The Vegetarian Dinner: The Good, The Bad, and The Delicious

It is not very often that I can actually make the link that is made on the title. Its not that I am not the vegetarian type, I am just too in love with all things involving meat and animal fat. I know that half of you reading this just kind of rolled your eyes and thought "eeeww animal fat". However the other half, who is cleaning up your keyboards from thinking or remembering my squash fried in duck fat... I am talking to you. There is something to be said about a well made vegetarian dinner. 100% vegetarian, no fat, not animal broth, no fish, just good 'ol earth grown goodness. If Mario Batali were ever to read this blog, I think he just clicked the back button. However, I think that the results of the challenge was a plate that would even make Batali proud.

Stepping out of your comfort zone is alway, ALWAYS, a good thing. It bring new things that you never thought you were capable of doing. The last time I made a "vegetarian" dinner, I included scallops. I cheated. So a month ago, when we decided to have a veggie only dinner, there would be no cheating. And so it began, the guest were set, the theme was there, all that I needed now was a menu. Inspiration came in various forms. First off, a friend of mine advised me to stay away from the staple vegetarian food; squash, eggplant, and zucchini. Apparently vegetarians are sick and tired of eating the same food when the order a vegetarian sandwich or dinner. Point taken. The same person suggested the use of polenta, the delicious italian starch that is made from dried corn, delicious. The rest of the inspiration came from two places. First, from a gift a past guest of our made, a ver large bag of hibiscus flowers (dried) and second, by strolling through the amazing Greenmarket in Union Square. Have you ever seen a head of romanesque broccoli? Just by seeing it makes you want to try it. The freshest veggies were chosen. Moving from stand to stand, not know what I was going to do, little by little the menu was created:


Pre-Appetizer:
Pan fried Shishinto Peppers with Sea Salt


Appetizer
Flash fried hibiscus flower taco with cream and a green tomato salsa
Fried goat cheese stuffed zucchine blossoms with a chipotle cream

Entree:
Seared baby portobello mushrooms on top of a Grilled polenta with asiago cheese surrounded by a pool of freshly made vegetable broth and steamed romanesque broccoli.

Dessert:
Hibiscus Creme Brulee... SPOILER ALERT... (it failed)

We finally began creating the menus again! Here is the table before everyone arrived. 

The appetizer was very interesting to make. Even though Hibiscus  flowers are hard to come by in the States, it is a very common in Mexico. I left the flowers soaking for 24 hours in water (the water I then used as a hibiscus iced tea, or agua de jamaica as it is know in Mexico). Then I flash fried them in very hot oil for no more than 30 seconds. Once you remove them from the oil and onto a paper towel, salt them immediately. The tortillas are also home made. The zucchini blossoms are from a recipe that I have used in the past with a white wine and flour base.

This plate came out so great not so much due to the cooking, but due to the freshness and amazing flavors of all the ingredients. The polenta was home made (no I did not grind the dried corn, but I did not buy that roll they sell in the supermarket) with rosemary and veggie broth. The mushrooms were sauteed with a little bit of salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar. The vegetable broth was made 12 hours in advance using 6 leeks 2 onions, some garlic, 6 carrots and a lot of rosemary (about 6+ cups of broth).

Its seems as if its Tamy that always takes the pictures because I definitely come out way more than she does. Anyways this was the group just before enjoying the dinner.

Brian was warning of a a rabbit with big pointy teeth! (context)(more context)

Notice that I totally skipped the dessert? Well that because a) the camera ran out of memory space and b) the hibiscus flowers actually cut the cream and what resulted was a flavorful dessert that looked terrible and had very bad texture. But I guess in all experiments you can't alway succeed. Failure is an option and I learned a lot (much more) by failing. Its always fun to have this group of people to try my experiments on!
Thank you all.

I HOPE YOU ENJOYED!

Back to Basics... Wines and some Seasonal Veggies

Dinner #19 was a very fun one to work with. To say that it was earthy would be a huge understatement. The theme was a very simple one to choose, one step outside last week would have clearly reminded you that it was already Fall (in case you had forgotten). One trip to the TriBeCa Green Market (greatly recommended by our former guest and TriBeCa Citizen writer, Erik, whom I ran into at the market) would tell you that squash and pumpkins were back. And if you did not know, the great variety of both is amazing.  So squash and pumpkins had to be the theme. Now to figure out what to do with them… but that is always the fun part.

