Saturday, April 21, 2012

Stealing from chefs, just a little: ramp pesto sformato

Ragazzi, you have read Annalena's statements, over and over again, about how she ruthlessly steals from whomever or whatever she thinks has something worth stealing.  BUT... you also know that she also gives credit where it is due.  And here, there is much credit to be given, especially to George and Marco, the "how the hell did they do that" chefs at Hearth restaurant.
Hovering in the recesses and crannies of Annalena's distrubing mind lately, has been the idea of savory pudding.  Perhaps it is because this year  , San Francisco is off the table (fret not, ragazzi, Italy is on the table), that she has been thinking of that time, years ago, when she ate Fog City Diner's garlic custard, and became an immediate fan of such dishes.  Much later, she learned of an Italian dish not much made at home, called "sformato."  "Sformato," simply put, means "molded."  It refers to what is essentially any kind of baked custard in a small portion.   Sort of like crustless quiche.  Generally, Annalena has seen this served as a broccoli or cauliflower based dish: vegetables, cheese, eggs, perhaps a bit of cream, pureed, and then baked.  While Annalena has been known to toss out a souffle or two, she has never done a sformato.

Until today.  And it was inspired by the one served at Hearth.   Ricotta sformato, with grilled ramps and morel mushrooms.  Well, Annalena had ricotta, ramps, and morels in her kitchen.    So she began thinking.  And here is her version.  It is NOT the same as that at Hearth.  Is it better?  Is it not as good?  Let us just say that it is different.

To begin, you need ramp pesto.  You may leave this out if you like, but this is good and it makes the final product a very pretty shade of spring green.  First, you need about half a pound of ramps.  They are all around now, so buy them and use them while you can.  You will also need a cup of walnuts.   Small pieces are fine.  Put the walnuts on a baking sheet, and get them into a 350 oven for five minutes, no longer.  Protect your hands, dump them off the tray and into a bowl.

While they are baking, prep your ramps by cutting off the root ends.  Also, bring a large pot of water to the boil, and then drop the ramps into the water for about thirty seconds.  Pull them out, drain them on some paper towels, and then get your work surface clear.  Cut up the ramps, and put them in the bowl of a food processor with the walnuts.  Start processing, and slowly pour in anywhere from half a cup, to a full cup, of good extra virgin olive oil.  The smaller amount is better, in Annalena's view, but this is a matter of taste.  Add some salt, speaking of a matter of taste.    Now, scoop out about half a cup of that, and clean the rest of it into a container, which you can use for  pasta sauce, on chicken, etc.

Put the half cup of the pesto back into the food processor, together with a pound of GOOD QUALITY (this means NOT the stuff in the big plastic container from the supermarket), which you have drained for about an hour to get extra water off,  two large, or three small eggs, and a half cup of grated parmesan cheese.  Process this to a smooth consistency.  It will be surprisingly  liquid. 

Prep six, 4 ounce ramekins by spraying them with cooking spray, or buttering them, or something along those lines.  Pour the mixture from the blender in them, making sure to distribute it evenly. 

Turn your oven up to 400,  put the critters in the oven (put the ramekins on that baking sheet from the walnuts), and let them bake for 20 minutes or so.  For about ten minutes,  you will think Annalena has steered you wrong.  At 15 minutes, you will be cheering at how smart and how good a cook you are, as the little guys puff up like muffins.  (Don't get too excited about this).  At twenty, remove them from the oven, and let them cool.

Remember how you were advised not to get too excited?  Well, now you know why: those puffy guys have drooped down to a soft, light mass.  And that's okay, because you're going to invert them from the ramekins, and serve them upside down - where the nicely browned, even bottom of the sformato is now on top.

You will want to serve up some nice, cooked vegetables with this.  Maybe a medley of ramps and mushrooms and asparagus (it IS spring, after all), or whatever you like.

This one probably sounds a whole lot harder than it is.  Try it, and let Annalena know how it turns out for you.  Bet you that you become a convert to this style of dish the way  Annalena has.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Annalena goes south: chilaquiles

Ragazzi, you all know that this blog is very much a salute to things Mediterranean, with, of course, a very VERY strong, almost exclusive link to things Italian. Occasionally, you will see Annalena venture into territory that is a bit unfamiliar, like her Asian dishes. There is also a strong streak of the "American" here, as Annalena continues her quest for what truly constitutes "American" cuisine. Try to get an answer to that. Betcha you won't.
Well, in her formative years, Annalena was a promiscuous cook, trying dishes from all over the world, with varies degrees of success and failure. Do not talk to Annalena, for example, about her attempts at making Indian carrot halvah. Or, the exploding can of milk as she made coteja, that wonderful Brazilian dessert.

