The Mid-Atlantic

This week we created dishes indigenious to the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States.
The states included in this region are New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania. The settlers of the region were German, Dutch, Irish, English, just to name a few. Below you will see what our Founding Fathers likely ate on the eve of the Revolutionary War; or after they declared Independence.

Our menu consisted of spicy crab soup with crab puffs; egg, cucumber and tomato salad; buffalo chicken wings; roast duck; applesauce cake with caramel; vichyssoise; beets, endive and feta salad; scallops with mushrooms and asparagus; "shaker-style" turkey cutlet; croquette potatoes; roasted spaghetti squash; ginger pound cake with warm cranberries.

I know this seems like a lot of food but we manage to finish all of these within two days. The first day we made the spicy crab soup, crab puffs, roasted duck, applesauce cake, buffalo wings and cumcumber tomato salad. The soup came out great with great flavor, the right amount of heat and a lot of crab. The puffs were a little dry; I think they may have been cooked too long. The roast duck was extremely juicy and the glaze we made for it was perfect. The applesauce cake was very moist and had great flavor. My favorite was the buffalo wings; which I made my garlic/bluecheese dipping sauce. They were crispy, spicy and was very moist inside; it caused me to buy a fry daddy that weekend.

The next day we made vichyssoise, beet endive and feta salad, scallops with mushrooms and asparagus, "shaker-style" turkey cutlet, croquette potatoes, spaghetti squash and ginger pound cake. Vichyssoise was not my favorite but a very classic soup. This soup was taken off the shelves; when it gave people bottulism for not cooking the soup. These folks were use to eating the soup cold; which is the traditional method. The shaker cutlet was awesome; and the sauce Mike made was killer. The spaghetti squash was tossed in butter and parmesan cheese; and was placed back in it's shell for presentation. The scallops were good but kind of small for my liking. The pound cake was amazing and I took a piece home. My mother said it was to die for and I needed to make more...lol...it had a great texture and just the right amount of ginger.

Overall good week and not super excited about the menu; however a lot of highlights.