A Preview of Last Weeks Dinner...

From a Challenge to a Feast...

Well, we proved after our dinner #11 that it is possible to unite the most picky eaters in one table. To say that this dinner was a challenge is a great understatement. Not that I don't mind the occasional challenge, I actually love them, but this one set the bar high. These were the limitations for the night:

• gluten free
• lactose free
• no shell fish or "anything that touched the ocean"

Now that i see it written up like this, I just realized I cooked my first kosher meal without even knowing it. Not 100% sure it would have been blessed by a rabbi, but nonetheless.

I cannot however, for all that is sacred in this blog, dedicate this post only to the food. It was an amazing dinner, delicious in all ways. But it was also a very special dinner due to the people that joined us. Not only did we have a very fun couple of Argentines (one who works with Tamy) but we also had my sister-in-law and cousin visiting from Mexico and Miami respectively. This would be the first of two consecutive dinner's where we would have family and friends visiting from far away (my sister-in-law will repeat two dinners since she is staying with us for a week). It is always a treat for us to have family join us on our dinners. I think it becomes very obvious for our readers that we are very close with our family, its part of who we are, and I think that translates to the experience.

Ok, so now back to the food! Full of challenges and all, Tamy and I set out to create an amazing dinner. Understanding all the requirements that we had, we set out to create the menu. We obviously struggled due to the fact that gluten, believe it or not, is very hard to avoid. It is in so many things that we eat on a daily basis, it has become a regular staple of our diet. So the menu we created after much contemplation and research (yes some twittering as well, thank you!) was the following:

Theme: Balsamic Vinegar

Appetizer

Goat cheese covered seared beet salad with arugula and pine nuts (for the lactose intolerant we removed the goat cheese of course)

Main Plate

Seared duck breast with balsamic reduction

Ying Yang Quinoa with wild mushrooms and asparagus

Dessert

Originally planned strawberries with balsamic reduction but finished with a Grape/Blueberry sorbet with balsamic reduction, garnished with peach slices

More on the dinner, the grocery shopping and the recipes shortly.

Top ten moments from our first ten dinners at Worth Kitchen

While this list could go on and on, since the first 10 dinners really signified the launch of what is now becoming an extraordinary project, we decided to stick to the 10 most memorable moments. It was hard to narrow down, but here they are!

10. Two of our guests meeting and finding out they are about to become next door neighbors

9. Mireia’s toast to our new project during the very first Worth Kitchen dinner

8. Finding out one of our guests worked at the same building as mine

7. Finding out two hours before a Thursday dinner, that we had invited two guests who had just a tiny bit of conflict between them

6. Seeing with my very own eyes, a Philipino dancing even better than a Colombian and a Cuban

5. Finding out there is such a thing as a closeted vegetarian

4. Patron makes a great dinner guest

3. Felipe’s toast to his parents

2. Showing my dad our new NY apartment for the first time, and doing that over a Thursdays at Worth dinner

1. Establishing what is now known amongst our guests as the Thursdays at Worth Street, “the morning after”

Dr. Atkins Came Knocking at Our Door

For any of you that followed the Atkins diet fad some 6 years ago, diner #10 was your night!
There was meat in every plate, from appetizer though to dessert. Well, for this special night we had a two Argentine couples join us, so what better moment to try to recreate their national food. The night was one full of delicious food and even better companionship.

The meats came from the amazing butcher store in Chelsea Market, Dickson's Farmhouse. We purchased 5 different types of meat:

• Palmillo
• Picanha
• Short Ribs
• Pork fillet
• House smoked bacon

The menu was the following:

Appetizer

Chipotle pulled pork and palomillo sopes

Main Plate

Three meats (palomillo, picanha, short ribs)

Three sauces (chimuchurri, bearnaise, balsamic reduction)

Dessert

Chocolate covered bacon with whipped cream

The Recipes:

Chipotle pork and steak sopes

1 1/2 cups of masa harina

2 cups of vegetable oil

1 cup of water

1 pork filet

1 steak (palomillo or skirt)

1 chipotle pepper with adobe sauce

1/2 cup of refried beans

1/2 cup of chopped lettuce

1/2 cup of chopped tomatoes

1/2 cup of grated cheese (in this instance we used an aged ricotta and a provolone)

Marinate the pork in the chipotle pepper and sauce before beginning. Let sit for at least an hour.

