Friday afternoon we drove down to Bridgeport, Connecticut to catch the Bridgeport-Port Jefferson Ferry over to Long Island. The Woodring residence in beautiful Setauket, Long Island is the site of Husky-Con, an annual tournament of the war-strategy board game Diplomacy, of which Melissa is a world-renowned practitioner. And what an impressive venue. The Woodrings' three-story house sits on two acres of prime real estate with a beautiful view over Long Island Sound and a private dock at the intersection of Conscience Bay and Port Jefferson Harbor. While the diplomacy players diplomed late into the night, us non-gamers (collectively referred to as the "diplomacy wives" since most players are male) enjoyed the view, the wine and the inviting water. Don, Graham and Conrad are unbelievably gracious hosts, cooking for almost fifty people all weekend and providing sleeping space for every single one of them. Sitting out in a comfortable loveseat in their back garden on Friday evening, enjoying a glass of wine and watching the boats go by, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was Nick Carraway in the Great Gatsby, looking across the bay to the glitz and glamor of East Egg...
Check out the photos from the weekend at these two sites (flikr and picasa). Now to the food:
Last Thursday before we left for the weekend Melissa revisited a dish we have previously posted, and she made a few improvements. Her corn fritters were great the last time she made them, but this time she achieved a lighter, fluffier texture by whipping up the eggs and adding less flour -- see her notes below for the specifics. She also used some of her tomato, cucumber and cilantro salsa from last Monday's flank steak and mushroom dish (the salsa recipe is found in another post) to fill out the fritters. The tasty cakes were topped off with her home-made pesto aioli and ground black pepper. A great vegetarian dish.
We got back very late Sunday night from Long Island, and we were really feeling the weekend of wine drinking and constant grazing. But a good night's sleep cures a great many ills, and Monday night Melissa made a triumphant return to the kitchen with a steak-tips curry she put together using her own mix of curry spices (see below), served on a bed of arugula fresh from the garden with sliced tomatoes. Our arugula (a.k.a. rocket/roquet) is much spicier than what we buy in the supermarket, with pronounced flavours of black pepper and nuts. Who knows what makes the difference, but I'd rather not think about it given that the garden is often irrigated by the runoff from our apartment building... The beef was spicy and rich with intense flavours from the curry mix -- a perfect dish for Gewurztraminer. We had a 2006 bottle from Chateau Ste. Michelle (Columbia Valley, WA) that was still on our shelf from our recent Gewurz tasting.
Tonight we had a Thai-inspired risotto dish that has to be one of Melissa's best experiments in recent months. After pan-toasting the risotto rice, she simmered it in a mixture of chicken broth, coconut cream, lemongrass and green Thai chili paste for a nice kick. The consistency was perfect -- firm but not crunchy -- and the Thai flavors were evident from the aroma before even tasting the risotto. She served the risotto with wilted basil leaves mixed in, and topped it with diced tomatoes and stir-fried chicken she had marinated in fish sauce, curry paste and lemon juice. A garnish of feathery fennel leaves finished it off in style.
Wow, did I love this dish. Seriously, try it out...
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Melissa's Recipes and Notes
Corn fritters revisited
Last time I made corn fritters they looked fairly good, had good seasoning, but I thought they were a little rubbery. This time I attempted to fix this.
1 egg
1 can of whole corn kernels (don’t try sweet corn it’ll definitely be too stodgy)
½ cup of left over salsa (diced tomato, cucumber, mint, basil and lemon juice)
1 – 2 tbsp of flour
½ tsp of salt
1 tsp of fresh ground pepper
Olive oil
First up using an electric hand whisk I beat the egg until it was light and fluffy. I then folded in the corn, salsa, salt and pepper. Lastly I folded in the flour until I had a loosely bound mixture. In a non-stick pan I heated olive oil to a fairly hot temperature and then spooned in the corn mixture to make fritters. Once one side was nicely brown the fritters were flipped to cook the other. With the lower amount of flour, and the fluffy whisked egg these fritter were a lot lighter than last time.
Pesto Aoli
To top the fritters I decided to experiment with making fresh aoli. Aoli is basically mayonnaise without the lemon juice. I must admit I did add lemon juice so maybe mine would be better described as a pesto mayonnaise.
1 egg yolk
~1/4 cup of really good olive oil
1 small garlic clove
1 handful of basil leaves
salt and lemon juice to taste
Put the egg yolk in a tall narrow vessel. Whisk the egg yolk until light and fluffy with an electric whisk. Wide shallow bowls are not good at containing a single egg yolk for whisking, but may be used if the recipe is being bulked up. In a blender puree basil leaves, garlic clove and olive oil. Slowly add the oil/basil puree to the light fluffy egg while still whisking. Keep whisking egg and oil until stiff before adding more oil until all the oil is combined. Add salt and lemon juice to taste.
