Last Tuesday I put together a little dinner party for my roommate and the downstairs neighbors. There were a lot of ingredients that were left over from another party that went on three days before so that dictated what the ingredients I was going to use the menu. What I came a series of dishes heavy of the vegetables and light on the proteins. My menu consisted of broccoli mushroom soup, ratatouille with broiled egg, and simmered pork belly with lightly pickled cabbage roasted poatoes and morel mushroom sauce. As I usually put together dishes loosely based on recipes I don’t have exact ingredient counts or directions on all of them, but these are to the best my knowledge. Also at the end of each recipe I have included a post mortem analysis of the result of each recipe I prepared using the directions and ingredients listed. If you are to use these recipes please read the post mortem analysis before doing so that will give a more clearer idea of what I think could be improved and how to go about doing it. This is a little different from how usual recipes are presented, but I thought it would give an interesting perspective of how things come together and how to go about improving on them.
Creamy broccoli and mushroom soup
Ingredients:
1 yellow onion 1/2 inch dice
3 broccoli medium crowns chopped
1/2 oz dried golden chanterelle mushrooms
3 cans chicken broth
1/2 cup half and half
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper
Additional Equipment:
5 quart pot
5 quart container
Chinois or other fine mesh strainer
Immersion blender or standard blender
Directions:
Start by soaking the mushrooms in warm water for about an hour. After the mushrooms have been soaking for about 45 minutes heat the pot on medium high heat. Add olive oil and saute onion for 2-4 minutes or until onions become translucent, season with salt and pepper. Add chopped broccoli and continue sauteing for additional 3 minutes. Drain the mushrooms and add to pot continue to saute for additional 2 minutes. Pour the chicken broth into the pot turn heat to high and bring to boil, skimming any scum that floats to the surface. When pot comes to boil turn heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes. Use immersion blender to blend to soup to a smooth consistency. If no immersion blender is available use a regular one and pour the soup into in parts being careful not to fill it to the top. Once soup is blended pass it through the chinois into the 5 quart container, this will remove any remaining large particles. After the soup has been passed through blend again in the container. With the pot cleaned and chinois cleaned pass the soup through again back to the pot. At this point the soup should be very smooth in texture. Add the half and half to the soup as desired, season to taste. Serve with a fried broccoli garnish.
Post mortem:
The soup turned out okay. It lacked a richness that is sometimes hard to achieve with a vegetable based soup like this one. Reserving some of the mushroom soaking liquid and putting it into the soup would have given it an additional depth of flavor that was missing from the soup. The texture of the soup was also so so. It came out creamy, but there was a grittiness that couldn’t be removed. The issue here was probably the focus on broccoli crowns and not the stalk. In this situation using more of the broccoli stalk would have achieve the same result and would have been easier to blend to the desired texture.
Ratatouille with broiled egg
Ingredients:
1 yellow onion
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 egg plant
2 zucchini
2 yellow squash
3 tomatoes
4 cloves garlic roughly chopped
6 eggs
Basil
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper
Equipment
Frying Pan w/ lid
6 rammakins
1 baking sheet
Directions:
Cut all the vegetables into 1/2 rough dice. Things do not need to be perfect since everything is going to cook down. Heat a frying pan over med high heat and add olive oil. Saute the onions and garlic for 3 minutes or until the onions become translucent and garlic becomes aromatic. Add the red and yellow peppers and continue sauteing for another 3-5 minutes. After each additional vegetable is added season with salt and pepper. Add egg plant and saute for 5 more minutes. At any point during this if you see the vegetables looking dry add more olive oil to coat. Add zucchini and squash and saute for 3 more minutes. Add tomatoes and cook for 5 more minutes. At this point the tomatoes should be releasing much of the juice, if the pan is looking dry add water to just barely cover the vegetables. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes or until all vegetables are soft and loose their original shape. Remove cover if there is excess liquid in the pan, raise the heat medium and let the liquid reduce. Set broiler to high, and move rack to top position. Fill the 6 rammakins up with the vegetable mixture leaving 1/4 inch at the top. Place on top of baking sheet, and crack a single raw egg into each one. Place baking sheet with rammakins onto the top rack of the oven and let broil for 2-3 minutes or until egg has set. Remove from oven, clean 6-10 leaves of basil and cut into chiffonade. Serve with small amount of basil as garnish.
