A passion for food

Chicken with tarragon

2012-01-26T10:25:00.001-06:00

As part of the experimentation with sous-vide cooking, I laid out some goals and the beginning process. Here's the link to that first post.

One of the goals was to see if there was a way to make boneless, skinless chicken breasts edible. The jury is still out, but the method shows promise.

What was really strange about this dish was how much liquid there was in the bag at the end (making us worry about how dry the chicken might be), and yet how moist and juicy the meat was. I am sure a food scientist can help with this conumdrum.

The dish was not an unqualified success, the chicken was rather mealy in texture. Taste was fabulous, but it was definitely soft. I think it is worth repeating the experiment, but maybe leaving it in the circulator for less time.

In any case here is what I did.

Ingredients
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
Grape seed oil to coat the chicken
Salt/pepper - a small amount just to season
2 bunches of fresh tarragon

Method
Set up the circulator for a temperature of 160F (71C). Rub the chicken breasts with oil and then salt/pepper lightly. Place in vacuum bag and pack in the tarragon. Seal the bag as usual. Wait for the circulator to come to temperature. Slide the sealed bag into the circulator and leave to cook for 4 hours.
Take out of the circulator, plunge in ice water (still in the bag) until cold. Then freeze in the bag.
To reheat, give it abut 2 minutes in the microwave (still in the bag if you dare - but the bag will puff up and possibly explode). It may be wise to vent the bag before microwaving.

Slice on the diagonal and serve over salad.

Future Changes
Cook in the circulator for 2 hours instead of 4. It seems as if the tenderizing effect of sous vide cooking can make it go further than one would like. Otherwise, just keep doing it!

The sous vide lamb chops

2012-01-16T19:52:00.000-06:00

For those who have been following the bouncing ball, you will know that I am in the sous-vide stage of life. I was lent a very high quality circulator and am going through the learning cuve that everyone else has been going through for a while.
Yesterday I made some lamb chops - coated with a mint/garlic/salt/oil paste and cooked sous vide for about 6 hours at 50C. Tonight I cracked open on eof the bags, and Madame and I had them for dinner. Success!!!

Ingredients
6 lamb loin chops - weighing 4-6 oz each
1/4/ cup packed mint leaves
1 small (3 inch) rosemary sprig - leaves only
3 cloves garlic
1/2 t salt
1T vegetable oil

Method

Pound the salt, rosemary, mint leaves in a pestle and mortar, adding oil to make a thick paste. Coat the chops with the paste. Seal the chops into 2 vacuum bags (3 chops/bag). Set the circulator to 50C (122 F) and submerge the bags. Cook for 6 hours in the bags.
Remove the bags from the circulator and refrigerate still in the bags.
When you wish to eat the chops, open the bag and sear the chops until the internal temp is 55C 130F (or more according to taste). This should take around 10 minutes on a medium hot skillet.
leave the chops to rest while assembling the salad.

Tasting notes
We served these chops with a Hahn GSM and a salad made with spring mix, olives, tomatoes, peppers, apple and avocado. Dressing was a simple tarragon vinaigrette made with sherry vinegar.

Yes this did get the highest Madame accolade, "We should serve this to people".

Sous Vide Part 1 Chicken Beef Lamb and Pork

2012-01-15T13:59:00.000-06:00

In this posting, I am laying out those items I plan to do in the first week or so of the grand sous vide experiment. Madame and I went shopping for:

Boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Pork ribs
Lamb chops
Beef sirloin
Leeks, peppers, celery

These are going to be turned into:

Chicken:

mushrooms, onion, cream, rosemary, thyme, salt, pepper
onion, fennel, indian spices, salt, pepper
ginger, kaffir lime, coconut milk, lemon grass, salt, pepper
cumin, coriander, star anise, cinnamon, clove, hot pepper sauce, salt, pepper
tarragon, salt and pepper

Pork Ribs

home made bbq sauce (ketchup, fish sauce, brown sugar, paprika, molasses, cumin ++)
fish sauce, lime (juice and zest) shrimp paste, mirin, palm oil, szechuan peppers
apple, calvados, cider vinegar

Lamb chops

mint, garlic, salt pepper, trace of grapeseed oil

Sirloin (prime)

salt, pink pepper corns, trace of oil

Vegetable Medley

leeks, peppers, fennel, carrots, basil,

here's hoping that at least some of these will come out well. The chicken will be set to cook at 65 C. The lamb and the beef at 50C. The pork at 60C. The vegetables at 80C. Since the dishes will be finished later (sauced dishes by reheating, non sauced dishes by searing), the final temperatures should come out properly, and in line with the FDA guidelines in the USA. The vegetables should concentrate their sweetness too, by finishing in the oven.
These dishes will all be frozen, and then brought out as dinners at various times this winter/spring. If I have to travel, then I want to make sure that Madame has tasty/nutritious items.
Subsequent postings will detail the experiments.

The Sous Vide Experiment

2012-01-15T10:19:00.000-06:00

My good friend David Gilbert has changed jobs and is gradually moving his belongings to San Antonio - to be the Executive Chef at the luxurious Eilan hotel. I managed to persuade him to loan me his water bath and circulator so I could try to do a bunch of sous vide cooking. I know he will want the equipment back as soon as he has some breathing room, so I need to work fast.

The challenges that I wish to undertake are:

What will it take to make chicken breasts tasty?
Can sous vide cooking do a good job with duck confit?
Fish? - A huge topic all on its own. But I can think of several fun things to try - just like any other protein.
If I precook a bunch of interesting stuff sous vide, can I freeze it, and then finish the cooking (sear or whatever) at a later date?
What happens if I sous vide cook things with a sauce around them? Do sauces "make themselves" this way?
What effects do various flavouring agents (especially herbs) have on the taste of the ingredients?
What about vegetables? - We had some excellent parsnips at this event , so it made me wonder what would happen with other root vegetables.
Eggs - lots of them. Eggs cooked in the circulator are fantastic. The trick is peeling the buggers afterwards. How long can a circulator cooked egg keep?
More normal/conventional things - like cooking nice cuts of beef and searing them.
What happens to cheese in the vacuum bag? - I suspect that nothing good will happen, but I have no idea! Temperature will be critical.
Using the circulator quite cool as a rapid defrost mechanism. The trick of defrosting in cold tapwater is fine, but wasteful of water.

I am sure that many have tried these things before, and I could look up what they have done. But it is so much more fun to experiment. That's the nice thing about working from home - I can set and forget, leaving the circulator to do its thing while I am wrestling technology alligators to the ground.

The Cookie Exchange

2011-12-06T16:46:00.001-06:00

Madame's mixed doubles tennis team is doing a cookie exchange this week. The rules are that she must bring 2 dozen cookies, and several copies of the recipe. When everyone leaves, the recipes are shared and the cookies divided among the attendees so everyone gets to try some of every cookie. As the household cook (although Madame is actually a better cookie maker!), I am tasked with making the cookies. I suppose it is a punishment for being in a tropical place when everyone else is freezing body parts off.
These cookies use bits of Heath Bar brickle to give them a nice toffee taste. Lots of butter and sugar (of course) and oats to make us think there might be something vaguely healthy nearby.

Ingredients (2 dozen cookies)
1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour - sifted with the baking soda
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups oatmeal (not instant)
1 cup zante currants
1 8oz package of Heath Bar brickle

Method
Cream the butter and sugars until they are light and fluffy. Best done in a stand mixer unless you are feeling quite strong. Beat in the egg. Mix in the vanilla. Add the flour slowly and mix carefully to incorporate. Add remaining ingredients and mix to combine.
Divide into 3 equal (about 1lb each) pieces. Form each piece into a log about an inch in diameter. Refrigerate for about 30 minutes.
Divide each log equally into 8 pieces. Place 8 pieces at a time onto a parchment covered baking sheet. Bake at 350F for 8-10 minutes - until golden brown. Remove from the baking sheet with a spatula, and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Dinner theater

2011-12-05T12:43:00.000-06:00

Last Saturday, Chef David Gilbert and I cooked for some high powered business women at my house. Madame was of course a guest. It was fun to be able to ask her not to help - at least during the event itself, She, of course, was her usual wonderful self beforehand (setting a beautiful table) and afterwards cleaning up the 48+ glasses, 56+ plates and the various cooking utensils required for a theatrical 4 course meal with appetizers and coffee/chocolates and liqueurs.
For me it was a chance to cook again with my good friend Chef David Gilbert. For him, a chance to trial some dishes that he will use at a later occasion. For the guests, an elegant party where they could let their hair down, have great food and appropriate wines.
The main theme was "modern Thai" although we deviated a bit. Thai cooking is often difficult to pair with wines because the core elements of Thai cooking simply aren't terribly wine friendly. So we used Thai accents on some familiar ingredients and then added some extra flourish.
It's not that easy to completely silence a table of 8 people, just with the presentation of food. But we did. A stunning achievement in the service of the dessert.
Most of what we did can be found at the Beyond The Kitchen (BTK) blog - Dave's online location for his cooking, eating and travel experiences. However there are a couple things that didn't make it there.

The first is the wine pairings - I mentioned them in the BTK piece, but didn't show them, so here they are:

The first course had the Gewurtztraminer - since the soup had the sweetness of some roasted garlic, we wanted to make sure the wine didn't fight with it.
For the scallops, a bone dry Sancerre did the trick
For the beef a well aged Haure Cotes de Beaune worked well. It had lost its youthfull fruit (such as it was!), and had developed into a mature long, slightly leathery wine that developed beautifully as it opened up.
For dessert, the Ume blanc from Japan. A low alcohol (around 7% v/v) it, again exhibited the sweetness required for the dish.

Many of the dishes used kaffir (Thai) lime leaves. We have had a kaffir lime tree for almost 10 years - so much so it feels like a family pet now. It gets cold here in the winter, so he has to come inside. However, he is getting to be a bit tall. At over 8feet now, he is going to have to be cut back next year.

In the BTK post, I mentioned the torchon of foie gras. Here it is in the circulator getting its 20 minutes of warmth.

The parsnips were also done in the circulator, so here they are coming up to temperature.

Last but not least, the beef roulade - also in the circulator.

The temperature of 50C is the upper end of the range for ensuring that the meat tenderizes. It comes out pretty unappetizing looking on the outside, so needs to be seared. The results can be seen on the BTK blog.

Lemon Bavarian in the form of a cold souffle

2011-11-28T06:58:00.002-06:00

We often need a desssert dish to take to parties - something that will stand up to being driven to the party, look and taste fantastic. Bavarian creams are good for this because they are light and foamy, yet stable because of the addition of some gelatine.

This recipe is a slightly awkward size because it fits into a 1 1/2 quart (US) souffle dish. That is about 2 1/2 pints in the UK. I dare say it scales back OK, but after much fiddling this appears to be the best balance of all. Lots of lemon flavor. The zest contributes as much as the juice does. I use a microplane for the zest - it delivers terrific flavor at little effort.

Ingredients
5 or so lemons yielding 3/4 cup (6 fl oz.) strained juice
The zest of the above lemons. Note that it is better to zest the lemons before juicing them
1 1/2 packets (3/8 oz) unflavored gelatine - that's the inconvenient bit!
1 cup + 3T granulated sugar
1 1/2 C whole milk
a few grains (very small pinch) of fine salt
8 eggs separated and at room temperature. Use 8 whites and 3 yolks
1/2 t corn starch
1 1/3 c heavy (whipping) cream - chilled

Tips and Tricks
I like to make sure that there are no traces of grease on the whisking equipment before whisking the eggs. So I moisten a paper towel with a little cider vinegar and wipe the inside of the bowl and the whisk with the vinegar. It doesn't impart flavor, but it does a nice job of degreasing.

The egg whites should be room temp (not refrigerator temparture) for maximum foam.

When separating the eggs, you need 4 (yes 4!) bowls. Because traces of any fat cause the eggs not to become nice and foamy, you want to reduce the risk of egg yolk getting into the mixture. Calling the bowls 1-4, here's the procedure. Bowl 3 is the bowl in which the egg whites will be beatem

Crack an egg (on a flat surface, preferably). Separate the white into bowl 1 and the yolk into bowl 2
If the white is clear and uncontaminated transfer from bowl 1 to bowl 3.
If not, discard the white from bowl 1, clean bowl 1 thoroughly and repeat from step 1.
Repeat steps 1 - 3 for the next 2 eggs. You will have three whites in bowl 3 and three yolks in bowl 2
Repeat steps 1-3 for the remaining eggs, but put the yolks in bowl 4. You will now have 8 egg whites in bowl 3, 3 yolks in bowl 2 and the other 5 yolks in bowl 4.

Cream should be cold prior to whipping, so I put mine in the freezer just before putting the gelatine onto the lemon juice.

Prepare the souffle dish by making a foil collar standing about 2 inches (5cm) above the rim. Secure the collar to the dish with a little sticky tape,

Method
Zest and juice the lemons keeping the juice and zest apart in non-plastic bowls. Sprinkle the gelatine on the juice and allow to rest while the next steps are happening.
Put 3/4 c of the sugar, all of the whole milk, and the salt in a pan and heat gradually, stirring, until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is hot (steaming, but not boiling).
Whisk the egg yolks with the corn starch and 3T of the sugar until pale and thick.
When the milk is warmed, add slowly to the egg yolks whisking constantly. The cornstarch helps prevent the mixture from cooking the eggs.
Return the mixture to the pan (I rinsed the pan out, to ensure that any liquid adhering to the inside didn't burn). Put on low heat and cook, stirring constantly until the mixture has thickened. Adjust the heat while doing this so it doesn't happen too quickly, but also doesn't drive you nuts waiting. Once the mixture has thickened, strain into a bowl, and immediately add the lemon juice/gelatine and the lemon zest. Whisk to incorporate the juice/gelatine into the custard. You need to work fairly quickly, to make sure you don't get lumps of gelatine.
Place the bowl of lemon custard into an ice/water bath (a larger bowl) and stir occasionally to chill thoroughly. Meanwhile whisk the egg whites (and they whisk better when slightly warmed) - first relatively slowly to make them foam, and then on high speed - adding the rest of the sugar slowly. They should be slightly stiff peaks. You do not want them dry. Take a couple of mounds of the egg white and stir into the lemon custard. Once incorporated, add the remaining egg whites in 3 additions. Fold each addition in carefully so as not to deflate the foam. Once all of the egg whites have been incorporated, whip the cold cream to soft peak consistency. Stir the cream (also in 3 additions) into the egg white/custard. Do this very gently also, so as not to deflate the foam. Make sure there are no white streaks left.
Spoon carefully into the souffle dish and chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours - and up to about 4 or 5 hours.

Serving
When it comes time to serve, remove the foil collar gently - it feels like you are peeling it off. Do not try to lift it. The Bavarian will stand up above the edge of the dish, and look very impressive.
Garnish with some contrasting colors. I used purple and green basil flowering stalks laid in a pattern on top of the dish. This hides blemishes on the top surface.

On a previous occasion, I had made this dessert and used a simpler garnish - some candied lemon people (lemon peel cooked in sugar syrup for about 90 minutes) and a few rosemary tops. I am placing this photograph here, since the gannets dived into the one from this recipe before I could whip the camera out!

A surplus of tomatoes

2011-10-05T14:30:00.000-05:00

It is close to the end of tomato season, but I was able to snag 6lbs of seconds at the farmers' market last weekend. As usual they were all over the map in terms of shape, ripeness and quality. But no worry there, I had the trusty grill (which I had just spent all weekend cleaning), the Blendtech, a lot of Anaheim peppers, etc. So this dish is a variant of tomato soup, using ideas from other things along the way. The blackening of the tomato skin imparts a really smoky flavor to the soup. But do take care not to get mch of the blackened skin into the soup.

Ingredients
6lbs ripe tomatoes (beefsteak or other large size, divided use)
4 small new onions (about 1 1/2 lb in total)
3/4 cup toasted almond slivers
8 Anaheim chile peppers
2 cloves garlic (sliced thinly)
1T sherry vinegar
kosher salt
pepper

To Serve
Large crystals sea salt
1 small cucumber diced small (brunoise)
2 Anaheim peppers (diced small)
Sherry vinegar
Extra virgin Olive oil
6 fresh basil lives, chiffonade

Method
Heat the grill for about 15 minutes on the low setting (or use a small charcoal fire). My gas grill registered 550 on an oven thermometer suspended above the burners. Place 3/4 of the tomatoes on the grill and leave for about 45 minutes. The skin will blacken and become crunchy. At the same time place the onions unpeeled on the grill. Their skins will also blacken.
After the tomatoes have cooked through, they will be thick and concentrated inside. Extract the concentrated flesh into a bowl. Do the same for the onions. Meanwhile toast the almonds in a hot, dry pan - taking care not to burn them. Roughly chop the 8 Anaheim peppers, peel the remaining tomatoes. Place peeled tomatoes, concentrated tomatoes, onions, almonds, garlic, 1T vinegar into the blender and blend until very smooth. Add a little kosher salt and pepper to taste.
Chill the soup mixture for several hours in the refrigerator.

Serving
Serve the soup in a plain white bowl, garnished with the diced cucumber, Anaheim peppers and basil chiffonade. Sprinkle on some sherry vinegar, drizzle a little olive oil, sprinkle sea salt and basil. Serve with crusty bread.

Note this gets the "We can serve this to people" accolade, so it is definitely one of Madame's new favorites.

Pork with kale and beans - thanks to "the Chew"

2011-09-28T15:08:00.000-05:00

I have to admit it, I watched some of the first episode of "The Chew" a daytime talk show on ABC in the USA. It features several excellent chefs - including Michael Symon who has inspired me before. This recipe is based on the recipe he did on the show, but with some minor tweaks which aren't terribly material. The goal was to make a dish that comes in at less that $7 per serving. This made that easily. For approximately $4.50 per serving, this lovely dish came out.

This recipe was to serve 2 people.
Ingredients
2T grape seed oil (or other neutral oil)
2 pork loin chops (about 5oz each), pounded thin (1/3 of an inch thick)
6 pieces of pancetta
a little parsley
salt/pepper for seasoning
a little flour to dust the meat
1 shallot minced fine
1 garlic clove sliced thinly
1 minced cayenne pepper
1 small can canellini beans (rinsed and drained)
1 bunch of kale, leaves stripped from the stalks and shredded
1/4 cup chicken stock
juice of 1 lemon

Method
For each piece of pork, lay it flat on the board. place 3 pieces of pancetta on each piece of pork. Add a little parsley. Fold the pork over the pancetta and pinch the edges closed. Salt and pepper the pork on both sides. Sprinkle lightly with flour. heat the oil in a skillet until shimmering. Place the pork pieces into the hot oil and fry about 3 minutes on the first side, turn over and fry 2 more minutes. After turning the meat, add the shallots, garlic, cayenne pepper and fry gently until softened. remove the meat from the pan, and add the washed jale. Stir and add the drained beans.Add the chicken stock and simmer until the kale is tender, and the beans warmed through. Add lemon juice and serve immediately on warmed plates.

A sauce for empanadas

2011-09-26T16:50:00.001-05:00

There's a wonderful Empanada shop near where we live. It has become the go to place for appetizers for some of our bigger parties. Yesterday we had about 40 people over, and as usual bought empanadas. But this time I wanted to have a little sauce to go with them. The empanadas were beef, ham and cheese, and spinach. I figured something green and herbal would work, so came up with this (after scouring the internet).
Ingredients
Half a dozen or so green onions minced
4 garlic cloves - minced very finely
Juice of 2 lemons
1 bunch cilantro chopped pretty finely
2t ground cumin
4T sugar
1/2 cup vinegar (I used white distilled, but I imagine cider vinegar would be fine too)
Salt (if desired, to taste)

Method
Combine the onions and garlic in a non-reactive bowl. Mix in the other ingredients, stir and refrigerate at least 2 hrs - preferably overnight. If the vinegar doesn't cover the vegetation, add a little more.

Plum pickle

2011-09-09T07:53:00.000-05:00

On a road trip to Houston recently, Madame and I stopped in Fairfield to eat at the mighty fine Sam's restaurant. The breakfast buffet is huge - makes fgreat road food. As we were leaving we noticed a roadside stand selling peaches, plums, potatoes - some things grown by the farmer, some imported (California strawberries). You have to know what's in season. Strawberry season in Texas is March/April - not the end of August!

Anyhow, we bought some fantastic peaches, some OK tomatoes, and some ammunition - oh wait they were plums, but as hard as bullets. You may wonder why. Well, I hoped they might ripen up a bit. They did, so now they were rubber bullets and not the deadly kind. The only thing to do was to make some kind of a chutney. I did - and it was surprisingly good. Especially with pork chops. It is tart enough so that it cuts through the pork fat well.

Ingredients
1 whole star anise
6 whole green cardomoms
12 coriander seeds
12 black pepper corns
2 whole cloves
1/2 Kaffir lime leaf
2lb small, unripe plums - whole with stones, washed but not dried
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
3 T agave nectar (more or less depending on taste)
pinch of salt

Method
Make a spice bag out of a piece of cheesecloth (muslin) and the first 6 ingredients. You don't have to do this but it meakes fishing the spices out afterwards a breeze. Put the spice bag and the rest of the ingredients in a sauce pot, bring to a simmer, and cook stirring occasionally for about 45 minutes - until the plums have lost most of their texture.

Remove the spice bag. Leave to cool. Transfer to a screw topped jar, removing the plum pits as you transfer it. Store tightly sealed in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

baba ghanouj, ganoush, ganush - how about eggplant dip!

2011-08-21T20:48:00.000-05:00

This recipe is inspired by a couple of my favorite food TV folks. America's Test Kitchen and Alton Brown. About 2 minutes in to the attached AB does something very clever with the eggplant! This dip is not terribly labor intensive and absolutely delicious with some warm pita and olives. The ATK recipe comes from 2001, I think

Ingredients
2 large eggplants (aubergines, melanzane) rubbed lightly with vegetable oil
1T Tahini
2 cloves garlic made into a paste (a garlic press is the easiest way)
1T Extra virgin olive oil
1T fresh lemon juice (more or less to taste)
salt, pepper to taste

Method
Turn the grill on to high (or if using charcoal, get a good fire going. You want lots of heat for this). Let the grill heat for 15 min or so. Meanwhile wash the skins of the eggplants, pat dry and lightly coat with vegetable oil. Pierce the skin of the eggplants with the point of a sharp knofe about 60 times - all over.
When the grill is nice and hot, place the eggplants directly on the bars over the heat. Grill for about 40 minutes turning occasionally. The skin will blacken and juices will run out. They almost collapse.

When they are nice and black and collapsed, transfer to a rimmed dish and allow to cool. Once they are cool enough to handle, wrap each egg plant in cling wrap. Then snip the stalk end off the eggplant, squeeze the flesh out into a strainer. This is illustrated 2 minutes into the Alton Brown video. This technique is so much easier than trying to slit the skin and scrape out the flesh.

Once it has drained for about 5 minutes, discard the liquid and put the flesh into a bowl. Add the tahini, garlic and olive oil and mix thoroughly with a fork. Add the lemon juice, mix and taste. Add salt/pepper until it has the desired level of seasoning. Refrigerate 6+ hours and serve.

What is missing from most grilled cheese sandwiches

2011-08-20T19:38:00.000-05:00

It's funny how grilled cheese sandwiches often don't involve a grill. The grill is the secret to a really tasty sandwich, and doing a couple of unusual things makes a big difference too.
In this version of the grilled cheese sandwich, the bread is grilled on both sides - with three cooking actions.
Madame did deliver the "we can serve this to people" accolade, so Iguess she liked it. Of course with ripe tomatoes, home made bread, fantastic olive oil brought home from an olive grove in France and decent cheese, it is hard to go wrong.
Ingredients
4 slices of bread - preferably rustic and home made, 1/3" thick
Good quality olive oil (unmeasured - the method will describe how to use it)
6 slices of cheese (I used thinly sliced Swiss cheese)
1 tomato thinly sliced
2 Scallions thinlly sliced
Salt and pepper to taste

Method
Get the grill nice and hot. I used the gas grill on high for about 5 minutes. Then turn the heat to low. Paint each side of each piece of bread with a little olive oil. Essentially a small quantity evenly spread. Prepare the sandwich filling and head for the grill.
Place the bread slices on the hot part of the grill, and allow to cook until lightly browned and a little crunchy. This first browned side becomes the inside of the sandwiches.
As soon as the first side is browned, flip the bread over so the uncooked side is on the grill. Working very quickly, place a layer of cheese, a layer of onion, a layer of tomato and another layer of cheese on 2 of the slices. Top with the other 2 slices - ensuring that the first grilled side is on the inside - against the top layer of cheese.
Grill until the bottom of the sandwiches are nicely brown, then flip the sandwiches so the other ungrilled side is now against the grill bars. Cook until that side is nicely browned too.
Remove from grill, cut each sandwich in half, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Serve hot.

Chateau des Poccards

2011-07-08T16:33:00.000-05:00

Oh dear this is turning into a travelogue and not a foodalogue. But I must pay homage to the Chateau des Poccards in Hurigny, just outside Macon. We chose to stay there because it was close to our friends and it looked nice. It was and it was!
The owners (a Belgian couple Erik and Erika Bruyneel) bought the place at the end of 2010. It is a large house with gorgeous grounds and a nice (cold for us Texans though) pool. It is just so civilized.
On arrival at about 6pm, we were greeted by Erik who eplained things simply. There's a place for the room keys in a box at the bottom of the stairs. It's best to put the key there - just like in an old fashioned hotel. Then up to the room which was just lovely. Comfortable bed, extra pillows, wine glasses, recently renovated bathroom. Enough towels, plenty of hot water....
So we unpacked and went down to the salon. Dvorak playing softly. Fred met us and we had some wine - Erik has a cellar with local products - white whines from the Macon region. The price per glass? Ridiculously inexpensive. We almost felt that we were visiting friends - even though it was clearly a commercial transaction. The owners hit the balance perfectly.
Discussion of where to eat, and Erik called to make reservations - so when we arrived at the restaurant we were greeted very warmly. Not surprisingly, Erik and Erika rocked up to the same restaurant about 30 minutes after us.
But now for the really special bit. I screwed up. We wanted three nights, they only had 2 available. I had been corresponding with another place too, and the other place had 3 nights available. However, I got the places mixed up. The Chateau des Poccards was fully booked the Saturday night - but Erik/Erika somehow made it work and we were able to stay. That is generous, human, and wonderful.
Being a small chambres d'hotes place, they don't take credit cards, so cash (from the ATM) was needed. No problem we established that early and all was well.
If you are heading to the macon region, stay here. It's that good!

seabirdskitchen and all things goat

2011-07-07T13:01:00.000-05:00

On our trip to the Macon region, we spent time with local friends. That's the way to experience a region! So we enthusiastically supported the idea of the "goat milking entertainment". One of the family members has a friend who runs a farm. And on that farm he had some goats... Anyhow, we weren't sure what the entertainment would be, but were game for anything.

