The Week of Cooking Dangerously -- Part 3 -- Middle Eastern Dinner

My week of furious cooking ended Saturday night, when we had four of our best friends to a primarily Middle Eastern dinner. These are people whom I don't mind experimenting for (on?).

Hors d'oeuvres were my usual -- cheese gougères, smoked sturgeon and smoked ricotta on pumpernickel -- supplemented by a very creamy simple hummus made from a reciped in Ottolenghi's Jerusalem.

Hummus with olive oil and sumac powder

The starter was a Lebanese tabbouleh salad, as prescribed by Claudia Roden in her New Book of Middle Eastern Food, a definitive classic.

Tabbouleh salad

For the main course, we had Berber couscous with seven vegetables, also from Ms. Roden's book, made with lamb shanks and chicken thighs.

Berber couscous with seven vegetables, lamb and chicken

I made some sloppy but not bad baklava for dessert, but by an amazing coincidence, a friend had sent an assortment of pastries from Lebanon earlier in the day, which served as a fitting post-dessert to a pretty fun meal, if I say so myself.

My baklava

Real Lebanese pastries

Bobby Jay

The Week of Cooking Dangerously -- Part 1 -- Office Party

After a year-end burst of blogging, I have been too lazy to post for the first couple of weeks of the year. But I have just completed a week of furious cooking, with some  highs and lows worth discussing.

Apple Tart Mémé

Last Sunday night I prepared dinner for the wonderful team at Joan's gallery, an annual event. The centerpiece was to be slow-cooked lamb shoulder over pommes boulangères. For some reason, everything went wrong, starting with the fact that the lamb shoulder I had ordered turned out to be a different cut altogether. I called Citarella to do an exchange, but the correct meat arrived too late for true falling-off-the-bone texture that this the essence of the recipe. It tasted okay but after 5 1/2 hours had not reached the desired stage and had to be served.

I then put way too little flour in the dough for my apple tart, but managed to salvage it by careful surgery once it was in the tart shell.

Hors d'oeuvres consisted of smoked sturgeon and smoked ricotta sprinkled with dill over German style super-multi-grain bread that I bought from She-Wolf Bakery. Even on a bad day, I couldn't screw this up.

Smoked sturgeon and smoked ricotta crostini

I did, however, screw up the shrimp that I steamed in Old Bay Seasoning and served with sriratcha mayonnaise: overcooked! And I also managed to drop a beautiful Baccarat flute filled with champagne soon after the guests arrived.

The appetizer was my beet and turnip salad with Alain Passard's unbelievably complex and delicious honey lime vinaigrette aigre-doux. The beets took twice as long as expected, did not peel easily and generally were a nightmare, but the final result was fine.

Beet and turnip salad with mesclun and vinaigrette aigre-doux

The aforesaid lamb was not bad but I was so mad at it that I didn't make a photo.

There followed a cheese course consisting of spectacularly pungent vieux cantal from 2012 that I brought back from France on New Year's Day, served with walnuts and Spanish fig cake to cut the divine rotten taste and aroma of the cheese.

Super old Cantal with walnuts and fig cake

Finally, Jacques Pépin's Apple Tart Mémé, pictured above, was fine even if the crust was really really thin.

Most important, the company was great and the event a success despite my messes.

So I managed to overcome my demons for the most part, but not as well as Shoki, the Japanese mythological demon-queller, would have done). A challenging day that ended well.

Bobby Jay

Paris - Christmas Dinner 2014

As has become our tradition, we had Christmas dinner chez nous with good friends from the Japanese ceramic world: a renowned Japanese potter from Kyoto and her friend, an excellent Japanese potter who has been living and working in Paris for decades and the director of one of Paris' Asian art museums. J, of course, the great dealer in contemporary Japanese ceramics, and me, the sole male and the chef.

As always, J set a magnificent table. With flowers a bit lame in the market on Christmas day, she improvised with fruit and vegetables to great effect.

Table set for Christmas dinner

For hors d'oeuvres, I prepared some curried roasted cashews and smoked paprika-spiced almonds, and tapenade and mustard palmiers. And, of course, the foie gras that I described in my previous post (sorry for the repeat picture).

Foie gras Bobby Jay

Dinner consisted of a mushroom soup from Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table, served over chopped mushrooms, scallions and chives, with, of course, a dollop of crème fraîche.

