Menu Inspiration – Gone Bad

The key to making a great tasting dish is practice. It’s great to get ideas from a restaurant. It is easy to get recipes off of the internet. You can’t however, expect to make a great dish the first time you try something. The medallions I made trying to replicate a great meal I had at a restaurant recently were not that good. The key to supper club dinner party success is practice, practice, practice.

Think about it. The chef at the restaurant has probably made that dish hundreds of times. Every time he or she makes it he/she is learning something. Most people cooking for a supper club dinner party are making that dish for the first time. It isn’t that hard to practice a little on your family. Even better, when I write a menu for a supper club, I will invite friends over for a test run. It is amazing, but I haven’t poisoned anyone yet and its rare that someone will turn down an invitation. Like the book Impromptu Friday Nights says… Everyone likes to socialize over a meal, even if they are really guinea pigs.

Where did I go wrong with my inspired menu?

I replaced the beef filet with pork tenderloin medallions. I did this because I was making an extra meal for a friend that just got out of the hospital. With pork you don’t have to worry as much about cooking to temperature and as the meal had to be re-heated the risk of overcooking beef is really high. In hindsight pork tenderloin medallions are not beef tenderloin. As the old movies line states: Jell-O will never be crème brulee and crème brulee will never be Jell-O
The crust was a little dry. I used ½ cup of butter with ½ cup of breadcrumb as a base. You can never go wrong with a little more butter. The next time I will make it with ½ cup of butter to a ¼ cup of crumb. When it comes to flavor, fat is good!
The flavors of the crusts were not as impactful as I would have liked. In the future I will double the amount of flavor. For the Parmesan, instead of ½ cup of parm, I will make it one cup. For the blue cheese, instead of ¼ cup, I will make it one cup. For all of the crusts I will add a tablespoon of sautéed shallot. You can never go wrong with a little more flavor.

In my last blog I promised to publish the recipes. Well, you are going to have to wait. I am going to keep practicing until I get it right, or run out of friends willing to be guinea pigs.

If you enjoy this blog and similar other stories/supper club lessons subscribe to get future blogs at www.impromptufridaynights.com/blog and check out my book Impromptu Friday Nights a Guide to Supper Clubs. Published by Morgan James Publishing and available through most channels that sell books.

Menu Inspiration

Where is the best place to get inspiration for a menu? My favorite has always been from a great restaurant experience. We had an inspirational meal at the Coopers Hawk Restaurant & Winery in Orlando Florida.

One of their specialties is:

Trio of Medallions

Horseradish, Blue Cheese and Parmesan Crusted Steak Medallions

The beauty of this menu item is the way they layered in flavors and textures to deliver an excellent dish. They developed an excellent variety of flavors and texture with the three crust mixtures. They also added to flavor and texture by plating the steaks with mashed potatoes in au jus broth.

On the surface it doesn’t follow my two key rules of making it in advance and keeping it simple. With a little thought to your mise en place the dish can be simplified and while it will require some last minute cooking it can be done pretty easily.

I had the dish a few nights ago and haven’t prepared it yet. Following is an outline of my thoughts of how to prepare the dish. I will follow up with a detailed recipe after testing out my thoughts.

Make the three crust mixtures in advance in a food processor. All three are based in ½ cups softened butter and Panko bread crump. For the Parmesan add a cup of parmesan. For the blue cheese add a ½ cup of blue cheese. For the horseradish add a ¼ cup of prepared horseradish.
The beef medallions can be filet or NY Strip. I prefer NY strip because you want a medallion that is about 2 inches around and ½ inch thick.
Searing the medallions and pan roasting is key. Preheat your sauté pan on high heat on the stove getting the pan good and hot. Add two tablespoons of butter and swirl the pan to coat. Then sear side one for 2 minutes. Add a ¼ inch topping of your three crust mixtures and then finish it in a 400 degree oven for 5 minutes for medium rare
Plate your medallions letting them rest. Then add a cup or two of beef broth to your sauté pan scraping up the brown bits. Bring the “au jus” to a boil.
Add mash potatoes and asparagus to your plate and then pour some au jus to to coat the bottom of the plate and serve.

That seems simple doesn’t it? My wife Susan will say what is simple for you may be very intimidating for others. As promised I will be testing this dish out and reverting with a better recipe. Lets see if I know what I am talking about.

More to come on this one.

Beware Of The Teacher!

If you don’t know what you are doing, you don’t really know if the person trying to teach you knows what they are talking about. The beauty, or downfall of the internet reality of today is that anyone can pretend they know what they are talking about. Do I know about supper clubs? Sometimes I even surprise myself.

Thirty years ago I took my 3 year-old daughter skiing with the intention of teaching her how to ski. My buddy John, who had been working at the ski resort for years, asked who was going teach Jennifer (his favorite niece) how to ski? I told him I was. To which he replied: No way! You taught me how to ski. We are going to get someone who knows how to teach skiing to teach Jennifer. Three hours later my 3-year old daughter was skiing from the top of the mountain.

Fast forward 30 years and my 4 year old grandson Max has moved to Ottawa Canada and wants to play hockey. Now Gramps may have majored in ice hockey in High School, but I think we might want to get him skating lessons from a PRO. My current expertise is more centered on PRO-VOLONE than skating.

If you enjoy this blog and similar other stories/supper club lessons subscribe to get future blogs at www.impromptufridaynights.com/blog and check out my book Impromptu Friday Nights a Guide to Supper Clubs. Published by Morgan James Publishing and available through most channels that sell books.