Can fish be comfort food?

Well, YES, it can. But you expected that answer, didn't you?
Let's be honest. Cooking fish freaks out people. This is a fact. People who feel comfortable cooking just about anything else have a certain reluctance to turn to fish. OR, they learn to cook one type of fish or one fish recipe. Show of hands: how many of you have a single salmon dish in your repertoire? And when your friend who doesn't eat meat comes over, that's what you serve. And you HOPE that s/he doesn't come over too often in a short period of time, because then it's got to be the same thing again and again and again.
As a country, we don't eat much fish. When we eat it, it's shrimp. And it's fried. Either in combination (fried shrimp), or shrimp some other way, or fried fish. DEEP fried fish. Prepared in a way that you can't taste the fish because, well, fish tastes "fishy."
Uh, no, it doesn't. This is another one of those foods where, I am sad to say, our past has destroyed our palettes, and we all need to be reeducated.
I do not deny that fish needs to be cooked differently from other foods. It's usually more delicate than meat (but then think of swordfish and tuna). It spoils faster (that it does. And I could give you the biochemistry of this, but you WILL be bored). It picks up flavors easily and strongly.

Well, so what? Let's cook some fish. Let's start with something simple and easy: flounder.
Most people dont' want to start with a fish that is too strong. Honestly, I'm in that camp. I am not a fan of the oily, stronger fish like mackerel, bluefish, sardines, fresh anchovies, and so forth. I followed Diana Kennedy's advice and put them in my mouth, ONCE... It was enough for me. So on this one, folks, I hear you. The while, flat fishes like sole, flounder, sand dabs, fluke, all are so neutral that they allow you to manipulate flavors. I'm going to tell you my favorite way to cook flounder, with some tips along the way.

When I cook fish, I find a non-stick pan indispensable. There are cooks who have been preparing fish in regular pans, for years. Not me. I find the non-stick the only type of pan that will work for me, the way I cook fish. I suggest you use one too. A nice, heavy one.

Ok, to the matter at hand. Flounder are very delicate. If you move the fish pieces too roughly, they will fall apart and you will get something similar to what the British call "kedigree". If you want to keep the whole fish, you should start with smaller pieces. Manipulating fish fillets does take practice. Try to get pieces that are so small that the whole piece can fit on your paddle, or near to it.

You can also add some structure to a fish fillet by coating it. Now, you CAN use a bread crumb or cracker or some kind of thicker crust to make your fish, but let's try not to mask the flavor too much. I like to coat flounder with a thin barrier of seasoned flour. To do this, I get a big, strong plastic bag, and mix flour and salt, and perhaps some pepper together. Then I toss the pieces in, and just shake. I pull the fish out and lay them on a surface until I'm ready to cook them - but I don't wait long. FIsh is moist, and the minute water or any liquid hits flour, a reaction starts which is going to gum things up. So I have my pan ready. I cook flounder in a mix of half vegetable oil and half butter. I do this because I want some of the flavor of the butter, but I don't want it to overwhelm the fish. Melt it down and let it get warm. The fish is going to cook, VERY fast and if you want a good color, you need high heat. Don't overfill the pan, but lay the fish fillets down to cover the pan and let them sizzle away. It won't take more than 2-3 minutes for the side to brown. You just keep at it until it's brown enough for you then flip.

When you do the flip here, you're going to notice something: there is almost no more oil left. What has happened is some of the flour has gone off, into the oil and you have the makings of what a southern cook would call a "roux." And, of course, some of the fat has gone into the fish. Don't add more fat when you're cooking one batch. If you have to cook two, it's a different story. If you add a double batch of fat to the pan, you'll get fatty fish.

Anyway, as the fish cook, move them to a tray of some kind, with paper towel. Don't worry about covering them. We're going to get back to them in a minute.

When all the fish fillets are cooked, then what you are going to do is make a little sauce. This is my favorite, with some variations. Take the pan off of the heat, and add about a half cup of a dry white wine. My favorite here is sauvignon blanc, but vigonier will work. Chardonnays, I find, are a bit too strong for mild fish, but it's your call. The wine will dissolve the flour and make a bit of a thick pan sauce. I then add some capers. What I didn't tell you is that, while all of this was happening, I have a few tablespoons of capers sitting in water, to reduce their salt content. Then the fish goes back in for a minute, just to coat it with the sauce, and then it comes out again, right onto the plates.

Now, variations? Oh, heavens, if you can do this, you can do a million things. You could use lemon juice in place of wine, for example. If you do that. save some of the lemon juice for the very end, so that the flavor is nice and bright on the fish. You could leave out the capers. You could add something else, like almonds, or halved grapes in season. You could also add something more substantial like peas. The peas are especially good if your liquid is something like cream.

This sounds very complicated, but I assure you that, if you were to try this, you would find that from start to finish, it is very fast, and very easy. And you can start your journey toward eating some very good dishes. To my taste, I would be hard pressed to say "I like fish better than meat," or "I like meat better than fish." It's an apples and oranges kind of thing (well, maybe it's not, because I DO like one of those better than the other. And since I know the citrus bomb reads this, I'd best not say TOO much. She knows...).

Cook some fish. It's good for you.

A blast from the past: my chocolate mousse cake.

Some time ago, I blogged about my cooking medals, and the now ubiquitous carrot cake. I talked about the other recipes for which I won medals. And this one, is my first. And my second.
We were having a cooking contest at Law School. I was in my first year, which meant, of course, that I was supposed to have no time to cook, let alone to breathe.
Right.
I had found this recipe in the Sunday NY Times, back when the recipes weren't overwhelmed with their own sense of self importance. I made it for my roommates a few times, and when the contest was announced, they said I should enter. Well, TWO of them did. See, my third roommate had a girlfriend who was absolutely convinced she was THE best cook in the school. I didn't care for her. And you know me... Need I say more?
So I made the cake. And they judged the recipes in "rounds" fashion. First there were 20 entries, which were knocked down to six. And then four. And the girlfriend and I were in that final group. She had entered a chocolate roll, that looked like a log. And she had cleverly named the recipe after a contracts case we had read, that had to deal with a broken deal on some large timber logs.
She finished second. I can still remember how she gritted her teeth when she congratulated me. Hee hee hee.

Next year, the contest again. Go with a good thing, I told myself. So did the girlfriend. She didn't make it to the semis. I won again. Two in a row.

Well, I had the recipe in a diary (which I opened up for this recipe. AH. The memories. Notes from college, notes from films I saw in 1980. Ballet programs. GEEZ. Was I ever really that young? Probably not. I must have stolen them from someone else). Anyway, one day I began to think I had misplaced the book, because I could NOT find it. I was somewhat distressed. It wasn't where it was supposed to be. Then , two weeks before the contest was to take place for the third year of law school, the book reappeared..

Well, I AM the suspicious sort, and I began thinking, hmmmm. She didn't , did she? Well, maybe this year I'll try something else.

Yup, she did. There was the girlfriend, with a flourless chocolate cake, with a grin that can only be described as a cross between swallowing the canary and, well, I won't use the words, since I'm trying to be polite today.

That was the year I made the carrot soup with the quart of heavy cream in it. As with the first year, we went from a first round (with a LOT of entries), and then to four, and then to two: the girlfriend and I. I still remember the head judge (now a REAL judge), standing up and saying "this is always the highlight of the spring. And we have some wonderful cooks in this school, and the contest just gets tougher and tougher and tougher to judge.' He paused. "BUT we have a threepeat. Retiring undefeated, Norman, come up and get your prize."

I dare say the look on MY face as I congratulated the girlfriend on her effort was a mix of many things. But yes, three medals for cooking. And the ultimate satisfaction.

Here's the recipe. The neat thing about this recipe is you have to decide: do you like frosting better than cake, or cake better than frosting? You need to make that choice, because your unbaked batter is going to be your frosting. So, you put as much batter into your baking pan as you want cake. The remainder is your frosting. Go to it.

You need a half pound of a really good chocolate, unsweetened, or bittersweet. Semisweet, if it's really got a high cocoa content, will work too . Also, 2 sticks of unsalted butter, cut into cubes. Break down the chocolate and melt it with the butter, over very low heat. Stir as you go, then put this aside to cool down, and turn your oven to 350

Now, you need 8 egg yolks and 5 egg whites. (Remember those hazelnut cookies? They take three egg whites...). You also need 1.25 cups of sugar. I have played with the amount of sugar, depending on how sweet the chocolate is, but don't go below a cup.


Combine the egg yolks and sugar and beat this really hard for longer than you think you'll need to. You are looking for something called "the ribbon effect." This happens after you have whipped sugar and egg yolks for a while, and they're really thick and almost white. If you lift the beater out of the mixture, you will get a thick, unctious stream of batter forming something like one of those folded up Xmas candy ribbons in your bowl. That's what you want. Pour that chocolate mixture into it, and put it aside, after you've mixed it to a uniform color. Use a spoon or spatula.

Now, in a clean bowl, get to work on the egg whites. You could add a bit of vinegar, or cream of tartar to get them to stand up better. You want fairly stiff peaks. Combine the egg white, in thirds, with the mixture you've already made.

Okay, now you have BOTH your batter, AND your frosting. SO, get a nine inch pan and make a call. (you can use a ten incher if you like too. Eight is too small - IN CAKE PANS). I would say that filling the pan from 1/3 to 1/2 full is appropriate.

It is useful if you have a springform for this, because this cake is not going to come out of the pan easily. If you don't have one, I would suggest that you plan on serving it in the pan. Bake it for about half an hour (the original recipe says 1.5 hours. I don't think so...). The half hour will give you a chewy, moist cake. If you like it drier, bake it for 45 minutes. This cake is going to rise, fall, and crack. Don't fret. You did it right. (if your oven is one that tends to run hot, by the way, use 325 instead of 350). Let it cool down.

Look at that leftover batter. Taste it. Sort of like fudge, huh? Now, if you like that, go for it. For me, it always needs "something," usually a flavored liqueur. Grand marnier, or framboise, or one of the coffee liqueurs (I can be perverse and add one of the anisette ones and see just how much people like chocolate cake, but who MOI?). Pour it over the cake, smooth it out, and let it cook at room temperature, or chill it if you really want something that has a texture closer to candy.

I have made this cake, oh, I'd say about 100 times. I think I could do it in my sleep. At one point, I used to make two of them and turn it into a l ayer cake. When you do that, you get teh "OOH and AAH " factor, but then you also get people taking pieces that are too big to eat. Look at the ingredients. This is not a cake for the squeamish. I remember serving a double one at a party and then picking up half eaten pieces of cake all over the house. I would stick with single ones. If you're cooking for a lot of people, make a lot of single layer models.

