What did you eat last night for dinner? - Page 1315

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http://www.styleforum.net/t/217855/the-new-official-toj-thread-2011/3000#post_4278288

Found it. It looks solid. How did you change it?

Well, it's a basic beef stew flavored with curry, that is what Japanese curry rice should be in my mind... I do it in two parts. There is probably a more efficient way to do this, but I like a certain texture - it should be silken but also have a slight airiness and sweetness and a bit of vegetable texture to the gravy.

So you take some cubed stew beef (they can be huge cubes too, almost steak-like if you want), say a half kilo and season and dredge it, brown it well on all sides in oil, set that aside;
caramelize a whole diced brown onion and then a few diced carrots. Take the beef and the browned veggies and put in in a larger stockpot, and add a bottle of red wine, and then an equal amount of some sort of beef stock (I use veal stock, but beef stock is ok, even consomme would work) and then a can of tomatoes (the double size can, 28oz) and a bouquet garni - simmer gently for a good while, maybe 2-3 hours. Make sure it doesn't boil, otherwise your stock turns grey. This pot shouldn't thicken too much, but a little is good. You can add a bit of water here and there too if the level gets low and it tastes too strong. Skim the fat globules that rise to the top.

On the side while your beef simmers on slow, you should caramelize an absolute fuckload of onions, like 4-5, maybe 6 if you're crazy or your onions aren't too sweet, til they're soup brown, in oil. Add a finely diced apple and a finely diced banana at this point. Add a couple inch-long knob of ginger grated (or at least minced), and 3-4 cloves of garlic, minced. Saute those all together so that the onions are browned and everything else is at least softened. You should have something brown and soupy looking at this point. The browner, the better, scrape at the bottom of the pan if you need to.

Now you spice this onion mixture: basically, throw a fuckton of curry-related spices at it. Curry powder as a base, then maybe a tiny bit of garam masala (I don't like too much garam masala though, it's very strong on the cinnamon), some ground mustard, some ground cumin, a touch of ground coriander, ground cardomom, and then you can modulate the heat levels using four spices: white pepper, cayenne pepper, chili powder, and then some Japanese shichimi tougarashi. Start with a teaspoon of everything and then adjust to your liking.

Once you have your onions and stuff browned, and then spiced, hit it up with an immersion blender so that it's pasty, doesn't need to be 100% smooth. A bit of texture is good here.

So your original pot with the beef and wine and stock should be getting pretty good; use a spider and fish out the beef for a moment and set aside. It should still be brown but lost it's brown crust to the stock. Then, fish out the spent vegetables from the wine/stock base and the bouquet garni. You don't need those anymore. Alternatively, you can fish out the beef and then the bouquet garni, and then hit the rest with the blender.

Once that is done, put everything together, and simmer just a bit more while you prepare the last steps. Keep adjusting spices, as they die in intensity while they cook.

Get some pre-made demiglace base, maybe a small can, and add to the pot. The demiglace should thicken the soup pretty noticeably. Add some ground turmeric. You should be standing over a pot that smells and looks like a curry by this point, with a smooth sauce.

Taste and adjust the spices one last time if necessary, and then take a bitter dark chocolate bar and grate a little bit into the curry, stir it around. The curry is ready by this point. You can serve it this way with rice, or prepare some steamed vegetables on the side and arrange when you're lading up the curry - maybe a mix of things like carrots, potatoes, turnips, asparagus, broccoli, okra, cherry tomatoes. A soft-boiled egg is also a decent topping.

I think I rearranged some of the steps so that the spices weren't dying on the heat. I do two pans so that the beef is stewed very purely, and then the spices go into the other pan now with a sweet gravy of onions and fruit, brief heat. I forgot ground mustard though, that is a good addition to the new recipe.

Banana?!

steamed a lobster and shucked some littlenecks and oysters open

 

mmmmmmmmmmmmm

Ohhh can't wait. I'll be in the Northeast for the next couple weeks and I am salivating just thinking about that.

Found lots of really nice vegetables today, so I cooked them en cocotte.

Beautiful.

Gruel.

Where you coming to?  I"ll give you some good places to go for seafood.

Have you tried anything like this Matt/MGM? If anything, it's at least pretty cool looking.

http://www.alain-ducasse.com/en/shop/les-objets-de-table/the-cookpot-large-version

Nice!

Oh, what I forgot to ask.. why did my consommé have some air bubbles? They were very resistant. This time, I added shredded chicken thighs. Better chicken flavor that way.

Jolly sick of eating salads so had pancakes with bananas, maple syrup and Nutella. Cold Weissbier to wash down.