My roommates invited an old friend over for dinner the other night. I had never met this friend, but I have this uncontrollable need to impress people with my cooking. I am not gifted at singing, acting, or sports, but I can cook a mean meal. I wasn't sure what to cook for this mystery guest, but I was in a creative mood as I sculpted my menu.
I watch Top Chef almost religiously. In the one of the first episodes of the new season the chefs are challenged to create something awesome out of potatoes. Mike Isabella chose to make a potato risotto. I had never heard of risotto being made out of anything aside from rice, but there it was. Being the arrogant and adventurous cook that I am, I decided that I too could make potato risotto. To go with the potato dish I decided to do a play on the classic caprese salad. The salad would traditionally have fresh mozzarella, sliced tomato and basil. I decided to make my own pesto and coat chicken in the pesto and then stuff it with mozzarella and tomatoes.
The plan started to go wrong when I started making the pesto. Typically this would be done in a food processor, which we do not have. I have used a blender to make sauces before so I tried to make the pesto in the blender. The problem with the blender is that it doesn't actually reach all of the ingredients sitting in it. Especially when the items are small like basil leaves. Long story short, the garlic got chopped up very finely but the rest of the pesto didn't process as well. This resulted in a pesto that was overly pungent with garlic.
The plan for the potato risotto was to put a very fine dice on potatoes and then saute the pieces in oil before slowly adding liquid to cook. All the recipes I found called for using a julienne setting on a mandolin, I don't have a mandolin, but I do have a julienne peeler from Pampered Chef. Let's just say that these two items yield very different results. The peeler did not work easily, and did not yield thick enough julienne strips to dice. The tragedy continued from there when the potatoes did not cook as the recipe said that they would. What resulted was something between hash browns and potato soup.
With the potato disaster, I ran out of time for my elaborate stuffed chicken plans. I ended up dicing the tomato and the mozzarella and serving a tomato cheese salad of sorts on top of baked pesto coated chicken.
All in all, this was one failure of a meal. I learned a valuable lesson. When you are having company over for dinner, stick to what you know. When I was younger we would make what we called Mike's Lucky Chicken whenever we had people coming to the house. It was so tasty and easy, we had perfected our version of the recipe and it was a crowd pleaser. Stick to a menu you know you can execute well.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Hollandaise Sauce
Recently my roommate had her 26th birthday. We had just moved in to our new apartment, we had never broken out the China from our China cabinet, so we decided to throw a fancy dinner party. We kept the guest list pretty small, and the menu was fairly simple. We had roast pork with leeks, pears and figs, asparagus with hollandaise sauce, mashed red skin potatoes and chocolate mousse. We also made a lovely champagne and pear syrup drink we called "The Leslie" it was quite tasty.
I have written about the roast pork dish before on this blog, it is becoming my go-to dish. The addition of the figs was a request from the birthday girl, and a brilliant addition the leek and pear flavor combo.
This was my first attempt at a hollandaise sauce. I tried a few different recipes to ensure that I got the sauce correct. I have a new policy when it comes to food, especially in regards to entertaining. Never serve a dish you have not previously attempted successfully to people you don't live with. I learned this lesson when a high school friend of my roommate's came over for dinner. See the potato risotto blog post for a description of all the ways in which this meal failed.
Hollandaise sauce is truly disgusting when you look at it as its ingredients. The sauce consists of egg yolks, a lot of butter, a splash of lemon juice and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Separately they sound like the bad makings of one of those cleansing beverages celebrities drink for three weeks to cleanse their chi. But when you whip the egg yolks over a simmering pot of water, and then slowly blend in the butter, you get something truly special.
The party was on Saturday night, so on Friday night I attempted Alton Brown's recipe for hollandaise. He instructs to chill the butter and cut it into small pieces. Whisk the egg yolks in a double boiler until they become lighter in color, and thicker in texture. Slowly add in small pieces of butter and whisk until they melt and incorporate, continue adding butter one piece at a time until it is all incorporated. You then add in the lemon juice and cayenne pepper. The result was an ok sauce, a bit heavy on the lemon. My arm was wicked sore from all the whisking, so the next day I decided to use a different recipe. The new recipe called to slowly add in melted butter. This was a little better on my whisking arm, but as i was making sauce for 15 people I did have to trade off with a friend half way through making the sauce.
My recommendation for those of you that would like to attempt this sauce is to use the melted butter approach. It will incorporate into the sauce a lot easier. I would also recommend using less lemon juice than is called for in the recipe. I would also recommend using a little more cayenne than is called for as well. This will add a little kick to the sauce, which is a delicious twist.
I have written about the roast pork dish before on this blog, it is becoming my go-to dish. The addition of the figs was a request from the birthday girl, and a brilliant addition the leek and pear flavor combo.
This was my first attempt at a hollandaise sauce. I tried a few different recipes to ensure that I got the sauce correct. I have a new policy when it comes to food, especially in regards to entertaining. Never serve a dish you have not previously attempted successfully to people you don't live with. I learned this lesson when a high school friend of my roommate's came over for dinner. See the potato risotto blog post for a description of all the ways in which this meal failed.
Hollandaise sauce is truly disgusting when you look at it as its ingredients. The sauce consists of egg yolks, a lot of butter, a splash of lemon juice and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Separately they sound like the bad makings of one of those cleansing beverages celebrities drink for three weeks to cleanse their chi. But when you whip the egg yolks over a simmering pot of water, and then slowly blend in the butter, you get something truly special.
The party was on Saturday night, so on Friday night I attempted Alton Brown's recipe for hollandaise. He instructs to chill the butter and cut it into small pieces. Whisk the egg yolks in a double boiler until they become lighter in color, and thicker in texture. Slowly add in small pieces of butter and whisk until they melt and incorporate, continue adding butter one piece at a time until it is all incorporated. You then add in the lemon juice and cayenne pepper. The result was an ok sauce, a bit heavy on the lemon. My arm was wicked sore from all the whisking, so the next day I decided to use a different recipe. The new recipe called to slowly add in melted butter. This was a little better on my whisking arm, but as i was making sauce for 15 people I did have to trade off with a friend half way through making the sauce.
My recommendation for those of you that would like to attempt this sauce is to use the melted butter approach. It will incorporate into the sauce a lot easier. I would also recommend using less lemon juice than is called for in the recipe. I would also recommend using a little more cayenne than is called for as well. This will add a little kick to the sauce, which is a delicious twist.
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