FoodieCuisine.com

By Todd Barron @ FoodieCuisine.com

 I’ve been sitting on this article for a while and had to dust the cobwebs out of my memory for parts of it but here goes… 

We had some good friends over in February for a small dinner party.  On the menu we had Potato Cauliflower Soup, Sea Bass Oscar, and Dessert.  I bought the dessert pre-made from the Fresh Market but other than that it was all me (with help where needed of course!) 

Potato and Cauliflower Soup

The dinner started with a potato and cauliflower soup that was quite easy to make.  For the soup you need: 

Makes 8 servings (I had enough for 2 events) 

• 2 russet potatoes
• 1 head of cauliflower
• 1 yellow onion
• 2 qts chicken broth
• 1 Tbs butter
• 1 Tbs olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic (peeled and diced)
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Topping of choice (Prosciutto and shiitake mushrooms in this case)

 The first thing you need to do is wash the potatoes, peel the skin off of the them, and dice them into half-inch cubes.  Next you need to core the cauliflower, wash it, and break it apart into 1 inch florets.  The final prep work is done by peeling and dicing the onion and garlic.  The garlic should be diced in much smaller cubes than the onion. 

Now that everything is ready to go, turn your stove on medium high and put a dutch oven on the burner.  You do have a dutch oven right?

Put the butter and olive oil into the pot and when the butter is melted, add the diced onion.  Cook it until tender and caramelized, about 10 minutes.  Use a wooden spoon to keep the onions from burning or sticking while you cook. 

Once the onions are carmelized (they should be somewhat brown,) add in the diced potatoes.  Turn the stove up to High.  Let the potato cubes sit in once place long enough to brown the sides but do stir the mixture enough to keep them from browning.  

After about 5 minutes, add in the cauliflower florets, red pepper flakes, diced garlic cloves, and a little salt and pepper.  Use the wooden spoon to stir the mixture several times. 

Continue stirring the onions, potatoes, and cauliflower florets for about 10 minutes to give everything a chance to brown.  Remember that browning develops flavor and is a key element to cooking non-bland food.  Go ahead now and add in the 2 quarts of chicken broth.  Stir. 

Bring everything to a boil and let it boil for about 5 minutes.  Reduce the heat to Medium and cook for 20 minutes.  After the 20 minutes are up, turn the heat off and let the mixture cool for about half an hour.  During this time you can work on the topping for your soup (See below for the Soup Topping recipe). 

Transfer the mixture, in batches if necessary, to your blender.  If you have a vita-mix blender, like I do, you should run it on High for about 1 minute.  It should be completely free of lumps and very smooth.  Pour the blend back into the pot and turn the stove to low heat. 

At this point you should get a clean spoon and taste the soup to see how much salt and pepper to add.  Add salt and pepper in small increments, stir, and taste again until it has the right seasoning.  Keep in mind that the topping may add some saltiness to the soup.  You should consider this as you season since you can not remove salt once it’s added! 

Let the soup simmer on low for about 10 minutes to allow the newly added seasoning time to assimilate.  It will bubble but should not spew soup everywhere.  If it does, you have the heat up too high. 

The soup is now ready.  Ladle it into bowls, top with some of the soup topping below, and serve! 

Once nice thing about this soup, other than the fact that it tastes great, is that it’s relatively low in calories.  There is no cream involved but it comes out very creamy (especially if you let it cool overnight) due to the starch in the potatoes. 

Soup Topping

Makes 8 servings 

• 2 oz Proscuitto di Parma (diced)
• 6 shitake mushrooms (washed and diced)
• 1 leek (washed and diced)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tsp butter
• 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil

Heat a skillet over medium-high heat and add in the butter and olive oil.  Once the butter is melted, add in the leeks and let them caramelize, about 10 minutes.  Next add in the Prosciutto and let it brown, about 2 minutes.  It will stick easily so make sure you stir it constantly.  Lastly, add in the shiitake mushrooms, salt, and pepper.  Stir everything and cook it for about 3 more minutes.  Once you are done, move the mixture to a bowl and let it sit on the side. 

