Annalena is not a fan of fancy soups. She prefers a soup that makes you feel like you're eating SOMETHING. So, none of this double consomme nonsense, or vegetable soups that have been processed to the point where you think you're drinking a glass of colored milk, and so on.
Now, do not think for a minute that I do not enjoy a well made vellutata or passata, or any of the soups that do involve some kind of "intervention" to take them out of their peasant quality. But there is a point where they just get so processed that I almost feel intimidated by eating them.
And then there are soups that actually should be left alone, period. Think of minestrone, for example. If you pureed minestrone, well, what would be the point? How about mushroom soup? I know that there's room for debate here, but I like feeling the chunks of mushroom in the liquid. It gives me a sense that I'm eating something with substance.
I used the example of minestrone, to lead into this next dish. Bean soups, almost always, have the beans whole. They're served up with whatever else is in the soup, and if it's a well made soup, they're absolutely delicious. And I had a bean soup on the docket for this weekend. It was planned as a simple country soup, not unlike the French dish "garbure," but with an Italian twist. Then, I read this recipe in a catalog from a famous cookware store (ALRIGHT. It was Williams-Sonoma). I did not much care for the recipe, but it called for pureeing part of the soup.
Hmmmmm. Interesting. I did not keep the recipe, because if there is one thing I know how to do, is make a bean soup. And I followed my standard process for bean soup, with some changes. And then I pureed it in the blender. It's terrific. I want you to have this in your rep.
First, I am going to issue a plea: USE DRIED BEANS. Yes, you will have to spend more time, but the next time you are in a supermarket, look at a can of beans, and see what's in it. Even the organic ones. Look at the salt content, and then read the nutritional value. You want that? If you're ok with it, open a can of them and taste them. Soft, soft, soft. Use the dried ones. I promise, it's worth it.
Ok, start with a pound of dried beans. The night before, put them under LOTS of water, then go to bed.
Next day, change the water, and put lots more in. As one Italian cook has put it "the beans have to DANCE.' Indeed they do. Put in plenty, and when the pot comes to a boil, lower the heat, and let them cook away, until they are aldente. You don't need to cook them to soft, because you're going to cook them again.
While this is happening, chop yourself up a good cup and a half each of celery, carrots, and potatoes. NO onions, and NO garlic. BUT... get yourself two, very large sprigs of rosemary. Put about three tablespoons of olive oil in a big pot, and add the vegetables, with a hefty teaspoon of salt. Cook away, for about five minutes. While this is happening, drain the beans, and then add them, and the rosemary, and cook for a few more minutes. Then, add two quarts of water (stock is absolutely not necessary for this soup). Cook away for about an hour, or until the beans are nice and soft. Pull out the rosemary sprigs. Don't be surprised if the needles are gone.
Cool the pot. When it's cool enough to handle, puree the soup in batches. Have some water ready. When beans are pureed, they give off a lot of starch, and they are very thick. Sometimes, too thick. Adjust the seasonings, and the salt, as you see fit.
I used a pound of small, brown heirloom beans I had bought at the end of the season at the farmers market, and I have a soup that is somewhere between ecru and beige, with dark brown flecks from the skins of the beans. Your soup will take on different colors, depending on what bean you use. I would stay away from kidney beans for this type of soup. I'm not a big fan of them to begin with, and pureed, they have a kind of "icky pink" color that I am not fond of. But if you like it, go ahead.
I like to serve soups like this with a nice dribble of extra virgin olive oil on them, and I don't serve them piping hot. The flavor is better when they are just on the hot side of warm. If you wanted to, you could put some chopped ham into this, or just about anything you like.
Hey, it's getting up to tax time, and you've just made over two quarts of great soup, for HOW MUCH money? A pound of beans is what, 1.50? Potatoes, celery, carrots, water, salt, rosemary? Hmmmm? Treat yourself to a nice piece of cheese or if you don't make your bread, a nice artisanal loaf. And just "sit back" into one of the most comforting of comfort foods.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Improving "garbage soup"
I hate the name of this dish, but that's what I've heard it called. I learned it, originally, from a recipe by Marion Cunningham. Now, I will say up front, that I have heard positives, and negatives about Ms. Cunningham. Some VERY positive, and some VERY negative. I will not repeat any of them here; if you're curious, you can probably find them on the internet. What I will say is that, by and large, I find her recipes interesting, straight forward, and almost inevitably too sweet. For example, there is a recipe for stuffed cabbage, that I make, that is based originally on her recipe, except I leave out the quarter cup of brown sugar the recipe called for originally. I cannot imagine stuffed cabbage with brown sugar in it. EWWWW. BUT... and I say this with all due respect to my readers - I have found that as you move in from the coasts, both East and West, and as you go down the coast on the East, people prefer their dishes sweeter. I have had tomato sauce in Pennsylania Dutch country that was sweeter than ketchup.
Oh, dear. I'm digressing. Moreso than usual. Back to "garbage soup."
Ms Cunningham described this as "the soup you make when there's nothing in the house to make soup with." Indeed, she's right": it calls for potatoes, carrots, onions, and celery, which are in just about every home at every time, and if all of them aren't there, you can substitute.
Well, I have made the soup and I will say that it is pretty darn good. But I made it BETTER. Yes I did, by using one of the other staples of your kitchen. You ought to have some dried mushrooms in your cupboard at all times. They are very expensive, but they are solid gold for cooking. I have seen all kinds of formulas for how many pounds of fresh mushrooms a pound of dried mushrooms equates to, and the numbers are always different. It matters not. Use them. They're good.
OK, here's the soup. Take an ounce of dried mushrooms, any type (I prefer cepes). Put them in a bowl, and cover them with two cups of boiling water. Then put them aside, and let them cool in the water.
While that's happening, chop up equal amounts of carrots, potatoes, and celery. At least a cup, maybe a cup and a half of each. Chop up half as many onions. Then, when the mushrooms are cool, drain them and chop them, AND DON'T YOU DARE TOSS THAT LIQUID.
Put some oil, olive oil if you have it, into a pot, and when it's hot, add the veggies - all of them - and saute'. Add a hefty teaspoon of salt, and then stir them until the vegetables just begin to sweat. It won't take long. Maybe 7 minutes?
After that, add six cups or so of water, or chicken stock, and the mushroom soaking liquid. Lower the heat to medium, and cook just until the vegetables are just aldente, and you have soup.
Now, you can play with this. My friend Dan, from Sweden, loves rutubagas (hooray for him). You can substitute one vegetable for these "swedes" or to add the rutubagas. Maybe you want to add cabbage, or something else that you have around the house? If you have a parmesan cheese rind, perhaps you can cook that with the soup to add some flavor.
In very many respects, this reminds me of minestrone, but without the beans. It's also really good, and very comforting on a cold night.
"Garbage soup" indeed. Sure sounds good to me.
Oh, dear. I'm digressing. Moreso than usual. Back to "garbage soup."
Ms Cunningham described this as "the soup you make when there's nothing in the house to make soup with." Indeed, she's right": it calls for potatoes, carrots, onions, and celery, which are in just about every home at every time, and if all of them aren't there, you can substitute.
Well, I have made the soup and I will say that it is pretty darn good. But I made it BETTER. Yes I did, by using one of the other staples of your kitchen. You ought to have some dried mushrooms in your cupboard at all times. They are very expensive, but they are solid gold for cooking. I have seen all kinds of formulas for how many pounds of fresh mushrooms a pound of dried mushrooms equates to, and the numbers are always different. It matters not. Use them. They're good.
OK, here's the soup. Take an ounce of dried mushrooms, any type (I prefer cepes). Put them in a bowl, and cover them with two cups of boiling water. Then put them aside, and let them cool in the water.
While that's happening, chop up equal amounts of carrots, potatoes, and celery. At least a cup, maybe a cup and a half of each. Chop up half as many onions. Then, when the mushrooms are cool, drain them and chop them, AND DON'T YOU DARE TOSS THAT LIQUID.
Put some oil, olive oil if you have it, into a pot, and when it's hot, add the veggies - all of them - and saute'. Add a hefty teaspoon of salt, and then stir them until the vegetables just begin to sweat. It won't take long. Maybe 7 minutes?
After that, add six cups or so of water, or chicken stock, and the mushroom soaking liquid. Lower the heat to medium, and cook just until the vegetables are just aldente, and you have soup.
Now, you can play with this. My friend Dan, from Sweden, loves rutubagas (hooray for him). You can substitute one vegetable for these "swedes" or to add the rutubagas. Maybe you want to add cabbage, or something else that you have around the house? If you have a parmesan cheese rind, perhaps you can cook that with the soup to add some flavor.
In very many respects, this reminds me of minestrone, but without the beans. It's also really good, and very comforting on a cold night.
"Garbage soup" indeed. Sure sounds good to me.
Workhorse? Bitter orange creme anglaise
When I was first learning how to cook, I remember reading that "Creme anglaise is the workhorse of the pastry kitchen. It is ESSENTIAL that you learn how to make it correctly." What followed was this detailed extravaganza of a recipe that would scare any potential pastry chef out of the kitchen.
Perhaps it is/was the workhorse. The thing about creme anglaise is that it's such a basic, relatively simple product that , in and of itself, I think it's almost never used. Rather, it's tinkered with, to the point where you could argue that you don't have creme anglaise anymore.
Well, back to that complex recipe. I remember making it a few times, and deciding it just wasn't worth it. It also, in my opinion, just wasn't very good. I remember there being flour, or cornstarch in it, and I could never cook that texture away. After it was chilled, it had a thick, kind of gloppy feel to it that reminded me of well made chicken stock - you know that thick gelatiny texture you get sometimes? Fine for soup, but for a dairy dessert? Uh uh.
I don't quite know when it happened, but when simplification (if you want to call it that), of cooking happened, the flour and other complexities of creme anglaise disappeared. I still made it, occasionally, but since I have my super duper ice cream maker, and everyone loves ice cream, well...
But, when you design a dessert, you have to think about everything. The bread pudding I was making was going to be served warm. Ice cream on the plate would begin melting right away. "What's wrong with that?" you may be thinking? OK, sit back a minute. When you see a dessert presented, say, on a TV show, and the cold ice cream begins melting next to the hot or warm cake, your digestive juices begin flowing, right?
Ever notice they cut away right away? That's because, in a few minutes, you're going to have a disgusting mess of cake crumbs, melted ice cream, and that beautiful construction is just going to look awful. So, for the bread pudding I thought, "something but NOT ice cream."
One food writer whom I respect has said that instead of making creme anglaise, he just melts good quality vanilla ice cream. He's not the only one who's written this. I respectfully do not agree. To my taste, creme anglaise is not nearly as sweet, nor as rich, as ice cream, and it shouldn't be. The thought of "melted ice cream" sat with me, however, and in my diseased mind I began thinking "if it's going to melt, why not start with the anglaise?"
Well, my thinking was a bit more foul mouthed than that, but this IS a family blog , right?
Next, came the question of flavor: what is going to balance bittersweet chocolate? I've written often of how I am not a big fan of chocolate, but when I do eat bittersweet, I think of the strong fruit flavors: berries, for example, but more often than not, orange. But not so sweet. Something that has the flavor of the orange peel in it, with that edge of bitterness.
As it happened, I had a few seville oranges left in the fridge from the failed attempt to make marmalade. These unusual critters have a VERY bitter taste , as the long suffering Guy will tell you from the time he got one in his lunch bag (I SWEAR it was an accident. It really, really was). If you don't have them around, which is what is the case for the normal household, use a regular orange. Use one that is organic, or unsprayed, or if you can't get that, please wash the orange thoroughly. You're going to be letting peel sit in dairy for a long, long time, and fat (from dairy) is an excellent solvent for all of the nasty pesticides and whatnot that are used on fruit (that biochem degree comes in handy from time to time). So, here we go. This is essentially a classic, simplified form of creme anglaise, with my orange trick.
You need 2 cups of whole milk, and 4 large egg yolks, plus 3 tablespoons of sugar. If you want to save a bit of time, 4 tablespoons of sugar is a quarter cup, but you'll wind up with a sweeter creme. Classically, you will use a vanilla bean, but we're not going to use that here. Instead, peel one or two seville or navel oranges. Use the juice for something else. You can use the peel in a large piece, or many small pieces, it just doesn't matter. Also, what you can do, if you don't mind the particles in the creme, is grate part of that peel instead of using it whole. That might be the better way to proceed with sweet oranges, because you'll get more oil into the dish.
Ok, let's dump all of that stuff into a pot, including the peel, and get our whisk ready. Start cooking, over low heat, until you get that familiar thickness that will coat the back of a spoon. It won't take long, and err on the side of too little rather than too much time, if you're feeling insecure. This is a sauce, remember, so you don't want it TOO thick. Take it off the heat, and when it cools, taste it. If you find the orange flavor strong enough, take out the big pieces of peel. To my taste, it was fine to leave the orange in the creme, up until service time. Then, pour it into a non reactive container that is clean, REALLY clean (remember what I said about dairy picking up solvents ? If you put the stuff in a container you recently used for tomato sauce, you may just have creme anglaise marinara when you're done), and refrigerate it.
For something like the bread pudding, spoon a few tablespoons onto a plate and put the unmolded pudding right on top of it. You could also pour this over a piece of cake, or toss some fruit, like bananas, into it. Maybe it'll become a workhorse again.
Play with your own variations, too. I bet you can think of other flavors that will work with the base of eggs, sugar and milk
Perhaps it is/was the workhorse. The thing about creme anglaise is that it's such a basic, relatively simple product that , in and of itself, I think it's almost never used. Rather, it's tinkered with, to the point where you could argue that you don't have creme anglaise anymore.
Well, back to that complex recipe. I remember making it a few times, and deciding it just wasn't worth it. It also, in my opinion, just wasn't very good. I remember there being flour, or cornstarch in it, and I could never cook that texture away. After it was chilled, it had a thick, kind of gloppy feel to it that reminded me of well made chicken stock - you know that thick gelatiny texture you get sometimes? Fine for soup, but for a dairy dessert? Uh uh.
I don't quite know when it happened, but when simplification (if you want to call it that), of cooking happened, the flour and other complexities of creme anglaise disappeared. I still made it, occasionally, but since I have my super duper ice cream maker, and everyone loves ice cream, well...
But, when you design a dessert, you have to think about everything. The bread pudding I was making was going to be served warm. Ice cream on the plate would begin melting right away. "What's wrong with that?" you may be thinking? OK, sit back a minute. When you see a dessert presented, say, on a TV show, and the cold ice cream begins melting next to the hot or warm cake, your digestive juices begin flowing, right?
Ever notice they cut away right away? That's because, in a few minutes, you're going to have a disgusting mess of cake crumbs, melted ice cream, and that beautiful construction is just going to look awful. So, for the bread pudding I thought, "something but NOT ice cream."
One food writer whom I respect has said that instead of making creme anglaise, he just melts good quality vanilla ice cream. He's not the only one who's written this. I respectfully do not agree. To my taste, creme anglaise is not nearly as sweet, nor as rich, as ice cream, and it shouldn't be. The thought of "melted ice cream" sat with me, however, and in my diseased mind I began thinking "if it's going to melt, why not start with the anglaise?"
Well, my thinking was a bit more foul mouthed than that, but this IS a family blog , right?
Next, came the question of flavor: what is going to balance bittersweet chocolate? I've written often of how I am not a big fan of chocolate, but when I do eat bittersweet, I think of the strong fruit flavors: berries, for example, but more often than not, orange. But not so sweet. Something that has the flavor of the orange peel in it, with that edge of bitterness.
As it happened, I had a few seville oranges left in the fridge from the failed attempt to make marmalade. These unusual critters have a VERY bitter taste , as the long suffering Guy will tell you from the time he got one in his lunch bag (I SWEAR it was an accident. It really, really was). If you don't have them around, which is what is the case for the normal household, use a regular orange. Use one that is organic, or unsprayed, or if you can't get that, please wash the orange thoroughly. You're going to be letting peel sit in dairy for a long, long time, and fat (from dairy) is an excellent solvent for all of the nasty pesticides and whatnot that are used on fruit (that biochem degree comes in handy from time to time). So, here we go. This is essentially a classic, simplified form of creme anglaise, with my orange trick.
