Birthday Dinner: Course 2, Death by Butter Poached Potatoes

Upon celebrating another year of life, I have discovered my choice ‘death’: butter poached potatoes.   I have already notified the SPIKE TV show, 1000 Ways to Die, that I will pioneer drowning in butter.  My margarine-mongering compatriots always told me that rampant use of butter would clog my arteries.  Admittedly, most people’s heart would stop just looking at the recipe and reading: “three sticks of butter”.  Yet, you are not really eating three sticks of butter; you are eating potatoes that were boiled (i.e. poached) in it.  So, just as you do not drink all of the starchy water when you boil pasta, you won’t consume all the butter you used to poach potatoes.   

 

 I think of the poaching process like a potato spa.  The spuds soak in a gentle bubble bath of fragrant wine and shallots, while simultaneously being massaged with melted butter.  They emerge moist and tender, with delicately crinkled skin.  Because they are not greasy or dry on the inside, they lightly dissolve in your mouth like starchy snowflakes.  Butter poached potatoes offer infinitely more flavor than a bland baked potato, and are much more decadent than your fast-food French fries.  Pair with rare steak or lamb for an impressive dinner sprawl.  

We have made the dish several times.  Each time, we (and our guests) have been enraptured with the unique taste and texture, and pleasantly not weighed down by the heaviness that often accompanies potatoes.  Out of necessity, we used red wine this time, however I would stick to the white wine in the future.  Butter poached potatoes are perfect for a dinner party or date – probably a bit too much cooking for your grab-and-go dinner before work. 

Butter Poached Potatoes

Ingredients:

1 stick butter, salted

1 shallot, diced

¼ cup dry white wine

2 T white wine vinegar  

2 stick butter, unsalted

1 bag of fingerling potatoes, sliced

Instructions:

1.       In large saucepot, melt 1 T of butter. 

2.       Add shallots; simmer for about 3-5 minutes.

3.       Deglaze shallots with white wine and wine vinegar.

4.       Whisk in butter, 1 T at a time, while continuously stirring. Keep butter very hot, but not boiling.  

5.       Add in potatoes, cover.  Keep eye on temperature so that butter does not separate while cooking.  Be careful not to burn the potatoes or the butter.

6.       Cook potatoes for 20-30 minutes, or until fork tender.

Asparagus Quinoa with Spicy Butter

   

In lieu of traditional holiday foods focused on fattening you up, I decided to go light for dinner.  It’s not that I despise Christmas cookies, mashed potatoes, or dinner rolls.  It’s half the reason I love being home for the holidays.  I’m just trying to cut down the amount of waddling from the dinner table this season.  

Quinoa has been a health food mystery to grocery stores and home pantries alike.  What do you do with it? Is it a grain? Does it taste good? Is it filling? Truth is quinoa [pronounced keen-wa] is a grain-like crop harvested for its golden seeds.   When cooked, it has a fluffy texture much like couscous or rice.  The nutty flavor and snapping sensation you feel when you eat it makes it uniquely ‘quinoa’ to me.  It is gluten-free, high in protein, and goes with just about anything.  It is also a good source of magnesium, iron, copper and phosphorus.  It has been used cold in salads, hot in soups, as a side dish for dinner or even as breakfast porridge.  Tonight, I paired the quinoa with asparagus, chicken and a spicy butter.

Forget unsalted vs. salted butter –grocery stores should be advertising ‘spicy butter’.  Finally, a cream that carries a kick!  The heat comes from the hot sauce, obviously.  But it also comes from the puckering taste of vinegar and a pungent aroma of wine in the Dijon mustard.  The hearty, ‘green’ taste of asparagus goes well with the sour tinge of lemon juice and Dijon, and is rounded out by the creamy butter.  Pair with chicken or pork, and enjoy a lighter meal that still satisfies you beyond dinner.

Asparagus Quinoa with Spicy Butter

[Adapted from 101 Cookbooks]

Ingredients:

4 T butter, room temperature

2 tsp Dijon mustard

2 tsp lemon juice

Tabasco Sauce/ Frank’s Hot Sauce, to taste

Salt and pepper, to taste

2 T olive oil

1 bunch of Asparagus, cut into about 1 in pieces

1 cup cooked quinoa

1 1/2 cups cooked chicken

Instructions:

1.       In a bowl, cream first 5 ingredients to make the Spicy Butter.  Keep in fridge until ready to use.

2.       Prepare quinoa.  Keep warm.

3.       In a frying pan, sauté asparagus with olive oil until fork tender.

4.       Mix together the asparagus, quinoa, butter, and chicken.  Serve warm, with extra hot sauce if desired.  

Rib Eye of Desire: A New Outlook on Steak

Steak: a thick slab of red meat; cooked rare, browned only slightly from the sizzle-marks of the grill; the fat as crispy as pork rind and the meat so tender and juicy it melts like butter.

