Egg Cup
I’ve been playing around with this recipe since brunch last weekend. If you read the summary of the brunch, you may remember that the Egg Cups were something that turned out okay (well maybe not exactly okay) but not as good as I thought they could have been.
I thought there were two problems: one, that the eggs weren’t cooked quite long enough; two, there was too much liquid released from the uncooked, white mushrooms the recipe called for. So over the week I’ve tried a few different things and have come up with what i think is a winner. The presentation on these is quite nice (I’ll try to get a picture the next time I make them) and they are actually fairly easy to make so they are a great candidate for a breakfast or brunch for company.
I’m first going to present sort of a generic recipe and then detail options following that.
Egg Cup
- 1 eight inch crepe – see Note 1
- ¼ – ⅓ cup pre-cooked filling – see Note 2
- Herbs – see Note 3
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp cream
- 2 Tbsp grated or crumbled cheese – see Note 4
Grease a 6 oz ramekin. Place the crepe in the ramekin, fluting the edges to make it fit.
Place the filling in the crepe. Cover with the egg (out of the shell, of course!). Drizzle the cream over the egg and cover with the cheese.
Bake in a 350°F oven for 18 – 22 minutes. Egg white should be set, but yolk will still be runny. The time will vary depending on size of egg and type of filling. Remove from oven, let cool for 2 minutes and then serve.
Note 1: Use any sort of crepe meant for savory fillings such as, Savory Crepe, Garbanzo Crepe, Cornmeal Crepe or Buckwheat Galette. My favorite thing is to add chives or green onion tops to the Savory Crepe mix and use this. The green flecks add some interest and a little flavor to the crepe.
Note 2: The filling can be just about any combination of vegetables and/or meats. Think of combinations you’d put in an omelet and go from there. The important thing here is to sauté the ingredients before placing in the cup. The goal is to remove as much moisture as possible so that it doesn’t make your egg cup soggy or sloppy. Some things I’ve been using for fillings:
- Mushrooms and onions – any type or combination of mushrooms and the onion could be sweet, red, green, yellow or shallot
- Steamed asparagus, chopped Prosciutto and sweet onion
- Roasted tomato, garlic and green onion
Note 3: You can use either fresh or dried herbs, just adjust the portions accordingly (more for fresh, less for dried). Some good options are tarragon, basil or thyme, but it’s really your choice.
Note 4: Again use what appeals to you. I have used Gruyere, a combination of Gruyere and Parmesan, fresh ricotta, a combination of fresh ricotta and bleu, and Chevre.
Book 14 has arrived in Seattle!
Book 14 for the 1000 Recipes project has arrived in Seattle! If you are not familiar with the project, check out the site and add your name to the list. It’s a fun and interesting idea started by Santos who is located in Tamuning, Guam.
Basically, Santos is orchestrating and coordinating the distribution of "little black books" around the world. Each book will be shared by twelve people. Each person gets six pages in the book. On their pages they can basically do what they want but the idea is to collect recipes from all over the world and, at some point, pull them together into a book.
I’m the first on the list for Book 14, so I need to make sure it gets off to an auspicious start! Here is the list for Book 14:
1. B from The Culinary Fool-Seattle WA
2. Shannon from insolita v4-Wannanup WA Australia
3. Bruna-Highland Park IL
4. 30in2005 from 30 in 2005-London England
5. Emily-Evansville IN
6. Laura-Carnation WA
7. Beth from woolgathering-Biggar Scotland
8. Alexa-Toronto Canada
9. Trish-Iowa City IA
10. Alison-Scottsdale AZ
11. Jane-Saskatoon Canada
12. Sharon-Langley BC Canada
In the picture, Book 14 is getting to know the wines for WBW#6 – South African Reds. :-) More on that on Wednesday!
Chives Update
The chives continue to grow and some are now between 7" and 8" tall! I’ve been cutting them and using them in lots of egg dishes. They were a big part of the Savory Crepes! This is pretty good for them – especially considering our temperatures have dropped again and are have been below freezing most nights.
Rover’s for Lunch
Rover’s has been providing Seattle with amazing dining experiences for many years. I couldn’t find exactly when they opened but I know they have been around since 1993 since that was the year they received their first James Beard award.
If you’ve been around Seattle you may have heard of "The Chef in the Hat". That would be Chef Thierry Rautureau, French-born and trained but now a Northwest icon. Rover’s is his place through and through. You see it in the details of their location, dining room, ambience and, of course, in the creation and presentation of the food. Dining at Rover’s is truly an experience.
They are mainly known for their dinner tasting menus. They offer both a 5-course and an 8-course Menu Degustation. The 5-course is also available in a Vegetarian option. And they also offer a full menu of other delicious choices.