Mushroom soup with obligatory dollop of crème fraîche

For the main course, roast leg of lamb with anchovies, rosemary and garlic (and lots of butter and white wine) from Simon Hopkinson's Roast Chicken and Other Stories. See my previous post for a picture of the leg slathered in anchovy butter before roasting. As is customary in France, green beans with rosemary on the side.

Roast leg of lamb before carving (which didn't make it look any better)

Then the thing that, in my opinion, blows away whatever I cook: a perfect vacherin de Mont d'Or, eaten with a spoon, a Christmas tradition in France and my favorite cheese in the world. I prettied it up with slices of pear and walnuts, but the cheese is the thing here.

Vacherin de Mont d'Or with sliced pears and walnuts

Finally, Marie-Hélène's Apple Cake, also from Around My French Table, a great make-ahead dessert that keeps for days on the counter, served with yet another dollop of crème fraîche.

Marie-Hélène's Apple Cake

Really finally, assorted chocolates from La Mère de Famille, thoughtfully provided by one of the guests.

Chocolates from La Mère de Famille

A good way to pass the night with friends.

Bobby Jay

Ten for Dinner

It is often said that the secret to good cooking is mise en place, the French phrase that signifies having everything prepared - measured, washed, chopped, grated, sliced, minced, etc. and placed in appropriate vessels in waiting for use. This is true.

But what about the secret to cooking for a large group (for me, anything more than five)? For me, this is all about making and continually updating a very detailed schedule.

Last night, we had ten for dinner, and I made four appetizers and a four-course meal including sides, altogether twelve or thirteen separate items including the bread, which I baked. Obviously, this required planning and time: spreading the work out over five days made it possible, and having my trusty schedule helped with the final execution. The guests seemed happy and so was I.

Apple tart with bourbon caaramel sauce on bottom and top

Of course, it helps a lot to have a beautiful table and flowers, and J did her normal great job.

Table with heirloom presentation plates from J's late Aunt Sophie

Also, it helps to have help for the actual meal, so you can spend time with your guests. We had a bar tender/general helper whom we have hired before, and that made a huge difference. Not only did he help in serving, but by 11:30 the kitchen was clean and everything we had used was set out waiting to be stored: what a relief!

Finally, there is no substitute for great guests, which we had. Each invitee had substantive interaction with every other, just what you hope for in a gathering of this size.

Still reading? Here's the menu for the evening and the detailed schedule that I used.
 

Dinner 12.6.13

Toasts with smoked ricotta and sun-dried tomatoes

Toasts with tapenade

Gougères

Bar nuts Union Square Café

Caramelized fennel soup

Slow cooked loin of pork with port cherry sauce

French beans and snow peas with hazelnut and orange

Squished Yukon gold potatoes

Artisan greens salad with shredded Trappist cheese

Caramel covered apple tart with ginger ice cream

Ordre du Jour

√	Days before	Make ginger ice cream
√		Make and freeze gougeres
√		Make tapenade and ricotta spread
√	Day before	Make soup
√		Make bread dough
√		Make tart dough and line pan
√		Salt and sugar rub pork roast; place in fridge in large ziploc
√	8:30-10:45	Complete and bake bread
√ √ √ √	11:00-1:00	Pre cook tart shell Slice and microwave apples Make caramel, coat bottom of tart Assemble and bake tart
√	4:25	Small oven to 250
√	4:30	Season pork with pepper, tie together with bones and put into 250 oven
√	By 6:00	Make French beans
√		Make sauce
√		Prepare bar nuts
√		Make salad dressing
√		Get ice
√	6:45	Big oven to 425
√		Toast bread
√	7:00	Guests arrive
√		Serve cocktails
√		Assemble and serve toasts
√		Heat and serve gougeres
√	7:05	Boil potatoes
√	7:30	Potatoes out of water
√	7:35	Potatoes squished and put into oven
√		Heat soup
√	8:00	Soup served
√	8:15-8:18	Pork under broiler
√	8:20	Pork, sides and sauce served
√	9:00	Assemble and serve salad
√	9:30	Caramel onto tart, then serve tart with ice cream
√	Thereafter	Serve coffee and tea and after dinner drinks

Bobby Jay