Your faithful correspondent, Annalena, is always on the watch for something that looks interesting , easy and tasty. The three concepts, however, are not found together all that often. Indeed, she is reminded of an old slogan that was used at a biotech company: "good. fast. cheap. Choose two."
Think about it. Exclude men from your thoughts, but think about your own work product. See what Annalena means?
Now, it also may come as a surprise to you, but Annalena has her prejudices. She has her favorite, and not so favorite foods. She has her favorite, and not so favorite restaurants. And she has her favorite, and not so favorite, food writers.
Mark Bittman, "The Minimalist" for the New York Times, falls into the not so favorite category. In my opinion, his recipes are frequently not workable, or they produce a dish that is just not good. I also find him more than a bit full of himself when he presents on television. So when I read his column, I approach it with a modicum of salt.
A week ago, however, he wrote a piece on a culinary idea that I had seen before: "risotto" , but using another starch: pasta in this case. Annalena is familiar with orzotto, the version using broccoli, and at a restaurant this past weekend, was served a lentil risotto that was not a risotto. What it was is anyone's guess. It was ok, but risotto? NO.
And what, precisely, IS risotto? Well, I would have to check with Professor to be Jonathan, but the word sounds like "riso" and "sotto" combined. Riso is, of course, rice, and "sotto" is "under.' I guess, if my derivations are correct, because the rice is under liquid while you cook it. (PTB: can you check this, per favore? Grazie). However, one of the points of risotto is that it is NEVER completely submerged in liquid. If it is, you are doing something wrong, and may be on your way to pilaf. Not a bad thing, but not risotto.
Well, I have written about risotti before, and I shall refer you to those note. Mr. Bittman's recipe was appealing to me, as I was trying to come up with an appropriate starch to serve with my "should be legendary" roast chicken, and nothing was feeling right. As I went through his recipe, I simplified it. This is "bare bones." If you are familiar with risotto making, you will know precisely what to do to make it fancier. I used cooked squash because that's what I had on hand. He recommends cooked mushrooms. I can see that. He also uses chicken. I can't see that. I like these dishes as "contorni" rather than full meals.
You'll see reference to "small pasta" in the recipe. I used stelline: little stars, what we called "pastina" when I grew up. I believe, with no reason to back me up, that these smaller pastas have more starch and are creamier than the bigger ones. If all you have are big pasta, however, break them up. Indeed, this is what is done with the wonderful Mexican pasta dish "fideus," which is so satisfying baked in a casserole with crab. (Hmmmm.).
Now, the purist amongst you will see that the stock is not heated up. That is correct. I had my doubts, but it works. It really, truly does. Try it. I betcha you're gonna like it.
To begin, chop up two shallots (he used one), and a couple of gloves of garlic. Measure out half a pound of that small pasta I atlked about above. If you are so inclined, have half a cup of white wine ready, and you must also have about 3-4 cups of broth t here, too. Chicken is traditional, and to me, works the best. You could use others though. And for my version, a cup of cooked squash. Use a cup of another cooked vegetable if you like.
Now, time to have some fun. Get a wide pan, and add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and the shallot and garlic. Saute them just for a few minutes. Then add the pasta, together with a half teaspoon or so of salt. Stir the pasta in the cooked aromatics and the oil. It will glisten, and even pick up a bit of color. When that happens, toss in the wine and let it evaporate. If you are not using wine, start with half a cup of your stock.
Start adding the remaining stock, half a cup at a time. Stir while you're cooking, and when the liquid is almost gone, add the next half a cup. It will take about a minute/minute and a half after each addition. After you've added 2.5 cups of stock, taste the pasta for softness. It probably will be too hard and you should continue to cook. Mine was perfect after three cups of stock, but this is all dependent on the shape, the manufacturer, your pan, the height of the tide in the Bay of Fundy (I made that last one up, but you get the idea). Then, stir in the squash, and you are finished, except for tasting and correcting salt and pepper.
You could make this and finish it with butter and cheese, and when I make it that way, my buddy Keith is going to come over and make it with me (aintcha?). Would this work with non-wheat pasta? A good question. It would seem that it would work with rice pasta, shouldn't it? My buddy David is going to come over and make THAT one with me, (aintcha?).
I think you will be pleased. A good risotto is a think of true beauty and wonderful flavor. And so is this. So instead of going and buying a box of Stove Top stuffing, make a pastasotto. Have a friend over, and enjoy it. And let Annalena know if you liked it.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Saturday, December 12, 2009
A convert: Annalena learns to love brussels sprouts
Well, yes , it happened. A bit of background here. Given what the experts call my "food profile," whatever the hell that is, I should have always loved brussels sprouts. No question about it. However, the experts were wrong. I had never learned to like them. Tried, but couldn't. Actually, let me clarify that. There was one brussels sprouts dish that I had enjoyed: it had equal parts of shaved sprouts, pecans, and apples, was cooked as a pan fry in butter, and had honey added to the end.
GOOD. Brussels sprouts brittle. Don't really count, now, does it. So I would pass them up. If they came on a plate, I would ask for a substitute. Generally no problem, as Annlena loves many of the so-called "ucky" vegetables, and the kitchen would just make a swap.
So, what happened? Well, a few weeks ago, at one of our favorite restaurants, Barbuto, the chef sent out a freebie side dish. Brussels sprouts with fried pancetta. Ok, thinks I. I can't fairly sit here and pick out all the pancetta and let everyone else eat the sprouts (I'm really NOT that bad a person), and I certainly can't say to the server "Tell Ryan thanks, but no thanks."
Oh dear. So I bit into one. It was good. So was the second one. And the next one.
Let's jump forward a few weeks. I'm sitting in a restaurant with my sexy friend Brad, and he orders a side dish of brussels sprouts with chestnuts.
Again, thinks I, "I can't be rude, and say something like 'enjoy them, I hate them'". Out comes the sprouts, with the chestnuts, in a rich butter sauce. They were the smallest ones I had ever seen. Probably no bigger than some engorged nipples (I had to put that in to see if you were paying attention), and so well cooked, and so good, that it may very well be the case that Brad didn't get a single one (sorry if you didn't , Brad. I'll make it up to you. I promise).
So, with two favorable meetings with a veggie I hate, I had to reconsider this position. What was it about the two dishes that they s hared? Thinking about it, of course, there was all that fat. But the other thing was the texture. Both plates of sprouts were well cooked, almost to the point of being soft. And Annalena, being the food snob that she is, thought about what happens when she cooks cabbage, and the advice she gives: "cook it long, cook it soft." BS's are in the cabbage family. Maybe.... And chestnuts. Hmmmm. Nice color contrast. Fat? Butter sounded better than pork fat, although both sound good, don't they. Finally, size DOES matter. I liked the smaller ones better.
Off to the Greenmarket to create the dish. And so I did. You can too. You need half a jar of chestnuts, or one of those vacuum packs to give you about 6 ounces of dry chestnuts. Also, about a pound of the smallest BSs you can find. If you can only find big ones, quarter or half them lengthwise. Clean off the little dirty stub at the end. You also need about half a stick of butter.
Cook the sprouts in a big pot of well salted water. A tablespoon in a gallon of water is about right. When you have a rolling ball, add the sprouts and cook them. You don't want them firm. A knife should go through them very easily. When you're there, drain them, and get a big pan ready with the butter. Heat it at medium until it melts, and then add the chestnuts. Now, something that chestnuts do: they suck up that butter, sort of the way eggplant sucks up oil. If you are feeling like a calorie spendthrift, don't be concerned and just add more later on. If you are a bit concerned, just add the sprouts after about three minutes of cooking the chestnuts. If you want a moister dish, add a few tablespoons of water, but this isn't necessary. Just toss everything together for about two minutes, and then taste and add some salt. And you're done.
I thought, very seriously, of finishing this off with white truffle butter, and I'm glad I didn't. We served this at a dinner with our friend Adam, along with duck legs that I had braised in zinfandel (the recipe is in this blog, somewhere), and fregola pasta. I must say that there were no sprouts left at the end of the meal.
If , like my friend Chris, you love this vegetable, you won't need convincing. If you don't care for them, try it anyway, and if I'm wrong (I never am. Ask Guy), I'll make you a chocolate chip cookie
GOOD. Brussels sprouts brittle. Don't really count, now, does it. So I would pass them up. If they came on a plate, I would ask for a substitute. Generally no problem, as Annlena loves many of the so-called "ucky" vegetables, and the kitchen would just make a swap.
So, what happened? Well, a few weeks ago, at one of our favorite restaurants, Barbuto, the chef sent out a freebie side dish. Brussels sprouts with fried pancetta. Ok, thinks I. I can't fairly sit here and pick out all the pancetta and let everyone else eat the sprouts (I'm really NOT that bad a person), and I certainly can't say to the server "Tell Ryan thanks, but no thanks."
Oh dear. So I bit into one. It was good. So was the second one. And the next one.
Let's jump forward a few weeks. I'm sitting in a restaurant with my sexy friend Brad, and he orders a side dish of brussels sprouts with chestnuts.
Again, thinks I, "I can't be rude, and say something like 'enjoy them, I hate them'". Out comes the sprouts, with the chestnuts, in a rich butter sauce. They were the smallest ones I had ever seen. Probably no bigger than some engorged nipples (I had to put that in to see if you were paying attention), and so well cooked, and so good, that it may very well be the case that Brad didn't get a single one (sorry if you didn't , Brad. I'll make it up to you. I promise).
So, with two favorable meetings with a veggie I hate, I had to reconsider this position. What was it about the two dishes that they s hared? Thinking about it, of course, there was all that fat. But the other thing was the texture. Both plates of sprouts were well cooked, almost to the point of being soft. And Annalena, being the food snob that she is, thought about what happens when she cooks cabbage, and the advice she gives: "cook it long, cook it soft." BS's are in the cabbage family. Maybe.... And chestnuts. Hmmmm. Nice color contrast. Fat? Butter sounded better than pork fat, although both sound good, don't they. Finally, size DOES matter. I liked the smaller ones better.
Off to the Greenmarket to create the dish. And so I did. You can too. You need half a jar of chestnuts, or one of those vacuum packs to give you about 6 ounces of dry chestnuts. Also, about a pound of the smallest BSs you can find. If you can only find big ones, quarter or half them lengthwise. Clean off the little dirty stub at the end. You also need about half a stick of butter.
Cook the sprouts in a big pot of well salted water. A tablespoon in a gallon of water is about right. When you have a rolling ball, add the sprouts and cook them. You don't want them firm. A knife should go through them very easily. When you're there, drain them, and get a big pan ready with the butter. Heat it at medium until it melts, and then add the chestnuts. Now, something that chestnuts do: they suck up that butter, sort of the way eggplant sucks up oil. If you are feeling like a calorie spendthrift, don't be concerned and just add more later on. If you are a bit concerned, just add the sprouts after about three minutes of cooking the chestnuts. If you want a moister dish, add a few tablespoons of water, but this isn't necessary. Just toss everything together for about two minutes, and then taste and add some salt. And you're done.
I thought, very seriously, of finishing this off with white truffle butter, and I'm glad I didn't. We served this at a dinner with our friend Adam, along with duck legs that I had braised in zinfandel (the recipe is in this blog, somewhere), and fregola pasta. I must say that there were no sprouts left at the end of the meal.
If , like my friend Chris, you love this vegetable, you won't need convincing. If you don't care for them, try it anyway, and if I'm wrong (I never am. Ask Guy), I'll make you a chocolate chip cookie
Thursday, December 10, 2009
A flourless cookie: almond marmalade cookies
Ah, now here is where Annalena shows you how you can break away from what you think is standard, and wind up with a recipe that is quite tasty, unusual, fun, and easy.
Doesn't that describe, pretty much, the perfect date for all of us?
Back when I was much younger - a LONG time ago - there used to be a cookie available called an "Oriental almond cookie." Now, we're not allowed to use "oriental" anymore, although I must confess that, taken out of context, it is a beautiful word. "Oriental" means "rising," from Latin "orire," so the context is the rising of the sun. I wish we could disabuse the word of its signifier meaning, and use it in other contexts, but alas, that is not to happen.
But as usual, I digress. Back from linguistics, to cooking. Anyway, these cookies were big, soft, buttery (Yes, really typical of "oriental" cooking), and had the faintest taste of almond. They also had a nice big piece of almond in the center of them. Sometimes they would come in take out food, and sometimes not. Today, you never see them. Stella d'oro made a version of them, but they just weren't the same. Dunno why: maybe the ones in take out food were stale and I liked that quality, but who can tell?
So, several years ago, as I did my usual search and annoy mission for cookie recipes, I found this one. I clipped it, because the title was "almond cookies," and then when I read it, I put it aside. It did not seem workable. Then, when trying to make "one more cookie" for the annual display of excess that is Guy and my cookie collections, I looked at it again.
This recipe is sinfully easy. It's even easier if you start with almond flour, which you can buy from most health food stores. King Arthur sells it in toasted and untoasted varieties, and I like using half and half. It all goes in the food processor, and there's no flour. Here we go.
you need to start with about a pound and a half of ground almonds. Thats 4 cups or so. Put that into a food processor, with a cup of regular sugar, the rind of a lemon or and orange, grated (team it to your marmalade), and a half teaspoon of baking powder. Pulse that to mix. Now, add two egg whites. Contrary to the original recipe, you do NOT have to beat them ahead of time. Add a tablespoon of honey if you have it handy, and the most important thing, a half cup of a good marmalade. Use whatever you like. I used seville orange marmalade, and I was happy with it.
Put the food processor back on, and mix it all until you get a dough. T his is gonna be s ticky and you're better off wetting your hands for the next part.
Line baking sheets with parchment. You'll probably need three. Form small balls of the stuff, and after you have them laid out, get some whole, toasted almonds, and press one into each cookie. This will act to flatten them a bit too, which is what you want. Then, bake them for 20 minutes or so in an oven preheated to 325. You can cut it to 18, or go to 20. The shorter time gives you a cookie close to a macaroon, which is a good t hing. The longer time gives you a d arker, crispy cookie, also a good thing. (I think the softer ones are better). DO keep an eye on them. The honey and marmalade cause the cookies to darken substantially. For those of you who don't mind dark bottoms, this is certainly not a problem. Nor is it a problem if you like stronger tastes. BUt if that's an issue. USE 18 MINUTES.
When these babies come out of the oven, let them cool completely. The marmalade tends to make them stick to your parchment. Much easier to remove them when totally cool.
In a tin, these are extremely good keeping cookies. On a plate with some coffee or lemon verbena tea, they are really wonderful, as they are in an assortment with other almond or citrus based cookies.
Tis the holidays. Make some more.
OK, Annalena has given you some holiday treats. Next time , we investigate "what I did for brussels sprouts."
Doesn't that describe, pretty much, the perfect date for all of us?
Back when I was much younger - a LONG time ago - there used to be a cookie available called an "Oriental almond cookie." Now, we're not allowed to use "oriental" anymore, although I must confess that, taken out of context, it is a beautiful word. "Oriental" means "rising," from Latin "orire," so the context is the rising of the sun. I wish we could disabuse the word of its signifier meaning, and use it in other contexts, but alas, that is not to happen.
But as usual, I digress. Back from linguistics, to cooking. Anyway, these cookies were big, soft, buttery (Yes, really typical of "oriental" cooking), and had the faintest taste of almond. They also had a nice big piece of almond in the center of them. Sometimes they would come in take out food, and sometimes not. Today, you never see them. Stella d'oro made a version of them, but they just weren't the same. Dunno why: maybe the ones in take out food were stale and I liked that quality, but who can tell?
So, several years ago, as I did my usual search and annoy mission for cookie recipes, I found this one. I clipped it, because the title was "almond cookies," and then when I read it, I put it aside. It did not seem workable. Then, when trying to make "one more cookie" for the annual display of excess that is Guy and my cookie collections, I looked at it again.
This recipe is sinfully easy. It's even easier if you start with almond flour, which you can buy from most health food stores. King Arthur sells it in toasted and untoasted varieties, and I like using half and half. It all goes in the food processor, and there's no flour. Here we go.
you need to start with about a pound and a half of ground almonds. Thats 4 cups or so. Put that into a food processor, with a cup of regular sugar, the rind of a lemon or and orange, grated (team it to your marmalade), and a half teaspoon of baking powder. Pulse that to mix. Now, add two egg whites. Contrary to the original recipe, you do NOT have to beat them ahead of time. Add a tablespoon of honey if you have it handy, and the most important thing, a half cup of a good marmalade. Use whatever you like. I used seville orange marmalade, and I was happy with it.
Put the food processor back on, and mix it all until you get a dough. T his is gonna be s ticky and you're better off wetting your hands for the next part.
Line baking sheets with parchment. You'll probably need three. Form small balls of the stuff, and after you have them laid out, get some whole, toasted almonds, and press one into each cookie. This will act to flatten them a bit too, which is what you want. Then, bake them for 20 minutes or so in an oven preheated to 325. You can cut it to 18, or go to 20. The shorter time gives you a cookie close to a macaroon, which is a good t hing. The longer time gives you a d arker, crispy cookie, also a good thing. (I think the softer ones are better). DO keep an eye on them. The honey and marmalade cause the cookies to darken substantially. For those of you who don't mind dark bottoms, this is certainly not a problem. Nor is it a problem if you like stronger tastes. BUt if that's an issue. USE 18 MINUTES.
When these babies come out of the oven, let them cool completely. The marmalade tends to make them stick to your parchment. Much easier to remove them when totally cool.
In a tin, these are extremely good keeping cookies. On a plate with some coffee or lemon verbena tea, they are really wonderful, as they are in an assortment with other almond or citrus based cookies.
Tis the holidays. Make some more.
OK, Annalena has given you some holiday treats. Next time , we investigate "what I did for brussels sprouts."
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
A holiday cookie with some crunch: potato chip pecan sandies
Yes, it is that time isn't it? The days are darker, danker, and there does seem to be the feel of "finality" about us, as the year is drawing to a close. For me, it is usually a rather melancholy period, interspersed with as much fun time as I can fit in. Parties, concerts, celebrations, and an attempt to bring in BRIGHT colors, like citrussy oranges and yellows (from Kim , the Citrus Bomb, and Sandra, the artichoke Queen, of course). It's also the time of year when Annalena's baking bug takes over, she goes on automatic pilot, and creates in the vicinity of 40-50 different types of cookies. Crazy woman, she is, isn't she?
Well, this is one of the favorites. I had seen a demo of cookies with potato chips in them, on television, many years ago, and thought of them as just an amusing aside. Then, I found this recipe. It's essentially a pecan sandy, made more crispy by the addition of the chips. And it's really good. I truly love pecan sandy cookies. I don't eat many of them, and if Emily found out I ate one, it probably means ten more crunches, but here they are.
You start with two sticks of unsalted butter, that you let get soft. I tend to leave them out overnight, because I know they'll be soft that way, but if your apartment is especially warm, you won't need that much time. Also, collect a half cup of granulated sugar, and then put some more in a b owl. You also need - NEED is a good word - a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Use the good stuff, none of this vanillin crap. Also 2 cups of all purposes flour and a half cup of ground pecans. You can buy these. If you are going to grind them yourself, here's a tip: put the half cup of pecans in the food processor with the flour, and pulse. That keeps them from getting too oily, and you're going to mix them together anyway.
AH, the chips. You need to make enough potato chip crumbs, to fill half a cup. You can do that in the food processor (after you've taken the flour/nuts out) or in a p lastic bag that you pound, pound pound. Dont' go crazy with them. Too many chips makes an oily cookie.
Now, the mixing. I use a stand mixer, but you can do this by hand. Beat the sugar and butter together, until the are really REALLY creamy. The color will lighten. Plan on five minutes for this. Then add the vanilla, then the flour, the pecans and the chips, and just stir them together. I like to add half a teaspoon of salt, but you don't have to.
Now, preheat your oven to 350, and start shaping little balls of dough onto parchment lined bakingsheets. I try to make em small, and I wind up with lots of sheets of the stuff. Maybe 24 to a baking sheet, six rows of four. Then, put each ball of dough into that bowl of sugar to get some on it, and press each one down, slightly, with the bottom of a glass.
Bake the guys for about 12 minutes. If you do two sheets at a time, know that one part of your oven is hotter than the other, and if you know which part it is (you'll find out soon enough), you should put another sheet under the cookie sheet to protect it. After 6 minutes, rotate the sheets. Put the bottom tray on the top shelf, and vice versa, and also rotate so the back becomes the front.
