A Dinner Party

On Friday, September 26th, we held a dinner party for some close friends. The menu consisted of chicken, dill and parsley peas, garlic green beans and mashed potatoes. The big winner was the dill and parsley peas, one of Nina's specialties.

Dill and Parsley Peas

• 1 lb. frozen peas
  
• 1 medium onion
• 1 cup fresh dill
• 1/3 fresh parsley
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• Vegeta
  

Chop the onions into pea-sized pieces. Saute them until slightly translucent and then add the frozen peas. Continue to cook until the peas are thawed. Add Vegeta to taste. Simmer for about 20 minutes to infuse the seasoningin to the peas and onions. Add dill and parsley. Stir in corn starch slowly until the dish is thickened slightly.

The only reason the garlic green beans were not the number one dish is that the peas were superlative. Usually the green beans make the night.

Garlic Green Beans

• 1 lb. green beans
• 8 cloves garlic
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• Salt to taste

Heat the garlic in the oil over low heat for at least 30 minutes. Make sure that the garlic does not crisp or burn. Steam the green beans until they are slightly softened--they will turn bright green when ready. Drain the green beans and toss in the garlic oil, adding salt to taste.

Sea Thai Bistro and Solex

Sea
Yesterday found us in search of a budget meal on the town, so I clicked on over to timoutny.com to use their restaurant search with its handy "cheap eats" feature. By focusing on the East Village I quickly discovered Sea, a Thai restaurant on Second Avenue. Situated in the midst of a busy block, it's a bit hard to spot given its unremarkable signage, but stepping down into the dining room revealed a cleanly--if boringly--appointed space painted a slightly nauseating shade of peach with the back wall covered by a sheet of stainless steel. A small bar tucked partially out of sight around a corner in the back completed the picture.

I ordered the lettuce rolls, which the menu described as filled with a chicken and peanut mixture and nary a mention of dough. I was surprised then when they arrived wrapped in a mushy dumpling dough that was as unnecessary as it was unappetizing. I contented myself with a sake bomb (a Singha beer with a shot of sake dropped in) while I waited for my wife.

She ordered one of the house cocktails, a worthy riff on a mojito that included lychee for sweetness. For her entree she dutifully ordered that litmus test that in our minds every Thai restaurant must pass: the cashew chicken. She seemed contented enough with it, though the bite I tried contained a cashew that had been toasted a bit too much and tasted slightly acrid.

My entree was grilled salmon with "dark" sauce. Here was where I really got interested. The sauce seemed to be a heavily reduced mixture of soy and ginger with an edge of sweetness added by sauteed pineapple chunks. Swimming is this velvety deliciousness was a perfectly cooked skin-on salmon filet.

Despite the off notes, we really had nothing to complain about considering that the whole generously-proportioned meal including drinks cost sixty dollars. We opted to skip dessert, but resolved to return if we were ever in the neighborhood again.


Solex

As the night was still young and we weren't quite sure of our next move, we plotted a course for an old favorite of ours, Counter. Despite its pretentious website, it is a thoroughly relaxing wine and martini bar on First Avenue. Apparently the nascent evening was already well on for the crowd that stood waiting to enter, so we happily allowed ourselves to be diverted to the handsomely appointed--and nearly empty--Solex next door.

Inside a long stainless steel maple-trimmed bar reflected the warm glow diffusing through the curved ceiling panels. A long row of slightly angled shelves held much of this wine bar's stock. A glance at the menu revealed a brief but happily eclectic list of wines. While by the bottle most of them were well north of fifty dollars, there were a number of them available by the glass in the six to eight dollar range.
I chose a dry riesling that perfectly balanced its sweetness with a crisp minerality and settled in to admire the healthy collection of high-end bourbons (oxymoron?) occupying a short stretch of shelf behind the bar. The menu revealed a long list of various other liqours from all over the globe, and even a nod to the hop--if only to keep beer-drinking boyfriends from abandoning their oenophile dates.

For dessert I had a Muscat recommended by the sommelier-cum-barkeep-cum-DJ and for the first and only time was thoroughly satisfied with the mellow nectary flavor of this specimen of the variety. All in all, not a bad evening.

Wedding Menu

So as most of you probably know, Nina and I got married September 6th. You can find some pictures here.

