#14: A Night at the Pub

Our pub table setting, including Kevin's grandmother's vintage china.

I play on several Stonewall “sports” leagues here in DC and one of my favorite leagues is bocce.  We play outdoors at Logan Circle on Thursdays in the spring and fall and it’s a treat to be able to be outdoors doing something here in DC.  The bocce courses, if that’s what you want to call them, are studded with acorns, broken glass, manhole covers, and dog poop.  But it’s an even playing field for all thankfully.  The teams are comprised of 14 players and overall there are over a thousand teams (not really).  Needless to say, sometimes our team needs to recruit or select random players to fill the large roster of 14, as people come and go each season.  Our captain did so about three years ago and we met this group of guys who are from a different group in the gay scene, which was great.  One of the guys from that group is Ben (we call him Boston Ben to differentiate him from another Ben, who we called Bocce Ben).  He’s from the Boston area (hence the name) and I felt comfortable with him immediately as a result of our shared backgrounds, and more importantly, our shared interest in food and drink.

A wee pint glass for wine - keeping in the pub theme.

Ben travels the world for work and spends time at home, when he can, baking bread and other awesome pastries.  He is also an avid fan of the Great British Baking Show.  His boyfriend Brandon, whom we just recently met at our Holiday Brunch where he had a starring role in movie trivia, is a great guy as well.  We met them for dinner earlier this year at A Rake’s Progress here in DC (which was really quite amazing I must say) and proposed the idea of a You Pick Two to them. Luckily, they were on board so we planned a date.

For the menu I was really not sure what to do this time, but after talking with Ben about the Great British Baking Show I thought maybe British pub food would be a good idea.  I admittedly have never been to Britain (next year hopefully) but I am an unapologetic Anglophile when it comes to just about everything - culture, movies, TV, etc.  I have talked ad nauseum about my admiration and love for Nigella Lawson, but that’s me dipping the toe in the pool frankly.  Kevin and I spend many a night after dinner with a drink and pull up a British detective show to enjoy (favorites include Inspector Morse/Lewis, Prime Suspect, Vera, etc.).  So, in the spirit of those shows, I called this dinner “A Night at the Pub”, trying to evoke the spirit of the now disappearing neighborhood pubs in Britain.  One of these days I will make it there and have a pint and a bite at such a pub.

Our glorious Beef Wellington.

I follow Food52 on social media and a couple months ago they published a recipe for Beef Wellington that broke it down into lots of manageable steps (it’s a great site btw), and I decided to try it.  For those that don’t know, Beef Wellington is essentially a filet of beef, wrapped in a “duxelle” mixture (finely chopped and sautéed mushrooms), and then the whole thing is encased in a pastry dough and baked.  The goal is to get the pastry brown and cooked while making sure the filet is not overdone (ideally the meat would be medium or medium rare).  I was super happy with the way it turned out.  I let it rest for about 20 minutes to ensure the juices got back into the meat, however after doing this once, I would let it rest even longer since it takes a while for the encased beef to set up and the juices to redistribute in the meat.  Regardless, I was thrilled and it tasted amazing.  I had intended to make a mushroom gravy to go with but realized it didn’t need it really.  But feel free to add one!

Beef Wellington and sides.

I have had Scotch eggs a few times here in the U.S., but I don’t think they are super popular.  After making them I can kind of understand why, it’s not easy.  Again, it’s another encased kind of thing where you are trying to brown/fry the outside coating and not overcook the yolk inside.  I luckily found a great recipe online that worked.  Brown crispy coating, runny yolk - success.  The curry aioli dipping sauce is a must if you make this.

Scotch eggs frying in oil.

Mushy peas are something I have made a few times before - however, these are not true mushy “peas” like you would find in Britain (I believe they use a special dried pea).  Regardless, this version is quite delicious and maybe one of the easiest sides I have made for these dinners.  Going down the schoolhouse cafeteria route, carrots had to accompany the peas.  The one I made was a based on a recipe I saw Alex Guarnaschelli make several years ago.  You sauté sliced carrots in a good amount of butter and add seasonings, water and honey and let it cook down.  Toss in some fresh chopped parsley at the end and you are good to go.

