June 2, 2013 Mango Pancakes and Dinner – Sautéed Salmon, Carrot linguine with Garlic Scape pesto and asparagus

I had bought five lovely mangos at Pro’s Ranch Market on Thursday and wanted to make mango pancakes Sunday morning.  So while Suzette made the pancake batter, I cut two mangos into cubes.

Suzette then combined the fresh mango cubes into the batter and made the pancakes and I sautéed a smoked pork chop and Suzette made her Sunday morning Bloody Mary with a stick of fresh celery she picked from the garden and we enjoyed our Sunday morning brunch on the Patio discussing the work we needed to do in the garden. 

After breakfast, we plucked scapes off the top of each garlic plant in about 2/3 of the garden in about an hour.  This was hard work but necessary to stop the development of the seed pod on the top of the plant so the bottom will separate and grow into a bulb of garlic.

We then went to Costco and Suzette bought a TV for the Center and we bought two steelhead halves, asparagus and Chocolate chips.  The steelhead was bought with a view to making gravadlax with it.

When we got home Peter Eller was picking scapes to make vichyssoise, so we had a beer and discussed art for a while.

Suzette went to pick up a grill she bought at Walmart and when she returned we were hungry and she wanted to make carrot pasta so she could test it for the June 22^nd Field to Food dinner.  While she was looking the carrots we had picked from our garden in the fridge, she found a bag of cherries I had bought at Pro’s Ranch Market also on Thursday and I immediately thought Clafoutis, plus we fetched the scape pesto we had made at Debbie and Jeff’s last night.

So we cut about five inches off the tail end off each of the steelhead filets and Suzette breaded them in panko and heated a mixture of olive and grape seed oil and stemmed the asparagus and made pasta and micro grated carrots into the pasta dough and rolled it out. 

When Suzette had rolled out the pasta and let it dry a bit and then cut it into strips, we began cooking.

While Suzette cooked, I pitted the 1 1/2 lb. of cherries and then when she called me to the kitchen to help finish the dishes, I put about 2 Tbsp. cognac on the cherries.  The recipe is on page 392 of the Gourmet Cookbook.

Suzette sautéed the panko coated salmon and started the asparagus steaming.  Then when the water for the pasta came to a boil we threw the fresh pasta into the water and cooked it until it was soft, which took a few extra minutes because Suzette had not rolled the pasta as thinly as she usually does.   I liked the pasta thicker because it had a more resilient toothiness to the bite and that made it seem a more alive food.

I opened a bottle Charles Shaw Sauvignon Blanc ($2.99 at Trader Joe’s) and we took our plates out that patio to eat dinner.   The wine was a noticeably sweet and also a little bitter to Suzette’s taste, if both can be possible in one wine.  But it actually went well with the fish, just like serving cranberry sauce with the fish, but I will not buy it again. 

After dinner I made Clafoutis by sifting 5 heaping Tbsp. of flour and 9 heaping Tbsp. of confectioner’s powdered sugar and ½ tsp. of salt together.  Then I scalded 2 cups of 2% milk and 1 cup of heavy cream and then let it cool.  Then I beat three eggs until well mixed and added them to the dry ingredients slowly by stirring the eggs into the dry ingredients with a wooden spoon.  Then I slowly added the cooled scalded milk after taking the skin that had formed on the top off.  I then poured the liquid into a buttered and sugared ceramic baking dish and then added the brandied cherries and baked it for 55 minutes at 350˚ at which point the custard became firm but moist.  When I tasted it, it was the best yet.  The additional flour seems to have made the custard uniformly thick throughout instead of all of the flour subsiding to the bottom of the dish as it usually does.   We loved it with a little powdered sugar sprinkled on top and a sip of cognac.

Here is a picture of the clafoutis two days later.  Notice the uniform consistency of the custard and that the cherries always float on the top of the custard.  A real success.

 

Bon Appétit