The 'Here's what I had for dinner last night' thread - Part I

The Hill Billy

Thai soup with lots of ginger for my dodgy tummy. The ginger & garlic alone could have counted for one of my 'five a day'.

The Sweeper

Do you think it had actual curative properties, or did it just scare the hell out of whatever was making you sick?

kenco

Last night to start we had these served on a bed of crunchy leaves;

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056142931

Seriously good (apart from my not fully thawed pastry!)

Mains was roast rump of beef, Parmesan mash and mushrooms/leaks sauted in white wine. Again very good though the beef was a little overdone but not by much

Argento Malbec and Superquinn White Burgundy did the honours vino wise (and did them well!)

Minder

I'd read about an ingredient called bottarga in several cookbooks, it's the air dried roe of a grey mullet. I recently found a Fine Food seller on amazon, a very dangerous discovery as I can buy foods with just two mouse clicks. Anyway the bottarga duly arrived and we had it grated over fedelini pasta with purple sprouting broccoli. Lemon and garlic helped it along. Interesting flavour but it will remain a one off impulse buy.

angeldelight

Chorizo rice done in the oven served with very simple salmon parcels - lemon juice, salt, pepper and chives. Meant to do peas but forgot!

the beer revolu

Last night was free range pork loin chops (just done) with puy lentils and spring cabbage - nice, simple:D

The Sweeper

Minder wrote: »

I'd read about an ingredient called bottarga in several cookbooks, it's the air dried roe of a grey mullet. I recently found a Fine Food seller on amazon, a very dangerous discovery as I can buy foods with just two mouse clicks. Anyway the bottarga duly arrived and we had it grated over fedelini pasta with purple sprouting broccoli. Lemon and garlic helped it along. Interesting flavour but it will remain a one off impulse buy.

Aww what? An impulse buy? No bottarga sammiches then?

Thanks to Minder's recent obsession with crab, I've been eating canned crab pasta recently - boil spaghetti until al dente, drain, in the bottom of the still-hot pan (now dry) pour some oilve oil, fry chopped chili and garlic until the rawness comes off (a minute), return the spaghetti to the pan, toss it in the oil, garlic and chili and stir through a drained can of cooked crab meat.

It's really tasty - except the last two cans of crab meat I bought (which considering I bought them at the same time from the same shelf, it's fair to assume they came off the production line one after the other) have basically been 'bit booby traps'. Full of shrapnel - the piece of clear cartledge or whatever it is from the interior of a crab claw - about six pieces of that in each 200g tin.

BAH.

Minder

The Sweeper wrote: »

Aww what? An impulse buy? No bottarga sammiches then?

No bottarga sammiches. Maybe some tobiko sammiches, but not bottarga.

With the tinned crab, it worthwhile tipping the meat into a bowl and picking trhough it for shell before adding it to the dish. I think that advice is on the tins I buy.

Last night I had a lamb recipe from George Columbaris' book - The Press Club. It was slow cooked neck of lamb with mastic and honey. It was supposed to be cooked in 10 hours at 120c, but after 5 hours the previous night and an hour this evening it was enough. The meat was very tender, the sauce was lovely and rich, but the honey flavour masked everything. I could hardly tell there was mastic in it. Interesting dish, but like oxtail, a six month fix will be all that's needed.

Minder

Warm weather, start of holidays and a beer thirst. Vietnamese seared beef & noodle salad was what sprang to mind. I had a good sirloin steak, just needed a bag of leaves and some beanshoots. Simple egg noodles (cold) mixed with the leaves and scalded beanshoots. The steak cooked on a ridge pan in the garden and a nuoc cham dressing - chopped garlic, chilli, fish sauce, rice wine vinegar, water and sugar. It definitely feels like summer has arrived...

psycho-hope

salmon marrinated in mirin, miso and sugar and cooked in the oven with some chips

Minder

Pan fried mackerel fillets with beetroot glazed with soy, mirin and rice vinegar; potatoes with horseradish creme fraiche.

The Sweeper

By seasonal contrast, my Good Friday was cold and grey and the sunset is at 5.40pm.

Subsequently (and because I don't hold with this religious 'fish on good friday' stuff) I slow roasted a half-leg of lamb, with garlic, anchovies and rosemary studded throughout. No spuds and no shops open, so made some sticky rice with a little lamb stock and served that. Also baked a crock of beans - borlotti and canellini from dry - with stock, a bayleaf, onions and garlic, and had the lot of it together with a few beers.

Also made a raspberry russe last night again for eating today. Think I've already posted this, but it's seriously easy and really tasty if anyone's interested - it's a recipe resurrected from an old 1980s Sharwoods 'cooking with herbs and spices' book of my mums. Basically it's raspberry mousse with sponge finger biscuits and jelly, and it's extremely tasty.

Had to get Mammy Sweeper to post me the jelly though - Australia has nothing but jelly crystals instead of the packets of concentrated jelly that you melt. The concentrated stuff is great for quick flavour cooking - cheesecakes and mousses - if you don't want to struggle with gelatine - and the crystals just don't do the job.

Miaireland

angeldelight wrote: »

Chorizo rice done in the oven served with very simple salmon parcels - lemon juice, salt, pepper and chives. Meant to do peas but forgot!

