Tentative Menu for Wednesday, April 8

I need a headcount before I can do anything: contact me.

Menu will be finalized on Monday, when I go shopping

Here's my ideas for course listings for pizzas:

1. Bagna Caôda:

Hot Garlic and Anchovy dip with fresh vegetables and breadsticks

2. Cheese and Mushroom:

Fresh Buffalo Mozzarella and Asiago with Portobello mushrooms, basil, and tomato/truffle/olive oil emulsion

3. Fig Pizza alla salsa di Noci and balsamic reduction:

Figs, Feta cheese, Balsamic vinegar, and walnut sauce

4. Mixed Fruit with Prosciutto:

Grapefruit, sauteed grapes with garlic, pinenuts, Mango con Prosciutto, topped with mint and parsley

5. Dessert Calzone:

Date, Sultana, Apple, Macadamia and spiced crust with apple sauce on the side

The price in the future will be relative to what I'm buying and I will generally bring paired wines which can be purchased by the glass; that taken into consideration - I will no longer ask for the money five days in advance - but I will still require a notice of attendance or the previously mentioned markup will still be in effect.

I'll come over at about one o'clock - like last time, so those able or desirous of helping can. Dinner will start at six o'clock.

Payment Scheme for the Dinner(s)

When the menu's are finalized (On the five days advanced notice) I will come by (to Cydonia at any rate) and pick up the money before I go shopping. Because the menu will be finalized the day of (or before) I pick up the money, and because I will probably go shopping shortly afterwords to give me as much time to prepare in advance as possible - the fee will be non-refundable - so you need to be sure that you can make it at that point. If people want to participate and don't give notice before the five day notice I think that I will enforce a 67% markup on the standard price for the trouble. Remember though, we've got about eight courses listed for $10 or $16.70 if your late - that's still a really good deal; and Chris says that if you don't want to pay that price for it you are tasteless [and vulgar (yes - I will intimidate you into coming)].

If you are out of town [Laura (yes I know who you are), and Chris] or are otherwise unavailable or inconvenient for me to drop by - confer with me via the posts about the dinner in question or my email (greboyer@gmail.com).

Menu for Wednesday, March 25

This post will be updated in the future so please be prepared to refer back to it

This will be the first 'formal' dinner for the Freeway Food Club. At the dinner - since everyone will be together for the first time I will probably make a point on discussing with those involved the regularity and the price of the meals. For now I believe that the following menu will be well within a $10 dollar price range for a party of six:

1. Focaccia
2. Frittata al Formaggio

Cheese Frittata

3. Pasta e ceci

Pasta & Chick Pea soup

4. Risotto alla Paesanna

Risotto with fresh vegetables

5. Arista alla Fiorentina

Florentine Roast Pork

6. Sformato di Finocchi

Fennel Mould

7. Ricotta alla Mentuccia

Ricotta with mint

8. Coffee & Cantucci di Prato

I have made this all happen for 64.98 - so I assumed things were a little cheaper than they were; the price will be brought into question concerning the future.

This is obviously a very Italian listing of courses (which is what I am most comfortable with right now) so they should fit pretty nicely together. Since this club isn't officially started I want to point out that it is an opportunity for people who are both interested in cooking and eating to further their horizons and learn new things - be they cooking procedures or tastes & flavors that you might ordinarily shun. Above all I hope that the experience will be enjoyable and encourage those involved to give input from this point onwards into the courses and cuisines in the future.

Additionally I will be bringing my camera and trying to keep up with what is going on - part of the reason that I want to do this is to allow people to see not only what I am learning but also how I am applying it. After each dinner it will be my intent to post exactly what happened with detailed pictures to fill in all those not involved and make them envious.

For this dinner I will do the prep the night before - there isn't actually that much - and come over early to start preparing it on Wednesday (1 o'clock), with those who are interested/available in helping. Those in attendance are:

• Myself
• Eric
• Laura
• Lowell
• Miki
• Zhu Zhu

Dinner will start at 8:30 pm.

For the sake of Convenience...

Because I am such a considerate and wonderful person - in the future - I will be giving a more detailed run down for how I go about making things, as (and I will make an assumption of a generically good nature here) you probably do not know as well as me what is going on. This will entail detailed how-to pictures or links to other detailed how-to sites as well as longer descriptions and explanations for the preparation of things. Things that I make based on recipes from my current job will not be posted in as great detail as the chef is particular about some of his recipes falling into the public's hands.

