We opened up with a cheese plate and frosty cold martinis. We had Jasper Hill Harbison and Cypress Grove Lamb Chopper as our cheese selection and paired it up with mini pretzel crisps, Olli salami & almonds.
For a second course we had oysters on the half-shell ... half Rappahannock River and half Olde Salts with some nice horseradish heavy cocktail sauce (for Shells) and a bottle of our favorite Champagne ... A. Margaine. Margaine is a grower Champagne, unlike the big name Champagne houses these guys grow the grapes and then make their own wine from them, that we got turned on to years ago and has never let us down.
After finishing the oysters it was time to fire up the grill and get started on the main course. For the dinner I decided on a base of grilled yellow & red onion (in hindsight I would probably have done one onion and one of something else, this was a LOT of onions) and then some grilled portobello slices to go with some veal rib chops.
I cut the onion slices fairly thick (four slices per onion) and so I grilled them for a bit and put a really good char on them. The key to grilling is not to touch the food too much. I divide the time in to three chunks, after the first quarter of the time I make a quarter turn of the food (this is how you get the good crossing grill marks). After the second quarter I flip, and then I don't touch it again until it's time to take it off of the grill. Also, depending on what you're cooking you should either be using a spatula or a tongs ... if you have a grill fork, throw it away and never use it ... all you do with that is puncture the meat and lose juices.
Once the veal was done I plated it on top of the onions and then layered the Portobello mushrooms over the top of that.
Final plating included braised greens and some sauteed avocado slices to add some green to the plate!!
I threw my grill fork away immediately upon reading this post. Piece of crap, losing me all the juices!
ReplyDelete