They won't get very brown - they're not supposed to (sandies never do). Get em out of the oven and leave em alone until they cool fully. It will take about half an hour.
If you make them small, you'll get nearly 60 cookies. That's a good haul, when you're making a lot of cookies, and you want people to have an assortment. Of course, as one friend told me, small ones are good for putting in a cereal bowl and eating with milk .
Whatever. Make some cookies. 'Tis the season
Well, this is one of the favorites. I had seen a demo of cookies with potato chips in them, on television, many years ago, and thought of them as just an amusing aside. Then, I found this recipe. It's essentially a pecan sandy, made more crispy by the addition of the chips. And it's really good. I truly love pecan sandy cookies. I don't eat many of them, and if Emily found out I ate one, it probably means ten more crunches, but here they are.
You start with two sticks of unsalted butter, that you let get soft. I tend to leave them out overnight, because I know they'll be soft that way, but if your apartment is especially warm, you won't need that much time. Also, collect a half cup of granulated sugar, and then put some more in a b owl. You also need - NEED is a good word - a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Use the good stuff, none of this vanillin crap. Also 2 cups of all purposes flour and a half cup of ground pecans. You can buy these. If you are going to grind them yourself, here's a tip: put the half cup of pecans in the food processor with the flour, and pulse. That keeps them from getting too oily, and you're going to mix them together anyway.
AH, the chips. You need to make enough potato chip crumbs, to fill half a cup. You can do that in the food processor (after you've taken the flour/nuts out) or in a p lastic bag that you pound, pound pound. Dont' go crazy with them. Too many chips makes an oily cookie.
Now, the mixing. I use a stand mixer, but you can do this by hand. Beat the sugar and butter together, until the are really REALLY creamy. The color will lighten. Plan on five minutes for this. Then add the vanilla, then the flour, the pecans and the chips, and just stir them together. I like to add half a teaspoon of salt, but you don't have to.
Now, preheat your oven to 350, and start shaping little balls of dough onto parchment lined bakingsheets. I try to make em small, and I wind up with lots of sheets of the stuff. Maybe 24 to a baking sheet, six rows of four. Then, put each ball of dough into that bowl of sugar to get some on it, and press each one down, slightly, with the bottom of a glass.
Bake the guys for about 12 minutes. If you do two sheets at a time, know that one part of your oven is hotter than the other, and if you know which part it is (you'll find out soon enough), you should put another sheet under the cookie sheet to protect it. After 6 minutes, rotate the sheets. Put the bottom tray on the top shelf, and vice versa, and also rotate so the back becomes the front.
They won't get very brown - they're not supposed to (sandies never do). Get em out of the oven and leave em alone until they cool fully. It will take about half an hour.
If you make them small, you'll get nearly 60 cookies. That's a good haul, when you're making a lot of cookies, and you want people to have an assortment. Of course, as one friend told me, small ones are good for putting in a cereal bowl and eating with milk .
Whatever. Make some cookies. 'Tis the season
Sunday, November 29, 2009
signifiers transcended: apple and sausage dressing
The title above should remind you that, at one time, Annalena studied literary criticism. I will explain what it means to those not in the know, and that means everyone but moi.
I am extremely interested in foods that "transcend their signifiers," while also maintaining them. What does this academic bs mean? Well, let me give you an example.
The famous television chef, Marianne Esposito gives a recipe in one of her books for dried cherry sweet rolls. At the end of her exposition, she says "I serve these on Christmas morning." Now, that makes sense to me in a very real way: sweet, rich and the touches of bright red throughout them. Of course they would signify Christmas. But what I want to know is: does she serve them ONLY on Christmas, or does she also serve them at other times. And, going a bit deeper, if she does serve them at other times, did they start as non-Christmas items that became holiday food, or vice versa? It is the second group that interests me.
We can think of many examples of foods that fall into the first group: everyone has a specialty dish, that people ask for on the holidays. At New Years, our guests always want my artichoke cheese dip. It did not start as New Years' food, but it has acquired a patina of "New Years" I'm sure you all can think of others, for any holiday. Then there are foods that, really have become "locked" in certain traditions. For example, egg nog: if you can find eggnog other than the period between Thanksgiving and New Years, you are lucky. Those disgusting candies, Cadbury Creme Eggs. Look for them (if you dare), at times other than Easter. Panettone? I see it sold all year, but does anyone buy it or eat it? Fruitcake???? Cranberries????
See what I mean? Now, let's look at foods that HAVE made that jump, for whatever reason.
Oranges were always associated with the Yule season. I believe that is because they were ridiculously expensive, and intended only as a special treat. As they became more widely available, and cheaper, they became everyday food. Can you think of others?
So, that's what I mean about transcending the signifier: for these foods, they , at one time "signified" Xmas or some o ther holiday. If you were dropped into a living room, from outer space, and had no sense of what time of year it was, if you saw certain foods on the table, you knew that there was a holiday.
One of the classes of foods that has tried to make this jump, is stuffing, or more correctly, (at least to me), dressing. We all have favorite turkey stuffing recipes. (Now, let me clarify a term here, before we go on. I use "stuffing" to refer to foods that are actually used to fill the bird, and cook inside of it. "Dressing" is of the form of stuffing, but is cooked separately. The terms are used very loosely. For example, the recipe I present here was described as a stuffing. It never went into the bird). You can buy this hideous product "stove top stuffing," that I guess is supposed to replace potatoes or rice or whatever else you would be serving with your protein at dinner.
Does anyone actually buy that stuff? Does anyone eat it? EWWWWWW.
Well, dressings are very big "transgressors" to me. If I find one that I truly like, it becomes a part of my repertoire, and shows up at other times of year. This is one of those - a new one. It's custardy, which is a plus in my book. It's easy, which is also good. It's rich, even better, and it makes a lot. And you can do any kind of variations on it. Again, there is a method here, that you should study, learn and adapt.
The good cooks will see it right away. I would bet you that, having finished reading this, my freind Franklin has five or six variations of it in mind right away (incidentally, Franklin, based on your mac and cheese I made one this weekend. MMMMM GOOD).
Here we go. First, let's get our meat mixture done. You need a pound of sausage meat - spicy is good, fennel is good, sweet is good, whatever you like. When I say sausage meat, many butchers and farmers markets will sell you their sausage meat in bulk, i.e, without casings. But if you can only get sausages in their casings, just cut through the tube and pull out the meat . You all know how to pull out meat, don' t you? Put that aside, and dice up a cup each of celery, onion, and your favorite apple type, which should be peeled and cored. You also want to dice a few cloves of garlic, and get some fresh herbs ready. If it's pork, think sage. If you are already thinking variations and thinking merguez sausage (were you thinking that Franklin? I bet you were thinking of something else...), think rosemary. If you were thinking chicken or turkey sausage (getting warm, Franklin?), think another complementary herb, based on what the sausage already has in it . (Incidentally, I bet Franklin is thinking of smoked turkey meat that he's gonna grind like sausage, cause he's like that...).
Put some oil in a pan, and add the meat. Saute' it unitl it browns. You'll need to break it up as you go along, because these sausage meats are dense and they clump. Then take out the sausage, put it aside, and cook everything else in the drippings. It will take you less than ten minutes to do the sausage, and about 5 to do everything else. Mix it together.
Next, you need a bread base. I would stay away from the truly rich breads, and anything with fruit in it. Go for European style, bland breads. The recipe I used called for baguette. I used ciabatta, and I was perfectly happy with it. Rye bread would be nice. So would sourdough, I think. In any event, you need about a pound of it, that you cube in about one inch cubes. Keep the crust on those cubes. Add the bread to the sausage mix
Mix together a cup of whole milk, a cup of chicken stock and then a couple of tablespoons of melted butter. Whisk in three large eggs. Now pour all of that into the bread/sausage mix. Pour all of it into a 9x13 inch, buttered baking dish, get it in the oven, and bake for about 45-50 minutes, at 350.
Your home is going to smell positively wondeful as this cooks. You will be tempted to go in and eat three pieces before you serve it. Personally, I see nothing wrong with that, but you and your guests might consider it rude.
Now, I hope you see that this certainly does serves as a side to a turkey. But can you see it as breakfast or lunch? It is , essentially, a big ole' savory bread pudding, and who doesn't like that?
Change things. For example, if you want to go vegetarian, switch out the sausage for a pound of sauteed mushrooms (Jeremy? You listening, bud?). Maybe work some hot sauce into it, and put a second cup of milk in instead of the chicken stock. Got any other ideas?
Franklin, this one is for you. I KNOW you're gonna make a variation on it, I'm gonna copy it, "and the beat goes on."
I am extremely interested in foods that "transcend their signifiers," while also maintaining them. What does this academic bs mean? Well, let me give you an example.
The famous television chef, Marianne Esposito gives a recipe in one of her books for dried cherry sweet rolls. At the end of her exposition, she says "I serve these on Christmas morning." Now, that makes sense to me in a very real way: sweet, rich and the touches of bright red throughout them. Of course they would signify Christmas. But what I want to know is: does she serve them ONLY on Christmas, or does she also serve them at other times. And, going a bit deeper, if she does serve them at other times, did they start as non-Christmas items that became holiday food, or vice versa? It is the second group that interests me.
We can think of many examples of foods that fall into the first group: everyone has a specialty dish, that people ask for on the holidays. At New Years, our guests always want my artichoke cheese dip. It did not start as New Years' food, but it has acquired a patina of "New Years" I'm sure you all can think of others, for any holiday. Then there are foods that, really have become "locked" in certain traditions. For example, egg nog: if you can find eggnog other than the period between Thanksgiving and New Years, you are lucky. Those disgusting candies, Cadbury Creme Eggs. Look for them (if you dare), at times other than Easter. Panettone? I see it sold all year, but does anyone buy it or eat it? Fruitcake???? Cranberries????
See what I mean? Now, let's look at foods that HAVE made that jump, for whatever reason.
Oranges were always associated with the Yule season. I believe that is because they were ridiculously expensive, and intended only as a special treat. As they became more widely available, and cheaper, they became everyday food. Can you think of others?
So, that's what I mean about transcending the signifier: for these foods, they , at one time "signified" Xmas or some o ther holiday. If you were dropped into a living room, from outer space, and had no sense of what time of year it was, if you saw certain foods on the table, you knew that there was a holiday.
One of the classes of foods that has tried to make this jump, is stuffing, or more correctly, (at least to me), dressing. We all have favorite turkey stuffing recipes. (Now, let me clarify a term here, before we go on. I use "stuffing" to refer to foods that are actually used to fill the bird, and cook inside of it. "Dressing" is of the form of stuffing, but is cooked separately. The terms are used very loosely. For example, the recipe I present here was described as a stuffing. It never went into the bird). You can buy this hideous product "stove top stuffing," that I guess is supposed to replace potatoes or rice or whatever else you would be serving with your protein at dinner.
Does anyone actually buy that stuff? Does anyone eat it? EWWWWWW.
Well, dressings are very big "transgressors" to me. If I find one that I truly like, it becomes a part of my repertoire, and shows up at other times of year. This is one of those - a new one. It's custardy, which is a plus in my book. It's easy, which is also good. It's rich, even better, and it makes a lot. And you can do any kind of variations on it. Again, there is a method here, that you should study, learn and adapt.
The good cooks will see it right away. I would bet you that, having finished reading this, my freind Franklin has five or six variations of it in mind right away (incidentally, Franklin, based on your mac and cheese I made one this weekend. MMMMM GOOD).
Here we go. First, let's get our meat mixture done. You need a pound of sausage meat - spicy is good, fennel is good, sweet is good, whatever you like. When I say sausage meat, many butchers and farmers markets will sell you their sausage meat in bulk, i.e, without casings. But if you can only get sausages in their casings, just cut through the tube and pull out the meat . You all know how to pull out meat, don' t you? Put that aside, and dice up a cup each of celery, onion, and your favorite apple type, which should be peeled and cored. You also want to dice a few cloves of garlic, and get some fresh herbs ready. If it's pork, think sage. If you are already thinking variations and thinking merguez sausage (were you thinking that Franklin? I bet you were thinking of something else...), think rosemary. If you were thinking chicken or turkey sausage (getting warm, Franklin?), think another complementary herb, based on what the sausage already has in it . (Incidentally, I bet Franklin is thinking of smoked turkey meat that he's gonna grind like sausage, cause he's like that...).
Put some oil in a pan, and add the meat. Saute' it unitl it browns. You'll need to break it up as you go along, because these sausage meats are dense and they clump. Then take out the sausage, put it aside, and cook everything else in the drippings. It will take you less than ten minutes to do the sausage, and about 5 to do everything else. Mix it together.
Next, you need a bread base. I would stay away from the truly rich breads, and anything with fruit in it. Go for European style, bland breads. The recipe I used called for baguette. I used ciabatta, and I was perfectly happy with it. Rye bread would be nice. So would sourdough, I think. In any event, you need about a pound of it, that you cube in about one inch cubes. Keep the crust on those cubes. Add the bread to the sausage mix
Mix together a cup of whole milk, a cup of chicken stock and then a couple of tablespoons of melted butter. Whisk in three large eggs. Now pour all of that into the bread/sausage mix. Pour all of it into a 9x13 inch, buttered baking dish, get it in the oven, and bake for about 45-50 minutes, at 350.
Your home is going to smell positively wondeful as this cooks. You will be tempted to go in and eat three pieces before you serve it. Personally, I see nothing wrong with that, but you and your guests might consider it rude.
Now, I hope you see that this certainly does serves as a side to a turkey. But can you see it as breakfast or lunch? It is , essentially, a big ole' savory bread pudding, and who doesn't like that?
Change things. For example, if you want to go vegetarian, switch out the sausage for a pound of sauteed mushrooms (Jeremy? You listening, bud?). Maybe work some hot sauce into it, and put a second cup of milk in instead of the chicken stock. Got any other ideas?
Franklin, this one is for you. I KNOW you're gonna make a variation on it, I'm gonna copy it, "and the beat goes on."
Saturday, November 28, 2009
The hit of thanksgiving dinner: chestnut soup
Ok, so the season is upon us, and Annalena is up to her you know what in cooking. A dinner for 13 on Sunday (recently dubbed "the All Star dinner" by one friend), then Thanksgiving dinner for a gathering of 9.5 of us (someone showed up for dessert), and now, the holiday baking begins. Today is candy day: grapefruit peel (which means Kevin gets grapefruit sorbet), and quince paste. Cookies up and coming. And coming. And coming. Then the Christmas dinner, then the feast of a thousand dishes at New Year's. Good thing my feet don't hurt much this year.
But as usual, I digress. The Thanksgiving dinner this year was quite a wonderful affair. Smartest thing I ever did was insist on NOT sitting at the head of the table. I have such a ball now. And for those of you who "spiked" my party - and you know who you are (that means you, Brad), thanks so much.
And I digressed again. There ya go. Life in the stream of unconsciousness. Oi. Anyway, the hit of the meal , I think, was the chestnut soup.
I love chestnuts. When I was last in Europe, 12 years ago, it seemed that there was a chestnut vendor on every corner of Zurich. And these were GOOD chestnuts, not the kind we get at the hot dog vendors in NYC this time of year. Does anybody buy them? Does anybody like them? How many chestnuts die in the name of "tis the season," and then get tossed in trash cans because they taste nasty (Trust Annalena here. They do). But chestnuts ARE wonderful. Trust Europeans. They know about this type of thing. "Castagne," in Italian, we make them into candies, into breads, into custards, so many things. I don't really know of Italian chestnut soup, but wherever this one came from, it is quite wonderful. You should make it. Really, you should.
First, let's talk about sourcing the chestnuts (NOT "saucing" the chestnuts you twits). You can, if you feel ambitious, buy fresh chestnuts, score them, roast them, peel off the skins and hurt your fingers a whole lot along the way. Annalena has done that. She is over it. Truly and unconditionally. Now, she looks toward the "preprepared" route. You can get them, peeled , in jars. Some are packed in water (which is your least favored option), some are vacuum packed (better). Best of all, in my opinion, are the little vacuum packed pouches. The quality is much higher. The downside here is that the packets are very small. For this recipe, needing about a pound of chestnuts, you need 3-4 packs. The jars have more in them. Use what ya got.
Let's start with the base. It's a classic soup base: a half cup each of chopped carrot, celery, and onion. You 'll also need 3 tablespoons of butter. When I saw the original recipe, it called for a bouquet garni of parsley leaves, cloves and bay leaf. Sounds good, but chestnuts have a delicate flavor. Cloves, do not. It's sort of like the difference between a Schubert art song, and a Wagnerian opera. Those of you with some musical background will get what I mean, and those of you who don't, ask someone who does. I will digress no longer. In any event, I leave out the garni. You will also need that pound of chestnuts, and about six cups of chicken stock. Finally, you need a quarter cup of some strong tasting liquor in the sherry family: dry sherry, madeira, marsala (the dry variety), even vermouth, would do. Stay away from wine, port, or anything with a sweet edge. Chestnuts have a slightly sweet flavor, and that sweetness will take over the dish if you give it a chance to. Sweet liquors give it that chance. Optionally, you may want some heavy cream.
Now, let's cook. Melt the three tablespoons of butter in a big pot, and then add the carrot/celery/onion and cook at a medium heat (QUICK REVIEW: what do we call that combination of carrot/celery/onion, in French cooking? In Creole cooking? Have you been paying attention?????).
While the holy trinity is cooking, drain your chestnuts, and crumble them up in your fingers. It won't be difficult, they're fairly friable (look it up). Add them to the vegetables and butter, and cook for a minute or two. Add the liquor, and keep your face back when you do. If the pot is big enough, since you aren't using a lot of the hooch, the chance of a flame up is minimal, but do be careful. You worked hard to grow that moustache, and it really does suit you.
Now add the stock. Lower the heat, cover the pot, and go away for about twenty minutes. When you come back, the chestnuts will be very soft. This is a good thing. Turn off the heat, leave the cover off, and let the stuff cool down. When it is just warm, start pureeing it in a blender, in small batches. Use more time than you think you will need, else you will have little chunks of chestnuts. Not necessarily a bad thing, but if you want a smooth as silk soup, you have to take the time to do this.
Taste the soup after you've pureed it all, and then add the salt it needs. Think a minute as to whether you want cream or not. If you think the soup is slightly sweet, and you'd rather it wouldn't be, add the cream. Anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 a cup. Stir it, and you are done. Maybe....
A wonderful garnish for this, is more chestnuts, crumbled, cooked in more butter, and with some more of that liquor added to the frying pan (NOW, you DO have to be careful with your moustache), and added to the soup right before you serve it.
If you analyze this soup, even at a base level, it is essentially the same soup we've been making for years in this blog, only with chestnuts as the main vegetable. Today, for example, I made carrot soup, and as I think about it, the recipe is the same, save for the substitution of carrots for chestnuts.
Learn the basic recipe for making soup: the base, the fat, the stock, and the key vegetable. You're on your way to a whole lot of pots, of really good eating.
If you feel "oh, chestnuts are holiday food," well.. Feliz Navidad...
But as usual, I digress. The Thanksgiving dinner this year was quite a wonderful affair. Smartest thing I ever did was insist on NOT sitting at the head of the table. I have such a ball now. And for those of you who "spiked" my party - and you know who you are (that means you, Brad), thanks so much.
And I digressed again. There ya go. Life in the stream of unconsciousness. Oi. Anyway, the hit of the meal , I think, was the chestnut soup.
I love chestnuts. When I was last in Europe, 12 years ago, it seemed that there was a chestnut vendor on every corner of Zurich. And these were GOOD chestnuts, not the kind we get at the hot dog vendors in NYC this time of year. Does anybody buy them? Does anybody like them? How many chestnuts die in the name of "tis the season," and then get tossed in trash cans because they taste nasty (Trust Annalena here. They do). But chestnuts ARE wonderful. Trust Europeans. They know about this type of thing. "Castagne," in Italian, we make them into candies, into breads, into custards, so many things. I don't really know of Italian chestnut soup, but wherever this one came from, it is quite wonderful. You should make it. Really, you should.