Her travels into things Mexican and "Tex Mex" have been more successful, perhaps none moreso than this version of a dish which has as many interpretations as there are cooks who make it.

Chilaquiles is, to Annalena's view, the Mexican answer to bread crumbs, or panzanella, fried rice, or other dishes designed to use up left over staple starch. It calls for, and Annalena would say, NEEDS, stale tortillas to be made properly. Fresh tortillas simply do not stand up in the cooking process.

In a bit of a Pyrrhic victory here, it is absurdly easy to get stale tortillas in New York. All you have to do is go to the supermarket and get some of those ghastly corn things in the plastic bag. UGH. You can do better, however, but then you have to do some work. Not hard work, but an extra step. Annalena recommends you do so.

She found SUPERB tortillas from a group that sells bread products at the Farmers' Market: the "hot bred coop" Now, this organization was founded, as Annalena understands it, to give women with little or no income a chance to do what they know how to do, and to make some money doing it. KUDOS. And the products are wonderful. They started by doing "standards," and, little by little, they are adding the "ethnic" breads of the people who belong. That is where Annalena found their superb tortillas. On a par with those of Rancho Gordo, and that is saying A LOT. Also try their Moroccan m'smen, which may be Annalena's new, favorite food. But that is for another day.

Anyway, chilaquiles is a way to make a filling, inexpensive dish that is essentially vegetarian (although, as we will see, you can add protein to it. Let us get to work.

Twelve corn tortillas, and stick to the yellow ones here, unless you want a rather "interesting" looking final product. You should leave them out, in a single layer, on a baking sheet, overnight, to dry out a bit. They will curl up and feel dried out. That is what you want.

When you are ready to cook, just tear them up into odd sized pieces. Meanwhile, put your oven to 325, and then gather the following: 2.5 cups of buttermilk, 2 cups of tomato sauce, or chopped tomatoes, or some tomato product. 3/4 cup of a grated cheese. If you have a hard Mexican cheese, use it, or use sharp cheddar. You will also want a bunch of scallions , chopped. Stress the greens here. You can use the bulbs for something else if they are very big, or if you use spring onions (which also work). Chop up three cloves of garlic as well. Finally, you will want half a tablespoon (REVIEW: convert to teaspoons. GOOD Laura: 1.5 teaspoons), of chili powder, of whatever heat you can handle, and a half teaspoon of cumin.

Optionally, you may have handy any of these, or all of them: a cup of cooked beans. A can of those chopped green chilis, or other chilis. Some cooked, chopped , well drained greens. Left over shredded chicken or beet.

Ok, don't overdo it. Don't use more than two of the above.

Put two tablespoons of olive oil into a very big pan, and have a big bowl at your side. Add the onions and garlic to the oil, and cook them for about three minutes. Add the powders, and cook for another thirty seconds, and then add the tortilla pieces. Stir everything together to coat the chips unevenly (you won't get them covered uniformly). Dump these out into a bowl, and lower your heat to medium.

Add the tomatoes to that very pan, and let them just come to a boil. When that happens, add the buttermilk, and whatever else you're adding, plus the cheese. When that bubbles, now dump in the tortillas, and stir them so that everything is combined well. Cover the pan, lower your heat to low, and cook for five minutes.

Now, move the whole pan to the oven, and let it sit at the low temperature, for 20 minutes or so. After that, PROTECT YOUR HANDS, and then take it out. Take the lid off, and you will see what looks like a very stable casserole. You can eat this at this point, but it is NOT a solid mass, and you will want bowls. If you leave the pan in the oven for another half hour or so, it will solidify, and is "cuttable," but it will never be really, truly firm.

And who cares? It's very good, very filling, very nourishing, and very cheap. Also, it is not that caloric. If you leave out the beans, a fourth of the dish has but 364 calories in it. That's a result of the buttermilk, which is woefully low in calories. So add some more stuff to it.

