Hibachi experience.

Last week my husband surprised me by taking me to lunch at a Japanese restaurant.  I have had sushi before, but this restaurant also had a hibachi grill for cooking in front of the customers.

 I had only heard of this style of cooking.  My friends told me you have to go in a group in a hibachi restaurant, but the hostess seated us with a couple strangers and we all enjoyed the experience together.First I shared with my husband a couple of traditional Japanese appetizers.  We had a calamari salad and lobster roll.  Both were as pleasing to the eye as were delicious. I made a picture only of the salad.

Then the show began.  Chef Peter brought his cart with a mis en place out and began cooking lunch for us.  To start with he flamed the grill with oil. I was really impressed!

He also entertained us with an onion volcano and rolling and tossing eggs with his spatula.

He began making our lunch by preparing fried rice. I did not realize that all fried rice has egg in it.  It was interesting to watch him grill the rice and quickly made us a tasty start to our lunch.

Next he grilled vegetables for us.  It was a combination of mushrooms, onions, carrots and zucchini. While the vegetables were cooking he again entertained us by trying to toss zucchini into our mouths.  He missed everyone, but my husband almost caught his bite.  It was all very much fun.  Chef finished our vegetables with a teriyaki sauce.

Lastly Chef cooked our entrees on the grill.  I had calamari and steak, while my husband had shrimp and sukiyaki, which is a mixture of steak, onions and carrots.  Again Chef made a show of cooking our entrees.  He finished all our dishes with soy sauce and teriyaki sauce.  He also provided us with two dipping sauces.  One was from ginger and the other was mayonnaise based.

The hibachi restaurant is a delicious and fun experience I look forward to repeating.

Meatballs

Traditional american meatballs I tried in restaurants and at home as well, but I did not cook them. This week I made it! We cooked whole wheat pasta with L`Ecole meatballs.  It is some kind of magic when you make thin sheet of basic pasta from a dough ball, and we actually had fun doing it.

After cutting long sheets of pasta into spaghetti we dusted it with flour and let it rest while we made meatballs.

Half of the meatballs we made according to the L'Ecole recipe and the other half we created by ourselves in groups of two.  We made minor changes to the L'Ecole recipe by substituting ingredients, such as using real onion and garlic instead of onion and garlic powder. Ground beef, salt, pepper, parmesan cheese, worcestershire sauce and fresh bread crumbs were ingredients for our meatballs along with garlic and onion.

Baked for 20 minutes in the oven and simmered in tomato sauce, our meatballs became rich in flavor and attractive.

Pan-Fried Chicken Breast with Pan Gravy

The first dish of our second phase was fried chicken, and it is a way that I never use to cook chicken at home. My favorite place to cook any food is an oven, actually, because this way is always successful, simplest, and really healthy. Therefore, I was really interested in that class. So... To make fried chicken tender and juicy you need to season it well and bread it properly. Our Chef taught us to season chicken breast with salt and pepper to our taste first, then put breast in mix of buttermilk and egg, and then bread it in flour with added seasonings like pepper, salt, cayenne pepper, dry thyme, etc. After that, our chicken laid in the refrigerator for 15-20 minutes. Meanwhile, we prepared baked finger potatoes and sauteed zucchini. I learned that taking out seeds from zucchini makes them more firm while cooking, reduces time of sauteing, and makes the finished product more attractive. We plated our dish and I found my way not really creative, because , in fact I repeated plating of somebody else. I've just seen photo with this plating before and unconsciously repeated it.

Fish. Salmon.

One day, being in Ukraine, my husband made a joke "Oh, I know what she will order - fish and greek salad". It was funny, but it was true. I prefer fish in a restaurant to any meat. An exception is kebab restaurants because they have excellent meat and no fish. I grew up 25 miles from the sea coast, plus our town was surrounded by a number of natural ponds, so our table was always full of a variety of salt and freshwater fish: carp, sturgeon, mackerel, eel, flounder, and, finally, goby fish are some of the most popular species in our family. On the other hand, we used just few methods for cooking fish such as pan frying, roasting with vegetables and fish soup "uha". Therefore, I was excited to start learning fish fabrication in L`Ecole, especially since we started from salmon which has a distinctive rich flavor and fatty body.
After Chef demo how to filet salmon properly and beautifully, we tried to do it by ourselves. The result was far from desirable but better than expected. Then we cooked salmon using two recipes with different marinades and different methods of cooking. The first one was Teriyaki Salmon, and we grilled it and served with sticky rice, and the second portion of our fillet we soaked in a lemon marinade and cooked in parchment paper. Both fillets we vacuumed for 15-20 minutes to enrich fish with marinade as quickly as possible. I`ve seen the vacuum machine for the first time in my life and was impressed... and scared a little bit - bubbling and jerking accompanies the process of vacuuming.
Next, salmon in teriyaki marinade went to the grill and our Chef helped us a lot to make our fish presentable and fully cooked in the same time. Steamed Salmon en Papillote we wrapped in a piece of parchment paper cut in a heart shape and put it in a oven. The result of grilling was just perfect to me. Thank you, Chef!