I’ve sampled Chef Thierry’s offerings at many events I’ve attended. Like many of the Seattle chefs, he is very generous in donating his time, skills and food materials to many fund-raisers around the area. However, for whatever reason, I’ve never managed to make it to the actual restaurant although it’s been on my list of "places to go" for years. I think it was a combination of the cost and making sure I had a dining companion who would appreciate the experience.
Recently, Rover’s began offering Friday lunch. I thought this was the perfect way to get myself initiated into the true Rover’s experience. I made a reservation and last Friday M and I finally got a chance to try it out. At lunch you have the option of ordering from the menu or in trying their 3-course Menu Degustation. At $35, the tasting menu is an amazing value! M and I decided against the Menu Degustation, only because we decided we’d rather try a couple of different menu items and we thought we could pass on dessert.
To start, M ordered an onion tart and I ordered the oxtail-foie gras terrine. M’s tart was a rich, sweet, melt-in-your-mouth piece of heaven. Slightly warm and almost gooey it was the perfect thing to warm you inside and out. The terrine was unbelievable! After taking my first nibble, I wanted to reach over and grab the piece I had given to M back! I’m not sure how to describe it. I want to say "melt-in-your-mouth" but that would be wrong as the oxtail provided a definite texture. I guess the taste was melt-in-your-mouth, though. This was one of the most fortuitous flavor combinations you can imagine. It was rich but not overwhelming. But just to ensure that it didn’t become so, there was a beautiful little salad of minutely shredded carrots on the plate that was a perfect palate cleansing complement. That terrine was so satisfying that I could have stopped right there. But of course we had already ordered our entrees so we had to eat more. :-)
We both ordered the same entree, which was from the tasting menu. It was duck breast cooked to perfection, sliced into thin ovals, placed on top of a hill of winter vegetables and then dressed with a smoky, earthy, meaty reduction so good that I really wanted to lick the plate when I had finished. My favorite vegetables were the miniature brussels sprouts that were only as big as the tip of my pinky finger. I’m normally not a big brussels sprouts person. They are okay and there have been a few times that I’ve really loved them, but in general I can take them or leave them. These were so tender, delicate and buttery that I found myself picking them out to make sure I enjoyed each and every one of them. Of course, it didn’t hurt that they could be swirled around in the reduction before popping them in my mouth!
Our waiter recommended a wonderful glass of wine to accompany the meal. They offer several wines by the glass and also have several ½ bottles of wine for those who would like to pair a different wine with each course. And there is an extensive full bottle list, too. Our waiter provided perfect service throughout the meal. I kept thinking I knew him but since this was my first time at Rover’s I couldn’t make the connection. At the end of the meal I finally mentioned to him that I was trying to figure it out and he reminded me that he used to be at Lampreia and had been my server there a couple of times. What a great memory he has since I haven’t been to Lampreia for a couple of years! It’s that attention to detail that really makes him good at his work.
As we finished our meal, the "Chef in the Hat" came out to personally thank us for coming and to make sure our dining experience had met our expectation. I love it when a chef cares enough to take the time to do this. Not only will I be back for lunch as soon as possible, but I’ll be planning a dinner there as soon as I’m back on someone’s payroll!
Rover’s
2808 E Madison St
Seattle, WA 98112-4862
Phone: (206) 325-7442
Reservations: OpenTable
Watermelon “Martini”
Over the last couple days I’ve been twiddling around with the little watermelon puree cubes I made from the leftover watermelon from the Winter Brunch. I’ve come up with a little mixture that is good right now and will be wonderful to sip on a warm spring day while enjoying a bit of sunshine. I’ve been thinking of ways to enhance it but this is the basic recipe. In the future I’ll probably experiment with lemon or mandarin vodka, maybe a little triple sec or a bit of champagne.
Purists will tell you that this is a "martini-style cocktail", NOT a martini. A true martini contains only gin (the original) or vodka, vermouth and olive – the actual olive or juice. Even when you just change the olive to a cocktail onion it’s no longer a martini but a Gibson.
Maybe we’ll just rename it all together to avoid the issue! How about "Melondy" as this melon concoction will surely make you sing! :-) Whatever you want to call it, here it is.
Melondy
- 2 oz watermelon puree (if you’ve made ice cubes let them soften a little and mash them with a muddler or fork)
- 1 oz lime sweet and sour (see note below)
- 1 1/2 to 2 oz vodka
Place all ingredients in shaker filled with ice. Shake until thoroughly chilled and then strain into chilled martini glass.
Note: For fresh lime sweet and sour, first make a simple syrup of equal parts sugar and water. Bring to a boil then simmer for 2 minutes. Cool. Combine equal parts simple syrup and fresh squeezed lime juice to make fresh lime sweet and sour. Simple syrup will hold indefinitely at room temperature. Once you’ve added fruit juice, refrigerate for up to 3 weeks.
