Well, today is Father's Day, and since I have been fashioning myself into a decent cook over the past couple of years, I made a sumptuous feast for my dad. While Dad went out for his usual round of golf, I started my preparations early in the afternoon, and wound up working in the kitchen for about four hours.
My culinary efforts got off to an inauspicious start today, as I attempted to make a chocolate mousse for dessert. There are certain (seemingly) basic dishes that I have never been able to make, and chocolate mousse is one of them. It used to be that omelets were my biggest nemesis, but then Alton Brown showed me the light, and I became an omelet machine. Maybe the Food Network will air a mousse-centered episode of Good Eats sometime in the near future, but for now I am hopeless. Like so many of my previous attempts, this mousse came out grainy, wouldn't set, and tasted off. I think I failed in multiple steps -- the chocolate didn't melt to the proper consistency, and I suspect my technique for folding in the egg whites is horrible. I discarded the pathetic remains, thanked myself for starting far enough in advance that I had time to recover, and planned a new dessert as I drove to the store. I hadn't yet purchased items for the entree either, so I wasn't losing additional time by making the trip. The whole mousse endeavor took me from 2:15 to 3 in the afternoon.
I spent $50 at the gourmet grocery store -- this might be the most expensive single meal I have ever made. My purchase included two pork chops, a package of goat cheese, some pecans and dried cranberries, a lime, a pint of strawberries, a cup of heavy cream, and a bottle of Merlot. If you're trying to guess my menu, I should also point out that I had eggs, ricotta cheese, sugar, spice, and everything nice (well, maybe not *everything*) at my prior disposal. I got home around 4, ready to cook.
Back home, I did some more preparatory work before I started cooking. I set three things to soak: the pork chops in a brine solution, and some of the strawberries, sliced, and a small handful of dried cranberries in separate Merlot baths. Next came dessert -- I could do little about the entree until the pork chops got properly hydrated. I have become a big fan of individually sized tarts and pies made in a meringue shell, so I beat a couple of egg whites, reserving the yolks, with a bit of vanilla and sugar, spread the foamy goodness into some appropriately-sized tins, and baked for about half and hour. I happened to have some beaten whites left over after filling the tins, so I folded in some cocoa and made some chocolate meringue cookies as a snack. While the meringues baked, I mixed up the ricotta with 2/3 of the goat cheese, the juice and zest from the lime, a small egg, and a bit of sugar and vanilla. When the meringue shells were somewhat solid, I spooned the cheese melange into the cups and put them back in the oven. It was now 6 o'clock.
I then turned to the asparagus. I disliked asparagus with a passion for over 24 years -- a restaurant could serve my favorite tuna steak, but if it came with asparagus I would order a boring but safe breast of chicken with carrots instead. My dad loves asaparagus, so I would always have to choke down a few spears when he made dinner. Then, sometime this spring, I went out to eat and decided to get an entree in spite of the asparagus with which it was served. I felt bad about leaving it all untouched on my plate, so I had a spear or two. I realized that asparagus itself wasn't nearly as bad as I had made it out to be, but that everybody overcooked it. Almost every time I've had asparagus, it was horribly mushy, and texture is the first thing that turns me off to a vegetable. I decided that the usual boiling was a bad way to cook asparagus, and set myself to find a better method. One night in April I came home from a rehearsal to find my roommate Tina watching Queer Eye, and the cooking expert (damned if I can remember their names) was telling the straight guy how to grill asparagus. Of course! Grilling works so well for other vegetables, so why not asparagus? I found a recipe for an asparagus marinade online (Good Eats and Google are now my two best friends in the kitchen) and tried it out with tuna steaks on Memorial Day, to great success. Tender, not mushy. And the marinade gives great flavor. Now I'll gladly eat my own asparagus, though I still don't trust most restaurants to get it right.
