A couple of things up front: this recipe is a direct steal from a book by David Lebovitz, called "The Perfect Scoop," which I am told is now out of print. David has a more recent book and, if memory serves me right, this recipe is not in there.
Second, I want to dedicate this one to my friend and chef, Patti Jackson. I remember our first meeting Patti, do you? It was over the first rhubarb of the season at Union Square . It was, as Bogie said "the start of a beautiful friendship." I love your restaurant, I love your food, I love you, girl. And if anyone can take this basic recipe and make it better, it is YOU.
I approached it with a sense of "Hmmmm." Normally, this is not the kind of ice cream that I make. It's rather an unusual idea, if you think in a Western context, but if you step out of the box, it is not. In fact, it is downright "correct."
There isn't much to say about this: I tried it, it's terrific. And it seems to make a very good semifreddo too, as I shall explain. My variation to come, I shall explain below.
So, here's what you need. Two cups of cream and one of milk. A cup of sugar. Six egg yolks. And a teaspoon of saffron. that is all.
That teaspoon of saffron makes this an ice cream that may seem a bit on the expensive side. I think a teaspoon of good saffron is probably going to cost you about 12 bucks. Do it anyway. AND DO NOT SKIMP.
You start by mixing everything but the egg yolks together. Over medium heat, bring this just to the point where the edges bubble, and then take it off the heat and let it chill and steep, for 3-4 hours.
After that, dump the stuff back into a pot and add the six egg yolks. Turn the heat to medium and cook, until you get a custard (read some of my other ice cream recipes and it will be clear how you do this). Then chill it. Annalena was a bit in a hurry today, so she chilled it in the freezer for two hours. There was more than a quart. The excess went into a small container and it sort of froze to a solid. I accidentally ate two spoons of it on the way to the ice cream maker, and it sure was good.
So, process it the same way you make ice cream of any kind. You'll get this ice cream with an incredibly GORGEOUS yellow orange color and a flavor that is "right." Talking about the dessert with Indian friends, the reaction was "I thought you told me you were making something unusual."
See what I mean about odd, and not odd?
What I would like to do next, is incorporate some overcooked carnaroli rice into it. I love rice ice creams, and somewhow, the thought of eating what is essentially a frozen, risotto pudding is very appealing.
Patti, got any ideas? Hope I get to taste them.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Here chicky chicky: stuffed poussin
My beloved readers , you all know that Annalena trolls cooking websites, magazines, and so forth, anywhere she can get ideas for her kitchen. Some would call it stealing. Well.. whenever I use a recipe from somewhere else, I attribute it and of course, sometimes give a whole hearted rave, and sometimes give a critique. But you always know from whence it came. And you also know, sometimes in ridiculous detail, how I changed it. Here is one such tale.
One of my favorite cooks from television, is Maryanne Esposito. I know purists critique her methods, and her recipes. Well, this is what I have to say about that: get over it. I do not think I have ever heard Signora Esposito say "this is the ONLY way this dish is acceptable," like some chefs have. I consider her cooking to be rooted solidly in Italian-American tradition, rather than "Italian." Yes, she adapts some of the rules of Italian cooking (especially the no dairy with fish rule), but plays fast and free with others.
Ragazzi, it's YOUR kitchen. If you choose to make the recipe I give to you here with turkey rather than baby chicken, go for it. DO give me some credit, however, but don't blame the recipe, or MOI if it doesn't work.
This is all by way of saying that I took one of Maryanne's recipes and changed it. And I love it.
On her site, I found a recipe for chicken cutlets, stuffed with spinach and fontina cheese.
Now, does THAT sound good? Oh, yes it does. And when I tell you it's easy, you may not believe me, but it is.
As far as I know, chicken cutlets are not a part of classic Italian cuisine. Italians eat their birds on the bone, and don't bother with the paillards or boneless dishes that you'll see in French cooking. Americans, however, like their chicken cutlets: they are easy to work with, cook quickly, and don't leave a mess. All good things.
Chicken on the bone is better. It is NOT a fast thing to cook, but we're going to get around that here, with baby chicken, or 'poussin," or as we called them before we all became foodies, cornish game hens (and I thank my friend, the late and much missed Walter Fankhanel for that bit of information).
A poussin is a chicken that is about six weeks old. (No black emails to me, please, for advocating eating 'baby birds'. What are you doing when you eat an egg Mr complainer? HMMMMM?). They are milder than chicken (which is pretty mild), because they haven't developed much dark meat yet.
As I wrote above, poussin and cornish game hens are the same thing, but somehow, the poussins taste better to me. It may be a question of how they are raised. I have the sense that poussin are mostly from smaller, "greener" farms. I've never taken to the taste of the "game hens," but I love poussin. And we had some in our freezer. You will know that I am currently in the process of cleaning out that deep freeze, so poussin was on the menu for the week. When I saw Maryanne's recipe, a bit of an adaptation was all that was necessary, and we had ourselves a delicious easy lunch today.
The southernmost farms who show up at the farmers market are selling field spinach. This is usually the first FARMED crop (dandelion greens , ramps, and morels, are foraged). So, the recipe was timely. Coincidentally, I had a started piece of fontina cheese in the fridge (although mozzarella, or any melting cheese would work here). The other ingredients: onion and garlic. And olive oil. If you don't have these in your kitchen, well, Annalena cannot help you.