Provecho children. Make something tasty and easy and different. This is SOOOOO SOOOOOOO GOOD

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Deep breaths : Annalena cooks pigeon

And no, ragazzi, she did not shoot it. Let us clarify something right at the start. You know those "flying rats" as they are sometimes called, which we all know as pigeons? Well, those are not pigeons. When is a pigeon not a pigeon? Annalena knows not why they are so called. Actually, she once did, but she forgot. She does know that it is not a case of "Pigeons on the grass, alas," as her idol Gertrude Stein once wrote. But to get back to topic (how odd for Annalena), those birds are mourning doves. Indeed, in many languages, the word for pigeon and dove is the same.

Pigeons are white birds. And they are not common. Indeed, outside of being raised as magician trick birds, or as food, Annalena does not know of another place where she has seen a true pigeon. We must also keep in mind here, that when we use 'pigeon' we are employing a literary technique somewhat akin to synechdoche.

See how much you learn? Synechdoche is when you use a part of something to refer to it as a whole. The most famous example Annalena knows of is T.S. Eliot's line "I should have been a pair of claws," when referring to a crab, in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."

How did we get there? Oh yes. There is a family of different types of pigeons. Perhaps the most famous of which is the extinct passenger pigeon. One can read many accounts of the extinction of this bird; however, there is almost never any mention of WHY the bird was shot to extinction.

Now, this is controversial, but many believe that it was a growing nation's need for cheap, available protein. Most of the passenger pigeon's which were shot, were not used for decoration or for show. The passenger pigeon was NOT a pretty bird. And when there are scores of them, there is no sport in shooting. But they were plentiful, free, and full of protein. And as the nation grew...

No, ragazzi, this is not an endorsement of hunting. Nor is it a condemnation of such. It is simply an explanation of why something happened. Annalena actually does not oppose hunting "per se." She DOES oppose hunting for sport only. Her friend the citrus stud Eric eats what he hunts, and he does not shoot what he is not going to eat. Annalena can support that, if the hunt is limited to species which are not endangered.

Again, we digress. Let us get to culinary pigeons, or, as they are sometimes (in fact, usually called), squab. Squab are young pigeons, which have never flown. Facts are facts: these birds are about six weeks old when they are prepared for table. Again, do not judge: relative to their lifespan, this is no younger than, e.g, a cornish hen, or a lamb, or a calf. So be nice. Do not read the recipe if you can't see yourself doing this, but do not judge. That's Annalena's job...

Many people fear eating squab these days, probably because of the connection with the common pigeon, but also because the meat of these birds, is red. Like lamb, or beef. We expect our poultry to be white or pale. This goes well beyond dark meat. This is red, Red, RED meat. In fact, if it is not red when it is served, it is not good. In fact, it is awful.

So, let's cook some if you're still with us. This is, like the chocolate recipe, from the redoubtable Joyce Goldstein. Start with your whole squab. Get four or six of them, to serve.... four or six people. Get a nice heavy duty scissor, and cut out the backbone (REVIEW QUESTION: what do we call that? It is spatchcocking. Kudos to those of you who rememered). Put them aside, while you prepare a marinade of a cup of soy sauce (low salt is ok), half a cup of mild honey, 4 cloves of chopped garlic, and a tablespoon of chopped ginger. Pour this over the birds, cover it, and let it sit overnight.

Then, when preparing to cook them, heat your stove grill after you have brushed it with some olive oil. Let it heat for about five minutes, while you remove the birds from the liquid, and pat them dry. Put them, breast side up, on the grill. Don't crowd them. Do two batches if you have to. Grill them for four minutes, and then turn them, and grill for another three, no longer. Remove them from the grill and, when they are just cool enough to handle, split them down the breast.

And you are done. You have a bird in 20 minutes.

Put out silverware to be polite, but this is a dish that needs to be eaten with your fingers. And if there are any leftovers, you can put them on greens the next day in a hearty salad.

Yes, for some of us, this is a stretch. But do try it. If you are "game," Annalena believes you will come back, and make it again.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Cutting the rack: breaded, cheesy lamb chops

Ragazzi, Annalena has been rather busy in her kitchen this past week, and is a veritable storehouse of good recipes for you, starting with this one. It appeared in the New York Times under the aegis of one of Annalena's favorites, David Tanis.