Serve spoonfuls of pesto aoli over the corn fritters to serve.
Beef with a curry rub over hummus and arugula salad
While the construction guys renovating the 4th floor of our building had done their best to kill my vegetable garden this year by draining all the rain from the roof directly into my patch of dirt, we got them to move their drainage pipe recently and finally got some arugula/rocket to grow. So while I hadn’t bought any fresh greens from the supermarket recently I managed to harvest enough arugula to make a little salad.
Instead of using potatoes, rice or pasta for starch in meals I’ve recently been experimenting with beans and lentils. I thought hummus might make a good substitute for mashed potatoes and thought to match I might make some steak sliced up and coated in a curry paste with a Middle Eastern inspiration.
~300g of sirloin steak tips – thinly sliced
little olive oil for frying
Curry rub
1 tbsp of curry powder
1 tbsp of cumin
1 tsp of coriander seeds
1 tsp of fennel seeds
1 tsp of whole black pepper corns
½ tsp of caraway seeds
½ tsp of celery seeds
5 garlic cloves
1 tsp of salt
Blend all ingredients in a grinder or with a mortar and pestle until a paste. Rub into thin slices of sirloin steak tips.
Hummus
½ can of chickpeas
1 tbsp of sesame seeds
2 garlic cloves
2 tbsp of lemon juice
Salt to taste
In same blender that curry rub was made (without rinsing) blend hummus ingredients until smooth. Add salt to taste.
After meat has marinated around ½ hour, flash fry in a hot pan coated with olive oil.
Salad
2 cups of fresh arugula/rocket leaves
1 tomato – sliced into thin wedges
Serve meat on bed of hummus surrounded by arugula leaves and a sliced tomato.
East meets West in an Italian-Thai fusion.
Coming home this evening I couldn’t quite put my finger on what I wanted to cook. Last night’s hummus flickered through my mind, maybe a little Turkish food with a yogurt dressing. While I was searching for the chickpeas that Matt froze last night my hand happened on the half tin of coconut cream frozen from last time I cooked a Thai Chicken curry. Last time I was at the supermarket I picked up some lemongrass (also frozen for future use) and then there’s always the John West Thai Curry Paste. Over to the pantry for the Jasmine rice only to be “Denied!” Alas, the Indian Feast used up all my Jasmine rice and there was only Risotto or Sushi rice left. Now that got me thinking, can you make a risotto using Thai Chicken Curry sauce instead of the standard chicken broth? And the answer is a resounding YES! Here’s the recipe.
Thai risotto
1-2 tbsp of olive oil
1 cup of Risotto Rice
1 cup of Chicken Broth
1 cup of Coconut Cream
1 tsp of John West Thai Curry Paste
~4cm of Lemon Grass
In a bowl mix chicken broth, coconut cream, and curry paste. Finely chop the lemon grass and reserve to add to the Risotto when the first ladles of broth are added. For the risotto find a big pot with a tight fitting lid. Heat the oil in the bottom of the pan and add the rice to stir fry it a little before adding any of the liquid. When the rice has been lightly toasted start adding the broth/coconut cream/curry paste mixture ladle by ladle while stirring constantly. Add lemon grass at this time. Wait for the rice to soak up all the liquid before adding the next ladle. Keep the rice on medium heat so the liquid can simmer, but not evapourate too quickly before it is absorbed by the rice. The rice will take around 20 minutes to cook. Keep tasting and look for the kernel to be firm without being crunchy. Matt was a little later coming home than I thought and so when the rice was almost ready I took it off the heat with a little extra liquid still to be absorbed and put a lid on it. While the rice is still hot it’ll continue to absorb moisture and cook that last little bit.
Chicken thigh stir-fried
1 tbsp of olive oil
~100g of thinly sliced chicken thigh
Couple of handfuls of whole basil leaves
1 tsp of John West Thai Curry Paste
1 tsp of fish sauce
1 tbsp of lemon juice
1 tomato diced and seasoned with salt and pepper
¼ cup of water
In a bowl combine chicken thigh slices, curry paste, fish sauce and lemon juice for a quick marinade. Heat olive oil in pan and stir fry chicken until cooked through. Add a little water and throw in basil leaves till wilted. With some water the basil leaves will wilt retaining their green colour. Without the water they will turn black because the heat is too high.
To serve place Risotto on plate and top with sliced chicken/basil mixture. Cover with diced tomato and garnish with a feathery fennel leaf.
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