This will go down as the year of where none of us got our fill of tomatoes. It won't be true, because they're there, and they're good, but they were late. The rain, the cold weather, who knows what else, made it difficult to find good tomatoes, until very late in the season. The tomatoes that did ripen were good, but really, they didn't have that flavor or snap that said "tomato." To me, when tomatoes are ripened fully, and have had their share of sun, there is a musty, almost erotic scent to them, that is almost overpowering. Tomato leaves, too, have an aroma that is so strong and so singular, that they just remind me of "SUN" in the same way that a ripe peach does. Just holding one up to my nose is an experience to me that can be rather overpowering. Perhaps I am just too sensitive to smells, or too tied to the fact that, at least for me, the tomatoes, and the peaches, say "SUMMER," but that's the way it is. And it's MY BLOG, DAMN IT.
Okay, enough of Annalena's quirks. Let's get to the food. We were able to get good tomatoes during our very brief, warm summer, but it's cooling down now. And there are LOTS of underripe tomatoes on the vines. People pickle them, they fry them, but really, that doesn't use a whole lot of them. And picking them and letting them ripen in the windowsill, doesn't really work. They never have that summery taste. That's why I stopped growing herbs in our apartment. They didn't have the sunny flavor I expect of them. So, seeing all those green tomatoes in the market, I was gratified to find a recipe that actually used them in great quantities - especially after I got through with it.
Last week, the NY Times published a recipe for a green tomato soup. It was, to say the least, "lush." It had bacon in it. And brioche croutons. Now, Annalena will never deny anyone their rightful share of bacon. And brioche? PLEASE. Annalena can plow through four or five baby brioches before you can get the apricot jam out. But there is something about soup that makes me say "KEEP IT SIMPLE." I would never add the "stupid" to that, because it's just not right in the kitchen. But with this being a recipe I had never made before, I held them out as possibilities, "just in case."
Well, they weren't necessary. This soup is actually quite rich on its own, at least in my view. I think what happens is that the tomatoes puree down to a very rich texture which combines with the butter to give a really thick, pleasant feeling. Colorwise, I gotta be honest: this is going to remind you of split pea soup. Can't help that. But it is really good.
I upped the amount of tomatoes in the published recipe, and cut the liquid a bit. Also, the recipe calls for chicken stock, which you can use, no question about it. I wanted to share the soup with vegetarians, so I substituted a mixture of tomato water, and plain water. You can use tomato juice,or vegetable stock, if it's light, or really, I guess, just plain water. Try making it. I t hink you'll be pleased.
Now, let's cook. You need five pounds of green tomatoes. If you buy these ahead of time, break the rule about refrigerating tomatoes. In other words, refrigerate them. You don't want these to ripen. You will also need two onions, half a stick of butter, and - perhaps the key ingredient - a hefty teaspoon of whole coriander seeds. Put those seeds on a flat surface, and hit them gently but firmly with the side of a big knife to crack them. Chop the onions roughly, but small. And core the tomatoes and cut them into rough chunks. Finally , slice up four cloves of garlic.
Now, we're ready to cook, and it's gonna be easy. Melt the half stick of butter in a big soup pot, and add the onions, and the coriander. Cook until the onions just go translucent. When that happens, add the tomatoes. All of them . Add a good teaspoon of salt, and then add three cups of whatever liquid you choose. That liquid should just about come up to the top of the tomatoes. If it doesn't, add a little more. When the stuff comes to a simmer, lower the heat, cover the pot, and go away for twenty minutes. The tomatoes will collapse and get very soft.
After twenty minutes, if the tomatoes are not really soft, cook them some more. When they are so soft that toying with them breaks them up, they're ready. Taste the liquid for seasoning, and add more salt if you like. Pepper is nice too. So is hot sauce, if you care for it.
Let this all cool down, and then puree it in a blender, in batches. You're going to wind up with a generous two quarts of soup, in a beautiful green color, and when you taste it, you'll see what I mean about its richness.
If you want bacon, and/or brioche, well, go ahead. Fry up the bacon, and if you're using the brioche for croutons, you might want to fry them in the rendered bacon fat, and then use the two of them as garnishes.
But the first time around, why don't you try this "straight up?" I have a feeling you'll save the bacon for a BLT (with ripe tomatoes!), on the side, maybe on slices of brioche, with some homemade mayonnaise.
"soup and sandwich, soup and sandwich..." Y'all remember that one, don't ya?
Monday, September 21, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
The bitter with the sweet: cooking radicchio
Whether or not summer is over is debatable, of course, and the debate shall rage on. This is a separate question from whether or not autumn has started. And if we conclude that summer has ended, but we're not ready to say that autumn has begun, well, then what do we call the "interspace" between when one ends and the other begins? After all, the calendar of seasons says fall follows summer.
It's a challenge, isn't it? There is this time, every year, when the variety of things you have available to cook with reaches its peak. Very few things are "gone." Yes, there hasn't been an apricot for a few weeks. Asparagus have been gone for months. So have green peas, although there is a promise of some more soon. Yet, looking at fruit: there are berries, peaches, nectarines, strawberries - all summer choices - and grapes, apples, pears - all fall choices. In the vegetables, there are corn, tomatoes, green beans - SUMMER - and leeks, celery root, the first jerusalme artichokes, big collards - AUTUMN. It almost seems to me that we need a fifth season, something called "harvest" or "invernal" or something like that, because rather than transition, we have a cornucopia of things to choose. And for the next six weeks or so, it is difficult to not overload your shopping bag. Enjoy it now, because after those six weeks or so, it IS indeed fall. The peaches will be mealy. You won't find a good, sweet plum. The tomatoes will diminish. And the color of what you buy will be shifting to dark green, dark brown, dark tan.... and dark maroon.
