Dinner party

Last night we had a handful of people over for dinner (8 including myself) and the menu included:

• Sous vide filet with a blue cheese crumble
• Bacon wrapped asparagus
• Russet potatoes oven roasted in duck fat and thyme with thinly sliced shallot rings.

I'm really happy we didn't have any vegetarians over because I totally didn't realize that the meal was completely vegetarian unfriendly. Oops.

The filet was cooked at 131 for an 1.75 hours and seared with my blowtorch aka my attempt to make sous vide cooking manly.

The asparagus were wrapped in thinly sliced bacon and set in the oven for ... I seriously have no idea how long. Until they looked done? I'm really particular about my bacon and just watch it like a hawk until it's awesome. Because of the potatoes they were in the oven at 500 degrees for a time, then 400 degrees.

I pretty much had nothing to do with the potatoes other than finding the recipe and lending a small helping hand here and there because I had my friend Josh over to help (thanks Josh!). We followed serious eats recipe for ultra crispy potatoes. They were delicious but not as crispy as we hoped, I think that we left them in the boiling water too long.

Oh, and the wine didn't suck at all. 1998 Penfolds Bin 389 and a 2010 Colline Novaresi Barbera (which makes me realize how much more I need/want to learn about Italian wine).