Happy New Year.

2011 was quite a year. New job, new city, new house, new state, new foods. We're further from some friends and closer to others. And our New Year's tradition of cooking with Dr. Ricky was broken, however we still managed to have a good feed. This year, I cooked 10 dishes, focusing on dishes that were relatively simple to prepare while cooking solo.

I started the evening with a riff on a margarita, the mandarin margarita, rimmed with a mixture of white and black salts to add contrast.



We quickly moved into an old classic, feta with honey and peppercorns. The salty, sweet, peppery goodness, contrasts with the crispness of the cracker, and is a nice, light way to start a large meal.



Our good friends in Maine brought fresh scallops and lobsters with them. We think scallops require very little work to make them delicious, so I seared them in sesame oil and served them with fishy sauce.



We followed this with my favourite soup of all time. Lobster bisque (I'll be writing this one up as a separate post soon). I love this stuff, it makes the house smell heavenly.



Next up, quick roasted dates, stuffed with goat cheese and wrapped in bacon.



In the interest of being healthy, we had a vegetable course. Brussel sprouts with garlic, roasted after being drizzled with lard, and seasoned with parmesan. Yummy.



Before we moved into the grilled courses, we cleansed our palates with a lime-basil sorbet.



I grilled a cheese sandwich using no-knead bread, caramelized onions and a mixture of fontina, Danish blue and monterey jack cheeses. Grilled over hot charcoal, it picked up a hint of smoke flavour. Yum.



Finally we grilled pork belly (holy flaring fat fire, batman!), and served it with a miso-garlic dipping sauce. I barely got a shot of this before it was devoured.



And for dessert, broiled blackberries with sabayon.



Not a bad 5 hour feed. At midnight, our local Boston friends served up grasshopper ice cream cocktails, and because I was off the clock I forgot to take a picture. A rich and decadent end to a lard-fueled evening.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had as much fun as I did for your own New Year's Eves, and that 2012 brings you good things to eat.

By Bbq Dude

Happy New Year.

A tradition has developed in the Dude household over the last 3 years. Dr. Ricky comes to town from Houston and we have a kitchen extravaganza of sorts. This year we celebrated by serving 11 dishes to bring in 2011. If we continue on that path, 2020 looks to be a challenging New Year's Eve...

The menu:



You'll notice there are 12 dishes there. We included an extra so that we could drop one out and still reach 11. The 11 dishes we served:

Duck fat confited russet potatoes and miso glazed calabasita squash:



You know you're having fun when you are blowtorching a relative of zucchini. Indeed, guests walked in just as the blowtorch came out.  A great visual to set the tone for the night.

Hamachi sashimi Peruian-style:



After slicing and seasoning the fish, hot oil was dripped onto the fish. Nice way to start the meal, I'm going to be cooking with sashimi quality fish more often.

Roasted brussel sprouts with mint and sambal olek:



Another surprise hit. Brussel sprouts and mint.

Smoked tamarind pork ribs with slow-roasted apple:



Ribs will get a post of their own in the future. But they were marinated in tamarind, garlic, soy sauce, hoisin and sriracha. Then smoked for 5 hours over pecan wood, and glazed with the reduced marinade.  Yum. Served next to slow-roasted apple.

Bagna cauda with vegetables:



This one is becoming part of the canon. Dropped out the anchovy paste, and used whole anchovies instead. Delicious.

Two bacons with raclette on toast with shiso:



Two bacons were a home-made, home-smoked bacon, and a buckboard bacon from Cochon butcher in New Orleans, fried and layered onto a home-baked bread. Smothered in melted raclette cheese and served with a spot of shiso on top. Yum.

Deep-fried chicken liver with Sichuan salt and rhubarb sauce:



Comment of the night: "You keep making me eat things I don't like. Like chicken livers. And you make me like them!".

Savory huitlacoche cheesecake:



The hit of the night. This cheesecake compensated for being one of the most unattractive pieces of food I've ever seen. It's grey. The cheesecake looks like mortar.  But what flavour.  Corn truffles indeed.

Smoke, tobacco and blackberry:



Taken from the Alinea cookbook.  An unusual mix of smoky, acid and salt.

Yuzu/Meyer lemon cream tart:



We used the same recipe as the lemon cream tart. Substitute yuzus (6) and Meyer lemon (1) for the lemon zest. Most of the juice came from the Meyer lemons, and we used a shortcake crust.

2003 Chateau Lafaurie Peyraguey Sauternes:



Brought by one of our guests. This sauternes provided a lovely break. Crisp, sweet and complex. Really, really nice.

Sahlep saffron ice cream:



A take on the Turkish ice cream dondurma.  A lovely saffron flavour with an unusual texture.

Some of these will get full out posts of their own in the future. But for now, I wanted to share our New Year's Eve with you.

Happy New Year one and all.