My latest Seattlest restaurant post is now up: Ayutthaya Thai Cuisine
This time I’m dining on rich and creamy Coconut Chicken and Pud See-Ewe.
http://www.seattlest.com/archives/2005/08/19/relish_ayutthaya_thai_cuisine.php
I’m simultaneously curious and very, very scared:
http://www.flavorspraydiet.com/flavors.html
(via Blog on a Toothpick)
consumed on 7/21/05
The latest Cooking Club was hosted by Culinary Fool and she chose the theme “Tapas to Meze”. She had recently purchased a book called From Tapas to Meze: Small Plates from the Mediterranean
Normally we divide up the dinner so that someone does appetizers, someone brings salad, someone makes the main course, etc., but this time everyone was assigned a region from the Mediterranean. I was in charge of the Levant. I had also bought a copy of From Tapas to Meze
Here’s what we ended up with:
Spain: Gazpacho
A pureed tomato soup with all the fixin’s: beautiful croutons, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, onions and peppers.
North Africa: Bisteeya
A typical Moroccan appetizer that consists of ground chicken (or more traditionally, pigeon) stuffed inside a pocket of phyllo dough and topped with powdered sugar. Very unusual and very tasty.
The Levant: Baked Stuffed Eggplant to Make a Priest Faint
My eggplant dish was stuffed with onions, tomatoes, currents and lots of “dessert” spices like allspice and cinnamon. My only complaint was that it seemed a touch undercooked and just a bit sweet (honey was called for, but I would omit this next time). Considering this was a completely vegetarian dish, it was pretty damn good.
Italy: Homemade Mozzarella with Basil and Tomatoes
The homemade mozzarella didn’t turn out quite how M wanted it to, but she planned ahead and had also bought some absolutely gorgeous goat cheese mozzarella from a farmers’ market. It was layered with perfectly ripe tomatoes and fresh, tender basil.
Southern France: Gnocchi with Roquefort Cream
This dish absolutely blew me away. Growing up Italian (or at least 1/4 Italian), we always made the Christmas gnocchi with potatoes. Apparently, in France, it’s made from milk, butter, flour and eggs—like a cream puff dough. The result was impossibly light and airy gnocchi, smothered in rich, salty and pungent Roquefort cream. I can’t wait to try this dish out on my mom!
We have some great entries for the virtual 40’s-70’s party!
So Retro: Sandwich Loaf
http://www.foodmigration.com/ 2005/08/so-retro-sandwich-loaf.html
Pineapple Upside-down Cake
http://80breakfasts.blogspot.com/ 2005/08/virtual-40s-70s-party-pineapple-upside.html
Swedish Meatballs
http://seriouslygood.kdweeks.com/ 2005/08/swedish-meatballs.html
Spiced Tomato Aspic
https://www.iheartbacon.com/index.php?id=286
Snowy Chicken Confetti Salad
http://deepfry.blogspot.com/2005/08/swell-evening_15.html
Also, don’t forget to check out the entries to the Does My Blog Look Tacky in This? contest!
The party was a success—even though a few of the dishes decidedly weren’t…
For my contribution, I made a Spiced Tomato Aspic from “The ABC of Salads” cookbook. It ended up looking like congealed blood and tasting like straight tomato paste; it was so tomato-y that I could barely finish one bite. I also made a Red Hot Salad, which was even worse than the tomato aspic! Luckily the last dish I made—Pork Roast from the “Siamese Cookery” cookbook, turned out amazing. I cooked the roast in my doufeu and the pork was rendered, yet again, meltingly tender. The pork had very subtle Asian flavors, but it was delicious. I will definitely be making this recipe again!
For drinks, I served Crater Lake Vodka and Plymouth Gin martinis and boxed wine. I had a hard time deciding which boxed wine to buy, so I went with the cutest packaging. Considering it was Chardonnay AND from a box, I was pretty impressed. The wine was very drinkable and inexpensive, and the next day, I was happy there weren’t any bottles to take out to the recycling.
To round out the menu, my guests brought:
Rumaki (marinated chicken livers and water chestnuts wrapped in bacon), which were really delicious and a huge hit
Celery sticks filled with Kaukauna cheese spread and cream cheese
Tuna noodle casserole, with potato chip topping!
A delicious coffee cake
Coconut cake, with a meringue frosting
Orange Jell-O with canned mandarin oranges and cool whip topping
Even though not all the recipes turned out, we still had a great time and it was fun to test out some strange recipes. Now I’m toying with the idea of recreating TV dinner menus, like Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes and those strange and oddly delicious desserts.
Siamese Cookery Pork Roast
4 pounds pork shoulder
pineapple rind
2 teaspoons cumin
6 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons salt
4 tablespoons soy sauce
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
6 tablespoons brown sugar
6 tablespoons parsley, chopped
1. Mix together cumin, garlic, pepper and salt and rub into the roast. Place rind of pineapple over roast, cover and bake at 300 for 3.5 hours.
2. When roast is done, remove and discard pineapple rind. De-fat the liquid and return to the pot. Combine soy, vinegar, brown sugar and parsley and pour over roast. Cook, uncovered for another 30-45 minutes, basting every 15 minutes.