Let's cook. Let's start with the spinach. For two birds, you need about 3/4 of a pound. Just increase it, depending on how many birds you're doing, proportionately. Before someone starts on "DUDE. What about 3 birds? my answer is to go to a heavy pound and a quarter. To cook spinach, take a look at it. If it's dirty, wash it. If it's not, put it into a pot with a tablespoon of water. Put washed spinach into a pot after you've washed it. Cover it, turn on the heat to medium high, and come back in five minutes.
You will have reduced the spinach to about 1/8 of its starting volume. If some of the spinach seems uncooked, just rotate the greens, so the cooked stuff on the bottom is on the top, and you're fine. Turn off the heat. Put the spinach in a bowl, and let it cool. When it is cool (BE PATIENT), squeeze out the liquid, and chop it roughly. Put it aside, and then in a pan, add a few tablespoons of olive oil, a chopped onion, and 2 cloves of garlic. Here, you DO need some surgical precision. You want the garlic nice and small because, if it's too big, you may bite into a piece of it instead of cheese, and that may not be what you want.
Cook the onion and garlic for about five minutes, and then add the spinach. Swirl it around, and then grate a little nutmeg into this.
Please don't omit the nutmeg. It does for spinach what basil does for tomatoes. Then add a pinch of salt.
Chop up about 3/4 cup of fontina cheese. Get the cheese with the brown rind. That's the Italian variety. The Danish variety has a red rind and doesn't work well.
And don't ask me why a cheese is from Italy and Denmark. I just cook.
Okay, what you have just made is your stuffing. Now, let's get to the birds. You can get poussins that are "boned," or whole. There will be a difference in how long you cook them, but not too much. Spoon the filling into the birds. If you have boned poussin, you may need to seal off one end with toothpicks, to keep it from coming out as you put it in , and feeling like you're an extra on an episode of "The Lucy show." You won't have that problem with whole birds because of the geometry of the critters. Pat the birds nice and dry and salt and pepper them , if you haven't followed one of Annalena's rubrics and salted them in the fridge overnight.
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees, and also, clean out that pan, add some more olive oil, and when its hot, put in the birds, breast side down. Don't crowd them. You can get two, maybe three, in a large 12 inch fry pan. Do not touch them for four minutes or so, then check. If they're nice and brown, turn them over ,and if not, let them cook some more.
When everything is nice and brown, turn the birds breast side up and, either in the pan or on a baking sheet, move them to the oven. Ten minutes for boned birds, twenty for the whole thing. If you use the whole bird, jiggle the little legs to see if they come away easily. That's your test for doneness. For the boned birds, if you've cooked them in the pan for about 8 minutes, ten minutes in the oven is plenty.
Pull them out. The cheese will have melted and made a bit of a mess, but who cares. When you cut into the bird, you will get a lovely "ooze" of cheese, with the beautiful green of the spinach, and the gentle "hit" of onion, garlic and nutmeg.
And everyone will think you're a star. I'm serious. These are no harder than cutlets, but somehow, working with the whole bird, you become a "chef" as compared to a "housewife" in people's mind.
If you are responsible for feeding children, you might be able to get them to eat vegetables this way. In Annalena's experience, children, confronted with a chicken that is a size they can relate to, will eat it, and everything with it. Years ago, cooking for her little buddy Nora, Annalena made quail. She thought that Nora would reject "eating those baby birds." Rather, her response was "It's ABOUT TIME someone made a chicken my size." She ate two, gave me a greasy kiss on the cheek and thanked me for "the best dinner EVER."
Well, if you can get that kinda love from a six, seven or eight year old.. need I say more? Hell, if you can get that kinda love from your partner. Make the dish every night.
I mentioned quail and I suppose that this would work with those birds. Somehow, though, cheese is not making it for Annalena on that one. Maybe some pancetta or bacon instead? Pork and spinach do well together. If someone tries it, PLEASE let Annalena know. If you do a different green, like swiss chard or, for my friend Chris the Empress of Kale, kale, tell me. I want to hear about all the variations on this wonderfully adaptable dish.
One of my favorite cooks from television, is Maryanne Esposito. I know purists critique her methods, and her recipes. Well, this is what I have to say about that: get over it. I do not think I have ever heard Signora Esposito say "this is the ONLY way this dish is acceptable," like some chefs have. I consider her cooking to be rooted solidly in Italian-American tradition, rather than "Italian." Yes, she adapts some of the rules of Italian cooking (especially the no dairy with fish rule), but plays fast and free with others.
Ragazzi, it's YOUR kitchen. If you choose to make the recipe I give to you here with turkey rather than baby chicken, go for it. DO give me some credit, however, but don't blame the recipe, or MOI if it doesn't work.
This is all by way of saying that I took one of Maryanne's recipes and changed it. And I love it.
On her site, I found a recipe for chicken cutlets, stuffed with spinach and fontina cheese.
Now, does THAT sound good? Oh, yes it does. And when I tell you it's easy, you may not believe me, but it is.
As far as I know, chicken cutlets are not a part of classic Italian cuisine. Italians eat their birds on the bone, and don't bother with the paillards or boneless dishes that you'll see in French cooking. Americans, however, like their chicken cutlets: they are easy to work with, cook quickly, and don't leave a mess. All good things.
