute among the closest paella type pans we did have. We then baked the paella in a 400 degree Fahrenheit oven and waited. Here was mistake number two - we needed to bake the paella far longer than the recipe indicated (probably because we were using two pans). Initially the rice seemed hard and as if it would never fully cook. But our patience was eventually rewarded and we took the paella out to finish on a high heat on top of the stove to crisp up the rice and create the socarrat - the crisp, caramelized, golden rice that sticks to the base and sides of the pan. In attempting to create this toasty goodness we made our last mistake - the aroma of toasted rice coming from the pan signals a socarrat has been achieved. The point between socarrat and burn is slim, we ignored the smell and left the pan on high heat a touch too long. The rice and paella were still edible but just not perfect.

Here in all glory is our first attempt at paella. While no new traditions have yet to be born, I am sure we’ll be trying this again soon.



Posted by Karen

The Menu

When Karen and I first started dating a few years back, one of the first things that I wanted to do was to prepare a home cooked meal for her. Knowing that she is also a foodie, I thought that it might be more fun to have her select what she wanted for dinner. So, I created a dinner menu, from which she could select the dishes of her choosing. Here were her choices:

Appetizers

Maryland Crab Cakes
With a side of homemade aioli
Bacon Wrapped Water Chestnuts
Marinated in soy sauce and rolled in sugar
Florentine Artichoke Dip
Served hot with crusty French bread
Cheese Filled Triangles
Spinach and cream cheese filled phyllo triangles

Entrees

Grilled Rib Eye
Rubbed with Montreal seasoning and seared on the grill
Baby Back Pork Ribs
Cured with a spice rub and glazed with homemade barbecue sauce
Thai Coconut Curry Chicken
In a spicy green chili sauce over steamed jasmine rice
Oven Roasted Chicken
Smothered with a lemon zest garlic pepper paste
Jamaican Jerk Pork Tenderloin
Marinated in a spicy habenero paste and grilled
Smoked Standing Rib Roast
Infused with garlic silvers and slow smoked over hickory
Barbecue Pulled Pork
Slow cooked for ten hours in a hearty homemade sauce
Smoked Chicken
Hot smoked with hickory wood
Grilled Garlic Cilantro Sea Bass
Chilean sea bass marinated in an Asian-style sauce
Home Style Meat Loaf
With a honey tomato glaze

Sides

Sesame Garlic Asparagus
Grilled Zucchini and Yellow Squash
Scalloped Potatoes
Cheesy Grilled Polenta
Baked Macaroni and Cheese
Wild Rice and Sausage Casserole
Baked Squash

Dessert

Dessert of the day

To make it more interesting, I put a few dishes on the menu that I had never previously made and that I would make for the first time for her dinner, if said dishes were selected. (Of course, I didn't tell her which ones they were.)

In the past few years, I have made all of these dishes for her, save two. Do you know which ones they are? Also, can you guess which dishes are the ones that I had not made prior to the creation of the menu? Finally, can you guess what I did make for her for dinner?

Kicking Off the Summer with Beer Can Chicken

For many people, Memorial Day weekend marks the beginning of summer. Of course, the start of summer also means the start of grilling season (not that I waited until this past weekend though). Yesterday, I decided to kick off the summer grilling season with one of my all-time favorites: beer can chicken. Popularized by Steven Raichlen (who even wrote an entire book on this dish), beer can chicken comes in many forms, but the basic idea is the same across all recipes: take a whole chicken, season it with some rub, put an open, half-filled can of beer in the cavity (i.e. shove it up the chicken's butt), and hot-smoke it over indirect heat until it's done.

On the way home from work, I stopped by BevMo to pick up the key ingredient: a 12-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, my official beer of choice for beer can chicken. I have bottled beer at my place, but you can't substitute bottles for cans in this instance. (Alright, I like to use PBR because it's cheap, okay?)

