Spontaneous Chinese Cabbage Soup

Ingredients: Whatever is in the 'fridge

In this case...get a big pot - add oil

• fry Merluza (hake) pieces 'til done/brown a little - remove - set aside
• one sliced onion - fry - salt - soften - cover - steam for a bit
• 1/4 C hot water - deglaze, more or less, the pot
  
• 1 C carrots - sliced - into the pot - cover & steam
  
• 1 C celery - same
  
• sprig of tyme, bay leaf, celery leaf into the pot (better to wrap as boquet garnis but did not feel so inclined)
• white pepper
  
• 1C dry wh. wine - boil away the alcohol
• 75 gr of seranno ham - sliced and diced
• 10 cheery tomatoes - halved (for color)
  
• All of a chinese cabbage - slice broad (1cm) and remove core bits - steam 'til softer
• 1/2 way thru that add 1/2 L caldo de pescado - fish stock
  
• once cabbage has softened a little add 1C hot water (water up to cover the materials)
• a little more salt (softens the cabbage actually)
  
• simmer gently for an hour or so
• Put the merluza back in and bring to a poil
• reduce to a hot simmer - check salt & pepper - simmer for 5 min (hea the fish)
  
• Serve it up.

No picture- can't find the camera.

No Dinner and a Movie

Instead of dinner went to a movie.

Movie: The Aviator; Martin Scorsese - not bad, bit on the long side. Can't figure out why Alan Alda would be nominated for his performance as a senator; maybe just 'cause he's old and is "due".

Reading: Therapy; Jonathan Kellerman

Lunch: Napolitaine Pizza (anchovies & capers) at Pizza Pino on the Champs Elysee - "Cooked in an oven with wood" is one of their taglines. Better than average but not spectacular. Vino - house Red Italian somethingorother was okay.

Snap dinner

Was programming all day and didn't get out of the apt for lunch even. Just had paté de foie gras on swedish breads (little toasted ½ loafs) at midday.
Dinner was planned as a light salad (less light than last night's - but still lite) until suddenly great hunger was expressed and thus the plans changed. I finally went out into the streets of Paris; in search of supplementary food. Just to the Monoprox across the street but at least I got out of the house. 2 (Irish) filets, a tiny can of french green beans and a bottle of cheap white cab.
Sauté chopped garlic in small pan, toss in green beens warm it all up and add wh. wine - boil 'til reduced to nada and the alcohol is sure to be gone. Just gave the (canned) beans a touch of home-made.
The filets were sautéed too. We only have teflon here so not much in the way of deglazing can be done - but I do anyway. Set filets aside, deglaze with sauterne, flambé, reduce/cook away alcohol and add a commercial pepper sauce; return filets to pan.
Oh yes, the main thing I wanted to note was the salad. It was baby spinach leaves; baby tomatoes marinated in (commercial) seafood sauce with a touch of sugar; and sliced ham (sweet) that had been marinated in soja & a little plum vinegar. It was very good.

Wine: Château Thuillac, Côtes de Bourge 2000 (Grand Vin de Bordeaux) Gironde - don't bother (although maybe the bottle was off?)

Reading: Professional Cooking Fifth Edition; Wayne Gisslen - well, skimming actually.

Work at Home

Well... in this case"home"is the alternate home in Paris. Due to a sudden change of plans I'm stuck here for another week. So today's leftovers for lunch were the remnants of the potatoes from the LCB recipe and the meat picked off of yesterday's rotisserie chicken.
Also doing the 4th quarters IVA (sales tax) documents online (today's the last day) and discovering that my bank and the tax department don't communicate too effectively; so I can't put the verification number (acquired from the bank online) of my payment into the tax department's online forms. Screwed - I paid but I can't tell them about it. Going to have to go to the office in person with piles of papers and try to figure it out (correct it) manually - after I get back to the other home. It'll be a challenge what with my bad Spanish and all.
Dinner tonight is lite lite lite & at home. Salad greens, mini tomatoes and maybe a little foie paté (ed. turned out not to be foie [apparently too fatty] but sliced/diced [sweet] ham).

Wine: Cellier Yvecourt 2002 Bordeaux (Grand Vin de Bordeaux) - very okay; bought it from the butcher shop across the street.

Dimache / Sunday

Quiet morning at home then out into the city to see what's happening. Drizzley but walked up to Etoile anyway. Cruised the Champs Elysee looking for a movie and settled on Closer; which I thought was really quite enjoyable.
Lunch at some random place (Vesuvio Cafe) next to the theater; she had moules and I had a pizza with an egg on it -nothing special, slow service & the pizza arrived several minutes before the moules. I don't recommend it.
Dinner was more leftowver potatoes (mine) and a roast chicken from the shop across the street.
Wine: have to look it up.

Opera

The Barber of Seville. Front row of the theater. Couldn't see the sur-titles very well.
Food. Lunch: Steak Frite (a classic) ¼ Bordeaux at the Mexique.
No dinner; came straight home from the opera.

