What's for dinner?

Saturday, kind of casual, but usually a little more time spent shopping, cooking and organizing than a weekday.

So, what's for dinner?

We're planning saffron rice, with a sauted tomato, pine nut and onion sauce, topped by grilled lamb kebabs. This dish is modelled on a favourite from a Middle Eastern restaurant. I have to work on getting more flavour into the sauce, the restaurant's version is much better than mine.

Dessert is going to be a Tangerine Chiffon Pie with a rich shortbread crust, from the current issue of Martha Stewart's magazine.

[Robin Garr]

So, what's for dinner?

You're asking me this in the morning? I'll probably decide sometime around 3 p.m. If I go with what's in the house, though, it will probably be either simply cooked flatiron steaks or some kind of polpette made with good ground veal from Whole Foods. Or something tofu, if I go the vegetarian route, although I've got a couple of Cabernets that need to be opened and rated, which points back to the mini-steaks.

(Whole Foods' rendition of flatiron steak has become a regular entry in our menu, by the way - I'm not sure they're true flatirons, it seems to be a very different cut than the flatiron offered at a hot new local restaurant. But they have several strong advantages: Good flavor, excellent portion control, and very good value: A package with two or three small steaks, weighing in at about 6 ounces for me and 4 for Mary, is usually under $5.)

Dinner tonight is veal meatballs, made with egg, fennel seed, sweet basil, onion, then dropped into a home made tomato based sauce, served over orzo.
I saw cauliflower yesterday, one head was dark mauve, the other gold. I will roast the florets in EVOO and herbs, serve all this with a simple green salad.

So, what's for dinner?

You're asking me this in the morning?

Hmmm....I start planning tomorrow's dinner right after we finish today's. Drives my family nuts.

Those steaks sound good, it's funny how Canadian beef cuts are completely different from American.

SE Asian tonight. Jungle Curry of mixed vegetables and tofu, sour soup, pineapple fried rice.

[Robin Garr]

Jungle Curry of mixed vegetables and tofu

Recipe! Or executive summary?

[Robin Garr]

You're asking me this in the morning?

Hmmm....I start planning tomorrow's dinner right after we finish today's. Drives my family nuts.

I occasionally plan ahead, but only rarely. This drives Mary slightly nutty, but when I remind her that she never has to cook and that her lifestyle is akin to having a room with board at a very fine restaurant, she tends to ease up.

Anyway, I decided to go with a pair of lamb shanks that have been in the freezer since last summer, where I put them "until cold weather gets here." Now that spring is back and it's a glorious day outside, I figured I'd better get them out before they stay frozen for a second summer. Right now I've got them braising, simply, with a lot of onion, a little garlic, and just a little broth and fresh herbs and tomato paste. I'm still smitten with Mario Batali's Babbo-style approach to peasant meats, disassembling them in the kitchen and presenting them in a more refined dish, so I'm thinking I might pull these before they're falling-apart tender, pull the meat off the bones and then come up with some sort of pasta (orzo?) and sauce (the defatted and buzzed pan juices?) that's prettier and easier to eat than picking shanks at the table.

Those steaks sound good, it's funny how Canadian beef cuts are completely different from American.

Errr, Canada's not in North America? I try to think of "America" as everything from Ellesmere Island to Tierra del Fuego. I find it reassuring that Dubya doesn't control it all ...

Jungle Curry is based on a Victor Sodsook recipe and is herbal-aromatic raised to the nth. Basically, I make a curry paste from a half cup each of sage, dried chilis, basil, purple basil, and tarragon, 8-10 serrano chilies, 5 Thai Bird chilies, 2/3 c shallots, all in a blender; and half a cup of cilantro stems, 6 tbs Thai ginger, and 1 trimmed stalk lemongrass ground together in a mortar/pestle or the Mexican equivalent. The two mixtures are combined in the blender and processed with any needed extra liquid to make a nice puree.

The curry is made in the usual way, the paste is fried, then stock is added. Vegetables (in this case, eggplants, halved cherry tomatoes, and long beans) and tofu/other protein are then cooked appropriately, with the addition of a bit of palm sugar and light soy sauce to taste. Finish with an addition of more of the chopped herbs.

[Robin Garr]

Jungle Curry is based on a Victor Sodsook recipe and is herbal-aromatic raised to the nth.

Sounds auto-substitute: "interesting", Stuart. I'm embarrassed to admit that I hadn't discovered Victor Sodsook, but I see our local library system has a few copies of "True Thai: the modern art of Thai cooking" - I've put it on order.

Jungle Curry

okay, I'll bite. What makes it jungle-y?

[Jenise]

Leslie, I ended up planning Saturday dinner around serving a 95 Ridge Monte Bello that I'd opened on Friday to take to a party, then decided it was too tight to go. I handed Bob a recipe book, suggested he pick something meat not fish, and the result was some fillets of chicken oven roasted in a crust made of English muffins and parmesan cheese. I served that with yellow squash and rappini, cooked separately and then sauteed together with garlic, after a shared cold antipasto plate.