What's For Dinner #80 - the Silly Bunny with Eggs Edition - April 2022

Love your dogs, and your dinner sounds awesome - enjoy! Happy Easter!

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Thanks - hope you have a wonderful holiday, too!!

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Spicy, lemony chicken breasts with bread salad. I’ve made this recipe before. Quick and easy, it’s very flavorful (oregano, garlic, chili flakes, lemon). I think the trick of steaming the cutlets after they’ve been browned is a neat one, preventing the chicken pieces from drying out.

Little Gem and Drunken Woman Frizzy Headed lettuces from the garden.

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Thank you for mentioning this substitution. I will try the recipe, for sure.

Mushrooms with butter and brandy, why have I never thought of that. And I love fried potatoes, what makes them German?

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Those who follow my social media know my last two months have been consumed by Titanic research for a series of lectures I’m giving on the 110th anniversary. I didn’t get a chance to do this on Thursday, but made up for it tonight.

Two days late, but here it is: a very small selection from The Last Dinner on the Titanic. The original First Class dining room service would have been 11 courses (each with its own glass of wine plus pre/post dinner cocktails and cordials!), but I don’t have a kitchen staff of 80! Any changes made to the recipes were out of necessity/unavailability, such as Shop Rite not having either roe or caviar (for the canapés), nor did they have pearl onions in any form (for the steak). So I used cocktail onions, which I rinsed off to remove the briny flavor. Everything else is exact.

1)“Canapés a l’Amiral”: a baguette topped with a garlic shrimp butter, a halved boiled shrimp tossed in lime juice, and parsley leaf. This was the most labor intensive item of the meal, due to making the butter. 2) “Roasted Sirloin of Beef Forestiere”: I never roasted a sirloin before and was tempted to just sear it, but I stayed true to the recipe. It was cooked all the way through but flavorful and fork-tender. The gravy consisted of bacon, mushrooms, red wine, beef stock, and herbs. It was amazing, the crisped bacon lardons made all the difference. I would make this on a normal night with mashed potatoes. 3) “Chateau Potatoes”: sautéed in butter and oil with rosemary (from our garden), then finished in the oven. 4) “Asparagus Salad with Champagne Vinaigrette”. This was just alright. Next time would just do Asparagus with Hollandaise Sauce, which was served in the Titanic’s A La Carte Restaurant. All I can say after this meal is that I’m glad this was not a waste of time and THANK GOD FOR DISHWASHERS!

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After the pre-dinner Champagne, I switched over to a French 75. When the bubbly ran out, I started on martinis. Feeling nice as of this posting.

And I want to say, since my study for these lectures became intimate and serious, this was more of a commemoration than a celebration. The Titanic has become larger than life, and when that happens, we lose the human element. Well, it is not lost on me.

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Asian shrimp and bok choy soup. There was a miso broth with carrots, shallots, garlic, snap peas and mushrooms. Garnished with red chile, cilantro and a soft boiled egg. A side of pickled daikon radish and blistered shishitos.

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I’m surprised and glad that the steaming doesn’t make the meat tough (always heard that warning). I’ll give this one a try, too.

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Just fabulous! The crostini and beef especially.

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What a stellar performance, even the dishes look like they might belong on the Titanic.

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More “shrimp my way”, this time with garlic and "hot Turkish peppers " ( :hot_face:) and “Ben’s Original” rice.

Happy holidays!

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@ChristinaM @BeefeaterRocks

Thank you so much.

This was more than just food. I started to feel a personal connection, and my lecture includes a section on the last dinners served to all three classes. So I will use these pics in future talks as a “hands-on” element.

As for the dishes, they are my parents’, from when they got married in 1971.

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Wow. That is a lot of work. We vacationed in England and stayed in a hotel in Alnwick called the White Swan. Unbeknownst to us, the restaurant was a twin of the one on the Titanic. We had breakfast there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Swan_Hotel,_Alnwick

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We enjoyed another excellent dinner at James on Main in Hackettstown, NJ, including seared diver scallop, with poblano chili, avocado mousse, and wild black rice salad; duck leg confit with roasted leeks and Italian butter beans; locally foraged mushroom panzanella with English pea pesto; dill cured salmon with roasted beet relish; Heritage hog spare ribs with black bean paste and shrimp spring rolls; pan roasted Icelandic cod loin with wild leeks and Belgian white asparagus; black truffle pecorino fries. It all went great with a couple of excellent Cabernets.






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Steamed monkfish with yu choy, green garlic and mushrooms. Needed a bit of austerity after the seder, and this worked well.

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Cooked for the first time since Sunday! Made moules for dinner at my sister’s, with fennel, shallots, garlic, leeks, butter, wine, heavy cream, and arugula thrown it at the end. toasted Italian baguette with pimenton aioli for sopping. Cheap TJs bubbly with. We are quite surfeit.

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I’ll bet your two pups excel at convincing people to provide treats. Can’t resist those sparkly eyes. :star_struck:

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They can be quite persuasive!

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This is amazing, Greg! The Roasted Sirloin of Beef Forestiere looks superb!

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Absolutely gorgeous meal and timely reminder that there is always a human element to consider.

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