People have very mixed feelings about lamb. First, there is the cuteness factor, and as Annalena is learning, there are many people who will not eat anything which they consider "cute" when it is alive.
Now, "cute" is a relative term. Yes, Annalena thinks lambs are cute. She also things cows are cute. Many people who will not eat lamb because lambs are cute, have no problem with beef. This is an issue with no answer; however, Annalena suggests that anyone who thinks a particular animal is "cute," should work with it in a setting where, for example, you are mucking out its bed, cleaning its cage, or in some other way, dealing with the unpleasant side of things. Speaking of the "unpleasant side," if you have ever wondered why lambs, and sheep, etc, have their tails lopped (cut), let it simply be said that they are not the cleanest of animals. Does Annalena have to say more?

The mixed feelings come about also because the quality and taste of lamb can vary tremendously. Annalena thinks that there is more variation in the taste of lamb, than any other meat. While she has never tasted the lamb of Carmargue, in France, some say that the diet of the animals, which involves the herbs and plants which grow in very salty terrain, create an animal that need not have herbs or salt added to the meat. Perhaps this is true. Older lambs, which begin to approach mutton, can have a gamy flavor. Some like it, and some do not. Lamb which is fed grass has a flavor all its own, which is rather delicate and delicious. It is really a difficult thing to predict; however, Annalena remembers feeding lamb to the Guyman, and watching a scene somewhat out of "Lord of the Flies," (go and watch the film, ragazzi), and him declaring it his favorite meat. And so it goes.

With this recipe, there is the issue, perhaps a bit controversial, of breading meat, and also adding cheese to it. What can Annalena say? We bread cutlets of any type, and have no problem with it. Japanese cuisine has its breaded pork (tonkatsu), and of course, fried fish is ubiquitous (and often awful). Breading lamb? Not something one thinks about immediately.

Try it. It IS good. Cheese? Again, this is one where we can debate the point endlessly. Veal parmagiana(if you eat that which is cute), chicken parmagiana (if you do not find chickens cute), Philadelphia cheese steaks (again, often horrific), and so forth. Cheese and lamb? Again, doesn't immediately ring true. But try it.

Now, to the cut of meat . Rack of lamb scares people, and Annalena will admit that she finds it more difficult to cook than a simple chop. Ultimately, however, a rack of lamb is simply eight chops or so, from the side of the animal. It is frequently more expensive than simply buying chops, but not always. Also, the rack is usually from a smaller animal (yes, she knows.... more cuteness), so the meat will be softer and more juicy, so really, it is up to you. If you choose to do this recipe with a rack of lamb, you will need a sharp knife to separate the chops one from the other. It is absurdly easy to do. It will take you five minutes, but please focus, and work on a solid, dry surface to avoid injuring yourself.

If you choose to use chops, then get eight rib chops, on the small side. Eight small chops will feed, at best, three people (so perhaps you should get nine...). You will have enough of the other materials to make nine chops.

You then put, in a bowl, a half cup of bread crumbs. Panko will work well, but not as well as basic bread crumbs. If you are a "do it yourselfer," you can make them, but you will want to dry them out: dry bread crumbs, not fresh ones. Add a half cup of grated parmesan cheese to this. If you wish to continue the theme of lamb, you could use pecorino, which is a sheeps cheese, but it is strong and may overpower the taste of the lamb. Then add either half a teaspoon of ground fennel seeds or, if you have one of the miracle ingredients of the world, half a teaspoon of fennel powder (one of Annalena's favortest things, if you are thinking ahead to Christmas. HINT...). Chope up a healthy tablespoon of rosemary (ALWAYS good with lamb), and that's one bowl.

Break two eggs into another, and scramble them with a fork. And, finally, get half a cup of flour, and add half a teaspoon of salt, and some pepper, cayenne also if you want a bit of bite.

Get a frying pan ready. "Ready" here means pouring in enough olive oil, to bring it to a level of about a quarter inch. Start heating it at medium heat, while you prep your chops.

Organize your work area, because you are going to dip the chops in flour, and shake off the excess, then into the egg, and finally, into the breadcrumbs to coat them. Some folks say that you should use one hand for the flour and eggs, and the other for the bread crumbs, to keep the crumbs from adhering to your wet hand. Annalena tries to do this, and always fails. If they accumulate on your fingers, wash them off, dry them, and continue.

By the time your eight or nine chops are ready, the oil should be hot enough. Test by putting the tail end (the bone end) of a chop into the oil. That is, stand it up vertically. Do bubbles sizzle around the end? If so, the oil is ready. Put as many chops in as you can, without crowding. If you like rare lamb, you will want about 3 minutes on one side, and two on the other. REGULATE YOUR HEAT, because the coating can burn before the meat is cooked. If you like very browned breaded products, you need not worry. If you don't, you have to watch. And if you like medium rare lamb, go for 3 and 3 minutes. If you are going beyond medium rare, do something else. Don't make this.

