Tuesday, May 13, 2014

May 11, 2014 Dinner – Grilled Steak, Steamed Asparagus, Tabouli and Béarnaise Sauce and Rhubarb/Strawberry parfaits

May 11, 2014 Dinner – Grilled Steak, Steamed Asparagus, Tabouli and Béarnaise Sauce and Rhubarb/Strawberry parfaits 

We gardened from around 9:30 to 11:00, mostly planting the plant we bought yesterday.  Then at 11:00 Suzette made us each a bacon, lettuce, tomato and egg sandwich, using the new Multigrain English Muffins we bought at Trader Joe’s yesterday.  Suzette's Mother's Day meal was a BLT Sandwich with a Bloody M
Mary.


Before lunch I started making Tabouli by covering about a cup of No. 1 Bulgar wheat (bought at Café Istanbul) with water to swell.  After lunch I drained most of the water out of the Bulgar and added about 1/3 cup of the Moroccan olive oil Daoini sent us in the box we shipped back.
Then I sliced four green scallions and put them into the Tabouli and went to the garden and picked a handful of each of mint and Italian flat leaf parsley.  I chopped the mint and put it in and at 1:00 p.m. Suzette told me that we needed to go to the Downtown Neighborhood Mother’s Day House Tour.  

We saw three or  four older houses being transformed and many that had been remodeled in both the Downtown Neighborhood between Lomas and Central and 11th and 14th St. and three more in the Watson Addition on 16th and 17th St. north of Lomas.  In the Watson Addition we said hello to the new owner of the house previously owned by Suzette when I met her 16 years ago at 709 17th.       The new owners recently moved to Albuquerque from Socorro.   Then we walked across the street to a house on the tour at 707 17th, which was Suzette and Harold’s old house on 17th where they started the Old Town Bed and Breakfast thirty years ago.  Suzette and I said hello to Nancy Hoffman, who bought the house from Suzette and Harold and who still owns the house.  Then we walked to 16th street and said hello to our old friend Jack, who owns Model Pharmacy at 3636 Monte Vista and was outside his house saying goodbye to a couple from Denver.  Then we walked across the street to 709 16th, which is a two bedroom one bath Watson home that has been completely remodeled by an architect and sits behind Suzette’s old house at 709 17th St.

The tour ended at 3:00, so after visiting Milly Santillanes’ house at the corner of 17th and Granite we went home.

At 5:30 we started cooking.  I finished the Tabouli by chopping up the handful of parsley and then two Roma tomatoes.  Then around 6:00 when T.R. and Linda arrived, I started the Béarnaise sauce.  I chopped up a medium shallot and put it in an enamel sauce pan with about 2 Tbsp. of fresh tarragon and ½ cup of white wine and 1/3 cup of white wine vinegar and dash each of salt and white pepper.  I then reduced that to about two Tbsps. and strained the liquid into another pan to which I added three egg yolks as Suzette put the steaks on the grill.  I added ½ lb. of butter in about 1 Tbsp. pats and stirred the sauce over a low heat to keep the sauce from boiling or breaking.  I added a few pieces of shallot and tarragon back to the sauce to give it some texture.  Since I had used 3 egg yolks and only ½ lb. of butter the sauce thickened quickly and was ready in about fifteen minutes, shortly after Suzette brought the two grilled steaks in.  I open a bottle of Famille Perrin Cotes Du Rhone Reserve and we finished the bottle of 2011 Tuella Douro with dinner.  We ate on the patio and had a lovely conversation about Morocco.  We stayed in Linda and T.R.’s apartment in Marrakech and Daoini is one of the persons with whom T.R. works and has helped get established as a merchant in Marrakech.  T.R. and Linda were kind enough to remodel the apartment in anticipation of our arrival and it is now available for rental on their Nomads-Santa Fe website.  Here is a picture of the apartment and the rental contact information.





While I was making the Tabouli Suzette cooked the rhubarb and went to the store to buy two quarts of strawberries and made a rhubarb and strawberry compote for dessert which she served in parfait glasses with scoops of Fage Greek Style yogurt.  The yogurt helped digest the steak.


Bon Appétit      

No comments:

Post a Comment