Crossing culture: kung pao brussels sprouts

Annalena is a big fan of vegetables.  She cannot write ALL vegetables, however, because she does not like some.  Parsnips have a high position on the list of vegetables Annalena does not like. So, too, do Brussels sprouts.  Annalena has tried. She eats them gamely.  Many of her restaurant friends are very  pround of their variation on  Brussels sprouts, and bring them out, gratis.  Annalena eats.  And passes most of them to the Guyman.  And every year, she determines that "this is the year" she is going to learn to like the veggies she does not.

It never works.  Now, she knows she will get no sympathy from the many fans of these little cabbages (what they are called in Italian:  cavolini),  but things are what they are.   She does find dishes and variations that she does like, and this year, she decided to give a try to what she felt was a very unusual variation:  Brussels sprouts in Kung Pao sauce.

Now, any of you who have eaten take out Chinese food (that is ALL of you, ragazzi), have encountered "kung pao."  Unlike his friend, General Ts'o, however, there is pretty much a consensus that there WAS a "kung pao," which  Annalena understands to mean "palace guardian."  She also understands that the dish is Szechuan in origin, which almost inevitably means spicy and hot .  (Incidentally, ragazzi, we have not been eating true Szechuan cooking in this country, EVER.  For many years, this was because the key ingredient, the Szechuan peppercorn, was banned.  Such is not the case anymore.  Yet, our Szechuan dishes do not include it,  as is the case with the dish that follows.  Let Annalena be clear:  they are an acquired taste.  You may find yourself eschewing authenticity in favor of what you like).

When you get true Kung Pao sauce, it is dark,  spicy, and with peanuts.  You will almost always get someone's variation on it, however.  Again,  having transformed, as dishes do, when they travel, you will almost always get it with an orange element in it in the US.  Annalena adds orange juice to her sauce at the end, but you do not have to.

There are certain cliches about Chinese cooking, one of which is that, once you finish the prep work, the cooking is fast.  Indeed, you're going to find this to be the case with what follows.

A warning, ragazzi: if you make this dish with ALL of the peppers, it is wicked hot. REALLY wicked hot spicy.  Consider bringing it down and using fewer peppers, if you are not a true spice head.    Are we ready to make:

Ok, let's start with a pound of fresh brussels sprouts.  Small ones if you can get them:

Cut them in half (this will take you longer than anything else you do)

And then toss them on a baking sheet, rolling them around in two tablespoons of olive oil (clearly we're doing fusion here), and add some salt and pepper.  Roast these at  425 for 20 minutes.  You will get something that looks like this:

While these boys are roasting, let's make the sauce.  You will need a list of ingredients:  a tablespoon of cornstarch, 3 garlic cloves,  2 tablespoons worth of ginger ( a nice sized knob), 2 tablespoons of a  hot chili sauce (Annalena's recipe recommended an Indonesian one.  She used sriracha),  6 chiles de arbol (we did say cross cultural, didn't we? As explained above, feel free to cut back on these, and also feel free to substitute another hot chile), a half a cup of soy sauce (feel free to use tamari), 3 tablespoons of sugar,  a tablespoon of rice vinegar, and a half cup of water.   Quite a list of ingredients:

When you've collected them,  chop the garlic as finely as you can, and do the same thing with the ginger, after you peel it.  Crush the chiles very lightly,  and of course, measure out  the other ingredients:

You will see that Annalena combined the soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, and water before she began cooking.  You should do the same.

So, to start cooking,  add a tablespoon of oil to a medium or small sauce pan, and turn the  heat to high. Add the garlic and the ginger together, and cook for about a minute and a half.  Add the chile sauce, and stir madly, until it darkens.    Now add the chiles, and that liquid mixture.    Finally, take that cornstarch and combine it with a tablespoon of water.  You'l get a gloppy slurry.  That's fine.  Toss it into the sauce, stir everything together, lower the heat, and keep your eye on it.  When the cornstarch activates, everything will thicken some, and you will see a sheen, and a clarity develop in the sauce

This is about two cups and trust Annalena ragazzi, it is PLENTY.  Taste a small amount of it.  You may very well feel, as Annalena did, that she needed orange juice and orange peel in it.  Toss the sauce and baby cabbages together, but keep in mind you have more than twice as much sauce as you will need.   It will keep.  Use it for something else.