First, let's talk about sourcing the chestnuts (NOT "saucing" the chestnuts you twits). You can, if you feel ambitious, buy fresh chestnuts, score them, roast them, peel off the skins and hurt your fingers a whole lot along the way. Annalena has done that. She is over it. Truly and unconditionally. Now, she looks toward the "preprepared" route. You can get them, peeled , in jars. Some are packed in water (which is your least favored option), some are vacuum packed (better). Best of all, in my opinion, are the little vacuum packed pouches. The quality is much higher. The downside here is that the packets are very small. For this recipe, needing about a pound of chestnuts, you need 3-4 packs. The jars have more in them. Use what ya got.
Let's start with the base. It's a classic soup base: a half cup each of chopped carrot, celery, and onion. You 'll also need 3 tablespoons of butter. When I saw the original recipe, it called for a bouquet garni of parsley leaves, cloves and bay leaf. Sounds good, but chestnuts have a delicate flavor. Cloves, do not. It's sort of like the difference between a Schubert art song, and a Wagnerian opera. Those of you with some musical background will get what I mean, and those of you who don't, ask someone who does. I will digress no longer. In any event, I leave out the garni. You will also need that pound of chestnuts, and about six cups of chicken stock. Finally, you need a quarter cup of some strong tasting liquor in the sherry family: dry sherry, madeira, marsala (the dry variety), even vermouth, would do. Stay away from wine, port, or anything with a sweet edge. Chestnuts have a slightly sweet flavor, and that sweetness will take over the dish if you give it a chance to. Sweet liquors give it that chance. Optionally, you may want some heavy cream.
Now, let's cook. Melt the three tablespoons of butter in a big pot, and then add the carrot/celery/onion and cook at a medium heat (QUICK REVIEW: what do we call that combination of carrot/celery/onion, in French cooking? In Creole cooking? Have you been paying attention?????).
While the holy trinity is cooking, drain your chestnuts, and crumble them up in your fingers. It won't be difficult, they're fairly friable (look it up). Add them to the vegetables and butter, and cook for a minute or two. Add the liquor, and keep your face back when you do. If the pot is big enough, since you aren't using a lot of the hooch, the chance of a flame up is minimal, but do be careful. You worked hard to grow that moustache, and it really does suit you.
Now add the stock. Lower the heat, cover the pot, and go away for about twenty minutes. When you come back, the chestnuts will be very soft. This is a good thing. Turn off the heat, leave the cover off, and let the stuff cool down. When it is just warm, start pureeing it in a blender, in small batches. Use more time than you think you will need, else you will have little chunks of chestnuts. Not necessarily a bad thing, but if you want a smooth as silk soup, you have to take the time to do this.
Taste the soup after you've pureed it all, and then add the salt it needs. Think a minute as to whether you want cream or not. If you think the soup is slightly sweet, and you'd rather it wouldn't be, add the cream. Anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 a cup. Stir it, and you are done. Maybe....
A wonderful garnish for this, is more chestnuts, crumbled, cooked in more butter, and with some more of that liquor added to the frying pan (NOW, you DO have to be careful with your moustache), and added to the soup right before you serve it.
If you analyze this soup, even at a base level, it is essentially the same soup we've been making for years in this blog, only with chestnuts as the main vegetable. Today, for example, I made carrot soup, and as I think about it, the recipe is the same, save for the substitution of carrots for chestnuts.
Learn the basic recipe for making soup: the base, the fat, the stock, and the key vegetable. You're on your way to a whole lot of pots, of really good eating.
If you feel "oh, chestnuts are holiday food," well.. Feliz Navidad...
Saturday, November 21, 2009
TRUFFLES!
Well, it is indeed that time of year, when the minds of folks who cook focus on the following thought; "OH SHIT HOW AM I GOING TO GET IT ALL DONE?"
You know who you are, and you know what I'm talking about. If there are those of you out there who have everything planned out, down to the last bread crumb, I hate you . So does everyone else. Trust me, they do. The rest of us are somewhere in between a state of shock as to not having planned the things we said we'd plan, and in a state of total panic. And it all comes back to 'HOW THE HELL AM I GONNA GET IT ALL DONE?"
Well, this recipe MAY help. It's a godsend for those of us who like to make things for people. It is also a perfect thing to have on hand in case you just can't get to dessert and need "something." It is absurdly easy to do: let's say ten minutes of work here. It makes a lot of goodies: let's say 100. And frankly, when I made them, I thought "The hell with the Xmas cookies, I'm just going to do this."
Well, that's not going to happen, but the reaction to these big boys has been so uniformly positive. People have stopped talking - people who haven't stopped talking since they were born. People who don't like chocolate are eating them. World peace has been achieved.
OK, the last one isn't true. But just maybe, if instead people gave each other chocolate truffles.
I know, I know, I know. Don't say it. Instead, buy some chocolate and condensed milk and make these. Seriously, do. You will be so glad you did.
Here's what you need: two pounds of extremely good quality bittersweet chocolate. I recently stumbled onto little disks of Callebaut chocolate, which saves the problem of chopping the chocolate, reducing the time of preparation to about 7 minutes if you have them. You also need two cans of condensed milk. If you happen to have access to condensed goat's milk, by all means use it, and you'll be making a Latino version. Finally, you need a stick of unsalted butter, and if you want a flavoring ingredient, a tablespoon of that.
Here's how you do it. Put the chocolate, the condensed milk, and the butter, into a pot. Bring it to a simmer, stirring, and let it all melt together . Take it off the heat.
Get a baking sheet with parchment paper on it, and pour it out. Smooth it with a spatula.
You're done. Almost. But the hard stuff IS done. I SWEAR, it is. Now you let this sit at room temperature for at least 8 hours, to firm up.
After that, get another sheet of parchment, and turn over the baking sheet, so that the chocolate block falls on it. Start cutting, or spooning it, into hefty teaspoon size pieces. Have a bowl with cocoa powder, and another tray handy. Cover your hands with cocoa. Roll the bits of chocolate to balls - don't worry about geometric perfection - and dip them in cocoa. Then put them aside on the clean tray. Keep on keepin' on, until the chocolate is done.
NOW you truly are done. Taste one. See what I mean? These will keep in a dry tin, separated by sheets of paper, for an eternity, but they won't last that long. Even if you only eat one a night, they'll be gone in 3 months, and you'll have to make them again.
SUE - stop asking your mom to make the sweets. Come on , girlfriend, YOU can make this one. Stop making fun of my nasty looking leeks and make some truffles. The holidays are here remember...
You know who you are, and you know what I'm talking about. If there are those of you out there who have everything planned out, down to the last bread crumb, I hate you . So does everyone else. Trust me, they do. The rest of us are somewhere in between a state of shock as to not having planned the things we said we'd plan, and in a state of total panic. And it all comes back to 'HOW THE HELL AM I GONNA GET IT ALL DONE?"
Well, this recipe MAY help. It's a godsend for those of us who like to make things for people. It is also a perfect thing to have on hand in case you just can't get to dessert and need "something." It is absurdly easy to do: let's say ten minutes of work here. It makes a lot of goodies: let's say 100. And frankly, when I made them, I thought "The hell with the Xmas cookies, I'm just going to do this."
Well, that's not going to happen, but the reaction to these big boys has been so uniformly positive. People have stopped talking - people who haven't stopped talking since they were born. People who don't like chocolate are eating them. World peace has been achieved.
OK, the last one isn't true. But just maybe, if instead people gave each other chocolate truffles.
I know, I know, I know. Don't say it. Instead, buy some chocolate and condensed milk and make these. Seriously, do. You will be so glad you did.
Here's what you need: two pounds of extremely good quality bittersweet chocolate. I recently stumbled onto little disks of Callebaut chocolate, which saves the problem of chopping the chocolate, reducing the time of preparation to about 7 minutes if you have them. You also need two cans of condensed milk. If you happen to have access to condensed goat's milk, by all means use it, and you'll be making a Latino version. Finally, you need a stick of unsalted butter, and if you want a flavoring ingredient, a tablespoon of that.
Here's how you do it. Put the chocolate, the condensed milk, and the butter, into a pot. Bring it to a simmer, stirring, and let it all melt together . Take it off the heat.
Get a baking sheet with parchment paper on it, and pour it out. Smooth it with a spatula.
You're done. Almost. But the hard stuff IS done. I SWEAR, it is. Now you let this sit at room temperature for at least 8 hours, to firm up.
After that, get another sheet of parchment, and turn over the baking sheet, so that the chocolate block falls on it. Start cutting, or spooning it, into hefty teaspoon size pieces. Have a bowl with cocoa powder, and another tray handy. Cover your hands with cocoa. Roll the bits of chocolate to balls - don't worry about geometric perfection - and dip them in cocoa. Then put them aside on the clean tray. Keep on keepin' on, until the chocolate is done.
NOW you truly are done. Taste one. See what I mean? These will keep in a dry tin, separated by sheets of paper, for an eternity, but they won't last that long. Even if you only eat one a night, they'll be gone in 3 months, and you'll have to make them again.
SUE - stop asking your mom to make the sweets. Come on , girlfriend, YOU can make this one. Stop making fun of my nasty looking leeks and make some truffles. The holidays are here remember...
Thursday, November 19, 2009
"And Eye Hayulpped"
Now, most of you are going to figure that out and know PRECISELY to what the title refers. You get brownie points and an extra brownie from Annalena, as soon as she learns how to make them well. For now, you'll have to wait or settle for a cookie. For the rest of you: I believe the product is still available, something wretched called "Shake N Bake." During the 60s, and on through Buddha only knows when, there was a huge ad campaign for this stuff: it came in a box, a mix of powders, the identities of which took up so much space on the label one would think it was the Declaration of Independence. You would put chicken, or fish, or pork in a bag with it, shake it to coat, then put it on a baking sheet and bake. It was supposed to ensure that the meat or fish came out "moist and tender" and delicious.
One of the campaigns, the one that most people remember the most, had a southern family - mother and daughters (of course: this was the 60s , remember, and only women cooked....) bemoaning how their fried chicken just wasn't very good, so they tried shake and bake. The little girls got to put the stuff in the bag. That night, when dad came home and said "great fried chicken honey" the girls could smile and say "It ain't fried, it's shake and bake. And EYE HAYUPLED."
Oh dear. I will say that the product was a hit. I do recall a time, in my church going days (yes, Annalena was a church going woman once, but without a mantilla or anything like that), when I was on a not so religious retreat with a group of 70 men or so. (Yes, yes, yes. I know that, for some of you I just described saturday night. ). I was sharing kitchen duties with a friend who was making baked chicken for dinner. His grocery list included "40 boxes of shake and bake."
Shaking my head in sadness as I was trying to make fresh bread for 70, I shook it even harder when it turned out that his chicken was the hit of the dinner.
That was the early 80s, and whilst yours truly would like to think that our tastes have evolved, I remain skeptical.
Be this as it may, the idea of coating chicken and baking it to make a crispy crust, rather than deep frying it, is more than a bit appealing. Indeed, as my amazing trainer does her job, deep frying may be the next thing to go . I don't deep fry often, but I do do it. Never chicken though. My fried chicken is worse than my brownies.
So, a week and a half ago, I read a recipe in a spices catalogue for something very reminiscient of shake and bake. And I decided to give it a try. It's a hit. And it's open to tons of variation. I will give it to you here, modified from the source (of course), to make it a bit easier.
You of course need, chicken. You should start with 4 pounds. As a general rule, for chicken on the bone, you need a pound per person. A pound of bone in chicken does not produce all that much meat. If you have big eaters, get more. And when you are going to cook chicken parts, Annalena strongly suggests that you use either all legs, or all breasts. They cook differently, and if you try to mix them, one or the other will not be good. Trust me.
If at all possible, put the chicken into some kind of dairy, overnight. Buttermilk is ideal, you could also use yogurt, or milk. If you are going to use plain milk, "clabber" it by adding a tablespoon of vinegar to it before you put in the chicken. You should plan on a cup of dairy for every four pounds. If you can't marinate overnight, then put the chicken parts in the dairy while you prepare the rest of the stuff.
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. W hile this is happening, get a big bag and combine flour and corn meal. How much? I used two cups of flour and a cup of corn meal for eight pounds of legs. Keep the 2:1 proportion. And don't change those components. The flour will stick to the chicken and carry the cornmeal, which gives the crunch. Then add your seasonings. Salt is a must: for every cup of flour mix, a teaspoon, please (so for the above, a tablespoon). Then whatever seasonings you like: spicy seasonings if you like spicy, etc. Measure spicy stuff by teaspoons. I did use a big tablespoon of Italian seasonings, and some cayenne pepper, and that was it. I bet curry would be good. The thing you MUST use is a quarter cup of grated parmesan cheese, for every four pounds of chicken. Just mix it in with the powder.
OK, after, or while you're doing that, take a half stick of butter for every four pounds of chicken, put it on a baking sheet, and let it melt in the preheated oven. It won't take long, and don't go away. When it's melted, carefully take the tray out, and then get to work on your chicken. Your hands are going to get messy. Pull each piece out of the dairy and put it in the bag... and shake to coat. (don't do more than one piece at a time and as you need to clean your hands, go ahead). Put each piece on the butter laden tray. When you're done, turn the pieces to cover them in butter. Don't worry if it's not too coated. Then, make sure all of the chicken is skin side up, and put the tray in the oven. If you're baking breasts, after 25 minutes, turn them so the skin is down. If legs, don't worry about it. Bake for a total of about 50 minutes for chicken breasts, an hour for the legs.
If you peak while this is cooking, you will wonder if you're doing it right. After fifteen minutes, it looks like a mess. After thirty minutes , however, it takes on some color and the smell of chicken begins to mingle in the air. And after 50, you have chicken that is browned unevenly, so that you have some crispy bits, some browned bits, some burned bits, all the things you like. And I guarantee you that the people you serve will like it too.
So make up a big mess of it. Maybe even get someone to hayulp you.
One of the campaigns, the one that most people remember the most, had a southern family - mother and daughters (of course: this was the 60s , remember, and only women cooked....) bemoaning how their fried chicken just wasn't very good, so they tried shake and bake. The little girls got to put the stuff in the bag. That night, when dad came home and said "great fried chicken honey" the girls could smile and say "It ain't fried, it's shake and bake. And EYE HAYUPLED."
Oh dear. I will say that the product was a hit. I do recall a time, in my church going days (yes, Annalena was a church going woman once, but without a mantilla or anything like that), when I was on a not so religious retreat with a group of 70 men or so. (Yes, yes, yes. I know that, for some of you I just described saturday night. ). I was sharing kitchen duties with a friend who was making baked chicken for dinner. His grocery list included "40 boxes of shake and bake."
Shaking my head in sadness as I was trying to make fresh bread for 70, I shook it even harder when it turned out that his chicken was the hit of the dinner.
That was the early 80s, and whilst yours truly would like to think that our tastes have evolved, I remain skeptical.
Be this as it may, the idea of coating chicken and baking it to make a crispy crust, rather than deep frying it, is more than a bit appealing. Indeed, as my amazing trainer does her job, deep frying may be the next thing to go . I don't deep fry often, but I do do it. Never chicken though. My fried chicken is worse than my brownies.
So, a week and a half ago, I read a recipe in a spices catalogue for something very reminiscient of shake and bake. And I decided to give it a try. It's a hit. And it's open to tons of variation. I will give it to you here, modified from the source (of course), to make it a bit easier.
You of course need, chicken. You should start with 4 pounds. As a general rule, for chicken on the bone, you need a pound per person. A pound of bone in chicken does not produce all that much meat. If you have big eaters, get more. And when you are going to cook chicken parts, Annalena strongly suggests that you use either all legs, or all breasts. They cook differently, and if you try to mix them, one or the other will not be good. Trust me.
If at all possible, put the chicken into some kind of dairy, overnight. Buttermilk is ideal, you could also use yogurt, or milk. If you are going to use plain milk, "clabber" it by adding a tablespoon of vinegar to it before you put in the chicken. You should plan on a cup of dairy for every four pounds. If you can't marinate overnight, then put the chicken parts in the dairy while you prepare the rest of the stuff.
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. W hile this is happening, get a big bag and combine flour and corn meal. How much? I used two cups of flour and a cup of corn meal for eight pounds of legs. Keep the 2:1 proportion. And don't change those components. The flour will stick to the chicken and carry the cornmeal, which gives the crunch. Then add your seasonings. Salt is a must: for every cup of flour mix, a teaspoon, please (so for the above, a tablespoon). Then whatever seasonings you like: spicy seasonings if you like spicy, etc. Measure spicy stuff by teaspoons. I did use a big tablespoon of Italian seasonings, and some cayenne pepper, and that was it. I bet curry would be good. The thing you MUST use is a quarter cup of grated parmesan cheese, for every four pounds of chicken. Just mix it in with the powder.
OK, after, or while you're doing that, take a half stick of butter for every four pounds of chicken, put it on a baking sheet, and let it melt in the preheated oven. It won't take long, and don't go away. When it's melted, carefully take the tray out, and then get to work on your chicken. Your hands are going to get messy. Pull each piece out of the dairy and put it in the bag... and shake to coat. (don't do more than one piece at a time and as you need to clean your hands, go ahead). Put each piece on the butter laden tray. When you're done, turn the pieces to cover them in butter. Don't worry if it's not too coated. Then, make sure all of the chicken is skin side up, and put the tray in the oven. If you're baking breasts, after 25 minutes, turn them so the skin is down. If legs, don't worry about it. Bake for a total of about 50 minutes for chicken breasts, an hour for the legs.
If you peak while this is cooking, you will wonder if you're doing it right. After fifteen minutes, it looks like a mess. After thirty minutes , however, it takes on some color and the smell of chicken begins to mingle in the air. And after 50, you have chicken that is browned unevenly, so that you have some crispy bits, some browned bits, some burned bits, all the things you like. And I guarantee you that the people you serve will like it too.
So make up a big mess of it. Maybe even get someone to hayulp you.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Vegan vegetable bean soup - sort of
Ok, this is VERY close to being a vegan soup, and it's the easiest thing in the world to making it pristinely vegan ("pristinely vegan?" What in the world has gotten into Annalena?). Hang in there with me. It's better with the non vegan trick, but if you don't want to use it, Annalena has a trick up her sleeve (rather than up her dress, but we won't go there).
When it gets late in the year - like now - regardless of how warm a particular day MAY be, there have been many cold ones before that, and as a result, it may be difficult to find the vegetables you found two weeks ago. And when the day is warm, you tend to forget that you had that cold weather, and getting a grip on the fact that they ain't there no mo' is frustrating. So, for when that happens, Annalena has an old reliable terrific bean soup recipe that she will share with you, because she loves you all so much.
She really does. Truly. It's her alter egos that sometimes have problems with people. But Annalena? Truly one of the world's saints if she says so herself.
Ok, so here's how you do it. It does take some planning, because Annalena does not use canned beans. Like Amy Winehouse said about rehab "no, no no." So the day before you want to make your soup, measure out 2 cups of dried beans, and put them in a pot and cover them with a ridiculously large amount of water. Cover them if your kitchen is subject to falling debris, kamikaze roaches, or other assaults on your work. Don't cook them. what you're cooking to do is rehydrate them, and it takes a while. I prefer using the white beans like cannelinis, or flageolets, for this soup, so that the color is nice, but use what you like. Black beans are good, but I am not a fan of kidney beans, (quote Amy Winehouse again).
Now, the day you plan to make the soup, drain those beans. Then, put them back in the pot, and cover them with yet another ridiculously large amount of water (don't use the old water: it's got nasties in it from the beans, and it will stink up your kitchen and force you to find out who your real friends are when you eat this. If you are going completely vegan , add a chipotle chili, or a sprig of rosemary to this. Then bring the pot to a low boil, and cook the beans until they are al dente. This could take anywhere from 20 minutes, to an hour. If you are using frozen, or fresh shell beans that have not been dried, it will take precious little time. If you're using the beans your mom gave you when you moved into your apartment fifteen years ago, it's going to take a while.
While they are cooking, slice up a cup of carrots. If the carrots are small, coins are good. If the carrots look like you could beat someone to death with them, use half moons. And also cut up a cup of some member of the onion family: leeks, onions, scallions, something like that. Two cups of potatoes, please, and this time, use the pink or red boiling ones. Peel them if you like, don't if you don't. If you want to, you can add a cup or so of a chopped green vegetable, preferably something somewhat sturdy, like green beans.
When your shell or dried beans are done, drain them and put them to the side. Dry out that pot, coat the bottom with olive oil, and add all those sliced vegetables. Turn them in the oil, add a few teaspoons of salt and then cover the whole mess with about 2 quarts of water and let it cook away for about fifteen minutes. Then, add 2/3 of the beans, and - now here's where we spoil the vegan quality - a three inch piece of the rind from parmesan cheese.
