What I had for dinner:

Dinner around three beers

28 Nov 1996 21:57:12 -0500

On tonight's menu, we have:

Salad with walnuts		:: Duvel
Marinated steak with cranberry	:: Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout, 
	popovers and chestnuts		1995 bottling
Chocolate Espresso beans	:: Gouden Carolus

All three beers had been in the fridge overnight, and were taken out simultaneously at the beginning of dinner, so that each reached naturally its proper serving temperature.

The salad is a roughly equal mixture of endive and radicchio, cut fairly thin, with lime juice, salt, pepper, walnut oil, and a generous sprinkling of freshly toasted broken walnuts.

-- Cold Duvel in a tulip glass. --

The cranberry popovers introduce a new choux pastry recipe, that of the C.I.A.'s "New Professional Chef", which replaces some of the butter in my old recipe (Raymond Oliver's) with milk. Scaled down 1/10, it goes like this: 100 ml of milk and 45 g of butter (3 tbsp) are brough to a boil, and 70 g (1/2 cup) of flour and 1/2 tsp of salt are added all at once. The mixture is stirred over very low heat until well blended, then it is left to cool somewhat. When it is not more than body temperature, 100 ml of beaten eggs (it worked out to 2 large eggs) are added with vigorous stirring and blending (I used a fork) until all the eggs are absorbed and the dough is soft and homogeneous. A small handful of dried cranberries is added and well blended in.

A small, well buttered oven dish is filled with the mixture, and placed in a 400 F oven until well browned and puffed about 2 to 3-fold; about 20-30 min, depending on size, dish geometry, and exact temperature.

The steak (a severely well trimmed boneless ribeye) was marinated for several hours in a mixture of the juice of 1 tangerine, 1 tbsp of chipotle sauce, 1 crushed garlic clove, olive oil, and black pepper.

For the chestnuts (ready-made in vacuum pack, from Italy), one minced shallot was cooked in canola oil until pale brown, the steak marinade was added, then the chestnuts and one bay leaf, and the mixture was cooked until almost dry. Just before serving, one tbsp of Devon double cream was blended in, off the heat.

The steak was patted dry and cooked over very high heat in a cast-iron skillet. It was served with hot Dijon Mustard and the chestnuts and cranberry popover on either side.

-- Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout 1995, in a straight pint glass. --

Dessert is simply munching on chocolate-covered espresso beans (not too many, I need to sleep!) while writing this report.

-- Gouden Carolus in a broad balloon glass right next to the keyboard. --