Could you post how you do the rice please?:)

kenco

Hosted Easter Sunday for some near and dear today;

Starter was (kind of..) home made Caesar Salad (devoured which was a good sign!!)

Main was roast leg of lamb with garlic/anchovy/rosemary 'inserts' served with roast spuds, carrot/parsnips mash and baby carrots.

The better half did a seriously good raspberry flan for dessert.

Very good eating and all had a great time (inc the kids!). Had an OK White Sav Blanc with the starter and then a very tasty red with mains (Torbeck Woodcutters Shiraz)

S.R.F.C.

Had absolutely no Easter food, no lamb, chocolate and not even my favourite hot-cross buns! Last night instead was carbonara, lovely all the same.

Mr Magnolia

Spiced spatchcock chicken.

The Sweeper

oooo that looks good! what spices?

the beer revolu

Cooked puerco pebil yesterday.

I'm really not sure what to make of it myself despite everyone seeming to love it.
What I did like about it was that it tasted nothing like anything I've ever made before and wasn't some sweet, sticky Tex Mex ****e.
I served it with white Thai rice and tomato and mango salsa.
I got the annato seeds at an Asian wholesaler and the banana leaves in my local Asian shop.
If anyone is going to try this recipe, half the amount of salt in it - I reduced the salt content and still found it too salty.
I used a free range boneless leg of pork which worked well but shoulder would be better.

Mr Magnolia

The Sweeper wrote: »

oooo that looks good! what spices?

Got the recipe from here. Cinnamon, smoked paprika, ground cumin, ground coriander, garlic, dried red chilli flakes. Served with cous cous.

kylith

Had some gorgeous chicken tonight, and so tasty. I recommend you try it.

2 tbsp marmalade
2 tbsp miso paste
Pinch 5 Spice
Drop soy sauce
4 chicken breasts

Mix marmalade, miso, soy and 5spice together. Pound chicken breasts flat and marinade 30 minutes in sauce mix. Fry until done (it won't take long). Serve with sesame noodles or rice.

Minder

Guinea fowl spatchcocked and braised in a wild mushroom and marsala broth, the cooking liquid reduced to make a sauce. Mash potato and spinach as sides. The mushrooms were all dried and reconstituted - morels, chanetrelles and porcini.

the beer revolu

Yesterday we wondered what to do with the left over puerco pebil from a few posts back and Mrs Beer suggested those Chinese pancakes that go with aromatic duck.

So we had the pancakes with rhubarb and ginger jam instead of plum/hoisin sauce with cucumber, chives, fresh coriander, the stewed pork and some onion marinated in lemon juice and sweet paprika.

It was amazingly good - the sweetness of the jam was great with the sharpness of the pork and onion.

I think I am getting to really like this pork dish - I recommend trying it if you can get your hands on annato seeds.

The Sweeper

Beef stroganoff. Yum.

the beer revolu

Tonight is going to be pig cheek slow cooked in apple juice, cider vinegar and dry sherry with sliced ginger, onion, celery and thyme.
I'll finish it in a hot oven and serve with mustard mash, roast beetroot, tenderstem broccoli and the cooking liquid reduced with some apple balsamic
Might do a bit of roast rhubarb too.

Never cooked pig cheek before!

The Hill Billy

I had the pleasure of being treated to dinner by some Ukrainian & Russian colleagues this evening. Apart from the wodka I was treated to some very fine borsht and then roasted pig fat with baked potato. Yum!

dudara

Grilled halloumi salad with slow-roasted cherry tomatoes - Full details here

The Sweeper

Big roast cooking over weekend - Saturday was roast chicken, stuffed with a sausage meat and breadcrumb stuffing with onions sauteed in butter, a little garlic, pepper (no salt - sausage meat was salty enough), fresh thyme, sage and parsley, all bound up with an egg. It was really good stuffing. Sat the chicken on a couple of halved onions and put four heads of garlic in the roasting tray.

Other sides - mashed potato, roast potatoes parboiled first and then put in a roasting tray in the oven, roasted parsnips, roasted carrots and sweetcorn, trimmed off the cob and steamed with a knob of butter.

This was followed by a long and overfed sleep, and the same again on Sunday reheated.

Minder

Dinner last night was roast duck, roast spuds and mixed veg. Unremarkable except the gravy which was made with a Xanthan Gum thickener. Interesting result. The xanthan is a very good thickener and emulsifier - 1.2g will make good gravy from 500ml of stock. It's flavourless, so the stock needs to be fully flavoured to give a good gravy. The result was (on the face of it) very good - nice flavour and consistency. If there is a downside, it maybe that the stock was too greasy from the duck, then using a strong emulsifier makes for a gravy that leaves a coating in the mouth - maybe I'm overanalysing it, the meat is fatty anyway...

Will see if it works better on another sauce recipe.

S.R.F.C.

Last night was a lovely chicken, bacon and broccoli bake.

kenco

Last night was Roast Rib of beef with a red wine/recurrent jelly reduction served with mash and asparagus in lemon and Parmesan. Very good if I say so and washed down with a Superquinn classics Ripasso which was very good and only €10

Had a caprese salad to start with which was also fine and was eaten Al Fresco as the kids had their tea!