This is the dirty little secret of Italian vegetable soup making. That rind is going to add so much more flavor, you are going to thank Annalena forever for this little trick.
Anyway, let the whole pot of soup cook for another fifteen minutes or so. Take the remaining beans, put them in a blender, and add a generous cup of that soup liquid to the blender. Puree the beans, and then dump everything back into the soup pot. Stir it, and then taste the seasonings. I bet you'll need more salt. Black pepper is also good. When you serve it, you may also want to float some olive oil on it. You could, if you like, toss some pesto or some tomato sauce in here as well. It will change the overall ambience of the soup, but that's ok. It's your soup, not mine, remember?
This is one of those soups that I URGE you to try. It's inexpensive, it's tasty, it's healthy, and you can adapt it, all year long. Ain't nothing wrong with a low fat, high fiber bean soup.
When it gets late in the year - like now - regardless of how warm a particular day MAY be, there have been many cold ones before that, and as a result, it may be difficult to find the vegetables you found two weeks ago. And when the day is warm, you tend to forget that you had that cold weather, and getting a grip on the fact that they ain't there no mo' is frustrating. So, for when that happens, Annalena has an old reliable terrific bean soup recipe that she will share with you, because she loves you all so much.
She really does. Truly. It's her alter egos that sometimes have problems with people. But Annalena? Truly one of the world's saints if she says so herself.
Ok, so here's how you do it. It does take some planning, because Annalena does not use canned beans. Like Amy Winehouse said about rehab "no, no no." So the day before you want to make your soup, measure out 2 cups of dried beans, and put them in a pot and cover them with a ridiculously large amount of water. Cover them if your kitchen is subject to falling debris, kamikaze roaches, or other assaults on your work. Don't cook them. what you're cooking to do is rehydrate them, and it takes a while. I prefer using the white beans like cannelinis, or flageolets, for this soup, so that the color is nice, but use what you like. Black beans are good, but I am not a fan of kidney beans, (quote Amy Winehouse again).
Now, the day you plan to make the soup, drain those beans. Then, put them back in the pot, and cover them with yet another ridiculously large amount of water (don't use the old water: it's got nasties in it from the beans, and it will stink up your kitchen and force you to find out who your real friends are when you eat this. If you are going completely vegan , add a chipotle chili, or a sprig of rosemary to this. Then bring the pot to a low boil, and cook the beans until they are al dente. This could take anywhere from 20 minutes, to an hour. If you are using frozen, or fresh shell beans that have not been dried, it will take precious little time. If you're using the beans your mom gave you when you moved into your apartment fifteen years ago, it's going to take a while.
While they are cooking, slice up a cup of carrots. If the carrots are small, coins are good. If the carrots look like you could beat someone to death with them, use half moons. And also cut up a cup of some member of the onion family: leeks, onions, scallions, something like that. Two cups of potatoes, please, and this time, use the pink or red boiling ones. Peel them if you like, don't if you don't. If you want to, you can add a cup or so of a chopped green vegetable, preferably something somewhat sturdy, like green beans.
When your shell or dried beans are done, drain them and put them to the side. Dry out that pot, coat the bottom with olive oil, and add all those sliced vegetables. Turn them in the oil, add a few teaspoons of salt and then cover the whole mess with about 2 quarts of water and let it cook away for about fifteen minutes. Then, add 2/3 of the beans, and - now here's where we spoil the vegan quality - a three inch piece of the rind from parmesan cheese.
This is the dirty little secret of Italian vegetable soup making. That rind is going to add so much more flavor, you are going to thank Annalena forever for this little trick.
Anyway, let the whole pot of soup cook for another fifteen minutes or so. Take the remaining beans, put them in a blender, and add a generous cup of that soup liquid to the blender. Puree the beans, and then dump everything back into the soup pot. Stir it, and then taste the seasonings. I bet you'll need more salt. Black pepper is also good. When you serve it, you may also want to float some olive oil on it. You could, if you like, toss some pesto or some tomato sauce in here as well. It will change the overall ambience of the soup, but that's ok. It's your soup, not mine, remember?
This is one of those soups that I URGE you to try. It's inexpensive, it's tasty, it's healthy, and you can adapt it, all year long. Ain't nothing wrong with a low fat, high fiber bean soup.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
"Sort of Sicilian" Pasta with cauliflower, and....
This is another one of those recipes that has an origin, and has a classic formula. And I have made it that way, and it's terrific. Much to my surprise, people loved it and ask for it. And, like many great recipes, it stands up to playing around with, as you'll find out.
One of the things I learned, in the last ten years, is that Southern Italians eat a lot of cauliflower "cavolo fiori," or "cabbage flowers." Cabbage and cauliflower fall into the same category of vegetables, but ask yourself if you think of cauliflower as an Italian vegetable? I certainly didn't.
My theory about why that is, is that we Americans simply do not much like it. And my theory about that, is that it's because it is not cooked properly, sort of like most of the cruciferous vegetables like cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts, and so forth. Too little water, and cooking for too long, produces that incredibly strong, sulfur smell that turns people off - with good reason. And let's not mention, the, ahem, flatulence problem.
I will confess that for years I was not too fond of it myself. My turnaround seems to have come when the new strains of cauliflower, with their golden color, became available. They taste the same - they really do. Somehow, however, the golden colored cauliflower seems to be richer, and more buttery. Don't they say we eat with our eyes? Well, more people have told me that the cauliflower purees I make with the golden ones are "SO SO RICH. How much butter and cream did you use?" Uh, none. Just water, and salt. No one believes me. Fine. It's all good.
Anyway, moving on. One of the classic recipes in Sicilian cooking is pasta with cauliflower, bread crumbs, currants, and onions. The vegetables are cooked to the point where they carmelize, the bread crumbs are toasted, the currants are tossed in, and at the end, you dress it with olive oil.
This preparation is, without question, one of the most popular dishes I make. If you wanted an explanation why, I couldn't tell you. So I won't make up stories.
Now, one of the other vegetables that you will always find associated with Sicily, is fennel "finocchio." You've seen it, the thing that looks like celery with asparagus fronds, and tastes a bit like licorice? It's quite a dandy l ooking vegetable, which is perhaps why "finocchio" was Italian slang for "faggot." My teacher tells me that today, using it is very old fashioned, and folks just say "gay" instead. Somehow, that makes me feel like the language is getting impoverished. A bit sad.
Ok, I should stick to cooking. Anyway, one night, I had a bunch of fennel that was threatening to go bad, a head of cauliflower, and of course, bread crumbs and currants. It was cold, it was rainy, it felt like WINTER, and away we went.
This is another dish that calls for a shaped pasta. I think penne is traditional, but shells will work, so will orecchiete, anything that is sort of the size of a cauliflower floret. Here we go.
Cut up a small head of cauliflower, or half of a large head. Take the florets, and save the stems to make a soup or something like that, or puree. Also take a medium sized bulb of fennel. Cut away the fronds and the tough stems, and dice that.
Mix those together, and put them into a large frying pan, to which you have added a nice amount of olive oil: more than enough to cover the pan, but not enough to float the vegetables. Let the vegetables sit. Try not to stir them for a bit. Let them darken, and carmelize. Both will get sweeter from this process. When they darken, then you can turn them and cook them a little more. Add some salt as you go along.
After they're cooked, put them in a bowl, to the side, and add a bit more olive oil - say three tablespoons - and add half a cup or so of flavored bread crumbs. Saute' these just until they brown. Get them out of the pan, in a separate bowl. Now, get your currants ready - no more than about a quarter cup - and put them aside as well. You can mix them with either of the two things you've prepared.
Boil up a pound of pasta in the usual, rapidly boiling salted water, and as it's going along, scoop out about 3/4 of a cup of the cooking water. Keep it at the ready, after you drain the pasta. Get it back in the pot, and add everything except the bread crumbs (if you've mixed the currants with the crumbs, no problem. Save them back too). Add the water, if you need it, to create a sort of little sauce, or if the veggies still seem to hard. Let this cook for 2-3 minutes and then off the heat, stir in the crumbs. When you portion it out, pour some peppery olive oil over it.
NO CHEESE in this dish. The crumbs are supposed to approximate the cheese. And you've got a winter dinner in a plate.
This is fairly substantial for a vegetarian dish. Serve less than you think you'll need. And save the leftovers. They are terrific cold.
Ho fame. I think I need this, NOW
One of the things I learned, in the last ten years, is that Southern Italians eat a lot of cauliflower "cavolo fiori," or "cabbage flowers." Cabbage and cauliflower fall into the same category of vegetables, but ask yourself if you think of cauliflower as an Italian vegetable? I certainly didn't.
My theory about why that is, is that we Americans simply do not much like it. And my theory about that, is that it's because it is not cooked properly, sort of like most of the cruciferous vegetables like cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts, and so forth. Too little water, and cooking for too long, produces that incredibly strong, sulfur smell that turns people off - with good reason. And let's not mention, the, ahem, flatulence problem.
I will confess that for years I was not too fond of it myself. My turnaround seems to have come when the new strains of cauliflower, with their golden color, became available. They taste the same - they really do. Somehow, however, the golden colored cauliflower seems to be richer, and more buttery. Don't they say we eat with our eyes? Well, more people have told me that the cauliflower purees I make with the golden ones are "SO SO RICH. How much butter and cream did you use?" Uh, none. Just water, and salt. No one believes me. Fine. It's all good.
Anyway, moving on. One of the classic recipes in Sicilian cooking is pasta with cauliflower, bread crumbs, currants, and onions. The vegetables are cooked to the point where they carmelize, the bread crumbs are toasted, the currants are tossed in, and at the end, you dress it with olive oil.
This preparation is, without question, one of the most popular dishes I make. If you wanted an explanation why, I couldn't tell you. So I won't make up stories.
Now, one of the other vegetables that you will always find associated with Sicily, is fennel "finocchio." You've seen it, the thing that looks like celery with asparagus fronds, and tastes a bit like licorice? It's quite a dandy l ooking vegetable, which is perhaps why "finocchio" was Italian slang for "faggot." My teacher tells me that today, using it is very old fashioned, and folks just say "gay" instead. Somehow, that makes me feel like the language is getting impoverished. A bit sad.
Ok, I should stick to cooking. Anyway, one night, I had a bunch of fennel that was threatening to go bad, a head of cauliflower, and of course, bread crumbs and currants. It was cold, it was rainy, it felt like WINTER, and away we went.
This is another dish that calls for a shaped pasta. I think penne is traditional, but shells will work, so will orecchiete, anything that is sort of the size of a cauliflower floret. Here we go.
Cut up a small head of cauliflower, or half of a large head. Take the florets, and save the stems to make a soup or something like that, or puree. Also take a medium sized bulb of fennel. Cut away the fronds and the tough stems, and dice that.
Mix those together, and put them into a large frying pan, to which you have added a nice amount of olive oil: more than enough to cover the pan, but not enough to float the vegetables. Let the vegetables sit. Try not to stir them for a bit. Let them darken, and carmelize. Both will get sweeter from this process. When they darken, then you can turn them and cook them a little more. Add some salt as you go along.
After they're cooked, put them in a bowl, to the side, and add a bit more olive oil - say three tablespoons - and add half a cup or so of flavored bread crumbs. Saute' these just until they brown. Get them out of the pan, in a separate bowl. Now, get your currants ready - no more than about a quarter cup - and put them aside as well. You can mix them with either of the two things you've prepared.
Boil up a pound of pasta in the usual, rapidly boiling salted water, and as it's going along, scoop out about 3/4 of a cup of the cooking water. Keep it at the ready, after you drain the pasta. Get it back in the pot, and add everything except the bread crumbs (if you've mixed the currants with the crumbs, no problem. Save them back too). Add the water, if you need it, to create a sort of little sauce, or if the veggies still seem to hard. Let this cook for 2-3 minutes and then off the heat, stir in the crumbs. When you portion it out, pour some peppery olive oil over it.
NO CHEESE in this dish. The crumbs are supposed to approximate the cheese. And you've got a winter dinner in a plate.
This is fairly substantial for a vegetarian dish. Serve less than you think you'll need. And save the leftovers. They are terrific cold.
Ho fame. I think I need this, NOW
Friday, November 13, 2009
"Sort of Pugliese" Pasta with broccoli rabb and ricotta
Now, you may be wondering "what in the name of the gods happened to that woman? Has she gone off to join the circus as she's been threatening for all these years?"
Ah, ragazzi, nothing that dramatic. Just the usual busynesses , if you know what I mean - and a decision at work to block this site from access, so now Annalena has to push blogging into her incredibly busy at home schedule. But, fear not, Annalena will be sitting down and writing y'all a letter from time to time, as she has for so long (some would say, WAY TOO long, but they can get over themselves).
So, what's with the title? Well, we're going to be exploring a bit of variations on classic pasta dishes in the next few blogs, sort of a case of "use what you got on hand" to make something that is "sort of " like a classic, but not really.
There are certain dishes that are emblematic of different regions of Italy, especially in the Pasta area. For example, pasta stuffed with pumpkin is a classic of Mantua. It is made elsewhere, but this is where it's from. So, too, is a dish we will look at in days to come a classic of Sicily: pasta with cauliflower, bread crumbs and currants.
One of the characteristics of cooking from Apulia is the use of broccoli rabb. There are some Pugliese who will tell you that they eat this wonderful vegetable every night. And it is wonderful, but let Annalena clarify some things for you.
Broccoli rabb, is NOT broccoli. No ragazzi, in Italian, it is called "cima," and that is turnip greens.
Betcha you didn't know that, did ya? Nope, the classic "broccoli rabb" is the top of a root v egetable, and those turnips are not fit to eat. But the greens? Strong, forceful and bitter. Sort of like many men. (Well, the bitter part is true). They can be tamed, however, by dropping them into boiling water. Sort of like most men. And in this dish, you do just that, and you create a very economical, easy, nourishing dish.
The classic pasta used with it is orecchiete, the "little ears," also a classic of Apulia. But if you don't have them, use any pasta shape you have as long as it is on the short and stubby side of things. (Again, sort of like most men). In my version, I used penne.
When you buy broccoli rabb, you will notice very thick, tough stems. ABANDON THEM. Make a cut across the bunch of vegetable where the stem begins to get tender. Toss the tough stuff, and then cut the rest of it into bite size pieces. You can be rough with it (like with most men), and push it to the side (you know what's coming).
At its simplest form, what you do next is add your pasta to rapidly boiling, salted water, and let it cook for about five minutes. Then you add the greens, and cook them together. The pasta becomes al dente at the same time the greens cook. You drain them, together, add a lashing of good quality olive oil, some black and/or hot pepper, and perhaps some grated romano cheese, and dinner is served.
If there happens to be some left over sausage in the house, slice it up (if it's cooked), and add it as well, and cut back the olive oil. Cook it first if it ain't. You have a classic.
I did not have any left over sausage when I made my pasta. I did, however, have half a container of a very good quality rich tasting ricotta. Ricotta makes a wonderful sauce for pasta, if you thin it with some of the pasta water. And that is just what I did. I took that ricotta - about two cups of it, and added grated black pepper, and the cup of pasta water, stirring it to just dissolve the cheese. When the pasta was done, I dumped it out, just like in the classic version, and after it was drained, I stirred the cheese in, and put some more black pepper on it. DINNER.
Is it Pugliese? Oh, heavens no. Is it good? You betcha. Is it easy? Yup.
So call it what you want, but don't call it Pugliese, and make it for yourself. You'll have a quick easy dinner without a lot to clean up, it will be a complete meal, and you will be thanking me endlessly.
Ah, ragazzi, nothing that dramatic. Just the usual busynesses , if you know what I mean - and a decision at work to block this site from access, so now Annalena has to push blogging into her incredibly busy at home schedule. But, fear not, Annalena will be sitting down and writing y'all a letter from time to time, as she has for so long (some would say, WAY TOO long, but they can get over themselves).
So, what's with the title? Well, we're going to be exploring a bit of variations on classic pasta dishes in the next few blogs, sort of a case of "use what you got on hand" to make something that is "sort of " like a classic, but not really.
There are certain dishes that are emblematic of different regions of Italy, especially in the Pasta area. For example, pasta stuffed with pumpkin is a classic of Mantua. It is made elsewhere, but this is where it's from. So, too, is a dish we will look at in days to come a classic of Sicily: pasta with cauliflower, bread crumbs and currants.
One of the characteristics of cooking from Apulia is the use of broccoli rabb. There are some Pugliese who will tell you that they eat this wonderful vegetable every night. And it is wonderful, but let Annalena clarify some things for you.
Broccoli rabb, is NOT broccoli. No ragazzi, in Italian, it is called "cima," and that is turnip greens.
Betcha you didn't know that, did ya? Nope, the classic "broccoli rabb" is the top of a root v egetable, and those turnips are not fit to eat. But the greens? Strong, forceful and bitter. Sort of like many men. (Well, the bitter part is true). They can be tamed, however, by dropping them into boiling water. Sort of like most men. And in this dish, you do just that, and you create a very economical, easy, nourishing dish.
The classic pasta used with it is orecchiete, the "little ears," also a classic of Apulia. But if you don't have them, use any pasta shape you have as long as it is on the short and stubby side of things. (Again, sort of like most men). In my version, I used penne.
When you buy broccoli rabb, you will notice very thick, tough stems. ABANDON THEM. Make a cut across the bunch of vegetable where the stem begins to get tender. Toss the tough stuff, and then cut the rest of it into bite size pieces. You can be rough with it (like with most men), and push it to the side (you know what's coming).
At its simplest form, what you do next is add your pasta to rapidly boiling, salted water, and let it cook for about five minutes. Then you add the greens, and cook them together. The pasta becomes al dente at the same time the greens cook. You drain them, together, add a lashing of good quality olive oil, some black and/or hot pepper, and perhaps some grated romano cheese, and dinner is served.
If there happens to be some left over sausage in the house, slice it up (if it's cooked), and add it as well, and cut back the olive oil. Cook it first if it ain't. You have a classic.
I did not have any left over sausage when I made my pasta. I did, however, have half a container of a very good quality rich tasting ricotta. Ricotta makes a wonderful sauce for pasta, if you thin it with some of the pasta water. And that is just what I did. I took that ricotta - about two cups of it, and added grated black pepper, and the cup of pasta water, stirring it to just dissolve the cheese. When the pasta was done, I dumped it out, just like in the classic version, and after it was drained, I stirred the cheese in, and put some more black pepper on it. DINNER.
Is it Pugliese? Oh, heavens no. Is it good? You betcha. Is it easy? Yup.
So call it what you want, but don't call it Pugliese, and make it for yourself. You'll have a quick easy dinner without a lot to clean up, it will be a complete meal, and you will be thanking me endlessly.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Using what you got or, Annalena goes "Mexican"
Well, sort of. This is a tale of having to use up stuff in the fridge, getting a bit creative, and winding up with something that is greater than the sum of its parts. It really is. I promise.
This past weekend was a stock making weekend. Since Annalena has taken up the challenge from Liliputia (you know who you are...), and makes her own stock every couple of weeks, there is left over chicken from that stock making. This weekend, I used a different vendor than I usually do, and I will be back. The birds from the purveyor (who actually specializes in pork), were so much meatier, and so much more flavorful than the ones I had been buying, that there is no question in Annalena's mind. So, there I was, at the end of the soup making process "confronted" with tons of boiled chicken. We also had left over roasted chicken from our fest with Adam earlier that week (the "fest" that sent Annalena the message that she's drinking too much. OI, did that hurt). Another bowl of chicken salad? Oh GOD NO. Not that my chicken salad is not good. It's just that, well... after awhile, when you're saying "homemade chicken salad AGAIN????" Not that we were, of course (or at least I wasn't. If Guy was saying it under his breath, well, who knows?). In any event, I had run out of celery, which is essential in chicken salad to my point of view, so I had an excuse.
So, what to do? Well, if you are of a creative (some would say, sick) mind as is Annalena, you turn to what you have around, including the things that make you wonder "why did I buy that?" In fact, I had a couple of jars of the Italian vegetable relish, giardeniera, which I think I had ambitions of turning into something on crostini. THAT never happened, because there was too little of it, and it was too wet. Mixed with shredded chicken, however? Hmmmm. There was also a jar of my tomato sauce in the fridge, beginning to give me ugly looks (this weekend is a sauce making weekend), and there were the two bags of corn tortillas I had bought "to make something," and God only knows what that was. (maybe it left my head when the bottle of wine from the Adam fest took place). And, finally, a small bag of medium hot chili peppers, which were also beginning to give me dirty looks.
