Well, she's back, after a short trip to Texas. I will not comment on that trip here, only to say that I am glad I am back. Annalena is NOT a good traveller, she is even a worse business traveller, and this was business. In terms of her work year, however, in Annalena's mind, now it is smooth sailing. It is sort of like finishing up the last element of a compulsory figure skating routine: all done, now have some fun, and get to the finish without falling.
Ok, now onto food. Just before going, we visited one of our favorite haunts, Barbuto (there is no pun intended in writing about haunts on Halloween, believe me). They had a soup on the menu that appealed to the Guyman: chestnut farro soup with apple and honey.
Guy looked at me and said "well, you know how I can' resist anything with chestnuts in it."
Uh, no, I didn't. I was skeptical of the soup: chestnuts have a sweetness to them, as do apples, and honey? Well... But onward we went. The sweetness was actually quite muted, almost not there. It was a hearty, rich soup, that immediately presented itself to me as something that Annalena could copy.
And she did. And now, I want you to copy it too.
First, let us start with the most salient ingredient: the chestnuts. For all of us who enjoy chestnuts, the advent of vacuum packed, peeled, cooked chestnuts have changed our autumnal and winter cooking. If you have ever stained, burned, or otherwise damaged your manicure working with the "real" things, you will know what I mean. So, buy these things. They do not need refrigeration. For my recipe, get about a pound's worth of them.
You will also need some farro. Now, there is a dispute in the cooking world as to whether farro and spelt are the same. My view is that they are not; however, cooks do debate this extensively. If they are not the same, they are close enough that you could use spelt in place of faro. So, ragazzi, here's what you do: put a quantity of farro under a liquid in a 1:4 ratio. That is more liquid than you will need, but that is ok. Bear with me, and you will learn why. Add some salt, cover your pot, but leave a vent space, because the farro produces a starch which bubbles t othe top and makes a mess. You only need about a cup or cup and a half of cooked farro for this soup, but make extra. It is a terrific side dish, a wonderful addition to salad, and you can also eat it for breakfast as a cereal.
while that farro is cooking, get your basic soup veggies ready: equal quanitites of chopped celery, carrots, and an onion family member. I had a bunch of lovely leeks in the fridge, and I used one of them. Use an onion if you don't, or mix, or use what you've got. Put some olive oil in a soup pot, and add the veggies, together with a teaspoon or so of salt, and let them cook, w hile you prep the chestnuts.
How do you prep the chestnuts? It's absurdly easy. Get them out of the bag and break them up with your hands. Then add them to the vegetables, and stir everything together, with another teaspoon of salt. After a few minutes, no more than five, add a quart of liquid. I used chicken stock, but you could use vegetable, or water, and I think you'll be ok. Chestnuts are nice and rich and they thicken a soup in the same way that potatoes do. Cover the pot, and let this cook away for about half an hour.
Taste your farro. It will never be as soft as rice, but when it's "toothsome," it's done. Strain it through a colander, so that the liquid is saved because... you're gonna add this right to the soup. the starch gives some body to the soup, you don't waste the liqud, and all is well in the world.
We're going green here...
After the veggies have cooked for the half hour or so, check to see if the chestnuts are cooked, by piercing a few pieces with the tip of a sharp knife. If they fall apart, your're ready. Let the mess cool, because it's very hot, and you're about to puree this.
Fill your food process no more than half, and try to get an equal quantity of liquid and solid in the vessel. Puree for a few minutes. You will get a soft, dark brown puree. If it's too thick, don't worry. We can fix that. Probably, you did what Annalena does a lot, and used too many solids. Well, if that's the case, you'll have too much liquid in the remainder. And that's a good thing. Just keep on pureeing until you've done all of the soup. Check the texture. Too thick for you? Puree it again (that's what I did). And if it's STILL too thick, add some liquid. Taste it. See if you need some salt. Add it if you do, and then stir in the farro, which will be cool now, and will stop absorbing liquid. You'll have a LOT here - almost two quarts.
Now, onto the apple and honey. To my taste, it needs no apple, to Guy's taste it does. So we will add chopped, skinned apple to the soup beore we eat it. Not sure about the honey, but go easy.
If you go through this recipe, you will see room for variation beyond what I have written. For example, I would bet that if you have some left over cooked beans, they would take the place of the farro nicely. I also think you could add some hearty meat to this with no problem. Maybe some dairy for a richer soup? Play with it. Make some variations. Tell Annalena what you've done. Don't be strangers.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Chop chop: Veal chops beau sejour
For decades, the New York Times Cookbook has been a mainstay in homes, mine included. Some have described it as a more sophisticated, or a more "East Coast" version of "The Joy of Cooking." Whatever. I used to spend hours when I was a young kid, reading the recipes. I would marvel at the intricacy of some of them: the book included a recipe that taught how to make a gallontine of turkey: you boned it, and filled it with a stuffing that included lots of good things, wrapped it in cheesecloth, steamed it, baked it, etc, etc, etc. I remember beautiful photos of things like eggs in aspic with chervil leaves - even though I had no idea what a chervil leaf was.
Books go out of print, recipes go out of style, but editions stick around. Compare different editions of "The Joy of Cooking," for example. Now, they don't include the directions for prepping squirrel for stew. They used to have wonderful instructions for prepping soft shell crabs, which included a line "cutting away the face," which made me HOWL.
But enough of that book: back to the NY Times cookbook. A new edition is out, under the hand of Amanda Hesser.
Prejudices right up front: I do not like Ms. Hesser's style. I have read her for years. I find her a snob. I find her arrogant, and I find her attitude of "well, you may not be able to do this, but I can" more than a bit too much. But the book, while it carries her imprint on it, is about recipes that the Times has printed and acquired over the years. And this is one of them. I was drawn to it right away, and it's good. I'm going to try it again, with pork chops.