Happy Passover!

Browning vegetables.

There are a lot of people who say they just don't like vegetables. And it is very hard to shake that point of view. It astonishes me, every time I see the reports on the average per capita vegetable consumption in the United States. When I see those numbers, I just have to assume that there are six or seven people who aren't eating any, because I'm eating their share.
I LOVE vegetables. I think that anyone who loves food, loves vegetables. Not all of them. You are NOT going to get me to eat Brussel sprouts. NO WAY. Well, maybe one way: with walnuts, shredded apples, and honey. But that's more like cabbage candy than vegetables, isn't it?

I think that part of the general antipathy toward vegetables comes from not having had them prepared properly. "The Joy of Cooking" used to recommend boiling green beans for 30 minutes. I can't imagine that. If I had to eat something like that and identified it as "vegetable," well, I wouldn't like them either. Cooking vegetables is easy once you get the hang of it, but I would suggest that it's a mixture of an "art" and a "craft."

One way to cook vegetables that is frequently overlooked, is browning them, in a frying pan. Yes, I know we do that with potatoes. But there is no reason to stop there. The reason potatoes brown, is because they contain sugar. The sugar, in effect, turns to caramel, at high temperatures, and that's why you get that sort of "burnt sugar" taste in some good preparations of pan fried potatoes (speaking of which, I haven't made them in a while. Hmmmm). The technique for cooking potatoes is one that you can extend to vegetables in general. Not all of them will work this way, but most will. I will mention the ones that I think of as exceptions, and there aren't many. I have used this technique with fennel (just last night), with endive, with carrots, and also with broccoli and cauliflower. To my taste, the broccoli was the least successful of them, but that's a matter of a palette. The vegetables I think would NOT work with this would be things like b eets, or celery root, or any of the truly "dense" vegetables." Any starchy veggie (including jerusalem artichokes) would work. You could do it with peas, but it would be difficult to pull it off, so I'd suggest just doing peas simply, and browning something else. Green beans work well too.

The technique is very simple. For fennel, for example, cut the vegetable into small pieces that expose a fair amount of surface area. If you have a large fennel bulb, that may be 8 segments. A smaller one could be 6. If the vegetable is one that is fairly porous (like a green bean), you may want to precook it in some salted boiling water for a minute or two. The reason for this is that if you don't, you risk burning the vegetable before it cooks (I'm having a hard time explaining what I mean here, and I apologize for that. Just trust me on the green beans. Do that with broccoli and cauliflower too. You don't need to do it with fennel and shouldn't). For endives, half them or quarter them.

When you have a fair amount of surface area, get a pan hot, with your choice of vegetable oil, olive oil, or butter. Here, you have to make a judgement call. For fennel, for example, I used olive oil, because fennel says "MEDITERRANEAN" to me. For endive, I might use half butter and half olive oil, since it says "Northern Europe" to me. On other vegetables, I could go either way. Cauliflower , butter or olive oil, depending on what else I'm making. Green beans? Hmmm. I always go with olive oil. Just a taste thing I guess. Leafy greens? Depends on the rest of the meal. Broccoli says olive oil to me (and I always add some black olives at the end with some hot pepper).

Now, just put the cut side down on the hot oil and don't crowd the pan . If you're doing a florette type of veggie like broccoli or cauliflower, you may want to split the florettes in half to create more surface area. Don't turn them for a while. Let them cook for, say six minutes. Then turn them, once. Cook the stuff for another four minutes or so, or until you see a nice brown color develop on them.

Now, pour off the fat, add some salt and pepper, and you're done.

Or are you? Depending on the vegetable, you can add different things. Off of the heat, for example, you can add some grated cheese to fennel, but it's not necessary. Perhaps chopped tomatoes or red peppers from a jar, with the green beans. I mentioned olives for broccoli. I think some red pepper with cauliflower is nice. With carrots, I can't think of not using ginger (nor can I think of NOT using butter on them).

These veggies are really easy to make and will serve you well. If you have a starch like baked potatoes, or rice, or as we did last night, baked jerusalem artichokes, you have two lovely side dishes that will go with everything. If you make enough of them, you have the beginnings of lovely pasta sauce. And you will have expanded your taste buds, with something that you have not done before.

Welcome to becoming a better cook. You will.

A fowl of a different type: guinea hen

One of the ways that my palette has grown over the years is by trying different proteins. I had read about guinea hen for years, but had never tried it. In fact, I don't think I even saw it on a menu. It may have been there, but I just went past it.
Being introduced to purveyors like "D'artagnan" and stimulated by my own curiosity, I started looking at some of these other proteins. Guinea hen, as I learned, is a fowl that has not really been completely domesticated. Poultry raisers have tried however, with some success. The birds are somewhat smaller than chicken, and leaner. I'm told that, as live birds, they have a tendency to scream with a very ugly sound. I've not heard it, but I've seen them live, wandering around the San Francisco zoo. Keepers tell me that they are a problem, because they are easy prey for some of the other wildlife that live there.
Honestly, I'm with the wildlife there. They are GOOD. Somewhat gamier than chicken, but not as gamy as ducks (Incidentally, in trying to write gamy I wrote gay. I have no experience with the sexual practices of either guinea hen or duckes, but if you do, by all means, let me know). And in preparing them, you sort of go in between what you do for chickens and for ducks, with one exception: duck is fatty. Chicken is fatty. Guinea hen is leaner. So, you have to make adjustments. As I shall explain.
As with duck, guinea hen breast is very tender and soft. Guinea hen legs are more muscular, stringier and tougher. If you start thinking "braise," you are right. So whether you are cooking guinea hen , pintade (French), or faraona (Italian), stick to braising for legs. Here's how I do it. It's a modification of a dish I do with duck legs, and as Ben pointed out to me, it is, essentially , coq au vin. Indeed it is. And here's some advice: when you are doing a bird dish, be it chicken, or duck, or guinea hen, or whatever, stick to one 'part' of the bird. Dont' try making dishes where you mix breast and leg, unless you're cooking the whole bird. What works for a breast of chicken/duck/guinea hen is not going to work for the legs, and vice versa.

OK, here we go. I will tell you that when I first made this dish, I used to brown the legs ahead of time, thinking I would get more flavor out of them that way. I was w rong. Browning the legs seals them and does not permit the sauce you're making to get in. So resist that temptation. Trust me. They are going to brown enough.

This is again, an "Annalena special." You do very little work, put the thing in the oven, and get a wonderful dish at the end.

You start by roughly chopping an onion and two carrots. Quarter inch is good. Then brown them in some olive oil and a bit of salt. DON'T stir them. You want the browning to happen, especially on the carrots. So cook them at medium heat for about five minutes. When the vegetables are done, dump them into a big baking dish. You're going to be making anywhere from six to ten legs, so you need room.

If you have been following this blog, you know that, the night before, or the morning of, you salt the legs, and let them sit in the fridge uncovered. Wait until you see what this does to a lean cut like guinea hen legs. They're going to look like they were roasted already.

Preheat your oven to 450. Put the legs on the vegetables. Add a few sprigs of thyme, and a couple of bay leaves. Now, pour a cup and a half of a well flavored red wine over the meat, and then add chicken stock, to bring it to 3/4 of the way to the top of the legs. I then squeeze the juice of a couple of mandarins, or one orange, over all of it, and add the peels to the mix. Cover the dish with foil and bake it at 450 for 20 minutes. After twenty minutes, drop the heat to 350 and bake for another 45. Finally, take the foil off, reverse the legs in the dish, and bake for another 20 minutes. You will get a slightly bubbling sauce, and a nicely browned product.

What you do next is up to you. You have options on this sauce. Even though the meat is very lean, I find that the sauce is a bit greasy and that it frequently needs a dose of salt. So, you can take the legs out and let the sauce sit, until the fat comes to the top. Usually though, this doesn't happen. Instead, what happens is the sauce gels, because a lot of collagen comes into the liquid from the legs. What you do in that case is you heat it up, and try to skim fat as it comes to the top. You can also strain out the vegetables if you like. Some people find that more refined; however, we know about Annalena's LACK of refinement, don't we? So I leave them in. I like the flavor. I DO sometimes add a bit of cornstarch to some cold sauce, and blend it in to thicken the sauce. And there are times where I just want the citrus "kick" and squeeze another orange or mandarin into it at the end. You could do lemons too, but I like the feel of the orange in this dish.

In baking any kind of bird leg, you will find your volume reduce substantially. I would suggest you plan on two legs per person, with a normal appetite. If you feed gym rats (as I sometimes do), then I would plan on three of these.

One thing you MAY want to do. As originally conceived, this dish calls on you to bake it with the skin side DOWN and to put it right side up only at the last stage of the baking. Frankly, I haven't found that it makes any difference. The aim is to allow the presentation side to be nice and brown, from exposure to the heat, and no liquid. Again, I have not found this to make a difference. It's your call.

You can make this with duck legs. Then I would suggest you cut the number to six, unless you have small legs. And that you DEFINITELY plan on skimming fat. It's a no brainer with duck.

For those of you who cook regularly, you may see the striking resemblance to coq au vin. Indeed, when I first talked about this dish with Ben, he remarked that his last meal would be coq au vin, and that it reminded him of that. I didn't see the connect until I started cooking. Yup, I can see it now.

And if there is anyone brave enough out there (besides Ben), to try this with rabbit sometime, call me over. I am REALLY eager to see the rabbit version of this dish. Hmmm. Maybe " a dinner for adventurers" soon.

Getting to the "roots" of things. Why we cook and Beet soup. This is for Ben

Now there's a loaded title up there, ain't it? Philosophy , and beets, and a friend. Well, I will try to tie it all together and give you a recipe for something I bet you probably thought you wouldn't like. I bet you will.


"Getting to the root" is easy: beets are roots, and at the root of any cooking is: why do we do it? There is more than one answer to that question, in fact THE correct answer may be "all of the above," whatever "the above" is. I cook for a number of reasons. Many reasons. Too many to list; however, there are times when certain reasons are more important than others. Sometimes, you just want to get to know someone better, or to deepen a relationship. So it is with Ben. And when you get right down to it, there is nothing more fundamental, nothing that we share more, than the need and desire, to eat. And if we find people who have the need and desire to eat WELL, so much the better.

that's you Ben. Yup, it is. I've written about you before, but this one is about YOU. Ben and I tak about cooking all the time. We're gonna spend some time having dinner this week, and even though it's a weekday meal, I want it to be special. So I started throwing around ideas, and the meal is set. One of the things I was thinking about, interestingly enough, was beets. Ben, unlike our president, LOVES beets. I love beets. Guy loves beets. In fact, it's an interesting thing: with few exceptions, all of my friends love beets. BUT... we're not gonna eat them when we have dinner. Nope, sorry Ben, got something else in mind, something you're gonna enjoy, and I'll write about it when we get there, but the beets, well, you're gonna have them in soup.