For the torillas, mix the masa harina and the water until you have a nice batter. With your hands roll small balls about 2 inches in diameter and begin cooking in pan for about 1 minute on each side. Remove from pan and flatten with your hand. Begin pinching the sides so you make a small container (see pictures. and here is an example using characters \___/). Fry in preheated veggie oil for about 2 minutes until crispy and golden.

Grill the meats with sea salt. Once cooked, pull meats apart.

When serving, take on tortilla shell, place a layer of refried beans, then meat, lettuce, tomatoes and grated cheese.

Three Grilled Meats & Three Sauces

1 Palomillo steak

1 Picanha (Brazilian cut)

6 Short ribs

Very much in traditional Argentine manor, I believe that the best part of the meat is the taste... the all natural juicy and sometimes fatty taste. You can marinate it to add a little bit of contrast in the taste, it might add to the flavor... but my opinion, the best addition to any meat is sea salt and only sea salt.

Start with the palomillo, very similar to the skirt steak, a long thin steak. Very tasty especially due to the thin layer of fat on the bottom. I prefer to grill this steak, about 7 minutes on each side on medium high heat. There are various ways to know when the meat is ready, the tell tell sign is when the top starts to bleed, its exactly medium.

The Picanha is a bit different. It is a very thick cut, known for having a round layer of fat on one side. I seared it on all sides with about 3 tablespoons of butter, 1 mintue on each side. With the oven preheated at 400°, place the pan directly in the over for abou 10 mintues.

The short ribs are very easy. since they are so thin, just place them on your grill and leave them for a nice long time. The ribs are very easy to cook and DELICIOUS!

The three sauces... when I use recipes from other sources, I must give them credit when due:

Chimichurri sauce

Bearnaise Sauce

Balsami Vinegar suace: Reduce any balsamic vinegar sauce to about 1/2 of the quantity, will turn the vinegar into a sweet thick sauce.

Chocolate Covered Bacon Candy

12 strips of bacon

2 tb spoons of honey

4 tb spoons of sugar

4 tb spoons of bittersweet chocolate

1 cup of heavy cream

2 tb spoons of confectioners

Cook the bacon strips in a pan until crispy.

Clean the pan of any grease and add the honey, sugar and chocolate until a nice syrup has been created. Place the bacon in the syrup and mix until completely covered.

To create the whip cream, mix the sugar and the heavy cream in a mixing bowl and whisk until cream has reached the correct consistency.

Serve the strips of bacon with a little bit of cream on top.

Some Change Makes for a Little Excitment

So with the pork vs duck fiasco behind us, the pork meat actually made for a delicious dinner. Not only was the diner fantastic, but the guest had an amazing time. I think this was the longest Thursday we have had up to now, 1:30, especially considering that one of the guest had to wake up at 5:30. (as a follow-up to this, he woke up at 8...)

So for the recipes of the night:

Chilled Avocado Soup with Truffled Buttermilk Foam
1 1/2 cup of buttermilk (chilled and well shaken)

3 ripe avocados

1/4 cup of heavy cream

1 chopped chipotle chili

1/2 cup of crumpled pan fried panceta

3 table spoons of whit truffle oil

Salt & pepper

In a food processor add the buttermilk and the chopped up avocado and begin to mix. slowly add the heavy cream and the chipotle. As soup begins to thicken, turn power up on the processor and leave mixing for abou 2 minutes to make it smooth.

If you have a espresso machine at home, or if you have a whipper, add about 1/4 - 1/2 cup of additional buttermilk with the truffle oil. Create a foam that will go on top of the soup for additional flavor when served.

Sprinkle the panceta over the soup.

Pork Sirloins with Malbec Reduction Sauce

6 Pork Sirloins
1 bottle of Malbec wine (don't go for the cheap stuff, if you won't drink it don't cook with it)

2 shallots

4 tb spoons of butter

Sauce:

Melt 2 tb spoons of butter in a saucepan and add the chopped shallots. Stir until soft. Add one entire bottle of malbec wine and let reduce for about 20 to 30 minutes over medium heat. The wine will reduce by 3/4.

Pork:

Preheat the oven at 350°. Melt the remaining butter in a large pan over high heat and place the salted pork loins. Sear them for about 1 minute on each side. Place in over for about 10 minutes until well done. Remember pork should never be pink inside, always white.

