Dungeoness Crab with Southwestern Chipotle Polenta
During my recent trip to San Francisco I stayed with my friends Ilse and Tommy in their home in the Haight-Ashbury district. To thank them for their hospitality I decided to cook them dinner the night before I left, and since I was wandering around down in the Fisherman’s Wharf district earlier that day, the obvious choice for a special dinner was fresh dungeoness crab.
Photo Courtesy of Tommy Dewland, M.D.
Le Chef Goes to San Francisco
Last weekend I had the amazing opportunity to go to California to put together a cocktail menu and tend bar for a private party in Lafayette, CA, just across the bay from San Francisco. If you read my last post, you will remember that Michelle Edmunds took the wonderful photos of the dinner party that Sous Chef Jeff and I catered on Cape Cod. Apparently my cocktails that night were impressive (or potent) enough to convince the Edmunds to fly me out to San Francisco to be their bartender for a party they were throwing at their home. How could I possibly say no?
"Slightly Stormy", Photo courtesy of Michelle Edmunds
Quick Oysters Rockefeller
Yesterday while wandering the flats at the Cape, we ended up heading toward Orleans. Out in the distance we saw people crouching over clusters of what looked like sea grass from afar, but what actually turned out to be an oyster farming operation. After chatting with the owners for a while about the business, we were offered oysters to take home. How could we say no? We saved a few to eat raw, but put 8 of them towards a quick Oysters Rockefeller.
Razor Clams in a White Wine Butter Sauce
Yesterday I went for a walk on the beach and came back with a dozen fresh razor clams. Razor clams are an often overlooked member of the mollusk family, and are not usually available in most fish markets. They are relatively difficult to catch, and are not commercially fished like other clams. At low tide on the bay at the Cape you can find as many as you want, as long as you know where to look, and I’ve been eating them since I was little. They work well in chowder or in baked stuffed clams, but they are also delicious on their own. They may look a little intimidating, but if you ever have the opportunity to eat them, you won’t regret it.
Le Chef (and Le Jeff) Cater a Dinner Party
A few weeks ago on Cape Cod I was approached with an amazing request: My neighbor, who reads my blog and has eaten my food, was having her family from out of town up for a week and wanted to hire me to cook food from my blog for a dinner party. How could I possibly say no? We put together a 4-course meal of dishes from the blog along with cocktail and wine pairings, and I recruited my brother Jeff to be my sous chef. What followed was an incredibly fun and interesting evening, where we met wonderful people and ate some (hopefully?) delicious food. This was my first “professional” cooking engagement, and I have to say that I would do it again in a second. My neighbor’s daughter is, coincidentally, training to be a food photographer, so all of the beautiful photos in this post are courtesy of her.
Photo Courtesy of Michelle Edmunds
Smoked Pork Rib Dinner
Le Chef has been busy. Busy traveling, busy sailing, and busy eating food that for the most part doesn’t belong on this blog. So now, after a solid month of not posting anything, I am returning to post a meal that I cooked for my family at the Cape this summer. This is not a quick meal, by any means. It involves a homemade smoker and about 8 hours of cooking time. But the results are worth the wait, and I will show you how to make a $50 smoker that works as well as the $300 model from Home Depot.
Welfleet Oysters
Welfleet, just north of Eastham where my family has their house, is famous for its oysters. For a buck apiece you can get fresh whole oysters from any fish market in town. They’re $2 each shucked at the Beachcomber, Welfleet’s famous beachfront concert bar where just last weekend I saw Peter Tosh’s son perform. Shucking oysters is a bit of a chore, but once you get the hang of it they’re not all that bad. You’ll need a clam knife to open your oysters, and I recommend wearing a glove or using a towel to protect the hand holding the oyster while you do it. Slide the clam knife into the seam on the front of the shell, run it around the edges of the oyster, and open it up. Detach the muscle that holds the oyster to the shell, and serve on the half shell with horseradish, cocktail sauce, and lemon.
Gorgonzola Stuffed Tomatoes
It’s summertime, so grilling season is upon us. This recipe harkens back to my days as my fraternity’s “Grillmeister”. It was handed down to me by the presiding Grillmeister, a Southern gentleman named Ben Patch. Ben taught me many things, including how to make my own barbecue sauce from scratch. Being appointed as Grillmeister gave me the perfect opportunity to elevate the fraternity barbecue from burgers and dogs to something more interesting. During the two years of my tenure, I cooked whole sides of marinated swordfish, grilled New Zealand mussels, smoked pork shoulders cooked in pits dug in the front yard (with considerable help and inspiration provided by Mr. David Weiss, who is a frequent reader of this blog, and a great cook himself), roasted Thanksgiving turkey on a tripod, and every manner of side dish we could think of. These grilled stuffed tomatoes have become a favorite, because they are so incredibly easy, and the “wow” factor is a great bang for your buck in terms of prep time. Over the years I’ve realized that if you have an oven at your disposal (which I did not in college) it’s easier to make these in muffin tins and bake them. If you’re grilling them it can be tricky to keep them from falling over, so you need to make little tinfoil “life preservers” to keep them standing upright. Roll a 1-ft long piece of tinfoil into a cylinder and form a ring. Place the ring on the grill and the tomato on the ring, and proceed from there.
Lobster with a Shallot, Rosemary, Garlic and White Wine Butter Sauce
Today and tomorrow, Saturday June 12th, Citarella on the Upper West Side is celebrating National Lobster Day with an amazing deal: live lobsters for $4.99/lb! Though I’m a bit spoiled, and I eat a lot of lobster in the summertime since I have my own traps out in Long Island Sound (and let me tell you…Long Island Sound lobsters are SUPERB. I’d eat them over a Maine lobster any day, but I digress) I had to take advantage of the sale for dinner tonight.
One of my favorite ways to eat lobster is to bisect them and cook them in a pan with butter, white wine, shallots, garlic, rosemary, and crushed red pepper. The lobster juices infuse with the sauce, which is served along with the lobster for dipping. A little squeeze of lemon at the end, and you’ve got the best lobster you’ve had in your life. But don’t take my word for it…go out and get some lobsters and give it a try!
Cold Cucumber Soup with Lobster and Scallions
As I mentioned, this is the final week of the Food52 year-long recipe competition. Cucumbers are the theme here, and I have simply modified my cold avocado soup to incorporate cucumbers, since it was such a big hit at the Food52 potluck picnic. By the time I added it to the site there were already five other cold cucumber soups in the competition! Oh well…may the best dish win, as always!
