Holiday Cooking

I had some interesting food for the holidays thanks to someone at work who supplied me with a goose breast and a venison tenderloin.
The goose breast was an interesting experiment in a new meat I had never prepared before. I learned that the key is moisture, but alas, it did turn out too dry regardless.

After, I butchered the breast into filets, I used a recipe that called for soaking the breasts in red wine for about 2 days. I then stuffed them with apples and potatoes and wrapped them in bacon. They looked beautiful, but I think we sat them out too long before slicing them up because the meat was still pretty dry.

It was an interesting experiment though. Maybe next year I'll get it right.

One highlight of Christmas dinner was Fougoo's mother's dish of pike air bladder topped with shrimp and ham.
Fascinated by the idea of the air bladder, I looked at the package, and they looked like pork rinds. I think they are more for texture as the items themselves absorbed the broth from the dish. They were pretty darn good.

For New Year's, I scored an amazing piece of venison tenderloin. Redneckhunter, grillmaster, prepared it for us. First, a soak in some red wine, then searing the outside with butter.
He then coated the meat with whole grain mustard and smoked the meat for about 45 minutes.

The result was spectacular- the meat was still red inside and tasted amazing- so rich. He smoked a piece of beef at the same time and compared to the venison, the beef was like chicken in richness.

Vidalia in DC, Restaurant Week

Kwan, BigfatLar, and I managed to get reservations to Vidalia in DC for restaurant week, and boy were we not disappointed.
For appetizer, I had to get Vidalia's Veal Tongue- it was really nice and tender, and the way it was served on a flat bread with jalapenos reminded me of lengua tacos. Kwan got the wild mushroom soup which had sone nice pancetta in it, and Lar had the Briar Hollow farm rabbit sausage served in a nice broth.
For entrees, I got the Black Foot Pork Cassoulet which was a little different than what I'm used to in that it was served plated. You're less likely to get a crust, but the beans and pork were delicious regardless.

Lar ordered the Charles Farm Duck Breast- it was cooked beautifully and came with a nice little duck spring roll on the side.

Kwan got one of Vidalia's signature dishes, Shrimp and Grits. The shrimp were of good size and they came with the heads, yum. I tried the grits, too- nice and creamy.

Dessert was really good as well. We tried three items: Lar had the Madagascar Vanilla Bean Cake- it had layers of strawberry jam in it and the sauce had poppy seed.
Kwan had the Valhrona Guanaja Chocolate Panna Cotta which had a real nice dark chocolate flavor, and went nicely with things like banana and a nice cherry compote.
I had the Peanut Butter Crunch which was like a chocolate peanut butter wafer, and it came with an awesome salted caramel sauce.

BrookLEn visits Bouchon

Right before the new year, Mrs. LBT and I had the opportunity to trek through California wine country. On a tip, we were recommended Thomas Keller's least expensive outpost, Bouchon Bakery. As we walked over to the bakery in Yountville, we noticed that Bouchon, Keller's adjacent French bistro, was serving lunch. In a turn of events that could only be described as 'predictable', LBT and I found ourselves a lunch table and enjoyed a dejeuner feast. We started with the kabocha squash soup, with micro-savory bits of bacon on top. I had a quiche that threatened to float away, while the Mrs. enjoyed the winning dish, a crab and lobster salad with a citrus garnish. The towel was tossed in when we added an order of fries- the fries that made Anthony Bourdain cry out. Served in a rusty funnel that might have been salvaged from a junkyard, these fries made us sad that there was no room for us to spend the night.
Mrs. LBT did abscond with a delicious baguette (the crime is recorded here), and we finished the meal by returning to our original destination, Bouchon Bakery, for two cookies that we slowly consumed for two days, over wine (of course).

Congee Village, NYC

It had been a while since petiteseour and I had done a downtown lunch/shopping day. This time I chose Congee Village. Congee is one of my favorite things to eat, it's comfort food. It's also a treat whenever I have it, because I don't make it at home. I guess I could make it, but when you do it, you'd want to make a huge pot of it. I could probably eat it for days and not get sick of it, but redneckhunter is not really one for eating the same meal day after day...

If you don't like congee (like petiteseour), don't worry, there are plenty of other choices -- everything from fried dough for $1 to bird's nest soup for $50 a bowl. We really would have needed to come here with a huge group, like the multigenerational family at the round table next to us.

We ended up getting rice with chicken and black mushrooms baked in a bamboo pot (above). Other choices of this type of rice included frog, eel, salted fish, preserved duck or chinese sausage.

I had to get congee of course -- my favorite: pork with thousand year old egg. It's came in a sha guo (casserole dish) but I managed to eat it all myself.

We also got lotus root stir-fried with spacial black bean sauce. I don't know what made the sauce "special" but it was delicious. Sweet, with a hint of cinnamon, and the lotus was crunchy and perfect.