We met "at the fountain" in Blany - a small speck of a town with a public oven and Marc's farm, a bar and a bend in the road. A trek though the fields, and then down to the milking shed to meet Marc, the goats, the border collie and the cat. The dog gets wildly excited with the thought of the daily milking, so when she was let off the leash, she exhibited the boundless energy that a border collie has, together with the herding instincts and absolute discipline. The cat was properly aloof and hissed and spat when the dog came too close.

The first batch of goats (18) of them were let in to the milking stall, where they were hooked up to the machine. The cat placed herself on guard and the process started. It takes about 10 minutes to milk the batch of goats. Somehow the dog knew when they were done, because she got very excited at the thought of herding them back to their pen. Feed stations were filled and the next batch were set up. A total of 4 batches of goats, so we were in the hot shed with the goats, each other, the flies, the dog, the cat, and who knows what else for about an hour and a half. Wouldn't have missed it for anything.

After the milking was done, we sauntered to Marc's house, went into the cheese shop where his wife sells the goat cheese made only from their goats and showed us all the varieties they made and all the stages. Then to their patio to try the various cheeses, drink some local wines (including a nice cremant) before dinner. We left there at about 10:30 and started dinner at Dominique and Daniel's house in Tournus at 11 or so.

Seabirdskitchen visits Georges Blanc

2011-07-06T11:26:00.000-05:00

Madame and I have been on vacation in France. There'll be other posts, but the pride of place goes to our fantastic evening at Georges Blanc's restaurant in Vonnas.

In some ways, Chef Blanc is "phoning it in" - everything is not picture perfect and the wine service was shockingly bad. That didn't detract (much) from the experience - it dis remove a fairly hefty item from the bill, since we didn't get to order another bottle. With the fairly ordinary Chablis (if there is such a thing!) running at $150/bottle we knew we were in for a pricy evening.

When we arrived we were served the house signature summer cocktail - a cremant with fresh raspberry juice instead of cassis. Intense flavor, pretty color, a perfect start sitting outside near the small river. With the drinks there were appetizers - a little smoked salmon on a cracker perfumed with orange and ginger, and foie gras pressed to look like orange segments, again with some dried orange zest. Talk about a mouth explosion.

Inside and an amuse of langoustine on avocado puree (yeah, I am not doing it justice) for Madame and Fred. Some caviar and asparagus for me (crustacean allergy prevents the langouste).

We must have spent almost 30 minutes with the menu.

I had the fondant de blanc de poulard de Bresse marbre de foie gras... strips of foie gras with local Bresse chicken meat in a gelee between. Quite spectacular. Madame had the crab and oysters - the oyster brine was turned into a gelee and perfumed with some lavendar. The crab tower was wonderful. Fred had the minute de bar napee... Wow, a beatiful piece of fish on a rich vegetable reduction finished with olive oil.

For the plats Both Fred and Madame chose the signature poulet de Bresse. Geroges Blanc is known for this - and in Heston Blumenthal's book, "In search of perfection" there is a whole treatise on this. Madame had the leg portions, Fred, the brreast. The vegetables were perfection. I had the carre de veau with sweetbreads and again some of the same vegetables. Also divine.

We ordered the cheese tray - very impressive array of cheeses. A delicious Fourme D'Ambert, Lovely Morbier, a nice Livarot and a Brie (from Meaux) that was the perfect gooey consistency with a hint of that funk so important in a well kept Brie. Madame had an aged goat cheese (crottin) and some camembert. Fred kept his selection well hidden, so I don't know exactly what he had.

We did order dessert too, but first they brought a selection of petits fours, and a trio of little sweet things to try, followed by the real desserts. Fred's was the pick of the litter here. A poached pear stuffed with ice cream....

There I think that's the 8 courses!

Daily bread on the grill

2011-06-11T14:05:00.000-05:00

It's summer here in Texas. It shouldn't be yet, but it is very hot. So I have no desire to use the oven. I figured that with some appropriate fiddling I could use my grill as an oven. After all we grill/roast meat, so why not bread?
So, taking a leaf out of the Sullivan St. bakery, I decided that preheating a kind of pan would be the best way to manage the baking process. I have an old cast iron dutch oven about 10" in diameter. So, what kind of dough? What ratios? How long? What temperature. It turns out that it is a pretty simple thing to do and the results have been well worth while.

Ingredients
550 gm bread flour
40gm whole wheat flour
10gm light rye flour
400 gm water
5 gm yeast
2t (yes everything else was by weight!) kosher salt

Method
Proof the yeast in room temperature (or slightly warmer) water. Add to the flours, mix using a spatula until it is shaggy. Cover and leave to stand for about 45 minutes. After it has rested for a while, add the salt and then knead ( 12 minutes speed 4 in kitchenaid mixer). Turn out into a lightly oiled bowl, cover and allow to rise for about 45 minutes. It will almost have doubled. Take the dough out, stretch it, form into a ball and return to the bowl, cover again and leave until doubled.
Once it has doubled in size again, turn on to a lightly floured board and form into a ball. Making sure that the outside of the ball is stretched, forming a skin. Turn the ball seam side up into a round basket lined with floured cheesecloth. Meanwhile heat the grill and a cast iron pan at 450 for at least 30 minutes.
Once the dough has rested and returned to springiness, turn it out into the cast iron pan. Bake on the grill for 450F for 25-30 minutes.

When it is cooked, turn out onto a wire rack and allow to cool.

Enjoy while warm with butter and honey or jam....

More playing with eggs

2011-05-21T10:30:00.000-05:00

When Madame is away, I like to experiment in the kitchen. It keeps me out of trouble, and endlessly entertained. Mostly by failed experiments.

Eggs are a great source for amusement - they are cheap, versatile, tasty (when I don't screw them up too badly), and small enough that you can simple experiments. I also do eat the failures - all though in this case I think I would have preferred not to.
I very much like eggs cooked in their shells for a long time over low temperature. Typically in the 147-148F range. This is sometimes mistakenly called sous vide - it isn't because there is no vacuum involved. Just cooked for a long time in a water bath. As an aside - try putting raw eggs into a vacuum bag....
One royal pain when dealing with eggs like this was peeling them whole. It takes a long time, as it is quite finicky and therefore delays presentation - unless you do them, peel them and then hold them at temp.

I am a home cook, and like things "a la minute" as opposed to being held - again general statement, some things hold really well, but some don't!

So with all that preamble, I thought it would be interesting to try removing the shell before cooking, and still leaving the egg whole. Acid does that pretty well - so into a vinegar bath went the egg.
It takes about 18 hours for the shell to be removed entirely, leaving a little bouncy sack of eggness. So far so good.

Into the water bath at 148 for 45 minutes. It seemed that all was well - the little sac held together beautifully. Quite encouraging, I thought.

And then I pierced it...

As you can see, nice firm cooked white and slightly oozy yolks. Just the effect I was hoping for. Straight from water bath to table, stick with knife point, et voila.

However, all is not as rosy as I had hoped. The membrane was tough - like sausage casing tough. So very unappetizing. The egg had absorbed too much vinegar flavor, so wasn't very tasty. Didn't have the lovely silky eggy flavor. It would have been more at home on English chips!

I guess I will have to find another experiment :-(

Seabirdskitchen, NTTV and the Dallas Arboretum

2011-05-03T06:24:00.001-05:00

Last Saturday, Madame asked me if I would help the NTTV students during their photo-shoot at the Dallas Arboretum. What visit to a beautiful outdoor spot is complete without a picnic? So with a little creativity we came up with some recipes and a demonstration. The recipes are posted here, and I will update links when the video is available.
The first dish is an adaptation of Jamie Oliver's peppers stuffed with tomatoes recipe from the Jamie at home show. I have done it before and the recipe can be found here. For the shoot, I omitted the pancetta.
You always want to have fried chicken at a picnic too, but I don't like the mess frying makes in the kitchen so was looking for a baked alternative. That recipe is repeated below. Potato salad? Of course - with a two step dressing. And finally a dessert - apple bars with a dollop of ice cream. All of the dishes can be made at home and taken to the picnic with you.
I wanted to make sure there was as little mayonnaise and dairy as possible - after all it gets hot here in Texas and proper refrigeration is crucial to ensuring that people don't get sick.

Baked (fried) Chicken - Total Cost $14, Serves 8

Ingredients
8 bone in, skin on chicken thighs
2 c buttermilk
1T dried orgegano
1T hot sauce (eg Tabasco)
2 c breadcrumbs (I used panko)
2T grated parmesan
2T finely chopped parsley
salt
pepper

Method
Mix together the buttermilk, oregano, hot sauce to make a marinade. Add a little salt. Place the chicken into the buttermilk and leave to coat in the fridge for at least an hour - and up to 12.
Just before taking the chicken out of the refrigerator, turn the oven to 375 and place a rackn in the center.
Mix together the bread breadcrumbs, parmesan and parsley. Take each piece of chicken out of the marinade, shake the excess off, and roll it in the breadcrumb mixture, coating all sides evenly. Lay the chicken pieces skin side up on a wire rack on top of a baking sheet. Bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes - until the crumbs are evenly browned.

Potato Salad- Total Cost $6, Serves 8
Ingredients
3 pound(s) (medium) red-skinned potatoes cut into 1-inch chunks

1/3 cup(s) (distilled) apple cider vinegar

1 tablespoon(s) grape seed oil

2 teaspoon(s) spicy mustard r Dijon style if that's what you have

2 teaspoon(s) kossalt

1/2 teaspoon(s) black pepper

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/3 cup whole milk

2 small celery stalks, thinly sliced

2 green onions, minced

A sprinking of paprika to finish

Method
Put the potatoes and a generous couple of pinches of salt into cold water in a saucepot. Bring to a simmer until the potatoes are just tender.
Meanwhile make the vinaigrette by whisking together the cider vinegar, oil and mustard.
When cooked, drain the potatoes thoroughly and then coat with the vinaigrette while still hot. Allow the potatoes to cool.
Mix the salt, pepper, mayonaise and whole milk together in a bowl, ensuring that the mayonnaise is thoroughly incorporated.
Mix the celery and green onions into the cooled potatoes, pour over the mayonnaise mixture and combine gently.
Serve in a pretty bowl with some paprika sprinkled on top for color

Apple Bars - Total Cost $17, 36 bars

Ingredients
Topping
1 stick butter (slightly softened - not melted)
1 cup walnuts, chopped roughly
1 stick butter
2 cup flour
1 cup light brown sugar
2T vanilla
1 1/2 t ground cinnamon

Filling
4 lbs Granny Smith apples peeled, cored and chopped into 1/3" chunks
3/4 cup raisins
3/4 cup packed brown sugar (light or dark, OK)
2t cinnamon
1/2t all spice
2T corn starch
3T lemon juice

Crust
3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
pinch table salt
1 1/2 sticks butter (hard, still cold from fridge), cut in small pieces

Method
First, make the topping by combining the ingredients with your hands until they make a cohesive ball. Wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate.

In a large skillet add the applles, sugar, raisins and spices. Cook gently over a low flame until all the liquid has evaporated. You will need to stir occasionally. The apples will retain their texture.

Meanwhile, make and bake the crust. Mix the flour, sugar, and salt, then rub the butter in until the mixture looks sandy. The butter pieces want to be small enough to be invisible on their own. You could use a pastry blender if you prefer, or a couple of short pulses in the food processor.

Lay the crust mixture evenly in a greased 15x10 jelly roll pan, and press it down using the bottom of a glass to compact it and make sure it is even.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 25 minutes - until the crust is light golden brown. It may form cracks at the surface - do not worry.

When the crust has nearly finished baking, mix the lemon juice and cornstarch together and pour over the hot apples (off heat). stir to allow to thicken.

Take the out of the oven, and while still hot cover evenly with the hot filling. Crumble the refrigerated topping evenly over the filling. Press down lightly, and bake uncovered for around 40 minutes in the 350 oven.

When cooked, remove the pan from the oven, and allow to cool completely. When cool cut the bars while still in the pan.

Serve topped with a spoonful of ice cream (if desired). They are also pretty good plain

Salad - it doesn't have to be boring

2011-03-19T21:34:00.001-05:00

This dish received the "OMG this is fantastic, we must serve it to people" accolade from Madame. For those who have seen previous posts, you will observe that this is about the highest possible. Fortunately it is really easy and, I have to admit, pretty darn' good. As usual, pork fat rules, but if you have reasons for not eating things porcine you could try using browned butter instead of bacon fat.
The salad is served warmed that makes it a little unusual. Even more so, the lettuce is grilled....
Ingredients
4 strips unsmoked bacon cut into thin strips across the grain
2/3 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup halved walnuts
1 t chili powder
2T dark brown sugar
2 hearts of Romaine lettuce, halved lengthwise, root end intact, lightly oiled
2 oz mild blue cheese (e.g. Stilton or Stichelton) cut into 4 equal sized pieces
12 cherry tomatoes
Salt and pepper to taste

Method
Place the bacon in a small skillet and gently fry - until crispy. Add the balsamic vinegar to a small sauce pan, place over medium heat, reduce until it is thickened and a little less than 1/2 its original volume.
When the bacon is cooked, remove it from the pan, and add the walnuts to the drippings. Turn the heat to medium/low and cook gently for about a minute. Sprinkle with chili powder, then turn the heat off and add the brown sugar. Toss to make sure the sugar doesn't burn. When the walnuts are well coated, add the vinegar reduction to the pan, keep on heat stirring regularly so it doesn't stick.When it is close to time to serve, sprinkle salt and pepper on the oiled leaves and grill cut side down for 30 seconds over high heat. The inner leaves should char slightly.

Serving
Place a grilled heart cut side up on a large plate. Pour the warmed walnut dressing over the lettuce, sprinkle the bacon over the dressing. Place the blue cheese on top of the leaves, scatter some tomatoes on the plate and serve immediately

A couple of revelations

2011-03-16T10:39:00.001-05:00

This isn't about specific dishes, but about how to get some things to "work". First the dreaded all you can eat buffet. Now I CAN eat a lot, but I shouldn't. So, the question is, "How do I enjoy a buffet without overdoing things?" found a simple answer after eating in Abu Dhabi where almost every meal was a buffet:

Lay the food out as attractively and patiently as you can on the plate. Decide what the plate will look like and organize things on it. Don't simply pile on. If you go for a clean look, you will put less on the plate, it will take longer to do, and it will be more pleasing to look at - and ultimately (I keep telling myself) more satisfying. Also it's good practice for presentations - you get to work on an often neglected part of the food.

Second peeling cooked eggs: I often used almost hard boiled eggs (set white, slightly runny yolks) in the "French Salad" - one of Madame's favourite dishes. In that recipe, I call for cooking the eggs in the potato water. This works really well. But I have also noticed that I have tried to cook eggs by putting them in cold water and gradually bringing to a simmer. Turn the heat off and leave to stand for about 4-5 minutes depending on how much water there is. The eggs cooked by the "start in cold water" method prove really hard to peel. Those plunged into simmering water are much easier to peel. I haven't figured the science out, but I do know that I will be starting eggs that are intended for peeling in simmering water - not cold.

Pi day

2011-03-15T21:00:00.000-05:00

On Pi day (3/14 in the USA) it is traditional to make a pie. This year was no exception. I wanted a steak and kidney, but buying kidneys is tricky, so this was steak, onion and mushroom pie. And if I say so myself it was damned good!
Ingredients
2T Beef drippings (or veg oil if no drippings)
1 1/2 lb beef chuck, cut into 3/4" cubes
4 medium onions sliced
1/2 lb mushrooms quartered
1/2 can pilsener beer
6 small yukon gold potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1/4" cubes
Salt/pepper to taste
Cider vinegar (1t or so) to brighten the flavors
1/2 package frozen puff pastry rolled to cover the pie dish
1 egg + 1t water beaten together

Method
The beef drippings are the secret inredient heat them (or the oil) in a dutch oven until smoking. Meanwhile season the meat with salt/pepper. Brown in the hot fat turning once. Set the meat aside.
Into the same pan put the sliced onions and cook until sligtly browned. About 8 minutes stirring occasionally. When the onions are cooked, add the meat and any juices bask into the pan. Pour the beer over the meat. Put the lid on and cook in a 300 oven for almost 2 hours.
Cool the dutch oven, and add the potatoes and onions to the meat/onions. When the meat mixture is cool, place in a pie dish (Pyrex if possible) and cover with the rolled out puff pastry. Make vent holes in the puff pastry. Brush with the beaten egg and place in a 425 oven for 20 minutes - or until evenly brown. Note you may have to rotate it.
After the crust is set, turn the oven down to 300 degrees and cook for 18 minutes - heating up the meat and cooking the potatoes and mushrooms.

Serving
Serve a piece of pie with some simply bolied peas.

Superbowl beans

2011-02-06T22:00:00.000-06:00

Our good friends Rick and Claudia always do a terrific superbowl party. They asked us to bring something - either bbq beans or a green bean casserole. I am not about to do a green bean casserole, so bbq beans it was. Mind you, I had never made any of those before either. However, I had heard that if you want to cook 'em a long time it must be in a slightly acid environment (think molasses, vinegar, brown sugar, etc.). The ingredients are a bit imprecise, but I hope this conveys the gist.
Ingredients
2 lbs pinto beans
Cold water to cover the beans by 2 inches
2T vegetable oil
2 yellow onions diced
2 red peppers diced
1 lb salt pork, gently rendered, fat discarded
3T Paprika
1T Chili powder
1 small can tomato paste
3 Ancho peppers
3 Dried Cayenne peppers
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1 quart (32 Oz - US quart, not Imperial quart) chicken stock
12 oz brisket bbq trimmings
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup cider vinegar
2 cups boiling water
6 slices smoky bacon, chopped into small strips and fried until crispy, discard the fat
1 red onion minced finely

Method
Pick over the beans making sure there are no small stones or other bad things. Put them in a large bowl and cover with the cold water and leave to soak over night.

The next morning, heat the oil in a frying pan and gently saute the onion and red pepper until soft. Add the paprika and chili powder. Continue to saute for another couple of minutes.

Put the onions and peppers into the bottom of a slow cooker. Add the beans and the rendered salt pork. Fry the tomato paste in the same pan that you cooked the onions/peppers in until it turns a light brown colour. Warm the molasses, and mix with 1/2 the chicken stock and the first addition of cider vinegar. Use this mixture to deglaze the pan with the tomato paste, whisking to incorporate. Add this liquid + the dried peppers to the crockpot. Also add the bbq trimmings and the rest of the stock.

Turn the slow cooker on to the longest (in my case 10 hours) cook time. Check about 1/2 way through, and if the beans are a bit dry looking, make up a mixture of water, cider venegar and dark brown sugar. Stir that in to the mixture and check for the amount of liquid. It should not cover the beans, but should be clearly visible without moving the beans around.

After 10 hours, turn off the slow cooker and leave overnight. It will slowly come to room temp. 5 hours before serving, turn the slow cooker on again at the same setting as before. As the mixture is heating, add the finely diced red onion (raw) and the crispy bacon. Stir well to combine.

When the beans are hot again, they are ready to serve. Note you can add some salt/pepper to taste if you like, but I found the salt pork added just what was needed.

If I were making this again, I would add the beef trimmings in the second (warming) phase. They had given up too much of their flavor adding them so early.

As I said at the beginning, the proportions are just rough estimates. Your mileage may vary. Just remember to keep them with enough liquid, and to make sure there is enough acid to prevent the beans from going mushy.

These proved to be very popular indeed, and accompanied the meats, salads and other goodies that Rick and Claudia served.

The blender

2011-01-16T10:11:00.000-06:00

For several years I have had a jones for a Vitamix blender. Why? They are cool, they are easy to clean, they do a great job... However the birdhouse CFO (aka Madame) has observed quite reasonably that a $600 blender is overkill. However she was resigned to the crappy blenders that have been gracing our kitchen counters and never used them. They were hard to use, heavy, the seals never quite sealed. The cleanup was a pain....
So we were minding our own business in CostCo yesterday (note to self - be more focussed when visiting CostCo). And there we saw the Blendtec blender. Apparently this thing has been advertised all over the internet - but with adblockers, etc. I never saw the commercials. So I was a novice. It looks a bit like the Vitamix. The blade attachment is built in to the "goblet", so no seals to worry about. The goblet is large (1/2 gallon). The blades spin at about mach 0.4 or some such speed. And it is a whole lot cheaper than the Vitamix.

After long engagement with the sales guy, and having tasted many of his concoctions (more interested in the textures than the tastes I have to admit), it seemed that this was the way to go. After consultation with the CFO, raising of a wine cork (what passes for a purchase authorization in our house) we bought it - and the 96 oz goblet as well. Working on the theory that we do make some pretty good sized soups.

Brought it home, opened instructions and it said, "To clean put in 1 cup of hot water 2 drops of detergent and pulse for 5 seconds. Rinse and dry". Hell, I can do that - and did.

The first test was making hot chocolate. Madame and I like our hot chocolate made with the Abuelita chocolate. But doing that in a pan is a PITA because it never completely dissolves. So we heated some milk in the cups (in the microwave) and dumped 2 cups of the hot milk + 1 tablet of chocolate into the blender and pressed the soup setting. This blends slowly at first to break up the chunks, and then very fast so the friction heats the ingredients. So 2 cycles (90 seconds each) at the soup setting and the chocolate was beautifully mixed, no residue, piping hot (and of course the cups were hot too having been used to heat the milk initially). Cleanup - see above! It really was that simple. The hot chocolate was at 183 degrees (thanks instant read thermometer) and slightly foamy. Madame pronounced it the best chocolate ever.

We are able to dispose of three other tools (2 blenders - don't ask and a juicer.) So we have a really effective tool, spent less than we might have done, had a nice bottle of purchase authorization together and cleaned some counter space.

Time and money well spent

Boxing Day

2010-12-28T12:45:00.000-06:00

Our tradition during the Christmas Season is to have a Boxing Day party.

So, while Christmas for many is a time of plenty and friendship, it can highlight the poverty or loneliness of some people's lives. December 26 celebrates the Feast of St Stephen, or Boxing Day as it is known in Britain. It was on this day, we are told in the carol that “Good King Wenceslas looked out”

Good King Wenceslas looked out

On the Feast of Stephen,

When the snow lay round about

Deep and crisp and even.

Brightly shone the moon that night,

Though the frost was cruel;

When a poor man came in sight

Gathering winter fuel

King Wenceslas took the poor man food, drink and firewood, to cheer and warm him with the spirit of Christmas.

In Britain, Boxing Day originally got its name from the custom of distributing the money put in alms boxes for the poor people in a town or parish. The day after Christmas, the boxes were broken open and the money distributed by the priests. This custom, which dates back to Roman times, was stopped during the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. 'Christmas Boxes' then became gifts of money, or tips, given to servants, trades people and those who had provided services throughout the year.

While the Feast of Stephen is specific to the Christian Tradition, the sentiments of King Wenceslas are not confined to one faith.

We host an open house on Boxing Day where we ask our friends to bring a donation to our parish food bank, and leftovers from their own Christmas celebrations to share with each other. It’s a relaxing time now that the mad rush of getting ready for Christmas is passed.

We always make mulled wine, have hot dishes, desserts and other things for everyone to share – and are humbled by the generosity of our neighbours and friends.

The Bloody Mary Party

2010-12-28T12:23:00.000-06:00

This was a much more sedate affair than some of our parties. We had the Christmas Eve blowout the night before and were due to go to the Four Seasons for brunch on Christmas Day. There were a group of us going, so we suggested stopping by our house for a bloody mary to sweep away any cobwebs that had accumulated the night before. This was easy, but so worth doing.

We made up pitchers of tomato juice and vodka (2.5:1 ratio tomato juice:vodka) and chilled it. On the counter we put out a variety of additions:

Limes cut into 1/8ths
Martini olives
Celerey sticks
Cocktail onions
Pickle spears
Pickled jalapaneos
Tabasco
Habanero vinegar
Chilli salt
Worcestershire sauce

We had an ice bucket handy and appropriate glasses. Simply gave the guests a glass of ice and vodka/tomato juice and ncourgaed them to add their own fixin's. I think if we didn't have somewhere else to go, we would have stayed all afternoon with these. They turned out quite well!

Christmas 2010

2010-12-28T12:10:00.000-06:00

It all started innocently enough. Madame and I were in Bastrop for a wedding in September. In came a text saying, "My mother in law is out ot town and we don't have anywhere to have Christmas Eve dinner, can we come to your house?" This would have been fine, except I had no idea who it was from!. My telephone had conveniently deposited all its contents into the bit bucket a couple of days before. So after some signaling back and forth, we established that it was our very good friends Etienne and Leigh who were in need of Christmas Eve support. Their usual hosts (Leigh's parents) were out of town.
Realizing that Christmas Eve was likely to be a big deal, we assembled a table for 8 and started planning a menu.
Etienne and Leigh had had an amazing foie gras dish at Gordon Ramsay's in London, had acquired the cookbook and wanted to make it. They also had a tradition of a spicy carrot soup for dinner. I make a Christmassy Salad, have to have Christmas pudding with brandy butter and figured we could make all the accompaniments. The main course had yet to be determined.

Oh and just to add to the complexity, this happened..

Foie Gras with vegetables a la grecque and brioche toast
Ingredients - The marinade
1/4 cup Sauternes
1/4 cup Calvados
1/4 cup medium sherry
Method - marinade
Combine liquids in a small pan and boil gently and reuced by half. Allow to cool.

Ingredients - Foie gras, marinade
1.75 lbs fresh grade A foie gras
1 recipe of marinade
Method prepare the foie gras
Separate the lobes of the foie gras, remove the veins and other sinews, also any blood spots. Handle it as gently as possible. Pour the marinade over the foie gras and cover, refrigerate for 6 hours or overnight. Make a parchment sling in a loaf pan, sprinkle pink salt in the bottom. Layer the foie gras in tto the pan. Cover with another layer of parchment paper, and press it down with another breadpan. Bake in a 200F oven for 45 minutes. When the foie gras is cooked, remove from the oven, weight it down with canned foods still in the pan. Refrigerate, still weighted overnight. Remove as much of the congealed yellow fat as you want.

