Wednesday, August 11, 2010 @ 6:53 PM

dinner at Steve's

When I was in Ireland eating two meals out a day, I longed for a good old fashioned home cooked meal. I was staying with a family, so every morning at breakfast, I was taunted by the stove and the refrigerator. After the first week or so, I craved simple things--a hamburger on the grill, a vegetarian omlette, french toast. As the weeks went on, my desires were far more extravagant. I wanted multiple courses. I wanted complex flavor profiles. I wanted food pairings. I wanted accoutrements. When I was bemoaning my diet of sandwiches, one person's cooking came to mind: my friend Steve's.

Eating at Steve's is an experience. He's an excellent chef and makes cooking a three or four course meal look as easy as getting the mail. Whenever I walk into his apartment, the aroma of whatever divinely inspired creation he's been cooking all evening wafts towards me to welcome me to his abode. Monday was no exception. On the menu? A pork shoulder marinaded in a roasted pepper, cilantro and lime rub, slow cooked for hours over a simmering bed of hearty black beans served with a side of spicy Mexican rice, corn on the cob, guacamole, Mexican cheese, salsa and sour cream. Cielo. Absolute heaven. The pork was so tender it practically fell apart. The beans were smokey with a hint of spice. At Steve's suggestion I tried slathering my corn on the cob with guacamole and I wasn't disappointed. As someone who takes their corn off the cob (I had braces in high school and it became a habit), I was swayed back to the cob by the mingling of sweet corn with buttery avacado. Perfect.

For dessert, I made a variation on dobos (a Hungarian torte) from Tartelette--vanilla raspberry dobos. It wasn't nearly as pretty as hers (seriously, hers is beautiful, go look at it!), but given that I nearly forgot to put flour in the sponge cake before I baked it, I was happy with the result--layers of vanilla bean sponge cake surrounding light honey mascarpone mousse with a few raspberries in between and then surrounded by vanilla swiss meringue buttercream. It was like eating a cloud--sweet and soft and pillowy, but not too rich. The raspberries added a nice surprise tartness to cut through the soft flavors.

Needless to say, I was still full this morning.











 sure, they're not the most beautiful things I've ever made, but they tasted delicious, so I suppose that's all that matters.


 and if all else fails, you can just cover them in buttercream :)

Labels: dobos, eating with friends, friends cooking for me, Hungarian, Mexican, pork

0 Comments:

Post a Comment