Saturday July 30
Since Barbara got back, Holt feels more like entertaining. So we decided to invite some friends for a summer dinner indoors, out of the sweltering temperatures still in the 90s. We invited Ted, who's a friend of our old buddy Priscilla, and our dear chum Julie.
Nibbles beforehand included olives, grape tomatoes, that d'amour salami that looks like hearts, manchego cheese, and lox spread on crackers.
Dinner started with Holt's signature cold canteloupe soup; not with apple juice as here, but made with orange juice, yogurt, and touches of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves. He served it elegantly marbled with cream over the top.
Our favorite summer main course is Pork Roast Tonnato. But this time we tried Marcella Hazan's recipe for Arrosto di Maiale Ubriaco, braised pork loin in red wine. Despite Marcella's assurances of moist and tender, it was as dry as when we roast it plain in the oven. So instead of giving you the recipe as we so carefully duplicated it to produce a hot dry mess, here it is as we SHOULD have done it.
B&H Tipsy Pork Roast
2 long carrots
a 2-3 lb. boneless pork center loin
oil
a bottle of dry red wine
pinch of nutmeg
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper
Peel the carrots and cut them into quarter-inch-thick long sticks. Helping along with a skewer, thread them lengthwise, evenly-spaced about an inch and a half apart from one another, through the pork loin. Get a dutch oven close to the size of the roast, and heat it on the fire; add oil, and sear the roast on all sides until brown.
Remove the roast and deglaze with red wine, scraping up the brown bits; add nutmeg, bay leaves, and salt and pepper. Put the roast back in, pour in more wine until the meat is almost covered, slosh it around a few times, and bring the heat back up until simmering. Cover securely, and put in a 300 degree oven. Cook it covered for a couple of hours, checking and turning about every half hour. It's done when it feels tender when you fork it; you can then open the top and let the sauce reduce.
You could just serve it as is, with the sauce reduced and poured over it. But for a tonnato, you cool it and cut it into thin slices so the tonnato sauce you prepared ahead of time can be poured over.
On the side, we served a novel summer salad: chopped chunks of watermelon and yellow heirloom tomato, showered with crumbled feta cheese and fresh mint leaves, and dressed with oil and white balsamic.
Ted is an ice-cream fan who had never had Graeter's before, so dessert was easy: all the flavors we had, coconut chip, vanilla chocolate chip, and fresh peach. And Julie brought us homemade molasses gingersnaps, so tender and tasty.
Good friends, good food. Who needs good weather?
No comments:
Post a Comment