Mediteranean Style Ceviche and Creamed Paella

When Chris comes over I sometimes like to do something dramatic with presentation and photography combined. So the time before last that he came over I decided that it would be fun to try to recreate in a different setting the scallop ceviche from work and a creamed paella which ends up being a kind of French take on a Spanish dish (the saffron flavor comes primarily from the sauce which the rice is set on). The first problem was getting all the ingredients and things that I would need to cook this stuff with. The real hard part was me trying to find scallops in the shell - which I didn't. The original idea had been for me to set a slice of scallop in the shell with the appropriate accompaniments (red onion, cilantro, avocado, tomato, red pepper oil, ginger oil/juice, and a balsamic reduction) and to set the shell on a bed of rock salt mixed with aromatic spices and set the small plate that was in inside of a larger plate. Apart from my lack of ability to find shells it turned out pretty well.

I cut up a cedar place mat for the small plate to sit on so it wouldn't slide around and also to lend a little more texture to the picture. I had also cut up a black thatched place mat which Chris and I decided didn't look as nice - so we used it to border the cutting board and it worked exceptionally well for that. This particular ceviche is absolutely packed with flavor. For the shoot I had put two thin slices of scallop on the plates (we shot two different plates since there are two of us and chose the one we both liked the most for the final picture) and when we got to actually eat them the first bite just exploded with flavor, the second bite - not so much. Really if you want to enjoy something like this for all that it's worth you shouldn't prepare more than two small bites, otherwise you end up quite underwhelmed - plan to share.

Following the ceviche was the paella - which was prepared with duck breast, a Brazilian sausage from The Spanish Table, shallots, tomatoes, and copious amounts of parsley leaves and oil (as the border for the saffron sauce) This paella was good. It was really good - but because I tossed it in cream it lost the intensity of flavor that it should have had. The lesson that I learned here is to only apply cream to simple rice dishes - complex dishes like paella don't need the extra that cream can add. My hand slipped when I was getting the saffron out for the sauce, which accounts for its intense yellow color and an almost overpowering flavor - which was something that we had to be careful with when we were eating it, but with a little fresh parsley to garnish it was still one of the richest and most enjoyable meals that I have had in quite a while, and sopping up the extra sauce with some of my fresh made bread was easy to do - even though I knew that I shouldn't eat any more.

The absolutely amazing looking cutting board was crafted specifically for me by dad for Christmas.

Curry - Continued

The following evening I decided to put my curry powder to the real test. I picked up a little bit of lamb and a lot bit of pork (most of which I sliced, bagged and froze) and made a sauce. For the sauce I used:

• olive oil for browning
• Shallot
• butter
• flour
• chicken broth
• white wine vinegar
• lime juice
• leek
• oyster mushroom
• pork loin
• lamb
• salt to taste
• curry powder to taste

I started by browning half a shallot with just a little bit of olive oil; then I added the butter and flour as if to make a roux. With that started I added about a cup of chicken stock, the leeks (sliced thin), the mushrooms, lime, and vinegar. I don't really measure - I do it by feel - so if you've never made gravy or don't have any knowledge of sauces my encouragement is to start with a small quantity and see what you end up with (in most cases for a roux start with a tbls of both butter and flour, if the desired amount of sauce looks thin - add more flour, and don't be afraid to stick your finger in and taste for salt, spice, acidity/vinegar, etc). The amount of mushrooms, leeks, and meat can very based on what amount of bulk you want within the sauce and what you want to pay for in the case of the meat. Reduce the sauce almost to the desired consistency and add the meat - which should be in relatively small chunks - cover and let cook gently until the meat is done and the sauce is at the desired consistency. Serve with rice. The total amount of time I spent cooking this was encapsulated within the amount of time it took for the rice to cook. Here was what my result looked like -

And Now For Something Quite Different

I think that I have eaten curry three times. Once at a place called Cedars which was alright but nothing special - and apparently the servers don't get the tips the management does (just for that I would like to see them put out of business) and the other two times at the Bombay Grill which is good place to go eat food that you have absolutely no idea how to make - but it is definitely not the height of Indian cuisine. Anyways, for the longest time I have been telling myself (and possibly others) that I would one day begin collecting and mixing my own spices and grind my own curry powder. Well? "Can your hearts stand the shocking facts" about somebody who has barely eaten curry - grinding his own?

