Six Courses at Chez Berliner's

the players

picture the scene: two dear friends visiting from canada, Babe, 9 months pregnant with Lucas, a chill to the air outside... what else is there to do but to go big and have an intimate dinner party? first up, the players: me and Babe (and, technically, Lucas), Myra, friend, co-host, chef, Maurice, guest and photographer, and Anita, guest. observe:

the dinner soirée
this is my cooking blog so i'm just going right to the food. and there was lots of it. as usual, babe set the mood with her beautiful decorating ~ sort of an enchanted winter dinner party feel. dinner, 2 days in the making, took 3 hours to consume, which was really rewarding... felt very european as a matter of fact, with a laxidasical pace, endless conversation, free flowing wine and, of course, the food. when the last drop of mango sauce was licked from the beautiful dessert dish, maurice looked at his watch and exclaimed, "holy, it's 11pm!"

come to think of it, "rewarding" isn't strong enough ~ it was downright invigorating! as noted in an earlier post on Why I Love This..., it's in the combination of food and friends, exhibition and glory (or not sometimes!), and, of course, butter, that i find so much pleasure. and this night, this dinner that slipped 3 hours out from under us without shaking a glass, this experience was a savory hallmark in what i hope will be a lifetime of such events...

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the enchanted table

a la foxy wife

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amuse bouche

gruyeré cheese gougers

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first course

butter nut squash soup

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second course

dungeness crab salad, mixed greens, pomegranate dressing

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third course

sweet potatoe agnolotti, curry emulsion sauce

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fourth course

seared halibut, broccoli rabe, citrus vanilla buerre blanc

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fifth course

sierra nevada pale ale braised short ribs, fingerling potato coins

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sixth course

vanilla bean panecotta, mango compote, homemade pistachio biscotti

so there you have it, six courses at chez berliner's courtesy of todd and myra. you can find the complete album of Maurice's Fabulous Photos on, again you guessed it, facebook. in case you're not cool enough (i kid) to see his photos, here's the gist of the food shots. oh, and hey, don't feel bad, i had to make a six course meal to get access to these photos (again, i kid)!

The Sauce...

last night, and of course i truly wish i would have photographed more, I experimented with a really big sauce. I tried, with varying degrees of success, to butcher 2 cornish game hens (more on that below) and to make a sauce from the carcases.

so let's get to the good stuff already, eh? the sauce. oh the triple distilled sauce. i can't even wait, i have to show you what i'm talking about with another classically crappy food shot by yours truly:

there's some mash and, if i do say so myself, a wonderfully crispy skinned cornish game hen leg, and the sauce! now, i know i need to get help on presentation - i just can't figure out any interesting ideas or new ways to plate potatoes, meat and sauce. i guess in teh end stacking is probably the most interesting but oh well, in person even the plate above looked much nicer. ah, i digress...

making the Sauce...

so the sauce was made by putting the remains of my game hen butchery ~ 2 wings and 2 carcasses cut into chuncks with a cleaver (that was actually 7x as fun as it sounds and i'mpretty sure i'm going to have to figure out a way to cleave things more often. i think i may have actually yelled a chinese word when i did it. awesome), a sliced carrot, a sliced onion and 2 smashed cloves of garlic into a small roasting pan. all that love went into a hot oven for about 45 minutes. i added water periodically to prevent the juices from buring on the bottom of the pan.

when the carcasses and veg were browned and the drippings smelled great, the pan came out of the oven and onto the stove top. a cup of stock was added and then the liquid was reduced 'till it caramelized on the bottom of the pan. another cup of stock, another reduction (this is where all the big bold flavor comes from) and it was ready for the 3rd and final reduction. for this last one, thyme sprigs and a bay leaf were added along with the stock. this reduction was only about 1/2 the volume and then the whole affair was strained into a saucepan. (then strained back and forth 3 or 4 times for good meausre!)

this left us with a rich and fairly thick jus. after sauteeing the game hen legs in another pan, the fat was poured out and the jus was used to deglaze the pan. swirl in butter (lots, duh!) and season and viola! this was the best, most rich and complex sauce i've ever made. dig!

butchering the game hens

I suspect that most people who cook a lot, including my mom, are well familiar with buying a whole chicken and taking it apart. It is probably taken for granted, an unavoidable lesson learned by anyone with the slightest bit of sense and the desire to cook at home.

well, despite my strong desire to cook at home, my lack of "the slightest bit of sense" meant that i had face down these two game hens ~ and learn the hard way. the major "duh" moment was discovering that poping out the joints by hand, such as the thighbone from the back bone, and THEN cutting away the surrounding skin and flesh was far easier, and far neater, than trying to just cut through the joints.

oh yea, go ahead and laugh, you should, but i'm not even gonna get into the other idiodicies of my adventure - in stead i'll tell you that in the end, i was successful and those 2 game hens ended up as 2 very neat carcasses and a plate of 4 beautiful breast fillets and 4 lovely, semi-bonless legs. (ok, that was one of the greatest things i learned - take out the thigh bone but leave the drumstick bone! makes for a very nice presentation AND you get to eat the succulent thigh meat without having to negotiate around a bone - very nice.

anyways, random post, sorry bout that. gonna try to focus a bit more in the future - this was supposed to be about the sauce, not my rambling. always learning lessons.