As usual, I decided to make two chickens, as it doesn't take any more fuel to make two chickens than it does to cook one. (In this day and age, it's best not to waste energy.) First, I took two whole chickens that I picked up at Costco this weekend, removed the giblets from the cavities, and washed them out very well (both inside and out). After patting the chickens dry with paper towels, I seasoned them with a dry rub. For these chickens, I used a generous amount of McCormick's Montreal Steak Seasoning. Yes, I know that they make a chicken seasoning, but I like the steak version; plus, that's what I had on hand. I also like to use Penzeys Galena Street Rub, but I didn't have enough for the two chickens.


After seasoning the chicken, I opened two PBRs, drained out half of the can (I made an attempt to drink the extra beer, but it's just not that good), punched a few additional holes in the top with a church key, and poured in some of the excess rub. Then, I put a can into the cavity of each chicken and folded back the wings so that they wouldn't burn while cooking.

In order to cook a whole chicken thoroughly without charring the exterior, you need to cook the chicken over indirect heat. Therefore, I would only need to use one of the two burners on my grill. I know that a grilling purist would probably make this over a charcoal or wood fire, but I like using gas, as it is easier to regulate the heat and smoke. (Yes, I have made this recipe over charcoal on a Weber grill, but I still like using my propane rig for this better.) On the side without the flame, I placed a foil pan to catch the drippings from the chickens, which I would be placing above. On the other side of the grill, over the lit burner, I set a smoker box which I filled with hickory chips that I soaked in water for 20 minutes. The hickory would provide the smoke that I wanted to flavor and color the chicken.

Using the can and the two drumsticks, you can form a fairly stable tripod so that the chicken is cooked upright. This is the secret to beer can chicken. The beer will steam out to keep the chicken moist as well as to help cook the inside of the cavity. I placed the chickens on the grill in the upright position, taking care to leave some space between the chickens.


I started the burner on high in order to get the wood to smolder. After 5 minutes or so, I saw that there was a decent amount of smoke coming from the grill, so I dropped the temperature to low and left the chicken to smoke for the next hour and half or so, turning the chicken every 30-35 minutes to ensure even cooking.

After the 90 minutes were up, I took my instant-read probe thermometer to check on the doneness. Even though many people think that you need to cook chicken to 180 degrees F, you really only need it to get to 165 degrees F in order to kill any nasty bug. Counting on carryover heat, I pulled the chickens off the grill once they hit 160 degrees F in the thickest part of the thigh.


After a short rest to allow the juices to redistribute, I took one of the chickens, carefully removed the half-filled can of hot beer (no, the beer won't completely evaporate), and placed the cooked bird on the cutting board.


A few deft cuts later, I was ready to eat!

Mmmm.... Steak....

My dinner in pictures:

Dr. Strangeroot or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Beets

As I implied in a previous post, Karen is not someone you would call the biggest fan of beets. Her virulent dislike of this root vegetable stems from an incident in her youth when she and her brothers were involved in a dinner-time Mexican standoff with her parents over a plate of beets.

Ah, but how times change! Today, I received the following email:

From: Karen
To: Karen's family
Subject: My horrible yet true confession

I have a confession to make. Last Friday, I went to the Old Oakland Farmers' Market and (of my own free will and volition) bought a bunch of yellow beets. I am not entirely sure what came over me. Years of refusal to eat the vile root vegetable suddenly melted away. Perhaps it was a recent yellow beet recipe I saw that looked delicious. For the first time, I began to think of beets as an edible possibility worth seeking out and buying. It didn't hurt that not only did I not gag, but even enjoyed the small bit of beets I had at a recent dinner at Manresa. One of the dishes on the tasting menu was smoked sturgeon over red thumb potatoes and beets.

Earlier this week, after coming to terms with the beets I had brought home, I actually made them. I roasted them with some salt, pepper, olive oil, and rosemary. Once cooked and cooled, I threw a splash of basalmic vinegar on top. The initial bites brought back brief memories of that beet taste I so despised in the past. I mean, the beets were OK but they still tasted like beets. I think I didn't let them cool enough before eating. Yet as the flavors melded and I ate some more the following day, I realized they weren't too bad. In fact, they tasted like a sweeter version of roast potatoes (with tons more nutrients).

After decades of recovery, I think I am finally able to deal with my beet issues. I still recall (with horror) the awful beet experience of our childhood. But I think beets and I may just be able to co-exist.

