We are home…

Posted in General by sallybr

We are home!

Three simple words that convey so much happiness and peace….

Goodbye, Oahu! We had a great time!

21Aug2009

Dining out on Oahu: 21 Degrees North

Posted in General, Restaurants by sallybr

Vacations are an amazing, revitalizing, much needed break, but some things are a bit tricky when away from our cozy home. Like cooking, which is not that easy in someone else’s kitchen. After several days of “not-exactly-home-cooking” in a bungalow close to Waimea Beach, we treated ourselves to a dinner last night at “21 Degrees North,” in the Turtle BayResort. The name reflects its location on the planet, at 21 degrees north of the Equator. What a gorgeous setting, we had a table window overlooking the ocean, totally romantic…

Not to detract from the aura, the restaurant lightning was dim, which meant bad news for blogging. But, my husband managed to snap a few reasonably good photos (thanks, honey!). First, the appetizer that we shared, foie gras potstickers, joining two of my favorite things in the gastronomical world.

His main course was a crab-crusted Hawaiian sea bass served over mixed beans and sauteed spinach, in a lemongrass coulis. Very delicious, with a quite stunning presentation…

I had a fantastic pepper-seared ahi tuna, cooked to perfection (nearly raw inside…), served over thin ribbons of zucchini, carrots, and summer squash in a miso sauce, with corn crisps (think about a thin corn pancake, crisp on the outside, tender and creamy inside). Sorry, no pictures of my dish.

Their signature dessert is a chocolate souffle with creme anglaise, a classic that was scrumptious.

And to keep the touristic chronicle going, here are a few photos from the last couple of days,
click to enlarge them.

Turtle Bay

Surfing lessons at Turtle Bay – yes, I was a little tempted…. 😉

Waimea Beach, our favorite

A tree, with fruits and amazing seed pods… called “Autograph Tree” (thanks for the info, Rhea!)

they do look like some extra-terrestrial beings! Amazing!
(make sure to click on this last photo to enlarge it)

19Aug2009

Greens + Grapefruit + Shrimp = Great Salad!

Posted in Salads, Seafood by sallybr

This recipe comes from one of my favorite cookbooks: Secrets of Success, by Michael Bauer, who is a restaurant critic for “The San Francisco Chronicle”. In this wonderful book, we encounter 300 recipes of “signature dishes” from San Francisco restaurants. More than providing the recipe, he shares little secrets used by the chefs: small details that often mean the difference between a good and a great meal.

At some point in my life (ca. 1989) I left my heart in the Bay Area, 😉 so buying this book and cooking from it was a nice way to fight my withdrawal symptoms.

This recipe comes from chef Fabrizio Laudati (owner of an Italian restaurant called Panta Rei). It was offered as an appetizer in his previous restaurant, Baraonda, that no longer exists. I find it perfect for a summer dinner: it’s light but substantial enough to fill you up, especially if you serve a good loaf of bread with it. In this case, the recipe will feed 2 or 3 happy people.

MIXED GREEN SALAD WITH GRAPEFRUIT AND WARM SHRIMP
(serves 6 as an appetizer course)

Para receita em portugues, veja o final desse texto, na proxima pagina

for the shrimp
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup grapefruit juice (freshly squeezed)
2 garlic cloves, minced
salt and pepper to taste
12 ounces uncooked medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 T butter

for the vinaigrette
1/4 cup olive oil
2 t balsamic vinegar
2 t grapefruit juice
1 garlic clove, minced (I omitted)
salt and ground white pepper

for the salad
3 ounces mixed baby greens of your choice
2 heads Belgian endive, separated into spears
2 pink grapefruit, peeled and cut into segments (see my comments)
1 t minced fresh Italian parsley

To prepare the shrimp, combine the oil, the grapefruit juice and the garlic in a bowl. Add the shrimp, season with salt and pepperand refrigerate everything for 6 to 24 hours.

To make the vinaigrette, combine all ingredients until blended.

Place the greens, endive and grapefruit segments in separate bowls, adding the vinaigrette to each bowl and tossing the ingredients. Make sure to save any grapefruit juice that runs out of the segments.

Heat a skillet that will hold all the shrimp over high heat. Add the shrimp and the marinade and stir them until the shrimp are cooked and the sauce slightly reduces, about 3 minutes. Add the butter and toss the shrimp until it melts, then remove it from the heat. Add the reserved juices from the grapefruit segments to the skillet and stir to blend.

For nice presentation, assemble the salad by placing the endive spears in a circle on individual plates. Add a grapefruit section on top of each spear,and pile a mound of greens in the center, topping the dish with two hot shrimp and another grapefruit piece. Drizzle with a little of the sauce; sprinkle with parsley.