Many people think "YUCH" when they think of beet soup. As I've written about the negative reaction to beets before, I can't blame them. Beets have gotten a bad wrap, from the disgusting canned and jarred stuff we've gotten. So, too, beet soup. I have seen it in restaurants, and it has turned my stomach. It always looks, well, putrid, and it has smelled worse. I have never seen a beet soup that I thought I would eat.

However.... I follow the menus at Chez Panisse regularly. For a while, maybe every night for a week, the soup on the menu was beet soup, with various accompaniments: horseradish, creme fraiche, other things. Well, Chez Panisse doesn't do too many things badly. So if they are serving beet soup, it has to be salvageable. And I did my research, and it is. And it's good.

No question about it, this is not quick food. You have to roast the beets, then you have to clean them, then you have to make the soup. Try it, please. It's worth it. It really is.

You start with three pounds of beets. Try to get smaller ones. Don't come home with one three pound beet, which is eminently possible. I would go for beets that are no more than about a third of a pound. Then, gather them in some foil, wrap them tightly, and bake them at 350, for about and hour and a half (you can do this while you're baking something else. They don't take up much room).

When the beets are soft enough to pierce with a knife, let them cool, and then rub off as much of the skin as you can. While they are cooling, chop up really fine, two carrots, three stalks of celery, two onions, and a half bulb of fennel. I did this in the food processor, one vegetable at a time. Then, after you've cleaned the beets, cut them in quarters.

Get a big pot and cover it with vegetable oil. Add the onions first, and cook for two minutes. Then the carrots and the celery, for another two minutes. Then the fennel, again for two. Now, push them to the side, and add all of the beets. Let them begin to stick to the pan. You want some carmelization. When they are sticking, add a healthy teaspoon of salt, a quart of chicken stock, and two cups of water. Bring this all to a boil, and cover the pot (root veggies: cover the pot). Let it cook for at least an hour . You want the beets to be so soft that they will break apart when you press them with a big spoon. Now, let this cool.

Seems like a lot of work for a pot of soup, huh? Really? How much work have you really done? Not much. And wait. When the stuff is cool, puree it in batches in a mixer. It won't puree all the way to smoothness, so puree it a second time. Now, it will be smooth, and wait until you see the stunning color. Taste it. You will probably want to add some salt, and maybe some vinegar. I in fact added some pickle brine and it was the right thing to do. Finally, a little dairy is a nice thing. Creme fraiche is perfect in my opinion. About a quarter of a cup. Stir it in, and you're done.

You have about six cups of a lovely mauve/purple soup, of a color that you will not find in any other soup. And the taste? You know, if I didn't know it was beets, I wouldn't know it was beets. But I do, and it is. And it sure is good.

Ben, you almost didn't get the soup, but you will. On Monday. Before we have our real dinner. And I hope you enjoy eating it as much as I enjoyed making it. Love ya, guy.

A little of this, a little of that, and a pasta sauce is born

This one is for all those folks out there who, from time to time, walk into the house and ask their cat, or the ghosts in the house (we have both), or just anyone : what the hell am I gonna make for dinner tonight.
For the three of you in the world who do not fall into that category, you may now leave, and do not identify yourself, because the rest of us hate you.
While her life may be at sixes and sevens (anyone know what that means, by the way?) Annalena is usually very good about planning meals for the week. She's not real good at balancing her checkbook, or keeping track of her shoes, but food? Yes, that's all taken care of.
Most of the time. With guitar lessons on Thursday, starting at 8, and with Guy's work schedule, there isn't a lot of room for fitting in dinner. So, Thursdays have really become a case of eating some casserole type dish prepared ahead of time, or something "simple" that I've thought out.
Sometimes, I forget to think. Does that happen to you? Well, here are my guidelines, as followed by me last night.
Many entries ago, I wrote "if you have eggs, you can eat." Well, if you have pasta, you can eat well. Fresh pasta, or dried pasta, it scarcely matters. It is simply a question of how long it will take to put the meal together, and we're talking about five or ten minutes here. And we're not talking about melting a glob of butter and grating cheese, although that feels mighty good sometime. No, this is how Annalena makes a COMPLETE sauce for her pasta.
Looking into the fridge last night, I had a whole lot of fava beans, that I'm using for a dinner party this weekend. TOO many fava beans. COMPONENT ONE: something green, that doesn't take long to cook. I had favas. You might have green beans, or asparagus, or even brussel sprouts (BLECH), or peas. Reaching further into the fridge. COMPONENT TWO: something solid, with heft: I had mushrooms that I had cooked earlier in the week, for use in something I never made. Think about mushrooms for a minute. When you bite into them, they have solidity. You KNOW you're eating something. They have "heft," or, as some of us like to say in connection with undefinables in people "gravitas" (I hate that word). You can use other things. I mention mushrooms, because I know I have vegetarian readers. But you could add some meat. For example, I had a cooked sausage left over from lunch, which I sliced thin. You could leave this out, and you wouldn't really notice the difference, I think. Finally COMPONENT THREE: something "saucy." Now, you have a multitude of possibilities here. Olive oil? Yup. Butter? Uh huh . Red sauce? You betcha. Ricotta.... YUP. There it is. Let us never forget how useful this cheese is. I LOVE ricotta. I could eat it every day. This is one where I honestly think, as I've said about a million times, you should spend your money and get good stuff. You will notice the difference. And if it's heated gently, ricotta pretty much "melts" into something nice and unctious. But if you wanted to, you could use cream. Or my beloved creme fraiche.

The trick in pulling these things together is to make sure that you have components that work together. Mushrooms/sausages/fava beans/ricotta/cream. I bet you can taste the combination, can't ya. How about doing some variations: mushrooms/asparagus/fontina cheese? Leeks/ground meat/peas/cream. Get the point? Or (and it's the last one, I promise): shrimp/peas/olive oil.

I need to point out that you are not necessarily following rules of Italian gastronomy here, but you know what? Italian gastronomy was created as a result of someone doing just what I'm encouraging you to do here.

If the components are cooked (and remember, all cheese HAS been cooked. "Ricotta," in fact, means "twice cooked," because it's the product of cooking milk, twice), all you need to do is give the mess some time to come together. And here is some advice: if you have an extra burner when you're cooking something mindfully, cook something else. You'll use it. I had the mushrooms because, last Saturday, while working on my soup, I cooked up a bunch of leeks, two different kinds of mushrooms, and then during the week, peeled fava beans and cooked them in the morning before work (she's nuts. Yes, she is).

Start a pot of water going and add some salt. You know the drill for cooking pasta by now, so we won't repeat it. When it's nearly ready, scoop out about a cup of water, in case you need it to loosen the sauce, and then toss the drained pasta into the sauce that you cooked. Toss it around and then add some salt and pepper, grated cheese if you like. Make a salad, and no one is going to complain about what you served for dinner, and if they did, send them home and tell them to cook for themselves.

Lesson here? Cook ahead. If you have good things in your fridge, you will never lack for the components of a good, proper meal. That pasta SURE WAS GOOD. A new combination is in the works.

Annalena's favorite cake. And it's not for everyone

I sometimes think that people have a misunderstanding as to how professional chefs and cooks work. Yes, there are visionaries out there: there are cooks who come up with something that is so startling, so new, that you wonder how the HECK that happened? Well, word gets out, and before you know it, everyone is doing it. Does anyone remember the heyday of soup dumplings? Or, how about your first taste of basil pesto? And then, when someone, during the winter, came up with walnut/sage pesto? What about butter poached lobster with vanilla? One cook does it, then everyone does it. Everyone does it a little bit differently, but everyone does it.
Cooks "appropriate" from each other all the time. That's the way this field works. If I go to someone's house, or to a restaurant, and they make something I really like, I want to make it. I don't want to have to wait until I am back at the restaurant to taste it again. We're all like that.

Ok, several years ago, Guy and I were in a restaurant in San Francisco, one of our favorites: Woodward's Garden," owned by Margie and Dana, two of the nicest people you will ever meet. Margie runs the front, Dana is the executive chef. Go on the weekend where she is also in front of the stove. You will meet this GORGEOUS Brunnhilde like lady, who cooks in a skirt (brave woman), has legs you would die for, and puts out some of the best food you can imagine - with a smile. And, she does savory and pastry. She learned pastry. When the restaurant opened, it was a weak point. Now, we leave room for dessert. Seasonal fruit, basic cooking (pies, cakes, cobblers , that kind of thing), are what come out.

Well, one year there was blood orange cake on the menu. I expected something along the lines of an upside down cake, and was very pleasantly surprised. It was amazing. They served it with a compote of different citrus, with a simple sugar syrup binding the "supremes." (I won't go into that here: supremes are when you cut the segments out of a citrus fruit and leave the skin behind. Not me , babe. The only supremes I want in the kitchen are Diana, Cindy and Mary talking about how you can't hurry love. Annalena does NOT supreme). When I told Margie how much I loved the cake she smiled and said "talk to me later." And I did. They had found the recipe in a cookbook by an Oakland chef, who I have written about before, and who is one of those rareties: he's a great chef who is VERY RUDE. Last time I wrote about him, I received stinging emails for the inaccuracy of some of my facts. I could not apologize, because he has one of those email boxes that does not let you put an answer in: it's send but not receive. HARUMPH.

Oh well, his recipes are grand. Some are grandiose. But there is no question about it: this is my favorite cake. BUt like I say, not for everyone's taste. There is a decided, bitter edge to it. And because of all the fruit juice in it, the outside is very crusty, and a bit hard to cut into for smaller pieces. Deal with it. If you feel that strongly about it, make a syrup and soften it. But try it first.

It's a blood orange cake, like I say. These incredibly beautiful fruits make a brief appearance in winter and early spring, and then they're gone. So buy some, make it while you can, and let me know.

One thing: most cake recipes can be made as several, smaller cakes. Not this one. It seems the carmelization of the outside, from the juice, just becomes overwhelming in "baby cakes" or individual portions. So, stick to the large one.