Here is the finished product, on a plate with some not so spicy, saucy glass noodles:

Did this turn annalena into a lover of Brussels sprouts?  Well, no.  But she likes this, and now she has a new sauce in her repertoire, which will be making periodic appearances on Annalena's table

A winter pasta with unlikely ingredients: long pasta, with lemons and chile

Ragazzi, you will learn, at some point, that inspiration comes at the oddest times. Sometimes, you put together two random thoughts which , upon reflection, seem to belong together obviously.  Of course, the length of time that separated the bringing of the two together speaks against that, but it only makes us sit back and marvel at our minds.

Whatever, as Annalena is wont to say these days.  The dish that follows,  comes out of the "marriage," in Annalena's mind, of a dish she had years ago, at her favorite Zuni cafe' , and a recipe that appeared in the New York Times several weeks ago.

When Annalena and the Guyman traveled to San Francisco earlier in the year than they do now, they ate much that one would associate with California winter.  Indeed, the produce of the San Francisco winter would impel Annalena to spend it there, especially the citrus.  At Zuni, one night, she ate a dish of fresh pasta with lemon zest, and black pepper.  Now, how odd that does that sound?    Well, however odd it may sound to you, rest assured it tasted wonderful.  And you can make it very easily.  At this point, ragazzi,  you should have figured out the recipe yourselves.

So, when she saw a recipe, in the Times, that called for lemon and chile, Annalena  thought, "again?"  Her cooking pal at work, Michael, made it, and proclaimed it a winner. So Annalena put it in her head for some time in the future.  The future was the present the weekend past, and Annalena made it:

Does this look like something you would eat?  It should.  And so, let's make it.  Annalena made it for a party of eight.  You may wish to cut back on the proportions here. 

You begin with six lemons.  Try to get a mix of meyers, which are sweeter, and lisbons, which are the ones we are used to.  Of those six, zest three, using one of those wonderful zester toys that gets all the yellow off without getting into the white. Put the zest aside, and keep the lemons handy.   Next, take the remaining three, and cut off about a quarter of an inch, from top and bottom:

After you've done this, cut the lemons into quarters, lengthwise,  and then cut small triangles, of each quarter:

You will have a lot of them.  You can cut them thinner than you see them here, and as you go along, remove the pits. You will find it easy to do.  

Add these lemons, to a pot of boiling water.  You will use this water to cook your pasta later (we do not waste things, ragazzi), and you only need to put the lemons in the boiling water, for two minutes.  Rescue them, and let them dry:

What you have done is to remove the bitter element from the peels.  Ultimately, this is a good thing.    Next, get a skilled, and add two tablespoons of olive oil, over a high flame.  Add the lemons with a pinch of salt, and a larger pinch of sugar. Cook these, moving  them every now and then, until the lemons carmelize:

You have now done most of your work.  Move those lemons to a bowl or plate, and off the heat, add two tabelspoons of butter,  the lemon peel, as much chile flake as you think you can stand (no more than a teaspoon, to Annalena's taste), and grate in a hefty dose of black pepper.   When you can smell the lemons, add a half cup of water from that pot you started before, and the cooked, carmelized lemons.  

You have now made your sauce.  Bring the rest of the water to a boil, and add a pound and a half of pasta (24 ounces:  many pastas come in 12 ounce packages these days, so two packages),  and when it's very aldente, drain it.  Put it back in the pot and add the lemon sauce:

Not quite done, ragazzi.  Grate a hefty cup of parmesan cheese, and stir this in, together with a half cup or so, of either parsley leaves, or celery leaves, or both, chopped up. The picture that follows, is with just parsley:

You will be glad you have this recipe, ragazzi.  Ultimately, you did not use any odd ingredients, and you made a wonderful , very satisfying dish.  

We are going to return to pasta in the next recipe, and we'll be making something that you will find heartier, and perhaps more nourishing in a clinical sense.  Ultimately, however, ALL pasta is nourishing.

Is it soup yet? Celery root and celery soup

It's winter, ragazzi, as if Annalena needed to tell you that, and the recipes on her blog which get the most hits - are the soups.  You may well imagine Annalena's surprise when she saw the number of people who had investigated her celery soup recipe, from a few weeks ago.    Well, she's back with the celery, a result of overzealous  representation in her CSA  (celery seems to have become the kale of 2015 for Annalena),  combined with one of her favorite neglected vegetables:  celery root.

