Strawberry, Kimchi and Granola? A Pre-Concert Meal In Three Parts

We cooked an exquisite dinner last night, if I do say so myself.

Amy and Heather came over for an early dinner before a concert at Davies Symphony Hall. We had tickets for the first of eight concerts Andras Schiff is giving in which he’ll play the full cycle of Beethoven piano sonatas. I have been very excited about the series, and I was able to convince the two of them to join us for the opening concert (it was fabulous).

Actually, my original plan had been to meet them for dinner at Zuni. I haven’t been there in a while, and I wanted to try it out again, but they could not guarantee us a table before the concert. I also tried to reserve a table at Absinthe, but that was also a no-go. So, I decided to cook at home. Or, rather, I decided to grill.

I marinated a little over two pounds of flank steak with olive oil and salt and pepper for about an hour. In the meantime, I thinly sliced five medium sized zucchini on a mandolin and then briefly marinated them with olive oil, salt and pepper as well. After grilling the zucchini for about eight minutes—they were very soft—I threw the steak on the grill. I cooked the steak for about four minutes per side, pulled it off to check on how cooked it was and put it back on the fire for about another two minutes. In all, the steak cooked for no more than ten minutes. It came off perfectly rare in some parts and medium rare throughout the rest.

While we chatted with the girls, Lou made his special sauce of Kimchi, crème fraiche and grated horseradish. He makes it by combining about a half a cup of crème fraiche with three or four spoonfuls of Kimchi and a healthy portion of freshly grated horseradish. It’s delicious, and it makes a wonderfully tangy, spicy, and creamy sauce, which is a perfect compliment for grilled steak. He is, by the way, the innovator in our kitchen. I’m much more inclined to follow a recipe, and I guess that’s what generally makes me a good baker. Lou is much more of a natural cook, willing to test—and trust—his taste buds to combine foods and flavors. Often times, he comes up with some amazingly good combinations, and the Kimchi, crème fraiche, horseradish sauce is a good example of his innovation (this was actually a reprise of this concoction for Amy!).

For wine, I opened a bottle of 2005 Vincent Dancer Pommard “Les Perriers.” The Pommard is a delicious Burgundian red from the biodynamic producer I discovered last March at Alinea. We were all struck by how light the initial taste of wine was, and we agreed that it tasted strongly of strawberries, with hints of raspberries, pepper, tobacco, vanilla and traces of violet or flowers. The color was also light strawberry red. It was a lovely wine, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Lou said he prefers the grassy boldness of the Oregon Pinot Noirs, especially Patty Green, but he agreed that it was a pleasingly complex wine.

Finally, for dessert, I made vanilla ice cream. I usually use the Ben and Jerry’s recipe that calls for 2 cups of heavy cream, 1 cup of milk, two eggs, 3/4 cup of sugar (I used the sugar we have flavored with the shell of a vanilla bean), 2 tablespoons of vanilla extract and the seeds of one vanilla bean. In this recipe, you beat the eggs for about a minute, whisk in the sugar, add the cream, milk, vanilla extract and vanilla bean and chill in the ice cream maker for 25 minutes. It could not be easier, and it comes out soft and perfect. We crumbled my friend Nick’s granola—-Cocoa Bliss—-on top. Nick has recently started his own raw foods company, Kaia Foods, and he’s come out with a small introductory line of raw granola snacks which he sells online as well as in several stores in San Francisco. Cocoa bliss tastes of cocoa and coconut, and it provided chewy counter textures and chocolatey sweetness that helped the vanilla ice cream stand out.