Dinner from Cooking for Mr. Latte

A few weeks ago, I finished reading Cooking for Mr. Latte by Amanda Hesser, a gem of a book that my sister and i found browsing through a bookstore in Eastwood City one lazy Sunday afternoon. The author is a food writer for the New York Times, and the book is a memoir about her love story with Mr. Latte, which is inextricably intertwined with her love story with food. Each chapter of her story was tied to a memorable meal, with the recipes given at the end of the chapter.

I really enjoyed the author’s witty, honest, down-to-earth storytelling. I loved how she showed how much food plays a part in everyday life, whether it be at a gathering of friends at the table, or a romantic dinner with that special someone, or a solo meal enjoyed just for the sheer pleasure of the food itself. Food brings people together; it nourishes and comforts; it can make you smile or laugh or cry.

I made this rule a few months back, that whenever i bought a cookbook or a cooking magazine, i would have to make at least one dish from that book/magazine. So for dinner tonight, i decided to make lamb chops from chapter 14 of Hesser’s book, Dinner When No One Wanted to be Alone.

I chose the recipe not because i particularly craved for company tonight, but because i wanted to make something a bit more special than our usual dinners but at the same time was really easy to prepare. I coated the chops in a mixture of rosemary, garlic, and olive oil and left them in the fridge for about a day. I added salt and pepper before broiling them in the oven for about 3 minutes each side.

The chops came out nearly perfect, brown on the outside and pinkish on the inside, and really flavorful. The olive oil and the fat from the chops gave the dish a creamy texture. Both my sister and i thought that the chops needed more salt, but that was probably my fault, as i’ve never been good at estimating how much salt or pepper to sprinkle over anything. In the end, it was still a really good, satisfying meal that my sister and i thoroughly enjoyed chomping down

Kitchen sessions

Sunday, October 26, was my only free afternoon of the entire month. i got home at 1pm and spent the first part of the afternoon lazing around and watching Wanted on DVD. By 5pm, i told my sister Genine that we had to do something fun that afternoon. She originally wanted to see a movie, but since there wasn’t anything good showing, we decided to cook up an extra yummy dinner instead.

The menu

French onion soup

Roasted Portobello mushrooms topped with mozzarella cheese

One roasted bell pepper sandwich

Mojitos

I made French onion soup as a starter. French onion soup has a classy ring to it, but it turns out it’s not so classy when you’re slicing the onions, your eyes all stinging and tearing up (from the volatile acids released by slicing the onion, which cause eye irritation). i resisted the temptation of asking the maid to slice them for me, just so that i could say that I cooked something by myself for maybe the 5^th time in my whole life.

Preparing the dish was an experience not only of taste, but of sight, sound, smell. The hiss of sliced onions hitting a hot saucepan, the rich heady smell of them sautéing in butter, the slow transformation of color from a raw white to translucent to a light caramel made for a true feast for the senses.

The caramelized onions went into a pot of beef stock. the soup was ladled into individual bowls, topped with a generous helping of velvety Colby cheese, and served with toasted French bread on the side.

Genine and i thought cocktails would be fun. We started making the Mojitos while we waited for the peppers to roast, so we could have a little drink before dinner. The Mojitos in the recipe called for white rum, brown sugar, crushed mint, and lemon juice. It tasted great, sweet and citrusy with a kick, although it looked nothing like the photo in the recipe. (I don’t see how mixing brown sugar with white rum can still produce a crystal clear drink; ours turned out sort of mud-colored.) It was so good that i ended up guzzling half my drink. By the time dinner was ready five minutes later, i had developed the worst case of lightheadedness in my life. It was so bad that i may never mix a cocktail again.

Anyhoo, we started dinner off with the French onion soup and the Portobello mushrooms. Both dishes turned out great. The soup was rich and creamy, topped with a generous helping of Colby cheese that melted into the steaming hot broth, and served with French bread on the side. Roasting the mushrooms gave them a great, meaty flavor, and mozzarella cheese has got to be one of my favorite things in the world.

Genine made a roasted bell pepper sandwich from different varieties of bell peppers she bought on a recent trip to Indonesia. The peppers were roasted at a scorching 500oF, cooled, then marinated in balsamic vinaigrette. The filling was scooped on top of a slice of French bread and topped with Colby cheese. They sandwiches were supposed to be our main dish, but we were so full after the starters that we ended up sharing one tiny sandwich. Anyhoo, Genine explained that it was one of those dishes that would taste better the next day, when the peppers had overnight to soak into the vinaigrette.

And so my most recent attempt at cooking met its happy ending in one satisifying dinner. I’ll probably be doing this again sometime