Post mortem:
Over all there was nothing really wrong with this recipe. One note before adding the egg to the mixture create a little indentation in the middle so the yolk will settle in the middle, this does not have to be done, but it makes the presentation more elegant and consistent.
Simmered Pork Belly
Ingredients
2.5-3 lbs. pork belly skin removed
1/4 cup soy sauce
2/3 cup light brown sugar
8 small red skin potatoes halved
2/3 oz dried morels
2 qt dashi stockFor pickled cabbage:
1/2 small red cabbage
1/2 small green cabbage
Salt
1 tbsp dried red pepper flakes
2 tbsp sugar
1/3 cup rice wine vinegarFor dashi stock
1 piece kombu
2 cups dried sardines
1 package bonito
Equipment
1 frying pan
1 3 quart or larger pot
1 4 quart container
1 chinois
1 small bowl for rehydrating morels
1 medium steel bowl for cabbage
Directions
Place dried morels into small bowl, fill with hot water, set aside. Prepare dashi. Fill pot with water place kombu and dried sardines in and bring to boil. Skim off scum as it appears. When pot comes to boil maintain for 5 minutes then turn off the heat. Add bonito and let steep for 5 minutes. Pass the dashi stock through the chinois into a container, set aside. Thinly slice red and green cabbage removing pieces near the core. Toss to mix up cabbage. Place a thin layer of cabbage into bowl and sprinkle salt on top, repeat process until all cabbage into bowl, set aside. Cut pork belly into thirds lengthwise. Put frying pan on high heat, place pork belly fat side down. Sear for 2 minutes and turn over, remove from heat. Continue with other two pieces of pork. Cut each piece half so they make squares place all pieces into pot, cover with dashi stock and put brown sugar and soy sauce into pot. Bring to boil skimming off scum as it appears. Reduce heat to simmer. Simmer for 3.5 hours. 3 hours into simmer preheat oven to 400 degrees place halved potatoes into pan coat with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Put in oven and flick 45 minutes into cooking, cook for another 45 minutes and remove. 3 hours into simmer wash the cabbage in cold water clean off salt 3 times and drain. Put vinegar, sugar and red pepper flakes into small sauce pan and bring to boil turn heat off, strain out red pepper flakes, let cool for 10 minutes. Put drained cabbage into steel bowl and pour cooled vinegar mixture on top, toss. Cover and place into refrigerator until service. After pork and finished simmering turn off heat and set aside for 30 minutes. Drain the morels and cut into 1/2 inch size pieces. Heat a frying pan to medium high heat, place 1 tbsp butter into pan and then morels saute for 2 minutes, place 6 oz of the simmering liquid into pan and 12 oz of dashi stock. Reduce to 1/3 of liquid. To serve drain the pork belly from liquid after 30 minutes, heat a frying pan to high heat and place pork belly fat side down searing for 3 minutes. Place cabbage down the middle of a serving patter, surround with roasted potates, and place the portions of simmered pork belly on top of cabbage. Spoon morel reduction onto top of pork belly.
Post Mortem
This dish was the longest to cook, and had the most components and separate preparations. Although there seems to be a lot to do, since the cooking and prep is spaced out with the simmering of the pork belly there is really not a lot of work going on at once. Originally there lima beans instead of potatoes, but I overcooked the beans and had to improvise with potatoes. The overall dish came together pretty well and the mixtures of the sweet pork belly and reduction sauce, in combination with the tangy, cold, crunchy, spicy cabbage and the hot crunchy soft potatoes was great. I wish the cabbage was a bit more spicier to be a stronger counterpoint to the sweet reduction. Nothing was overtly sweet so it came together well.
