The Leftovers

Wine: Cuilleron Syrah 2005

We followed Mark’s advice. We did NOT make Steak Hash. Instead we followed the Corned Beef Hash Recipe from the cookbook: Julia Child & Company. We simply left the meat out.

It is a great recipe.

2 ½ cups minced onion
2 tbl butter
2 tbl olive oil
3 tbl Flour
¾ cup or more beef bullion
4 cups diced boiling cups
½ tsp minced herbs (sage, oregano, thyme or mixture)
5 to 6 tbl fresh parsley
Salt and pepper
½ cup heavy cream

Sauté onions in butter and oil for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring frequently, until tender, then raise heat slightly and let them brown a bit.

Lower heat again; blend in the flour and a little more butter or oil if needed to make a paste. Stir and cook slowly for 2 minutes.
Blend in 3/ cup bouillon, let boil a moment, then mix in potatoes, corned beef, and parsley, and cream.
Taste carefully for seasoning.
Firmly press the hash down all over. Cover and cook slowly for 15 minutes. When crust forms on bottom turn potatoes so crust goes into the body of the potatoes. Repeat process until potatoes are complete.
10 to 15 minutes before serving press down hash for final crust.

We sliced the steaks and served it at room temperature with a Horseradish Sauce.

At the Hollywood Farmer's Market we purchased: Tomatoes, Leeks, Onions, Pimento and Sage. We baked them with lots of Balsamic, Olive Oil and Thyme. It makes a great vegetable side.

We decided that Mark was absolutely correct to serve the meat this way. We even had leftovers and made some steak sandwiches for lunch later in the week.

Cathy's Pre-Birthday Steak-a-Thon

Wine:

Tschermonegg 2003 Cuvee Styria
Gevrey Chambertin 1990


John called to tell us he was coming to LA to sell some wine and wanted to stay with us. We were planning a steak dinner as a pre-birthday dinner for Cathy. I had ordered 2 Porterhouse Steaks from Gus Meats. I called and left and requested a 3rd one. I knew we would have way too much steak with three, but we like leftovers and knew we would do something great with all the extra meat.

In the morning I went to Gus Meats to pick up the three steaks. They were huge! 2.5 pounds each! Cathy called me on my cell to inform me that a 4th steak had just been airmailed to us from New York. Michael and Tamara send us a Kobe Porterhouse from Lobel’s for her birthday. I seriously wondered if all 4 steaks could fit on the grill.

After picking up the steaks I went to Joan’s on Third, which has great takeout. I bought their great Pita Chips and Hummus. We have had, and have made pita chips but NONE are as good as Joan’s. She definitely gets the Pita Chip medal!

In addition, at Joan’s I picked up two sides to serve with the steak: a great Fresh Corn Salad, and a Fennel Salad made with fennel and fresh oranges.

Cathy and I made a Roasted Fingerling Potatoes from The Zuni Café Cookbook.
It is a great recipe and unusual in that you add wine to the potatoes and cook covered.

The consensus was that the Kobe Steak from Lobel's was more tender, the Gus steaks were more flavorful.

For we made the Upside Down Fig Cake, one final time for this season.

John was our featured guest, and really walked into a fabulous dinner!

We did have a lot of left over steak! My sister and Sharon were going to be in the neighborhood on Friday (she had a medical procedure) and we planned to serve the leftover steak to them. However, she needed to go directly home and so we had the leftover by ourselves on Friday night. But we still had lots of leftover steak. I came up with the idea of making a Roast Beef Hash out of the remaining steak.

On Saturday night we went to Campanile and mentioned to Mark Peel the Chef / Owner that we planned to make the hash with the leftover steak. He said the meat was to good to use in a hash, we should make Steak Sandwiches. On Sunday when we were at the Hollywood Farmer's Market as usual and I purchased some Cipollini Onions and an Asiago Cheese Bread from LA Bread Stand. I sautéed the onions for at least an hour, and then toasted the bread. I made sandwiches for lunch by spooning lots of the sautéed onions on the toasted bread layering sliced room temperature steak on the bread and covering (mine not Cathy’s) with creamed horseradish. A fabulous sandwich! Forgot to take a picture. We still plan to make the hash!

Best of Summer

Wine: Project – 3000 Syrah

Fig and tomato season is coming to an end, so we decided to make again a summer dinner.

First we had Yellow Tomato Gazpacho from the recipe in Sunday Supper at Lucques. It is a great cold soup. We really like the soup, cold and spicy with fresh cherry tomatoes and olive oil floating on top. Oh well, fall means stews, braises and short-ribs!

We then had the Chicken with Figs, Onions, Couscous from The Zuni Café Cookbook. It is wonderful. I like the sauce of figs and vinegar. It soaks into the couscous and extremely tasty.

John Visits Again

Wine:

Baglio Di Pianetto Ficiligno – 2003
Vietti Barbera D’Asti – 2003

John Carpenter came down and stayed with us on another wine selling trip. We still had the Goat Cheese Torta made from The Babbo Cookbook. It sure does last. It is great. John loved it.