Cooking Club Administration
If you are starting a cooking club, there are some things we’ve found that really help our meetings run smoothly and make the whole experience more enjoyable. I thought I would share these with you in hopes that you will find them useful and perhaps get you off on the right foot from the start.
As I’ve mentioned in past entries, we chose to have each person bring a course based on a theme. Some clubs may choose to have one person do the entire dinner but even with that setup you should be able to use some of these ideas.
Planning the meeting, selecting themes and recipes
We decided early on to pick the meeting dates each time based on the group members’ availability. Since many of us travel for business (or used to) picking a standing day (like, first Tuesday of the month) wouldn’t work for us. We originally started out with the host coordinating via our group site– basically posting a message with a bunch of dates for people to choose from and then picking a date based on responses.
Over time we changed this slightly. Everyone brings their calendars to our meetings at and the end of the meal we figure out the next meetings’ date. This is much easier and allows for any negotiations or for discussion about back-up dates in case a conflict comes up for the primary date. Considering that we are normally planning about two months in advance, it’s actually a little amazing, but in the two years we’ve been doing this we’ve only had to change dates once, when one member had a business trip unexpectedly pop up at the last minute.
We also have changed the day of the week that we try to meet on. Originally, we planned meetings on Thursdays so that we would be close to the weekend but wouldn’t take up a valuable weekend day. Over time, as our friendships have grown our meetings have been lasting longer into the night! At some point we changed our desired meeting day to Friday and only switch to another day if we can’t find a Friday without a conflict.
At each meeting the next month’s host announces the theme for the next meeting. This allows us to discuss any questions that anyone may have and ensures the group all has the same information. When we started the club we decided that a host could either choose a theme or an entire menu (for instance the monthly menu published in Gourmet or something like this online feature). To date, we’ve all chosen themes, although occasionally someone will provide a sample menu to help define what they are imagining.
Once the theme has been announced members can start researching what they will bring. (Everyone will know what course they are responsible for based on our schedule.) However, it is the host’s responsibility to post the main dish recipe three to four weeks prior to the meeting so that all members have time to make sure the dish they are planning coordinates with the main dish. Additionally, we ask all members to post their recipe one week prior to the meeting. There have been times that appetizer, side and salad all looked suspiciously similar (some themes have a lot of leeway in what constitutes each course) and posting all recipes a week prior helps avoid these conflicts.
Central site for posting recipes, photos and scheduling meetings
When we started the group I set up a site through MSN Groups that would serve as our central communications vehicle. We keep our site private – otherwise I’d let you take a look at it! :-) We use the calendar on the site to post meeting dates/times; the documents area to store recipes; the message boards to announce themes and other information we need to share; the photo albums for pictures of the meetings; and the links area for links to cooking sites, menus, and articles we feel might be of general interest to the group.
Keeping the site up to date
Although MSN Groups only allows you 10 MB of storage, that 10 MB is per person. So if each person posts their own recipes you can stretch it out quite a ways. As the coordinator of the group I bump up against the 10 MB limit because I post all the photos. MSN allows you to purchase more space or you can do as I do and just remove files once they are "old".
After each meeting, before I post the photos from that meeting, I delete the oldest photo album and the document file containing the recipes for that same month. The original photos are already stored on my home laptop but before deleting the recipes, I save them all to my laptop, too. I also clear out old message threads and use the Welcome page to post the current schedule. We also track the wines served with each meal and that information is posted on the Welcome page in a table for easy reference.
Site administration takes me an hour or two per meeting. Most of this time is spent sorting through the photos, cropping them and cleaning them up before posting them, and then organizing them so that they flow logically from appetizers through dessert.
Maintaining the club history
I’m interesting in keeping a history of the club so I’ve done several things to support that goal. At our first meeting I gave each of the members a 3-ring binder filled with plastic sleeves (the kind you slip documents into) so that, if they chose, they could print copies of the recipes each month. At our second meeting we took a good photo of the five of us (the one from the first meeting was out of focus) and after the meeting I created a cover sheet for the binder with the group name, the picture and our commencement date. Recently, I created a label for the spine, too, although I realized I have not yet shared that with the members. For my own binder, after each meeting I create a collage from the photos, add the theme, location and date of the meeting and then use this as a divider page between the recipes. Recently, K borrowed my binder and made copies of those dividers for the rest of the group.
I have the photos and recipes arranged by month/theme in a Cooking Club file on my hard drive. At the end of two years we’ve filled our first binder so on the spine label I added a "Volume 1" and the dates of the meetings included in the binder.
When V announced she was leaving I wanted to give her a little "going-away" reminder of the club. So I created and burned CDs for each of the group members, based on the files stored on my laptop. The CD has a folder for each meeting; within each folder are folders for all the photos and all the recipes of the meeting; and I added the divider sheet that I had created for each meeting. I also created a custom label for the CD with the group name and information about what is contained on the CD.