One last comment here. I am going to give you the timing for the cake as in the recipe. It always takes me longer. Proceed with care.

You need a nine inch pan, like a tube ban, or a spring form, something that will make the cake EASY to take out. Butter it REALLY well and flour it (I usually skip this step with cakes, i.e, the flouring. But not here). And preheat your oven, to 350
Here's the fun part for me. Cut off the ends of two blood oranges and then cut them into segments - six or eight of them. Now - ready - put them into a food processor and puree them to a pulp. Go for longer than you think. You will want about a cup and a half (one of my problems is I always use more). So, you have pits, pulp, juice and skin here. The skin and pits are adding a bitter element. Put that stuff aside. (incidentally, if you have less than a cup and a half, don't worry. Don't increase it, though).

Now, cream two sticks of softened, unsalted butter with 2 cups of sugar. You want to go until it's almost white - about five minutes. Now add the yolks of 2 large eggs, and mix that in (this is a very yellow orange cake). You should stop and push the batter down at some point, to make sure that everything is incorporated). Now add the orange puree and mix it in further. You will get something that looks almost like a cartoon batter, with little specks of orange and whatnot throughout the butter mass.

Lower the speed on your mixer and add a heaping 2 cups of flour, with 2 teaspoons of baking powder, and a half teaspoon of salt. Just combine this. Optionally, you can add a half cup of chopped walnuts. I never do.

This is a thick, heavy batter, and you will despair of it rising. Fear not. If your baking powder is fresh, it will rise just fine. Spoon it into your prepared baking pan, and bake for 45 minutes. OF course, like I said, check. Use the "straw test" here, by inserting it into the middle of the cake to check for doneness.

Okay, now we have a bit of a controversy. The original recipe suggests turning the cake out immediately. DONT If you do, you have lovely pieces of cake for a trifle. What I would suggest is that you IMMEDIATELY run a knife around the perimeter of the cake, because you have a very thick caramel there from the fruit sugars, and if you don't, you will NEVER get this cake out (trust me on this). Then, after fifteen minutes or so, do it again. Then, when the cake is just warm, turn it out. (you have much more success if you use a springform here).

Like I say, this cake is not for everyone. I like it just plain, but people seem to like it more with something sweet, like fruit salad, or vanilla ice cream, or whipped cream next to it. As you will. If you are lucky enough to be in a place where you have both blood oranges and strawberries in season at the same time, sugared strawberries would be my choice.

Normally, I would be telling you something like "oh, you can substitute regular oranges, or tangerines here." Well, ya can't. I have found that they just don't have the flavor profile needed to make the cake interesting. So, stick to what's in season, make it now, while you can, and who knows? Maybe it will become your favorite cake, or maybe you'll just add another interesting cake to your repertoire.

Let Annalena know.

Musings on marinades

Now, this is something I almost never do - at least on the blog - I'm gonna give you all a tease. Tomorrow is dessert day, and I'm going to post one of MY favorites: blood orange cake. You can thank the Times for that. They published a recipe for blood orange olive oil cake that has me extremely intrigued, as the idea of cakes based on olive oil intrigues me generally. The one I will post is a butter based cake, but I will be trying the olive oil one. Stay tuned.

So, to the subject of marinades. Generally, I am not a big fan. I remember that Deborah Madison, one of the truly great cooks and food writers of our time, wrote about how when she worked at Greens, in San Francisco (a favorite restaurant), she never understood why they marinated tofu. It could sit in the marinade for days, and nothing would happen to the tofu. The flavor just didn't penetrate. That was a piece that made me smile, because I ALWAYS felt that, when I was marinading something, I was doing something wrong. My marinades were always strong, tasty, and with lots of good things in them, but the flavor NEVER carried. And here was someone validating me. Years after I read that article, Keith (you know Keith. He shows up in here a lot) asked me about marinades and how to make and use them. And I passed on that information. But that discussion, and the recollections of Ms. Madison's article, did put me on a tangent that I come back to occasionally, i.e ., is it possible to get a marinade to work?

Well, here are my thoughts. Yes, you CAN get a marinade to work, if your expectations are not overambitious. You can get it to work if you have time and you're willing to make a marinade that, frankly, just does not taste very good in and of itself. And, you can get it to work if you pick the right thing to marinade. In my case, it was pork tenderloin. Last night, two of the amazing Matts, "Las Ratos" were over to cook dinner with me. As always, we had a ball, and this is what we made.

Let me work backwards. In my experience, for a marinade to work, the product itself must carry some fat. If you try to marinade a lean chicken breast, you'd be better off making a sauce. Thighs will work better. Marinade a lean piece of beef, like a steak? Fuggetabout it. Do it with something with more fat like a hanger steak - go ahead. Pork? Just about anything.
The marinade: whatever your marinade contains, it is going to penetrate the meat, minimally. So if it tastes mild, or even "edible" to you when you make it, it is going to be weak, or non-existent, when the meat has been marinated. So you have to make something REALLY strong and somewhat distasteful. Look at the marinade below and ask yourself: would you eat this?
Time. What you're trying to do, with a marinade, is get a flavor INSIDE a piece of meat. Meat, if you haven't noticed, is pretty dense. It takes a while for stuff to get into it . So when I marinade, I don't think in terms of hours: I think in terms of DAYS. The recipe described here involved sitting the pork tenderloin in the marinade for two full days. And it probably could have used another day or two.
Oh, one last thing: the most important thing perhaps: when you are marinating a protein, that marinade MUST have, in my experience, two components: an acid, and salt. The acid breaks down the meat structure a bit, making the whole process a bit simpler. The salt, to continue the breakdown of the tissue, and also to diffuse into the meat. When that happens, the diffusion continues with other liquids.

Okay, so here's mine. I had seville oranges left over from the great marmalade adventure of 2009. Latino cooking uses a lot of these with meat, so I squeezed two of them. Got a fair amount of juice too. If you don't have these, you can use a sweet orange, a lemon and a lime, to get just about the same effect. I combined this, with a tablespoon (yup, a tablespoon) of salt, a jalapeno pepper that was chopped roughly, with veins and seeds, Five peeled, whole crushed garlic cloves, six branches of fresh thyme and three bay leaves, cracked in half. Also a tablespoon of honey.

Sounds kind of vile, doesn't it? It was. It was NASTY. Exactly what I wanted. I put this all in a double plastic bag, with two tenderloins that weighed about a pound each, sealed it, put the whole thing in a bowl and refrigerated. If I remembered, I would squish the b ag a bit to redistribute things .

After two days, the meat had taken on a rather unattractive gray color. That was the work of the acid - a GOOD thing. Just like with a ceviche, the meat had "cooked a bit. It had also picked up the spice flavors somewhat, and some of the heat from the jalapeno.

I patted the tenderloins dry, and let them sit, at room temperature, for about an hour. I heated up a stovetop grill and also cranked the oven to 425. Remember: Start your meats on the stove, and finish them in the oven. You'll have much more control.

We oiled the grill pan . (Something else to remember: even though pork is fatty, it needs fat to cook. That fat in the meat is not going to cook it for you). When it was really hot, the Matts put the tenderloins down on the pan and seared them for about five minutes. The color, and the smell , were quite lovely. Then in the middle of a rodent fight, we turned them and let them cook for another three minutes, before putting them into the oven for ten.

When they came out of the oven, we let them sit for about ten minutes while we got the rest of the meal ready. This allowed the meat to reabsorb and redistribute the juices, and also let the tissue relax for easier cutting.

To my taste, there was a faint "echo" of the marinade. You knew it was there, but it wasn't overpowering, and while there was an "undertone" of heat, no one could say the pork was spicy in the sense we've all come to expect from jalapenos.

This was a good dish. But it points to the need for patience, a "Virtue" that Annalena continues to develop. As should you.

Tomorrow, blood orange cake. You'll be amazed. Really.

Mattmatt, I love yous.

Miscues, misconnections and making corrections

Remember how we were taught as children 'LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES?" I actually had one teacher who used to make us take our work, after she had corrected it, and rewrite it, especially places where we had erred. Sometimes, if the error were small enough, we had to redo it three times, to try to reinforce the message. I have had language teachers do that (Jonathan doesn't), and it works: to a point. I think the idea sits well with all of us: the idea that somehow, by looking at the mistake, and writing the correct thing, over and over again, it will sit with us. But if you're like me (Oh, heaven forbid, but I think on this one I have company), after a while, you begin to resent this. You KNOW it's good for you, but "WHY THE HELL DO I HAVE TO WASTE MY TIME DOING IT?" And somehow, the connection between doing it over and learning it breaks, and it's just "busy work." Know what I mean?
I have been thinking about that because I tried to make the roasted tomatoes I wrote about on March 10, again. I looked at the recipe, thought back to what I did, and tried a few things. I REALLY cleaned out the tomatoes, dried them with paper towel, kicked the oven up another 25 degrees, and made sure they had plenty of space on the baking sheet.

And for a second time, I got moosh. (that's sort of a cross between mush and and something else). BUT.... Annalena had a plan. Yes, she did. This is a GOOD thing when you're working with something that you have a feeling may not work out right. Annalena decided that, if the tomatoes did not work, she would make soup. This decision was borne out by many factors, including the fact that, at this point, I am "souped out." Normally, I make soup on the weekend, and by Wednesday I am set with what the soup will be.

Not the last couple of weeks. Uh uh. I have been a total "space vacuum" for soup recipes. I think I've made every "winter soup" recipe that I can think of. And yes, I know it's that time when Guy, the soup king of the Village is looking at the idea of soup with more than a bit of a jaded eye. He suggested the chicken soup we had last week (BLESS HIM), but this week, he too, was out of ideas.

So, the two batches of moosh tomatoes became soup. And you know what? "It's a good thing." It really is. So, let's proceed.

Now, I almost never do this, but it's appropriate. Go back to the entry on March 10 and review it. You're going to make a double batch of those tomatoes. If your oven is "stable" you can do both batches at the same time. If not, one after the other, and it will take you an hour. While they're baking, chop up one large onion, roughly, and two large stalks of celery. Another review. The "holy trinity" of soup making is onion, carrot and celery. And, like many variant sects of Christianity, you can alter these (Yes, I speak as a confirmed heretic). In tomato soup, I leave out the carrot. Why, you may ask?