You need 2 cups of whole milk, and 4 large egg yolks, plus 3 tablespoons of sugar. If you want to save a bit of time, 4 tablespoons of sugar is a quarter cup, but you'll wind up with a sweeter creme. Classically, you will use a vanilla bean, but we're not going to use that here. Instead, peel one or two seville or navel oranges. Use the juice for something else. You can use the peel in a large piece, or many small pieces, it just doesn't matter. Also, what you can do, if you don't mind the particles in the creme, is grate part of that peel instead of using it whole. That might be the better way to proceed with sweet oranges, because you'll get more oil into the dish.
Ok, let's dump all of that stuff into a pot, including the peel, and get our whisk ready. Start cooking, over low heat, until you get that familiar thickness that will coat the back of a spoon. It won't take long, and err on the side of too little rather than too much time, if you're feeling insecure. This is a sauce, remember, so you don't want it TOO thick. Take it off the heat, and when it cools, taste it. If you find the orange flavor strong enough, take out the big pieces of peel. To my taste, it was fine to leave the orange in the creme, up until service time. Then, pour it into a non reactive container that is clean, REALLY clean (remember what I said about dairy picking up solvents ? If you put the stuff in a container you recently used for tomato sauce, you may just have creme anglaise marinara when you're done), and refrigerate it.
For something like the bread pudding, spoon a few tablespoons onto a plate and put the unmolded pudding right on top of it. You could also pour this over a piece of cake, or toss some fruit, like bananas, into it. Maybe it'll become a workhorse again.
Play with your own variations, too. I bet you can think of other flavors that will work with the base of eggs, sugar and milk
Monday, February 22, 2010
It's so simple: veal roast with fennel and shallots
One of the best cooking teachers EVER once wrote that if a recipe contains more than five ingredients, excluding salt, pepper , cooking fat and water, she was not interested in making it.
While I think that is a somewhat severe rule, and I doubt that the author actually MEANT it, it's a fairly good guideline to follow when you cook. Very few dishes benefit from excessive ingredients. When too many "things" go into your dish, the flavors "crowd" each other, and you get a muddy dish. Sometimes, you want that: stews, frequently, are not about how flavors interact with each other, but how they "meld" into one, unique flavor that is not like anything in the dish. There's nothing wrong with that, and often, there is everything GOOD about that. But there is also something very special about a dish that doesn't require tons of shopping, tons of prep, and so many bowls on your plate that you can't cook, because you'll knock something over. And I think that if you analyzed many of your favorite dishes, you'd find that they usually do follow the five ingredient rule. (Baked goods are somewhat of an exception here: butter/sugar/eggs/flour/vanilla... There you are. And we haven't even gotten to the good stuff).
Perhaps the apotheosis of this style of cooking, at least to Annalena, is maiale al latte, that decidedly non kosher dish of pork and milk. Olive oil, salt, pepper, pork shoulder, milk. PERIOD. If your ingredient are not spot on, you're in trouble. Another one: pasta cacio e pepe. What's here? Pasta, salt (in the cooking water), cacio cheese, and black pepper. How simple? And how difficult. Try to skimp on that dish. I dare you...
This past weekend, I made a dish that defies the rule (beef bourgignon, and we'll get to that), and this one, which proves that "yes, we can!" It's an interesting combination of ingredients: veal , shallots, fennel, thyme and chicken stock are your five ingredients. You'll need olive oil, salt and pepper too. And you'll need some time. But it's worth it. Let's make it.
First, your cut of veal. You need a nice roast. I learned it calling for shoulder roast, and I used something from the center cut instead. I was happy with that. My roast was just over 2 pounds. Fine for a small portion of dinner for 8 people (we were having the beef as well, remember?). Veal is very lean, so try to get something boneless, with a nice layer of fat too. You also need nearly two pounds of shallots. That's a lot of them. Also three fennel bulbs. Finally, you will also need a pint of chicken stock (you can use wine instead, but this is so good with the stock...), and about a half dozen sprigs of thyme. Also salt, pepper, and olive oil.
Let's get to work. Preheat your oven to 375. While this is happening, pat your roast dry, and then mix together, a tablespoon of salt and lots of chopped fresh thyme. At least a tablespoon, more if you have the patience. Then add half a tablespoon of pepper, and mix them all together. Now, pat this all over the roast. There will be enough. And heat a healthy tablespoon of olive oil in a pot, just large enough to hold the veal, lengthwise, as well as the vegetables you chopped (test by putting everything in). Put that aside, and peel and slice the shallots (this is laborious. Keep at it), as well as the three fennel bulbs.
Put the roast into the pot with the hot oil, and sear it. Give it a good two-three minutes on the larger sides, and then about thirty seconds a side, on the smaller ones. Put it aside.
Add another hefty tablespoon of olive oil to whatever remains in the pan. And add the vegetables. You don't need to add salt, because the roast has been salted, and it's going back. Saute' the vegetables until they brown. There's a lot of veggies here, and you'll need about 10 minutes to get there. Add the stock. Again, keep stirring, for three minutes or so. Then add the meat back to the vegetables, put some on top of the roast, and then cover the pot. Put the whole thing into the oven and go and read Proust or something for about an hour and a quarter.
The smell coming out of the kitchen will make you very excited. When you take the pot out of the stove, and remove the cover (WEAR A POT HOLDER), the aroma may very well make you faint, it smells so good. If you want more aroma, chop up some more thyme, but you don't need it.
The vegetables will have cooked down to something resembling a very thick, french onion soup. You will have more of this than you need, and you can use it to sauce pasta or something else. Let the veal cook and slice it. This is crumbly, so you may want to slice it thick if appearance is very important to you, but if not, just slice thinly, and serve it up with some of the sauce.
I made this with roasted Jerusalem artichokes, but I could very easily seeing this on rice, or potatoes, or celery root, or just by itself.
It's a really wonderful dish. Promise me you'll try to make it.
While I think that is a somewhat severe rule, and I doubt that the author actually MEANT it, it's a fairly good guideline to follow when you cook. Very few dishes benefit from excessive ingredients. When too many "things" go into your dish, the flavors "crowd" each other, and you get a muddy dish. Sometimes, you want that: stews, frequently, are not about how flavors interact with each other, but how they "meld" into one, unique flavor that is not like anything in the dish. There's nothing wrong with that, and often, there is everything GOOD about that. But there is also something very special about a dish that doesn't require tons of shopping, tons of prep, and so many bowls on your plate that you can't cook, because you'll knock something over. And I think that if you analyzed many of your favorite dishes, you'd find that they usually do follow the five ingredient rule. (Baked goods are somewhat of an exception here: butter/sugar/eggs/flour/vanilla... There you are. And we haven't even gotten to the good stuff).
Perhaps the apotheosis of this style of cooking, at least to Annalena, is maiale al latte, that decidedly non kosher dish of pork and milk. Olive oil, salt, pepper, pork shoulder, milk. PERIOD. If your ingredient are not spot on, you're in trouble. Another one: pasta cacio e pepe. What's here? Pasta, salt (in the cooking water), cacio cheese, and black pepper. How simple? And how difficult. Try to skimp on that dish. I dare you...
This past weekend, I made a dish that defies the rule (beef bourgignon, and we'll get to that), and this one, which proves that "yes, we can!" It's an interesting combination of ingredients: veal , shallots, fennel, thyme and chicken stock are your five ingredients. You'll need olive oil, salt and pepper too. And you'll need some time. But it's worth it. Let's make it.
First, your cut of veal. You need a nice roast. I learned it calling for shoulder roast, and I used something from the center cut instead. I was happy with that. My roast was just over 2 pounds. Fine for a small portion of dinner for 8 people (we were having the beef as well, remember?). Veal is very lean, so try to get something boneless, with a nice layer of fat too. You also need nearly two pounds of shallots. That's a lot of them. Also three fennel bulbs. Finally, you will also need a pint of chicken stock (you can use wine instead, but this is so good with the stock...), and about a half dozen sprigs of thyme. Also salt, pepper, and olive oil.
Let's get to work. Preheat your oven to 375. While this is happening, pat your roast dry, and then mix together, a tablespoon of salt and lots of chopped fresh thyme. At least a tablespoon, more if you have the patience. Then add half a tablespoon of pepper, and mix them all together. Now, pat this all over the roast. There will be enough. And heat a healthy tablespoon of olive oil in a pot, just large enough to hold the veal, lengthwise, as well as the vegetables you chopped (test by putting everything in). Put that aside, and peel and slice the shallots (this is laborious. Keep at it), as well as the three fennel bulbs.
Put the roast into the pot with the hot oil, and sear it. Give it a good two-three minutes on the larger sides, and then about thirty seconds a side, on the smaller ones. Put it aside.
Add another hefty tablespoon of olive oil to whatever remains in the pan. And add the vegetables. You don't need to add salt, because the roast has been salted, and it's going back. Saute' the vegetables until they brown. There's a lot of veggies here, and you'll need about 10 minutes to get there. Add the stock. Again, keep stirring, for three minutes or so. Then add the meat back to the vegetables, put some on top of the roast, and then cover the pot. Put the whole thing into the oven and go and read Proust or something for about an hour and a quarter.
The smell coming out of the kitchen will make you very excited. When you take the pot out of the stove, and remove the cover (WEAR A POT HOLDER), the aroma may very well make you faint, it smells so good. If you want more aroma, chop up some more thyme, but you don't need it.
The vegetables will have cooked down to something resembling a very thick, french onion soup. You will have more of this than you need, and you can use it to sauce pasta or something else. Let the veal cook and slice it. This is crumbly, so you may want to slice it thick if appearance is very important to you, but if not, just slice thinly, and serve it up with some of the sauce.
I made this with roasted Jerusalem artichokes, but I could very easily seeing this on rice, or potatoes, or celery root, or just by itself.
It's a really wonderful dish. Promise me you'll try to make it.
pane cioccolato
I wrote, last year, of my battles with bread pudding, and how finally, I had found one that I liked. Well, this year (it seems I make one a year, doesn't it?), I tried again. I'm happy with it.
I wanted to make a chocolate bread pudding, for the marvelous dinner we had last night. I had a friend in mind who loves chocolate, but who deserves something a little bit different than the usual. To be fair, if I made him a chocolate pound cake, or a chocolate cupcake, he'd be just as happy. Not me. And I began designing a dessert: chocolate bread pudding with bitter orange creme anglaise. I still had some seville oranges left from the time I didn't make marmalade, and I had visions of a soft cream underneath the pudding, that would impart the bittersweetness of a liqueur like gran marnier, but without the alcohol. And, it would offset the bittersweetness of the chocolate, because there was no question that it was going to be bittersweet chocolate.
I also wanted individual portions. Here's where the fun began. Every single source I consulted, made one large bowl of the stuff, and called up on you to ladle it out. Okay, not bad, on its own terms, but not what I wanted. Also, all of the recipes I consulted called for French bread, or pan di mie, or some plain, white bread kind of base.
Again, not what I wanted. If you recall, I did my huckleberry bread pudding, with brioche.
So, to the drawing board I went, with the recipe I liked best. "IF I were going to make a large pot of the stuff, this is the one I would make" was how I reacted to it. So, a nip here, a tuck here, and all of a sudden, you have the dessert.
Here's the interesting thing. The original recipe says that the dessert serves 6-8. I have 12 ramekins of the stuff. Half cup portions. And that's plenty. This is a rich dessert. It's easy. Try it.
You'll need about a pound loaf of challah. If you can buy the bread a day or two before you make the pudding, that's best. Leave it out to stale a little. You also need 2 cups of milk and one of heavy cream. A half cup of sugar as well, a big pinch of salt, 10 ounces of extremely good quality, bittersweet chocolate (I used scharffenberger. One bar is 9.7 ounces, and this is fine). Six large eggs, and some butter.
First, tear the bread up or cut it up into small pieces. Don't worry about taking off the crust. Put the torn bread into a bowl, while you prepare the dairy mixture. First, chop the chocolate fine. Then put the dairy into a pot with the sugar and the chocolate, and the salt, and stir, just unitl the chocolate melts. Let this sit for a minute or two, and then whisk in six eggs. (Make sure that milk isn't too hot. If it is, let it cool to just lukewarm). As you stir in the eggs, you're going to see a sheen form in the milk mixture. This is a good thing.
Pour all of this over the bread, and let the mass sit for an hour, while you prepare the ramekins, and the oven. Put the oven to 325. Then, get your ramekins. Like I say, this made 12, so borrow some from your friends, or make half a recipe. Butter the inside of each one. Position them on a baking sheet and then ladle the bread mixture in them, just about to the top. While you're doing this, bring a kettle of water to the boil. When it's there, put the tray in the oven, and then carefully pour water into the baking sheet, until it's just up to the rim. Close the oven door, and go away for 40 minutes.
The puddings will be a little soft at this point, and that's fine. It's precisely what you want. Open the oven door, and let the tray cool there. If you try to move it (as I did), you will slosh water everywhere, curse, wet your shoes, curse some more, and then have to mop. When the stuff is cool, remove each ramekin, and then move the water filled tray. it will be much easier.
Run a knife around the rim of each one, but it isn't necessary to remove them until you're ready to serve. It' just makes it easier to do it early, rather than later.
You can refrigerate these, but if you're serving the same day, don't do it. They're fine refrigerated, and get very dense. If they're never refrigerated, they are much ligher. Both are good, but they are very different.
I DID say bitter orange creme anglaise, didn't I? Well, we're gonna get to that. Next time around, when we look at creme anglaise, generally. A dessert very useful to have on hand.
I wanted to make a chocolate bread pudding, for the marvelous dinner we had last night. I had a friend in mind who loves chocolate, but who deserves something a little bit different than the usual. To be fair, if I made him a chocolate pound cake, or a chocolate cupcake, he'd be just as happy. Not me. And I began designing a dessert: chocolate bread pudding with bitter orange creme anglaise. I still had some seville oranges left from the time I didn't make marmalade, and I had visions of a soft cream underneath the pudding, that would impart the bittersweetness of a liqueur like gran marnier, but without the alcohol. And, it would offset the bittersweetness of the chocolate, because there was no question that it was going to be bittersweet chocolate.
I also wanted individual portions. Here's where the fun began. Every single source I consulted, made one large bowl of the stuff, and called up on you to ladle it out. Okay, not bad, on its own terms, but not what I wanted. Also, all of the recipes I consulted called for French bread, or pan di mie, or some plain, white bread kind of base.
Again, not what I wanted. If you recall, I did my huckleberry bread pudding, with brioche.
So, to the drawing board I went, with the recipe I liked best. "IF I were going to make a large pot of the stuff, this is the one I would make" was how I reacted to it. So, a nip here, a tuck here, and all of a sudden, you have the dessert.
Here's the interesting thing. The original recipe says that the dessert serves 6-8. I have 12 ramekins of the stuff. Half cup portions. And that's plenty. This is a rich dessert. It's easy. Try it.
You'll need about a pound loaf of challah. If you can buy the bread a day or two before you make the pudding, that's best. Leave it out to stale a little. You also need 2 cups of milk and one of heavy cream. A half cup of sugar as well, a big pinch of salt, 10 ounces of extremely good quality, bittersweet chocolate (I used scharffenberger. One bar is 9.7 ounces, and this is fine). Six large eggs, and some butter.
First, tear the bread up or cut it up into small pieces. Don't worry about taking off the crust. Put the torn bread into a bowl, while you prepare the dairy mixture. First, chop the chocolate fine. Then put the dairy into a pot with the sugar and the chocolate, and the salt, and stir, just unitl the chocolate melts. Let this sit for a minute or two, and then whisk in six eggs. (Make sure that milk isn't too hot. If it is, let it cool to just lukewarm). As you stir in the eggs, you're going to see a sheen form in the milk mixture. This is a good thing.
Pour all of this over the bread, and let the mass sit for an hour, while you prepare the ramekins, and the oven. Put the oven to 325. Then, get your ramekins. Like I say, this made 12, so borrow some from your friends, or make half a recipe. Butter the inside of each one. Position them on a baking sheet and then ladle the bread mixture in them, just about to the top. While you're doing this, bring a kettle of water to the boil. When it's there, put the tray in the oven, and then carefully pour water into the baking sheet, until it's just up to the rim. Close the oven door, and go away for 40 minutes.
The puddings will be a little soft at this point, and that's fine. It's precisely what you want. Open the oven door, and let the tray cool there. If you try to move it (as I did), you will slosh water everywhere, curse, wet your shoes, curse some more, and then have to mop. When the stuff is cool, remove each ramekin, and then move the water filled tray. it will be much easier.