Bon Appetit!

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17Aug2009

FROM SEA TO TABLE: SUSHI

Posted in General, Seafood by sallybr

Have I made those? No, I’ve never made sushi myself, and I doubt that I’ll ever attempt it. But, we love sushi, and it would be crazy not to enjoy it here, in this Hawaiian paradise. Yes, we are in Hawaii, the North Shore of Oahu… We love this place so much! With all due respect to Honolulu and Waikiki, nothing beats the aura of the North Shore. No shopping centers, no fancy restaurants, no movie theaters, just the ocean, the white sandy beaches, the waves that can catch you by surprise and throw you around like a puppet… And the seafood, as fresh as you can dream it!

We had dinner at a small sushi place in Hale’iwa, called Banzai Sushi Bar. Clockwise from top left you see a Bowl’s Roll (a California roll topped with shrimp and avocado), a Hawaiian roll (coconut shrimp in the center, macadamia nuts, mango and eel sauce on top), Bowls roll revisited, and the ahi tuna sashimi.

We are lucky enough to be very close to what we are told is “one of the best kept secrets in the North Shore”: a beach with no obvious entrance from the road. Apparently only folks living here know about it. From a bike path, you can see a small dirt path, that seems to lead nowhere…. But as you approach the end, big surprise…. a beach, almost deserted, particularly considering these pictures were taken on a Saturday morning!

Beach1a

I share with you a few photos, they can all be enlarged by clicking on them.

(clique e amplie!)

Look to your left….

Look to your right….

Look ahead into the ocean….

Some shots around a nice running route…

ALOHA!

15Aug2009

A Souffle’ to Remember… Julia Child

Posted in Side dishes by sallybr

August 15th, 2009

corn2

Today Julia Child would turn 97 years old. Last week many food bloggers wrote about “the movie“, but I will not add my comments, as the list is big enough already. Go see it and form your own opinion…

But many bloggers and non-bloggers alike will probably feel inclined to cook something from “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” on her birthday. I gladly join this party, as she is one of my two “cooking idols”, the second being Jacques Pepin. Confession: I drool over Ming Tsai on a regular basis, but I am not sure his cooking is the only reason. 🙂

But, I digress. To celebrate Julia, I made a souffle, using her recipe as the guideline, and I turned it into an appropriate dish for this time of the year and the place that we live: a corn souffle’…

If just the thought of making a souffle’ makes you hyperventilate, then I urge you to try Julia’s method. I was a certified souffle-phobe, but her book solved my handicap. Too bad that she never wrote about golf. 😉

CORN SOUFFLE‘
(adapted from Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking)

6-cup mold, buttered and sprinkled with grated parmiggiano cheese

3T butter
3T flour
1 cup hot milk
1/2 t salt
1/8 t pepper
pinch of cayenne pepper
4 egg yolks
5 egg whites + pinch salt
3/4 cup corn kernels (see comments)
1/8 cup feta cheese, crumbled

Melt the butter, stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes, don’t allow it to brown. Remove from the heat, and when the butter stops furiously boiling, add the milk all at once. Return to medium heat and cook, stirring constantly for a couple of minutes more. The sauce will thicken considerably. Add salt, pepper, and cayenne.

Remove from heat, allow it to cool for 5 minutes or so, and add the egg yolks, one by one, mixing very well after each addition. This sauce can be prepared to this point and refrigerated; bring it to lukewarm before continuing. If you decide not to refrigerate it, then dot it with butter, cover it with a plastic wrap and go work on the egg whites.

Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until firm peaks form – depending on your mixer or the strength of your biceps it will take 2 to 5 minutes. Add 1/3 of this mixture to the sauce, to thin it slightly – add the corn kernels and the feta cheese, mix well.

Now, add the remaining egg whites and fold into the sauce. You don’t need to mix it until it is all incorporated and totally homogeneous, because the “lift” of your souffle’ depends on the air present in the beaten egg whites. If you deflate it, you won’t have a well-risen souffle (it will still taste good, though).

Fill the souffle’ mold to 3/4 of its volume, place it in a 400F oven, reducing the temperature immediately to 375F. Cook the souffle’ for 30 minutes – do not open the oven door during the first 20 minutes. If you like it moist inside, serve after 30 minutes. I prefer to cook for 5 additional minutes, then the texture inside is perfect, not too dry, not too creamy.

Souffle’ waits for no one. Serve immediately and enjoy the compliments of your guests!

BON APPETIT!

jump for coments and additional photos

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