An Oscar Fit For An Oscar

At Jim's old restaurant, the Ebb Tide, they used to serve Filet Mignon (and chicken) à la Oscar.
Traditionally the protein was veal and was pounded into a scallopini. But the pocketbook and animal "ethics" say, "Nay!" for "The Tide" and for us as well.

Various sources claim that the "Oscar" was either the King of Oscar II of Sweden who was a fan of the dish or Oscar Tshirky, the maitre d'hotel of Delmonico's Restaurant and the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan. The latter also popularized the Waldorf salad, Thousand Islands Dressing and may have had a hand in Eggs Benedict! Anyone who has ever seen this blog will know of our penchant for various on the Eggs Benedict here, here and here.

But lest you think that we are in a Sauce Hollandaise rut, we'll throw the curve. In the recipes for dishes served in the Oscar style that we found, the protein is served with the traditional asparagus, sauce béarnaise and crabmeat (or crayfish). Oooh, so tricky! They replaced lemon with tarragon and vinegar. OK, so Escoffier would put it in the same "mother sauce" classification because the two sauces are pretty similar. We did the Escoffier version with Jim's parents a while back and it was good, but we decided to give Sonja Lee's "Sauce" version a try.

Jim forgot the cayenne, but it was pretty darned tasty, even though we've had mixed success with her recipes. We plated the filet, the asparagus, the crab and topped it all with way too much sauce. And when we say "too much", we mean just enough. The 2003 Clarendon Hill Grenache was a bit hot on the tongue, but the flavors worked pretty well together.

Jim and Peta

Pavlovian Response...

The other day, we went to a BBQ with Peta's "Mommy Group". We had some nice grilled tri-tip, portobello mushrooms, sausages and asparagus along with some tasty summer salads. We brought the cucumber and poppy seed salad that we've adopted from the Ottolenghi cookbook, the virtues of which we have extolled on many of our posts. Peta made her Chocolate and Raspberry Pavlova, a traditional Aussie/Kiwi meringue-based dessert named after the Russian ballet dancer Anna Pavlova. From Wiki: "The dessert is believed to have been created in honour of the dancer either during or after one of her tours to Australia and New Zealand in the 1920s. The nationality of its creator has been a source of argument between the two nations for many years, but formal research indicates New Zealand as the more probable source."

Sorry Peta! Jim thought the name was from his Pavlovian (drool) response whenever Peta mentions it. Wrong again, Jim!

Chocolate and Raspberry Pavlova
6 egg whites
300g caster sugar (you can just buzz plain sugar in a spice mill or Cuisinart)
3 T cocoa powder
1 t balsamic or red wine vinegar
50 g dark chocolate, finely chopped & extra for topping
500 mL double cream topping (whipped cream works fine)

Preheat oven to 180C/356F and line a baking tray with parchment/baking paper. Beat the egg whites until satiny peaks form. Beat in the sugar a spoonful at a time until the meringue is stiff and shiny. Sprinkle over the cocoa, vinegar and chopped chocolate. Gently fold everything until cocoa is thoroughly mixed in. Mound onto the baking tray at ~23cm diameter. Place in the oven then immediately turn the temperature down to 150C/302F and cook for 1 - 1 1/4 hours. The meringue should be crisp around the edges and sides but feel spongy when prodded. Turn the oven off, open the oven door and let it cool. Don't worry about a collapse. It will all be covered over in the next phase!

When cool, top with the cream and fruit and chocolate and serve. Slice, eat and enjoy.

Jim and Peta

Huevos Benedictos

If anyone out there is reading (or knows us at all), you'll know that we enjoy "slutty" sauces like Hollandaise, we like eggs and we like eating and creating variations on Eggs Benedict. After stopping at the Spanish Table, a purveyor of all things Spanish (along with some Moroccan and Tunisian items) for the kitchen, we picked up some aged Manchego cheese and some jamón serrano with which we planned to make bocadillos, quick, uncooked ham and cheese sandwiches that were everywhere in Spain when we went on our separate trips to that beautiful country.

Instead, we used the Hollandaise recipe above along with the cheese, ham, bread and eggs to make another version of Eggs Benedict which we dubbed "Huevos Benedictos". The aged Manchego was a little too strong and Jim hasn't really come anywhere near to perfecting his poached eggs, but the "flavors were there" as Peta says.

Jim & Peta

Chim-chim-ichurri...

This is just a quick post to mark the only Chimichurri sauce that we'll ever need. We forget the website recipe that we used, since we just cut and pasted the recipe into TextEdit. We apologize for not given credit where it's due. This recipe used up nearly the last of our Italian flat-leaved parsley. We haven't bought parsley since last year but we'll have to start a new batch once it cools down. We use this sauce on venison, chicken and vegetables; it's quite versatile.

• 1 cup (packed) fresh Italian parsley
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/3 cup red wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup (packed) fresh cilantro
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled
• 3/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Jim & Peta