Celery root, or celeriac:

 Annalena has written often of various uses for celery root.  Many people restrict its use to soup, and in Annalena's mind, that is actually fine.  Celery root makes fine soup, and we're going to make some today.

Unlike Jerusalem artichokes, which have nothing to do with artichokes, celery root IS the root of a celery plant.  The celery which grows form it, however, looks nothing like the celery you bring home and eat to fill your stomach when you diet.    You will see the green version sold, sometimes, as "soup celery."  The greens have a strong flavor, and they do not "crunch" because they do not form the stalk we are used to.  The roots of THAT celery are stringy and inedible.    So,  look for these, but do not look for them to be connected to a celery.    And do not look for them before mid autumn.  You may look for them all winter long, as they keep well. And you will be glad you did.

Peeling these guys takes some work.  You will break your vegetable peeler if you try to use that (trust Annalena on that one), so get out a big, strong knife, and be fearless.  And to make two quarts of soup, you will need about two pounds of celery roots.  Here, size does not matter, and you can very easily find a two pound celery root.  In Annalena's experience, however, the bigger the celery root, the more likely to find some nastiness at the core.  So she got small ones from her friend Dave the farmer, took them home, and got to work, peeling and cutting:

These are in a pot of salted water, and they come to a simmer, and cook until they are still "al dente," but getting to the soft side of things.   

Prior to putting them in the water, however, measure the volume of them you have.  Then, chop up some celery, to make 3/4 to equal the volume of the root:

Use the leaves.  They're good.  

When the root is fairly soft, drain it,  and then get a big pot ready, with two tablespoons of vegetable or olive oil.  Add the celery, and saute' it, until it just about begins to soften.  Then add the celery root.  Toss this all around, and add a quart of liquid:  chicken stock, water, vegetable stock, will all work.  Cover the pot, lower the heat, and go about your business for about half an  hour. 

Come back, and check the celery root itself: is it so soft that it's beginning to truly fall apart? If it is, then you can stop cooking.  Let this cool, because you're going to be pureeing.  

Now, Annalena must give you a warning:  celery root purees to a very, VERY thick consistency.  You will almost certainly need to add liquid while it's happening.  Be judicious, but do add it.    And do it in batches, until you have a texture that is a little bit thinner than you would want, finally.  You want a thinner texture, because this will continue to thicken as it sits.  

If, you happen to have some left over potatoes (Annalena had left over colcannon), put that in the soup, too.  And puree it.    The celery per se gives a lovely green color, and the celery root gives a thickness that satisfies.  

Looks good, doesn't it?  It is.  Get out the pots, get some simple ingredients, and get to work.  You'll be REALLY happy with this one. 

An Irish classic: colcannon

Whenever someone says, of a dish, ragazzi, that "it's a classic," be warned:  you will  soon have at least a dozen different recipes for the "classic."  Undoubtedly, each of these dishes, dubbed "classic" has a codified recipe, somewhere, be it  "The Silver Spoon" for Italian food,  "Brillat -Savarin" for French,  "1008 recipes" for Iberia, and so forth.  Yet, what you learn, in studying the "classic" dishes of different cuisines,  is that ultimately, while there are some principles behind them which do not change,  everyone has his or her own view on how to make it.  Sometimes, this results from circumstances:  you don't have "X," so you use "Y," because it's similar.  Sometimes, it's taste:  you don't like "A" so you use "B," or your kids won't eat "C" so you use "D."  And so on and so forth. 

Colcannon is one of those dishes.  When Annalena worked at the large law firm where she spent a good 13 years, she had a gal pal named Sara.  While not a vegetarian, Sara ate very little meat.  Sara also embodied "IRISH," and she loved Irish food.  One day, she told me of the two or three DOZEN different ways she had eaten colcannon  - and how she loved them all.

Annalena does not know much about Irish food, beyond colcannon and soda bread.  What she knows of the former, however, is that it always contains potatoes, greens, and dairy.  Most of the recipes Annalena has seen, use cabbage.  And most of them boil the cabbage.  

