NEVER A BAD MEAL!

We are now ending our 6th year of our Crowing Coq Cookbook Club and I must say that in the 6 years of eating everyone’s contributions to each meal, I have never had a bad one. Even when the cookbook wasn’t a stellar book, our group of cooks are able to do their tweaking and correcting to make sure the final result is stellar.

Our annual Holiday Buffet was no exception. It’s difficult to make only appetizers and desserts that come together as a cohesive eating experience. On top of that, everyone cooks from different cookbooks. This year we had a mixture of French, Mexican and an olio of our own creations. Between us, Julia, Jacques and Rick Bayless, we celebrated the holiday with a wonderful array of dishes.

Janis created her own Artichoke and Tomato Miniature Frittatas. They were bite sized frittatas that so easily popped in our mouths…it was hard to control how many we “popped!” She used the last of her garden tomatoes and marinated artichoke hearts.
Her dish was complemented by Willie’s creamy and warm Artichoke Dip that he served with crackers. His too was his own creation and again, difficult to resist dipping into repeatedly. Bill opened a bottle of Elisabeth Goutorby NV Champagne, Brut, Premier Cru that was dry and added to the festive holiday season. We toasted to another successful year of cooking!

Our group of cooks, while focused on healthy and fresh foods, are not vegetarians. So of course we had meat on the menu! Chicken Satay with Gado-gado Sauce and Crispy Flank Steak Shreds with Golden Onions & Red Chile Salsa. Annie prepared the Chicken Satay on bamboo sticks that made it the perfect appetizer since we could pick it up with our hands. The Gado-gado sauce was thick and creamy with a bit of heat and lots of flavors! I had to look it up to see what it was when Bill was trying to decide what wines to serve with it. It is a peanut sauce that is typically used with vegetables in Indonesian countries but it was perfect sauce for the chicken breast strips. Bill decided on 2 wines: Beaujolais Nouveau 2011 Gamay Beaujolais, Georges Duboeuf and a French Cerius 2010 Red Rhone, Cotes du Rhone. He chose the Rhone to go with the Flank steak dish. When typing up the menu, I hadn’t realized that this dish was essentially a taco. . .but what a taco!
The presentation of the flank steak shredded into a fine threads of crispy beef topped with crispy circles of fried onions was beautiful. A light airy mound of glistening beef threads. It must have taken her hours to shred the flank steak into such thin threads of beef. It is eaten as a soft taco with an avocado guacamole and a bright red salsa spread over the taco and then a small mound of beef placed into the taco. The beef was a bit chewy so I was surprised. I thought it was going to be so crispy that it was going to sort of dissolve in my mouth but it was like a softer version of beef jerky. The flavors were delicious and many went back for seconds.
And to top off all of these tastes, Annie prepared as an extra dish, her grandmother's liver paté dish. It was served with sliced baguettes. Grandmothers definitely knew how to cook and hers was no exception. The paté was flavorful without being too "liver-like" is the only way I can explain it. I loved every bite!

We all knew that it is a good idea to save room for desserts with our group of cooks. We were rewarded with 3 desserts. One of which came without it’s baker who wasn’t feeling well and sent on her cake without her. Sandy created an upside down type cake of cranberries, oranges and walnuts and called it Cranberry Orange Cake. The cake was a rich buttery pound cake and the topping was tart and sweet and nutty. I love the combination of oranges and cranberries as a Turkey side dish so I knew I’d like her cake! Bill brought an Essencia, Orange Muscat, from Quady winery in Madera. The orange muscat was a perfect choice to go with Sandy’s cake.
Annie and George made Julia Child’s Dacquoise, a hazelnut meringue layered affair with buttercream in between the meringues. And topped with a chocolate buttercream. Quite an ambitious dessert and to do it as a couple says a lot for Annie and George’s marriage!
I made the Yucatan Style Fresh Coconut Tart. Rick Bayless called it a pie but it’s made in a tart pan so go figure... I’ve learned the secret to cracking open and peeling a coconut and it’s pretty easy. Rick says to put it in a 325º oven for 15 minutes after taking the liquids out of the center. Voila! It actually starts cracking open on its own. Easy to take a hammer and hit if a few times and shell just falls off! I got the coconut meat in one whole piece doing it this way so it was easy to use a potato peeler and remove the brown skin on the coconut. Since I wrote about the coconut pie earlier in the blog (April 2011), I won’t bore you with the details of the tart.

George added a wine from his collection that was very yummy! It’s called “Difficult Child” wine but I can’t remember the winery...it’s somewhere in Paso Robles, I think. If you know the winery, please add your info into the “comments” area of this post. Thanks!

We did our annual white elephant gift exchange and Bill got the crowing coq timer!!! It’s the first time we’ve had custody of our little mascot. I’ve got to figure out a way to add the sound it makes when anyone opens our blog website! It is wa-a-ay too cool...it actually sounds pretty authentic after Janis took it to a jeweler to get it fixed. It will be fun to have it for a year.

We also decided on our venue for next year.
February: Mourad Lahlou's Mourad: New Moroccan. Lahlou's Aziza in San Francisco is the only Michelin-starred Moroccan restaurant in the country, and Mourad focuses on both the modern plated dishes of the restaurant as well as updates on his childhood memories. This will be a fun dinner!

Late April/early May (whenever Janis and George are in the country): Brunch. No special cookbook but a Sunday brunch meal. We will all bring our favorite brunch entré's.

July/August: Barefoot Contessa dinner from any one of her myriad of cookbooks.

