Hassdelback or Hasselhack

Our supper club meets periodically. On this occasion the menu was crab bisque, salad, venison, hasselback potatoes, green beans, cheesecake. And, it was all amazing.

I was voluntold to do the Hasselback potatoes. I had never heard of such a thing, so went off to do research. Once you have finished the cutting they are really easy. But the cutting does require more precision knife work than I am used to. At least it provided the motivation to sharpen my knives.

Ingredients (for 10 people)

10 Medium potatoes. I used Yukon Golds, but tried russets and sweet potatoes while practicing

1 stick butter - I used salted, but if you use unsalted you will need more salt

1/2 Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil (Yes, I know, it's a volume measure, don't hate me)

1 Head of garlic broken into invividual cloves

1 Bunch thyme

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Method

Make a bath of lightly acidulated water (a quart or so with the juice of a lemon). This stops the potatoes browning after they have been cut.

First prepare the potatoes. The trouble with these is that the slices have to be really thin, and you don't want to cut all the way through the potato. The photographs below demonstrate with a russet but I used the same approach with the yukon golds.

You do want to make sure that when you cut the yukon gold in half, you do it lengthwise and keep maximum thickness. This makes the rest of the slicing a whole lot easier.

Cut the potatoes one at a time. Put a potato, cut side directly onto the counter between 2 chopping boards. The longer side of the potato is parallel with the cutting board edges.The chopping boards will act as a gauge to prevent you slicing too far. 

This is the hack mentioned in the title. Most recipes suggest using wooden spoons, but they are too fiddly for me.

Slice the potato crosswise, very thinly - for an average sized Yulon Gold potato, I was getting around 16 slices. Put the potatoes into the acidulated water.

In a microwave safe bowl put the thyme, crushed garlic cloves, butter, oil, salt, pepper. Microwave at 50% power for a couple of inutes, and then leave to infuse.

Set an oven rackto the lower middle. Preheat the oven to 425F while the oil/herb/butter/garlic mixture is steeping.

Place the potatoes, flat side down, onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Reheat the oil/herb/butter/garlic mixture and brush over the potatoes, trying tto get liquid between the slices. At this stage that will be difficult, but as they cook, the potatoes will open up.

Put the baking sheet into the oven and set a 20 minute timer. After 20 minutes, baste the potatoes again with the oil/herb/butter/garlic mixture. This time it is easier to get it between the slices. Turn the oven down to 400F. 

Baste twice more at 15 minute intervals. Again working as much of the oil/herb/butter/garlic mixture into the slits as possible.

If you are baking in a non-fan assisted ovent, you may need to rotate the pan. I would do it after the second oven basting.

Tapenade

 Classic tapenade isn't just about the olives. Capers play a major role too.  The name comes from the Provencal word for capers (tapenas). In the version that I make, the capers get equal billing with the olives. That makes for a tarter version than we often see. But it works pretty well.

Ingredients

1/2 cup non-pareil capers, rinsed and drained

1 cup black olives in brine, rinsed, pitted and chopped

2 anchovy fillets

2 larger cloves of garlic, crushed 

1/3 cup high quality olive oil (you might need a little more if the olives are quite dry)

Method

Place the drained capers into the jar of your blender. Roughly chop the olives with a few quick passes with your chef's knife. This serves 2 purposes. First it finds any pits that were left behind before your blender or teeth do. Second it allows for a shorter time in the blender so the capers don't get overprocessed. Add the anchovies and crushed garlic.

Pulse the mixture for a second or two. Then add the olive oil, and pulse until the desired consistency is reached. Maybe 3 pulses each lasting a second. Depends on the power of your blender.

Spoon out, the mixture and refrigerate - preferably overnight.

Serve with crostini and a nice glass (or several if you aren't driving) of a chilled Provencal rose.

Gazpacho

This is not your standard, boring blended salsa Gazpacho. It has stale bread. It has olive oil. It has a touch of sherry vinegar. Nothing is heated. The trick is to get as much flavor as possible out of raw vegetables, blending them, and then pushing the soup through a fine-meshed strainer.

