Hurricane Dinner Party

It's been more than six months since my last entry here....I've been busy, and, when I have been cooking, I've mostly been repeating dishes that I've already posted here and/or forgetting to take pictures. Last week, the confluence of friends from grad school coming into town (some moving here, others passing through for a conference) and a hurricane provided the perfect excuse to stay indoors, cook lots of food, drink lots of good wine while we waited out the weather. The theme for this dinner party was Asian, or, more specifically, the Momofuku cookbook, which I have been reading a lot of but not cooking a lot of. Two of the four courses for this dinner were directly from the cookbook, one borrowed an ingredient from the cookbook to jazz up an old favorite, and the fourth dish involved me just cutting up some super fresh fish from Black Salt.

We started out the meal with a trio of raw fish. Here's an action shot of the dishes being prepared.

Here's a finished plate.

In the foreground are slices of ivory salmon (which I had never heard of before I walked into Black Salt looking for fish earlier that day) and king salmon. Being late August, king salmon are at their peak. I love the bold striations on this salmon. The ivory salmon was soaked in lime juice for a couple of seconds, then topped with a Spanish olive oil, smoked salt, and a lime zest. The king salmon was simply topped with some nice grassy tuscan olive oil and a bit of cracked pink peppercorns. The third dish, in the little bowls in the background, was an Ahi tuna poke. To make the poke, I cut the ahi into cubes (about 1 cm) and let it marinate in a mixture of soy sauce, sesame oil, and scallions with a dash of rice wine vinegar, and pinch of red pepper flakes. Just before serving, I tossed in some sesame seeds and then topped the poke with some strips of toasted nori.

Next came the veggie course: pan roasted asparagus and grilled king oyster mushrooms with miso butter and slow poached eggs.

Although I don't really like mushrooms, I really like the look of this dish. For some reason, the combination of the mushrooms and asparagus piled on top of the miso butter with the whole eggs has a really rustic, "farm to table" look to it. To make the slow poached eggs, you need to let the eggs sit in 140F water for around 45 minutes. If you were plating these individually (as they do in the Momofuku cookbook), you would spread out a bit of miso butter, artfully arrange the asparagus, and then place the poached egg across the top of the asparagus. In this family style preparation, the eggs would have all slid off to the side of the plate and, when serving, the yolks surely would have broken on the serving plate, leaving all of the yolky goodness behind. When served this way, everyone gets to crack their own egg, which is much cleaner and, besides, its fun.

The third course was miso and sake marinated sea bass with scallions, sunchoke puree, and bacon dashi. Sea bass is something I've posted before. It's a great dish for a dinner party since all the flavor comes from letting it marinate for a long time (in this case, 48 hours), but it is really quick to cook. While we were eating the second course, I just stuck the fish under the broiler for about 10 minutes. You will need to flip the fish about half way through so it cooks evenly and the sugar in the marinade doesn't burn too much. The bacon dashi is a pretty straight forward (and brilliant) recipe from the Momofuku cookbook. Just steep some konbu in water for a few minutes, remove, then simmer some smokey bacon in the broth for about 30 minutes, chill, skim off the fat, and reheat before service. For the sunchoke puree, just peel the sunchokes, boil until tender, and puree in a food processor with butter. Season with salt and pepper. If you wanted to make this really rich, you could simmer the sunchokes in cream.

For the last course, we had steamed Chinese buns that Abby had made earlier in the day (see the freshly formed buns, waiting for the steamer below) with roasted pork belly, quick pickles, and other accoutrements.

Like the fish, the pork belly is a dish where all of the work is done ahead of time. I cured the pork belly in salt, sugar, pepper, and five spice powder for 24 hours, then roasted it at 450F for 45 minutes followed by another 3 hours at 250. Then, I chilled the pork belly over night, sliced it, and reheated it just before serving. Here's a finished pork belly bun.

