April 21, 2021 Lunch - Pork Noddle Soup. First Post Pandemic Dinner Party - cedar Plank Smoked Salmon with Baked Casarecce Pasta with Sorrel Pesto and fresh shucked Oysters and pannecotta

April 21, 2021 Lunch - Pork Noddle Soup. First Post Pandemic Dinner Party - cedar Plank Smoked Salmon with Baked Casarecce Pasta with Sorrel Pesto and fresh shucked Oysters and pannecotta

I ate fruit salad, sliced banana, yogurt and granola for breakfast.

At 10:00 I drove to 999 Seafood Supermarket.  I bought 24 oysters and a 4 1/2 lb. piece of King salmon I then wandered around and found a jar of pickled leeks.

I then drove to Ta Lin where I bought a canister of almond cookies, three cans of water chestnuts and three cans of bamboo shoots. Mung bean sprouts, and two pho seasoning cube packets. 

When I returned home at 12:30 the plumbers had completed the installation of the new swamp cooler and were waiting to test it.

After they left I made a pot of pork noodle soup.  I filled a 2 quart pot 2/3 full ofvwater and added. 2 tsp. of dehydrated chicken bouillon, a pho seasoning cube, about 2 tsp. of pulse seaweed.  Then I added five stalks of asparagus diced, five mushrooms, chopped salami and prosciutto, 2 T. of Jimmie Dean sausage,  1/2 shallot minced, 1 1/2 T. of red miso, and rice stick noodles and wheat noodles plus a few dashes of sesame oil and  1 T. of Chinese Cooking wine.

After about 30 minutes of cooking everything was cooked.  I added a bit more water because I had added too much chicken broth and the soup was too salty.

I ate two bowls with a squirt of hoisin and a handful of chopped green onions and chopped  parsley.I forgot to add the mung bean sprouts.

I will use some mung bean sprouts to make a Vietnamese omelet for breakfast.

After lunch I checked the market and today it finally went up again a little less than 1%.

I rested until 4:00.  A t 4:30 we started preparing dinner and the party.

I chilled two bottles of Cotes du Provence in the fridge and two bottles of Gruet Brut in the freezer.

We then cut three 1 x 5 cedar planks the length of the fillets that Suzette took to the bathroom to soak in a tub partially filled with water.

Then we went to the garden and picked a large basket of sorrel and Suzette made sorrel pesto in the Cuisinart by stripping the sorrel stems from the leaves and adding olive oil, Pecorino Romano cheese, pinon nuts and salt and pepper and then blending into a paste. 

I filleted the salmon into two large fillets. 

The baked Casarecce pasta dish:

Suzette boiled water and started the casarecce pasta cooking.

We then made the filling for the baked pasta.  I diced 2/3 onion, 1/2 poblano chili pepper, seven or eight white mushrooms and minced 4 cloves of garlic and added them to a skillet Suzette was heating with butter and olive oil to which Suzette added about 1/2 lb. of assorted baby tomatoes clicked in half and sautéed the vegetables until cooked.

When the pasta was cooked, Suzette drained it a mixed in some of the sorrel pesto and tossed it with the sautéed vegetables and a 1/2 lb. of fresh diced mozzarella and put the mixture in a large Pyrex bowl and grated Pecorino Romano cheese on top and put the Pyrex bowl into a 350 degree oven to bake.

While Suzette was finishing the pasta dish, I made a cocktail sauce for the oysters. 

Bob’s Cocktail Sauce - My cocktail sauce is a combination of regular cocktail sauce of catsup, lemon juice and grated horseradish; a mignonette sauce of shallot cooked in either lemon or vinegar; and a crab Louis sauce of mayonnaise and cocktail sauce with the addition of pickle relish optional.