To serve, cut the pork into inch thick slices and serve on plat in fan style. Then add the wine reduction over the meat. Sprinkle some sauce around the plate for added decoration.

Red Quinoa with Tomato, Avocado & Mozzarella
1 cup of red quinoa
2 chopped avocados
1 halved cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup of fresh mozzarella chopped in cubes.
2 cups of chicken broth
2 tb of butter

Previous to cooking the quinoa, rinse the quinoa thoroughly with water. Once clean, place quinoa in the pot under medium heat, add some salt and pepper. Begin by adding ¾ of a cup of chicken broth into quinoa and let it absorb the liquid. Continue to add more broth until the quinoa has slowly risen and absorbed all the liquid. Approximately 20 minutes.
Once cooked, add the tomato, avocado and mozzarella and stir in . The heat of the cooked quinoa will absorb the flavors of these ingredients and make a delicious dish.

Live a Little, Trust a Little!

Things changed a little bit on this Thursday, in preparation for dinner #9. A little bit of role reversal if you will. You see, Tamy has been wanting to participate much more in the prepping stage of each diner. This time around I gave her perhaps the most important role… grocery shopping. It might be a personal thing, but I love buying the food I am going to be working with that night. Its like an artist buying the paint he is going to use on the canvas, its personal. But I trust her with my life, so of course I will trust her with our kitchen. So it was agreed one day before that Tamy was going to try a new location to purchase the food, Chelsea Market. Man was she excited.

That Thursday started like any other. Tamy left to work way before me, a little stressed about her workday and also about her latest responsibilities with the groceries. I was writing up in an email all the grocery list so she could print it out at work, then I got ready to leave. While turning off the lights before taking off, I found a very particular item that Tamy had left behind… her cell phone; this was going to be a problem. I have to be honest, I was considering pulling the plug and going on my own to the market. What if one of the important ingredients was no where to be found? How would she get a hold of me and ask what to do? (she doesn’t even know my phone number without her cell phone) The plan for that night was to cook duck breasts in a wine reduction sauce. Duck is not the easiest meat to find… but I had to be strong and have faith in her capacity to know what to buy. And I did, Tamy went that afternoon to Chelsea Market all by her self, with no cell phone, confident that she would get everything we were looking for.

Meanwhile, I was in the apartment getting ready for her arrival to begin cooking. I made sure the apartment was presentable. So I began to prep the kitchen as much as I could before the food arrived. The counter was squeaky clean, my knives were sharp, the food that we already had in the fridge was out, the onions were cut. Tamy was still no where to be found. I picked up the phone to call her, quickly remembering that her phone was in the room next to me in the same place she had left it that morning. 20 minutes before the guest arrived, Tamy triumphantly walks in with three bags of groceries. I knew at once that there was something wrong. She had that nervous face on. A little smirk, her left lip raises a bit, giving a small sense of false security, but since I know her all to well I knew something was off. And then came the confession…

They were out of duck breast. The key ingredient to the diner was gone. I had a feeling that something was going to happen. But instead, the fine people at Dickson’s Farmhouse Meats recommended we use pork sirloins instead. This came after about 30 minutes of a nervous Tamy explaining to them what the plan for the dish was and the importance of the duck breast. Apparently one of the people at the store said this would probably taste even better than duck. And even though I was very doubtful of that comment at the beginning, I was extremely pleased with the results. Tamy did a great job her first time buying the ingredients for a Thursday diner and definitely a special props is needed for the great service at Dickson’s Farmhouse. The duck will have to wait for another night.

What is Creativity?

This was one of those days. You know the type… struggling to get through the day. In meetings from 9 AM to 5 PM straight non stop. Sometimes wondering what on earth is it that I am really doing here. I know it happens to a lot of you. Sitting through a conference call and all you hear is the voice of Charlie Brown’s teachers “whah whah whah!” People complaining for the sake of complaining; “You’ll ruin the concept.” “We cannot remove that line, it’s the only thing holding that creative idea together!” “This concept is off strategy!” “This strategy is off brand!” “We need the TV spots ready in one week!” This, ladies and gentlemen, is what the ad world has come to. Forget those days when things looked like they did on Mad Men, that show is fiction and so is that life. The glamour of advertising is gone. Creativity through advertising is not necessarily dead but it tinkers on the edge of a long abyss.