AH. She's been quiet lately, but Sue has her hand up, and of course, she's right. Yes, the roasted tomatoes are sweet. So are the carrots. The onions have more sugar in them, but we're not going to cook them long enough to release them. But carrots give up their sugar real easily, so we leave them out, and we proceed with the onion and the celery. Saute' them in a few tablespoons of good olive oil, just to the point when they're soft. Then let them sit while the tomatoes are finising. When they're done, dump them into the pot with the veggies and oil. Scrape as much off of the baking sheet as you can. Now, add your stock. Chicken stock is the one I use; however, since one of my new cooking buddies doesn't touch the stuff, I was thinking of options. This is a soup where I would NOT use canned or boxed vegetable stock, because I find it too sweet. I think that if you had tomato juice, and diluted it half way with water, you'd be fine. OR, you could just use water and up the seasonings (I'm about to come to that).

If you have done the variation with pesto that I wrote about (I TOLD you to review), you need no other seasoning. If you did not, however, I would suggest a few sprigs of fresh thyme in this pot of soup. Let it simmer for twenty minutes or so, to let the tomatoes break down even further. Then, let it cool, because this is a VERY hot pot of soup.

When it's cool, if you can find the sprigs of thyme, pull them out. Then ladle the soup into a blender, no more than about three cups at a time, and puree it until it's fairly smooth. You are going to get an orangey/pink product here, which is very pretty to look at. Pour this all back into the pot and...

TASTE IT. You may very well need some salt, or some pepper. You did season along the way, but what could it hurt?

This will go extremely well with croutons of some kind. I have left over cheddar cheese bread croutons, and also rye bread. They both sound "right." As does a grilled cheese sandwich, doesn't it?

This was a weekend of missed communications, missed messages, missed phone calls, and just plain missing. The soup helped to plug the holes caused by all of this. Like a leaky damn, it doesn't fix anything, but for a little while, it will make you feel good.

You'll get about six cups of soup out of this, more than enough for three big portions. And you'll be glad you made it.

Now, just sit back and think for a minute: you started with six pounds of tomatoes, and you got six CUPS of soup. Remember that ratio: a pound to a cup.

If you order tomato soup and it's good, never complain about the price again.

Using what ya got, or when you buy too much of something

Ok, you know the situation. It looked SO good. It was SUCH a good price. And all of a sudden, that ten pound jar of honey slipped into your bag. Or the six pounds of cashews. Or... fill in the blank.
If you dont' go too crazy (I should talk!), you can usually deal with your "enforced largesse" by being a bit creative, and by waiting a bit. Of course, if you are in the habit, as I am, of buying enough fruits and vegetables to feed six people every night for a week, three times in a row, you WILL find yourself in trouble, which will go well beyond the dirty looks of your partner as he mutters "where the hell are we going to put all this stuff?" Well, this is NOT about one of those confrontations, but it IS about using up "too much of several good things."

When I planned the grocery list for the magical Tuesday I spoke of in a blog or two ago, the rockshrimp looked SO good that I bought twice what I would need. I KNEW I'd use them... And I THOUGHT I had bought just enough asparagus. WRONG. I bought twice as much. Was that a mistake? Probably not. I was so hungry for spring produce that, if I remember correctly, I almost bought three times as much. Creme fraiche. The recipe said 8 ounces, but it looked skimpy to me. Uh, it wasn't. So there was 8 ounces extra, that had actually baked onto the fish and stayed in the pan when I took it out to serve it. It was mixed with capers and shallots. And it looked too good to get rid of.

So we ate that on Tuesday. Now, the mistake I think people make with leftovers is that they make the same thing, a second time, and serve it immediately the next day. There are very few things that I want to eat two days in a row. Spaghetti with red sauce is an exception. So are steamed clams. Fried eggplant? Yes. Fresh ricotta? You betcha. But not too much else. Hot meatloaf for dinner, made well, is wonderful. A second night in a row, and it's a chore.

So, here's what happened. I had that left over sauce, the asparagus, the shrimp, and turned it into pasta sauce. It was in fact wonderful. And I'm gonna tell you how I did it. First though, I'm gonna suggest how you can make the sauce if you don't have left overs.

If you recall, the sauce was simply a matter of a chopped shallot, a tablespoon of soaked capers, and 8 ounces of creme fraiche. You dont' need instruction on how to do this, now, do you?
Well... ok. What I would suggest you do is simply chop the shallot, soak the capers, mix them with the creme fraiche, and put it aside for about an hour or so for the flavors to meld a little.

Now, to the rest. Cut the very end of the asparagus off, where they have cut it from the plant. Don't take more than about a quarter of an inch. Then cut the rest into about one inch lengths. Add some oil to a pan, and add the asparagus. Cook them for about two or three minutes, no more than that, adding a teaspoon of salt to it. Add a pound of rock shrimp and turn it with a spoon. A half dozen turns is more than enough. Then take that OFF THE HEAT and let it sit. The residual heat will allow the vegetables and the shrimp to cook. As will the pasta, which we are now going to get to.

This is a dish that calls for stubby pasta or tubes, or something like that. I would stick away from spaghetti, or linguini or anything like that. Boil it up the way you would cook it normally, and stop it just a moment or two from finished. Drain it and put it into the pan with the asparagus and the shrimp.

You just added more heat. Those veggies and shrimp are COOKED. So all you have to do now is take the creme fraiche and stir it through the stuff until you've got everything coated, and WHAM. You have got DINNER. And a fine one too.

If you do not care for shrimp, this would work with scallops (they are almost always interchangeable). You could also use crab, if you felt extremely rich, and you could use chunks of white fish, or white meat chicken. Chicken you would probably have to cook more, and I would suggest reversing the order of the meat and veggies: cook the meat first, and then the veggies.

Wretched excess (well, it wasn't wretched), turned into a quick weekday meal. How neat is that?

There may be ONE MORE TRICK in the bag using that sauce. Stay tuned.. And that one is thanks to the quiet side of this relationship, Guy

The clean out continues: rhubarb coffee cake

Yes, we've had a bit of a diversion for some interesting recipes, based on fresh ingredients, which is ultimately the main point of this exercise; however, another is using the stuff that you have cleverly saved up from prior seasons (You DID remember to freeze a few things, didn't you? Well, dont' forget this year!!!).
Last May, when I found the first rhubarb of the season, I wrote at length about what a wacko I must seem to people. And indeed, that was the case with most. NOT ALL, but most. There was a good handful of folks who, when they heard that I had found rhubarb, were down at the market in an hour to get theirs. I love rhubarb. I love its color, I love its excess tartness, and I love how it can work for you in a lot of different ways. And if left to my own devices, I would freeze tens of pounds of it. Last year, vacation intervened. I got my first rhubarb on May 5. We left for vacation about two weeks after that, and by the time we came back, more market stuff was coming in. Indeed, I let rhubarb take a backseat last spring and summer, and only froze about 4 pounds of it. As part of the freezer clean up, I broke out the last bags of it this past week, and made a favorite cake of mine. This is a BEAUTIFUL cake. But, before we get there....
I got this recipe from a publication from King Arthur Flour, called "The Baking Sheet." There was a time, when I was first learning how to bake (I'm still learning), when I followed The Baking Sheet like a sacred text. If it was in their pages, I made it. And this is a good exercise for those of you who are BEGINNING to cook, or those of you who have cooked for a while and are branching out into a different area. Find a source that you trust, or that someone who trust recommends, and cook your way through it. You don't necessarily have to make every single recipe, but make a bunch of them. And then, do something that is very "risky" in a certain sense: trust your taste. You're the cook. If you don't like it, don't make it again. Stop worrying about what other people like or don't like. ONE big exception to this. If you have a really good friend who loves something you don't, well, bite the bullet. But for everyday, you HAVE TO TRUST YOUR TASTE. If you don't like the recipe, don't make it again. If you do, mark it and come back to it. Don't listen to anyone else but your palette. That's how this rhubarb cake came into my repertoire.

Let's start with the filling. You need a pound of rhubarb. You also need 3/4cup of sugar and a good 3.5 tablespoons of cornstarch. That's a lot of cornstarch, but you are going to need a very stiff filling.

They tell me you can microwave this to make the filling. I don't have a microwave, so I'm telling you how I made it. I was working with frozen, so I thawed the rhubarb. Then I tossed the sugar and cornstarch with it, and put it in a 2 quart pot. I covered it, turned the heat to low, and went away for ten minutes, to make my batter. When I came back, the stuff had cooked down to a thick pink mass, with a few pieces of solid rhubarb left. That's exactly what you want. As it cools down, the solid pieces will collapse into the filling too. (you can stop here, by the way, and eat this as it is. It's GOOD. You can put it in the middle of a muffin, you can spread it on pancakes, it's just wonderful (And I'm wondering if I can do this with other fruits, too. I always see those huge tubes of cake fillings in my baking store and now I'm thinking... Hmmmmmm."

Ok, enough musings. TO THE CAKE OF THE MATTER. You need a heaping two cups of flour, 3/4 cups of sugar a stick and a half of unsalted butter, and a whole bunch of little things:

a teaspoon of cinnamon (which you can leave out)
.5 teaspoons of baking soda
a teaspoon of baking powder
.25 teaspoon of salt (Don't leave this out)
an egg
a teaspoon of vanilla
3/4 cup of buttermilk, or yogurt, or sour cream if you're feeling really rich and festive.

The recipe also calls for orange oil, which I leave out because I feel it interferes with the rhubarb.

Preheat your oven to 350. Oil a springform pan, or one that you can take the bottom out of. 9 inches is the right size.

Mix the flour and sugar together, and then add the butter. Cut it in, as if you were making pie crust. I do it in the food processor, but do it however you like. After you've done that, take out half a cup and put it aside. Now add everything else in the order listed above. If you do it in the food processor, you'll see this all come together as a very thick wet mess, and you'll be convinced you did something wrong.

You did NOT. Scrape about 2/3 of this stuff into the pan and get your hands slightly damp and spread it out, all over the bottom and up the sides as much as you can. Now add that rhubarb right in the center. Take the rest of the wet batter and drop it on, as if you were making biscuits. Finally sprinkle the dry stuff over it. Put the whole thing in the oven, and bake it for 45 minutes or so.

You SHOULD peek at this as it bakes. The sides come up, forming something like a "shoulder. The dolloped batter spreads, and the dry stuff browns a bit, just like your favorite part of the coffee cake.

Let it cool. Then you do, you get the most amazing magenta pink colored filling you could imagine. Just looking at it will make you smile. Eating it will make you smile even more, especially if you have some vanilla ice cream along side of it (creme fraiche ice cream, in my humble opinion would be even better, but you'd have to make that yourself).

