Notes on the Tasting Menu
Mostly for my own reference, here are notes, thoughts and recipe links for last night's tasting menu:
• Pear-ginger sorbet I used Bosc pears, which gave it a nice floral note, and garnished it with extra candied ginger.
• Steak Tartare I added in some extra capers and garnished it with dried shallots, which gave a nice crunch on top. Next time I think I would chop the meat, rather than grinding it up.
• Creamy Artichoke Soup This was my favorite course and pretty easy to make. It's very rich--if I were planning to eat a larger amount, I think I might use more chicken broth to make it a little less thick.
• Smoked Chicken Salad I smoked boneless chicken breasts in an alder-wood bag and then followed this recipe pretty vaguely. I toasted the pistachios, which was definitely the right choice, went with the mint option and used my homemade plain yogurt to moisten it and served scoops of the salad on romaine leaves. A couple of my guests found the initial smell off-putting, but everyone agreed that it was very tasty.
• French Onion Soup I went with a different recipe this time and it came out very well. The broth was wonderfully rich and thick. I strained out the onions, heated the broth and made bruschetta with rounds of baguettes heaped with the onions and then covered with grated gruyere and toasted in a 400F oven for about ten minutes.
• Americauna egg salad Since I couldn't find duck eggs anywhere, I went with Americaunas, which are also richer in flavor than regular eggs. They weren't quite as amazing as the duck eggs, but still lovely, and the lemon-infused olive oil is such a win. I served the eggs over mixed greens.
• Tuna & Avocado My standard recipe--mix 1/4 lb. of chopped up sashimi tuna with a chopped avocado, mix with ponzu and sprinkle with black sesame.
• Rabbit in Tarragon Cream Sauce The boneless loins I had seen the week before weren't available when I went back, so I ended up having to debone a couple of rabbit legs myself. Pounded with salt, pepper and dried tarragon they worked beautifully in the sauce. I used to make this all the time in London, where boneless rabbit came in bags of chunks in my grocer's freezer, and I've missed it!
• Mushroom-Leek Bread Pudding Since one of my guests doesn't like mushrooms, I added two leeks to this recipe and then made his serving separately before adding the mushrooms. Despite forgetting to add the chopped, reconstituted porcinis back in, this was still very tasty and somehow less rich than the previous all-mushroom version that I did.
• Braised Short Ribs with a Puff Pastry Top. Jason made the puff pastry and it was extremely yummy. Talking with our guests about their puff pastry adventures, it seems like this one has much to recommend it. The short ribs were very rich and I added in some of the chopped porcinis that had gone missing from the bread puddings, which added yet more flavor. I think the big trick here is to get rid of as much of the fat as you possibly can--after braising the ribs, I cut away the bone with its binding of connective tissue and as much of the layer of fat between that and the meat as possible, then shred up the meat with a fork, excavating any other fat pockets I find. Then I put it into quart-sized containers, push the meat down to the bottom and refrigerate overnight. Each of the two quarts had an inch-thick disk of fat hardened on top the next day. I used some of that to sautee the onions for the soup and discarded the rest. And the resulting short ribs are still very rich. We filled ramekins with the cold, shredded meat and baked those next to the puff pastry rounds, then dropped the pastry on top for serving, so they didn't get too soaked, which worked out very well.
• Chamomile Tea Sorbet I substituted chamomile for the green tea in this recipe and it came out very nicely. Garnishing with mint leaves made a good complement to the flavor.
• Roasted Figs with Goat Cheese I wasn't able to find fresh figs this time of year, so I went with dried Calmyrna figs, which were just fine. I served this with a drizzle of Balsamic reduction, which really heightened the overall flavor of the dish and kept it from being too sweet.
• Brown-Butter Almond Cake with Roasted Pears and Caramel Syrup This recipe isn't posted online--if I get motivated, I'll type it in at some point. It was a tricky cake, but I managed it and everyone seemed to love it.
• Hot White Chocolate with Chocolate Pine-Nut Cookies. This was a really good combination. The cookies had a biscotti-like texture and were not very sweet, so they complimented the sweet, creamy hot chocolate beautifully.
Overall, I was very pleased with this meal. I liked the way that certain flavors echoed in other courses--the mint from the chicken salad recalled by the garnish on the chamomile sorbet, the beef fat flavor in the onion soup echoed in the short ribs, the pears with the cake recalling the initial pear-ginger sorbet, etc. It also feels like I'm getting the hang of quantities--everyone was certainly full by the end of this meal, but it wasn't some kind of Herculean exercise in bloating. And we have remarkably few leftovers, considering.
I want to give a special shout out to muffyjo and heliopsis, who served as designated diners after two of our original guests were striken by stomach flu. It was a marvelous, casual evening and so fun to share all my cooking adventures with you.
