meatballs with pappardelle- may 31

Sometimes when you have a craving, you just have to give in. Right?

Actually, let me restate that. Always when I have a craving, I have to give in. Don't judge me.

Therefore, when Hunter and I were in a pasta shop in Brooklyn on Saturday and saw fresh pappardelle for sale, we just had to buy it and figure out what it would go with from our Ad Hoc cookbook. This week, we would pick the recipes and control our own destiny rather than letting a random flip determine our menu.

Menu- May 31
meatballs with pappardelle (p. 50)
endive and arugula salad with peaches and marcona almonds (p. 140)

We started this weekend's adventure by making the Oven-Roasted Tomato Sauce (p. 333). Though the recipe took 2 hours, it was so simple and hands off that we barely had to think about it. Onions, leeks, fennel, and garlic went into the oven with some olive oil in an oven-proof pot. Then brown sugar and vinegar. And then San Marzano tomatoes, some pureed and some just chopped. That's it! Just some basic ingredients and a little love and out comes a deliciously sweet and chunky tomato sauce.

While the tomato sauce was cooking in the oven, we prepared the meatballs: a mixture of beef, pork, and veal with lots of fresh herbs, and just enough egg and breadcrumbs to hold everything together. We had leftover panko crumbs from the previous week so we substituted those in for the homemade bread crumbs. A small piece of fresh mozzarella was stuffed into the center of each of the meatballs and they were ready to go into the oven.

Chef Keller provides a recipe to make the pappardelle from scratch but I'm not convinced that it's worth the effort. Especially because I don't have a pasta roller and since great Italian specialty shops in NYC offer the fresh pasta made already...or maybe I'm just making excuses. Maybe one of these days...

Anyways, the meatballs took a little more time than directed (about 10 more minutes in the oven), but boy did they taste delicious. They just melted in my mouth. mmmmmmmmm.

We decided to pair our meatballs with a crisp and refreshing salad and chose the endive and arugula salad. The dressing was a vinaigrette composed of peach puree (we bought pureed peaches sold as baby food and added some cinnamon and lemon juice), shallots, parsley, and vinegar. After that, we just had to toss the endive and arugula and add in the peaches and almonds and we were ready to eat!

Yuck or Yum
meatballs with pappardelle: d- "these meatballs are incredible. I wish the mozzerella had melted a little more into the meat...perhaps next time we set the oven slightly lower and cook them for a little longer. I really liked the tomato sauce- the flavors really came together well while the sauce was cooking in the oven." h- "The flavors were great together, but the cheese could have been more melty. I also would have preferred the tomato sauce to be less chunky; next time i'd probably elect to puree both cans."
endive and arugula salad with peaches and marcona almonds: d- "yum! the sweetness of the peaches (although they could have been slightly sweeter) paired really nicely with the bitterness of the endive and arugula and the almonds added the perfect note of buttery crunch!" h-"i added too much dressing to the salad, but when I was able to get a well balanced bite with all the components and not too much dressing, this dish was outstanding."

Pan-roasted chicken with sweet sausage and peppers- May 16

 "Have fun going home to cook for 4 hours!" said James B as Hunter and I parted on Saturday afternoon. We were headed to my place to finish making the soffrito (p. 263) for the peperonata rustica (p.208) we needed for Sunday's dinner. That's right...four-hour prep the day before. This had better be worth it.

Menu - May 16
- Pan-roasted chicken with sweet sausages and peppers (p.20)
- Broccolini salad with burrata cheese (p. 144)
- Blueberry cobbler (p. 295)

We started out by making the Soffrito, a four-hour recipe (which we ended up putting off until really early on Sunday morning). The kitchen smelled amazing as the onions, tomatoes, and garlic slowly stewed together over the low, low heat.

Next was to put together the Peperonata Rustica, which is composed of roasted red and yellow peppers stewed with the soffrito. Again, another recipe that took 2 hours! We started out by roasting the peppers with olive oil and salt.

After roasting, we put the peppers in a covered pot so the skins would separate from the peppers. Then, the skins were hand-peeled from the peppers, which were combined with chicken stock and soffrito and cooked together so the flavors would coalesce into a sweet, delicious mixture.

Meanwhile, the chicken (cut from a whole chicken bought at the farmers market and brined for a few hours) was pan-roasted with the sweet sausages.

The meat was tucked into the peppers, and popped into the oven to warm and let the flavors combine for a few minutes...et voila!  Pan-roasted chicken with sweet sausage and peppers!