Chicken on the bone is better. It is NOT a fast thing to cook, but we're going to get around that here, with baby chicken, or 'poussin," or as we called them before we all became foodies, cornish game hens (and I thank my friend, the late and much missed Walter Fankhanel for that bit of information).
A poussin is a chicken that is about six weeks old. (No black emails to me, please, for advocating eating 'baby birds'. What are you doing when you eat an egg Mr complainer? HMMMMM?). They are milder than chicken (which is pretty mild), because they haven't developed much dark meat yet.
As I wrote above, poussin and cornish game hens are the same thing, but somehow, the poussins taste better to me. It may be a question of how they are raised. I have the sense that poussin are mostly from smaller, "greener" farms. I've never taken to the taste of the "game hens," but I love poussin. And we had some in our freezer. You will know that I am currently in the process of cleaning out that deep freeze, so poussin was on the menu for the week. When I saw Maryanne's recipe, a bit of an adaptation was all that was necessary, and we had ourselves a delicious easy lunch today.
The southernmost farms who show up at the farmers market are selling field spinach. This is usually the first FARMED crop (dandelion greens , ramps, and morels, are foraged). So, the recipe was timely. Coincidentally, I had a started piece of fontina cheese in the fridge (although mozzarella, or any melting cheese would work here). The other ingredients: onion and garlic. And olive oil. If you don't have these in your kitchen, well, Annalena cannot help you.
Let's cook. Let's start with the spinach. For two birds, you need about 3/4 of a pound. Just increase it, depending on how many birds you're doing, proportionately. Before someone starts on "DUDE. What about 3 birds? my answer is to go to a heavy pound and a quarter. To cook spinach, take a look at it. If it's dirty, wash it. If it's not, put it into a pot with a tablespoon of water. Put washed spinach into a pot after you've washed it. Cover it, turn on the heat to medium high, and come back in five minutes.
You will have reduced the spinach to about 1/8 of its starting volume. If some of the spinach seems uncooked, just rotate the greens, so the cooked stuff on the bottom is on the top, and you're fine. Turn off the heat. Put the spinach in a bowl, and let it cool. When it is cool (BE PATIENT), squeeze out the liquid, and chop it roughly. Put it aside, and then in a pan, add a few tablespoons of olive oil, a chopped onion, and 2 cloves of garlic. Here, you DO need some surgical precision. You want the garlic nice and small because, if it's too big, you may bite into a piece of it instead of cheese, and that may not be what you want.
Cook the onion and garlic for about five minutes, and then add the spinach. Swirl it around, and then grate a little nutmeg into this.
Please don't omit the nutmeg. It does for spinach what basil does for tomatoes. Then add a pinch of salt.
Chop up about 3/4 cup of fontina cheese. Get the cheese with the brown rind. That's the Italian variety. The Danish variety has a red rind and doesn't work well.
And don't ask me why a cheese is from Italy and Denmark. I just cook.
Okay, what you have just made is your stuffing. Now, let's get to the birds. You can get poussins that are "boned," or whole. There will be a difference in how long you cook them, but not too much. Spoon the filling into the birds. If you have boned poussin, you may need to seal off one end with toothpicks, to keep it from coming out as you put it in , and feeling like you're an extra on an episode of "The Lucy show." You won't have that problem with whole birds because of the geometry of the critters. Pat the birds nice and dry and salt and pepper them , if you haven't followed one of Annalena's rubrics and salted them in the fridge overnight.
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees, and also, clean out that pan, add some more olive oil, and when its hot, put in the birds, breast side down. Don't crowd them. You can get two, maybe three, in a large 12 inch fry pan. Do not touch them for four minutes or so, then check. If they're nice and brown, turn them over ,and if not, let them cook some more.
When everything is nice and brown, turn the birds breast side up and, either in the pan or on a baking sheet, move them to the oven. Ten minutes for boned birds, twenty for the whole thing. If you use the whole bird, jiggle the little legs to see if they come away easily. That's your test for doneness. For the boned birds, if you've cooked them in the pan for about 8 minutes, ten minutes in the oven is plenty.
Pull them out. The cheese will have melted and made a bit of a mess, but who cares. When you cut into the bird, you will get a lovely "ooze" of cheese, with the beautiful green of the spinach, and the gentle "hit" of onion, garlic and nutmeg.
And everyone will think you're a star. I'm serious. These are no harder than cutlets, but somehow, working with the whole bird, you become a "chef" as compared to a "housewife" in people's mind.
If you are responsible for feeding children, you might be able to get them to eat vegetables this way. In Annalena's experience, children, confronted with a chicken that is a size they can relate to, will eat it, and everything with it. Years ago, cooking for her little buddy Nora, Annalena made quail. She thought that Nora would reject "eating those baby birds." Rather, her response was "It's ABOUT TIME someone made a chicken my size." She ate two, gave me a greasy kiss on the cheek and thanked me for "the best dinner EVER."
Well, if you can get that kinda love from a six, seven or eight year old.. need I say more? Hell, if you can get that kinda love from your partner. Make the dish every night.
I mentioned quail and I suppose that this would work with those birds. Somehow, though, cheese is not making it for Annalena on that one. Maybe some pancetta or bacon instead? Pork and spinach do well together. If someone tries it, PLEASE let Annalena know. If you do a different green, like swiss chard or, for my friend Chris the Empress of Kale, kale, tell me. I want to hear about all the variations on this wonderfully adaptable dish.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
The proof is in the pudding: ramp/green garlic/scallion pudding souffle
I have written a related piece on green garlic souffle, and this one should not be taken as supplanting it. Well, maybe it should. You make the choice. Compare and contrast.