And it is a maroon vegetable I turn to today: the chickory "radicchio." You know it. It's a vegetable that can fairly be called deceitful. When you look at it for the first time, it almost looks like the "bacon" of vegetables, at least to me. Long strips of white, with dark red strips around it. Doesn't that remind you of bacon? And seeing those strong colors, I remember my first reaction was that it was going to be sweet.
Uh, NO. One could never call radicchio sweet. It characterizes what you will find about many of the winter leafy vegetables. They are strong. They lean toward the bitter. Kale, chard (to some degree), collards, and so forth will all give you a s tronger flavor than the veggies you enjoyed so much in the summer. A little of them will go a long way, unless, of course, you know how to tame them.
And I think that many of them, if I may anthorpomorphize for a minute, wish to be tamed - sort of like the fox in "The Little Prince." (if you can get through it without crying, and even if you can't, go and read it again. It will make you feel good all over again, I promise. And this is a time to start feeling good all over again. ). If you use radicchio raw, in a salad, you will want to use very little of it, because it will overwhelm everything else. IF, however, you cook it, what you will find is that the leaves are actually very rich, full flavored, and become rather sweet. I still remember the first time I grilled radicchio. It was a Labor Day weekend. I had two large heads of it. I quartered them, rubbed them with olive oil, put them under the broiler for about three minutes, turned them over, and did another three, and served them forth. The amount of water they produced was phenomenol, and that water seems to have carried many of the bitter juices away. Indeed, that seems to happen: if you can get liquid out of a bitter vegetable, you will get the bitterness away.
Would that that were true for people!
Ok, enough psychoanalysis, let's cook. When you are cooking with a product, like a vegetable, that is inherently bitter, the key thing to do is to pair it with something that contradicts the bitterness, i.e, something a bit sweet. Cooking radicchio will cut back the bitterness, but it will never eliminate it. So you should combine it with something "transiently " sweet. In the proteins, I associate this type of subtle sweetness with pork, and chicken. Both go well with radicchio, and this weekend, I combined it with chicken. I want to suggest this to you. The proportions here make two, very good sized portions. You will of course want to increase the proportions, if you have more people to serve.
Start with one medium head of radicchio, and shred it. This is best done by simply slicing across the head, so that you have a big pile of bright red shards. You will also need one half of a large chicken breast. Remember that chicken breasts come in halves. So if you have a whole breast, cut it in half, or cook the whole thing and save the rest for something else.
Slice the chicken breast into strips. Now, we can get cooking. This is really easy. Put some olive oil in a pan and when it's hot, add the cut chicken. You may want to salt the chicken before hand. Resist the temptation to move the chicken around, for at least 4 minutes. You want to create a sear. Then and only then, turn it, and cook it for maybe a minute. You do it quickly hear, because you don't want to dry it out. Toss in the radicchio. It will reduce almost immediately and you'll have a pile of soft, dark red greens with a taste that is unlike any other vegetable. And... you're done. Unless you want to play with this. You can push this to a sweeter side,by doing something like adding grapes to it (thinking of fall), or sliced peaches (thinking of summer). You could also add some spicy peppers and push it in another direction. You can do a lot of things. For example, we had left over barley from a meal last week, and I just tossed that in at the end and we had a complete meal. TOO complete a meal for our subsequent gym visit, but "now we know."
If you haven't met the acquaintance of cooked radicchio, give it a try. I think you will almost certainly want to use it at least a few more times.
It's a challenge, isn't it? There is this time, every year, when the variety of things you have available to cook with reaches its peak. Very few things are "gone." Yes, there hasn't been an apricot for a few weeks. Asparagus have been gone for months. So have green peas, although there is a promise of some more soon. Yet, looking at fruit: there are berries, peaches, nectarines, strawberries - all summer choices - and grapes, apples, pears - all fall choices. In the vegetables, there are corn, tomatoes, green beans - SUMMER - and leeks, celery root, the first jerusalme artichokes, big collards - AUTUMN. It almost seems to me that we need a fifth season, something called "harvest" or "invernal" or something like that, because rather than transition, we have a cornucopia of things to choose. And for the next six weeks or so, it is difficult to not overload your shopping bag. Enjoy it now, because after those six weeks or so, it IS indeed fall. The peaches will be mealy. You won't find a good, sweet plum. The tomatoes will diminish. And the color of what you buy will be shifting to dark green, dark brown, dark tan.... and dark maroon.
And it is a maroon vegetable I turn to today: the chickory "radicchio." You know it. It's a vegetable that can fairly be called deceitful. When you look at it for the first time, it almost looks like the "bacon" of vegetables, at least to me. Long strips of white, with dark red strips around it. Doesn't that remind you of bacon? And seeing those strong colors, I remember my first reaction was that it was going to be sweet.
Uh, NO. One could never call radicchio sweet. It characterizes what you will find about many of the winter leafy vegetables. They are strong. They lean toward the bitter. Kale, chard (to some degree), collards, and so forth will all give you a s tronger flavor than the veggies you enjoyed so much in the summer. A little of them will go a long way, unless, of course, you know how to tame them.
And I think that many of them, if I may anthorpomorphize for a minute, wish to be tamed - sort of like the fox in "The Little Prince." (if you can get through it without crying, and even if you can't, go and read it again. It will make you feel good all over again, I promise. And this is a time to start feeling good all over again. ). If you use radicchio raw, in a salad, you will want to use very little of it, because it will overwhelm everything else. IF, however, you cook it, what you will find is that the leaves are actually very rich, full flavored, and become rather sweet. I still remember the first time I grilled radicchio. It was a Labor Day weekend. I had two large heads of it. I quartered them, rubbed them with olive oil, put them under the broiler for about three minutes, turned them over, and did another three, and served them forth. The amount of water they produced was phenomenol, and that water seems to have carried many of the bitter juices away. Indeed, that seems to happen: if you can get liquid out of a bitter vegetable, you will get the bitterness away.
