Valentine's Day: Raspberry, Chocolate, Blood Orange Bread Pudding

I'm pretty new to the whole Valentine's Day thing. When I was in the restaurant business, it was easily our busiest time of the year. Imagine doing a month's worth of business in a one- or two-day stretch, each table being sat twice a night and served seven courses! It took a week before Valentine's Day to prep for the special menu and it took a week after to recuperate. Besides never being home for Valentine's Day, I was also a zombie. It is still a wonder to me that Ann stuck by me through all that.

This year, I wanted to do something special to surprise her. Because of COVID, going out is not an option. But realistically, because I was in the business and know how stressed restaurants are under the crush of business, I would never go out for Valentine's dinner anyway. Still, I cook dinner every night and so cooking dinner would not really be special. I opted instead to make a special brunch.

Raspberry, Chocolate, Blood Orange Bread Pudding

What was different is that for brunch I made something totally out of left field. We don't eat sweets, fruit aside, and our diet is very low in simple carbs. So naturally, I made a Raspberry, Chocolate, Blood Orange Bread Pudding because that would be the absolute last thing that she would expect from me. And I made it under Ann's nose. She didn't know anything about it until about 45 minutes into its baking when it started to perfume the house. I served it with blood orange segments on top to help cut the sweetness.

A Jam Bread Pudding

This bread pudding was inspired by my mother's mother. When I would visit my grandmother during college breaks, she would sometimes smear slices of white bread with butter and jam and shingle them in the bottom of a pan. She would then pour a custard over the bread and a few minutes later, a bread pudding would emerge from her oven.

The challah-based savory bread pudding that I made for New Year's Brunch cemented for me that soft breads such as the store-bought white loaf bread that my grandmother used do not make great bread puddings. A good bread pudding needs a hearty bread with a good crust. A lot of the charm of a great bread pudding is the contrast of the soft interior with a crunchy crust, something you do not get from indifferent bread.

I bought a good quality focaccia for this bread pudding. I used focaccia because it is the depth of my pan and so I could expose the focaccia crust through the top of the pudding. Assembling the bread pudding on the QT was something of a challenge. Each time Ann would leave the room, I would do a bit more: slicing the bread, spreading raspberry jam on each slice, chopping a block of chocolate, making the orange-vanilla custard base, putting all the ingredients together, and "hiding" the pudding in plain sight in the back of the refrigerator.

I made a quart of custard base: a quart of 2% milk, a splash of vanilla extract, the zest of one blood orange, five eggs, and a scant half a cup of sugar. Initially, the pudding took about half the custard, the remainder of which I put in the refrigerator and used to top off the pudding before I went to bed the night before. In all, the pudding took about 3-1/2 cups of custard base.

Valentine's morning while Ann was brushing her teeth, I put the pudding in the oven. She had no idea what was going on until it was just about done and started making the house smell great.

Mimosa, Crossword, and Ed-Made Valentine's Day Card

It's our morning ritual to have our coffee along with a crossword puzzle from the Sunday New York Times. I left a Valentine's card on the table where we do our crosswords. I always make Ann a card (having never felt that buying a card from the store expresses anything about me except that I was lazy) and this year was no different.

When Ann was upstairs printing the crossword puzzle, I brought in the bird condo that you see in the photo below as another surprise for her. She had expressed interest in having one (along with explicit instructions: "the center has to be red") some weeks ago and I demurred, having already a very long list of woodworking projects on my list.

As I was working on those other projects, I took time and converted scrap lumber to the bird condo for her. It now adorns our back gate.

Bird Condo Above Our Back Gate

Once the bread pudding came out of the oven, I made us some mimosas and we sat down to splurge for Valentine's brunch. As good as this bread pudding was, I'd rather have had a savory bread pudding. Note to self.

Brined Roasted Steelhead with Fennel-Orange Slaw

We end up eating a fair amount of steelhead trout and salmon, to the point where I am looking for ways to cook it other than on the grill or in a steel pan. I remember years ago at the restaurant, sometimes I would brine and roast fish and that's what I decided to do in this case. Brining gives fish a silky, sexy texture and this piece of steelhead was amazingly moist and delicious.

Brined Roasted Steelhead with Fennel-Orange Slaw

It's hard to come up with garnishes for dishes in the middle of winter because so few things are in season. Fortunately, winter is a great time for both citrus and fennel. On spying a nice fennel bulb at the market, I brought it home to make into slaw for the steelhead. Haricots verts have very good shelf life and are not too bad during winter, so I brought some of those home to roast as well.