October: “Retro dinner.” The club members will choose from one of the cookbooks we’ve used in the past 6 years and do another dinner from it. If we can’t come to consensus in terms of which book, I’ll probably make an executive decision based on everyone’s choices. (Survey Monkey will come later for you to make your choice)

December: Annual Holiday Buffet

2012 Field Trip: Members thought it would be fun to do an overnight field trip to either Paso Robles, Amador County or Sonoma to do some wine tasting and dining. We are targeting a 2-day, 1-weeknight trip. Any suggestions would be welcome. We may have to Survey Monkey this one too or make it a topic of discussion for our first dinner.

Let me know if you want to host any one of these dinners.

All in all, 2012 promises to be a good year, of cooking anyway . . . no promises on our political climate or economy though.

Cook on!

Sandi

Get Creative!

We had a fascinating Create-A-Recipe Dinner, listening to why/how everyone selected the dish they wanted to create and how they went about experimenting. One thing was clear. . .each dish was made several times before coming up with what was prepared for the dinner. It is how it’s done in professional kitchens as well. In this month’s Bon Appetít issue, several pages were dedicated to the BA test kitchen and for one dish, a Chess Pie, they tested the recipe for 3 days, made 6 pies, 4 revisions and used 16 cups of buttermilk and 12 lbs of butter. In our test kitchens, families benefited from all the trials and revisions. I think it was fun for everyone and the input from our family tasters added to the final result.

Janis created & prepared Gazpacho with Cheese Straws. She made the soup with Green Zebra tomatoes, red onions, cucumbers, mangoes, ancho chilies and thai chilies, and except for the mangoes, all from her back yard vegetable garden. She added the mangoes as a result of a suggestion from her husband and it was a perfect addition to the tart Zebras. It was a fantastic gazpacho. Her Cheese Straws were rich and crispy and a creamy contrast to the cool soup. They had a white cheddar and herb filling intertwined with puff pastry. Yum! Bill chose a blended wine from David Caffaro winery in the Dry Creek area of Sonoma, called Fesco. David is known for growing very esoteric grape varieties and making unique blends. His 2009 Fresco is a blend of 22% Alvarelhao, 21% Tempranillo, 21% Tinto Cao, 20% Peloursin, and 16% Carmine. It’s appearance is a deep rosé and it tasted like a light raspberry, strawberry, pomegranate, and cherries. It did not stand up to the soup but boy did I enjoy it as a wine!

Sharon created a Bountiful Potato Gratin [recipe following] to replace the Candied Yams that we always have for Thanksgiving. She started with the yellow sweet potato, then added the Garnet yam, Russet and Yukon potatoes. After making this version with half & half, she added caramelized onions and sliced Granny Smith apples for some sweetness and then added bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese sprinkled with extra virgin olive oil on the top. Her spices were nutmeg, cinnamon and salt. Her family enjoyed her trials and also made suggestions each time. The end result was a delicious gratin that was more flavorful than a traditional potato gratin and less sweeter than the traditional candied yam.

Sandy’s Asparagus with Mixed Mushrooms and Parmesan and Asparagus Jus was a big hit. Just click on the recipe title to get to the website with the recipe. Sandy defined herself as a recipe-kind-of-cook and brought a dish from Jean Georges Vongerichten’s cookbook, Cooking at Home with a Four Star Chef. She found a recipe that uses the lower stem part of the asparagus that all of us find inedible but hate to throw away. After removing all the asparagus trimmings, she chopped the bottoms and boiled them in salted water, drained then puréed it all with little of the poaching liquid. What she found interesting is that the asparagus got cooked twice, first blanched and then sautéed in olive oil. Bill served a special Austrian wine that is especially nice with asaparagus; Gruner 2009 Gruner Veltimer, Austria. It is considered to be the only wine to serve with asparagus and for once “they” are right!

Willie prepared an old favorite that he’s been making for years, Fettuccini Alfredo Carbonara He makes his own fettuccini to begin with. He never measures the ingredients but tastes as he goes. It has the traditional ingredients of cream, pasta, butter and cheese, to which he added the carbonera component, fried pancetta, that added a nice crunch and salty accents. We served his dish along with Sandy’s asparagus and the combination was perfect! Bill chose a very rich and delicious, 2005 Chardonnay from Rochioli, South River Vineyard, Sonoma. It stood up to the creamy fettuccini and was delicious all by itself!

Sandi chose to “redo” a Midwest favorite of her family. Frozen Fruit Salad Dessert. The original version uses iceberg lettuce, green Jello, Cool Whip, canned fruit cocktail and marshmallows. She first made homemade marshmallows and then tried to make a pistachio pudding but the color was olive drab and the texture too gritty. She decided to stick with the Jello pudding but made the rest of the ingredients using real whipping cream, fresh fruits, and her homemade marshmallows. Everyone loved her resulting dish and prompted a lengthy stroll down memory lane, recalling all those dishes our mothers took to pot lucks.

My Sort-of-Crispy Doughnuts [recipe follows] & Miso Ice Cream, did not come out as I had planned. First let me describe the ice cream. I was going to make an unusually flavored ice cream and use miso as a flavoring but my cousin sent me an ice cream recipe with miso in it so it wasn’t an original recipe but it sure was delicious. It tastes like salted caramel and cream. Sharon picked out the brown sugar but no one picked up on the miso. Do try this recipe because it’s a good one! Just click on the recipe title to get to the website with the recipe.

