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A Simply Dazzling Meal
April 2006
A few weeks ago I gave a
cooking class for three sisters and two of their friends. All three
sisters and one friend, once worked as servers in my former
restaurant Biscotti. The occasion was to celebrate Katie’s birthday,
but the intention behind the gift was also a practical one. Katie is
getting married in June and her friend Lisa thought Katie and the
others might enjoy and benefit from a few hours of personal cooking
instruction. I was delighted to respond to her request.
Since I knew we would be
cooking and dining on four courses--and they specified no fish--I
set about planning a menu from some of Katie’s favorite dishes as
well as ones that incorporated basic cooking techniques and easy
sauces that were well suited to many variations. The menu consisted
of:
•
Caesar salad
with homemade
dressing (see recipe)
•
Sautéed chicken and
asparagus in a white wine sauce with sun dried tomatoes and crispy
bacon, tossed over linguine (see recipe)
•
Pan seared sirloin in a
jalapeno/mustard/wine sauce with garlic mashed potatoes (see recipe)
• Vanilla ice cream topped
with Godiva chocolate liquor, ground espresso and a biscotti cookie
To make a fabulous Caesar
salad---a Katie favorite--all you need to know is---how to make the
dressing. The key to making a great Caesar dressing is like
everything else, fresh ingredients and a little patience. Once all
of the ingredients are placed in the bowl of a food processor, with
the blade spinning, you slowly pour in the oil. This will thicken
the dressing to the consistency of a mayonnaise. Slice up some
crispy, romaine hearts and toss them well, top with slivers of fresh
parmesan, throw in a few black olives and slivers of roasted red
pepper for color and serve. Or make a meal of it by adding any
number of your favorite toppings to the salad. Here’s a few: Chicken
cutlets, jumbo shrimp or sea scallops--blacken them, grill them, or
sautéed them--all ways are delicious. Or maybe you prefer the
traditional--crispy bits of bacon. In any case a great Caesar salad
is an American classic and something you’ll be glad you know how to
make, especially with warm weather entertaining just around the
corner.
For the next two dishes, the
white wine sauce is key. It’s one of my master sauces--recipe is
archived on my web site and in my book, Simply Sauté--and both the
pasta and the steak are perfect examples of how the same basic sauce
takes on a whole new flavor, depending on what you add to it. For
the pasta dish, it picks up the flavor of all the above ingredients
that are sautéed in a fry pan, to which the sauce is added. In the
steak recipe, a store bought condiment--in this case, a jalapeño
mustard is simply added to the basic white wine sauce a tablespoon
at a time, until you arrive at your desired taste. Imagine how great
this would taste over your favorite grilled steak! It’s also amazing
over all kinds of seafood and it can undergo an almost infinite
amount of flavor transformations. Here’s a few:
Add fresh presto to the sauce
and serve it with pasta, chicken, shrimp, scallops; Add brandy to it
and a bit of cream and serve it with lobster or other shellfish. Add
it to sautéed wild mushrooms along with some gorgonzola cheese and
serve it over fettuccine or grilled meat. I could go on, but you get
the idea…
And now for dessert--This is
my no brainer yet dazzling, anytime dessert. It couldn’t be any
easier. Drizzle your favorite liquor over your favorite ice cream,
sprinkle with ground espresso and top with a great cookie. Finally,
serve it in a fabulous martini glass and you’ve got a homerun!
And how did the girls and I
enjoy making and eating this meal? Well all I can say is that we
began at 8PM, ate every bite, and we were still laughing well after
midnight.
Chef Silvia
If any of you are interested in organizing you own style of cooking
class/dinner party, check out my
cooking classes page for more information.
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