I think the biggest hit of the night though was dessert: sticky toffee pudding.  I had never made it before, but it’s pretty simple to do.  You make a sponge cake and then as it cools you poke a bunch of holes in it with a skewer and then pour over this buttery, sugary syrup so that it soaks in to the sponge.  It needs nothing else to go with it.  Everyone had seconds.  Thanks again to Nigella for the recipe.

Sticky toffee pudding in all its shimmery glory.

Ben and Brandon brought Phil and Jeff – making this the first all gay male You Pick Two since the second one back in April 2014!  It was fun, Jeff plays on Brandon’s Stonewall darts team and is from rural Idaho.  He works in the policy arena and is well versed in politics and DC.  Phil, who is from Australia and has a wonderful accent, also works in education policy.  I think as a result of everyone’s backgrounds, we talked a lot about the politics, as is expected in this town frankly, but managed to keep it mostly friendly. One thing is for sure – we all agree the current President and his administration are horrible.  Most of our conversation centered on how to prevent it from happening again.  Get out and vote in November everyone!!!

The group (from left to right): Phil, Kevin, Ben, myself, Brandon - Jeff had to leave before we thought to take photo :(.

It was a really fun night and we can’t wait to do it again.

MENU

A Night at the Pub

May 12, 2018

Cocktail

Earl Grey Sparkler

Earl grey simple syrup, Sapphire gin, sparkling wine

Starter

Scotch eggs

Soft-boiled egg wrapped in ground pork and sage

 with a panko crust

Curry aioli dipping sauce

Main

Beef Wellington

Beef tenderloin wrapped in duxelles, prosciutto, and

puff pastry

Sides

“Mushy” peas

 Sweet pea puree, sour cream, garlic

Honey carrots

 Sauteed carrots, butter and honey glaze, parsley

Sweet

Sticky Toffee Pudding

Dark sponge cake, molasses and brown sugar glaze

Guests

Ben Picillo

Brandon Gryde

Phil Evans

Jeff Carlson 

#13: An Indian Banquet

Our banquet table for the evening.

Like a phoenix from the ashes, this blog has risen! I had intended on keeping You Pick Two going because it’s a lot of fun to do, but as happens sometimes, work got in the way in 2017.  My job this past year entailed lots of domestic travel, which disrupted any planning for these dinners.  I spend a lot of time combing through my modest library of cookbooks, scanning online sites, and watching old episodes of my favorite cooking shows on Youtube searching for new recipes and inspiration.  I also must say I was surprised by how many of you out there that I ran into throughout this past year asked me, “hey what’s up with that dinner thing you guys do?”  So that was really nice to learn that some people do actually read and follow this. 

I was also worried that the online landscape, especially with regards to blogging, has changed so much since I last posted.  I wondered, do people still blog anymore?  Is it passe now?  Luckily, my site is still available and active.  Although I am going take a look at new platforms (suggestions anyone?).  

This was our first 100% millennial dinner!  It was interesting to see social media actively being used during the night.  Although I like Instagram, I find that I take the online thing too seriously sometimes.  So, it was nice watching them Snapchat while hanging out after dinner as we discussed and demonstrated our different typing abilities (there was a fierce debate over the superiority of the “asdf jkl;” method).  It got me thinking that sometimes those apps are really just supposed to be fun.  I struggle a bit with it since I feel like I was told my whole life to hide who I am, so my instinct is to be cautious about my online presence.  But maybe it’s time to let that stuff go…

From left: Hunter, Grant, Karie, Kate.

