What's cooking?

[Cynthia Wenslow]

He must have bought a ton of that Ogier originally!

Oh, I think maybe 2 or 3 bottles from each vintage.

[Jenise]

Tonight, Alaska Airlines is cooking dinner.

Tomorrow we'll be dining at Morimoto. In Waikiki.

[Howie Hart]

Tonight, Alaska Airlines is cooking dinner.

Tomorrow we'll be dining at Morimoto. In Waikiki.

I'll be there in about 3-1/2 weeks.

[Cynthia Wenslow]

Sweet Potato and Pea Curry. Recipe here.

[Cynthia Wenslow]

Shortbread, pre-baking. (Taken with Hipstamatic app. The most fun you can have for $1.99!)

[Mike Filigenzi]

Nice, Cyn! Now all you need to do is cover them with red icing and place the little blue dot in the middle for Austin...

[Christina Georgina]

From Michael Chiarello's Tra Vigne Cookbook, the fennel spice crusted shrimp on a citrus salad. Bravo ! I was very skeptical but I had made the fennel spice mix- fennel, coriander, white pepper, salt- for a pork dish and wanted to use the remaining mix. Seared in olive oil and finished off in the oven and then plated warm on a bed of fresh watercress [ fresh from a snow covered patch ] with orange and pomelo segments dressed with the citrus juices, olive oil, salt and black pepper. Served it as a first course for a friends birthday dinner. Preceded by this year's homemade caviar served in an avocado. The main was fazoletti , large,thin pasta squares stuffed with asparagus sauced with a truffled cream. Dessert was chocolate nemesis from the River Cafe. A nice evening.

[Robin Garr]

Sweet Potato and Pea Curry. Recipe here.

Wait! What is that green leaf in the middle of that bowl?

[Mike Filigenzi]

Tonight, we had pan-seared swordfish over couscous. Also made some roasted baby carrots glazed with orange juice and chili flakes and finished with mint leaves and orange peel. And because they were at the market this morning, we also had sauteed rape greens with a chorizo.

[Paul Winalski]

Cynthia,

Thanks for the link to the curry recipe. A question: the recipe you pointed us to says "1/2 coriander". I assume that should be "1/2 tsp coriander"?

-Paul W.

[Cynthia Wenslow]

Thanks for the link to the curry recipe. A question: the recipe you pointed us to says "1/2 coriander". I assume that should be "1/2 tsp coriander"?

Oops! Yes, Paul. thanks for catching that.

[Cynthia Wenslow]

Wait! What is that green leaf in the middle of that bowl?

Obviously that is flat leaf parsley standing in for the Herb That Shall Not Be Named!

[Robin Garr]

Wait! What is that green leaf in the middle of that bowl?

Obviously that is flat leaf parsley standing in for the Herb That Shall Not Be Named!

Upon closer examination, I suspected you had thrown in the ersatz in place of The Right Stuff. For a second there, it gave me a klong, though.

[Jenise]

Got home from Hawaii this morning (we flew a red eye) and immediately put the bao my Chinese-Hawaiian surrogate mom sent home with us in the toaster oven. Two kinds: char sui and what she calls vegetable, which was mostly wood ear mushroom and cabbage. Honestly, it is the best bao on the planet. Nothing I've ever had in a Chinese restaurant comes even halfway to being close. My god, she's a great cook.

Ten minutes after eating that, we went to bed. When I got up, I discovered that the lump of meat I took out of the freezer had not been the pork-loin I believed it be in my bleary, travel-weary state, it was a whole chunk of beef filet, the chateaubriand, I'd been saving for a special occasion. F word! So just now I cut out two nice 6 ounce filets, and sliced the rest more thinly and put those in a storage container to which I added garlic, chili flakes, peppercorns, bay leaf, lots of fresh garlic and red wine to cover. That lot will cure for about a week, and then I'll pound the steaks thin, dredge in flour and pan fry--the best chicken-fried steak ever, that will be.

[Jeff Grossman/NYC]

Chicken-friend Chateaubriand? OK....

[Cynthia Wenslow]

the best chicken-fried steak ever, that will be.

I could eat that.

[Jenise]

Chicken-friend Chateaubriand? OK....

I know! But I was kinda stuck, and the result will be quite wonderful. It's a trick I learned living in Saudi Arabia, when the only fresh meat at our camp commissary was, oddly, whole Aussie tenderloins. I did not like the flavor of the Aussie meat and resorted to this method in order to have not wasted what I spent. (The wine was homemade stuff we could brew up in 30 days from bottled German grape juice.) It became our go-to quick meal, always had a container going in the fridge.

[Jeff Grossman/NYC]

Well, please remember to give us a report! It's funny but, sometimes, using a "better" cut does not work for a particular recipe -- the old joke about making a Kir Royale with fine vintage champagne -- so I am curious whether the softer chew works in the dish.