I usually start by soaking a shallot in lemon juice and adding mayonnaise, grated horseradish, and catsup.  Instead tonight I used the PPI tartare sauce I made for the crab cakes last night because it already contained shallot soaked in lemon juice and horseradish plus some pickle relish.  I fetched a lemon from the garage and put the tartare sauce in a medium mixing bowl and added juice of 1/2 lemon, a few dashes Tabasco sauce, another 1/2 T. of grated horseradish, and about 1/3 cup of catsup. I tweeted the sauce until we both agreed we liked it. I then filled two small bowls with the cocktail sauce and put the bowls into the fridge to chill

The oysters - I did not realize it but Suzette’s idea was to integrate the shucking into the first stage of the dinner, so I could join the party outside and our guests could watch me shuck their oysters.

I had fetched the 25 oysters from the garage fridge and Suzette fetched a large enameled bowl and put the oysters in the bowl and we added ice to the bowl and a medium sized Chinese metal tray on which we intended to place the shucked oysters. 

The oysters were beautiful the kind of deep dished oysters with a flat top that you find in Cancale in Brittany.  

I tried to engage the fish monger in a conversation about where the oysters were raised but his English was terrible and I just made him mad asking questions.  I apologize to him and have only the highest praise for 999 Seafood Supermarket for the quality of their oysters even though the price has risen since Christmas when I paid $1.09 per oyster to $1.29 per oyster today. Obviously there are lots of different types oysters and size makes a big difference.  I was happier with these oysters at $1.29 than the oysters I bought for $1.09 last Christmas because these were larger with a more developed deep dish body.

I had shucked five oysters when the guests arrived, Mellisa and her mom, Ruth, and Cynthia and Ricardo. Both coupes brought bottles of wine and Cynthia brought wine glasses filled with pannecotta and a Pyrex died filled with a fresh berry compote.

Suzette had set up the table under the gazebo with the tray for serving the oysters and the cocktail sauce and small oyster forks and the chilled champagne in an ice bucket. 

She moved me from the kitchen to the small metal table under the Golden rain tree near the gazebo where I happily shucked and Melissa carried the oysters on the half-shell to the gazebo table.

This first course went on for a while while I shocked the remaining 21 oysters while occasionally sipping the glass of champagne Melissa brought me.

When I finished shucking I joined the group at the gazebo table and ate the last five oysters.  Everyone ate five oysters because Ruth did not eat any, because, although she sat and watched me shuck, she was “queasy about eating any oysters.”  I wonder when I reach 83 years of age, like Ruth, if I will become queasy about eating oysters. 

After we finished the champagne and oysters, we regrouped at the table Suzette set in the garden, but everyone agreed to move the table to the more secluded patio away fro the strongly blowing wind that was beginning to lift the tablecloth off the table.

Melissa and Ruth moved the table and we all helped move chairs to the new location on the patio which was sheltered from the wind by the house.

Suzette had been smoking the salmon fillets on the the soaked cedar planks on the grill for about 25 minutes. She brought out the bowl of baked pasta and cut pieces of fillet from the fillets on the cedar boards on the grill after she turned off the propane.

I fetched a bottle of Rose and handed it to Ricardo to pour and joined the group at the table. We all toasted and began our simple but elegant dinner of smoked salmon and Suzette then served spoonfuls of baked pasta.

Needless to say everything was delicious. We talked politics and history.  Ricardo holds an elevated local position in the Democratic Party, so he was able to give us some insight into the selection and history of Stanbury, who is running to fill Deb Haaland’s seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.  After we finished the salmon and pasta course Cynthia served the dessert of pannecotta made with cream and gelatin with the berry compote.  The desert was a perfect finish to the meal, a cool refreshing creamy gelatin with brrries.

After dinner Suzette and I showed the guests some of the things I inherited from Jill.

At around 8:30 we all said goodnight and Suzette loaded the dishwasher with the first load of dishes and glasses and got ready for bed by 9:00 to watch Trevor Noah, but turned the TV off as soon as we realized it was a re-run of the interview with Michelle Obama.

I awakened at 1:30 and blogged this blog until 3:30.

Bon Appetit