Ingredients camomile gelee
The foie gras is to be served with a gelee made from camomile tea and sauternes, piped between batons of foie gras.
500 ml Sauternes
150 ml Camomile tea (made from 1 teabag)
6 leaves gelatine
Method - gelee
Make the camomile tea, add to the Sauternes and boil in a saucepan until reduced by half. Soak the gelatine in cold water for 3-4 minutes and then squeeze dry
Gently stir the gelatine, one sheet at a time into the reduction. When all the geklatine has been incorporated, chill te misture in an ice bath. Stir occasionally to make sure it sets up evenly. When it has mostly set, put the gelee into a piping bag with a plain nozzle. Block the tip of the nozzle with wadded up cling wrap until ready to use. refrigerate.
Meanwhile make the brioche using this recipe
Serving
Unmold the foie gras and cut into 3/4 inch batons. Place 2 batons on each plate, parallel and 3/4 inch apart. Pipe the gelee between the batons.
Cut the brioche into thin slices and toast each slice lightly on both sides. Serve 1 1/2 slices of toasted brioche with each plate of foie gras.
We served it with a fermented aperitif made from maple syrup and some blanched vegetables a la Grecque

The piquant carrot soup
This soup is traditional in Etienne and Leigh's world, and so it became the second course. Delicious - and easy to make - especially for me, Etienne did all the work!.
Ingredients
3T butter
4 Cups carrots, peeled and cut into 3/4 inch slices
2 Cups washed, thinly sliced leeks (white and ligh green only)
1 1/2 Cups potatoes, peeled and diced
1T peeled, grated ginger
1t Salt (more or less to taste)
1 (or more) dashes of Tabasco, depending on how piquant you want it
2 1/2 C Chicken stock
2 C Whipping cream
1t White pepper
4 Oz chopped crystallized ginger

Method
Melt the butter in a dutch oven over medium heat. Gently sweat the carrots, leeks, potatoes, onion and the ginger for about 10 minutes. Salt the vegetables, add the chicken stock and Tabasco. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 20 minutes, covered. The vegetables should be soft and fully cooked. Puree the soup in the blender in several batches (take care not to fill the blender more than 1/2 fiull and make sure you cover with a tea towel to prevent the possibility of scalding). At this stage the soup can be held - for up to 2 days.
To serve, reheat the soup to almost boiling and stir in the cream. Do not allow it to boil after the cream has been added. Check the seasoning by adding some white pepper and extra salt if necessary. Serve piping hot in bowls with a few pieces of chopped crystallized ginger.

The Christmassy salad.
This dish appears elsewhere on this blog, so I include a link to it here

The Main Course
It is always a treat to have an excuse for a nice piece of beef. I went to Hirsch's (in Plano) and bought a prime rib roast (Prime Grade - not just the confusingly named Prime Rib!) which we cooked the way that Heston Blumenthal recommends in his book, "In Search of Perfection".
As accompaniments we had braised red cabbage, blue cheese gnocchi, mushroom ketchup and some oven roasted carrots and green beans.
The meat is also described on the blog - here
I (mostly) followed this recipe for the gnocchi. Used some Crater Lake blue cheese from the Rogue River Creamery as the filling for the gnocchi

Mushroom ketchup (adapted from Heston Blumenthal's In Search of Perfection")
This is a highly flavored brown ketchup that Chef Blumenthal recommends with the beef. It takes a couple of days to make and is sooo worth it. It is made in 3 parts.

Ingredients
Mushroom juice
3 lbs of white mushrooms chopped fine in a few pulses of the food processor
2T table salt

Pickled Mushrooms
1lb cremini ("Baby Bella") mushrooms - stems removed and quartered
4 oz sugar
1 1/4 C red wine vinegar

Ketchup Base
2 1/2 C Mushroom juice
Pickled mushrooms (drained)
1/2 C red wine (I used a Shiraz because that was what happened to be open)
1/4 C red wine vinegar
1/4 t ground mace
1 t whole peppercorns
4 cloves
1 shallot roughly chopped
4t cornstarch
3T cold water

Method
Starting 48 hours before you wish to use the ketchup, prepare the mushroom juice. Simply sprinkle the salt over the chopped mushrooms, put in a colander to drain and catch the juices. You should have about 2 1/2 cups juice after 24 hours of straining.
Meanwhile make the pickled mushrooms. Dissolve the sugar in the viunegar by bringing to boil in a small pan. Pour over the muschrooms, cover and chill for 24 hours/
Place the mushroom juice, wine, vinegar, pepper, cloves, mace, and shallot in a pan and reduce the liquid by about 1/2. Remove from the heat and strain the liquid. Make a slurry with the corn starch and water. Return the liquor to the pan, stir in the cornstarch slurry and bring to the boil gently, whisking occasionally. It should thicken considerably, resulting in the ketchup base.
Strain the pickling juice from the mushrooms and add the mushrooms to the base, cover tightly and chill before use.

Braised red cabbage
This has become a staple for us - many holiday dishes need something to cut through the richness. The slightly vinegary red cabbage does the trick.
Ingredients
1/2 cup cider vinegar
2 gala apples peeled, cored, sliced and placed in the vinegar to prevent browning
1 yellow onion
3T vegetable oil
1 head red cabbage thinly shredded
4 cloves
6 black peppercorns
1 inch cinnamon stick
Salt to taste
up to 2T sugar (depends on tartness of apples)
Method
Add the vegetable oil to a dutch oven over low heat. weat the onions for a few minutes. While the a=onions are sweating, tie the spices up into a cheeseloth "package" - making retrieval of the spices easier at the end of the dish. Add the spice package, cabbage, apples, vinegar to the pot, stir and simmer for 1 1/2 hours.
Taste after 1 1/2 hours to check the seasoning and acid/sweet balance. Adjust with salt//vinegar/sugar. Simmer for a few minutes longer and serve hot as a bed under the meat.

Dessert
Of course that has to be Christmas Pudding (plum pudding). It is sort of like a steamed fruit cake. Sounds weird but is the one must have dish for me at Christmas. My parents send us a Christmas hamper from that wonderful store Fortnum and Mason on the years we don't visit England. There is usually a Christmas Pudding in the hamper. We typically eat them well after their sell by date. This year's was in the hamper 2 years ago.....The Christmas pudding is an excuse to have a "sauce" that we simply call brandy butter. Shoe leather would be delicious with brandy butter. It is so easy to make. It used to be my job to make it in my grandmother's kitchen years ago. Now that mantle is passed on to my nephew Sam. However since he was not on hand, I became 9 years old again and made brandy butter. No need for the recipe for the pudding - we just follow the directions on the box. However it is served lit. We warm a little brandy in a pan over low heat (put the brandy in the pan before turning on the flame), when the brandy is warm, pour over the pudding and light. Makes an impressive entrance.

Ingredients - Brandy butter
6 Oz salted butter (I am sure purists would use unsalted, but my granny always used salted) at room temp
6 Oz confectioners (icing) sugar
4T Brandy - don't bother with the finest coggnac here

Method - Brandy butter
Beat the butter alone until slightly fluffy, add the sugar in 3 additions beating hard between additions. When the mixture is light, add the brandy and beat until incorporated. Cover and allow to cool for at least 2 hours in the refrigerator.

Coffee, etc
We roast our own coffee, and for Christmas we chose a Brazilian Joao de Campos Yellow Catuai coffee. We buy all our beans from Sweet marias - they are extremely reliable and fun people to deal with. Internet + cheap shipping is a wonderful thing. We served chocolates from Morgen Chocolates in Dallas and for those wanting to try it a Chateau de Breuil VSOP Calvados.

Needless to say this was a fun event - fortunately Etienne and Leigh stayed over, and everyone else was local. The roads were safe.

Scones

2010-12-12T17:17:00.000-06:00

One of Madame's co workers has had a hankering for scones. So I was press ganged into making some. Luckily they are pretty easy to make. I like them roundand just over an inch in diameter. Also she wanted raisins in them. Now raisins and scones are an odd pair - it's too easy to burn the raisins on the edge, so I have a novel technique....

Ingredients
8 oz self rising flower sifted twice
1 1/2 oz. Unsalted butter at room temperatiure
3/4 oz superfine sugar
pinch salt
a scant 2/3 cup of milk (whole milk)
1/4 cup raisins

Method
Pre-heat oven to 425. If you have a baking stone, remove it first, otherwise the bottoms will brown too quickly.

Rub the butter into the flour. Add the sugar and salt. Mix with finger tips and then add most of the milk. Collect the dough into a ball, and if it won't come together add a little more milk. Turn ut the dough onto a work surface and form into a rectangle about 5x3 inches. Press the raisins into one half of the dough. Cut the dough and cover the raisins with the half you cut off.press the dough out so it is about 3/4 inch thick.

Cut the dough into small rounds about 1 inch + in diameter. Place on a sheet pan lined with parchment. Bake on upper third of oven for about 8 minutes, rotate the pan and bake for a further 5 or so, until they are golden brown and delicious.

Remove from sheet and allow to cool on a wire rack. Serve with butter or clotted cream and strawberry jam.

What to take for thanksgiving?

2010-11-26T11:18:00.000-06:00

Our friend and uber hostess Deborah had us over for thanksgiving dinner yesterday. We knew it was going to be a feast but also wanted to make sure we contributed something other than our sparkling wit...

Foods at thanksgiving here in the USA can be rather rich - I didn't want to contribute to richness, but wanted to make something that fit the following:

Could be finished at the house anything from 2 hours to 4 after our arrival
Would not use a scarce resource (burner/oven)
Would not contribute to the richness factor
Was really tasty

A somewhat tough challenge until we remembered

The crockpot
Braising cabbage
Pairing apples and braised cabbage

So the decision was easy. Braised red cabbage cooked in the crock pot. Braising red cabbage always (well almost always) uses vinegar, so that definitely damps down the richness factor. So here's the dish we took:
Ingredients
1 head (about 3 lbs) red cabbage, tough outer leaves removed and sliced finely and evenly
3 Granny Smith apples peeled, cored and sliced (24 slices per apple approximately)
3 Gala apples treated like the Granny Smiths
2 Medium yellow onions sliced into wedges (about 12 wedges per onion)
6 cloves + 2 broken fried chillies in a small spice bag. (Note I used a piece of cheesecloth and some kitchen twine to make the bag
2T Sugar
1C Cider vinegar
2t salt (more to taste after cooking)
1 1/2 cups boiling water
4 oz (1 stick) unsalted butter
Method
Put the sliced apples and vinegar together in the bottom of the slow cooker (mine is a crock pot, btw). The vinegar helps prevent the apples from browning. Add the spice bag, onions, cabbage and the rest of the ingredients. Stir to mix well. Cook on high for at least 4 hours. Low for about 8.

Note we cooked it on high for 1 1/2 hours before we left home, then plugged it in at Deborah's house and cooked on high for a further 3 hours. It may not be salty enough for you, so have some handy.

You may also want to use a little less water, this had a little more liquid than I wanted. Nonetheless everyone seemed to like it.

The rest of the dinner was fantastic - Deborah had a TurDuckHen and it was wonderful. And then a carrot cake was my dessert of choice - and a very good one it was too. Of course the various other dishes played their parts well. I was stuffed. Madame (being more polite than I) was pleasantly full.

Fig, honeycomb and greek yogurt

2010-11-24T08:01:00.000-06:00

Yesterday evening we had Chef Dave Gilbert over to talk about his adventures as the Exceutive Chef at the American Pavilion in Shanghai. Dave, of course had a ream of pictures, some great stories and he brought me some fantastic oolong teas. But those are another story. We invited our next door neighbors over as well so it was a nice small group.

Main course was a fairly conventional salade nicoise so I won't bore you with those details. Dessert was a little whimsy and fun. The basic ingredients are (per serving)::

1 ripe mission or other whole fig
1T greek yougurt made into quenelles with 2 spoons
1 small 1/4" cube piece of honeycomb
a few drops of kaffir lime infused vodka (left over from the hallow-tini party.) (This would also be nice with cointreau or even a nice sipping rum if you don't happen to have any kaffir lime infused vodka handy).
Some tangerine zest

The pictures here arenot exactly as serverd - I remade the dish this morning to take photos.

Method
Form the yogurt into quenelles using 2 tablespoons
Cut the stem off the fig leaving the top flat. Then cut vertically into quarters, leaving it just still attached at the bottom
Place the honecomb resting against the yogurt, and the fig up against that.
With a pipette draw a small amount of the liquor

Add a few drops of the liquor to the center of the fig.

Drop the rest of the liquor near the yogurt
Sprinkle a little tangerine zest on the yogurt.
Serve immediately

Pavlova Roulade

2010-11-07T20:06:00.002-06:00

I got the idea for this from some cooking show that we were watching and realized it could be a bit of a challenge. After all how often do you get to try to roll something like meringue up?
We needed a quick dessert to take to what was going to be a fun party, so what better than to try it? It's the kind of dessert that can be repaired with powdered sugar if necessary. It wasn't even necessary.
The basic idea is, make a meringue base (a flexible meringue not a fully dried meringue), place it in a sheet pan, bake it, turn it out, slather on whipped cream and berries, then roll it up, dust with powdered sugar and it's ready to go.

Ingredients (Meringue)
5 large egg whites at room temperature
8 oz Superfine (caster) sugar
1 tsp vinegar (light coloured)
1 tsp corn starch (cornflour)
pinch salt (not kosher salt), use a fine regular salt

Method
If the eggs are refrigerated, remove from the refrigerator and allow to warm slightly (to a cool room temperature).
Prepare a sheet pan by lining it with foil, leaving about a 2 inch "collar". Grease the foil with cooking spray - or brush on a flavourless oil. Do not use butter here as it has a high moisture count and we don't need more mositure. Pre-heat oven to 350F.
Place the egg whiles in the bowl of a stand mixer and whisk on medium speed until the whites are broken apart and foamy. Now increase to full speed and whisk to the soft peak stage.
Stir in the salt, corn starch and light coloured vinegar - carefully so as not to deflate the foam.
Whisk on high while adding the sugar until the mixture is smooth and glossy. About 3-4 minutes. It should now be at the stiff peaks stage.
Spread the meringue misture into the prepared foil lined pan.

Bake the meringue in the 350 oven on the lower rack (with no oven stone or pizza stone) for 20-25 minutes - until the exterior is brown and firm, but not hard. make sure you keep an eye on it and don't allow it to get dark. Your oven may read hotter or cooler than mine. If you have a fan-assisted oven then I suspect you will need to drop the temperature by 25 degrees, but I suggest that you experiment for yourselves.

When the meringue is "done", remove the pan from the oven, allow to cool for a few minutes, and then turn out of the pan onto a sheet of parchment paper. Carefully peel the foil and allow the meringue base to cool.

Once the base has cooled, whip 1 1/2 cups of whipping cream + 1/4 t of vanilla and a pinch of sugar up to soft peaks. Take care not to over whip, you want it a bit floppy. Spread the cream on the meringue base, taking care to leave the long edge nearest you with a rim of about 1.5 inches with no cream. That's where the rolling will start.

Prepare some berries by hulling and halving them (strawberries) and washing them (any others). Sprinkle a few drops of creme de cassis or rose water over the berries. Spread the berries over the whipped cream.

Roll the meringue away from you, starting with the plain edge. The outside will crack a bit, but that is OK.

Once it is rolled, place on a serving platter, seam side down. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Scatter a few berries on the plate and serve.

Pumpkin Soup

2010-10-31T14:05:00.000-05:00

More from the Hallow-tini party.

Since it was close to Halloween, we thought it might be nice to do a pumpkin soup using a hollowed out pumpkin as a soup tureen. Had never done it before so didn't know what to expect/ There were some things I did know, however.

Jack o' lanterns taste disgusting
Big pumpkins are hard to cut. Round shape, flat surface, sharpened metal?
The flesh of big pumpkins won't be enough
The flavors need to be "amped up" to make the thing edible.
The seeds are huge

So, what to do? I was able to find a Boston Squash pumpkin which weighed about 12 lbs. A big boy. I also bought some "sugar pumpkins, because I figured their flesh would be good to eat.

I learned something weird - that when I was baking the pumpkin (to soften it after I had taken its top off and scooped the seeds/strings), it did indeed soften, but created about 6 cups of liquid. Of course I added that to the ingredients because it had great pumpkin flavor.

Ingredients
1 Large (12 lbs) eating pumpkin - like Boston.
3 2lb sugar pumpkins
1/2 head celery
2 onions (yellow, Spanish) finely chopped 1 Jalapeno minced
1 Tabasco chile (minced) could substitute Serrano
3T grapeseed oil (could use any vegetable oil, that's what I had handy)
1 1/2 t ground cumin
4 cans vegetable broth
3 bay leaves
1 can evaporated skim milk
Freshly chopped parsley and pumpkin seeds for garnish

Ciut the top off the large pumkin, remove strings, seeds, etc. and bake at 35o uncovered until soft (around 2 hours). Allow too cool. Liquid will collect in the hollowed shell.
meanwhile quarter the smaller pumpkins, remove strings and seeds. Steam the quarters with the strings seeds in the water. Strain the strings seeds and keep the liquid, discarding the strings/seeds. Mix the strained liquid with the liquid from the baked pumpkin. Add liquids to the stock.
Heat the oil and toast the cumin. Add the onions chile peppers, and celery and soften with the lid on (10 minutes) add the pumpkin, the stock and a bayleaf. Turn heat down and simmer fo5 another 20 minutes or so.
Puree the soup (after removing the bay leaf) iuntil smooth. Return to heatand bring just to the boil. Turn the heat off, stir in the evaporated milk. Do not reoil at this point.

Serve with a garnish of parsley and pumpkin seeds inside the warmed pumpkin shell

White Chili

2010-10-31T12:18:00.001-05:00

Another Hallow-tini dish

This dish is inspired by Cooks Illustrated magazine and incorporates some prettyy clever ideas. It uses both cooked chilis and raw ones as well. It uses variety of chilis to get extra complexity.

Ingredients
4 lbs bone in skin on schicken breasts, patted dry and with salt pepper sprinkled on.
1T vegetable oil
2 medium Spanish (yellow) onions
5 medium Jalapeno chillies divided use
3 Poblano chillies divided use
4 Anaheim chillies
6 cloves garlic crushed
1 1/2 t ground cumin (best freshly ground)
2T ground coriander (best freshly ground)
4 cans cannelini beans (15 oz cans) rinsed
3 cups vegetable stock (I had vegetable stock left over!, chicken is fine)
Bunch minced cilantro leaves (including most of green part)
3 scallions
3T cider vinegar for balance
Salt/Pepper to taste

Method

In a Dutch Oven heat the oil and put in the chicken breasts skin side down. Leave for several (4-6) minutes without moving them and allow to brown. While cooking the chicken, chop the vegetable ingredients (1/2 the jalapenos, 1/2 the poblanos) in a couple of batches in the food processor. About 5 -7 short pulses. You are looking for chunky salsa not paste.
Turn the chicken over and cook on the bone side for a couple of minutes. The chicken is, of course, not cooked at this point. We have created fond in the pan.
Remove the chicken from the pan remove all but 1T of the fat. Add the chopped up vegetables, coriander and cumin. Cook for 10 minutes covered, on low heat until the onions are translucent and the peppers soft. You do not want any colour.
remove 1 cup or so of the cooked vegetable, 1 cup cannellini beans and 1 cup stock to the food processor bowl, and process until smooth. Return the smooth vegetable/bean misture to the dutch oven, add the rest of the stock. remove the skin from the chicken and discard. Place the chicken bone side up in the dutch oven, add the rest of the beans. Simmer for 15-20 minutes until the chicken temperature is around 160-165F. remove chicken and allow to cool slightly
Add the remainer of the beans and warm through allowing the beans to thicken the liquid.
Cut the chicken off the bone - into bite sized pieces. Add back into the pot.
At this point the dish can be refriegerated.

Finishing
Gently reheat the dish. While it is reheating, mince the remaining Jalapaneos and Poblanos withthe cilantro and scallions (inclusing some green parts). Add 3 T cider vinegar (or so, to balance), and adjust seasoning adding salt/pepper to taste.

Serve in bowls....

Lasagne (for a crowd)

2010-10-31T12:04:00.001-05:00

There's much debate about Lasagne. Ricotta or bechamel? Ground meat/chili-grind? Cook/no-cook pasta. All beef or beef/pork/veal? Too many variables.

For the Hallow-tini party I made a couple of pans of lasagne - and they seemed to be well received. I am in the bechamel, chili grind, beeef pork veal, 1/2 cook the pasta camp. But there is no one true lasagne. And oh, heresy I put carrots (grated) in there to add some sweetness and even more horrors soy sauce for umami. Not much but enough to add flavour without assertiveness.

This came out a bit wetter than I would have liked, so I suggest using less tomato juice

This makes 2 9x13x3 pans of lasagne

Ingredients - meat sauce
2T vegetable oil
5 lbs beef chuck. I buy it whole and break it down myself.
1 lb pork - I used boneless ribs
1 lb veal - I used shoulder. (You can skip the veal with little flavour loss, it does affect texture though)
3 Spanish (yellow onions, diced)
1/2 head of celery, diced small
6 carrots, grated
6 cloves garlic made into a paste
12 oz Tomato paste
1/4 cup soy sauce
3 bay leaves
3 T fresh thyme
3 large cans of chopped tomatoes (or use whole and break them down). I used all the juice, but 1/2 would have been better
Salt/pepper to taste

Method - meat sauce
Break down the meat into 1/2 - 1" chunks removing the big chunks of fat. Also strip out any silverskin or connective tissue. In 4 or 5 batches, pulse grind the meats in the food processor. You are looking for small chunks not a paste. It's about 10-12 pulses per batch in mine. Your mileage may vary.

In a dutch oven add the oil, brown the meat in 4 or 5 batches, pouring off some of the fat between batches. Set the meat aside. Into the same pan, put the onions, celery, carrot and cook on low until the onion has become translucent. You do not want any browning. When they are translucent, add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds more.

Transger the vegetables from the pot and add the tyomato paste. Cook fairly high, stirring constantly antil it thickens and brown a little. This develops extra flavor. Deglaze with soy sauce.

Add the vegetables,meat, some pepper, the thyme leaves and bay leaves back to the pot and stir together. Cover and simmer for at least an hour, preferably 2. Note this requires longer simmering than it would with ground beef.

Ingredients - bechamel
2 US Quarts whole milk

2 blades mace
1/2 medium onion (spanish) or use a shallot chopped thinly, roughly.
4 oz butter
4 oz flour

Method - bechamel
Put milk, mace, onion in a saucepan and heat sowly until bubbles form on thesurface. Turn heat off, cover and leave to steep for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, melt the butter over medium heat, and when foaming has stopped, add the flour and cook, stirring vigorously for 3 minutes to cook out the floury taste and make a blonde roux. Do not let the butter flour mixture brown.
Strain the hot milk mixture into the roux while whisking constantly to ensure no lumps. Discard the onion/mace from the strainer.
Bring the roux/milk mixture slowly to the boil allowing it to thicken. Boil gently for about 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Set aside.

Ingredients - Lasagne
12 sheets lasagne pasta (I was too chicken to try the noo cook kind)
1 measure meat sauce (above)
1 measure bechamel (above)
1t finely grated fresh nutmeg
1 1/2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese (hardly traditional!)
1 cup coarsley grated Parmigiano Reggiano
1 cup coarsely grated mozzarella (shredded low moisture. No point is using fresh ehere)

Method - Lasagne
Spray each pan with non-stick cooking spray. In each pan, lay down a covering of meat sauce. It wants to be about 1/4" (6mm).

1/2 cook the pasta sheets (6 minutes) in a lot of boiling salted water. This is my compromise between no-cook and fully cokked. Less risk than no cook and better texture than fully cooked.

On top of the meat layer, lay three sheets of 1/2 cooked pasta, side by side. Immediately follow with another meat layer. Follow that with a thin layer of bechamel (about 1/4 of the bechamel per addition). Sprinkle 1/2 the nutmeg on each layer of bechamel. Then follow with 1/2 the cheddar on each. Now another layer of pasta (as before) the rest of the meat, the rest of the becahmel and sprinkle on the parmesan/mozzrella mixture.

Refrigerate for a couple of days (if desired) covered with aluminum foil.

When time to cook, bring to room temperature. Cook covered at 375F for 1 hour with the foil on. Turn heat to 425F, uncover and cook for a further 15 minutes - until brown and bubbly. You want the inside to be about 180F on your instant read thermometer. It is a pretty deep dense pan, so it takes a while to come up to speed.

Mac and cheese

2010-10-31T12:03:00.000-05:00

Another dish from Hallow-tini.

When I learned to make "mac and cheese" (or as it is called in England, macaroni cheese), I learned using a bechamel sauce, so that's what I do.

Ingredients - bechamel

2 US Quarts whole milk
2 blades mace
1/2 medium onion (spanish) or use a shallot chopped thinly, roughly.
4 oz butter
4 oz flour

Method - bechamel
Put milk, mace, onion in a saucepan and heat sowly andtil bubbles form on thesurface. Turn heat off, cover and leave to steep for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, melt the butter over medium heat, and when foaming has stopped, add the flour and cook, stirring vigorously for 3 minutes to cook out the floury taste and make a blonde roux. Do not let the butter flour mixture brown.
Strain the hot milk mixture into the roux while whisking constantly to ensure no lumps. Discard the onion/mace from the strainer.
Bring the roux/milk mixture slowly to the boil allowing it to thicken. Boil gently for about 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Set aside.

Ingredients Mac and Cheese
3 1/2 lbs elbow macaroni
1 Recipe bechamel sauces(above)
2 cups Asiago grated
1 cup Cheddar grated
1 cup Pecorino Romano (not Locatelli) grated
1 cup Parmigiano Reggiano gtared coarsly
1 Cup shredded mozzarella (low moisture, part skim)
Salt/white pepper to taste

Method (Mac and Cheese)
Cook the pasta accroding to the packet directions for 3/4 of the time mentioned. You want there still to be a bit of a bite.Drain, but do not rinse.
Add the Asiago, Cheddar, Pecorino to the bechamel and stir carefully to incorporate.
Pour the bechamel/cheese misxture over the pasta and stir to incorporate.
Place into baking pans (12x8 or thereabouts). Sprinkle the evenly divided Parmigiano Reggiano and Mozzarella on top of the mac/cheese misxture.
Cover with foil and refrigerate up to 3 days.
When ready to serve, bring to room temperature. bake covered in a 375F oven for 45 minutes, and then uncovered to brown in a 425 oven for 15 or so. Serve piping hot

Infusing Vodka

2010-10-31T10:33:00.000-05:00

At the Hallow-tini party we made some infused vodkas.

The approach was that the guests would get a small measure of vodka (Titos) or Gin (Beefeater) and then add various "mixins" to create their own unique drinks. For the mixins we made some infused vodkas. Knowing that the mixins were going to be additions and not consumed straight, we made them pretty potent.

The basic process was easy.
Method
500 ml (essentially 1 US pint) of vodka
A bunch of flavoring agent (One of the agents below)
Mix the flavoring agent into the vodka
steep for 1 week - storing in a dark place, doesn't need to be refrigerated.
strain back into 500 ml water bottle
keep in freezer until time to use.

Flavoring Agents
4 dried habaneros quartered
12 fresh tabasco peppers split
24 black peppercorns, crushed
6 kaffir lime leaves roughly chopped
3 inch piece of ginger grated.

These are very strong so we provided medical pipettes to allow people to add them in small quantities to their drinks.