Monkfish with grilled asparagus and romesco

Here is yet another dish from the Ad Hoc at Home cookbook. The recipe calls for baby leeks, but since those are hard to find, I went with asparagus instead. I used the leftover romesco sauce from the previous blog post, and then I pan roasted the monkfish with rosemary, thyme, and garlic. I bought the monkfish at Isaacson and Stein, where they just sell whole monkfish tails, and they leave it to the customer to actually fabricate the fish. Monkfish are really ugly, prehistoric looking creatures, and a giant fish doesn't really yield that much edible meat. Monkfish are almost all head and jaws connected to a tail that propels said head and jaws towards its pray. With most fish, you can fillet them fairly easily with a couple quick swipes of the knife down each side of the spine. Monkfish are not so simple. I have seen monkfish fabrication as a challenge on Top Chef before, but I had never actually taken apart a monk fish myself.

To prepare the monkfish, remove it from the fridge about 30 minutes before cooking to let it get to room temperature. Season with salt and pepper, and then sear over high heat in a pan with canola oil for a few minutes (after about 3 minutes check to see if a crust has formed). Add 2 tablespoons of butter turn the heat to medium (you don't want to burn the butter) and, once melted, tilt the pan and baste the monkfish as it is frying. Once one side is nicely browned, turn the monk fish, add a couple sprigs of rosemary, thyme, and garlic along with another tablespoon of butter. Continue to fry/baste for another 3 to 5 minutes until the fish is cooked through and a golden crust has formed on the other side of the fish.

White asparagus soup with prosciutto chip, crispy asparagus tips, chive blossoms and truffle oil

I started off our dinner menu with a white asparagus soup. Asparagus is in season and the chives in the local garden were blossoming, so I wanted to come up with a dish that would take advantage of this. I really like how the white soup acts as a blank canvas for the garnishes. It really makes all the individuals pop. It tastes pretty good. The only thing I would change about this dish is the cooking liquid. I had to use chicken stock, but I would have really preferred a crab or lobster stock. I just wasn't able to find any shells to make a good stock with.

In previous dinner parties, I've had issues getting everything done on the timeline I was shooting for and pacing dishes so that they were served at the right time/temperature. This time around, I decided to do a lot of things at the last minute so they would come to the table fresh. To make that work, I had to act more like I was in a restaurant and get all my mis-en-place taken care of ahead of time. Garnishes for the soup are above, and the assembly line is below.

Here's the recipe.

INGREDIENTS

2 bunches white asparagus

1 leek

1 small potato

1 bay leaf

Stock

1/2 cup heavy cream

2 T butter

Various garnishes

Cut off the white part of the leek, cut it in half and thinly slice. Cook in a pot with the butter over medium heat for 1 to 2 minutes. Break of the tough ends of the asparagus and chop into 1 to 2 inch sections. Add to the pot and cook, stirring occasionally, for another 2 to 3 minutes. Peel the potato, dice, and add that to the pot along with enough stock to cover everything by about 1 inch. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Add the bay leaf and let simmer for about 1 hour, until the asparagus is tender. Remove the bay leaf and puree the soup with an immersion blender. Stir in the heavy cream and season with salt and pepper. The quality of the soup will depend a lot on the stock that you use, and if it tastes a little thin, you can try adding more butter or cream, but keep in mind that the garnishes will add a lot of flavor.

The soup is best if you make it a day ahead of time and let the flavors mix. This makes it a great dinner party dish since it is one less thing you can do the day of. Reheat, serve, and garnish with what ever you like. I used crispy asparagus tips that I had reserved from the asparagus salad, prosciutto chips, chives and chive blossoms, and a few drops of truffle oil.

Garnishes:

Crispy asparagus tips - Just toss with olive oil and a bit of kosher salt and roast at a very low heat (180-200F) for about 2 hours. They get nice and crispy and take on a very meaty flavor.

Prosciutto chip - Cook in a very hot pan with a small amount of oil for about 30 seconds to 1 minute on each side. The prosciutto will still feel flimsy when you remove it, but it will crisp up once you let it sit on a cooling rack.