Finished: Salmon Brochette, Chevre Toasts & more

An update to my previous post about the dinner. It was a simple, quick, dinner but turned out very nice. The whole thing took just over an hour from entering the kitchen to chowing down. That's with zero prep in advance and a couple of pauses to enjoy the company.

Speaking of which, the wine was a Arco de Morozán (2003) from the region of Ribera del Duero; very nice. We've been trying out Ribera del Duero wines as alternatives to Riojas because now that Riojas have been discovered by America the prices have climbed over the last few years.

Chevre Toasts

I left out the olives for decoration; there wasn't really enough room for them on top of the cheese.

The salmon, salad and rice on a square IKEA plate

The salad and rice could have been place more decoratively.

Crack open a beer and we're off!
Boil a kettle of water for use with the rice later (mine's 1,6 liters [1¾ quarts]). I almost always boil a kettle while cooking because you never know when it will come in useful.

These went according to plan except for the olives and toasting the bottom of the bread somewhat less than brown so that it could finish while doing the cheese. The previous recipe is in yesterday's post.

Chevre Toasts

Ingredients

• 1 baguette [french bread]
• 200 gr chevre [goats cheese], small rounds
• 1 tomato, deskinned and brunoised
  

Procedure

1. Slice bread, crosswise, 1cm thick [1"]
   
2. Toast under the grill, one side
3. Turn and toast very lightly on the 2nd side (toasting will finish when you do the cheese)
   
4. Put on the goat cheese rounds
5. Grill these for 4 minutes (until melty and browned slightly)
   
6. Meanwhile, deskin (fillet) the tomato
7. Brunoisse the tomato meat [cube] into small evenly sized cubes
   
8. Sprinkle tomato on the cheese (use the extra tomato to decorate the salad)
• Press the tomatoes down a little so that they don't fall off during transport
  

Notes

1. Fillet the tomato by cutting off the top and base, quartering, remove the juicy center, seeds and the ribs
2. Then, with only the "meat" remaining flatten each quarter tomato and use a filleting knife to separate the good part from the skin.
3. If the goat's cheese does not brown enough (before the bread "toasts"too much) use your trusty chef's torch to brown the tops

The Vanilla Rice has more rice and less milk than in the original recipe and turned out wetter than I wanted it to. I probably should have rinsed the rice before cooking it.

Vanilla Rice

Ingredients

• ¼ C milk
• 1 vanilla pod
• 3 T oil
• 1 C rice
  
• 2 t salt
• 2 C water
  

Procedure

1. Split and scrape the vanilla pod
2. Drop vanilla guts and bean pods into milk
3. Heat until it just starts to boil
   
• Set aside for 10 minutes to infuse
  
4. Oil into a pan
   
5. Add rice, cook until translucent
6. Add salt
7. Add milk (having removed the bean pod pieces)
   
8. Add water (boiling)
   
9. Cook for 16 minutes (approx), until done or the liquid's about gone

Notes

1. Vanilla is surprisingly good complementary flavour for fish
   
2. Frying the rice a little in oil helps keep it from sticking together too much
   
3. Add the salt with the water at the start of cooking the rice; otherwise the rice won't absorb any of the salt/vanilla flavour

The Salmon Brochettes were done per the planned recipe except took a little longer than 5 minutes; more like 8. The Curried Salad went according to plan too; although I could have halved the amount of vinaigrette [dressing] I made and I probably used only 3T of curry (ran out - and a little more wouldn't have hurt). Oh, and let the vinaigrette sit while preparing the other dishes so that the spices can blend. The squeeze bottle will need to largish opening to make sure that the lime rind doesn't stick in the nozzle.

What with all those little notes about the Curried Salad I should probably just repost the whole thing.

Then there's the Lemon Cream Champagne and the Hagendas Balsamic that are still due.

Lemon Cream Champagne

Ingredients

• 1 lemon, juice of (fresh)
• ¼ C cream (light, cooking {not whipping})
• 1 Champagne (bottle or split)
• 1 T icing sugar (or another fast dissolving sugar)
  

Procedure

1. Mix champagne, cream and lemon juice together
2. Pour

Notes

1. That was blindingly easy
2. The sugar cuts the lemon acidity. I'd like to find an alternative for sugar; I'll have to do some chemical research on the topic.
   
3. This was one of those cute refreshers that you have between courses. In this case it was between dinner and dessert rather than between 2 earlier courses but that's fine, it's quite nice either way.
4. The champagne will not be super bubbly but some "champagne effect" will still be noticeable; some sort of smooth texture idea is what you'll get.
   

Hagendas Balsamic

Ingredients

• 1 tub (small) Macadamia Nut Brittle ice cream
  
• ½ C balsamic vinegar (from Modena, Italy)

Procedure

1. Reduce vinegar in a saucepan until it starts to coat the back of a spoon
   
2. Cool
3. Put into a plastic squeeze bottle
4. Squeeze over ice cream
   

Notes

1. Reduce slowly, it makes for a smoother tasting result over furious boiling
2. It will reduce to something like a third of the original volume; use a small small pan.
   
3. Oddly enough vinegar, when done this way, is sort of sweet; the acidics have been boiled off (I guess)
   
4. The selection of ice cream is up to you but I recommend a whitish product that has something resembling actual cream in it.
   

Making a "fancy"ish dinner sometimes consists of using flavours or ingredients that are not everyday choices. In this case: lime for the salmon, curry in the salad (with lime to complement the fish marinade), vanilla in the rice, champagne in the intermezzo, balsamic in the dessert.

This is a bit of a mess what with it being across two posts and with the changes and all; but that's the consequence of my thinking process and I figured I would share what a disorganized mind I have.