Would that that were true for people!
Ok, enough psychoanalysis, let's cook. When you are cooking with a product, like a vegetable, that is inherently bitter, the key thing to do is to pair it with something that contradicts the bitterness, i.e, something a bit sweet. Cooking radicchio will cut back the bitterness, but it will never eliminate it. So you should combine it with something "transiently " sweet. In the proteins, I associate this type of subtle sweetness with pork, and chicken. Both go well with radicchio, and this weekend, I combined it with chicken. I want to suggest this to you. The proportions here make two, very good sized portions. You will of course want to increase the proportions, if you have more people to serve.
Start with one medium head of radicchio, and shred it. This is best done by simply slicing across the head, so that you have a big pile of bright red shards. You will also need one half of a large chicken breast. Remember that chicken breasts come in halves. So if you have a whole breast, cut it in half, or cook the whole thing and save the rest for something else.
Slice the chicken breast into strips. Now, we can get cooking. This is really easy. Put some olive oil in a pan and when it's hot, add the cut chicken. You may want to salt the chicken before hand. Resist the temptation to move the chicken around, for at least 4 minutes. You want to create a sear. Then and only then, turn it, and cook it for maybe a minute. You do it quickly hear, because you don't want to dry it out. Toss in the radicchio. It will reduce almost immediately and you'll have a pile of soft, dark red greens with a taste that is unlike any other vegetable. And... you're done. Unless you want to play with this. You can push this to a sweeter side,by doing something like adding grapes to it (thinking of fall), or sliced peaches (thinking of summer). You could also add some spicy peppers and push it in another direction. You can do a lot of things. For example, we had left over barley from a meal last week, and I just tossed that in at the end and we had a complete meal. TOO complete a meal for our subsequent gym visit, but "now we know."
If you haven't met the acquaintance of cooked radicchio, give it a try. I think you will almost certainly want to use it at least a few more times.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Springing another leek: Leek soup
You may very well be expecting a repeat of an old recipe: potato leek soup, in which I proved that I cannot write French. Well, that would be "vrai." Here, we are going to go even simpler than that. Sort of.
Fortune smiles on us sometimes, and in odd ways. Recently, I reconnected with my friend Mark. There had been a bit of a rocky road, but all is smooth again. Mark gardens, and this year, one of his triumps is a 60 foot row of leeks.
Yes, you read that right: a 60 foot row of them. How many leeks does that work out too? A LOT. So, when Mark asked me "how many of them do you want?" well, this posed an interesting question: do I act like a pig and say all of them, do I demur and say three or four, or do I hew to a middle path?
Good Buddhist that I am, I took the last option, and asked for ten. Mark showed up on Friday, ten leeks in hand.
Any of you who ever have ten full grown, medium sized leeks in your hands, will find yourself wondering what in the name of Buddha are you going to do with this? They are massive, they are fragrant (some would find them too strong, but Annalena, who has wondered aloud why there isn't a garlic perfume available, found the fragrance heavenly). Chatting started, and out came one of the Bibles of the neglected vegetable: "Alice Waters: Vegetables." This is a book I recommend to all. It is far from complete (no okra recipes, for example), and one could argue that there aren't enough recipes to work from, or that the style of the recipes changes, from the standard format you're all used to, to the format that I use here, or that measures are imprecise.
Well, the whole point of that book, at least to me, is to suggest how to go with things, rather than to "toe the line. ' Sometimes you will not have all of the ingredients that she suggests. Sometimes, as was my case, you will want a thicker or thinner preparation.
Well, we were leafing through the section on leeks, and both Mark and I were taken with the recipe for leek soup. I made it, with modifications, and I suggest you do, too. What you will have, at the end, is a delicous soup that is reminiscent of a delicate french onion soup. It's sort of the frilly little sister of that massive, cheese laden dish that can be good but is so often atrocious. Try this one instead.
Start with six medium to small leeks. Cut back the dark green leaves and then strip the outer layer of the leeks. Yes, there is a fair amount of waste, but this is a good soup. Then, slice the leeks lengthwise, and then into thin strips. Cut them again, until you have a pile of small rectangles of leek. Probably 4-5 cups. Put them aside while you gather the ingredients for a bouquet garni: a small stalk of celery, a bay leaf, a sprig or two of thyme, and one of rosemary. If you lack one and have more of the other, substitute. You may want to take a few peppercorns too, it's up to you.
Wrap all of these in a small piece of cheesecloth, and tie it off (get some cheesecloth. It's a good thing to have, and in this case, keeps the herbs from dirtying the soup, while flavoring it. Speaking of dirtying, you may want to put those leeks in a bowl of cold water while you're getting the rest ready. You may have dirt on them.).
Finally, you will need four tablespoons of olive oil, salt, and a quart of GOOD chicken stock. This is one where I want to insist on homemade, but if you don't have homemade, splurge and get good stuff. The ingredients here are minimal, so every one counts.
Get a big pot. Put in the olive oil, and when it's hot, drain the leeks out of the bowl, with your hands (leaves the dirt behind), and put them into the hot oil. Lower the heat and saute' for no more than five minutes. You'll see the leeks begin to break down, and thicken. Then add the stock, and the garni. Finally, slice two cloves of garlic very thin, and add that to the soup as well.
Lower the heat, and cook it, covered, for twenty minutes. The leeks will be almost melting in the stock, and the stock will have reduced. Add some water if you like, to bring it up to about a quart in total, and taste the seasoning for salt. Take out the garni and dump it.
