Icelandic Lamb is back!!

I love this type of dish ... it was cold outside and so I went with something filling.  I did a base of roasted garlic polenta with braised greens and grilled Icelandic lamb and a tomato sauce.  Icelandic lamb is a Whole Foods thing that we love ... for a limited time each year they bring in free range, non-farmed lamb from Iceland.  It is super tasty, yummy goodness.

For this dinner, I broiled the lamb in the countertop oven with a garlic pepper crust and a butter topping until both sides were crispy and the lamb was cooked to a nice rare to medium-rare.  So tasty, try it and enjoy!

Presentation School: pork chop & batter bread tower

So I often get comments on presentation of food, and how great it looks ... while I would love to tell you that it is super hard to make food look restaurant quality at home ... that would be a lie.  Today however, I'm going to dispel the myth and teach you what makes Shell's photographs look so good.

First thing you need to do is pick your base.  This is usually a starch (think mashed potatoes or pasta), although sometimes it can be a veggie, and should be something that doesn't flatten out.  For this dinner, I am using batter bread as the base.  Center it on the plate so that you can build around it.

After you lay down the base, start building your layer.  When using a vegetable such as the greens I used here feel free to hang it off the side of the base, if you're using a solid vegetable like this like asparagus or broccolini just build it up like a wall off to one side of the base.

Next, get ready to lay down your protein.  In this case I'm using a solid protein (think: steak, pork chop, chicken breast) but there are other ways to accomplish this if you have a non-solid protein (think: cuban roasted pork) I'll share those in a later iteration of Presentation School.  For the solid protein, lay it down mostly off of the base, in the opposite direction of the veggie layer.

Finally, if you have anything you're topping your dish with, in this case sauteed shiitake mushrooms but it could be something like a sauce or a salsa, go ahead and put that on top.  For a sauce, pour it over the middle so that it spreads evenly around the dish.  At this point present, enjoy the photographic moment and enjoy!

Portugese lobster roll and short rib pasta

Nothing says summer like a lobster roll ... or at least Please Summer, Come Back!!  I know that summer isn't really coming back anytime soon though, so after wishing for it with a lobster roll, I welcomed in winter with some braised short ribs.

When making a small starter lobster roll one has to improvise a little bit.  I got a nice chewy portuguese roll from Whole Foods as the base for this (mostly though just because I didn't want to buy a whole thing of rolls I wouldn't eat and this I could buy one of), after cutting it in half I scooped out the insides to make a pocket.  For the filling, I steamed a lobster tail and then allowed it to cool a bit before cutting into chunks.  In a mixing bowl I added a splash of lemon juice and a few drops of mayo as well as some seasonings.  I tossed gently, stuffed the pockets and we enjoyed!

For the short ribs I seasoned them with Salt and Pepper and then seared all four sides to lock in the flavor.  Into the braising pan went the ribs, half a box of Pomi strained tomatoes, 8 reconstituted Morel mushrooms and half a white onion, diced.  I covered it and into the oven (350F) it went.  I set a timer for 1.5 hours and went to watch TV for a while.

When the timer went off, I reset it for 30 minutes and began preparing the other parts of this dinner (braised greens & noodles) so that they finished up right as the timer went off for the second time.  At this point it was time to plate ... Noodles and short ribs topped with sauce and a bunch of greens on the side!

Homemade Ravioli (Part 2) - the squash filling & final product!

 So before leading in to the ravioli I made a snack that I wanted to share with you all ... caprese lollipops!

These fun little snacks are super easy to make ... just cut some cherry tomatoes in half and do the same with some nice fresh burrata balls (or other small version of mozzarella).  Speare them on a toothpick, drizzle with a little olive oil and voila!

As Michelle promised in her blog earlier this week, here are the instructions for the butternut squash ravioli filling.

For the ravioli filling I started by roasting a butternut squash.  This was a pretty big one so I hacked it into a couple of evenly sized pieces and drizzled it with salt, pepper and olive oil before throwing it into a 425F oven.  I left it in there for about an hour, until a fork passed cleanly through it, and then took it out of the oven.  Using a pair of tongs and a wooden spoon i gently scraped the meat of the squash off of the hard outer rind into a mixing bowl.  Once in the bowl I mashed it with the spoon and then allowed it to cool to room temperature (uncovered).

Once it was room temperature I added about 2/3 of a container of ricotta cheese (14.5oz), a tsp of salt, 1.5 tsp of black pepper and about 15 roasted cloves of garlic (diced).  The key to the filling is trying to decide what role it's going to play in the dinner.  In this case I was planning to serve the pasta with braised short ribs and their braising sauce ... so I wanted the pasta to focus on the squash flavor and accent the beef, not compete with it.

For the final product I plated the pasta and then topped with the short ribs and pan sauce, a little shaved parmesan to finish it off and it was ready to eat!

