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June 13, 2005
June Dinner (0)
Saturday night we had dinner with Steve and Natalie. It had been a while since I had cooked a multi-course meal. It was nice to get back into the kitchen. I cooked out of Michael Chiarello's Casual Cooking, which is a great book of recipes that are generally not as time consuming as some of his others.
The Kitchen in Full Production
We started with Bruchetta with Salsa Genovese and Ricotta. The salsa is a blend of green olives, toasted pine nuts, basil, thyme, and garlic. This is spread on slices of toasted rustic bread and then topped with ricotta cheese that has been seasoned with salt and pepper. It went really well with a bottle of Grape Creek Fume Blanc from Texas.
Next we had a Radicchio and Napa Cabbage Slaw with a Honey and Roasted Fennel Dressing (below, left). This wasn't my favorite salad. I should have gone with my gut feeling and fixed up a different salad topped with a poached egg. As a side note, I had never fooled around with Napa cabbage-- they are truly enormous!
After the salad, Steve pan seared some sea bass fillets that had been dredged in an ground Arborio rice and flour mixture. Mr. Chiarello recommends using this dredge for any fish, chicken, or pork dishes. I'll admit that it is a subtle, but flavorful dredge that results in a near-perfect crust. The fish was then topped with a mix of pan roasted artichokes with red onion and parsley. Outside of a few hard bits of artichoke (I really need to work with this ingredient on dishes just for Karen and I before I bring it back into rotation for friends), the dish was really incredible (below, right). With the sea bass, we had a Columbia Winery Chard (1998) that when we bought it was described as an "Orgasmic" Chardonnay. It was, and the buttery flavor of this wine went great with the strong flavors of the dish.
Slaw and Fish
Dining on the deck on a nice and cool June evening in Dallas, we smoked some Perdomo cigars and enjoyed an Oregon Pinot Noir. For dessert-- the Rustic Cherry Crostata!
Now about the mess...
The Mess
Posted by Rich at June 13, 2005 3:00 PM