The tremendous generosity of our friends and family and my tendency to overestimate consumption by at least 100% when planning menus yielded a smorgasbord of at least two dozen dishes (if you include desserts). I suppose as the groom I am necessarily unqualified to editorialize, but all of the reviews that found my attention were rave. Just in case anyone ever wants to reproduce this meal in whole or in part, I am determined here to give a cook's account of the thing. I couldn't hope to recount the preparation of all of them, so here are my favorites among the main dishes: the turkey, the prebranac, the Russian salad, the cole slaw and the roasted peppers.

Turkey

My Mom raises a half-dozen turkeys every year on her small farm in Connecticut, and she kindly supplied one of these grass- and grain-fed beauties for our wedding. Prepared as described here it yielded the juiciest, most deliciously tender breast meat I've ever had from this fowl whose flesh is all too often rendered dry and unpalatable.

The technique is surprisingly simple, though it does have one or two catches. First cut up a handful of savory vegetables--onions, celery and carrot work well--for the pan. Place the turkey on a rack over these and cover the skin with four layers of cheesecloth. The point of the cheesecloth is to capture the basting liquid so that it stays on the bird longer during cooking and to act as a second skin to keep the real skin from crisping too soon.

Prepare a basting liquid consisting of about one cup of water, one cup of white wine and 1/3 of a cup of olive oil (for a turkey breast of roughly 12 lbs). Preheat the oven to 450 degrees and use the basting liquid to thoroughly soak the cheesecloth while waiting for the oven to reach temperature. Bake the bird at 450 for an hour and a half, basting it well every 30 minutes. After an hour and a half, turn the oven down to 350 and wait an hour between bastings. The total cooking time will be in the four to four-and-a-half hour range.

When the turkey is about 30 minutes from being done gently remove the cheesecloth. This can be a delicate operation since the cheesecloth by this point will be thoroughly browned and stuck to the skin beneath it. The trick is to baste heavily to help separate the cheesecloth, go slowly, and exercise patience. Return the bird to the oven and continue baking until the meat reaches temperature and the skin is crispy. Allow to rest before carving.

Prebranac

Prebranac (preh-brahn-atz) is a Serbian dish that one might call "baked beans," but that bears virtually no resemblance (other than the literal description) with the American dish of the same name. Aside from the differences in seasoning, this dish is made with lima rather than navy or similar small beans.

The secret to prebranac (as I learned it at this opportunity) is a ton of onions. The approximate ratio of onions to beans in this recipe is six onions (medium-sized yellow onions) to one pound of dry beans. The onions are simply peeled, cut into thin half-rings, and then sauteed with some vegetable (0r similar) oil. Throw in a few minced cloves of garlic for some extra flavor. In the meantime you will want to rinse and then boil the lima beans. When the onions are sauteed, add them to the beans. When the beans are thoroughly cooked, mix in some salt, some sweet paprika (enough to turn the mixture slightly red), and a couple of bay leaves. Spread the mixture in a baking pan and bake the beans at 450 degrees until well dried. The result should be a slightly addictive comfort food whose nutty sweetness is a combination of carmelized onions and the beans' natural flavor.

Russian salad

Russian salad is a mayonnaise-based salad that is delicious on dense, chewy bread. Its main ingredients are chicken (alternatively ham), eggs, carrots and potatoes. The approximate amounts of these are one chicken breast, four eggs, two carrots and two potatoes. These are boiled until the chicken is well cooked and the vegetables are quite soft. They are then finely chopped and mixed with sour cream, mayonnaise, and mustard into a thick salad reminiscent of egg salad. The dressing is nearly entirely mayonnaise: the sour cream and mustard are only for flavor.

Cole Slaw

It was great luck that my mom brought her super industrial-strength food processor, which came with a 1 mm shredding blade. We used it to turn three heads of cabbage into a very fine shred. We then peeled and shredded half a dozen large carrots. The dressing was made from six cups of apple cider vinegar, three cups of sugar, 1 cup of light oil (vegetable or canola), three tablespoons of celery seed, three tablespoons of finely ground mustard, and a few teaspoons of salt. Allow the slaw to wilt overnight. Turning occasionally is recommended.

Roasted Peppers

These peppers are another favorite from Serbia. They are made with bell peppers--however many you want. Cut the hearts out and remove them. Roast the peppers on a grill until the skins are charred. Close them in plastic shopping bags to cool. When the peppers have cooled off, peel them by hand. When they have been peeled, cut them into parts--halves or smaller. Mince a lot of garlic--about a half-clove per pepper--and mix it and the peppers with a dressing of mostly light oil to a small amount of vinegar.