It is not Webster’s definition, but it ought to be after what graced my dinner plate last night. Webster’s one-lined description did not adequately fit this Holy Cow. Sure, we started off with a not so “choice” cut of rib eye – we are college kids. It was however, our choice to transfigure it into a prime cut. In this case, the secret to quality is quantity. Large quantities of salt. You want the top of your steak to look like it’s experiencing a mid-winter salt blizzard.

Now before your face contorts in cringing, you do eventually wash off the salt. The reasoning behind using salt is to break down the proteins and improve the tenderness of the meat. Basically, you are taking your callous, tough-guy “choice cut” steak and whipping him into a suave, tender, whisper-sweet-nothings-in-your-ear “prime cut”. How much does this make-over cost? A trip to the grocery store for one bottle of coarse kosher or sea salt. [I actually got my 16 oz bottle at the dollar store – so it was less than a dollar considering I only used about 2 oz or so!] Although, I only spent $12 on two steaks, I managed to maximize the flavor through this method making it equivalent to any steakhouse cut. Pair with some roasted rosemary garlic potatoes and fresh green beans, sit down with some friends and relish your Friday evening.

There are two types of steak eaters: the devourers and the savorers. With the devourers, the plate will be left lonely in no time as there will not be a bite left of your steak. But you just couldn’t help yourself. It was a steak of the moment – you barely had to even chew it as it melted as graciously as butter on your tongue. For the savorers, each bite was so intoxicating you fell into a trance. Your senses overwhelmed, you took it slow just so you could give the appropriate reverence to this steak.

Admittedly, it seems a counterintuitive method to steak-love-making, but it will result in taste bud tingling goodness. Spoon a slab of flavored butter on top to rocket you off to another planet of steak excellence, and never come back.

Rib Eye of Desire

Instruction:

1. Dump COARSE salt on both sides your steak – leave little to no red meat visible. Trust me on this…

2. Depending on the size and thickness of your steak, let salt sit on top for about 30 min to an hour at room temperature. No need to cover – unless you have a fly infestation or something. You can also add seasonings such as thyme, rosemary, garlic, etc.

3. Thoroughly rinse off all salt mixture from steak. Pat dry.

4. Throw on a heated grill. Hear sizzle, flip. Hear sizzle, eat! But in all seriousness, I like my steak rare [you are doing yourself a disservice when you cook it past medium-rare: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3743657.stm ].

Flavored Butter

Instructions:

1. Take about 4 T unsalted butter, let come to room temperature.

2. Cream together with minced garlic, fresh rosemary and thyme, salt and pepper.

3. Roll in plastic or wax paper into log shape.

4. Put in fridge until solid, about 30 min.

Red, White and Blueberry Cake

Summer holidays and American celebrations began the tradition of potlucks. Whether you love or loathe them, most of us will inevitably find ourselves hauling in a bucket of baked beans, a heaping pile of potato salad or the infamous bag o’ chips. Of course, it’s not necessarily about ditching or overhauling the classic dishes. People tend to expect certain staples, and I would recommend not adding anchovies or chocolate sauce to the coleslaw. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t improve on old methods.

Take for example, that all-too-typical, iconic “Flag Cake”. You know that yellow cake with cool whip, strawberries, blueberries like the stripes and stars? As fun as it probably is to make with little kids, if your audience isn’t under the age of 12, I suggest a modified version: a cold blueberry cake with lemon icing. The end product is a refreshing, sponge-like sweet cake with a bit of tangy lemon on top. You don’t get bogged down by bites of just fruit or just cake. Fruit and batter unite to be baked together forever.

The recipe I used from All Recipe’s inspired me to add stiff egg whites to the cake for a lovely overall fluffiness. The icing was my own personal pairing, offsetting the sweet with the sour – turns out it tantalized the taste buds just as I had hoped.

Blueberry Cake

Ingredients:

½ c butter

½ c white sugar

¼ tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 egg yolks

1 ½ c all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/3 c milk

2 egg whites

¼ c white sugar

2 c fresh blueberries

1 T all-purpose flour

½ stick butter, melted

2 c powdered sugar

3 T lemon juice

Lemon zest

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350˚. Grease and flour an 8 in square pan.

2. Soften butter, cream with sugar. Add salt and vanilla. Separate eggs, stir egg YOLKS in with butter mix. Set egg whites aside in separate bowl.

3. Combine flour and baking soda. Alternate gradually milk and butter egg yolk mixture to flour.

4. Coat blueberries with 1 T flour, add to mix.

5. Beat egg whites with electric mixer until soft peaks form. Add ¼ c sugar, tablespoon at a time until stiff peaks form.

6. Fold egg whites into the batter.

7. Pour into pan, bake for 50 min, or until cake test done.

8. Meanwhile, combine last four ingredients to make icing – should be creamy, not too thick. Adjust measurements on icing as needed. Set aside.

9. Once cake has cooled, spread on icing. Store in fridge as long as it will last.