April Supper Club: Creative Chef Dinner

After a long time Sara was finally able to host the supper club. The theme was to bring an invented dish or something that was made out of food items that needed to find a good use...

As expected, given the amazing abilities of the participants, everything was great and I think, we had a good time!

Broccoli Soup with home made Cheese Rolls

Katharina made a deliciously smooth soup and fragrant dinner rolls.

For the soup, I use left-over cooked broccoli and the saved water from cooking or steaming the broccoli. Sometimes also left-over water from cooking potatoes.
About 1 cup of cooked broccoli
About 1 cup of cooking liquid
2-3 Tbsp butter
1-2 Tbsp flour
About 1/4 cup milk
Pinch of nutmeg
Pepper, salt
Grated parmesan
Melt the butter over medium heat. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute or two until golden. Gradually add the water. Keep whisking. Let the mixture return to a boil. When still fairly thick, add the milk, nutmeg and pepper. Return to boil. Add more water until reaching desired consistency. Add the broccoli. Boil over low heat for about 5 minutes or until the broccoli starts to fall apart. Remove from heat. Wait a few minutes, then puree with immersion blender. Taste and adjust salt if necessary. Serve with grated parmesan.

For the rolls:
150 g Traditional Greek yogurt
1/3 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
300 g flour + more for surface
1 Tbsp baking power
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup grated cheddar
Milk for brushing

Preheat oven to 400 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, whisk together yogurt, milk and oil until smooth. Mix flour with baking power and salt and stir into the yogurt. Stir until just combined. Put some flour on the work surface and scatter the cheese on top. Turn out the dough and knead until the cheese in incorporated and the dough is smooth. Divide into about 10 pieces and shape rolls. Brush tops with milk.
Put on baking sheet and bake at centre of oven for 20 minutes.


Following the Italian dining order (when in Rome...) we then had Pasta with tuna sauce made by Sara.


Pasta with Tuna Sauce

Ingredients:

• 2 cans tuna (in water or olive oil)
• 1 medium onion
• 250ml tomato sauce (no added salt or spices)
• olive oil

Procedure:

In a saucepan sautee' the finely chopped onion in 2 table spoons olive oil and sprinle the onion with salt. When the onion is soft and transparent, add the drained tuna, stir and let go for two minutes, then add the tomato sauce and let simmer for at least a hour. Add additional olive oil if you have used tuna in water. Salt to taste.
Mix with pasta, a typical italian combination is spaghetti!



Salad and Millet with Spices

After which the "contorni"(side dishes) were served: Salad (Lauren) and Millet with spices (Kim):

I (Kim) cook with recipes most of the time.  The things I cook without recipes were not something I wanted to bring for a supper club dinner.  When I have something on hand that I need to use up, I do an ingredients search of my cookbooks on Eat Your Books and other online sources.  I bought some millet on a whim and then it sat in my pantry for a while.  This dinner inspired me to find a way to use it.

Ethiopian Millet
1 cup millet, rinsed & drained
2 cups water
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 small onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 plum tomatoes, chopped
2 teaspoons curry power
2 teaspoons Hungarian paprika
2 teaspoons cumin
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
2-4 tablespoons vegetable broth

First, prepare the millet.  Place the millet in a 2-quart pot and cover with 2 cups of water.  cover and bring to a boil, then give it a stir and bring the heat down to very low heat.  Cook, covered, for another 15 minutes or so, or until the water has been absorbed and the millet is fluffy.  Turn off the heat, but keep the millet covered until ready to add to the pan.

While the millet is cooking, preheat a large skillet over medium heat. Sauté the onion, garlic and ginger in the oil for about 5 minutes, until the onion is translucent.  Add the red pepper flakes, salt, black pepper and tomatoes, and sauté for about 2 minutes to break down the tomatoes a bit.  Add the remainder of the spices, cover and cook for 5 minutes to further break down the tomatoes.


Add the millet to the pan and stir, and cook for 5 more minutes.  Add the vegetable broth if things appear too dry.  Taste for salt and spices.

from Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz

 Quiche with Sweet Potato and Spinach

Recipe:

Ingredients:

• One boiled (very soft) orange sweet potato
• 300g frozen spinach
• half onion
• 100g mozzarella cheese cubed
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
• butter
• sat and pepper
• 1 pre-made pie crust 

Procedure:

Pre-cook the pre-made pie for 10/15 minutes at 360F (prick the bottom or use beans, cents, whatever...). Stir fry the finely chopped onion in one table spoon of butter until soft. Let cool.
Layer the sweet potatoes on the bottom of the crust with a fork. In a bowl mix the cold spinach, the cubed mozzarella, the eggs, the parmesan and salt/pepper to taste. Pour this mix on the sweet potato and finish baking the pie (another 20 minutes).

Chocolate Cherry Parfait

This was truly a made up recipe, so much so that I can't give you exact amounts of anything though I have a general guess.  I first made an 8"x8"chocolate cake.  I had a cake mix in the cupboard that I'd been wanting to use up, so I mixed that up but any chocolate cake, homemade or store-bought, will do.  While the cake was cooling, I mixed up a simple chocolate mousse by mixing room-temperature mascarpone cheese with some melted chocolate and vanilla.  To this mixture, I folded in some lightly sweetened whipped cream.  I chilled it for a half hour or so to firm it up a little bit.  I drained some sour canned cherries and set them aside.  To build the parfaits, place some mousse on the bottom of a small canning jar or dessert dish.  Top with some crumbled chocolate cake and some cherries.  Repeat the layers until you are nearly at the top of your jar.  Finish the dessert with a final layer of chocolate mousse and some curls of chocolate for decoration.