So, Shawn, Kristen and I, while doing laundry at Mac's decided to cook and cook and cook and cook. It was a little tricky to come up with a menu because everyone had their own ideas about what to make, but we finally decided on the following:
Appetizer: Chicken Shishkabobs with pineapple, red pepper, and shallots and your choice of a peach apricot or thai peanut sauce. (I went with the thai peanut and it was glorious!)
Side dishes: Garlic mashed potatoes topped with melted mozzarella and candied carrots.
Main dish: Stuffed beef tenderloin with a bourbon cream sauce.
-Stuffing: A cheesy, orange stuffing with pine nuts
-Sauce: Bourbon cream sauce with tarragon, roasted red peppers, garlic, and shallots
Shawn prepared the appetizers and the designed and created the AWESOME cream sauce from scratch. BTW, tarragon is my new favorite spice.
Kristen made the side dishes. The potatoes were perfectly garlicked (which means more than most people can handle) and the carrots did actually taste like candy. They were both pretty fantastic with the cream sauce on them, too.
And I prepared the beef and stuffing. The stuffing was made with an orange (orange zest and orange juice), honey, and brown sugar reduction and combined with the parmigiano-reggiano cheese, breadcrumb, and pine nut mix.
This one DEFINITELY goes on the menu at the bar we'll be opening.
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I never mentioned the last thing I really cooked, but it was also awesome and will go on the menu.
It was a marinated pork tenderloin with an agrodolce sauce and stuffing. The pork tenderloin was marinated in a vegetable and peppercorn white wine marinade. The agrodolce sauce (which is famously used on boar dishes in Italy) is called agrodolce (sweet and sour) but is in reality an orange, chocolate sauce.
As I said, I marinated the pork in a marinade consisting of carrots, onions, celery, peppercorns, sage, rosemary, and bay leaves for about 4 hours. Then I cooked it with pancetta and a rosemary, peppercorn, and peperoncino inflused olive oil. The sauce, which was amazing (and tricky since I have never worked with chocolate before) consisted of, obviously, chocolate, orange zest, white wine vinegar, and pine nuts. The finished product was semi-sweet with only the hint of orange and made me long for the glory that was Cinghiale in Agrodolce in Italy.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
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