This will make about 12 nice sized servings. And, since I have it, I'll give you this information: if you do cut it into 12 pieces, they come in at just under 300 calories per serving. The fat content, if you don't use sour cream, is less than 1/3 of the calories. As far as cakes go, it's pretty good for you. You get some vitamin c, you get minerals from the rhubarb, so it's not that bad a deal.

Good supermarkets do sell bags of frozen rhubarb from time to time. If you find it, get some and go for it. Push spring a little.

Revisiting risotto: rock shrimp and peas

You know, I am flying rather high over last night's dinner. Writing about it, and re-reading it, is making me take more "air." So, rather than make you all wait another day, I'm going to give you the risotto recipe NOW. Am I a sweetheart or what?
There is a mythology that builds up around risotto, making it sound like one of those "Mt. Everests" of the kitchen. There ARE a few principles that you need to keep in mind, but ultimately, this is a very simple dish to make.
Risotto needs Italian short grain rice. You may NOT subsitute long grain rice. Or basmati. Or brown rice. Or wild rice. Sorry, you just can't. It won't work. When you buy the rice for risotto, you'll be offered three choices: arborio, carnaroli, and nanno. Arborio is the one that everyone has heard of. It's good rice, and it's the cheapest one. Carnaroli is better. Nanno is the "queen of risotto rice," but it's too fine, in my opinion, for a good risotto. Stick to carnaroli, and you'll be fine.

A cup of short grain rice will absorb four cups of liquid. Keep that in mind when you're cooking. Also, keep in mind that risotto was always intended as a FIRST course. You can make it for dinner as your main dish, but it's very difficult to cook more than two cups worth of dry rice at a time. Now to our recipe, which served the four of us.

In addition to the rice, you need fish stock. DON'T buy canned fish stock. It's vile. It is TRULY vile. You can buy fresh made fish stock at a good fishmonger (what do you think they do with those bones?), or you can take a shot at making it yourself: get two or three pounds of bones from the fish monger (he or she may give them to you, but you'll probably have to pay something), as well as a large carrot, cut into pieces and a peeled onion, cut into quarters. Put them all in a pot, with two quarts of water. Bring this to a boil, then simmer it for ten minutes, NO MORE. Strain that liquid immediately, because if you let it sit, it will get nasty. In a pinch, you can use clam juice, diluted 1:1 with water. For this recipe, you need a quart of the liquid

Risotto starts with a "battuto," which is a bad name for it. Battuto means "beaten," and really, what you have here is the sort of thing that Spanish cooks call a soffrito, or a "fry." Usually, it's shallots and/or onions. For a fish risotto, I prefer a fennel bulb, chopped fine, but roughly (I wish you could have seen Jeremy go to work on that bulb). Put this in a pan with a few tablespoons of olive oil, and let it cook away until the sizzle begins to die down. While this is happening, heat your stock.

Now add the cup of rice. Stir it in the hot fat and the fennel, and keep an eye on it. Rice, when it is sauteed, goes from an iridescent "pearl" quality, to a drier, chalky white. When this happens, you're ready to start adding hot stock.

You add stock gradually when making risotto, and there's a good rule to follow. When you can run a spoon down the middle of the pan, and separate the solids without any liquid running to the path, it's time for more stock. I add it - or in this case, Keith added it - ladle by ladle, stirring regularly at the start, i.e., for the first half of the stock. At this point, taste it. You may need some salt, and if you don't put it in now, it won't get into the rice.

Keep adding the stock until you've used about three quarters of it. It's at this point, you're going to add your shrimp. In any kind of fish risotto, you're going to add the fish late, because it cooks so fast. We used rockshrimp because they are in season now, although not in NY. Much of shrimp harvesting is done via shrimp FARMS, and the debate goes on as to whether the dredging of the bottom of bodies of water, where shrimp reside, does damage to the environment. Rock shrimp are wild. They are only in season for a while, and they are small, plump, sweet and delicious. You'll need a pound for this.

Anyway, stir them in after you've added 3 cups of the stock, and then, all at once, add the last cup of stock. You can continue to stir at this point, but honestly, you don't need to. What you SHOULD do is taste the rice. Is it soft enough for you? This is important because the texture of the rice is really a matter of personal taste, and what's soft enough for you isn't soft enough for the next guy, and so forth. If it's not soft enough, keep the fire on. If it is, or if it's CLOSE to being soft enough, turn it off. The rice is going to absorb all of the liquid, it's just a question of soft texture. At this point, you toss in a cup of peas and stir them in, as well. Finally, if you like and you have them, stir in some of the fronds of your fennel bulb.

NO CHEESE IN THIS!!!! If you want to, you can do the traditional "mounting" of the risotto by adding a tablespoon of butter. We didn't, and we were quite fine without it. The rice was creamy, and delicious, and the sweetness of the rock shrimp, and peas from last spring was perfect. (STILL cleaning out the freezer, what can ya do?).

Now again, go back and count down what you have to do. Getting the ingredients together will take you almost as much time as it does to make the dish. It's a quickie. You can get from start to finish in half an hour. And if you set up your fish ahead of time, what you can do is put the fish in the oven ten minutes before the risotto is ready, and have a wonderful, multicourse dinner at your command, without a whole lot of work.

The work, of course falls to the person who does the dishes, but why should that be you? Hell, you cooked. And you worked SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO hard.

Right...

I MISSED IT!!!! I MISSED THEM!!!! Our fish dinner

I find myself, from time to time, in a situation where I feel somewhat akin to how Jessye Norman described her debut at the Met Opera. This was way back in 1982. The production was "Les Troyens" (worth seeing, but not a great opera, in my view). Interviewed, after it was over, I recall her saying something to the effect of "I was so excited !!! I was jumping up and down and laughing and smiling and screaming" .
Well, the thought of Ms. Norman jumping up and down is a bit frightening. Funny, but frightening. And in an apartment building with sensitive neighbors, who DO like to sleep, this is probably not the best way to behave. Be that as it may, it is how I felt last night after we made the dish I describe.
Yes, the pronoun was "we," and that's why I was jumping up and down with joy. See, Annalena has gone back into the kitchen. This time, with Keith and Jeremy. It has been MONTHS since Keith and I have cooked together. Jeremy and I cooked together last month, and I have been wanting to get him back in the kitchen since then. Also, Annalena has a pretty good instinct about when things will work. And you take two men who are extremely open and easygoing, and you have a magic in the kitchen. The fact that the food we cooked was delicious is almost , in fact it is, secondary. "Where there is great love there are always miracles" wrote Willa Cather. There was great love in that kitchen last night. Was the fish miraculous? Perhaps. Was the atmosphere around the fish miraculous? YOU BETCHA. Story lines opened and weren't finished (and that's good!), much frustration was forgotten, at least for a while, and a good meal was enjoyed by all.
So, all I can say about this, folks, is learn from my "mistakes." Remember the line from one of my favorite songs: "If you know it show it" Well, I KNOW I love cooking with my friends. Why I let them get away, I dunno. But guys, you ain't getting away again. Uh uh.

We made two dishes last night. Either one of them would have made a truly wonderful meal. Together, they were sublime. And you'll have to be patient, because you're only getting one in this note: fish baked in creme fraiche mustard sauce, a dish based on my new girlfriend, Ina Garten's book.

Creme fraiche is one of those ingredients that Europeans very much take for granted, and Americans don't use. USE IT. In fact, make it. I will tell you how in a minute. The reason you should use it is because it is solid and rich and does not coagulate in cooking, the way yogurt and other solid dairy products do. And whilst based on cream, it is solid enough to hold together as compared to cream itself. You can buy really good creme fraiche, but here's how you make it: take a pint of heavy cream. Get stuff that hasn't been irradiated, and if you can, get unpasteurized stuff. Pour it into a big container. Add about a quarter cup of buttermilk. Shake it. Put it on a counter, UNREFRIGERATED and let it sit. After two days, you'll have a loose, slightly sour product. At three, it solidifies nicely. At four, you have a solid mass that is also pretty tart, going toward sour cream. You decide how you want it, and then refrigerate it.

You will need anywhere from a cup to two cups of the creme fraiche for this dish. We used two cups but we had lots of sauce left (and that will be the subject of YET ANOTHER NOTE in the future). You will also need a big tabelspoon of a grainy mustard, and three of dijon. If you only have one type, use that, but you should have them both in the house . Mustard is one of a cook's best friends. Stir that mustard into the creme fraiche, and put it aside.

You also want to chop up one shallot. And you want a tablespoon of capers. Now, I favor the kind that are packed in salt, rather than under brine. What that means is that I have to soak mine for about half an hour before I want to use them, and drain the water a few times. To me, it's a simple operation and it's worth doing it, because I don't like the briny taste of the jarred ones. This is your call, though.

Ok, now to our fish. You want four fillets, about half a pound of a white, firm fish. We used red snapper. Use halibut, use cod, use pollak, use what you have available. A few weeks ago, we ate tilefish here that was available from local waters. Worked great. Later in the year, local black seabass will work as well. Lay the fish, skin side down, in a 9x13 pan, and salt and pepper them. You do this to taste . Keith is not a big fan of pepper, and we didn't use a lot. If you are a pepper slut, use lots. Use green peppercorns, or pink ones, too.

Now, take that sauce and pour it over the fish, and spread it nicely to cover everything. Sprinkle the shallots and the capers over it. Get your oven heated to 425 and put the fish in (Here's a hint folks: if you're cooking fish, especially one in a sauce, hot and fast is better than low and slow).
Bake this for about 15-20 minutes. You'll see the sauce brown slightly, and bubble at the end. The only issue you will have with this is finding the fillets in the sauce, since the color is so similar. But deal with it.

Now, putting aside my rant on friendship for the day, is that an easy recipe or what? For simple, make some potatoes or rice. For complex, make the risotto I'll post tomorrow.

As I think about this recipe, I keep on thinking that the shrimp and peas we used in the risotto could go into this preparation without a thought, and it would be great. What do you fellas think?

Jeremy once wrote "I make anywhere I am , home." Make t his place home Jeremy. Keith, you know by now the door is always open here. Come on by again, guys. Let's cook some more, or let's just sit around and talk, or do whatever the hell we want.