Run a knife around the rim of each one, but it isn't necessary to remove them until you're ready to serve. It' just makes it easier to do it early, rather than later.
You can refrigerate these, but if you're serving the same day, don't do it. They're fine refrigerated, and get very dense. If they're never refrigerated, they are much ligher. Both are good, but they are very different.
I DID say bitter orange creme anglaise, didn't I? Well, we're gonna get to that. Next time around, when we look at creme anglaise, generally. A dessert very useful to have on hand.
Cutting the mustard, or, making your own
Annalena makes a lot of things you can buy at the market, sometimes for very little money. Bread is an example. So is tomato sauce, or ice cream. The reasoning behind this? Well, apart from being a little crazy, my "rule" is that I make it at home if I can make it significantly better than I can find it in a store. Or if I'm concerned about what else goes "in it." Anyone read the label on a loaf of Wonder Bread lately, or a container of Breyer's ice cream? And the final reason is: because I like making it. I don't make things where my abilities just do not justify the effort, given what I can buy. Fresh pasta is an example of this. Maybe one day, I will learn to make it well, and without fuss. As of now, though, I'm not there. Ketchup is another example.
But mustard... Ah, this one falls into the "because I like making it." Have you taken a look at the "mustard market?" You might only find 3-4 different kinds at your grocer, but if you go to a fancy foodstore, you will find DOZENS. I don't really know why there is such a craze of these, except that maybe it's not that expensive to make, and you can charge ridiculously high prices for the stuff. People seem to get a sense of security when they have a few different kinds, flavors, because all the cooking magazines talk about how useful the stuff is. As far as spreads for our sandwiches go, mustard is almost a negative calorie food. So if you're dieting, you use it where you would normally use mayonnaise, and so on and so forth.
Whatever. I have no idea why there are so many kinds. I like honey mustard and dijon mustard, made by organic companies. Occasionally though, I make my own. As taught by an Italian chef, Maryann Esposito.
Mustard is not an intrinsically Italian food. Indeed, its name, "senape," from what I undertand, was used because "mostarda," which sounds close, is not at all what we expect mustard to be. Mostarda, that wonderful sweet and sour fruit "relish" (wrong word here), is not interchangeable with senape. What I am told is that after World War II, with so many soldiers wanting the stuff for their sandwiches, sausages, and so forth, it became popular in Italy. Maybe that's not true, maybe it's conjecture, whatever the reason, the fact is, every now and then I make this.
And you can, too. Here's how. First, you need mustard seeds. Now, mustard seeds come in three varieties, named by color: yellow, brown and black. Black mustard seeds are used almost exclusively in Indian cooking, and we won't use them here. What we will use are the milder, yellow ones and the hot, brown ones. Equal amounts of each. Start with a cup each. You can get the seeds at a health food or spices store. A cup is about a quarter pound. Mix these up, and then cover them with 2 cups of vinegar. Red wine vinegar is traditional, but you can do it with anything you want. Then, cover it tightly with plastic (no foil, please. We have acid here, and it will eat away the foil), and let it sit.... FOR 2 DAYS. Yup, you need 2 days here. The seeds will absorb some, if not all, of the vinegar.
After 2 days, if you want to flavor this with honey or anything else, now is the time. Don't overdo it though. Then, pour the stuff into a food processor and churn away, until you get the texture you want.
When I say "the texture you want," you will get a grainy mustard, regardless of how much you process it. Smooth mustard calls for mustard powder, and that's another story. And in any event, the grainy mustard somehow looks and tastes "special."
You'll have 3 cups or so of product, and if you need a little housegift, or something, put some of this in a fancy jar with a ribbon (not Annalena's forte', this dressing up of goods), and there you are.
Yes, this is not something you will need to know how to make. Don't treat it as a necessary part of your cooking "life," but if you ever wanted to, now you can.
I made this for a party this weekend, where there were many tasty dishes. More will follow. Stay tuned.
But mustard... Ah, this one falls into the "because I like making it." Have you taken a look at the "mustard market?" You might only find 3-4 different kinds at your grocer, but if you go to a fancy foodstore, you will find DOZENS. I don't really know why there is such a craze of these, except that maybe it's not that expensive to make, and you can charge ridiculously high prices for the stuff. People seem to get a sense of security when they have a few different kinds, flavors, because all the cooking magazines talk about how useful the stuff is. As far as spreads for our sandwiches go, mustard is almost a negative calorie food. So if you're dieting, you use it where you would normally use mayonnaise, and so on and so forth.
Whatever. I have no idea why there are so many kinds. I like honey mustard and dijon mustard, made by organic companies. Occasionally though, I make my own. As taught by an Italian chef, Maryann Esposito.
Mustard is not an intrinsically Italian food. Indeed, its name, "senape," from what I undertand, was used because "mostarda," which sounds close, is not at all what we expect mustard to be. Mostarda, that wonderful sweet and sour fruit "relish" (wrong word here), is not interchangeable with senape. What I am told is that after World War II, with so many soldiers wanting the stuff for their sandwiches, sausages, and so forth, it became popular in Italy. Maybe that's not true, maybe it's conjecture, whatever the reason, the fact is, every now and then I make this.
And you can, too. Here's how. First, you need mustard seeds. Now, mustard seeds come in three varieties, named by color: yellow, brown and black. Black mustard seeds are used almost exclusively in Indian cooking, and we won't use them here. What we will use are the milder, yellow ones and the hot, brown ones. Equal amounts of each. Start with a cup each. You can get the seeds at a health food or spices store. A cup is about a quarter pound. Mix these up, and then cover them with 2 cups of vinegar. Red wine vinegar is traditional, but you can do it with anything you want. Then, cover it tightly with plastic (no foil, please. We have acid here, and it will eat away the foil), and let it sit.... FOR 2 DAYS. Yup, you need 2 days here. The seeds will absorb some, if not all, of the vinegar.
After 2 days, if you want to flavor this with honey or anything else, now is the time. Don't overdo it though. Then, pour the stuff into a food processor and churn away, until you get the texture you want.
When I say "the texture you want," you will get a grainy mustard, regardless of how much you process it. Smooth mustard calls for mustard powder, and that's another story. And in any event, the grainy mustard somehow looks and tastes "special."
You'll have 3 cups or so of product, and if you need a little housegift, or something, put some of this in a fancy jar with a ribbon (not Annalena's forte', this dressing up of goods), and there you are.
Yes, this is not something you will need to know how to make. Don't treat it as a necessary part of your cooking "life," but if you ever wanted to, now you can.
I made this for a party this weekend, where there were many tasty dishes. More will follow. Stay tuned.
Friday, February 19, 2010
When there isn't time for bolognese: simple meat sauce
As you all know, perhaps too well, Annalena is no fan of "quick" cooking. Good food takes its own time. And in any event, there are any number of dishes that do not take all that much time, and are wonderful. I turn now, however, to what some may view as an exception to one of Annalena's precepts. I respectfully dissent from that view.
This recipe resulted from necessity. It was one of those evenings when I actually had no idea what I was going to cook for dinner. I had not thawed any proteins, which is not usually a stopper, but looking at the refrigerator's contents was making me a bit depressed. Pasta is my universal "go to" dish in situations like this, but what to put on it as a sauce? Butter and cheese was not sounding like the right thing. Yes, there were vegetables in the fridge, but they were of the sturdy winter vegetable type, as well as two big bunches of escarole. They were destined to a side dish, and I was running out of ideas.
There was an ample pound of ground veal in the freezer, and my wicked mind got to work: meat sauce. One of the useful things about chopped meat, is that even if it is not completely thawed, you can cook with it, if it is soft enough to break into manageable sized pieces. Annalena refuses to allow a microwave oven in her kitchen, but remembered Nana thawing chopped meat in a big pot of hot water. That is in fact what I did, and it worked. Within half an hour , that solid block of frozen meat, was completely thawed. And we were ready to go to work.
Let me say up front that this sauce does not have the subtlety and depth of flavor of a slow cooked bolognese. It better not. For a quick winter supper, however, this was superb. It does depend on you having good tomato sauce at your disposal. If you don't, shame on you. I shall repeat the recipe here after we get to "the meat of the matter."
I did this with ground veal ("Of course she did," I can hear some of you saying). But you could do this with any ground meat: beef is obvious, as is pork, but try lamb or turkey too. Or, mix em up. I think the key thing here is to season it well enough and to make sure you have enough onions in the mix.
Chop two medium onions fine, and also smash and chop 3-4 cloves of garlic. Pout enough olive oil into a pan to just coat it. Then, add the onions, the garlic and the chopped meat, all at once, together with about a teaspoon and a half of salt.
Note that I combined everything at once. This is something I learned when I was studying chili recipes. I was always taught to saute' the vegetables first, and then add the meat, but this technique seems to let the meat pick up some of the wonderful flavors from the onions.
Here is where you will do what work you WILL do in this sauce. Just keep on stirring and turning, until the color of the meat has gone from red, to pink to just brown. Now, an optional step, taken from classic bolognese. Pour in about 6 ounces of white wine, and stir it around, letting the wine evaporate. (As I think about it, why limit to white? Use red if you have it, too). When the wine has evaporated, stir in about a cup of tomato sauce and lower the heat. Do nothing, but listen. When you start hearing a crackle, stir things one last time, and turn off the heat. You're done.
This is not a "soupy" sauce. There is almost no liquid in it at all. you may even wonder where the tomato sauce is. It's there, as you'll find when you taste it. There's enough here to do about a pound of pasta, and it's a good meal. You may not even want to put grated cheese on it.
Now, for a review: to make that tomato sauce, you need good quality canned tomatoes. Whole ones. Do not use puree, do not use chopped. If you have a blender, puree them yourself. If you don't, get over the EWWWWW factor and crush them with your hands, and keep the juice. Use either 28 or 35 ounce cans, it doen't much matter, and always use at least 3 cans at a time.
For each can of the tomatoes, count on half a medium onion, chopped, and four cloves of garlic. You will also need sauce, and bay leaves , or some other seasoning. Here is a time where, if you have a dry "Italian seasonings" you like, use it.
Cover a large pot with enough olive oil, and then saute' the onions, with a teaspoon of salt, until they go to translucent. Then add half of the tomatoes, and all of the garlic. Follow with the rest of the tomatoes (this is a ridiculous step, but it works for me. Indulge the old lady). Stir the whole thing, lower the heat, and then add about a tablespoon of your seasoning, and/or two bay leaves. Taste, and add the salt you will need (because you will), underseasoning, as the sauce is going to reduce.
Cover the pot, lower the heat, and let it cook away for half an hour. Then, come back, uncover the pot, stir again, and cook for another half an hour. It is probably thick enough for you at this time, but if you like a heavier sauce, cook for another half hour, and keep in mind that you'll want to stir this every now and then to keep it from scorching.
You'll get PLENTY of tomato sauce from this. Probably 2 quarts. And you can freeze it, so you're set.
Make yourself some tomato sauce. It's one of Annalena's "money in the bank" ingredients, and then indulge yourself with this simple meat sauce. Dinner in half an hour. Who can complain?
This recipe resulted from necessity. It was one of those evenings when I actually had no idea what I was going to cook for dinner. I had not thawed any proteins, which is not usually a stopper, but looking at the refrigerator's contents was making me a bit depressed. Pasta is my universal "go to" dish in situations like this, but what to put on it as a sauce? Butter and cheese was not sounding like the right thing. Yes, there were vegetables in the fridge, but they were of the sturdy winter vegetable type, as well as two big bunches of escarole. They were destined to a side dish, and I was running out of ideas.
There was an ample pound of ground veal in the freezer, and my wicked mind got to work: meat sauce. One of the useful things about chopped meat, is that even if it is not completely thawed, you can cook with it, if it is soft enough to break into manageable sized pieces. Annalena refuses to allow a microwave oven in her kitchen, but remembered Nana thawing chopped meat in a big pot of hot water. That is in fact what I did, and it worked. Within half an hour , that solid block of frozen meat, was completely thawed. And we were ready to go to work.
Let me say up front that this sauce does not have the subtlety and depth of flavor of a slow cooked bolognese. It better not. For a quick winter supper, however, this was superb. It does depend on you having good tomato sauce at your disposal. If you don't, shame on you. I shall repeat the recipe here after we get to "the meat of the matter."
I did this with ground veal ("Of course she did," I can hear some of you saying). But you could do this with any ground meat: beef is obvious, as is pork, but try lamb or turkey too. Or, mix em up. I think the key thing here is to season it well enough and to make sure you have enough onions in the mix.
Chop two medium onions fine, and also smash and chop 3-4 cloves of garlic. Pout enough olive oil into a pan to just coat it. Then, add the onions, the garlic and the chopped meat, all at once, together with about a teaspoon and a half of salt.
Note that I combined everything at once. This is something I learned when I was studying chili recipes. I was always taught to saute' the vegetables first, and then add the meat, but this technique seems to let the meat pick up some of the wonderful flavors from the onions.
Here is where you will do what work you WILL do in this sauce. Just keep on stirring and turning, until the color of the meat has gone from red, to pink to just brown. Now, an optional step, taken from classic bolognese. Pour in about 6 ounces of white wine, and stir it around, letting the wine evaporate. (As I think about it, why limit to white? Use red if you have it, too). When the wine has evaporated, stir in about a cup of tomato sauce and lower the heat. Do nothing, but listen. When you start hearing a crackle, stir things one last time, and turn off the heat. You're done.
This is not a "soupy" sauce. There is almost no liquid in it at all. you may even wonder where the tomato sauce is. It's there, as you'll find when you taste it. There's enough here to do about a pound of pasta, and it's a good meal. You may not even want to put grated cheese on it.
Now, for a review: to make that tomato sauce, you need good quality canned tomatoes. Whole ones. Do not use puree, do not use chopped. If you have a blender, puree them yourself. If you don't, get over the EWWWWW factor and crush them with your hands, and keep the juice. Use either 28 or 35 ounce cans, it doen't much matter, and always use at least 3 cans at a time.
For each can of the tomatoes, count on half a medium onion, chopped, and four cloves of garlic. You will also need sauce, and bay leaves , or some other seasoning. Here is a time where, if you have a dry "Italian seasonings" you like, use it.
Cover a large pot with enough olive oil, and then saute' the onions, with a teaspoon of salt, until they go to translucent. Then add half of the tomatoes, and all of the garlic. Follow with the rest of the tomatoes (this is a ridiculous step, but it works for me. Indulge the old lady). Stir the whole thing, lower the heat, and then add about a tablespoon of your seasoning, and/or two bay leaves. Taste, and add the salt you will need (because you will), underseasoning, as the sauce is going to reduce.
Cover the pot, lower the heat, and let it cook away for half an hour. Then, come back, uncover the pot, stir again, and cook for another half an hour. It is probably thick enough for you at this time, but if you like a heavier sauce, cook for another half hour, and keep in mind that you'll want to stir this every now and then to keep it from scorching.
You'll get PLENTY of tomato sauce from this. Probably 2 quarts. And you can freeze it, so you're set.
Make yourself some tomato sauce. It's one of Annalena's "money in the bank" ingredients, and then indulge yourself with this simple meat sauce. Dinner in half an hour. Who can complain?
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Getting Annalena's goat, or I cook with it for the first time
One of the "darlings" of chefs who push local, seasonal, sustainable ingredients, is goat meat. There is absolutely nothing new about people eating goat, it's been a staple around the world, for centuries. I remember reading stories from ancient Greece, where a whole roasted goat would be a centerpiece of a banquet. Moving forward in time, my favorite Mexican restaurant, "Suenos," always has goat wrapped in banana leaves as an entree. I never thought of it as more than an "ethnic" food though, which is a sign that yes, Annalena can be somewhat limited in her thinking.
About 2 years ago, Guy and I had Thanksgiving dinner at Savoy restaurant. Savoy, as you've read in these pages, is in fact one of those restaurants that practices the ideas above; however, goat is not a mainstay on their menu. Goat chops were, however, an option as a Thanksgiving entree. Faced with the choices of turkey, striped bass, and goat, I took the latter.
I got a great meal. In talking to the chefs afterward, they told us that goat had a big future in the United States. The meat is very lean, it is easy to raise, it's sustainable, all the buzz words were there.
Well, Annalena hasn't seen goatburgers on the menu of the place around the corner. Even Savoy has not turned it into a regular item. Sue Torres at Suenos keeps the flame burning and it's there on the menu, even as I write this, waiting for you to try it. But I see it almost nowhere else.