My doughnuts did not come out well As my doughnut dough was rising, I decided to have a light lunch and was getting some avocados and tomatoes sliced and stabbed myself in the hand. Not normally a big deal but that cut wouldn’t stop bleeding after an hour so Bill drove me over to the nearby Clinic to get some stitches.

During this intermittent activity, my doughnut dough wasn’t rising for some reason but I didn’t have time to make another batch so I cut them out to rise in their shapes and left for the clinic. After getting stitched up, I arrived at the dinner. . I decided to just make doughnut holes since we had a pretty rich dinner and one dessert/salad already. The irritating thing about doughnut holes is that not all of them will turn over in the hot oil so I always end up tossing several out because I can’t get them browned on both sides. The doughnuts had a strange almost bitter taste (and, no, I did NOT bleed into the dough!) so I wasn’t happy with the results but it may be because they only got one rising. Sigh….I may never figure out how to make crispy doughnuts.

Bill served a Tokay wine as an after dinner drink, a 2000 Royal Tokaji, 5 Puttonyos from Hungary. A fine ending to a creative evening!

I, for one, have decided to leave the creative recipe tasks to others and return to cookbooks and recipes….wa-a-a-y easier!

Over our dinner conversations, several great ideas emerged for our cookbooks for next year:
1. Each of us choose one of our own cookbooks to use in depth for the entire year
2. Barefoot Contessa books
3. Regional cooking in the US
4. Family favorites

Start thinking about next year and we’ll discuss and decide at our Annual Holiday Buffet at Annie & George’s home in December. Date to be determined.

Cook on!

Here are the homemade recipes:

Sharon’s Bountiful Potato Bake

Caramelize 4 large yellow onions and line bottom of a 13x9 casserole.

Peel and thinly slice a variety of potatoes. I used 2 medium russets, 2 yams, 2 sweet potatoes and 2 Yukon golds.

Peel and thinly slice 2 granny smith apples.

Soak potatoes and apples in 4 cups half and half.
Add 2 teaspoons nutmeg, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 2 teaspoons salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper.

Arrange potatoes and apples in overlapping rows. Add leftover half and half to casserole. Cover and bake at 375º for 50 minutes.

Combine 2 cups of breadcrumbs with 1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese. Cover potatoes. Drizzle with olive oil. Bake at 450 for 8-10 minutes until breadcrumbs are golden brown.

Sandi’s Sort-of-Crispy Doughnuts
A
• 1-1/3 C Bread Flour
• 1/3 C Cake Flour
• 1/3 High Gluten Flour
• 3 t Instant Yeast (1 pkg of Red Star rapid rise)
B
• 5 T sugar
• 2½ t salt
C
• 1 egg, room temp.
• ½ C bottled water, room temp.
D
• 5 T unsalted Butter, room temperature

Directions
1. Mix all ingredients A, and B together in mixer bowl.
2. Mix eggs with water in small bowl until well blended.
3. Add to dry ingredients and beat using k-beater (regular Kitchenaid paddle) at #2 speed for 5 minutes.
4. Using the paddle attachment knead for 5 to 8 minutes on #2 speed, adding sprinkles of flour if the dough is too sticky (It should not look like bread dough though)
5. Add in butter and beat additional 10 minutes until smooth and elastic.
6. Leave the dough aside on floured surface and let the dough rise for another 30-60 minutes till double in size.
7. Roll the dough properly into ¾” thickness.
8. Let the dough rise for 10 minutes
9. Dip cutters in flour and cut out in doughnut shapes or holes.
10. Transfer cut-out doughnuts to a tray sprinkled with flour,
11. Leave aside for another 30 min. or more to allow the dough to proof further.
12. Heat the oil to 325º - 350º
13. Fry the donut dough until very light golden brown. Keep oil temperature constant. It just takes a 2± minutes per side.
14. Place fried doughnuts on rack to drain.
15. Return oil to 325º - 350º and refry the doughnuts. Do quickly to not burn the doughnuts.
16. Dust with powdered sugar or dip in glaze (that I haven’t created yet)

5 POUNDS OF FLOUR LATER…

As you all know, I’ve been on the search for the doughnut of my childhood memories for 40 years. It’s a yeast doughnut that has large air holes, crispy, with a clear sugar glaze. I’ve searched in every country we have traveled to, every city, town and village in the USA we’ve gone to with no luck. Doughnuts vary but most places don’t even make their own doughnut dough anymore. And they call them DOnuts!

So for our next cookbook club dinner I have been experimenting with different flours, yeasts, eggs/no eggs, water vs milk, etc. I’ve changed the ratios, followed advice from everyone I’ve talked to (and no, I am not interested in re-creating the Krispy Kreme donut…).

So far, I’ve gone through about 5 pounds of flours (bread flour, gluten flour, cake flour, all-purpose flour), 3 kinds and brands of yeasts, AND a new KitchenAid Mixer!! This is turning into a $500 doughnut! Now I understand why desserts at restaurants are $7-12 each!

If you own an old “Classic” Professional KitchenAid, the motor is only 325 volts and the gears are nylon. Kneading dough in just not possible on this machine. I stripped the gears on it twice…fixed it the first time but the second time, I decided to upgrade and buy the Professional model with 575 Volt motor. Definitely LOOKS more hefty! Like my old one on sterioids. FYI: KitchenAid’s email customer service is fabulous and I got answers to all my questions.

So on to what I’ve been trying. I’ve got the taste and the crispy exterior part finally figured out after trying 5 different ratios, ingredients, frying temperatures, etc. Now I am trying to get the air holes in the inside and working on the glaze.