As for the invitees, we had the great pleasure of having our wine consultant Christy from Frankly Wines with her husband, Melissa from VinoVino with her husband, and Dinorah and Jorge two very good family friends that flew in from Mexico just in time to participate.

We always ask our guests to bring some wine, but I forgot to tell Dinorah and Jorge that we had invited two wine gurus to the dinner. As more wines come out from the Frankly Wines set (brought to us by Melissa and Christy), the level in which each was being described in can only be defined as pure love and passion for each bottle of wine. Our Mexican guest then realized that not only do they not have much to say about the wines they had purchased, but they almost felt bad in pulling them out after such magnificent presentation from enologists. Granted they brought two magnificent blends from South Australia (Adjenda - Shiraz, Cabernet & Malbec blend) and had absolutely nothing to be ashamed of (we love South Australian wine by the way).

In retrospect, the wines did steal the show for this dinner, they were all absolutely amazing. The stories behind each one was told as if the actual winemaker was with us explaining the journey that each particular grape made before reaching each bottle. The food was a fantastic accompaniment to the amazing wines. The earthly flavors of the ingredients definitely reminded us that fall is back but with it is a sense of companionship that these dinners always give us.

The menu for Dinner #19 was:
Appetizer – Fresh squash & Zucchini blossoms with goat cheese seasoned with rosemary and basil, served on a quinoa bread.
Main Dish – Duck with Worth Kitchen sauce, butternut squash pasta, and grilled squash julienne
Dessert – Pumpkin  Crème Brûlée

As the appetizer was served, the dish was explained, the wine was served and the autumn inspired dinner was ready to go.

If you have read a lot of this blog then you will know, but if this is your first time, let me tell you that quinoa is quickly becoming one of my favorite ingredients to work with. In this case, I placed one cup of rinsed and dried quinoa in the food processor for 5 minutes until it became flour. Then, by using two eggs and ¼ cup of olive oil mixed together to create a batter, I baked it in the oven at 350° for 15 minutes and made quinoa bread. This served as the bed for the squash and zucchini blossoms to lie on.

The main plate was a combination of duck in our special sauce (not like McDonald's, but the recipe for that one is amazing and unbeliveable. Anybody that wants it please email me), fettucini with butternut squash sauce (absolutely delicious), and grilled squash (tasted almost like french fries since they were grilled with the duck fat... mmmm). (Oh, also I bought the duck at Eataly, way too expensive, and ran into Mario Batali, and he was doing a great job of managing and working the place, instead of PR)

I will take advantage of any moment to show off the Worth Kitchen table (We love it). Also you will notice that in fact there is a lot of space on the plate. You might think to yourself "hhmmm they barely serve anything to their guests!" Not true! Its all part of the presentation. I prefer a more minimal one, and I never want my guests to leave with a feeling of being "stuffed" nor do I ever want them to leave hungry.

Caramelizing the sugar on top of the Pumpkin Crème Brûlée. The dessert came out spectacular.  For final presentation purposes and added flavor, I grated some Indian nutmeg over the dish (it added a sweet and peppery flavor, think white pepper) For the recipe, please see my Crème Brûlée recipe, additional to that cut into pieces about 3 cups worth of sweet pumpkin. Add the pumpkin to the mix as the mixture heats up. Once the pumpkin is soft (about 15 minutes) blend it. As you return it to the pot to let it sit, strain the mixture. 

The final interactions after dinner are always so much fun. The conversations can go anywhere. Sometimes they stay on topic (as here we continued to talk wine), sometimes they can go into a completely different direction. Thank you to all our guests for such an excellent night! Hope to see you soon.

Please stay tuned to a separate post about the wines... we will list them all out.
(also I have noticed the incredible amount of parentheses used in this post, they are used as my sidenotes. I almost feel as if I have so much more to say, so I use these parentheses to add some more thoughts!)