Ready again to cook, with recap

Wow, it is already Tuesday. I never did write up our summary of the final dishes at the CIA - so here they are... quail and pork loin were our given ingredients. Funny enough, out of our 5 teams, 3 had salads as part of their final dishes. We were definitely craving some non-cooked greens!


Deep fried quail on bed of mini greens
We received quail already partially boned and halved - it make our job just that much easier. Susan dried off the birds, a light salt and pepper sprinkling on each part, and they were off to the fridge.

Rebecca whipped together the viniagrette, with red wine vinegar, to bring out some red color against the green color of our greens. For the greens, we received a wonderful assortment of mache and lettuce - we chose to use the mache for the small scale of the leaves and its soft flavor, and the red leaf lettuce for some color and bitter contrast. So you know how fresh the mache was - they arrived still in their dirt pods!

Preparation for this dish was pretty easy, as the seasoning of the birds prepped them sufficiently for flavor. We lightly dredged the birds in salt and pepper seasoned flour just prior to deep frying, and set them into the hot oil. The contrast of the hot and cold, sour with the savory and bitter, and the buttery sweetness of the mache - balance of flavors and textures, a wonderful start to our meal.


Pork loin roulade with dried autumnal fruit, with late summer vegetables
OK, so one part of this was that I wanted a big variety of colors and textures, so I requested young carrots, string beans, and asparagus. For our pork loin, we ended up opting for the pork tenderloin cuts, to avoid having to deal with the bone-in situation in the loin cut. We butterflied the pork tenderloin pieces, and pounded them to 1/2" thickness. Lightly seasoned with salt and pepper, they went into the fridge until we were ready for the wrap.

We prepared the roulade filling by soaking dried apricots in red wine. We also received prunes and fresh cranberries. After about 1/2 hour soak of the apricots, we chopped them up, along with the prunes, for simmering with cranberries to reduce in the red wine. We spiced the filling with cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice, as well as a touch of salt and pepper. Once this mixture reduced by about 1/2, we spread it out on a pan to cool it a bit before the rolling.

We also got some thin-sliced pancetta, which we laid out on our working surface in preparation for barding the roulade. The pork loins went on the pancetta, and the roulade filling went on the loins last. We then began doing the roll, pushing the pancetta up with the loin as the roll progressed. Some twine ties around the roulade, and it was ready for roasting.

While we prepared the roulade, we also cored some bosc pears, and filled them with the roulade filling. We set these filled bosc pears around the roast, and we also filled the remainder of the roasting pan with quartered red potatoes. We blanched the asparagus, carrots, and beans, and lightly coated and seasoned these vegetables with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

This dish provided a nice balance of the sweetness of the roulade filling, against the meaty depth of the barded pork and the lightness of the blanched vegetables. Coupled with our salad dish, we found a way, with the help of student assistant Marion, to not end up with two main entree type courses, and we also found a way to bring some flavors that we were craving after a week of butter-and-cream finishes.


So that was our Friday cooking event! It was a lot of fun, and all in all, the week was really wonderful. I can't say I miss the 5:30 wake-up time, and I am now, back home, thoroughly enjoying my renewed access to my daily intake of raw fruits. Those savory scones of ham/scallion/cheese, however, I will try making at home - they were just so good, savory breakfast in one portable containment!

The rest of the weekend was not remarkable in cooked food. Friday night, as Hubby arrived at the train station, I took him to the Catarina de Medici restaurant on campus, their Italian restaurant. After a week of roasts, grills, pan-fries, and braises, I couldn't even look at the pork tenderloin he ordered (barded in proscuitto), and I sided with the gnocchi with tomato sauce to get a shot of something different from what we ate all week. The meal was wonderful nonetheless, as I have not seen him for a week, and it was fulfilling to be able to sit down to a meal with him.

We then headed south Saturday afternoon, stopped in Hoboken to visit one of Hubby's friends and his family, and then headed to Philadelphia to stay with my father until Sunday. Saturday night, we had dinner with Dad in one of the restaurants owned by the family Kuo - probably the only Chinese food I would ever really enjoy and be able to eat without exhaustion day after day. We ordered some sauteed Chinese broccoli rabe, stir-fried dried tofu with chicken strips (what the manager called the lay-man (their cooking crew) food), and a dish of deep-fried fish with vegetables. Brown rice all around - I knew I craved it!

Sunday, we had dim-sum at another one of the Kuo's restaurants, and what wonderful dim-sum they have! We ordered a variety of dumplings, with mini pork buns, and flaky turnip buns. After lunch, we gathered our things, and headed back down home to DC.

Yesterday wasn't too eventful eatingwise - I enjoyed my variety of Asian apple-pears and apples during the day. Egg salad sandwich with a molasses cookie for lunch, and I was definitely coming back to my first day at work hitting the ground running. I also visited my friend Jess, who just had her second baby - and as she and her Hubby have just moved into their still-under-renovation house, I thought it would be nice to bring some food over for them. And I can hardly believe I'm going to say this, but I will be bringing a roast - just when I thought I couldn't possibly make another one for ages to come!

Tonight, I decided on a simple soup, not too complicated, as I arrived home a little later than usual after my bike ride home (yup, I rode my 14 miles today). Things to report on my bike ride - in the morning and the evening rides, I took my time, didn't push it too hard, since, alas, it has been basically 2 weeks since I took to my bike last. I could definitely feel the lump in my stomach rising as I rode - it's alive! My pants today fit tighter than before, but just before I left this morning, when I took my weight, I still hadn't gained any weight since my weight before the CIA. But by the end of the day, when I stepped on the scale again - somehow, during the course of the day, I managed to gain 5 pounds. I really have no idea how - the only thing I can think of is that my body was retaining a lot of water after my ride this morning, to replenish and rehydrate; and perhaps it was also drawing water from the fruits I was eating. Who knows!

So tonight was my first cooking experience after the CIA. I used some of my learned skills for mise en place, and if there is one thing that I have learned during my time there, it is the need for a certain level of subtlety (no barding, no roasting). I decided on a soup that Hubby enjoys at the Kuos' restaurants...


Seafood egg drop hot/sour soup
I chopped up some carrots and half of a Chinese squash I brought home from Dad's (sorry, I don't know what the name is for it in English, but I do know in Taiwanese it is pronounced "boo-ah"). I also chopped up a flounder fillet and about 6 large shrimps. I had some left-over shrimp shells, frozen from past cooking times, which I browned in olive oil to draw out their sweetness and their flavor. I then added some water to deglaze the pan, and to simmer out more flavor from the shells into the broth. I then strained the broth to remove the shells, and setting the pan back on the heat, I added the chopped carrots and squash. This mixture simmered as is for about 30 minutes on medium heat - I skimmed the scum off the top every so often.

About 5 minutes before serving, I added the shrimps and flounder, skimmed any scum that came to the surface, and I beat in 1 egg white. I seasoned lightly with a touch of soy sauce, a touch of black vinegar, a touch of sugar, some salt, and white pepper. This soup - it was really wonderful. Light, but as Hubby says, hearty without being heavy. The soft, velvet of the simmered vegetables contrasted against the heartiness of the meats. The salty, spicy, and sour flavors of the soup balanced well. It wasn't heavy, though, like a stew - but we enjoyed it immensely. I guess after my week at the CIA, I did learn something all new after all!