Butter Poached Lobster

Our knock-off.

The real thing.

We thought butter poached lobster would be easy. After peeling 3 lobsters and whisking 4 sticks of butter into 1 tablespoon of water over the stove, we understood why the French Laundry was the French Laundry. Can you imagine being the lobster peeling guy? Or the butter emulsifier? I think I'd rather be the lobster peeler. It's a little sharper but much more intellectually stimulating.

We didn't have the ingredients or patience to make the potatoes and leeks and sauce this round, so we made instead a lemon beurre blanc (Alton Brown's recipe). It was delicious, too sour on its own but perfect with the buttery lobster. The lobster turned out to be snappy and buttery but not tough. We're not sure if it's the same as the real thing...guess we need to find out another time!

“Beets and Leeks” – Maine Lobster Tail “Pochee au Beurre Doux” with King Richard Leeks, “Pommes Maxim’s” and Red Beet Essence
Adapted from ''The French Laundry Cookbook'' by Thomas Keller (Artisan, 1999)

• 1 pound unsalted butter at room temperature, in pieces
• Salt and pepper
• 1 1/2 cups thinly sliced leek rounds
• 1/4 medium-size ripe tomato, peeled, flesh cut in small diamond shapes
• 2 teaspoons minced chives
• 1 teaspoon each finely diced carrot, turnip and dark green of leeks
• Red-beet essence (see recipe)
• Par-cooked meat from 3 lobsters at room temperature (see recipe)
• Pommes Maxim (see recipe)

PREPARATION

1.

Place 2 tablespoons water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to very low, and whisk in butter piece by piece. Continue adding until all butter is emulsified. Set aside, and keep warm (the best way is in a thermos); do not allow to boil.

2.

Bring a 3-quart pot of water seasoned with 1 tablespoon salt to a boil. Have a large bowl of ice water ready. Add leeks to boiling water, cook 5 minutes until just tender, drain in a sieve and place sieve with leeks in ice water until leeks are cool. Drain, and transfer to a small sauté pan. Place over low heat to reheat. Add tomato, chives, diced carrot, turnip and leek greens. Stir in 1/3 cup emulsified butter. Season with salt and pepper, and cover to keep warm.

3.

Place beet essence in a small saucepan. Whisk in 3 tablespoons emulsified butter, and cover to keep warm.

4.

Heat oven to 300 degrees. Place lobster pieces in single layer in a large saucepan or sauté pan. Add remaining emulsified butter. Lobster meat should be just about covered. Place pan over low heat, and cook 5 to 6 minutes, until meat is just heated through. Remove knuckle pieces, drain and fold into leek mixture.

5.

While lobster cooks, place potatoes in oven 2 to 3 minutes to reheat.

6.

To serve, place a spoonful of warm beet essence in center of each of 6 plates. Briefly reheat leek mixture, and spoon onto beet essence. Remove lobster tails and claws from butter mixture, draining well; place a tail piece and a claw on each plate, on top of leeks. Break potatoes in six pieces and place on top of the lobster. Serve.

YIELD

6 servings

Oxtail Soup...Again

Is this bowl finished? Are you crazy? That little morsel right there. Yes, it's making eyes at you. That's the secret hideout for the Yum Yums. Shhh they don't know you're here. You're supposed to pick it up and coax the juices out from deep within the bone. All the tomato-y beefy goodness...

The worst part about making and eating oxtail soup is getting to the bottom of the bowl. So this time...we'll turn back time!
Perfectly tender and fall-off-the-bone good. But not completely disintegrated. That's important - we don't want to eat the Gerber's version of oxtail soup. Wouldn't that be awesome if Gerber made oxtail soup in babyfood form? Those poor babies...I guess privileges do come with getting teeth.

Do you see the slight crusty brown coloration of the meat that is staring you in the face? That, my friend, is flavor. The result of a good sear before braising!
The biggest bones are the best. So many nooks and crannies and tendons and ligaments and deliciously meltingly tender collagen...sorry, too much anatomy huh. Excuse my enthusiasm; you had to be there to understand.
I don't think these photos are really in any logical order. But no matter. If that meat doesn't look tender, you can just leave right now. I need some private time with my soup anyway.

Do you know how much self control it took to take all those pictures? Thank you, I know I just outdo myself every time. And because I'm so nice...I'll even share with you the top secret recipe.

Before I do, I have a funny story. At the supermarket, while I was gawking at the oxtail, this nice elderly man (who didn't really speak English) and his granddaughter were next to me and he goes, "Oh, what is that?"

Me: "Oh, this is oxtail."