The broccolini salad was a quick and easy. The broccolini was blanched and shocked while we used our mandolin to thinly slice the mushrooms and onions. We whipped up the sherry vinaigrette (though we really used red-wine vinegar) and tossed together the vegetables. We couldn't find burrata cheese, which is a pouch of fresh mozz with a center of creamy, rich cheese, so instead we subbed fresh ricotta cheese we picked up from Lucy's Whey in Chelsea Market at the recommendation of the cheesemonger. His love for the ricotta was a bit too evident as he described the pleasure the cheese would bring us.

For dessert, Miss Annie B made the Blueberry Cobbler. Since blueberries were still a little out of season, she subbed some of them out for blackberries and raspberries. The fruit was tossed with sugar, flour, and lemon zest and then topped with biscuit-like batter. They went into the oven, which the directions said would take 40 minutes, but ended up taking almost double that. The result was truly delicious!

Yuck or Yum
- Pan-roasted chicken with sweet sausages and peppers (p.20):
d- YUMMM! I've always loved sausage and peppers, so it wasn't surprising that this would be delicious. I'm not sure I would spend another 4 hours making the Soffrito from scratch...you can buy it in a jar, so that's what I would use next time.
h- I liked it a lot. It was tasty and I even liked the peppers! Not sure the time/money spent was ultimately worth it, but still a tasty dish.
annie- Yum. Really tasty and flavorful, loved the combo of the different types of peppers.
amy- yum yum yum. The chicken had a nice flavor from the pan, and was moist because it was finished in the oven. The combination of the chicken, sausage, and peppers accounted for a wonderful contrast of flavors that went very well together.
- Broccolini salad with burrata cheese (p. 144):
d- Sooo good. The cheese was delicious and creamy with just a hint of sweetness. The cheese really gave a nice creamy balance to the tartness of the vinaigrette and the slight bitterness of the broccolini.
h- The veggies themselves were really tasty, but together with the cheese the dish came together well.
annie- Yum. So good, didn't know I liked broccolini so much! The ricotta was a great complement.
amy- blanched to perfection :) Very crisp and fresh-tasting from the light dressing of olive oil and vinegar. The ricotta gave the broccolini a more complex flavor of added sweetness.
- Blueberry cobbler (p. 295):
d- simply delicious, especially paired with vanilla ice cream. I would have preferred the cake batter to be a little sweeter but this was still a winner!
h- awesome. a great way to usher in the summer season!
annie- Next time I would try making it in two smaller pans.
amy- Not overwhelmingly sweet in the best possible way. Perfect balance of berries, pastry, and vanilla ice cream!

Chicken Soup with Dumplings- May 9

What is it about chicken soup that makes me feel so comfortable? Just thinking about inhaling a big whiff then swallowing a spoonful of the stuff makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

A good chicken soup should be in every home cook's arsenal...and it was my time to learn to make one. I had tried Keller's chicken soup at Bouchon Bakery before and knew that his chicken soup recipe is the one that I wanted to make my own.

So when Hunter and I set out to make our own chicken soup, we decided that we'd do it right. We'd start by making the stock from scratch rather than using canned broth. Chicken bones, cold water, carrots, onion, and leek stewing together for about an hour and our kitchen smelled like home.

The next day we finished the soup with more veggies and then a little roux to thicken the soup and add some creaminess. While the soup simmered away, Hunter set out to make the dumplings.

The first attempt to make the dough turned out to be a bit more challenging than anticipated. The result was a watery, clumpy mess. So we tossed it out and tried again. We're not really sure what we did differently the second time, but boy did it look great!

The dumplings went into the soup along with the shredded chicken and voila! Delicious, creamy, soul-warming chicken soup! Phil was so blown away, he shed a single tear of happiness.

To complete the meal, we decided to take a stab at our first Thomas Keller dessert: Apple Fritters.

 

The batter was simple and prepping the apples took no time at all. We dropped our matchsticks of apples into the batter, and then into the hot oil. They browned up nicely, but were still a little soggy. I think we need a proper thermometer to make sure our oil isn't too hot. Anyways, at least they looked pretty.

Just for fun, we decided to try frying up some girl scout cookies we had in the kitchen.

tagalongs & thin mints

this is why you're fat. yum.

Yuck or Yum
-Chicken Soup with Dumplings:
d-"Glorious. So good and really incredible how little salt went into it. I'm ready to make it my own recipe."
h-"Chicken soup exceeded my taste expectations as did the dumplings. I think a higher dumpling to soup ratio would be good, but that's just me. All in all, very tasty combination."
p-"The dumplings were tender and fantastic. I thought they might either (x) chewy or (y) uncooked, but in fact they were simply delicious. The soup was also perfectly salted I thought. The addition of the pre-cooked rotiserrie chicken made complete sense (I am kind of in love with those)."
r-"The soup has an almost gravy like viscosity. When eaten with the toasted baguette, felt like a deconstructed chicken pot pie. Amazing!!!!"
-Apple Fritters:
d-"They looked great and tasted great but lacked the crispiness I was hoping for. Next time we'll have to get a proper oil thermometer to make sure our oil is the right temp."
h-"I don't know if the oil needs to be hotter, if they need to be cooked longer, or if they need some post-oil toasting in the oven, but they could definitely be a bit crispier. It didn't help their cause either that they were upstaged by the impromptu appearance of Thin Mints and Tagalongs. Those sorta stole the show."
p-"As far as stand alone "fritter" is concerned, they were soggy and slightly bland. As far as being warm apples that you might expect to find in an apple pie, they were pretty damn good. And since we ate them in a bowl of ice cream, they were pretty damn good."
r-"I think the batter could have used some added sugar and spice(maybe cinnamon?). Also needed to really fry the apples quite a bit to get the crispy outer shell. Frying girl scout cookies in the same batter was a great bonus prize!"

may 2- crab cakes

aka: Learning How to Read

Whenever Hunter and I cook, I make sure he reads the recipe completely through before we start cooking. There's nothing worse than starting to cook a dish and then realizing that you're going to need to marinate parts of the dish for a few hours, or that you needed to prepare parts of the dish the day before. I make a pretty big stink if he hasn't read the recipe before we start cooking.

This week I learned I need to follow my own advice.

After skimming through the recipes a few times, I saw that we wouldn't need to prepare anything the night before and we could cook everything the day of.

Menu- May 2
- crab cakes p. 83
- creamed summer corn p. 189
- sweet potato chips p. 232

The crab cakes were pretty simple: cook up some finely diced onions and peppers, mix all the ingredients together, form little balls of crab cake, and pan fry. I started to mix all the ingredients together, but definitely missed the step where I was supposed add in the onion mixture and then I goofed AGAIN when I started to pour in all of the panko crumbs.

oopsies. my bad. insert foot into mouf.

The crab cakes (luckily) still turned out super tasty. I'd like to try this again when we have the sweet and savory flavor of the onions and peppers and with less breadcrumbs inside the crab cakes and instead breading the outside to create a nice and crunchy exterior.

Hunter, meanwhile, had read the instructions for his recipes and was diligently following them to create the creamed summer corn and sweet potato chips.

The sweet potato chips gave Hunter another chance to practice his mandolin slicing skills...he's becoming quite the mandolin-slicing ninja! The chips fried up nicely and were finished with a touch of kosher salt. Light and crispy- yum!

The creamed summer corn came out looking spectacular. We cut a few corners since it's still spring and used frozen corn. Let me do you a favor when you make this recipe: do not use frozen corn. Blech. The texture was chewy and caused the dish to turn out pretty badly. We'll have to try this sucker again when the corn is in season, fresh, and sweet. Lesson learned.

Yuck or Yum:
- crab cakes: d-"very tasty, but I bet if I had followed the recipe more closely, these would have turned out even better!" h- "d made a mistake by telling me that she made a mistake; I never would have known. Awesome even with the missed steps. We'll just call it improvisation on her part!"
- creamed summer corn: d- "yuck- I really couldn't enjoy this dish, but I'm not goign to put fault on the recipe...it's because we didn't use fresh corn." h-"Not sure if it was the frozen corn or me overcooking, but the texture was definitely weird. Silver lining: you could definitely tell that if cooked right this dish would be great. The lime flavor complemented the corn well--we'll give this one another try down the road."
- sweet potato chips: d- *crunch* *crunch* (too good to stop eating to tell you how much I loved these) h-"Sweet potatoes, you complete me. Make sure to salt as soon as they're out of the oil, otherwise it won't stick"

wild cod en persillade- april 25, 2010

There's nothing better than exploring a city through its foods. Anyone who has ever traveled with me knows that I first pick out where I want to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner and then I figure how to fill the time and work up an appetite in between meals. And when you come to new york city to visit me...you had better believe I'm going to take you on a tour to show off the most delicious and interesting foods that new york city has to offer!

This weekend with my friend, Margaret, in town visiting me and Annie, we traversed the city for its most exciting offerings, enjoying everything from montreal bagels to macarons and lobster rolls to bacon cupcakes (yes! maple bacon cupcakes!)

On her final day in the city, we visited Chelsea Market to poke around (and sample super yummy popsicles from people's pops) and so I could pick up the necessary items for this week's menu.

How does one properly draw an end to a weekend culinary journey through the streets of nyc? I'll tell you how. End it with this meal:

Menu: April 25, 2010
- wild cod en persillade (p 95)
- cream of cauliflower soup with red beet chips (p 127)
- grilled asparagus with prosciutto, fried bread, poached egg, and aged balsamic vinegar (p 156)

We had the distinct pleasure of welcoming our friend, Phil "I'll prove to you my mouth is way bigger than you by sticking this gingerbread house chimney covered in red hots into my mouth" Powers.

We started by preparing the cauliflower soup. It was pretty straight forward: cut up the cauliflower and leeks, add in some cream, milk, and water and allow to cook until the cauliflower is tender, and puree. Interestingly, the recipe called for a dash of yellow curry powder. Surprisingly enough, the finished soup had no curry taste at all. Just creamy cauliflower deliciousness.


We fried up some beet chips, sauteed a few pieces of cauliflower, and added homemade garlic croutons to bring texture to the soup. The final product looked and tasted absolutely phenomenal.

Next, we got working on the cod. It was such a simple recipe: brush on a tiny bit of dijon mustard and bread with homemade breadcrumbs and fresh parsley. Sear in a pan for a minute, and pop into the oven for another 8 minutes and voila! flavorful, tender, flakey cod. I improvised a bit and breaded the entire fish rather than just one side.

While the cod was in the oven, we cooked up the asparagus and took our first stab at poaching eggs. It was a bit touch and go at the start but we finally figured out the right water temp, rate of water swirl, and fishing method to create perfectly poached eggs. We were so excited about successfully poaching the eggs that we forgot to finish the dish with the balsamic vinegar. I guess that gives us an excuse to give it another go on this dish! Luckily, the dish didn't feel like it was missing anything at all- with the crisp, green asparagus paired with the salty, smokey prosciutto and the velvety, creamy egg yolk all mixed in together in every bite.

For dessert, we devoured an entire box of delicious macarons from Madeleine Patisserie. First, the boys had a competition to see who could correctly guess the most flavors based purely on sight. It was an intense match but in the end, everyone came out winners. Incredibly stuffed winners.

We were very pleased with this meal. Hunter stated that it's one of his favorites. He's nervous about next week...scared it might be a let down after how awesome this week went. Fingers crossed that we'll continue to pick out the good recipes!

Phil's soup plating-

Yuck or Yum
- wild cod en persillade: d-"i really enjoyed this dish. The fish had great flavor and texture and was such a quick dish to prepare!" h-"I like that it didn’t have a fishy taste. It was super moist and very flavorful. I can’t imagine it being any better" p-"Perfectly done."
- cream of cauliflower soup with red beet chips:d-"I LOVE cauliflower soup and this was certainly an outstanding soup. The beet chips didn't really do anything for me except to add a splash of color to the dish. I liked the flavor and crunch the croutons brought to the soup." h-"Incredible. I’d be okay with swapping out the cauliflower florets with more croutons and the beet chips probably could have gone in the oven to crisp up for a few minutes." p-"The soup was good…those croutons MADE the soup. The smell of the kitchen after they were made was incredible. I didn’t know that garlic and cauliflower even go together."
- grilled asparagus with prosciutto, fried bread, poached egg, and aged balsamic vinegar: d-"mmm...good. I'm interested to try this again with the balsamic vinegar, though I think it may not be necessary since i enjoyed this dish so much." h-"The asparagus was a little “al dente” for my taste but still good." p-"asparagus could have been cooked a bit longer, but it was still good. Poached eggs could have used some seasoning"

Crispy Chicken Thighs + Scallion Potato Cakes + Brussels Spouts - April 18

We're back and we're getting serious again.  We took the night off two weekends ago for Easter (okay that's a lie...we took the night off for the opening night of the MLB season) and last weekend we only made a side dish.

But this week, we're back and we mean business! What's the business we're dealing in?

Crispy Braised Chicken Thighs with olives, lemon, and fennel (p 30)
Scallion Potato Cakes (p 230)
Brussels Sprouts with Brown Butter and Sage (here)

We also brought in some muscle in the form of the cookbook-gifter herself, Annie! There were three of us in the kitchen and three dishes.  We'd split up and each take on a dish and meet at the end of the road with our dinner plates and appetites on the ready.

Hunter took on the Scallion Potato Cakes and christened our new mandolin slicer. The potatoes were peeled, jullienned, and fried into their ultimate glory.

No, I'm not exaggerating.  Tell me what the best way to prepare potatoes is.  That's right...fried in crispy, delicious cakes.

Annie took on the brussels sprouts.  Why didn't we use the brussels sprouts recipe in the Ad Hoc book?  Well, we couldn't find Kohlrabi (apparently it's akin to cabbage) so we tried out a different recipe we recently stumbled across.

This was our last hurrah with the brussels sprouts before they go out of season. They started out a brilliant green and became even more vibrant after a quick blanche and swim in an ice bath.

The brown butter sauce was simple and extremely tasty. The recipe yielded twice as much sauce as we needed. I saved the sauce and will be enjoying it with pasta later this week.

The sage was fried up and added atop as the finishing touch.

I took on the chicken thighs, which were unfortunately devoid of their skins. Even so, they browned nicely in the pan.

Next step was to create the braising sauce with a base of garlic, onions, and fennel. Once they were nicely softened, we added some white wine, chicken broth, lemon peels, and green olives. The colors looked great together!

The chicken thighs went back into the fragrant sauce and the dish went into the oven for a nice braise and came out looking and smelling delicious.

Our final presentation:

To finish our meal, we treated ourselves to mini cupcakes from Kumquat Cupcakery, a fantastic vendor at the Brooklyn Flea.

All in all, this was a glorious return back to our Ad Hoc Sundays. drool...

Yuck or Yum:
Crispy Braised Chicken Thighs with olives, lemon, and fennel (p 30): d-"A solid recipe that will definitely be repeated. The chicken was so tender and flavorful...and tasted even better the next day as leftovers." h-"Really tasty, especially the sauce, but I bet I would have loved it more with the skin. Eating chicken thighs with bones was a new experience." a-"Delicious! The chicken was perfectly cooked and flavorful."
Scallion Potato Cakes (p 230): d-"so glad we were able to finally use my new mandolin slicer! a good side, though we probably should have drained them on paper towels after taking them out of the pan."h- "A little oily and I preferred the thicker cakes better. The mandolin slicer really made them the perfect consistency." a-"Nice and crispy, perfect with the chicken."
Brussels Sprouts with Brown Butter and Sage: d-"I love me some brussels sprouts, but I could have done without the fried sage leaves and the butter sauce, though delicious, masked the true delicious flavor of the brussels sprouts." h-"The sauce made these awesome. Perfectly paired with the chicken." a-"Lots of extra sauce, which wasn't a bad thing, because it was so good. I didn't think the fried sage added much, so if I made again I would probably skip it."

Summer Vegetable Gratin- April 11

This past Sunday, Hunter and I were invited over to Anne Marie's new, beautiful, "i'm-ridiculously-jealous-of-how-much-sunlight-and-space-you-have-in-nyc" apartment. We were having a pot luck dinner to celebrate her birthday.

Hunter and I signed up to bring a side dish and prepared a bright, colorful dish to match the bright, colorful personality of our dinner party: Summer Vegetable Gratin (p. 202)

Now, we were a little nervous about preparing and blogging about this dish because:
1- Thomas Keller accompanies this recipe in the book with a brilliant, glossy two-page photo spread of this dish broken down (talk about some pressure to make our dish look good)
2- Our friends, Phil & Marie (who decided to purchase this cookbook after hearing me rave about it for weeks) cooked up this dish successfully the week before (that would be embarrassing if after all my talk about blogging through this cookbook this ended in the same demise as our aioli attempt).
3- We were going to be sharing this with our friends and frankly, were going to be cutting it close on time.  There was no room for error on this one.

Luckily, our dish turned out beautifully.

I've never found it difficult to get lots of veggies into my diet, but with Hunter it's the other way around.  He was a little skeptical whether he'd really enjoy a dish made with so many veggies, included tomatoes (definitely not high up on his list), and had so little cheese.

We hand-sliced all of the veggies: roma tomatoes, butternut squash, zucchini, and japanese eggplant.  I was excited about using my brand-new mandolin slicer only to realize with utmost disappointment that its settings sliced veggies that were too thin for this dish.  At least I got to work on my knife skills.

Hunter carefully layered the veggies in our baking dish and topped each layer with parmesan cheese and fresh breadcrumbs we made from a loaf of duckfat-garlic-bread (yes...duckfat).

...we threw it in the oven, et voila! DELICIOUS summer vegetable gratin!

Over at Anne Marie's, we popped open some bubbly, sat down at her new dining table, and enjoyed our dish with Anne Marie's flavor-packed sausage and peppers and asparagus.  yum.

 

Yuck or Yum:
Summer Vegetable Gratin (p 202): d- "really incredible. definitely a dish I'd make when entertaining company. I'd probably include more onions and watch them more closely so they don't come as close to burning!" h-"surprised how much i liked it.  i could have done without the tomatoes. maybe we could have replaced them with another veggie."