The reason for that may be the same reason that I had avoided it: try to find ways to cook it. You won't find much. You will find Mexican "ethnic" recipes, and things like that, but that is about it. Looking for general ways to cook it, I found the same instructions: "just treat it like lamb."
Uh, but it's not lamb. So, finally, the "lock in the key" happened. I was talking with my friend Chris, who runs a farm where the specialty is cheese, goat and cow's milk varieties, and who also sells veal from time to time. Veal is not an item that is available all the time, and he started bringing goat meat. I told him of my confusion and his prescription was "just treat it like lamb but add more fat." When I rolled my eyes tand told him that was what everyone said, and it really wasn't helpful, his reply was "well, buy some, try it, and if you don't like it, tell me and we'll work something out.
Now THAT is a good businessman. I took home 4 pounds of stew meat, and made the dish I describe below.
I guess it was good. I made it at New Year's and I never got a taste. It was GONE. So, a few weeks later, I did it again, this time at a Board Meeting for my buddies at Uptown Express.
There is no question about it: for some of us, you have to get over the idea that you are eating "goat." One gentleman tasted politely and pushed the rest away. Another did a bit better, but everyone else cleared their plates. And I cleared mine.
This is a "work in progress," as Annalena learns more about the product. For now, however, here is a good recipe, adapted from one for lamb. Try it. It's really tasty.
You start with 1/2 pound of dried apricots. I can get them chopped up already, but if you can't, do a rough chop. It won't take that long. If they are particularly leathery, put them under hot water for an hour after you've cut them.
Meanwhile, salt and pepper about 3 pounds of cubed goat meat, and then cover a big pan with olive oil. Get it hot, and brown the meat in batches, the same way you would brown any stew meat. Don't cheat on time, because this is what is going to give your stew flavor. Brown the pieces thoroughly, and then add more. If you run out of oil, just replenish it. When you're done, pour off all but a few tablespoons of the fat, and saute' 2 large onions that you've chopped. When they soften (probably about 5 minutes), add the meat back, together with a good hefty tablespoon of fresh ginger, a hefty teaspoon of ground coriander, and the same amount of cinnamon. Also, add some saffron. The recipe I have calls for 1/4 teaspoon. If you can be, be more generous with this. STir this all up, and add some stock, to cover the meat. Beef stock is best, chicken works, and water will do. Cover the pan, lower the heat, and cook for a half hour (incidentally, you can do this in a big Creuset pot, and that may be better).
After the half hour, drain the apricots if they were soaking, and add them to the meat. Lower the heat further, cover the pot, and simmer for an hour. If the liquid goes down, add some of the apricot water if you have it, or more stock, or just plain water.
When making this dish with lamb, you have to skim the fat as it comes to the surface. The goat IS leaner, so you won't have to do it. Check it after that hour of cooking for tenderness. If it's not as soft as you would like, keep on cooking until it is.
The liquid almost evaporates from this, and the apricots fall apart a little, but they keep their shape. Taste it. You will definitely want to add salt, and some pepper. The apricots put a fair amount of sweetness into the dish, so if you find it too sweet, squeeze the juice from half a lemon into it (off the heat), and taste. Add more if you need to.
This is going to serve at least 6 people, and it tastes better with a day's rest, like all stews do.
Just when you thought you had tasted everything along comes Annalena with something new. Try it. I bet if you don't tell people it's goat, they'll ask for second helpings.
About 2 years ago, Guy and I had Thanksgiving dinner at Savoy restaurant. Savoy, as you've read in these pages, is in fact one of those restaurants that practices the ideas above; however, goat is not a mainstay on their menu. Goat chops were, however, an option as a Thanksgiving entree. Faced with the choices of turkey, striped bass, and goat, I took the latter.
I got a great meal. In talking to the chefs afterward, they told us that goat had a big future in the United States. The meat is very lean, it is easy to raise, it's sustainable, all the buzz words were there.
Well, Annalena hasn't seen goatburgers on the menu of the place around the corner. Even Savoy has not turned it into a regular item. Sue Torres at Suenos keeps the flame burning and it's there on the menu, even as I write this, waiting for you to try it. But I see it almost nowhere else.
The reason for that may be the same reason that I had avoided it: try to find ways to cook it. You won't find much. You will find Mexican "ethnic" recipes, and things like that, but that is about it. Looking for general ways to cook it, I found the same instructions: "just treat it like lamb."
Uh, but it's not lamb. So, finally, the "lock in the key" happened. I was talking with my friend Chris, who runs a farm where the specialty is cheese, goat and cow's milk varieties, and who also sells veal from time to time. Veal is not an item that is available all the time, and he started bringing goat meat. I told him of my confusion and his prescription was "just treat it like lamb but add more fat." When I rolled my eyes tand told him that was what everyone said, and it really wasn't helpful, his reply was "well, buy some, try it, and if you don't like it, tell me and we'll work something out.
Now THAT is a good businessman. I took home 4 pounds of stew meat, and made the dish I describe below.
I guess it was good. I made it at New Year's and I never got a taste. It was GONE. So, a few weeks later, I did it again, this time at a Board Meeting for my buddies at Uptown Express.
There is no question about it: for some of us, you have to get over the idea that you are eating "goat." One gentleman tasted politely and pushed the rest away. Another did a bit better, but everyone else cleared their plates. And I cleared mine.
This is a "work in progress," as Annalena learns more about the product. For now, however, here is a good recipe, adapted from one for lamb. Try it. It's really tasty.
You start with 1/2 pound of dried apricots. I can get them chopped up already, but if you can't, do a rough chop. It won't take that long. If they are particularly leathery, put them under hot water for an hour after you've cut them.
Meanwhile, salt and pepper about 3 pounds of cubed goat meat, and then cover a big pan with olive oil. Get it hot, and brown the meat in batches, the same way you would brown any stew meat. Don't cheat on time, because this is what is going to give your stew flavor. Brown the pieces thoroughly, and then add more. If you run out of oil, just replenish it. When you're done, pour off all but a few tablespoons of the fat, and saute' 2 large onions that you've chopped. When they soften (probably about 5 minutes), add the meat back, together with a good hefty tablespoon of fresh ginger, a hefty teaspoon of ground coriander, and the same amount of cinnamon. Also, add some saffron. The recipe I have calls for 1/4 teaspoon. If you can be, be more generous with this. STir this all up, and add some stock, to cover the meat. Beef stock is best, chicken works, and water will do. Cover the pan, lower the heat, and cook for a half hour (incidentally, you can do this in a big Creuset pot, and that may be better).
After the half hour, drain the apricots if they were soaking, and add them to the meat. Lower the heat further, cover the pot, and simmer for an hour. If the liquid goes down, add some of the apricot water if you have it, or more stock, or just plain water.
When making this dish with lamb, you have to skim the fat as it comes to the surface. The goat IS leaner, so you won't have to do it. Check it after that hour of cooking for tenderness. If it's not as soft as you would like, keep on cooking until it is.
The liquid almost evaporates from this, and the apricots fall apart a little, but they keep their shape. Taste it. You will definitely want to add salt, and some pepper. The apricots put a fair amount of sweetness into the dish, so if you find it too sweet, squeeze the juice from half a lemon into it (off the heat), and taste. Add more if you need to.
This is going to serve at least 6 people, and it tastes better with a day's rest, like all stews do.
Just when you thought you had tasted everything along comes Annalena with something new. Try it. I bet if you don't tell people it's goat, they'll ask for second helpings.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Provencal(?) Sundae: figs in wine and coffee ice cream
The question mark, ragazzi, is because Annalena is vexxed (should there be one 'x' there? Two looks better, in any case). French food can be as regional as Italian is, with arguments over where a dish originated, what part of France makes it best, etc, etc. We have all been bombarded with things Provencal over the last few years. From what Annalena has been able to learn from her readings, there has always been an interest in that part of France, for many reasons including the weather, the almost Italianate style of cooking, and then, of course, the rush of popular books about the region. All this being said, when one speaks of provencal cooking, I stand back and say "ok." For the most part. I know many of the ingredients, because they are so close to Italian: olive oil, tomatoes, eggplants, anchovies, garlic, basil, and so on and so forth.
When I first had this dish, it was at Zuni Cafe', and it was called what I call it: provencal sundae. It was GOOD. What it had to do with Provence mystified me, however. The figs I can see, but coffee ice cream? I assume that coffee is drunk in Provence, and ice cream eaten, but coffee ice cream a signature of Provence? Huh?
Several years later, when I obtained my first copy of "Chez Panisse Desserts, there was a recipe for the sundae in it. Lindsey Shere provided a bit of commentary, to the effect that "the combination of figs, red wine, honey and lavender sings of Provence, and may someday be associated with California as well."
Uh, but what about the coffee ice cream? As was said in "Hamlet": "The rest is silence."
So, your guess is as good as mine. Notwithstanding these issues about "provenance" (had to. Sorry), this is a wonderful dessert. Coffee ice cream seems to be the "closeted favorite" of many people. When friends found out I was making it, there was more than casual interest. I guess it has to go on the list with nutella ice cream for repeats. I have made it before, and I'll give you the recipe below; however, here's Annalena's secondary recommendation. If you want to try the flavors but do not have the wherewithall to make your own coffee ice cream, buy a good variety and use that. Furthermore, I do not see how this dessert is linked to the type of ice cream. Lavender honey ice cream seems right to me, as do any of the "white" ones, like vanilla, or creme fraiche, or something like that.
Mostly, I want you to make the fig accompaniment. At this time of year, when we're all waiting for the first strawberries of the spring to come in, and we're all kind of tired of apples and pears, reach into the bag of dried fruit and get to work. This is really easy, and you can use the figs in a whole lot of different ways, as I'm sure you'll figure out. I'm thinking cream cheese on nut bread with the figs over them, for example.
Here we go. You need a pound of dried figs. Try to get moist ones, but if you can't, read on. Cut the little stem tips off of them. It won't take long. Now, dump them into a pot, together with a cup of red wine. I used zinfandel, and I guess to be truly "authentic" you should be using a southern French wine, but you'll all have to deal. Also add a cup of water, and about a quarter cup of a good quality honey. Lavender honey is what you really want here, if you don't have honey and lavender sprigs . If you do, use a couple (NO MORE THAN TWO), of the sprigs with the honey. Cover the pot, put the heat to very l ow (I mean VERY low), and cook for at least half an hour. Keep checking. It's realy impossible to say when the figs will be nice and soft, and this is also a "judgement call" as to how soft you want them. If your liquid runs out, add another half cup of water.
When you've got them as soft as you like them, remove the figs from the pot, and cook down the liquid until you only have about two tablespoons of it. You'll have a thick, sticky syrup. Let it cool. Let the figs cool as well, and slice them into thin slices, and pour the syrup over them.
That's it. This will keep forever, no need to refrigerate.
Now, to the ice cream, if you feel ambitious. Combine 3/4 cup of sugar, the same amount of coffee beans (BEANS. Do not substitute ground, and if you use instant coffee, I am blocking you from this recipe forever), 1 cup of milk and 2 cups of heavy cream in a pot. Stir this together, to dissolve the sugar, bring it to the point where you get bubbles around the edges, and then cover the pot and l et it steep for a good 45 minutes. Somewhere in that interval, separate six large eggs. After the 45 minutes, dump the eggs into the mixture, break them up and begin cooking at low heat, until you get a custard. You know how to do that.
I then strain out the beans, although you could leave them in until you're ready to freeze the ice cream. You should not leave them in there when you freeze it.
To serve - well, I don't have to tell you do I? - a nice scoop of the ice cream and a spoon of figs with a little syrup over it, and you have your sundae.
I guess it's not really a sundae either? Oh well, what can I say. Viva la France?
When I first had this dish, it was at Zuni Cafe', and it was called what I call it: provencal sundae. It was GOOD. What it had to do with Provence mystified me, however. The figs I can see, but coffee ice cream? I assume that coffee is drunk in Provence, and ice cream eaten, but coffee ice cream a signature of Provence? Huh?
Several years later, when I obtained my first copy of "Chez Panisse Desserts, there was a recipe for the sundae in it. Lindsey Shere provided a bit of commentary, to the effect that "the combination of figs, red wine, honey and lavender sings of Provence, and may someday be associated with California as well."
Uh, but what about the coffee ice cream? As was said in "Hamlet": "The rest is silence."
So, your guess is as good as mine. Notwithstanding these issues about "provenance" (had to. Sorry), this is a wonderful dessert. Coffee ice cream seems to be the "closeted favorite" of many people. When friends found out I was making it, there was more than casual interest. I guess it has to go on the list with nutella ice cream for repeats. I have made it before, and I'll give you the recipe below; however, here's Annalena's secondary recommendation. If you want to try the flavors but do not have the wherewithall to make your own coffee ice cream, buy a good variety and use that. Furthermore, I do not see how this dessert is linked to the type of ice cream. Lavender honey ice cream seems right to me, as do any of the "white" ones, like vanilla, or creme fraiche, or something like that.
Mostly, I want you to make the fig accompaniment. At this time of year, when we're all waiting for the first strawberries of the spring to come in, and we're all kind of tired of apples and pears, reach into the bag of dried fruit and get to work. This is really easy, and you can use the figs in a whole lot of different ways, as I'm sure you'll figure out. I'm thinking cream cheese on nut bread with the figs over them, for example.
Here we go. You need a pound of dried figs. Try to get moist ones, but if you can't, read on. Cut the little stem tips off of them. It won't take long. Now, dump them into a pot, together with a cup of red wine. I used zinfandel, and I guess to be truly "authentic" you should be using a southern French wine, but you'll all have to deal. Also add a cup of water, and about a quarter cup of a good quality honey. Lavender honey is what you really want here, if you don't have honey and lavender sprigs . If you do, use a couple (NO MORE THAN TWO), of the sprigs with the honey. Cover the pot, put the heat to very l ow (I mean VERY low), and cook for at least half an hour. Keep checking. It's realy impossible to say when the figs will be nice and soft, and this is also a "judgement call" as to how soft you want them. If your liquid runs out, add another half cup of water.
When you've got them as soft as you like them, remove the figs from the pot, and cook down the liquid until you only have about two tablespoons of it. You'll have a thick, sticky syrup. Let it cool. Let the figs cool as well, and slice them into thin slices, and pour the syrup over them.
That's it. This will keep forever, no need to refrigerate.
Now, to the ice cream, if you feel ambitious. Combine 3/4 cup of sugar, the same amount of coffee beans (BEANS. Do not substitute ground, and if you use instant coffee, I am blocking you from this recipe forever), 1 cup of milk and 2 cups of heavy cream in a pot. Stir this together, to dissolve the sugar, bring it to the point where you get bubbles around the edges, and then cover the pot and l et it steep for a good 45 minutes. Somewhere in that interval, separate six large eggs. After the 45 minutes, dump the eggs into the mixture, break them up and begin cooking at low heat, until you get a custard. You know how to do that.
I then strain out the beans, although you could leave them in until you're ready to freeze the ice cream. You should not leave them in there when you freeze it.
To serve - well, I don't have to tell you do I? - a nice scoop of the ice cream and a spoon of figs with a little syrup over it, and you have your sundae.
I guess it's not really a sundae either? Oh well, what can I say. Viva la France?
Sunday, February 14, 2010
SMALL PORTIONS!!! Semolina gnocchi
This is one of those dishes that I LOVE. I love it way too much. I think that I could easily eat the whole platter of it, without a question. That's even with, as you will see, the two sticks of butter variation. It is THAT good.
Fortunately, it takes a little bit of work. So I don't make it regularly. Having said that, this is something that you should have in your repertoire. It IS a show stopper, not so much because of how it looks, but because of its texture and its taste.
Semolina gnocchi are also called "Roman gnocchi." Why ? I have no idea. I once asked a few Romans if they knew what Roman gnocchi were and they looked at me like I had lost my mind. They may have been right, but that's the way it is. And once in a restaurant I really liked, they had Roman gnocchi on the menu . I ordered it and I got potato gnocchi. I asked if there had been a mistake and they said that three people had asked the same thing that day, but no, this was Roman gnocchi. I said that I thought potato dishes were associated with Genoa, and I was told that Genovesi were thieves.
We Italians are not proprietary about our dishes, no siree.
Ok, the onl unusual ingredient you need here, is semolina flour. This is the yellow stuff that is used to make pasta. "semolina" means, literally, "little seeds" I t hink that's because the grain is a little bigger than regular milled flour, and not as big as couscous. It's a very hard flour . What I mean by that is that when you add liquids, it is very, very stiff. That's why, when you read this, you will think twice about the amount of liquid, but it is the right amount.
