9 posts tagged “first course”
Sometimes the old chestnut comes true: necessity is the mother of invention. We had some friends over for dinner last Saturday, and I was all set to make this scallop dish from Living, when I realized halfway through the process that it wasn't going to work out. I couldn't use my oven to bake the scallops, as directed, since I was already making a souffle in there and was ordered by Julia Child not to open the door for 20 minutes. Also I didn't have any capers for the relish, or any jerusalem artichokes to roast for a crispy topping. (It's true, I can be very disorganized in the kitchen!)
So I made it up my own way. I decided to substitute crispy fried shallots for the jerusalem artichokes, and chopped green olives for the capers. I pan seared the scallops instead of roasting. And it turned out absolutely great! (Unlike my souffle, which looked gorgeous when I took it out of the oven, but in the five minutes it took for us to finish our scallops, it sank like a well. Can't win em all I guess!)
Pan-Seared Scallops with Cauliflower Puree
Ingredients:
For the puree:
1 head cauliflower
2 cups chicken broth
For the scallops:
8 large sea scallops (about 1 lb.)
1 tablespoon butter
salt
pepper
For the topping:
2 shallots, sliced thin
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup parsley, finely chopped
1/4 cup green olives, finely chopped
juice from 1/2 lemon
Instructions:
For relish, combine chopped parsley, olives, and lemon juice and stir until well mixed. Set aside.
Cut cauliflower into 1 inch pieces. Boil in broth until tender, about 20 minutes. Puree in blender, or in the pot using an immersion blender. Salt and pepper to taste. Return to pot.
Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a small pan until very hot. Add in sliced shallots and turn heat down to medium high. Stir occasionally until the shallots are browned and crispy.
Sprinkle scallops with salt and pepper. In another pan, heat 1/2 tablespoon butter until it is fully melted and beginning to brown. Add 4 of the scallops, flat side down. Adjust heat to keep the butter from burning. Do not touch the scallops for 2 minutes. When they are well browned, turn scallops using tongs. Cook until medium rare - the bottom 1/3 and top 1/3 of the scallop should be opaque while the middle 1/3 remains translucent. Remove from heat and transfer to a platter. Cover with foil to keep them warm. Repeat the process with the other 1/2 tablespoon of butter and other 4 scallops.
While the second batch is finishing, reheat the cauliflower puree.
To serve, ladle each of 4 plates with about 1/2 cup of puree. Place 2 scallops on top and sprinkle with relish and crispy shallots.
Serves 4
So I've been recruited to cook Passover dinner for my extended family. Apparently the popularity of this blog combined with the yummy anniversary dinner my cousin Jorie and I made for her parents has inspired them to name us co-chefs for the seder they are hosting.
It's a pretty daunting task to cook a dinner for this group, as there are legions of aunts, uncles, and cousins on that side of the family. Not to mention the various in-laws, neighbors, and family friends who often turn up at these things. Jorie is an experienced large dinner chef since her family is the host of an annual 50-person Thanksgiving meal, not to mention the many times they've hosted Passover, as well as various family chili-cook offs and the like. Me, I've only cooked for a group this large once before, after my Aunt Jan basically dared me to.
Several years ago, Jorie created a Passover menu from Healthy 1-2-3, with a gravlax-style beef roast, garlic mashed potatoes, and asparagus with wasabi butter. It was absolutely scrumptious and met with rave reviews from all the guests. Including Aunt Jan, who wondered aloud, "Wow, where did Jorie ever come up with these combinations of ingredients??"
I chimed in, I thought innocuously, "Oh, you know, this is the new fusion cuisine!"
Aunt Jan apparently interpreted the phrase "fusion cuisine" as a slight at Jorie's skillz, because she replied, with a withering glance, "Well, I don't see you cooking any Passover dinners, Robin."
And then everyone turned and stared at me. I was so surprised at this retort, I was for once speechless. All I could muster was a 80s-style "Daaaaaaaaaaang!"
It was on. As I hunted for the afikomen (yes, they still make me look for the afikomen even though I'm over 30) I vowed then and there to host the next Passover dinner at my mom's house and cook something that would make my aunt eat her words along with my delicious meal.
