Tiny Bird, Tiny Meal

Wow, I just did EMP twice in one week! We scheduled this week's dinner for Wednesday to accommodate our trip to Sonoma this weekend, and I ended up squeezing in lots of grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning up in a short amount of time. The reason why I didn't make the cured pork dish this week as previously planned is because as I started making up a shopping list on Tuesday night, I suddenly realized that the pork takes 10 days to cure. Yes, this little piece of information was nicely hidden in the middle of a long paragraph. You'd think that EMP would highlight something this crucial in yellow, or mention it right in the beginning, surrounded by a couple of astrix or red flags. I can deal with a 6 hour braising, or even an overnight marinade, but when a step takes days, please help me out by emphasizing that early on! I had to frantically search for another recipe that I could get all the ingredient for within the next 24 hours, and luckily, 2 of them fit the bill.

This week, I made a goat cheese appetizer, and quail for the entrée. It was surprisingly hard to find fresh quail in Chicago in the winter time. Our old standby, Chicago Game and Gourmet, said they could ship some in from their warehouse, but that the freight charges would be ridiculous because of the tiny size of the order. After calling around a few other places, it seemed like frozen quail was the way to go. I went to Paulina Meat Market, and the only quail they had were semi-boneless ones. I was kind of pissed because over the phone they had assured me that they had plenty of whole, frozen quail. Anyways, once I started cooking, I thanked my lucky stars that I got the semi-boneless ones, as that probably saved me at least 30 minutes of deboning the breasts. Another ingredient I couldn't find was red endives. The flavor of red versus yellow endives is very similar - in most cases where there is a bit of red coloring on the plant, there is also a tad bit more bitterness to it. In the end, it didn't really matter too much that I used yellow endives for everything, but I was still a little disappointed from deviating from the recipe.

If you think you want to make the quail, make sure you have some heavy sides or lots of bread to fill you up with, because the quail sure isn't going to do the job.

Goat Cheese and Lemon Galette

Cheese Chips

Mix 1.5 cups of grate Gruyère with 3 egg whites. Spread onto ideally a silicone baking sheet, but since we didn't have one, I just used parchment paper.

Place another silicone baking sheet/parchment paper on top, and roll out until 1/16 inch thick. Obviously, that's hard to achieve uniformly throughout, so just do the best you can.

Bake in a 300 F oven for 15 min, and take it out to slice into 1 inch by 2.25 inch rectangles.

A ruler helps, but you can also eyeball it.

Return to oven, and bake for another 20 minutes until golden brown. Make sure to cover with parchment paper and weigh down the top with a heavy flat baking sheet so the chips don't curl.

This is how I entertain myself....Chaya looooves cheese, so I made her wait with a cheese chip on her nose while I cooked. Don't worry, she got it in the end.

Goat Cheese Mousse

Whip 1 cup cream into medium peaks, and refrigerate.

Bloom 5.5 sheets of gelatin, and mix into another cup of cream.

Combine with 1.75 cups room temperature chèvre, and fold in whipped cream and 2.5 teaspoons salt.

Spread into a 9x13 inc baking pan, lined with plastic wrap.

After chilling in the fridge for about 3 hours, take out and slice into 0.75 inch by 1.75 inch rectangles.

Combine 2 diced Meyer lemons with 1 cup sugar over low heat for about 6 hours to make lemon jam.

Right before serving, put cheese chips, goat cheese mousse, lemon jam, and a little sea salt  together. If you do it too early, the cheese chips will get soggy.

Quail Roasted with Endive, Dates, and Juniper

Soy Glaze

Prepare 1 cup soy sauce, 0.5 cups honey, 2 tablespoons minced garlic, and 0.5 cups olive oil.

Heat all but olive oil over low heat for 40 minutes. Strain, then add in olive oil.

 Red Wine Endive Cooking Liquid

Slice 3 cups endive, 2.6 cups shallots, 0.3 cups ginger. Heat 1 tablespoon canola oil over medium heat, and sweat everything for 10 minutes.

Deglaze with 6 cups red wine, 3 cups red port.

Add 1 star anise pod, 5 black peppercorns, and 1 clove. Reduce until liquid is halved, then strain.

Saffron Cooking Liquid

Trim 12 endives (ideally, 4 red and 8 yellow, but since I used all yellow, it didn't make a difference). Half each endive, then trim to about 2 inches.

Use 4 cups of endive trim, 0.75 cups sliced shallots, and 0.5 cups sliced ginger. Sweat over medium heat in 1 tablespoon of canola oil.