Here we go. You will need a whole quart of whole milk. Also, a stick of unsalted butter. Then a pinch of salt, and a good heaping teaspoon of ground nutmeg. Then, one cup of semolina flour. You also want an egg, and about a cup of grated parmesan cheese.
Now, we're ready to go. Now, get a baking sheet greased. It would be best if you had what is called a "quarter sheet." This is one that is half the size of a regular one. You'll need that.
Put the quart of milk in a pot and then add the salt, the nutmet, and the semolina. Start stirring, and bring the pot to a simmer, slowly. While you stir, you'll see what looks like a custard forming. Keep stirring. When the stuff begins to come away from the sides of the pot, you're done. Now add, the egg, off the heat, and then the stick of butter, and the cheese, and stir it all together.
Pour that all out onto the buttered sheet, and wet your hands. Smooth it out as best as you can, but don't get ridiculous about it. Walk away and let it cool for about a half an hour.
Come back to it with a small can, like a 3 ounce tuna can, or a biscuit cutter, something like that. Cut circles, and put them into a greased baking dish, and lay them on top of each other, in lines that lie on each other. You'll have dough left over. You can roll it out, or you can just gather it together, and press it out again, which is what I do, and cut some more. Use as much of it as you can.
Now, what you are SUPPOSED t odo, is melt another stick of butter, and pour that over the gnocchi, and then sprinkle cheese over that and grill it for a few minutes. I leave the extra butter out. Sometimes I use pesto on them, sometimes red pepper sauce, or dried tomato sauce, whatever you like
These have a light, frothy texture, that makes you feel like you're eating nothing. But look at the ingredients. It's a heady dish, served best with grilled meat.
I'm going to dedicate this recipe to my friend Johnny D. He's gonna give it to Momma D, and they're gonna make it together. He loved it and admitted it. So, Johnny D, this is for you.
Fortunately, it takes a little bit of work. So I don't make it regularly. Having said that, this is something that you should have in your repertoire. It IS a show stopper, not so much because of how it looks, but because of its texture and its taste.
Semolina gnocchi are also called "Roman gnocchi." Why ? I have no idea. I once asked a few Romans if they knew what Roman gnocchi were and they looked at me like I had lost my mind. They may have been right, but that's the way it is. And once in a restaurant I really liked, they had Roman gnocchi on the menu . I ordered it and I got potato gnocchi. I asked if there had been a mistake and they said that three people had asked the same thing that day, but no, this was Roman gnocchi. I said that I thought potato dishes were associated with Genoa, and I was told that Genovesi were thieves.
We Italians are not proprietary about our dishes, no siree.
Ok, the onl unusual ingredient you need here, is semolina flour. This is the yellow stuff that is used to make pasta. "semolina" means, literally, "little seeds" I t hink that's because the grain is a little bigger than regular milled flour, and not as big as couscous. It's a very hard flour . What I mean by that is that when you add liquids, it is very, very stiff. That's why, when you read this, you will think twice about the amount of liquid, but it is the right amount.
Here we go. You will need a whole quart of whole milk. Also, a stick of unsalted butter. Then a pinch of salt, and a good heaping teaspoon of ground nutmeg. Then, one cup of semolina flour. You also want an egg, and about a cup of grated parmesan cheese.
Now, we're ready to go. Now, get a baking sheet greased. It would be best if you had what is called a "quarter sheet." This is one that is half the size of a regular one. You'll need that.
Put the quart of milk in a pot and then add the salt, the nutmet, and the semolina. Start stirring, and bring the pot to a simmer, slowly. While you stir, you'll see what looks like a custard forming. Keep stirring. When the stuff begins to come away from the sides of the pot, you're done. Now add, the egg, off the heat, and then the stick of butter, and the cheese, and stir it all together.
Pour that all out onto the buttered sheet, and wet your hands. Smooth it out as best as you can, but don't get ridiculous about it. Walk away and let it cool for about a half an hour.
Come back to it with a small can, like a 3 ounce tuna can, or a biscuit cutter, something like that. Cut circles, and put them into a greased baking dish, and lay them on top of each other, in lines that lie on each other. You'll have dough left over. You can roll it out, or you can just gather it together, and press it out again, which is what I do, and cut some more. Use as much of it as you can.
Now, what you are SUPPOSED t odo, is melt another stick of butter, and pour that over the gnocchi, and then sprinkle cheese over that and grill it for a few minutes. I leave the extra butter out. Sometimes I use pesto on them, sometimes red pepper sauce, or dried tomato sauce, whatever you like
These have a light, frothy texture, that makes you feel like you're eating nothing. But look at the ingredients. It's a heady dish, served best with grilled meat.
I'm going to dedicate this recipe to my friend Johnny D. He's gonna give it to Momma D, and they're gonna make it together. He loved it and admitted it. So, Johnny D, this is for you.
A little garnish: "Toraisins?"
Figger out what a toraisin is yet? We'll get to that. T his was inspired by the chef Patty Jackson, who holds forth at "I trulli" restaurant. Patty is a pastry chef who crossed over to savory. I think her best dishes are the ones closest to pastry: her breads, her pastas. I like everything, though. I like everything too much. Especially her manager, Christina. Smartest person I've met in a long time.
Ok, so here's the deal. At the restaurant, they put out one of the most interesting selections of breads you'll find, including this wonderfully herbacious, oily focaccia, laced with tomatoes. Not tomato paste or sauce, but.. something. And, at our last visit, they sent out a selection of "sottoaceti." Now, "sotto aceti," means, literally "under vinegar." You know what they are: pickles. One of the pickles was a sun dried tomato that was not sun dried, and was about as soft as a tomato pillow. Patty had made them herself, during the summer, because she was unhappy with the quality of sun dried tomatoes she could buy. They are not truly "sun dried," but they are great.
Getting an idea what a "toraisin" is?
Jump back in time now, about a year ago, when I was playing with Ina Garten's newest cookboook "Back To Basics," and loving everything except her recipe for roasted tomatoes. It failed me each and every time I tried, so I gave up. Well, inspired by Patty's creations, I have done t his one.
At this time of year, getting a good tomato is more than an act of faith: it's a miracle. It will not happen. But grape and cherry tomatoes are pretty good. We have them around all the time.
Getting warmer? Raisin... Craisin (dried cranberry), toraisin (dried tomato). I did these two ways, and they're absurdly easy. Try them.
Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Put two pints of cherry or grape tomatoes on a baking sheet, no oil, no salt, no nuthin , put it in the oven and walk away. Walk away for a LONG time - at least five hours. After five hours, you'll see some shriveling. If you leave em for eight hours, you'll get something dry and crispy. Think about what you're going to do with them, and that will determine how long you bake em.
Then, when they're cool, cover them with olive oil and refrigerate them. REFRIGERATE THEM. If you do not, you will be courting raising a nice colony of botulism.
I will be using them in bread next week. But not all of them. I will be using others, in other applications, and I will keep you posted. For now, though, go make the lazy person's winter tomato. You will be VERY happy with the results.
Ok, so here's the deal. At the restaurant, they put out one of the most interesting selections of breads you'll find, including this wonderfully herbacious, oily focaccia, laced with tomatoes. Not tomato paste or sauce, but.. something. And, at our last visit, they sent out a selection of "sottoaceti." Now, "sotto aceti," means, literally "under vinegar." You know what they are: pickles. One of the pickles was a sun dried tomato that was not sun dried, and was about as soft as a tomato pillow. Patty had made them herself, during the summer, because she was unhappy with the quality of sun dried tomatoes she could buy. They are not truly "sun dried," but they are great.
Getting an idea what a "toraisin" is?
Jump back in time now, about a year ago, when I was playing with Ina Garten's newest cookboook "Back To Basics," and loving everything except her recipe for roasted tomatoes. It failed me each and every time I tried, so I gave up. Well, inspired by Patty's creations, I have done t his one.
At this time of year, getting a good tomato is more than an act of faith: it's a miracle. It will not happen. But grape and cherry tomatoes are pretty good. We have them around all the time.
Getting warmer? Raisin... Craisin (dried cranberry), toraisin (dried tomato). I did these two ways, and they're absurdly easy. Try them.
Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Put two pints of cherry or grape tomatoes on a baking sheet, no oil, no salt, no nuthin , put it in the oven and walk away. Walk away for a LONG time - at least five hours. After five hours, you'll see some shriveling. If you leave em for eight hours, you'll get something dry and crispy. Think about what you're going to do with them, and that will determine how long you bake em.
Then, when they're cool, cover them with olive oil and refrigerate them. REFRIGERATE THEM. If you do not, you will be courting raising a nice colony of botulism.
I will be using them in bread next week. But not all of them. I will be using others, in other applications, and I will keep you posted. For now, though, go make the lazy person's winter tomato. You will be VERY happy with the results.
A quick bread: strawberries
When you enjoy cooking, you look for ideas EVERYWHERE. Some of them ain't so good, and some are wonderful. This one falls into the pretty good category. I wouldn't call it fabulous, or an eye opener. In my opinion, what it is, is a neat little variation on a classic - banana bread, that you should try once in a while.
Annalena tries to be ruthlessly seasonal in her approach to cooking. That means that, just about now, she's getting sick of root vegetables and apples. There is her stash of frozen goodies from the spring, which is coming out little by little (fava bean and ricotta salata pasta yesterday), and then there are the "cheats," where she violates her own rules (we sometimes call it "granting an exception"), and buys frozen goods. That is in fact what happened with this recipe, as her hankering to p lay with strawberries got the better of her.
I found this recipe in a catalog from which I buy my spices : "Penzeys." Many of the recipes that are printed here, are just not worth my time. But the baked goods speak to me: they are simple, they are quick and they are good. So, let's make this one together.
This makes two big loaves, so it's good for when you need to bring something somewhere. You start by mixing together, in a big bowl, 3 cups of flour, a tablespoon of cinnamon, a teaspoon of baking soda, and a teaspoon of salt. In a separate bowl, beat together 1.25 cups of vegetable oil (quick review: if there's oil as the fat in the bread, what does this tell you about it's provenance? Think zucchini and pumpkin bread, think about where butter went in history when there were food shortages...), with three large eggs, a hefty teaspoon of vanilla, and 2 cups of sugar. You can do this with a big spoon. In fact, you should. Now, stir the dry ingredients in. This is gonna be thick and you're going to wonder if you did something wrong. You didn't , because...
Now, you take two 10 ounce packages of frozen strawberries that you have thawed. Separate the berries from the liquid, and stir those in. Don't worry about chopping them. The act of stirring will break 'em up. After you do that, if this looks too thick, stir in some of the strawberry liquid, as much as you see fit, because you're now going to add a cup of chopped pecans, (unless you have a nut allergy, in which case you should leave them out, unless you're giving them to someone with one whom you're trying to harm....).
Ok, now, after you have this all mixed together, grease two 8.5x4.5 loaf pans. This is an important point. A standard quickbread pan is 9x5 and is too big for this. If you don't have the smaller "pan loaf" pans, then perhaps two 8x8 square pans, or a big, 9x13 will do. If you use those, though, please keep an eye on the baking time.
If you use the loaf pans, bake them at 325, for an hour and ten minutes. You will get remarkable height on these loaves, and they will be very dark. They will also take that full time to bake up properly. Let them rest for ten minutes before you knock them out of the pan.
What are they l ike? This is a fair question, because cinnamon and strawberry is not an obvious combination. To my taste, it is a cinnamon bread, flavored with a bit of strawberry jam. Others may feel like the strawberries are more prominent than I do, but that's a matter of taste.
In any event, if you are feeling like you MUST have some berries, rather than use those ghastly pink ghosts that are coming from Buddha knows where, get the frozen ones, and do this. it will take you all of fifteen minutes to throw together, if your berries are thawed (and if they are not, that's what a pot of hot water or a microwave oven are for), and get to it. You'll have a good breakfast ready for you, every day of the week.
Annalena tries to be ruthlessly seasonal in her approach to cooking. That means that, just about now, she's getting sick of root vegetables and apples. There is her stash of frozen goodies from the spring, which is coming out little by little (fava bean and ricotta salata pasta yesterday), and then there are the "cheats," where she violates her own rules (we sometimes call it "granting an exception"), and buys frozen goods. That is in fact what happened with this recipe, as her hankering to p lay with strawberries got the better of her.
I found this recipe in a catalog from which I buy my spices : "Penzeys." Many of the recipes that are printed here, are just not worth my time. But the baked goods speak to me: they are simple, they are quick and they are good. So, let's make this one together.
This makes two big loaves, so it's good for when you need to bring something somewhere. You start by mixing together, in a big bowl, 3 cups of flour, a tablespoon of cinnamon, a teaspoon of baking soda, and a teaspoon of salt. In a separate bowl, beat together 1.25 cups of vegetable oil (quick review: if there's oil as the fat in the bread, what does this tell you about it's provenance? Think zucchini and pumpkin bread, think about where butter went in history when there were food shortages...), with three large eggs, a hefty teaspoon of vanilla, and 2 cups of sugar. You can do this with a big spoon. In fact, you should. Now, stir the dry ingredients in. This is gonna be thick and you're going to wonder if you did something wrong. You didn't , because...
Now, you take two 10 ounce packages of frozen strawberries that you have thawed. Separate the berries from the liquid, and stir those in. Don't worry about chopping them. The act of stirring will break 'em up. After you do that, if this looks too thick, stir in some of the strawberry liquid, as much as you see fit, because you're now going to add a cup of chopped pecans, (unless you have a nut allergy, in which case you should leave them out, unless you're giving them to someone with one whom you're trying to harm....).
Ok, now, after you have this all mixed together, grease two 8.5x4.5 loaf pans. This is an important point. A standard quickbread pan is 9x5 and is too big for this. If you don't have the smaller "pan loaf" pans, then perhaps two 8x8 square pans, or a big, 9x13 will do. If you use those, though, please keep an eye on the baking time.
If you use the loaf pans, bake them at 325, for an hour and ten minutes. You will get remarkable height on these loaves, and they will be very dark. They will also take that full time to bake up properly. Let them rest for ten minutes before you knock them out of the pan.
What are they l ike? This is a fair question, because cinnamon and strawberry is not an obvious combination. To my taste, it is a cinnamon bread, flavored with a bit of strawberry jam. Others may feel like the strawberries are more prominent than I do, but that's a matter of taste.
In any event, if you are feeling like you MUST have some berries, rather than use those ghastly pink ghosts that are coming from Buddha knows where, get the frozen ones, and do this. it will take you all of fifteen minutes to throw together, if your berries are thawed (and if they are not, that's what a pot of hot water or a microwave oven are for), and get to it. You'll have a good breakfast ready for you, every day of the week.
Bisque, broth, stock, soup, whatever: shrimp (fill in the blank)
Now, you're probably thinking something along the lines of "she's more cryptic than usual," or, more politiely "HUH?" Well, sort of like some (most) of James Joyce's writings, the explanations become clearer as you go forward.
Last week, I read a recipe for a shrimp bisque. It sounded really really good, and I began thinking "what is a bisque?" Honestly, I am not sure. I realized that the only "bisque" I know is lobster bisque, an involved, laborious recipe, which requires many lobster shells, much cracking of said shells, and slow cooking of them, with vegetables and herbs, to get a reduction that you then combine with everything BUT lobster meat. At the end, if you're feeling fancy, you add some lobster as a garnish.
When this is served on a menu, I have seen people positively swoon. It is not, however, my cup of soup. Or bisque. Annalena, as she explained last night at dinner, is a rather cheap date. No lobster for me. Or white truffles. or chocolate. Which may sound like it makes it impossible to produce a seductive valentine's dinner. Nothing could be further from the truth, however. Bring me some pasta with cream sauce and mushrooms. Or a bowl of pasta fagioli (ok, ok, I know: beans are not exactly the food of love). Or, black truffles (the cheaper ones). Or a big bar of white chocolate almond bark. See where I'm going ? Well, I don't. No, I do. The point is: seduction is a relative term, especially when you're working with food.
Now, as I have clearly digressed way past where I started, let's get back to the matter at hand: the shrimp bisque. The recipe discussed how the author had used the shells of shrimp to make a broth. This sounded good to me. I have done this before: boiling shrimp shells to create a pale pink liquid that I then used to make risotto. What was intriguing to me about this recipe is that the shells were cooked in butter, finished with wine and brandy, and then used to make a broth. Now, even if there were no shells, anything that combines butter, wine and brandy is going to get a second look from Annalena. I mean, can you blame me?