Of course 1 brave soul tried the habanero vodka as a shot. It is so cold that it anesthetizes initially. An ice dagger goes to your innards. And then it warms up, and every nerve gets the hit. The top of your head comes off spins round acouple of times and resettles with slightly glazed eyes. Emergency cookies are then applied to calm down again.

I can see using some of these flavorings as bases for "interesting" bloody marys

The Hallow-tini party

2010-10-31T10:09:00.002-05:00

We held a party for about 50 people last evening (October 30). The idea was to serve "martinis" where the gin/vodka were chilled (freezer then dry ice) and a dozen or so mixins were made available. Using medical pipettes, guests could doctor up their drinks to make flavor combinations that they wanted.

We had a variety of hot/spicy flavorings and some milder ones. The glasses were small, so folks could have several and try lots of flavors. Since the theme was halloween (and slight geek) we named the flavors appropriately. The one that had the best cross over name was dragon drops (drag and drop?) which was vodka infused with dried habaneros. We had some habaneros left from last years crop so dried them.

The spicy flavors were

Habanero vodka
Tabasco pepper vodka (made with the peppers not the bottle)
Black pepper vodka
Ginger vodka
Kaffir lime vodka
Joy (pickled jalapaneos) pickle juice

The milder flavors were:

Blue Curacao
Lime juice
Tia maria (dessert anyone)
Sweet pickle juice
Vermouth

Of course we had cocktail onions and stuffed olives too.

We decorated the yard (thanks Lisa) with appropriate pagan symbols, and fired up the fog machine, played suitable music, hired fantastic help and served the drinks and food.

Outdoor food

Empanadas from the Argentinean bakery
Various wings from wing stop
chips/salsa (hardly touched!) Too much fun

Indoor food

Pumpkin soup served in its shell (recipe in a following post)
White Chili (recipe in a following post)
Lasagne (recipe in a following post)
Mac and cheese (recipe in a following post)
Cheeses - details in a bit + crackers
Soprasetto salame
Olives, roasted red peppers, cippolini onions

Desserts

Party tray from Corner bakery
Fantastic cookies made by Claudia
Halloween M&Ms

The cheeses:

Delice de Bourgogne - A triple cream cows milk cheese from Burgundy
Pierre Robert - Another very decadent French triple cream
Keen's - Cheddar from England
Morbier - A raw milk cheese from france
Gorgonzola - from Italy

A good time was had by all.

We had a dining room party

2010-09-26T15:29:00.000-05:00

We completely remodeled the dining room - resulting in the need for a formal party to celebrate. It was in honour of the designer who worked so patiently with us. So we made it a special occasion.

Starting with some appetizers and a nice Cremant de Bourgogne in the living room (appetizers were an edamame dip with red chili, served with fried, salted wontons; Small cubes of aged Parmigiano Reggiano, some spiced olives. All this as a preface to the dinner itself.

Naturally we had home made bread - this time ciabatta rolls made in the afternoon. Butter balls accompanied those.

Starting with this salad, but using Valencia ornages instead of blood oranges, finished with pomegranate seeds and guanciale lardons. The wine was a 1998 Gravonia (100% Viura) Rioja. The pick of the litter from the 2009 Texas Sommeliers convention.

The main course was braised beef ribs (with cinnamon, clove, cardomom, thyme, nutmeg spicing), serverd over a bed of sauteed onion/grated carrot (they had been sauteed using the strained fat from the braise, together with pommes boulangere and sauteed red/rellow/orange peppers. The peppers had been julienned, but also had the interior layer of slightly bitter flesh removed. The wine for the main course was a Tikal Patriota (60% Bonarda, 40% Malbec). The faintly spicy notes in the wine really picked up the cinnamon and nutmeg in the braise, and the nutmeg/thyme in the potatoes.

For dessert we had a summer pudding served with thick cream. I aadded a little creme de cassis to the berries on this occasion. The pic below is from a previous event, but shows a summer pudding at its finest. The wine was a Beringer Nightingale 2005 Botyritized Semillion/Sauvignon Blanc blend. Perfect with the tartness of the berries and the lusciousness of the cassis.

After dinner we adjourned to the living room for after dinner drinks of Calvados, Angostrua Rumm and Bushmills 12 year old Irish. Together with specially roasted El Salvador Matalap coffee roasted to City+ to get some of its toffee notes developed, and Belcolade Costa Rican chocolate drops.

A very satisfactory evening indeed - and the first of many exciting dining occassions in the new dining room.

A sign! Edamame Dip

2010-09-19T16:05:00.000-05:00

This was clearly meant to be. Alton Brown on Good Eats did a show on edamame in which he described an edamame dip. Then yesterday madame and I were out for lunch and an edamame dip was offered. Must be a trendy thing. So not wishing to be behind any trends, I immediately thought about making one - so here it is. It's kinda like making hummus except that you use edamame instead of chick peas and red miso paste instead of tahini.
Ingredients
16 oz shelled edamame - cooked and cooled
6 green onions minced
3 cloves garlic peeled and sliced (you could reduce this to 1 or 2 depending on taste)
1 roasted hatch chile finely chopped
2 T red miso paste - key ingredient. Adds a depth and richness. We bought ours at an Asian supermarket
2T sweet chili sauce
1T soy sauce
Juice 1/2 lemon (more if needed to your taste)
1/3 cup vegetable oil

Method
Put everything except the lemon juice and oil into the food processor and process until mostly smooth. Add the lemon juice, blend again and taste. Adjust to suit your own taste. With the motor running, finish off the dip by adding the oil and continue to process until smooth. Taste, add salt/pepper to taste - we didn't because the soy sauce added enough saltiness.

Chill for 2 hours or so before serving.

We served it using bagel chips, but madame will be taking left overs to work with celery.

Timing and the one critical component of the dish

2010-08-17T07:31:00.000-05:00

No recipes in this post! I was watching "Michael Symon's How to cook like an iron chef" the other evening. I was struck by a few things in his approach. The first is the old adage of, "make sure you have all your ingredients ready" (aka get your mise en place together).

The second is, however much more valuable to me. I realised that for each of the dishes that he demonstrated, there was really only one thing whose timing was really critical. However, the dishes themselves had a lot going on. So that prompted me to think about how we manage time in the kitchen.

I suspect that we all have our own natural rhythms. Sort of instincts about how long it takes us to do certain tasks. Also we probably have an idea how long the critical item will be doing its thing. So, for example, Chef Symon was cooking some skirt steak. He talked about it taking 3 minutes on the first side, and less on the second. So we know that it will be done in 5 minutes, and then perhaps some resting afterwards - maybe another 5 minutes. 10 in all.

We therefore need to ask ourselves, "Is it possible for me to make the accompanying salad, set the table, pour the water,...in that 10 minutes total, recognizing that there are interruptions?" If you are anything like me, the answer is no, so we need to find ways of getting the other tasks done. The goal is for the meat to be perfect - after all it is both the star of the show and the major constraint on readiness. So perhaps you lay the table first, make up the salad dressing, assemble the salad all before you put the meat on to cook. It depends on your rhythms. Some of us like to work fast, almost in a panic - rushing about. Others prefer a more deliberate pace. The key is that you can't base your timing and sequence on what you see someone else doing. You have to decide for yourself and then avoid putting to much pressure on.

Green Goddess Soup

2010-08-01T09:31:00.001-05:00

Madame and I went to a very good wine tasting at the Classic Cafe last Wednesday evening. As usual the restaurant did a very good meal, and they had clearly thought carefully about the pairings. For the soup course, the chef made a "Green Goddess" soup. It reminded me a bit of the cooking of Michel Guerard - he of cuisine minceur fame. It was a very green soup, with herby flavours - especially sorrel and garnished with sorrel leaves - and the surprise element was a drop or 2 of sriracha - the pungent, slightly sweet red chili sauce named for a small town in Thailand. Srirarcha sauce (plastic bottle, green cap, picture of a rooster) is actually made for the US market and complements this dish well, both in flavour and colour So this was a pretty dish, served beautifully. So good that Madame said, "I am sure you can make this".
Ever up for the challenge I tried. My approach was to be using avocado to give the soup body, blanched herbs and spinach for the flavor and lemon juice for brightening. A small amount of chicken stock to set the texture just right.
My first attempt (an abject failure) was to use water cress, cilantro, and a couple of varieties of Asian mint. That was terrible - too bitter. So I threw it away!
The second attempt was a whole lot better, so here are the details.
Ingredients
1 ripe avocado
Juice of 1 lemon
4 Cups baby spinach
2 Cups fresh basil
1/2 cup fresh tarragon
1/2 cup fresh marjoram
2 Thai peppers minced
About 6 oz chicken stock (although I think vegetable might have been better)
Extra basil leaves chiffonade for garnish
Large sea salt crystals for garnish/taste
8 drops sriracha (2 drops per serving)
12 drops sherry vinegar on the basil garnish
Method
Bring a large pot of water to the boil (at least a gallon). Prepare an ice bath - again about a gallon of ice and water. Scoop the avocado flesh into a blender, and add the lemon juice. Quickly blanch the spinach and herbs. They should be in the boiling water for about 5 seconds and then immediately transferred to the ice bath. They will all wilt. This will help remove some bitterness and allow them to retain their bright green colour.
Add the hot peppers, blanched spinach and herbs to the blender and blend on high. You will need to add some stock to help it come together. You will need to blend until it is completely smooth and even coloured.
When the soup is completely blended, transfer to a covered container and refrigerate at least 4 hours.
Serving
Serve in chilled bowls. Chef Gilbert would have been proud - I chilled the bowls, and then placed the chilled bowls inside larger bowls packed with ice. Nice presentation. Into each bowl place a ladle of soup and 2 drops of sriracha. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt. Garnish with the basil chiffonade and 3 drops of sherry vinegar.

This did get the "we can serve this to people" accolade from Madame, so I figure it was a success.

Ripening peaches

2010-07-25T11:50:00.001-05:00

I cant claim to have come up with this myself. Nowever this method is so good that I just have to pass it on.

Place a dish towel on a rack of some kind. Place the peaches on the dish towel with their stalk ends down. Make sure the peaches are not touching each other. Cover with another towel and leave in a cool dark (I don't know how important the dark is) place for a while. It is imprecise because I don't know how unripe yours are.

We did try an experiment. We kept some from the same batch out on the counter and we ripened some by the above method. Night and day difference. The covered versions were so much more tasty, so much more juicy.

I am converted

Summer pudding

2010-07-04T08:52:00.002-05:00

This is in the tradition of English puddings using the bounty of the season. It is also a handy way of using left over bread! I make it in a 1 1/2 quart pudding basin - a lampshade shaped basin. Since I did this for July 4th. I served the red dish on a blue plate with white whipped cream.

Ingredients
1 1/2 lb raspberries
12 oz blueberries
8 oz blackberries
1 cup superfine sugar
several slices of challah or other light, absorbent bread. Do not use sourdough.
Whipped cream - to serve

Method
Clean the berries and place them into a saucepan with the sugar. Bring to a simmer slowly, stirring occasionally. You want the berries to give up their juices but not to become cooked.
Meanwhile spray the pudding basin with non-stick spray (or grease lightly with butter). Cut the crusts off the bread slices. Make a circular piece of the bread, dip it into the juices and place in the bottom of the basin. Line the sides of the basin with bread slices - also dipped in the juices. Make sure that there are no gaps - overlapping the slices as necessary.
When the fruit has cooled, somewhat, pour the fruit and some of the juice into the lined basin. Create a bread "lid" for the basin, dip it in the juice and put it on the top of the fruit. reserve the remainder of the juice
Pour some of the remaining juice onto the bread lid.
Cut a circle of waxed paper (butcher paper is fine) to the size of of the top of the basin and place on top of the lid. Place a small plate on top of the waxed paper and then a weight on top of that. I am using a 28 oz can of tomatoes as the weight.
Refrigerate the weighted basin for at least 8 hours - and for anything up to 48 hours.
Unmold the pudding from the basin, and serve with whipped cream alongside.

dulce de leche

2010-07-04T08:40:00.000-05:00

This sinfully good milk caramel is the easiest thing in the world to make. That is going to be a problem. When something that good is too easy, there is a danger of it ending up on our hips. How easy, you might ask?
This easy.

Ingredients
1 can sweetened condensed milk.

Method
Take the paper wrapping off the can of sweetened condensed milk. Place the can (unopened) into a large pan of water. Make sure it is fully covered. Bring water to a gentle simmer, put the lid on the pan and simmer for at least 2 hours. Turn the heat off, allow to cool overnight. Open can and spoon out the caramel lusciousness.

Yup that really is all there is to it.

Fun with eggs

2010-06-27T09:27:00.000-05:00

I have to stay entertained while madame is away. The easiest and most troublefree way is to play with my food. So this morning I took a couple of things that normally aren't used together and experimented. The ingredients were eggs, the equipment - the steamed milk attachment to my espresso machine.

3 eggs beaten with a little salt and pepper. Put into a small stainless steel jug. Insert steam nozzle, move the jug around and in about 30 seconds, light, fluffy, puffy, firm eggs. So simple and absolutely delicious.

So future experiments will envolve some "fillings" in the eggs. I think smoked salmon would be nice, maybe some very thinly sliced ham (maybe a prosciutto cotto). I could imagine some cream there too, but don't yet know what that would do to the texture. I'll report back on those tricks later.

So for a first attempt an amazing success.

Spanish tortilla redux

2010-05-04T12:52:00.000-05:00

In a previous posting, I talked about making a Spanish tortilla (that potato egg dish that is a staple of Spanish cooking). In previous incarnations, I used potatoes that had been boiled and then allowed to cool. That of course is not the way it should be done, but is quite handy if you have some cooked spuds lying around. The "real" way of doing a tortilla is to poach the potatoes in oil. How much difference does this make you might ask? How greasy will it be? The answers are simple. It makes a huge difference and it isn't greasy. So this will be the way from now on.
Ingredients
2 cups olive oil (not extra virgin, just a good quality oil)
4 medium yukon gold potatoes, peeled and sliced thinly
1t kosher salt
1/2 medium yellow onion sliced thinly into rings
5 large eggs
a couple of threads of saffron (steeped in the eggs)

Method
In an 8" non stick pan bring the oil up to a suitable temperature over a medium flame. Suitable here is when you see viscous threads in the oil, but it won't brown a bread cube. This is not a frying process, but a poaching process. Meanwhile salt the potato slices lightly. When the oil is at temperature, slide the potato slices in to the pan, and poach lightly for about 15 minutes - until the potato slices are soft. Do not allow the potatoes to brown. Add the onion slices, again allow to poach with no browning. When the onion is cooked, remove the potatoes and onion from the pan. Drain the oil and stir for a future use.

Beat the eggs with a little salt/pepper. Add the drained potatoes and onions back to the pan, and turn the heat to medium. Allow to warm. When warmed, pour the egg mixture over the potatoes and onions - cook until just set.

Allow to cool to room temp and server

Antipasti

2010-04-30T06:46:00.000-05:00

2 new ideas/techniques this week. Well new to me. The first was inspired by Mario Batali and discovered here, the second done out of necessity. So, the lentils are first up. They are a simple dish, lots of flavor and very inexpensive - especially if you buy the cheap supermarket lentils. The link suggests some rather more fancy lentils, but I used the 75 cent supermarket variety just fine.

Lentils with Guanciale
Ingredients
8 oz packet of lentils sorted to remove any small stones or other bad things
2 carrots halved
2 celery ribs halved
2 T Coarse Dijon mustard
2 bay leaves
3 Oz guanciale or pancetta or other unsmoked bacon in a single piece
Water to cover lentils
Method
Place the lentils, carrots, celery, mustard, bay leaves and guanciale in a saucepan. Cover by 1 inch with water, and stir to mix everything together.
Put over low heat, cover and bring to a simmer. Simmer for about 25 minutes - or until the lentils are cooked. They should be al dente and not mushy.
Remove from the pan, discard the vegetation and chop the guanciale into 1/4 inch or less pieces. Mix the guanciale thoroughly back into the lentils.
Allow to cool to room temperature and serve with olive oil drizzled over it and maybe a little sherry vinegar if you want the acid bite. Depending on the pork product you use, you may need a little salt. My guanciale is pretty salty, so I found I did not need any.

Roasted and Oil Poached Red Peppers
This recipe came about because i was in a hurry and wanted some roasted peppers. The trusty blowtorch came to the rescue, but more needed to be done. The peppers come out sweet and tender, but don't have the caramelized roasted flavor.
Ingredients
4 red peppers
1/2 cup high quality olive oil (I used a good extra virgin oil)
Method
Using an open flame (in my case the blow torch that Madame is so frightened of), blacken the skins of the peppers. This does not fully roast them, just makes them easy to peel.
Peel and seed the peppers and cut into 1 inch wide strips.
Place the pepper strips in a sauce pan and add the olive oil. Heat over low heat, taking care that the oil does not even reach the shimmering stage until the peppers are softened - about 15 minutes.
Remove the peppers from the oil - with a couple of tablespoons of the oil too, and place on the antipasti dish. Use the rest of the oil in a vinaigrette where the slight red pepper flavor adds some depth to the vinaigrette.

The Behmor 1600 Coffee Roaster

2010-04-10T20:22:00.000-05:00

Our old and trusty iRoast 2 coffee roaster has been ailing for a while. It wheezed to life only to stop half way through a roast resulting in very unevenly roasted beans - reminiscent of an old man's shaving - there are simply patches of beans that got too little attention.

So what to do? There are some wonderful machines on the market - with exotic prices to match. I had thought about the Gene cafe roaster but at $495 that seemed too much. Then I saw the Behmor 1600 at sweetmarias.com for $299 and I was hooked. As usual when ordering from sweetmarias, the process was flawless and included an assortment (8 x 1lb bags) of green coffee beans

The device arrived on Thursday night. I was a little startled that it is about the size of a toaster oven - but no matter. Madame was, of course, horrified. Anyhow, I set it up ran its cleaning cycle and roasted my first lb of beans. I used the same beans that we had been using in the iRoast - Sumatram Mandehling so we could do a beans to beans comparison.

Night and day difference. First, of course, the new machine produced a perfectly even roast. Second it didn't go from FC+ to Vienna in the blink of an eye. I found I could control the roast pretty easily. Third is was blissfully quiet. I wasn't getting beat frequencies from its motor and the vent hood. The smoke was less than the iRoast2 for the same degree of roasting as well. So all in all I am happy.

For those contemplating the device, I used 15oz of coffee and did the roast on P3 to get an FC+. I killed the roast with about 30 seconds to go to prevent over roasting.

This may be enough to convince me to drink coffee again!

Naturally Slim

2010-04-03T08:19:00.000-05:00

I have noticed that my clothes are becoming a bit tight and that the lying scales are becomeing more mendacious by the day. The result being that I need to drop some lbs. The question is how to? How does a serious, committed chowhound manage to limit the input while keeping the passion for food and love of cooking going.

Fortunately there are a couple of things on my side. First my employer, Sabre pays for a program called naturally slim. Second the house is in disarray because of some remodeling.
Naturally Slim, in a nutshell, says a couple of basic things. Eat when you are hungry, eat slowly, don't mistake thirst for hunger. They also recommend a dilute orange juice solution to drink to help smooth out blood sugar and keep you from wanting to gnaw the meat of any uncovered arms that happen by.
It's been 10 days, I have dropped about 7lbs and have (mostly) not been starving. Certainly I am eating less and that is goodness.However the diluted orange juice is an absolute non-starter. So to replace that I have made up a concoction using maple syrup. The diluted OJ is 1 part OJ to 7 parts water. To get the same glycemic load, I use 1/3 cup maple syrup to 1 gallon water. It tastes faintly mapley (?!) and isn't bad at all.

The big aha is that if I drink a pint of that, a pint of tea (milk and 1/2 t of sugar) and a pint of water first thing in the morning, I am actually not hungry until almost noon. Contrast that with eating a piece of toast and marmalade for breakfast, followed by being so ravenous at about 9:30.

I haven't actually changed what I eat much at all. definitely avoiding the snacking on candies that are littered around the office, am eating more slowly - eat slowly for 10 minutes, rest for 5, eat slowly for another 10 and the brain/stomach signals should combine saying, "yes you are full". They mostly do. So goodness all around there.

The secret weapon? Exercise of course, but with a twist. The approach requires so much liquid that one has to go to the bathroom every 45 minutes or so. Many extra walking steps as a result!

The goal of the 10 week program is to change the lifestyle so that one needs less food. Eat what you want, but only do it when hungry, and stay hydrated. We'll see.

During the early stages, I have little desire to cook :-(. I am sure that the passion will return once I am off the draconian early weeks - and when the house is finally fixed.

Duck egg omelette

2010-03-05T07:55:00.000-06:00

This started with a conversation with Dave Gilbert (he of many culinary adventures documented elsewhere in this blog and at Dave Gilbert's Blog.) On a phone call he said, "we need to meet, I have something tasty for you." I didn't need much further encouragement.

We met up for dinner at Cretia's in Dallas, and headed off afterwards for a pint or 2 at the Amsterdam bar. All in all a good evening. At the end of the evening he hunted in the back of his car for the taste treat - and what a treat it was. 1/2 dozen very fresh duck eggs in a pink styrofoam box. The box isn't my color, and the eggs weren't "duck egg blue".

Duck eggs are a bit larger than hen eggs, and the yolks is disproportionally large - at least compared to hen eggs. So they are rather richer and seem to have a more eggy, definite flavor.

So, when Madame saw them in the fridge yesterday, she asked, "What will we do with these?" The obvious answer seemed to be a duck egg omellette , a small salad and some simple fried potatoes. Madame and fried food - now that's a tough sell. But well cooked, properly seasoned and the deal was done. It helped that I had them started before she got home!

The omelettes were tricky - no real recipe needed, but the duck eggs seemed not to hold together quite as well as hen eggs, so it was hard to get a nicely rolled omelette. Still cooking it without colour was easy, and we melted just a little Raclette cheese inside before folding it onto the plate.

Salad was simple - some leaf lettuce, avocado, halved cherry tomatoes and a home made vinaigrette - 1 part sherry vinegar, 1 part very good olive oil, 3 parts peanut (or other neutral) oil. Peanut oil is what I had handy, and it has (to me) less of a flavour that fights with the olive oil. Salt, pepper, shake and it takes almost the same amount of time to use a home made vinaigrette as it does to open a bottle, scrape the crud off the sides, sniff it to make sure it is still OK, trying to remember when you bought it, looking at expiry date and realizing it was 2008...

Potatoes - easy too. Make 1/2 inch cubes of 2 lbs peeled yukon gold potatoes. Heat 1/2 cup (yes that is a lot, I know) of olive oil (not extra virgin) until shimmering hot. Dump the potatoes in and let fry for at least 5 minutes before touching them. Keeping the heat high. That way they don't stick - and no I didn't use a non-stick pan. Toss the potatoes to cook on all sides. When nearly done, make the omelettes. Serve the omelletes on the same plate as the salad, salt the potatoes and put on the plate too.

A crisp Sancerre or Pinot Grigio goes well with this. The eggs are so rich that you want some dryness/acidity in the wine to cut through it.

Dave probably wants pictures. Sadly I forgot to take any :-(

Simple chicken soup

2010-01-29T08:26:00.000-06:00

I have been feeling under the weather - with a cough/cold/sore throat. Unimaginably grumpy - poor Madame. So I thought maybe some chicken soup might help. As you can imagine preprepared chicken soup doesn't do it for a variety of reasons. So I needed to make some. This is an unbelievably simple way of doing it - and surprisingly good given the amount of effort involved. As Madame would say, "the taste to effort ratio makes this worth doing". Not quite as high praise as "we can serve this to people", but still worthwhile. The vegetables and chicken aren't browned, so there is no flavor from caramelization. It's just chicken/aromatics/stock/water. It looks like a lot of ingredients, but the prep time is very short. As you will see from the method you just bung them all in the pot.
Ingredients
1 whole roasting chicken (this one was about 5lbs)
2 medium onions sliced pole to pole
6 medium carrots cut into 1 inch pieces
6 stalks celery roughly chopped
2 Fennel bulbs washed and quartered
3 Kaffir (Thai) lime leaves
3 inches lemon grass cut on the bias into 1/2 inch pieces
2 cups chicken stock
2 cups (or so) water
1 Chipotle pepper
3" piece of fresh ginger peeled and roughly chopped
Salt/pepper to taste
Method
Clean out the cavity of the chicken and remove the silly pop up timer (if present). Place the whole chicken into a large dutch oven. Sprinkle the flavoring ingredients (except the salt) into the pot, add the liquids. Bring to a simmer over a medium flame and then simmer for at least 90 minutes with the lid on. The chicken will make its own broth while it cooks. If you cook it for longer than 90 minutes (and it does get better with time), then discard the vegetables 1/2 an hour before the end of cooking and put in fresh vegetables. The old vegetables have given everything up so you will need fresh to get them to taste of something.

Brining boneless/skinless chicken breasts

2010-01-25T17:35:00.001-06:00

As we have heard on many occasions, brining chicken is a good way to keep the meat juicy - especially for parts that are naturally dry - like boneless/skinless breasts. Many of you know that I will almost always choose an opportunity to get some fat/flavor into my dishes, but sometimes that simply isn't an option.
Yesterday afternoon I was presented with about 3lbs of boneless skinless chicken breasts of varying thickness and told that they needed to be grilled. No it wasn't that peremptory, but the people concerned had clearly experienced dry chicken before.

There really aren't many opportunities for getting flavoring in, so brining was it. It is pretty straightforward and doesn't require a whole lot of precision, just some attention to hygeine.
Ingredients
1/2 cup table salt (3/4 - 1 cup kosher salt)
6 whole cloves
6 whole cardomoms (green or white it doesn't matter)
12 whole peppercorns
12 coriander seeds
2 star anise
2 cups boiling water
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
4 cups ice cubes
4 cups ice water
3lb chicken breasts

Method
In a non reactive pan put the first 8 ingredients. Bring to the boil and stir until the salt/sugar are dissolved. Immedietaley add the ice too cool. Pour liquid into a 1 gallon zip-lock bag and add the cold water. Add the chicken breasts. Seal the bag, expelling all the air.
Refrigerate the chicken breasts for 1 - 2 hours. No more than 2 hours.
When ready to grill, pour the liquid off the breasts, rinse and pat dry with paper towels. Make sure you carefully wash down the surfaces that have touched the raw chicken.
Cook the chicken on a high heat grill for a couple of minutes/side. Thicker pieces will need longer than thinner pieces of course. Use the nick and peek technique to check for doneness.

Mushroom Risotto

2010-01-17T13:48:00.000-06:00

At a conversation over dinner earlier in the week our friend Claudia was bemoaning the fact that risotto rather intimidated her, but she really liked it. So I suggested that while Madame and friends were playing tennis, she should come over and play in the kitchen and we would make dinner. That seemed like an excellent plan, so she came over and made a very good risotto. I have to admit it was rather nice having someone else doing all the work :-). This turned into some general instruction around chopping, sequence, ratios, and technique. All good.
The key ratio is the ratio of rice to liquid. Typically this is between 3 and 3 1/2 to 1. Hence 7 cups stock for the 2 cups of rice in the recipe below.
Ingredients (for 8 as a starter)
4 portabella mushrooms cut into small cubes.
2T butter
7 cups chicken stock (you may not use all of it, but make sure you have enough)
6T mixed dried mushrooms (optional)
2T olive oil
4 shallots, minced
2 cups arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 bunch Italian (flat leaf) parsley chopped finely
2T butter
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
Method
In a 4 qt saucier melt the butter, and when melted add the chopped portabellas and cook gently over lowish heat until all the water has evaporated. Meanwhile put the chicken stock and dried mushrooms into a sauce pan and heat almost to boiling.
When the portabellas are cooked, transfer to a bowl and set aside. Rinse and dry the saucier. In the saucier heat the 2T olive oil until a piece of shallot just sizzles. This is nowhere near the smoke point. Add the shallots and turn the heat down to sweat the shallots. You want to avoid getting any color onto the shallots, but they want to be soft. Add the rice and turn the heat up a bit, toasting the rice. You want to see some very slight browning and a slight translucency. About 4 minutes. Make sure that you do stir the mixture to make sure it doesn't stick.
Once the rice is toasted, deglaze with the white wine. It will evaporate quickly, but leave its flavor compounds behind. As soon as the wine is absorbed, add 1 ladle of hot stock to the rice. Stir until the liquid is absorbed - essentially once you drag the spoon through the rice, the bottom of the pan should be almost dry. Every time the liquid is absorbed, add another ladle of stock, and stir. Repeat this process a few times.
Eventually (after about 6-8 additions), the stock will start to be absorbed more slowly. So at this stage add the stock in 1/2 ladle increments.
Remove the rehydrated mushrooms from the stock (assuming that you are using some dried mushrooms too), and chop roughly to be the same size as the portabella pieces. Add the chopped mushrooms to the portabellas.
When the risotto has the right texture - creamy and with a slight resistance to the bite, add the mushrooms and stir through. Now add the cheese, butter, parsley. Stir and adjust the seasoning to taste.
Serve immediately in warmed bowls with teh same wine that you used to deglaze the pan initially.

Poached pear with Cashel blue cheese and pistachio brittle

2010-01-14T20:48:00.001-06:00

In the previous post I described pistachio brittle. This was for the pear/blue cheese dessert at this event. We bought the cheese at Scardellos (of course), where we also took some of the Stellekaya wines for the hard working staff there to try.

This is the recipe for making the dish, illustrated below.

This is a relatively simple dish to make, but has a great wow factor.

Ingredients (serves 12)

6 bosc pears peeled, quartered and cored

3 cups sugar

2 cups red wine

4 oz Cashel blue cheese

8 oz crushed pistachio brittle (about 1/3 of the recipe from the previous posting)

Method

In a 4 quart pan, dissolve the sugar in the red wine and bring to a simmer. Add the pears and ensure that they are well coated. Simmer for 90 minutes stirring every so often to make sure all pears are covered. The pear should turn a deep purple on the surface.

When the pears are cooked and the liquid is syrupy, take the pears off heat and reserve the syrup. Cut 12 of the pear quarters into small cubes (1/3 inch). Fan the other 12 quarters.

Lay the fanned quarter on the plate, make a tower with the pear cubes, the cheese and top with a little brittle.

Spoon sone syrup onto the plate and serve.

The Pistachio Brittle

2010-01-14T20:31:00.000-06:00

For the most recent underground dinner, we had a dessert involving poached pears, some blue cheese and pistachio brittle. Why pistachio brittle? you might ask. Simply because we had some pistachios and I thought they would go better with the pears than traditional peanut brittle would. And by all accounts it did!
Ingredients
2 cups sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup water
1 cup butter - preferably unsalted, chopped into small cubes
2 - 3 cups shelled, roasted, salted pistachios
1 t baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)

Method
In a straight sided pan with a candy thermometer clipped to the side, place the sugar, water and corn syrup. Bring to the boil, stirring frequently over a medium flame. It should rwach a full, rolling boil after about 10-15 minutes.Add the butter and cover the pan for a couple of minutes. The thermometer will be in the way, so do the best you can.
Put a "flame tamer" under the pan (or a cast iron pan) such that the heat is properly diffused, preventing any hot spots in the pan. Cook and stir the mixture until it reaches about 280F. Be very careful that you o not get any of this mixture on yourself during the process. It retains heat and sticks as well.
Add the pistachios and stir to incorporate. Continue to heat until the temperature reaches 305F. You should stir the nisxture the whole time. By adding the nuts while the caramel is a bit cooler gives the mixture a bit of a chance to toast the nuts for extra flavor.
Once it has reached 305F, stir in the baking soda and stir. The mixture will foam up, so be careful.
Pour into a greased baking sheet, smooth into the corners with a palette knife and allow to cool.

Underground dining featuring Stellekaya wines

2010-01-13T18:28:00.000-06:00

It's been a busy week. On Thursday Dave Gilbert and I worked to deliver some appetizers at a charity wine event honoring Ntsiki Biyela - the wine maker from the South African winery called Stellekaya. On Sunday + Chris F and Graeme F. (no relation to each other despite the F. for last names), we put together a 7 course dinner for a carefully selected group of wine and food lovers. In subsequent posts I will outline some of the recipes - at least those that I know about! here, I will simply outline the dishes and attach the required "Food Porn" photographs!

Dave's web site beyondthekitchen.com will have more details and more pictures.

The Charity Event
For this event we made 7 appetizers. They ranged from soup to dessert. They are

Chinese Pumpkin soup with cinnamon foam and crispy fried sage leaves
Seafood lollipops
Sous vide beef tenderloin over mealie porage
Bacon and eggs - braised pork belly topped with a quail egg and a tomato vinaigrette
Spiced fruit beggars' purses
Dried fruit shooters with whipped cream and passion fruit puree
Layered gelees of Baileys/Banana/Colada and rooibos tea

Rooibos tea - or red bush tea is a drink made from a bush native to the Western Cape Province of South Africa. The better grocery stores in the US are beginning to carry it.

The Underground Dinner
This event had 7 courses and was rather more substantial than the charity event. While there was some overlap in dishes, the presentation was quite different.
Dave, Chris F., Graeme F. and I were busy cooking all day Sunday. Dave, of course started much earlier in the week. His planning meant that several of the dishes/ingredients were shared with other events and thus were prepared earlier in the week. Chris F.'s deft hand with the presentation made the dishes look fantastic. Graeme (being the only South African in the kitchen) made the bobotie. The courses were:

Chinese pumpkin soup with cinnamon foam, cinnamon perfume and crispy sage leaves. Yes this was a new batch, not left overs from the charity!
A trio of South African meats. Biltong and boerewors both (made by Graeme's dad and shipped to me) and Graeme's bobotie.

Bacon and eggs - as at the chairty event, except we used sous vide hen eggs this time. This was served with a mushroom ketchup doing duty instead of brown or HP sauce.

Kudu biltong (dried, cured kudu - like beef jerky)
Duck confit and roasted garlic gnocchi topped with lightly fried monkfish liver

Sous vide backstrap of wild venison served over caramelized bananas, garnished with crispy fried plantain strips

Red wine poached pears served with a little Cashel blue cheese and home made pistachio brittle.

For this event we made sure we had professional serving help. Nico who has just got his sommelier pin helped Ntsiki with the pouring and kept the cooks honest with place settings, flatware, etc.

New Year's Eve

2010-01-01T11:32:00.000-06:00

It was a quiet evening - Madame is out of town :-(. Bryan was free and as usual had some wines to try. So I put together a quick dinner to suit. Of course with 2 of us and several wines to try, it became a bit complex! For the main course I did an old stand-by http://seabirdskitchen.blogspot.com/2007/12/french-bistro-chicken-in-pot.html. Served with Pommes Anna (using the Cooks Illustrated recipe) and some sauteed/steamed cauliflower with fresh red chiles.. For a starter I made a room temp black-eyed pea dish, and for dessert a cherry clafoutis using some mysterious liquor brought back by a co-worker from Poland. Dave Gilbert came later and brought a bottle of the Stellekaya Orion 2005 with him. So we just sipped on that without a food pairing. That was a fantastic bottle. The evening did go on a bit and I see 5 used wine bottles (not all empty) shared amount the three of us. That goes some way to explaining why I feel a little groggy this morning - that and getting to bed slightly after 2am! So here are some of the dishes...

Black Eyed Peas
Ingredients
1t neutral vegetable oil
1 Linguisa sausage (you could use kielbasa if you wanted) diced into 1/4" cubes
1 medium red onion diced
12 oz fresh black eyed peas
2 cups chicken stock
1 yellow bell pepper (diced and blanched)
Cabbage leaves blanched - 1 per person
salt/pepper as needed
3 drops lemon juice per serving.
Coarse sea salt for crunch

Method
In a skillet, heat the oil over a medium flame until shimmering. Add the sausage and cook until it has taken on some color. Add the onion and cook some more - softening the onion. Once the onion is soft, add the peas, toss to mix well and add the stock. Bring to a simmer and simmer for 10 or so minutes. Turn off the heat, adjust the seasoning - that will largely depend on the sausage you are using.

Serving
Blanch the yellow pepper dice for 10-15 seconds in boiling, lightly salted water and immediately transfer to an ice bath. Do the same with the individual cabbage leaves.
Place the cabbage leaf on the plate, and trim to desired shape with kitchen shears. Make a small mound of the room temp peas/onions/sausage on the leaf. Add the lemon juice, sprinkle some of the yellow pepper on top, scatter some sea salt and serve.

Pairing
2003 Hermitage Blanc Paul Jaboulet "Gaspard de Sterimberg" This was crisp enough to cut through the fattiness of the linguisa. It stood up well to the intense flavors, but was otherwise a bit undistinguished. Surprisingly less interesting than the 2005 that we tasted at the Texas Sommelier convention back in August..

Clafoutis
Clafoutis is a traditional French dessert from the Limousin area of central France. It is a simple enough dessert, but is very impressive looking when it comes out of the oven. Think giant cherry popover (or Yorkshire pudding) . Like many batters this batter is better if allowed to develop a little, so I make it an hour in advance, and refrigerate it. I hold back a little milk to thin it just prior to makeing the dessert.

Ingredients
3/4 cup all purpose flour
Pinch of salt
6 eggs
1 cup whole milk
Butter to grease the dish
1 lb of pitted cherries. I used a jar of sour cherries in light syrup. These were drained
3T Kirsch

Method
Sift the flour into a small bowl with the salt. Beat the eggs lightly in a separate bowl and incorporate the eggs into the flour using a whisk. Add all but 2T of the milk and whick until a smooth batter is formed. Leave to stand (in the fridge) for about an hour.
Drain the cherries and then immediately cover with the liqueur and toss to make sure that the cherries are fully covered. Leave these to sit too.
When ready to cook it, preheat the oven to 400F. Grease a low oven proof pan (I use a gratin dish) thoroughly with unsalted butter. Mix the cherries into the batter and pour immediately into the greased dish. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 35 minutes - or until puffy. Sprinkle with superfine sugar and serve hot from the oven - maybe with a little thin cream.

Boxing Day

2009-12-28T06:16:00.001-06:00

On those years when Madame and I are in the country over Christmas and December 26th is a weekend, we have a Boxing Day (day after Christmas, feast of Stephen) party. This year was no exception. Our typical approach is to ask the people who come to bring food items for our local Church's food pantry. Those who came (about 75 people in all) did the church proud. So a heartfelt thanks to everyone.
We made a few dishes to set the scene, nowing that in addition to the church pantry food, guests would bring all manner of wonderful things. And they did! It was a wonderful day.
We made a couple of different kinds of chili and almost 3 gallons of mulled wine - most of which got drunk. So in this posting I will do what I can to put a couple of recipes out...

First the mulled wine:
Ingredients
12 bottles of dryish red wine. We used a Cabernet/Merlot from Spain - the key is that it is fruity enough
1 bottle port
24 inches cinnamon stick broken into small pieces
60 cloves
2t coriander seeds
2T whole green cardomoms
4 oranges - greated zest and juice
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups water

Method
Place the wine, port, orange juice and zest into a large heavy pan and place on ,ow heat. Make up spice bags from most of the cinnamon, cloves and all the cardomom and coriander. Immerse the bags in the wine mixture. Put the sugar and remaining cinnamon/cloves in a small pan and heat to dissolve the sugar and make a flavored syrup. As the wine comes to temperature (not boiling, but very hot), add the syrup to taste. depending on the wine, you may find you do not need all the syrup. Steep the pices for at least an hour. Serve hot in small mugs.....

And now the chili. There is of course a lot of discussion and controversy about chili, so I can only tell you what I did, not what's right! For me the first rule is that it must neither be wimpy, nor blow your head off. I also prefer to use finely chopped meat, not ground beef. The chili has a mixture of dried and fresh peppers of various strengths and a fair amount of cumin. At least this chili did not make such a large amount as the mulled wine!

Ingredients
3 1/2 lbs beef chuck see method for details on preparation
2 ancho peppers ground finely
6 dried cayenne peppers
3 fresh cayenne peppers
3T cumin seed ground finely
1 medium yellow onion chopped finely
3 large carrots grated
1 can tomato paste
2 cans crushed tomatoes - drained
2 bay leaves
1 Chipotle pepper (dried - not in adobe)
Salt/pepper as necessary.
2 Raw green jalapenos - thinly sliced
1 white onion thinly sliced
Method
Remove the fat from the chuck and set to render over low heat in a large skillet. Letting the beef fat render adds greater depth to the dish than using oil for browning the meat. Slice the meat into 1/4 inch cubes. Do not salt the meat. Brown the meat in the hot beef fat in several batches. making sure you have plenty of browning.
While the beef is browning, grind the dry spices finely in a spice grinder (or old coffee grinder). Slice the onions, grate the carrots and slice the fresh cayennes thinly.
Once the beef is browned, pour off some of the fat. Add the dry spices to the remaining hot fat and heat until fragrant (1bout 15 seconds). Add the onions and carrots, scraping the bottom of the pan to get the fond mixed it and the spices well incorporated. Soften the carrots/onions for several minutes - do not allow to brown. Add the fresh cayenne peppers and stir.
Move the onion mixture to the side and add the can of tomato paste to the exposed pan. heat it until it browns and varamelizes a bit. This adds extra depth to the chili. Once it is suitable caramelized, mix it in with the onion mixture.
Drain the crushed tomatoes, add to the onion mixture and stir. Check for seasoning - I added about 1t salt at this stage.
Put the browned meat back in to the pan and add the chipotle and bay leaves. Transfer to the slow cooker and cook on low heat for 6 hours. When cooked, allow to cool overnight.
Reheating
Heat the oven to 275F. Place 1/2 of the chili into an ovenproof casserole. Spread with the thinly sliced onions and jalapenos. Cover the onions/jalapeno layer with the rest of the chili. Place a layer of jalapenos on top. Cover the dish and heat for 2 hours - until the interior is hot enough.
Serve with raw onion, grated cheese and sour cream.

This takes the cake

2009-12-25T18:51:00.000-06:00

To a Brit, having Christmas cake is an important part of the holiday season. It is a fruit cake - but doesn't (at least in my house) have any of the neon candied chemistry set that we sometimes see. This year my mum made us one and we brought it home to Dallas at the end of November. The poor thing was naked - it hadn't been iced yet when we brought it home, so it needed icing - but only after its twice weekly baths in brandy - to preserve it of course.

Earlier in the week I bought some marzipan and some apricot jam. All ready to roll out the marzipan and top the cake with it. Another somewhat strange tradition is that we put marzipan on the cake first, let that set up a bit (ideally a week, but in my case a couple of days), and then top with frosting of some kind. Sometimes it's royal icing, sometimes Italian meringue. This year it was Italian meringue.

It is further traditional to eat said cake with tea on Christmas Eve. After which we just scarf it down! So this post is about the fine art of icing a Christmas cake.

Ingredients - marzipan layer
3T Apricot jam
12 oz marzipan - especially made for toppings like this. We bought ours at Whole Foods.
1 Christmas cake. Ours was about 7" in diameter

Method
Put the apricot jam in a small pan - to soften enough to make it spreadable. While the jam is melting, take 1/2 of the marzipan and roll it out to about 1/8" thickness. Maybe a little thicker if you like. The important thing is to get it into a circle about the same diameter as the cake.

Place the cake flatter side up on a paper plate. Poke some holes into it and give it its last brandy spa treatment.

Spread melted apricot jam on the top and sides.

Put the rounded rolled section of marzipan on the top. The jam will hold it in place and stop it from sliding

Now roll strips out to lay around the cake. It is easier to do this in several pieces than trying to get a single strip to work. Remember this will be covered with white icing, so it doesn't have to be perfect.

Leave to set for at least 24 hours.
Ingredients - Italian meringue
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
1" piece of vanilla pod
2 egg whites

Method
Heat the sugar, water and vanilla bean gently in a heavy saucepan until the sugar has dissolved. You should stir fairly often at this stage to make sure the sugar does not catch and burn. Once the sugar has dissolved, increase the heat slightly and boil until the syrup reaches 240 C.

Meanwhile, whisk the egg whites until soft peaks stage. Once the sugar syrup has come to temperature, pour it in a this stream over the egg whites while whisking at high speed. Continue to whisk at high speed until the mixture has cooled to room temp - about 7-10 minutes.

Ice the cake the usual way - spreading the icing in a circular pattern on top of the cake with an offset spatula.

When the cake is iced, let stand 24 or so hours for the icing to set up.

A Christmassy salad

2009-12-18T20:07:00.000-06:00

This is Christmassy because of the colors not the flavors. I had to stop to buy bread (too lazy to bake at the moment) on the way home from work. So, since Central market is on the way home I stopped in there. I also knew that I had better buy something for dinner as well. We haven't eaten in much - too many parties, so I wanted something special. The scallops looked nice and the store had blood oranges. Aha! a wilted spinach salad with blood oranges, kiwi fruit and seared scallops. Lots of red and green for Christmas.

I texted Dave Gilbert to let him know about the blood oranges. He, of course wanted to know what I was making. When I told him he suggested some pickled ginger too. We always have that in the house, so I tried it. Yumm. This dish gets the ultimate accolade from madame, "We can serve this to people." Also it takes about 12 -15 minutes beginning to end. Sadly I wasn't organized enough to take pictures, so I will just have to do it again!

Ingredients
4T olive oil (not extra virgin) + 1T for the scallops
1 small red onion sliced pole to pole and then into strips
3 blood oranges, peeled and then thinly sliced across the orange
2 kiwi fruits peeled and sliced
Some pickled ginger - maybe 1T + 1T of its vinegar
4 jumbo scallops
salt/pepper to season scallops
a couple of handfuls of young spinach washed and drained
Extra Virgin Olive oil to drizzle
A few sea salt crystals for extra crunch

Method
Place the 4T of oil in a non stick skillet. Heat until shimmering and add the onion. This seems like a lot of oil for one onion, but this becomes the oil base for the salad dressing. Soften the onion for a few minutes, taking care not to get any color onto it.
Once the onion is soft add the blood orange, kiwi, pickled ginger and juice. Turn heat off, and let the pan heat finish the job.
Add the 1T of oil to another skillet. Salt and pepper the scallops and immediately sear one side. This will take about 2 minutes (depends on thickness).
While the scallops are searing plate the spinach in rough mounds.
Turn the scallops over and sear for another minute or so. They want to be just cooked through. Too much and they become tough.
While the second side is searing, stir the onion/blood orange/kiwi mixture, and pour it over the spinach - essentially dressing the salad.
When the scallops are cooked, place them on the dressed spinach. Hit them with a little coarse sea salt and s drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

Serving/Pairing
Because of the citrus in the dressing, you want a wine that can cut through it a bit, and also contribute some citrus flavors of its own. I suggest an NZ Saufignon Blanc - Brancott from Marlborough would be a good choice, I think

Chicken in a pot

2009-12-18T07:32:00.000-06:00

It seems like most of the major culinary styles do some kind of one dish, chicken based thick stew or soup. Chicken in a pot is our generic term for these. It is usually subtitled with a flavor profile. So we have "Chicken in a pot - Mexican", "Chicken in a pot - North African", etc. I use the same essential technique, basically the same ingredients and adjust the flavoring, spicing, legumes and garnishes to adapt the basic dish to the style. This is not a dish of any great subteltly - it's job is to provide a warming dish for cold winter evenings. Because it is so "in your face", minor regional variations are not present. So, for example in today's version I have made no attempt to distinguish among the various North African cuisines - have just lumped them together into this single dish.

So, here are some of the key philosophies.

Use chicken thighs - they stand the longish cooking better than white meat
Make sure that the legumes you are using will get to the desired consistency in about 30 minutes
Use a sausage that matches the region (Mergez if yoiu can find it for North Africa, Chorizo for Mexican, etc.). Although, in a pinch a nice kielbasa can be used for everything!
Drain the fat early, and skim at the end
Make sure you sanitize the equipment that has been in contact with the raw chicken.

Ingredients

Apart from the chicken stock which was still defrosting, here is the collection of ingredients for this North African variety. The board on which the chicken thighs are laying is only used for raw meat, and will be sanitized in a bleach solution after use.

2T Vegetable oil

1 1/2 lbs smoky sausage (kielbasa in this version) cut into 1/2 " thick slices

4 Chicken thighs, salted and peppered on both sides

2 Dry chipotle peppers (I know, not North African, but do add a nice smoky heat)

8 Cardomom pods

1 t whole coriander

1 2" piece of cinnamon bark

8 Cloves

2 Star anise

1t Cumin

2T Paprika

2 Medium onions peeled and chopped pole to pole

1 Head of celery

6 Large carrots sliced into 1 inch knobs

1 1/2 cups (12 oz) chicken stock

3 14 oz cans garbanzo beans - rinsed and drained

Salt/pepper to taste

Method

Heat the oil to shimmering point in a large dutch oven. Add the sliced kielbasa and fry gently until the sausage takes on some color. This will take about 5 minutes.

Remove the sausage from the pan, and turn up the heat until you get wispy smoking. Lay the chicken thighs skin side down the oil, and cook until well browned (about 7 minutes).

While the thighs are browning, chothe onion in slices pole to pole, skice the celery. I don't bother to pull the ribs apart - just slice through the whole head. This is a rustic presentation after all.

Turn the chicken thighs over and cook on the meat side until browned - about 4 minutes. While the chicken is cooking, clean up the meat board, tongs, etc. using mild bleach solution.

Remove the chicken from the dutch oven and allow to rest - with the sausage. Pour off all but 2T of the chicken fat. I use a small bowl with a foil insert. The fat is caught in the foil, solidifies when cold and you can throw the whole thing away. Do not pour the fat down the drain!

Finely grind the cardomom, cinnamon, cloves, cumin, star anise, and coriander seeds. Add these to the hot oil in the dutch oven, along with the chipotle and the paprika. Stirquickly. Immediately add the chopped onions, celery,nd carrots. Stir thoroughly and scrape up the browned bits. The cool vegetables will prevent the spices burning.

Stir frequently until the onions are soft and all the brown bits at the bottom of the pan are gathered up. There will be slight color on the onions/carots/celery. Add the sausage back to the pot and mix into the vegetables thoroughly. Now add the bay leaf, the rinsed beans, and the chicken stock. The stock should not cover the vegetables. Put the chicken thighs back in (with the skin still on), and nestle them into the vegetables.

Cover the pot tightly with a sheet of foil and then the duch oven lid. This provides a tight seal and prevent the flavors from escaping too much.

Simmer on the stove top on low heat for about 30-45 minutes - until the chicken is cooked through. Skim any fat off, adjust the seasoning, remove the skin from the chighs, and serve piping hot.

You can, of course, allow it to cool (in the fridge overnight), by which time any fat will have risen to the top and solidified. Then you can simply remove it with a spoon.

Variations

Changing the spicing completely changes the dish. So for the Mexican version, use chorizo, don't use cinnamon or star anise at all. Amp up the cumin and coriander. Use a chipotle in adobo sauce instead of a dried one. Use more chicken stock - make it sltly soupier, and used red kidnns instead of garbanzos.Garnish with a lot of fresh cilantro - limes, slice of avocado, etc.

The variations really are up to you. This dish never comes out the same twice. That's one reason we like it so much. In the words of Jacques Pepin, "A recipe only exists at the time you make it."

A Tale of 2 Trifles

2009-12-13T11:51:00.004-06:00

We were invited to 2 parties on Saturday. Each one of course wanted us to bring something. We always bring something meatless to these affairs because the vegetarians get rather short shrift. This year, however, we decided on desserts and not to vegetarian meat courses. That was because a good friend said, "you are English, you must know how to make trifle. It is one of my favorite desserts." Since she was co-hosting a party, it seemed wise to go with the flow.
Trifle is deceptively simple. You can do it the easy way – or the Chris way. I, of course chose the Chris way. That involves making custard (the easy way would have you buy it – or horror of horrors, use vanilla pudding. Also I decided to use crème de cassis instead of sherry. Not traditional, but goes so well with raspberries. We always have crème de cassis on hand for kirs and kir royales, but that's a different posting.
This isn't really about 2 trifles – it is one giant recipe placed into 2 bowls. The recipe below is the recipe I started with before doubling (well kind of because it doesn't double exactly – the cornstarch for example is less than you might think).
Ingredients

32 fl oz whipping cream (1 US Quart) divided use
4 egg yolks
1 vanilla pod
1 ½ oz sugar
1t cornstarch
1 packet lady fingers (trifle sponges)
3T Raspberry jam, warmed so it is spreadable.
12 oz frozen raspberries
3 oz crème de cassis
2 large bananas, peeled and thinly sliced (30 slices per banana)
A few drops pure almond essence
A few slivered almonds toasted lightly for decoration

Method
Place half of the cream into a saucepan. Preferably a pan with a rounded edge between the base and the sides. Split the vanilla bean in half lengthwise. Scrape out the seeds and add to the cream. Also add the pod. When sieved the seeds will stay in the custard, but the pod will be extracted and thrown away. (I used one pod for the double sized recipe and it was fine. You don't really need to double that).
Turn the heat under the cream on to a medium temperature. Stir the cream occasionally until it is close to boiling point. You will see an occasional bubble rising and lots of steam coming off it.

While the cream is heating, break the egg yolks into a bowl. Whisk gently to break them up. Add the cornstarch and sugar and whisk until light and foamy.

Now add the hot cream a little at a time at first to the egg mixture. As you can see in the photograph below, I am using a small bowl to do the transfer. A ladle would work fine, of course. Whisk all the while you are doing this addition.

Once you have added all the hot cream to the egg mixture, return the combined mixture to the pan, and start to heat slowly. The custard will be quite foamy at first, and quite thin. You must stir it pretty constantly at this stage otherwise the eggs will set without the cream. You will have very expensive, vanilla flavored scrambled eggs. The picture below shows the foamy egg/cream mixture.

Keep heating and stirring and the mixture will start to thicken. For those that care about such things, the mixture needs to come to about 172F (77 or 78 C). At that point it should be nice and thick.

In fact so thick that it does this (see picture below). The custard coats the spoon, and when you draw your finger across it, it is rather like Moses parting the red sea.

There will be some egg bits, and of course the vanilla pod to get rid of, so strain the custard through a fine mesh strainer.

Immediately transfer the custard to an ice bath to chill it before refrigerating. Need to make sure it gets cold quickly to eliminate chances of food-borne bugs. Using a larger bowl filled with ice water does the trick nicely.

Before refrigerating the custard, cover with cling wrap. To make sure a skin doesn't form, press the cling wrap right on to the surface.

Cool the custard in the fridge as long as you want. In my case it was about 4 hours while I ran errands. When you are ready to assemble the trifle, melt the raspberry jam in a small pan. It just needs to soften enough to be spreadable on the rather delicate lady fingers

Spread the lady fingers out on a cutting board….

And spread the warmed jam on them. Much easier to this way than trying to do them individually.

Now, cut the lady fingers up into your serving bowl. Add the raspberries, mix well by hand. Pour the crème de cassis over them and let them sit for a few minutes. Layer the sliced bananas on top of the cake/raspberry/cassis mixture.

Layer the custard on top of the bananas. It will be a fairly thin layer. It is so rich that you don't want it to overpower the fruit. Whip the remainder of the cream with the almond essence. It needs to be slightly soft and floppy. Certainly you don't want to overwhip it (and end up with something resembling butter). The cream should not be sweetened. Then ad the whipped cream on top pf the custard, spread it out to the edges and make it flat. Dot with the toasted almonds.
The trifle should now be refrigerated for at least 3 hours before serving.

3 people, 2lbs clams, 1lb linguine

2009-12-11T10:42:00.011-06:00

I needed a quick dinner for 3 of us last evening. Quick because I had didn't get out of a meeting until 7:15 and needed to drive home, cook and have dinner on the table by about 8:15. Also it had to be good since Dave Gilbert (an unbelievably creative local chef) was one of the three! The idea then was to create something tasty within the time it took for the longest thing to happen (essentially in less than 30 minutes).
No problem. Linguine alla vongole to the rescue. This is in some ways a perfect timed dish. If you get the amount of water right, you can start the water pot, then do the small amount of prep (chopping parsley, cleaning clams, peeling/slicing garlic, etc.) while the water is coming to the boil. Thne the clams themselves cook in the amount of time it takes to cook the pasta.

Ingredients
2 T olive oil (cooking oil not finishing oil)
4 cloves of garlic - sliced thinly. Not mashed/pureed/pressed
1 dried cayenne pepper (could use flakes) chopped finely. Include the seeds
2 lbs littleneck clams
1/2 cup dry white wine - I used a cheapish Pouilly Fume
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Handful of parsley chopped fine
Salt/pepper to taste

The clams purging themselves of their grit - in a cold water bath

Method

Put a sufficient quantity of water on to boil. I used 2 gallons for the pound of linguine. I could have gotten away with less, but that's the size of my pasta pot. As soon as the water is boiling, place the pasta into the water and set the timer for 9 minutes (or 1 minute less than the directions on the packet call for.

In a large skillet heat the oil to the shimmering stage over medium heat. Add the garlic and hot peppers, turn down the heat to medium low and cook, stirring or shaking often, until the garlic is fragrant. Once the garlic is fragrant, add the clams and shake the pan to coat the clams with the hot garlicky oil.

Add the wine and lemon juice to the pot, and cover immediately.

Cook the clams until they all open (about 6 minutes). After all clams are open, add a little of the chopped parsley and season with salt and pepper. In the picture below, you can just see some salt crystals falling.

Toss the ingredients together and turn the dish out into a large, warmed bowl. Sprinkle some more of the chopped parsley over the top. I served this "family style" so each guest had the opportunity to help himself.

With this dish I served a bottle of Gravonia which was one of the best wines at the Texas Sommelier convention held at the Four Seasons in the early fall.

After we had pigged out on the clams, I served a cheese course with some cheeses we brought back from Neal's Yard in London. The cheeses are a Coolea - a Gouda like cows milk cheese made in Ireland. Very citrusy, rich, thick, dry. With a nuttiness that is indeed reminiscent of Gouda. Lovely firm, almost crystalline texture. A very well made cheese. The second cheese is a Duckett's Farm caerphilly. It has all the characteristic Caerphilly taste and texture. A good sharp bite, almost honey like sweetness at the finish. It is a pale cream colour in a thick gray dry rind. Finally we had some Harbourne goat blue cheese that is about as subtle as a kick... A very bold, assertive blue. Not much mould for a cheese as potent as this. It felt like a lot of the whey was retained - giving it a strong acid bite.

As a final treat we each allowed ourselves a small glass of the Angostura 1827 rum. This is a rum that has been barrel aged for a considerable amount of time. It has huge vanilla notes and a strong oaky presence. It is a very smooth rum indeed. I am indbted to my friend Thor for introducing me to it.

So, there was the evening a terrific time was had by all. many stories, much concentration and minimal clean up!

Seabirdskitchen joins the culinary underground

2009-12-08T18:03:00.009-06:00

Dave Gilbert and I met a few months back and just plain hit it off. We had promised ourselves a day together doing our favorite things. Sunday was that day. We got together at Dave's house having raided the farmers' market, Rex's Seafood Market, and our herb/veg gardens for stuff that might come in handy.

I hied myself off to his house at around 11 on Sunday armed with Rex's smoked salmon, some marjoram, mint, rosemary, and various hot peppers from the garden. Oh and some delicious New Zealand honeycomb (thanks sis and nephews), some margarita/salt cookies, the vacuum sealer for the sous vide and, of course the guanciale (cured pork jowls).

The main point was the cooking, but we managed to press-gang some friends into coming to eat. Yes there were nine of us in total. The dinner stretched for about 3 1/2 hours as we ate, discussed, ate some more, tried the wines, got to know each other better and just had a terrific time. The clean up was rather excessive, but somehow that isn't the abiding memory. The memory is of working under pressure with a good friend, making innovative and exciting food, and serving it to friends and strangers - all becoming friends by evening's end.

Dave has done such a wonderful job of documenting this here that I don't have any need to elaborate.

Recipes? What recipes? I am sure we will document better next time, but the wine and rum took their toll.

My parting comment is simply, "let's do this again, soon"

garlic, lemon, potatoes Oh My!

2009-11-30T06:53:00.003-06:00

This is another dish inspired by Cooks Illustrated. As usual, I have taken a couple of liberties - but only out of necessity! The original as published is very good. There are a couple of technique keys that are worth pointing out here. The first is that the potatoes should be in even wedges. Not even in size = not even in cooking. The second is that the flavor enhancers (garlic, oregano, lemon juice) are all powerful but quite transient. Add them late in the process - i.e. when the recipe says so, and not before.
It is a bit irritating to make these because the potatoes do have to be in a single layer in a large skillet (typically 12") and not everyone has one handy. I used 2 10" skillets for this - one non-stick and one not. Not a lot of difference between them, but the caramelization on the untreated pan was slightly better.

You want to use potatoes that are not mealy (e.g. russets) and not waxy (e.g. reds). I use Yukon Golds but Maris Piper would be fantastic.

Ingredients
2T canola oil (1T per pan)
2T unsalted butter (1T per pan)
3lbs medium sized yukon gold or other intermediate potatoes. Peeled and cut lengthwise into wedges. Typically 8 wedges per potato. I cut the largest into 8 wedges and then look at the size of the others before deciding how many wedges per potato.
6 cloves of garlic pressed through a press. (1/2 of the pressed garlic per pan)
2T Extra Virgin Olive oil (1T per pan)
3T lemon juice + grated zest of 2 lemons (divided between the pans)
4T minced fresh oregano (can use marjoram if that's what you have - but always ensure it is fresh)
4T minced fresh parsley
Salt/pepper as needed

Method
This method is per pan. So if you are using 2 pans (like I did) then do them simultaneously.
Heat vegetable oil and butter until foaming dies down. Add potato wedges in a single layer keeping heat at medium. Don't let the oil smoke, but do keep the sizzling going. They should be a deep golden brown after 5 or 6 minutes. Don't peek until at least 4 minutes have gone by. Turn the potatoes and cook on the other side until that side is golden brown.
Cover the potatoes tightly and turn the heat down to allow the potatoes to cook through.
Make up the olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, lemon zest and organo into a small bowl. When the potatoes are cooked (6-9 minutes from when they were covered), add the lemn/garlic/organo mixture, stirring to prevent burning. Stir gently fo as not to break the potatoes. Cook uncovered for a couple of minutes. Serve in a warmed bowl, garnished with the parsley.

Madame's comment: "More Please."

Seeing red - meat that is

2009-11-15T04:12:00.002-06:00

In a previous post (when will it be done?) , I wrote about rate of change - knowing when something will be done by observing its rate of change of temperature increase. There is a flip side to this. When faced with a tricky challenge - in this case very uneven pieces of meat, how do you manage the cooking so that it all comes out OK. As always, there is a story.
For the Steak au Poivre, I wanted three nice pieces of New York strip. I asked the butcher at the local "Central Market" for 3 pieces of about 12 oz each. That isn't what I got, as I discovered when I got home. One piece was a honking great 16 oz - about 1 inch thick. One piece was about the 12oz that I asked for and a bit thinner. One was about 9 oz and much thinner. We all wanted medium rare steaks, so what to do?
Luckily my old friend rate of change comes to the rescue. I know that the large piece will take the longest to cook (and as it happens, I will eat meat more rare than anyone else), so that piece went into the pan a full minute before the next sized piece. The last piece went in a full three minutes after the first piece. I flipped the steaks in order (largest first). When the largest piece was done, they all were.
So the moral of the story - good technique and taking size into account, you can adjust the major variable (time) to suit the dish at hand.

An old flame? - Steak au poivre

2009-11-15T03:22:00.002-06:00

Our friend Bryan - he of the champagne dinner fame, sometimes calls up saying, "I was thinking of opening a bottle of (insert interesting wine here), I'd like to share it with you and Madame, so what would go well with it?" This means that he would like to discuss a pairing with me, and have me cook. Of course that's not a problem. An excuse to drink something delicious, enjoy Bryan's company and have something pretty special. Friday night was no exception. The phone call (on Thursday evening) went something like, "Are you guys busy on Friday, I was thinking of opening a 2004 Clos de tart and would like to share it with you both, what would go well with it?"
The tasting notes suggested pepper and silkiness - among some herby fragrances. So what to do? Well steak au poivre came to mind. The black and pink peppercorns giving some help to the peppery nose, and the cream accentuating the silkiness of the wine. There is a slight sweetness to the dish, courtesy of the shallots (I don't know if they are classic or not, but they seemed necessary), and there you have a terrific complement.
I am not a fan of beef tenderloin, so used New York Strips instead. They turned out rather well served with pommes boulangere and a simple salad. A very good (and easy) time was had by all.
To make this dinner you have to start a bit in advance. The potatoes take about 1 1/4 hours to cook. You also have to factor in prep time.
Pommes Boulangere
Ingredients
2 oz. unsalted butter
2 lbs Yukon Gold (or other intermediate not waxy/not floury potatoes) peeled
1 small onion
8-10 sprigs of thyme
1 cup warmed chicken stock
Salt/pepper to taste

Method
Preheat the oven to 400F. Warm the chicken stock slowly until nearly boiling. Better not to boil it because you don't want any evaporation. However adding it warmed to the potatoes makes them cook more quickly. Less danger of burning the top while still cooking them through.
Grease a gratin dish with a small amount of the butter.
Slice the potatoes thinly and evenly (about 1/4 inch thick). This is easiest done with a mandolin or V slicer. You really do want them to be of even thickness so they cook evenly. Do not rinse the potatoes. Peel and slice the onion into rings - a bit thinner than the potatoes.
Place a layer of potatoes, overlapping very slightly, in the bottom of the well greased grain dish. Cover with a scattering of the onions and 3 sprigs of thyme, a couple of good pinches of salt and a little freshly ground black pepper. repeat with 2 more layers, then finish with a layer of potatoes.
Pour the warmed stock over the potatoes, then dot with the remaining butter, season with more salt and pepper (again about 2 pinches of salt and a couple of healthy grinds of pepper).
Place the gratin onto a baking sheet and then into the oven for about an hour. It isn't terribly time sensitive, but when the top is crunchy and light brown it will be cooked. If you need to hold it until other dishes are ready, then simply turn the oven off.

Now for the steak au poivre. This is one of those dishes that looks really impressive - so much so that the natural instinct is to think it is difficult to do. It isn't! That's the beauty.

Steak au Poivre
Ingredients
4 12 oz ribeye steaks (off the bone)
Kosher salt
2 1/2 T cracked black pepper
2 oz butter + 1 short glug of olive oil. No need for extrav virgin. You could use safflower, etc.
2 good sized shallots (about 2 oz total) minced
1/4 cup brandy (make sure it isn't salted. Use the real thing not the supermaket flavoring)
1 cup thick cream
1 T whole pink peppercorns (optional)

Method
make sure the steaks are removed from refrigeration about 30 minutes to 1 hour before cooking. Lightly coat them with kosher salt about 15 minutes before cooking. Meanwhile crush the black peppercorns in a pestle and mortar until you have fairly even, but still well textured pieces. You do not want dust!
Heat a large skillet on the stove, add the butter/oil and allow to become very hot - almost smoking. You may need to keep an eye on this as it can burn easily. Put the cracked black peppercorns onto a flat plate and coat both sides of each steak with them. Pressing them in as necessary.
Cook the steaks in the hot oil/butter to the desired degree of doneness. If you want them any more than medium, you will probably need to finish them for a couple of minutes in the oven, since prolonged time over the direct heat will cause the outside to become overcooked.
Once the meat is cooked, remove from the pan, tent with foil, and allow to rest while you make the sauce. Into the still hot pan, add the chopped shallots and gently sweat. They will help get the browned bits off the bottom of the pan, and add extra flavor and sweetness. Making sure that there are no open flames nearby (turn the flame off under the shallots too), add all but 1 T of the brandy. Reignite the flame under the pan, and flame the brandy. This will burn off some of the alcohol and add a slightly woody, charred flavor. It is subtle, but pretty important. When the flames have died down, add the pink peppercorns and the cream. Allow the sauce to boil for a short time to thicken. It should not separate. Finish the sauce with the remaining T of brandy, stirred in at the last minute (again, make sure that all flames are off).
Serving
Traditionally this is served with the sauce poured over the meat, but we prefer to place the sauce on the plate first and rest the meat on top. If I had been thinking, a little thyme as a garnish would have been nice.
Because this was an informa dinner, I plated the steak, but served the potatoes and a light salad family style.
Oh and yes, it did indeed complement the Clos de Tart perfectly. Even though we opened it a good hour before drinking, it was really only towards the end of the course that it showed its true potential - opening up with a surprising amount of floral notes - probably heightened by the pink peppercorns. As predicted, though, the black pepper and silky sauce was the perfect pairing.

So Bryan, what are you bringing next?

The Champagne Dinner

2009-11-02T07:27:00.002-06:00

We were challenged to create a dinner where each course would be paired with champagne. Of course, champagne is pretty versatile, but we wanted to make sure that we had a different experience, both in texture and flavor for each course. So after much thought we decided on the following menu:

Mushroom crostini
Smoked cheddar souffle
"Poached" fish over petits pois bon femme
A cheese plate
Coffee and chocolates

There was, of course, some adventure involved - I was not due back from Canada until after noon of the day of the party. The fish had to be picked up, the cheeses selected and then the cooking done. All for a 7pm start. Of course with Madame doing all the major shopping, setting tables, and making the house look especially nice, we were off to a good start.

The mushrooms for the crostini were cooked with shallots, thyme, and (of all things) rum. I didn't have sherry in the house, so figured that a medium rum would add that woody flavor that we would normally get from sherry. Yup it worked! Also, I had been wanting to try locally produced raw milk (from Layla farms in Plano, TX) for the souffle, so I figured that thinning a little fresh goat cheese with the raw milk would make a nice topping for the crostini. It did.

The souffle was served with a lightly dressed mesclun salad. The fish was suzuki - a type I had never heard of, but turned out to be a fantastic choice. Thanks to Rex's seafood market as always.

The cheeses were picked with the help of Rich at Scardellos. We always get good, thoughtful advice from Rich. The champagnes were all awesome from the Montaudon that we had with the crostini, the Pol Roger with the souffle, the Rouelle Pertois with the cheese, the Delamotte as a transition from the crostini to the souffle, the Francois Montand at the end of the cheese course and the Brut de Peche that we had as an after dinner drink with the chocolates and coffee.

Now for the recipes:

Wild mushroom crostini

Ingredients

2oz unsalted butter

6 Oz each of wood ears, shiitakes, white mushrooms

2 large shallots - minced finely

3 Oz dried porcini mushrooms

Boiling water to cover the porcini

4 sprigs of thyme - left whole

6T medium/dark rum (I used Mount Gay) divided use

3 Oz fresh goat cheese (e.g Montrachet)

2T whole milk

24 small crostini

Method

Hydrate the porcini. Melt the butter in a large skillet and when the foaming has finished, add the finely chopped shallots and sweat them until translucent. Add the roughly chopped mushrooms (including the hydrated porcini) and the thyme stalks. Allow to cook down and dry out. Meanwhile strain the liquid from the porcini to make sure there is no grit. When the mushrooms have cooked down, add the strained porcini liquor. Again allow the mushrooms to dry out over medium heat. Off heat, add 3T of the rum, bring the mushrooms back to heat and evaporate the liquid. repeat with the second 3 T of rum. Season to taste with salt and pepper

Mix the goat cheese and milk together to make a thick topping - the consistency of whipped cream, almost.

Place a small teaspoon of the mushroom mixture on each crostini. Top with a dab of the goat cheese/cream mixture.

Serve slightly warm. We served them cool and one of the guests suggested that they might be even better warmed. She is probably right!

Smoked Cheddar Souffle

Ingredients

2oz unsalted butter (+ extra to grease the dish)

2 oz all purpose (plain) flour

2 cups (16 fl oz. 1 US pint) whole milk warmed

1/4t freshly grated nutmeg

1/2T freshly ground white pepper

1/2t kosher salt

5 large eggs (uses 4 yolks and 5 whites)

2T chopped chives

1 very finely chopped red chile (optional)

1 oz finely grated parmesan cheese

3 oz smoked cheddar cheese - grated

2 oz sharp cheddar cheese - grated

Method

Melt the butter in a large saucepan. After the foaming subsides, add the flour and cook, whisking constantly for 3-4 minutes to remove floury tastes. Whisk in the warmed milk and bring to a boil. You will have a thick bechamel sauce. Add the nutmeg, salt and pepper.

separate the egg whites and yolks. In a large bowl whisk the yolks to break them up and make them smooth. Add one third of the hot bechamel to the egg yolks and whisk vigorously to incorporate. Gradually add the rest of the egg yolks to the mixture whisking vigorously to incorporate. Once the bechamel is Incorporated into the egg yolks, add the grated cheddars. Set aside while preparing the oven and the dish.

Grease the inside of a 6 cup (1 1/2 quart) souffle dish with the remaining butter. Coat the inside with the grated Parmesan making a well covered layer. This gives the souffle something to cling to as it rises.

Heat the oven to 375 and make sure it has had a few minutes to stabilize at temperature. Put the rack in the bottom third of the oven.

beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. Fold the egg whites into the cheese base. carefully so as not to upset the foam. Quickly fold in the chives and minced chile (if using). Put the dish into the preheated oven for approximately 35 minutes. The souffle should be jiggly in the middle.

Carry the souflee to the table and serve on small plates which have had the salad already placed on them. Eat immediately!

What matters?

2009-10-18T09:53:00.002-05:00

The wonderful French cookbook, "Je sais cusinier" has been translated into English. The English title is "I know how to cook."
There's good news and bad news. It was some of the bad news that prompted this posting.
There is an unwarranted degree of precision in the book - the recipe that calls for 1lb 8 3/4 oz of mushrooms, for example. That is as a result of a slavish and direct conversion from the metric measurement (700 gm) to imperial measure.
So, how much does that 3/4 oz actually matter? I am sure not much - although I haven't made the dish. When is a measurement really a guideline, and how can you tell? That's a conundrum, so I will try to sort it out - or at least talk about how I pay attention.

Ask why there are fiddly bits at the ends of the measurements? Like the 3/4 oz at the end of the mushrooms. If it looks to be a critical ratio item (flour/fat/water in a bakers recipe, then obey it)
If the recipe has (obviously) been converted from the metric system to imperial, you could do the conversion mentally and see if it started as round number (25/50/75/100 gm endings). If so, then there's a decent chance that as long as you are not baking you can round off the lb/oz amounts.
Be careful with strong flavorings (herbs and spices especially) rounding can throw flavors off, so round down and adjust after tasting.
Be careful with anything that is in a smallish quantity (salt/yeast/pepper...) again that can throw off the balance/effect of the dish. Seasoning is always to taste - most of us under season, but again be careful

The good news is that the author uses words like scant and generous to indicate the precision required for many items that are measured by volume. So you know that a scant cup of stock is about a cup but likely to be a bit less. That's a definite clue that you can wing it.

While I am talking about the book, there are a few "duh" moments. First the book starts with sauces. So important to French cuisine, so neglected by most of us. So it is good to have the sauces lumped (no not lumpy!) together so they are easy to find. However, that is a bit of a double edged sword because there are recipes that point you to several other sub-recipes. For example the "Candlemas Rolls" recipe looks like it has 6 ingredients, but 2 of the ingredients are actually complete recipes in their own right. So when doing the recipe for the first time, you need to have bookmarks in several places. I guess the author thought of this - the book comes with 2 built-in bookmark ribbons.

There are some interesting subtelties. For example when making a ham souffle, the oven is set to a constant 400F, while the cheese souffle starts at 350F for a while and then the oven temperature is raised to 425 for the last 15 minutes. The reasons are that the number of eggs and the ratio of eggs to bechamel sauce is different and that the cheese incorprates into the sauce while the ham doesn't. You would think that the same recipe base would work for both kinds of souffle (but it doesn't!). You need to get more lift before the browning stops the expansion wuth the cheeses version, I presume. It's things like this that can make French cooking intimidating - the patterns are not obvious. It's also this kind of attention to detail - and figuring what's important that seperates good cooking from excellent cooking.

Steamed fish over petits pois bonne femme

2009-10-13T15:28:00.002-05:00

I have unashamedly pinched this from Gordon Ramsey's show, "The F-Word". However because i have a terrible memory, I am sure I have done something differently. I will be doing this dish for a champagne dinner in a couple of weeks, and thought it a good idea to try it out. Also it was Madame's birthday and we ALWAYS have champagne. So the stars were aligned.

First a quick trip to Rex's Seafood Market (Lovers' Lane in Dallas) to check out the fish. I ended up with red snapper (gulf, wild) the other choice was striped bass (California/farmed). In retrospect I should have chosen the striped bass.

Ingredients
2 fillets (red snapper) with the skin on
24 basil leaves
1T Extra virgin olive oil
salt/pepper to taste
2T pure olive oil (not extra virgin) - you could use another vegetable oil if you prefer
5 oz frozen pearl onions
3 oz guanciale or pancetta
5 oz frozen petits pois

Method
Score the skin side of the fish - cutting just through the skin, but not into the flesh. Oil 2 pieces of cling wrap (each big enough to enclose one fillet) lightly with the extra virgin olive oil. Lay 12 basil leaves onto each oiled piece of cling wrap. Salt, pepper and oil the skin side of the fish and lay skin side down on the basil. Salt and pepper the other side of each piece. Wrap the fish tightly in the cling wrap.

Bring a large pot of water almost to the boil. Slip the wrapped fish into the water and hold at a simmer for 8-10 minutes depending on the thickness of the fish.

Meanwhile, heat the pure olive oil until almost smoking and toss in the pearl onions. saute on high heat for about 7 minutes - until the onions are sklightly browned. Add the chopped guanciale and cook until the guanciale has become slightly crispy. Add the pease and toss quickly until the peas have warmed through.

Serve the fish skin side up on a mound of the peas/onions/guanciale. A bottle pf Perrier Jouet seemd to help too!

Guacatuna

2009-08-26T06:55:00.003-05:00

Tuna has been a battleground in our house. Madame likes the canned variety (aka catfood in my book), and I like it fresh, preferably raw. So how to create a rapprochment because after all it can be pretty good for us. Tuna salad using fresh tuna sounds like a good idea, but what about the texture with all that mayo? We realized that mashed avocado is about the same texture as mayonnaise and better tasting too, so an elegant light lunch dish materialized.

Serves 2 - scales up easily

Ingredients
6 oz fresh tuna steak (I used yellowtail)
1 ripe avocado
Juice of 1 lime
a few drops of a sweet chili sauce
4 scallions (spring onions) white and green parts chopped finely
2T finely chopped cilantro
1t olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
2 lettuce leaves
1 tomato chopped for garnish

Method

Pat the tuna dry, cover with oil, salt and pepper. Sear grill it, so it it is nicely browned on the outside and still rare in the middle. About 2 mins per side depending on your grill. You can, of course do this in a saute pan on the stove top, in which case you will need a little more oil.

Slice the avocado pole to pole, removing the seed. Scoop out the flesh, taking care not to damage the skins - you will use the hollowed out halves as serving dishes (hackneyed, yes but still a nice way to do it).

Shred the tuna into rough bite sized pieces. It wants to be the same kind of texture as pulled pork. mash the avocado and combine all ingredients, adjusting flavoring/seasoning to taste.

Chill the salad for at least an hour. Serve in the empty avocado shell on a little lettuce and some diced tomato for color and effect. A hit of sea salt and/or finely ground pepper can be added too.

A crisp dry white wine and where did Saturday afternoon go?

Watermelon and mango soup

2009-08-26T06:12:00.002-05:00

Madame and I ate at The Edge, a very nice restaurant in Rodney Bay St. Lucia. Madame had the watermelon soup and it was excellent. I couldn't decompose it, but I knew I wanted to make something like it. So after much fiddling around, I came to this.

Serves 8

Ingredients
For the sugar syrup
1 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup water
8 green cardamoms
1 1" knob of fresh ginger cut into thin slices
8 peppercorns
2 kaffir lime leaves (or the zest of 2 limes)
2 cloves

For the soup
1/3 cup of sugar syrup
1T powdered arrowroot
1/4 cup water
6 cups cubed, seeded watermelon
2 ripe mangoes
1t fresh mace chopped fine or 1/2t powdered mace
A few drops of your favorite hot sauce
24 croutons
a little extra virgin olive oil - used as a finishing garnish
a little sherry vinegar - used as a finishing garnish
a little coarse sea salt - used to finish the soup and give a flavor burst and crunch

Method
Sugar syrup
Place the sugar and water into a small saucepan. Stir to dissolve as much as possible. Add the flavoring ingredients. Bring to a boil slowly, and simmer for about 10 minutes. You are really just keeping it hot, not trying to caramelize it. The goal is to speed flavor extraction.

Strain the syrup. Left overs are good in many cocktails that require simple syrup.

The soup
Make a slurry from the arrowroot and water. Add to the warm sugar syrup and stir to combine. It should thicken up.

Place the arrowroot mixture, watermelon, mangoes, mace and hot sauce into a blender and blend until smooth. Strain into a large bowl, cover with cling wrap and chill for at least 4 hours.

To serve, ladle the soup into small bowls, dot the surface with some olive oil and vinegar. Place 3 croutons in each bowl, sprinkle a few coarse salt crystals.

After dinner drink or dessert?

2009-08-26T06:02:00.002-05:00

This recipe is inspired by a drink that we had in St. Lucia recently. The drink is a BBC (Baileys, Banana, Colada). However I wanted to make a quick and easy dessert. The colada is gone - and replaced with coconut rum. The drink is thickened with pureed bananas and a little gelatin to give it that special jiggle.

Serves 8

Ingredients
1/2 cup cold water
1/2 cup boiling water
1 envelope gelatin
1 cup Baileys Irish Cream
1/4 cup banana flavored rum
1/2 cup coconut flavored rum
2 ripe bananas

Method
Place the cold water into a bowl. Sprinkle the gelatin on top and stir to mix. Add the boiling water, stir again and leave to stand for around 5 minutes.
Put the rest of the ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth. There should be no discernible chunks of banana. Add the gelatin mixture and blend quickly on low speed until it is all incorporated.

Transfer into cocktail glasses, cover each glass with cling wrap and refrigerate at least 4 hours until set.

Serve garnished with mint leaves.

Grape Focaccia – With Acknowledgement to Daniel Leader

2009-07-05T07:28:00.002-05:00

We had an invitation to a July 4^th party and it involved a bit of a drive. So what to take? It's hot here in Texas, so didn't want something that needed reheating. Yet also didn't want something that was going to need coddling on the drive. The host is a bit of a foodie too, so we also had to make sure that the dish was interesting enough. Enter Grape Harvest Focaccia – adapted a bit from Daniel Leader's wonderful book, "Local Breads". Who would have thought that grapes, bread, sea salt, olive oil and rosemary would be such a good combination? The juice from the grapes permeates the focaccia, dissolving some of the salt. The heat of the oven intensifies the sweetness of the grapes. A truly wonderful dish – and impressive looking too.

Ingredients

300 gm room temperature spring water

1.5t active dry yeast

500 gm AP Flour (plain flour – not bread flour)

60 gm (1/4 cup) extra virgin olive oil + extra for oiling pan and moistening fingers

10 gm (1 ½ t) kosher salt

250 gm seedless black grapes – washed and dried

10 gm (3t) fresh rosemary finely chopped

7gm (1 ½ t) coarse sea salt

Method

Add the yeast to the water in a large bowl, and leave to stand while weighing the other ingredients. Add the flour, olive oil and kosher salt and stir with a plastic spatula until a shaggy dough forms. Turn the dough out onto the work surface and knead for about 15 minutes until the dough is very smooth and elastic. As usual, do not add extra flour to prevent sticking. While the dough will be a bit sticky at first, it eventually smooths out and the stickiness goes away.

Transfer to the dough to a lightly oiled bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Leave in a warmish (75-80F) place to ferment and rise.

Towards the end of rising time, lightly oil a rimmed baking sheet (half sheet pan) with olive oil. When the bread has risen, transfer from the bowl to the lightly oiled pan. Leave to settle for about 5 minutes. Oil your fingers and flatten the dough in the pan, pushing it gently into the corners. You should have the pan completely covered with the dough. Dimple the surface with oiled fingers. Press the grapes into the dough at intervals of 1 ½ to 2 inches (4-5 cm). This doesn't have to be precise. Do arrange them neatly in rows though since you will be cutting pieces between the rows. Evenly sprinkle the dough/grapes with the rosemary and sea salt. Cover lightly with a towel or plastic wrap and leave to rise for 45 mins – 1hour.

About 15 minutes to go before baking, turn the oven to 375F. Place the upper rack in the middle. I always keep a baking stone in the oven, so the temperature is evened out a bit. It also causes the focaccia to bake a little more slowly.

Place the pan into the oven and bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes. Mine needed more – about 35 minutes, but the baking stone contributed to the extra time. When I have made this without it is nearer 30 minutes. This is all in a conventional (not convection) oven.

You can tell that it is cooked when the grapes have partially burst – there is juice staining the surface and the dough itself is puffed up and a light golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan on a wire rack for about 5 minutes. Transfer from the pan to the cutting board and cut (using a pizza wheel) into squares – 1 grape per square. For shipment to a party, transfer back into the pan and place in an insulated bag.

Comments

This is a very easy bread to make. It slips out of the pan, isn't particularly sensitive to exact times and quantities. You can certainly knead it in a stand mixer – or even using the knead cycle in a bread machine. You do need the whole 500 gm of flour though – it just covers the sheet pan nicely.

Using the tomatoes

2009-06-27T16:28:00.001-05:00

We have had a good tomato crop this year. There are 2 varieties – red cherry tomatoes and yellow pear tomatoes. They taste divine and look beautiful when combined. For lunch today we decided to have some, simply prepared with croutons, garlic, mozzarella, basil and oregano. Talk about a taste bomb.

Recipe (serves 4 as a starter or 2 as a main course salad)

1 T Extra virgin olive oil

4 Slices plain white bread with the crusts removed, and cut into ½ inch croutons

1 Clove garlic (or more to taste) sliced thinly

2 t Coarse sea salt

36 Tomatoes (mixed cherry/pear), cherry tomatoes halved, pear tomatoes quartered

24 Basil leaves chopped finely + a few smaller leaves as garnish

1 3inch sprig of oregano (leaves only) chopped finely

4 Mozzarella Bocconcini – preferably buffalo milk cut into the same sized pieces as the tomatoes

1T Sherry vinegar

Method

Heat the oil in a small skillet – until it starts to look swirly. Do not allow to get to the smoke point. Add the croutons and toss to coat. Continue to heat over medium low heat until the croutons are just browned and are beginning to be crispy – about 4 minutes. Turn the heat off and immediately sprinkle the sea salt over the croutons. Add the sliced garlic and toss. Add the chopped tomatoes, the basil and oregano and toss until just warmed through.

Serve onto a plate, drizzle with the sherry vinegar, top with the mozzarella, garnish and serve slightly warm. We had it with a glass of Kim Crawford's unoaked chardonnay.

The tennis brunch

2009-05-17T18:08:00.002-05:00

Madame and I had been threatening to do this for a while. We finally got it together.

The menu was pretty simple – mimosas, peppers stuffed with tomatoes, chiles, olives, capers (see here) http://seabirdskitchen.blogspot.com/2009/03/peppers-stuffed-with-tomatoes-and.html together with some eggs cooked with fontina/black truffles and prosciutto/parmesan. Since the link describes the stuffed peppers, I won't bother to expound on those here.

The egg dishes were adapted from something we saw on the food network a couple of weeks ago. I think it was the "Hearty Boys."

Ingredients (makes 24 individual servings)

48 Wonton wrappers

2Oz butter melted

24 eggs

Salt and pepper to taste.

Filling 1 – Fontina Cheese and Black truffles

2 oz Fontina cheese cut into 36 small cubes

12 thinly shaved black truffle slices

Filling 2 – Prosciutto and Parmesan

2 Oz thinly sliced prosciutto shredded finely

2 Oz Parmesan cheese

24 strips roasted red pepper

Method

Melt the butter in a small bowl. Prepare 2 12 muffin pans as follows:

Brush each indentation with melted butter
Lay one wonton in the indentation with the corners sticking up
Brush the wonton with more melted butter
Lay another wonton on top of the first, but rotated 90 degrees – making 8 points
Brush the second wontons with melted butter.

For the fontina dish, place 3 small cubes of fontina in the wontons. For the prosciutto version place a small amount of prosciutto in the wontons. Into each indentation, break one large egg. Top with a thin slice of truffle (fontina dish, finely grated parmesan for the other dish). Place a little roasted red pepper on the prosciutto dish.

Bake the eggs in their pans for a total of 14 minutes at 375. Rotate the pans top to bottom and front to back at 7 minutes.

Serve nestled on a bed of spring greens .

Producers' Picnic 2009

2009-05-08T06:21:00.003-05:00

We did the annual producers' picnic for Madame's students last weekend. Because I can't leave well enough alone, I tried a new trick for the burgers. This time I did the seasonings ahead of time. Because mushrooms complement beef so well (it's an umami thing), i thought it would be interesting to add some dried mushrooms to the ground beef, so here's what I did.

Ingredients

10 lb 85% lean ground beef. This was a mixture of chuck and sirloin

4 Oz. ground dried wild mushrooms (porcini, wood ears, shiitake, morels, hen of the woods)

2T Kosher Salt

2T finely ground black pepper

2T garlic powder

Method

Using your hands, gently combine all the ingredients. Beware the mixture is cold and you may need to stop to warm your hands a couple of times. Take care not to compress the meat - if you do the burgers will become too dense and not very juicy.

Form the meat into 5 - 5.5 oz patties, making a small indentation in one side with your thumb. This allows them to stay flat while you grill them. Grill about 4 mins/side. Serve with usual condiments.

The Pizza Dough

2009-05-07T15:52:00.001-05:00

I have had several people ask me about this, so here goes. It has been a bit of an experiment. I used the same basic method as I use for ciabatta, but have adjusted the water down considerably (to 70% hydration).

This recipe introduces the concept of a starter – or biga. The The elapsed time is very long (20+ hours) because of the development of the biga.

The biga rests for 9-17 hours, most of the time in the refrigerator.

Ingredients

Starter (biga)

Ingredient	Volume	U.S. Weight	Metric Weight	Bakers' Percentage
Water (Tepid)	1/3 Cup	2.3 oz	65	65
Instant yeast	½ t	0.1 oz	2 g	2
Bread Flour	2/3 Cup	3.5 oz	100 g	100

Bread Dough

Ingredient	Volume	U.S. Weight	Metric Weight	Bakers' Percentage
Biga	1 Cup (approx.)	5.9 oz	167 g	33
Water (tepid)	1 1/2 Cups	12 oz	350 g	70
Instant yeast	1 1/2 t	0.3 oz	8 g	1.6
Bread flour	3 ¼ cups	17.6 oz	500 g	100
Kosher salt	1 ½ tsp	0.4 oz	10g	2

Note the overall hydration percentage is hard to gauge because the biga itself has both flour and water in different proportions to the dough. The biga recipe makes just enough for the overall bread recipe.

Method

The biga

Pour the water into a small mixing bowl and add the yeast. Leave to sit for a minute and then stir in the flour until a dough just forms. Scrape the dough out and knead for a couple of minutes to work the flour in. It will not be fully kneaded, nor perfectly smooth. Spray the bowl lightly with PAM and replace the dough. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand for 1 hour. Place into the refrigerator and leave for 8-16 hours until ready to use.

Mix the dough

Remove the biga from the refrigerator and uncover it. Scrape it into a large bowl (ideally the mixing bowl from your stand mixer) and pour the water over it. Break it up into clumps with a spatula. Add the yeast and leave for 1 minute. Add the flour and stir with the spatula until incorporated. Sprinkle the salt onto the surface and proceed to the next step.

Kneading

With the dough hook, mix the dough on medium speed (6-8) for 13-15 minutes. Periodically stop the mixer and scrape down the dough.

Fermenting

Transfer the dough to an oiled box or bowl. Leave to ferment until tripled in volume (typically 3-4 hours).

Mystery Pizza Ingredients

2009-05-04T11:52:00.001-05:00

Last Friday my good friend Gary McCants came by for lunch. I had promised him pizza and he accepted all too quickly. I typically make thin crust pizzas baked on stones on the grill outside. These were no exception. I had wanted to try a potato pizza for a while and this provided the perfect opportunity. I had some dried mushrooms on hand too, rosemary growing in the garden, some nice olive oil and sea salt in large crystals.

So, I reconstituted the mushrooms (they were porcini, wood ears, morels, shiitake) by soaking in boiling water. Par boiled some new potatoes (Yukon Gold) in their skins and tossed the dough into a nice thin crust. Added the potatoes sliced thinly, the rosemary, the mushrooms, some good Extra Virgin olive oil, sea salt and fontina cheese. Bake for about 3 minutes in very hot oven (about 650F) and serve immediately.

Magic – with good beer and excellent company

What to call this dish?

2009-04-09T08:49:00.001-05:00

Madame and I went to the farmers' market on Sunday and now have ridiculous amounts of tomatoes, onions, peppers, mushrooms, beans, mangoes, lettuce, cucumbers, yellow squash and eggplants. So we have been steadily working our way through them.

One evening, I thought it would be fun to make a kind of veg casserole. However, not the normal thing – no canned soups, no nasty ingredients at all! This was essentially just a roasting of onions, yellow squash, eggplant and mushrooms, but with a twist. I also wanted this to be done in my customary 45 minutes.

The big question was how to make sure it all cooks. Luckily there is a fair bit of leeway. They key was precooking various ingredients so they didn't have to all warm up together in the oven.

Ingredients

1 Large eggplant, peeled and cut into ¾ inch (2cm) cubes

3 yellow squash (could use zucchini(courgettes)) sliced into ½ inch (1.5cm) thick rounds

6T Olive oil (divided use)

3 large ripe tomatoes (weighing about 2lbs/1Kg)

1 large onion (12 oz/300 gm) sliced thinly into rings

A large handful of unpitted olives (Nicoise and Picholine) making sure you have a good variety of size and color

A few sprigs thyme

4 Portabella mushroom caps (see treatment in method)

Salt/pepper to taste. Be careful, olives are quite salty in their own right

A drizzle of balsamic cream or balsamic vinegar

A drizzle of high quality (extra virgin) olive oil

To serve, 4 slices grilled bread – preferably artisanal and day old.

Method

Heat oven to 400F. Place gratinee dish and 2T oil in oven to warm up

In a large skillet heat 3T of olive oil. When smoking add the eggplant and squash, turn heat to medium and cook, tossing often, for about 10 minutes, The egg plant should almost cook through. While the eggplant/squash are cooking add the sliced onion to the hot gratinee dish and return to the oven. When the egg plant and squash are cooked, add them to the onion in the gratinee dish. Layer the contents roughly and return to the oven,

Heat the tomato slices in the skillet until they are hot through (about 2 or 3 minutes) and toss in the olives. Heat until the olives are warmed. Add the tomatoes/olives to the gratinee dish and mix to ensure the olives are well distributed. Add the thyme and mix in.

For each portabella, remove the stalk carefully, and then slice the mushroom cap horizontally so that you end up with two pieces each looking like a lid. These will become the lid of the dish.

Add salt/pepper to taste to the dish, then cover the dish with the portabella lids. Drizzle the remaining oil over the portabella lids, sprinkle a little salt/pepper on them, and return to the oven. Reduce the heat to 375 and bake for about 20 minutes – or until the mushroom caps are cooked.

To Serve

Grill some thinly sliced artisanal bread. Lay the toast slices in the bottom of a soup bowl. Spoon the vegetables onto the bread, making sure you get some juice to soak into the toast. Top with a portabella cap, drizzle some balsamic cream or balsamic vinegar and a little extra virgin olive oil.

Pickled Mushrooms and other Antipasti

2009-04-06T21:46:00.001-05:00

On Sunday evening Madame wasn't due home until after 7 – she had been playing tennis and was likely to be hungry, but not to want anything terribly heavy. I also didn't know exactly when she would arrive, so figured that if I made a nice antipasti plate it would survive the unpredictability of her timing.

We had been to the Farmers' market in the morning and had lots of tomatoes (East Texas), red peppers (South Texas), Mushrooms (some rotting stump some where), mangoes (Mexico), grapefruit (The Rio Grande Valley) and some other local stuff. This wasn't all going to work, so I improvised with some of the wonderful 7 year old parmesan from Sigels, some salame, olives, roasted peppers, roasted tomatoes and pickled mushrooms.

Since we had so many mushrooms, I decided to pickle some myself rather than buy them. This was an experiment – one that worked out well, even if the flavors weren't very Italian.

Ingredients

1 Cup white vinegar

1 Cup water

4 T Kosher salt

2T light brown sugar

6 green cardamoms

1 inch fres ginger

1 inch cinnamon bark

1t cumin

12 black pepper corns

12 coriander seeds

24 button mushrooms washed with stalks trimmed

Method

Place all the ingredients into a sauce pot and bring to a simmer. Allow to simmer for about 20 minutes. Drain the mushrooms and allow to cool. Discard the cooking liquid.

What could be simpler?

Peppers stuffed with tomatoes and chilies

2009-03-24T08:58:00.002-05:00

This recipe is an adaptation from Jamie Oliver's version. It was done from memory, so isn't exactly the same. It looked so good when he did it on his Jamie at Home program. It got the ultimate madame accolade, "We can serve this to people."

The Food Network didn't publish the actual recipe, but it is very straightforward and very adaptable. One comment that Jamie Oliver made was that "Mr. Pepper loves Mr. Garlic who also loves Mr. Tomato." I had some visions in the kitchen that I put out of mind as I was cooking.

I made the filling up (except for the basil) a couple of hours before stuffing the peppers and cooking the dish. The oven temp. will be 400F, the cooking time in total is about 50 minutes.

Ingredients
1 Red Pepper, halved lengthwise, deseeded and the stem left on
2 Yellow Peppers, halved lengthwise, deseeded and the stem left on
Kosher Salt and freshly ground Black Pepper
1 Clove garlic, peeled and sliced finely
18 Cherry Tomatoes, halved
½ green jalapeno
2 sweet chili peppers – not bell peppers but something like Italian sweet peppers
2 T Capers, soaked and drained
Handful olives, pitted – I used a mixture of green and black because that is what I had
A Bunch Fresh Basil, leaves picked
1 T Sherry vinegar
3T Extra Virgin Olive oil
6 Sliced Pancetta or Smoked Bacon
6 Slices bread, preferably rustic and grilled/toasted
3 Oz herbed goat cheese

Method
Make the stuffing by combining the tomatoes, garlic, finely chopped chili peppers, capers, vinegar, olives and oil. Season with a little salt and pepper. Set aside until you are ready to stuff the peppers. Letting the flavors combine doesn't do any harm.
When you are ready to cook the dish, preheat the oven to 400F. Remove the ribs from the pepper halves and season the insides with a little salt and pepper. In a deep cooking tray, lay the peppers open side up. Tear up the basil and put in the bottom of the peppers, and then stuff the peppers tightly with the reserved stuffing mixture. Make sure you use all the liquid that has collected in the bowl. Artfully drape a piece of very thinly sliced pancetta over the top of each stuffed pepper. Cover tightly with alumin(i)um foil and bake covered for 20 or so minutes. Uncover and bake for a further 20 or 30 minutes. The pancetta will become very crispy. Note: The yellow peppers cooked a little faster than the red peppers. The red peppers could have done with a bit longer – next time I will bump up the covered cooking time to 25 minutes instead of 20. Probably leave the uncovered time about the same.
To serve, place each pepper on its own slice of grilled bread. I used home made sourdough for this. Dab the top of each hot pepper with a little goat cheese. You can also decorate with some greens (e.g. arugula), but I served them plain – with a glass or 3 of Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc.

Squirrelcam

2009-03-08T13:47:00.001-05:00

This doesn't have anything to do human food and the kitchen, but I had to jot it down somewhere....

It was a nice day here today, so I thought it would be fun to set up the squirrelcam to take video of the squirrels as they cavort - feeding from a bungee suspended corn cake.

Easier said than done.

The video camera mounts onto a tripod, so that step was straight forward. The remote control for the camera is at the business end - in front of the lens. So any attempt by me to power it on would frighten the buddha tummied little buggers away.

No problem - in the most Heath Robinson way imaginable, I rigged up a mirror in front of the camera and aimed it so I could bounce the remote control signal to the receptor on the camera. Easy enough. So now we have the camera on a tripod, the mirror on a low table in front of it, artfully held in place with a rock to get the angle just right.

This is all just outside a living room window. The camera set to a suitable zoom, the mirror aimed perfectly - a pregnant pause while we await the arrival of Mr. Squirrel.

No sign. Then the camera goes into a snit and powers down - to quote the manual, "To save running the battery down, and to avoid wear on the tape." Well the camera is plugged in to a convenient outlet so no worry about the battery. But the tape wear - frankly I don't care. But as in all things that are done to protect you - it doesn't work quite right. Clearly the product designers in Japan had not expected squirrelcam.

As it happens, I can reach out of the window to turn the recording on and off, so I will have to do that. However to make sure the mirror does get some use, I can zoom the camera in and out when Mr. Squirrel does arrive and is practicing cartwheels on the bungee cord.

I wonder who is training whom?

What better way to spend a Sunday?

Boeuf Bourguignon Inspired Sliders

2009-03-01T10:47:00.002-06:00

We made this dish to complement our wine choice for "Open That Bottle Night", 2009. The challenge was to turn boeuf bourguignon into finger food, so we served the braise inside small, home made ciabatta rolls.

Ingredients – for the braise

4 lbs English cut beef short ribs
2T canola oil
3 onions – peeled and chopped roughly
3 carrots – peeled and chopped roughly
1 stalk celery – chopped roughly
1 head garlic – individual cloves peeled and chopped
2T tomato paste
1/4 Cup flour
1/2 bottle Red Burgundy
1 28 oz can Italian style tomatoes –no juice, tomatoes chopped
1T Soy sauce (hardly traditional!)
6 prunes (hardly traditional)
3 bay leaves
Salt
Pepper
Ingredients – for the finish

1T canola oil
2 Oz guanciale (can substitute pancetta or non- smoked bacon)
10 oz pearl onions (I used frozen)
6 oz white or cremini mushrooms – cleaned and chopped into ¼ inch pieces
8 thyme sprigs
6T Dry sherry (Madeira would be better, but we had sherry!)

Method – Braise
Note: This can be done the day before – in fact it is probably better if it is done the day before. Separate the ribs into individual pieces and pat dry. Season liberally with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a large skillet and brown the ribs for about five minutes on each cut surface. Do this in batches to avoid overcrowding the pan.
Remove the ribs, and pour off all about 1T of the fat in the pan. Add the chopped onions, carrots, celery to the pan and sweat the vegetables over medium low heat, scraping up the browned bits. After about 5-8 minutes, add the garlic and continue to cook until you can smell the garlic. Then add the tomato paste and ensure that it starts to brown on the bottom of the pan. This adds extra flavor depth to the dish. Once the tomato paste has browned a little, add the flour. Stir to cook. Add the tomatoes, wine and soy sauce and mix the contents well.
Transfer the contents of the skillet to a slow-cooker and sprinkle the prunes on top of the vegetables. Add the bay leaves and thyme. Nestle the ribs into the vegetable mixture thin edges first. You want the ribs pushed into the vegetables, not lying on top of them. Turn the slow cooker to low and leave cooking for at least 6 hours – or until the meat is fork tender. At first as you peer through the lid it will look dry, but then as the vegetables give up their juices, it looks pretty wet.
After it has finished cooking, extract the ribs and strain the juices into a fat separator. The goal is to collect all the juices, but none of the solids. The carrots, onions, etc. have no flavor left by this time.
Pour the juices back over the ribs, taking care to retain as much fat as possible in the separator. Refrigerate overnight.
In the morning, any surplus fat will have congealed on the surface. Scrape it off. Remove the ribs and trim the meat off the bones. Chop into very small pieces. Note if serving this as a main dish, you could leave the meat on the bone, but I wanted to put it into sliders.
Strain the liquids, pushing the prunes, tomato pulp etc against the strainer to extract maximum flavor. You should now have about 1 ½ cups thick, smooth liquid. Pour it back over the chopped meat, cover, and refrigerate.
Method – Finish
Do this after you have refrigerated the chopped meat.
Heat the oil over medium high heat, in a skillet until shimmering. Add the finely chopped guanciale (or pancetta) and cook on low until crispy. Pour off most of the fat. Set the cooked guanciale aside. Turn the heat up to medium, add the pearl onions (still frozen) and sauté (still on medium heat) until they are slightly browned. You will need to shake the pan frequently. Add the chopped mushrooms and the thyme and cook until the mushrooms have given up all their liquid. Add the guanciale back into the skillet. Turn the heat off while adding 3T sherry (or marsala). Turn the heat back on, and cook the mixture down until almost dry. Repeat for the next sherry addition.
Remove the thyme and allow to cool. When cool mix into the beef mixture.
Serving
Gently reheat the dish in a saucepot on the stove top. You will need to stir pretty constantly. Reheating in the microwave is not advised, the mixture is thick and tends to scorch and explode!
Slice some small ciabatta rolls (see ciabatta recipe in this blog) so that they have a hinge. Open each roll and insert 1-2T of the meat mixture. Close the lid on the roll.
Garnish with parsley and serve warm.

OTBN 2009

2009-03-01T10:07:00.004-06:00

We hosted an "Open That Bottle Night" party again this year. Same general idea as before – invite wine loving friends, ask them to bring something special and be prepared to share the experience. This year there were a total of 10 of us and we shared 8 different wines and a variety of delicious foods. A real treat all around.

To start the party we had some appetizers and some fun/light Prosecco. The Candoni which isn't as bone dry as some, but set the tone for the evening. Griff and Suzy brought a huge plate of cold meats, cheeses, etc. to have as appetizers. Charles/Tracey brought delicious stuffed artichoke hearts and Cathy produced a brie with a sweet glaze and gently hot peppers. Oink, oink!

Before getting into the wines (and they were all wonderful!), we went through a tasting exercise. I had made up some essences of some of the flavor compounds found in wines. These compounds ranged from sweet to tannin with bitter, sour, flowery, fruity, smooth, oak, and acetic. The compounds were made up to be very subtle, so we had to work quite hard to get the flavor profiles. The results were fascinating. Those who don't like Rieslings and Gewurtztraminers didn't care at all for the flowery compounds. Those that really like the big cabs really went for the tannin, and to a lesser extent the oak.

We were encouraged to compare the flavor profile with pure water in each case so we could really get the subtle distinctions. All in all quite an interesting exercise. It also made sure that the assembled gathering were pretty well hydrated before getting to the main event.

We arranged the wines in sequence – from lightest to heaviest. This year they were all red wines, so it was trickier than in years past. Here's what we had.