(This is an old old draft I found in my entries page; I figured I'd finally publish it.)

Off to Paris

Travelling today and not cooking.
Lunch at the sit-down resto upstairs in Terminal 1 at Barajas. Good service; passable food.

Theater on arrival (didn't even get to drop the bag at the apartment): Duel at the Vingtieme Theatre - entertaining; and it's a musical duel, has no spoken parts & thus overcomes the language barrier.

Stella (16th) for late dinner. Steak tartare - picante; and, as always, quite good.

Saté sauce

The family's all gone out of town again so I'm left to my own devices; and do not cook for just me.
I do have an order for Saté Pizza Sauce with Turkey from La Cúpula (best pizza in town) so I made that instead of lunch &/or dinner.
I reduced the chile peppers down to ½ tsp instead of 1T so it's just a 6th of what it should be; nobody will complain that it's too spicy - - but the danger is that it will be too bland.
Took the salsa down to the pizzeria; thus had pizza for dinner - Tricolori (tomato sauce, pesto & mozzarella).

Huevos fritos Iñakitxo - On an Arguiñano Kick Apparently

Yes Iñakitxo is an unusual word; Basque; and only about 15 hits on the entire internet. It's, as I understand it, the name of a particular egg producer.

So today it was again Karlos Arguiñano's recipe of the day from channel 5: Eggs on fries. - which is actually fairly common around here (I recall a wonderful restaurant in Vigo that serves it- but, alas, have forgotten the name for the moment; although it's worth remarking that they serve only, and everything, that is chicken-based).


It was damn successful. In this instance it served 3 - myself and a 17yr old teenager.

INGREDIENTS:

4 eggs 4 potatoes 8 red piquillo peppers virgin olive oil salt some sugar 8 basil leaves - For the salsa: 8 more piquillo peppers 1 large fresh (spring) onions 4 cloves of garlic ½ tsp of flour 1 cup of white wine 1 cup water virgin olive oil salt

ELABORATION: For the salsa (of piquillo peppers), chop the garlic and onions and saute slightly golden. Add the piquillos, cut into strips, add the flour and stir a moment. Add the white wine and the water; reduce for 20 minutes. Then puree with an electric (staff)mixer. Put a little oil in a frying pan and fry 8 more peppers, on both sides, for a total of 20 minutes. While frying sprinkle with a little salt some sugar (I omitted the sugar and it was great non-the-less). Peel the potatoes; cut into fine (shoe/straw) strings fry in a lots of oil (the 2nd smallest dicer on my Bron mandoline). Fry the potato strings in batches (maybe something like 10 minutes). Just before they are done remove them, drain and cool; forming into (4) round "nests" (later an egg goes in the center). Having divided the potatoes in 4 portions; resume frying each portion one by one. Crack an egg into the center of each portion of potatoes/fries; splash, gently, oil over the egg and fry lightly - the centers should still be liquid (no matter what the U.S. health department says - just get eggs from a really good supplier; or ones that have been gamma-rayed/pasturized). After (or when almost finished) frying the eggs, fry the basil leaves (thoroughly) and place a couple over each egg. Plate the an egg with fries and basil, decorate with a curve of pepper sauce and the fried peppers.

Cream of Broccoli, potato & squash

I did the Karlos Arguiñano recipe of the day today: Cream of Broccoli, potato & squash
My only change was to add green pepper and celery to the broccoli cream; so it tasted less of only broccoli



- For the cream of broccoli:
400 gr. of brócoli
1 glass milk / cream
1 T butter
virgin olive oil
a little nutmeg (basically decoration)
salt

- For the squash cream:
300 gr. of pumpkin
1 potato
1 carrot
1 onion
1 leek
1 clove of garlic
cream / milk
virgin olive oil
salt
chives (decoration)

- For the potato cream:
2 potatoes
cream / milk
salt & white pepper
Flat parsley (decoration)

Clean and cut the squash. Put into the pressure cooker with a little oil. Saute it and add water. Put on the burner to boil
the steam and distributes brócoli cut in ramilletes. It ripens and when it begins to cook, it places the cover and it lets cook 1 minute from the moment at which it begins to leave the steam. It retires brócoli and with an electric mixer, it crushes the cream of pumpkin and pásala to a jar.

Pon mantequilla, a little oil, milk and brócoli in a casserole. Dale a fervor, tritúrala with a beater and colócala in a jar.

Pela the potatoes, trocéalas and put them to cook in the pressure cooker wit water and a pinch of salt. When they are cooked (7 minutes approximately), ccream in the stick mixer (add butter & creaam/milk to achieved consistency).

It serves in individual containers, the cream of brócoli and the one of pumpkin simultaneously. In the center it places a spoonful of potato cream and adorns with a little jamón fried or huevas of trout.

