Tonight we are having fresh
tuna on the grille, asparagus, and boiled potatoes as the government has said
to cut back on rice as it has high levels of arsenic in it.
One the women I play golf with said that only pepper and watercress has
escaped a warning as bad for you. But
one cannot live by watercress alone. To
add a special touch I am starting with a shrimp cocktail. I am using the leftover sauce from the
clambake a few recipes back. See
photo. I have wanted to do this
forever.
I have been cooking as we are
having company tomorrow night and I am precooking. Yesterday I made the soup. It is called Mushroom Consommé Topped Puff
Pastry. This recipe comes from Gourmet
Today a collection of recipes edited by Ruth Reichl as she was ruining Gourmet
Magazine. She said it is inspired by
Paul Bocuse’s famous truffle soup with the billowy dome, which I have had in
his restaurant. I am not doing the
billowy dome part. Too much stress with
company. Instead I am taking puff pastry
and cutting out fall shapes and baking them.
I will add them on top the consommé just before I serve.
Ingredients:
2# white mushrooms, finely
chopped, preferably in a food processor
2 medium onion, chopped
8 C cold water
Salt
¼ t freshly ground black
pepper
2 T 1” pieces fresh chives
For Morels:
1 ½ C boiling water
¾ oz. dried morels
¾ C dry Madeira
Directions:
1.
Combine
mushrooms, onions, water and 1 t salt in a 6 qt. stockpot, bring to a simmer,
and simmer, uncovered for 1 ½ hours.
2.
Meanwhile prepare
the morels
3.
Pour boiling
water over the morels in a small bowl and soak until softened, about 20
minutes.
4.
With a slotted
spoon, transfer morels to a medium mesh sieve set over a bowl. Press on them with the back of spoon to
remove excess liquid, and then add the liquid from morels to soaking liquid and
reserve.
5.
Rinse morels to
remove any grit, transfer to a small saucepan and add Madeira. Bring to a simmer and simmer, covered, for 5
minutes.
6.
Stain mushroom
consommé through a large sieve lined with a damp paper towel into a large saucepan,
pressing gently on solids to extract as much liquid as possible; discard
solids.
7.
There should be
about 4 cups consommé (if there is less, add water; if there is too much, boil
until reduced to 4 cups).
8.
Season consommé
with salt and pepper. I thought it was
fine and did not add any more salt.
9.
Add morels and
Madeira to consommé. Let reserved
soaking liquid settle, than slowly pour into consommé, leaving last tablespoon
(containing sediment) in bowl.
10. Add chives to consommé and simmer, covered for 3
minutes. Refrigerate, uncovered, until
cold, about 1 hour.
Mine is waiting for me to
warm for dinner. Like I said in the
beginning tomorrow I will cut shapes out of a puff pastry sheet, brush with egg
and bake. If we have left over soup, I
will try the billowy dome and report on the success or failure.
For dessert, I wanted to
serve Hagan Daz chocolate sorbet with Meringue Swirl Cookies from Martha
Stewart’s Living Magazine. We couldn’t
find the sorbet anywhere, so we settled for chocolate ice cream. I should have made the ice cream as I am sure
I will be disappointed. These cookies
were in Living’s May issue. We were
still in the rental house and that kitchen was not cooking conducive. So I saved for now.
Ingredients:
3 large egg whites, room
temperature
¾ C sugar
½ vanilla bean, seeds scraped
Large pinch of salt
Large pinch of cream of
tarter
1 t finely grated fresh
orange zest
Gel-paste food coloring in
orange
Directions:
1.
Preheat oven to
200 degrees.
2.
Combine egg
whites and sugar in a heat-proof bowl.
Add vanilla bean seeds.
3.
Set bowl over a
pot of simmering water, and stir until sugar dissolves and mixture is warm,
about 3 minutes. (Mine was ready in a
minute and a half. Be careful with this
step as you could have cooked sweet egg whites.)
4.
Add salt and
cream of tartar.
5.
Beat with a mixer
on medium-high speed until stiff, glossy peaks form and meringue is mostly
cooled, about 7 minutes.
6.
Beat in the zest.
7.
My gel was in a
tube so I made 3 vertical stripes of gel inside a pastry bag fitted with a ½”
round tip. Fill the bag with meringue,
and pipe 1 ¾” circular shapes 2” apart on two parchment lined baking
sheet. I used a toss away pastry bag and
as it was too small I had to fill it many times. You can use a sealable storage bag. I think this would be better, but as I have a
zillion of these bags, I want to use them up.
This is a sticky, icky process and I had to keep restriping the bag.
8.
Bake in the oven
until crisp on the outside but still soft inside, about 1 hr and 15
minutes. Let cool completely on a wire
rack.
Jim tasted them and
pronounced them delicious. They are
really sticky. They come loose from the
parchment, but stick to your fingers. I have
them sitting on the tray, covered with more parchment.
Stay tuned for the rest of
dinner, which I will finish tomorrow and probably blog on Monday.
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