I should tell you I have no idea what "sejour" means, which of course in turn means that people will run to google for this and I will hear from you. Great. Please tell me. And I will tell you how to make this wonderfully easy, delicious recipe, and I will in turn, be catty about the way it is presented.
The recipe calls for six, rack veal chops, 1.5 inches thick, frenched.
Right. A veal chop is about 20 bucks. SO, do the math. Also, the recipe calls for using a pan large enough to hold all six chops. Now, Annalena has a lot of large pans. She could never do six veal chops in one pan. So, here is my advice: do two of them. Keep this as a special occasion dish.
Fill a bag with about a half cup of flour, and a teaspoon of salt. Shake it, and then add the chops, so that they are covered with flour (the recipe says "dredge the chops." If you don't know what this means...).
Now, get 1/4 cup of vegetable oil and 4 tablespoons of butter in your pan, and heat them at medium heat until the butter melts. Add the chops, and brown them. It will probably take about 8 minutes, and get a GOOD sear on them. (Incidentally, these proportions ARE for six chops. Don't worry. When you're doing something like a pan sauce and you're cutting the amount of protein, don't cut the sauce back).
Ok, now that the chops are browned, add six whole cloves of peeled garlic, and press one bay leaf into each chop. Add a few sprigs of fresh thyme to the pan, or a teaspoon of dried, and then cover the pan, lower the heat, and go away for twenty minutes.
When that time has elapsed, uncover the pan, take the chops and put them on a plate. Add 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar. Move your face back, and stir, until the vinegar evaporates. Won't take long. Then add a half cup of chicken stock and a quarter cup of water. Raise the heat to high, and cook this all down until you have tablespoons of liquid left. It will be rich and syrupy. Strain the solids (those herb bits and the garlic), out of the liquid, or just spoon it out, over the chops, and serve them forth.
This is good. Expensive, but good. That's why I'm trying it with pork chops this week. I bet you could substitute balsamic vinegar for the red wine vinegar too, and I'm going to do that. Maybe I'll give you an update. Maybe you'll try this and come up with some ideas of your own. Please do, and let Annalena know.
Books go out of print, recipes go out of style, but editions stick around. Compare different editions of "The Joy of Cooking," for example. Now, they don't include the directions for prepping squirrel for stew. They used to have wonderful instructions for prepping soft shell crabs, which included a line "cutting away the face," which made me HOWL.
But enough of that book: back to the NY Times cookbook. A new edition is out, under the hand of Amanda Hesser.
Prejudices right up front: I do not like Ms. Hesser's style. I have read her for years. I find her a snob. I find her arrogant, and I find her attitude of "well, you may not be able to do this, but I can" more than a bit too much. But the book, while it carries her imprint on it, is about recipes that the Times has printed and acquired over the years. And this is one of them. I was drawn to it right away, and it's good. I'm going to try it again, with pork chops.
I should tell you I have no idea what "sejour" means, which of course in turn means that people will run to google for this and I will hear from you. Great. Please tell me. And I will tell you how to make this wonderfully easy, delicious recipe, and I will in turn, be catty about the way it is presented.
The recipe calls for six, rack veal chops, 1.5 inches thick, frenched.
Right. A veal chop is about 20 bucks. SO, do the math. Also, the recipe calls for using a pan large enough to hold all six chops. Now, Annalena has a lot of large pans. She could never do six veal chops in one pan. So, here is my advice: do two of them. Keep this as a special occasion dish.
Fill a bag with about a half cup of flour, and a teaspoon of salt. Shake it, and then add the chops, so that they are covered with flour (the recipe says "dredge the chops." If you don't know what this means...).
Now, get 1/4 cup of vegetable oil and 4 tablespoons of butter in your pan, and heat them at medium heat until the butter melts. Add the chops, and brown them. It will probably take about 8 minutes, and get a GOOD sear on them. (Incidentally, these proportions ARE for six chops. Don't worry. When you're doing something like a pan sauce and you're cutting the amount of protein, don't cut the sauce back).
Ok, now that the chops are browned, add six whole cloves of peeled garlic, and press one bay leaf into each chop. Add a few sprigs of fresh thyme to the pan, or a teaspoon of dried, and then cover the pan, lower the heat, and go away for twenty minutes.
When that time has elapsed, uncover the pan, take the chops and put them on a plate. Add 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar. Move your face back, and stir, until the vinegar evaporates. Won't take long. Then add a half cup of chicken stock and a quarter cup of water. Raise the heat to high, and cook this all down until you have tablespoons of liquid left. It will be rich and syrupy. Strain the solids (those herb bits and the garlic), out of the liquid, or just spoon it out, over the chops, and serve them forth.
This is good. Expensive, but good. That's why I'm trying it with pork chops this week. I bet you could substitute balsamic vinegar for the red wine vinegar too, and I'm going to do that. Maybe I'll give you an update. Maybe you'll try this and come up with some ideas of your own. Please do, and let Annalena know.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
This one's for you: piquillo pepper hot sauce
I have a weakness for Barry Manilow.
DONT JUDGE. Fess up. You do too. Every single one of us knows we're not supposed to like him, we're not supposed to listen to him. But we do. You might think of him as the "junk food" of pop music, as someone once called him, but fess up again: you've closed the door and eaten a twinkie, or a bag of cheez doodles (that'd be me), or a cylinder of pringles (YUCH). And you have a favorite Barry Manilow song. I KNOW you do. Or, you can't make up your mind which one is your favorite, and you've got a couple of them.