Finally Steamed, Bamboo Style

for years i've owned the classic chinese bamboo steamers and for years i've been too afraid to use them. not sure why really, since the process is so simple. but the fact remains, i've never busted them out. well today the trend of senseless fear came to an end.

i steamed. it rocked. observe...

Guest Stars

just some random shots of the superstars who have graced my kitchen recently. first up, myra jung, crafting a smokey, baconlicious, butternut squash soup. next up, maurice li, serving the soup that myra just made, and lastly, a chinese feast by our dear friend hedda cheuck ~ steamed fish with green onion, spareribs, steamed egg ~ just general deliciousness! thanks all...

Ribs ~ Pork Babybacks, Beef Short ~ Need I Say More?

The beef short ribs, done up for practice prior to unleashing on future dinner guests, were braised in beer (cuz we all know how much i L-O-V-E beer) and hoisin sauce. The asian inspired, sweet twist on beer braised came from a Dave Lieberman recipe found here on the Food Network (hey, pipe down now). First, slow cooked meat rocks, second, browning on the extra burner of my grill out back was like the best idea I've had since proposing to foxy wife. No fire alarms, no 6 hour aromatic reminder of browned meat and the consumption of some of the beer that would soon be braising the meat - doesn't get much better. The method you ask??
* brown ribs thoroughly (outside!)
* move to stove top w/ a bottle of ale, ginger and garlic for 2 1/2 hours
* remove some of the braising liquid to a saucepan, add hoisin, reduce to thicken sauce
* move ribs, braising liquid and added hoisin to 350 stove for 1/2 hour
* plate fingerling potato puree, reduced sauce, top w/ rib, garnish w/ chives

Next on our carnivorous culinary chronicles? Pork baby backs... Ah the mighty pig - you may oink innocently, but in truth you rule my world like the mighty north star guided countless sailors across the globe. Yup, I lovepork and I love pork ribs. Oddly enough, despite all the wisdom to the contrary, I prefer to dry roast my ribs in the oven instead of using a braising liquid (much less boiling)! Rather than ramble, I'll get to the goods:

* brown sugar, paprika and other spices rub, wrapped tight overnight (use your favorite spice rub or google one up!)

* removed from fridge and brought to room temp

* roasted at 250 for 2 1/2 hours, or until the ribs are sticking out of the meat and turn easily when twisted (I got a tip from some Youtube video about wrapping and roasting directly in saran wrap and foil)

* Once roasted, finish on hot grill, basting w/ sauce - in my case I used 2, a classic BBQ and a peanut butter/hoisin/lime/seasame sauce

* plate fingerling puree, garnished w/ fried onion strips, ribs and serve with BEER OF COURSE!

* (yes, i realize i need a new protein but stay tuned for an up coming post in which i actually serve meat w/ something other than mashed potatoes - gasp, i actually use veggies! ok, close your slacked jaw, it's not that crazy...)

Why I Love This...

Good friends and good food, that, plain and simply, is why i love cooking, why i sweat over the hot stove, why i drive myself scattering about the kitchen like a cracked out weasle. i love the frenzy which is really odd for me, a departure from my natural self dilusion of calm that is actually just laziness. poor babe often laments my maniacal nature in the kitchen so i've been workin' hard to just let the love in, share the load, and not foam at the mouth when someone pitches in. i mean hey, if it's food and friends i love, why not love friends helping to prepare the food? (and yea, the obvious answer is that i just want all the glory and praise... why lie?) so here it is, wrapped up in one great evening, all the things i love about cooking - good food, good friends and just a little bit 'o the warm and fuzzy team work. awww, ain't that sweet? first up, the fruit of the labor: steak (i know, suprising), 2 (not 3 and not 4) baby carrots, and what will henceforth be known as "Leonard's Silk Spuds." second, and of course more importantly, the food and friends, so happy together, a singular visage of the joy i find in it all.

Crab Ravioli - Feenie Style

Thanks Mrs. Chan for another awesome gift - by the way, for those of you who don't know, the Chan women are absolute maestros of gift giving - the Feenie's Cookbook. You can Google Robert Feenie to learn more, but the important thing about him is that his former restaurant, Lumiere in Vancouver, is where I took my beloved foxy babe for dinner the night I asked her to marry me. Anyway, here's the first dish I made out of the book: Crab Ravioli with Truffle Oil Buerre Blanc. Very fun dish to make - hand made pasta for the first time from scratch and rolled it OLD SKOOL with a rolling pin, picked the meat out of two crabs, and made a buerre blanc which, i must say, is my current favorite sauce - booze and butter? oh hell yea... in hindsight the ravioli should have been a little smaller and the parsely more artfully placed, but the dish tasted great according to babe and our friend Diana, so no complaints!