Creativity in these modern days has taken on a whole new dimension, or rather it has evolved from what it used to be. The internet gives the inspiring author a place to write and be read, the proliferation of digital cameras allows everyone to become a photographer, and anyone with a computer and a kitchen can become an aspiring chef and restaurateur. And, well, that’s where we come in. Food creation is, in my opinion, still to this day a creative dimension that transforms everyday. People love experiences, and being creative with your food and its presentation is only half of the challenge. The experience in itself needs to be just as creative. You can place a table with 4 chairs around it and call it a restaurant, but the ones that succeed are the ones that have a concept and a solid strategy to them. And to succeed you need to be creative.

Worth Kitchen has been an experiment in creativity for us. Our concept is very straightforward. Through the kitchen and the table we offer you an amazing dinner with completely different people every time in the most intimate of settings, our very own living room. This blog allows us to share the experience with everyone. We have officially set a deadline of 15 dinners to begin working on where we are taking this towards. What is the next level for us? We feel the concept we have built is very fun, and has received a lot of praise. So now, starting dinner #10 tomorrow, we have 6 more dinners to figure out our next steps… and loving every second of it!

Felipe's Rant...

Family & Friends Gather

This past Thursday we finally served our first actual reservation. It had been set about a month ago and we were both very proud to have received it. So of course we planned out the dinner very carefully. And in case you were curious who these mysterious guest were, well, yes they are my parents, but the point is still valid! Tamy’s parents experienced the Worth St Kitchen a month ago and now my parents were the ones that made the trip to New York. Along with my parents we had a great family friend that flew in from Miami and my uncle and his girlfriend that came in all the way from Brooklyn (Park Slope!).

If any of you readers were in New York or even in the Northeast you would have noticed that it was HOT last week. But not like “oh my god, it’s the middle of summer, boy its hot.” NO it was “HOLY CRAP I CAN’T WALK ANOTHER BLOCK WITHOUT LOSING ANOTHER LITER OF SWEAT!” Might not be the nicest picture you would like to have before reading some succulent recipes, but I needed to set the mood. Considering the heat, we needed to serve something fresh as an appetizer. And thanks to our Greek friend that introduced us to watermelon and feta cheese we had the perfect appetizer.

As for the main course, the choice was to try out a meat we have not used as of yet, we went with lamb. But not the traditional lamb chops, instead lamb loins were the cut of choice. We served these with a mint cream sauce accompanied with edamame mashed potatoes and beet chips. The chips made the difference in the decoration of the plate.

The dinner was fantastic. The wine was by far the best we have had as of yet on a Thursday (may this be officially a competition to all guest, who can bring the best wine) two Italian Super Tuscan and two Argentine Pinto Noirs (not known for their Pinots but definitely worth a try).

Enjoy the recipes:

Watermelon & Feta Cheese Salad
1 mini watermelon
1 cup of feta cheese (block not crumbled)
1 cup of chopped mint leaves

The process is very easy, all you have to do is mix the above ingredients together. For presentation sake, what I did was dice the watermelon into 1/2 inch thick slices and the feta cheese sliced thinly. Then began to stack them, watermelon, feta, mint and repeat. Sprinkle some mint on top.

Edamame Mashed Potatoes
4 Idaho Potatoes
2 cups of steamed edamame beans
6 tb spoons of butter
2 cups of soy milk

Peel the potatoes cut into big slices and place into boiling water (salted). Boil for about 10 minutes, or until potatoes are soft. Drain and return into pot and set heat medium. Stir in the butter until melted. with a masher begin to press the potatoes. Slowly stir in the soy milk, one great tip to creamy potatoes is to stir in the milk hot, so heat the milk for about 1 minute in the microwave. Then add the edamame and begin to mash together. For best results process the potatoes/edamame in a food processor for about 5 minutes or until smooth. Add more milk and butter if you want more creamy. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Seared Lamb Loins w/ Mint Cream
6 1.5 inch thick lamb loins
1 cup of chopped mint
2 cups of white wine
1/2 of heavy whipping cream
2 shallots
2 tb spoons of butter

The cream is very straight forward. Chop the shallots and place into hot sauce pan with melted butter. Cook for 2 minutes add the wine and let reduce for a 10 minutes. Transfer mixture to a food processor and add the mint and the cream. Mix until very finely shopped. Add salt and pepper to taste.
For lamb, pre heat over to 400. Salt and pepper the loins and quickly sear them, one minute on each side. Place in oven for about 10 minutes until medium.
To serve sprinkle the cream lightly over the meat. Lamb is very intense in flavor, so you do not want to drown it with too much sauce.