I would love to come back with a big group - there was just so much on the menu I wanted to try! And so much of "non-American" taste: Roasted young pigeon, steamed chicken and frog with mushrooms, bitter melon with dried scallops, baked fish intestine, goose intestine with bean sprouts, cold jelly fish, snail and frog congee, liver and sliced fish congee, fried fish head casserole, simmered turtle soup with wolfberry seeds. And so inexpensive - our bill came to $15 before tip, and we even had leftovers to bring home!

Congee Village
100 Allen Street
New York, NY
(212) 941-1818

Wagyu Beef Tasting at Vidalia

Tonight, I went to a DonRockwell event at DC restaurant Vidalia. It was for a dual tasting of Wagyu sirloin prepared by chef RJ Cooper.
We started with an appetizer of Poussin Rillettes, basically young chickens slow cooked in fat then cooled into a pate- it was delicious.
We had the Wagyu prepared in 2 ways- first up was a carpaccio with arugula salad. "Oh baby I like it raw!" The marbling was spectacular, and the beef was so rich. The chef had a choice of special salts to eat with the meat. My favorite was a Himalayan which was freshly ground from a salt rock with shark skin. It had a slight sulfur flavor to it. It was paired with a nice white wine, Villard Viognier.
The second preparation was seared accompanied by a side of the garlic fried rice from Cityzen courtesy of chef Eric Ziebold. The cooking of the beef added new levels of flavor and texture. I love how this quality of beef just melts in the mouth. One guest's wife who was a vegetarian for the last 15 years ended up eating a piece of the seared Wagyu- not a bad way to lose her vegetarianity. This was paired with a nice red wine, a Mustiguillo Bobal Blend.

Monk's Cafe, Philadelphia

I took Gallup to Monk's Cafe one Saturday night before a concert. I had forgotten how packed this place got on the weekends - the poor waiters are barely able to maneuver past people while carrying plates of food and steins of beer overhead. Luckily, a couple seats opened up at the bar, so we jumped on them and decided to eat at the bar.

We got a rabbit terrine appetizer with great wheaty bread and a yummy sauce, and a "small" pot of Provence mussels, one of 7 varieties (the large pot could feed a family!) with the requisite Belgian frites with bourbon mayonnaise. And of course a roll to sop up all the mussel broth.

We sat next to a guy from Wisconsin who was in Philly for work and happily eating rack of lamb and loving it.

I love Monk's for the food, but what you really go there for is the beer - over 200 varieties! You have to look at the beer bible to fully appreciate it. But Gallup's Kasteel Rouge was one of the best beers he's had in years.

Monk's Cafe
16th and Spruce Street
Philadlphia, PA
(215) 545-7005

Girls Cooking Night: Rainbow Meal

For our last cooking night in November, we decided to try something a little different thematically. We assigned each lady a color of the rainbow and cooked colorful food accordingly (and came appropriately dressed as well):

Brownie was assigned red and made red snapper with roasted red pepper sauce.

Debbie dressed in orange and made curried butternut squash.

Kim had lemon-hued Crocs and made lemon chicken.

Green queen Marian made a yummy spinach salad with bacon dressing.

Melissa was all blue with her blueberry cheesecake.

And I finished us off with indigo/violet by serving purple sticky rice with coconut milk.

Au Pied Du Cochon, Montreal 2.0

This year after Thanksgiving, we made our second annual trek to Montreal to eat at Martin Picard's great Au Pied Du Cochon.
Of course, we had to get, again the famous foie gras poutine. We devoured this like a pack of dogs, and Gallup and Fougoo used up the bread to mop up the rest of the amazing gravy.
We also got foie gras cromesquis appetizers. Each cube was deep fried and inside was a small molten mouthful of foie gras. I read that this dish was inspired by the Chinese soup dumpling.

For our main courses, we ate everything family style. First, we got the boudin noir, pork blood sausage served on top of potatoes. The skin was so delicate and the inside was, unlike a lot of blood sausage I've had, light and fluffy.

A repeat from last year was our favorite dish, the duck in a can. Amazing yet again- another plate licker. Fougoo wanted to know if you could buy these to take home (despite border laws), but we found out these only had a shelf life of a couple days.

Inspired by the amazing cassoulet at P'tit Plateau the night before, we ordered the PDC Cassoulet to try it out. It was different- they had cooked it so there was a crust on the surface of the dish. The white beans were different, they used chicken, and had a couple different sausages inside it.

We also got the tripe with chorizo sausage. The tripe was cooked impeccably and the slightly sweet sauce in it was delicious.

For dessert, we got several items. We tried the creme caramel which was nice an thick. Fougoo wanted to try the dark chocolate pot de creme which was really nice and rich as well. I got the maple churros because they are essentially doughnuts.

Another great meal at Au Pied Du Cochon.