So who were the guests?  We met Kate and Karie through some mutual friends, who we unfortunately don’t get to see much anymore.  But that has allowed us to spend some time together and get to know them pretty well.  They are incredibly nice people who, in some funny way, have kind of become our millennial interpreters a bit.  They went to American University and have a big group of friends here that settled and found jobs after college.  They throw a fun holiday party.  They, like many of the millennial generation, are very knowledgeable about food and drink and have introduced me to some breweries and products here in DC that I really like.  In fact, they brought us a bunch of great beer as a hostess gift when they came for dinner.  For the surprise guests, they brought two of their guy friends, Grant and Hunter, who were a lot of fun.  I haven’t laughed that hard in a while really… plus it was really nice to hang out with adults and not talk jobs, politics, or anything super heavy.  Our conversations touched on the pros and cons of hooking with your pizza delivery person (still unresolved), how Goya products are made in New Jersey (who knew?), and what it feels like getting older (the big 3-0 is on all of their mutual horizons). 

Beef vindaloo.

For the food, I have been trying to have a dinner that featured Indian cuisine for a while now, but had a hard time focusing the menu since Indian cuisine is impressively varied by region and town.  I turned to two sources, Nigella (shocker) and someone I consider a great spokesperson for Indian cooking through her writing and cookbooks, Madhur Jaffrey.  Now, as a bit of a side note, I also was one of those people who bought an Instapot on cyber Monday this past year and, after being very skeptical initially, I have come to love it.  So, after learning how evangelical Karie is about the device at her holiday party, I knew I had to use it in some way for this dinner.  Fortunately, a lot of Indian cooking lends itself very nicely to pressure cooking.  I had intended to make lamb vindaloo, but no grocery store here in DC had any lamb shoulder roasts, all I could find were sliced blades from the shoulder that came from New Zealand.  No thanks. So instead I found a nice chuck roast (which admittedly is not very Hindu), but it was quite delicious.  Using Madhur’s recipe it was a cinch to make in the Instapot – which also served as the cooking vessel for the rice pilaf.   And this is really where the Instapot shines: cooking grains and legumes.  

The rice pilaf.

The appetizer was surprisingly easy to make and also quite delicious.  I have never used chickpea flour before, but I would make these fritters again anytime.  They were easy to assemble and after a quick pan fry in an inch or so of vegetable oil, quite good with a yogurt dipping sauce.

Aloo gobi and muttar paneer wait to be served.

I also did my best to make a menu that contained no cilantro.  I randomly saw online that one of the guests has that rare genetic thing where the leaves taste like soap or worse, so I pulled that out where I could and substituted parsley instead.   I also learned that you can use ground dried coriander and it doesn’t affect them the same way.  Which would have been tough since a lot of the Indian recipes I was looking at had ground coriander. 

Frying up the onion fritters.

The cocktail and dessert were something of a challenge.  The Indian desserts have had in my life on the whole just weren’t the most exciting.  So I looked and found this semolina cake with coconut added four ways, which sounded good.  Unfortunately the recipe was really off in their amounts and I think I overcooked the cake a bit.  The guests still liked it, but I was disappointed.  For the drink, we were pretty liberal on what could constitute an "Indian" cocktail.  Some research online and we ended with a pretty good drink.  Although in retrospect I would have added sparkling wine, rather than soda water, since it needed some acidity to cut through the guava.

Our cocktail for the evening.

Overall, it was a fun night, with good food, and we made some new friends – so glad to be doing these dinners again.

                                                                        MENU

An Indian Banquet

January 27, 2018

Cocktail

Mumbai Mint Sparkler

Guava nectar, muddled mint, rye, club soda

Starter

Onion fritters

Besan (chickpea flour), onion, spices, fresh chile,

green chutney dipping sauce

Mains

Chicken with Green Chiles

Chicken breast, green chile, spices, spinach/mint sauce

Beef Vindaloo

 Chuck beef, garlic, ginger, cayenne, whole grain mustard, red wine vinegar, coconut milk

Sides

Muttar paneer

Paneer cheese, sweet peas, tomato puree

Aloo gobi

Cauliflower, potatoes, turmeric, mustard and cumin seeds

Rice pilaf

Gold basmati rice, cardamom, cinnamon, slivered almonds

Sweet

Goan Baath Cake

Coconut (four ways), semolina, rosewater

Guests

Karie Kvandal

Kate McCoy

Grant Carlisle

Hunter Mason