So next April swung around, and it was time to put my matzoh where my mouth was. With the help of my mom and my brother's girlfriend, Kelly, as well as some of my cousins, I prepared several quartered roasted chickens and a huge pot of lemon zesty rice from Martha Stewart, along with my own fancy asparagus recipe - with aioli instead of wasabi butter. Unfortunately Aunt Jan did not make it to our house to taste the food she inspired. Although maybe that was for the best, because I have to admit it wasn't my best meal. The aioli was great, but the rice was kind of gummy, and I had a little trouble with my timing trying to have everything warm at the same time.
This year I'm determined to do better. Jorie and I have already started brainstorming about the menu, and I had an idea that this delicious, savory roasted carrot soup would be a good first course. My mom, who is a soup maven and eats soup at just about every meal (this is one of her diets that she has invented, which also include the eat-anything-you-want-as long-as-you-use-chopsticks diet and the rice-cakes-and-V8-for-lunch diet) first introduced me to roasted carrot soup. It was delicious, far richer and more complex than the usual carrot soup I make. She made hers from a recipe in Parade magazine, the insert that comes with the Sunday newspaper.
I had plenty of carrots, so I set out to replicate the soup last week. Unfortunately I didn't have parsnips, fresh ginger, or the 2 hours it required to simmer the vegetables in the oven. I decided to speed things up by roasting the carrots separately for 45 minutes while I carmelized some onions. A quick simmer on the stovetop in some chicken broth and the soup flavors were blended and ready to puree and serve. Best of all I can make this ahead of time and bring it to Passover frozen. One less pot to juggle for me and Jorie!
Roasted Carrot Soup
Ingredients:
2 lbs carrots
5 sprigs thyme
3 large onions
8 cups chicken broth
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon powdered ginger
3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 Tablespoon butter
salt and pepper to taste
crème fraiche
fresh chives or parsley, finely chopped for garnish
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 375
Scrape thyme leaves from stems. Set aside.
Peel carrots and cut into quarters. Toss carrots in 2 Tablespoons olive oil and sprinkle with thyme leaves and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Place on a baking sheet in a single layer and roast for 45 minutes.
While carrots are roasting, slice onions into thin slices. Heat butter and remaining Tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet. When foam has subsided, add onions and stir to coat with butter/oil mixture. Lower heat to medium low. Cook for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until onions are soft and golden brown.
When carrots are finished, combine carmelized onions, roasted carrots, and chicken broth in a large stockpot. Add cayenne pepper and ginger. Stir well and simmer for 15-20 minutes.
Puree soup with an immersion blender or in a batches using a conventional blender. If soup is too thick, add water until it reaches your desired consistency. Salt and pepper to taste.
Ladle into bowls and top with a dollop of creme fraiche and a sprinkling of chives or parsley.
Serves 6
By far the most successful dish I made for Valentine's day was the shallot-cassis marmalade served on French bread with goat cheese. I added this to the menu almost as an afterthought. The recipe is from my special occasion cooking bible, Cooking for Mr. Latte. Amanda recommends serving this after the main course because it is so delicious that if you serve it first, no one will save room for dinner. And I have to concur.
The recipe is fairly simple too, once you accomplish the task of deciphering her cheese recommendation: "1 round of Chaource, brick of Lingot de Quercy, or button of Chevrot." I had no idea what she was talking about. And I took three years of French. I didn't even realize that cheese portions were referred to as rounds, bricks, and buttons, and I didn't have the slightest clue as to how many ounces each of these things entailed. I faithfully copied the exact wording onto my grocery list and showed it to the cheese guy at Whole Foods. I strongly suspect that he didn't really understand it either - after all this was a supermarket, not a cheesemonger's. But he gamely recommended a cute little cylindrical cheese, about 6 ounces, with a very long name (more than four words) which I have since forgotten. It had a soft, crusty looking rind and a creamy center.