• I am learning about yeast and how it depends upon what kind of weather we are having because the same recipe comes out differently on different days.
• I have found that chop sticks work best to turn the doughnuts over in the oil.
• Important not to overfry them to keep the crust thin but crispy.
• 225º-350º is the best temperature for the oil because any higher and the dough turns dark brown too fast and the interior stays goopy.
• I now know why there’s a hole in the middle of the doughnut…

Whether I will create the right recipe by the time we have our dinner is another question but you WILL get doughnuts…they just may not be the doughnut of my childhood. Maybe I just remember a doughnut that never was?

HOMEMADE PASTA THOUGHTS

Well, I finally tried to make my own pasta, pappardelle to be exact. First, what I discovered is that there are multiple recipes for pasta ranging from simple flour and eggs to flour, eggs, milk, olive oil, salt, and each with different ratios. And, then, of course if you want flavors (spinach, garlic, etc.) you have to adjust the ratios BECAUSE, the secret to great pasta is the texture and, in my book, thinner pasta.

Now, the solution to this is to just go out to eat at Osteria in Palo Alto (sorry no web link...they are so well known they have no website) who makes their own pasta and order the Pappardelle with Bolognese Ragu. Their pasta is perfectly prepared and my model for great pasta. OR, get invited to friends who make their own fabulous pasta for dinner. My next best option is to convince Don to teach me how he makes his pasta, which he most kindly did.

So my first attempt used Don’s pasta recipe. Three ingredients, flour, eggs and a little salt and a tiny bit of cooked spinach. I weighed the flour because Don and most of the recipes I looked at recommended this but you also know that every egg is not alike, even if they are labeled “large,” AND the temperature of the day apparently makes a big difference. It seemed like a recipe for guaranteed failure.

I made the well in the flour, popped in the eggs in the middle and using a fork, blended the flour into the eggs very gradually. Then I kneaded the dough for 20 minutes and then added another 10 minutes because one of the recipes said that you can’t over-knead the dough and more is better.

Let the dough rest for 30 minutes..this was the easy part.

I have an Atlas hand crank pasta machine that I bought over 20 years ago and never even taken out of the box. I set it up on my kitchen table and after dividing the dough into the six logs, starting rolling it through the machine at setting #1. I folded the dough into thirds and rolled it through again. I did this 3 times for setting #1 and #2. Then I started rolling it through the successive numbers, UNTIL I got to setting #6 and the dough fell apart and stuck to the rollers. Okay, so I’m stuck with non-paper thin pasta...
But halfway through my 6 logs, I discovered that if I take the dough to #5 and then fold it up and run it through the #1-5 setting again, once for each setting, I got really long and really thin pasta!! Eureka!

Mistakes I made:
1. I did not let the sheets of pasta dry enough before cutting them
2. I forgot to sprinkle corn meal over my cookie sheets before piling the cut pasta ribbons on them. That helps to keep the pasta dry so they don’t stick together before I boil them. I had to throw away the pasta that stuck to itself because I couldn’t get them apart again. . .sigh.

I made a Lamb Ragú for the pasta and for the few ribbons that didn’t stick together and ended up being eatable, the pasta was divine!

Is it worth all the trouble? I am not sure. Counting the time it took to make the ragu, I spent 3 hours and needed Bill’s help to pull the pasta from the machine so the sheet wouldn’t stick to itself. We could drive to Osteria and have dinner in that amount of time AND, no clean up.

I may try Thomas Keller’s recipe before I give this up. Another cooking friend told me that this is the best pasta he’s ever made and you know how I love Keller’s cookbooks!

My next project is to make my own doughnut recipe. I am thinking it will be a cross between a popover, beignet and doughnut. Commercial doughnuts are too heavy, IMHO, anyway. So for our next cookbook dinner, that’s what I’m going to create….or at least try to create. It’s probably going to take a lot of trials, and errors and a big mess in our kitchen and I’ll have to exercise twice a long every day to counter the calories!

Cook on!

Fast Food My Way Dinner, Aug. 7, 2011

Jacques Pépin, along with Julia Child, has changed the way American’s cook and made gourmet cooking approachable. This dinner, for each of us, was one of our easier preps. His recipes were simple with very few ingredients and steps and yet produced delicious entrés that everyone enjoyed. His recent two books, Fast Food My Way and More Fast Food My Way, are current examples of his philosophy of not being too serious about exact amounts or instructions. They were simple and we could interpret his ingredients as well as his amounts according to our tastes.

We only had 4 courses this evening with 7 entrés. We began the evening with Cheese Crostinis that Sharon selected to prepare. The key ingredient is the tomato and it’s the right season for finding ripe and sweet ones. Our cool summer is not producing great tomatoes in our backyards yet but in the hotter areas like Grass Valley, they can be found! The slice of baguette is topped with a slice of tomato and Gruyere cheese, popped into the oven for a few minutes to melt the cheese and served immediately. Easy peasy and yummy. Bill brought a bottle of Giavi nonvintage Prosecco Superiore, Prima Volta Brut from Italy to bring out the fruitiness of the tomatoes but with enough acid to accent the gruyere cheese. The little bite of sparkle to this wine added to the festivity of the evening.


Sandi prepared Jacques' Smoked Trout Salad with Horseradish Cream. Again, some chopping/slicing but basically assembling ingredients and preparing the horseradish cream. The saltiness of the smoked trout was contrasted with sweet tomatoes and the creamy bite of the horseradish cream. Very delish! This dish was enhanced with a serving of Bourgogne 2009 White Burgundy, Michel Bouzereau Et Fills from Cote D’Or, France. The buttery flavors from the wine added a nice creaminess to the trout salad while standing up to the saltiness of the smoked trout.
Bravo Bill!