For Annalena, the faves are "Weekend in New England," and "Mandy." "Mandy has associations for me with my dear Aunt. She was working in a pottery store, and I used to go and visit. One day "Mandy" was playing in the background. She was all alone, but for me, and just the way she looked, I thought Barry was singing about her.
"Weekend in New England?" AH. Listen to it sometime. I always think about my dear friends, the ones with whom I "dance the dance," and all of you boys out there KNOW what I mean by that: not flirting, not "bumping," but thinking "what if..." And then leaving and thinking "when will our eyes meet... when will this long journey end," but moreso "When, will I see you again?"
When, will I see you, again? Look at the comma placements. They're important. I think about them all the time. I think this line a lot for one particular friend, to whom I'm dedicating this. I won't tell you who because, to be honest, it is none of your business (sorry to be so curt). But he makes my life better. He makes me HAPPY. What else can you ask? Well:
When, will I see you, again? I have been thinking about him all day, for various reasons, and when I came home , and made this, I thought of this again because, you see, he insists he can't cook.
Well, there's no cooking here. And there's everything in it that you like. So, you make it. Or I'll make it for you and bring you some "when I see you, again?" How's that.
Piquillo peppers are a product of Spain. They have never been grown successfully in the United States. Given the stupid export laws, we don't get them fresh here, we get them jarred. Under salt water, or olive oil, whatever. I'm sure they're not nearly as good as the "real thing," how could they be? But they ARE good.
Now, if you don't have them, you can do this with GOOD quality Italian peppers that have been roasted and jarred. Use it when you want a sauce who's heat you can adjust, (when is that NOT the case), and then refrigerate it, and dole it out. I made it to put over some romesco broccoli (one of my friend's faves), and it will work there, as it will , with many things.
Get a jar of piquillo , or other good quality peppers, and drain the liquid off of them. Put them in a blender. Add one, or two, chopped jalapeno peppers. I used two, and I was lucky to score some red jalapenos at the farmers market this week (incidentally, red jalapenos are simply RIPE green jalapenos). Two will make the sauce incendiary. One will make it pleasantly hot. If you are one of those folks who really love hot food, leave in the seeds.
Puree the stuff. It won't take long. Maybe two minutes. Taste it. Forget about the heat for a minute. You want to adjust for salt. And you're done.
Or are you? When I thought I was finished, I saw a bowl of grape tomatoes that were sitting there, waiting to go bad and make me feel rotten for wasting food. Peppers and tomatoes? I'm not the first one to come up with that combination. In they went. And the sauce is better. But if you don't have them, don't fret.
On broccoli, or other green vegetables. Stirred into bland soup. Are you an egg eater? Omelets. Rice? Of course. Pizzza? DAMN that sounds good.
And you know what, sweetheart? You said you couldn't cook. Well, I KNOW you got a blender and you're gonna make this, because I'm giving you the peppers. And you're gonna bring me some, and I'm gonna smile broader than I smile all day.
This one's for you. The next one better be for me.
DONT JUDGE. Fess up. You do too. Every single one of us knows we're not supposed to like him, we're not supposed to listen to him. But we do. You might think of him as the "junk food" of pop music, as someone once called him, but fess up again: you've closed the door and eaten a twinkie, or a bag of cheez doodles (that'd be me), or a cylinder of pringles (YUCH). And you have a favorite Barry Manilow song. I KNOW you do. Or, you can't make up your mind which one is your favorite, and you've got a couple of them.
For Annalena, the faves are "Weekend in New England," and "Mandy." "Mandy has associations for me with my dear Aunt. She was working in a pottery store, and I used to go and visit. One day "Mandy" was playing in the background. She was all alone, but for me, and just the way she looked, I thought Barry was singing about her.
"Weekend in New England?" AH. Listen to it sometime. I always think about my dear friends, the ones with whom I "dance the dance," and all of you boys out there KNOW what I mean by that: not flirting, not "bumping," but thinking "what if..." And then leaving and thinking "when will our eyes meet... when will this long journey end," but moreso "When, will I see you again?"
When, will I see you, again? Look at the comma placements. They're important. I think about them all the time. I think this line a lot for one particular friend, to whom I'm dedicating this. I won't tell you who because, to be honest, it is none of your business (sorry to be so curt). But he makes my life better. He makes me HAPPY. What else can you ask? Well:
When, will I see you, again? I have been thinking about him all day, for various reasons, and when I came home , and made this, I thought of this again because, you see, he insists he can't cook.
Well, there's no cooking here. And there's everything in it that you like. So, you make it. Or I'll make it for you and bring you some "when I see you, again?" How's that.
Piquillo peppers are a product of Spain. They have never been grown successfully in the United States. Given the stupid export laws, we don't get them fresh here, we get them jarred. Under salt water, or olive oil, whatever. I'm sure they're not nearly as good as the "real thing," how could they be? But they ARE good.
Now, if you don't have them, you can do this with GOOD quality Italian peppers that have been roasted and jarred. Use it when you want a sauce who's heat you can adjust, (when is that NOT the case), and then refrigerate it, and dole it out. I made it to put over some romesco broccoli (one of my friend's faves), and it will work there, as it will , with many things.
Get a jar of piquillo , or other good quality peppers, and drain the liquid off of them. Put them in a blender. Add one, or two, chopped jalapeno peppers. I used two, and I was lucky to score some red jalapenos at the farmers market this week (incidentally, red jalapenos are simply RIPE green jalapenos). Two will make the sauce incendiary. One will make it pleasantly hot. If you are one of those folks who really love hot food, leave in the seeds.
Puree the stuff. It won't take long. Maybe two minutes. Taste it. Forget about the heat for a minute. You want to adjust for salt. And you're done.