Drain the chops as they come out, on some paper, and ... you are done.

Annalena finds the fennel flavor in this dish to work admirably with the cheese, and the overall product to be extremely satisfying. While she can normally put away four of these chops without any problem, breaded as such, three is more than plenty. So, think about your appetites, and plan accordingly.

Coming up , ragazzi, is a recipe that some of you may want to avoid: pigeon. And, Annalena goes south of the border and makes a favorite dish: chilaquiles. Stay tuned.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Dessert without fears: tartuffo of paradise: chocolate

Ciao Ragazzi, and a happy holiday to all of you, whatever affiliation you adhere to. It's a time when many will be in the kitchen, working and resenting it, or saying "you know, I should be doing more of this." And indeed, some of you will indeed pick up the mantle and make more home cooked food. BUT...

you will continue to recoil at dessert, and baking.... Come on now, let's have a show of hands :how many of you are in the camp of "I like to cook, but baking... MEH" Danielle, you can put up both of your hands, I know you're there.

Well, by dint of circumstances, Annalena had to pull out one of her really good desserts that DOES NOT INVOLVE TURNING ON THE OVEN!!!! And it is a spectacular dessert.

See, ragazzi, last week, Annalena's oven began to make the sounds that a car does when its fan belt tore . Now those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, should check with your local handyperson and get an idea. You know the sound. You just may not know the analogy. In any event, it was clear that the oven was having issues and on Tuesday, it gave up.

Intrepidly, Annalena went to her favorite local applicances store, which has never let her down. Unfortunately, all of her magic could not waive the "out of stock" fact. The new oven will , with luck, be in Annalena's kitchen on Tuesday. Note "with luck." Any New Yorker who has waited for a delivery knows of what she speaks. And there are people coming to dinner on Wednesday. And so, adhering to a "better safe than sorry" philosophy, and of course, concluding that ice cream alone was insufficient for dessert, this one came out.

It is a recipe from one of the formative restaurants in Annalena's career: "Square One," which was the wonderful Joyce Goldstein's absolutely fabulous restaurant in San Francisco. She closed it, because she got tired of running a restaurant. GOOD FOR HER. But Annalena and the Guyman miss it to this day - 25 years later.

Well ,this dessert was on the menu as part of a dessert "sampler," which could easily have fed six, which the Guyman, the Queen Mother of the West Phil, and Annalena were to eat. There was one slice: maybe an ounce. Annalena does not eat chocolate and left it to her boys. They could not finish it. It is THAT rich. And it is THAT good. And it is in her cookbook. And you should make it. You WILL make it. Annalena insists.

Here are your ingredients: 3/4 pound of the best bittersweet chocolate you can afford. Half a cup EACH of whole milk, and heavy cream, and half a stick of unsalted butter. Two eggs. A splash of vanilla, and a third of a cup of sugar.

You will want a bread loaf pan: a smaller one, the 8x4 size, some parchment paper, something to oil the pan, a piece of plastic, and a mixer.

Here we go. Cut parchment paper to fit the inside of your pan. How precise you are, depends on you. It doesn't need to be to the 1/32 of an inch. Annalena uses an oil spray on the pan, and then puts the paper on the bottom and the sides, such that it will adhere.

Now, get your chocolate, and chop it up as finely as you can. Note that you can buy bakers discs of chocolate, which are about the size of a quarter. If you have these, your life will be much easier. Put the chocolate into the bowl of an electric mixer. Put it aside, while you combine the butter, the milk and the cream in a pan, and bring it to a boil, melting the butter along the way. This will be easier if you cut the butter into bits. Pour the hot mixture over the chocolate, and start whisking until the thing melts. Use a lower speed, but if you find that the chocolate on the sides is not coming down into your mixture, speed it up to get it. Then whisk in the eggs, one at a time, and the sugar. Then the vanilla.

So much for your "cooking." Scrape it into that pan you prepared, cover it with plastic, and let it refrigerate, overnight.

The next day, you will have a block of chocolate indulgent decadence that... for those of you who want a dessert for next year's Passover, is flour free.

