April 8, 2015 Dinner at the Palmer’s Sous Vide Lamb chops with salad, asparagus, and three kinds of potatoes

April 8, 2015 Dinner at the Palmer’s   Sous Vide Lamb chops with salad, asparagus, and three kinds of potatoes

I forgot to take my key with me when I went to Santa Fe and locked myself out of the house, so I walked down to the Palmers.  Susan was gracious and offered me some duck paté (Whole Foods) and Boursin with red wine and toasted French bread so I stayed and waited for Suzette to arrive from Santa Rosa.  Susan soon asked if we wanted to join them for dinner and I said, "Yes".

They had PPI Sous Vide lamb chops and Susan made a nice salad and steamed some asparagus and made potatoes three different ways.  She boiled and sautéed slices of red potato, roasted whole butter potatoes and boiled butter potatoes.  Although the roasted potatoes were a bit over cooked and doughy, I loved the sautéed red potatoes and the boiled butter potatoes, which were small and reminded me of eating new potatoes when I lived in Sweden for a year.

The sous vide lamb chops were delicious.  Charlie put garlic salt, salt and pepper on them and grilled them on the grill before serving them to add a charred flavor.  Charlie’s ability to prepare sous vide dishes with good flavor is rapidly improving.  At dinner Suzette described additional dishes the kitchen staff at the Greenhouse Bistro have developed for sous vide preparation, like combining a salmon filet with tarragon, a slice of lemon and butter.

At dinner Charlie proposed an experiment.   We had gone in halves on a side of rib eye steaks recently.  Charlie had sous vided his steaks and froze them soon after we bought them. I instead asked Suzette to age them on Himalayan rock salt for 20 days.   Recently Suzette brought the aged steaks home.  After aging the steaks, the kitchen staff at the Greenhouse Bistro and Bakery, put each steak into a cryovac bag and froze it.   So the next day I took one of the frozen aged steaks to Charlie.  His experiment is to sous vide the aged steak and then grill it and the un-aged sous vide steak a bit to give them a bit more flavor and then we will do a blind side by side tasting of the two sous vide steaks to see which one we like the best.       

Susan and Charlie do not drink wine but Susan always buys good wine at Costco for their dinner guests.  Tonight was no exception, Susan first served a bottle of Spanish Rioja Eguia Reserva Tempranillo and then a bottle of Bourgogne pinot noir red.

We loved dinner and not having to cook.

Bon Appétit