Reading: The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency: Alexander McCall Smith

Menú

Aperitivos
Chips Parmesano con Mousse de Cabra
Copito de Mouse de Morcilla
Chupito de Gazpacho

Ensalada
Rúcula con Vinagreta Balsamico y Foie Gras

Mango y Limón Helado

Plato Principal
Filetes Sauté Bercy
Patatas Provençal
Zanahoria; Tomate Asado

Postre
Pistacho Galletas con Chantilly

On table: 7 (including the cook) - at the table adjacent to the kitchen (and aperativos in the kitchen itself)
Food costs: €61
Consumables: €2; glasses €12
Vino:
Time: 12 hours (incl. testing & prep. but not including shopping excursions, planning & worrying)

Reading: The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency: Alexander McCall Smith

Out Shopping for the Big Dinner Tomorrow

No post to speak of. People ate leftover pot-roast

Pot Roast - sans pot

Yesterday's leftover rice; pisto already prepared and Alton Brown's recipe for pot roast in the oven, minus the olives.
I was quite surprised that it called for 3 -3½ hours at 190-200F (75-80C) which seemed quite low. So I popped the heat up a tad and the darn thing reached 60c internal temp in just 2 hours Luckily it was a good cut of meat so ended up not tough at all. I need a sharper knife though to cut it thinner.

Recipe

• 1.5 K chunk of meat for roasting
• 2 teaspoons chunky salt
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 5 to 6 cloves garlic, smashed
• 1 cup tomato frito (made earlier this week - capricious)
• 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 cup dark raisins

Preheat the oven to 190-200 degrees F [or, in my case, 150ish C; gradually creeping it down as I became nervous about the result; ended up at 75c]
Place a wide, heavy skillet or fry pan over high heat for 2 minutes [I put in oil though].
Meanwhile, rub both sides of meat with the salt and cumin.
When the pan is hot (really hot) brown meat on both sides and remove from pan.
(in my case I put in the onions & garlic, realize your mistake, and retrieve them [to do later])

Add just enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan then add the onion and garlic. Stir constantly until onion is softened.
Add the tomato frito, vinegar, and raisins. Bring to a boil and reduce the liquid a bit.
Create a pouch with wide, heavy duty aluminum foil [or, as I did, try to seal two thin light pieces]. Place half the reduced liquid/chunk mixture on the foil, add the roast, and then top with the remaining mixture. Close the pouch, and wrap tightly in another complete layer of foil.
Cook for 3 to 3 1/2 hours or until a fork pushes easily into the meat [I used a thermo to 60c].
Remove from oven and rest (still wrapped) for at least 1/2 hour. Slice meat thinly, or pull apart with a fork. Serve with the sauce sauce. Lovely.
A little too well down 'cause I had the heat too high. - - but, hey! still learning. Always learning.

See also Alton Brown

Leftover Cocido

Tonight - leftovers.
Well, actually, cooked up some basmati rice (oil in the pan, v. light saute of some garlic, then toast the basmati until you get that nutty aroma). Toss on a couple of tsp of Nori crumbs for added flavour. So that, technically, was not a leftover. But...
Found a jar of spinach in the freezer (yes, a jar, not a bag) and defrosted that to sauté in some garlic (love garlic).
Nuked the leftover sopa from the cocido; and warmed the meat of the cocido in the oven, covered with aluminum foil, while all the above was going on. It didn't turn out warm enough so I quick sautéed that to just to bring it up to temp (sans garlic though).

After dinner made a pisto out of the veggies in the cooler that were not going to make it through another day. The pisto will be the veg course for tomorrow night. Planning ahead!

Biftek Sauté Marchand de Vins

Well! Today was an small adventure.
The plan was 1) entrecot & 2) brussel sprouts with bechamel. & 3) some potatoes.
Made the bechamel (1st time) almost per Julia's instructions (forgetting to boil the milk until the roux was already ready). So, took the roux off the heat (kept end edge of the pan hot to maintain temp); nuked the milk [added the ¼ tsp salt, late], reheated the roux 'til it foamed, pulled it off the heat (again) and dumped in the boiling milk; whisking away. Worked like a charm. I impressed myself. Seasoned the stuff and burnt the brussel sprouts -- thus had nothing to bechamel with.

So, lesson 2 becomes Bechamel Storage for later use. Put a film of milk on it (to minimize "skin") and 'fridge it.

The entrecot? Pan-saute it. 1" thick lomo alto. Very hot pan. Sear, cook, reducing heat; flip. heat back up, then down again (have really got to learn how to do this properly some day). Takes quite a while to cook a thick biftek actually - - we're not talking anount "minute steak" here.
Set aside when done. 2 Tbl butter into the pan (with the meat fat), saute 3/4 of a shallot (no garlic in today). Deglaze with brandy; ½ glass red wine (be sure to burn off all the alcohol); add the juice from resting meat (for flovor); reduce; whisk in butter; plate meat and pour the sauce over.
Basically it's a Marchand de Vins sauce with brandy insead of the vermouth/wh. wine.