Birthday Dinner
Haven’t blogged in awhile, but this dinner is worth waiting for! Friday was James’ birthday, and I had the day off to prep for his present: a seven course meal, with each course focusing on a regional cuisine from where he’s lived.
James was born in Florida, so the meal started with a citrus-inspired amuse bouche of shrimp ceviche. (Well, that was the goal. Was a little too big to technically be an amuse…) Of all the dishes, it was the one that I liked the least. I didn’t season well enough, and stupidly forgot to add the fresh herbs (duh). However, the citrus sauce was awesome. 
Next course was cajun shrimp, from his time in Louisiana. James can eat more shrimp than anyone I know, so knew it had to be featured heavily in the meal! Started by melting butter with cajun spices and garlic, then tossed in some shrimp (still in shells) and quickly added white wine and a little chicken stock. The shrimp were plated on top of some toasted french bread.
James’ family moved to California after Louisiana, so served a salad of watercress and avocado next. It was super easy, and the flavors were fantastic. The dressing included grated sweet onion and apple, which made it sweet and tangy. We both really liked this salad; James asked me to “add it to the rotation.”
The soup course was the most challenging to find. I wanted something relatively light, but from Ohio. Surprisingly challenging – especially as I’m not really familiar with Ohio-style cooking. But really, how different from upstate NY can it be? Finally settled on a kielbasa soup with potato and leeks – with lots of butter. Probably too much butter…
After a brief break, finally got to the first protein course – back to California with Dungeness crab over garlic noodles. Found a recipe inspired by Crustacean restaurant in SF, which serves the best crab I’ve ever had. The only change I made was to use buckwheat soba noodles instead of traditional garlic noodles (trying to keep it somewhat healthy with all the butter). The quality of my dish wasn’t quite to the Crustacean level of deliciousness, but I think it was still pretty fantastic. Gotta love crab season!
At this point in the meal, a thirty minute break was required. I tried to keep all portions small, but really, it’s a LOT of food. Once our stomachs had some time to recover, it was off to New York with a New York Strip Steak. James gave me my Christmas present early – a Sous Vide Supreme. I was super-excited to try it with this dish, and the results were AMAZING. I don’t think my oven will ever see another piece of red meat. I sous vide the steak at 136 degrees for almost 5 hours, let it rest for 20 minutes, then seared it in brown butter for about 30 seconds per side. I’m not a big fan of steak, but this machine my change that. I think James liked it, too; his half was devoured pretty quickly.
As we’re back in California, the final course was with some California Meyer lemons – a lemon semifreddo with fresh berries. It was a great way to end the meal – super light and fluffy. Of course, we polished that off. Strong ending.
A lot of food, but a ton of fun to prepare and a great way to celebrate his first thirty years. A very fun birthday – and he was totally surprised by it.
To make up for Friday night’s extravaganza, last night I seriously had bread, berries and water for dinner. (In fairness, I ate a lot more at our holiday sweater party, but that doesn’t really count as dinner…) Think I’m back on the real dinner train for tonight.