Or are you? When I thought I was finished, I saw a bowl of grape tomatoes that were sitting there, waiting to go bad and make me feel rotten for wasting food. Peppers and tomatoes? I'm not the first one to come up with that combination. In they went. And the sauce is better. But if you don't have them, don't fret.
On broccoli, or other green vegetables. Stirred into bland soup. Are you an egg eater? Omelets. Rice? Of course. Pizzza? DAMN that sounds good.
And you know what, sweetheart? You said you couldn't cook. Well, I KNOW you got a blender and you're gonna make this, because I'm giving you the peppers. And you're gonna bring me some, and I'm gonna smile broader than I smile all day.
This one's for you. The next one better be for me.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Pumpkin soup, or Annalena give up the can
One of Annalena's basic rules of the kitchen is: make it yourself UNLESS: the effort involved, relative to the product, is so high that it doesn't make sense to make it yourself. Corollary to this: if you can buy it as a natural product, better than you can make it yourself, at a reasonable price, buy it. This is why Annalena does not make her own pasta, but makes her own bread. It's why she makes her own ice cream, but buys candy. And it has been why , for pumpkin, Annalena has relied on canned organic stuff for years.
Have any of you out there ever COOKED a pumpkin? If you did, how long did it take to recover from the burns, the cuts, and how many times did you say, out loud or in silence "never again?" Hmmmm. I see some shaking of heads in acknowledgement there. Those of you who may be made of strong stuff, might have switched to things like butternut or acorn squash, and gave up cooking pumpkin alltogether. I bet I know why: you used those big "jack o'lantern" pumpkins. Annalena knows: you get so much water, after way too much effort in cutting this big mosnter vegetbale down to a small, reasonable size. Then it bakes forever. You get massive amounts of liquid that spill. You then have to wait forever for it to cool, and by the time you scrape the skin away, and collect the stringy, messy pulp.. then you look at the cans of organic pumpkin at 2 bucks each and decide it's worth it.
I was in that camp. Until this weekend. Filled with a sense of ambition that I rarely have, I decided to give it a shot, with a smaller version of pumpkin: the so-called "cheese" or "milk" pumpkin. Google them for a picture. Where jack o lanterns are most certainly orange, these pumpkins are beige. They are also much smaller. A medium to large one, is probably about five pounds. Yes, the skin is still thick, but nowhere near as thick as the standard variety. And a five pound pumpkin will give you about 3 cups of pulp. Still skimpy, but... what you'll find is that the product is much paler, and much gentler than what you can buy. SO, let's cook some pumpkin.
Get a five pound milk/cheese pumpkin. Get your heaviest knife and cut down, vertically, to get two halves. Then, hack the halves into manageable pieces. Dont' worry about evenness or anything else, just chunk it up. Then, lay them on a parchment lined baking sheet, cover the whole thing with foil, and put it in a 400 degree oven and walk away for an hour. Yup, it still takes a while, and yup, you will still have to wait until it cooks, when it comes out of the oven. The pulp, however, is very thick, and you will not get the tons of liquid that you may have experienced. The skin will peel away easily when it's cool. Then just put all that pulp in a blender and puree it. You will get a wonderful pale pink vegetable.
You can use this anywhere you would use squash or pumpkin, but let's make Annalena's soup. Chop up a couple of small leeks and a small onion. Add a few chopped up carrots, and a fennel bulb or some celery ribs. Or both.
The standard wisdom says that you use butter when making a squash based soup. I prefer vegetable oil. Your call. Cover the bottom of a five quart soup pot with the oil, and then add the veggies. Bring it to medium heat, and cook away until they begin to soften. When they do, add a good teaspoon of salt. Stir that all together, and then add a quart of chicken stock. Finally, add that pumpkin. 3 cups of it please. Stir it all together, lower the heat, and go away for thirty minutes.
Turn off the heat, let it cool, and then, spin the whole thing in the blender again. This second pureeing seems to release a thickening agent from the pumpkin. It won't be apparent right away, but if you let it cool, you will have a thick product that will remind you of a thick cream soup.
This is rather bland. You will need to add the spices you like. You can go sweet, with things like cinammon, but how about being adventurous, with something like a hot pepper, diced up? Maybe some bacon or sausage if you are so inclined?
I suggest you NOT follow the standard procedure for this kind of thing, which would be to add dairy. The dairy will cut down the flavor of the pumpkin even further, and you really do not want that.
This is going to give you about a quart and a half of soup. More than enough to share. Share it. And add something new to your cooking repertoire.
Have any of you out there ever COOKED a pumpkin? If you did, how long did it take to recover from the burns, the cuts, and how many times did you say, out loud or in silence "never again?" Hmmmm. I see some shaking of heads in acknowledgement there. Those of you who may be made of strong stuff, might have switched to things like butternut or acorn squash, and gave up cooking pumpkin alltogether. I bet I know why: you used those big "jack o'lantern" pumpkins. Annalena knows: you get so much water, after way too much effort in cutting this big mosnter vegetbale down to a small, reasonable size. Then it bakes forever. You get massive amounts of liquid that spill. You then have to wait forever for it to cool, and by the time you scrape the skin away, and collect the stringy, messy pulp.. then you look at the cans of organic pumpkin at 2 bucks each and decide it's worth it.
I was in that camp. Until this weekend. Filled with a sense of ambition that I rarely have, I decided to give it a shot, with a smaller version of pumpkin: the so-called "cheese" or "milk" pumpkin. Google them for a picture. Where jack o lanterns are most certainly orange, these pumpkins are beige. They are also much smaller. A medium to large one, is probably about five pounds. Yes, the skin is still thick, but nowhere near as thick as the standard variety. And a five pound pumpkin will give you about 3 cups of pulp. Still skimpy, but... what you'll find is that the product is much paler, and much gentler than what you can buy. SO, let's cook some pumpkin.