So I mixed up my usual asparagus marinade, and let the asparagus join the pork chops and strawberries already soaking in the refrigerator. The meringue-sheel cheesecakes were done, so I let them cool down, then chilled them in the refrigerator. At last I started to turn my attention to the pork, though it wasn't coming out of its bath just yet. I wanted to stuff the chops, which of course required requires that I have a stuffing ready. I crushed a small handful of the pecans, and chopped them further with the cranberries in my food processor. I then added the last of the goat cheese and processed further. I meant to add some pepper to this stuffing, but I forgot. Something to try next time. The cheese held everything together, but it was still nice and crumbly. Now for the pork.
I removed the chops from their bath, dried them off a bit, and prepared to do a bit of surgery. I took a boning knife and excavated large cavities in both chops, while leaving only a half-inch hole in the surface of the meat. Getting the stuffing in proved to be a challenge. Alton Brown recommends using a wide syringe, but I had no such implement. After a failed attempt at forcing the stuffing through a baster, I used the handle of a wooden spoon to push it through the narrow aperture, one morsel at a time. Once I got had one chop stuffed, I fired up the grill, and went back inside to stuff the other chop and make my final grilling preparations. The asparagus left its marinade and went into a grilling basket, while the two chops glistened on a platter. I took everything outside, and took a deep breath. This was my first time using a grill that didn't have George Foreman's name on it -- my dad usually handles all the grilling, but he was now working in the garden, and I was supposed to do all the work anyway. I went over all the directions in my mind: reduce all three burners to medium. Put the chops on the grill. Two minutes, twist, two minutes, flip, put the asparagus on, two minutes, twist, two minutes, serve. I set the chops on the grill, and ran back inside. I was now going to multi-task.
While the pork chops cooked, I had one last thing to make. I retrieved the yolks I had set aside after making meringue, and heated half a stick of butter in a saucepan. The timer went off: time to turn the chops. I beat the yolks with some water, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper. The timer rang again; I flipped the chops and put the asparagus on. I mixed some of the hot butter into the eggs, then poured the whole mixture back into the saucepan. It thickened slightly, but had a ways to go when the timer rang. I turned the chops one final time, and went back inside, and got the eggs to just the right consistency. I retrieved the chops, stupidly burned myself trying to get the asparagus off the grill, and was finally ready to serve dinner at 8 on the dot. Grilled stuffed pork chops, and asparagus with hollandaise sauce. Yum.
After dinner, I let Dad chew on my pork bone -- I find the returns on bone-chewing not worth the effort, but he doesn't mind -- and worked on dessert. I whipped some of the cream, and got out the chilled cheesecakes and Merlot-soaked strawberries. I had four cheesecake cups, each around 3-4" in diameter, and I spooned some of the strawberries on top of each, finishing with a dollop of whipped cream. Lime cheesecake with drunken strawberries. Ahhh... I still had some soaked strawberries and whipped cream left over, so we finished off with a second helping of each. So good...
So, to recap and bring things closer to the subject line: I made stuffed pork chops, grilled asparagus with hollandaise sauce, lime cheesecake, and drunken strawberries. Dad also had two glasses of the Merlot I had bought for the cranberries and strawberries; this was by design.
According to the proprietor of Elizabeth's Cafe, a restaurant on the Outer Banks known for its wine-friendly menus, the best way to ensure that a wine will go well with a meal is to use that same wine in cooking the meal. The Merlot I chose advertised a bouquet rich in berries, so I thought it would complement the cranberries and strawberries nicely. But I rarely if ever drink, and all I had tonight was ice water. I did, of course, consume some wine with the strawberries, but that couldn't have been more than half a glass. And this half a glass was at the tail end of a sizable meal. But after twenty minutes of cleaning up the enormous mess I had left behind, I was feeling quite light-headed, and walking straight was a minor challenge. I wouldn't say I was completely drunk, but I was definitely feeling the effects after only half a glass of wine. Meanwhile, my dad, after 3 and a half glasses (he had a glass of white wine with some olives before the meal) could have done his taxes while standing on one foot. At 185 pounds, I am a hopeless lightweight. At least this makes me a cheap date, I suppose.
Sigh.
-TT