Friday was a long, long day. Between doctor's appointments and shopping, Gio and I didn't get a chance to eat at all on Friday, so by the time we finished our shopping, we had been fantasizing about food for hours. Naturally, when this happens, we end up doing something ridiculously elaborate. It started out with just plain old French onion soup and grew into... well... this. About halfway through we decided that this would be Touga's belated birthday celebration (due to an in-joke between us-- that Touga is French and not Latin), and we just took it from there.

The menu we ended up with was:

Rose Lemonade
Red Wine
Marrow Bones
Baguettes
Prime Rib
French Onion Soup
Banana-Chocolate Creme Brulee

And, of course, in honor of our Seitokaicho, we got a bouquet of red roses for the table.

The meal turned out just too well, so we decided that we needed to share. Bon appetit!


Rose Lemonade



1 can pink lemonade (enough to make 4 cups, or 1 litre)
2 tbsp rosewater
handful of rose petals, washed well

This one's pretty self explanatory. Make the lemonade according to the directions, dump in the rosewater, and then dump in the rose petals. Make sure that those are washed in a little soap and then rinsed well; we don't want pesticides on them.



Pretties! It tastes like lemonade at first, but the aftertaste is of roses, stronger the more rosewater you add.

Then I made the roasted garlic for the baguette. That's really easy, so I didn't list it in the items we made.

Roasted Garlic

1 head garlic
tinfoil
olive oil

Get rid of any papery stuff you can, then cut off the tips of the garlic. Rip off enough tinfoil to cover it, and then put the garlic on it and make a pouch out of it. Dump in enough olive oil to cover the garlic, and then pinch the tinfoil mostly shut, leaving a small hole for the steam to escape through.

It should look like this:



Then you bake it for 30-40 minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit, until it looks like this:



This got chopped up and went in one of the baguettes. Gio made those.

Giovanna wrote:

OMFG HOMEMADE BAGUETTES

2 1/4 tsp dry yeast
1 tsp sugar
1 1/2 cup warm water
4 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp salt



First, let's proof the yeast! That's like kicking it in the ass to make it wake up. Put the yeast, sugar, and warm water in a bowl and mix it all up, then cover it for 10 minutes.



Yay, it's fuzzy and weird! Dump that stuff into the flour and salt and start mixing!



It takes a while, but once it looks like...well...dough, you keep kneading it for a few minutes, then make it into a ball, lightly cover with oil, and put in a covered bowl for a couple hours. Here's Yasha kneading it:



I shoulda took a picture of it before we punched it down, but once it's doubled in size, that's what you do. Then form it into the classic baguette shapes. Unfortunately since our baking stone is small, we went with short and stubby, when baguettes are supposed to be uh...long, and thin. Like Sephiroth's sword.

One baguette we're making straight, for use in ZE SOOOUP. The other? About half a teaspoon fresh chopped rosemary, four roasted garlic cloves, and a couple tablespoons of shredded asiago cheese mixed into the dough and rolled into baguette shape.









Then let them sit on the stone for 15 minutes to inflate a bit, and bake for about half an hour at 450 degrees. Seriously though, it's a watch and wait thing.





They're done!

The next thing I started was the prime rib. We were working in the kitchen at the same time, so a lot of this was going on simultaneously. Gio's not used to the cheapness and availability of the beef here, so she never really seasons it as the taste of beef alone is exotic enough for her. I usually like to use a rub on mine, but I ran out, so I made do.

Prime Rib

Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Tamari to taste

Tamari is basically a darker, richer soy sauce. My dad always used to marinate steaks in soy sauce, so I've developed a taste for that, and tamari isn't really that different. I gave our steaks a salt rub, making sure the salt dissolved, then I left Gio's alone and gave mine a sprinkle of fresh ground pepper and rubbed in the tamari.



After this I just let them sit until the end of the meal, when I threw them under the broiler for seven minutes on one side and about four on the other. They came out medium rare, so I'll have to decrease that next time.

After that, I started the French Onion soup. Unfortunately, I've made this so many times that I just eyeball the measurements, but I'll give you a rough estimate.

Giovanna wrote:

Doing the dishes as you work is a good idea!

French Onion Soup

3 tbsp butter
1 yellow onion
1 red onion
1 white onion
pinch sugar
1/3 cup red wine (use wine you would drink. It really does make a difference. Also, you can use white in this if you object to red, but the taste isn't as full)
about 2 litres (8 cups) beef broth
1 1/2 tsp fresh thyme
Salt and pepper if needed (I hardly ever need them)

To finish:

Two or three slices of baguette for every bowl
Grated Gruyere cheese, 1/4 - 1/2 cup for every bowl
Grated Parmesan (a sprinkle for every bowl)


First, chop your onions into whatever shape you want. I usually just half or quarter them, then cut them into strips. I'm lazy like that. Anyway, then you dump them into the pot with the butter.



Somehow, the picture I took of the next stage has gone missing. What you want to do here is to caramelize the onions. So how I do it is to put the burner on medium high and throw in the pinch of sugar; after that you just fry and fry and fry, constantly moving them, until they're golden brown.

After that, throw in the wine and deglaze (scrape up all the good bits) the stuff on the bottom. Once that's done, the beef broth goes in. Chop up the thyme.



DO use fresh thyme. It tastes so much better than dried thyme. You will be amazed at the difference.

Then you just throw that in with the beef broth and let it all simmer together until you're ready to finish it.




Finishing the soup is easy. Just Chop up the bread slices...



Then put them on the soup in the bowls. Put the gruyere and parmesan on top.



Then broil it for less than five minutes. WATCH IT. The cheese and bread burns FAST, and you want golden brown, not charred black.

Then my last bit-- the marrow bones. Marrow is a fantastic (and terribly rich) treat; you just spread it on bread and be done with it.

Marrow Bones

Marrow Bones
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 350. Sprinkle the marrow bones with salt and pepper, and put them in the oven for half an hour (or longer if it doesn't look like they're cooked).



They come out looking like this:



Delicious, buttery, beefy goodness.

Giovanna wrote:

Chocolate Banana Creme Brulee



1 1/4 cup cream (omg we're using diet cream!!)
1/8 tsp vanilla extract
4 oz bittersweet chocolate
5 egg yolks
1 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp sugar (for topping)
1 banana

The cream and vanilla and sugar need to be heated up. Chop the chocolate up nice and small if they're not chips already, and dump them in, until everything melts together.




The banana you peel and break up. You want to blend it into this cream and chocolate mixture, but since our blender is kinda heug, I dumped the stuff in a mug and took the stick blender to it. You really wanna give it what for.

Whisk the egg yolks, to break them up, but try to avoid putting too much air into them. Then strain the banana chocolate mixture into the eggs. Use a fine mesh strainer, and make sure the mixture has cooled enough not to cook the eggs. Mix that all together and then it's time to cook those bitches! Put your ramekins, or whatever you're using, in a big pan with at least enough water to get halfway up them. Then strain the mixture evenly across the four (that this recipe makes). The reason you keep straining is that for one, you want a very smooth texture. For two, you want as few bubble as possible on the surface. None if you can help it.



300 degrees for about an hour and you get what is pictured here:



These have been chilled in the fridge. Once chilled, take them out and put a thin layer of brown sugar across the tops, trying to make it as even a surface as possible. Pack the sugar down, and place them under the broiler for a very short period of time. You want a rich brown color without it becoming black.



Mmm. Put them back in the fridge until it's time to eat!

Aaaaaaaaaaaand... the wine.



Suits Touga, no?

The money shots:





Yes, we watched Bourdain while we made dinner.

Don't forget to feed the pets if there are any leftovers!