What's for Dinner?

[Bagofcats]

I am going to need more explanation.

It's basically a beef patty, made with very finely minced beef and sweetbreads, and cream, breadcrumbs and egg yolk. Almost a paste, which I always have found very simple, boring restaurant fare, without character. This was nicely done, with a peppery overtone and well balanced with the flavours of the other things on the plate (mousse, lingonberries, etc). Called Wallenbergare in honour of one Wallenberg of the upper class (about 1800s sometime, I guess same family branch as the Raoul Wallenberg)

 

[Bagofcats]

Dinner (soup parmentiere and things) and then blindtasting and grading whisky with friends. We were six peeps, each was to bring a bottle. Curiously, it resulted in three versions of Highland Park, completely different: we were surprised they were made by the same distillery. My favourite was the Loch Lomond, in the same general taste region of a Talisker - and of course it's Captain haddock's whisky - I was sorely disappointed by my own contribution (depicted in an earlier post with penguins): too much alcohol and even with water, it was too brutal, simple and short aftertaste. I'm going to use it for sauces, I think

 

[MukYanChon]

I personally like the Glenfarclas although i am more the Islay type. But i tasted a very well done Highland Park cask strength once.

 

[Bagofcats]

That's the HP in the small bottle on the left. Quite good, yes. The viking honour and Einar were not worth the trouble. Glenfarchas is good, although this 17 years is apparently (according to our tastemaster) quite different and disappointing. He thought it could be that there was something wrong in that batch and dind't come out as it should, so they put it aside, waited 17 years and got it out as an exclusive expensive 'specialty' Glenfarchas

 

[Bagofcats]

Testing @Kitarra 's recommendation. Roasted sprouts with pistaccios and cranberries. Next time I'll do that with roasted almonds, and add something sugary as the berries were a bit too sour (honey? pommegranate syrup? hmmm)

 

[Bagofcats]

The Lazy Cat's Ricotta Cake Sicilian Style With Things In:
(in this case, lemon zest and apple)

 

[MukYanChon]

Testing @Kitarra 's recommendation. Roasted sprouts with pistaccios and cranberries. Next time I'll do that with roasted almonds, and add something sugary as the berries were a bit too sour (honey? pommegranate syrup? hmmm)

View attachment 1056

I have good experience in letting the cranberry simmer with honey for a while before adding them, you can also use a drop of your favorite alcohol (rum, orange liquor, ...)

 

[MukYanChon]

sorry it took a while, but here is the pumpkin soup i spoke of online (metric measurements):

800g Hokkaido pumpkin
250g carrots
thumb-size piece of fresh ginger (add more acc. to your taste)
800ml vegetable fond
Juice of 3 oranges
100ml cream

Remove seeds etc. from the pumpkin, dice up
dice up carrots
lightly cook both for about 20 min in the vegetable fond
mix up with a hand blender
add the orange juice, the cream and the grated ginger
spice up to your taste with salt, pepper and chili (chipotle roasted one recommended)

Finish up with a few sprinkles of pumpkin seed oil and chili threads. if you like a little crunch, you can also add roasted pumkin seeds.

It's a nice soup spreading warmth

 

[Bagofcats]

Much thanks! I'll see if and where i can get hokkaido pumpkin herearounds, it's not common (yet) but I'm sure there'll be somewhere.

and I'll try simmering the crannies in honey, good idea

 

[Bagofcats]

and here's this evenings dinner, the simplest of simple fare, rigattoni alla pomarola. No surprises, no crazy adventures: rigattoni, baby plum tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, parmesan, basil. Because that's what I had on hand and I didn't feel like cooking

 

[MukYanChon]

sorry it took a while, but here is the pumpkin soup i spoke of online (metric measurements):

800g Hokkaido pumpkin
250g carrots
thumb-size piece of fresh ginger (add more acc. to your taste)
800ml vegetable fond
Juice of 3 oranges
100ml cream

Remove seeds etc. from the pumpkin, dice up
dice up carrots
lightly cook both for about 20 min in the vegetable fond
mix up with a hand blender
add the orange juice, the cream and the grated ginger
spice up to your taste with salt, pepper and chili (chipotle roasted one recommended)

Finish up with a few sprinkles of pumpkin seed oil and chili threads. if you like a little crunch, you can also add roasted pumkin seeds.

It's a nice soup spreading warmth

 

[Bagofcats]

looks wonderful! I haven't been able to source hokkaido pupmkin yet, but if I don't get it soon I'll try with another sort. What would you say, flavour-wise, butternut?

 

[Bagofcats]

Spinach+ricotta+walnuts. Quite good, although I forgot walnuts would colour the ricotta, so it came out a weird brownish with a green tinge

 

[MukYanChon]

looks wonderful! I haven't been able to source hokkaido pupmkin yet, but if I don't get it soon I'll try with another sort. What would you say, flavour-wise, butternut?

Alomst any pumpkin will do. Butternut is a little sweeter than hokkaido, i think he is called muscat-pumpkin here.

 

[Bagofcats]

Alomst any pumpkin will do. Butternut is a little sweeter than hokkaido, i think he is called muscat-pumpkin here.

hahaha, well, here hokkaido, muscat and butternut are three different kinds. I'll try muscat then, the colour is almost the same so maybe the flavour is closer too

 

[Bagofcats]

And the food, so far, in Lille:

Magret de canard (duck breast), with caramelized figs, sweet potato mousse and sour apple
Chouskouya, West-African Mali style fried and braised lamb
Tajine with aubergines and beef meatballs, Berber style
Mignon de porc cuddled in saucisson and coriander sauce

 

[MukYanChon]

And the food, so far, in Lille:

Magret de canard (duck breast), with caramelized figs, sweet potato mousse and sour apple
Chouskouya, West-African Mali style fried and braised lamb
Tajine with aubergines and beef meatballs, Berber style
Mignon de porc cuddled in saucisson and coriander sauce

The Tajine looks odd, but the rest is a nice selection!

 

[MukYanChon]

So yesterday my parents were visiting us, and we had a talk before that we need to do a piemont (north italy) dinner again soon.
Well since it is truffles season anyway and some bottles in the wine cellar needed to be checked, here's what we had:

Antipasti (Salame, Prosciutto) with olive oil bread
Paprica con bagna cauda (peppers with a marinade of olive-oil, garlic and anchovis)
Carne cruda (finely chopped fillet of beef, marinated with olive oil and citron) with nut-butter and white alba truffles
Vitello tonnato (thin slices of veal in a tuna/capers/anchovis sauce)
Tagliatelle con tartuffo (flat noodles in a light butter-sage sauce with a generous helping of white alba truffles)
Brasato al barolo con polenta (beef-roast marinated and cooked in piemont red wine)
Panna cotta with fresh raspberries
Cafe e grappa

And as expected even more delicious wine with it
(pictures follow once i am able )

 

[Bagofcats]

I've been in France with beers and great food, so I can't/won't complain. But... bagnacauda! it's been ages! and vitello tonnato! and everything else too, why not! <3

 

[Bagofcats]

My niece's 44th, brunch from 12.00 to 22.00, people coming and going the whole day. I just managed to get the one pic as I arrived (late, because my brain was absolutely convinced that brunch goes together with Sunday, but it actually was a Saturday brunch) - food and drink kept coming out all day long.