Clos de la Roche (Burgundy 1er cru) 2000 – with a delicious baked chicken dish. Bryan brought this and explained that it was becoming pretty hard to get. What a terrific start to the evening – wish there had been more. That's going to be a familiar theme, by the way.
Chateau de Pommard (Burgundy ) 1996 – with Boeuf Bourgignon inspired sliders. Madame and I provided this. It was one we brought back from our trip to Burgundy in 2002. While not the highest quality Burgundy we will ever drink, it still had sufficient complexity for the food. Interestingly it opened up very quickly in the glass.
Baron de Barbon (Rioja) 2005. This is a 100% Tempranillo brought by Cathy. Delicious very characteristic Rioja with lots of tannin and some dried fruit bouquet – almost raisin like. That sweetness was in the bouquet, but not on the tongue. Cathy had found it while doing research – and she kindly brought a second bottle which we have kept to ourselves….
D.V. Catena (Argentina) 2004. A 100% Malbec brought by David and Sandra. This was the last bottle from their personal favorite collection of Malbecs, so we were honored to share it with them. Sandra prepared an Asian flavored Kobe beef dish that was absolutely delicious (note to self, get recipe from Sandra!) It complemented the wine perfectly – causing of all things the spiciness of the dish to come jumping out.
Veraison Synchrony (California, Napa) 2004. This is an interesting and complex wine. It is a blend of equal parts Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon (44% each) with 6% Malbec and 6% Merlot, so there is a lot going on. Charles and Tracey brought this to the party after tasting it at a local wine bar called Cru.
Darjoush (California, Napa) 2005. This is a huge cabernet Sauvignon, with lots of tannin and an amazing amount of body. Somewhat oaky too. Griff and Suzie found this on their trip to Napa last year (for their 25^th. Wedding anniversary) – just about breaking their backs carrying the unbelievably heavy bottles home.

So that was it for the formal stuff – but to add to the fun we opened a bottle of our current favorite Shiraz – The Ausvetia 1998 which we had managed to buy on sale (just as well really!).

All in all this was a terrific party. Even though it looks like a lot of wine, the pours were small and we got to savor everything. Thanks to everyone for coming to a fun party.

Artichokes

2009-02-21T20:25:00.002-06:00

I was inspired by a fabulous artichoke dish we had at a restaurant here in Dallas last week. It was a simple steamed artichoke, hollowed out with a sauce (Hollandaise based) poured into the middle with some chopped artichoke added.

So, here's what we did.

Ingredients
2 artichokes
4 egg yolks
6 oz butter, soft but not liquid
juice 1/2 a lemon
1T water
3 T white wine veniegar
2 Tdry white wine
1/4 cup finely minced shallots
1 sprig Thyme

Method
In a small pan combine the vinegar, white wine, shallots and thyme. reduce the liquid to about 1T and turn the heat off.

Trim the artichokes by cutting the top 1" off the cone, and trimming the stalk flat at the base.

Make sure each cut surace is covered lightluy with lemon juice to prevent browning. Stem the artichokes (cut side of cone down) for 35 or so minutes - or until cooked through.

Meanwhile make a hollandaise from the egg yolks, lemon juice, water and butter. Once the hollandaise is made, finish with the shallot reduction.

Allow the artichokes to cool, and scoop out the interior. Add any artichoke flesh to the hollandaise.

To serve, pour the hollandaise misxture into the well of the artichoke. It goes bery well with an extremely dry white (e.g. Sancerre)

Crackers

2009-02-21T20:16:00.002-06:00

First it was Mark Bittman in the New York Times, and then Alton Brown on good eats. Both were extolling the virtues of home made crackers. I had made some about 3 weeks ago, and they were pretty good - I just needed more motivation. There is also a key insight - use the pasta maker to roll them out.

So today I made simple crackers rolled in the pasta machine. They turned out very well indeed.

Ingredients
1 Cup AP flour
2t baking soda
1t cream of tartar
4oz frozen butter, grated
3 oz Parmesan, grated finely
2T Hot Basil seeds
1/4 Cup quark
2T whole wheat flour
1/4 Cup 1% milk
2T Olive oil

Method
Preheat the oven to 425, and set the shelf to the middle rack. Pulse the flour, butter, baking soda, cream of tartar about 10 1 second pulses. Add the parmesan and pulse 3 more times. Then the basil seeds and a quick pulse. Mix in the quark, milk and add whole wheat flour to get the texture to that of shortcrust pastry.

Divid3e the dough into quarters. Roll each quarter a few times through the widest setting of thae pasta maker, then take it down 2 steps. Place the rolled ribbn on a silpat or parchment lined baking sheet. Score the dough so it will break cleanly and bake in a 425 oven for about 12 minutes, turning at the 6 minute mark.

Remove from the oven when golden brown and allow to cool on a wire rack. Once cool, store in an air tight tin.

Tea

2009-02-02T10:56:00.003-06:00

It seems odd to write a blog post about making something as simple as a good cup of tea, but we got compliments about our tea over the weekend.

I would like to say that it was made from the finest leaves "SPECIAL FINEST TIPPY GOLDEN FLOWERY ORANGE PEKOE (SFTGFOP)". But oh no, not in our house.

The tea itself was the standard $3.75/lb generic tea from our local Indian supermarket. Nothing special there. It is however loose tea and not the nasty stuff in bags. So how to keep the tea leaves out of the cup? One way is to use a regular strainer, but the other is to use something like this..

and the traditional brown betty teapot

So having assembled the hardware, time for the process.

Use cold tapwater - I always let it run for a bit before putting it in the electric kettle. What's an electric kettle? One of these kinds of things. It is certainly preferable to using the microwave.

Heat plenty of water in the kettle until nearly boiling. Pour some of the hot water into the pot to warm it. Bring the rest of the water to the boil. I do allow mine to boil - some say it makes the tea taste flat, I prefer the taste when the water has been poured onto the leaves when it is at a full boil.

Into the strainer device put 1 heaping tsp of loose tea per person + 1 extra (1 for the pot). If you are just doing 1 cup, then use a single heaping tsp + a little bit.

Empty the warming water out of the teapot and put the strainer in, resting on the edges of the top opening. The body of the strainer is then dangling inside. Pour the water through the leaves in the strainer into the pot. Make sure that the water comes almost to the top - you want the body of the strainer in full contact with the water. Cover the pot and let the tea brew (steep) for about 3 minutes.

Remove the strainer, put the lid onto the pot and serve.

You can make a single mug using the same device/method. Just use less tea and dangle the strainer into the mug. Ideally the mug should be deep enough for the strainer, so it won't work with your best Spode tea set.

Roast Duck for Christmas

2008-12-25T09:38:00.003-06:00

Madame and I stayed with my sister, brother-in-law and nephews for Christmas this year. We decided to have duck as the main course meat and then the usual raft of roasted potatoes, roast parsnips, sugar snap peas, carrots and braised red cabbage to cut through the duck's richness.

During our visit to London earlier, we had bought a pair of ducks from the local butcher (Lidgate), so we were assured of some nice birds.

#1 nephew and I made brandy butter and a cranberry relish using bitter orange marmalade and Ribena (an English blackcurrant drink) the night before.

On THE DAY, there was quite a complicated timetable of vegetable and duck prep starting at 09:00 for a 1pm lunch. While others were at Church, I was busy preparing the ducks, peeling onions, potatoes, parsnips, carrots, apples and chopping cabbage, while making sure that the ovens came on at the right times, the Christmas Pudding was properly cooking, my dad was getting his coffee. Somewhere in all of this I had to shower as well.

Most of the dishes were commonplace, but the duck was a new experience for me. Ducks are very fatty and require a lot of cooking time.

Roast Duck
Ingredients (To serve 8)
2 Good sized fresh ducks (about 4 1/2 lbs each)
4 Cups boiling water
Salt/Pepper to taste

Method
For 24 hours prior to cooking leave the ducks uncovered in the refrigerator. This helps the skin dry out and crisp up.

4 hours prior to serving remove the ducks from the refrigerator and allow them to come to room temperature.

Trim wing ends from the ducks. Prick the skin on the breast side of the ducks all over with a roasting fork. Just pierce the skin, do not go deeply into the flesh.

Remove the giblets and rinse the ducks thoroughly, inside and out.

Put ducks on a rack in a pan and pour the boiling water over the ducks allowing the water to collect in the bottom of the pan.

Dry the ducks thoroughly and cover the skin and inside the cavity liberally with salt and pepper. Put the ducks breast side up on the rack and roast in a preheated 425F (210C) oven for 40 minutes. Remove from the oven, rotate the ducks so they are breast down and roast for a further 40 minutes. After the second 40 minutes rotate a second time so the breast is up again. Roast for another 40 minutes - or until the ducks are done. You can tell that they are done because the leg joint will loosen and any juices will run clear/yellow with no traces of blood.

Remove from the oven, allow to rest for at least 20 minutes, under a foil tent. When rested, quarter the ducks and serve on a bed of braised red cabbage, garnished with some rosemary stalks and thyme sprigs.

Coffee

2008-12-06T09:43:00.001-06:00

This isn't a recipe posting just a paean in praise of a new (at least to me) way of making coffee.

I have long been a fan of the French Press as a way of making coffee, but don't like having to filter the grounds through my mustache (especially after shaving it off!) Also I was finding the coffee to be bitter and not really enjoyable any more. Same roast, same grind, but my taster was clearly not working right.

On a plane trip recently, I saw this http://www.aerobie.com/Products/aeropress.htm.

Well, I thought $30 how good/bad can it be? I found out after buying one – it is exceptional. All the benefits of the French Press + easier clean up + tastier/less bitter coffee. Downside is that you do use more coffee (just like in the Starbucks Clover), but the rewards are well worth it. Hurry to your nearest Sur la Table and grab one!

Madame also pronounces it delicious – although the strength needs adjusting. It brews up very strong coffee which you ten need to dilute to make an Americano or Latte. It's got me convinced to drink coffee again.

We roast our own coffee (aged Sumatran from sweetmarias.com) to 2^nd crack (well a little beyond). I am hoping to roast the coffee a little less to get some of the more subtle flavors out, but without the accompanying acidity.

The Faculty Holiday Party Potluck

2008-12-06T09:05:00.001-06:00

Apart from seeing how many nouns in a row I could use adjectively, this post is about the holiday party yesterday.

Madame's department chair is vegetarian, so whenever we go to a party where she will be, we like to take something vegetarian – because for vegetarians these events can be tricky indeed. Last weekend we had been hiking up in the Palomar Mountain State Park and had a pretty good vegetarian chili for lunch, so thought it a good idea to make one for the party. No it was nothing like the one up at Palomar Mountain, but it turned out well and it was all eaten up, so we did something right.

Ingredients

1T + 1t vegetable oil

2 Medium onions (Not sweet, use yellow or white), diced

6 cloves garlic, diced – not pureed

4 t Paprika

2 T cumin - ground finely

1 t dried oregano

2 t finely ground black pepper

1 t salt

2 Jalapenos or other moderately hot peppers - chopped finely

1 Chipotle – whole

3T Chopped parsley

1 Bay leaf

2 Medium carrots - rough chopped medium

1 Large green pepper – rough chopped medium

2 large (28 oz) cans plum tomatoes

2 15 oz cans red kidney beans – drained and rinsed. (Divided use)

1 15 oz can black beans – drained and rinsed

2 large packets frozen corn (not sure of the size, but about 2lbs in total)

Method

In a sauté pan, heat the 1T oil until shimmering and sweat the onions. After 3 or 4 minutes add the garlic and continue to sweat. The onions should not take on any color. In another (non stick) skillet heat the 1t oil and add the cumin, pepper, paprika and fry gently. When they begin to be aromatic, dump them into the onion/garlic pan and combine well. Toss in the carrots, green pepper, jalapenos and allow to warm through for a few minutes.

Place the onion mixture into the bottom of a "crock pot" or other slow cooker. Add the bay leaf, salt, chipotle, oregano, tomatoes (including their liquid) to the mixture and mix well. Puree 1 can of the red beans (I did it on the chopping board with the knife to save dirtying the food processor). Add the pureed beans and the remainder of the kidney beans + the back beans and mix. Add the frozen corn and mix again.

Set the slow cooker for at least 10 hours on low or 6 hours on high, cover and ignore the dish.

Serving

Remove the chipotle and the bay leaf and then serve piping hot with the traditional chili accompaniments of sour cream, raw onion and grated cheese.

Madame's birthday...

2008-10-11T17:29:00.003-05:00

It was Madame's birthday yesterday, so it was time for something special for dinner. Rex's Seafood had some lovely red snapper fillets, so Snapper en papillote came to mind. However, that while visually appealing can be a bit dull, so what to jazz it up with? The plums in the store looked nice, and their sweetness would do good things for the fish - at least I hoped so. That turned out to be a good guess! The sweetness of the plums and the tartness of the lemons really served to coax out the gentle flavors from the fish - without overpowering it.

All in all a very successful dinner.

Red snapper en papillote with plums
Ingredients (for 2 people)
1 cup cooked couscous
2 red snapper fillets (6-8 oz each) (160-200gm each)
1 lemon, thinly sliced
2 red plums each cut into 16 thin wedges
1/2 of a sweet onion cut sliced thinly
1 large bunch of straight leaf parsley
3 T dry white wine.

Method

Preheat the oven to 400F

Cut 2 sheets of parchment paper into heart shapes. Divide the couscous equally between them and lay on one lobe of the heart as a bed for the fish. Lay one fish fillet, skin side down, on each couscous bed. Season the fish very lightly with salt and finely ground pepper. Cover each fillet with the sliced lemons. Tuck the plum slices under the edges of the couscous to hold them in place. Cover the lemons and fish with the parsley and onions. Pour the white wine over the top of the onions/parsley/fish and fold the parchment over, sealing the edges to make a bag.

Bake the bags on the center rack of the 400 degree oven for about 15-16 minutes. Don't worry - it will be cooked. If the fillets are very thin, then 14 minutes will suffice.

Serve with steam fried baby eggplant (aubergines) - recipe follows. The steam fried method of cooking the eggplant preserves (to some extent) their lovely purple. It also softens the skins a little and makes them less chewy.

Steam fried baby eggplant
Ingredients

8 baby eggplant (each weighing about 2 oz/55 gm)
4T olive oil (not extra virgin, divided use)
1/2 cup water
Salt/pepper
Left over lemon slices from previous recipe - especially the ends.

Method

Slice the eggplants longitudinally and brush the cut sides only with 1/2 of the oil. Sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper. Heat the remaining oil in a large skillet. When almost smoking, place the eggplant into the hot pan, cut side down. Turn the heat to medium and continue to cook until the bottoms of the egg plant are lightly browned. You will see the eggplant turning soft up the sides while this is happening. Probably around 5 minutes.

Cover the eggplants with the lemon slices, add 1/2 cup of water to the pan, and cover the panimmediately. Allow the egg plants to braise for a further 5 or so minutes until soft.

Serving
Place a pouch of fish on each plate, and arrange the eggplants decoratively at the edge of the plate. Cut the pouch with sharp scissors at the table, to allow the steam to escape.

This goes especially well with a crisp, dry white. We served a Sancerre, but any dry crisp white would work. I would not serve a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc because they tend to be too grassy.

Pavlova Redux

2008-09-28T10:59:00.004-05:00

This somewhat messy dessert was for a party last night. This time we decided to take it fully formed - in the car for about 7 miles.

So we wrapped Madame in an apron, spread a towel over her lap, and bundled her into the car. When she was well situated, I gave her the cake stand with Pavlova on top for her to hold while I drove, gingerly, to the party.

We got there intact, much to our surprise and then came time for the dismount. I opened the passenger side door and tried to pry the cake stand and dessert from Madame's death grip. She was holding that sucker as if her life depended on it. I had these visions of being attacked by "the claw" afterwards. Fortunately her hands loosened up to grab onto a champagne glass and order was restored.

The dessert seemed to be a success, it was set upon by the gannets at this wonderful party.

Pavlova

2008-09-21T11:07:00.001-05:00

Pavlova is a dessert made from meringue, whipped cream and tropical fruit. It is very simple to make and looks spectacular.

Ingredients: Meringue base

4 egg whites (making sure that there are no traces of yolk)

1 cup superfine sugar (granulated sugar pulverized in the food processor)

1t white vinegar (do not use cider or wine vinegar)

2 t corn starch

Method

Put the egg whites into the very clean bowl of a stand mixer. Best if the whites are at room temperature. Mix them slowly to break them up, and then beat at high speed until they form stiff peaks. Continue to beat while adding the sugar a little at a time. You know when they are done when if you rub a little of the egg white/sugar mixture between your fingers it doesn't feel gritty. Sprinkle the corn starch and vinegar over the surface and fold in to the mixture with a spatula.

On a sheet of parchment paper, place the meringue mixture in a circle, with the edges mounded higher than the center.

Bake on center rack of the oven set at 250F for about 75 minutes, and then allow to cool in the oven with the door ajar and the oven off.

This can be done a day or 2 ahead. Just store the cooked shell in a cool, dry, covered place.

Ingredients - Filling/topping

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

4t granulated sugar

1t pure vanilla essence

Some (total about 2 cups) of fruits - include at least one tropical fruit (e.g. mango). Choose among Kiwi, mango, raspberries, blue berries, peaches, nectarines, strawberries. Make sure there is a good mix of colors.

Method

Chill a medium mixing bowl in the freezer. Whip the cream in the chilled bowl until it is floppy with soft peaks. Cream whips better when cold. When whipped add the sugar and vanilla, whip more to incorporate. Be careful not to overwhip or you will have sugary/vanilla flavored butter.

Chop the fruits into raspberry sized pieces - trying to have the fruit even in size. Leave the raspberries whole.

Fill the center of the meringue base with whipped cream and decorate randomly with the fruits.

Serve immediately (it will hold for about 2 hours, but the meringue does go a bit soggy after that.

Lamb, pita and the grill

2008-09-03T11:08:00.001-05:00

The bread compulsion continues. I thought it might be fun, interesting, delicious,… to make pita. I have taken to putting a pizza stone onto the racks of the outdoor grill and cranking the heat up. That's what pita needs anyway. Of course with pita you must have lamb, lettuce, onion, tomato, tzaziki and cheap red wine. That was dinner yesterday.

First the pita.

Pita is pretty easy to make. Takes some kneading, but nice and straightforward – wuick too.

Ingredients

500 gm bread flour (although next time I may use AP flour, it was a wee bit chewy)

325 gm room temp. water

1 ½ t active dry yeast

2T Olive oil

2 t kosher salt.

Method

When using active dry yeast, you need to hydrate it a bit first. You can't just dump it into the flour and hope. So stir the yeast into the water. Leave for the time it takes to weigh the flour. Add the water/yeast to the flour. Mix together and add the olive oil. Continue to until it has all come together. Turn out on to the work surface and knead until the mass is cohesive. About 2 minutes. Then add the salt – simply sprinkle onto the dough and knead smoothly and vigorously for 10 minutes. The dough should become shiny and elastic.

Transfer to your fermentation container and leave at room temp for a couple of hours (until doubled). If it is going quicker than you want, retard it in the fridge for a bit.

After it has risen, dump it out of the container onto the work surface. Pat the dough into a rectangle – about 8 inches by 5 inches (size doesn't matter here). Cut the dough into 8 pieces. Roll each piece of dough into a circle, and leave to rest on a lightly floured parchment lined baking sheet. Flour the top of each ball lightly and cover with plastic wrap.

Heat the grill with a pizza stone on it until the temperature is around 550 degrees. You will want to use low heat and letthis take at least 30 minutes – preferably an hour.

Rest the dough balls until they have increased in size by about half. Taking each ball, flatten it gently on the floured work surface, flour a rolling pin and roll the individual dough balls out until they are 6-8 inches in diameter. Transfer 2 dough rounds to a baker's peel or upside down baking sheet (having sprinkled some cornmeal onto the peel or sheet to prevent sticking)

Slide the dough rounds onto the hot pizza stone, and close the lid. Cook for 60 seconds – the sheets should puff up. Flip them over and give them another 60 seconds. The timing is not precise, so check carefully. When done transfer to a wire rack and cook the remainder – 2 at a time. For a final warming (if you want) sprinkle each pita with a little (few drops) of water and put back in the hot grill for a few seconds – while the meat is cooking.

Grilled lamb pieces

These are cut to go nicely into the pockets of the pita, above. For the 2 of us, I used about 1lb leg of lamb cut into ¾ inch cubes.

Ingredients

1lb leg of lamb in ¾ inch cubes

1 cup olive oil

A handful each of marjoram and oregano roughly chopped

2 garlic cloves

Salt and pepper to taste.

Method

Season the lamb. Mix the herbs, olive oil and garlic together. Add the lamb to the marinade and leave to marinate in the fridge for at least 2 hours. Remove from the fridge and let stand for at least 30 minutes to warm up. This helps it cook more evenly.

When ready, grill the lamb pieces over the hot part of the grill, moving it around to limit flare-ups. Flaring is inevitable because of the olive oil. After a couple of minutes, the flare-ups stop and you can leave the meat to get nice marks from the grill.

Leave to stand while you tear some lettuce leaves, warm the pita and chop some tomatoes.

Serve with the pita/lettuce/tomatoes/tzaziki/raw onion and a bottle of light red wine – we had a chilled Beaujolais costing all of $7 per bottle!

Pizza….

2008-08-16T14:06:00.001-05:00

I am getting more and more encouraged by the bread making. There is beginning to be consistency and I can mostly predict what is going to happen. Madame is visiting her mother this week, so since her mother is from Bohemia originally, I though a Czech rye would be a nice thing to take. It was – they devoured it apparently. But that isn't the point of this post!

While Madame is away, I like to experiment with ideas – it keeps me off the streets and out of mischief. I had made ciabatta yesterday – and taken a loaf to my physician so he would give me a clean bill of health! I got to thinking, "I wonder what would happen if I made pizza out of a ciabatta type of dough". It clearly shouldn't be as wet (the ciabatta comes in at about 81% hydration, and you need a spoon to move it around.). So I made up a dough at 70% hydration and added 2T of olive oil as it was kneading in the mixer. It had maybe a bit much yeast, so I will back that off next time. The biga had been fermenting for around 15 hours before it got used.

Now thinking about toppings. Well the farmers' market had a lot of local tomatoes very cheap, so they were a given. I had had prosciutto and provolone in my ciabatta sandwich last night so had some left. Thus the tomato/prosciutto/provolone and basil pizza was born.

A while back Williams Sonoma (the high end cooking equipment store) had sent me some details on the "pizza-que" – essentially a pizza stone for use on the grill. $99 seemed a lot, so I thought I would try one of the pizza stones from the oven on my gas grill.

I was all set to bake. So for lunch took 1/4^th of the dough, made a circle from it (it seemed just the right consistency), put the cornmeal on the peel and made a pizza. I cooked it on the stone on the grill and sadly the bottom became burned before the edges were nicely browned. Of course I ate the melted cheese, etc. anyway – and made another.

This time I made less of a rim to the crust by pushing the topping nearer the edge. Also formed the whole thing thinner, so there was less dough to cook through at the rim. Spread the toppings, some olive oil and salt and cooked it. It took 3 minutes to cook and was absolutely magnificent. Not quite wood fired oven delicious, but definitely worth repeating and suitable for company.

I don't know if it is bad for the grill to work this way, I don't know if pizza stones are set to explode when placed directly above such eat – and frankly I don't care! The results are so amazing, it's worth it.

Thai Beef Salad (Yum Neua)

2008-08-06T10:26:00.001-05:00

It's been hot here in Texas – so hot that cooking indoors has been a non-starter. However, we still want things that taste good and we both had a hankering for meat. So, what better than a nicely spiced Thai Beef salad with the meat cooked on the grill. Everything else was raw, so didn't introduce extra heat to the kitchen. The dish is a pain to make – it elapses about 2 ½ hours, with serious attention needed for about 30 minutes. It doesn't meet my 45 minute concept to table at all. As can be seen from the ingredient list, there are some rather strange ingredients – some of which might be hard to come by. After all, who has roasted rice powder on hand?

The dish got rave reviews from Madame, including the premier accolade, "We can serve this to people". That is goodness in itself!

Anyhow, here goes (Serves 4 as a main course, 6-8 as an appetizer).

Ingredients

16 Oz Beef steak (sirloin or flank work well. Meat should be no more than ½ inch thick)

1 6oz can frozen pineapple juice concentrate

Vegetable oil spray

Juice of 3 limes

3 inches of lemongrass, minced

3 Thai lime leaves (kaffir lime) minced (or 2t lime zest)

1T Roasted rice powder

1T Roasted dried chile powder (e.g. de Arbol. Do not use chipotle, they are too smoky)

1 Cup dressing (recipe follows)

½ medium yellow onion

1 cucumber peeled (1/2 sliced thinly on diagonal, ½ shaved into strips with a peeler for garnish)

12 lettuce leaves, torn into bite sized pieces

12 cherry tomatoes halved

A handful of mint leaves

A handful of basil leaves (Thai basil is best, but regular sweet basil is OK)

A handful of cilantro coarsely chopped

Method

Marinade the meat in the pineapple juice concentrate for 1-3 hours. Spray the meat with cooking spray, and grill until medium rare (Total grilling time about 8 minutes depending on grill temperature). Allow the meat to rest until about lukewarm and then slice very thinly across the grain. Add the lime juice and leave to sit for 10-15 minutes.

Just before serving make up the salad. First add the lemon grass/kaffir lime) and toss lightly. Next the roasted rice powder and the ground chile – again toss. Pour in the dressing and toss. Next add the onion, sliced cucumber, lettuce and toss. Finally add the cherry tomatoes and toss again. Plate the salad garnished with the cilantro, basil, mint and shaved cucumber strips.

Serve while the meat is still slightly warm.

The Dressing

The dressing is an intense mixture of fish sauce, sugar, lime juice, chile peppers and cilantro roots or stems

Ingredients

1t Kosher or sea salt

¼ cup fish sauce (nam pla)

2T light brown sugar

2T granulated sugar

Juice of 6 limes

At least 3 hot fresh minced chile peppers (cayenne) – more to taste. Depends on personal level of heat

1T minced cilantro roots or stems

1 Clove garlic minced finely (or pushed through a garlic press)

Method

Combine ingredients stirring to ensure that the sugars are dissolved. Let stand until ready to use.

Roasted Rice Powder

This adds body to the dish without imparting a lot of flavor. It is made by heating rice in a skillet until the rice is uniformly brown. Allow to cool and then grind in a spice grinder or pestle and mortar

Don’t try this at home

2008-07-16T12:49:00.003-05:00

I was inspired by a television program to make a mango/avocado smoothie. It was ostensibly "simple and delicious". Simple it was, delicious it wasn't!

Take 1 avocado, 1 mango, some lime juice and blend until smooth. Top off with a little club soda (disgusting) or 7-up (almost as bad). Pour down sink and try something different.