Get a five pound milk/cheese pumpkin. Get your heaviest knife and cut down, vertically, to get two halves. Then, hack the halves into manageable pieces. Dont' worry about evenness or anything else, just chunk it up. Then, lay them on a parchment lined baking sheet, cover the whole thing with foil, and put it in a 400 degree oven and walk away for an hour. Yup, it still takes a while, and yup, you will still have to wait until it cooks, when it comes out of the oven. The pulp, however, is very thick, and you will not get the tons of liquid that you may have experienced. The skin will peel away easily when it's cool. Then just put all that pulp in a blender and puree it. You will get a wonderful pale pink vegetable.
You can use this anywhere you would use squash or pumpkin, but let's make Annalena's soup. Chop up a couple of small leeks and a small onion. Add a few chopped up carrots, and a fennel bulb or some celery ribs. Or both.
The standard wisdom says that you use butter when making a squash based soup. I prefer vegetable oil. Your call. Cover the bottom of a five quart soup pot with the oil, and then add the veggies. Bring it to medium heat, and cook away until they begin to soften. When they do, add a good teaspoon of salt. Stir that all together, and then add a quart of chicken stock. Finally, add that pumpkin. 3 cups of it please. Stir it all together, lower the heat, and go away for thirty minutes.
Turn off the heat, let it cool, and then, spin the whole thing in the blender again. This second pureeing seems to release a thickening agent from the pumpkin. It won't be apparent right away, but if you let it cool, you will have a thick product that will remind you of a thick cream soup.
This is rather bland. You will need to add the spices you like. You can go sweet, with things like cinammon, but how about being adventurous, with something like a hot pepper, diced up? Maybe some bacon or sausage if you are so inclined?
I suggest you NOT follow the standard procedure for this kind of thing, which would be to add dairy. The dairy will cut down the flavor of the pumpkin even further, and you really do not want that.
This is going to give you about a quart and a half of soup. More than enough to share. Share it. And add something new to your cooking repertoire.
"But Custard Still Cries for a Nice Safe Cage": salted caramel budino
I don't quite know WHY it stuck with me, but years ago, in grammar school, when we had "readers," there was an optional poem called "Custard the Dragon." It was the tale of a cowardly dragon. How cowardly was he? Well, besides being named "Custard," people teased him by calling him Perceval. Now THAT's a cowardly dragon: I mean, if you don't take someone out for calling you Perceval. REALLY.
Years ago, there was an experiment, published in some book of literary criticism: they took the authorship off of poems and then handed them to people and asked them to judge. Then, they took the same poems, put the authors' names on them, and saw what people thought.
You know what happened , right? Well, anonymous Shakespeare didn't do so well. Neither did Mr. Keats. But country priests? Yup.. And so on. Well, I mention this because, while I remembered the silly poem, I didn't know the author. You can look it up from the line, but I'll tell you: Ogden Nash. Go and read it. It will make you smile. I promise.
So, too, will making this custard. I believe that if you eat it, it will make you smile too. I did not eat it. I served it to the puppies and to my heart man last night. I saw what I thought were huge portions disappear before me, with smiles. And that was with cold custard , out of the fridge. When I eat it, I want it warm. Do it either way, but do this. It's everything you could want: it's easy, it's not expensive, and it's rather different in a nice kind of way. What I am putting forth is supposed to serve four. These are BIG portions, but they disappeared in front of me, even my "Guy" devoured his. You make the call.
First, let's make some salted caramel. Get a heavy pan, with high sides. A 3 quart sauce pan is good. If you are lucky enough to have one that is a light color, use it here, so you can watch the caramel change color. Combine a quarter cup of granulated sugar, a tablespoon of corn syrup (the light one) and three tablespoons of water. Heat t his to a boil, on HIGH heat, swirling it from time to time. When making caramel, NEVER stir the thing. Not a good idea. You will spoil the process. Trust me. Anyway, after about 3 minutes, the stuff will go to amber. When it does, take it off the heat, and add a quarter cup of dairy. You can use heavy cream, light cream, whole milk, half and half. You're going to be using a lot more half and half here, so maybe you should buy a quart, and use that. Keep your face back, it's gonna sputter hard. Now add two tablespoons of unsalted butter, and heavy teaspoon of flaky sea salt. This is important. MAKE SURE you use the flakier kind. THe texture will come out, as you'll see. Finally, add a pinch of vanilla extract, but not too much. NOW you can whisk. If, as happened to me, the mixture seizes, i.e, you get solid clumps, put it over the heat to melt, and NOW stir with a whisk. Pour this all off into a bowl, while you make the custard proper.
For this, you will need a couple of tablespoons of maple syrup. For some reason, they call the good stuff - the dark stuff - grade "B". Buy some grade B maple syrup. You will be glad you did. You will save money, it tastes SO much better than the wimpy pale one, and you will transform what you cook with it. Put this in a pot - maybe even the pot in which you made the caramel - with a half cup of brown sugar - either lght or dar, and a quarter cup of water. Add a teaspoon of regular salt. Turn the heat to medium and start bringing this to a boil. Stir it every now and then.
While that's getting warm, mix up two egg yolks and a whole egg, and add three tabelspoons of cornstarch to it. Stir it to a paste.
Ok, when the stuff you're heating comes to a boil, take it off the heat, and add at least 2 cups of half and half, preferably 2.5. If you don't have enough, you can make it up with whole milk. Now add that egg/cornstarch slurry. Whisk it all together, lower the heat, and put this on the flame.