• Pear-ginger sorbet I used Bosc pears, which gave it a nice floral note, and garnished it with extra candied ginger.
• Steak Tartare I added in some extra capers and garnished it with dried shallots, which gave a nice crunch on top. Next time I think I would chop the meat, rather than grinding it up.
• Creamy Artichoke Soup This was my favorite course and pretty easy to make. It's very rich--if I were planning to eat a larger amount, I think I might use more chicken broth to make it a little less thick.
• Smoked Chicken Salad I smoked boneless chicken breasts in an alder-wood bag and then followed this recipe pretty vaguely. I toasted the pistachios, which was definitely the right choice, went with the mint option and used my homemade plain yogurt to moisten it and served scoops of the salad on romaine leaves. A couple of my guests found the initial smell off-putting, but everyone agreed that it was very tasty.
• French Onion Soup I went with a different recipe this time and it came out very well. The broth was wonderfully rich and thick. I strained out the onions, heated the broth and made bruschetta with rounds of baguettes heaped with the onions and then covered with grated gruyere and toasted in a 400F oven for about ten minutes.
• Americauna egg salad Since I couldn't find duck eggs anywhere, I went with Americaunas, which are also richer in flavor than regular eggs. They weren't quite as amazing as the duck eggs, but still lovely, and the lemon-infused olive oil is such a win. I served the eggs over mixed greens.
• Tuna & Avocado My standard recipe--mix 1/4 lb. of chopped up sashimi tuna with a chopped avocado, mix with ponzu and sprinkle with black sesame.
• Rabbit in Tarragon Cream Sauce The boneless loins I had seen the week before weren't available when I went back, so I ended up having to debone a couple of rabbit legs myself. Pounded with salt, pepper and dried tarragon they worked beautifully in the sauce. I used to make this all the time in London, where boneless rabbit came in bags of chunks in my grocer's freezer, and I've missed it!
• Mushroom-Leek Bread Pudding Since one of my guests doesn't like mushrooms, I added two leeks to this recipe and then made his serving separately before adding the mushrooms. Despite forgetting to add the chopped, reconstituted porcinis back in, this was still very tasty and somehow less rich than the previous all-mushroom version that I did.
• Braised Short Ribs with a Puff Pastry Top. Jason made the puff pastry and it was extremely yummy. Talking with our guests about their puff pastry adventures, it seems like this one has much to recommend it. The short ribs were very rich and I added in some of the chopped porcinis that had gone missing from the bread puddings, which added yet more flavor. I think the big trick here is to get rid of as much of the fat as you possibly can--after braising the ribs, I cut away the bone with its binding of connective tissue and as much of the layer of fat between that and the meat as possible, then shred up the meat with a fork, excavating any other fat pockets I find. Then I put it into quart-sized containers, push the meat down to the bottom and refrigerate overnight. Each of the two quarts had an inch-thick disk of fat hardened on top the next day. I used some of that to sautee the onions for the soup and discarded the rest. And the resulting short ribs are still very rich. We filled ramekins with the cold, shredded meat and baked those next to the puff pastry rounds, then dropped the pastry on top for serving, so they didn't get too soaked, which worked out very well.
• Chamomile Tea Sorbet I substituted chamomile for the green tea in this recipe and it came out very nicely. Garnishing with mint leaves made a good complement to the flavor.
• Roasted Figs with Goat Cheese I wasn't able to find fresh figs this time of year, so I went with dried Calmyrna figs, which were just fine. I served this with a drizzle of Balsamic reduction, which really heightened the overall flavor of the dish and kept it from being too sweet.
• Brown-Butter Almond Cake with Roasted Pears and Caramel Syrup This recipe isn't posted online--if I get motivated, I'll type it in at some point. It was a tricky cake, but I managed it and everyone seemed to love it.
• Hot White Chocolate with Chocolate Pine-Nut Cookies. This was a really good combination. The cookies had a biscotti-like texture and were not very sweet, so they complimented the sweet, creamy hot chocolate beautifully.
Overall, I was very pleased with this meal. I liked the way that certain flavors echoed in other courses--the mint from the chicken salad recalled by the garnish on the chamomile sorbet, the beef fat flavor in the onion soup echoed in the short ribs, the pears with the cake recalling the initial pear-ginger sorbet, etc. It also feels like I'm getting the hang of quantities--everyone was certainly full by the end of this meal, but it wasn't some kind of Herculean exercise in bloating. And we have remarkably few leftovers, considering.
I want to give a special shout out to muffyjo and heliopsis, who served as designated diners after two of our original guests were striken by stomach flu. It was a marvelous, casual evening and so fun to share all my cooking adventures with you.