The idea and techniques come from Serious Eats (where technique rules). However, when you get to the freezing step do make sure that you freeze the vegetables (especially the onion) in a freezer safe bag. Otherwise you end up with a very smelly freezer - the only thing to do then is to defrost and refreeze. Don't ask me how I know this!

Ingredients - these don't need to be terribly precise

2 or 3 slices of stale bread, sliced. We used a homemade sandwich loaf with 80% bread flour 20% whole wheat.

4-5 lbs ripe tomatoes, cored, cut into chunks. We typically use seconds and cut off any ugly/squashed bits.

2 Cucumbers peeled, cored and sliced into chunks

2 Red bell peppers cored and seeded, sliced into chunks

1 Medium red onion, peeled and cut into chunks

1 1/2 tsp kosher salt 

4 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed

1/2 cup high quality extra virgin olive oil (first cold press, preferably Spanish)

8 tablespoons Sherry vinegar

Method

Tear the bread into chunks into a small bowl. place the chopped vegetables into a large bowl, sprinkling with the salt as you go. Leave the vegetables for 30 minutes to allow the juice to drain. Drain the juice over the bread to soften it. Set this aside, at room temperature, covered.

Gather the vegetables into 2 one gallon freezer bags. Lay the bags flat to even out the vegetables and press the air out. Freeze the vegetables until slightly mushy feeling. Not frozen solid, but not as firm as they were when they went in. If you let them go too long, that's fine - you will just need to let them thaw prior to the next step

Remove the vegetables from the freezer. Transfer liquid from the bottom of the bags over the bread.

Working in batches, place some of the vegetables, bread, olive oil and sherry vinegar into the blender. Blend on high power for at least 60 seconds. Transfer to a fine strainer and strain the pureed soup pushing it through with a metal spoon. There should be very little residue in the strainer, but what is left in the strainer will tend to clog it up. So you will want to clean the strainer between batches.

Chill until you are ready to serve.

Serving

When serving the soup, use chilled bowls, and some garnishes including chives, avocado, grated egg. We often freeze some of the gazpacho in ice cube trays (there go the freezer smells again). This helps keep the soup chilled, although the texture of the frozen pieces is a bit coarse. The ice crystals, are not ideal. Pour a little more olive oil and a few drops of Sherry vinegar onto the soup, and sprinkle some coarse crunch salt.

If you happen to have baguettes or other crusty bread handy, now would be a good time to serve them too. As you can imagine, we did and we did!

Ajvar - red pepper and egg plant spread

An article about the Balkan dish called ajvar appeared in the New York Times recently. It looked insanely good, so of course I had to make it. I didn't exactly follow the NYT recipe, but I knew what I was trying to achieve, so went for it with gusto. And I am glad I did. It is amazingly good. Concentrated, smokey - one of those things that would make shoe leather taste good.

Ingredients

10 large red peppers

1 large Italian eggplant

1 garlic bulb

1/2 cup high quality olive oil (cold pressed extra virgin if possible)

Salt

Method

Over a very hot grill (charcoal in my case because I was cooking dinner at the same time) roast the peppers and eggplant until their skins are completely black. After the peppers and egg plant have been on for about 10 minutes, put the whole garlic bulb on too. Put the peppers into a bowl and cover to allow them to steam - this helps when it is time to peel them.

Peel the peppers, discarding skin and as many of the seeds as possible. Scoop the flesh out of the eggplant. Squeeze the roasted garlic out of the bulb. Place these ingredients into the food processor and pulse until slightly chunky.

Add the oil and salt to taste and process until almost smooth. Transfer to a saucepan and reduce the mixture by driving off some of the water. Do this over low heat to make sure it doesn't burn. When the volume is reduced by about 1/2 (probably 30 minutes), transfer to a heat proof container. Cover, allow to cool and then refrigerate overnight. 

A tale of too much pork

If there were such a thing as too much pork, this would be it. We had done a pork shoulder on the egg for a work party. And it was pronounced delicious. The trouble is, Costco's pork shoulders come in packets of 2. Each weighing about 5lbs. So one was smoked, shredded, sauced and eaten. The other was sitting in the fridge looking at me, desperately in need of some love and attention. So what to do?