The only other daunting part of the recipe, aside from the cheese selection, is the task of creating 3 cups of thinly sliced shallots. It took about nine large shallots worth of slicing on the 1/16 setting of my mandoline slicer before I had the requisite amount. From there, the recipe couldn't be easier - melt some butter in a pan, add the shallots and some salt, turn the heat down to low, and you can basically forget about them for about half an hour, stirring occasionally. At the end you deglaze the pan with vinegar, and mix the drippings together with the shallots and some thyme, creme de cassis, and currants. If you're organized, the dish can be completely made ahead of time, and then you just bring the cheese and shallot marmalade out on the counter to warm to room temperature about an hour before serving. Or if you're me, you can rant and rave wildly as you make three other dishes and a cake at the same time and still, the marmalade will just sit there patiently until you're ready to serve it.
Goat Cheese with Shallot Cassis Marmalade
adapted from Cooking for Mr. Latte by Amanda Hesser
Ingredients:
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
3 cups thinly sliced shallots (about 9 large or 12 small shallots)
1 teaspoon sea salt
5 sprigs thyme
2 Tablespoons sherry vinegar
4 Tablespoons creme de cassis
1/4 cup red currants, fresh or frozen, or 2 tablespoons red currant jam or jelly
6-8 oz. goat cheese - something with a soft rind and a creamy middle. (At least 1 hour before serving, set the cheese out on the counter to ripen.)
Instructions:
Melt the butter in a large saute pan and spread the shallots over the bottom. Sprinkle with salt. Turn the heat to low and cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Pull the leaves from the thyme and stir them into the carmelized shallots. Remove from pan and set aside in a bowl.
Place the pan back on the stove, add the vinegar and turn heat to medium high. Stir to deglaze the pan, and pour sauce over shallots. Add the creme de cassis, a little at a time, to taste. Allow the shallots to cool, then stir in the currants or currant jam. If you are not serving dinner in the next hour, refrigerate.
One hour before serving, set the cheese and the shallots out to warm to room temperature. Slice a baguette or some country bread and serve the cheese with the bread and a large spoonful of the shallot marmalade on each plate.
Serves 4, or in our case, 2
I finally got my hands on some Meyer lemons. I've been hearing about these things for years. Brought to the United States from China at the turn of the century, these sweet little lemons were used mostly as ornamental plants until they were popularized by California chefs in the 70s and 80s pursuing a cuisine of locally grown organic foods. Nowadays cookbook chefs are constantly dropping them into recipes all casually, as if we all live in California and can just go pick some off the bush in our back yard.
Even though Meyer lemons are certainly not locally grown here in Illinois you can still find them once in a while, usually during the lemon season which is from December to April. Thought to be a cross between regular lemons and tangerines, they are rounder and more orangey yellow than conventional lemons. Their flavor is sweeter than regular lemons and their skin is soft and has a wonderful orange-lemony fragrance.
So when I finally found some during my weekly grocery shop, I grabbed half a dozen. Now I could finally make all those lemon-snobby cookbook recipes I'd been bypassing! I decided to start with a main course, meyer lemon pasta. I actually had two different recipes for a meyer lemon pasta (one from the Living spa cuisine article and one from Cooking for Mr. Latte). I decided to keep the common elements - spaghetti, meyer lemons, arugula - and just add in which ever of the other ingredients suited me. The result was a light, delicious pasta, which was pretty easy to make (once I got the lemons) and as a bonus, it's pretty healthy to boot!
Spaghetti with Meyer Lemon-Pistachio Pesto
Ingredients:
1 pound whole grain spaghetti (I use Barilla - the yellow box)
2 meyer lemons (the recipe will still be good with regular lemons, just use one lemon instead of two)
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
3/4 cup roasted pistachio nuts (buy the kind that are already shelled)
1 large shallot, minced
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup creme fraiche or sour cream
3 handfuls arugula, roughly chopped
salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
Put on a pot of salted water to boil.
Zest the lemons into a large bowl and add the grated parmesan.
Cut the lemons into six wedges each and remove seeds. Discard peels.
Pulse pistachio nuts in food processor until well chopped. Add peeled, seeded lemon wedges and pulse to combine.
When water boils, put in pasta and cook until al dente (about 10 minutes or as package directions indicate).