Him: "Huh?"

Me: "It's the tail, you know..."

Him: "Oh! The neck?"

Me: "No no, the tail, in the back..."

Him: "Ohhh."

I guess cows have gotten a little larger since his days.

Oxtail Soup...Again

This makes a relatively small serving. I would say it serves 3 people - with a maximum of two people who like to eat meat. The third person must be content with not having a large oxtail piece. Double it for larger company! The keys to this recipe are that the oxtail and veggies must be seasoned with a healthy single layer of sea salt, and the oxtail must be seared on high heat almost to the point of burning. Also, the tomatoes must be ripe and sweet or the broth will be too sour and watery; if you cut open your tomatoes and they are whitish instead of completely dark red inside, add tomato paste or sugar to the broth. Don't be scared by the 2 bulbs of garlic; they are imperative for flavor and the long braise just makes them meltingly sweet and mellow. The purple onion and garlic added in the beginning and end ensure complex flavor development throughout the braise as well as intense sweetness of shorter-cooked onion and garlic. The beauty of this recipe is its simplicity - no need to add beef stock, chicken bouillon, bouquet garni, flour, etc. There's a lot of oil in the end, so be sure to skim it off, or you will suffer a very unpleasant oily mouthfeel when you drink the soup. And trust me, you'll want second servings of the lovely beefy, sweetly concentrated tomato soup.

Oxtail - 2 HUGE bones, 3 medium ones, 1 tiny one

Sea salt or kosher salt

2 Tbsp oil

3/4 cup Shaoxing wine

2 bulbs of garlic, one bulb minced and the other bulb peeled

1 large carrot, sliced on a diagonal into 1-inch pieces

2 celery stalks, sliced into 1-inch pieces

1 large fresh organic red onion, sliced into 1-inch pieces

1 1-inch piece of fresh, good quality ginger, peeled and sliced

4 large ripe tomatoes, 1 ripe roma tomato, 8 ping-pong ball sized ripe sweet tomatoes

1 cup of purple sweet potatoes, cut into large chunks

Prepare the meat: Take it out of the fridge, dry very well with paper towel, and sprinkle one layer of sea salt on one side. Let it rest at room temperature for 15-20 minutes to take off the chill to promote better searing.

Sear the meat: Heat a medium soup pot over high heat 2 minutes until hot. Add 2Tbsp oil and swirl, heating until oil starts to ripple. Add meat in a single layer, salt side down. Sprinkle the other side with salt, put the lid on, and let it sear for 2-3 minutes until you get a very dark brown crust (This is the flavor concentration! Make sure to get that dark brown crust). Turn the meat and sear very well on all sides, replacing the lid each time, unless you want to smell like a piece of seared meat.

Deglaze the pan: Remove the perfectly seared meat and set on a clean plate. The pot will be very hot at this point, and the yum-yums at the bottom may be threatening to burn. Turn the heat down to medium and add the 3/4 cup wine all at once, scraping the bottom of the pan to remove the yum yums. Pour this delicious liquid into a small heatproof bowl and set aside. Don't you dare let anything dangerous get near it.

Brown the veggies: Turn the heat once more up to high. Your pot should be pretty clean right now. Add 2 Tbsp more oil and swirl to coat. When oil is hot, add the finely chopped garlic, ginger, carrot, celery, and HALF of the onions to the pot. Sprinkle with an even layer of sea salt and toss the veggies to coat evenly with salt and oil. Cover with a lid and allow to cook for 5-7 minutes, until slightly softened.

Simmer down the tomatoes: Add the tomatoes and smash them with the back of a spatula, mixing them with the veggies in the pot. Replace the lid and continue cooking on high for 5-7 minutes until the mixture is boiling and the tomatoes are releasing liquid.

Replace the meat and simmer for a long time: Add oxtail back into the liquid, pushing them all the way to the bottom of the pot and covering every piece with the liquid. Turn the heat down to low, cover with a lid, and maintain a gentle but even simmer for 3 hours.

Add additional veggies and adjust salt: Toss in the remaining garlic cloves, onions, and sweet potato and push them into the soup. Taste the soup and add more salt if needed. Simmer for 45 more minutes.

Skim off the oil and swallow your saliva: Using an oil skimmer or a very flat wok spatula, take off the top layer of red orange oil to a wide shallow bowl. Be patient - this may take 20-30 spatula-fulls. Press down on the tomatoes to coax the oil to the top of the soup. Continue until you don't see too much red oil on top. Pour the oil mixture into a glass measure cup and gawk at the layer of fat that rises to the top. Cover with plastic wrap, and allow to cool at room temp before putting it in the fridge (use it to braise ox tendon later!). Help yourself to a big piece of oxtail and savor every second.

