Taste With The Eyes: June 2007

6.18.2007

Sweet Smoky Spicy Buttery Shrimp

Heat butter (2 T.) in skillet until lightly browned, add twice as much BBQ sauce (4 T.) as butter (try Trader Joe's All Natural Barbecue Sauce) and a good dose of hot sauce (I like Louisiana's Crystal Hot Sauce). Whisk all together then add shrimp and cook over medium heat until the shrimp are just cooked through. Serve warm.

Four ingredients. Lots of flavor.

6.13.2007

Matzoh Ball Secrets

Follow the directions on the box of Matzoh Ball mix, exactly, well, not exactly but with the following exceptions: I add chopped parsley and dill, but nothing else. I use good olive oil where they call for vegetable oil. Use 2 large or extra large eggs, not jumbo. Here is the secret: Cook in a big pot, so they have room to grow. Cover the pot and do not peek, and do not turn down to simmer, keep at medium low. The steam will fluff them up. In 20 minutes they will be light and fluffy and delicious.

6.10.2007

Honey Orange Chicken with Lemons and Apricots

In a sauce pan, saute diced onion in olive oil until translucent, then add minced garlic and ginger. Add orange juice, white wine, low sodium soy sauce (omit for Passover) and honey and heat until the honey dissolves and the alcohol is cooked off. Let cool. (Use 4 parts orange juice to 1 part each wine, soy, and honey).
Arrange seasoned chicken breasts in a roasting pan with lemons, oranges, and dried apricots. Ladle sauce into roasting pan, at least half way up the sides of the chicken. Submerge fruit so it doesn't burn. Bake at 350 until chicken is cooked.
Keep chicken and fruits warm while reducing the sauce on the stovetop. Add a little dissolved potato starch to thicken if necessary. Serve sauce on the side. Garnish with parsley. This is a great recipe when cooking for a crowd.

Tomato Onion Brisket for 32

Sauce:

Mix together

4 cans 16 oz. tomato sauce

4 packets dried onion soup mix

1 1/2 c. good red wine

1 T. ginger powder

3 T. garlic powder
2 tsp. sea salt (or to taste)

Season the 12 lb. of brisket (two 6 lb. briskets) with salt and pepper then caramelize the meat under the broiler.

Top the briskets with 8 medium onions, sliced lengthwise.

Smother with the sauce and sliced onions and bake covered at 275 for six or more hours until tenda as butta.

Adapted from Marvin Shapiro's Roast Brisket recipe. Originally, years ago, I was not too excited about this recipe with its lack of fresh ingredients (dried onion soup mix and garlic powder?). But it really is inexplicably delicious, we make it every year.

Cook's Tip: Prepare a day ahead and refrigerate, then slice against the grain, return brisket and all sauce to the pan, and reheat covered. Serve with horseradish, of course.

Goats and Sheep at Rinconada Dairy

While learning how to make cheese at Cal Poly, it was such a treat to visit the Rinconada Dairy, near San Luis Obispo, CA.
http://www.rinconadadairy.com/

Thomas Keller's Kitchen - West Coast

"It's all about finesse."
Thomas Keller

Shaved Black Truffles - The French Laundry

Kristy's green blouse and black slacks match the dish.
New Crop Potatoes, Savoy Cabbage Coulis, Shaved Black Truffles

Foie Gras - The French Laundry

Moulard Duck Foie Gras in Terrine, Field Rhubarb Relish, Sicilian Pistachio Miettes
A law prohibiting the sale of foie gras in California in 2012?
I guess we have to go to Vegas.

"Oysters and Pearls" - The French Laundry

Sabayon of Pearl Tapioca with Beau Soleil Oysters and Russian Sevruga Caviar
Yountville, California

Stone helps Aunt GeeGee make Chicken Soup

"Aunt GeeGee, what the heck are these?"
"Those are parsnips for the soup to feed 32."

Sunset in the Wine Country

Allison and Syrah

Vineyards - Paso Robles, California

Let's Taste Our Fresh Mozzerella!

No aging here! Right, Anne?

Farmstead Cheesemaker Course - Cal Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, California

A week long cheese making course at the Dairy Products Technology Center. This course exceeded our expectations, I highly recommend it, and then I recommend going to Paso Robles to do some wine tasting and celebrate your graduation from "cheese school!"

Our cheese professor, Arcangelo, is teaching us how to make Stracchino.

Archangelo with Allison and her Braided Mozzerella

Allison Making Mozzerella

Alinea - roe shot?

Not really. You lift the "shot glass" and the ingredients slide out the bottom. Very cool. And tasty.
Smoked Steelhead Roe, several garnishes.

Alinea - one of 24 courses

Octopus with shiso, papaya, & toasted soy.

alinea-restaurant.com

Alinea - no flash allowed

Alinea - CHICAGO

Skate: caper, lemon, and brown butter powders

Father Adam and Yorkshire Pudding - Recipe from "Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home"

A conundrum? Yorkshire Pudding vs. Popover
Not for Julia Child, as she calls them "Individual Yorkshire Puddings"
How neat. Love her.