I HAVE written about how the fear and loathing of souffles is overstated. They are very easy to do. In that case, I'm talking about what I regard as simple, light dessert souffles. The type of souffle I write about here, is more sturdy and substantial. It's a nice solid lunch, or perhaps a good way to start a meal. It's truly a good way to start a meal in the sense of making you want to eat more after you've finished it.
This time around, I made it using ramps, those harbingers of spring that stink up your kitchen in the best and worst possible way. It works equally well with green garlic, or scallions or any of the members of the garlic/onion family. You could probably do this with chives as well, although Annalena wonders why you would want to. She finds chives to be the equivalent of green confetti: no taste.
You will also find a step here that is contrary to everything that you've learned about souffles, even from Annalena: you're going to butter your ramekins before you put the batter in.
The reason for this, is that by buttering the container, you are able to knock out the pudding souffle and serve it out of the container. The "giveback" here is that the souffle will not rise very high at all. If you do not butter the interior of that ramekin, then you will get a higher souffle, but you and your friends will be eating out of the container it's in. That's really your call.
Also, this version is heavy, because ricotta is heavy, and I use a lot of it - double what is recommended. The souffle still cooks, and it tastes deceptively light, but you are giving away some height again. It comes down to lightness versus substantiality. Your call. Now, let's cook.
You start by melting 5 tablesoons of butter in a saucepan, over medium heat, and when it's melted, stirring in 3 tablespoons of all purpose flour. Use your whisk, and combine this for about a minute. Have a cup of milk handy, and whisk that in, bit by bit. Lower your heat. Most recipes say to cook this for ten minutes or so, but I find that too long. In the course of 6-7 minutes, you will see this mass (which is your bechamel sauce), go from slightly thick, to thick, to something akin to wall paper paste, as it follows your whisk or spoon around the pot. When the mass has become rather thick and moves in a heady mass, you're done with it up to now. You COULD, if you want to, stir in some salt, some fresh herbs some mustard (powder or standard), paprika, whatever you like.
Put this over to the side, off the heat, and separate four large eggs. Stir the yolks into this, one at a time, until they're incorporated, and then add anywhere from 4-8 ounces of ricotta. I used goat ricotta because that's what I had. As I have said, many times, don't use the awful stuff that ends with an "o". Now taste. I think you will want salt. Maybe you won't. If you substitute dryer, saltier cheeses, for all or part of the ricotta, you may not want to. And yes, you can substitute cheeses, whichever ones you want.
Now, apart from this, chop up about a cup of the green of your choice. Put this in a half cup of water, with a tablespoon or so of olive oil, and cook it slowly, until the greens have broken down. This will take about five minutes. Drain the liquid, which you MUST save for a soup or something , and if you like, puree the greens. (I never do). Stir them into the bechamel sauce.
If you are so inclined, you can now stop and put this away and come back to it at another point in time. When you are ready, however, preheat your oven to 400 degrees, and whip up the egg whites until they are just stiff. (My recipe says that a stand mixer whips them too hard. I do not believe t his).
Anyway, move that white sauce mixture into a big bowl, and then carefully and gently stir the egg whites in, just until you have a uniform color, no longer. Evenly apportion this stuff into your ramekins. I cannot tell you how many to use, because I do not know how big your ramekins are. In any event, you want them to be half full, whether you've buttered them or not.
Put them on a baking sheet, move them to the oven, and let them bake for 20 minutes or so. As I wrote above, they will rise high, or not, depending on whether or not you buttered the ramekins. When you take them out, if you have not buttered the bowls, then you can serve them immediately. You can serve them immediately if you DID butter them, but if you would like to, you can cool these, and with oven mitts, turn them over and gently tap out the puddings, and put them on a plate with some mesclun or something like that.
For us, this served 3 people a nice sized lunch, which held us for most of the afternoon (we had the candy nibblies about 4-5 hours later). AS an appetizer, figure it's going to serve six.
If you're afraid of souffles, don't be. This one is so good it deserves to be made, again and again and again.
I HAVE written about how the fear and loathing of souffles is overstated. They are very easy to do. In that case, I'm talking about what I regard as simple, light dessert souffles. The type of souffle I write about here, is more sturdy and substantial. It's a nice solid lunch, or perhaps a good way to start a meal. It's truly a good way to start a meal in the sense of making you want to eat more after you've finished it.
This time around, I made it using ramps, those harbingers of spring that stink up your kitchen in the best and worst possible way. It works equally well with green garlic, or scallions or any of the members of the garlic/onion family. You could probably do this with chives as well, although Annalena wonders why you would want to. She finds chives to be the equivalent of green confetti: no taste.
You will also find a step here that is contrary to everything that you've learned about souffles, even from Annalena: you're going to butter your ramekins before you put the batter in.
The reason for this, is that by buttering the container, you are able to knock out the pudding souffle and serve it out of the container. The "giveback" here is that the souffle will not rise very high at all. If you do not butter the interior of that ramekin, then you will get a higher souffle, but you and your friends will be eating out of the container it's in. That's really your call.
