Saturday, December 18, 2010

ad hoc in da house - my thomas keller experiment


Is there anything more daunting than having the boss and his wife over for dinner? Yes, preparing dinner for them when they are used to meals prepared by  the likes of celebrity chefs, like Thomas Keller. I've only had one Thomas Keller experience, I bought a $3 chocolate chip cookie at Bouchon Bakery when Chris and I went to Napa last year for our fifth anniversary. Besides that I have merely walked by The French Laundry, Bouchon Restaurant and Ad Hoc, three of his restaurants. Oh, sure I could have gone in to one of these restaurants for dinner, (had I made reservations months in advance), but a meal at one of his restaurants is my more than I budgeted for dinners for the whole week we were on vacation.

So, when i invited the boss and Mrs boss over for dinner, I decided to give them a little Thomas Keller in your face right from my own kitchen. 

I looked at a few of his recipes on line, and then borrowed the ad hoc at home book from the library. I decided on Iceberg Lettuces Slices with Oven Roasted Tomatoes, Whipped Yukon Gold Potatoes, Creamed Corn, and Seared Scallops. When I tell you that the creamed corn is most likely the best corn I have ever had in my life, I'm not being even remotely overreacting. I did make slight changes to the recipes, he calls for heavy cream, in all instances I used whole milk, and I reduced the butter amounts in the dishes as well. 

Here are links to all of the recipes that I used.

Iceberg Lettuce Slices with Oven Roasted Tomatoes

Creamed Corn - look there is a reason its called this - its a virtual orgasm in your mouth, get it, creamed, whatever.

Whipped yukon gold potatoes - the recipe called for putting the potatoes through a food mill or a potato ricer, I own neither of these, so I whipped them in a food processor - worked fine.

Seared Scallops - use the big ones U7 or U8

I don't mean to toot my own horn, but they raved about the food, and even when we saw them a few days later at the office, they still were saying how awesome everything was. Need to impress some guests - this is the meal to do it.

PS - we pared each course with a california wine - that was pretty cool too.

Rating - so so so damn good.


No comments: