Whimsy's Favorite Recipes


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Sherried Onion Soup with Saffron

I made this recipe from the Spanish cookbook that I mentioned a couple of posts ago. It was absolutely delicious, quick to make, and moderately inexpensive in terms of ingredients.

2 Big T of butter
2 Big T of olive oil
2 large yellow onions
1 garlic clove
1 pinch of saffron threads or powdered saffron
3 ounces of slivered or sliced almonds
3 cups of chicken or vegetable stock
4 Big T of dry sherry
1/2 teaspoon of paprika
1 teaspoon of salt
3 turns of black pepper from a mill

I used pretty much standard Safeway items, except for the saffron, of which I have a large hoard in a small plastic chest, having stocked up at El Corte Ingles on my last trip to Spain. The saffron at the grocery store usually comes in a small packet in a spice bottle and can run from $5 to $12. This soup is probably delicious without the saffron, but it's going to be missing something. The slivered almonds were the usual small bag of Planter's brand on the baking aisle. I used Tio Pepe dry sherry, but any dry sherry should do. I used Safeway brand inexpensive no-fat chicken stock.

Mix the olive oil and butter into a heavy pot and melt. Slice the onions thinly, and dice the garlic, then throw them both into the pot. Cook on low-to-medium heat until the onions are translucent, stirring occasionally -- about 15 minutes. While the onions are cooking, brown the almond slices/slivers by throwing them in a dry skillet on medium heat, swirling them around every once in a while, until they are toasted. When the onions are done, add the saffron to the pot and cook, uncovered for 4 minutes on medium heat, then add the almonds, cooking another 3 minutes. Stir constantly while this is going on. Add the chicken stock and sherry and stir in the salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat, and simmer for 10 minutes.

Pour the soup into a blender or food processor (or one of those cool hand-held bladed blenders that you can just lower into the soup), and process it until it's as smooth as you want it. Pour the soup back into the pan and heat up without boiling. When it's hot, it's ready. Chopped fresh parsley or toasted almond slivers/slices make a nice garnish for the top, but aren't necessary.

This recipe has very little fat or cholesterol (you can even replace the butter with more olive oil), and is surprisingly low-calorie. The soup is also great chilled, and will keep for a week in the refrigerator.

Potato Gallette

This is a lovely, inexpensive side dish for a winter meal.

6 medium Russet or Yukon Gold potatoes
1 stick of butter
1 teaspoon of fresh thyme
A few grinds of pepper, a few pinches of salt

Peel the potatoes and slice them as thin as you're able.  I use a 2 mm slicing blade on a Cuisinart, which creates translucent potatoes slices.  You can use the potato rounds as is, or soak them in cold water, then dry them, for a gallette that is a little less starchy.

Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter (1/4 of the stick) in a non-stick skillet and arrange the potato rounds in a concentric pattern, starting at the center and working your way out.  When the gallette is done, you will have a beautiful golden rosette pattern, if you do this right.  Dot the top of this layer with butter, using about 1/4 of the stick with each layer.  Grind a little fresh pepper and a very small sprinkling of salt on the layer, and then sprinkle a quarter teaspoon of the fresh thyme. 

If you can't get fresh thyme, you can use dried thyme, or even "italian herbs", which is usually a combination of thyme, rosemary, and oregano.  Some recipes call for fresh rosemary instead of thyme, which is fine if you like the slightly "tarry" flavor of rosemary.  Now, put down another layer of potato slices and repeat the butter/salt/pepper/thyme application.  You will probably have enough potatoes for 3 or 4 layers, depending upon the size of the skillet (I use a 10-inch). You don't have to dot the top layer, but a little salt/pepper couldn't hurt. 

Now, you want to compress the gallette.  Find a pot lid or cake pan that will fit into the skillet and place it on top of the assembled gallette.  I usually spray the bottom of the pot lid/cake pan with Pam or wipe a little olive oil on it so that it won't stick.  On top of the pot lid or inside the cake pan, place some thing heavy enough to compress the gallette.  I usually use a couple of big cans of tomatoes, but a 2 1/2 pound round weight from a barbell works nicely, too.  Cook the gallette on medium heat.  You want the bottom to turn out crisp and golden, which usually takes 30-40 minutes, depending upon how hot your stovetop's medium heat is.  When it's done (it's OK to peek after 25 minutes or so), slide the gallette onto a large plate and flip it over back into the skillet to cook the other side another 10 to 15 minutes without the weight apparatus.  Flipping is a bit of an art.  I have this wonderful ceramic plate with a handle on the bottom and the words "Gira Tortilla" on it that my ex-wife got me in Spain for flipping Spanish tortillas (which are actually omelets cut into wedges and served in bars as tapas).

When the gallette is done, slip it out onto a large plate or platter and let it set for 10 minutes, then cut into wedges, as you would a pie.  This is particularly good with pork chops or grilled chicken. 

Potato-Leek Soup Colorado

While I have been . . . well, agonizing is too strong a verb . . . experimenting with potato-leek soup, I've run across a dozen recipes, all at odds with one another.  The classic recipe is for Vichyssoise, which is normally served cold, perhaps garnished with cucumber slices.  The basic recipe is in Joy of Cooking, one of my Bibles, and it's actually a recipe as simple as that in Cook's Illustrated:  potatoes, leeks, chicken stock, and in the case of Vichyssoise, cream.  A number of recipes include either cream and/or milk, but I'm trying to avoid dairy products in this recipe (which makes them lower-cal and edible by the lactose-intolerant).  I made a basic soup of potatoes, leek, and low-fat chicken stock to begin with.  Most recipes have you sautéing the leeks in butter, but any light oil will do (though, you will miss the notes of butter in the final product).  Anyway, I took various portions of the basic recipe and experimented.  My aim was to get close to the wonderful concoction Junie and I had in Breckinridge, but I failed in that attempt.  The results were still quite acceptable, and I give you this particular version:

There's a certain bit of wordplay in the title, as anything Colorado is also red (which is what it means in Spanish;  my state got its name for its red rocks).

8 leeks
8 largish red potatoes
Either 4 Big T of butter or an equivalent amount of olive oil
2 to 4 garlic cloves depending upon how many werewolves you want to repel
Two medium sized carrots
One medium onion
1 quart chicken stock (low-call, free-range, whatever)
Quarter cup of chives or green onions
One to two cups of roasted red peppers
Optional:  3-5 shakes of Tabasco sauce
Expensive and optional:  5-10 threads of saffron
Optional: half-cup of cream or half-and-half

First wash the leeks, then cut off the bottom 1/4 inch of hairy stub, then trim off the green tops just where it goes from light green to dark green.  Peel the potatoes, or just give them a good scrub it you're adventuresome.  Quarter the potatoes and cut the leek cylinders in half lengthwise.  Soak the leeks, and if they're a bit dirty, fan out the leek layers like playing cards.  Shake off the water and cut the leeks across the grain into half-moon shaped strips as small as you can manage.  If you have a food processor, just reduce the carrots to as fine as they'll go.  If you don't, do the same manually, but be careful with the knife, carrots are devilishly hard to handle. Slice the garlic into thin slivers.  Dice the onion.  All of this is much easier with a food processor, so nag your significant other to give you one for your birthday.  Sauté the leeks, garlic, onions and carrots in either the butter or olive oil over medium heat.  I don't know, maybe 5 minutes.  You want everything limp and submissive.  When the onions, leeks and garlic are pretty much translucent,  add the chicken stock and the quartered potatoes.  Simmer on low-to-medium for maybe 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are soft enough to get shmushed in a food processor.  Add the green onions or chives to the pot, after you've sliced them up thinly (you don't want these to cook).  Open a jar of roasted red peppers, not the ones with vinegar and garlic and whatever added, just peppers, and throw it in the pot, too.  Now, you really have to blenderize it all, but you don't really want to use a blender which will turn the potato starches into glue.  An immersion blender works well, or a food processor.  Do it in batches if you must, but get it all smooth and even silky if you can without invoking the Potato Glue Curse.  Transfer it all back to the pot and reheat on low.  Now, you have a few choices.  One thing that this soup needs is salt, so throw as much in as your sodium-challenged diet allows.  I suggest a little salt, a taste, a little more.  Then, you need some pepper:  black, white, pink, whatever.  If you still don't think it's to your taste, you can add either saffron threads and/or 3-5 shakes from the Tabasco bottle (I did both).  This is pretty damned good soup at this point.  If you would like it smoother and can afford the calories you can add a half-cup of either cream or half-and-half.  I actually tried that on a small portion and it was very nice.  One thing about this soup is that it's wonderful but doesn't rock your world like the soup I had in Breckenridge.  It's a great deal more subtle and all you sensitive poets out there might prefer it.  It will persist in the fridge for a week and is dynamite cold.


 

 

World's Best Salmon

Wait until Safeway has it on sale and a good-sized filet, say 2 pounds, goes for under $10. Place it on a cookie sheet, skin-side down, and rub with olive oil, then sprinkle with black pepper. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes, then let it set in the cooling oven for another 15. Take the sheet out and liberally coat the filet with Dijon mustard. Take one bag of good potato chips (Cape Cod, Boulder) and 2 Big T of dried dill and Cuisinart the bejeezes out of it. Spread this evenly on the mustard base and put the salmon under the broiler for 60 second, turning the sheet to get a nice brown crust. Great warm, great cold. Keeps for up to a week.
 

The Mother of All Meatloaf

During the first Gulf War, I was glued to the TV, watching the CNN reporters and the airwar they were broadcasting off the roof of their hotel. This went on for a week, and I decided I needed a nice big dish that I could eat over a couple of days. Saddam was predicting an Iraqi victory in The Mother Of All Wars.

This recipe came out of the experience. It's modified from the Silver Palate recipe, that's borrowed from the Market Street restaurant in Venice, CA. Craig Clairborne and Vogue magazine raved about it, and Good Morning America flew the Market Street chef to do the recipe on the show.

2 pounds of ground round
1 pound of ground pork
1 medium green pepper
1 medium red pepper
2 stalks of celery hearts
4 green onions
1 medium onion
6 cloves of garlic
3 medium carrots
2 Teaspoons of cumin
1/2 Teaspoon of ground/grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper, white if you have it
1/2 cup of whipping cream or half-and-half
3 medium eggs
1 Teaspoon of What's This Here (Worcester) sauce
6 shakes of Tabasco sauce
1/2 cup of catsup
1/2 cup of diced parsley, curly or Italian, it doesn't matter
1/2 to 1 cup of crushed saltines or Italian bread crumbs, depending upon how firm you like your meatloaf
4 Tablespoons of butter


Dice the parsley, onions, green peppers, red peppers, and carrots. The carrots are best food-processed until they are the size of small fresh-water pearls. Crush the garlic cloves with the blade of a large knife and mince. Slice the green onions into transparent rings (processing never works, trust me). Create dozens of translucent half-moons by cutting the celery across the grain. Saute slowly all the chopped vegetables and garlic in 4 T of butter, which should take 20 minutes or more if you do it right and get all the excess moisture out of them. Fold the sauteed vegetables into the ground round and pork, taking care because it may still be hot from the pan. Use your hands, squishing the mixture through your fingers. Beat the eggs briefly in a separate cup and add to the mixture, along with the whipping cream, What's This Here sauce, Tabasco and catsup. Add the cumin, nutmeg and black pepper, saltines/bread crumbs, and mix thoroughly again with your hands, squeezing the meatloaf mixture through your fingers until it's thoroughly uniform, ingredient-wise.

Fill a breadloaf pan or anything else it will fit into. At this point, you can bake it for 30 minutes at 350 degrees or (better) slide the pan of meatloaf into a bath of hot water and cook it as you would a custard, which usually takes 40-45 minutes. Test for doneness by slipping a knife in and seeing if it's just past pink. Take the meatloaf out and let it set for 20 minutes before slicing and serving. Best eaten with mashed potatoes and any red wine with authority.

Jan's Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookie - UL Approved

After having one of these delicious cookies at the in-store restaurant of a Dallas Neiman-Marcus, a lady asked for the recipe. The waitress said that they couldn't give away the recipe, but that it was for sale for only two-fifty. At the end of the month, the woman received a charge on her credit card for $250!

NEIMAN-MARCUS COOKIES

2 cups butter
24 ounces chocolate chips
4 cups flour
2 cups brown sugar
2 teaspoons soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar
18 ounces Hershey Bar (grated)
5 cups blended oatmeal
4 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups chopped walnuts or pecans

Reduce the oatmeal to a fine powder in a blender. Cream the butter and both sugars, most easily done in a food processor. In a large bowl, add the oatmeal and creamed butter/sugars, eggs, vanilla, salt, baking powder, and soda. Mix thoroughly, then add the chocolate chips, grated Hershey Bar, and nuts.

Using a couple of teaspoons of dough each, roll balls of cookie dough and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees in a preheated oven. This recipe make over 100 cookies, so you may want to half or quarter the ingredients.

Now, the interesting thing about this recipe is that, while the recipe is authentic, the story behind it is an urban legend, and an old one at that. Details at Snopes.

Deborah's 20-Minute Multi-Purpose Garbanzolina

This recipe comes from Deborah Ager, who publishes 32 Poems (edited by John Poch). 

Personally, I love garbanzos, and have been known to whip up a quick batch of hummus for a snack.  This recipe is almost as quick, good for your ailing/pining/poetic body, and inexpensive.

1 brick (or 8 ounce bag) of frozen spinach
1 can of garbanzo beans (usually 16 ounces)
1 medium onion, diced
1 teaspoon of curry powder
1 teaspoon of mustard seeds
1 teaspoon of diced garlic or Big T of garlic powder
A couple of dashes of pepper
3 Big T of olive oil
Brown rice or tortillas

Add the mustard seeds to olive oil that has been heated just to the point of fragrance. When the mustard seeds pop,  quickly add the curry powder, garlic, pepper and onion. Sauté the onion until it is translucent. Add the spinach and beans, and cook while stirring until the mixture is thoroughly and evenly heated.  Deborah advises tasting the mixture and adjusting the spices to your own tastes.

This concoction can be served over brown rice, or spooned into tortillas and topped with your favorite hot sauce.  

Jillski's Guiltless Turkeyburgers

Jill is two for two this month with her recipes. For you lo-carb vegans, this isn't quite as guiltless as I advertised.

1 pound ground turkey
2 cup fresh spinach
1/2 white onion, chopped
3 Big T pesto
3 Big T goat cheese
Whole wheat buns

You can make your own pesto with basil and pinenuts, or just buy a jar of it at the supermarket. Snip off most of the stems from a bunch of fresh spinach and wash repeatedly until clean (the French say, 5 times). Sauté the diced onion until it's soft. Now, add the spinach and cook until its excess moisture has evaporated. Mix the onions and spinach into turkey meat, using the same "squishing through your fingers" method employed in The Mother of All Meatloaf.

Separate and pat into 4 burgers. Salt and pepper both sides and place on the grill. While the burgers are cooking, mix the pesto and goat cheese together. Spread this on the turkey burgers when they come off the grill. Add sliced tomatoes and any other desired condiment.

Jillski's CauliPasta

There aren't many vegetarian pasta dishes that I like, other than simple ones (e.g., olive oil and toasted garlic). This recipe of Jill's is quick, easy, inexpensive, and delicious.

Ingredients

1 head cauliflower
8 ounces of smoked gouda or smoked mozzarella cut into 1/2" cubes
1/2 cup toasted walnuts, chopped
2 Big T of butter
A drizzleful of olive oil
A 12-ounce package of whole-wheat penne pasta

Toast the chopped walnuts in a large skillet at low-to-medium heat. They should be just a wee bit brown and giving off a nice nutty fragrance when they're done. Err on the side of underdone if necessary, as the nuts will become bitter if overtoasted.

Separate one head of cauliflower with your hands after cutting off most of the thick stalk. Trim the stalks close to the flowerettes, which should be bite-sized -- say the size of small button mushrooms.

Sauté the flowerettes, on medium heat, in the 2 Big T of butter, in the same large skillet until they are cooked through. If you do it right, the cauliflower will be cooked through when the flowerettes start to brown. Transfer the cauliflower into a bowl that will be big enough to hold them and the pasta.

Cook the pasta according to directions on package. Drain and stir into cauliflower, then add in cheese and nuts, folding the pasta to let the cheese melt a bit and to distribute the good stuff around all the penne.

Drizzle with a little olive oil and serve with crusty bread and salad.

Lo-Carb Blackberry Cobbler

... as if we cared that it's lo-carb. This is basically to die for, especially if topped with vanilla ice-cream or heavy cream, which technically makes it Lo-Carb, though a zillion calories. This recipe has very few ingredients, takes 10 minutes to make, and 40 minutes to cook.

You will need about 4 cups of blackberries or their variants (Olallieberries, Marion berries, Loganberries, et al.). You can use half blackberries and half raspberries, too, which gives it a little sharper taste. Find an oven-proof bowl or baking dish and toss the berries with a Big T of flour, 3 Big T of brown sugar and (here’s the secret) one teaspoon of grated orange rind. If you don’t have one of those big metal pyramidal graters like your mom had, peel the orange rind off thinly and dice up finely.

Now for the topping: Take 4 Big T of butter and let it come just about to room temperature. That’s a half of a stick usually. Combine a half-cup of flour, 5 Big T of brown sugar, two pinches of cinnamon, a pinch of nutmeg, and a pinch of salt. If you don’t pinch well, substitute an eighth of a teaspoon for a pinch. Cut the butter into this dry mixture with two knives working at cross-purposes, or use your fingers. The mixture will just hold together at some point.

Sprinkle the topping mixture over the now-bowled berries and stick it in an oven at 350 degrees. When the topping is brown and lovely, take out and serve. Keeps for a week and makes a great breakfast substitute for healthy wholegrain cereal -- you’ll just feel less righteous.

Cathy’s Potato Gruyere Soup

This is delicious, and you can make it in 20 minutes, in one pot, if you’re organized. You’ll need a blender or a food processor, though, and you may have to ask the supermarket deli clerk where the Gruyere might be – I always do.

4 peeled, diced potatoes
1 small onion, chopped
2 Big T butter
2 chicken bouillon cubes
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon grated lemon rind (zest)
1 cup shredded Gruyere cheese
Chopped scallions or chives, as garnish

Peel 4 moderate-sized russet potatoes and dice into 2” cubes so that they cook faster. Boil water in a pot big enough for the potatoes, say two quarts or more. When it’s boiling, steal enough water to dissolve the bouillon cubes in a small cup. Place the potato cubes in the boiling water for 5 minutes, then drain them. Rinse and dry the pot, then use it to sauté the chopped onion slowly for 3 minutes in two Big T of butter. Add back the bouillon and cooked diced potatoes, and cook slowly, without burning, until the potatoes are soft. Put the potato-onion mixture in a blender or food processor and puree until it’s smooth. If you have a zester, zest the lemon. If not, take a sharp knife and pare off a paper-thin strip of lemon skin and dice finely. Now transfer it back to the pot and add the milk, pepper, nutmeg, lemon zest and cup of Gruyere cheese. Cook very slowly, stirring constantly, until the cheese melts. Serve immediately. Best garnished with chives (or chopped scallions) and a splash of red wine vinegar, or Spanish vinegar if you have it, or Balsamic vinegar if you’re daring, and/or a couple of dots of Tabasco if you’re adventuresome.

This serves 4 average, or 2 hungry poets. It keeps up to a week in the refrigerator and can be reheated nicely, if you stir it as it heats up.
 

Coq au Vin

There are as many recipes for Coq au Vin as there are Frenchmen, or if you wish, Frenchpeople, or, among certain conservatives, mealy-mouth Frogs. This version is one of my favorites.

Peel the papery skin from 12-18 pearl onions (depending upon size) and saute in olive oil, after sprinkling a tablespoon of sugar over them for carmelization, until they are browned and have lost some of their firmness. Do this, if possible, in a large heavy skillet. Scoop out the onions and set aside. Scrape up what Julia always called the "good brown bits" along with the onions using a wooden spatula, if you have one. Core and then slice two large red peppers into 1/4-inch-thick C's, then cut each C in half. Roughly dice a small onion and saute the onion and red pepper until the onions are translucent. Remove when ready (you can mix them with the pearl onions in a large bowl).

For the chicken, you have a number of choices, but make sure that you include some dark meat parts. I like to cleaver up a good chicken (e.g., free-range): first split the chicken down the breast and the cut rest of the bird away from the back. Cut the legs off at the joint, and then separate drumsticks from thighs, again at the joint. Place each leg on a good cutting board and separate off the last half-inch of the leg (the narrow end, where the feet were formerly attached) with a good whack from the cleaver. Whack the breasts into 2 or 3 pieces each, cutting across the grain, as it were. Ditto, the thighs and legs, if they are large.

Take everything that you don't want in your stew (mainly the back and the cut-off feet and the neck, if it came with the bird) and bring to a boil in another deep pan with a quart of water, bay leaf, 6-8 peppercorns, and some herbs (your choice ... I use a combination of thyme, tarragon and tiny bit of rosemary). For more flavor (particularly if you have a generic, supermarket Big Poultry bird), you can add a small onion, some celery, and/or a carrot. Once the stock is boiling, let it simmer for 20-30 minutes uncovered, adding water if necessary.

Roll the chicken parts in flour and saute in the same big skillet you've been using for everything else, turning them occasionally, until they are browned. Rescrape brown bits. When the chicken is golden, add back the vegetables and pour a half-bottle of good red wine over everything. Pour yourself a glass. Different wines will result in different stews, and good wine will produce a better stew. Cabernets, shiraz and chiantis give you a bold stew. The classic recipe would call for a good French burgundy, but it's a more subtle result and the bottle will cost you $30-100, so you may just decide on a nice authoritative Australian or California red. At this point, I like to add a 1/4-cup of kalamata or nicoise olives and a Big T of capers. You may also choose to use some diced bacon to saute with the vegetables instead of olive oil (optional ingredients is why there are a zillion different coq au vin recipes).

Top up the stew with the chicken stock you've made and let it just-more-than-simmer so that it bubbles very slowly, perhaps 30 minutes, though it could be less with small chicken parts. When the chicken is done, remove it and place on a large plate or bowl and keep warm. Take a slotted spoon and remove everything else that isn't liquid, keeping it warm in a bowl. Turn up the heat on the remaining liquid in the skillet and reduce slightly until it is thick-ish.

Stack the chicken parts artfully on a platter and ring with the vegetables. Pour half of the reduced sauce over everything, saving the other half in a gravy boat for use during dinner. I like to ring the whole coq au vin construction with mashed potatoes.

Pounded Chicken

This is one of my favorite recipes when one of my sons drops by and I don't have a lot of time for fancy fixings. It has the elegance of veal scaloppine (i.e., Wiener Schnitzel) without the guilt.

Two chicken breasts, preferably free-range or equivalent
Enough flour to shake in a large Zip-Lock (tm) bag
One teaspoon of black pepper
One-quarter teaspoon of paprika (optional)
4 Big T of olive oil (virgin not necessary)
3 Big T of dry white wine
2 Big T of lemon juice
2 Big T of butter (optional)
1 Big T of either capers or green peppercorns, as you wish
2 Big T of either chopped cilantro or parsley

Separate the breasts, if they aren't already, and place on a large cutting board. Using the mace-like criss-crossed end of a "meat hammer" (I like the OXO Good Grips Meat Tenderizer at $10), pound the breast until they are about 3/8'ths inches thick. The lacerations and indentations that result tenderize the breasts and result in faster cooking.

Throw both breasts in the Zip-Lock (tm) bag along with the flour, pepper and (optionally) paprika. Omitting the paprika will give you a nice golden finish, adding it will brown up the breasts and provide a little pizzazz.

Heat the olive oil in a heavy skillet. If you have more than two people to serve, you can cook the breasts in batches and transfer them when done to a plate in a warm oven. Cook on medium-high heat for about 4 minutes on each side, a little longer if the breasts are thicker.

When all the breast cooking is finished, turn the heat down to medium and deglaze the pan with the white wine. Scrape up the brown bits and add the lemon juice, cilantro/parsley and capers/peppercorns. If you like a richer sauce, also add the butter. If you have sautéed the breasts beforehand, you can prepare the sauce by reheating the pan on medium heat. Multiply the quantities of wine, lemon juice, and green stuff by how many breasts you have. If the sauce seems a little thick, add more wine or butter.

Drizzle the sauce evenly over each breast on individual plates. Serve with a green salad. My boys and I like to accompany this with a big scoop of sticky Japanese-style rice.

Mike's Wife's Brother's Fried Chicken

Time for some comfort food. God knows we need it after yesterday.

I'll be making this tomorrow night for the first time to feed my 17-year old son, who shows up periodically for fatherly love, grub, and money. My political sparring mate, Mike, gave me this.

INGREDIENTS:

3 1/2 to 4 pounds chicken pieces
1/2 cup honey
2 Big T raspberry or cider vinegar
2/3 cup flour
2 Big T fine dry bread crumbs
2 teaspoons ground cayenne pepper
2 eggs
1/4 cup buttermilk
1 cup vegetable oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper

I would probably get two fryers and cut them up with my big, bad Joyce Chen cleaver, but you can just buy parts, too. I prefer RedBird or some other non-antibiotic-stuffed, organic chicken, but buy what you can find and afford. The rest of the recipe is Mike's version almost verbatim:

Stir the honey and vinegar together and pour over the chicken; marinate for 2 hour to 4 hours in refrigerator, stirring occasionally. In a bowl, combine flour, bread crumbs, and cayenne pepper; set aside. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs and buttermilk.

In a large heavy skillet, heat the oil over medium high heat to 300°, (higher temperatures could burn honey). Remove the chicken from the marinade and drain on paper towels. Dip the chicken in beaten egg mixture, season with salt and pepper, and dredge in the flour mixture, coating thoroughly. Strain the marinade; reserve 1 tablespoon for the sauce.

Gently drop the legs, wings, and thighs into the pan for 5 to 6 minutes on the first side until browned. Turn, add the breast halves and continue cooking, adjusting the heat so the chicken browns evenly on both sides and is tender when pierced with a fork, 15 to 18 minutes for dark meat and 10 to 12 minutes for the breast halves.

Serves 4 to 6.

So, looks like if you're by your lonesome, you might want to just buy thighs, for example. For two people, buy a fryer and cut it up.

Silver Palate Crab Cakes

The year I attended Johns Hopkins, my dorm mates and I went to a crab cake contest by the Chesapeake Bay.  I remember all the recipe contenders as large black women, patting the cakes and frying them in cast-iron skillets.  My buddy Dave Paulsen has helped with the patting over the years on this recipe.  He's the wrong gender and ethnicity, but he is 6'5" and 20-odd stone, so it's a reasonable illusion.

The original recipe came from the Silver Palate New Basics, still one of my favorite cookbooks.  You can make it a couple of hours ahead of time, so it's a good recipe for when you'd rather be drinking wine with your friends instead of in the kitchen.  Here's my ingredients:

3 6-ounce cans of canned crabmeat (Bumblebee is reasonable)
1 cup of cooked corn
One-half cup of diced onions
One-half cup of diced celery
One-half cup of diced red pepper
1 cup of mayonnaise
One-half teaspoon of dry mustard (or a teaspoon of Dijon)
A pinch of cayenne pepper (or a couple of splashes of Tabasco)
1 beaten egg
One-and-a-quarter cup of saltine cracker crumbs
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 tablespoons of butter

I've used supermarket crab-in-a-can, and it was pretty good, and not much more expensive than chunk white tuna fish. Costco has some really incredible canned crabmeat, if you can find it. I find that frozen corn tastes better than canned, but you need to microwave it until it's tender -- fresh corn is nice, too, but not that much better than frozen.  I've also used a combination of saltine crumbs and those bread crumbs that come in a tall can.  A food processor makes quick work of the saltines.  Combine the corn, crabmeat, onions, celery, red pepper in a bowl and mix it up until it's uniform.  Mix the mayonnaise and mustard with the cayenne (or Tabasco) and toss it into the bowl, remixing everything for consistency.  Fold in a quarter-cup of the bread/cracker crumbs and the beaten egg, working the mixture again gently.  Now, you're ready to make the cakes.

Pour the rest of the bread/cracker crumbs in a bowl.  Get out a cookie sheet or large plate that will fit into the refrigerator.  Take a small handful of crab mixture, make a patty, and then drop it into the bread/cracker crumb bowl and coat it with crumbs.  Place each crab cake on the cookie sheet and, when you're done, cover with wrap or aluminum foil and chill for about an hour. 

Now, you need to make the tartar sauce, which is at least as important as the crab cakes.  You'll need:

1 cup of mayonnaise
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
1 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce
A dash of Tabasco
One-quarter cup of finely diced dill pickles
One-quarter cup of diced parsley (curly or Italian)
2 tablespoons of diced shallots (scallions work OK, too)
2 tablespoons of capers
Salt and pepper to taste

It probably works easiest to mix the mayo, lemon juice, Worcestershire and Tabasco together first in a small bowl, then dump the other ingredients in and mix thoroughly.  Put a cover on the bowl and chill for an hour, if you have it.

Back to the crab cakes:  Heat the olive oil and butter (if you're worried about cholesterol, just use olive oil) in a skillet on medium heat.  Cook the crab cakes until they're golden on both sides (everything is already cooked anyway, you're just heating them up and giving them a nice crust), maybe 2-4 minutes per side.

Serve immediately with the tartar sauce and white wine.  This makes about 8 good-sized crab cakes.

Cook's Illustrated's Paella

I made the paella recipe from Cook's Illustrated last night, and it was as delicious and trouble-free as CI indicated it would be.  There are more varieties of paella than there are Valencianos.  They all start with sautéing a sofrito of (8 cloves of) garlic, (one diced medium) onion, and (a 14-ounce can of ) diced tomatoes, then adding Arborio rice (or Spanish paella rice, if you can get it), sautéing again for another 5 minutes or so.  Add 3 cups of stock (CI recommends Swanson's Organic FreeRange chicken stock) and one-third cup of white wine for each 2 cups of rice, together with 15 threads of saffron, a bay leaf, and a little salt and pepper.   Before you start, debone and cut onto largish chunks, a pound of chicken thighs, and 2-3 chorizo sausages which have been cut on the diagonal into half-inch slices.  Slice a whole red pepper into half-inch strips and sauté in a little olive oil on medium-high heat, until they are limp and a bit charred, if you can manage that.  Brown the chicken pieces on both sides, and then throw the chicken and chorizo into the rice.  You can now bake for 30 minutes, or cook on medium heat until the liquid is absorbed.  If you bake/cook uncovered (like in a big skillet or paella pan), you may need a little more stock.  Arrange the red pepper strips on the top, and sprinkle a half cup of defrosted frozen peas.  Arrange shrimp, scallops, mussels, clams and/or lightly sautéed calamari pieces on the top and cook covered for 10 minutes, allowing the shellfish to open, and the shrimp to become pink and translucent.  Serve with a nice Spanish Rioja or crisp white wine.

Red Rice Salad

If you get tired of cold summer pasta salads (not that I often do), it's nice to have an alternative.  I modified the Red Rice Salad from The New Basics some years ago, and it's a great accompaniment for cookout fare.  You'll need:

2 cups of Basmati (or Texmati) rice
A bunch of radishes, cleaned and sliced thinly
1 cup of red pepper, either diced or cut into 1" thin strips
1 cup of diced red onion
2 beets, cooked, peeled and diced (or you can buy canned)
One-half cup of chopped fresh chives
4 Big T of chopped dill (or you can use dried dill in a pinch)

First, make the dressing and let it sit.  Mix up the following and set it aside:

One-half cup of white vinegar
4 Big T of prepared horseradish (not the raw kind)
2 Big T of whole-grain mustard (or you could trying making Medieval Mustard)
2 teaspoons of sugar
2 teaspoons of salt
One-quarter teaspoon of freshly ground pepper
1 cup of olive oil (extra-virgin, if you have some to sacrifice)

Cook the rice according to directions, usually 2-for-1 with water, boiled and then simmered with the top on for 15 minutes.  Cook the beets unskinned with some of the tops on to avoid losing all that red beetness in the water, then peel the skin and let cool and firm up before slicing.  Mix everything together (the rice can still be warm), until nicely tossed and let chill for an hour in the fridge until the flavors blend. 

Curry From Scratch

Speaking of cuisine (OK, not the smoothest segue), I'm making Curry for the Fam-Fam tomorrow.  Kyle's GF is a vegetarian so it's will be with vegetable stock and shrimp.  The basic recipe comes from Joy of Cooking, my copy of which is showing the strains and stains of 30 years of use (and my birthday is January 9th, hint, hint).  The basic recipe is:  sauté one big onion and one big Granny Smith apple, both of which have been Cuisinarted up into something less than mush but more than chunks.  Add two big T of flour, one little T of lemon zest, and the Secret Curry Powder, which is NOT that stuff called curry powder on the spice aisle at Safeway.  It is, in fact:

2 ounces of  coriander, turmeric, fenugreek, ginger powder
1/4 ounce of cayenne pepper, black pepper and white pepper
3 ounces of cumin (ground or whole)
Two cinnamon sticks
1 ounce of mustard powder or mustard seed
1.5 ounces of cardamom seeds and poppy seeds
3-4 whole cloves

Actually, it's all a crapshoot.  I like more cumin and often substitute dry chiles of various kinds for the cayenne.  The ginger, cumin, cardamom, turmeric (for the classic yellow tint), and coriander are a must.  You could actually leave out all chile, but you need just a little bit of heat for all that stock.  I have a special coffee grinder that is all stained and nasty that I use for grinding up the curry powder ingredients, but you could use the powdered stuff in the first place.  If you do grind everything up, don't reduce it to dust, leave a bit of chunk.  Once the apple and onion mixture is simmering nicely, add the curry powder.  Let it sauté for 3-5 minutes on low, then add the stock.  Swanson's low-cal chicken stock is just fine and will assuage your guilt about cholesterol and any other worries of the day.  Now, add 3-4 tablespoons of flour that have been stirred into a cup of the hot mixture.  Let it steep and bubble (toil and trouble) for 20 minutes.  Then, you need to "correct the seasoning", which is chef-speak for putting more of what you like into the brew, which in my case, is always more cumin.   At this point, you can add uncooked shrimp (they'll only take a couple of minutes to get pink), or cooked chicken pieces.  I like to use everything left over from a Thanksgiving turkey this way.  You can also try cooked lamb, but it's not my favorite.  Vegetarians might try using par-boiled cauliflower or baby potatoes in lieu of meat.

You can now put it in the fridge for up to a day or two.  Just before serving, heat it up, and add enough half-and-half or cream to give it a smooth sheen and cut the edge on the chile components.  I like to add a teaspoon or two of fresh lemon zest at this point.  Some people swear by dry sherry at the last moment.

When the big Curry Event is on, cook up a whole lot of sticky Japanese rice (actually, nowadays it's all US-grown, like California Rose) and get going on the condiments.  I usually serve the following in little cups:  3-4 kinds of chutney (OK, in a rush, I just let the diners scoop teaspoonfuls out of the jar), sliced almonds, mandarin orange slices, chopped celery, sliced bananas, raisins, shredded coconut, chopped red peppers, sliced hot-house cucumbers (regular cukes are OK), and whatever else sounds good to you. 

Beef Stew

Like most cooks, I have dozens of stew recipes, not that I use recipes actually, which I consider more as guidelines.  When Dima ran me over to Safeway this morning, I picked up a 3-pound hunk of beef chuck.  You definitely want a flavorful inexpensive cut for stew, so just look for something under $3 a pound, preferably on sale. After sautéing a large chopped white onion and nearly whole garlic until they were translucent, I set these aside and threw half-inch cubes of the beef into the pot to brown.  I cut away most of the fat and sin, grind liberally from the pepper mill, and dust them with a liaprika if you have any Hungarian blood.  Toss them when they brown, like dwarves onto a Rohan bridge.  It's best as they say, to do the browning in batches, but when I'm impatient I just turn the heat up and turn the whole mess of beef pieces periodically.  When the beef was just starting to crisp, I tossed the onions and garlic back on top, added a can of tomato paste, and dowsed the whole thing with a half-bottle of Greg Norman's excellent Australian cabernet sauvignon.  At that point, I poked around in my spice cupboard, which has hundreds of bottles in complete disarray, and came up with thyme, sage leaf, oregano, and a couple of bay leaves.  I considered cumin, which I love, but decided against it.  I then added two cups of water, and waited for time to soften the meat and small bits of tendon.  Now you have a hour or two to wait, depending upon the degree of bite you want in the meat.  I will be adding red pepper pieces, carrot disks cut on the diagonal, celery half-moons, and perhaps a small  loosely-diced russet potato (haven't decided yet).  The good news is that Dima and his wife gave me a set of these wonderful Riedel goblets that have no stem, are featherweight,  and hold in the hand like a silky ostrich egg.  Just perfect to pour some of the remaining Norman Cab into, and sip away reading poetry while the whole concoction slowly becomes stew.  The fabulous thing about this dish is that, with changes in the plan midstream, it could have become chile (delete red wine, add chile powder and cumin) or any one of a half-dozen bubbling wonderments.
 

More on Paella

Sure, my tag line says cuisine, but it's been months since I mentioned it.  I used to cook as often as Tony seems to, with his Asparagus flarf and plates full of delicious-looking stuff that isn't on anyone's diet.  I'm still a good cook, I just don't have anybody to cook for.  Junie has been on an admirable and healthy diet protocol, my kids are at work and college, and when we get together at Cath's, she usually does the honors (and she's a good cook, too).  I'll take a break from my monotonous diet of pasta and do up a good paella tonight.  Some kind of sausage, RedBird chicken thighs and big scallops will be in the mix.  Also, red peppers, asparagus, and peas.  First, make the sofrito:  tomato paste, diced fresh or canned tomatoes, onion, garlic and a little paprika, sautéed until the water evaporates from the tomato.  Then, add the short-grained rice, Arborio if you have it, Bomba brand Spanish rice if you can find it.  In a separate pan, sear some chicken thighs in olive oil until they're glazed on the outside but still underdone on the inside.  You can use wings and even breasts, though the latter is a bit extravagant for paella, since the chicken is actually standing in for rabbit.  I used to make the stock from the chicken parts I wasn't using, but now I just use Swanson's low-fat, low-sodium chicken stock which tastes great and is better health-wise.  Pour the stock over a couple of cups of rice and let it start to fuse at a temperature just under medium.  Like risotto, you will probably have to add more stock as time goes on.  Add a healthy pinch of saffron (threads if you can get them, but powder is OK), even though it will set you back $5-10, unless you stocked up at El Corte Ingles the last time you were in Spain like I did.  After about 10 minutes, you can add hearty vegetables like asparagus.  More fragile ingredients such as peas, shellfish, and shrimp should be added at the last few minutes. I've had vegetarian paella, seafood paella, paella with woodland mushrooms, so you're free to experiment (lima beans, even corn kernels).   When the chicken parts are done, mix them into the paella and bury them under the rice mixture a bit.  Now add some kind of sausage to provide a foil to the chicken that is pretending to be rabbit.  For an authentic paella, let the bottom crust up a bit, so that you get a socarrat, or caramelized crust on the bottom.  This is tricky, as you don't want to burn the paella, either.  If you have a traditional flat paella pan with sloping sides, great.  If not, a good heavy frying pan will do.  Spaniards eat as a family directly from the pan at home.  You can do anything you want, what the hell.

Spenser's Broccoli and Pistachio Pasta

Boil 4 quarts of water in a large blue pot and a cup of water in a smaller saucepan fitted with a steamer rack.  Put a pound of frozen broccoli into the steamer rack, and set the timer for nine minutes.  While that's going, put "two garlic cloves, a handful of parsley and a handful of basil and some kosher salt and some oil and a handful of shelled pistachios" in the Cuisinart that Susan gave you for Christmas, or any kind of food processor if you're not Spenser.  Process until smooth.  Put one pound of pasta (your choice, but I prefer spaghettini) in the boiling blue pot and take it out when it is still a little too firm to the bite (it will soften in the next couple of minutes).  Toss the broccoli (now just perfect) and the oil-and-pistachio sauce with the pasta and serve.  Eat in front of the fireplace with Syrian bread and Soave Bolla and make intimate small talk.

 

There's A Hummus Amongus 

Junie has adopted this interesting culinary protocol that involves salads and proteins and nutrients and such, all ranked and lined up in a table that dictates her meal selections.  One of the many interesting variants in one section of the spreadsheet is the ghanoush/hummus family.  The reason that I group these two delights is that they share all the same ingredients except for the starchy base.  Chickpeas (garbanzo beans) are much more than a starch of course – they are relatively high in protein quality.  Eggplants (or aubergine, a much lovelier moniker) have less fat, but lower-quality protiens, and nowhere near the dietary fiber.  Tahini, made from sesame seeds, has about the same nutritional value as eggplants.

The basic hummus recipes all start out with garlic, lemon juice, tahini, and chickpeas.  A typical ratio is:

(1) 14-ounce can of chickpeas
Quarter-cup of tahini
Quarter-cup of lemon (one medium lemon squeezed)
(1) clove of garlic, roughly chopped as it's going to get blenderized anyway

I've tried twice as much tahini, which gives the hummus a mild tang.  I've also tried more garlic, which is terrific if you like a punch and will be sleeping on the couch tonight anyway.  The recipe scales nicely up to about 4 times the ingredient amounts shown above.  At that point, you probably have at least a quart of hummus, so I hope you have a lot of pita bread in the freezer.

The great thing about hummus is that it only takes 3-5 minutes to make and lasts for a week or more in a refrigerated container (and a couple of months frozen).  As usual, you can use a blender (particularly if you like your hummus gooier), but a food processor will give you better control.  Dump the chickpeas into the blender/food-processor, along with the tahini, lemon juice and garlic – that's right, everything goes in and there's nothing to cook.  At this point you have your basic hummus.  Alternatives at this point, including adding:

That's it!  If you don't like the way it turns out, just add some more chickpeas and tahini (which will bland it out), and add back more of what it's missing.  Hummus (and baba ghanoush) are great media to experiment with, as well.  I've seen it prepared with sautéed spinach, sun-dried tomatoes, and black beans substituted for the chickpeas.  I've also seen lemon juice swapped out for lime juice, for a more tropical flavor (for example if you use black beans and cilantro).

Baba Ghanoush is made exactly the same way, except that you have to bake some eggplants.  Baba ghanoush always reminds me of Baba Yaga, the old witch in the Slavic fairy tale whose house had chicken legs. 

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and bake the whole eggplants for about 30 minutes until tender.  When the eggplant is done, let it cool a bit, then cut it into halves and scoop out the eggplanty goodness.  This replaces one can of chickpeas in the recipe above.  You can also create a mélange, using both chickpeas and eggplant, if you wish, which will give you a little stiffer result.

Okay, you have these great dips now.  What do you dip with?  The traditional scooper are wedges of pita bread, but crudités are pretty typical, too:  broccoli, grape tomatoes, steamed asparagus and cauliflower, baby carrots, or what have you.