And, there you are. You have an unusual soup, that I believe that you will love and want to make again. This is much thicker than the original recipe, which called for 2 quarts of stock. I'm treating this as a main dish, so the stock is lessened.
I am not a fan of eggs, but if you wanted to float an egg on a bowl of this soup, hot, I could see it working wonderfully. Somehow, the thought of putting cheese in it bothers me, but not pepper.
Leek soup, without the potatoes. Impress your friends. You can call it "Light onion soup," but why do that? Call it what it is, and have a bowl of a soup that sort of bridges summer and fall
Fortune smiles on us sometimes, and in odd ways. Recently, I reconnected with my friend Mark. There had been a bit of a rocky road, but all is smooth again. Mark gardens, and this year, one of his triumps is a 60 foot row of leeks.
Yes, you read that right: a 60 foot row of them. How many leeks does that work out too? A LOT. So, when Mark asked me "how many of them do you want?" well, this posed an interesting question: do I act like a pig and say all of them, do I demur and say three or four, or do I hew to a middle path?
Good Buddhist that I am, I took the last option, and asked for ten. Mark showed up on Friday, ten leeks in hand.
Any of you who ever have ten full grown, medium sized leeks in your hands, will find yourself wondering what in the name of Buddha are you going to do with this? They are massive, they are fragrant (some would find them too strong, but Annalena, who has wondered aloud why there isn't a garlic perfume available, found the fragrance heavenly). Chatting started, and out came one of the Bibles of the neglected vegetable: "Alice Waters: Vegetables." This is a book I recommend to all. It is far from complete (no okra recipes, for example), and one could argue that there aren't enough recipes to work from, or that the style of the recipes changes, from the standard format you're all used to, to the format that I use here, or that measures are imprecise.
Well, the whole point of that book, at least to me, is to suggest how to go with things, rather than to "toe the line. ' Sometimes you will not have all of the ingredients that she suggests. Sometimes, as was my case, you will want a thicker or thinner preparation.
Well, we were leafing through the section on leeks, and both Mark and I were taken with the recipe for leek soup. I made it, with modifications, and I suggest you do, too. What you will have, at the end, is a delicous soup that is reminiscent of a delicate french onion soup. It's sort of the frilly little sister of that massive, cheese laden dish that can be good but is so often atrocious. Try this one instead.
Start with six medium to small leeks. Cut back the dark green leaves and then strip the outer layer of the leeks. Yes, there is a fair amount of waste, but this is a good soup. Then, slice the leeks lengthwise, and then into thin strips. Cut them again, until you have a pile of small rectangles of leek. Probably 4-5 cups. Put them aside while you gather the ingredients for a bouquet garni: a small stalk of celery, a bay leaf, a sprig or two of thyme, and one of rosemary. If you lack one and have more of the other, substitute. You may want to take a few peppercorns too, it's up to you.
Wrap all of these in a small piece of cheesecloth, and tie it off (get some cheesecloth. It's a good thing to have, and in this case, keeps the herbs from dirtying the soup, while flavoring it. Speaking of dirtying, you may want to put those leeks in a bowl of cold water while you're getting the rest ready. You may have dirt on them.).
Finally, you will need four tablespoons of olive oil, salt, and a quart of GOOD chicken stock. This is one where I want to insist on homemade, but if you don't have homemade, splurge and get good stuff. The ingredients here are minimal, so every one counts.
Get a big pot. Put in the olive oil, and when it's hot, drain the leeks out of the bowl, with your hands (leaves the dirt behind), and put them into the hot oil. Lower the heat and saute' for no more than five minutes. You'll see the leeks begin to break down, and thicken. Then add the stock, and the garni. Finally, slice two cloves of garlic very thin, and add that to the soup as well.
Lower the heat, and cook it, covered, for twenty minutes. The leeks will be almost melting in the stock, and the stock will have reduced. Add some water if you like, to bring it up to about a quart in total, and taste the seasoning for salt. Take out the garni and dump it.
And, there you are. You have an unusual soup, that I believe that you will love and want to make again. This is much thicker than the original recipe, which called for 2 quarts of stock. I'm treating this as a main dish, so the stock is lessened.
I am not a fan of eggs, but if you wanted to float an egg on a bowl of this soup, hot, I could see it working wonderfully. Somehow, the thought of putting cheese in it bothers me, but not pepper.
Leek soup, without the potatoes. Impress your friends. You can call it "Light onion soup," but why do that? Call it what it is, and have a bowl of a soup that sort of bridges summer and fall
Friday, September 11, 2009
Picky about piccata
Here's a tip from Annalena's vast experiences: whenever you read a recipe that says it's "easy," BE WARNED. An "easy" recipe may in fact be very simple to execute; however, I guarantee you that you will almost always walk away saying "that's not the way I thought it would taste."
Now, why is that? Well, if it's an easy recipe, many people are going to make it. And every single one of them will put his or her stamp on it. So, if you eat something in a restaurant, like it, look it up, see that the recipe you chose is easy, and make it, betcha it's not going to taste the same as it did. (There are other things to think about with restaurant cooking, like the amount of salt and fat that they use, as well as the high heat, but that's for another day).
So it is with chicken piccata. You've had this in some form or another. I KNOW you have. I make it. And when I was researching other recipes for making this dish, I found that they were all described as "easy." Then I read 12 of them. No two were identical. There were, indeed, very large differences, and none of them looked like mine. Such is the way it is with these easy recipes.
There are a few things that are "canonical" as my friend Jonathan would say, for this recipe: chicken, (DUH), butter, and lemon. Beyond that, chaos reigns, the center will not hold. Just about every recipe calls for dipping the chicken into seasoned flour and egg, and some follow with a breading, followed by frying in butter. Some fry without the breading. Some use chicken stock to make the sauce which follows, others do not. Just about all call for using lemon in the sauce, cooking it. Some call for parsley, some do not.