 Steamed salmon was beautiful but a little to dry. Probably, I just overcooked it at some point.

Chicken Cordon Bleu

People like poultry for its tenderness, delicate flavor, less fat than mammals' meat has, relatively short time of cooking,  and diversity of cooking methods applicable to this type of meat. We fry it and bake, and boil to make broth and stew with vegetables, finally, we stuff chicken and make stuffing from chicken. One of the first dishes of second phase was Chicken Cordon Bleu, but for beginning we learned proper way to butcher chicken.

I have experienced processing chicken from dispatching the bird to serving on the table, yet I've learned a bunch of information and skills how to cut a peace people will pay for. One of those fancy cuts, I can do now, is chicken airline breast, or chicken supreme. 

How I can cook supreme, I'm looking forward to learn later, but this class was about boneless chicken breast stuffed with ham and cheese, breaded and deep fried. Chicken Cordon Bleu. From the beginning it looked like we were going to cook individually, but then cooking became a process shared by all. It was... challenge. I do not know about everybody, but I didn't complete all steps of cooking this dish even though I watched and understood all of them. It's why I decided to cook Chicken Cordon Bleu for my husband for dinner and Kiev Chicken for me as well. The beginning of the process is same for both of them, so I put skinned boneless filets between of plastic wrap layers and pounded them with meat mallet. 

 After that, both breasts I seasoned with salt and pepper and the one for Cordon Bleu I sprinkled with parsley, while Kiev Chicken I dusted with dill. To make the first one I put seasoned breast on the new piece of plastic wrap and laid on a top few thin slices of ham and swiss cheese. I also added some grated Grier, I just can't help it - I'm a really cheesy person.

Then I tightly rolled the chicken in wrap and put it in the refrigerator minimum for 15 minutes. 

The same process is used for Kiev Chicken but the stuffing is the frozen dill butter.

Meanwhile, I made orzo with garlic and cherry tomatoes, and, off course, cheese. I heated minced garlic with olive oil in a saute pan until it became light gold color and added chopped cherry tomatoes; sauteed them until beautifully reduced

Then I added al dente pasta well drained and reheated it with grated Grier. Don't ask me about proportions in making this side - all to taste and for individual preferences. 

That time my chicken was ready to be breaded and fried, so I started this process.

One of the very useful things our Chef taught us was to use two hands in breading process, so one stays dry and another is wet. In the picture above you can see the order of breading: flour, egg wash (eggs with little bit of milk), and bread crumbs. Because I don't like to fry anything until a dark color, I fried my chicken about 5 minutes and then I put them in an oven preheated to 350*F for 5 minutes more. Even though my chickens had same side, I served them differently. Chicken Cordon Bleu I plate with Hollandaise sauce and garnished with parsley.

Chicken Kiev doesn't require sause due to a bunch of own juice and melted butter inside, so I cutted it and  finished with baby arugula. 

My Manhattan Clam Chowder

I already wrote about Manhattan Clam Chowder which we cooked in L'Ecole lab. It said a lot about the real flavor of this soup and different ways to cook it, and I just for interest looked up online varieties of Manhattan style of Clam Chowder. I've learned some interesting facts about this soup.   For example, the Americans have been loving and eating it for more than 100 years; this soup was developed in Delmonico's restaurant, New York, in 1880th or 1890th (this question and about inventor as well, my online research wasn't unique) Also, I found a lot of different recipes where some of the ingredients were the same and some were different. Therefore, I highlighted some ingredients and cooked my own Manhattan Clam Chowder. It was successful, and I had couple feedbacks from the Americans who weren't fans of this soup but ate mine with appetite; so, I'm going to share with you my recipe, and, maybe, you will like it, too.

