ad hoc

     Friday night is usually "family night" at our house and can involve dinner and/or a movie out, board games, or a home cooked meal.  Tonight I decided to cook a meal entirely from recipes found in Thomas Keller's ad hoc at home cookbook from his casual Napa restaurant, ad hoc.  After dinner we planned to watch the second movie in the Lord of the Rings trilogy (The Two Towers).

     Over a year ago, our local butcher shop - a highly regarded family-run institution - was gutted by a fire.  A few weeks ago it re-opened, more spacious and better than ever.  My husband really wanted to grill some meat from the re-opened shop so that is where our meal originated.  I first picked up three Porterhouse steaks which the butcher cut to order off of the "slab" of steak.  I went with 1-inch thick steaks since I didn't think any of us were up for a more traditional 2-inch steak.  

     The Porterhouse steaks were simply prepared: trimmed of fat, basted with a little bit of canola oil and then sprinkled with sea salt and freshly ground pepper.  The ad hoc twist was the addition of a compound butter. I made herb and shallot butter from the cookbook which consisted of shallots, butter (of course!), flat-leaf parsley, freshly squeezed lemon juice, kosher salt, and sweet paprika.  After the ingredients were blended I formed the butter into a log shape, wrapped it in wax paper and put it in the freezer since time was short.  Next I prepared the creamed summer corn, something I haven't always enjoyed as there is often too much cream involved.  This recipe was perfect and had the more unusual seasonings of lime zest and lime juice as well as cayenne pepper (just 1/8 of a teaspoon) and fresh chives.  I then started the buttermilk biscuits.  The last biscuits I made were a disaster.  They had the consistency of hockey pucks and were, unfortunately, served at a dinner party to friends.  They still tease me about the biscuits!  I followed Thomas Keller's directions to not over process or overwork the dough (he repeated this several times throughout the recipe) religiously.  I also used expensive "high-end" unsalted butter to be on the safe side.  When I turned the dough out onto my work surface to cut into biscuits, however, I was very worried by its consistency.  It was very wet and sticky.  When I cut each biscuit, I could barely pick them up to move them to the parchment paper-lined baking sheet as they had no firmness.  Thankfully, they came out perfectly!  (After dinner, I could not resist bringing two biscuits over to our friends who had previously been subjected to the "hockey puck" biscuits.  They were really impressed and wanted the recipe!)  Lastly, as the dinner foods were cooking, I mixed the brownies.  These were definitely not your ordinary overly-sweet mix-in-a-box type brownies.  I melted half of the butter and then pored it over the rest of the room temperature butter so that the batch of butter was soft but still creamy.  I then mixed the eggs and extra-fine baker's sugar together, added flour, unsweetened alkalized cocoa powder (I used Guittard) and the butter, a little bit at a time.  I then added some vanilla paste and, finally, some chopped 62% chocolate pieces (I used Scharffenberger).

     The verdict: My kids loved the steak and the biscuits and both ate, but did not love, the creamed corn.  My daughter could not get enough of the compound butter but my son would not try it.  The real surprise of the evening was my calorie-counting husband.  When he saw me making the compound butter he said that he would try a little bit but wanted his steak "dry".  After he sampled the butter with his steak, he ended up slathering the whole steak with it!  I personally loved everything and would happily make all of the dishes again. 

Porterhouse Steaks

Herb and Shallot Compound Butter

Creamed Summer Corn

Buttermilk Biscuits

Brownies

     While we were watching the movie, I brought out the brownies.  The were super rich and tasted like they came from a professional bakery.  My daughter ate hers but was not a huge fan since she tends to like milk chocolate and sweeter brownies.  My son is a huge dark chocolate fan and he would have eaten the whole platter of brownies, if allowed.  I was really glad that I finally dove into the ad hoc at home cookbook as I had been drooling over its pages for awhile.  And now some of those pages are covered in flour and butter - the cookbook is officially broken in!

     This meal took me a long time to make and the ingredients were pretty expensive.  I think next time I will go for a quick and inexpensive meal to balance it out.  Now I just need to get motivated again…  Wish me luck!