So, looking for a soup this week, I decided this was the one, and ordered 2 pounds of wild , never frozen shrimp from my online grocer. I assumed that if they were wild and unfrozen, they would be in their shells, and I allocated extra time for when they arrived.
The 2 pounds of shrimp came in the grocery delivery, beautifully packaged, fresh as can be, and without their shells.
HUH? Lesson one today, ragazzi ; READ THE LABELS. I went back and saw that, yes, they very proudly discussed how they had reduced the work for their customers by taking off the shells. Great. Without shells, no bisque.
Ah, but the resourceful cook figures things out. And uses what s/he has on hand. And I did. So here we go. Let's make some shrimp soup. We won't call it bisque, but if you want to make the bisque, go look up Mark Bittman on the NY Times web page, and find it. It sounds good.
The original recipe called for sauteeing the shells with the butter and then finishing them with wine and brandy. Well, I knew I would need the flavor, so I instead did that with the vegetable base. For the base, you need two ribs of celery chopped roughly, 2 leeks, cleaned and also chopped roughly (light green and white parts, only, please), a fennel bulb, without the fronts, also so treated. Combine these with a few sprigs of thyme , a bayleaf or two, and 2 chopped cloves of garlic. Heat up three tablespoons of butter in a big soup pot, and add the vegetables. Cook them at medium heat until they sweat and begin to soften: no more than about 8 minutes, and then add , say , a big teaspoon of salt. Now, pour a cup of white wine into this (I omitted the brandy. I think it was a good decision). Boil off the wine until it's gone, and then add 2 cups of clam juice, 6 cups of water, and let the mess simmer for a quarter of an hour. (Lesson from the kitchen: bottles look the same: read the label. I almost added 2 cups of key lime juice to this soup). Then, add a quarter cup of uncooked, long grain rice a big suqirt of tomato paste, and let this all cook for twenty minutes.
While that is happening, add another tablespoon of butter to a pan, and when it's melted, add a pound of shelled shrimp. Saute' those. It won't take more than about five minutes to get them pink. Save them to the side, until the soup mix is finished cooking. You can tell by tasting the rice, and seeing if it's done.
Add the shrimp to the soup. You COULD serve this now. If you plan to do so, maybe you should chop up the shrimp before you add them. But... if you let the mix cool, and then pulse it in your blender, you get this absolutely wonderful, lightly pale pink, chunky dish . If you taste it right away, you will feel like the tomato is overpowering it. If you let it sit for about an hour, the tomato mellows, and the shrimp flavor comes out, and you will be very happy.
This will make you two quarts of soup. It ain't a soup free of fat, from all that butter . Incidentaly, in reading some posts by Faith Willinger, I am willing to bet that this will work with extra virgin olive oil. She just modified a recipe for whole wheat muffins by making the substitution, and that is on my "to do " list. I'll let you know.
I betcha you could substitute scallops or some firm white fish for this recipe, or mix things up a little. It tastes very sweet, but in a savory kind of way, you know what I mean? And if you're STILL looking for that valentine's day starter, and lobster bisque scares you as much as it scares me... here you go.
Or, just make it for a nice dinner with something after it. Shellfish are supposed to act as aphrodisiacs. Annalena will NOT describe why that is the case in this entry. Look it up, sweet ones, and have a lovely day of hearts and flowers.
Last week, I read a recipe for a shrimp bisque. It sounded really really good, and I began thinking "what is a bisque?" Honestly, I am not sure. I realized that the only "bisque" I know is lobster bisque, an involved, laborious recipe, which requires many lobster shells, much cracking of said shells, and slow cooking of them, with vegetables and herbs, to get a reduction that you then combine with everything BUT lobster meat. At the end, if you're feeling fancy, you add some lobster as a garnish.
When this is served on a menu, I have seen people positively swoon. It is not, however, my cup of soup. Or bisque. Annalena, as she explained last night at dinner, is a rather cheap date. No lobster for me. Or white truffles. or chocolate. Which may sound like it makes it impossible to produce a seductive valentine's dinner. Nothing could be further from the truth, however. Bring me some pasta with cream sauce and mushrooms. Or a bowl of pasta fagioli (ok, ok, I know: beans are not exactly the food of love). Or, black truffles (the cheaper ones). Or a big bar of white chocolate almond bark. See where I'm going ? Well, I don't. No, I do. The point is: seduction is a relative term, especially when you're working with food.
Now, as I have clearly digressed way past where I started, let's get back to the matter at hand: the shrimp bisque. The recipe discussed how the author had used the shells of shrimp to make a broth. This sounded good to me. I have done this before: boiling shrimp shells to create a pale pink liquid that I then used to make risotto. What was intriguing to me about this recipe is that the shells were cooked in butter, finished with wine and brandy, and then used to make a broth. Now, even if there were no shells, anything that combines butter, wine and brandy is going to get a second look from Annalena. I mean, can you blame me?
So, looking for a soup this week, I decided this was the one, and ordered 2 pounds of wild , never frozen shrimp from my online grocer. I assumed that if they were wild and unfrozen, they would be in their shells, and I allocated extra time for when they arrived.
The 2 pounds of shrimp came in the grocery delivery, beautifully packaged, fresh as can be, and without their shells.
HUH? Lesson one today, ragazzi ; READ THE LABELS. I went back and saw that, yes, they very proudly discussed how they had reduced the work for their customers by taking off the shells. Great. Without shells, no bisque.
Ah, but the resourceful cook figures things out. And uses what s/he has on hand. And I did. So here we go. Let's make some shrimp soup. We won't call it bisque, but if you want to make the bisque, go look up Mark Bittman on the NY Times web page, and find it. It sounds good.
The original recipe called for sauteeing the shells with the butter and then finishing them with wine and brandy. Well, I knew I would need the flavor, so I instead did that with the vegetable base. For the base, you need two ribs of celery chopped roughly, 2 leeks, cleaned and also chopped roughly (light green and white parts, only, please), a fennel bulb, without the fronts, also so treated. Combine these with a few sprigs of thyme , a bayleaf or two, and 2 chopped cloves of garlic. Heat up three tablespoons of butter in a big soup pot, and add the vegetables. Cook them at medium heat until they sweat and begin to soften: no more than about 8 minutes, and then add , say , a big teaspoon of salt. Now, pour a cup of white wine into this (I omitted the brandy. I think it was a good decision). Boil off the wine until it's gone, and then add 2 cups of clam juice, 6 cups of water, and let the mess simmer for a quarter of an hour. (Lesson from the kitchen: bottles look the same: read the label. I almost added 2 cups of key lime juice to this soup). Then, add a quarter cup of uncooked, long grain rice a big suqirt of tomato paste, and let this all cook for twenty minutes.
While that is happening, add another tablespoon of butter to a pan, and when it's melted, add a pound of shelled shrimp. Saute' those. It won't take more than about five minutes to get them pink. Save them to the side, until the soup mix is finished cooking. You can tell by tasting the rice, and seeing if it's done.
Add the shrimp to the soup. You COULD serve this now. If you plan to do so, maybe you should chop up the shrimp before you add them. But... if you let the mix cool, and then pulse it in your blender, you get this absolutely wonderful, lightly pale pink, chunky dish . If you taste it right away, you will feel like the tomato is overpowering it. If you let it sit for about an hour, the tomato mellows, and the shrimp flavor comes out, and you will be very happy.
This will make you two quarts of soup. It ain't a soup free of fat, from all that butter . Incidentaly, in reading some posts by Faith Willinger, I am willing to bet that this will work with extra virgin olive oil. She just modified a recipe for whole wheat muffins by making the substitution, and that is on my "to do " list. I'll let you know.
I betcha you could substitute scallops or some firm white fish for this recipe, or mix things up a little. It tastes very sweet, but in a savory kind of way, you know what I mean? And if you're STILL looking for that valentine's day starter, and lobster bisque scares you as much as it scares me... here you go.
Or, just make it for a nice dinner with something after it. Shellfish are supposed to act as aphrodisiacs. Annalena will NOT describe why that is the case in this entry. Look it up, sweet ones, and have a lovely day of hearts and flowers.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Red and green: kale and radicchio
Admit it: when you encounter certain colors, in foods, you expect certain flavor profiles (I hate that phrase). Green things are supposed to taste, well, "vegetal." White things should be creamy or cheesy. Black things: anise or licorice. Blue? Don't eat it (blueberries are purple, remember?). Purple: grapey.
Pink and red: sweet.
It's not just me, is it?
Ok, anyway, the first time I saw a head of radicchio, with that beautiful reddish purple color, I just KNEW it was going to be sweet. I took it home, chopped it up, put it in a salad...
Well, you know how I reacted. It's one of those dirty tricks Italian cooking and Mother Nature play on us from time to time.
But now that I know what to expect, I like that bitterness, when it's controlled (who doesn't like controlled bitterness, for that matter?). I put it in salads with endive (white, and pale green, almost a creamy taste), and walnuts, for example.
You can change the bitter to sweet by cooking it (like so many other things). When it's grilled, or panfried, radicchio takes on a lovely sweetness that is magnified if you add balsamic vinegar to it. It is with that in mind, and out of necessity, that this vegetable side dish was born.
I had cooked up some kale early in the week, for a dinner party. When I looked at it, I realized there was not nearly enough of it for us. So, reaching into the fridge, the radicchio that was destined for the salad bowl, became a cooked vegetable. The endive made its appearance with apples and walnuts, in a play on waldorf salad.
So here's what I did. Slice up a head of radicchio as if you were going to make coleslaw. Heat up about two tablespoons of olive oil in a pan, and add four cloves of smashed, peeled, garlic. Add the radicchio and stir it around. Cover the pan if you have to. The radicchio will reduce in volume, and take on the color of a dark purple bruise.
Not very appetizing sounding, is it. Wait. We're not done. I will spare you the chemistry, but the change in color is the result of a reaction going on with the pigment that gives radicchio its color. You can restore that color... with acid. Acids act as a "mordant" or "fixative" for many vegetable pigments. This works with red cabbage, too. Just pour in about 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar (to provide sweetness: you could use other vinegars too), and cook it to a reduction, with the radicchio. The color will mostly come back.
Now, add your kale. You will have done this beforehand. Cooking kale is simple. You need a big pot, and lots of water. Cut off the stems where they meet the leaves, and then tear the leaves off of the central stem. Drop them into boiling salted water, and cook for at least ten minutes. It is difficult to overcook kale, but keep an eye on it. If the color starts going from green to brown, stop. Drain the leaves, let them cool, chop them, and stir them into the radicchio.
The colors are stunning in a startling way. DARK green, and purple, in a vegetable. Add the interplay of the garlic and the vinegar, and you have something that transcends its individual components.
Try it. These are good winter vegetables, and you'll introduce yourself and your friends to a combo and style you will not have tried before
Pink and red: sweet.
It's not just me, is it?
Ok, anyway, the first time I saw a head of radicchio, with that beautiful reddish purple color, I just KNEW it was going to be sweet. I took it home, chopped it up, put it in a salad...
Well, you know how I reacted. It's one of those dirty tricks Italian cooking and Mother Nature play on us from time to time.
But now that I know what to expect, I like that bitterness, when it's controlled (who doesn't like controlled bitterness, for that matter?). I put it in salads with endive (white, and pale green, almost a creamy taste), and walnuts, for example.
You can change the bitter to sweet by cooking it (like so many other things). When it's grilled, or panfried, radicchio takes on a lovely sweetness that is magnified if you add balsamic vinegar to it. It is with that in mind, and out of necessity, that this vegetable side dish was born.
I had cooked up some kale early in the week, for a dinner party. When I looked at it, I realized there was not nearly enough of it for us. So, reaching into the fridge, the radicchio that was destined for the salad bowl, became a cooked vegetable. The endive made its appearance with apples and walnuts, in a play on waldorf salad.
So here's what I did. Slice up a head of radicchio as if you were going to make coleslaw. Heat up about two tablespoons of olive oil in a pan, and add four cloves of smashed, peeled, garlic. Add the radicchio and stir it around. Cover the pan if you have to. The radicchio will reduce in volume, and take on the color of a dark purple bruise.
Not very appetizing sounding, is it. Wait. We're not done. I will spare you the chemistry, but the change in color is the result of a reaction going on with the pigment that gives radicchio its color. You can restore that color... with acid. Acids act as a "mordant" or "fixative" for many vegetable pigments. This works with red cabbage, too. Just pour in about 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar (to provide sweetness: you could use other vinegars too), and cook it to a reduction, with the radicchio. The color will mostly come back.
Now, add your kale. You will have done this beforehand. Cooking kale is simple. You need a big pot, and lots of water. Cut off the stems where they meet the leaves, and then tear the leaves off of the central stem. Drop them into boiling salted water, and cook for at least ten minutes. It is difficult to overcook kale, but keep an eye on it. If the color starts going from green to brown, stop. Drain the leaves, let them cool, chop them, and stir them into the radicchio.
The colors are stunning in a startling way. DARK green, and purple, in a vegetable. Add the interplay of the garlic and the vinegar, and you have something that transcends its individual components.
Try it. These are good winter vegetables, and you'll introduce yourself and your friends to a combo and style you will not have tried before
Leeking again: braised leeks, with add ons
The constant reader of this blog will know of my affection for leeks. I think they are probably the most underrated vegetable of all of them, or at least of the ones that I like. To my taste, they have a "soft" oniony flavor that is very hard to resist. They are somewhat more difficult to work with than other vegetables, and sadly, rather expensive, for reasons I have not been able to figure out. Yet, cooking them is a delight. Here's a recipe that I learned, from scanning the internet, but simplified. I will give you what I regard as the "add ons," but I do want you to know, none of them are required.
The recipe is entitled "Leeks vinaigrette with burrata cheese and mustard." If you do not know burrata, you should make its acquaintance as fast as possible. Burrata is , I guess, a type of fresh mozzarella. I am not sure how they make it, but it is very, VERY soft and liquid, and filled with what they tell me is cream, but which tastes a lot like fresh butter to me. You have to eat it very fresh, otherwise, it's "just" mozzarella. Nothing wrong with that, but don't miss this wonderful treat.
Anyway, in the full version of this dish, the burrata is served alongside of leeks, with a mustardy crumb topping and the vinaigrette over the top. When I made it, I thought it was terrific, but the burrata can, and should stand on its own. The leeks and cheese did not make for something particularly harmonious. So I would say leave it out.
Let's make the leeks first, because they are key here. As I've said before, when you buy leeks, they will have several inches of dark green, tough leaves on the top. Cut them off and unless you have more discipline than do I and plan to make soup quickly, discard them, or put them in a compost pile. You want the leeks to be, between 6 and 8 inches (let's not go there, shall we?). Check to make sure they are not dirty, and if they are, wash them, by spreading the layers, or cutting vertically down the middle so you can spread them apart, and giving them lots of water.
If your leeks are more than about 3/4 inch in diameter, you should also cut them in half, vertically. The bigger ones will not cook.
You need a lot of them here: I made 16 this way, in a 9x13 inch pan. If you make less, use a smaller pan. In any event, preheat your oven to 450. Then, put the leeks into your baking vessel. If you've cut them in half, put the cut side down. You can layer them on top of each other if you need to. Now, pour about a cup and a half of chicken stock over them, and add a half dozen or so sprigs of fresh thyme. You also want to slice up a lemon into thin slices, and put that in the baking dish, together with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and a sprinkle of salt. Cover this with tin foil, and bake away , for 30 minutes. Then, take off the foil and bake for another hour.
Time consuming, yes? Well, not really. Remember you're not doing much while this is happening, and your leeks will soften, carmelize, and turn wonderfully golden. They will also reduce in volume markedly. The taste concentrates. You don't need a lot for a portion. 16 leeks is plenty for 8 people.
Now, you can take these out of the vessel and leave any liquid behind that is there, and serve the l eeks as they are. I do l ike the vinaigrette with them though, and you do that by using some of that downtime to squeeze 1/3 cup lemon juice, and mixing it with an equal amount of mustard, and twice the amount of olive oil. T his may give you more vinaigrette than you will want (it's a lot), but if it is, you've got great salad dressing for another meal.
If you want to - and I like this - you can interpose a layer of mustard breadcrumbs between the leeks and the dressing.