Here comes a bit of a food anthropological digression:  much more of one than usual, ragazzi.   Claude Levi -Strauss, who has written on hierachies of cooking,  has theorized that in terms of status, boiling foods sits at the bottom of the standard preparation methods.  It requires the least equipment,  and costs the least to do, since water, especially if you don't have indoor plumbing, is free.    Irish,  especially those who came to the United States, were poor.  Annalena will leave the historical reasons for this to those much better at history than is she,  and state simply that people bring the recipes with them that they have.  When moving to a new country,  she cannot imagine anyone rummaging around to get new recipes to teach the people where he or she is going, to cook. So , as the majority of colcannon dishes used boiled potatoes and boiled cabbage in Ireland, so they did here. 

Annalena found herself confronted with a bunch of kale which, as her gal pal Nora would say  "was giving her the stink eye."  Kale... Ah, yes, kale, the mainstay of winter greens, the curly stuff in every box of CSA vegetables.  The vegetable which caused her gal pal Jim W to state "I gave up my CSA when they started sending ten pounds of kale a week."    Recently, of course, kale has become fashionable, for kale salads, kale chips, and so forth.   No one seems to have picked up on the standard way to cook kale:  put it in salted water and boil  it to death, and then when it's ready to eat, chew, chew chew.  Well, there was that:  but Annalena also had a whole bunch of potatoes that were "giving her the eye."

There's a cooking joke in there for all of you:  the potatoes were getting old.  So, she made the sort of connection that cooks do:  what could she do with potatoes and kale?  What resembles kale in the greens field?  And yes, there it was,  right in front of her:  colcannon with kale.  BUT:  Annalena being who she is, was not going to boil this stuff to death.  So, she did some research, and found a wonderful recipe, in which you saute' the kale.  

BRAVO.  It works, and it's delicious.    And if you happen to have finicky children, or a finicky partner, you can call this green mashed potatoes, and perhaps they will eat it.  If not, more for you. 

We start with a pound to 1.5 pounds of potatoes, peeled.  You can use any type of potato here, as long as it is not a red skinned potato.  The red skins, ragazzi, are "waxy," and do not mash well. They make wonderful boiled potatoes, and potato salad, but here, go for yukons or russets, or carolas:  something along those lines.  

After you've peeled the potatoes,  cut them into small pieces, and put them in a pot.  Cover them with about an inch of water, and add a big tablesoon of salt.  

Please note the water instructions ragazzi:  many people make a mistake in boiling potatoes in too much water.  When you do that, the flavor of the potato dissipates into the water.  You may wind up with wonderful tasting soup, or bread (we use potato water to make bread around here, ragazzi), but your potatoes will not be as tasty as they might   be.  So bring that to a boil, and begin to simmer them.  You want them to cook until they fall apart when you hit them with a knife.

To the kale:  pull the leaves off the stems, and chop the leaves roughly, and on the small side.  In a big frying pan, add a tablespoon of olive oil, and the kale.  Keep this moving, so that the kale doesn't burn (which will happen if you are not careful, and/or if you use too high a temperature).  When the kale has begun to soften, get a half cup of water (from the potatoes, if you like), add it to the pot, cover it, and let the kale steam for about five minutes. 

When your potatoes are ready, draw off about a cup of the water.  (Don't omit this step), and then drain the potatoes.  Put the drained, hot potatoes into a bowl and now decide what dairy you plan to use - because you should use dairy.  Buttermilk seemed right to Annalena, and she used this.  About a third of a cup.  And a tablespoon of butter. No more than that.    Combine the butter, the milk, about a third of the water you drew off, and the potatoes, and mash them with whatever you use to mash potatoes.  If they seem thick to you, and somewhat not to the texture  you want, add more water. Do so carefully, ragazzi, because you could easily go from mashed potatoes to potato soup.  

When you have the texture you want,  then stir in the kale.  And... you are done.  Very nourishing, very easy, and using what winter has given you.

Piled up against a portion of fish, one has: 

It tastes as good as it looks.  Get your greens on,  lads and lassies.  Make it today.  And if you vary the recipe, share it with us all.

