It's been a longggggg two weeks - came back from Korea, drove up to the Bay Area, started summer session with two classes, and working at the pharmacy and at my lab. Sigh.
This is a week late - sorry!
Anyways, my friend hosted a dinner party on Wednesday and asked me to cook an Ad Hoc dinner. Of course I accepted - I gotta get working on those recipes if I ever want to finish the book.
For this recipe, I had to prepare the chicken stock and most of the soup the night before the dinner since I didn't have time to cook after a busy day. So the stock consisted of chicken bones, onion, leeks, carrots, and bay leaf.
The next day, to get the soup started - cut up some carrots carrots, onions, and leeks and heated them up in a stock pot with oil covered with a parchment paper lid until tender.
Once the vegetables were tender, I added the chicken stock and a smoked ham hock (yum). This was left to simmer for about an hour.
After the hour, removed the ham and saved for later, and discarded the veggies. And into this new stock, I added clean split peas and boiled for 40 minutes.
While that was boiling away, I blanched the fresh peas to have ready for the next day.
Once the split peas got soft in the soup, blend in the blender a little at a time. Then stored the soup and the ham hock in the refrigerator for the next day.
So on the day of the dinner, I first prepped for the salad and dessert since all I had most of the soup done.
For the tomatoes, I got a mix of green heirloom, red, yellow, and orange tomatoes. Also a little box of different colored cherry tomatoes. Cut them into slices and drizzled them with olive oil with a little bit of salt & pepper.
So I made a stupid mistake and thought I had heavy cream for the basil cream, but I ended up having heavy whipping cream... fail. So what the hey, I substituted the whipping cream for heavy cream. Yeah, it wasn't the consistency that Keller wanted, but I had no choice - haha. So after making the "basil cream", I brushed it on the other side of the slices of tomatoes.
Peeled and sliced the cucumber and red onion, threw everything onto a nice plate with a few basil leaves and it was basically done. Didn't have time to make my own mozzarella either.. since Whole Foods didn't have mozzarella curd - another fail. So I bought the mozzarella, put it in a bowl, and served with the salad.
Reheating time!
All I had to do was reheat the soup, ham hock and peas. Then cut the ham hock into little bite sizes and get the mint leaves ready.
Put all these into a bowl with a spoonful of creme fraiche (yum) and then ladled in the warm soup.
Now in a different bowl...
Yum, yum, yum.
Simple dessert - yay.
All I had to do was mix the dry ingredients, add the egg, and milk to make the batter. For the blueberries - mix in a little bit of flour, lots of sugar, and lemon zest.
Then, put all the blueberries into the baking pan and then spoon in the batter on top leaving a little room apart (like you would do for cookies). Wish I used a ice cream scoop for that part like Alton Brown - haha.
Then on top of the batter, sprinkle on some cinnamon sugar mixture.
Then the hardest part - wait.
It came out uglier than I hoped for, but maybe next time it'll come out nicer....
Wow. I just got super hungry writing this up...
This is a week late - sorry!
Anyways, my friend hosted a dinner party on Wednesday and asked me to cook an Ad Hoc dinner. Of course I accepted - I gotta get working on those recipes if I ever want to finish the book.
Split Pea Soup, Part I
For this recipe, I had to prepare the chicken stock and most of the soup the night before the dinner since I didn't have time to cook after a busy day. So the stock consisted of chicken bones, onion, leeks, carrots, and bay leaf.
The next day, to get the soup started - cut up some carrots carrots, onions, and leeks and heated them up in a stock pot with oil covered with a parchment paper lid until tender.
Once the vegetables were tender, I added the chicken stock and a smoked ham hock (yum). This was left to simmer for about an hour.
After the hour, removed the ham and saved for later, and discarded the veggies. And into this new stock, I added clean split peas and boiled for 40 minutes.
While that was boiling away, I blanched the fresh peas to have ready for the next day.
Once the split peas got soft in the soup, blend in the blender a little at a time. Then stored the soup and the ham hock in the refrigerator for the next day.So on the day of the dinner, I first prepped for the salad and dessert since all I had most of the soup done.
Tomato & Mozzarella Salad
For the tomatoes, I got a mix of green heirloom, red, yellow, and orange tomatoes. Also a little box of different colored cherry tomatoes. Cut them into slices and drizzled them with olive oil with a little bit of salt & pepper.
So I made a stupid mistake and thought I had heavy cream for the basil cream, but I ended up having heavy whipping cream... fail. So what the hey, I substituted the whipping cream for heavy cream. Yeah, it wasn't the consistency that Keller wanted, but I had no choice - haha. So after making the "basil cream", I brushed it on the other side of the slices of tomatoes.
Peeled and sliced the cucumber and red onion, threw everything onto a nice plate with a few basil leaves and it was basically done. Didn't have time to make my own mozzarella either.. since Whole Foods didn't have mozzarella curd - another fail. So I bought the mozzarella, put it in a bowl, and served with the salad.
Split Pea Soup, Part II
Reheating time!
All I had to do was reheat the soup, ham hock and peas. Then cut the ham hock into little bite sizes and get the mint leaves ready.
Put all these into a bowl with a spoonful of creme fraiche (yum) and then ladled in the warm soup.
Now in a different bowl...
Yum, yum, yum.
Blueberry Cobbler
Simple dessert - yay.
All I had to do was mix the dry ingredients, add the egg, and milk to make the batter. For the blueberries - mix in a little bit of flour, lots of sugar, and lemon zest.
Then, put all the blueberries into the baking pan and then spoon in the batter on top leaving a little room apart (like you would do for cookies). Wish I used a ice cream scoop for that part like Alton Brown - haha.
Then on top of the batter, sprinkle on some cinnamon sugar mixture.
Then the hardest part - wait.
It came out uglier than I hoped for, but maybe next time it'll come out nicer....
Wow. I just got super hungry writing this up...
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