So, I guess my version of this dish is far from canonical. First, I do not flour or bread the chicken. To my taste, that takes away from the sauce, which is what it is all about here. Also, piccata calls, almost always, for very thin "scallopine" of chicken. Again, I abjure this, and use a thicker cut . I also combine the butter with olive oil, because otherwise, you use way too much butter, and in any event run a risk of burning the meat. Two final changes: I use capers in mine, and I add the lemon at the end. Capers, because I like them. Lemon at the end, because I find that if you cook lemon juice, you lose the brightness and acidity you associate with the flavor.
OK, here we go. Read through mine, and by all means, check others, and then, choose what appeals to you. That's what "easy" dishes are about.
Use salted capers. The ones that are under vinegar are a disgrace. The salted ones will keep in your cupboard forever. But you do have to get the salt off. So pour off about half a cup of them into a bowl, and cover them with water. While you prepare the rest of the food, drain the water a few times and replace it.
Juice half of a lemon and then slice the remaining half of it into thin slices.
Next, get about a pound of chicken breast - that is usually two, full halves of a breast of chicken. Salt and pepper it, but don't pound it thin.
Now, reach into your fridge and pull out that started bottle of white wine that you're saving for when you need that drink at the end of the day, and pour off half a cup. If you don't have wine, use chicken stock.
READY TO COOK. Preheat your oven to 400. Get 3 tablespoons of butter (unsalted), and 2 of olive oil (Annalena's "golden ratio" of cooking fat), in a big pan. Just as the butter melts, put in the chicken breast halves. Fry them on each side for about five minutes, and then put the whole thing in the oven for another five.
After the oven finish, take the pan out of the oven (BE CAREFUL), and remove the chicken to a plate while you finish the sauce. Pour off about 3/4 of the fat, and add a half cup of white wine. It will hiss, spatter, and reduce. Then, put the capers in, and turn up the heat . The wine will reduce further, and when it's down to about two tablespoons in the pan, turn off the heat, and add the lemon juice. Finally, when you plate the chicken, put the sliced lemons over it, as a nice garnish (you could, by the way, cook them a bit too).
Listen, if you're going to do a rich butter sauce, why not avoid the flour? I will confess that I DO love this dish when it is nice and crispy, but this is my current approach to this classic.
Give it a try and, like I say, investigate some other recipes, and make your own. If you call your version a "classic," chances are , no one will callyou out on it, and you will in fact have a new classic of your own.
Now, why is that? Well, if it's an easy recipe, many people are going to make it. And every single one of them will put his or her stamp on it. So, if you eat something in a restaurant, like it, look it up, see that the recipe you chose is easy, and make it, betcha it's not going to taste the same as it did. (There are other things to think about with restaurant cooking, like the amount of salt and fat that they use, as well as the high heat, but that's for another day).
So it is with chicken piccata. You've had this in some form or another. I KNOW you have. I make it. And when I was researching other recipes for making this dish, I found that they were all described as "easy." Then I read 12 of them. No two were identical. There were, indeed, very large differences, and none of them looked like mine. Such is the way it is with these easy recipes.
There are a few things that are "canonical" as my friend Jonathan would say, for this recipe: chicken, (DUH), butter, and lemon. Beyond that, chaos reigns, the center will not hold. Just about every recipe calls for dipping the chicken into seasoned flour and egg, and some follow with a breading, followed by frying in butter. Some fry without the breading. Some use chicken stock to make the sauce which follows, others do not. Just about all call for using lemon in the sauce, cooking it. Some call for parsley, some do not.
So, I guess my version of this dish is far from canonical. First, I do not flour or bread the chicken. To my taste, that takes away from the sauce, which is what it is all about here. Also, piccata calls, almost always, for very thin "scallopine" of chicken. Again, I abjure this, and use a thicker cut . I also combine the butter with olive oil, because otherwise, you use way too much butter, and in any event run a risk of burning the meat. Two final changes: I use capers in mine, and I add the lemon at the end. Capers, because I like them. Lemon at the end, because I find that if you cook lemon juice, you lose the brightness and acidity you associate with the flavor.
OK, here we go. Read through mine, and by all means, check others, and then, choose what appeals to you. That's what "easy" dishes are about.
Use salted capers. The ones that are under vinegar are a disgrace. The salted ones will keep in your cupboard forever. But you do have to get the salt off. So pour off about half a cup of them into a bowl, and cover them with water. While you prepare the rest of the food, drain the water a few times and replace it.
Juice half of a lemon and then slice the remaining half of it into thin slices.
Next, get about a pound of chicken breast - that is usually two, full halves of a breast of chicken. Salt and pepper it, but don't pound it thin.
Now, reach into your fridge and pull out that started bottle of white wine that you're saving for when you need that drink at the end of the day, and pour off half a cup. If you don't have wine, use chicken stock.
READY TO COOK. Preheat your oven to 400. Get 3 tablespoons of butter (unsalted), and 2 of olive oil (Annalena's "golden ratio" of cooking fat), in a big pan. Just as the butter melts, put in the chicken breast halves. Fry them on each side for about five minutes, and then put the whole thing in the oven for another five.
After the oven finish, take the pan out of the oven (BE CAREFUL), and remove the chicken to a plate while you finish the sauce. Pour off about 3/4 of the fat, and add a half cup of white wine. It will hiss, spatter, and reduce. Then, put the capers in, and turn up the heat . The wine will reduce further, and when it's down to about two tablespoons in the pan, turn off the heat, and add the lemon juice. Finally, when you plate the chicken, put the sliced lemons over it, as a nice garnish (you could, by the way, cook them a bit too).