Pork tacos, of course. But sadly when getting that ready, we ended up with too much meat for the dutch oven, so had to step down to yet another dish. Fortunately there was all sorts pf stuff in the fridge - and we have a great Mexican supermarket (Fiesta) nearby.

Ingredients (Paste)

6 ancho chiles stalks removed and seeded

8 chile d'arbol - stalks removed and seeded

Juice of 4 limes

3T sugar

Method (Paste)

Cover the dried chiles with boiling water, weigh them down under a plate and leave to stand for at least 30 minutes. Put all ingredients into a blender with some of the reserved liquid and blend until you have a smooth paste. It will need between 1/4 and 1/2 cup of the reserved liquid.

Ingredients (Pork Taco Meat)

3T Vegetable oil

2 Large Onions sliced

6 garlic cloves crushed

2T ground cumin
3T ground coriander
1T ground allspice
2T Mexican Oregano (dried)
3 Bay leaves
12 oz bottle of dark beer
4/5ths of the above paste

4 lbs pork shoulder - cut into 4 1lb pieces

Method (Pork Taco Meat)

Salt the pork and rub with the paste. Leave to stand for 30 minutes. Heat the oil in a large Dutch Oven until shimmering and add the onions, garlic and the spices. Soften the onions and garlic - about 5-10 minutes or until the spices are nice and fragrant. Add the beer, bring to a boil and put the pork into the pot. Cover tightly. Put into the oven for 2 1/2 hours (maybe a bit more or a bit less) until the pork is tender.

Strain the liquid and separate the fat. Shred the pork and add the strained liquid back into it. Serve immediately or allow to cool and serve over the following few days.

Ingredients (Pork Stew)

2T vegetable oil

6 Shallots - crushed

3 Garlic cloves - crushed

3 Celery ribs

1 Apple - diced

1/5th of the paste

1 lb pork shoulder - cut into 3/4 inch cubes

8 oz beer (anything but light/low calorie. We used Fireman's 4)

1/4 cup bitter orange marmalade

Method (Pork Stew)

Salt the pork and rub with the paste. Leave to stand for about 30 minutes. In a 4 quart saucepot heat the oil until sizzling. Turn heat to low and add the celery, shallot, apple and garlic. Allow the shallot and celery to soften.

Transfer the celery/shallot/garlic/apple to its own bowl. Add a little more oil and start to brown the coated pork. Do this in batches to avoid simply steaming it.

Add the seared pork to the vegetables. Deglaze the pan with the beer and add the range marmalade. Add the pork and vegetables back into the pan. Stir, put the lid onto the pan and simmer gently on the stove until the pork is tender (about 90 minutes).

When it is cooked, serve over plain white rice, garnished with Mexican Oregano.

Salads for the arayes

In this post, I described the amazing Lebanese sandwiches - arayes. To go with them we made a couple of salads. Water melons, tomatoes and local feta seemed to be the way to go. Home made yogurt, home grown mint made a good tzatziki. All in all pretty tasty. The dishes were:

Watermelon, watercress, feta and pistachio salad
Cucumber, tomato and onion salad
Tzatziki

The tzatziki quantities are approximate. Also, the tzatziki needs at least 2 hours in the refrigerator for the flavors to combine.

Ingredients - Watermelon salad

3 cups cubed watermelon (cubed like this)

1 bunch watercress

5 oz feta chopped into 1/4" cubes

1 cup pistachios, roughly chopped

Juice of 1 1/2 lemons

6T Extra Virgin Olive Oil (the best finishing oil you have)

Coarse salt to taste

Method

Combine everything except the salt. Add the coarse salt just before serving, so that the juices don't run out of the melon.

Ingredients - Cucumber, onion, tomato salad

A few lettuce leaves 

3 small cucumbers, peeled, seeded, 14" pieces

2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved

1 slice of white onion, 14" thick chopped finely

juice of 1/2 lemon

4T Extra Virgin Olive Oil (again the best that you have)

Coarse sea salt added just before serving.

Method

Line a salad bowl with the lettuce leaves. Combine tomatoes, cucumber, onion in a bowl, add the lemon juice. Just before serving, toss in some coarse salt and stir. Add to the serving bowl that has the lettuce leaves liner.

