Thread: just wanted to share tonight's dinner with you guys..

I had an old friend for supper yesterday and had decided to make something that they'd never had so I made smoked Cornish Rock Game Hens.

Here they are hanging after coming out of the smoker and right before getting a dousing of cold water to help speed cooling.



Sorry but no pics of the meal which included;

Steamed Asparagus
Steamed Corn on the Cob
Oven Fries
And
Chocolate Parfait with bananas for a dessert

The weather here is a little chilly considering I had the AC on earlier in the week. So a nice all day braise sounded good. A little spring, a little winter, Coq Au Reisling fits the bill.

It started with some leek, onion, and celery. And then a good amount of mushrooms are sliced too.





I bought two whole chickens. The breast meat will be used for lunches this week. The four legs were our dinner tonight and the wings and carcasses were used for the dish. Coq Au Reisling is like Coq Au Vin with a few minor differences, Reisling being one of them. But one thing they have in common is the difficult issue of using a tender, grocer store chicken that cooks quickly to do a long braise that develops a lot of flavor. My solution is to cook it twice. The first braise is done with carsasses and wings. The second with the pieces we will eat. First step is lightly browning the bones and wings and sweeting the veg. Being a white sauce, I don't want too much browning on the chicken.



After the veg and mushrooms sweated out their water, three or four tablespoons of flour were added to make a roux. Then a bottle of Reisling was added, a bouquet garni, and three cups of stock.



This is the first braise that lasts about three hours. After that, a fresh pot and another light browning of the pieces we ended up eating. The sauce from pot number one was strained over that of number two.





Mushrooms and pearl onions were cooked and added. Then it was finished with creme fraiche.







Sautéed spaetzel to finish and another bottle of Reisling.



And for dresser I made a dozen eclairs.

That's a fancy, expensive looking knife.

Very Nice :

It is so hard to find stewing chickens these days

I used to have access to fresh farm raised fryers and stewers, how I miss that. Well along with John's turkeys, pheasants, quail, ducks etc. He raised all kinds of birds.

Many years ago John hurt his back and my dad offered to do his chores for him till he healed up. It took John almost two months but dad was so pleased to be able to help his buddy out.

When Thanksgiving was coming up John announced that he was going to give dad a turkey for helping him out. Dad said QUOTE: "I didn't help you out for a God Damn Turkey"!

And the argument started. Finally dad said he'd take a small one. I had the pleasure of cooking what John considered a small turkey. However I'd never roasted a 35 Pound Turkey before!

Mom and dad had an old enameled roaster that was about 7-8 inches tall and the cover was the same height. That bird barely fit in it.

While roasting the turkey; I had to remove that bird 3 times to drain the fat!

I'll say this; That was the best turkey I ever ate!

Sorry, I'm

Originally Posted by Hirlau

That's a fancy, expensive looking knife.

That's my new Myabi. It's all Damascus and slices through onions and leeks like a freshly honed razor through a mole.

Originally Posted by cudarunner

Very Nice :

It is so hard to find stewing chickens these days

I used to have access to fresh farm raised fryers and stewers, how I miss that. Well along with John's turkeys, pheasants, quail, ducks etc. He raised all kinds of birds.

Many years ago John hurt his back and my dad offered to do his chores for him till he healed up. It took John almost two months but dad was so pleased to be able to help his buddy out.

When Thanksgiving was coming up John announced that he was going to give dad a turkey for helping him out. Dad said QUOTE: "I didn't help you out for a God Damn Turkey"!

And the argument started. Finally dad said he'd take a small one. I had the pleasure of cooking what John considered a small turkey. However I'd never roasted a 35 Pound Turkey before!

Mom and dad had an old enameled roaster that was about 7-8 inches tall and the cover was the same height. That bird barely fit in it.

While roasting the turkey; I had to remove that bird 3 times to drain the fat!

I'll say this; That was the best turkey I ever ate!

Sorry, I'm

That's not off topic. And I love a story about food memories. For me they are defining moments in time.

OCD........when's the cook book coming out ??

Originally Posted by nessmuck

OCD........when's the cook book coming out ??

I would much more settle for a place in the country, fewer obligations, and a small table of hungry guests on a regular basis. There's a million cookbooks out there. And many of them are written by people who I could never live up to. There's nothing new for me to offer in that regard. I'd rather hang here with you guys, pushing each other to get back in the kitchen each day and staying motivated to put plates down for ourselves and those we might live with. When you feed people, you replenish their bodies and make them who they are. That's better than any book.

Originally Posted by OCDshaver

I would much more settle for a place in the country, fewer obligations, and a small table of hungry guests on a regular basis. There's a million cookbooks out there. And many of them are written by people who I could never live up to. There's nothing new for me to offer in that regard. I'd rather hang here with you guys, pushing each other to get back in the kitchen each day and staying motivated to put plates down for ourselves and those we might live with. When you feed people, you replenish their bodies and make them who they are. That's better than any book.

Amen Brother!

I'm going to throw something out there as a point of discussion, loosely related to my last post and maybe more appropriate for its own topic/thread. But these things often lose traction when they are forced to stand alone. So I will post here and let others jump in.

The question/topic, what was the most memorable meal you ever prepared for anyone....or yourself?

For me, it was at least fifteen years ago. It was for an older man that lived in my brothers neighborhood. He was one of those guys that was always there for anyone and everyone when a need arose. When the local church was falling apart, he spent his days tuck pointing the bricks a little at a time to keep it standing. If you were going to be away, he'd be your dog walker, puck up your mail, and keep an eye on your house. My brother and his wife asked me to cook dinner and said that Joe would be coming too. I don't even remember much of what I prepared but for the fact that potatoes were part of the meal. Turns out that old Joe was originally from Poland. And during WW2 he was in a Nazi concentration camp and witnessed some truly horrific stuff. The Nazis used to feed him "bread" made mostly of sawdust. Of course eating that would practically kill him on its own. Joe said that when he was forced to eat that he would dream that one day he would have a potato again. That night he had all the potatoes he wanted among other things. It was an honor to cook for someone who truly felt they would never see real food again and nearly had life itself taken from him. He was so grateful that he had tears in his eyes. What always stuck with me was that here was a guy that had everything, EVERYTHING taken from him and he consistently found ways to give what ever was left. On top of that, he was so grateful that he was emotional. Today that level of sacrifice and despair is just not asked of us here. I don't know how we might handle that today. But for that night, gratitude was shared freely among us. Since then I have cooked many meals for many occasions, mostly for my own satisfaction. But I will never forget that evening for what it meant to each of us individually. Since then my brother had moved out of that neighborhood. Joe was quite old then and is probably gone now. But I have not forgotten that dinner and how humbling the experience was. As heavy as the circumstances were, it was a pleasure and a privilege. Joe didn't want to be known for that and probably would have wanted to be remembered for different reasons. Context matters. When I gave, it came from a place of plenty. When Joe gave, it was literally all he had left. Context matters. A good meal can mean more than you might ever know.