Family Feast April 2012

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We decided that every fourth month, we are going to venture out to try a new restaurant as Family Dinner.  Our first choice---


 

April 07, 2012
Haven
Oakland



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Duck Liver Pâté with Pepper Pears

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Oh, pâté, how I love you. We have had a relationship for years, mostly because first I ate you in your truffled form , thus establishing a love of you in your most expensive state. Then I ate you in your country form, thus establishing that I love you any way you come. Then I just ate you whenever I could, while still trying to exhibit some restraint. Consequently, when Christmas Eve dinner rolled around and I saw you staring back on me from the pages of Donna Hay's Entertaining , I knew we were destined for one another. I couldn't find duck livers for you--in part because of my poor planning on the day before Christmas when everyone and their neighbor happened to be at the grocery store purchasing their last-minute supplies. Instead, we had to go with chicken livers. I think we did alright in the end. Then, I needed to purchase cognac, a liquor that I know little about. However, a very nice, very young man at the liquor store told me that cognac is simply a very...
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Ottolenghi's Salmon Steaks in Chraimeh Sauce

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Oh, what a sauce this is.   What a glorious, glorious sauce. And it comes from our new Jerusalem cookbook, from one of this blog's favorite chefs and current culinary darling, Yotam Ottolenghi.  I need not detail that this blog has featured recipes from Ottolenghi here and here and here and here ,  but I will anyway because, whoo boy, I love these recipes.  This sauce comes from the Sephardic Jews, who resided on the Iberian peninsula until the Spanish Inquisition.  After their expulsion from Spain in 1492, many Sephardic Jews were folded into the Mizrahi communities in Northern Africa and the Middle East.  Such intermingling of people and cultures has produced some culinary superstars; this being no exception.  Indeed, you can taste the Spanish, Moroccan, and Libyan influence on this sauce. Sephardim pride themselves on their chraimeh recipes, and often serve them at Rosh Hashanah and Passover celebrations (whereas Ashkenazim might serv...
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Fig, Goat Cheese and Honey Salad from Honey & Co.

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Okay, people.  This salad hardly needs a recipe. The title of the salad pretty much says it all. But I am still handing this one over to you because of what  Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich (chefs and cookbook writers extraordinaire) do to the goat cheese. They mix it with heavy cream.   Yes,  more  dairy. And in doing so, they get to create these little clouds of cheesiness goodness that when added to the sweet figs, the acidic lemon, the crisp lettuce, the crunchy pistachios, and the thick honey--well, this salad becomes much, much more than the sum of its parts.  My mouth is watering now as I type this. Perfect for a crisp autumn day, this salad makes a satisfying lunch or a sweet starter to a great meal. These figs are part of the plethora of fruit that one of the parents at my school has been bringing to the faculty lounge. From pears to plums, from apples to figs, we are luxuriating in the plenty of the orchards...
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Whole Roasted Celery Root from NOPI

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Okay.  This almost doesn't qualify as a recipe. But I'll admit, I have never made celeriac this way. Yes, it took Yotam Ottolenghi to convince me to do something simple. And perfect. I am not going to mess around here. I love celery root. I have sung its praises here , here , and here . It is not a pretty little root vegetable, but if you can get beyond its humble, knobby exterior, it smacks of the bright, freshness that one expects from celery (which is, really, just the stalk of the plant) and the nutty, earthiness of something that comes from beneath the ground. This straightforward recipe comes from Ottolenghi's latest cookbook, NOPI , a collection of restaurant-approved recipes from London's powerhouse foodie and his partner and NOPI Head Chef Ramael Scully . Yes, it's true, I am a bit of a fan-girl when it comes to Ottolenghi, and next time I am in London (whew, it has been a long time  since I was last there), you better believe I pla...
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Grilled Chicken with Tarragon Butter and Sauteed Green Beans and Shallots

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Part of the fun of summer is the pulling the grill into the middle of the patio and firing it up to make dinner. And, people, we're in full on summer now (even if the calendar says that's not official for another eight days), and I am finally feeling better after almost two and a half weeks of this cold.  So, I say, welcome summer, welcome.  To inaugurate the first official night of summer vacation, the husband and I grilled chicken, watched a Giants game, and then I shuffled off to bed to watch another two episodes of Orange is the New Black (I am trying to pace myself here with Season Three).  The chicken is a simple grilled one with a compound butter with tarragon. Reminiscent of a  healthier   Béarnaise sauce (which is butter with egg yolks, vinegar and herbs--usually tarragon and chervil), the butter makes a nice contrast to smoky chicken.   The chicken itself goes through two stages of cooking--20 minutes on the grill and 20 minutes i...
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