To get it out of the pan, get a large bowl, or pan, and put about an inch and a half of hot water in it. Put the pan into the water. You will see oozes of chocolate. Run a knife around the block, invert it onto a plate, pull away the paper... and now, it's time to get a wet knife and cut it. Cut small pieces, and let people go back for seconds, if they want them.

Go and read those ingredients again: chocolate, cream, eggs, sugar, milk. Yes, this is rich as can be. So small is better here. Have a second piece if you like, or perhaps put it back in the refrigerator to eat for another day. It does keep. Frozen... Does anyone remember the days of fudgesickles?

Happy holidays to all, and enjoy whatever sweets you are sharing.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Blowing the fat budget: chorizo chicken balls

Ah, yes, ragazzi. For those of you who have been following this blog since the stone age, you knew something like this was inevitable. We have been exploring various ways of reducing fat content, eating healthier, and being, overall, good children.

Toss it all today, because we are going to make a helluva good little treat that you will be thanking Annalena for, for a long, LONG time.

The background to this recipe, was an idea Annalena had some time ago. For an up and coming event, she thought that the featured food should be meatballs: you can pick them up with a toothpick and eat them in one or two bites, they are savory, filling, and just something that, honestly, do not show up on buffet and canape' tables as often as they should. So Annalena turned to her co-conspirators, and asked everyone to tell her what they would like in a meatball. The result were interesting: just about everyone defaulted to beef in some way, and most of the beef defaulters were the meatballs you associate with Italian food just "because." One was a bit different, and two went the way of pork. The second of the pork manifestations will, in time, be on this blog, but here is the first one. Annalena was asked to do a chorizo meatball.

You all know what chorizo is, don't you? Let's characterize it generally as Spanish, or, even more generally, as Latino sausage. We should not confuse it with Portuguese or Brazilian sausage (like linguica), which is a totally different animal. But asking for "chorizo" is like asking for bread: what kind? Meine Kindern, there are as many different chorizos as there are hot Latin men.

Yes, she wrote just that. And this recipe will allow you to work with any chorizo you like.

She just wrote that too. And if you can't find a Latino sausage, it will work with whatever sausage you have on hand.

Oh dear. We'd best get to the recipe Let's start with a pound of chorizo. The first thing you have to do is get the meat out of the casing.

My my my. There is so much to giggle at here, isn't there? Some will be looser than others, and some will be extremely firm. If you have, as Annalena did, very firm sausage,

ABBASTANZA RAGAZZI. NON RIDERE (or, enough kids, stop laughing)

you will need to pull out your food processor. Break up the chorizo meat as much as you can, and then combine it, with two pounds of ground chicken. You will need to do this because chorizo, by itself, is way too rich and strong to make a meatball. On the other hand, chicken makes a very vapid meatball. So, combine them, and spin that processor until you have a uniform mix. It will be very fine, because that's the nature of ground chicken. If you are feelng as if the stuff is not "working", add a splash of milk. We've already gone away from Kosher on this, so what's a little more treff amongst friends?

When you have that meat ground up and uniform, add three eggs, a healthy cup of bread crumbs (seasoned, or not), and a teaspoon of salt. Get your hands in there, and mix everything together. It's the only way to do this. If you are not uncomfortable doing so, taste the raw meat for saltiness, and add more salt if you need it. If you do have a problem with that, heat about a tablespoon of oil in a pan and fry a bit, and taste it that way. You're going to need oil, so don't toss it.

When you have the flavor you like, in terms of salt, form the mix into as uniform a collection of balls....

I told you..

as you can. You will get 40-50 from this. Lay them out on a tray, and then get a big, BIG pan and put about 1/3 inch of vegetable oil in it. Start heating it up. Meanwhile, lay out some paper towel, either on your counter, or another tray.

Annalena is convinced that she can smell when oil is ready to be used for frying, but if you do not feel as secure with your nose, then put a bit of meat into the oil, and if it fries up and bubbles, you're ready. Don't overcrowd the pan, but put in as many meatballs as you can. Annalena got about 12-14 in the pan at once. It will take about two minutes to get a nice brown sear on one side, and then another minute -2 minutes to sear the rest. You probably will not brown the whole meatball, but that's ok. Pull them out of the oil, let them drain on paper towel, and when they're done...