DON'T go away. Just keep whisking. After about five minutes, you will see an amazing transformation as this turns from liquid, to a thick, viscous solid.
You just made custard!
Pour this into the "appropriate" sized serving dish you want, and then pour the caramel over it. Either let it cool to warm, or refrigerate it, or whatever you want to do.
My original recipe says to serve it with whipped cream. If you want to, by all means. To me, I think it looks just fine as it is. It comes out looking a bit like a dessert version of mashed potatoes and gravy. Nuthin wrong with that.
Perceval, you're an ok dragon in my book
Years ago, there was an experiment, published in some book of literary criticism: they took the authorship off of poems and then handed them to people and asked them to judge. Then, they took the same poems, put the authors' names on them, and saw what people thought.
You know what happened , right? Well, anonymous Shakespeare didn't do so well. Neither did Mr. Keats. But country priests? Yup.. And so on. Well, I mention this because, while I remembered the silly poem, I didn't know the author. You can look it up from the line, but I'll tell you: Ogden Nash. Go and read it. It will make you smile. I promise.
So, too, will making this custard. I believe that if you eat it, it will make you smile too. I did not eat it. I served it to the puppies and to my heart man last night. I saw what I thought were huge portions disappear before me, with smiles. And that was with cold custard , out of the fridge. When I eat it, I want it warm. Do it either way, but do this. It's everything you could want: it's easy, it's not expensive, and it's rather different in a nice kind of way. What I am putting forth is supposed to serve four. These are BIG portions, but they disappeared in front of me, even my "Guy" devoured his. You make the call.
First, let's make some salted caramel. Get a heavy pan, with high sides. A 3 quart sauce pan is good. If you are lucky enough to have one that is a light color, use it here, so you can watch the caramel change color. Combine a quarter cup of granulated sugar, a tablespoon of corn syrup (the light one) and three tablespoons of water. Heat t his to a boil, on HIGH heat, swirling it from time to time. When making caramel, NEVER stir the thing. Not a good idea. You will spoil the process. Trust me. Anyway, after about 3 minutes, the stuff will go to amber. When it does, take it off the heat, and add a quarter cup of dairy. You can use heavy cream, light cream, whole milk, half and half. You're going to be using a lot more half and half here, so maybe you should buy a quart, and use that. Keep your face back, it's gonna sputter hard. Now add two tablespoons of unsalted butter, and heavy teaspoon of flaky sea salt. This is important. MAKE SURE you use the flakier kind. THe texture will come out, as you'll see. Finally, add a pinch of vanilla extract, but not too much. NOW you can whisk. If, as happened to me, the mixture seizes, i.e, you get solid clumps, put it over the heat to melt, and NOW stir with a whisk. Pour this all off into a bowl, while you make the custard proper.
For this, you will need a couple of tablespoons of maple syrup. For some reason, they call the good stuff - the dark stuff - grade "B". Buy some grade B maple syrup. You will be glad you did. You will save money, it tastes SO much better than the wimpy pale one, and you will transform what you cook with it. Put this in a pot - maybe even the pot in which you made the caramel - with a half cup of brown sugar - either lght or dar, and a quarter cup of water. Add a teaspoon of regular salt. Turn the heat to medium and start bringing this to a boil. Stir it every now and then.
While that's getting warm, mix up two egg yolks and a whole egg, and add three tabelspoons of cornstarch to it. Stir it to a paste.
Ok, when the stuff you're heating comes to a boil, take it off the heat, and add at least 2 cups of half and half, preferably 2.5. If you don't have enough, you can make it up with whole milk. Now add that egg/cornstarch slurry. Whisk it all together, lower the heat, and put this on the flame.
DON'T go away. Just keep whisking. After about five minutes, you will see an amazing transformation as this turns from liquid, to a thick, viscous solid.
You just made custard!
Pour this into the "appropriate" sized serving dish you want, and then pour the caramel over it. Either let it cool to warm, or refrigerate it, or whatever you want to do.
My original recipe says to serve it with whipped cream. If you want to, by all means. To me, I think it looks just fine as it is. It comes out looking a bit like a dessert version of mashed potatoes and gravy. Nuthin wrong with that.
Perceval, you're an ok dragon in my book
Sunday, October 17, 2010
I am NOT a chicken hawk: mutton shanks
I just wrote about baby chickens, right? Ok, just so you guys don't get the wrong idea... I don't , I really don't.
Oh, never mind. To the point of this: mutton. I buy our lamb from the lovely lady who runs Three Corners Farm, Ms. Karen. She's not at all like Karen on "Will and Grace," although let's face it, the idea of that Karen selling lamb chops is kind of funny. Her lamb is incredibly good. Very sweet, very clean tasting.
Last year, she asked me if I wanted to try some mutton. I did not. I was in an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," kind of mode. And Karen left it alone. Until last week.
The weather has been getting cold, and I was feeling in the mood for a braise. So, I stopped by Ms. Karen's stand, looking for lamb shanks. She smiled. "How about trying some mutton shanks?" I thought about it, thought about it and then said "Sure, why not?"
She came back with four MONSTROUS pieces of meat. Folks, I have to say, these could have been props from "The Flintstones." We were talking and she remembered how she had told me, about her lamb "don't stew it as long as you do conventional lamb, it doesn't need it," and she was, of course, right. "Well, Norman, these you CAN stew for four hours or longer."
Indeed, you can. And I did. And the results, honestly, are wonderful. For the recipe that follows, substitute lamb if you just can't find, or can't handle the idea of cooking, mutton, and just cook for a lesser amount of time.