My latest restaurant post is up at Seattlest: Black Bottle
A great new “gastro-tavern” in Belltown:
http://www.seattlest.com/archives/2005/08/12/relish_black_bottle.php
consumed on 8/12/05
The Sunset Supper at the Market is an annual fundraising event for the Market Foundation which takes place in the Pike Place Market. It was my first time attending an event here and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. The main street was closed off to car traffic and was filled with restaurant vendors, tables and a stage.
The gates opened at 7pm and we were there by 6pm, but there was already a line of at least sixty people. My astute friend noticed there was a second entrance listed on the map. We took a chance and walked down to find that there were only five people waiting in that line. Score!
When the gates opened we got our little plates and started meandering through the booths. At first there weren’t too many people around and we loaded up on food and found an area to stand while we sampled the food. Our second round of foraging fared much worse. By this time there was a sea of people and we were standing in lines for ten to fifteen minutes just to get a sample bite of something. Luckily after round two we were pretty full so we found a spot to sit and listen to the band.
About an hour or so before the event ended we decided to check out the desserts. This was probably the best part because almost everyone had left at this point, so we were able to sneak into the reserved seating areas and sit down with our desserts.
I think there were about seventy food and drink vendors, but we only made it to the following:
Canlis / Canlis Salad – Romaine, bacon, Myzithra and Romano cheeses with a minty lemon dressing. Very good, but extra points for serving the salad on skewers which made it easy to eat
Brasa / Bbq’d Smoked Brisket – decent, but not outstanding
The Art Institute of Seattle / Panzanella Salad – average as far as panzanella salad goes, but the students were really nice and talked about the program and restaurant
1200 Bistro / Fennel & Pork Sausage
McCormick & Schmick’s / Clams and Crab Cakes – good but generic
Dragonfish / Korean Bulgogi skirt steak – I go up and down with Dragonfish because they add sugar to everything, but this was fantastic. YUM!
Racha / Lamb Satay
Bandoleone / Yucatan marinated short ribs – good, not too sweet
DeLaurenti / Assorted cheeses – cave aged gouda was my favorite
Earth & Ocean / Rabbit terrine with white truffle oil – sounded so exotic but tasted bland
Ponti Seafood Grill / Cilantro lime scallop ceviche with habanero & grilled corn salsa
Andaluca / Chilled green gazpacho with Dungeness crab
La Panzanella / Caponata
Grand Central Bakery / Savory vegetarian swirls – Beautiful idea, poor execution as they were greasy and cold
Ten Mercer / Smoked sturgeon on crostini with herbed avocado cream cheese and roasted red pepper vinaigrette
Six Seven / Smoked black cod on crispy plantain with Asian aspic, Whidbey island micro greens – this was my favorite dish of the night
The Ruins / Chocolate dipped brownie
Etta’s / Peppermint patty chocolate cookies with peppermint cream dipped in chocolate
Procopio Gelateria / Rose gelato
Rose’s Chocolate Treasures / Gold dusted chocolate roses
icon Grill / Hot Fudge Sundaes – very good. So good that afterwards I went searching for the guy to get the recipe
I just received the following email from a friend:
I was just talking to my co-worker, who was in Vancouver last weekend. She was thanking me for recommending Vij’s to her, and said that when they ate there last Friday night they had a little chat with Vij—who said he would be in Seattle this week
SCOUTING LOCATIONS FOR A SEATTLE VIJ’S.
He’s partnering with the Wild Ginger dude, and they hope to be open sometime next year. Holy crap. I’m seriously trembling.
Anyone know the scoop? I, personally, would love to have a Vij’s in Seattle. Can you say lamb popsicles? Mmmm.
UPDATE: I just emailed Vij’s and Vikram sent a very nice reply saying that he’s coming to Seattle in September to look at spaces for a new Vij’s—and will decide after that trip. Keep your fingers crossed!
consumed on 8/2/05
“Leftovers” is such an unappealing word; it leaves an impression of undesirable, unwanted food. So when I invited my brother over for leftovers, I don’t think he had any lofty expectations. Of course when he found out the leftovers consisted of the pork I Doufeu’d (yes, I’m inventing new words) last Sunday, he was pretty excited. He made a comment about my leftovers being better than most restaurant food, which made me smile. I love my brother. He knows how to butter a sister up.
I gently reheated the roast in its tea sauce and the pork managed to become even more tender and succulent—a thing I wouldn’t have expected to be possible. To accompany the pork, I cooked some fresh, young green beans and slathered on a bit of butter and a beautiful herbed salt from Salt Traders. I also made a package of tarhonya which I had purchased from PFI a while back.
Tarhonya is a Hungarian pasta made from flour, eggs, salt and water. It’s shaped like tiny hard nuggets of barley and is an odd, not-quite-found-in-nature yellow. After some research, I discovered it’s best to brown the nuggets in butter or lard and then add broth to finishing cooking—kind of like a rice pilaf.
I browned the tarhonya in duck fat and then added chicken stock. I was worried that the pasta would get too mushy so I only cooked it for about twenty minutes. Unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly long enough because some of the nuggets were still hard and crunchy. It was good, but I think with an additional ten minutes of cooking, tarhonya might turn out to be my favorite pasta.
This gets filed under “Why didn’t I think of this?”
http://www.miniburgers.com