An Extraordinary Cooking Adventure

When I was living in NYC with Jordan, she got a job at a restaurant called Market Cafe.  It's a little neighborhood gem in the  Hell's Kitchen area that had amazing, gourmet yet down to earth food.  This is the place where I really started to get into simple, but delicious and thoughtfully prepared food.  On my limited City budget, this place was affordable, it was one of those places where you could spend a lot if you ordered certain things but could also walk out there completely satisfied for under 15 Bucks, and having an "in" allowed me to get some free food from time to time too.

When Jordan moved to France, it became a meeting place for mutual friends to stay connected without her.  Every Wednesday night, for several months we'd dine at Market Cafe and catch up.  I looked forward to this camaraderie over dinner every week.  I also looked forward to the food.  If you ever travel to NYC, make sure you have dinner at Market Cafe, you will not be disappointed. 

My most favorite dish at Market Cafe still remains the scallops.  My mouth still waters just thinking about them.  Next time I visit NYC I will surely stop by for the scallops.  It is the kind of treat that my mom still reminisces about, because I took her there a couple of times when she visited.  They were  swimming in brown butter  served on on a bed of potato puree, and greens.

Jordan and I recreated the scallops dish and several others on Monday in her tiny cottage kitchen.  It was a massive culinary undertaking, I mean, we taught ourselves to sear scallops, baked two cakes, and made two varieties of bread!!

les cuisinières audacieuses

les cuisinières audacieuses

I missed the cultural experience of going to le poisonnerie, because it was closed that morning for a holiday... so we bought our fresh scallops at the supermarket, who had a special person dedicated to the seafood section.  The scallops were around 1 Euro a piece.  We bought 10, one for our trial run of searing, and 3 per person at the table (her partner, J, was a very fortunate beneficiary of our cooking adventure).

raw scallops

We looked up how to sear sea scallops on the internet and voila, it wasn't that difficult, though, they were delicate little things that could have been overcooked very easily... so not difficult, just required attention.

here I am trimming off the "feet" of the scallops, which is actually its muscle

our trial run scallop!

During this cooking adventure, we made tons of brown butter.  It really added a depth of flavor and richness to the dishes.  We used it for the scallops and one of the cakes.  :)

FRENCH BUTTER!

voila: the nutty, brown butter

I will let the photos describe the rest of our adventure, but first, here is the menu: and some links to the recipes.  Bon appetit!!

Jordan & Allison's Triumphant Recreation of Market Cafe

first course: sea scallops on q bed of mashed potatoes with brown butter and mache
second: green salad with oatmeal pumpkin bread and pumpkin hummus
third: baked flatbread "pizza" with potato puree, rosemary and green olives (i didn't get pictures of this as the excitement in the kitchen was at a maximum while it was being prepared, the photography fell by the wayside.)
desert:  brown butter banana cake (adapted from this recipe) AND amazing chocolate cake

mixing up a cake with this cool springy whisk we picked up at the le marché the other day (best impulse purchase ever)

batter for the brown butter banana cake

Can you tell how excited I am?!

This meal was a great way to reminisce about our days of life in the big city, while we bonded over our mutual love, as adult women, of cooking for friends and family.  Life doesn't get much better than this.  As I said as we finished our small pieces of cake...  Nous avons une belle vie!

We have a beautiful life!

Kitchen Table Friends: Cooking Together

Cooking Together

Cooking and food has been a large part of our friendship for many years.  We are delighted to share this sentimental blog post that epitomizes the feeling of and the reason for Kitchen Table Friends.

When Cara and I graduated college and started living on our own, we would visit one another wherever we happened to be living at the time and we'd always find ourselves cooking together.  In the early days of our twenties cooking meant browning ground beef and adding it to a jar of spaghetti sauce. A process, that in a tiny kitchen, involved multiple pans and heating things up on the stove. We were learning how to be grown ups and but in the kitchen we pretty much stuck to the familiar.  Since then, we have evolved, to extensive  kitchen repertoires that reflect not just what we know how to make but who we are and what we want to learn.  Now we roast vegetables, experiment with flavors from around the world, we zest citrus, toast and grind whole spices but no matter what we make we have fun together.

The past couple of days as we spent time together, we talked about why cooking was so meaningful to our friendship.  Cara remarked about what it meant to know where things were in a friends' kitchen, to know the little quirks about being in someone else's space.  Knowing and moving freely in the space of a close friend, is a mark of familiarity and of comfort. Living so far apart, this familiarity means a lot to the both of us. We compared the days when were friends in high school, and would hang out in each other's bedrooms, eating handfuls of M&Ms and telling all our secrets... to the time we spend together now.  We hang out in our kitchens, snacking and talking about what we're making as the conversation drifts in and out of other conversations about everything and nothing. As Cara would say, it's bliss.  

This is what we made:

mixed grain salad with roasted beets and cumin lime vinaigrette

ingredients: 
1 C mixed grains (we used 1/2 pearl barley, 1/2 bulgur)
3 C water
1-2  beets, cubed
2 C spinach, washed
1 green onion, minced
salt and pepper
olive oil
a handful of pepitas

toss beet with olive oil, salt and pepper and roast at 425 for approximately 30 minutes, test with fork for doneness.

I recommend donning an apron when chopping beets so you don't stain your cardigan.

rinse the grains with sieve, add to pot with water and bring to a boil. reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes or until liquid is absorbed. you may want to add a drop of olive oil to the grains to prevent sticking.

set grains and beets aside until ready to assemble salad.


for the lime-cumin vinaigrette (adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone Deborah Madison):

1 clove garlic
salt
zest of 2 limes
2-3 Tablespoon fresh lime juice
2 Tablespoon green onions, minded
1 small jalapeno, seeded and minced
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/3 C olive oil
2 Tablespoons chopped cilantro

mince garlic and make into a paste with 1/8 teaspoon of the salt.

zest and juice the limes.
add garlic and lime zest and juice to bowl with scallion and jalapeno. 



toast the spices in a small dry skillet over medium until fragrant (this doesn't take long) and immediately remove them to a plate to cool. 

grind them to a powder (if you do not have whole, just use the powders, toasted as you would the seeds). add to the bowl.

whisk in the olive oil. 

let stand for 15 minutes.


top with fresh cilantro, just before using.



                                                                                 

slowly combine your grains with the vinaigrette and salt and pepper to taste. 
arrange spinach in a bowl and top with the grain mixture.  top with beets, pepitas, cilantro and green onions.  serve at room temperature and share with a friend.