Listen, if you're going to do a rich butter sauce, why not avoid the flour? I will confess that I DO love this dish when it is nice and crispy, but this is my current approach to this classic.
Give it a try and, like I say, investigate some other recipes, and make your own. If you call your version a "classic," chances are , no one will callyou out on it, and you will in fact have a new classic of your own.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
A sauce for pasta: leeks with shrimp (or scallops. Or crab. Or... snails...)
It does feel as if "fall has fallen." Labor Day has come and gone, and it was a difficult one for Annalena. For the first time in my life, I did in fact feel as if summer were over. Of course, it is not, neither calendrically, nor via equinox, nor via any of Annalena's tried and true measures (can I get tomatoes? Peaches? Raspberries?). BUT... for reasons far too complex to go into on a site ostensibly dedicated to cooking, Annalena just, well, FELL . The feeling was more like the bleekest of winters than autumn. But she's clawing her way out of it.
Perhaps reflective of the feelings has been my reliance on my secondary fat this week: BUTTER. Now, I love butter. I love butter more than just about anything. In fact, I had it on my sandwich today (white truffle butter with steak. It was, if I do say so myself, a masterpiece). But if you read through main courses, my main cooking fat, as a good southern Italian, is olive oil. As I look at what we have eaten this week, however, butter predominates.
As it does in this dish. It involves one of the most underrated and underused vegetables in the floral kingdom: leeks. I ADORE leeks. I use them on pizza. I poach them for salads with gribiche sauce (look it up. I shall not give the recipe here). I cream them. I use them in soup. And in the recipe which follows.
I am told that Italians love leaks . I consistently mix up the word for them ("porri") with the word for cream ("panna"), for reasons that remain obscure. That seems to be the overarching principle this week: obscurity and confusion. But again, another digression. AS I say, I am TOLD that Italians love leeks. I can't seem to find a body of Italian recipes using them, however, so I stick to what I know.
I believe that I probably had this recipe somewhere along the line. It doesn't have my "stamp" on it, but it IS good. And it is easy and fast. And it will give you a chance to try a vegetable that I really do want you to know better. Think sweet, creamy tasting onions, and you have some idea.
First, to the leeks. If you buy them from the supermarket, you will find specimens that are large enough to beat someone to death with. But you CAN use them in this recipe. If you are fortunate enough to have a friend who has a 60 foot row of them at his house, or you have a farmers market, you can find smaller ones. If you have killer leeks, use three. If you have smaller ones, use six. Cut away dark green portions. You can use the light ones.
Now, do something very important. Make a vertical cut in the leek and pull the leaves apart a bit, to see if they are dirty. They could very well be, and the best sauce in the world will be undermined if there is dirt in it. If the leeks are dirty, then pull the leaves apart a bit, and wash them. Once you have done that (if you need to), then either slice them into coin shapes (this is good with the smaller ones), or cut the leeks into sections, and then cut "batons" (better with the killer leeks). You will also need 3 tablespoons of butter, and 2 of olive oil (must stay true to tradition here), and a pound of a quick cooking shellfish. I made it with shrimp - wonderful rock shrimp from Florida, but I can't imagine that this wouldn't work with scallops, or crab ... or snails. Last night, watching one of my favorite shows - "Top Chef," the competition involved cooking snails. Annalena's gastric juices immediately began flowing. But alas, one needs fellow "snail o philes" for this, so best forget it for a while.
So, melt the butter together with the olive oil. When it has softened, add the leeks. Saute' them at a gentle heat. You don't want to brown them, and if you keep the heat low, the large amount of fat will help prevent that. You will notice the leeks soften, and almost come to a creamy consistency. When you have that, toss in your shellfish. You won't need more than two minutes or so for the fish to cook through, and even if it doesn't, stop after two minutes because the residual heat from the rest of the dish will cook them. Taste the dish. You will probably need a bit of salt.
Whenever I make a butter based sauce for pasta, I hear my head saying "FRESH NOT DRIED" This is a personal thing. If you only have dried, use dried. You'll need a pound of pasta, either way. Cook it to taste, and then drain it. Toss the shellfish/leek sauce in, combine them well, and serve it forth.
I make this with fresh spinach pasta. The dark green, the pink and the white combine to make a very lovely , very sweet tasting dish. To, ahem "compensate" for the butter, I serve a green vegetable with garlic and olive oil, and perhaps some hot pepper. Tonight, it shall be mustard greens, an overlooked vegetable as well.
I promise to return tomorrow, with another cholesterol laden dish, as Annalena produces her version of chicken piccata.
Perhaps reflective of the feelings has been my reliance on my secondary fat this week: BUTTER. Now, I love butter. I love butter more than just about anything. In fact, I had it on my sandwich today (white truffle butter with steak. It was, if I do say so myself, a masterpiece). But if you read through main courses, my main cooking fat, as a good southern Italian, is olive oil. As I look at what we have eaten this week, however, butter predominates.
As it does in this dish. It involves one of the most underrated and underused vegetables in the floral kingdom: leeks. I ADORE leeks. I use them on pizza. I poach them for salads with gribiche sauce (look it up. I shall not give the recipe here). I cream them. I use them in soup. And in the recipe which follows.
I am told that Italians love leaks . I consistently mix up the word for them ("porri") with the word for cream ("panna"), for reasons that remain obscure. That seems to be the overarching principle this week: obscurity and confusion. But again, another digression. AS I say, I am TOLD that Italians love leeks. I can't seem to find a body of Italian recipes using them, however, so I stick to what I know.
