MENU
My Favorite Classic Caesar Salad
Perfectly Easy Roast Chicken
Salmon Filet
Grilled Steak
Five No-Cook Summer Sauces; Green Goddess Dressing, Garlic Aioli (with mint, tarragon and cognac variations), Old-Fashioned Thousand Island Dressing, Fresh Mango-Mint Chutney, Cucumber-Dill Sauce
Artichokes steamed & dechoked - also great with the sauces
Best Potatoes Ever - also divine with the sauces
Strawberry Shortcakes (we will make variations that can be frozen etc for scones) with Ice Cream, Whipped Cream & Fresh Strawberry Sauce
About the Class
I just returned from visiting my grandchildren in Berkeley where the weather was as gorgeous as was the omnipresent "super bloom" (something I'd never encountered even though I grew up in California and have been returning all my life). Blue skies and temperatures in the 70's reminded me that warm weather--even in NYC-- is around the corner. Memorial Day weekend is front and center, and the summer-easy recipes in this menu should come in handy then and all summer long.
The main course showcases 5 spectacular non-cook "summer" sauces that I serve all year long. And the starter and the dessert are the best versions I know of two classics I never tire of. The Caesar Salad--with crispy, herby, garlicky croutons and lots of grated Parmesan--is crunchy and deliciousI It's a starter here but can certainly become a summer lunch main event when preceded by gazpacho or another cold soup and followed by lemon cake, a fruit tart or even the Individual Strawberry Shortcakes from this menu. To gild the lily, add shriimp, chicken and/or hard-boiled eggs to the salad.
The basic shortcakes — with fragrant traces of orange and vanilla — are too good to pass up and double for tea scones. I always make extras to eat to eat with butter and jam or marmalade for breakfast the next day or freeze for later use. For our dinner we'll serve them with strawberry sauce and vanilla ice cream as well as with the traditional dollops of whipped cream. No reason not to go all out. I often make extra strawberry sauce as well — to serve over ice cream, toasted pound cake a la mode or even waffles. Another useful sauce for the repertoire.
For the main course, we'll roast the perfect chicken, grill or panfry a steak and also a salmon fillet. These recipes are all pretty basic, but anything more elaborate is superfluous given the 5 flavorful sauces. It's fun to try the sauces with all three though I suspect you'll only serve one at a time yourselves. Because the 3 proteins are equally good hot, warm or at room temperature, they provide ideal picnic and al fresco fare though they can be dressed up quite nicely to work well around a kitchen or dining room or table.
If you're not already making my basic roast chicken, I hope you will be soon. It's completely "do nothing." No trussing, no basting, no oil, no nothing, but as succulent and delicious as roast chicken gets. Full disclosure: I have no idea why it works so well but along with the salmon and the steak, it's the perfect vehicle to showcase the sauces.
And I figured, vis a vis side dishes, we should amortize the sauces. We'll have room temperature artichokes with a special twist. Ditto roasted potatoes. Both are delicious with all of the sauces other than the Fresh Mango Chutney which is only good with the chicken, steak and salmon. The artichokes are steamed before dechoking. I have always found the dechoking process difficult/not worth doing when they're raw but after cooking, it's a snap. I just realized this a couple of years ago and it's changed my life (at least a little bit.) I also learned recently that if you boil cut potatoes for just a few minutes before roasting, they cook up much crisper and more evenly salted. It's subtle but I'm finding it worth doing.