...Romano Beans with Mint, Puree of Garlic Potatoes, and White Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
To start a new school year with new officers for a campus fellowship, the new and old officers celebrated with an annual dinner to enjoy good company & yummy food. It was my first time cooking dinner for 10 people so it was interesting - and stressful, haha.
Yellow Curry Powder
This recipe was used in both the chicken breasts and the cauliflower soup. It was made with 20 ingredients! All I had to do was just mix the ingredients in a food processor and wah lah! - you have deliciously fragrant curry powder, haha.
Sauteed Chicken Breasts with Tarragon
The chicken breasts were first seasoned with a mixture of the yellow curry and paprika and refrigerated for two hours.
After chilling the chicken and allowing it to soak up the flavors, the chicken breasts were pounded down with a meat pounder between two sheets of plastic wrap. Keller suggested to pound it down to 1/4 inch thick. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees and season both sides of the chicken with salt.
In a large pan with heated canola oil, cook the chicken in batches with the presentation side down until golden brown and then turn to the second side and cook until golden. After both sides are browned, transfer all the chicken to the oven to keep warm.
Remove all the oil and burnt parts from the large pan and melt butter. Add shallots and cook for a few seconds. Then, add the white wine and cook until the wine is reduced to half. Add the chicken stock (which was made the day before with chicken backs) and cook until it's thickened. Stir in the tarragon, add more butter, and add in any juices from the pan that accumulated in the oven. Season with salt and pepper.
Arrange the chicken on the platter, pour the sauce, garnish with tarragon, and enjoy!
Chicken breasts are always too dry for me, but surprisingly this chicken was very moist and yummy. The sauce was good, but I felt like this dish wasn't as memorable as the other ones.
Cream of Cauliflower Soup with Red Beet Chips
First prepare the cauliflower by cutting out the core and trim some florets to use for garnish later.
Coarsely chop the rest of the cauliflower and its stem to 1-inch pieces.
Melt butter in a large saucepan, and add onions, leeks, curry, and the cauliflower. Season with salt and cover with a parchment paper lid. Cook and stir occasionally until the vegetables are tender.
Pour in the milk, cream, and water and simmer for 30 minutes.
In batches, puree the mixture until it's smooth. And then the soup is done!
For the beet chips, use the mandoline to slice the beets into thin rounds. Heat up some oil and add a few beet rounds at time until crisp. Transfer the rounds to the paper toweled rack and season with salt.
For the torn croutons, prepare garlic oil and toast until the country loaf pieces are golden.
For the garnish cauliflower florets, blanch in salted water with vinegar. Vinegar keeps the cauliflower white! After blanching the florets, melt butter in a pan and add the florets. Saute until they turn golden brown.
To serve the soup, pour the soup into a serving bowl and top with a few florets, torn croutons, and a stack of beet chips. Drizzle a little olive oil and season with pepper.
Mmmm. soup was so good :)
Summer Vegetable Gratin
Gratin's are so good!!! And this one was pretty amazing.
Slice up the yellow squash, eggplant, zucchini, and tomatoes. Tossed them in olive oil and seasoned with salt.
Heat up a large pan with canola oil and add the chopped onions and minced garlic. Cook until the onions are translucent and then stir in thyme.
Make bread crumbs by food processing country loaf and toasting the crumbs in the oven.
Combine Parmesan cheese, bread crumbs, and thyme.
Spread the onion mixtures into a baking dish and layer the vegetables. Keller instructed to layer with zucchini, then squash, tomato, and then eggplant. Sprinkle each row with the parmesan mixture. Once all the vegetables are overlapped, sprinkle the rest of the cheese mixture and season lightly with salt.
Bake the gratin for 1 to 1.5 hours until the vegetables are tender. Let it rest for 10 minutes and just before serving, put it in the broiler to brown the cheese on top.
Romano Beans with Mint
Blanch the beans in batches and then cut the beans in half.
Heat some canola oil and add in shallots. Once the shallots are cooked, add in the chicken stock and bring to a simmer. Whisk in the butter and then add in the beans. Season with salt and pepper, and stir in chopped mint.
Once it's all cooked, serve in a bowl, and season with fleur de sel.
Truthfully, I didn't enjoy this as much I thought I would. I love green beans, but romano beans - not so much. The texture was a little to waxy for me. Still good, but I would rather cook a green bean side next time.
Puree of Garlic Potatoes
Put the potatoes in a large pot and cover with water. Season water with salt and simmer until the potatoes are tender enough to puree. Drain the potatoes and peel them.
Since I don't have a food mill, I just mashed the potatoes, butter, and garlic (that was used to make garlic oil for the torn croutons) with a potato masher.
When ready to serve, the cream was whipped into the potatoes. Season with salt and pepper, and top with chives and butter.
My potatoes weren't cooked all the way since I was running out of time! Potatoes should never be hard :( A food mill is a must. I think the potato masher didn't do the job. Overall, the garlic potato puree was just okay. It wasn't memorable. Hopefully the next time I make it, I do it properly... and maybe then I'll taste the Keller-ness behind it.
White Cupcakes
Sift flour and baking powder in a bowl, and stir in the salt. Beat butter and sugar in a stand mixer. Once the mixture is pale and thick, add in vanilla, and then add in the flour mixture in batches alternating with milk. Transfer this mixture into a large bowl.
Put egg whites in the mixer bowl and whisk until it foams. Add sugar and beat on high to make the meringue.
Fold in the meringue in batches into the batter.
Scoop the batter and put into the cups. Thanks to Alton Brown and his genius ice cream scooper method, it was easy to measure out the batter and pour into the cups. Yay Alton!
Bake the cupcakes and cool on the rack.
Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
Combine sugar and egg whites in the stand mixer bowl, set it over a pot of simmering pot of water, and whisk constantly until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is hot.
Remove the bowl from the heat and whisk with the mixer until it holds stiff peaks (like the meringue). Using the paddle attachment, mix in the butter. Once all the butter is added and the cream is thick, add the vanilla.
Keller uses a pastry bag with a star tip to pipe out the frosting. The white chocolate shavings were optional in the recipe, but of course I had too add that on! Mmm.
The cupcakes were gooodd. The frosting, not so much. The cupcake part was nice and fluffy thanks to the meringue we folded in. The frosting was either not mixed enough or I piped it incorrectly because it started melting in the bag. Or maybe I just need to get a real pastry bag. I probably didn't mix it enough so it didn't get to the thick consistency it needed to be at. Definitely have to try it again.
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