Chefs on holiday

The chefs will not be cooking for the next two Sundays, as they travel the continent. Until they all reunite, here is a look back at a meal from last November. Coq au vin, pommes Anna, a light salad, and profiteroles for dessert. We have featured coq au vin on this site previously, so we will focus here on the pommes and the profiteroles. But the coq au vin is just so lovely in the blue Le Creuset dutch oven.




The pommes anna start with a few pounds of potatoes. Russets for this recipes, though Yukon golds are generally the preferred potatoes for this group. The potatoes were sliced using a mandoline and then mixed with melted butter. More melted butter than the chefs will admit to. Then, in a hot pan, the potatoes were layered first counterclockwise around the pan, then clockwise until no slices remain except those that do not complete a layer. These are cooked in the pan for fifteen minutes, then flipped carefully onto a baking sheet and baked in the oven for at least another 15 minutes. Serve in the most beautiful butterfly dish you can find.



A delicious meal. Perfect for a November night.



The profiteroles have made more than one appearance in the Sunday night chefs' kitchen. This is one of the first things one chef ever learned to make. A quick pate a choux was mixed up and then baked into cream puffs. The puffs get filled with vanilla ice cream and then, this is topped with the most glorious chocolate sauce ever. The key is using the bittersweet Ghiradelli chocolate chips. These are melted and combined with cream, butter, and a little corn syrup. Yum.



The only thing that could make them better would be if blogger would realize that this is a landscape picture, not a profile.

Great Faces, Great Places

And don't forget the great food. It should be noted that only three of the four chefs were present tonight, as one has a weak constitution.

This was the last Sunday night dinner of the summer (though perhaps not technically, as summer continues until September 22) and this was all the reason to take advantage of grilling season in Minnesota and make some fabulous fajitas. On the side were fresh tomato salsa and sweet corn cake. And dessert was the Official Dessert of Summer 2008 - strawberry shortcake.

The fajita recipe is not new to this group. It's from cooks illustrated and has been a favorite for at least two years now. The chicken is marinaded in a mixture of lime juice, oil, worcestershire sauce, garlic, jalapeno, and cilantro for fifteen minutes. It is difficult to remember, but one fourth of the mixture has to be saved for drizzling over the cooked chicken. Grilled along side the chicken are red and green peppers and some delicious red onion. This is one of the best recipes ever.



The sweet corn cake was modeled after something served at some of the chain Mexican restaurants. It turned out quite well, though perhaps a little on the dry side. To make it butter, cream, masa harina, cornmeal, sugar, salt, and fresh corn were all mixed together. The corn was sliced off the cob and then Bertha did a lovely job with it.


This was baked for nearly 50 minutes! The end result was beautiful until one chef couldn't keep his hands (and a bamboo skewer) off of it.



The fresh salsa was from cooks illustrated too. It was a relatively simple mixture of roma tomato, cilantro, jalapeno, garlic, lime juice, salt and sugar. That didn't stop CI from making the recipe complicated! The tomatoes drained in the sink for what felt like a very long time.


Overall, the dinner was amazing.




Dessert is not pictured, due to the low quality of images obtained. The low quality of the images does not reflect the high quality of the taste. Added to the enjoyment was a video of last year's vacation to South Dakota. Three of the four chefs (the same three in attendance tonight) went on a long weekend journey to the most patriotic of places, Mount Rushmore (or "The Great Face" as some people like to call it).

*A side note to any cats in the Prospect Park neighborhood: you are neither invited to dinner, nor invited into the Sunday night chefs' kitchen, living room, dining room, bathroom or bedroom.

A gold medal feast!

All four members of the Sunday night chefs team were back in town, ready to compete in the Sunday night dinner Olympics.

We went with a Greek theme tonight: lemon chicken, babaganoush, and spanakopita. The first two recipes were from Cooks Illustrated, the last from foodtv.com.

First round: Spanakopita.




Fresh spinach was wilted in a saute pan with some olive oil. This was drained, and should have been chopped, but was fine in the unchopped form in which it was used. Once the spinach was cooked, some scallions and parsley were cooked and combined with the spinach. To this some crumbled feta was added. This mixture was wrapped in strips of filo. Or Phyllo. Whichever you prefer. The phyllo had been brushed with melted butter and the folded spanakopita were brushed with more butter!

Difficulty: 9.5. The use of phyllo was a challenging element of this routine.
Execution: 8.0. A few of the sheets of phyllo proved too difficult for the chef to handle. Additionally, the dismount from the baking sheet was a little rough.
Overall: delicious.



Second round: babaganoush.

Few images were available of this portion of the evening's competition. But to describe the routine, two gorgeous egglants were grilled until soft. The insides were removed and drained of their excess liquid. This eggplant meat was put into Bertha (Bertha!) and processed with lemon juice, tahini, garlic, salt and pepper. Before serving, the the babaganoush was drizzled with olive oil and parsley.

Difficulty: 7.75. Grilling of the eggplants and seasoning of the mixture were key to this routine.
Execution: 9.5. The dish might have been cooled a bit more before serving.
Overall: delicious!



Final round: Lemon grilled chicken

Again, few pictures for this round. The chicken was brined in a mixture of sugar, salt and water. This was cooked to near completion on the grill, and then dipped in the special lemon sauce. This sauce's most interesting component was a garlic paste. The paste was created using the back of a knife on a mixture of minced garlic and kosher salt. This was cooked with some lemon juice and thyme. The same sauce was drizzled over the chicken when served.



Difficulty: 8.5. Garlic paste is an unusual component for a recipe, and the technique for making it is quite specialized.
Execution: 10.0. The chicken was perfect. In fact, it could not have been better.
Overall: delicious!



Final score: Gold medal quality.



The chefs are popular among the neighborhood cats. There was another visitor this week.

Only three of the four chefs were available tonight, but dinner was to be had anyway! The fourth chef was on his way back, and should be there next week.

Tonight's menu was barbecue chicken sandwiches and pesto pasta salad. Both CI recipes. The pesto pasta salad was not new to this crowd, but it certainly is a favorite.

Cub failed us in terms of pine nuts. It shall be stated for the record that Rainbow Fresh has always had pine nuts. Bulk pine nuts. In the Fresh section. So tonight was a walnut pesto. It was quite good.



Bertha was loaded up with 4 ounces of basil, 1 ounce of spinach, lemon juice, the aforementioned walnuts, garlic, salt and pepper. She made quick work of grinding that down to a lovely paste. In went the last two sercret ingredients - parmigiano-reggiano and mayonnaise. Bertha took care of those with no trouble.

Pasta Time (not pictured) cooked the farfalle, and once cooled, they were covered in the pesto. Add some "Cherubs" (grape tomatoes in a lovely beehive shaped package) and we're all set!



The barbecue chicken recipe was a little confusing. So we improvised. The chicken was grilled until done (not 30 minutes and then 45 minutes).



This needed to be picked, which two of the chefs were delighted to take care of.

The sauce was involved. Bertha got to come out to play again (twice in one night!) and had no trouble turning two halves of an onion into a pulp.

We were really going for the juice here, so the pulp was put into a fine mesh strainer.



This was mixed with a variety of sauces including ketchup and Worcestershire and then cooked down until a bit thickened (but not terribly thick).



Due to one chef being slightly odd, the meat from the chicken parts were kept separate, white and dark. As this is dinner for four chefs, each was certainly capable of adding their own sauce to their chosen chicken.

Look at that lovely barbecue sauce in the beautiful gravy boat.



Dessert might be secret. But it involved some delicious raspberries.