The night before you're going to cook, salt four shanks and put them in your fridge, uncovered, overnight. The day of cooking, chop up two onions. Peel, but leave whole, about six cloves of garlic. You should also consider a few branches of rosemary and some thyme (you can't put enough thyme into this recipe), as essential. A few ribs of celery, chopped, and maybe a carrot.
Preheat your oven to 300, and then get a pot that will be big enough to hold all of the shanks in one layer hot, with a few tablespoons of olive oil. Get the oil REALLY hot, and brown the meat well. This is going to take you between 10 and 15 minutes to do. The oil is going to look BLACK as you finish. You may need to do it in a couple of batches, and that's ok.
Pour off most of the fat, leaving about a tablespoon. Add your vegetables, and some salt, and cook them until they just begin to wilt. Put the lamb on top of the veggies, cover them with chicken stock, cover the pot, and put it in that slow oven and LEAVE IT ALONE for at least two hours for the mutton, an hour for the lamb.
While they are cooking, get a winter squash. I had a kabocha from Nevia, but a small pumpkin, or a butternut squash, or a small hubbard would work. Peel it (no easy feat, let me tell you), seed it, by cutting away the guts (you know what I mean), and add the chunks of squash to the meat, in the last hour or so of cooking.
The meat will either just come off the bones (for mutton), or will fall off (for lamb), and the squash will be nice and tender. It's a good compliment to the stronger tasting lamb. If you can, let the dish sit and refrigerate overnight, and scrape off the accumulated fat at the top.
For reasons I cannot quite fathom, I cannot imagine serving this with anything other than barley, so barley it will be. Maybe you will have a different idea. I think leftovers will probably make a wonderful "ragu" of sorts for pasta, but how about sharing the dish with a friend or two?
Oh, never mind. To the point of this: mutton. I buy our lamb from the lovely lady who runs Three Corners Farm, Ms. Karen. She's not at all like Karen on "Will and Grace," although let's face it, the idea of that Karen selling lamb chops is kind of funny. Her lamb is incredibly good. Very sweet, very clean tasting.
Last year, she asked me if I wanted to try some mutton. I did not. I was in an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," kind of mode. And Karen left it alone. Until last week.
The weather has been getting cold, and I was feeling in the mood for a braise. So, I stopped by Ms. Karen's stand, looking for lamb shanks. She smiled. "How about trying some mutton shanks?" I thought about it, thought about it and then said "Sure, why not?"
She came back with four MONSTROUS pieces of meat. Folks, I have to say, these could have been props from "The Flintstones." We were talking and she remembered how she had told me, about her lamb "don't stew it as long as you do conventional lamb, it doesn't need it," and she was, of course, right. "Well, Norman, these you CAN stew for four hours or longer."
Indeed, you can. And I did. And the results, honestly, are wonderful. For the recipe that follows, substitute lamb if you just can't find, or can't handle the idea of cooking, mutton, and just cook for a lesser amount of time.
The night before you're going to cook, salt four shanks and put them in your fridge, uncovered, overnight. The day of cooking, chop up two onions. Peel, but leave whole, about six cloves of garlic. You should also consider a few branches of rosemary and some thyme (you can't put enough thyme into this recipe), as essential. A few ribs of celery, chopped, and maybe a carrot.
Preheat your oven to 300, and then get a pot that will be big enough to hold all of the shanks in one layer hot, with a few tablespoons of olive oil. Get the oil REALLY hot, and brown the meat well. This is going to take you between 10 and 15 minutes to do. The oil is going to look BLACK as you finish. You may need to do it in a couple of batches, and that's ok.
Pour off most of the fat, leaving about a tablespoon. Add your vegetables, and some salt, and cook them until they just begin to wilt. Put the lamb on top of the veggies, cover them with chicken stock, cover the pot, and put it in that slow oven and LEAVE IT ALONE for at least two hours for the mutton, an hour for the lamb.
While they are cooking, get a winter squash. I had a kabocha from Nevia, but a small pumpkin, or a butternut squash, or a small hubbard would work. Peel it (no easy feat, let me tell you), seed it, by cutting away the guts (you know what I mean), and add the chunks of squash to the meat, in the last hour or so of cooking.
The meat will either just come off the bones (for mutton), or will fall off (for lamb), and the squash will be nice and tender. It's a good compliment to the stronger tasting lamb. If you can, let the dish sit and refrigerate overnight, and scrape off the accumulated fat at the top.
For reasons I cannot quite fathom, I cannot imagine serving this with anything other than barley, so barley it will be. Maybe you will have a different idea. I think leftovers will probably make a wonderful "ragu" of sorts for pasta, but how about sharing the dish with a friend or two?
"You say game hen, and I say poussin": Provencal poussin
When I was in college, a century or two ago, one of the signs of "glamorous, exotic" eating was a rock cornish game hen. The name just made you feel you were eating something really odd and unusual. Almost inevitably served with wild rice, these little birds would come on your plate, almost always not as brown as they could have been ("the recipe said not to overcook them"), and looking very much like, well, a baby chicken.
I hated them. I always felt they were too much work for how they tasted. But, dutiful food snob in training, I made them. I served them. I ate them. And told everyone that they were an unusual bird.
Until, oh, about five years ago, when I was having dinner at my friend Jane's house. Her much missed father Warren was there. At the time, Warren was 91, spry and full of spit and vinegar as we would say. We were eating quail, another one of those baby birds. I went on this rambling monologue (easy to do at Janes, after bottle of wine number 7 or so) about game hens, until Warren said, in his deep, resonant baritone. "Well, not to disagree with the learned gentleman, but rock cornish game hens are baby chickens. That's all they are. And I should know, because I raised them."