While the pasta is cooking, heat one tablespoon of olive oil in a small pan and saute shallots over medium heat until fully softened. Add cooked shallots to pistachio-lemon mixture.
When pasta is done, drain, reserving 1 cup of cooking water. Toss cooked pasta in bowl with lemon zest and parmesan. Add pesto, mix thoroughly until all strands are coated. If the dressed pasta is too sticky, add some of the cooking water until it has a nice slippery texture. Fold in creme fraiche. Finally, add the chopped arugula, and mix until it is wilted and evenly distributed throughout the pasta. Salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with a fresh grating of parmesan on top.
Serves 4
The only drawback to this book is, some of the preparations are overly fussy. For instance, the Broccoli Soup with Fresh Basil Butter. Rozanne recommends beginning by scraping 1/2 cup's worth of the tiny buds from the top of a bunch of broccoli, then blanching the buds and reserving them for garnish. I mean, come on, woman! A couple of tiny basil leaves and a curl of composed butter is garnish enough! Anyway, the rest of the recipe was right on... for the most part.
The other thing that I find overly fussy about recipes is when they want you to use several kitchen appliances for one dish. I have lived for the past 10 years without a dishwasher, and let me tell you it's enough work cleaning a food processor and all it's various and sundry parts, without having to wash a blender too. So when I had finished blending the butter and basil together to make the enrichment for the soup, I figured "Hey, since my food processor is already all basil-buttery, I'll just use it to puree the soup instead of dirtying my immersion blender!" And it worked great when I added in the boiled broccoli and basil leaves I had strained from their cooking liquid. They were smooth as a dream within 60 seconds. Then I added in the reserved cooking liquid...
So you know how a food processor has that hole in the center where the stick comes through that turns the blade? Yeah, well, turns out broccoli water can flow through that hole out onto the food processor base and the surrounding counter and bag of leftover potato chips. And floor.
It's especially bad when this happens on a day when you have run out of paper towels and you have to clean the whole mess up with toilet paper.
Broccoli Soup with Fresh Basil Butter: the Easy Way
adapted from Healthy 1-2-3 by Rozanne Gold
Ingredients:
1 large bunch broccoli - about 1 1/2 pounds
1 cup packed basil leaves, washed and thoroughly dried
3 1/2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
Instructions:
Peel the broccoli stalks, removing all of the tough exterior. I find it easier to start at the bottom of the stalk and peel upwards toward the treetops. Cut off the woody bottoms and discard. Cut peeled broccoli stems and florets into 1/2 pieces and place in 2-quart pot.
Reserve at least 12 of the smallest, cutest basil leaves for garnish. Of the remaining basil, add 1/2 cup packed leaves to the pot of broccoli.
Cover broccoli and basil with 5 cups cold water and add 1 teaspoon of kosher salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium and cover. Simmer for about 20 minutes until broccoli is tender.
Place butter and 1/4 cup packed, WELL DRIED basil leaves in food processor. Add 1 teaspoon kosher salt and process until well combined. Transfer to a small container and refrigerate.
Place the buttery food processor back on the base. When broccoli is tender, transfer the broccoli and basil leaves to the food processor using a slotted spoon, leaving cooking water in the pot. Process until well blended and smooth.
Scoop out two cups of the cooking water and set aside. Return the broccoli puree to the remaining cooking water and stir to combine.
Add 2 Tablespoons of the basil butter to the soup and stir until completely dissolved. If the soup is too thick, slowly add the reserved cooking water until it reaches the consistency you prefer. Salt and pepper to taste.
Ladle hot soup into bowls and garnish each serving with some tiny basil leaves and a slice of the remaining basil butter.
Serves 6 (makes about 6 cups)
My friend Betsy invited me to a new kind of party this weekend: a potato potluck. Inspired by the deliciousness of Hanukkah latkes, her friend Kendra had decided to throw a party honoring the humble potato with any treatment her guests could devise. I decided to make another attempt at my most recent potato venture, sweet potato gnocchi.
