What did you eat last night for dinner?

Not as long as you would imagine. Wrapping the inner pole is tricky, but the rest goes very quickly.

pho, first attempt; I give myself a C

It looks delicious.



kwilkinson said:

It looks delicious.

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+100

Looks really good.

Damn it now I need a nice bowl of pho, but there aren't any good ones here.

Pho is all in the stock though, and mine wasn't there. I asked people, I researched, and decided to not do fish sauce in the stock - big mistake, there went all the umami. Pho has to really open up your mouth with saliva so that the stock rolls on the tongue all silken so all the flavors meld, mine just didn't do that. It was sharp and flat tasting, a little water-y. It was meaty enough, but some MSG, natural or otherwise, would've really opened it up and smoothed it out.

Also, that was A5 shabu shabu-cut meat on top, which was the wrong kind of beef really, A5 is too nice for something like this. My wife brought it home from the local supermarket and that's all they really sell around here. It was amazing beef, but it was too nice for the ****** soup. Insane grain-fed flavor though, buttery taste. Even great pho gets by on crappy eye of round though.



mgm9128 said:

I've wanted to see that. I saw the Michel Bras one and it really changed the way I look at food and made me understand completely my error of mistreating and disregarding vegetables.

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this is on youtube

have three 1.25 inch thick pork chops marinating overnight in a bulgogi type marinade i mixed up. should i pat these dry before grilling? i was thinking about 2.5 minutes high heat on each side and then indirect heat on the grill for about 5 minutes a side. how are these times?

Don't pat dry, throw them on there as wet as can be. Makes a mess but the marinade should speed up the caramelization.

Matt, nice looking meal...very Robuchon, from the langoustine to the wrapped pasta. I believe I will be having my first taste of white truffles next week.

Just a question: When you entertain, how much time are you spending in the kitchen, and how much time do you spend sitting with your guests? Most of those dishes look fairly simple to prepare in advance. I wonder this because I am cooking for 4 this Friday and when I entertained in the past I never had the chance to really sit down and enjoy myself.

Another thing working in a restaurant will teach you is how to get your prep done, you mise lined up, and everything cooked as much as possible in advance so that all you have to do is fire it when you're ready for that course. It's different for every dish but the principle is learned for a wide variety of things and it's very useful at home if you have people over.



iammatt said:

I know they all come from Piedmont, and I believe right around Alba. Foodguy can probably pinpoint this to a few feet.

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hmmm, judging from the looks of them, i'd say they came from that second store from the piazza on via cavour ... amirite?
white truffles are trouble ... since the opening up of the iron curtain countries, there have been repeated ... in truth, almost constant ... dries from some truffle dealers that their competition is getting all of theirs from slovenia and that they're inferior. there are also white truffles from china that you can get at a REALLY good price and that actually have a little bit of flavor.
putting on my jlibourel smoking jacket ... of course, i remember back in the day going to the truffle fair in alba ... seriously, crisp cold afternoon, walking down the main street. door opens on a store a half-block ahead, slight puff of steam from the heater inside, and you can tell instantly that they're selling truffles. that's how potent they should be. as i believe i've said previously here, i almost never buy truffles in this country because they are so often disappointing. if you have a vendor you trust, ymmv. i think they're all a lot of shifty b*stards.



mgm9128 said:

Matt, nice looking meal...very Robuchon, from the langoustine to the wrapped pasta. I believe I will be having my first taste of white truffles next week.
Just a question: When you entertain, how much time are you spending in the kitchen, and how much time do you spend sitting with your guests? Most of those dishes look fairly simple to prepare in advance. I wonder this because I am cooking for 4 this Friday and when I entertained in the past I never had the chance to really sit down and enjoy myself.

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I don't have any interest in having to be in the kitchen while I have guests over unless they want to help or hang out in there. All of these dishes were basically made ahead, so I didn't spend much less time with the group than anybody else.



iammatt said:

Had a bunch of friends over who wanted to have a big white truffle thing. No time for pics other than a really quick snap...

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

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How the heck did you do this? It's very impressive.

It's not that hard. You take softened butter and brush it, pretty thickly, onto the inside of nonstick savarin molds. Then you wrap almost fully cooked spaghetti around the inside of the mold, starting from the bottom, going up the middle, then up the outside. The pasta sticks to the butter, which helps, but it is delicate. You get the hang of it after a few. Then you stick them in the fridge so that the butter hardens. When hard, you brush the inside of the spagetti with mousse (in this case langoustine, but you can use shrimp. You want to cover the spaghetti, but not make it too thick. Then you place whole langoustines, or shrimp, in the mold, press down a little and cover with buttered parchment. To cook, you just steam for 3 minutes.

The idea is that the butter holds the spaghetti when it is raw, but allows it to release when cooked. The mousse does nothing when raw, but holds it together when cooked. It is the same idea as this: