This was a totally PPI dinner of sorts. We had saved the large claw and arm from last
night’s Broiled lobster dinner and the PPI artichoke heart, pea, ham and
pimiento tapa from Cynthia and Ricardo’s Christmas Day party, so we decided to
make Lobster Bisque and sauté the tapa with some blanched Brussels sprouts that
I found in the back of the vegetable crisper that had not been used for
Christmas Eve.
Here is the recipe that we used from the Joy of Cooking:
At about 4:30 Suzette fetched the stock pot with the lobster
shells and pieces of uneaten lobster we had started last night with the shells
and inaccessible bits of lobster meat and put it on the stove to simmer with a
cubed onion, a chopped stalk of celery, a few chopped carrots, 2 whole cloves, a
bay leaf and 6 peppercorns.
I de-stemmed and quartered the approximately 1 cup of
Brussels sprouts and then I cracked open the claw and removed and cubed the
claw meat which resulted in about 1/2 to
¾ cup of meat and put those shells into the stock pot.
At 5:30 p.m. Suzette said that the Joy of Cooking recipe only
called for 2 ½ cups of stock and there was about 6 cups of stock after she
removed the shells from the stock and that she was going to reduce the stock at
high heat to evaporate off half of the stock to enrich the stock, so Suzette
turned up the heat on the stock and boiled it.
When the stock had reduced somewhat by around 7:00, Suzette
fetched a cup of heavy cream and used the béchamel sauce alternative as
instructed in the recipe but used mostly stock and about ½ cup milk instead of
three cups, to make the sauce and then added stock and cream to make the
béchamel sauce.
The result was a lovely creamy almost white soup since I had
eaten the coral roe last night. Rather than save it for the soup.
Suzette wanted to add dry sherry to the soup, so I fetched
the Amontillado sherry and added about 2 Tbsp. to the soup, as well as a dash
of paprika and a dash of nutmeg. Since
we did not have fresh parsley, finely diced five or six stalks of chives and
garnished the top of each bowl of soup with chives and a dash of paprika.
While the soup was cooking Suzette placed the PPI tapa in a
large skillet and added some olive oil and the Brussels sprouts and sautéed
them until tender. The result was a
little oily but the flavor was superb because the Fresh Brussels sprouts gave
the dish a freshness that it otherwise would not have had.
When both dishes were ready, I opened a ½ bottle of Gruet Brut
and we were ready to eat.
We watched a funny movie with Adam Kutchner and Cameron Diaz
and Queen Lattifah and bunch of Saturday Night folks named “ ????? Las Vegas”
about a couple that meet in Las Vegas and during an all- night binge, get
married and then in the morning want to get their marriage annulled until
Kutchner puts one of Diaz’ quarters in a slot machine and wins a $3,000,000
jackpot and they start fighting over the money in a divorce proceeding. The judge, played by Dennis Miller, makes
them serve a trial marriage for six months and see a marriage counselor, Queen
Lattifah. Predictably, after several
attempts to derail the marriage by drawing each other into compromising
positions, they discover that they really are in love with each other and even
though they go through with the divorce, they get together for real in the end.
I must warn you that our diet will change in the near future
due to Suzette’s New Year’s resolution to lose 25 pounds by April. So we will be avoiding flour, avocados,
bread, rice, potatoes, and other starchy and fatty things and probably reducing
our intake of wine for four months.
Those of you who love meat protein, fresh vegetables, salads and soups
are going to love the next few months’ recipes.
I may even return often to my favorite diet of stir fried
meat and vegetables over rice with hot tea, which is a wonderful winter dieting
regimen.
Happy New Year and Bon Appétit
No comments:
Post a Comment