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What's on your plate today?

For Christmas we decided to take on two different cooking challenges. The first was to recreate a menu from La Bernardin. We decided to go for the four course Prix Fixe with items previously on the menu.

First course: Salmon-Caviar Croque-Monsieur. I bought the best smokes salmon I could find and good quality caviar, but not was Eric serves at the restaurant. Even so, it was hands down, the most flavorful single thing I have ever made. It's basically a high end grilled cheese sandwich: Grilled white bread with smoked salmon, caviar, Gruyère cheese, with chives and cured lemon rind (which took a year to make, but worth it!).

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Second course: Shrimp, Tomato and Basil Pizza. Toasted Philo topped with tomato confit, shrimp and basil. Tasty but very time consuming for two portions.

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Third course: Red Snapper and cepes in port reduction. I couldn't find cepes mushrooms, so I used baby portabellas instead. The port sauce broke when I mounted it with butter, and I couldn't get it emulsified again. The fish could have used two more minutes of cooking on the skin side, but I wasn't keeping track of time very well.

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So all three of the above recipes were in one of Eric Ripert's cookbooks, but my book didn't have any desserts. Mrs Nihon settled on Black Sesame Cherry Dessert - Black Sesame Panna Cotta and Pain de Genes, Sour Cherry Sphere, Shiso, & Mandarin Sorbet. We decided to simplify it a bit, and replace the yuzu merengue with simple whipped cream, and replace the shiso leaf with mint. She spent a good bit of the afternoon learning how to make a chocolate biscuit and black sesame panna cotta. I made the sour cherry spheres using a reverse spherification technique and Mrs Nihon did the rest: biscuits, sorbet, and panna cotta. It was a really great dessert!

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It took all afternoon to create but it was a really fun challenge.
 
Yule proper I was too tired to cook so I went with Gumbo, Round Two which, like next day chili, was fantastic. But the next day, having bought all the stuff after all, it was spice-baked smoked ham, bacon wrapped asparagus, and my ACCURATELY NAMED World's Best Scalloped Potatoes---good thing I used the smaller Corning Ware dish because I went back for seconds and ate them ALL.

Hey, it's like once or twice a year I make them. I can splurge.

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~Boar
 
thinde said:
Wife and I went to our daughters for Christmas dinner and I was in charge of the app’s.View attachment 50561
Click to expand...
I bet Unc is invited to all the gatherings! 😍

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Comfort food more or less tonight for the family. An outstanding filet from this local farm I keep going on about. The meat from this place is amazing! Made some fresh cooked carrots and a 50/50 potato and cauliflower mash to go with it.
 
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