Welcome back, both of you. I missed you. And now, if you'll excuse me, I AM in fact going to go and do some jumping up and down

Errors, recipes gone wrong, and being flexible: winter tomatoes

Strictly speaking, this winter has not been any longer than any other. And temperature wise, it hasn't been especially fierce. Yet, yours truly, and many other people, seem to have had ENOUGH. This isn't uncommon in March, when you have flashes of warm weather with the cold, but still.. Annalena has heard many of her friends, being quite vociferous in their wanting this TO END NOW. Annalena is amongst them.
When I get tired of a season, I look to food "out of season." As I've written before, you can always argue that something is "in season" SOMEWHERE. Peaches are growing in Chili, even as I speak. You can have them. There is very little I can do for them. And I don't have the hankering for them. But asparagus have begun to come in, in Southern California. We'll be having those tonight. And I broke down with my craving for tomatoes this week, because of a recipe in the Ina Garten book I have been writing about.
Ina "gets it." She admits, right up front, that winter tomatoes are horrible. She's right. She then goes on to propose a recipe that makes them work. It's a good idea. She roasts them, at high temperature, in olive oil and balsamic vinegar, adding basil at the end. Three items that seem to have been "invented" to go with tomatoes.

Well, I made her recipe, which was accompanied by a picture. Her tomatoes were burnished brown, whole, solid, lovely things. Not so, mine. Perhaps mine had too much water in them, perhaps I had them too close to each other on the pan, but what I got was, essentially, a cross between stewed tomatoes, and tomato sauce. They sure tasted GOOD, but not what I expected.

So what do you do when that happens? Well, you learn to be flexible. Clearly, I could not serve these as whole tomatoes. What's wrong with a puree, though? Or, as I used them, pizza sauce. I have tons of red sauce in the fridge, always do. These, however, were better. MUCH better. I urge you to make this. It's really good.

You start with 12 plum tomatoes. That will be about 3 pounds of them. Cut them in half, lengthwise, and scoop out the seeds. Then, lay them out on a baking sheet. You should space them as much as possible. Maybe if they look TOO close, put them on two sheets, who knows? Then, sprinkle them with a teaspoon and a half of salt, and two of sugar. Now you add, say a third of a cup of olive oil, less if you like, sprinkling it all over the tomatoes. Finally, two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar gets sprinkled too.

Put the tray in a preheated, 450 oven, for 25 minutes or so. Check. As I say, with Ina's recipe, they looked burnished and whole. Mine collapsed. When you take them out of the oven, if you were smart last summer and froze pesto, add some to it. If you didn't, and you have some good quality commercial stuff, a few tablespoons please. And if you don't, don't do anything. Either scoop the stuff up, and put it in a container, or store the items as whole, half tomatoes. Either way, you have something wonderful that can go with your eggs in the morning, or you can use them as I did, in a pizza topping, or put them underneath something meaty, like a chicken breast. Or, just eat them whole.

The smart ones out there will see that, while pesto is wonderful, you can substitute. Make an arrabiata by adding red hot pepper. Or, if you have some rosemary sprigs, go for it. I bet there are other ideas too. The basic idea, though , is to roast those tomatoes until their sugar comes out. And because the winter tomatoes may not have enough residual sugar to begin with, that's why you add the granulated sugar, and the balsamic vinegar.

They'll be here soon, ragazzi, but if you can't wait, get the bad ones and make em good. That's what cooking is all about. ONWARD TO SPRING!!!!

Best cookie EVER????

You've read - or at least I HOPE you've read - some of the stories of my watching cooking shows, getting recipes or books, or ideas, and then making the dish a part of my regular repertoire. This is such a story.
Some years ago, there was a wonderful cooking show on public TV, coming from San Francisco. It was called "Weir cooking in the wine country," featuring the wonderful Joanne Weir. The whole "look" of the show made me want to just pick up and move to the wine country. Joanne had, and has, such an "air" about her, that I fell in love with her right away. There was a "simpatica" that I felt. Even when she was smiling and going through her steps in cooking, I felt that there was an underlying melancholy that motivated her. And I've written, at great length, how I think that "melancholia" may very well underly all great "popular" art. By that I mean things like cooking, movies, that kind of thing. For example, I remember one critic talking about my favorite movie (An American in Paris), and how most people don't get the underlying sadness of that, or any of Vincent Minelli's movies. I could not have agreed more. I always feel just on the verge of tears when I watch that movie, even as it glorifies dance, color, and all that is wonderful. So, too, with anything else he made.

Anyway, that's the connection to where this recipe came from. I got her cookbook, which is wonderful. I made many of the recipes that she demo'd on the show. She never made this one, but my copy of her book falls open to this page. I have made these cookies often. They are quite wonderful - perhaps THE most wonderful cookie that has ever been designed.

Now, I know that this is a VERY bold statement to make. The same has been said of Viennese vanilla almond crescents, toll house cookies, gingersnaps, and others. I LOVE gingersnaps. I could eat them every day. I could NOT eat these cookies every day, or even every other day. They are just too "filling" to my taste. Nonetheless, when I put a plate of these down, they disappear. And they're beautiful. LORD are these cookies beautiful. And they are relatively easy to do.

There will be an interesting test tonight for the cookies. I'm serving them, as well as very serious, bittersweet chocolate chip cookies, at a bakesale. The cookies are priced the same. Let's see who wins....

If you make these, you will win.

You need 4 ounces each of bittersweet and semisweet chocolate. I use Scharffenberger, which was called for in the original recipe, but you can use what you like. Just PLEASE do not skimp on the quality of the chocolate. Chop it fine. I find that if I have the chocolate at room temperature, and I use a serrated bread knife. The pieces do not have to be uniform, but they should be small.

You will also need two cups of chopped , toasted hazelnuts. Now, I buy chopped toasted hazelnuts from King Arthur Flour, and they are a godsend. But... you can take two cups of hazelnuts and toast them at 350 for ten minutes. Then cool them, and either pulse them in a food processor, or put them in a plastic bag and beat them to the size you like. Again, go for small.

You will also need the seeds of one vanilla bean. I LOVE this technique. I feel like a jeweler. You cut the tip off of the bean, and then make a horizontal cut in it. You can then peel it back and expose the innards (I DID tell you I used to be a biologist, didn't I? It's sort of like dissecting an earthworm). scrape the seeds out, and put them on top of a cup of granulated sugar. Put the pods into your sugar bowl to flavor the sugar. Or put them in a jar of vodka.

You also need three egg whites from three large eggs. NOW, we're ready to go. You start beating the egg whites until they're foamy (I use a kitchenaid). When they get to the foamy stage, add a teaspoon of white vinegar and a pinch of salt. Increase the beating speed until you get firm peaks. Now, add that cup of sugar and the vanilla bean, little by little. "Little by little" is key here. You don't want to do it that quickly. When you get firm, glossy peaks, that look like the meringue on lemon pies in diners, fold in the chocolate and the hazelnuts.

Get a small scoop, and scoop this stuff out onto parchment paper on a baking sheet. Smaller is better. You'll get about 36 cookies from this recipe if you do small ones.

Preheat the oven to 250 - that's 250, not 350 - and bake the cookies for about thirty minutes. I have an irregular oven, where the bottom shelf gets much hotter than the top one. I solve the unevenness problem by double sheeting the bottom cookies, and rotating them after fifteen minutes.

You need to let these cool completely after that half hour. If you don't, they won't come off of the paper. If you do, they will peel away like a well cooked, hard boiled egg shell comes off of the egg.

If you have any left over, put these in a metal tin. Moisture is their worst enemy. Even a drop will turn the whole batch into a sog of disgusting, overly sweet chocolate and nuts, sort of like a bad candy bar (trust me on this).

Now, try them. And tell me if you've ever had a better cookie. I would bet you you haven't, but if you have, tell me about it. I wanna know

Annalena makes marmalade

I believe I have written of my past adventures with the jam pot. T hose were fourteen or fifteen years ago. They are comical, scary, an example of a true kitchen obsession, and one I thought I had put behind me.
Until this weekend.

Look, I have no idea how my mind works, and probably would be scared to death if I did, but somehow, I got it in my head that I wanted to make some marmalade.

Well, the Citrus Bomb and the Artichoke Queen had SOMETHING to do with that. See, I had asked for some seville oranges in last week's citrus box. I had visions of a marinade for a pork tenderloin, that I never made. Since the ladies, like this lady, believe that "anything worth doing is worth overdoing" (AMEN SISTAH), there were fifteen of them in my box. Now, that's a lot of marinade, so some switch went off in my head and said "marmalade."

I could see Guy's eyes rolling to the back of his head. BUT... what I found was that this recipe makes a very reasonable amount of the stuff. Again, this is a bit time consuming, but it makes a really good product. I am going to give it for seville oranges, which you can still get, but I think you could probably use others. I will check with my friend June Taylor, who makes the ULTIMATE jams.

Incidentally, once you make this, you will NEVER carp about the price of good jam or marmelade again. And if you do, you don't deserve to eat it.

The recipe, is shamelessly stolen from David Lebovitz, who posted it on his blog. I changed it in one respect, as I will tell you.

You start with about three pounds of sevilles. For me, this was six of them (David's recipe called for six, and I weighed them). Half them, squeeze them through a juicer (the hand kind is fine), and save the pits. Of course, save the juice as well. Also - and here's where I varied things - squeeze two blood oranges and add that juice to the seville orange juice.

Gather all those peels, and cut them roughly, but not too big. If the pieces are more than, say 1/3 of an inch wide, you will have problems. This will take a bit of time , but not that much. Dump the peels into a pot, and add 3 quarts of water . Then, take all those seeds, wrap them i cheesecloth, tie it tight and add it to the pot as well. Those pits are LOADED with pectin and will give your marmalade a soft set as it cools. Turn on the pot, and then when the water boils, drop it to simmering, and cook for about 30 minutes. You're softening the peel here. When it's done, pull out the bag of pits.

You can proceed immediately after you do this, but there's some kind of peaceful rest in letting the stuff sit overnight. I think it helped make good marmelade, but what do I know. In any event, add that juice and two pounds of sugar . (you best make sure your pot is nice and big).

Either right away, or the next morning, start heating this, and when it boils, lower the heat to simmer. Now, you need your thermometer, and you need PATIENCE. You need to cook this to 220 degrees. Seems fairly simple, after all, it was boiling, that was 212.

WRONG. Heat distribution in a mass like this takes a while. It took nearly an hour and a half of slow simmering for me. Toward the end, you will see massive reduction in the amount of liquid, a thickening of the syrup, and you will probably have to stir with some regularity to keep the peel from settling and burning. It's all good. When the mass has come to 220 and stayed there for a minute or two, get it off the heat . The stuff will "set" some as it cools, but t his is never going to be as firm as a commercial jam, and that's just fine. Get some jars, and fill em up and share them.

