Cooking Dinner
They kicked us out of work early on Thursday (literally, our CEO went around and stood there and looked at your until you left) so I decided to cook a fancy dinner for Nemanja and me. I had already picked out three recipes: Hazelnut-crusted Chicken with Raspberry sauce, Roasted Shallot and Rosemary Popovers, and Souffle Chevre and Green Onion Potatoes.
The first challenge was the grocery store. It's been so long since I've shopped for anything other than lean cuisines and yogurt, I couldn't find the Chevre (goat cheese) until I stood there for a really long time and thought about it. When I am in a grocery store, I refuse to ask for help from the people who work there. Instead, I call my dad. "Dad," I said, "where are the Japanese breadcrumbs? They aren't with the regular breadcrumbs!" "No," he said, "they are in the Asian food section." Obviously. "Dad, they don't have hazelnuts! What nut should I use instead?" "Macadamia nuts." And so on. And hour later I finally left the store.
Then I got home around 3pm and realized that some how, all three dishes had to be done at the same time!!! First, I boiled the potatoes and made the onion-milk mix that was going to go in them. Then, I used the Cuisinart to make the raspberry sauce for the meat. Next, I mixed all the potato stuff together and set it aside, and washed the Cuisinart. I used the Cuisinart again to mix the popover stuff together, and then I was supposed to let the popover mix "rest" for half an hour, so I did. I used that time to make the mixtures that I would roll the chicken in before I cooked them. And cleaned the kitchen.
Then, I put the potatoes in the oven at the same time as the popovers, since they had to cook the same length of time. But, not at the same temperature. They were 25 degrees different. I split the difference. I think this is why my popover didn't "pop" well.
While those cooked, I browned the chicken on the stove. 
Then I took the stuff out of the oven, put in the chicken which cooked for 15 minutes, and then everything was done and warm!The chicken was really good! I served it on green garnish, with the raspberry sauce on the side. The potatoes were nice too.
I liked the popovers (they are in the bowl covered with the green cloth) because they had a lot of flavor, even if they were a little dense.
Nemanja said "your life is so complicated." :)
posted by This Monday Morning @ 10:19 AM
1 Comments:
wow, how fancy! you make that all sound so simple!
tell me more about the potatoes, were they good and worth repeating? they sound complicated. and is it really worth using good goat cheese in potatoes, as opposed to eating it on it's own? I would have trouble using goat cheese this way. well, I'd have to buy double I guess.
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