Brining Steelhead

A decent brine is a tablespoon of Kosher salt per cup of water. For this brine, I put two tablespoons of salt and a tablespoon of sugar in a pint of water. The steelhead was in the brine for about two hours. Even ten minutes in the brine improves both texture and flavor. I did not salt the fish otherwise.

Fennel-Orange Slaw

This fennel-orange slaw could not be any simpler to make. It contains one fennel bulb, core removed and shaved, the segments of two large navel oranges, and a bit of shaved red onion. It is seasoned with salt, sugar, red wine vinegar, and the orange juice that I squeezed from the oranges after removing the segments.

Mediterranean-Inspired Mussels

Ann and I bought a couple pounds of delicious Washington State wild-caught mussels on a recent trip to the seafood market.

Mediterranean-Inspired Mussels

I had in mind to reprise a version of mussels that we did sporadically at the restaurant. We had mussels on the menu every day, but the preparation would change every other day or so, including new preparations and old stand-bys such as this one. Annie, I'm sorry that we're not eating bread now with which to sop up the juices.

Mediterranean-Inspired Mussels

At the restaurant, this dish would have also contained little bits of hard Spanish chorizo, but we're not eating that much meat at home, otherwise, this dish is almost identical. It depends on the spicy Calabrian chile, which has a salty and smoky flavor that other chiles cannot match.

The following quantities are sufficient for two pounds of mussels, which makes two hearty bowls or up to six appetizer portions.

1 tablespoon olive oil
4 cloves garlic, slivered
1 teaspoon Calabrian chile paste
4 piquillo peppers, sliced
zest of one orange, in long strips
1 pinch saffron
1/4 cup dry white wine

Warm the olive oil over high flame in a pan large enough to steam the mussels and add the garlic slivers. Cook until they start smelling good.

Add the chile paste, piquillos, orange zest, and saffron. Stir for a few seconds.

Add the white wine and then the mussels.

Cover and steam the mussels until they open, 90 seconds for this size, up to four minutes for the really large blues we used to get at the restaurant from Cape Cod.

Chipotle Rockfish with Mojo Black Beans

Chipotle Rockfish with Mojo Black Beans

We had some scraps leftover at the restaurant this weekend: trimmings from two huge Rockfish that I butchered and the tail end of a huge can of black beans. I brought them home for dinner Tuesday night.

I have taken to throwing fish scraps on a sheet tray and roasting them in the oven until done. They're not picturesque, but it seems better than throwing the scraps into a stock pot. These I tossed in a bit of oil, salt, and chipotle adobo before roasting.

For a couple of days, Ann has been talking about mojo. That got me thinking about the black beans. Because it is so warm now, I decided to try a black bean salad with a mojo dressing. It worked really well though I never had any reason to believe that it wouldn't be fantastic.

To the black beans (about a half a gallon) I added a quarter of a yellow onion in small dice, a diced poblano, three small tomatoes in dice, the supremes* from two oranges, and about a half a cup of thinly chiffonaded culantro. The dressing was pretty simple: juice of a lime, the juice from squeezing the remains of the two oranges, a splash of EVOO, cumin, salt, oregano, and a healthy splash of chipotle adobo for heat.

Really simple. Really fresh. Really good. The beans are a keeper.

*supreme is the fancy chef word for seedless and rindless orange sections.

Arugula and Duck Salad

Arugula and Duck Salad

I love a good salad and seeing some baby arugula at the farmers market on Saturday caused me to want a salad, so I grabbed a bunch of random salad things on my way home Saturday night: a pomegranate, a roasted duck breast, a few orange segments, some shaved fennel, some toasted pine nuts, and a little grated Manchego cheese. I made a dressing of mustard, balsamic vinegar, and extra virgin olive oil. I ate three helpings!

Puerco con Mojo y Arroz Amarillo

Puerco con Mojo y Arroz Amarillo

The starter in Ann's Jeep decided to crap out on Saturday, effectively quashing any plans we may or may not have had to get out and about on Sunday. And so we planned to stay home and cook. First, we went up to the grocery store in my beater truck to score some turkey thighs for Thursday: they're not super popular and so the store never orders many of them, making them difficult to come by. But score we finally did. And while we were there, we starting surfing the aisles for some inspiration for dinner. Nada.

So off we went to FoodMaxx where we do the bulk of our shopping, hoping to see something that would trigger an idea for dinner. As we were turning into the parking lot for FoodMaxx, Ann asked, "What about that Cuban pork you do and arroz amarillo?" Done!