I think you get about a quart and a half of marmalade out of this, with a very intense flavor and a lovely orange rose color. I don't seal the jars, so you will have to refrigerate the stuff. That being the case, unless you have a friend who TRULY loves jam, use small jars.

We put some on fresh baked whole wheat bread right away and it was GREAT. I'm thinking soft white cheese as well. Now THAT sounds good, and very very European.

Give it a try.

"The times they are a changin"

Again, my readers of a "certain age" will remember that title, and how that song impacted all of us, in so many ways. Remember sitting around and trying to "figure out" what Bob Dylan REALLY meant when he wrote his songs?
Last night, sitting at dinner with Jonathan and Joe, I was recounting taking religion class with THE FIRST MEN TEACHERS my grammar school had ever hired. One of them was my religion teacher. He taught it via Bob Dylan songs. These were the sixties, remember? To this day, I'm still not sure "Mr. Tambourine Man" is supposed to be a pusher, but that's what Mr. Trainor's seventh grade class considered. And none of us would EVER use a pusher, no siree.
Uh, right.
Well, that reminiscence came up because yes, the times ARE changing. Spring is ALMOST here. Nevia, the vegetable goddess, is planning to be back ahead of schedule. So the early spring greens and pinks are almost here for the cook. Last night, I was pulling out ramp recipes.
And sitting at dinner with Jonathan and Joe last night was a revival of something we haven't done in over ten years. We had a small dinner at home, on Sunday night. I have to say, it was a wonderful evening. It went well past it had any right to, but it felt so right. The discussion of everything from raunch sex to critical theory on St. Teresa's writings (this is my crowd, gang. Be jealous, laugh or do what you like, but it is what it is, and I'm happy to "be here now,") was so engaging that I should feel tired today, and I'm not.
So, all this digression in what should be about food. And it IS about food. I just want to give you the set up to this.
Note that "the times they ARE a changin," not that they HAVE changed. So we're still working with the products of late winter, imminent spring. We had roast chicken. That recipe is early on in this blog. Here's the side dish. I got it from Ina Garten's book, and to me, it's sort of the apotheosis of everything good about winter. (I can use words like that around Joe and Jonathan).
This is a rough puree of apples, celery root, fennel and potatoes. It's amazingly easy to do. We followed Ina's instructions, and Jonathan got a work out in making a passato, but to be honest, when I took it off the stove, I thought we could have served it as it was. You make it and decide. It's not that hard to do.

You need a stick of unsalted butter, half a fennel bulb (make a salad with the other half and oranges the next day), four golden delicious apples, a half pound of potatoes, and two pounds of celery root. You'll also need apple cider, and heavy cream.

The chopping will take a little time. You have to chop the fennel into small, rough pieces, peel and chop the potatoes, do the same with the apples , and also with the celery root. Celery root is intimidating looking. Don't be afraid. Cut two horizontal slices, one from each end, and stand it up. Then run the back end of your knife down each root, until you've taken off the skin. Half it, and then you have what looks like a small, white pineapple. Very easy to chop now.
When you have everything chopped, melt the stick of butter in a BIG pan or pot. Then dump in all the vegetables, half a cup of apple cider, and a big pinch of salt. Cover the pot, lower the heat, and go away for about twenty minutes. Then, come back and check the softness of the CELERY root. This is the veggie that is going to take the longest to cook. If it feels soft enough for you to eat, then you're done. If not, put the cover back and let it cook for another ten minutes, and check again.
I WILL tell you that I had a bit of an issue with carmelization here, maybe because I used a big, wide, shallow pan. It tasted real fine, but if you want something pure white, you're going to want less surface area on your vegetables, and that means a smaller, deeper pot.

When the veggies are soft enough for you, Ina has you pass them through a food mill, for a rough texture, or in the food processor, for a softer one.

Something happens to potatoes in food processors. There is a release of a gummy starch if you process them too much. I've had it happen once or twice. So you can either pulse and watch yourself, or put it through a food mill. It's a texture thing here. When you're done, add some heavy cream. As I think about the dish now, we added less cream than the recipe called for, and that's fine. Again, it's a question of what you like. Add a bit more salt. You do have to taste this along the way, because you're dealing with a collection of vegetables that are really pretty bland.

If you didn't want to puree this, that would be fine with me. I thought the chunks of vegetables looked just fine as they are, almost like a soft "hash." NOT the hash that Mr. Tambourine man is allegedly selling, but hash nonetheless.

This will give you anywhere from four pretty big servings, to eight small ones. Look at the quantities: you have well over 3 pounds of vegetables up there. Pretty healthy ones too.

So, if you have a tambourine around, especially if it's a green one (bonus points to anyone who gets THAT allusion), shake it a few times as you bring the puree out with whatever else you're serving. I can't help but think this is going to be wonderful with duck, or perhaps pork cooked i a citrus sauce. Add your ideas, and make it.

We'll be saying "see ya" to celery root soon. Fennel will be around, in baby form soon, and apples are aways with us, but they won't be at their best. So, give winter "one last hurrah," and make this while you can.

And maybe St. Teresa will send her blessings on you, too

Apples for the teacher? BAH! Chocolate Chestnut cake

This one is for my teacher Jonathan, who may have the hardest job in the world.
I'm serious about that. I take two sets of lessons: Italian and guitar. I am NOT a good student. I get distracted, I get bored, and I am willful. And those are my GOOD points. But every week, Jonathan comes over and tries as best as he can to improve my Italian. In the course of about 9 months ( or has it been less?), we've become good friends. That doesn't always happen with your teachers, ya know, and it's sometimes a challenge to keep both relationships working when it does. But we've succeeded. Rather than theorize about it, this is yet another case where I'm going to "enjoy the butterfly" instead of dissecting it to see if I can figure out what makes it so beautiful.

OK, enough philosophizing, let's get to the cake of the matter. I have written a few blogs on chocolate cakes, including my prize winning one. I almost never make that cake anymore, because I prefer making this one. I made it at New Year's and Jonathan remembered it. When someone remembers a dish you made two months ago, STAND UP AND TAKE NOTICE. That means it was a success. Try to remember EVERYTHING you ate over the last two weeks. Now, try to remember SOMETHING you ate over the last two weeks.

See what I mean? And you cooked a lot of this stuff. So if YOU don't remember. ...

This recipe appeared, originally, in a book called "Festive Favorites," which was produced by the California Culinary Academy. They had a television show on public televison, which was very slick. SO slick that when they showed you a recipe being prepared, they left out proportions and quantities, so that if you wanted the recipe, you had to buy the tie in book.

Buying that book was an exercise in complete and total frustration. I had to go to San Francisco's public television network, and essentially yell at six or seven people before I could get it.

The book itself is not really worth the effort. "Festive Favorite" is a good title. There are recipes in that book that take 9 pages to get through. Uh, not me.

There are three recipes in the book that I use. One is for a persimmon walnut cake. Another is their recipe for manicotti crepes. It's the best one I've found. And finally, this chocolate chestnut cake. It is truly a mammoth cake, that can easily feed 20 people. The texture is sort of a cross between cake and fudge, probably because of the chestnut paste, one of my favorite ingredients.

I will also tell you that when I have not been able to find chestnut paste, I have done this with hazelnut paste, for more of a "gianduja" kind of cake. It works. I would stay away from the other nutpastes, with the exception of almond butter, rather than almond paste. You need something that is sort of unctious and creamy, rather than thick and heavy, which is what almond paste is like. Cashew and peanut butters, I think, would never work. Sesame paste MIGHT, but I'd be cautious. So if you can't find the chestnut paste or puree called for, look for hazelnut, which is easier to find year round (chestnut products are easy to find in fall and winter, harder in the warmer months), and make the cake. The ingredient list looks formidable, but read this through, it's not that hard.

Jonathan, forse facciamo questa torta insieme. I probably got everything right in that sentence, but who knows? Jonathan will never tell me.

You start by preheating your oven to 350. Then, get a BIG springform pan, 10 inches if you can find one. It really is necessary for this cake. If you don't have one, borrow one. Grease it with soft butter all over.

Now, chop up a pound of the best bittersweet chocolate you can find. If you like a sweeter cake, use semisweet, but the difference will be profound. I have found that the easiest way to chop up a block of chocolate is to use a serrated bread knife. You also need half a cup of white wine . The original recipe called for champagne.

Uh, right. I have leftover champagne in my fridge (well, actually, I do.... But there are reasons. ). Anyway, champagne is a white wine. Use something dry. Sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, yadda yadda. You also need a stick of unsalted butter, soft, half a cup of heavy cream (I kid you not: the original recipe called for 1 5/8 cup of cream. GET OVER YOURSELF). A one pound jar of chestnut puree. The recipe calls for unsweetened chestnut puree, which is a nightmare to find. If you find the sweet stuff, fine. If you fine the sweet stuff with vanilla, even more fine. You also need 1.5 cups of white sugar, a half cup of flour and six eggs.

Okay, now we start cooking. Combine the chocolate and the wine in a pot and bring it to low heat until the chocolate melts. Stir occasionally to help it along. (If you h ave a microwave, you can do this step in that contraption. I don't). Put it aside while you do the following steps.

Get out your mixer, or get set for a workout, and combine the cream, the butter and the chestnut paste until it's very smooth. You don't really want to combine that much air into this, so when they're combined and you have a uniform color, you're there. Now, add the melted chocolate mixture, stir that to a uniform color, and then add the chestnut puree. Again, mix to uniform color. Now mix in the flour, and maybe a pinch of salt. Finally, add the eggs.

That last step is very interesting, and it has a very determined impact on texture. Normally, you combine eggs with fat, to create a matrix of air and the lipids, to give "lift" to the cake. Not so here. And if you're a careful recipe reader, you will see NO leavening agents whatsoever. This is gonna be a very solid cake.

Pour everything into that pan, and if you happen to have a baking sheet, put it on the baking sheet just for safety. Now, go and read critical literary theory for an hour or so . (This IS for Jonathan, remember). Check the cake. It will rise, fall, and crack. Then turn off the oven, and let it cool there for fifteen minutes. That will finish the baking .

Let it cool completely at room temperature before you serve it. You do NOT need to refrigerate this, and probably shouldn't.

This cake will keep at a cool room temperature for at least a week. I usually don't make it in warm weather, so I can't vouch for it; however, there is very little in here to call in those mold spores, so you should be ok. You're only gonna make this for a big party though, so you shouldn't have a concern.

Jonathan, I'm having a blast and I AM learning Italian. Enjoy it, and yes, we will make it together.

A presto.