I believe that I probably had this recipe somewhere along the line. It doesn't have my "stamp" on it, but it IS good. And it is easy and fast. And it will give you a chance to try a vegetable that I really do want you to know better. Think sweet, creamy tasting onions, and you have some idea.
First, to the leeks. If you buy them from the supermarket, you will find specimens that are large enough to beat someone to death with. But you CAN use them in this recipe. If you are fortunate enough to have a friend who has a 60 foot row of them at his house, or you have a farmers market, you can find smaller ones. If you have killer leeks, use three. If you have smaller ones, use six. Cut away dark green portions. You can use the light ones.
Now, do something very important. Make a vertical cut in the leek and pull the leaves apart a bit, to see if they are dirty. They could very well be, and the best sauce in the world will be undermined if there is dirt in it. If the leeks are dirty, then pull the leaves apart a bit, and wash them. Once you have done that (if you need to), then either slice them into coin shapes (this is good with the smaller ones), or cut the leeks into sections, and then cut "batons" (better with the killer leeks). You will also need 3 tablespoons of butter, and 2 of olive oil (must stay true to tradition here), and a pound of a quick cooking shellfish. I made it with shrimp - wonderful rock shrimp from Florida, but I can't imagine that this wouldn't work with scallops, or crab ... or snails. Last night, watching one of my favorite shows - "Top Chef," the competition involved cooking snails. Annalena's gastric juices immediately began flowing. But alas, one needs fellow "snail o philes" for this, so best forget it for a while.
So, melt the butter together with the olive oil. When it has softened, add the leeks. Saute' them at a gentle heat. You don't want to brown them, and if you keep the heat low, the large amount of fat will help prevent that. You will notice the leeks soften, and almost come to a creamy consistency. When you have that, toss in your shellfish. You won't need more than two minutes or so for the fish to cook through, and even if it doesn't, stop after two minutes because the residual heat from the rest of the dish will cook them. Taste the dish. You will probably need a bit of salt.
Whenever I make a butter based sauce for pasta, I hear my head saying "FRESH NOT DRIED" This is a personal thing. If you only have dried, use dried. You'll need a pound of pasta, either way. Cook it to taste, and then drain it. Toss the shellfish/leek sauce in, combine them well, and serve it forth.
I make this with fresh spinach pasta. The dark green, the pink and the white combine to make a very lovely , very sweet tasting dish. To, ahem "compensate" for the butter, I serve a green vegetable with garlic and olive oil, and perhaps some hot pepper. Tonight, it shall be mustard greens, an overlooked vegetable as well.
I promise to return tomorrow, with another cholesterol laden dish, as Annalena produces her version of chicken piccata.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
In two jams: apricot and greengage
Ciao ragazzi. Annalena has been away from her blog, hasn't she? Well, yes, she's been a bit occupied with many things, including shaking the dust of an organization she loves from her feet, moving on, and so many other things. Also, much of what I've been making at this time of the year is a repeat of what I made at this time last year, so you'll just have to look back.
HOWEVER, Annalena has her "spells" every now and then, and she had a spell of jam making, inspired in large part from her favorite David Lebovitz. David posted an entry on his blog (www.davidlebovitz.com. You should ALL be reading it and being jealous), on making apricot jam.
Now, David is responsible for getting me to make jam again. Earlier this year, he posted a recipe for making sour cherry jam. It was DAYUM good. And he has a recipe for marmalade. Also superb. So, as apricot season was waning away (and I WAS warned by the farmers, but did I listen??? Hmmmmm???? ), I bought a whole bunch of them - about 8 pounds. These were not in the best shape one could imagine, but I bought them fully intending to make jam. And I did.
I like David's approach, because he does not advocate making tons of the stuff. Nor does he push for storing it long term. The recipe I will give you will yield about 12 cups of jam, which is perfect for having it in the house and for giving as gifts.
Apricots you know. How many of you know "greengages?" SUE, PUT DOWN YOUR HAND. There's no extra credit on this one, sorry. Okay, you insist, well, who wrote the book "Greengage Summer?" (no internet research here). It's a wonderful novel by the quirky, cult favorite, Rumer Goden, most famous for her novels "In this House of Brede" (made into a wonderful tv movie with the equally wonderful Diana Rigg, playing a woman who enters a convent late in life. Sounds good to me), as well as "Black Narcissus," about a convent of nuns in the Himalyas. The luminiscent Deborah Kerr is in this one, and you will learn the wonderful line "It's the wind, sisters, the wind," as an excuse for anything that goes wrong.
Ok, enough of the artistic digression. Greengages are plums. They are very favorite by British, and they are not well known here, but should be. Their texture is drier than the standard plums you know (which are Asian in origin), and they have a tarter edge. Their season is short. In fact, it should be ending just about now: 10 days after it started. If you can get to the market and get some, get your fill.
So, how do you make these jams? Well, it's by proportion. Weigh your fruit. Try to use at least 3 pounds, because it will make proportioning easier, and if you're only going to make four cups of jam (which is about what two pounds will yield), well, wait for a friend to make some and give some to you.
However many pounds of fruit you use, weigh out 3/4 of that amount of sugar. And measure a half cup of water for every 2 pounds of fruit you use.
Now, cut the fruit in half, or quarters, and of course, remove the pits. Put it in a big pot, with the water, and cover the pot. Cook this at medium heat, until the fruit gets very soft and begins to fall apart. Probably, you'll need about 15 minutes. When y ou get there, pour in the sugar. Lower the heat. This is important because you're going to be stirring the sugar to make it dissolve, the jam to be is going to hiss and spatter, and it burns badly. Also, the jam is going to foam up and if it's going too fast, you will burn sugar all over your stove. Finally, you can easily create an inch of char on your pot if you cook this too hard. I did that with the cherry jam.