MUSTARD BREADCRUMBS? Patience meine kindern. This is not hard to do, but it's also time consuming. The good thing is, you can do this days ahead of time.
Get a loaf of bread - more than half a pound, and no more than a pound or so. Get GOOD bread. None of that s pongy stuff . Ciabatta, baguette, anything that is crusty and solid will do. Don't take off the crust (the original recipe said you should. DON'T). Cut the bread into cubes , maybe half an inch in size, and don't be surgical about it. Then mix up 1/4 cup of mustard, 1/4 cup of white wine, and 1/4 cup of neutral oil - no olive oil here, please. Put the bread, and this marinade in a bowl together, and get your hands in to coat the bread. Then, spread it all out on a parchment lined baking sheet, and bake it at 250 (very low), for an hour and a half. The coating will seep into the bread, and then caramelize somewhat. After the bread is cooked and dry, taste one.
Good, huh? Well, now you know how to make flavored croutons if you want to. Just substitute something for the mustard.
For this recipe, now put those cubes, after they were cooled, into a sturdy bag , or double bag, and crush them with a meat pounder, a rolling pin, anything. You want uneven, bigger pieces. Don't pulverize.
You'll have more than you need here, so you can use the rest for, oh, a crust on mac and cheese or in a salad with that l eft over vinaigrette. In any event, spoon a couple of tablespoons over the leeks and then add the vinaigrette, if you use this variation.
In the complete form of the recipe, you now put a small piece of burrata cheese alongside of the leeks. In my opinion, what you should do is serve the burrata first, with some good sausage, and then serve these as a first course. Or leave out the burrata alltogether. Use it for another meal.
This one sounds time consuming and complicated, but it really isn't. Try it. We had it as a first course to a cassoulet dinner, and it hit precisely the right note. Everyone else is still talking about the cassoulet. Moi? I could eat these leeks right now.
The recipe is entitled "Leeks vinaigrette with burrata cheese and mustard." If you do not know burrata, you should make its acquaintance as fast as possible. Burrata is , I guess, a type of fresh mozzarella. I am not sure how they make it, but it is very, VERY soft and liquid, and filled with what they tell me is cream, but which tastes a lot like fresh butter to me. You have to eat it very fresh, otherwise, it's "just" mozzarella. Nothing wrong with that, but don't miss this wonderful treat.
Anyway, in the full version of this dish, the burrata is served alongside of leeks, with a mustardy crumb topping and the vinaigrette over the top. When I made it, I thought it was terrific, but the burrata can, and should stand on its own. The leeks and cheese did not make for something particularly harmonious. So I would say leave it out.
Let's make the leeks first, because they are key here. As I've said before, when you buy leeks, they will have several inches of dark green, tough leaves on the top. Cut them off and unless you have more discipline than do I and plan to make soup quickly, discard them, or put them in a compost pile. You want the leeks to be, between 6 and 8 inches (let's not go there, shall we?). Check to make sure they are not dirty, and if they are, wash them, by spreading the layers, or cutting vertically down the middle so you can spread them apart, and giving them lots of water.
If your leeks are more than about 3/4 inch in diameter, you should also cut them in half, vertically. The bigger ones will not cook.
You need a lot of them here: I made 16 this way, in a 9x13 inch pan. If you make less, use a smaller pan. In any event, preheat your oven to 450. Then, put the leeks into your baking vessel. If you've cut them in half, put the cut side down. You can layer them on top of each other if you need to. Now, pour about a cup and a half of chicken stock over them, and add a half dozen or so sprigs of fresh thyme. You also want to slice up a lemon into thin slices, and put that in the baking dish, together with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and a sprinkle of salt. Cover this with tin foil, and bake away , for 30 minutes. Then, take off the foil and bake for another hour.
Time consuming, yes? Well, not really. Remember you're not doing much while this is happening, and your leeks will soften, carmelize, and turn wonderfully golden. They will also reduce in volume markedly. The taste concentrates. You don't need a lot for a portion. 16 leeks is plenty for 8 people.
Now, you can take these out of the vessel and leave any liquid behind that is there, and serve the l eeks as they are. I do l ike the vinaigrette with them though, and you do that by using some of that downtime to squeeze 1/3 cup lemon juice, and mixing it with an equal amount of mustard, and twice the amount of olive oil. T his may give you more vinaigrette than you will want (it's a lot), but if it is, you've got great salad dressing for another meal.
If you want to - and I like this - you can interpose a layer of mustard breadcrumbs between the leeks and the dressing.
MUSTARD BREADCRUMBS? Patience meine kindern. This is not hard to do, but it's also time consuming. The good thing is, you can do this days ahead of time.
Get a loaf of bread - more than half a pound, and no more than a pound or so. Get GOOD bread. None of that s pongy stuff . Ciabatta, baguette, anything that is crusty and solid will do. Don't take off the crust (the original recipe said you should. DON'T). Cut the bread into cubes , maybe half an inch in size, and don't be surgical about it. Then mix up 1/4 cup of mustard, 1/4 cup of white wine, and 1/4 cup of neutral oil - no olive oil here, please. Put the bread, and this marinade in a bowl together, and get your hands in to coat the bread. Then, spread it all out on a parchment lined baking sheet, and bake it at 250 (very low), for an hour and a half. The coating will seep into the bread, and then caramelize somewhat. After the bread is cooked and dry, taste one.
Good, huh? Well, now you know how to make flavored croutons if you want to. Just substitute something for the mustard.
For this recipe, now put those cubes, after they were cooled, into a sturdy bag , or double bag, and crush them with a meat pounder, a rolling pin, anything. You want uneven, bigger pieces. Don't pulverize.
You'll have more than you need here, so you can use the rest for, oh, a crust on mac and cheese or in a salad with that l eft over vinaigrette. In any event, spoon a couple of tablespoons over the leeks and then add the vinaigrette, if you use this variation.
In the complete form of the recipe, you now put a small piece of burrata cheese alongside of the leeks. In my opinion, what you should do is serve the burrata first, with some good sausage, and then serve these as a first course. Or leave out the burrata alltogether. Use it for another meal.
This one sounds time consuming and complicated, but it really isn't. Try it. We had it as a first course to a cassoulet dinner, and it hit precisely the right note. Everyone else is still talking about the cassoulet. Moi? I could eat these leeks right now.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Nuts for nutella
Can we have a show of hands? How many of you love Italy's answer to peanut butter? Yours truly is not going to take a position on whether she likes Nutella better than peanut butter: let's say that she feels of them like some of our parents felt of us and our siblings: "I love you different."
Admit it. When mom said that, you figured out that you weren't the favorite, didn't ya? But leave that for the therapist's couch (or in my case the therapist's chair.)
But I digress (some things did NOT change while I was away). It is simply by way of assuring all of our red white and blue Americans out there that I am not abandoning peanut butter for nutella. I LOVE peanut butter. I eat too much of it. I put dull knives into the jar, pull out hunks of it, and eat it off the knife (you've done that. I KNOW you did). But I do the same thing for Nutella. And this is odd: for someone who does not like chocolate, I could and probably would, sit there and eat jar after jar of the hazelnut chocolate stuff. In fact, a gift fantasy of mine, is that one day, someone will give me the 4 kilo jar of it that I see in my Italian grocery (affectionately, and politically incorrectly called, "the wop shop.).
So, looking for a new ice cream to make this week, Annalena had an idea: I've made peanut butter ice cream, and I've made dulce de leche ice cream (perhaps the Latino version of peanut butter?). The formulas were similar: how about... you guessed it.
It worked. It's good. It's wonderful. If you have an ice cream maker, make this immediately. Make twice what you think you'll need, and eat some of it out of the machine (I won't say I did or I didn't. ). It's easy. Here we go.
You need six large egg yolks. Save the whites to make the chocolate hazelnut cookies I wrote about early on (you can find it). You also need about 3/4 cup of granulated sugar, a cup of milk and 2 cups of cream. And... a 12 ounce jar of Nutella. Put everything but the Nutella into a sauce pan. Whisk it slowly, to break up the eggs, and then start cooking, over medium low heat, whisking constantly, until you get a thick creamy texture that coats a wooden spoon (REVIEW: what do we have at this point: I'm not telling). Off of the heat, stir in about 3/4 of the jar of the Nutella . Spread the rest on some crackers or bananas or something, or pull it out with a knife, or leave it for the next batch. The stuff keeps.
Stir the Nutella in the ...... (thought I'd give it away, didn't ya?), until it dissolves. You'll have a dark, wonderful looking thing, that will look all the world like chocolate ice cream. BUT...
When it's cooled down (refrigerate it), use your ice cream maker to churn it. I think the best way to describe the color is "cafe au lait." I think the best way to describe the taste is "more please." And you will want more.
If you want to overdo things (who doesn't), make those chocolate hazelnut meringues. Otherwise, serve this with some sliced fruit, like bananas, or perhaps chermoya, or something else "tropical." I think it would be terrific with coconut meringue cookies, or alongside of coconut custard pie.
Coconut custard pie and Nutella ice cream. Gee, the nutrition police are gonna be after me for THAT one...
Admit it. When mom said that, you figured out that you weren't the favorite, didn't ya? But leave that for the therapist's couch (or in my case the therapist's chair.)
But I digress (some things did NOT change while I was away). It is simply by way of assuring all of our red white and blue Americans out there that I am not abandoning peanut butter for nutella. I LOVE peanut butter. I eat too much of it. I put dull knives into the jar, pull out hunks of it, and eat it off the knife (you've done that. I KNOW you did). But I do the same thing for Nutella. And this is odd: for someone who does not like chocolate, I could and probably would, sit there and eat jar after jar of the hazelnut chocolate stuff. In fact, a gift fantasy of mine, is that one day, someone will give me the 4 kilo jar of it that I see in my Italian grocery (affectionately, and politically incorrectly called, "the wop shop.).
So, looking for a new ice cream to make this week, Annalena had an idea: I've made peanut butter ice cream, and I've made dulce de leche ice cream (perhaps the Latino version of peanut butter?). The formulas were similar: how about... you guessed it.
It worked. It's good. It's wonderful. If you have an ice cream maker, make this immediately. Make twice what you think you'll need, and eat some of it out of the machine (I won't say I did or I didn't. ). It's easy. Here we go.
You need six large egg yolks. Save the whites to make the chocolate hazelnut cookies I wrote about early on (you can find it). You also need about 3/4 cup of granulated sugar, a cup of milk and 2 cups of cream. And... a 12 ounce jar of Nutella. Put everything but the Nutella into a sauce pan. Whisk it slowly, to break up the eggs, and then start cooking, over medium low heat, whisking constantly, until you get a thick creamy texture that coats a wooden spoon (REVIEW: what do we have at this point: I'm not telling). Off of the heat, stir in about 3/4 of the jar of the Nutella . Spread the rest on some crackers or bananas or something, or pull it out with a knife, or leave it for the next batch. The stuff keeps.
Stir the Nutella in the ...... (thought I'd give it away, didn't ya?), until it dissolves. You'll have a dark, wonderful looking thing, that will look all the world like chocolate ice cream. BUT...
When it's cooled down (refrigerate it), use your ice cream maker to churn it. I think the best way to describe the color is "cafe au lait." I think the best way to describe the taste is "more please." And you will want more.
If you want to overdo things (who doesn't), make those chocolate hazelnut meringues. Otherwise, serve this with some sliced fruit, like bananas, or perhaps chermoya, or something else "tropical." I think it would be terrific with coconut meringue cookies, or alongside of coconut custard pie.
Coconut custard pie and Nutella ice cream. Gee, the nutrition police are gonna be after me for THAT one...
Saturday, February 6, 2010
I am ASHAMED of myself: "Faux reos"
There are recipes that, ultimately, are abhorrent. This is one of them. But the people want bread, circuses , and oreos.
Ask people what their favorite cookie is, and if they think of the homemade stuff, they will give you answers like chocolate chip, peanut butter, or oatmeal. If they think storebought, I think Oreos will win in a landslide. At least they did amongst Annalena's entourage.
And Annalena knows how to make them. Except that, because we cannot use the oreo trademark, we call them "faux reos."
Wink wink, nudge nudge.
To the abhorrency. The cookie per se, is not so bad. Simple chocolate wafer, no worse than most cookies.
But the filling. Oh, dear. Notwithstanding this, and having told people of what is in it, the response to these was along the lines of "they should be illegal, they're so good."
Sigh. So, they are on Annalena's repeat list. I shall make them again. Not happily, well,yes, happily, because my friends are adults, and can control themselves.
You can, can't you?
Ok, here's the story. Let's bake cookies first. You need a heaping cup of granulated sugar, half a teaspoon of salt, and a stick and a half of softened, unsalted butter. Also, if you have espresso powder, a teaspoon of that. You also need a large egg, a tablepoon of vanillasome water, 1.5 cups of flour and 3/4 cup of the darkets, blackest cocoa you can find. There is one called "black cocoa," and if you can find it, use it.
Preheat the oven to 325. This is low heat, because these are thin cookies and they burn easily .
Beat together the sugar, the butter, the salt and the espresso powder. Work it till it's smooth and uniform, either by hand or with the mixer. Now add the egg, a teaspoon of vanilla, the flour and cocoa. Stir it all together. You'll make a mess, but you will get it done. The dough is stiff.
Measure small amounts of this. Two teaspoons or so per cookie. Measure. Roll the first two teaspoons into a ball, and then you have a template for what the size should be. Put the balls onto cookie sheets lined with parchment paper.
Get a glass ,or something with a flat, smooth bottom, and put it into some granulated sugar. Press down on the cookies until they are really thin. This is important. Then bake them, for 18 minutes or so. you have to keep an eye on this step. These burn in an instand, but if you don't cook them enough, they won't be crisp. The best test is smell. If you can smell a rich chocolaty smell at 18 minutes, you're fine. If things begin to smell scorched, stop the tray.
Let the cookies cool. Now make the filling which is the disgusting part. Here are the ingredients:
2.5 cups confectioner's sugar
.5 cups of crisco
vanilla extract
at least a tablespoon of water.
GROSS. Mix the sugar, crisco and extract until it's as blended as it's gonna get. It will not come together. That's why you have the water. Annlena can explain the chemistry to you someday. Add a tablespoon of it and stir, and if the glob comes together smoothly, fine. If not, add another tablespoon of water. Then another. I believe I added 4 to get uniform texture.
Put a goodly spoon of the gross filling on a cookie, cover it with another one and press them together. Do this until you've used up the cookies, or the filling. Ideally, this will happen together, but it never does. Try to have leftover cookies. They are great with ice cream. Left over filling. GROSS.
You'll get a little more than 2 dozen cookies from this recipe. Don't eat too many of them. You know what's in em.
Ah, you will anyway.
Ask people what their favorite cookie is, and if they think of the homemade stuff, they will give you answers like chocolate chip, peanut butter, or oatmeal. If they think storebought, I think Oreos will win in a landslide. At least they did amongst Annalena's entourage.
And Annalena knows how to make them. Except that, because we cannot use the oreo trademark, we call them "faux reos."
Wink wink, nudge nudge.
To the abhorrency. The cookie per se, is not so bad. Simple chocolate wafer, no worse than most cookies.
But the filling. Oh, dear. Notwithstanding this, and having told people of what is in it, the response to these was along the lines of "they should be illegal, they're so good."
Sigh. So, they are on Annalena's repeat list. I shall make them again. Not happily, well,yes, happily, because my friends are adults, and can control themselves.
You can, can't you?
Ok, here's the story. Let's bake cookies first. You need a heaping cup of granulated sugar, half a teaspoon of salt, and a stick and a half of softened, unsalted butter. Also, if you have espresso powder, a teaspoon of that. You also need a large egg, a tablepoon of vanillasome water, 1.5 cups of flour and 3/4 cup of the darkets, blackest cocoa you can find. There is one called "black cocoa," and if you can find it, use it.
Preheat the oven to 325. This is low heat, because these are thin cookies and they burn easily .
Beat together the sugar, the butter, the salt and the espresso powder. Work it till it's smooth and uniform, either by hand or with the mixer. Now add the egg, a teaspoon of vanilla, the flour and cocoa. Stir it all together. You'll make a mess, but you will get it done. The dough is stiff.
Measure small amounts of this. Two teaspoons or so per cookie. Measure. Roll the first two teaspoons into a ball, and then you have a template for what the size should be. Put the balls onto cookie sheets lined with parchment paper.