Ingredients - Tzatziki

3 cloves garlic - mashed to a paste

1 1/2 cups strained (Greek) yogurt

Handful of mint leaves chopped finely

3T white wine vinegar

1t tahini

1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil (the best you have)

salt to taste

Method

Mix the garlic into the yogurt. Add the mint leaves, vinegar, tahini and oil. Stir throughly and check the seasoning. You may need to add a little salt. Chill for at least 2 hours.

Cooking with Kenji

Serious Eats/The Food Lab is one of my favorite sites to visit. Kenji applies scientific principles to experimentation with food. He went to MIT, so not surprising that he has a scientific bent.

There of us (all Chris's) went to a cooking demo/book signing at a local Central Market a couple of weeks back. It was all about breakfast. Some amazing hints, an entertaining lecture and delicious food. Too much to get into in detail (hint, buy the book), but now having seen his personality and approach I find the book even easier to comprehend.

The one thing I will mention is the mayonnaise. None of the drizzle slowly while whisking stuff. No use the stick blender and a tall container. Eggs/water/acid in the bottom, oil on top. Put in the stick, blend for about 20 seconds. Voila mayonnaise. One piece of great advice about the oil. Use a relatively neutral oil at the beginning. If you plan to add a fruity olive oil, then add it at the end and whisk it in by hand.

One of the Chris's had brought back some oil from Nice after a business trip. So of course we had to add that into the mayonnaise. Oh my.

We made some of the mayonnaise with a finely chopped garlic clove blended in. Served as a dip with some naan split open, drizzled with oil, sumac, and salt, toasted for 10 minutes in a 350 oven.

We also used the same garlic mayonnaise as a base for poached eggs on toast. Kenji also taught us an outstanding way to poach eggs. So, home made bread, garlic mayonnaise with poached eggs for supper on a Sunday. It doesn't get a lot better than that.

Chicken Peanut Soup

Yeah, I know this sounds crazy, but it came out really nicely. Madame had been feeling under the weather a bit, so I wanted to make sure that she had something tasty, hearty and comforting for dinner when she came home yesterday - especially as I was out drinking good red wine and eating fantastic pizza!
I had recently watched an episode of "The Minimalist" - Mark Bittman's somewhat crazy cooking show. Crazy because it is about cooking more than it is about recipes. Also, I think he is certifiably mad (in a good way!). So as usual, I will tell you what I did. You can treat it as a recipe, but I suspect it is pretty forgiving. The only real thing to worry about is having it become too brothy. It wants to be the thickness of cream at the end. Luckily that thickness can be controlled by the amount of peanut butter added.

Ingredients

3T grapeseed oil
1 medium onion - finely diced
1" piece of ginger, grated
2 large garlic cloves, minced to a paste
4 chicken thighs - skinned, boned and cut into 3/4" chunks
1 cup roasted, salted peanuts roughly chopped
a pinch (or 2!) of cayenne pepper
2 cups chicken stock (home made preferably)
3 cups water
3 small sweet potatoes peeled and cut into 1/3" thick rounds
1 28 oz can plum tomatoes. Drained, tomatoes roughly chopped
1 bunch of curly kale - leaves only, stripped from the stalk. roughly chopped, large pieces.
salt/pepper to taste
1/2 cup chunky, unsweetened peanut butter (I used one of the "natural" varieties)

Method

Heat the oil in a large skillet or dutch oven until shimmering. Add the onions and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring to prevent burning. Add the garlic and ginger and cook until fragrant. Add the chicken and continue to cook until the chicken is lightly colored on all sides. The chicken is NOT fully cooked at this stage. Add the peanuts and the cayenne and stir to combine. Add the stock/water combination and the sweet potatoe slices. Make sure the sweet potato slices are well distributed through the pot, and are immersed in liquid. Bring to a gentle boil, add the chopped tomatoes. Simmer for about 10 minutes. Add the kale and simmer until the sweet potatoes are just tender.
Stir in the peanut butter until the desired thickness is reached. Check the seasonings, adding salt/pepper, to taste.

It did get the "we can serve this to people" accolade, so it must have been good! Thanks to Mark Bittman and the New York Times for the inspiration

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

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

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.

garlic, lemon, potatoes Oh My!

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."