First of all we need to complete our miss in place and prepare
3 cups of water
 5 oz of diced (or chopped) bacon,
12 oz of small diced mirepoix (6 oz of onion + 3 oz of carrot + 3 oz of celery)
8 oz of medium diced potatoes
3 oz of small diced bell pepper
1 can (14.5 oz) of diced tomatoes
13 oz of canned clams, minced with juice
14 oz of squid rings (defrost and dice just before use)(It is not a main ingredient of Manhattan Clam Chowder, so you can dismiss this item at all or change it for shrimps as many of online recipes recommend)
2 tbsp of worcestershire sauce
dry thyme, bay leaf, salt, ground black peppercorns, cayenne pepper I use to taste and adjust many times during the cooking process (especially salt and pepper)

For beginning, I put my bacon in the pot and let it release its fat, then I add a couple of bay leaves, a generous pinch of thyme and peppers and leave my dry seasonings in heat up to 20 seconds to open their flavor.  Then I add mirepoix and slightly caramelize it.

Bell pepper I add to mirepoix when it is almost ready because I want my pepper only soft. All this process takes about 7-8 minutes. Next, I add water, bring it to a boil, reduce to simmer and leave for a couple minutes.

Add potatoes and clams with juice and simmer 5 minutes more.

When my vegetables are soft and almost ready, I add worcestershire sauce and tomatoes. These acids keep my vegetables firm and prevent them from breaking and making a mess. On the other hand, adding acids at the end of cooking significantly reduce the time of cooking potatoes and everything else in my soup. In a couple minutes after that I add my diced squids.

Only 60 seconds are need to cook squid completely, so you want to add it to soup if you serve this immediately; reheating will make it robbery. My recipe good for 6 servings, so if you need less, just divide it.

Garnish soup with chopped parsley and Bon Appetite!

Grilled eggplants with onion and cranberry relish

In the beginning I'd like to say that I'm very thankful to people who read my blog and, especially, those who give me their feedback. Thank you!
One of my friends asked me about some recipes and today I'm going to share with you my lunch and say couple words about a beautiful vegetable which I cooked. It is an eggplant which is botanically not a vegetable but a fruit,actually, and India is proud to be the homeland for it. America can thank Thomas Jefferson for the introduction to eggplant in 18th century. Eggplant comes from the same nightshade family of plants with potato, tomato and pepper even though all of the members of this family have such different characteristics of appearance, taste, and cooking methods. By the way, even eggplant by itself has more than 700 varieties around the world which can be slightly different in taste and cooking method used.

 I like eggplants for this huge variety of cooking methods you can use to prepare them and different tastes you can create.  Today I played with the original recipe of Baked Eggplants with Pomegranate and Mint from Julia Visotskaya, and had fun cooking Warm Salad from Eggplants with Onion and Cranberry Relish.

For the beginning I had eggplants and no idea what to cook with them. A long time ago I cooked Julia Visotskaya's dish, but I haven't saved the recipe nor had pomegranate in my house. For a good start I opened my refrigerator and pantry room and took from them anything which, in my opinion, I could mix. 

To make relish I poured 1/3 of  Modera in the saute pan and reduced it on a medium heat about half; then I added 1 tbs of honey to the reduced wine and warmed it enough to melt completely, about 1-2 minutes. 

This liquid I added to 2 oz of the chopped onion with 2 oz of mashed cranberry, juice of half of the lemon, 1/2 tsp of balsamic vinegar, 1 tsp of the worcestershire sauce, and 2 tbsp of virgin olive oil. 

Next, I sliced my eggplants in thin slices

and seasoned them with salt, black pepper, coriander, and thyme. After mixing eggplants well to spread seasonings evenly, I brushed them with a little amount of olive oil and started to fry them on the grill pan

Meanwhile, I tried my relish and found that I would like to chop it more nicely, so I used my chopper 

and adjusted taste by adding a little bit more honey and cranberry. When eggplants were done, I layered  them and brushed each with relish

Mint chiffonade on the top of this salad is the perfect garnishing. Meaty resilient eggplants with sour crunchy relish and mint aroma made me enjoy their taste so much that I forgot about my main dish.

This salad would be a great appetizer for the family supper, but for feeding guests you can make nice bites.