So, cook this at a leisurely pace. And be prepared to wait. You will be amazed. You will reach the boiling point very quickly, but getting to the temperature you need, which is 220, is going to take a half hour or so. I recommend using a thermometer for this, but if you don't have one, I would say to keep your eye on it, stir it every five minutes or so, and after 25 minutes or so, ask yourself if it looks like "liquid jam." I wish I could give you a better guide for this. There is a trick for putting the stuff on a frozen plate and seeing how it acts, but it never works for me.
Now, if you make the greengage jam, at this point, you may think you've failed and scorched it, because that beautiful pale color has gone to brownish red.
NOPE. You did it perfectly. That's how it colors. Your apricot jam will be a brililant, vibrant orange with a tinge of yellow in it. With those two colors, how could you not serve them side by side?
Have your jars ready and fill them when the jam is still hot. The jam will firm up a bit on standing, but not so much. Just close the jars, find your good friends, and share. And then make some toast for breakfast the next morning, maybe even a toasted baguette. Spread some good butter on the bread, put on some jam, and eat like Parisians do. They say French people don't get fat, so I guess you will have to restrain yourself on the butter, but hey, breakfast IS the most important meal of the day.
The apricot jam, in fact, either one of them, will serve you well for the winter. Use it to glaze meat, or to glaze pies, tarts, etc, etc, etc. You know what to do, just get to it. You might even make a traditional Italian jam tart, since you WILL get tired of using winter fruit during the winter, and you'll want a taste of summer.
HOWEVER, Annalena has her "spells" every now and then, and she had a spell of jam making, inspired in large part from her favorite David Lebovitz. David posted an entry on his blog (www.davidlebovitz.com. You should ALL be reading it and being jealous), on making apricot jam.
Now, David is responsible for getting me to make jam again. Earlier this year, he posted a recipe for making sour cherry jam. It was DAYUM good. And he has a recipe for marmalade. Also superb. So, as apricot season was waning away (and I WAS warned by the farmers, but did I listen??? Hmmmmm???? ), I bought a whole bunch of them - about 8 pounds. These were not in the best shape one could imagine, but I bought them fully intending to make jam. And I did.
I like David's approach, because he does not advocate making tons of the stuff. Nor does he push for storing it long term. The recipe I will give you will yield about 12 cups of jam, which is perfect for having it in the house and for giving as gifts.
Apricots you know. How many of you know "greengages?" SUE, PUT DOWN YOUR HAND. There's no extra credit on this one, sorry. Okay, you insist, well, who wrote the book "Greengage Summer?" (no internet research here). It's a wonderful novel by the quirky, cult favorite, Rumer Goden, most famous for her novels "In this House of Brede" (made into a wonderful tv movie with the equally wonderful Diana Rigg, playing a woman who enters a convent late in life. Sounds good to me), as well as "Black Narcissus," about a convent of nuns in the Himalyas. The luminiscent Deborah Kerr is in this one, and you will learn the wonderful line "It's the wind, sisters, the wind," as an excuse for anything that goes wrong.
Ok, enough of the artistic digression. Greengages are plums. They are very favorite by British, and they are not well known here, but should be. Their texture is drier than the standard plums you know (which are Asian in origin), and they have a tarter edge. Their season is short. In fact, it should be ending just about now: 10 days after it started. If you can get to the market and get some, get your fill.
So, how do you make these jams? Well, it's by proportion. Weigh your fruit. Try to use at least 3 pounds, because it will make proportioning easier, and if you're only going to make four cups of jam (which is about what two pounds will yield), well, wait for a friend to make some and give some to you.
However many pounds of fruit you use, weigh out 3/4 of that amount of sugar. And measure a half cup of water for every 2 pounds of fruit you use.
Now, cut the fruit in half, or quarters, and of course, remove the pits. Put it in a big pot, with the water, and cover the pot. Cook this at medium heat, until the fruit gets very soft and begins to fall apart. Probably, you'll need about 15 minutes. When y ou get there, pour in the sugar. Lower the heat. This is important because you're going to be stirring the sugar to make it dissolve, the jam to be is going to hiss and spatter, and it burns badly. Also, the jam is going to foam up and if it's going too fast, you will burn sugar all over your stove. Finally, you can easily create an inch of char on your pot if you cook this too hard. I did that with the cherry jam.
So, cook this at a leisurely pace. And be prepared to wait. You will be amazed. You will reach the boiling point very quickly, but getting to the temperature you need, which is 220, is going to take a half hour or so. I recommend using a thermometer for this, but if you don't have one, I would say to keep your eye on it, stir it every five minutes or so, and after 25 minutes or so, ask yourself if it looks like "liquid jam." I wish I could give you a better guide for this. There is a trick for putting the stuff on a frozen plate and seeing how it acts, but it never works for me.
Now, if you make the greengage jam, at this point, you may think you've failed and scorched it, because that beautiful pale color has gone to brownish red.
NOPE. You did it perfectly. That's how it colors. Your apricot jam will be a brililant, vibrant orange with a tinge of yellow in it. With those two colors, how could you not serve them side by side?
Have your jars ready and fill them when the jam is still hot. The jam will firm up a bit on standing, but not so much. Just close the jars, find your good friends, and share. And then make some toast for breakfast the next morning, maybe even a toasted baguette. Spread some good butter on the bread, put on some jam, and eat like Parisians do. They say French people don't get fat, so I guess you will have to restrain yourself on the butter, but hey, breakfast IS the most important meal of the day.
The apricot jam, in fact, either one of them, will serve you well for the winter. Use it to glaze meat, or to glaze pies, tarts, etc, etc, etc. You know what to do, just get to it. You might even make a traditional Italian jam tart, since you WILL get tired of using winter fruit during the winter, and you'll want a taste of summer.
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