We served the next 3 dishes together. Sandy prepared Baked Salmon topped with bread crumbs and chopped hazelnut. The hardest part for her was to get her oven to get down to 200º but at this temperature, the salmon cooks for about 40-45 minutes and stays moist and tender. The Sun-Dried Tomato and Salsa Mayonnaise sauce combines fresh salsa that one can purchase from gourmet grocery stores with, what else? Mayonnaise and sun-dried tomatoes….duhhh! She chose a mild salsa to use for her sauce. The great thing about this dish is not only is it fast and simple to make but she made it ahead of time since it can be served at room temperature. This preparation and serving method makes it easier for the host/hostess to visit with their company rather than slave in the kitchen all evening.

Janis chose Pépin’s Broccoli Rabe and Pea Fricassee. Janis is the vegetable queen of our group and always chooses recipes that I don’t initially select to try. But, once I taste her dish, I end up adding them to my repertoire of vegetable sides. She did not disappoint for this dinner either! The bite of the rabe is nicely contrasted with the sweetness of the young petite pois. And as with the other dishes, few ingredients and easy to prepare.

I made Cubed Potatoes with Garlic and Sage because I loved it when I tried this recipe a few weeks ago. This time I followed his recipe and used whole garlic cloves instead of chopping them. I think I prefer the roughly chopped garlic to the whole cloves because the garlic is more evenly dispersed with each bite. The other change I made to his recipe is, although it does add one more step, I deep fried the sage leaves instead of the chiffonade of fresh sage he recommends. I like the crispy texture it gives the dish. This dish is generally made at the last minute but because I was transporting it, I sautéed the potatoes for 10 minutes at home and then did the last 10 minutes of sautéing the garlic cloves and potato cubes at the dinner. The exterior is definitely crispier when doing it at the last minute but for bringing the dish to a "not-so-pot-luck dinner," doing it in two steps worked. Just make sure to dry the sautéed cubes with paper towels and lay single layered on a jelly roll pan lined with paper towels to transport the potatoes.

Bill selected an Etude, 2004 Pinot Noir from the Carneros region of Napa. This wine was paired beautifully with this course. The salsa on the salmon as well as the bitter background tastes from the broccoli rabe and the garlic from the potatoes called for a wine that shows some fruit, a bit of tannins and spiciness without overwhelming the salmon. Etudes did the trick…amazing!

And, of course, we always have the final sweet bites (or two) to our dinners. Willie prepared the Vanilla Praline for our first dessert. Using Bryer Vanilla Ice Cream, Pepperidge Farm Cookies (although he and Sandi think that Trader Joe’s Shortbread cookies is a better choice when they tried this recipe the first time) and softened Chocolate Nutella. He and Jacques created a simple but delicious dessert. His dish was made even more appealing but serving them in Sandy’s ice cream sundae dishes, don’t you agree?

Our last sweet bite were Crepes with Banana-rum Filling that Marianne chose to bring. Crepes were so popular for a while (remember Crepes Suzettes?) and then they disappeared for years and have been back in vogue, especially at Farmer’s Markets. Crepes do take some time to prepare but they are so worth the effort. These were enhanced with slices of banana in a rum laced buttery sauce….what’s not to like?

Bill chose a French Barsac from Sauternes to go with both dishes: Chateau Coutet, 2005. He continues to amaze us with his wine choices that both compliment the flavors of the dishes while the taste from each entré enhances the wines.

I usually don't show much of the home or table of the host but this table was beautifully set and Willie took such a great photo of it, I have to share it with you! They have such a beautiful home and a warm setting for our dinner. Sandy's kitchen was once featured in the Sunset Magazine so you know I am not being biased with this praise!

Our next dinner should prove to be very interesting! We are to bring a dish we have created from scratch using a recipe we created, using the 3-point balance that we learned from Josiah Slone OR a redux of an old favorite dish into a new dish. Bring copies of the recipe to share or send it to me in electronic form and I will distribute it after the dinner. The recipe does not have to have exact ingredients (unless it’s a dessert) but a list of ingredients and ratios. This dinner is not designed to intimidate you but to let loose your creative side and have fun with new ingredients or new combinations. Our hosts for this evening will be Sandi & Willie.

4th of July at Relaxation Station Bed and Breakfast in Lake Wildwood, CA

Several members of the Crowing Coq Cooking Club had the good fortune to spend 4^th of July at the Relaxation Station Bed and Breakfast with it’s delightful owner, Sharon on the shores of Lake Wildwood in the Sierra Foothills.  There was much cooking and merriment in addition to adorable children and breathtaking fireworks as we shared our nation’s birthday. 

Sharon has a fantastic house right on the lake with magnificent views from every room and two fabulous porches brimming with comfortable tables and chairs, herbs, flowers, tomatoes and citrus and our course, Buster, the guard dog.  The lake is deep blue and surrounded with lovely trees.  Skiers, boaters, kayakers and swimmers drifted by as we enjoyed our margaritas on the beach.   

Willie and Sandi arrived on Sunday afternoon to join Tina and Bob and their kids Lauren and baby Isabella.  Sharon’s refrigerator was stuffed to the max with all the food for the next several days.   Some spent the afternoon basking by the lake (it was hot!) enjoying pina coladas and others stayed inside where it was cool to watch the Tour de France. 