姜母鸭 － Ginger Mom Duck

If you love ginger and duck, this dish is to die for. If you love your mom, it's even better. In Chinese, the name refers to the mother root of the ginger plant, the central root from which arise the baby roots. Cute huh?

Getting happy. Look at all that ginger! Two cups!

This is the wine we used. It was good, but my mom kept insisting that beer would be better. Alas, we had none on hand. My mom then proceeded to sing the praises of the above brand of sesame oil after we liberally dumped it into the wok.

mom: "This brand is really really good! Oh." pause.

me: "What?"

mom: "It expired last year."

The integral component to this dish's success. Shhhh...they'll all be doing it...

Jiang Mu Ya – Ginger Mom Duck

The legs, thighs, and wings from one duck (or 1.5 lb assorted cuts)

2 Tbsp Shaoxing Wine

a few turns of freshly ground Szechuan peppercorn

½ tsp kosher salt

1 cup pickled ginger, sliced ¼ inch thick

1 cup fresh ginger, sliced ¼ inch thick

½ cup sesame oil

3 Tbsp sugar

1/3 cup soy sauce

1 cup sake or beer or Shaoxing Wine

3 carrots, roughly chopped

Additional add-ins (listed in order from lengthy to short cooking times): frozen dried chestnuts, peanuts, sweet potatoes, shiitake, seaweed, kabocha, nagaimo

Chop duck into bite size pieces, being careful not to splatter duck guts all over the place. Marinate the duck with 2 Tbsp Shaoxing Wine, a few turns of freshly ground Szechuan peppercorn, and ½ tsp kosher salt for 15 minutes while you prepare your ginger and veggies. Heat the sesame oil in a wok over high heat, and add all of the ginger slices and stir fry briefly. Throw the duck on top, add the lid, and cook undisturbed for 5 minutes to brown the duck. Stir the contents around, and brown the other sides. Add the 3 Tbsp sugar to the bubbling liquid and let it caramelize for a minute. Then add the 1/3 cup soy sauce, tian jiang (if using), and enough sake or beer to barely cover. Add carrots and chestnuts (and any other tough cooking veggies) and transfer to pressure cooker, and cook on high for 30 minutes. If you don’t have a pressure cooker, just add the lid and maintain a rapid simmer for 45 minutes. Remove from pressure cooker and transfer to a heavy pot, and add any additional add-ins depending on how long they need to cook (most take about 30 minutes). When almost done, take off the lid and let the liquid boil off to concentrate the yum yums, about 30 minutes. Taste and add salt and pepper to your liking.

Cook’s Notes

- If you only have fresh ginger, you can just use 2 cups fresh ginger and skip the pickled stuff.

- Make your own pickled ginger by marinating

- For the add-ins, feel free to get creative! Just try to pick stuff that holds up to stewing and doesn’t release too much liquid (such as leafy greens)

Lamb Dumplings

Dumplings remind me of the holidays...maybe it's because we tend to make them around this time of year. The multi-step process lends itself well to having many hands helping in the kitchen - as kids, we would smash the dough disks but several years and hundreds of dough disks later we've finally proven ourselves worthy of the meatball-wrapping step. Seriously, why do grown ups get all the fun?

These are filled with lamb. The recipe is very inexact: a bunch of ground lamb, a smaller bunch of jiu cai (chives I think), some shaoxing jiu (Chinese rice wine), some salt, sugar (?), ginger, soy sauce, water, shrimp. I don't know why we never follow a written recipe - maybe it's to create that intense moment of anticipation right before you bite into the first dumpling, since every time the dumplings are different.

Or maybe it's just because we're lazy.

Cutting the dough. The trick is to turn the rope 90 degrees every cut so you don't end up with flatter disks each time.

Rolling the dough disks. The trick is to make the edges thinner than the middle. I did this job for a while too before graduating to the elite meatball-wrapping step.

The filling. According to our mom you have to mix it vigorously in one direction with chopsticks and a little water to loosen up the meat.

A tablespoon of meat is how much we usually put.

The pinching step!

I like to enter my dumplings in beauty contests with the other dumplings on the plate. See that one in the upper right? Isn't she beautiful?

They're ready after they float and boil two more times.

My dad made the garlic sauce with a makeshift mortar and pestle. Other ingredients: Chiakang (?) black vinegar and soy sauce.

Dinner is served! Happy holidays. :)