Charlie Trotter's Tapioca Stuffed Squid with Garlic and Meyer Lemon

Charlie Trotter's A Fish Course; Including Eel, Big Eye, Skate, Saba

Charlie Trotter's CHICAGO - Kitchen Table

http://www.charlietrotters.com/

Julia Child Quotes - TOUJOURS BON APPETIT!

“You should never apologize at the table. People will think, ‘Yes, it’s really not so good.'"

"In France, cooking is a serious art form and a national sport."

"It's easy to get the feeling that you know the language just because when you order a beer they don't bring you oysters." Paul Child on speaking French

"I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate. "

"Life itself is the proper binge."

"It was a Morsel of Perfection."

"I was in pure, flavorful heaven at the Cordon Bleu."

Julia Child sees herself on TV, July 1962, she saw room for improvement, and still she can say it was fun : "There I was, in black and white, a large woman sloshing eggs too quickly here, too slowly there, gasping, looking at the wrong camera while talking too loudly and so on...But it had been fun."

She has her own opinions on kitchen equipment: "Clairborne sniffed at our use of a garlic press, 'a gadget considered in some circles to be only one cut above garlic salt or garlic powder.' I happened to like garlic presses..."

Understanding Julia's captivation by French food: "This is the kind of food that I have fallen in love with: not trendy souped-up fantasies, just something very good to eat. It was classic French cooking, where the ingredients have been carefully selected and beautifully and knowingly prepared. Or, in the words of the famous gastronome Curnonsky, 'Food that tastes of what it is.' "

"You never forget a beautiful thing that you have made. Even after you eat it, it stays with you - always." Julia's instructor, Chef Bugnard at Le Cordon Bleu

"Oh, 'crise de foie,' that French sole was so delicious!"

Julia's passion comes through loud and clear as she describes a fish dish: "La Truite's true glory was the Sole a la Normande, a poem of poached and flavored sole fillets surrounded by oysters, and mussels, and napped with a wonder-sauce of wine, cream, and butter, and topped with fluted mushrooms. 'Voluptuous' was the word. I had never imagined that fish could be taken so seriously, or taste so heavenly."

Julia's unique way with words, on Crepes Suzette: "The creature named Suzette may or may not have been the mistress of the Prince of Wales, but whoever she was, she long ago inspired a magnificent dessert that is still one of our favorites."

"I am probably one of the few people around who saw the real Caesar Cardini making his salad. I was about 9 when my parents took me to his restaurant in Tijuana. They were so excited when big jolly Caesar himself came to the table to make the salad. And it was dramatic: I remember most clearly the eggs going in, and how he tossed the leaves so it looked like a wave turning over."

"With a handsome package such as Jacques's, you can neatly cut the top open at the table with a pair of scissors..." Julia on Salmon en Papillote

"There's no reason to be intimidated by the idea of making pâté. You can just think of it as meat loaf."

From Julia's dear friend Jacques Pepin, "You are what you cook."

"Understanding egg yolks will make you a master of hollandaise sauce."

Julia encouraging us not to be intimidated: "When you know how to saute your meat so it browns rather than steams, you're cooking. What's difficult about that? You heat the pan, you dry the meat, you don't crowd it into the pan, and you're browning it. Is that difficult?"

Food Quotes

"Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch."

Orson Welles

"Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are."
Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

"Chefs, as a whole, say yes to any project, fundraiser, or tasting because they have such a generous spirit."
Charlie Trotter

"Once you understand the foundations of cooking - whatever kind you like, whether it's French or Italian or Japanese - you really don't need a cookbook anymore. "
Thomas Keller

"I love to make people happy."
Wolfgang Puck

"Fish sauce is to Vietnamese cooking as olive oil is to Italian."

The Little Saigon Cookbook by Ann Le

"I wish, I wish lunch could last forever...waiter, bring us one more bottle of wine..."

Jimmy Buffett

"My philosophy from day one is that I can sleep better at night if I can improve an individual's knowledge about food and wine, and do it on a daily basis."
Emeril Lagasse

"Gordon Ramsay makes me laugh because he knows that I'm not a chef."
Nigella Lawson

"You know, when you get your first asparagus, or your first acorn squash, or your first really good tomato of the season, those are the moments that define the cook's year. I get more excited by that than anything else."
Mario Batali

"I always knew the importance of it, since I was three or four years old my mother used to feed me wine and water. I grew up with wine as liquid food."
Robert Mondavi

"No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at his/her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, and the wisdom of cookbook writers."
Laurie Colwin

"Food is a central part of our lives. It provides the body with fuel and raw materials for maintenance, growth, and repair. It draws together family and friends, anchors celebrations and rites of passage, and sometimes soothes the soul."
Ethan Becker