This all sounded like pseudo Mexican to me, and away we went. The chicken was already cooked, and all I did was shred it off of the bird carcass (actually quite a bit of fun, and easy, if the stock has been cooking for a million hours, as this was), and add the left over shredded roast chicken. I put the two jars of the vegetable relish in with this and put it to the side.
I took about 2 cups of tomato sauce, and heated it, with 4 chopped, medium spicy green chilis, for about five minutes. That's all. Now we were just about ready. I got a big baking dish - 9x13 - and covered the bottom of it with a bit of the tomato sauce, as if I were making a classic lasagna, if there is such a thing. I covered this with one bag of the corn tortillas, overlapping them so that there was a solid layer . Before I put them down, I heated each tortilla in a small, ungreased frying pan, just to take the stiffness off of them.
On top of that layer of tortillas went the chicken/vegetable mixture, and that was covered with the rest of the tortillas, and then the tomato sauce.
FINALLY, there were the bags of left over cheese from the ghosts of dinner party pasts. I am almost ashamed to admit this. But I'll tell you: I took the left over Spanish cheeses and grated up those. I know, I know, I know. Shame on me. But it worked. It was good. I covered the tomato sauce with those cheeses, and then put the whole pan - which weighed about a ton - into the oven and baked for 30 minutes or so, until the cheese was melting and bubbly and looking full of pseudo Mexican goodness.
This is feeding a whole lot of people. I think we gave out portions to five people, and took some for ourselves. So that's seven. And I would say these are hearty portions.
Now, what if you're not a soup maker, and you want to do something like this? Well, Annalena has some answers: MAKE SOME SOUP FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE. It is not hard, and why would you buy a cooked chicken to make a casserole if you can make soup and get some for free?
WEll????
Ah, but here's another idea for you. One of the things that always stuns me about Mexican cooking is that there is so much turkey in it. Yes, there are turkey mole recipes all over the place, and lots of other ones. And isn't thanksgiving coming up? And won't you have a lot of leftover turkey?
Well? Get into the kitchen. Think about it. After the excesses of the standard (or unstandard) thanksgiving meal, doesn't something spicy and "faintly ethnic" (sort of like Annalena herself), sound good?
Get to it...
This past weekend was a stock making weekend. Since Annalena has taken up the challenge from Liliputia (you know who you are...), and makes her own stock every couple of weeks, there is left over chicken from that stock making. This weekend, I used a different vendor than I usually do, and I will be back. The birds from the purveyor (who actually specializes in pork), were so much meatier, and so much more flavorful than the ones I had been buying, that there is no question in Annalena's mind. So, there I was, at the end of the soup making process "confronted" with tons of boiled chicken. We also had left over roasted chicken from our fest with Adam earlier that week (the "fest" that sent Annalena the message that she's drinking too much. OI, did that hurt). Another bowl of chicken salad? Oh GOD NO. Not that my chicken salad is not good. It's just that, well... after awhile, when you're saying "homemade chicken salad AGAIN????" Not that we were, of course (or at least I wasn't. If Guy was saying it under his breath, well, who knows?). In any event, I had run out of celery, which is essential in chicken salad to my point of view, so I had an excuse.
So, what to do? Well, if you are of a creative (some would say, sick) mind as is Annalena, you turn to what you have around, including the things that make you wonder "why did I buy that?" In fact, I had a couple of jars of the Italian vegetable relish, giardeniera, which I think I had ambitions of turning into something on crostini. THAT never happened, because there was too little of it, and it was too wet. Mixed with shredded chicken, however? Hmmmm. There was also a jar of my tomato sauce in the fridge, beginning to give me ugly looks (this weekend is a sauce making weekend), and there were the two bags of corn tortillas I had bought "to make something," and God only knows what that was. (maybe it left my head when the bottle of wine from the Adam fest took place). And, finally, a small bag of medium hot chili peppers, which were also beginning to give me dirty looks.
This all sounded like pseudo Mexican to me, and away we went. The chicken was already cooked, and all I did was shred it off of the bird carcass (actually quite a bit of fun, and easy, if the stock has been cooking for a million hours, as this was), and add the left over shredded roast chicken. I put the two jars of the vegetable relish in with this and put it to the side.
I took about 2 cups of tomato sauce, and heated it, with 4 chopped, medium spicy green chilis, for about five minutes. That's all. Now we were just about ready. I got a big baking dish - 9x13 - and covered the bottom of it with a bit of the tomato sauce, as if I were making a classic lasagna, if there is such a thing. I covered this with one bag of the corn tortillas, overlapping them so that there was a solid layer . Before I put them down, I heated each tortilla in a small, ungreased frying pan, just to take the stiffness off of them.
On top of that layer of tortillas went the chicken/vegetable mixture, and that was covered with the rest of the tortillas, and then the tomato sauce.
FINALLY, there were the bags of left over cheese from the ghosts of dinner party pasts. I am almost ashamed to admit this. But I'll tell you: I took the left over Spanish cheeses and grated up those. I know, I know, I know. Shame on me. But it worked. It was good. I covered the tomato sauce with those cheeses, and then put the whole pan - which weighed about a ton - into the oven and baked for 30 minutes or so, until the cheese was melting and bubbly and looking full of pseudo Mexican goodness.
This is feeding a whole lot of people. I think we gave out portions to five people, and took some for ourselves. So that's seven. And I would say these are hearty portions.
Now, what if you're not a soup maker, and you want to do something like this? Well, Annalena has some answers: MAKE SOME SOUP FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE. It is not hard, and why would you buy a cooked chicken to make a casserole if you can make soup and get some for free?
WEll????
Ah, but here's another idea for you. One of the things that always stuns me about Mexican cooking is that there is so much turkey in it. Yes, there are turkey mole recipes all over the place, and lots of other ones. And isn't thanksgiving coming up? And won't you have a lot of leftover turkey?
Well? Get into the kitchen. Think about it. After the excesses of the standard (or unstandard) thanksgiving meal, doesn't something spicy and "faintly ethnic" (sort of like Annalena herself), sound good?
Get to it...
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Stealing AGAIN: celery root and boston lettuce soup
I can't help it. I really can't. When I have something at a restaurant that I really like, which feels like something I can make, I have to try it. That way I know, if it never shows up at the restaurant again (a REAL possibility), I can have it anyway.
Normally, I do this with main dishes and desserts. Not soup. Why not? Well, I almost never order soup in a restaurant. And why not? Ok, I will 'fess up, it's a weird thing. In my mind, I consider soup a rip off. I always think that I'm going to get a bowl of something that cost about a quarter to make, but for which I'm going to be charged 10 bucks or so.
It IS true that in restaurants soup IS up there on the profit meter. Normally, the pay off on a bowl of soup exceeds anything except maybe coffee or a drink. This is so even though soup is usually the l east expensive item on the menu. It's a kind of weird "catch 22." In most places, soup is almost an after thought, or so it would seem. It's the same soup in every restaurant (for one stretch that I remember, every single restaurant I went to, for two weeks, had butternut squash soup of one kind or another. On another occasion, it was potato leek). When someone works on a budget and goes out to eat, however, the soup is appealing because it's cheap and more than that, it's filling. (in fact, many guides to home dinner planning advise NOT serving soup, because it is so filling).
So what does one do? I am not sure. I guess if the soup sounds like something you would like to eat, have it. If it does not, spend 2 extra dollars and have the salad that does sound good. Maybe if there is a "revolt" against bad soup, the restaurants will pay attention.
A week ago, we were at one of our favorite restaurants (Savoy), and the soup DID appeal. It was "celery root boston lettuce." Now, at this time of year, celery root soup is pretty ubiquitous. We're going into fall, the green things are waning, and celery root has an inherent creaminess, like potatoes, that make it taste richer than it is. I'm fond of celery root soup, but not overly so. The addition of lettuce had me intrigued. Most people don't think of lettuce as a vegetable that they can cook , and that's a shame. It makes a really good cooked vegetable, although it does cook down more than just about anything else. Young lettuces sauteed with peas in butter are wonderful. Moving to soup, years ago, I found and made a recipe for "bacon lettuce and tomato soup." That, too, was good. I heard that it was the winner of a contest that Campbell's sponsored. They bought the recipe for 5000.00 ( a lot at the time), but it never went to market because - DUH - they couldn't figure out a way to make the bacon stay crisp and the lettuce not get brown and disgusting.
this soup was NOT brown or disgusting. It was good. As the chef, Ryan and I are friends, he came over to chat and I asked about it "Oh, nothing much. You know how to do it. Just use milk instead of cream."
OH. Okay. I didn't know there was either in it. Shows you what kind of palette I have. But what I interpreted him as saying was that it was a basis vegetable soup, pureed, with a broth base.
Now, I got all that from "Oh nothing much. You know how to do it." Well, he was right.
Here's how I constructed mine. First, I knew I wanted some flavor from the broth, but I didn't want to use chicken stock. I wanted to share the soup with my friends Mark and Jeremy, who both do not eat chicken. In my experience, any pre-prepared vegetable stock is disgusting, so I use water . Not this time. I felt like there needed to be a deeper base than the one that water supplies, so I had to make my own vegetable stock. I made it by chopping up an onion, two stalks of celery, two carrots, and a large beefsteak tomato that was past its prime. The tomato was unusual, but it was a good choice. I covered a soup pot with olive oil and added the vegetables. I let them cook, without stirring until they browned. Then I stirred to brown them some more, and when that was done, I added two quarts of water, and a few sprigs of thyme.
While this was going on, I cleaned and roughly chopped three large celery roots. I also took all the leaves off of one head of Boston lettuce, and the older, greener leaves of a second one. I let the stock cook away for ten minutes, tasting every few. When the flavor was pronouced - good strong notes of thyme and tomato, I was done, and I drained it.
The careful reader will wonder why, as I usually puree my soup base into my final soup. I did it this time, because I did not want to overload the celery flavor. It CAN get overwhelming. I poured the strained stock into a pot and added the celery root, and a BIG teaspoon of salt. Probably closer to two. Then I let this cook away, uncovered, for just over half an hour. Twice, the water level dropped and I added more. I tested until the celery root was tender enough to fall apart when I jabbed it with a knife. When I had that, I added my WASHED lettuce leaves, and let them droop into the hot soup. (if your lettuce is clean, you don't need to do this, BUT CHECK). And if your celery root is cut smaller than mine was, you'll need less time.
When the stuff had cooled to luke warm, I pureed it in the blender - a good choice, because the blender got it smoother. It emerged an incredible emerald green color. Just gorgeous . Just like the restaurant. I tasted it, and now I saw why Ryan had said to use milk. The flavor was very "brassy" and strong. The milk - about a cup of it, stirred in, calmed everything down. The color was less green, but still beautiful
So, how does it taste? Well, I bet if you didn't know there was lettuce in it, you wouldn't know there was lettuce in it. It is definitely a celery root soup, with a taste of fresh, clean herbs. It's a good thing to have on hand, as we go into the winter months. We will be eating a lot of roots and squashes and tubers, and lettuces are almost always available in some way . If you want to lighten up your heavyweight cold weather soups, and give them the taste of spring, here's your ticket. Try it.
And if you go to Savoy, thank Ryan
Normally, I do this with main dishes and desserts. Not soup. Why not? Well, I almost never order soup in a restaurant. And why not? Ok, I will 'fess up, it's a weird thing. In my mind, I consider soup a rip off. I always think that I'm going to get a bowl of something that cost about a quarter to make, but for which I'm going to be charged 10 bucks or so.
It IS true that in restaurants soup IS up there on the profit meter. Normally, the pay off on a bowl of soup exceeds anything except maybe coffee or a drink. This is so even though soup is usually the l east expensive item on the menu. It's a kind of weird "catch 22." In most places, soup is almost an after thought, or so it would seem. It's the same soup in every restaurant (for one stretch that I remember, every single restaurant I went to, for two weeks, had butternut squash soup of one kind or another. On another occasion, it was potato leek). When someone works on a budget and goes out to eat, however, the soup is appealing because it's cheap and more than that, it's filling. (in fact, many guides to home dinner planning advise NOT serving soup, because it is so filling).
So what does one do? I am not sure. I guess if the soup sounds like something you would like to eat, have it. If it does not, spend 2 extra dollars and have the salad that does sound good. Maybe if there is a "revolt" against bad soup, the restaurants will pay attention.
A week ago, we were at one of our favorite restaurants (Savoy), and the soup DID appeal. It was "celery root boston lettuce." Now, at this time of year, celery root soup is pretty ubiquitous. We're going into fall, the green things are waning, and celery root has an inherent creaminess, like potatoes, that make it taste richer than it is. I'm fond of celery root soup, but not overly so. The addition of lettuce had me intrigued. Most people don't think of lettuce as a vegetable that they can cook , and that's a shame. It makes a really good cooked vegetable, although it does cook down more than just about anything else. Young lettuces sauteed with peas in butter are wonderful. Moving to soup, years ago, I found and made a recipe for "bacon lettuce and tomato soup." That, too, was good. I heard that it was the winner of a contest that Campbell's sponsored. They bought the recipe for 5000.00 ( a lot at the time), but it never went to market because - DUH - they couldn't figure out a way to make the bacon stay crisp and the lettuce not get brown and disgusting.
this soup was NOT brown or disgusting. It was good. As the chef, Ryan and I are friends, he came over to chat and I asked about it "Oh, nothing much. You know how to do it. Just use milk instead of cream."
OH. Okay. I didn't know there was either in it. Shows you what kind of palette I have. But what I interpreted him as saying was that it was a basis vegetable soup, pureed, with a broth base.
Now, I got all that from "Oh nothing much. You know how to do it." Well, he was right.
Here's how I constructed mine. First, I knew I wanted some flavor from the broth, but I didn't want to use chicken stock. I wanted to share the soup with my friends Mark and Jeremy, who both do not eat chicken. In my experience, any pre-prepared vegetable stock is disgusting, so I use water . Not this time. I felt like there needed to be a deeper base than the one that water supplies, so I had to make my own vegetable stock. I made it by chopping up an onion, two stalks of celery, two carrots, and a large beefsteak tomato that was past its prime. The tomato was unusual, but it was a good choice. I covered a soup pot with olive oil and added the vegetables. I let them cook, without stirring until they browned. Then I stirred to brown them some more, and when that was done, I added two quarts of water, and a few sprigs of thyme.
While this was going on, I cleaned and roughly chopped three large celery roots. I also took all the leaves off of one head of Boston lettuce, and the older, greener leaves of a second one. I let the stock cook away for ten minutes, tasting every few. When the flavor was pronouced - good strong notes of thyme and tomato, I was done, and I drained it.
The careful reader will wonder why, as I usually puree my soup base into my final soup. I did it this time, because I did not want to overload the celery flavor. It CAN get overwhelming. I poured the strained stock into a pot and added the celery root, and a BIG teaspoon of salt. Probably closer to two. Then I let this cook away, uncovered, for just over half an hour. Twice, the water level dropped and I added more. I tested until the celery root was tender enough to fall apart when I jabbed it with a knife. When I had that, I added my WASHED lettuce leaves, and let them droop into the hot soup. (if your lettuce is clean, you don't need to do this, BUT CHECK). And if your celery root is cut smaller than mine was, you'll need less time.
When the stuff had cooled to luke warm, I pureed it in the blender - a good choice, because the blender got it smoother. It emerged an incredible emerald green color. Just gorgeous . Just like the restaurant. I tasted it, and now I saw why Ryan had said to use milk. The flavor was very "brassy" and strong. The milk - about a cup of it, stirred in, calmed everything down. The color was less green, but still beautiful
So, how does it taste? Well, I bet if you didn't know there was lettuce in it, you wouldn't know there was lettuce in it. It is definitely a celery root soup, with a taste of fresh, clean herbs. It's a good thing to have on hand, as we go into the winter months. We will be eating a lot of roots and squashes and tubers, and lettuces are almost always available in some way . If you want to lighten up your heavyweight cold weather soups, and give them the taste of spring, here's your ticket. Try it.
And if you go to Savoy, thank Ryan
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Time for soup: lentil
I am not sure I quite get the connection between cooler weather, and soup, but it is certainly there. Yes, I understand: soup is warm and the weather is cold, but the general consensus that soup "warms you," just doesn't cut it for me. Soup doesn't warm me. Generally, if the soup is that hot, it burns my tongue, and any tissue that it touches on the way down my gullet. So, no, I don't see it.
But.... the affinity is there, even for me. Annalena almost never orders soup in a restaurant. Part of it is a sense that she is paying 9 dollars for a bowl of something that cost 13 cents to make. (Of course, that doesn't stop me with other courses, but let's not look at my inconsistencies today, hmmm?). This is true, even if the soups sound truly interesting. On Friday, however, I found myself more than intrigued by a celery root and boston lettuce soup at Savoy Restaurant, which was just amazing. And the fact is, I look forward to making soup while the Guyman is in rehearsal. I try to vary them and to be creative. Ultimately , t hough, many of them do rely on dried legumes.
So we move to lentils. Why lentils? Well, I am not quite sure. I do have bags and bags and bags of lentils in the cupboard, because I know they're good for us, and we should be eating them. And then I never cook them. I honestly do not remember the last time I made lentil soup. Nor do I know why I was moved to make it this time around. But make it I did. And it was good. And it's vegan, but you can change that if you like.
First, let's chat a bit about different types of lentils. The ones we are all most familiar with are the common brown ones, and this is probably why those of us who don't like them, don't like them. These are the ones you get for about 50 cents a bag, and which always carry a warning to wash them and to pick out stones before you cook them. It's good advice. Lentils grow very close to the ground, and I still remember picking out stones before cooking them. It isn't the stones, t hough that seems to cause the dislike of them people have. The brown lentils cook down to a very soft, unappealing mash. You couple this with their , ahem, not so attractive color, and you have a dish that only a mother could love. Unfortunately, this is the version of lentils most of us grew up with. If you grew up in a Southern Asian family , perhaps you were fortunate enough to have red lentils. These also cook up very soft, but to my taste they have a somewhat tart and fruity flavor, and unlike the brown ones, they do not thicken as heavily when you leave them in liquid. Hence, no problem with thick, viscous texture . You eat this as dhal in Indian restaurants, and while you can use them to make soup, the soup is very thin.
I suggest you go with one of two varieities. The French green lentil or the "lentil de puy," or a greenish/brown one from Italy, called a casteluccian lentil. Both of these retain their shape when cooked, and give a bit of substance when you chew. As a result, you almost treat them as "legume pasta" in the soup. They add their protein and t heir body, but they are not going to make a thick mess of things.
OK, here we go. And this makes a lot. First, you need your base. Lentils can take on a lot of varied flavors, and I'll talk about options. For mine, I used two large carrots, chopped, a couple of ribs of chopped celery, a large chopped onion, a cubed celery root, a few sprigs of thyme, and a bay leaf. Whenever I make lentil soup, or any legume soup, I put in a bay leaf. Just works for me. Take those chopped vegetables, and add them to about three tablespoons of olive oil that you've heated a bit. Stir them, until you've got them coated with oil, and let them cook away for a few minutes, say four or five. Then add the herbs. Finally, add 2 cups of dried lentils.
You may have noticed that I didn't tell you to pre-soak the lentils. I didn't forget. This is why lentils are a good friend to cooks. If you want to make a bean soup, but you forgot to soak the beans, you can use lentils. They don't need presoaking.
OK, now add a big teaspoon of salt (maybe even 2), and then two quarts of water. Bring the whole thing to a boil, then lower the heat, cover the pot, and simmer, until the lentils are tender enough for you. I DO warn you that they are not going to turn into fall apart tender, but they will soften. For me, it was about thirty minutes.
Finally, at the end, I added two small heads of escarole, that I had chopped. This cooked down almost immediately. I pulled out the herbs, tested the seasoning, and we were done and happy.
If you like, and I do, you can add a large, chopped tomato to the vegetables at the start. You could also, at the end, add some cooked bacon, or sausage to the soup. Franks are great with this too. I am intrigued by the idea of using duck confit as a garnish (but I always AM intrigued by duck confit, as you all will learn tomorrow).