These are just some ideas that we found work for our group. Good luck in setting up your specific plan!
Oregon Pinot Noir Wine Tasting
Tonight, Esquin Wine Merchants will taste Oregon Pinot Noirs for their Thursday night tasting. (Perhaps this selection was influenced by the success of Sideways?) Whatever the reason, we win! I’m originally from Oregon and have spent many pleasant weekends wandering through the Oregon wine country Southwest of Portland and down through Salem. What used to be local boutique wineries are now nationally, if not world, renowned. Stop by Esquin between 5:00 pm and 6:30 pm tonight and see what’s new! Free
Esquin Wine Merchants
2700 4th Ave South
Seattle
Watermelon Sorbet and More…
After my weekend brunch I have tons of leftover fruit. While I’m eating it like crazy there’s just more than a single person can handle! When I bought the watermelon I had sorbet in the back of my mind. So yesterday I finally got back to my sorbet experimentation.
Remembering that the Mango-Banana Sorbet was a little sweeter than I prefer, I made a few adjustments to balance that out a bit. However, I wanted to be careful about reducing the sugar too much because doing so would make the sorbet freeze too solidly. (If you saw the Alton Brown "Good Eats" episode, Melondrama, you’ll know what I mean!) In fact, to carry on with that idea, both the sugar and the alcohol in these recipes play a factor in keeping the sorbet pleasantly "scoopable". The sugar also flavors but the amount of alcohol is so small, it really does not affect flavor at all.
I came very close to getting this perfect! It’s still just a tad bit too sweet for me but this was an especially sweet melon. If I make this again and the melon is as sweet, I’ll probably reduce the sugar by 1/4 cup and increase the vodka by 1 Tbsp.
Something to remember, when you make your own, is that the mixture before it is frozen tastes sweeter than after it is frozen. If that wasn’t the case it would be easier to get this exactly to taste, as you could adjust ingredients while mixing it all up. All in all, I’m happy with this version though.
Watermelon Sorbet
- 1 pound, 5 oz watermelon (I meant to do an approximate cup measurement for you and forgot.)
- 4 Tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice (or use lemon if you prefer)
- 2 Tbsp. Vodka
- 1 cup sugar
Place watermelon in food processor or blender and process until smooth. Add lime juice, vodka and sugar and process another 30 seconds. Place mixture in refrigerator until thoroughly chilled, 1 or more hours.
Pour chilled mixture into ice cream maker and process according to manufacturer’s instructions. Place sorbet in covered container and freeze until it reaches desired consistency, 3 to 4 hours.
I still had quite a lot of watermelon remaining so, while I had my food processor out, I cut up a bunch more, added a little sugar to it (again more for consistency than flavor) and filled several ice cube trays with the mixture. Then into the freezer they went. Once they were frozen I popped the cubes out of the trays and into plastic freezer bags and then put the bags into the freezer. I’m thinking these are going to be the basis of a lovely and refreshing beverage such as a "Watermelon Martini’! I’ll be trying that out in the next day or two and I’ll let you know how my experiment goes! :-)
Synchronicity
I love when different parts of my life or different interests come together. It’s another gorgeous day here in Seattle and I was just out on my deck. It’s on the south side of my house so even when it’s not technically warm it often feels very warm there. Anyway, I’ve written about my herbs in past entries but I’ve never mentioned that I also happen to really like birds. One of my favorites is the hummingbird (isn’t it everyone’s?). The little balls of energy completely amaze me! One of my favorite sights is when "my" hummingbirds come down and feed from whatever herbs are in bloom. Today the miniature bomber has been spending a lot of time buzzing around the rosemary, which is in full bloom. It makes me smile.
Additionally, I was taking fruit and vegetable scraps out to my compost pile a little earlier and happened to notice how many worms I have this year. (This is a good thing for those of you not familiar with compost!) I’m very excited as I will have good compost this year. Last year no one could believe how tall my tomato plants grew and how many tomatoes were on them. Especially because I cram them into a little bed and in an area where I have planted tomatoes for many years in a row. (Which is not good, as they really deplete the soil. You should really rotate other crops each year.) Why did they do so well? Because in the spring I prepared the planting bed with my compost and the tomatoes loved it! If the weather holds I’ll have a bounty of tomatoes again this year! :-)
Paper Chef Entries
A rundown of all Paper Chef #3 entries are listed on the Tomatilla site! Check them out for some great ideas of how to use wheat flour, oranges, cinnamon and crème fraiche!
Update: Congrats to Sam at Becks and Posh for the winning entry, "Very Posh Cheese and Biscuits"!
Culinary Fool 