What did you eat last night for dinner? - Page 569

MGM:

GREAT pics. I really look forward to your posts.

Needs more garlic bread and endless salad.

breast meat slices from a rotisserie chicken, countrywhite bread and pesto. Yum.

Made pork parmigiana. Fried up a really tender pork cutlet.Was honesty incredible.

I met a friend after work at Nopa in SF last night. It was almost midnight when I got there, but they serve dinner until 1am. I had the duck breast, wild rice, honey punch pluots, red mustard and pecans. The duck was delicious. The only thing I didn't eat was the red mustard. It looked like maple leaves to me and appeared more decorative than edible. The waiter gave some grief for not trying it. The cocktails there were great, as usual. I started out with a Sazerac.

Ate some steak with fave alla romana.





Some tomato-basil-mozzarella di bufala-salad (yeah, I know, originally without Balsamico..)

That hunk of beef could use a good sear.

It was for two.
And yeah, I tried out low heat (2 of 9), 4 minutes each side.. wanted to see what happens. Not that much crust..

David Chang can't get these motherfucking figs off this motherfucking plate!



Figs with a drop of balsamic and parmesan shavings.

Agony column:

Salad was good. There was supposed to be frisee, and I swear I bought it, but somehow I could not find it when I got home. Ended up being a mix of pea shoots, sunflower shoots, parsely, tarragon, and celery leaves. Grapefruit vinagrette and supremes, shaved asparagus, toasted pine nuts.

Fish is, IMHO, plated beautifully. However, the garlic cake was a bit cool in the center. But unlike last time, it held its shape. Must find a way to keep it looking like a hockey puck and also heat through. Garlic chips this time were perfect. Sauce perhaps a bit under-seasoned but great consistency. Fish cooked fine. Salad dressed well.

Chicken was OK, not dry or chewy, but IMO a bit over. Tender but not dripping moist. Brined and honestly I tasted the herbs from the brine more than I wanted to. Pasta is home made whole wheat fetuccini. Delicious. Veg is just blanched asparagus and English peas. Chasseur sauce tasted great but does not look so pretty. The fond in the pan got a bit dark. I kept smelling and tasting for "burnt" and didn't detect any so I forged ahead. The plating of this dish sucked. Unlike the last one, I had nothing to copy.

Someone else brought the desserts. They were tasty.

The wines were effing spectacular.

Rsally nice stuff, kindly share the recipes for this. it sounds delicious

Manton,

Really beautiful fish. I think you can do with 20% less garnish, the proportions can use some editing. That's just being picky though. It's amazing what you've done in the last year with your cooking, my hat goes off to you.

Thanks.

I could make the little cake smaller but the next smallest ring mold I have is quite a bit smaller and I feared would have been too small.

How would you have plated chasseur + fettucini? Or is that just a bad combo? I know mashed pommes is traditional but it seemed too boring and not summery enough.

The cake is ok, I would just have done less garnish, as it is now a little top heavy. I don't know if I'd do fettucini like that. Typically I don't like fettucini with a substantial protein and big sauce. It's a pretty heavy pasta and along with that sauce, plus the chicken it's a little much. You could have done a nicely pureed red cauliflower, or I saw someone do a really cool base of red rice puree. I know your fish dish had a green sauce but a pea puree is lovely with chicken. Potato mash is always fine, just don't use too much. To me I only really like a pommes puree the way I was taught, and that's very finely strained with an outrageous amount of butter, and so the portioning should be small. The biggest danger with a potato puree is that the texture is pasty, there's too much. I prefer to err on the side of less, and therefore what is there should be really well executed. I think puree is a great accompaniment for a lot of dishes because it's relatively easy to do. Just consider the flavor profile so that you're balancing with the star of the show, and doing it seasonally is obviously quite attractive because it can show off an ingredient with relatively little intervention on your part. Lastly it gives a wonderful opportunity for the use of some color. How good are the peas you're using?

I get good peas at a little local produce market. I have made pea puree before and it was great.