We then made one of favorite Salads: White Nectarines, Macarena Almonds, Prosciutto, Saba, Arugula. Nectarines are in the market and are very sweet. Simple but great salad, sliced the nectarines, combine all ingredients coat with Saba. We get the almonds, prosciutto at The Cheese Store of Silver Lake.

We made Lentil Pasta. This is one of our favorite pastas. You wouldn’t believe that it does not have meat in it. It is very rich and re-heats well. John loved it. We started by roasting fresh tomatoes from the farmers market, making Summer Candied Tomatoes. The recipe for both the Tomatoes and the Pasta can be found on our blog of: Friday July 28th, so I won’t republish it here. The pasta has spinach in it and we probably purchased some of the last spinach available because of the e-coli problems.

We had purchased fresh green figs at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market. And we made another Fig Upside Down Cake. It was great, and it is another dish that keeps in the refrigerator!

Billy Two Ways

Wine: From Billy / Kevin Charles B. Mitchell Estate Cabernet Franc

We had leftover Goat Cheese Torta from Mario Batali The Babbo Cookbook, and it made a great appetiser.

When we are were at The Cheese Store of Silverlake, we spotted duck confit in the refrigerated case. Cathy remembered a recipe from Sunday Supper at Lucques by Suzanne Goin for Black Rice with Duck Confit. We decided to make it but have never cooked with black rice before. First we had to find black rice, but couldn’t. Luckily we called Cheese Store of Silver Lake and the woman that answered the phone recommended a large Oriental Market in Echo Park called A1 Market. She remembered seeing black rice there. We had never been in it, so we decided to go there. Interestingly, Bill who gave us the wine we drank that night, had previously mentioned the market to me, but I hadn’t gone to it.

We found the market and it has an amazing variety of foods from all over: Mexican, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, etc. I am sure it will be a great source for us in the future. Needless to say, they had many varieties of black rice! The rice is cooked differently from regular rice, 2 cups of washed black rice and 6 cups of water. The rice is boiled uncovered. We separately baked the duck legs (after scrapping off the duck fat) to crisp the skin. It was very tasty and now we have a new rice for future recipes! The recipe has a great sauce that we made from pulots. The Zaigers invented pluots from interspecific plums and apricots respectively.

More Mario

Wines:
Stefano Farina Barolo 2001
Robert Sinsky Vin Gris of Pinot Noir 2005
Melville 2001 Syrah

In the Babo Cookbook Cathy spotted a recipe for a Goat Cheese Torta. It is made from goat cheese, a pesto made with mint and parsley, and fig jam. It is layered and very good. One great advantage, beyond its delicious taste, is that it lasts for several weeks in the refrigerator. We purchased the Fig Jam at The Cheese Store of Silverlake. It is the best Fig Jam we have ever had; it is imported from France and named: Matin des Pyrenees. Wow!

Bea joined us for dinner. We decided to grill Veal Chops using Mario Batali – The Babbo Cookbook recipe: Veal Chop Joe’s with Chanterelles, Roasted Garlic and Campari. We had never made this recipe before. Chanterelles are available at the Hollywood Farmers Market and it was a perfect fit. I purchased the veal chops from Gus Meats and he sold us the “Spago Chops” which were very thick double cut veal chops! Usually veal has a bland taste, but these chops were fabulous. We even had a couple left over.

Our friends, Joy and Brenda, who live in Napa, had told us of a Fresh Fig Upside-Down Cake from LA Times. Since it is fig season, we decided to make it.
The cake turned out to be great. It keeps well in the refrigerator and is great when it is zapped in the microwave for 1 minute. It was great of them to turn us on to the cake.

Fig Upside-Down Cake

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1/3 cup Melted Butter
1/3 cup Brown Sugar, packed
5 – 6 (or more) ripe figs cut lengthwise into ½ inch slices
1/3 cup toasted pine nuts
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1 1/3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons backing powder
½ teaspoon salt
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1/2 cup softened butter
2/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 egg

Pour melted butter into bottom of 8-inch-square baking pan.
Sprinkle brown sugar evenly over bottom of pan
Arrange fig slices in single layer over bottom of pan (cut side down!)..
Sprinkle about 2 tablespoons pine nuts into spaces around figs pressing into brown sugar.
Set aside.

Sift flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl.
Add softened butter, milk, vanilla, lemon zest and egg. Beat on medium speed about 2 minutes, scraping side of bowl. Stir in remaining pine nuts.
Pour over figs in baking pan.

Bake at 350 degrees about 40 minutes or until cake tests done in center.
Cool in pan about 5 minutes.
Loosen cake around edges of pan.
Place serving platter over cake and turn over.
Shake gently, then remove pan.

We modified the recipe by mixing all pine nuts into batter. Also, instead of slicing figs in slices, we simply sliced in half.