Ginger and Mint Crème Brûlée
2 cups of whipping cream
1/2 cup of sugar
4 tb spoons of freshly chopped ginger
1 vanilla bean
1/2 cup of chopped mint
5 large egg yolks

In a double boiler, begin to mix the first 6 ingredients. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise and try to scoop out the beans and place both into the mix. Stir occasionally for about 10 minutes until mix begins to simmer. Strain into large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl mix the 5 egg yolks and begin to fold in eggs into mixture. Once you have the final mixture separate into 6 small serving dishes (small bowls) and place cooking pan. Fill pan with water until half way up dishes and bake at 350° for about 35 minutes. Remove from oven and chill in fridge until just before serving. When serving, remove from fridge and sprinkle sugar over the top. If you have a kitchen torch, begin to burn the sugar on the top to make the hard layer. If you do not have a torch, do not worry, broil all in the oven for about 3 to 4 minutes until the top gets toasty. Cool with water in the pan again and serve.

The Healthier Side of Life

What an awesome time. Sometimes it is really fun to write in retrospect, why? Well because before every dinner I am always running. Always with the adrenaline levels high, yet the stress levels are low. The adventure begins the moment I step out of work. The dash to the market (usually Whole Foods, but after today I think Chelsea Market is by far the best place to go in New York City for crazy ingredients), running through the aisles to grab all the ingredients as quickly as I can. I always have a list written, ALWAYS, if not I will get distracted in the amazing truffle oil or the fresh sea bass or what not. I need to focus, this place is the closest thing to a playground that I have had since I was 6 years old. Veggies, check, fruit, check, meats or seafood check. Do I need some saffron butter? No, but at that gives me some amazing ideas for the future! Regardless, the point is I never have enough time to write in real time before the dinner. The moment we close the door after our last guest has left there is an immediate rush of "Wow, what a fantastic success!" And that is the energy we use to communicate with. So again... What an awesome night.

Challenges are always fun. And every week we receive people with different dietary needs or restrictions. Its part of our plan to adapt to others instead of other adapting to our food. At the end of the day I prefer for everyone to enjoy their dinners rather than leave a plate half full of food. So this time around, when I heard we had a vegetarian coming, I decided to have the appetizer dedicated to her needs, and it wasn't a salad. That morning while running, I had a crazy inspiration to make a ceviche, but instead of your regular ceviche I would make a veggie ceviche. In my head it made sense, now it just needed to execute it well.

As for the main dish, I wasn't going to sacrifice the protein for everyone, but I wasn't going to let our vegetarian suffer either. So I made a delicious zucchini pasta (imagine the zucchini cut jullien style, mimicking a linguini) as a side (main dish for our vegetarian) with turkey-bacon wrapped scallops. Imagine this combined with some amazing champagne, malbec and great friends, the perfect combination for a great night.

Now for all of you reading this, and I really hope there are a lot of you reading this. Please let me know what you think about the recipes. If you try them out, let me know how they went. I would love your feedback. We finally fixed the feedback options below, so you can leave it as anonymous if you would like. Oh, and by the way, thanks for reading!

Here are the recipes:

Veggie Ceviche

2 green tomatos

10 baby corns

1 red onion

1 white pear

1 cup of edamame beans

6 limes squeezed

1/2 cup of fresh orange juice.

3 tb spoons of fresh cut cilantro

3 tb spoons of fresh thyme

3 tb spoons of fresh rosemary

The preparation of this is quite simple, the only real trick is in you mastery with the knife. All ingredients must be sliced very very thin, to the degree in which its almost transparent. Nothing is cooked, steamed, or baked, thats what the citric acids of the lime and orange are for. Begin by placing the lime juice and the orange juice in a mixing bowl. Then cut the red onion as thins as you can place it into the juice mix. After that, cut and mix the rest of the veggies as thin as you can and mix it with the onions. The baby carrots might be more difficult to slice, so try to at least cut in half. The edamame beans is the only veggie that you have to steam, but after steaming cool quickly by rinsing through ice cold water. Split the edamame in half (can be done easily by hand). Once all veggies are mixed in, add the chopped cilantro, thyme and rosemary. Let the mix sit in a fridge for about an hour, this will allow the lime juice and orange juice to seep into the veggies.

Zucchini Pasta

1 green zucchini

1 yellow zucchini

1 lemongrass

3 servings of spaghetti (about half of a box)

Salt

water

Another very simple dish to prepare where the most important part of the preparation is the actual cutting of the veggie. Cut the zucchinis jullien style (into long thin straw like pieces) and steam for about 4 minutes in salted water with the lemongrass (cut in half longwise).

Cook the past in boiling water with salt (do not worry about adding a lot of salt, this will flavor the pasta) to al dente.

Mix the zucchinis and the pasta together. To serve, twist the pasta with a large serving fork onto the plate and make sure the zucchini (which will be soft and flexible) is wrapped around to give it the feeling of additional pasta.

You may see this plate, a pasta with no additional sauce as bland, but the taste all lies in the preparation of each ingredient. You will end up with a very flavorful combination.

Turkey bacon wrapped Scallops

18 Scallops

9 pieces of turkey bacon

3 tb spoons of fresh thyme

3 tb spoons of fresh rosemary

1 cup of orange juice

4 tb spoons of butter

4 tb spoons of olive oil

1 shallot

3 tb spoons of aged balsamic (about 12 to 15 years)

For the sauce, chop the shallot up and place it into a sauce pan with half of the butter melted. Add a pinch of salt then the orange juice with the olive oil. Let the mix reduce a bit. Very simple, but the olive oil and the oranje juice should create a great flavorful mix.

For the scallops, cut the bacon in half lengthwise (most turkey bacon is very wide) and wrap each scallop with the raw bacon. Put a toothpick through the bacon and the scallop. Heat up the skillet and place the butter to melt. Salt each scallop with a small pinch of sea salt and a mix of rosemary and thyme. Place the scallops in the hot skillet salted face down and repeat mixture on the other side. Cook each side for about 5 minutes (bacon will cook through, do not worry).

When serving the scallops, be sure to remove the toothpicks (thats what I am actually doing in the picture above). Sprinkle the orange sauce on each scallop and the aged balsamic after that. Sprinkle some on the empty plate for decoration purpose.

Celebrating Independence through food!

One of the unexpected results that we have created through this great experiment of ours is the reevaluation of human connections. We have created a catalyst for communication to happen in person and through the virtual world in which we all live in and where you are reading this right now.

After reading our close friend and last weeks guest’s comments about her experience at Worth Street (http://latinasypunto.wordpress.com/2010/07/04/bringing-the-online-world-to-the-real-world/) I realized that we are officially trying to bridge the gap of interactivity and personal interconnectivity that the internet has created. Then today my mom sends me a text message with the following message (translated from Spanish to English) “People are in great need of support from others. With great need to connect and further understand ourselves.” This reverberated through my head… are we really that simple creatures that all we need in order to satisfy some of our basic humans needs is to connect with other and find support in them? Well, if our Latina blogger friend is right, then I am very happy to offer a “real” connection to all of you out there. We are all about the connection, the joy that it brings to enjoy a great dinner amongst friends.

Enough ranting and self-promotion… and now for the recipes of our patriotic night:

Corn on the Cob with Chili Butter

6 Sweet corn on the cobs
3 tb spoons of Butter (room temperature)
2 tb spoons of chili powder (I used chile de arbol for additional spiciness)

Boil (or steam) the corn for about 5 – 7 minutes, until nice and tender. Drain them from the pot and quickly pass them through ice cold water. This will stop the corn from continuing to cook. Place a wooden skewer through the bottom and serve.

While the corn is cooking, prepare the butter. Place the soft butter in a bowl and sprinkle the chili powder on top. With a spoon, begin to mix the chili into the butter by pressing into it. After about a minute of mixing and pressing you should end up with a red colored mix.

When serving, the corn, add a piece of butter to the top.