I cannot think of serving this without cheese and bread of some kind. If "bread," then it MUST be rye bread for me, t hickly sliced and thickly buttered. Pizza sounds good with it, especially if it is not tomato based. Corn muffins or popovers? Of course. I think you do need some kind of starch with it, because ultimately, this is a very substantial, strong soup, and the bread will lighten it just a bit.
Go for it. You want something warm and substantial for dinner that is not too expensive, and comes together quickly? Well, you got it.
Who says that Annalena does not pay attention to what people want? (Well, if someone says it, they're right...)
But.... the affinity is there, even for me. Annalena almost never orders soup in a restaurant. Part of it is a sense that she is paying 9 dollars for a bowl of something that cost 13 cents to make. (Of course, that doesn't stop me with other courses, but let's not look at my inconsistencies today, hmmm?). This is true, even if the soups sound truly interesting. On Friday, however, I found myself more than intrigued by a celery root and boston lettuce soup at Savoy Restaurant, which was just amazing. And the fact is, I look forward to making soup while the Guyman is in rehearsal. I try to vary them and to be creative. Ultimately , t hough, many of them do rely on dried legumes.
So we move to lentils. Why lentils? Well, I am not quite sure. I do have bags and bags and bags of lentils in the cupboard, because I know they're good for us, and we should be eating them. And then I never cook them. I honestly do not remember the last time I made lentil soup. Nor do I know why I was moved to make it this time around. But make it I did. And it was good. And it's vegan, but you can change that if you like.
First, let's chat a bit about different types of lentils. The ones we are all most familiar with are the common brown ones, and this is probably why those of us who don't like them, don't like them. These are the ones you get for about 50 cents a bag, and which always carry a warning to wash them and to pick out stones before you cook them. It's good advice. Lentils grow very close to the ground, and I still remember picking out stones before cooking them. It isn't the stones, t hough that seems to cause the dislike of them people have. The brown lentils cook down to a very soft, unappealing mash. You couple this with their , ahem, not so attractive color, and you have a dish that only a mother could love. Unfortunately, this is the version of lentils most of us grew up with. If you grew up in a Southern Asian family , perhaps you were fortunate enough to have red lentils. These also cook up very soft, but to my taste they have a somewhat tart and fruity flavor, and unlike the brown ones, they do not thicken as heavily when you leave them in liquid. Hence, no problem with thick, viscous texture . You eat this as dhal in Indian restaurants, and while you can use them to make soup, the soup is very thin.
I suggest you go with one of two varieities. The French green lentil or the "lentil de puy," or a greenish/brown one from Italy, called a casteluccian lentil. Both of these retain their shape when cooked, and give a bit of substance when you chew. As a result, you almost treat them as "legume pasta" in the soup. They add their protein and t heir body, but they are not going to make a thick mess of things.
OK, here we go. And this makes a lot. First, you need your base. Lentils can take on a lot of varied flavors, and I'll talk about options. For mine, I used two large carrots, chopped, a couple of ribs of chopped celery, a large chopped onion, a cubed celery root, a few sprigs of thyme, and a bay leaf. Whenever I make lentil soup, or any legume soup, I put in a bay leaf. Just works for me. Take those chopped vegetables, and add them to about three tablespoons of olive oil that you've heated a bit. Stir them, until you've got them coated with oil, and let them cook away for a few minutes, say four or five. Then add the herbs. Finally, add 2 cups of dried lentils.
You may have noticed that I didn't tell you to pre-soak the lentils. I didn't forget. This is why lentils are a good friend to cooks. If you want to make a bean soup, but you forgot to soak the beans, you can use lentils. They don't need presoaking.
OK, now add a big teaspoon of salt (maybe even 2), and then two quarts of water. Bring the whole thing to a boil, then lower the heat, cover the pot, and simmer, until the lentils are tender enough for you. I DO warn you that they are not going to turn into fall apart tender, but they will soften. For me, it was about thirty minutes.
Finally, at the end, I added two small heads of escarole, that I had chopped. This cooked down almost immediately. I pulled out the herbs, tested the seasoning, and we were done and happy.
If you like, and I do, you can add a large, chopped tomato to the vegetables at the start. You could also, at the end, add some cooked bacon, or sausage to the soup. Franks are great with this too. I am intrigued by the idea of using duck confit as a garnish (but I always AM intrigued by duck confit, as you all will learn tomorrow).
I cannot think of serving this without cheese and bread of some kind. If "bread," then it MUST be rye bread for me, t hickly sliced and thickly buttered. Pizza sounds good with it, especially if it is not tomato based. Corn muffins or popovers? Of course. I think you do need some kind of starch with it, because ultimately, this is a very substantial, strong soup, and the bread will lighten it just a bit.
Go for it. You want something warm and substantial for dinner that is not too expensive, and comes together quickly? Well, you got it.
Who says that Annalena does not pay attention to what people want? (Well, if someone says it, they're right...)
Saturday, October 17, 2009
what's in the fridge? Constructing sauce
Everyone gets faced, sooner or later, with having to use up "what's in the fridge?" My friend Bobby says that when he grew up, they called it "icebox stew." He says it was usually disgusting. Other people will have different names for it, but you know what I mean. It was usually (in fact, almost always), Mom, who was faced with what to do with the leftovers, especially when it was, say Thursday, and there wasn't any money coming in until Friday night. Many people have memories of those cans of cream of mushroom soup, poured over "whatever," and baked. There is a dish that both repels and attracts me, that has the nickname "faggot pudding." It's a bake of canned tuna and cream of mushroom soup. Annalena must confess that she likes this. Don't ask why, it makes no sense.
And you all have something like this. In some cases, the dish becomes a "classic." What, for example, do you think "shephard's pie" started out as?
Well, on Thursday of last week, yours truly was confronted with this kind of situation: what's for dinner? What did I feel like cooking? Well, frankly, Thursday was one of those days where, if you graphed the week with emotional highs and emotional lows, this was off the scale, at the bottom end. Oh yes, Annalena was so down in the dumps that she could have constructed a dish of root vegetables only. Imagination in the kitchen? Not on Thursday.
So, digging around, I found an eggplant. I found a bag of wild mushrooms that I had paid a small fortune for and had forgotten about. And.... where preplanning is such a good thing, containers of tomato confit. As Jackie Gleason used to say 'AND AWAY WE GO.' In about 30 minutes I had a pasta sauce which, to be quite honest, did not taste of its origins. It was quite terrific. And it is open to many variations, as I exhibited this morning. Try this.
I peeled the eggplant and cut it into small dice. I knew I wanted a darker, carmelized version of the eggplant, which is why I cut it very small. Then I did something very important with eggplant: I salted it , rather heavily and let it sit for a minute or two. This brings out the water, of which eggplant is jammed, and also gets some flavor into a bland vegetable. I then heated about three tablespoons of olive oil until it was VERY hot. Again, important for eggplant, as it is the "sponge" of vegetables. Eggplant will pick up every bit of oil you give it. But you can solve this problem with a bit of patience.
The mushrooms were small enough that I did not have to cut them, I just had to brush the dirt off them (yes, these were, truly WILD mushrooms) . The tomato confit just needed a bit of chopping.
So the eggplant went into the oil. I let it sit. When you fry eggplant in this way, don't move it for a few minutes. Yes, it is going to stick, but that's ok. After about five minutes, stir it. Now you stir it every two minutes or so, and you will see a soft mass forming as the eggplant gives up its water. When it does that, it will begin to release some of the oil. Not all of it, however, so you'll need to put in a tablespoon or two when you add the mushrooms. They only need cook three minutes or so.
Your pan will have taken on a seared, black layer on the bottom. That is ok. When you add the chopped tomato confit (or, canned tomatoes, or, fresh tomatoes, however many you want), you will see how the liquid in that fruit takes up what was there. Now, all that lovely fond is mixed in with your sauce. Just stir a bit, and you are done....
Or are you? As I found out today, this works wonderfully for incorporating left over green vegetables (broccoli), and you can also, as I found out, toss in chunks of a soft cheese, like mozzarella or fontina, or something of that ilk.
It will make a lot, but you will want this. It can serve, for example, as it will this weekend, as a canape' topping. It can serve, as it did yesterday , as a snack when you come back from doing 45 minutes of cardio work. And it can be used to make a quick lunch for the fishermen who make you look so good because their stuff is so fresh.
Try it. Improvise. I call it "wotthehell sauce." Call it whatever you like, but call it delicious. Because it is.
And you all have something like this. In some cases, the dish becomes a "classic." What, for example, do you think "shephard's pie" started out as?
Well, on Thursday of last week, yours truly was confronted with this kind of situation: what's for dinner? What did I feel like cooking? Well, frankly, Thursday was one of those days where, if you graphed the week with emotional highs and emotional lows, this was off the scale, at the bottom end. Oh yes, Annalena was so down in the dumps that she could have constructed a dish of root vegetables only. Imagination in the kitchen? Not on Thursday.
So, digging around, I found an eggplant. I found a bag of wild mushrooms that I had paid a small fortune for and had forgotten about. And.... where preplanning is such a good thing, containers of tomato confit. As Jackie Gleason used to say 'AND AWAY WE GO.' In about 30 minutes I had a pasta sauce which, to be quite honest, did not taste of its origins. It was quite terrific. And it is open to many variations, as I exhibited this morning. Try this.
I peeled the eggplant and cut it into small dice. I knew I wanted a darker, carmelized version of the eggplant, which is why I cut it very small. Then I did something very important with eggplant: I salted it , rather heavily and let it sit for a minute or two. This brings out the water, of which eggplant is jammed, and also gets some flavor into a bland vegetable. I then heated about three tablespoons of olive oil until it was VERY hot. Again, important for eggplant, as it is the "sponge" of vegetables. Eggplant will pick up every bit of oil you give it. But you can solve this problem with a bit of patience.
The mushrooms were small enough that I did not have to cut them, I just had to brush the dirt off them (yes, these were, truly WILD mushrooms) . The tomato confit just needed a bit of chopping.
So the eggplant went into the oil. I let it sit. When you fry eggplant in this way, don't move it for a few minutes. Yes, it is going to stick, but that's ok. After about five minutes, stir it. Now you stir it every two minutes or so, and you will see a soft mass forming as the eggplant gives up its water. When it does that, it will begin to release some of the oil. Not all of it, however, so you'll need to put in a tablespoon or two when you add the mushrooms. They only need cook three minutes or so.
Your pan will have taken on a seared, black layer on the bottom. That is ok. When you add the chopped tomato confit (or, canned tomatoes, or, fresh tomatoes, however many you want), you will see how the liquid in that fruit takes up what was there. Now, all that lovely fond is mixed in with your sauce. Just stir a bit, and you are done....
Or are you? As I found out today, this works wonderfully for incorporating left over green vegetables (broccoli), and you can also, as I found out, toss in chunks of a soft cheese, like mozzarella or fontina, or something of that ilk.
It will make a lot, but you will want this. It can serve, for example, as it will this weekend, as a canape' topping. It can serve, as it did yesterday , as a snack when you come back from doing 45 minutes of cardio work. And it can be used to make a quick lunch for the fishermen who make you look so good because their stuff is so fresh.
Try it. Improvise. I call it "wotthehell sauce." Call it whatever you like, but call it delicious. Because it is.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Is it "Indian?" Curried pork tenderloin
There's a bit of a dichotomy up there. I mean, let's face it. When you think "Indian" food, your immediate reaction, I bet is "wait. PORK? Indians don't eat pork."
Well, let's not generalize here, that completely. Some do, some don't. It's like anything else. Got to be careful when you're thinking about things like this. Generalizations don't fly very well, in cooking.
In fairness, when I read this recipe, it never called it an "Indian" recipe, but there's a connection that is made - and Annalena made it - because there is curry in it. We associate curry with Indian cooking don't we? Well, we should, but "curry" in some form or another (and don't get me started on what is and is not "curry") has made it all over the world. Indeed, you can find it in some Sicilian dishes - always with couscous (or, as it is called in Sicilian dialect cussucussu), and nearly always with fish. Then we get to Caribbean cuisine, where the link is more understandable. But the rant of the day is, don't generalize.
I like pork.
Have you all had your fun yet? Good, now let's move on. I happen to like tenderloins, even though many chefs and cooks scoff at it, because it's not the tastiest cut. Indeed, two nights ago on Top Chef, we saw a cook go down for a pork tenderloin dish that wasn't up to snuff. Oh well.
I saw this recipe in a magazine, and of course, I had to modify it. This is the second dish that my friend Ken didn't get because he went on a date instead. So Guy and I ate it. And it's good. And it takes advantage of a difficult ingredient to use: late season peaches.
It's mid October, and you can still get stone fruit. Honestly, a lot of it just isn't very good right now. The peaches and nectarines are mealy, and best used for cooking instead of out of hand eating. So here's a way to use that peach sitting on the counter. Try this. It's fast and it's good.
Like some men.
Ok, you need a one pound piece of pork tenderloin. Pat it dry, or leave it in the fridge like I've taught you to do with meat in general. Combine four peeledcloves of garlic, a teaspoon of ginger, and a teaspoon of curry.
AH. Here's the rub. You've got curry in your house, don't you? GOod. Now smell it. Does it smell like anything? Probably not. It's probably old and lost its flavor. Get some new stuff.
Back from the store, add the curry to the ginger and garlic. I use an old coffee grinder to grind this stuff together, but you could use a small food processor or whatever you have, or you could do it the old fashioned way, and do it by hand. IF you happen to have fresh ginger around (I didn't), use a few slices of that instead. Finally, add some salt to this. You'll get this nice wet paste that will stick to the tenderloin real easily. Spread it all over the meat.
Get an oven safe pan and put two tablespoons of vegetable oil in it, and get it REALLY hot. How hot? You'll see little ripples on the oil when it's hot enough. Put the tenderloin into the oil, and let it sear. DONT MOVE IT. You want a nice dark color. Leave it alone for five minutes, then turn it over and let the other side brown.
Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 425. Put the whole pan into the oven (guess I should have told you the pan should be oven proof. OOPS). And let this cook for about ten minutes, twelve if you prefer your meat cooked more. While it's cooking, chop up one medium sized onion, a nice big tomato, seeds and skin and all, and a peach.
After ten minutes, protect your hands and take out the pork. Move the meat to a plate to let it rest. Over a medium flame, add the onion, and cook for about five minutes. Then add the tomato and peach and cook for another five. Keep your hand protected, and stir the mix from time to time. Taste it and see if you would like to add more s easonings to it. It's your dish, and you probably will (I wish I had done so with mine). After ten minutes, your sauce is done. Turn off the heat, and slice the pork into nice sized slices. Spoon some of the sauce over it, and put the rest on the side for people to take as they like.
This was the main dish, next to the potatoes I wrote about yesterday. It was good. It's a start on my way to learning something new. Is it "Indian?" I doubt it. Is it tasty? Sure is. Will I make it again, absolutely.
Well, let's not generalize here, that completely. Some do, some don't. It's like anything else. Got to be careful when you're thinking about things like this. Generalizations don't fly very well, in cooking.
In fairness, when I read this recipe, it never called it an "Indian" recipe, but there's a connection that is made - and Annalena made it - because there is curry in it. We associate curry with Indian cooking don't we? Well, we should, but "curry" in some form or another (and don't get me started on what is and is not "curry") has made it all over the world. Indeed, you can find it in some Sicilian dishes - always with couscous (or, as it is called in Sicilian dialect cussucussu), and nearly always with fish. Then we get to Caribbean cuisine, where the link is more understandable. But the rant of the day is, don't generalize.
I like pork.
Have you all had your fun yet? Good, now let's move on. I happen to like tenderloins, even though many chefs and cooks scoff at it, because it's not the tastiest cut. Indeed, two nights ago on Top Chef, we saw a cook go down for a pork tenderloin dish that wasn't up to snuff. Oh well.
I saw this recipe in a magazine, and of course, I had to modify it. This is the second dish that my friend Ken didn't get because he went on a date instead. So Guy and I ate it. And it's good. And it takes advantage of a difficult ingredient to use: late season peaches.
It's mid October, and you can still get stone fruit. Honestly, a lot of it just isn't very good right now. The peaches and nectarines are mealy, and best used for cooking instead of out of hand eating. So here's a way to use that peach sitting on the counter. Try this. It's fast and it's good.
Like some men.
Ok, you need a one pound piece of pork tenderloin. Pat it dry, or leave it in the fridge like I've taught you to do with meat in general. Combine four peeledcloves of garlic, a teaspoon of ginger, and a teaspoon of curry.
AH. Here's the rub. You've got curry in your house, don't you? GOod. Now smell it. Does it smell like anything? Probably not. It's probably old and lost its flavor. Get some new stuff.
Back from the store, add the curry to the ginger and garlic. I use an old coffee grinder to grind this stuff together, but you could use a small food processor or whatever you have, or you could do it the old fashioned way, and do it by hand. IF you happen to have fresh ginger around (I didn't), use a few slices of that instead. Finally, add some salt to this. You'll get this nice wet paste that will stick to the tenderloin real easily. Spread it all over the meat.
Get an oven safe pan and put two tablespoons of vegetable oil in it, and get it REALLY hot. How hot? You'll see little ripples on the oil when it's hot enough. Put the tenderloin into the oil, and let it sear. DONT MOVE IT. You want a nice dark color. Leave it alone for five minutes, then turn it over and let the other side brown.
Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 425. Put the whole pan into the oven (guess I should have told you the pan should be oven proof. OOPS). And let this cook for about ten minutes, twelve if you prefer your meat cooked more. While it's cooking, chop up one medium sized onion, a nice big tomato, seeds and skin and all, and a peach.
After ten minutes, protect your hands and take out the pork. Move the meat to a plate to let it rest. Over a medium flame, add the onion, and cook for about five minutes. Then add the tomato and peach and cook for another five. Keep your hand protected, and stir the mix from time to time. Taste it and see if you would like to add more s easonings to it. It's your dish, and you probably will (I wish I had done so with mine). After ten minutes, your sauce is done. Turn off the heat, and slice the pork into nice sized slices. Spoon some of the sauce over it, and put the rest on the side for people to take as they like.
This was the main dish, next to the potatoes I wrote about yesterday. It was good. It's a start on my way to learning something new. Is it "Indian?" I doubt it. Is it tasty? Sure is. Will I make it again, absolutely.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Annalena goes Indian - sort of
I've commented on this blog, before, that my comfort zone is unmistakably Italian food. If you want to extend it, Mediterranean food. I believe I do some southern French dishes very well, some from Morocco, some Spanish Mediterranean dishes, and I've done a middle eastern dish or two that I've been proud of.
Indian food, however, has always defeated me. Much more so than Mexican food. Mexican food, I "sort of" get. And I have friends, like the amazing Sue Torres to turn to and ask "what went wrong," with a bit of a pout and a frightened look. And Sue always nods wisely and says something like "I have trouble with it too" (and she's lying through her teeth), and then says something like "just cook it for another three hours and it will be fine. When it comes to Indian food, however, I don't have such a source. I COULD turn to my friend Shiv, but he would look at me with amazement and say "I should be asking YOU how to do that." So, on Indian food, I am on my own, and I fail, miserably, every single time I try an Indian dish. I burn the spices. I scorch the milk in the milk candy. The only dish I can turn out consistently, is carrot halvah, which half of my Indian friends tell me isn't Indian at all. Like I would know?
But... I get a craving occasionally to pull out all those spices that begin with a "c" (cumin, coriander, curry, cardomom), and try something. What I do can hardly be called authentically Indian. But it has sort of a "flavor" of Indian about it. And I feel like I've stretched and done something that I haven't done before.
So, this past week, with my friend Ken scheduled to come to dinner (and abandoning me for a date... Hmmmm), knowing that he is a fan of Indian food (he took me to "Bombay Talkie," where I ate curried beets. CLEARLY not an Indian dish), I found some recipes that were "borderline." The second one will follow tomorrow. This one, I really liked. I liked it because it's starch. Potatoes. I liked it because, in spite of the warning that it took nearly an hour and a half to make, it took less than an hour (well, ok, I split up the cooking time). And I like the interplay of spices . Is it Indian? I doubt it. I have to turn to the experts, like Shiv, to tell me yes or no. But I offer it to you as a "prasad" (look it up), as a dish that is worth making.