Enlightened by my pasta-shaping experience making the cavatelli, I tried a variation on this method with the gnocchi. I cut the gnocchi smaller this time, about twice the size of the 1/4" cavatelli pieces, and I used the same roll-across-palm-until-outer-lip-folds-over method but this time with a dessert fork rather than my finger tip. The finished gnocchi did not look like the perfectly symmetrical ridged cylinders in the cookbook photos, but more like a baby's fist, the outer lip resembling a big thumb clenched tight beneath the fork-lined fingers.
I froze the gnocchi and took them in a ziploc to boil at the party, along with a tupperware full of the rosemary gorgonzola sauce I had learned to make at Jorie's. The party was a revalation - it was like a potato episode of Iron Chef. There were potato dishes of every color and creed. Roasted garlic potatoes. Two kinds of mashed potatoes. Sweet potato hash browns. Vegan potato and mushroom gratin. Latkes. Pierogies. Potato chips. And for dessert, Betsy's Coconut and Pecan Sweet Potato Souffle! I boiled my gnocchi in some salted water and served them up in a big bowl next to the sauce. Sitting in that bowl, they got a little soggy over the course of the party, but my culinary schooled friend Zev, who doesn't mince words when it comes to food (or anything really), said he was impressed so I consider the dish a success!
After stuffing ourselves for 2 hours, Betsy and I left the party in a carboloaded stupor. If only I had a marathon to run or something, those calories could have gone to a good use! Instead I went home and got ready for dinner.
Sweet Potato Gnocchi
adapted from Bon Appetit magazine, via epicurious.com
Ingredients:
2 pounds sweet potatoes (about 2 large potatoes)
12 ounces ricotta cheese
1 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese (about 3 ounces)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour plus more for dusting
Instructions:
Drain ricotta cheese in a fine mesh sieve about 2 hours
Line large baking sheet with parchment paper.
Wash and dry sweet potatoes, pierce each several times with a fork. Place them on a plate and microwave on high until tender, about 15 minutes, turning the potatoes every five minutes. Cut in half and cool.
Scrape sweet potato flesh into medium bowl and mash; transfer 3 cups to large bowl.
Add ricotta cheese; blend well. Add Parmesan cheese, brown sugar, salt, and nutmeg; mash to blend. Mix in flour, about 1/2 cup at a time, until soft dough forms.
Turn dough out onto floured surface; divide into 12 equal pieces. Rolling between palms and floured work surface, form one piece into a 20-inch-long rope (about 1/2" in diameter), sprinkling with flour as needed if sticky. Cut the rope into 1/2" pieces.
To shape the gnocchi, with well-floured palms, roll each piece into a small ball. Place the ball on the left side of your left palm. With a small fork in your right hand, roll the gnocchi across your hand applying a medium amount of pressure. As it crosses your palm, the outside lip of the dumpling will roll over and touch the fork. Gently pull the fork out of the dumpling and set it on the baking sheet to rest. If the fork sticks when you are pulling it away from the dough, it's time to scrape the dried dough and flour residue off the fork. You will need to clean the fork about every six gnocchi or so.
When you have finished shaping all the gnocchi from the first rope, roll out the second piece of dough and continue working. Do not roll out all the dough at once or the pieces will get a crust on the outside before you have a chance to shape them and this makes things more difficult.
You will need at least 2 baking sheets to hold all the gnocchi. You can freeze one baking sheet's worth while you're filling the next one and then store the frozen gnocchi in a ziploc or tupperware and reuse the baking sheet.
When you are ready to serve, drop the gnocchi in small handfuls into a pot of boiling, salted water. When they float to the top, scoop them out with a slotted spoon and set to rest in a SINGLE LAYER in a large colander. Serve with Rosemary Gorgonzola Cream Sauce or another sauce of your choosing.
Serves 6 as a main course, 10 as a first course, or 20 as one of sixteen potato dishes at a carbo-loading potluck.
Rosemary Gorgonzola Cream Sauce
Ingredients:
1 cup heavy cream
10 oz. crumbled gorgonzola
2 large sprigs fresh rosemary
Instructions:
Wrap rosemary in a piece of cheesecloth and tie the ends together.
