“B” Dinner: Buffalo Wings, Blue Cheese Dip, Broccoli Soup

I recently purchased

Modernist Cuisine at Home: Nathan Myhrvold,Maxime Bilet: 9780982761014: Books

and finally gave in and bought a pressure cooker.

Fagor Duo Combi 5-Piece Pressure Cooker Set: Kitchen & Dining ASIN: B00023D9S0

I love this set since I couldn’t decide which size to buy. This comes with a 4 and 8 quart pot, trivet and steamer basket, a glass lid in addition to the pressure lid so it’s not a single purpose item, two pressure settings, and it works on my induction burner.

 

Tried the much lauded (from Modernist Cuisine) @ Home version of the Caramelized Carrot Soup and brown chicken stock last weekend to christen the pressure cooker.

I strained the stock first through a colander, and then through a 100 micron mesh bag.

 

Very tasty and wonderful body. I used it 50:50 with water in the carrot soup because I didn’t want to search for carrot juice.

 

I see what all the fuss is about. The soup was wonderful.  And I wish I’d bought that pressure cooker set last year when I got MC.

 

Yesterday I was indulging in my usual Saturday morning food blog surfing and followed a link on egullet.org to a Food Lab article on Korean Fried Chicken by Kenji. I had been tempted by the crispy wings in MC@H, but I don’t have the sous vide capacity to make very many at once, and if I make wings (and have to share with my husband), I want a lot.

The Korean Wings post lead me to Kenji’s Food Lab article on The Ultimate Extra-Crispy Double Fried Confit Buffalo Wings. This recipe uses four pounds of wings – now that’s more like it.

 

I used the oven method to confit the wings; I like the unattended cooking aspect of it. Even though it’s not from MC@H, it does have the same spirit.

 

With all this impromptu cooking, conceived that morning, I didn’t want to burden my husband who was shopping for me on his way home by adding all the ingredients needed for the MC@H Buffalo sauce. I went with my standard sauce of half butter and half Crystal Hot Sauce.

 

I did feel I could impose on him enough to find some blue cheese and milk so I could make the Blue Cheese Sauce. He brought home some lovely Stilton.

 

The Caramelized Carrot Soup was so good, I was anxious to try the Broccoli-Gruyere Soup (especially since I had broccoli, gruyere, and the MC@H brown chicken stock  in the fridge already).

I didn’t have hazelnuts for the garnish, so I used roasted-salted pumpkin seeds with the thyme. My husband and I loved it. It’s more olive toned than Gordon Ramsey’s bright green broccoli soup. I may cut down on the pressure cooking time next try to see if I can keep a better color.

 

Since the MC@H Blue Cheese Sauce is heat stable with the sodium citrate, I warmed a portion of the sauce to use in my whipper and try it in addition to the chilled sauce. I think I prefer the contrast of the cold sauce with the hot wings.

(Sorry about the messy plating, by this time my husband and I were so hungry, we just put the food on the plate and I took one quick photo.)

Either way, the Blue Cheese Sauce is great. Well worth making rather than using store-bought or standard home-made dressing. Intense blue cheese flavor. The wings were as Kenji promised; ultra-crispy and kept their crispiness even with standard Buffalo sauce.

I will be making all of these again, and hopefully frequently.

“Pesto” Marathon

I somehow stumbled onto the book Very Pesto on Amazon and noticed in the editorial and customer reviews that it included recipes for “pesto” using many herbs other than basil. As I’m a bit behind on my basil crop and most of the other herbs in my EarthBoxes are growing so exuberantly, I thought trying these recipes would be a great excuse to prune back the over-achievers.

 

Sage and parsley. Too bad my parsley wasn’t a bit larger. It is used as a filler with some of the stronger herbs so they don’t overpower the pesto and I didn’t have enough to make the tarragon or thyme pesto.

 

Oregano and cilantro.

 

Tarragon and basil. I was able to cut enough basil before taking this photo to make one batch of classic basil pesto.

 

Chervil and thyme.

 

Washed basil, sage and others drying.

 

Two portions of parsley for the sage and oregano recipes, cilantro and oregano. The Oxo salad spinner was a great help washing all the herbs.

 

Garlic for the various recipes, lime zest for the cilantro pesto, Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino Romano for the classic basil pesto. I toasted the pine nuts in the microwave; I’m much less likely to burn them than when I try to do it in the oven.

 

 

I grated the P-R in the food processor and portioned it out by weight (about 1 0z. for each 1/3 cup) called for in the recipe. Since I only needed 2 tbsp. of Romano for the basil pesto, I used a microplane to grate it.

 

 

I didn’t plan ahead well enough to make my own bread so I bought a baguette at Whole Foods to make crostini. My husband stole one end and ate it with spreadable butter while I was making a red pepper tapenade to serve with the pesto.

 

I feel rich! All that lovely pesto. And all those abundant herbs are put to great use.

 

My husband and I had a smorgasbord of pestos, the red pepper tapenade, salami, goat cheese, gruyere and emmental cheese for dinner.

BLT Challenge | The Mayonnaise

I must confess the egg is not from my chickens. It is from my neighbor’s free-range chickens. We are in a sort of breakfast club; I trade him homemade bacon for fresh eggs. Someday soon I hope to have my own chickens. I never seem to remember to ask for some until I want them on Sunday morning when I don’t want to disturb him.

I used Michael Ruhlman’s recipe from Ratio.

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Now that’s an orange yolk.

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The emulsion underway. Such a marvelous thing from simple ingredients.

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You’d almost think I put food coloring in it; it’s so yellow.