Culinary snob that I am, I did in fact have all of the spices in the house. I bet you have all of them, except maybe coriander. Borrow some from me. And yes, as the recipe says, you SHOULD start with whole spices and grind them yourself. I couldn't find my cumin seeds, so I used the ground stuff. I didn't think there was any problem with it. This is a dish I will make again. In fact, I can still smell it cooking in the kitchen. That, in and of itself, is enough to want to make it over. It smells GOOD.
Ok, here we go. You need two pounds of potatoes. The recipe calls for fingerlings, but I didn't have them. So I used the potatoes I had, and when they were cooked, I cut them into fingerling sizes. Boil the two pounds of potatoes, in their skins, in a lot of salted water, for about ten minutes. They will soften, but they will not be soft. Drain them, and when they are cool enough to handle, peel them (if you have asbestos hands, do it when they're warm). I boiled the potatoes in the morning, and cooked the dish at night. Do that if you can.
When you're ready to proceed, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Get your spices ready. If you're grinding whole ones, put a teaspoon of coriander, and half a teaspoon of cumin, in your spice grinder and get it working. If not, use the powders. Combine them with a quarter teaspoon each of tumeric and cayenne (ok, you may not have tumeric in the house either. Get some. And be careful. This is a very powerful yellow orange dye. You can consider using it to henna your hair, but smelling it all day may be an issue for you. ).
You're just about done. Now, dump those potatoes, peeled, and cut to size onto a baking sheet. Pour a quarter cup of vegetable oil over them and mix that all up with your hands. Now, clean and dry y our hands, pour the spices over the potatoes, and mingle it all together. Now spread them all out on the sheet. There's enough oil to keep them from sticking. Sprinkle them with salt to the degree you think you'll want it. Some like it saltier than others. Get the tray into the oven, and bake for 45 minutes. Every fifteen minutes or so, if you think about it, shake the pan. It's not necessary, and probably adds nothing to the finished product, but it somehow made me feel like I was doing something fancy.
After 45 minutes, the potatoes will have dried a lot and crisped a lot too. Now, the fun part. Get something solid, and "smash" them a bit. That way when you eat them, you get some soft potato meat, and some crisp skin. And of course, a mouthful of those lovely spices.
Can you vary this? OF COURSE. One of the wonderful things about this recipe is that the creative cook can see that, there is a total of 2 teaspoons of mixed spices. You can use whatever you like. Don't do something stupid and call it Indian if you decide to use dill, rosemary, oregano and pimento, but play with the idea.
Allegedly, this is enough for 4 people. Trust me, once you make it, if you're making it for four people, you will wish you made more.
Really very tasty. I'm going to send it off to Shiv and challenge him to make it. Hey, you never kn ow....
Indian food, however, has always defeated me. Much more so than Mexican food. Mexican food, I "sort of" get. And I have friends, like the amazing Sue Torres to turn to and ask "what went wrong," with a bit of a pout and a frightened look. And Sue always nods wisely and says something like "I have trouble with it too" (and she's lying through her teeth), and then says something like "just cook it for another three hours and it will be fine. When it comes to Indian food, however, I don't have such a source. I COULD turn to my friend Shiv, but he would look at me with amazement and say "I should be asking YOU how to do that." So, on Indian food, I am on my own, and I fail, miserably, every single time I try an Indian dish. I burn the spices. I scorch the milk in the milk candy. The only dish I can turn out consistently, is carrot halvah, which half of my Indian friends tell me isn't Indian at all. Like I would know?
But... I get a craving occasionally to pull out all those spices that begin with a "c" (cumin, coriander, curry, cardomom), and try something. What I do can hardly be called authentically Indian. But it has sort of a "flavor" of Indian about it. And I feel like I've stretched and done something that I haven't done before.
So, this past week, with my friend Ken scheduled to come to dinner (and abandoning me for a date... Hmmmm), knowing that he is a fan of Indian food (he took me to "Bombay Talkie," where I ate curried beets. CLEARLY not an Indian dish), I found some recipes that were "borderline." The second one will follow tomorrow. This one, I really liked. I liked it because it's starch. Potatoes. I liked it because, in spite of the warning that it took nearly an hour and a half to make, it took less than an hour (well, ok, I split up the cooking time). And I like the interplay of spices . Is it Indian? I doubt it. I have to turn to the experts, like Shiv, to tell me yes or no. But I offer it to you as a "prasad" (look it up), as a dish that is worth making.
Culinary snob that I am, I did in fact have all of the spices in the house. I bet you have all of them, except maybe coriander. Borrow some from me. And yes, as the recipe says, you SHOULD start with whole spices and grind them yourself. I couldn't find my cumin seeds, so I used the ground stuff. I didn't think there was any problem with it. This is a dish I will make again. In fact, I can still smell it cooking in the kitchen. That, in and of itself, is enough to want to make it over. It smells GOOD.
Ok, here we go. You need two pounds of potatoes. The recipe calls for fingerlings, but I didn't have them. So I used the potatoes I had, and when they were cooked, I cut them into fingerling sizes. Boil the two pounds of potatoes, in their skins, in a lot of salted water, for about ten minutes. They will soften, but they will not be soft. Drain them, and when they are cool enough to handle, peel them (if you have asbestos hands, do it when they're warm). I boiled the potatoes in the morning, and cooked the dish at night. Do that if you can.
When you're ready to proceed, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Get your spices ready. If you're grinding whole ones, put a teaspoon of coriander, and half a teaspoon of cumin, in your spice grinder and get it working. If not, use the powders. Combine them with a quarter teaspoon each of tumeric and cayenne (ok, you may not have tumeric in the house either. Get some. And be careful. This is a very powerful yellow orange dye. You can consider using it to henna your hair, but smelling it all day may be an issue for you. ).
You're just about done. Now, dump those potatoes, peeled, and cut to size onto a baking sheet. Pour a quarter cup of vegetable oil over them and mix that all up with your hands. Now, clean and dry y our hands, pour the spices over the potatoes, and mingle it all together. Now spread them all out on the sheet. There's enough oil to keep them from sticking. Sprinkle them with salt to the degree you think you'll want it. Some like it saltier than others. Get the tray into the oven, and bake for 45 minutes. Every fifteen minutes or so, if you think about it, shake the pan. It's not necessary, and probably adds nothing to the finished product, but it somehow made me feel like I was doing something fancy.
After 45 minutes, the potatoes will have dried a lot and crisped a lot too. Now, the fun part. Get something solid, and "smash" them a bit. That way when you eat them, you get some soft potato meat, and some crisp skin. And of course, a mouthful of those lovely spices.
Can you vary this? OF COURSE. One of the wonderful things about this recipe is that the creative cook can see that, there is a total of 2 teaspoons of mixed spices. You can use whatever you like. Don't do something stupid and call it Indian if you decide to use dill, rosemary, oregano and pimento, but play with the idea.
Allegedly, this is enough for 4 people. Trust me, once you make it, if you're making it for four people, you will wish you made more.
Really very tasty. I'm going to send it off to Shiv and challenge him to make it. Hey, you never kn ow....
Sunday, October 11, 2009
What makes it Italian, or French, or Japanese, or Turkish: "turkish" turkey meatloaf
Yes, my lovelies, Annalena is back. With a bit of an essay and some ramblings here.
I've spent the last few days tracking down a poem from my college days. Those who have studied Japanese lit will know about the "Manyoshu," or the "one thousand leaved anthology." This is an early collection of poetry. When I say early, I'm talking centuries in the single digits - say 5th, 6th, 7th and so forth.
Well, I had read much of it in college, and one poem stuck with me, and came to mind this week for one image. A Japanese courtier is writing of the secret marriage to a woman and how their love was kept secret "like a rock-pent pool." Well, dare it be said that Annalena is feeling likewise about her love, and in days to come, perhaps will remove the rocks. Do stay tuned. I will only write if there are good results. And try to follow Annalena's advice, taken from a popular song : "If you know it, show it." Well, I need to follow my own advice. Bear with me. It ain't easy being me.
So, let us turn now to cooking. The title of the above was inspired by the recipe I shall present. I think you will probably know what I mean when I say "what goes into it that makes it French? Or Italian? Or S panish?" Are there particular ingredients or styles of cooking, or what? If it has tomato, does that make it Italian? If it has pimenton, Spanish? There was a time where, if something contained spinach, it was de facto called "florentine." If it had grapes in it, it was call "veronique." And so on, and so forth.
A few weeks ago, I was leafing through the Times food section and read a recipe called "Turkey meatloaf, turkish style." Well, I am intrigued by turkish cooking, although I am NOT intrigued by ground turkey. In fact, as MFK Fisher said about rutubaga, I would have said, in the past "down with it, I say." Well, read on.
I wanted to know what made the recipe turkish style. Was it pomegranate juice? or a combination of spices? What, exactly is "turkish style," especially since, as far as I know, there ain't no turkey in Turkey.
According to the article, it is "the flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean, with garlic, walnuts and mint in the mix"
HUH????? First of all, "the Eastern Mediterranean" covers a whole lot more than Turkey. Garlic, walnut and mint can "signify," as my friend Jonathan would say, just about any culture that borders the Mediterranean. Why is this not Israeli style? Or Moroccan? Or Maltese? Perhaps our writer was just having some fun with the play on turkey/Turkey, and we have to give our writers some latitude on things like that. I guess.
Well, like I say, I am not a fan of ground turkey. Several of my friends, however, truly like it. The last time we made meatloaf here, one of the puppies asked if we could substitute ground turkey for what we were working with, which was a combination of pork/veal/beef. I GUESS you could, I said, but I was not very convinced. But, looking for something new to make in the kitchen, I gave this a try, with one change.
I didn't use mint. Mint is a difficult flavor to pull off in anything other than juleps. It is VERY strong, and if, for example , you have a partner who does not care for it, you need to find something else. And given the recipe, this was easy. It was VERY easy.
If you look up this recipe on the NY Times web page, it will be much more complicated than the one I present here. (See how much Annalena loves you all? She works and slaves to make things easier. And keeps her love in a rock pent pool. So make the thing for heaven's sake.).
To start, let's gather ingredients, cause there's more than a few of them. You need 2 pounds of ground turkey. You will also need a green bell pepper, that you will seed and chop coarsely. Also, a large onion, also chopped coarsely. You can put those together.
Peel four cloves of garlic, and mix them with 3/4 cup of parsley and basil, mixed together. You can vary the amounts, but don't decrease it, and don't use all of one or the other. Add 3/4 cup of walnuts to that mix. IF you are allergic to walnuts, but can eat some other type of nut, then I suggest that you substitute in. Pistachios sound good. So do cashews, and so do pine nuts. Finally, you will need some olive oil, and about 3 tablespoons of breadcrumbs , "Panko" if you can find it.
Digression here. Since we started with reference to Japanese literature. "panko" is Japanese bread crumbs. And it's a wonderful word. Japanese has no word for bread, so they stole the word for bread from Portuguese, when the Portuguese were invading - OOPS - I mean EXPLORING - Japan. That word is "pan." In Japanese "ko" at the end of a word makes it a diminutive. Sort of like "ette" in French, or "ino" in Italian, and probably something in Turkish that I don't know. But if you can't find it, use regular crumbs.
Ok, let's get to work. Take the walnuts ,and the herbs, and put them in a food processor and pulse to a rough chop. Put that aside. Don't clean the bowl of the processor. Put the garlic in, and then the onions and green pepper and do the same thing.
Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan, and add that onion/garlic/pepper mixture and cook it until it begins to soften. You'll know it: you'll see water going off, and a "mass" beginning to form. When that happens, take it off the heat, dump the stuff into a bowl, and add the walnut mixture.
Meanwhile, soak the panko or the breadcrumbs in half a cup of water. They'll soften up, and add them to the mix. Finally add the turkey. Get in there with your hands and mix it up. You should add a hefty teaspoon of salt, and taste, and then add more if you need it (Note that, if you have the skeeves about raw meat, use the hot frying pan to cook a little of it and taste it). Just add salt to your taste.
Preheat the oven to 375, and divide the mixture into two even portions. Form it into long loaves, along side of each other, on a baking sheet, lined with parchment. Bake this for an hour. You will see all kinds of juices and liquids going out of it, and that's fine. In fact, if you feel like indulging yourself, eat some of those carmelized bits when the loaf comes out of the oven. You deserve it.
Now, you have a nice, hot, relatively benign dinner waiting for you, but let's face it: the major reason for meatloaf's existence is sandwiches. Make some. Make a lot of them. You're supposed to eat this with yogurt.
Yeah, right. Please pass the ketchup. And the pickles. And some good solid bread. Whole wheat or rye, rather than white. And enjoy yourself one of the best darn sandwiches you've ever had.
And I will tell you all about what happens when the rock-pent pool is released. But only if it's good. And it will be.
I've spent the last few days tracking down a poem from my college days. Those who have studied Japanese lit will know about the "Manyoshu," or the "one thousand leaved anthology." This is an early collection of poetry. When I say early, I'm talking centuries in the single digits - say 5th, 6th, 7th and so forth.
Well, I had read much of it in college, and one poem stuck with me, and came to mind this week for one image. A Japanese courtier is writing of the secret marriage to a woman and how their love was kept secret "like a rock-pent pool." Well, dare it be said that Annalena is feeling likewise about her love, and in days to come, perhaps will remove the rocks. Do stay tuned. I will only write if there are good results. And try to follow Annalena's advice, taken from a popular song : "If you know it, show it." Well, I need to follow my own advice. Bear with me. It ain't easy being me.
So, let us turn now to cooking. The title of the above was inspired by the recipe I shall present. I think you will probably know what I mean when I say "what goes into it that makes it French? Or Italian? Or S panish?" Are there particular ingredients or styles of cooking, or what? If it has tomato, does that make it Italian? If it has pimenton, Spanish? There was a time where, if something contained spinach, it was de facto called "florentine." If it had grapes in it, it was call "veronique." And so on, and so forth.
A few weeks ago, I was leafing through the Times food section and read a recipe called "Turkey meatloaf, turkish style." Well, I am intrigued by turkish cooking, although I am NOT intrigued by ground turkey. In fact, as MFK Fisher said about rutubaga, I would have said, in the past "down with it, I say." Well, read on.
I wanted to know what made the recipe turkish style. Was it pomegranate juice? or a combination of spices? What, exactly is "turkish style," especially since, as far as I know, there ain't no turkey in Turkey.
According to the article, it is "the flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean, with garlic, walnuts and mint in the mix"
HUH????? First of all, "the Eastern Mediterranean" covers a whole lot more than Turkey. Garlic, walnut and mint can "signify," as my friend Jonathan would say, just about any culture that borders the Mediterranean. Why is this not Israeli style? Or Moroccan? Or Maltese? Perhaps our writer was just having some fun with the play on turkey/Turkey, and we have to give our writers some latitude on things like that. I guess.
Well, like I say, I am not a fan of ground turkey. Several of my friends, however, truly like it. The last time we made meatloaf here, one of the puppies asked if we could substitute ground turkey for what we were working with, which was a combination of pork/veal/beef. I GUESS you could, I said, but I was not very convinced. But, looking for something new to make in the kitchen, I gave this a try, with one change.
I didn't use mint. Mint is a difficult flavor to pull off in anything other than juleps. It is VERY strong, and if, for example , you have a partner who does not care for it, you need to find something else. And given the recipe, this was easy. It was VERY easy.
If you look up this recipe on the NY Times web page, it will be much more complicated than the one I present here. (See how much Annalena loves you all? She works and slaves to make things easier. And keeps her love in a rock pent pool. So make the thing for heaven's sake.).
To start, let's gather ingredients, cause there's more than a few of them. You need 2 pounds of ground turkey. You will also need a green bell pepper, that you will seed and chop coarsely. Also, a large onion, also chopped coarsely. You can put those together.
Peel four cloves of garlic, and mix them with 3/4 cup of parsley and basil, mixed together. You can vary the amounts, but don't decrease it, and don't use all of one or the other. Add 3/4 cup of walnuts to that mix. IF you are allergic to walnuts, but can eat some other type of nut, then I suggest that you substitute in. Pistachios sound good. So do cashews, and so do pine nuts. Finally, you will need some olive oil, and about 3 tablespoons of breadcrumbs , "Panko" if you can find it.
Digression here. Since we started with reference to Japanese literature. "panko" is Japanese bread crumbs. And it's a wonderful word. Japanese has no word for bread, so they stole the word for bread from Portuguese, when the Portuguese were invading - OOPS - I mean EXPLORING - Japan. That word is "pan." In Japanese "ko" at the end of a word makes it a diminutive. Sort of like "ette" in French, or "ino" in Italian, and probably something in Turkish that I don't know. But if you can't find it, use regular crumbs.
Ok, let's get to work. Take the walnuts ,and the herbs, and put them in a food processor and pulse to a rough chop. Put that aside. Don't clean the bowl of the processor. Put the garlic in, and then the onions and green pepper and do the same thing.
Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan, and add that onion/garlic/pepper mixture and cook it until it begins to soften. You'll know it: you'll see water going off, and a "mass" beginning to form. When that happens, take it off the heat, dump the stuff into a bowl, and add the walnut mixture.
Meanwhile, soak the panko or the breadcrumbs in half a cup of water. They'll soften up, and add them to the mix. Finally add the turkey. Get in there with your hands and mix it up. You should add a hefty teaspoon of salt, and taste, and then add more if you need it (Note that, if you have the skeeves about raw meat, use the hot frying pan to cook a little of it and taste it). Just add salt to your taste.
Preheat the oven to 375, and divide the mixture into two even portions. Form it into long loaves, along side of each other, on a baking sheet, lined with parchment. Bake this for an hour. You will see all kinds of juices and liquids going out of it, and that's fine. In fact, if you feel like indulging yourself, eat some of those carmelized bits when the loaf comes out of the oven. You deserve it.
Now, you have a nice, hot, relatively benign dinner waiting for you, but let's face it: the major reason for meatloaf's existence is sandwiches. Make some. Make a lot of them. You're supposed to eat this with yogurt.
Yeah, right. Please pass the ketchup. And the pickles. And some good solid bread. Whole wheat or rye, rather than white. And enjoy yourself one of the best darn sandwiches you've ever had.
And I will tell you all about what happens when the rock-pent pool is released. But only if it's good. And it will be.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Tomato puffs: a riff on a classic
Ciao ragazzi. The festivities of the last couple of weeks continue, albeit with a change. One COULD say we move from the celebration of lamb, to the celebration of mutton, as we move from celebrating my dear friend's birthday to mine. A difference of 21 years separates us, a span that at times seems immeasurable, and at times seems immaterial. Thank goodness for that. And tomorrow, the sun completes another turn on Annalena's life, and she reaches the age of 52, feeling stronger, younger, and more alive than ever. For that, I thank people like my sometimes young and sometimes not so young friend. In fact, I thank them all, including my sometimes little brother, my young friend with the old soul, and the pack. And my best man, and his best man, the bear cub, the banker with the wry smile, and of course, Guy, "my Guy."
And now to cooking. You've read (I HOPE you have), my posts about the bad year for tomatoes. So many reasons... but... I just ate a container of some of the sweetest cherry tomatoes I've had this year. Perhaps the goddess flora has taken some sympathy and is giving us some beauties before it turns cold. A recipe in the New York Times, as well as the discovery of some OVERRIPE heirloom tomatoes inspired this one.
Overripe? Yes, that is rare this season, but I found some. The amazing Franca had some at her stand on wednesday, right after I had read a recipe which intrigued me.
Creampuffs intrigue me. I understand how they work, but the eventual end always makes me "ooh" and "Ah." More than that, though, I like peeking in and seeing the process happen. You know what I mean: this soft dough puffs up, and crisps, and then you have fun.
Well, we all know sweet creampuffs, and we know gougeres, the savory, cheese version of the sweet puffs, with no filling in them. The Times presented an interesting idea, using an ingredient that fascinates me: tomato water.
What is tomato water? Well, someone told me "it's tomato juice under a different name," but I'm not sure about that. I've seen two different ways of making it. The first, which is not the way I made it, calls on you to pull out the pulp and seeds of a tomato, and process it to separate the seeds, and that's the water. What I did, however, was to cut up a tomato, puree it, and let the liquid separate off. That's what we're going to do here.
The basic recipe for creampuff shells calls for water, butter, flour , eggs, salt. So, too, does this, only it also adds pepper. What you will need to do is the following. Chop up a BIG tomato. Twelve ounces is not too small. Then puree it in a food processor or blender. P rocess it for a few minutes to break it down as much as possible. Then put it in a strainer, over a bowl, to separate the liquids from the solids. Use the solids for something like tomato sauce, or put them into soup, but for heaven's sake down throw them out. Measure your liquid, and you should have a cup . If you have more, have a sip of it, maybe with vodka, maybe not. It's good for you. If you don't have enough, add some water to bring it to a cup.
