Le Chef's Kitchen

Yesterday for dinner I decided to give Merrill’s recipe for steak, arugula, lemon and parmesan from Food52 a try.  Merrill is one of the founders of Food52, and this recipe looked like exactly what I wanted: something easy, fresh, and tasty.  I love carpaccio, and the wine bar down the street serves it pretty much like this, over a bed of arugula with olive oil, lemon, parmesan, and a bit of balsamic.  Merrill’s use of steak made it more attractive as a full meal, while still maintaining those fresh flavors.  I was sold.  Her pictures are prettier than mine, but here’s the dish:

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Last night two friends came over for a little dinner party, something that we try to do every other week or so.  Last time they had us over they cooked a great braised rabbit, so I had to aim to impress.

I was looking through a new cookbook called “Roast Figs Sugar Snow“, which has a great assortment of wintry dishes from Scandinavia, Russia, and Eastern Europe.  There’s a recipe for a Swedish hash that I’m going to have to cook sometime soon (given that I’m 1/4 Swedish).  I finally decided on a variation on their recipe for quail, using Cornish game hens instead of quail (Fairway, the grocery store near me, stocks great Cornish game hens, and two are perfect for a 4-person main course, vs. 8 quail for 4 people).  To start, a roast beet, arugula and goat cheese salad.  The side was a roast acorn squash with a shiitake cream (the recipe called for porcinis, but Fairway was out), and dessert was a blood orange granita.  The granita is basically a frozen daiquiri served as dessert in an orange, so it’s a great meal-ender.

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