Homemade Ravioli - I swear it is not that hard

As the cooler weather closes in on the RVA Tom and I start enjoy braising our meals and breaking out the pasta maker.  For this evening we actually combined them!  On those occasions I make a short appearance in the kitchen with Tom to prepare the pasta dough and assemble the ravioli as needed. I will have to leave the braised short ribs and the butternut squash ravioli filling recipes for Tom to blog about at a later date.  Let's start with the dough.

We have Kitchenaid pasta roller attachments and that was such an awesome upgrade from the hand crank roller we had prior.  This time I used the semolina pasta recipe that is in the manual for the attachment.  Recipe is below.

Semolina Egg Pasta - Ingredients
4 large eggs
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon oil
31⁄3 cups semolina flour
1⁄2 teaspoon salt

Instructions
Place eggs, water, oil, flour, and salt in mixer bowl.
Attach bowl and flat beater. Turn to Speed 2 and
mix 30 seconds.
Exchange flat beater for dough hook. Turn to Speed
2 and knead 2 minutes. Remove dough from bowl
and hand-knead for 1 to 2 minutes. Divide dough
into eight pieces before processing with Pasta Sheet
Roller attachment.

Cooking - Fresh pasta usually will cook in 2-3 minutes.

The semolina dough is a bit tougher to work with to start.  It took some hand rolling as well as a few runs through the kitchen aid pasta roller before the dough stuck together nicely.  

I ran through the pasta roller on setting 1 at least 3-5 times folding over each time.   Once I felt the dough was in a good shape I started tightening the roller.  I went up to level 8 for these raviolis.  I like to try to make as thin as possible but the thinness is totally up to the chef!  Once you have your sheets of dough you spoon your filling on to one sheet. 

I then brush lightly with an egg wash and apply the the 2nd sheet on top.  You can either use a ravioli stamp or a pastry cutter.  This evening I used the circular ravioli cutter.  Be sure to use plenty of flour. After a number of fails in the past when the pasta would get sticky and fall apart we learned more flour is better! 

Place on lightly floured baking sheet with wax paper to rest until time to boil, enjoy!

Snacks & fun ... yep ... sounds like a pretty good evening

Lobster "corndogs" ... make a little batter of cornmeal, water, salt and pepper ... (mix the dry ingredients and then add water slowly until it coats a spoon without running off).  Spear a half lobster tail on a large skewer and then coat in the batter.  Toss it in a little hot oil until browned on all sides ... add some sweet chili and sriracha ... maybe a little avocado cooked in the same manner ... yea!

Clams ... I recommend large ones (cherrystone) ... and then add bacon, roasted red peppers and cheese ... broil ... enjoy?!?!?!

Finally, we finished the evening with a brined pork chop and roasted asparagus over polenta ... give it a try and enjoy!

Red Snapper ceviche ...

This was an interesting dinner idea that we may or not try again.  That being said, it was tasty.  I "cooked" red snapper into a ceviche.  I "cooked" the fish with a white vinegar & lime sauce, combined with a spice mix of lawry's, garlic pepper & sea salt.  I had the fish in the mix for two days, flipping every 12 hours.

I roasted some hatch chilies and sliced an avocado before plating ... serving the fish and avocado in alternating segments with the hatch chilies sliced and diced in the middle.  Try it and enjoy!

The name's Balls, Meatballs

So this summer I was introduced to The Meatball Shop in NYC ... and I kinda liked it the first night I went, the second night ... Margie (the sister) bought me the cookbook.  So, given that I have the cookbook, I figured I should take a couple pages out of the book.  I enlisted some help from Chef Matt to make this dinner.

We led off with the Buffalo Chicken balls ... they were rolled small sized and served with a blue cheese dressing (we bailed and used store bought for the blue cheese).

Before showing off the balls, let me introduce the side act.  I served creamy garlic polenta, mashed potatoes & a crazy awesome smashed horseradish turnip dish (from the cookbook).

For the balls, we did four kinds.  Bottom left was the reuben ball (literally tastes exactly like a reuben sandwich), bottom right was the Bambi ball (venison and chocolate), above that was the jerk chicken ball and finally was the crab cake ball ... I was a little shocked to see the recipe call for crushed kettle cooked chips instead of bread [yes I checked the internet before I posted this] ... but it was amazing!

Pork a couple of ways ... With Corn Bread and with kale with a kick ...

Once again I bring back the pickle brined pork chop ... this time with a bunch of fun.  Sauteed red onion and shiitake mushrooms with sauteed kale and avocado.  Oh, and the pork. glazed with BW3s Mango Habanero sauce, yep, good stuff.

This time I cooked the pork with Shiitake mushrooms and collard greens, and I served it over Shells' batter bread (think cornbread with tasty additions).  Mmmm, tasty.