In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine cream and rosemary bundle. Bring cream to simmer.
Add in the gorgonzola and whisk until melted.
Remove the rosemary bundle and drizzle sauce over gnocchi.
Makes about 2 1/2 cups of sauce, more than enough for the gnocchi recipe. You can also make the sauce ahead of time and refrigerate it. (Microwave to reheat.) The leftover sauce tastes great on a roast beef sandwich or mixed into mashed potatoes.
I used this recipe from the Brooklyn restaurant, Al di La. These were way easier to shape than the gnocchi, although at first I thought it was going to be harder.
After I drained the ricotta and squeezed the heck out of the chard until it was as dry as boiled leaves can possibly get, and mixed them together with the eggs, flour and seasonings, it was still a totally sticky mess. The recipe instructed me to "shape into 1 ounce balls, about 1 tablespoon each." I was like "Oh-Kaaaaaayyyyy...." and basically dumped a bunch of tablespoon-size sticky globs onto my floured cutting board. Malfatti indeed, I thought.
Then the next step read, "Put a teaspoon of flour into a narrow wineglass. Drop in a ball and swirl until it forms an oval." I used a tiny cordial glass inherited from my friend Juliet after our brief stint as roommates (until she was whisked off to California suddenly by the love of her life and left me with a bunch of mismatched dishes and stemware). And what do you know, it worked! After 5 seconds of swirling, the sticky globs were transformed into smooth little eggs with a powdery coating of flour. I'm told these are a bit rounder than the malfatti they serve at Al di La, but I thought they were adorable. Before I knew it, I had 42 little chard balls sitting on my baking sheet. I froze half for later and went to work on my sauce while I boiled the rest.
The sauce was just browned butter and sage (couldn't be easier - you just cook some butter until it's brown, throw in some fresh sage and cook for 30 seconds more). I finished them off with a sprinkle of grated parmesan. They tasted terrific - airy and light but still rich and yummy. A scrumptious first course, followed by roasted chicken and salad.
Last Saturday we went to visit Jorie and her husband Mike. Last year we visited them on the first week of NFL playoffs and the boys spent 48 hours in front of the TV. Jon had such a blissful time (in spite of the last 3 hours, where the Bears fell to Carolina in their first post season appearance in four years) that he decreed it was now a family tradition for us to go to Springfield to watch the playoffs.
Our visit happened to coincide with Jorie's parents' (my Aunt Wendy and Uncle Bob) visit to Springfield to celebrate their 33rd wedding anniversary. Since they hadn't made any reservations, Jorie and I decided to treat them to a fancy six-course Italian meal. We came up with this menu:
sparkling cranberry mocktails
dates stuffed with toasted almonds
toasted italian bread with truffled pate de foie gras
salad of beets and baby greens in a white balsamic vinaigrette
sweet potato gnocchi with rosemary gorgonzola cream sauce
stuffed chicken breasts with mixed mushrooms and shallots
espresso
vanilla ice cream with raspberry sauce and fresh blackberries
We started out with the gnocchi. We were inspired by a dish at Phlair, a now-defunct Chicago restaurant that Jorie and I used to frequent back in our Bucktown days - sweet potato gnocchi in a gorgonzola cream sauce with walnuts and raisins. It was divine but there was only one problem: Jorie's husband is a known raisin-hater. So we decided to 86 the raisins and swap out the walnuts for a rosemary infusion suggested by her Williams-Sonoma pasta cookbook.
Recipe looked simple enough. Bake some potatoes (we used half sweet potatoes, half white potatoes). Mash the potatoes - still easy (even though it turned out Jorie of all people did not own a potato masher or ricer - but forks worked fine). Combine with a couple of beaten eggs and some flour. Check. Next step - take a tennis ball-sized piece of dough and roll it into a rope 3/4" in diameter. Cut the rope into 2cm segments. Check, check.