Sea Bass Oscar with Roasted Asparagus and Potatoes

 The second course consisted of sea bass topped with lump crab meat and a Hollandaise sauce.  I served it on top of a Parmesan crisp, roasted potatoes, and sided it with roasted asparagus.  Typically anything covered with crab meat and Hollandaise sauce is called “Oscar”; hence, the name.  The potatoes are present to help keep the diner from being hungry afterwards (potatoes are very filling but have few calories.) 

For this part of the meal you need the following: 

Makes 4 servings 

• 4 4oz pieces of skinned and deboned sea bass (fresh)
• 8 oz jumbo lump crab meat (rinsed, free of shells)
• 4 oz authentic Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (fresh grated)
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 tbs butter
• 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

This dish is much more complicated than the soup as it requires several techniques to pull off.  You can skip the parmesan crisp, Hollandaise, and crab meat if you want something easier to do (and cheaper!)  In reality the potatoes are not necessary but they do help in the appetite department. 

For your prep-work you should bring the fish to room temperature (covered,) wash and peel the potatoes, wash the rest of the vegetables, cut the potatoes into 8 slices each, and dice the peeled garlic.  You need to cut the tough ends off of the asparagus and this can be done by bending a single stalk of asparagus in-two.  Where it breaks is where you need to cut the rest of the spears.  You should not be cutting off more than about 1 to 2 inches from the base though so use your best judgement here. 

Parmesan Crisp

This step should be done first assuming you only have one oven.  If you have two ovens, you can continue on to the roasted asparagus and potatoes while the crisps cook.  Go ahead and pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees. 

For this you need: 

Makes 4 Servings 

• 4 oz authentic Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (fresh grated)

 The first step is to place a Silpat Silicon Baking Matonto a large baking sheet.  Silpat Baking Mats, manufactured in France, can be used in an oven (if you follow the safety instructions) and are great for cooking things that cannot stick.  You can bake cookies, bread, cheese, and many other things without worry of them sticking.  They aren’t expensive and are worth the small investment. 

Place the grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese in 4 one ounce mounds on the mat and gently spread them into the form of circles.  Each circle of cheese should be just thick enough to cover the mat but not so thin that the mat is visible through the cheese. 

Put the baking sheet, with the mat and cheese on top, into the pre-heated oven and bake for about 15 minutes.  I say “about 15 minutes” because your results will vary depending on how thick you make the cheese crisps.  The bottom line is that you should bake the crisps until the cheese is melted and bubbling.  Once it starts bubbling, remove the baking sheet from the oven and let the crisps cool.  You won’t need them until later. 

Roasted Asparagus and Potatoes

I love to roast vegetables and follow a pretty basic recipe every time.  If you read my article on roasting garlic the following will seem familiar. 

For this you need: 

Makes 4 Servings 

• 1 lb red potatoes (washed, peeled, and cut into 8 slices each)
• 1 bunch of fresh asparagus
• 2 cloves garlic (peeled and minced)
• 1 tsp dried rosemary (crushed in mortar and pestle)
• 3 tbs extra virgin olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Turn your oven up to 450 degrees and switch it to convection mode if you have the option.  Convection-bake activates an internal fan that circulates air.  This helps the food to cook evenly since the hot air cooks the food on all sides. 

Put the sliced potatoes into a large bowl and mix in 2 tablespoons of olive oil.  Toss the potatoes with the minced garlic, rosemary, and salt and pepper to taste.  I use about 1 teaspoon of salt and pepper for my taste.  Once the ingredients are thoroughly mixed, pour them onto one side of a clean baking sheet. 

Place the asparagus, spear by spear, on the other half of the baking sheet.  Once it’s laid out, drizzle one tablespoon of olive oil across the spears and then sprinkle with salt and pepper. 

Place the baking sheet with the potatoes and asparagus on top, into the oven for 30 minutes.  Check the sheet every 10 minutes and move the potatoes around if they start to stick to the sheet.  When the potatoes are brown and look cooked you can remove the sheet from the oven and cover with aluminum foil until needed later. 

Blender Hollandaise Sauce

You can spend lots of time making a pan-made Hollandaise sauce but I personally see no reason to do this since blender Hollandaise is much faster to make and tastes wonderful.  If the Hollandaise sits too long, give it a quick blend to reset it to the proper consistency. 