To be fair, the dish I do is no longer strictly Cuban, but a hybrid of Cuban puerco con mojo and Mexican (or New Mexican) chile verde, in that my sauce is a mash up of mojo and salsa verde. We got some garlic, a pork picnic shoulder, tomatillos, limes, orange juice, and culantro.

Pork Shoulder in the Slow Cooker

Without my good knives at home, skinning and boning out the pork shoulder was nearly impossible, but after 15 minutes of struggle, I managed to get most of it "cubed" and into the slow cooker. The skin and bones will go into my stock for Thursday's gravy, along with a couple of chicken carcasses that I have stashed away and a bunch of turkey necks.

Veg Ready for Roasting

 

Roasted Veg and Fresh Culantro, Ready for Blender

I roasted some yellow onion, tomatillos, poblanos, and garlic and then transferred them to the blender along with the bunch of culantro that you see in the photo above. I added lime juice and orange juice, my hack to replace the sour oranges that we almost can never get here in Virginia, cumin, lots of oregano, salt, and a few red pepper flakes (this is not a spicy dish).

Pork and Sauce Ready for Cooking

About five hours in the slow cooker while we watched movies and the pork was done. I removed the mojo to a pan and reduced it until it was thick and then put it back over the pork. Meanwhile, I made a little achiote oil and then cooked a little diced onion, diced poblano, thinly sliced culantro, and minced garlic in it. Then I added salt, rice, and water and 15 minutes later: arroz amarillo. To make achiote oil, warm a few achiote seeds in oil until the oil is strongly colored and then strain the seeds out. There is no reason to ever use prepackaged junk (such as Goya Sazón) to make arroz amarillo.

A Lazy Summer Sunday

Money being tight these days, we are spending a lot more time at home cooking and playing on Sundays that we would normally do during the summer. I really, really wanted to go to Glen Manor Vineyard this weekend, but that costs money we don't have, so I shut my mouth and we put together a great menu for the day.

Wine Line Up: Argyle Pinot Noir and Elk Cove Pinot Gris

It ended up being an Oregon wine day. We had Elk Cove Pinot Gris with our shrimp croquettes for lunch and Argyle Pinot Noir with our mussels for dinner. We had a local Catoctin Creek Petit Verdot on hand as well, but it never got opened.

Annie Frying Her Shrimp Croquettes

Shrimp Croquettes: Roux and Shrimp, Chilled and Breaded

Sometime this past week, Ann had made shrimp croquettes by folding cooked shrimp into a thick roux, chilling it, molding into croquettes, and rolling them in panko. She fried them up for lunch on Sunday. They were delicious with the Pinot Gris.

Watermelon Salad with Mint, Feta, and Red Onions

Mussels with Chorizo, Red Onions, Fennel, Garlic, and Orange Zest

For dinner, I made a watermelon salad by dicing seedless watermelon and feta and mixing that with thinly sliced red onion and chiffonaded fresh mint from the garden. A pinch each of salt and pepper and a splash each of extra virgin olive oil and Sherry vinegar finished the salad.

A big bowl of mussels accompanied the watermelon salad. I started by cooking the onion, garlic, and chorizo, then adding a bit of fennel confit (grilled, slow poached in oil, and covered in a tangy vinaigrette) and white wine. The mussels went in and finished steaming in a couple of minutes. I pulled them out and then reduced the sauce just slightly and poured it over the mussels. A good loaf of crusty bread hot out of the oven finished our lazy summer Sunday supper. A great day at home with my wife!

Steelhead Trout with Orange-Bean Sauce

After pigging out for the holidays, we're both feeling the need to eat lighter and so I brought home some salad fixings and a side of Steelhead Trout.



I Love Salad

I don't fix that many salads, which is a bit odd, because I love them a lot. This one is very simple: torn butter lettuces, grape tomatoes, blanched haricots verts, and some croutons I made from a piece of stale baguette found on the counter, all tossed in balsamic vinegar and a drizzle of olive oil.



Steelhead Trout with Orange-Bean Sauce

Many people are not familiar with Steelhead Trout, a sea run form of Rainbow Trout. For all intents and purposes, you treat it like salmon, which is to say that I left it skin on after pulling the pin bones and then seared it hard on the skin side to crisp and gently finished it on the other side, so that it was still medium in the middle.