“Pulled Pork” Chicken with arepas

2 chicken breast with bone

For the arepas: (not traditional recipe)
1 ¼ cups of chicken broth
1 cup of water
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 ½ cups masa harina (special flour for arepas purchased at Whole Foods)
½ cup of fresh parmesan cheese
1 t spoon cumin

For the BBQ style sauce:
1 tb spoon of butter
2 tb spoons of chipotle
1 cup of white wine
1 yellow onion
½ cup of whipping cream
½ cup of goat cheese
1 tb spoon of liquid hickory smoke

Boil the chicken in salted water. About 10 minutes. While chicken cooks prepare the sauce and the arepas. Both should take about 10-15 minutes to prepare. Once chicken in ready, drain and keep the broth to use it in the arepa mixture. Pass chicken through cold water and begin pulling the chicken meat from the bones. The result will be like shredded chicken. Keep in a bowl.

For sauce, chop up the onion and place into sauce pan with melting butter. Cook until sof. Add the cup of white wine and let sit for 5-7 minutes as it reduces. Add remainder of ingredients, and mix well. Once prepared, place through food processor or blender until liquid. Return the sauce into the saucepan and mix chicken into it.

For the arepas, bring the broth, water, salt and 1 tb spoon of salt to a boil in a saucepan. Pour the broth mix into a separate bowl and let it cool a bit. Mix in the masa harina and the cheese ands tir until you get the consistency of a batter. Let mix set and cool for some minutes.
Once cooled, begin to form small balls and flatten. My trick was to place ball inside a zip lock bag and flatten with a cutting board. Then cook in hot pan with remaining olive oil. About 1 minute per side.

To serve, place one arepa on plate, serve chicken and add another arepa on top.

Fried Zucchini

2 zucchinis
1 cup of panko bread crumbs
2 eggs
2 cups of cooking oil for frying (canola)

Cut zucchinis julienne style, thickness as preferred but about ½ inch thick. Heat the oil in a frying pan. In two different bowls add the eggs and the bread crumbs. Beat the eggs thoroughly and pass the zucchinis into the eggs and let them soak. Then place on top of the bread crumbs until covered. Place into the hot oil and let fry for about 1 minute. Remove zucchini and let them sit on a paper towel while you cook them all in order to collect and residual oil.

3 Cheese Mac and cheese

2 tb spoons butter

1 leek chopped (only white and pale green portion)

2 shallots, chopped

1 ½ cups dry white wine

½ cup whipping cream

1 cup Taleggio cheese cut into small cubes

1 cup of mascarpone cheese

½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1 tablespoon sliced whole black truffles

1 pound small elbow macaroni

¾ cup of sliced prosciutto, chopped

Crumb topping

1 cup fresh panko breadcrumbs

2 tablespoons butter

This recipe is full of very delicate flavor, and you need to be careful not to overpower one or the other. Begin by cooking the pasta in salted water until ‘al dente’. While pasta is cooking, melt the butter in a saucepan, add chopped shallots, leeks and a pinch of salt. Once soft, add the white wine and let it reduce for 10 minutes. Then add the cheeses into the mix along with the cream. Pasta should be done by now, so drain and sauce to pasta. Remove from heat.

I like to have my prosciutto a bit crunchy, so I toasted it a little on a separate pan then added it to the mac & cheese. For the truffles, slice them thinly and mix into the warm pasta, this allows for the full flavor of the truffle to be released without overpowering anything.

For the breadcrumbs, on the same pan that you toasted the prosciutto, melt the butter then add the breadcrumbs. The crumbs absorb all the butter and then begin to toast until brown.

When serving the mac & cheese, add the bread crumbs to the top.

Dinner #4 - The Pressure of the In-Laws

I write this in retrospect of what was a great Thursday. I have not been able to get to it earlier as we had a very busy weekend, but we had a very special Thursday as it was the first time we host one of our parents to Thursday’s at Worth. Our special guests this week were Tamy’s parents, so of course the dinner had to be amazing. The menu was set on Wednesday night, once again at around 11:30 I finished writing the last item on the grocery list. This time, however, instead of visiting my favorite Whole Foods market in TriBeCa, I made my way to perhaps one of the best blocks of food in New York; Bleeker between Leroy & Morton street. In this one block you have the Lobster Place (Seafood Market), Murray’s Cheese, Faicco’s Italian Specialties & Amy’s Bread. This place is amazing. I headed there straight out of work on Thursday… first stop The Lobster Place.

