Archive for the ‘Dinner’ Category
Chicken with a Spicy Thai Peanut Sauce
Back in the winter of 2000, I had the opportunity to live and teach scuba diving on a tiny island off the East Coast of Thailand called Koh Tao. Koh Tao is the furthest North in a small island chain in the Gulf of Thailand, consisting of Koh Saumui (anyone seen Meet the Parents?), Koh Phangan, and Koh Tao (translated, it means Turtle Island). It was, to put it mildly, paradise. My beachfront, private bungalow was $5/night, and the food was incredible. This may be one of the reasons that I don’t cook Thai food very often…because there is absolutely no way that I could begin to replicate the dishes that I ate over the course of that winter, and I most times don’t even want to attempt it.
That being said, I have no problem making a spicy Thai peanut sauce. Why? Because while I was there I never once ate a spicy peanut sauce. I want to say that it’s an American adaptation to Thai food, because while they cooked with peanuts quite often on Koh Tao, they were always left whole and cooked into a dish, or crumbled on top of pad Thai. Peanut butter was not a staple on the island, so I feel no compunction about cooking this meal. And while it certainly can’t be called “authentic”, it had a lot of the flavors that I remember, and was, in short, delicious. And it’s super easy, and quick.
On Quesadillas, and my favorite hot sauce…
Quesadillas are one of my favorite snack foods, because I almost always have the ingredients around to throw one together. Flour tortillas keep forever in the fridge, and if you have cheese, some vegetables, leftover chicken or beef of any kind, salsa, hot sauce, sour cream, or any combination thereof, you probably have enough things to whip up a great quesadilla.
Fresh Blue Crabs with a Dijon Aioli
Last weekend I was at my marina in Connecticut and I saw a friend of mine pulling something out of the water with a net on the dock across from me. Upon further inquiry, I found him with a big bucket of blue crabs, plucked fresh from the water. I immediately grabbed my net, and went to work. How can you pass up fresh blue crabs?
Mexican Cochinita Pebil Braised Pork
This past weekend, for Labor Day, we cooked up 2 pork shoulders for tacos and pulled pork sandwiches. My friend Katherine Horsman was kind enough to send over her favorite pulled pork recipe, which is a citrus-based, spicy sauce that was absolutely delicious. Since we were doing two pork shoulders, I mixed up a batch of home made barbecue sauce for pulled pork sandwiches the next day. Behold the beauty of the pork shoulder:
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 (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.
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!
Spinach Stuffed Grilled Chicken with Lemon and Thyme Gremolata
This week marks week 52 of the Food52 competition. I’ve only been a part of it for about 20 weeks, but it’s been an incredible experience. I’ve had a lot of fun, cooked some great food that I never would have cooked otherwise, and met a lot of wonderful people through the site (not to mention, of course, winning two competitions…?!) Congratulations to all the winners, and also to Amanda and Merrill for a job well done! I look forward to year two of Food52!
Yesterday for a neighborhood BBQ I decided to incorporate both Food52 themes into the dinner: your best cucumber, and your best use of lemon, thyme, and the grill. Luckily I am up on the Cape and I actually have access to a grill, so I had to give it a shot. This chicken dish was born out of my fear and loathing of dry chicken cooked on the grill, so I pounded it thin, stuffed it with spinach that I had previously sauteed with garlic, pancetta, and lemon juice, marinated it in oil, thyme, lemon, and pepper, and grilled it quickly on both sides until cooked through. The dish is finished with a summery gremolata of…what else? Lemon zest and thyme! It was a big hit with the neighbors.
Spaghetti with Seared Scallops, Lemon, Garlic, Parsley and White Wine
This is the type of dish that I love cooking on the Cape. One fresh local seafood ingredient, paired with the most straightforward flavors and cooking methods, cooked up after a day at the beach. You can feed a hungry group of people in 20 minutes, start to finish. Serve it with some crusty bread and a good white wine, and you’re in business.