Sharon has piles of magazines, books (including lots of cookbooks!), DVD’s, and toys and games for the kids in every room, but soon the kitchen was the scene of the action as Tina, ably supported by sous chef Lauren, put together our dinner. Unfortunately, the dinner was so good, we forgot to take a picture of it, so you’ll have to imagine Tina’s grilled pork loin with blackberry sauce and mango salsa accompanied by coconut rice and grilled asparagus beckoning to us on Sharon’s Provençal dinnerware. Dessert was a refreshing lemon curd lightened with crème and giant blueberries and raspberries.

Sharon’s turn came the next morning as she concocted a Mexican brunch with breakfast burritos made up of roasted potatoes, sausages, eggs, 3 different kinds of tortillas, a variety of toppings, mimosas and a assortment of fruits.  And no one who tried it will forget the ‘Butt Pucker’ Hot Sauce!!  At least one member of the club was reduced to tears as he gasped for breath after a tiny taste. 

Brunch was followed by the annual 4^th of July Wildwood Lake Boat Parade.  This year’s theme was movies and the kids especially loved watching the decorated boats float by playing the themes from their movies.  Since it was so hot, the group spent most of the day on the beach or the dock enjoying the sunshine and cooling off in the ‘Relaxation Station’ (see pic at top of post!), a huge air-filled lounger with net on the bottom to let in the cooling lake water (and mulch!)! 

We bid farewell to Tina, Bob and their kids in early afternoon, but were soon joined by Sharon’s son Dan, his wife Lori and their adorable children, precocious Abby (age 7) and social director Taylor (age 4) who organizes a mean game of hide and seek.  Lori tried to catch a fish for dinner in her kayak, but was unsuccessful, so Sandi and Willie retired to the kitchen to prepare the 4^th of July feast beginning with cooling watermelon mojitos served in Sharon’s Mexican glasses.  We enjoyed crab cakes, potato salad, Cuban corn, and grilled asparagus followed by Willie’s strawberry ice cream served on pound cake. 

The air cooled a bit as the sun went down. Dan brought his boat to Sharon’s dock and we all clambered in and motored across the lake to get a good spot for the fireworks.  It seemed to the kids that it would never get dark enough for them to begin but once they did, it was amazing!  The lake was filled with boats and the sky was filled with sparkling fireworks that lasted for almost half an hour!  After the last colors died away, the sounds of the boaters horns and applause filled the night and when we looked up, instead of fireworks, the sky was filled with stars. 

In the morning, we had another lovely brunch on the terrace overlooking the lake.  It would be easy to get used to living like this!  Many, many thanks to Sharon for a wonderful July 4^th!  
A good time was had by all!

Sandi W

Return to Sent Soví

Some of you may remember that Bill & I also belong to a small wine tasting group that meets once a month. Our annual dinner was at Sent Soví Restaurant again. This dinner was a bit different than the dinner our Cookbook Club had a few weeks ago in that Josiah was given the wines the members chose to bring and created a 6 course menu specifically for each wine. He came out of his kitchen with each course to describe what he prepared and why he chose the ingredients for that wine. This group of people have been friends and tasting wines for over 20 years so you can imagine that the conversations were spirited and enjoyable. However, for a several minutes after each course was served, there was total silence as everyone savored the flavor combinations, tender meats and total gastronomic experience.

We started with a NV Tattinger Champagne la Francaise brut. We were treated to several “small bites” of Gougéres, stuffed purple endives and basterma (air cured beef) on croutons. It was hard not to fill up on these small bites and champagne…what’s not to like?

But we finally sat down to dinner and began with an unusual German dry Riesling that Einar discovered while visiting his family and friends in Norway, a 2009 Gerhard Al Alba Vinceró Riesling Kabinett Trocken, Germany. It was perfectly matched with a entré that Josiah created for this wine, Butter Poached Prawns with Saffron Gelée with English Peas. The prawns were delicately poached and accented with a puree of peas, fried diced tofu and potato sticks, topped with a few chives.

The next dish was my favorite, again, created to accompany a 2007 Rhys Family Farm Vineyard Pinot Noir. Josiah cured a goose that he started last December and finished in April. It was a prociutto type cured goose with wonderful flavors! It is the thinly sliced meats you see on the sides of the dish in the photo. Underneath the crouton topped with a duck paté was thin strips of cured duck breasts, nestled in a bed of barley and Hen of Woods mushrooms and topped with Bull's Blood beet greens. Wonderful textures, tastes and aromas!

Josiah served an intermezzo of Chocolate Sorbet with olive oil and infused with 25-year old balsamic vinegar. Very chocolatey. Our chocolate lovers really enjoyed this tiny scoop!

We were then treated to a magnum of 1995 Antinori Tignanello, paired with Roasted Deboned Quail laid over a puree of parsnips and accompanied by large morel mushrooms and stewed strawberries. Having deboned several quails a couple of weeks ago, I really appreciated the work that goes into a dish like this. The morels were the largest I've ever seen and very tender. We learned that Black Garlic is garlic that is fermented and then turns black in the process.

Our last wine, and our oldest wine, 1989 Chateau Longuville au Baron de Pichon-Longueville, France, went with a Lamb Ribeye served over caramelized mixture of late spring alums and sprinkled with summer truffles. The lamb was cooked medium rare and so very tender! The mixture of different onions were sautéed to a mahogany deep caramel.