OOPS. Of course he's right. I looked it up as soon as I got home (notwithstanding the fact that it was 2a.m. when I did). But I never cooked them. Instead, I started learning how to cook... poussin.
Know what poussin is? It's a baby chicken. It's a synonym for rock cornish game hen. The interesting thing, I learned, is that for game hens or poussins, since they are butchered so young, you don't have to worry about sex. The hormones haven't kicked in that make roosters tough.
This is REALLY a case of "he likes chicken, " I guess.
God, I hate the food business. The first time I had one of these birds was at "Jarnac" restaurant (no longer around, alas), where "whole roasted poussin with walnut butter," was a mainstay of the restaurant. I liked them. They were GOOD. I never cooked them at home though. Until last week. I had bought a bunch of them on sale from D'artagnan, thinking "I'll figure this out," and then Ariane posted a recipe. In fact, she posted two. And since each one took all of 12 minutes to cook (more on that below), what could go wrong? My whole roasted chicken takes an hour, so....
Ok, here's the one I made. It's easy, but you need to be patient. Get some fresh herbs. LOTS of them. Four tablespoons is not an unreasonable amount . More if you like. Also, 2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped up. Four tablespoons of balsamic vinegar. A teaspoon of salt, some crushed black pepper, and a tablespoon of olive oil. Mix all of that together.
Now, to the poussins. This mix is supposed to be enough for four of them. I made two, but I think it would coat four. "Spatchcock" the birds, if it hasn't been done for you already . (This is review. We've spatchcocked things before: cut out the backbone. That's all it is). Put the backless critters into a big plastic bag with the mix, stir it up, and put it in a bowl into your fridge, overnight. In the morning, just turn the guys so that the marinade is working evenly.
(I'm not much of a fan of marinades, by the way, but the meat on these birds is so mild that you really need to add some flavor).
When you're ready to cook, get a stovetop grill, or a frying pan, REALLY hot with some oil - say two tablespoons in it. Pour the marinade off of the birds, and it probably is a good idea to pat them dry. Put them, breast side down into the hot oil, and cook them for 6 minutes, or until they're nice and brown. (You may want to do it for more than 6 minutes. The timing here , six minutes to a side, gives a bird that is decidedly toward the sushi end of things. ). Turn them, and cook for another six minutes (or longer, and then drain them on some paper. If you have some fresh herbs left, chop some of them up while the birds are cooking, and sprinkle them on the finished chicken at the last minute. Serve em forth, maybe with parsley root puree.
Poussin/game hen/whatever. It's all good
I hated them. I always felt they were too much work for how they tasted. But, dutiful food snob in training, I made them. I served them. I ate them. And told everyone that they were an unusual bird.
Until, oh, about five years ago, when I was having dinner at my friend Jane's house. Her much missed father Warren was there. At the time, Warren was 91, spry and full of spit and vinegar as we would say. We were eating quail, another one of those baby birds. I went on this rambling monologue (easy to do at Janes, after bottle of wine number 7 or so) about game hens, until Warren said, in his deep, resonant baritone. "Well, not to disagree with the learned gentleman, but rock cornish game hens are baby chickens. That's all they are. And I should know, because I raised them."
OOPS. Of course he's right. I looked it up as soon as I got home (notwithstanding the fact that it was 2a.m. when I did). But I never cooked them. Instead, I started learning how to cook... poussin.
Know what poussin is? It's a baby chicken. It's a synonym for rock cornish game hen. The interesting thing, I learned, is that for game hens or poussins, since they are butchered so young, you don't have to worry about sex. The hormones haven't kicked in that make roosters tough.
This is REALLY a case of "he likes chicken, " I guess.
God, I hate the food business. The first time I had one of these birds was at "Jarnac" restaurant (no longer around, alas), where "whole roasted poussin with walnut butter," was a mainstay of the restaurant. I liked them. They were GOOD. I never cooked them at home though. Until last week. I had bought a bunch of them on sale from D'artagnan, thinking "I'll figure this out," and then Ariane posted a recipe. In fact, she posted two. And since each one took all of 12 minutes to cook (more on that below), what could go wrong? My whole roasted chicken takes an hour, so....
Ok, here's the one I made. It's easy, but you need to be patient. Get some fresh herbs. LOTS of them. Four tablespoons is not an unreasonable amount . More if you like. Also, 2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped up. Four tablespoons of balsamic vinegar. A teaspoon of salt, some crushed black pepper, and a tablespoon of olive oil. Mix all of that together.
Now, to the poussins. This mix is supposed to be enough for four of them. I made two, but I think it would coat four. "Spatchcock" the birds, if it hasn't been done for you already . (This is review. We've spatchcocked things before: cut out the backbone. That's all it is). Put the backless critters into a big plastic bag with the mix, stir it up, and put it in a bowl into your fridge, overnight. In the morning, just turn the guys so that the marinade is working evenly.
(I'm not much of a fan of marinades, by the way, but the meat on these birds is so mild that you really need to add some flavor).
When you're ready to cook, get a stovetop grill, or a frying pan, REALLY hot with some oil - say two tablespoons in it. Pour the marinade off of the birds, and it probably is a good idea to pat them dry. Put them, breast side down into the hot oil, and cook them for 6 minutes, or until they're nice and brown. (You may want to do it for more than 6 minutes. The timing here , six minutes to a side, gives a bird that is decidedly toward the sushi end of things. ). Turn them, and cook for another six minutes (or longer, and then drain them on some paper. If you have some fresh herbs left, chop some of them up while the birds are cooking, and sprinkle them on the finished chicken at the last minute. Serve em forth, maybe with parsley root puree.
Poussin/game hen/whatever. It's all good
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