Also, this version is heavy, because ricotta is heavy, and I use a lot of it - double what is recommended. The souffle still cooks, and it tastes deceptively light, but you are giving away some height again. It comes down to lightness versus substantiality. Your call. Now, let's cook.
You start by melting 5 tablesoons of butter in a saucepan, over medium heat, and when it's melted, stirring in 3 tablespoons of all purpose flour. Use your whisk, and combine this for about a minute. Have a cup of milk handy, and whisk that in, bit by bit. Lower your heat. Most recipes say to cook this for ten minutes or so, but I find that too long. In the course of 6-7 minutes, you will see this mass (which is your bechamel sauce), go from slightly thick, to thick, to something akin to wall paper paste, as it follows your whisk or spoon around the pot. When the mass has become rather thick and moves in a heady mass, you're done with it up to now. You COULD, if you want to, stir in some salt, some fresh herbs some mustard (powder or standard), paprika, whatever you like.
Put this over to the side, off the heat, and separate four large eggs. Stir the yolks into this, one at a time, until they're incorporated, and then add anywhere from 4-8 ounces of ricotta. I used goat ricotta because that's what I had. As I have said, many times, don't use the awful stuff that ends with an "o". Now taste. I think you will want salt. Maybe you won't. If you substitute dryer, saltier cheeses, for all or part of the ricotta, you may not want to. And yes, you can substitute cheeses, whichever ones you want.
Now, apart from this, chop up about a cup of the green of your choice. Put this in a half cup of water, with a tablespoon or so of olive oil, and cook it slowly, until the greens have broken down. This will take about five minutes. Drain the liquid, which you MUST save for a soup or something , and if you like, puree the greens. (I never do). Stir them into the bechamel sauce.
If you are so inclined, you can now stop and put this away and come back to it at another point in time. When you are ready, however, preheat your oven to 400 degrees, and whip up the egg whites until they are just stiff. (My recipe says that a stand mixer whips them too hard. I do not believe t his).
Anyway, move that white sauce mixture into a big bowl, and then carefully and gently stir the egg whites in, just until you have a uniform color, no longer. Evenly apportion this stuff into your ramekins. I cannot tell you how many to use, because I do not know how big your ramekins are. In any event, you want them to be half full, whether you've buttered them or not.
Put them on a baking sheet, move them to the oven, and let them bake for 20 minutes or so. As I wrote above, they will rise high, or not, depending on whether or not you buttered the ramekins. When you take them out, if you have not buttered the bowls, then you can serve them immediately. You can serve them immediately if you DID butter them, but if you would like to, you can cool these, and with oven mitts, turn them over and gently tap out the puddings, and put them on a plate with some mesclun or something like that.
For us, this served 3 people a nice sized lunch, which held us for most of the afternoon (we had the candy nibblies about 4-5 hours later). AS an appetizer, figure it's going to serve six.
If you're afraid of souffles, don't be. This one is so good it deserves to be made, again and again and again.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
An EWWW recipe that you can de-ewww: squid salad
Years ago, I remember reading something on the blog of one of my favorite tv cooks, Maryanne Esposito. She was answering a question as to what happens to the food she cooks for a show. The somewhat obvious answer was that the staff polished it off, unless of course she was cooking squid, in which case, no one would eat it.
Well, I happen to hang out with a whole crew of squid eaters. The Guyman and I love it. On one level, I can understand the dislike, which borders on repulsion for some people. But on other levels, I want to tell people to GET OVER IT!!! I wonder how many people actually dislike squid, as compared to how many dislike the idea of eating squid. It comes down to "if you ate it with your eyes closed, how would you react?" Squid is the biggest fish catch in the United States, and it has not even come close to being overfished (squid apparently have a very active sex life and procreate in numbers that are legion). It's low fat. It's low cholesterol and you know what, it's ridiculously cheap.
But, if you must... in the recipe that follows, substitute shrimp. Don't use the enormous ridiculously expensive ones. The "large" shrimp will be perfectly fine here, but Annalena begs you to make sure that your source is one that is sustainable. Try to buy American shrimp, and if you can, wild shrimp. You may not be able to do so, but try to keep it in mind.
This is a terrific, fast, easy recipe, one I adapted from a magazine. You can have this on the table in half an hour, with either shrimp or squid. In fact, the seafood is the fastest and easiest part of this preparation.
Here we go. You are going to need two somewhat exotic ingredients: sweet Spanish smoked paprika (you can find it as "pimenton dulce" at a good spice store), and also a hot paprika of any kind. Start getting to know good spice vendors. It will not be hard to find this stuff if you do. And you will come back to that smoked paprika. It is GOOD.
So, mix together 2 teaspoons of the smoked stuff, and half a teaspoon of the hot stuff, with 2 tablespoons of sherry vinegar, and a quarter cup of olive oil. GOOD olive oil. If you are so inclined, add some salt to this, but keep in mind one of your ingredients is going to have salt in it (and it's NOT the fish)....
Peel about a pound of potatoes. I used red norlands, but you could use any potato at all here. Cut the peeled stuff into bite sized cubes, and cook them in salted water until they are tender enough for you.