Deglaze with 1/3 cup white wine, 1/4 cup vermouth, and 2 tablespoons Pernod. Add 1 teaspoon saffron, then reduce liquid by half.

Add back 4 cups water and season with 1 tablespoon salt. Strain and reserve.

 Endives

Take "red" trimmed endives, and cook in red wine endive cooking fluid over medium heat.

Make a lid out of parchment paper to seal in steam, and cook for 15-20 minutes.

Repeat for yellow endives and saffron cooking fluid. Once cooked, remove endives and chill until ready to use. Reserve the cooking fluids.

Parsley Powder

Take 1/3 cup parsley, place on paper towel, and zap in microwave in 30 second spurts until completely dehydrated.

Once cooled, grind into powder.

Store in airtight container.

Date Spheres

Take 4 Medjool dates, half and pit them. Remove the skins with a paring knife. Dip your fingers into some olive oil, then roll the halves into balls.

 Orange Juniper Powder

Zest 1 navel orange, then zap in microwave on top of a plastic-wrapped plate in 30 second bursts.

Grind up 2 teaspoons juniper berries.

Combine orange zest, juniper berries, and 1.5 tablespoons sea salt, and store in airtight container.

 Roasted Quail

Since I got partially deboned quail, I didn't have to debone the breast. If you got whole quail, debone everything except the legs and wings. Good luck. Spread out one quail flat on a board, and slice off the legs. Break a wing off at the elbow, keeping the bone intact with breast, and trim meat off the bone. Remove entire wing from the other side. Fold in half, and trim excess skin and fat until pretty. Repeat for remaining quail. Don't rush or else you'll break something.

Wrap each quail breast in plastic wrap.

Individually vacuum seal each quail package. (EMP said to chill for 24 hours so the breast hold its shape, but of course I didn't read that beforehand so I didn't have time to do it. It turned out that it wasn't really necessary - after cooking, the breast held its shape perfectly.) Cook in immersion circulator at 145 F for 15 minutes. Rest, and remove wrappings. Right before plating, sear in canola oil, and dunk in soy glaze.

Date Quail Jus

Sear reserved quail meat and bones in 1 tablespoon canola oil over high heat for about 10 minutes until they are brown.

Add 2/3 cups pitted and diced Medjool dates and 1.5 teaspoons Madras curry powder, and sweat until dates are tender.

Add in 4 cups Chicken Jus (as usual, I just used store bought chicken stock), and simmer for 45 minutes. Finish with 1 tablespoon orange blossom water (so fragrant!)

 Orange Puree

Dice 3 Cara Cara oranges and heat with 1/2 teaspoons coriander and fennel seed each, along with 1/2 cup sugar and 1/4 cup water. I used regular oranges. Simmer for 30 minutes, and add in curry oil. I was too pressed for time to make curry oil, so I just added some curry powder. Shame on me =p.

Puree and cool.

 Allumettes

Take 4 sheets of phyllo dough, and brush the top of each with clarified butter and sprinkle with a mixture of 1 tablespoon confectioners' sugar and 1.5 teaspoon salt. Layer them.

Cut sheets in half, and stack the halves.

Slice into 1/3 inch by 4 inch strips. I left them a little longer because I knew there would be breakage. Top with another sheet with parchment paper brushed with clarified butter, and then top that with another flat baking sheet. Weight all that down with your heaviest oven-safe pot.

Bake at 300 F for  15 minutes. Sprinkle with orange juniper powder, and store in airtight container.

Finish and Plate

Simmer white endives in 1/2 saffron cooking liquid until 1 tablespoon remains, and glaze with 2 tablespoons butter. Simmer "red" endives in 1 cup red wine endive cooking liquid until 1 tablespoon remains, and glaze with 1 tablespoon butter.

Blot excess liquid from endives on paper. Notice how the yellow endives have turned red!

Plate by copying picture from EMP.

Our beautiful table. Note the copious amounts of freshly baked bread.

Tasting notes:
I put together the Goat Cheese Galettes a little too early, and they were a little soggy. I feel that unless you have an extra pair of hands in the kitchen, that's hard to avoid because you want to get the appetizer finished and out of the way before entrée plating. The quail was aromatic with all the curry, orange blossom water and juniper berries. It was definitely a Middle Eastern/Indian inspired meal, which I loved because previously the flavors had been under heavy French influence. Everyone loved the food, and the only complaint was the small portion sizes even despite the fact that we had an extra quail breast for each person. That probably explain how between the four of us, we managed to finish 2 large loaves of bread. Goooo carbs!