For this you need: 

Makes 4-8 Servings (greatly depends on how much sauce you give each person) 

• 1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 tsp Tabasco Sauce
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in your microwave using a microwave safe measuring cup.  I rarely use microwaves but melting butter is one thing it does well! 

In a clean blender, yes you can use your vita-mix for this as well, put the rest of the ingredients.  I used 1/2 tsp of salt and pepper for this go around.  If you don’t like spicy food you may omit the Tabasco Sauce.  It’s not really spicy though so you probably won’t notice it. 

Put the lid on the blender but leave the lid insert off.  Cover it with a paper towel and turn it on high for 1 minute.  After the 1 minute mark, slowly pour the melted butter through the top of the lid into the sauce.  It should take you about 30-45 seconds to do this.  Let the sauce blend for a final 15 seconds and it should be done. 

A correctly blended Hollandaise sauce will be thick and have a nice consistency to it.  If you want it thinner you can use more butter or less eggs but I’ll leave that up to you.  Leave the sauce in the blender until you need it later. 

For interesting dinner conversation you can tell your guests about Hollandaise Sauce.  Supposedly, the King of the Netherlands had the sauce served to them on a state sponsored visit to France.  It’s also one of the (5) categorized sauces of French cuisine.  In the 19th century, the chef Antonin Carême classified sauces into four families, each of which was based on a mother sauce.  In the early 20th century, the chef Auguste Escoffier updated the classification, adding sauces such as tomato sauce, butter sauces and emulsified sauces such as Mayonnaise and Hollandaise. [Sourced from Wikipedia] 

Cooking the Sea Bass

Ah, finally, the fish!  I leave this part till last because fish cooks very quickly and the crab meat requires nothing more than rinsing it.  Without further delay… 

Open the can of lump crab meat and rinse it to remove any shell pieces left over from the canning process.  Be careful not to break the crab lumps as you do this.  Let is drain and sit to the side. 

Dice the red bell pepper and put the pepper dices into a bowl for use later. 

Uncover the fish and season the filets on both sides with salt and pepper.  You don’t want to season it early as the salt will dry out the fish and absorb it (making it taste salty.) 

Heat your griddle on both sides to 400 degrees.  If you don’t have one, I highly recommend the All-Clad Electric Griddle.  It’s expensive but very worth it.  If you don’t have a griddle right now, you can heat a large skillet on high. 

Once the griddle or skillet is hot, put 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil on.  As soon as the butter is melted, place the fish filets on the hot surface.  Let the fish cook for 5 minutes before flipping over.  It should have a nice brown crust on it when you flip it.  If it doesn’t, leave it alone and wait to flip it.  As soon as it has a nice brown crust flip it over and cook for the same amount of time until a crust is formed on both sides. 

Remove the fish from the heat and let it sit for 3 minutes while you put together the base of the plates. 

Plating and Serving

Now that everything is done you can plate the food.  I like to heat my plates up before serving as it keeps the food warm.  Set out four plates and arrange the food like so: 

• Place the parmesan crisp down first
• Top the crisp with 6 slices of potatoes
• Top the potatoes with a piece of fish
• Top the fish with 2 ounces of crab
• Place two asparagus spears on the plate (one on each side)
• Drizzle Hollandaise sauce over the crab meat
• Sprinkle the diced red bell peppers over the top

That’s it!  You are now ready to serve the entree. 🙂 

Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Sauce and Chocolate Sauce

I’m not a baker, they are a different breed of cook altogether, but I am trying to learn various techniques in the realm.  Who knows, I may even take on baking in the future.  

In the meantime, I use pre-made desserts from various bakeries in town.  For this dinner I used a chocolate cake topped with strawberries from The Fresh Market. 

I finished it off with a chocolate sauce poured over the top and a small pool of raspberry sauce on the side.  I chopped up fresh mint and spread it over the dessert before serving.  The idea is for the diners to eat a piece of cake along with a small bit of raspberry sauce in each bite. 

There is nothing low-calorie about the cake by the way so you may want to skip it if you are on a diet.  I only eat deserts on the weekend to keep the calories down in my diet for example.

All in all the dinner was a success and everyone seemed to enjoy it.  I’ve had a couple of dinner parties since this one and have used the soup recipe a couple of times since with great results.  Give the above ideas a try and let me know how it works out for you. 

Enjoy!