My menu called for some King Prawns, when I got to the store, the vendors looked at me perplexed. I figured it had been a while since someone came in asking for some King Prawns, something which they obviously did not have. So quick change in menu and they recommended for me to take the Blue Shrimp, which arrived this morning straight from the Australian southern shores. Perfect, they looked amazing and had to be very tasty. My plan… poach them in butter!

Next stop, Murray’s cheese to pick up some artichoke hearts that have been sitting in olive oil, parmesan cheese and white truffle infused olive oil. Then to Faicco’s for the risotto, the mascarpone and the cream. Finish it off a the local grocery market (Bleeker Farm) on the corner to get the peas, bananas and everything else that was missing and I was set.

The evening was starting perfectly. I had plenty of time, the menu in itself was very straight forward. The only complicated plate was the dessert which I got out of the way very early in the night. But any good cook will know, the smallest mistake can make or break your plate, and unfortunately I made one of those. My mistake was that I forgot to peel the shrimp before poaching them. It sounds insignificant, but what happened was that the shell stuck to the shrimp and once cooked, made it very difficult to peel. I served the shrimp with shell and only when the guest began trying hard to peel the shrimp did I realize my horrid mistake. It was a bit of a mess. The saving grace was that the shrimp were delicious, the sauce fantastic and the risotto was perfect.

In all honesty I was upset at myself for not thinking the recipe through all the way, but at the end of the day a great lesson was learned. Its how I will continue to improve my technique in cooking and its will only make me better for the future. In this case I was very lucky to have great parents-in-law that only spoke praises of the dishes and the night. For this reason Thursday June 24^th was a great night!

The thread that holds everything together...

Finding a theme for any great dinner is the most important yet probably the hardest thing to do. You do not want your plates to feel random or disconnected, however making something overtly obvious is probably not your best bet either (after all this isn’t Iron Chef!). Subtlety is always the best way to go. Whether it’s a taste, and ingredient, or even a smell, keeping your foods linked is key to creating an outstanding meal.

This is a great transition to this weeks dinner. We usually try to create a theme based on the people that we have invited. This time around we had planned to have an Ecuadorian couple and her sister, which was visiting. Well with such an obvious theme, one would think that Ecuadorian food would be the continuous link, however, as mentioned above, the obvious isn’t really the best way to go. First off, I am not too sure what is the most typical Ecuadorian food, and with 3 Ecuadorians, why give them something familiar? Better serve something new and different. So with that ruled out from the get go, what would this weeks dinner be based on?

There you see me, on Wednesday night going through my collection of cooking books (not to use the recipes, but for inspiration), Alain Ducasse has some amazing books, and I will tackle his cooking soon enough, just not this week. Gaston Acurio from Peru has some amazing dishes, and his books are inspiring but I feel that last weeks use of aji amarillo would seem as if I am overdoing it on the Peruvian food. Nothing was working. I had 7 books laid out in front of me, and inspiration came through one treasure of a book from Villegas Editores called Sabor + Color (Maria Villegas). Skimming through it, I came upon a recipe for a very common dish, tuna tartar. But it was the use of the fruit that really struck a cord, and like that I found my theme for the night… fruit! The use of fruit in Latin America is very prominent so why not create dishes that revolved around fruit.

At once Tamy and I started brainstorming ideas. She had told me once of a rice with fruit that she ate in India and never ever saw again. Immediately I thought I could use the amazing Indian spices that I have and create a curry. Done a delicious Indian curry with her rice with fruit. For appetizer, a salad with aged balsamic caramelized figs and a fresh strawberry vinaigrette. It was amazing how the ideas started to roll out the second I knew what that one connection was. Our menu was set in stone and ready to go.

That very same night I got going on grinding various spices, that were brought to me from a friend and my mother’s trip to India, together to create my version of an Indian curry. Now, I do not pretend to know an authentic recipe for Indian curry, nor is the one that I will provide you with pretend to be authentic. This is just my take on a classic. So, I took a mix of spices, some of which I knew and recognized, others I had no idea what they were or called (please see picture). Placed them in my version of a mortar, a coffee cup, and began grinding them with my makeshift pestle, a caipirinha fruit masher. After about 20 minutes of grinding and a tired arm, I ended up with the red powder that I was expecting and set it aside for the night.

With the grocery list ready to go, we were set for a goodnight rest.