Well, now you can have fun. Annalena suggests melting about two cups of pepper jelly (you can find it anywhere), and using that as your "sauce." You might also decide to use these as "floaters" in a bowl of noodle soup. Or on a sandwich, with ketchup or some other bad for you spread. However you eat them, please make these. They freeze beautifully , as Annalena learned (don't put a sauce on them), so if you have the time, go to it, and when you're ready to entertain someone, use your balls.

OK, enough for today. Annalena would promise that she will behave the next time around, but....

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

No simplifications, no easing calories, but just plain good: sole meuniere

Ragazzi, you have seen how, when she can, Annalena is trying to lower the calorie load for all of us, and also how, when it can be done, she tries to simplify dishes for us all. And you appreciate it, don't you?
Well, there are times when a dish is so good, that the fact that you CAN'T lower the calories, and CAN'T make it simpler, are irrelevant. You simply push ahead and make it. And so it is here, with sole meuniere.

And let Annalena be clear, it MUST be SOLE meuniere. There is no "substitute another white fish" here, because, at best, you could MAYBE get away with flounder, but nothing else. Now, in terms of technique, this really isn't that difficult. One must be organized and ready, because the dish moves quickly, once you're ready. Nor is there any chance at "making ahead" here. You cook this, you put it on the plate, you pour a glass of white wine, and you eat. Period. Apart from the basic expense of good sole, the "minute" style of cooking, is undoubtedly why this dish is so expensive in restaurants: someone must be taken off the line, to do it, to order. There is no other way.

If Annalena hasn't scared you away yet, please continue , especially those of you who are NOT big fish fans, because this is the kind of fish dish for you. Remember that many a mother has convinced her fishphobic child that fish is "just white steak," using sole, or flounder. So, let's do it.

But first, let's look at this name "meuniere" and Annalena's musings du jour. "Meuniere" stands for "the miller's wife." What the miller was doing with fish is a question many of us will not be able to answer, but since we know from Chaucer and his "Miller's Tale," and from Sondheim and his "I shall marry the miller's son," the miller clan gets around. So, perhaps there was a visit by the fisherman to the miller's wife, or to his son, when the miller was out milling. Who knows? In any event, isn't etymology fascinating (so is entymology, but not here).

Ok, so what do you need? To cook a pound of fish, you will need a pound of sole filets. Annalena had six of them in her pound. You probably shouldn't be looking for more than that, and no fewer than four. Other ingredients, in this version (which honestly, is NOT the classic one): some flour, which you spread out on a flat surface. Four ounces (half a stick) of unsalted butter. Two tablespoons, and some extra, of vegetable oil. And a healthy 1/3 cup of citrus juice. Annalena used her seville oranges and meyer lemons for hers (just like with her beets), but use what you have. Make sure you have some lemons of some kind in the mix though. You can also add capers and parsley, but we will not do so here.

In what may be the most important step in this recipe, pat your sole filets as dry as possible. Annalena does this by laying them between paper towels for a few minutes, while she squeezes her citrus, puts the flour on a baking sheet, and gets her non stick pans out and distributes the oil between them. When the fish is dry, season it lightly with salt and pepper. Then start your pans getting hot. While this is happening, dredge your fish in the flour.

Unfortunately, sole is not a fish that you can put into a bag and "shake and bake." It is far too delicate and you will have fish ribbons if you do this. So, spread the flour out and dip the fish in it. At most you will have six pieces, so don't worry about going crazy. If your pans are sufficiently hot, when you put the fish into the oil, it will sizzle immediately. Let them cook for no more than two minutes, flip and cook for another two. You will want your biggest spatula for this.

When you're done, you will notice that the fish has not cooked too much. That's exactly what you want: just a light brown color. Now, take one of those pans, and clean it out. The water will hit it and you will get steam. (the other one can be allowed to cool). Dry it out well, put it back on the heat, and add the four tablespoons of butter. Let it get very close to melting completely, and when it's there, pour in your citrus juice. Let it boil and bubble for all of 3-4 minutes. You will see a thickening and browning of the liquid, and that's what you want.

Now, most recipes tell you to take the fish and pour the sauce over it. Annalena abjures this instruction, and puts the fish back into the sauce, and turns it, once or twice. She finds that this gives more flavor to the fish all over, and since you will be eating this with something like boiled potatoes, or rice, and a vegetable to balance the large amount of fat you are about to put away, doing so eliminates the excess sauce that will bleed onto your plate (She thinks of everything, doesn't she?).

