Saturday, April 16, 2005
Luncheon for the Son-out-law
he loves creamed spinach / his mom always made it for special ocasions / yesterday he brought a bag of fresh baby spinach grown by one of his best pals
he likes it over hardboiled egg slices / yes / really / so last night i boiled up some local eggs
to make the cream sauce : melt several TB of unsalted butter / in a blender put a cup of milk and several TB flour / whirr it up / take the melted butter off the heat while you slowly pour the milk/flour into the butter / stir until thickened / i added a beaten egg to this / slowly slowly as the egg hits the warm cream so the egg wont curdle
when it has thickened and bubbles a very little clap a lid on it and turn the heat down and cook for two minutes to take the raw taste out of the flour and cook the raw egg
season with salt and pepper and nutmeg
meanwhile steam the spinach / cool it / press all the moisture out of it / wrap it in a linen towel if necessary / then add to the cream sauce / stir and heat through
if you want to make it a cheese sauce add the cheese before the spinach / cook and stir constantly until the cheese melts unless you like it lumpy / any cheese is good
i eat the creamed spinach plain but for the s-o-l i butter a small baking pan / line it with slices of hard boiled eggs / pour the creamed spinach on top and heat in a 325 oven until heated through / maybe sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top if it is not cheesy enough allready
we also had chicken piccata
slice a good sized chicken breast horizontally in the thinnest slices you can manage / never mind / place the slices on a piece of waxed paper or parchment paper/ cover with same / and pound with one of those little meat pounding mallets
heat some oo and dredge the cutlets in seasoned flour / shake / dont want too much flour / have some lemon juice ready and some chopped garlic / sage / or parsley / maybe a few capers
fry the cutlets quickly on each side
remove from pan and thrown in the garlic and the sage / when that has cooked up some add the lemon juice and the parsley
pour this over the chicken cutlets
he likes it over hardboiled egg slices / yes / really / so last night i boiled up some local eggs
to make the cream sauce : melt several TB of unsalted butter / in a blender put a cup of milk and several TB flour / whirr it up / take the melted butter off the heat while you slowly pour the milk/flour into the butter / stir until thickened / i added a beaten egg to this / slowly slowly as the egg hits the warm cream so the egg wont curdle
when it has thickened and bubbles a very little clap a lid on it and turn the heat down and cook for two minutes to take the raw taste out of the flour and cook the raw egg
season with salt and pepper and nutmeg
meanwhile steam the spinach / cool it / press all the moisture out of it / wrap it in a linen towel if necessary / then add to the cream sauce / stir and heat through
if you want to make it a cheese sauce add the cheese before the spinach / cook and stir constantly until the cheese melts unless you like it lumpy / any cheese is good
i eat the creamed spinach plain but for the s-o-l i butter a small baking pan / line it with slices of hard boiled eggs / pour the creamed spinach on top and heat in a 325 oven until heated through / maybe sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top if it is not cheesy enough allready
we also had chicken piccata
slice a good sized chicken breast horizontally in the thinnest slices you can manage / never mind / place the slices on a piece of waxed paper or parchment paper/ cover with same / and pound with one of those little meat pounding mallets
heat some oo and dredge the cutlets in seasoned flour / shake / dont want too much flour / have some lemon juice ready and some chopped garlic / sage / or parsley / maybe a few capers
fry the cutlets quickly on each side
remove from pan and thrown in the garlic and the sage / when that has cooked up some add the lemon juice and the parsley
pour this over the chicken cutlets