While this is going on, preheat your broiler, and on a tray that is big enough to hold all of the squid, or shrimp in one layer, lay the critters out. You're going to go back to these after you prep your vegggies....
which are a red bell pepper, and half of a green one. Cut them into cubes. I like larger ones, but you can dice to your heart's content. Put those peppers into a bowl, and mix them with about 1/3 of the dressing you made above. When the potatoes are cooked to your liking, drain them and toss them with the peppers, and add a bit more dressing. The hot potatoes will soak up some of it, and that's a good thing.
Now, take a brush or your fingers, or whatever you use for this kind of thing, and brush some more dressing over the seafood. Be generous, you have enough. Get the seafood into the oven, about four inches from the broiler, and let it go to work for two minutes, no longer. Take these out and toss the hot seafood in with the peppers and potatoes.
Last, but not least, get some baby greens of some kind: mesclun mix, baby spinach, arugula, whatever you like and toss it with the remaining dressing. You may want to add a bit more salt here, too. Put the salad greens out on plates and then evenly distribute your fish and veggie mixture. And you've got dinner.
This served the Guyman and myself really well for our supper last week. You can probably get as many as six servings out of it if you do it as a first course, or three if you're not a hog like we are, for main dish service.
Try it with the squid, if you can handle it, or just go with the shrimp. Guarantee you. You'll enjoy it.
Well, I happen to hang out with a whole crew of squid eaters. The Guyman and I love it. On one level, I can understand the dislike, which borders on repulsion for some people. But on other levels, I want to tell people to GET OVER IT!!! I wonder how many people actually dislike squid, as compared to how many dislike the idea of eating squid. It comes down to "if you ate it with your eyes closed, how would you react?" Squid is the biggest fish catch in the United States, and it has not even come close to being overfished (squid apparently have a very active sex life and procreate in numbers that are legion). It's low fat. It's low cholesterol and you know what, it's ridiculously cheap.
But, if you must... in the recipe that follows, substitute shrimp. Don't use the enormous ridiculously expensive ones. The "large" shrimp will be perfectly fine here, but Annalena begs you to make sure that your source is one that is sustainable. Try to buy American shrimp, and if you can, wild shrimp. You may not be able to do so, but try to keep it in mind.
This is a terrific, fast, easy recipe, one I adapted from a magazine. You can have this on the table in half an hour, with either shrimp or squid. In fact, the seafood is the fastest and easiest part of this preparation.
Here we go. You are going to need two somewhat exotic ingredients: sweet Spanish smoked paprika (you can find it as "pimenton dulce" at a good spice store), and also a hot paprika of any kind. Start getting to know good spice vendors. It will not be hard to find this stuff if you do. And you will come back to that smoked paprika. It is GOOD.
So, mix together 2 teaspoons of the smoked stuff, and half a teaspoon of the hot stuff, with 2 tablespoons of sherry vinegar, and a quarter cup of olive oil. GOOD olive oil. If you are so inclined, add some salt to this, but keep in mind one of your ingredients is going to have salt in it (and it's NOT the fish)....
Peel about a pound of potatoes. I used red norlands, but you could use any potato at all here. Cut the peeled stuff into bite sized cubes, and cook them in salted water until they are tender enough for you.
While this is going on, preheat your broiler, and on a tray that is big enough to hold all of the squid, or shrimp in one layer, lay the critters out. You're going to go back to these after you prep your vegggies....
which are a red bell pepper, and half of a green one. Cut them into cubes. I like larger ones, but you can dice to your heart's content. Put those peppers into a bowl, and mix them with about 1/3 of the dressing you made above. When the potatoes are cooked to your liking, drain them and toss them with the peppers, and add a bit more dressing. The hot potatoes will soak up some of it, and that's a good thing.
Now, take a brush or your fingers, or whatever you use for this kind of thing, and brush some more dressing over the seafood. Be generous, you have enough. Get the seafood into the oven, about four inches from the broiler, and let it go to work for two minutes, no longer. Take these out and toss the hot seafood in with the peppers and potatoes.
Last, but not least, get some baby greens of some kind: mesclun mix, baby spinach, arugula, whatever you like and toss it with the remaining dressing. You may want to add a bit more salt here, too. Put the salad greens out on plates and then evenly distribute your fish and veggie mixture. And you've got dinner.
This served the Guyman and myself really well for our supper last week. You can probably get as many as six servings out of it if you do it as a first course, or three if you're not a hog like we are, for main dish service.
Try it with the squid, if you can handle it, or just go with the shrimp. Guarantee you. You'll enjoy it.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
She certainly can use a can: Tortillas with picadillo sauce
You do not have to read many entries in this enormous collection to know that Annalena is all about fresh stuff: at the market in the morning, in the pan that night, that kind of thing. But you know... it's winter. Actually, it's spring, but early spring is much overrated, at least as far as food goes.
I have been quoted, correctly as saying "When T.S. Eliot said April is the cruelest month, he clearly showed that he didn't cook." In April, we begin to get a few things. Not many but a few. March? PHEH. The storage apples are not so good anymore, there's just about nothing left. So, Annalena has to rely on what she can get from California, even as she tries to keep with a seasonal framework, and cooks mostly roots and dark leafy greens. And, sometimes... she turns to cans. As you will see in this recipe.
In musing about the recipe, some things came to mind. It was and is clearly a Latino recipe, but Annalena knows precious little about Latin food. Her friend Jeff commented on the dish being somewhat Cuban, and that made perfect sense. I shall elaborate.
