Menu - Thursday 21st June

I really went mad and pushed the boat out this week - I think I overdid it a bit, and had to spend a night in prep, and the Thu cooking the stuff. No matter - it was a great evening.

• Thai-infused carrot soup
• Pan roasted halibut with spinach, caper and parsley emulsion
• Homemade chicken liver and pistachio pate, pear and poilane toasts
  
• Roast loin of pork with crackling, cauliflower cream and garden pea coulis, cranberry chutney
• “Rembrandt” and “Alpine Lace” cheeses
• Spiced apple tart tatin, Cornish clotted cream
• Coffee & fine scotches

Teddy
Jun 2006

Essex Street Market

I cooked some mussels for 2 of my poker buddies last night using Teddy's excellent recipe from Thursday Club Round 3. Forgoing the overpriced & snooty Whole Foods, I decided to face the 90 degree weather & check out Essex StreetMarket (120 Essex Street).

I had passed the large indoor marketplace several times, but had never been inside. When I got there, I was shocked by the sheer selection & quality of the foods. Fresh meats, vegetables & other grocery items were everywhere! I picked up 5 pounds of Mussels for my meal. They weren't the 'cleanest' of mussels (by which I mean, visually; the odd barnacle, etc.), but they were large & extremely fresh (only 3 of the 60 or so mussels were dead by the time I cooked, several hours later). The price of 99 cents a pound astonished me.

I plan to visit The Essex Street Market again to try out some of their red meats. On the whole - this was an excellent shopping experience.

Thursday Club 6/15/06

- Panko Crusted Scallops with Green Chile Chutney.
- Spicy Grilled Tilapia with Creamy Grits & Mushroom Scallion Sauce.
- Chocolate Covered Strawberries, Coffee & More Booze.

My third outing din't fare quite as well as the first two. I normally troll the internet for dinner ideas, gather recipes together & make my own dishes out of the bits of each recipe that I like. Well, the scallops & strawberries turned out amazingly, but I really didn't follow the instructions for the jerk seasoning for the tilapia as dilligently as I should of. The recipe called for a third of a cup of jerk seasoning, which I found hard to believe, so I tripled it to a full cup.

I grilled some carrot slices for presentation & plated my tilapia... Each bite was a 5 alarm fire, hotter than the sun! I guess sometime you have to learn the hard way...