Pour this into a medium sized pot, and add six tablespoons of unsalted butter that you've cubed up. Heat it, at low heat, until the butter is just about melted. Take it off the heat while you gather your other ingredients: a cup of flour, four large eggs, and a teaspoon of salt and some fresh pepper.
Off the heat, dump in the flour, salt, and a grind or two of pepper, all at once and stir like a madperson. You will get a large clump of dough on your spoon and you will be convinced you h ave failed. You have not. This is precisely what you want. Push it off the spoon any way you can. Now, the hardest part of this recipe. Break the eggs in , one at a time, and stir well until each egg is totally incorporated. This is NOT so easy. It will take you a while, but persevere. You will wind up with a thick, smooth shiny batter.
Now, to make your puffs. Line a baking sheet with parchment and turn up your oven to 425. Use a big spoon, a big melon scoop, or whatever you have, to make whatever shapes you like. Smaller is better, but not too small. I would say, go for about an inch and a half each. You should be able to get about 20 of them on that sheet. If you like, brush the puffs with a beaten egg, and shake some grated cheese over them.
Move that into the oven, and bake at 425 for 15 minutes. If you peek in at five minutes, you will be convinced you failed. If you peek in at ten minutes, you will smile and laugh as your shells expand and look like they are going to burst. (I know. I need a life). AT this point, lower the heat to 350 and bake for another 20 minutes or so, or until they feel firm and crispy to your touch.
If you remember, when they're finished baking, take a sharp knife and pierce each one on the side. Then let them cool. They are going to soften, gotta tell you. And you're going to have a soft, reddish pink little roll type structure. Time to fill them.
My filling was goats milk ricotta, that I salted, and added a really big handful of basil to, plus some more chopped up tomato. I could have , in fact, used that left over puree to add to the cheese. Or, I could have added halved cherry tomatoes. Or chunks of ham or sausage. But I didn't. I just used cheese. And they were terrific, if I do say so myself.
I served them to the Wolfpack, a group you'll be hearing a lot about in the up and coming blogs. What a great group of guys, worth every effort with the recipe, and frankly, there really wasn't much.
Got some friends you wanna make something special for? Here it is. Face it. They deserve it.
And now to cooking. You've read (I HOPE you have), my posts about the bad year for tomatoes. So many reasons... but... I just ate a container of some of the sweetest cherry tomatoes I've had this year. Perhaps the goddess flora has taken some sympathy and is giving us some beauties before it turns cold. A recipe in the New York Times, as well as the discovery of some OVERRIPE heirloom tomatoes inspired this one.
Overripe? Yes, that is rare this season, but I found some. The amazing Franca had some at her stand on wednesday, right after I had read a recipe which intrigued me.
Creampuffs intrigue me. I understand how they work, but the eventual end always makes me "ooh" and "Ah." More than that, though, I like peeking in and seeing the process happen. You know what I mean: this soft dough puffs up, and crisps, and then you have fun.
Well, we all know sweet creampuffs, and we know gougeres, the savory, cheese version of the sweet puffs, with no filling in them. The Times presented an interesting idea, using an ingredient that fascinates me: tomato water.
What is tomato water? Well, someone told me "it's tomato juice under a different name," but I'm not sure about that. I've seen two different ways of making it. The first, which is not the way I made it, calls on you to pull out the pulp and seeds of a tomato, and process it to separate the seeds, and that's the water. What I did, however, was to cut up a tomato, puree it, and let the liquid separate off. That's what we're going to do here.
The basic recipe for creampuff shells calls for water, butter, flour , eggs, salt. So, too, does this, only it also adds pepper. What you will need to do is the following. Chop up a BIG tomato. Twelve ounces is not too small. Then puree it in a food processor or blender. P rocess it for a few minutes to break it down as much as possible. Then put it in a strainer, over a bowl, to separate the liquids from the solids. Use the solids for something like tomato sauce, or put them into soup, but for heaven's sake down throw them out. Measure your liquid, and you should have a cup . If you have more, have a sip of it, maybe with vodka, maybe not. It's good for you. If you don't have enough, add some water to bring it to a cup.
Pour this into a medium sized pot, and add six tablespoons of unsalted butter that you've cubed up. Heat it, at low heat, until the butter is just about melted. Take it off the heat while you gather your other ingredients: a cup of flour, four large eggs, and a teaspoon of salt and some fresh pepper.
Off the heat, dump in the flour, salt, and a grind or two of pepper, all at once and stir like a madperson. You will get a large clump of dough on your spoon and you will be convinced you h ave failed. You have not. This is precisely what you want. Push it off the spoon any way you can. Now, the hardest part of this recipe. Break the eggs in , one at a time, and stir well until each egg is totally incorporated. This is NOT so easy. It will take you a while, but persevere. You will wind up with a thick, smooth shiny batter.
Now, to make your puffs. Line a baking sheet with parchment and turn up your oven to 425. Use a big spoon, a big melon scoop, or whatever you have, to make whatever shapes you like. Smaller is better, but not too small. I would say, go for about an inch and a half each. You should be able to get about 20 of them on that sheet. If you like, brush the puffs with a beaten egg, and shake some grated cheese over them.
Move that into the oven, and bake at 425 for 15 minutes. If you peek in at five minutes, you will be convinced you failed. If you peek in at ten minutes, you will smile and laugh as your shells expand and look like they are going to burst. (I know. I need a life). AT this point, lower the heat to 350 and bake for another 20 minutes or so, or until they feel firm and crispy to your touch.
If you remember, when they're finished baking, take a sharp knife and pierce each one on the side. Then let them cool. They are going to soften, gotta tell you. And you're going to have a soft, reddish pink little roll type structure. Time to fill them.
My filling was goats milk ricotta, that I salted, and added a really big handful of basil to, plus some more chopped up tomato. I could have , in fact, used that left over puree to add to the cheese. Or, I could have added halved cherry tomatoes. Or chunks of ham or sausage. But I didn't. I just used cheese. And they were terrific, if I do say so myself.
I served them to the Wolfpack, a group you'll be hearing a lot about in the up and coming blogs. What a great group of guys, worth every effort with the recipe, and frankly, there really wasn't much.
Got some friends you wanna make something special for? Here it is. Face it. They deserve it.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
The first gold medal: flourless chocolate cake
Again, my faithful following, please forgive the absence. It sometimes seems that Annalena's life is a bad, and good, episode of "As the Stomach Turns." For the good, there have been a welter of parties and celebrations, especially those surrounding the birthday of one of my dearest friends, to whom this entry will be dedicated (you know who you are, but since you prefer NOT to be mentioned, I shall respect that). There has been psychodrama, both high and low, including finding out that I had been evicted from an organization who's life I saved. I could tell NYCGMC what to do, but I would hurt too many friends. Instead I shall return to the kitchen.
Many months ago, another good friend, asked me if I could point her to the blog entry where I wrote about "the" flourless chocolate cake recipe. See, this is the one that has one me two gold medals. I could have sworn that I had posted that recipe, and in looking for it, never found it. Of course, I shared it with her, but I do not believe I ever got around to posting the recipe. I made it last weekend, and it's time to share it.
This is the oldest recipe in my current repertoire. I remember where I found it, and when I first made it. I was a law student, looking for something to do with my time other than study (and I found MANY such alternatiaves). One of the things that I had started doing in college, was reading the NY Times, when you could NOT finish the Sunday NY Times. Those were the days: book reviews where half the text was in French, music reviews that quoted scores, editorials that challenged. AH, yes, heady intellectual times. And one thing I always read was the cooking section. One Sunday, in '80, the paper published a recipe for a flourless chocolate cake.
Now, for those of you who think of flourless chocolate cake as a cliche', get a sense of history. There was a time when this was new. I'm serious about that, just like there was a time when cash cards were a reason to switch banks, because not all of them offered them.
No, children, I am NOT talking about pre-historic time. I am talking about the 80s. YES THE 80S . A time when many of you were not yet born, but not prehistoric, by any means. The first flourless cakes were presented in very high end restaurants, and eventually, the recipes filtered down.
One of my "talents," if you can call it that, is getting a feel for food trends, before they happen. I remember that when I saw the recipe, I knew. I "just knew" it was a keeper. And after I made it the first time, I knew the published recipe was a disaster. Total and complete. It called for baking the cake for an hour and 45 minutes. I kid you not. I now bake it for 30 minutes, and it is fine. Baking it for that full length of time turned it into a block of charcoal. I also used Baker's unsweetened chocolate, because this was before the chocolate revolution, and this is what we had. I used regular supermarket eggs, and hotel bar butter, because this is what we had. Now, of course, you have to choose "what chocolate" to use (I use Scharffenberger bittersweet, or Callebault), not "organic or non organic" eggs, but "WHAT BRAND" of organic eggs (I use eggs from various farmers market vendors), and what organic butter. (I use horizon, which is controversial, but everyone should deal with it).
The neat thing about this recipe is it forces you to answer the question : do I like cake or frosting better, because the batter is used for both. And the smaller your cake, the more frosting you have, and vice versa.
For a while, it seemed that I was making this cake every single week. This, and a cheesecake. But I was also 23 at the time - younger even than the people I cooked it for. My birthday boy asked for a flourless chocolate cake, and I didn't even realize I had never made him one. Well, now I have. And it was a hit. Even with people who don't like chocolate.
It does seem that this cake is embedded in my genetic code. I pulled out the recipe from the diary I kept during that time period (and talk about BITTERSWEET!), and I realized that I could do it by heart. It really is very easy. You'll be able to do it by heart too. And you should do it WITH your heart, because baking without love, is no better than buying a box of cookies.
You need some very good quality chocolate, bittersweet if you can. If you like a sweeter cake, you can go to semisweet, but that's as far as you can go. Unsweetened WILL work , but buy a good quality one. The cheaper ones give a bitterness to the cake that you dont want. You will need somewhere between 8-12 ounces of chocolate. 8 gives you a mild cake, 12 a very heavy one, almost like a brick of fudge. My beloved scharffenberger comes in 9.7 ounce packages, and that's what I use. Chop it into fine pieces, and then put it into a pot, with two sticks of unsalted butter, cut into cubes. Melt this, over low heat, stirring as you go. Use very low heat, because you don't want this expensive chocolate to burn. When it's just about melted, take it off the heat, and put it to the side, because you'll want it to cool.
I had you do the chocolate first, because it needs to be no more than luke warm, and the more time you give it to cool, the better. You are now going to separate five eggs. And after you separate the five eggs, you are going to add the yolks of 3 more to the five you have. Use the extra three for something else. Maybe a fat free omelet the next morning. Add a cup and a quarter of sugar to the egg yolks.
WAIT. Remember I was talking about levels of sweetness above? Taste your chocolate. Remember that sugar is only going to make it sweeter, so make a judgement call. I have brought the sugar down to 3/4 of a cup, and gotten a very strong "chocolate lovers only" cake, and I've brought it up to 1.5, and made candy. One cup or 1.25 cups is, to me, the best.
Get the mixer going on those yolks and sugar and get it going for a while. You want a very thick, almost white mass. Pour in the melted chocolate/butter mixture, and stir it to a uniform color. Put it aside.
Now, take those five egg whites, and add a teaspoon of white vinegar. Set up the mixer with a whisk attachment, and beat the hell out of them. Make sure you're getting very firm peaks. When you do, start folding the whites into the chocolate mixture, in thirds. Stir it gently but thoroughly. This is not that easy to do, but you want to incorporate all of the white, so that there isn't any streaking and you want it throughout the chocolate mixture. Stir from the bottom. You'll need to because the chocolate tends to settle .
When you're done, get an 8, 9, or 10 inch cake pan, preferably one with sides that release, like a spring form pan. Grease it. Know that - DUH- an 8 inch pan will give you a higher, softer cake, and a 10 inch pan a lower, crisper one.
Now the crucial moment: cake or frosting, frosting or cake? You really need to put at least 1/2 of the batter into the pan, and you can go up to 3/4 of it. Actually, you can go all the way and forego the frosting, but why would you? Once you've made your call, put the cake on a baking sheet, put it in a pre-heated, 350 oven and go away for thirty minutes.
During that time, the cake will rise a bit, like a souffle cake, and it will fall and crack. Nuthin you can do about that, and you don't want to do anything either. If you're using the smaller pan, and you want a drier cake, let it bake another ten minutes or so.
When you're done, let it cool completely. And I MEAN completely here. You don't want that frosting to melt.
Let's turn to that frosting. Just as it is, this is plenty good. BUT.... now you get to play. Are you a coffee fan? WEll, now's your chance to add espresso powder, or a few spoons of your favorite drink, or some kahlua. Are you, like me, a citrus queen? Gran Marnier, if you please. Do you have an undying love of raspberries? You know what to do. Frankly, I am intrigued by the idea of adding chartreuse to it, but I doubt if my friends would eat it. My birthday boy suggested ginger, and yes indeed, candied ginger is just dandy here. So do what you would like and just spoon it over the cake, when released from the pan. Pile it up, it won't move too much.
You can keep this at room temperature, which makes it a soft cake, or you can refrigerate it. Refrigerated, it's more like a block of fudge, again, and at room temperature, it's nice and soft.
Cut small pieces. If you haven't figured it out, this is a very rich cake. It can easily serve 12. (Now, I can hear my faithful Sue saying "YEAH RIGHT."). But it can.
Like I said, this one is embedded in my genome. Embed it in yours. Maybe you'll get a medal too. In any event, what you'll get is applause, and requests to make it again. Annalena promises those.
Many months ago, another good friend, asked me if I could point her to the blog entry where I wrote about "the" flourless chocolate cake recipe. See, this is the one that has one me two gold medals. I could have sworn that I had posted that recipe, and in looking for it, never found it. Of course, I shared it with her, but I do not believe I ever got around to posting the recipe. I made it last weekend, and it's time to share it.
This is the oldest recipe in my current repertoire. I remember where I found it, and when I first made it. I was a law student, looking for something to do with my time other than study (and I found MANY such alternatiaves). One of the things that I had started doing in college, was reading the NY Times, when you could NOT finish the Sunday NY Times. Those were the days: book reviews where half the text was in French, music reviews that quoted scores, editorials that challenged. AH, yes, heady intellectual times. And one thing I always read was the cooking section. One Sunday, in '80, the paper published a recipe for a flourless chocolate cake.
Now, for those of you who think of flourless chocolate cake as a cliche', get a sense of history. There was a time when this was new. I'm serious about that, just like there was a time when cash cards were a reason to switch banks, because not all of them offered them.
No, children, I am NOT talking about pre-historic time. I am talking about the 80s. YES THE 80S . A time when many of you were not yet born, but not prehistoric, by any means. The first flourless cakes were presented in very high end restaurants, and eventually, the recipes filtered down.
One of my "talents," if you can call it that, is getting a feel for food trends, before they happen. I remember that when I saw the recipe, I knew. I "just knew" it was a keeper. And after I made it the first time, I knew the published recipe was a disaster. Total and complete. It called for baking the cake for an hour and 45 minutes. I kid you not. I now bake it for 30 minutes, and it is fine. Baking it for that full length of time turned it into a block of charcoal. I also used Baker's unsweetened chocolate, because this was before the chocolate revolution, and this is what we had. I used regular supermarket eggs, and hotel bar butter, because this is what we had. Now, of course, you have to choose "what chocolate" to use (I use Scharffenberger bittersweet, or Callebault), not "organic or non organic" eggs, but "WHAT BRAND" of organic eggs (I use eggs from various farmers market vendors), and what organic butter. (I use horizon, which is controversial, but everyone should deal with it).
The neat thing about this recipe is it forces you to answer the question : do I like cake or frosting better, because the batter is used for both. And the smaller your cake, the more frosting you have, and vice versa.
For a while, it seemed that I was making this cake every single week. This, and a cheesecake. But I was also 23 at the time - younger even than the people I cooked it for. My birthday boy asked for a flourless chocolate cake, and I didn't even realize I had never made him one. Well, now I have. And it was a hit. Even with people who don't like chocolate.
It does seem that this cake is embedded in my genetic code. I pulled out the recipe from the diary I kept during that time period (and talk about BITTERSWEET!), and I realized that I could do it by heart. It really is very easy. You'll be able to do it by heart too. And you should do it WITH your heart, because baking without love, is no better than buying a box of cookies.
You need some very good quality chocolate, bittersweet if you can. If you like a sweeter cake, you can go to semisweet, but that's as far as you can go. Unsweetened WILL work , but buy a good quality one. The cheaper ones give a bitterness to the cake that you dont want. You will need somewhere between 8-12 ounces of chocolate. 8 gives you a mild cake, 12 a very heavy one, almost like a brick of fudge. My beloved scharffenberger comes in 9.7 ounce packages, and that's what I use. Chop it into fine pieces, and then put it into a pot, with two sticks of unsalted butter, cut into cubes. Melt this, over low heat, stirring as you go. Use very low heat, because you don't want this expensive chocolate to burn. When it's just about melted, take it off the heat, and put it to the side, because you'll want it to cool.
I had you do the chocolate first, because it needs to be no more than luke warm, and the more time you give it to cool, the better. You are now going to separate five eggs. And after you separate the five eggs, you are going to add the yolks of 3 more to the five you have. Use the extra three for something else. Maybe a fat free omelet the next morning. Add a cup and a quarter of sugar to the egg yolks.
WAIT. Remember I was talking about levels of sweetness above? Taste your chocolate. Remember that sugar is only going to make it sweeter, so make a judgement call. I have brought the sugar down to 3/4 of a cup, and gotten a very strong "chocolate lovers only" cake, and I've brought it up to 1.5, and made candy. One cup or 1.25 cups is, to me, the best.
Get the mixer going on those yolks and sugar and get it going for a while. You want a very thick, almost white mass. Pour in the melted chocolate/butter mixture, and stir it to a uniform color. Put it aside.
Now, take those five egg whites, and add a teaspoon of white vinegar. Set up the mixer with a whisk attachment, and beat the hell out of them. Make sure you're getting very firm peaks. When you do, start folding the whites into the chocolate mixture, in thirds. Stir it gently but thoroughly. This is not that easy to do, but you want to incorporate all of the white, so that there isn't any streaking and you want it throughout the chocolate mixture. Stir from the bottom. You'll need to because the chocolate tends to settle .
When you're done, get an 8, 9, or 10 inch cake pan, preferably one with sides that release, like a spring form pan. Grease it. Know that - DUH- an 8 inch pan will give you a higher, softer cake, and a 10 inch pan a lower, crisper one.
Now the crucial moment: cake or frosting, frosting or cake? You really need to put at least 1/2 of the batter into the pan, and you can go up to 3/4 of it. Actually, you can go all the way and forego the frosting, but why would you? Once you've made your call, put the cake on a baking sheet, put it in a pre-heated, 350 oven and go away for thirty minutes.
During that time, the cake will rise a bit, like a souffle cake, and it will fall and crack. Nuthin you can do about that, and you don't want to do anything either. If you're using the smaller pan, and you want a drier cake, let it bake another ten minutes or so.
When you're done, let it cool completely. And I MEAN completely here. You don't want that frosting to melt.
Let's turn to that frosting. Just as it is, this is plenty good. BUT.... now you get to play. Are you a coffee fan? WEll, now's your chance to add espresso powder, or a few spoons of your favorite drink, or some kahlua. Are you, like me, a citrus queen? Gran Marnier, if you please. Do you have an undying love of raspberries? You know what to do. Frankly, I am intrigued by the idea of adding chartreuse to it, but I doubt if my friends would eat it. My birthday boy suggested ginger, and yes indeed, candied ginger is just dandy here. So do what you would like and just spoon it over the cake, when released from the pan. Pile it up, it won't move too much.
You can keep this at room temperature, which makes it a soft cake, or you can refrigerate it. Refrigerated, it's more like a block of fudge, again, and at room temperature, it's nice and soft.
Cut small pieces. If you haven't figured it out, this is a very rich cake. It can easily serve 12. (Now, I can hear my faithful Sue saying "YEAH RIGHT."). But it can.
Like I said, this one is embedded in my genome. Embed it in yours. Maybe you'll get a medal too. In any event, what you'll get is applause, and requests to make it again. Annalena promises those.
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