Wednesdays are the only day of the week that I can truly consider a day off. On every other day, I have either class or work. It becomes a long day when I have both. Wednesdays are completely free, and what do I do with this free time? I cook a five-course meal for my family and two friends.
It started this morning with an idea to cook a little something new. Then I got going. I went to the store and came back with onions, shallot, herbs, carrots, chicken livers, two pork tenderloins, and some heavy cream. I have had a couple of different chicken liver mousse lately, and I wanted to put my own little spin on the dish. Not that I did anything too crazy, but I also thought that the mousse might be made a little more healthy than most. I generally like to try and eat a healthy diet, excluding occasions when I am around food that is new to me or something special. So in this puree, I wanted to try and include no cream, butter, or egg yolks. I also had to decide how I would cook the mousse. I could either puree the raw livers with other ingredients and cook them in the oven in a hot water bath, or I could cook everything and puree at that point.
I started by sauteeing shallots and garlic in olive oil, adding some thyme and the chicken liver, then deglazing with a good swirl of white wine when the livers were still a bit pink in the middle. Next I took and apple, the type is not too important, but I wanted one with a good bit of sweetness that was not too tart, and I sauteed half of it sliced in in a little olive oil. I added some garam masala, ground cardamom, a touch of ground clove, and some fresh nutmeg that I ground with a microplane. I let the apples get a little soft, then added a good bit of some port wine. I let this reduce some and let the alcohol cook off. I had two different mixtures, and they both were heading for the food processor. I pureed the mixture, adjusted for seasoning, and that was it. I was pretty surprised. The bit of sweetness from the apples, the flavor and acidity provided by the white wine and port, and the spices all complimented each other well. What was also important to me though, was that they complimented the flavor of the liver. They certainly did while also letting the flavor of the liver remain very much at the forefront. This was my first chicken liver mousse, and I know I will be making it again. My friends were a little skeptical, but both had more than one serving. My mom and step-dad were already fans of liver mousse and pate, and they were both pleasantly surprised. It was a good way to start the meal.
Next was a very simple yet flavorful carrot ginger soup. I wasn’t sure I was going to make this, but the carrots at the store looked great, and I knew I had some ginger at home. I started with some chopped onions and garlic sauteed in olive oil with grated ginger. I chopped and added the carrots and cooked then with the aromatics until a bit soft, then I added some chicken stock from the fridge. I let it all cook together for a while until the carrots had softened sufficiently, then pureed the whole thing with an immersion blender, and looked for some coconut milk. To my surprise, we had one can left. Even more surprising was the fact that when I opened the can, there was not milk but some kind of solid that I had to immediately throw away. So I added some whole milk and a couple squeezes of lime, and adjusted for seasoning. I have made the soup before, and it is fairly simple, but I knew that it would go well with the meal, and it went over very well at dinner.
In addition to this, we also had a simple salad of greens and some herbs. I put together a vinaigrette that went along with the other flavors of the meal. I minced some shallots and garlic, turned the garlic into a paste with some salt, and poured in some apple cider vinegar. I then streamed in some olive oil while whisking. I tasted, added salt and pepper, and tasted again. It was an okay dressing, but it needed something. So I walked to the pantry, looked around, came back with some honey, and the vinaigrette was much more complete. One of my friends ask for it for her birthday.
For the main course, I grilled some marinated pork tenderloin. The two pork tenderloins were marinated for a couple hours in shallots, garlic, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, and mint. The next step was very simple. I turned on the grill, waited for it to heat up, and then put the tenderloins on the hottest part of the grill. I grilled them on all four sides until it was finished, a nice rosy pink in the center. I served this with an apple compote of some sort. I diced up a couple apples and threw them in with sauteed onions and garlic and put in a pinch of garam masala. I added a bit of honey and apple cider vinegar then let the apples cook down a bit. When it reached the consistency I wanted, some of the sugars had come out to bring it together, but I did not let the apples turn to mush. Overall, the pork with apple compote was what I was looking for, and it may have been even better when we added some of the vinaigrette to the equation.
For the last course, I made a vanilla custard that I had done before, but I added something that I knew at least one of my friends would love. For the custard, I whisked half a cup of sugar with six egg yolks until it became a light yellow and brought a quart of heavy cream to a boil with the seeds of a vanilla pod, also throwing the pod in to be removed a bit later. I added some sugar to the heavy cream, and when it came to a boil, I removed it from the heat. After it cooled for a few minutes, I slowly introduced the cream to the egg yolks and sugar as to not scramble the eggs. I then poured the mixture into a pan sitting in a hot water bath, and cooked it at 325 for 45 minutes. This was all done in the early afternoon, as I had to put this into the fridge to set for a couple hours. During these couple of hours, I took a can of sweetened condensed milk and boiled it in a pasta pot. After two and a half to three hours… dulce de leche. My friend’s Argentine grandmother would take cream and sugar and boil it down for a couple of hours, and he had great memories of eating it many different ways, so I wanted to do it for him in my own way. Boiling the can like I did is pretty much the equivalent of what my friend’s grandmother had done minus the cooking down of the liquid. In the can, it is already “condensed” and the sugar is added for you. So maybe some would consider it cheating, but I like to consider it a different means to achieve the same end. I had never done it before, but boiling a can in water was easy enough to do. When all of the other food was finished, I left the table for a minutes and opened the can. Inside was a dark, caramel colored syrup. I tasted it. It was sweet with a great caramel flavor, and I knew it would be perfect over the now completely set vanilla custard. I spooned out the dulce de leche and spread it on top of the custard. It was a big hit at the table, and I guess a new dessert that I will have to make in the future.
Overall, it was a long day, but a very successful and rewarding evening. When the end of the day came, I was tired, but I enjoyed the time spent with my friends. As always, it felt great making food for others. It’s fun to play around with new and old recipes, and seeing the fruits of your labor makes it all that much better.