Simply fish: monkfish in a saffron broth

Ciao, ragazzi.  Annalena is coming to you early this morning, because last night was a late night, with the Guyman's rehearsal.  So, while very few of you are up to making fish at 8 in the morning, put this away until later, because - Annalena doesn't lie to you - this is one you should have:

Doesn't that look good?  This morning, we're making the stuff furthest away:  the fish.  Later, we'll make the potatoes (the classic Irish dish called colcannon).  You'll find making the fish easy, but you may have to shop for the ingredient that joins all the ingredients together:  saffron.

Annalena admits to a fascination, nay, an obsession with saffron.  She puzzles over who figured out that the stamens of crocuses worked as a flavoring agent?  Who developed the means for harvesting it?  And so on, and so forth. She feels there's a book out there, awaiting, but she will not attempt to write it.   You will need  "a pinch" of  it, so borrow some from someone else who has "saffron fever," and then either buy some, or do what Annalena does:  when people say "OMG it's your birthday, what should I get you?"  she asks for a gram of saffron.  A gram is only about 15-20.00 ("only" being a relative term), but after many birthdays, and many Christmases, Annalena has a small fortune in saffron, as you will see. 

You need to work with a VERY firm white fish for this recipe as well.  While Annalena disagrees with the author of her original recipe, who states that monkfish qualifies as "the most meat like of all fish," she does agree that the texture is the right one.  But if you do not find monkfish - which is very possible - then use something like halibut, or sablefish, or even cod, to do this.  Just make sure your pieces are thick, because braising fish will break down what little structure it has, and you will have flakes of fish with anything too thin, or not firm enough. 

Ok, so to begin.  You need 1-1.5 pounds of fish , a couple of carrots, a couple of shallots, a few sprigs of thyme, olive oil, white wine, and water. Use whatever wine you're going to drink.   And the saffron:  some define a "pinch" as 1/16 of a teaspoon.  Annalena just reaches into her jar and "pinches, so her pinch is probably between 1/8 and 1/4 of a teaspoon.  Clean your carrots if they  need it, and peel your shallots.  Slice the carrots into 1/2 inch rounds, and slice the shallots thinly.  Chop the thyme until you have a healthy teaspoon, and cut the monkfish into serving size pieces.  (The key reason for doing this, ragazzi, is so you can move them when they're cooked).  Annalena laid out her mise en place for you here:

You can see a half cup of white wine and a quarter cup of olive oil, the carrots, the shallots (barely), the thyme, and Annalena's jar of saffron, turned on the side, so you can see it a bit clearer than you might.   Let's now get to work. 

Sprinkle the fish pieces with salt and pepper AFTER you've patted them dry.  Put half of the oil (two tablespoons) into a nonstick pan , and heat it up.  Add the fish, and cook it for a couple of minutes on both sides. You'll get some color, but as you'll see, it ain't pretty:

Not looking so good, eh?  Well, wait.  Or  "ashbett" as Annalena's nana used to say. 

Now, add the rest of the oil.  And if you feel you need some more, go ahead.  Add the shallots and a touch of salt.  Cook them at medium low heat, so they don't burn.  Give it about 3 minutes.  Then add the carrots, and again, medium low, cooking, for about 4-5 minutes.

If you're looking for more precise measurements, you probably have about 1/4-1/3 of a cup of shallots, and a cup of carrots.    Take that wine, the thyme and the saffron, and add it into the vegetables, together with half a cup of water.  Turn your heat up, and let the liquid boil down by about a third.  It won't take long, and if you don't finish, don't worry. We're going to add a step that will take care of this.    

Put the fish back in the pan and again, heat at medium

The  next step  will shock some folks, but it's ok, because there's so much liquid around, your fish is not going to dry out.  You cover the pan, lower the heat and cook for FIFTEEN (yes, ragazzi, fifteen) minutes.   VERY low, and very slow.   When you're done,  you can serve the dish as it is, but Annalena suggests you do it one better. 

 CAREFULLY  move all of the solids  to a bowl or plate, and then raise the temperature high, to reduce the sauce to tablespoons.  Then, pour that over the fish and: 

That looks better, doesn't it?  If you had to, though, you could serve it without the reduction. All up to you.  

Give it a try, ragazzi.  Look at the ingredient list. You have all the stuff but the saffron, or you can get it, and it takes no more than about 30 minutes to make, start to finish.  You'll be glad to have this one in your repertoire.