I'm not usually a sauce guy: I like to buy the best proteins I can find and let them stand on their own merits, so it is highly unusual that I made a sauce for this trout. In retrospect, not sure why I did. It was fine, but the fish didn't need any help. The sauce is a reduction of orange juice with finely minced fresh garlic and fresh ginger, thickened with a tablespoon of soy bean paste, and glossed with a teaspoon of sweet butter.

Easter 2013

In between snowstorms and rain falling from sullen grey skies, the sky became clear enough on Wednesday evening for me to see the full moon, meaning that Easter was just around the corner. I had thought about it a little bit about a month ago when Ann first brought up doing lamb again for Easter. I thought about it for about five minutes, long enough to scratch out a menu on my clipboard—yes, in this digital world, this particular dinosaur's personal assistant is a clipboard—and then promptly forgot about it until I saw the full moon.

I don't know why, but it somehow seemed fitting to do a little Greek food for Easter this year. I just had a hankering for some honest, home-cooked Greek food with no shortcuts. So I set about this menu on Good Friday by getting my pita dough started and then prepped most of the dinner on Saturday during the day, and what little was left over à la minute on Sunday.

Tom and Ann Matthes joined us for dinner. We had expected Ann's parents but her dad, Bob, was not feeling well. We missed them.

Mezés

Olives

Pita

Taramosalata

Marinated Cucumbers

Dolmades

Dinner

Arni Lemonato (Slow-Roasted Lamb)

Roasted Potatoes

Horta: Spinach Braised with Onions and Dill

Dessert

Orange Salad with Pistachios, Candied Pine Nuts, Feta, Mint, and Olive Oil
Cheeses

Dolmades and Marinated Cucumbers

Top to Bottom: Tzatziki, Olives, Taramosalata

I made tzatziki from really awesome goat milk yogurt and traditional taramosalata from bread, tarama, olive oil, grated onion, and lemon juice. I wish that my tarama (mullet roe, bottarga) had a more pronounced fishy flavor, but it was still good.

Ed-Made Pita

As I mentioned earlier, I started pita dough on Friday to let it ferment through several rises to develop flavor. Then I baked several sheet trays of it on Saturday and rewarmed it in the oven on Sunday. I make pita from the exact same dough that I make focaccia and pizza dough. And I make naan from the same dough, substituting yogurt for the olive oil.

Arni Lemonato me Patates, Horta

For the lamb this year, I decided to go with shanks because they are my favorite cut, but I decided to do something different: slow roast them. For whatever reason, I have always braised them in the past. I cut 5-6 slits in each shank and inserted a sliver of garlic, rubbed them with olive oil, and gave them a generous sprinkle of salt and pepper, then roasted them in a very hot oven for about 20 minutes, turning once, until they were browned all the way around. I squeezed a couple lemons over the shanks and sprinkled them with oregano, then added about four ounces of water to the bottom of the roasting pan and double-wrapped it in foil. The shanks cooked in a slow oven for an additional two and a half hours.

I scored some pretty Kennebec potatoes at the farmers market and they got roasted in a very hot convection oven until crispy done. The star of the plate was the horta, the greens, which I only wilted instead of braising. I only used spinach this time because Ann is a bit iffy on other greens and I wanted her to enjoy them. I sweated a finely diced onion in olive oil with several slivered cloves of garlic, then added the spinach and just wilted it. Into the pan next went a little feta cheese, fresh dill, and the first tiny mint leaves of the year from the garden. A quick season with salt and pepper and we had a fabulous side dish.

Tom's Cheeses: Gouda, Detroit Street Brick, Gorgonzola, Cabot Cheddar

Tom and Ann brought cheese for dessert. The orange gouda and the goat brick, I've already discussed in a prior post. The cheese in the front right is Cabot's (yes, the same people who make so-so block grocery store cheese) Clothbound Cheddar, that has been aged by affineurs in Vermont for a minimum of 13 months. Really, really delicious Cheddar that even the Brits would be forced, albeit most grudgingly, to admit is worthy. The hit of the day for me though was the Gorgonzola Naturale, just above the Cheddar in the photo. The texture is just so damned creamy and perfect on this particular wheel of cheese. Splendid!

Blood Orange Salad

No doubt we all know by now that I just don't care for sweets for dessert, though I do have a fondness for fruit. So I made a salad of sliced blood oranges and then tossed chunks of blood oranges with olives and feta and put that over the sliced oranges. I drizzled this with honey and extra virgin olive oil then sprinkled it with salt, pistachios, candied pine nuts, and the cutest, tiniest baby mint leaves from the garden.