We completed this feast with a 2001 Chateau Doisey Védrines Sauternes. This could have been our dessert all by itself! However, Josiah created a Green Tea pot du crème that was delicately accented with green peppercorns and served with diced fresh cherries and peaches. And, you can see from the photo that the colors were bright with cherry reds, peachy oranges and pale green from the matcha in the pot du créme.

The perfect ending to an evening filled with good friends, great wines and gourmet food. Who could ask for more? Certainly not me!

These images are a compilations of photos taken with cameras and iphones by different people and by no means is a complete collection of photos but are ones that came out best (i.e. no blurry ones, no crossed or shut eyes or strange expressions), if you want to see more, just let me know and I'll send all of them to you.

In the meantime, I continue to prepare dishes from Jacques Pepín’s book Fast Food My Way. And am getting ready for our great Africa adventure! We hope to taste some wild game in Zimbabwe and take some fantastic photographs in Botswana and South Africa! More later. . .

Beyond the Cookbook with Josiah Slone

Our October dinner will be an unusual one because we won’t be cooking from a cookbook but creating our own recipes. Josiah Slone, the executive chef/owner of Sent Soví restaurant in Saratoga regaled us with his culinary and engineering expertise for over an hour. What amazed me was that he draws his plates in a notebook and thinks about what will be placed on it, how it will be arranged, what flavors her wants on it, and what different textures and colors he wants. To briefly summarize what he shared:
• Food uses all of our senses: taste, smell, sight, sound and tactile.
• What constitutes “Flavor.”
• FLAVOR= Taste + Aroma + “Mouthfeel”
• There are 5 components of Taste: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami.

When he creates a recipe he starts with a central theme and then begins to build on that theme to complement or contrast with it to heighten its essence. He likened it to a polygram where the 3,4 or 5 corners are the tastes that are balanced. It can tip to one corner or another but not too much so that the triangle, square or pentagram can still be balanced on a fulcrum and not tip over to one side. Using his engineering background, he also showed a graph with big flavors and big intensity but less dimensions (such as Indian food) or more dimensions but not big intensity (like a fine Bordeaux wine). He looks to his 5 components of taste to decide how many of them he wants to use and then builds his Flavor for the dish. It is how chefs in general create tastes that we normally don’t think would go together but when combined, are perfect. One combination that he used as an example was caviar and white chocolate which is, of course, salty and sweet with oceanic aromas and creamy white chocolate mouthfeel with the bursts of flavors from the caviar.

He also talked about wine pairings with food and how the alcohol creates more volatile flavors and adds a new dimension to the flavor. The premise for wines is the same premise used for food: sensory, tastes, and flavor. As we listened to Josiah, Bill poured glasses from a magnum of non-vintage Veuve Cliquot Champagne for everyone and people noshed on cheese, nuts, dried fruits and croutons. To be specific:
- Fiscalini Bandage-Wrapped Cheddar Californian Cow’s Milk, a Semi-firm, bandage-wrapped Cheddar
- Manchego Spanish Sheep’s milk, a semi—firm, with a hard rind
- Brie French Cow’s milk, a soft cheese with a Blooming rind
- Gruyere Swiss Cow’s Milk, Semi-firm with a Natural rind
- Humboldt Fog Californian Goat’s milk, a soft cheese with a blooming rind

The visual presentation of the dish was explained and choices we have to make: symmetrical or non-symmetrical, classic or modern. How much depth to the appearance as well as looking to see how much negative space is on the plate. It was a great lecture that taught us some rudimentary basics to constructing our own recipes. He later explained that instead of measurements (i.e. cups, teaspoons, etc.), he and other chefs use “ratios” of tastes (i.e. ratio of oil to acid or sweet to salty). As each plate was served for dinner, Josiah explained what was in the dish, and how it was constructed. We were in for a treat!

Jeffrey shared a magnum of 2005 Mount Eden Vineyard Chardonnay for our first courses. The first dish out of the kitchen was an amuse bouche served on a spoon: duck tongue with pickled radicchio and cabbage. It was a great test to find the tastes, flavor and sensory components of each dish.

Our first course was a salad with lamb’s tongue, maché, and Mitake mushrooms, accented with a brush of mustard and sprinkling of Vietnamese cilantro. Visually, it was a beautifully presented dish and everyone found it to be absolutely delicious!

The second course was a scallop dish presented 3 ways: seared, “scrambled” and caramelized. The combination of aromas, tastes, mouthfeel and visual design was a portrait of scallopness. This course was served with a magnum of 2005 Pinot Noir from Mount Eden Vineyards. The pinot really brought the ocean flavors forward for this entré and was the perfect wine choice. Jeffrey tried it with the chardonnay and it was not a match….the caramelized scallop flavors just ran all over the chardonnay. This dish needed a fuller wine and the pinot noir did the trick! We had an intermezzo bite of blood orange and rosemary sorbet that cleansed our palates.

The main course was a lamb chop that had been separated into 3 parts so there was the meat, the lamb bones and the rim of lamb fat that had been seared and caramelized to add depth to the lamb tastes. It was served with pickled apricots, sprinkled with green olive pieces, and sautéed savoy cabbage. The pickled apricots were a wonderful accompaniment to the lamb because they weren’t overly sweet but added, along with the saltiness of the olives and the savory-ness of the cabbage, a bright sweet-sour note to round out the flavors of the dish.

We then went to the last course of the dinner, pots a crème with hints of rosemary, topped with a thin gelée of black pepper and a compote of fresh strawberries, slow cooked rhubarb (to retain a crispy texture) and pistachios. This had all the mouthfeel of creamy, spicy, crunchy and crispy. It was paired with a glass of 2001 Chateau Doisy Vedrines Sauternes Bordeaux from Bill’s cellar.

