Ham Sandwich as Personal Chef

Last week, I had the absolute privilege of cooking a surprise 5th Anniversary dinner for my friends Scott and Christina. Scott emailed me about a month ago with this idea, and I was happy to be of service. The challenge for this dinner was that it had to be gluten and dairy free...which, being a girl for whom butter and flour are their own food groups, gave me slight pause.

However, after some research, and discussion with Scott, I realized wouldn't be that hard--tamari to replace soy sauce, potatoes instead of grains, and lots of veggies (which are quite abundant right now). Also, Scott said that Christina had eyeballed some bison tenderloin at the North Market, so the main was easily decided. Bison! How exciting--I'd never cooked bison before!

Up first, the salad course:
A sugar snap pea and english cucumber salad. It was dressed with a simple walnut and lemon juice dressing, the walnuts being crushed to a paste, and blended with the lemon juice, walnut oil, and fresh dill. Add some cayanne, salt, and pepper to taste, and it was nice light way to start the meal.

The main course consisted of a whole bison tenderloin, marinated overnight in cardamom and tamari. Fortunately, bison cooks pretty much the same way as beef, so after a quick sear on high heat on the grill, I lowered the temp and let the bison slow cook until it reached an internal temp of 145 degrees for medium rare/medium.

Sides were saffron-roasted fingerling potatoes and basic broiled asparagus tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper. After plating the salad, and pulling the meat off to rest, I left Scott and Christina to enjoy their dinner and dessert, a chocolate coconut ice cream terrine, with chocolate covered pretzels.

It was based on this recipe that Christina had apparently shown to Scott, and I only had to make some simple modifications. I substituted coconunt milk ice cream for regular (which, by the way is DELICIOUS!), did a swirl of almond butter and vegan chocolate sauce through the middle, and used gluten-free pretzels for the topping. Needless to say, it was quite decadent.

Many, many thanks to Scott and Christina for letting me invade their home and their anniversary--I had a great time making this meal and I hope you had a great time eating it!



Comments

Annie D. said…
And they absolutely loved it!!!
June 15, 2010 at 3:51 AM
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