And, you're ready... Plate up your fish. To Annalena's palette, the combination of flavors gave the butter an extra level of creaminess, and the citrus had carmelized a bit, so that there were tart, and sweet elements throughout. It was, shall we say, one of her biggest successes in recent months.

Yes, a good six plus tablespoons of fat distributed between two people is not so good, but all in balance ragazzi. Broiled chicken for lunch is the balance here. And, the boiled potatoes and broccoli rabb did not hurt things.

Try it. Even if you don't like fish. And if you LIKE fish, or even LOVE fish, and have feared for "meuniere," because of the foreignness of the name, or the price in restaurants, well, get over the former, and go to the restaurant where you saw it and say "NYAH NYAH."

Sunday, April 1, 2012

No fooling in April: duck and chicken pasta sauce

Yes, ragazzi, Annalena is aware that is the first of April, but there is no space for pulling pranks in the kitchen. What we have today is a recipe born out of that sense of 'OH SHIT, WHAT DO I COOK?"

Apologies for being bold, but you have all been there, haven't you? Annalena is there often, notwithstanding her attempts to plan, plot, scheme, etc. And so it was on Saturday. Annalena wanted to make lunch for her farmer friends. She also wanted to use up some things in the refrigerator that might very well go bad... soon. And this was the result. You will have it here with variation, since not everyone has duck confit in his or her refrigerator (and if you don't, Annalena respectfully requests that you take steps to rectify this immediately).

If there were no other reason to thank the French for their gifts to the world (and there are: Regine Crespin, macaroons, Chausson, Versailles, etc), duck confit would be enough. This is one of those peasant foods that has become a luxury item. One hunted duck during the fall, and if God was with you, you hunted and killed more than you could eat, so you could preserve it for the winter. Well, duck produce an enormous amount of fat, and if you put something under fat, it will block oxygen, and will keep for a rather extended period of time.

This is the principle behind confit making. You can do it with just about anything, and the fattier it is, the better. Eel confit is probably responsible for keeping settlers alive in Quebec for those first years, and many have kept their body fires kindling with it. You don't need much. You can of course make it yourself, but unless you wish to have your house smell like a butcher's, for a long period of time, Annalena does not recommend it. Buy yourself a few legs of duck confit, and put them in your fridge, where they will last upwards of four months.

So, if you do this with duck confit, here is what you do. First, you let one leg per person come to room temperature. Then, with sadness in your heart, tear the fat away from it. (if Annalena had her druthers, she would render this, eat the cracklings and save the fat for potatoes. The Guyman, however, will not permit this). Now, rip the meat from the legs.

IF you have a food processor, toss it into the processor and pulse about ten times. If you do not, get a good knife and chop, chop, chop. It is not all that important to pulverize it, but you do want smaller pieces.

To Annalena's taste, the duck confit alone was too strong for pasta sauce, so she added chicken. She had leftover chicken cutlets in the fridge, and these went into the food processor as well, after she had cut them into small bits. If you do not have chicken cutlets, ground chicken will work; however, you must know something: ground chicken is so lean, that you should run it through the processor a few pulses, even though it is chopped. See, ragazzi, when you cook the ground chicken, it will not break up because of the absence of fat.

You will also need the leaves of one bunch of swiss chard. Know that if you use red chard, your dish will take on a bit of a red color. Finally, as ramps have come into season, Annalena used enough ramps to form a half cup, when chopped. If you have no ramps, use scallions, or green garlic, or spring onions.

See how versatile this is? You probably have at least a dozen options already.

Now, we get to work. Since we are working (optimally) with a fatty product, again, MEASURE your oil: two tablespoons, and add the chicken. Also add a healthy pinch of salt, and move it around, to try, as best as you can, to break it up. When it begins to lose the raw color, add the chard. Stir it together until it wilts and then, finally, the confit, and stir it all together. Give it a taste, and ask yourself (i) does it need salt, and more importantly, (ii) is it too dry? The second is a real issue in this dish, because the chicken is so low in fat, and if you have that issue, add chicken stock. Annalena added about half a cup both times that she made it. This will put some "juice" back into your sauce. Now, finally, off the heat, stir in your ramps, green onions, etc.

You have enough "sauce" here to coat a pound of pasta: be it farfalle, strozzapretti, or any of the shorter, stubbier varieites. That is indeeed what is called for.

In texture, to Annalena's taste, this is somewhat like classic ragu. Make it. Let Annalena know how it works for you. And, if you vary it, please let her know.