Will I cook and eat beets again? - Probably
Will I do so on a regular basis? - Probably not

Love,
Karen

Her brother Jon replied almost immediately to this email with the following comeback:

You are going against everything the beet revolution stood for. We did not have a sit-in at the dinner table 20 years ago for you to betray the cause. You should be ashamed of yourself.

I was just talking about this occurrence with one of my colleagues two days ago. He talked about his absolute dislike for asparagus (which I really like) and that got me going about my hatred (possibly unfounded) of beets.

To think, my twin, not long before our shared birthday, has given up the fight. Maybe it is that crazy weather in San Fran that's done it to you. "You've changed Dutch, you've changed..."

Your disillusioned twin,
Jon

For some reason, I'm seeing visions of Slim Pickens on top of a giant yellow beet, riding it like some bronco-busting cowboy, whooping and hollering as he falls into oblivion.

Karen's Herb-Roasted Chicken

Tonight, my sweetie gave me a night off from cooking by taking over the kitchen and making her herb-roasted chicken. Adapted from an NPR recipe, her chicken dish involves taking a whole roaster, stuffing a compound butter underneath the skin, and roasting it on a bed of potatoes. Earlier in the day, we picked up a Rocky Jr. chicken from the local Whole Foods Market (on sale for nearly half-off!). We were actually looking for a 3 lbs bird and were surprised that we couldn't find anything smaller than the 5 lbs one that we picked up.

After washing out the chicken and patting it dry, Karen loosened the skin and stuffed an herb butter made with fresh rosemary, sage, and thyme between the skin and the meat. She reserved some of the butter to rub over the skin of the chicken and stuffed a cut lemon into the cavity. We put the chicken breast-side down into a roasting pan on top of a bed of halved new potatoes and threw it into a 475º F oven. We roasted the chicken for an hour, dropping the temperature 25 degrees every 15-20 minutes and flipping the chicken over partway through the process. Our patience was rewarded:



To accompany the chicken and potatoes, we chopped up some red chard and sauteed the greens with garlic and red pepper flakes. The results - some good eats!

Midwestern Strata?

Today, I decided to make some Wild Rice Hotdish. My girlfriend had it on her list of food requests for a little while now and, with the rainy season upon us, I figured that it was the perfect time to make it.

The funny thing is that within a two hour span today, I was twice questioned whether or not this delicious dish was truly a hotdish. Both my sister and my friend Terence asked me the exact same two questions: (1) Did I cover it with Tater Tots? (2) Did I use cream of mushroom soup? Having answered in the negative to both questions, I was accused of fraudulently passing off a non-hotdish item as a true Minnesotan hotdish. Terence, whose experience in Minnesotan cuisine comes solely from his experience with the Marriott industrial food service professionals during his college years in Northfield, went so far to say that what I was making was, in fact, not hotdish, but merely some sort of Midwestern strata.

Tater Tots? What happened to French fried onion rings?

Braised Short Ribs - Illustrated!

Before heading off to Germany last week, I broke in my new Dutch Oven with a batch of Braised Short Ribs with Chocolate and Rosemary. Now that I've returned back to the States and downloaded photos from my digital camera, I decided to share the experience. Here were the results:

After rendering a couple of rashers of bacon (I suspect that pancetta is not an item in the Safeway inventory), I browned the short ribs in the drippings and removed them to a temporary holding location:


Then, I threw in the onion-heavy mirepoix, some finely diced shallots, and a few cloves of minced garlic into the pot and sweated down the vegetables:


I poured in some red wine (2000 Woodbridge Cabernet) and reduced the liquid until half of it was left. I then added chicken broth, a can of diced tomatoes, the meat (the ribs and bacon), and the aromatics:


Three hours of braising + Chocolate + Cocoa = Good Eats!:


The finished product, served on a bed of smashed russet potatoes:


The results were fantastic. Both my sweetie and I thought that the short ribs were very tender and the savory sauce, reminiscent of a chocolate mole (minus the chiles), complemented the beef perfectly. It was a very easy recipe to make and definitely one that I will use again.