Then we got to the difficult part. The part of the recipe I never can master. "Roll the gnocchi along the tines of a fork to indent." First of all I could not get them to roll. The best I could manage was to slide them along the fork. But that didn't do much in the way of indentation. Then I tried sliding them with a little more pressure. But that just resulted in a smooshed blob with fork prints in it. We finally settled on a technique of smooshing the gnocchi with the fork tines and then pinching it back into shape. You know, the old Smoosh and Pinch method. Two Jewish girls' take on Italian cuisine. (Though Italian grandmas are known for doing their share of smooshing and pinching too, so maybe we weren't that far off!)
And then... THEN... the most brilliant moment of our day: we stacked all our gnocchi in a tupperware container and set it aside until we were ready to cook the pasta.
That's right, we piled a bunch of small, arduously shaped pieces of mooshy dough in a plastic container, snapped a lid on top, and let the whole thing sit out on the warm counter for the next couple of hours.
We went about preparing the chicken, the salad, the hors d'oeuvres. Bob and Wendy arrived and everyone was happily snacking on the starters and drinking their fizzy cranberries. The chicken was baking, the gorgonzola was melting in the cream, the water reached it's boiling peak, and I opened the tupperware to put in the gnocchi to boil... and guess what?
You'll never believe it.
The warm, soft gnocchi, all piled together, had coalesced back into one big ball of dough! GASP!!
Thank goodness we had perfected our smoosh and pinch technique earlier. We rolled out those tennis balls into rope and in ten minutes had another batch of slightly misshapen dumplings ready to go. In the end, covered in creamy rosemary gorgonzola sauce and served on Jorie's fancy place settings, our twice-rolled gnocchi didn't look too bad at all! And they tasted delish - tender and fluffy, and the combination of sweet potato and gorgonzola and rosemary was sublime. A dish that truly had "phlair."
I actually make roasted beets somewhat often and it is my preferred method of cooking them but I wanted to try a different preparation this time. One night trying to fall asleep, I got the idea of beet carpaccio stuck in my head. The next day I looked around on epicurious.com and found a recipe.
Beet Carpaccio with Onion Marmalade
Adapted from Gourmet magazine, via epicurious.com
Ingredients:
4 large or 8 medium size beets (about 2 pounds with greens)
6 medium onions (2 lbs)
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
4 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
2/3 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 (1/2-lb) piece Parmigiano-Reggiano
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Trim greens from beets and reserve for another use. Scrub beets well and pat dry. Place beets on a large sheet of foil and sprinkle with olive oil. Wrap foil tightly into a packet. Place packet on a baking sheet and roast in oven until tender - about 1 1/2 hours.
While beets are roasting, slice onions by cutting in half lengthwise and then cutting horizontally into very thin slices. Melt butter in a large skillet. When foam subsides, add onions and stir to coat. Cover the pot and turn heat to low, stirring occasionally until onions are soft, about 20 minutes. Add salt, sugar, and vinegar and cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until onions are very tender and caramelized to deep brown, about 20 minutes more. Add wine and boil, stirring occasionally, until liquid is reduced to about 2 tablespoons, 3 to 5 minutes. Transfer mixture to a food processor and pulse to a coarse purée.
When beets are finished cooking, cool to warm in foil package about 15 minutes, and then use a paper towel or old kitchen towel to slip the skins off the beets, discarding stems and root ends.
[You can make the entire recipe up to this point ahead of time. Put the peeled beets in a sealed plastic bag and cover the marmalade and store them in the refrigerator until you are nearly ready to serve.]
Cut beets crosswise into 1/16-inch-thick slices with a mandoline slicer. [If they have been prepared ahead and chilled, stack the cold slices into 2 stacks, wrap with foil, and reheat in a 400-degree oven for about 10 minutes.]
Return onion marmalade to skillet and season with salt and pepper, then reheat, covered, over low heat.
Divide warm marmalade among 4 dinner plates and spread evenly in a thin layer to cover bottom of each plate. Arrange beet slices in 1 layer over onion, allowing them to fold prettily, like lunchmeat in a deli commercial. Drizzle a bit of olive oil over each serving and season with pepper. Shave 4 to 6 curls of Parmigiano-Reggiano with a vegetable peeler over beets on each plate. Serve immediately.
Serves 4 as a first course.