As an extra treat, we had a second dessert! Hooray, Josiah! This one was a densely chocolately sorbet, served along side a white chocolate mousse topped with strawberry bits and then steeped in a strawberry, wine and simple syrup soup sprinkled with dark and white chocolate chips. This dessert had all the ingredients that makes it a “California” dessert: fresh ingredients prepared to bring out local freshness and who can resist chocolate and strawberries? The soup was fantastic! Obviously “cooked” but very little so that the colors were bright red as well as the flavors. The perfect end to a wonderful dinner.

As an aside, during his lecture, Josiah discussed taste pairings and used the example of white chocolate and caviar (sweet and salty). I thought it was going to be our dessert and commented as much to Josiah. He brought out a plate of Guittard white chocolate chips and a small jar of caviar for us to try together. It was an amazing taste. It helped to melt the white chocolate on my tongue before biting into the caviar. It was hard for me to get my mind around the briny saltiness of the caviar and the creamy sweet taste of the white chocolate. Definitely fit the mouthfeel category giving me creamy with the slight crunch of caviar.

Thank you, Josiah, for inspiring us to experiment and try cooking without a cookbook!

I hope this makes all of you to want to try creating your own recipes and /or buying The Flavor Bible (it’s available in the Santa Clara County Library). This book will give you some ideas of tastes that go with certain foods, because the homework due in October is to create your own recipe and bring the dish to our dinner on October 29 (put this date on your calendar!)

Some members of the group are taking a trip to Penn Valley to visit Sharon, taste wines, cook some great meals and soak in the mountains. Please takes notes and let us know what you did, cooked, ate, etc.! We need some guest writers for our blog.

In the meantime, I hope you are enjoying Jacques Pepín’s books Fast Food My Way (there are two editions of this book) because we are moving on to our next dinner, Saturday, August 6th. I found that many of the recipes I chose out of his first book (that I checked out the public library) can be found online as well.

Cook on!

Eating In and Out

I haven’t written in a while but I have been in my kitchen…as well as other kitchens!

Have you tried any of Jacques’ recipes yet? I’ve tried his Sauteed Quail with Raita, Asian Eggplant Salad and his Cubed Potatoes with Garlic and Sage. Of the three, I loved the Eggplant and Potato dishes. The quail, in spite of having cayenne pepper, was rather bland and the Raita didn’t help. I love quail though and will try some other recipes from past cookbooks to satisfy that craving. Did you ever prepare or eat a dish that you thought was going to taste great but didn’t? And, what it does is create a craving for how that dish “ought” to taste? Well, that’s what’s going on for me right now.

The Asian Eggplant Salad recipe didn’t specify how thick to slice the eggplant and I sliced them too thin so I overcooked them in the oven. But, in spite of that boo boo, the dish was lovely and I actually like that bit of charred taste in eggplants. The salad dressing for this dish was de-lish! I used arugula & maché instead of the watercress he called for and liked the result.

The Cubed Potatoes were to die for! So simple but a perfect accompaniment to any main entré. I may bring them to our dinner, I liked them so much. . .of course that depends upon what everyone else brings. I mistakenly chopped the garlic instead of using whole cloves but it added a nice crunch to the potato dish that I liked so I make turn that mistake into a change in the recipe.

In addition to my kitchen, we’ve been eating out a bit lately. Our dining out seems to come in spurts. We eat a home for months and then in a few weeks, eat out 5 times!

We returned to Manresa to celebrate Bill’s B’day and, as you can guess, had a fabulous meal. If you have the time and money, go to Manresa again. They have remodeled the restaurant and it is so much nicer! They added a cocktail lounge where you can try some innovative cocktails and some small bites. I was thinking that it would be fun just to just go to the lounge. The cocktail mixes were quite alluring! While I won’t go into the entire menu (5 courses is $115 pp...there wasn't a choice for fewer dishes), my favorite dish of the evening was the Asparagus, both roasted and raw, crispy mussels with citrus saboyan, toasted seed. The combination of flavors (we’ll learn more about this at our Sent Soví event) was the perfect example of sweet, sour, salty, savory, mouthfeel and umami. David has this concept down to perfection. He also shared an amuse bouche that was an abalone custard served in a Japanese lacquered container. I could have made a whole meal out of this “bite.” It had that soft mouthfeel and was savory, sweet, salty and definitely umami!

We also ate lunch at Campton Place in San Francisco because I bought a groupon-type deal. Every dish was perfectly constructed, arranged on the plates and again, brought forward the five flavors and visual beauty. Because it’s spring, I order a lot of asparagus dishes and this one was wonderful! Delta Asparagus, Slow Poached Farm Egg, Green Herb Emulsion & Shallot Crisp was so French and I think I groaned, it was that good!

We recently ate at Daffodils, in the Orchard Hotel in near Union Square as part of SF’s Dine About Town. It is a beautiful restaurant but the food is sadly lacking. While sounding delicious on the menu, the actual dishes were poorly prepared, overcooked and several were rather dry. The server was doing everything including bartending and while missing a few notes, kept a smile and positive attitude and we enjoyed his attentiveness.

But, enough for now. Our next event is just around the corner and I, for one, am looking forward to learning how to create our own recipes from Josiah Slone, the executive chef/owner of Sent Soví restaurant in Saratoga…as well as tasting his innovative creations. It will be a prelude to our October dinner so stay tuned!