We started off with some leftover ricotta from last night's dinner out and baguette. I drizzled a little olive oil over the ricotta, cracked some black pepper on top, and served with Manuka honey.
Jen made a great vinaigrette with Dijob mustard, balsamic, garlic, and olive oil to go with mixed baby greens. One of the telltale signs of Jen making dinner is her love for putting salad dressing in a jar with a lid. It may be one of her favorite things in the world to do.
Jen also made a fantastic shepherd's pie. We both grew up eating shepherd's pies in different ways. Mine was a French Canadian/Italian amalgamation which my father called pâté chinois and my mother called shepherd's pie. Both thought the other was crazy when they talked about the dish until they found out it was the same thing. There were a number of problems with either nomentlature. In Rhode Island, apparently, lamb did not exist until the late 1990's therefore this dish was made with 100% beef. This doesn't make any sense as far as being called shepherd's pie.
Pâté chinois doesn't make any more sense. This literally translates as Chinese pie. I won't bore you with going into the details of why this makes even less sense.
Jen made her family's version of the dish which is made with 50% lamb and 50% beef. Apparently in Canada they had only discovered lamb half way.
We're getting a little predictable with our Dogfish Head beers lately but I figured that the Indian Brown Ale would be one of the better accompaniments to this dish. It turns out I was right! Even though Jen doesn't normally go for this type of beer she enjoyed it quite a bit.
We topped off the evening by watching Beauty and the Beast on Jen's request. I figured that she's endured enough episodes of The Wonder Years in the last week to make this only fair. The movie wasn't bad but it could have been helped by some classic rock tunes and pithy voice overs.
2 comments:
This blog contains a small bit of revisionist history. I actually grew up eating a version of shepherd's pie much more similar to the pate chinois of Nate's youth (beef filling, top layer of corn) than the version I made on Sunday. This one may be more historically accurate to the original shepherd's pie, but definitely not to my youth and Canadian upbringing. Maybe next I should try making the family version.
I never revise. I post what happens exactly as I see it.
I'm fair and balanced.
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