Much is made of the tropical paradise that is the Carribbean (don't correct my spelling, please). Well, that doesn't always translate into VEGETABLES. To be sure, there is much to be said of the tropical fruits that grow almost wild, and at least in theory, there is much to be said for the fish (not all islands necessarily have cuisines based on fish. For example, Sardinia, a huge island, has no seafood based cuisine, because the island is surrounded by swamps, filled with malaria carrying mosquitoes. No one is going to fish there). Also, keep in mind that if you are speaking of a "fishing" culture, you are implying a certain amount of wealth: boats, equipment, tools for cooking the fish...
See what I mean? In fact, caribbean nations are the poorest countries in the world, and it is at least in part reflective of the terrain. These islands have poor soil for vegetable growing, and there just isn't much land for number of people. Other resources, like oil, wood, etc, are in short supply. So, at least in terms of food, we move to what is available and can be shipped in cans. Creative cooking - and there is creative cooking out of these islands, comes out of imaginative use of these foods. This picadillo sauce is one such example.
When Jeff said "Cuban," the combination of saltiness, sweetness, and "burned" flavors was familiar. So, let's call it a Cuban dish. I will explain to you how I modified the base recipe.
Let's start with the sauce, because the sauce can be used for purposes other than the one here. You will need a green pepper. Just one. Cut it into small bits. You are also going to need a can of those "Hatch chilis." They are small cans, and you've seen them. Also, you need a small bottle of stuffed green olives. My recipe called for pimiento stuffed olives which I did not have. I DID have sun dried tomato stuffed olives, and that's what I used. Cut them in half, and save the liquid they are in.
Incidentally, the chilis are a substitute for another ingredient, which was a an of diced tomatoes with green chilis. Rather than that, I used the hatch chilis, a can of Italian cherry tomatoes, and a few greenhouse tomatoes that Nevia, the vegetable goddess had on hand. You will also need a heaping quarter cup of raisins, a few tablespoons of tomato paste, a teaspoon of cumin.
That was more discursive than usual. Here's the full list of ingredients:
olive oil to cover your pan
a green pepper, chopped
a can of hatch chilis, chopped,
a jar of stuffed olives, halved, with the juice reserved
1/4 cup raisins
a 2 cup can of tomatoes of some kind and
a pound of fresh tomatoes, chopped, OR
1 28 ounce can of tomatoes
a few tablespoons of tomato paste
a teaspoon of ground cumin.
This all comes together very easily. Heat the olive oil and when it's hot, add the fresh pepper, and saute', at medium heat, for two minutes. Then add everything else. Keep the heat medium, and cover the pan for a few minutes, if you're using the fresh tomatoes, to soften them. Start stirring, and increase the heat. Every now and then, press your tomatoes, to help break them down.
When you add tomatoes to the pan, they have a bright red color. As you cook them, they will darken and take on a brownish red color. That is what you're looking for here, the "almost burned" flavor that I mentioned above. The sauce is going to be thickening as this happens.
DId you notice there's no salt in this? Well, here it comes. Remember that olive juice? Start pouring it in, and taste. You may want to add lots, or a little. You probably will notice a salty flavor change very quickly. If it's not salty enough for you, well, then, just add salt until you have the flavor you want.
From start to finish, this sauce will take you about half an hour, and will give you a scant quart, just enough for....
Using them for hangar steak tortillas. Here we go. You need 8-10 wheat tortillas. You want the larger size ones, like 8 inches. Whole wheat if you can find them, but you want the bigger ones. You also want a skirt steak or hangar steak or some kind of steak of that type, about a pound of it. I am not going to give you instructions on how to cook it, but grill it to your liking, and put it aside.
You also need two onions, sliced thin, that you then saute' until they are of the degree of doneness that you like (you could use them raw if you like).
Now, here's the fun part. If you have a gas stove, take one of the rests off of a burner, and lay the tortillas on the flame, twenty seconds to the side. The resulting toasted tortillas are so good, you may find yourself eating them by themselves (just sayin').
Now, slice up that steak and mix it with the onions. Put that bowl aside, and get a big, say 9x13 baking dish, and spread about a third of that picadillo sauce in it. Get the tortillas and put about a third of a cup or so of filling in each one. Don't be overgenerous. If you happen to have extra filling at the end, you've got a sandwich for yourself for later in the week. As you roll the tortillas, put them, seam side down in the pan, and then cover them with the rest of the sauce. Cover the pan with aluminum foil, and bake at 400, for about 20 minutes. The meat will not overcook, because it's covered by so much stuff.
If you analyze this recipe, you will see that you can make this in different component parts, over several days. That is how I did this. I made the sauce, on one day, made the steak and onions on a second day. The third day, I toasted the tortillas and put the dish together and refrigerated it. On day 4, we had dinner. And it was GOOD.
I resisted the temptation of putting sliced jalapenos on it, which I really would have liked, but probably would have put it closer to Mexican than Cuban.
There's a lot of text here, but this is a very easy recipe to make, a very hearty one, and one that provides enough to share. Go for it. You'll love it.
I have been quoted, correctly as saying "When T.S. Eliot said April is the cruelest month, he clearly showed that he didn't cook." In April, we begin to get a few things. Not many but a few. March? PHEH. The storage apples are not so good anymore, there's just about nothing left. So, Annalena has to rely on what she can get from California, even as she tries to keep with a seasonal framework, and cooks mostly roots and dark leafy greens. And, sometimes... she turns to cans. As you will see in this recipe.
