C'mon spring/dinner on the grill
While recovering from Clinton Lake, I hauled out the grill for a farewell dinner for a friend who's moving out to California - below is the result...
We started with grilled sea scallops, served with a pomegranate sauce, balsamic vinegar, saffron, and black sea salt. Accompanying the scallops were Aviation cocktails, made with Blackwood's Gin.
Next, we moved on to the main course of cedar-planked halibut with herbes de Provence, served with kasha and caramelized onions. After caramelizing the onions, I deglazed the pan with a ~20 year old bottle of sparkling Petillant Blanc de Blancs Vouvray NV (Kathleen brought it home on a high school trip to France), and reduced the onion/wine mixture down to a rough marmalade consistency, then mixed it in with the kasha.
Before dessert, we had Isola Mozzarella di Bufala that I managed to smoke over cherry wood just long enough to get a good smoke flavor, but without melting the mozzarella at all. The secret to that is rotating it periodically in an ice bath in the smoker. The fish and cheese courses were accompanied by La Vis Pinot Noir 2005.
Dessert was a luscious apple/honey tart that Kathleen made.
The following night (no pictures available of this, unfortunately), I made a halibut chowder with a remaining piece of halibut, along with some of the kabanos that Josh brought down for us from Chicago, served with O'Fallon Smoked Porter.
We started with grilled sea scallops, served with a pomegranate sauce, balsamic vinegar, saffron, and black sea salt. Accompanying the scallops were Aviation cocktails, made with Blackwood's Gin.
Next, we moved on to the main course of cedar-planked halibut with herbes de Provence, served with kasha and caramelized onions. After caramelizing the onions, I deglazed the pan with a ~20 year old bottle of sparkling Petillant Blanc de Blancs Vouvray NV (Kathleen brought it home on a high school trip to France), and reduced the onion/wine mixture down to a rough marmalade consistency, then mixed it in with the kasha.
Before dessert, we had Isola Mozzarella di Bufala that I managed to smoke over cherry wood just long enough to get a good smoke flavor, but without melting the mozzarella at all. The secret to that is rotating it periodically in an ice bath in the smoker. The fish and cheese courses were accompanied by La Vis Pinot Noir 2005.
Dessert was a luscious apple/honey tart that Kathleen made.
The following night (no pictures available of this, unfortunately), I made a halibut chowder with a remaining piece of halibut, along with some of the kabanos that Josh brought down for us from Chicago, served with O'Fallon Smoked Porter.
1 Comments:
Looks like a great meal to me. I really enjoyed reading your blog, especially the 30 mile race report. I am training for my first ultra-marathon (a 50 miler in December at Sunmart in Texas), so I always like to read about what others are doing.
If you get a chance, please visit my running web site, Faithful Soles. I have a categorized and searchable Running Blog Database on there and would appreciate it if you would link your blog to it.
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