[Mike Filigenzi]

Whipped up a risotto with Niman Ranch ham and some local asparagus. It was a delicious risotto, but the asparagus was so young and mild that it really should have just been quickly steamed and eaten out of hand. It got a little lost in the mix even though all I put in was the asparagus, ham, some parmigiano, and S&P. Fortunately, there's more asparagus where that came from.

[Jenise]

Well, please remember to give us a report! It's funny but, sometimes, using a "better" cut does not work for a particular recipe -- the old joke about making a Kir Royale with fine vintage champagne -- so I am curious whether the softer chew works in the dish.

You and I are on different paths of the same wavelength. Overnight I started worrying about this. But not the meat component so much as the wine. I have no idea what the alcohol level was in our homemade Saudi 'wine', but it was probably lucky to hit 10%. And of course the "good" wine I used, about 90% bourgogne and 10% Paso Robles cabernet, is going to be three to four percent higher. That could contribute to overtenderizing the meat if I left it there as long as I used to.

[Frank Deis]

Tonight -- not exactly gourmet, but I made a version of Chicken Cordon Bleu. Thin sliced chicken breast, low fat sliced Jarlsberg, Costco sliced ham.

Pounded the 3 layers between layers of wax paper, dipped in egg (fake egg), dipped in flour, fried brown. Heinz Chili Sauce a welcome addition.

Not exactly bragging about this but it was satisfying.

What is planned is much better. There are 2 recipes for Daube du Boeuf in Mastering the Art of French Cooking volumes 1 and 2. Volume 2 has the recipe for a whole beef roast "Drunk Roast." Volume 1 has the recipe for cubed up beef. That is the one I plan to make for Saturday. Today I thawed 3.5 pounds of chuck from Costco, very pretty stuff. Tomorrow I marinate. Saturday is the cooking.

Here is a question. In Volume 1, Julia Child seems a little out of focus, she suggests adding cognac "or gin" to the marinade, and red wine "or vermouth"...

Martiini beef!?!?!?

And she suggests risotto as a side dish. I =love= risotto, and I =love= cooking risotto -- but risotto is not going to be a good foil for this rich stew, something that will absorb the juices and show them off. Is She Wrong!? I can see plain rice working well. Should I go ahead and make a stellar, saffron rich risotto, maybe with some marrow. Oooooh. Or is this just wrong?

[Carrie L.]

the best chicken-fried steak ever, that will be.

I could eat that.

Cynthia, you are from New Mexico if I recall...
Is Chicken Fried Steak a New Mexican "thing"? We stayed over in Tucumcari in our RV on our way East and ate in a local restaurant who said it was their specialty. Just curious since we are talking about it... I always assumed it was a deep south dish, but maybe I am wrong.

[Jenise]

Tonight -- not exactly gourmet, but I made a version of Chicken Cordon Bleu. Thin sliced chicken breast, low fat sliced Jarlsberg, Costco sliced ham.

Pounded the 3 layers between layers of wax paper, dipped in egg (fake egg), dipped in flour, fried brown. Heinz Chili Sauce a welcome addition.

Not exactly bragging about this but it was satisfying.

What is planned is much better. There are 2 recipes for Daube du Boeuf in Mastering the Art of French Cooking volumes 1 and 2. Volume 2 has the recipe for a whole beef roast "Drunk Roast." Volume 1 has the recipe for cubed up beef. That is the one I plan to make for Saturday. Today I thawed 3.5 pounds of chuck from Costco, very pretty stuff. Tomorrow I marinate. Saturday is the cooking.

Here is a question. In Volume 1, Julia Child seems a little out of focus, she suggests adding cognac "or gin" to the marinade, and red wine "or vermouth"...

Martiini beef!?!?!?

And she suggests risotto as a side dish. I =love= risotto, and I =love= cooking risotto -- but risotto is not going to be a good foil for this rich stew, something that will absorb the juices and show them off. Is She Wrong!? I can see plain rice working well. Should I go ahead and make a stellar, saffron rich risotto, maybe with some marrow. Oooooh. Or is this just wrong?

Two answers: Julia's early interpretations of French recipes ran up against a lot of problems where alcohol was concerned, as the average American housewife she was writing for did not have good wine around to cook with. And she wasn't exactly a wine geek herself--I've not seen the red suggested as a substitute before, but I have seen her suggest white vermouth (without specifying 'dry') as a good substitute for a good white table wine, in spite of their vastly different flavors. You see her discuss this a lot on the early TV shows. IIRC, what she especially feared someone resorting to were those dreadful 'cooking wines'.

And I agree with you that risotto would be wrong, too rich. Wouldn't do it! My favorite starch for stews this days is a 1" thick slice of grilled or toasted soft 'french' bread.

[Christina Georgina]

Check Julia's risotto recipe...it is NOT the standard Italian risotto and it might be OK with the daube. I make it when I'm in a hurry but want rice. The liquid/rice ratio [2:1 ]is way too much. One other suggestion would be tuscan semolina gnocchi.
Totally agree with Jenise's comments about Julia and wine. It is invariably good for a laugh to read her suggestions as they are usually way off. The era ? Her lack of wine savvy ?