This was a farewell dinner for two dear friends who are moving to California with their baby. The goal was to serve a six course meal to twelve people within two and half hours. Accomplished! But there was a disturbance in the force.
The Menu
The Baby Food
Since my friends recently had a baby, I decided to do a fun presentation of serving a Modernist Cuisine puree in a baby food jar. This was the parsnip and apple puree with pickled apples as garnish.
The Soup
This is a ChefSteps chicken noodle soup served as a cocktail, another fun presentation. The soup includes a chicken broth consomme and noodles made out of only chicken. The soup had olives, celery, mushrooms and drops of duck fat.
The Salad
The lettuce, Serrano ham, Gruyere cheese, and peaches were served with a clove infused vinaigrette and a swirl of balsamic. This salad is from from Heston's book.
The Pasta
Cacio e Pepe means cheese and pepper. Anthony Bourdain calls this the greatest pasta dish in the world. The pasta was placed in a bowl that was made from melted Parmigiano-Reggiano which was then molded into a bowl shape
Everything went well for the first four courses. Then there was THE FIFTH course which was
the tuna FAILURE
When I took the plastic bags with the tuna out of the sous vide bath I was shocked! The tuna was pink and solid. Some individual pieces were even sticking together. I had done this dish three other times. Each time the tuna was red and rare. The tuna was seared and served anyway. Can you point to the tuna?
This is a ChefSteps recipe. The tuna was accompanied by an avocado puree snake, pickled cucumber and fennel, and fresh grapefruit.
I was determined to figure out what went wrong with the tuna. The next morning I looked over the recipe again. I was stunned! I had mistakenly put the water temp bath to (gulp) 149 F for 45 minutes instead of 104 F for 45 minutes.
How did this happen? I was earlier doing the candied orange recipe. It called for a water bath temp of 149 F. For some reason that number stuck in my mind when I set up the water bath for the tuna. At 149 F the texture was more like canned tuna which I might as well have served.
The Dessert
This is another ChefSteps recipe which includes an olive oil cake, vanilla gelato with tarragon leaves, candied oranges, and orange fluid gel.
The Morning After
Almost finished the cleanup. However, I could not find closure for this dinner until I had
the tuna REDEMPTION
I had to make things right, at least to myself. I redid the tuna dish three days later. Here it is. Look at that tuna!
Happy Dance!