In musing about the recipe, some things came to mind. It was and is clearly a Latino recipe, but Annalena knows precious little about Latin food. Her friend Jeff commented on the dish being somewhat Cuban, and that made perfect sense. I shall elaborate.
Much is made of the tropical paradise that is the Carribbean (don't correct my spelling, please). Well, that doesn't always translate into VEGETABLES. To be sure, there is much to be said of the tropical fruits that grow almost wild, and at least in theory, there is much to be said for the fish (not all islands necessarily have cuisines based on fish. For example, Sardinia, a huge island, has no seafood based cuisine, because the island is surrounded by swamps, filled with malaria carrying mosquitoes. No one is going to fish there). Also, keep in mind that if you are speaking of a "fishing" culture, you are implying a certain amount of wealth: boats, equipment, tools for cooking the fish...
See what I mean? In fact, caribbean nations are the poorest countries in the world, and it is at least in part reflective of the terrain. These islands have poor soil for vegetable growing, and there just isn't much land for number of people. Other resources, like oil, wood, etc, are in short supply. So, at least in terms of food, we move to what is available and can be shipped in cans. Creative cooking - and there is creative cooking out of these islands, comes out of imaginative use of these foods. This picadillo sauce is one such example.
When Jeff said "Cuban," the combination of saltiness, sweetness, and "burned" flavors was familiar. So, let's call it a Cuban dish. I will explain to you how I modified the base recipe.
Let's start with the sauce, because the sauce can be used for purposes other than the one here. You will need a green pepper. Just one. Cut it into small bits. You are also going to need a can of those "Hatch chilis." They are small cans, and you've seen them. Also, you need a small bottle of stuffed green olives. My recipe called for pimiento stuffed olives which I did not have. I DID have sun dried tomato stuffed olives, and that's what I used. Cut them in half, and save the liquid they are in.
Incidentally, the chilis are a substitute for another ingredient, which was a an of diced tomatoes with green chilis. Rather than that, I used the hatch chilis, a can of Italian cherry tomatoes, and a few greenhouse tomatoes that Nevia, the vegetable goddess had on hand. You will also need a heaping quarter cup of raisins, a few tablespoons of tomato paste, a teaspoon of cumin.
That was more discursive than usual. Here's the full list of ingredients:
olive oil to cover your pan
a green pepper, chopped
a can of hatch chilis, chopped,
a jar of stuffed olives, halved, with the juice reserved
1/4 cup raisins
a 2 cup can of tomatoes of some kind and
a pound of fresh tomatoes, chopped, OR
1 28 ounce can of tomatoes
a few tablespoons of tomato paste
a teaspoon of ground cumin.
This all comes together very easily. Heat the olive oil and when it's hot, add the fresh pepper, and saute', at medium heat, for two minutes. Then add everything else. Keep the heat medium, and cover the pan for a few minutes, if you're using the fresh tomatoes, to soften them. Start stirring, and increase the heat. Every now and then, press your tomatoes, to help break them down.
When you add tomatoes to the pan, they have a bright red color. As you cook them, they will darken and take on a brownish red color. That is what you're looking for here, the "almost burned" flavor that I mentioned above. The sauce is going to be thickening as this happens.
DId you notice there's no salt in this? Well, here it comes. Remember that olive juice? Start pouring it in, and taste. You may want to add lots, or a little. You probably will notice a salty flavor change very quickly. If it's not salty enough for you, well, then, just add salt until you have the flavor you want.
From start to finish, this sauce will take you about half an hour, and will give you a scant quart, just enough for....
Using them for hangar steak tortillas. Here we go. You need 8-10 wheat tortillas. You want the larger size ones, like 8 inches. Whole wheat if you can find them, but you want the bigger ones. You also want a skirt steak or hangar steak or some kind of steak of that type, about a pound of it. I am not going to give you instructions on how to cook it, but grill it to your liking, and put it aside.
You also need two onions, sliced thin, that you then saute' until they are of the degree of doneness that you like (you could use them raw if you like).
Now, here's the fun part. If you have a gas stove, take one of the rests off of a burner, and lay the tortillas on the flame, twenty seconds to the side. The resulting toasted tortillas are so good, you may find yourself eating them by themselves (just sayin').
Now, slice up that steak and mix it with the onions. Put that bowl aside, and get a big, say 9x13 baking dish, and spread about a third of that picadillo sauce in it. Get the tortillas and put about a third of a cup or so of filling in each one. Don't be overgenerous. If you happen to have extra filling at the end, you've got a sandwich for yourself for later in the week. As you roll the tortillas, put them, seam side down in the pan, and then cover them with the rest of the sauce. Cover the pan with aluminum foil, and bake at 400, for about 20 minutes. The meat will not overcook, because it's covered by so much stuff.
If you analyze this recipe, you will see that you can make this in different component parts, over several days. That is how I did this. I made the sauce, on one day, made the steak and onions on a second day. The third day, I toasted the tortillas and put the dish together and refrigerated it. On day 4, we had dinner. And it was GOOD.
I resisted the temptation of putting sliced jalapenos on it, which I really would have liked, but probably would have put it closer to Mexican than Cuban.
There's a lot of text here, but this is a very easy recipe to make, a very hearty one, and one that provides enough to share. Go for it. You'll love it.
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