My foray started at Pike and Western, which is both a good and bad thing. Pike is a good market because I can get a ton of neat stuff that is quite difficult to find elsewhere; it is bad because I will invariably spend more money than I should. The first stop was to get fresh curry leaves which I found at a little store called The Souk which is located next to the first Starbucks Coffee house. After than I went down to the The Spanish Table and picked up some olive oil since I had run out. Next I went to World Spice Merchants where I obtained fenugreek seed & leaf, nigella seed, and green cardamom pods. Finally I went to Market Spice which has not quite as large a selection of spices as World Spice but does boast a dramatic selection of teas and coffees as well as convenient containers for storing things in at reasonable prices - which is what I got. After I was done with Pike I took a short walk down to City Kitchen and picked up a granite mortar and pestle with which to grind my spices. The shopping spree was finally concluded after a visit to The Greenwood Market where I could buy the actual ingredients to use the spices on. Then the fun began.

At home I read several combination's for curry mixes before deciding to just get some stuff out and see what happened. The smell of curry leaves is interesting; not something that I am entirely entranced by like everyone else, I guess. I selected a mixture of: fenugreek seeds, nigella seeds, cloves, cinnamon, fennel seeds, coriander, green cardamom, curry leaves, red chili peppers, and cumin. First I toasted everything together in a dry skillet and then I transferred it into the mortar - as you can see. The only question left was how to make use of it. So, it being about 2 o'clock in the morning I just threw some rice into a pot with a liberal amount of the powder and proceeded to fill the entire house with the lingering smell of my curry. When the rice was finished I added in the fenugreek leaf, which is an aromatic that is best added at the end of the dish as a finish lest it lose its qualities in the cooking process. I was relatively impressed with how it turned out, even though I would by no means call it fantastic. The curry was merely a foray into spices that I don't understand yet - and even with my first use I can already generate and idea about the proportion of major and minor flavor factors in future mixes that I would never have thought reasonable previously.

On a brief aside, I made scrambled eggs with tomato, leek and the curry the next morning and it turned out quite well.

A very unhealthy Shepards Pie

For a quantity to serve 5-6 w/accompaniments:

For the Potato Crust:

• 5 potatoes
• Salt to taste
• Fresh white pepper to taste
• 6 Large cloves Garlic in 1/8 in cubes
• 3 tbls butter
• 2-3 tbls Heavy whipping cream
• 4 leaves Sage (minced finely)

This could be done the day before the pie will be served - or started with the stock for the filling and stored in the freezer in a sheet pan until the crust is ready to be shaped. Cold potatoes are easier to work with.

Boil the potatoes till they are just shy of what you think should be done. Pour them into a colander and run cold water over them until they are cooled down (stopping the cooking outright will yield better potatoes in the end so if you want to chill them in an ice bath feel free to do so before working with them) enough to work with. Start by mashing and slowly adding in salt until the potatoes are just under-salted. Saute the garlic in the butter until it is a crisp golden (not brown at all) and incorporate with the potatoes. Add the Pepper to taste, then the cream; the consistency should lean towards drier potatoes but still be rich - as soft mashed potatoes won't hold up in the form of a crust. Finely mix in the Sage and spread out in a sheet pan and reserve in the refrigerator or freezer.

For The Sauce:

Preheat the oven to 320 degrees

for the quick-stock

• 2 tbls Grapeseed Oil or butter
• 1 lb oxtails in 2in pieces

brown the oxtails in the oil in a cast iron pan at medium-high heat until evenly colored - transfer to oven for approximately 2hrs turning the oxtails every 30min to ensure even browning. (You can add beef broth and stew them in that for a while after the browning is complete so that you can drain the fat off - or just use the fat to sweat the mirepoix) Remove the oxtails from the pan and do with them as you wish.

for the mirpoix (3/16 in)

• 2 1/2 Shallots
• 1 celery stalk w/leaves
• 1 large carrot
• 2 apples
• 1 tbls fresh thyme
• 1/2 tbls fresh sage
• 500 ml white wine
• 3 tbls Heavy Whipping Cream
• 2 tbls Calvados
• salt to taste

Add the Shallots, Celery, Carrot, Apples, Thyme, Sage and white wine to the juices in the pan that was used for the oxtails. Cook on medium-high heat until the wine is nearly evaporated and the vegetables are soft - then transfer to a blender. Puree the mixture in the blender until smooth, adding the cream as necessary. When the mixture is blended force as much through a strainer (tamis or chinois) as possible and then mix in the calvados. Taste and then add salt as desired.