Get a glass ,or something with a flat, smooth bottom, and put it into some granulated sugar. Press down on the cookies until they are really thin. This is important. Then bake them, for 18 minutes or so. you have to keep an eye on this step. These burn in an instand, but if you don't cook them enough, they won't be crisp. The best test is smell. If you can smell a rich chocolaty smell at 18 minutes, you're fine. If things begin to smell scorched, stop the tray.
Let the cookies cool. Now make the filling which is the disgusting part. Here are the ingredients:
2.5 cups confectioner's sugar
.5 cups of crisco
vanilla extract
at least a tablespoon of water.
GROSS. Mix the sugar, crisco and extract until it's as blended as it's gonna get. It will not come together. That's why you have the water. Annlena can explain the chemistry to you someday. Add a tablespoon of it and stir, and if the glob comes together smoothly, fine. If not, add another tablespoon of water. Then another. I believe I added 4 to get uniform texture.
Put a goodly spoon of the gross filling on a cookie, cover it with another one and press them together. Do this until you've used up the cookies, or the filling. Ideally, this will happen together, but it never does. Try to have leftover cookies. They are great with ice cream. Left over filling. GROSS.
You'll get a little more than 2 dozen cookies from this recipe. Don't eat too many of them. You know what's in em.
Ah, you will anyway.
And now, she goes Mexican, sort of: chili
Big companies, law firms, churches, and that ilk, are always concerned with "boosting morale." Now, in Annalena's view, nothing boosts morale like a raise in pay, or telling someone to take a few hours off, but I guess that's why she's not management.
So, as part of her employer's morale boosting efforts, a chili making contest was announced.
Of course, I was all over this one. I may have been the first one to respond, when it was announced with "I'm in! I'm in! I'm in!" NOT that I'm the competitive sort.
Then the response came back. "We wanted you to be a judge." Now, I might have been happier about this had I gotten to wear a powdered wig and a robe, but no. No such luck. And of course, the conflict of interest issue precluded me entering my chili. (I DID think about putting it in under someone else's name, and I thought about it HARD. And then thought it was too close to Lent to do it).
Well, one of the other judges and I both brought in chilis to just serve to people. I will not comment on how I thought mine placed among the various entries. I will say I think this is a very good chili recipe. This is a good thing to have, at this time of year, when you want something very sustaining but not too stressful. There's room to vary things in this recipe, and it doubles, or even triples well. Just make sure you have enough spices on hand before you start. You may think that you do, but check. The amounts are big.
Here we go. For every two pounds of lean, ground beef (use grass fed if you can), you need 2 cups of chopped onions. You don't need to be a surgeon with this, but try to keep em small. You also need 3 tablespoons of ground cumin, and 3 tablespoons of chili powder. Now, chili powders come in all degrees of complexity and heat. You have to be the judge here. If you are a heat queeen, use the hot stuff. If not, mediate it. I use a mix of ancho chili powder, hot chili powder, and sweet chili, with a touch of pimenton, but use your own imagination. You also need 2 chopped chipotles in adobo. You get these in a can, and don't wipe your eyes after you've chopped. Adobo is very hot. (incidentally, you can kick up the amount here, or pour more adobo into the pot). The 'secret' ingredient here, is water. Again, for every 2 pounds of meet, you need 2.5 cups of water, minimum. You will also need olive oil (which is indigenously Mexican, by the way), salt and pepper.
Let's get to work. Put enough olive oil in a big pot to coat it. Add the meat, the onions and some salt and put the heat to high. Stir this stuff together. The chopped meat will stick. Keep breaking it up and stirring, until the pink color is gone. This will take between 5-7 minutes. Then add the other solids, and saute' for 3 minutes. Finally add the water. You can add a half cup of chopped fresh cilantro at this point. The stuff is going to cook down so long that the "soapy" flavor you non cilantro lovers hate won't be there. I didn't taste it in the finished product, so if you don't have it, leave it out.
Give t his a stir. Cover the pot partially, and lower the heat. Go read a book for an hour, come back and stir it. If you're hearing a "crackling" noise, it means it's too dry, and you should add a quarter cup of water (this rule applies through the cooking process). Then go and sit down for another half hour. Come on back, taste the chili (it will need salt), and adjust that. Then, if you want it hotter, add some more adobo, or some jalapenos, or something like that. Don't add more powder. At this point, the chili is finished cooking and the powders will not do their trick.
According to the recipe I worked with, 2 pounds of ground meat serves 4. I think not. But you know your audience, so adjust as appropriate.
You can serve this with all of the standard chili fixins, like grated cheese, sour cream, onions, and so forth. First time around though, do Annalena a favor, and sample it "as is." I bet you'll love it, and I bet you'll come back and do it again.
So, as part of her employer's morale boosting efforts, a chili making contest was announced.
Of course, I was all over this one. I may have been the first one to respond, when it was announced with "I'm in! I'm in! I'm in!" NOT that I'm the competitive sort.
Then the response came back. "We wanted you to be a judge." Now, I might have been happier about this had I gotten to wear a powdered wig and a robe, but no. No such luck. And of course, the conflict of interest issue precluded me entering my chili. (I DID think about putting it in under someone else's name, and I thought about it HARD. And then thought it was too close to Lent to do it).
Well, one of the other judges and I both brought in chilis to just serve to people. I will not comment on how I thought mine placed among the various entries. I will say I think this is a very good chili recipe. This is a good thing to have, at this time of year, when you want something very sustaining but not too stressful. There's room to vary things in this recipe, and it doubles, or even triples well. Just make sure you have enough spices on hand before you start. You may think that you do, but check. The amounts are big.
Here we go. For every two pounds of lean, ground beef (use grass fed if you can), you need 2 cups of chopped onions. You don't need to be a surgeon with this, but try to keep em small. You also need 3 tablespoons of ground cumin, and 3 tablespoons of chili powder. Now, chili powders come in all degrees of complexity and heat. You have to be the judge here. If you are a heat queeen, use the hot stuff. If not, mediate it. I use a mix of ancho chili powder, hot chili powder, and sweet chili, with a touch of pimenton, but use your own imagination. You also need 2 chopped chipotles in adobo. You get these in a can, and don't wipe your eyes after you've chopped. Adobo is very hot. (incidentally, you can kick up the amount here, or pour more adobo into the pot). The 'secret' ingredient here, is water. Again, for every 2 pounds of meet, you need 2.5 cups of water, minimum. You will also need olive oil (which is indigenously Mexican, by the way), salt and pepper.
Let's get to work. Put enough olive oil in a big pot to coat it. Add the meat, the onions and some salt and put the heat to high. Stir this stuff together. The chopped meat will stick. Keep breaking it up and stirring, until the pink color is gone. This will take between 5-7 minutes. Then add the other solids, and saute' for 3 minutes. Finally add the water. You can add a half cup of chopped fresh cilantro at this point. The stuff is going to cook down so long that the "soapy" flavor you non cilantro lovers hate won't be there. I didn't taste it in the finished product, so if you don't have it, leave it out.
Give t his a stir. Cover the pot partially, and lower the heat. Go read a book for an hour, come back and stir it. If you're hearing a "crackling" noise, it means it's too dry, and you should add a quarter cup of water (this rule applies through the cooking process). Then go and sit down for another half hour. Come on back, taste the chili (it will need salt), and adjust that. Then, if you want it hotter, add some more adobo, or some jalapenos, or something like that. Don't add more powder. At this point, the chili is finished cooking and the powders will not do their trick.
According to the recipe I worked with, 2 pounds of ground meat serves 4. I think not. But you know your audience, so adjust as appropriate.
You can serve this with all of the standard chili fixins, like grated cheese, sour cream, onions, and so forth. First time around though, do Annalena a favor, and sample it "as is." I bet you'll love it, and I bet you'll come back and do it again.
Did y'all miss me? : Annalena goes Indian. sort of
Well, I'm back. And with any luck, staying.
Ah, ragazzi, it has been a trying six weeks or so. I guess we all go through periods where we wonder "what is next? Can I handle it? Is it worth it?" And the energy that goes into figuring out the answers to those questions is so total, that there's no time for things like, well, writing cooking blogs. I will, perhaps , fill you in on some of the details as I get back into the swing of things, but for now, let's all cook together again. I HAVE missed you. And I will try to give you as much new in the recipe field as I can.
I think you know by now that while my cooking milieu is solidly in Italy and the mediterranean, I do like to step out from time to time, and to play with different flavors, from different cooking styles. I have talked about how true Indian food defeats me. I just do not have a flair for it. But there are recipes that hint at the classic techniques of a cuisine, without emmeshing you in those techniques fully. Think (ok, try not to think) of "Olive Garden." It's a bad example on some levels, but on others, the idea works. NONE of what they serve there is Italian. "Shrimp alfredo?" My stomach recoils at the thought. BUT... for someone who is not an Italian food purist, perhaps this is as close as it gets. So, I will beg indulgence from those who love and prepare good, solid authentic Indian food as I present this recipe. And I will also ask you to invite me over and show me how to do it properly.
This recipe was introduced to me as "quick tandoori chicken thighs." When I read the recipe, the "quick" part of it really bothered me. From what little I know of Indian cooking, the slow, careful infusion of spices is critical to it. Good Indian cooking does not stun you with brassy, raw spices. So while I liked the idea of the spices and the marinade, I did not like the quickness, which said, originally to put the chicken in the marinade and let it sit for all of about five minutes.
RUBBISH.
Also, on reflection, the original recipe was underspiced. There were hints of the flavors you associate with Indian food, but it could have used more. So, here I'm kicking the flavors up.
Yet another change. The recipe called for low fat yogurt. Well, let me say this: fat is a carrier of the oils that come out of spices. You want more flavor? Use the real thing. For the amount of yogurt you're going to eat, if the low fat versus full fat version is making a difference, don't eat this dish. And , finally, the recipe called for grilling. Annalena, in her large, but not huge NY apartment, does not have access to a barbecuing grill. So she adapted the recipe for oven cooking . It works.
You use the most underused and neglected part of the chicken here: thighs, on the bone, with their skin. You could also use drumsticks or full legs. Do use dark meat though, and keep things on the bone. The flavor is better.
You will probably need to go to the store to buy spices for this, but all of the spices that are in the recipe are things you can use in other recipes. Tumeric , for example, is terrific on roasted potatoes. Garam masala on green beans. Coriander in creamy stuff as a dip. So, let's get going.
In a bowl, mix up a cup of yogurt - I used sheep's milk, with the juice of one lemon, and two tablespoons of fresh ginger, minced as fine as you can without getting microscopic about it. Don't worry about peeling it. Then, add the same amount of minced garlic, but do peel that. Add 2 teaspoons of tumeric, one of g round coriander, one of ground cumin and one of garam masala. Add salt and pepper. You will be "eyeballing" this. I would say you want this saltier than you would like , if you were eating the yogurt in a bowl, as yogurt.
Now, put this stuff in a plastic bag and add eight chicken thighs. Put that bag in another bag, seal the package, scrunch things up, and then put it in a bowl, and in the fridge for at least one, and as long as three days.
You can do this. The instructions above took you all of about 4 minutes to carry out, didn't they? I t hought so.
When you're ready to cook, preheat your oven to 425 degrees. If you have a grill pan, oil it up with vegetable oil and get it nice and hot. If not, use a big frying pan and slick it with oil. Take the chicken out of the marinade, but don't worry about pushing all the stuff off. It's best if some stays on. When the oil is hot, put the chicken skin side down and pan fry or grill, for 3-4 minutes, until you get some good color. Then turn it around and cook for another 3 minutes. If your pan isn't big enough to do all of them (most aren't), do this in batches.
Move the chicken, skin side UP, to a baking sheet (don't grease it), and roast for about 30 minutes. You can get away with longer cooking here, because the thighs are very juicy. So are the legs.
And that's all there is to it. You probably want to serve this with saffron, or white rice, or maybe some tumeric potatoes (you know how to make them, don't you? If you don't, tell me and we'll do them together. It's another absurdly easy thing to do, where the only thing you have to worry about is getting your fingers dyed that dark yellow color).
There's something kind of funny about returning with an Indian recipe. Such is life. I hope you missed me. I missed you.
Ah, ragazzi, it has been a trying six weeks or so. I guess we all go through periods where we wonder "what is next? Can I handle it? Is it worth it?" And the energy that goes into figuring out the answers to those questions is so total, that there's no time for things like, well, writing cooking blogs. I will, perhaps , fill you in on some of the details as I get back into the swing of things, but for now, let's all cook together again. I HAVE missed you. And I will try to give you as much new in the recipe field as I can.
I think you know by now that while my cooking milieu is solidly in Italy and the mediterranean, I do like to step out from time to time, and to play with different flavors, from different cooking styles. I have talked about how true Indian food defeats me. I just do not have a flair for it. But there are recipes that hint at the classic techniques of a cuisine, without emmeshing you in those techniques fully. Think (ok, try not to think) of "Olive Garden." It's a bad example on some levels, but on others, the idea works. NONE of what they serve there is Italian. "Shrimp alfredo?" My stomach recoils at the thought. BUT... for someone who is not an Italian food purist, perhaps this is as close as it gets. So, I will beg indulgence from those who love and prepare good, solid authentic Indian food as I present this recipe. And I will also ask you to invite me over and show me how to do it properly.
This recipe was introduced to me as "quick tandoori chicken thighs." When I read the recipe, the "quick" part of it really bothered me. From what little I know of Indian cooking, the slow, careful infusion of spices is critical to it. Good Indian cooking does not stun you with brassy, raw spices. So while I liked the idea of the spices and the marinade, I did not like the quickness, which said, originally to put the chicken in the marinade and let it sit for all of about five minutes.
RUBBISH.
Also, on reflection, the original recipe was underspiced. There were hints of the flavors you associate with Indian food, but it could have used more. So, here I'm kicking the flavors up.
Yet another change. The recipe called for low fat yogurt. Well, let me say this: fat is a carrier of the oils that come out of spices. You want more flavor? Use the real thing. For the amount of yogurt you're going to eat, if the low fat versus full fat version is making a difference, don't eat this dish. And , finally, the recipe called for grilling. Annalena, in her large, but not huge NY apartment, does not have access to a barbecuing grill. So she adapted the recipe for oven cooking . It works.
You use the most underused and neglected part of the chicken here: thighs, on the bone, with their skin. You could also use drumsticks or full legs. Do use dark meat though, and keep things on the bone. The flavor is better.
You will probably need to go to the store to buy spices for this, but all of the spices that are in the recipe are things you can use in other recipes. Tumeric , for example, is terrific on roasted potatoes. Garam masala on green beans. Coriander in creamy stuff as a dip. So, let's get going.
In a bowl, mix up a cup of yogurt - I used sheep's milk, with the juice of one lemon, and two tablespoons of fresh ginger, minced as fine as you can without getting microscopic about it. Don't worry about peeling it. Then, add the same amount of minced garlic, but do peel that. Add 2 teaspoons of tumeric, one of g round coriander, one of ground cumin and one of garam masala. Add salt and pepper. You will be "eyeballing" this. I would say you want this saltier than you would like , if you were eating the yogurt in a bowl, as yogurt.
Now, put this stuff in a plastic bag and add eight chicken thighs. Put that bag in another bag, seal the package, scrunch things up, and then put it in a bowl, and in the fridge for at least one, and as long as three days.
You can do this. The instructions above took you all of about 4 minutes to carry out, didn't they? I t hought so.
When you're ready to cook, preheat your oven to 425 degrees. If you have a grill pan, oil it up with vegetable oil and get it nice and hot. If not, use a big frying pan and slick it with oil. Take the chicken out of the marinade, but don't worry about pushing all the stuff off. It's best if some stays on. When the oil is hot, put the chicken skin side down and pan fry or grill, for 3-4 minutes, until you get some good color. Then turn it around and cook for another 3 minutes. If your pan isn't big enough to do all of them (most aren't), do this in batches.
Move the chicken, skin side UP, to a baking sheet (don't grease it), and roast for about 30 minutes. You can get away with longer cooking here, because the thighs are very juicy. So are the legs.
And that's all there is to it. You probably want to serve this with saffron, or white rice, or maybe some tumeric potatoes (you know how to make them, don't you? If you don't, tell me and we'll do them together. It's another absurdly easy thing to do, where the only thing you have to worry about is getting your fingers dyed that dark yellow color).
There's something kind of funny about returning with an Indian recipe. Such is life. I hope you missed me. I missed you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)