For the filling:

• Butter for browning
• 5-6 fresh apples cut into 1/2in wedges
• 1 lb pork tenderloin cut in 1/4in scallopini
• Salt to taste

heat a pan on the stove at medium-high heat and then add the butter. Salt the tenderloin scallops and then brown in the pan - they should not be fully cooked (medium-rare to medium), remove from pan and reserve. Lay the apples in the pan so that they sit and cook evenly (add more butter if necessary) and brown both sides of the slices. Remove them apples when they are evenly browned and reserve.

To complete.

preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Heavily butter a 4 quart saucepan and line the side with the reserved mashed potatoes, making sure to leave enough for top layer of the crust. Add a layer of the sauce, then a layer of apples and followed by a layer of the tenderloin. Continue to layer until the pan is full, or you run out of ingredients. Spread the remaining potatoes over the top and back for about 1 1/4 hours until the top of the potatoes are crispy and golden (if they aren't the desired color you can switch the oven to broil and finish them that way).

Let cool for at least one hour. Seriously. Cut and serve with a dry crisp white wine.

"...you'll have to have them all put out after the savoy truffle."

- The Beatles

One of my December experiments was to create a dessert that I like; ie: one which is not to sweet. For this dessert I called upon my impressive repertoire of dessert items that I do like, such as: aged Balsamic vinegar, peppercorns, blackberries, raspberries, 70% cacao Spanish Velour chocolate (still a little too sweet for me), and a Sicilian chocolate of an unlisted cacao content with red chili peppers and sugar granules, I also included whipped cream with a bit of a fortified grenache that goes well with chocolate. The end result was a bit of a smorgasbord that allowed be to try different flavor combination's but was actually kind of annoying to eat. I made a sauce of raspberries, blackberries, wine and sugar and experimented by adding cream to some - which ruins the intensity of the color. I just set pieces of the 70% chocolate in and around this sauce and topped them with my whipped cream mixture. The best way to do this, in retrospect would be to make a layered mousse with the chocolate the cream and the berry sauce and serve it in a wine glass with fresh sugared berries and mint to garnish. Meanwhile on a different area of the plate I crumbled some of the Sicilian chocolate and poured a bit of the Balsamic on top of it and garnished with freshly ground pink pepper - this combination stands alone as truly unique (Thomas Keller uses tellicherry pepper in several of his desserts - which is where I got the idea of combining chocolate and pepper). So the flavors were good, but the application of them needs work.

The Impossibility of Fruit - with a Fruit Reduction...

Back in November the Chef that I work with at Pomodoro was approached about a ten course dinner for a party of fifty on New Year's 2009. He had for the longest time been lending me culinary books and magazines in hopes that I could give him ideas, and so with the advent of this party he turned to me to see what I could come up with. In the next month we probably came up with about twenty different things - several of which were iterations of my initial suggestions when the party was first mentioned - but one idea in particular that I thought was quite interesting he shot down pretty quickly. I had suggested that we do an organized fruit plate with a fruit reduction and a touch of either whipped cream or sorbet. His response was that a fruit reduction with fresh fruit would ruin the fruit because the reduction would be too sweet, moreover the logistics involved for cutting fruit for fifty people and arranging them on the plates and getting them to the people before the fruit oxidized would be a nightmare. I let the matter rest as far as the party was concerned - but when I went home I decided to see if I couldn't come up with a combination that would work, at least on a small scale setting.

For a good combination I needed to make sure that the fruits that I used were not too sweet and to focus on making the reduction as little sweet as possible. The year previous I had made a reduction of pure pomegranate juice with a little lemon (because I thought it would need to be more tart? I was a little naive at the time). It was incredibly tart - to the point that it was all your mind could process. So this time I decided to make a reduction of Pomegranate and Apple juice with a touch of allspice and clove. This made for a deliciously caramel flavored sauce with a touch of tart to balance the sweet. The fruit that I added were Bananas (something that I have never thought of as sweet), pears (apples could be substituted as they go well with caramel), and cranberries. The cranberries were mostly for color, but the sauce didn't clash with them at any rate; the pears went well with the sauce - though they were slightly under-ripe; the bananas were where the true beauty of the combination showed - they were quite possibly the best bananas that I have ever eaten. On top of it all I added a little whipped cream with vanilla to smooth it all out. My conclusion is that one can mix fruit with a fruit reduction if great care is taken into consideration when choosing which flavors to mix. With a little creativity just about anything can be made to work.