A "Quick" Vegetable gratin

Vegetable gratins are full of pitfalls. The vegetables cook unevenly, there is too much liquid so they end up sloppy, toppings are uneven..

So to overcome these we need to think about cooking in "layers" or stages. This recipe details the stages and techniques.

Ingredients

1 Medium Italian eggplant (aubergine), peeled in stripes and cut into 1/2" thick rounds

1/4 Cup extra virgin olive oil (divided use)

1 Tbs Aleppo pepper

2 Medium yellow onions coarsely diced

1 Red bell pepper cut into 1/2" pieces

1 1/12 lbs cherry tomatoes

1 Russet potato (coarsely grated - lke for hashbrowns)

4 Oz Melty hard chese (Cheddar/Gruyere) grated

Salt/Pepper to taste

Finely chopped chives for garnish/decoration

Method

Preheat the oven to 425F (Fan). Rack in the middle

Microwave the eggplant slices until they are soft and much of the water has been driven off. Meanwhile lighly oil a gratin dish.

Seperately saute the onions and red pepper using a little oil, Aleppo pepper, and salt ad pepper. The onions should become translucent, but not browned.

Place the eggplant slices in a single layer in the bottom of the gratin dish. 

Rinse the grated potatoes to remove the surface starch. Microwave the grated potatoes to mostly cook and dry off as much water as possible. 

Meanwhile, cover the eggplant with the sauteed onions/peppers. Sprinkle the tomatoes over the onions. Place the gratin dish into the oven, uncovered, for about 20 minutes. This will cause the tomatoes to wrinkle and soften.

MIx the grated potatoes with the grated cheese. Salt the gratin and then cover with the grated potato/cheese.

Return to the oven and cook until the internal temperature of the gratin reaches 200F.

Switch the oven to broil, and brown the potato/cheese topping until it is nice and crunchy. Sprinkle the gratin with the chopped chives.

Serve with a crisp dry wine and a side salad

Cauliflower Soup

This soup is adapted from a recipe on Americas Test Kitchen. We made/served it for a major dinner party. This is a scaled back version, so the water may be slightly out of proportion. It can be adjusted at the end as necessary.
The beauty of this soup is that it has all the richness of a cream based soup - but with no cream. There is some butter in the recipe, but I suspect that it could be made vegan with the use of a neutral oil. I haven't tried that though.
You don't need to be very precise with the cutting, it all goes into the blender at the end, anyway.

Picture Courtesy of Jim Brewer

Ingredients

2T butter (substitute oil perhaps)

1 large leek, white and light green parts only. Sliced finely and thoroughly washed

1/2 yellow onion (NOT Vidalia or 1015) sliced thinly

1/2t kosher salt (there will be more salt later)

1 large head of cauliflower (divided use - 2/3 and 1/3)

4 cups water

Kosher salt to taste

Chipotle in adobo for garnish

Jalapeno corn bread/pepita croutons (or any other crunchy croutons)

Very coarse sea salt for crunch.

Finishing oil for drizzling

Method

Soften the leeks/onions in the butter/oil over medium low heat. Add the first salt as they begin to soften. Do not allow them to brown.

While the leeks and onions are softening, divide the cauliflower, making sure that there are no green leafy bits. Slice the stalks thinly and put them with the 2/3 side. 

When the leeks and onions have softened, add the 2/3 cauliflower and the water. Bring to a simmer and simmer for 15 minutes - until the cauliflower is cooked through.

Then add the remaining cauliflower to the pot and simmer for another 12 minutes (take the time from when the pot reaches simmering temp).

Transfer the contents of the pot to your blender and blend until very smooth. Note, of course that this is hot and will probably attempt to splash out of the blender, so make sure you have a towel around the blender and press the lid on tightly through the towel. If in doubt blend in batches for safety.

Strain the soup through a fine mesh strainer - to remove any lumps that the blender missed.

Adjust the texture using boiling water. Adjust the seasoning, remembering that you will be adding coarse salt later.

Serve in warmed bowls with croutons and chipotle. Add a little  swirl of olive oil and the crunchy, coarse salt.

Take a bow!

We served this with a nice Chardonnay from Nickel and Nickel.

Rotkohl - Allow lots of time

This sweet/sour red cabbage dish was part of a formal dinner party that we had last Saturday. It made enough for about 16 people as a side. The proportions are not exact (sadly) because there was some improvisation needed. But here it is approximately. You can tell by the color if you have enough vinegar.  The dish needs to stay bright red looking. If it goes too dark or faintly purple, there isn't enough acid.

Ingredients

1 head red cabbage (about 4lbs, shredded)

1 1/2 yellow onions (about 1lb) sliced thinly

2 Granny Smith Apples, peeled, cored and sliced

8 cloves inside a spice bag to make them easy to find in the finished dish

3/4 cup rice wine vinegar (Ideally you would use apple cider vinegar and a bit less, but we were out!)

10 T sherry vinegar (optional n- unnecessary if using apple cider vinegar)

1/4 cup of sugar (to taste)

3 t kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Method

Combine all the ingredients in a large pot (these fit into a 7 quart dutch oven). Bring to a simmer gently. Cover and simmer for at least 90 minutes. By all means crack the lid and taste to make sure the balance is how you want it.

After 90 minutes, uncover and allow some of the liquid to evaporate (another 30 minutes). By this time the cabbage should have softened but should still be slightly firm.

Remove the spice bag and serve hot as a side dish with your main course.

Jerk Pork

This dish is, apparently, Usain Bolt's favorite. It is adapted from Jamie Oliver's recipe which in turn is inspired By Usain Bolt's Aunt Lilly. It is unbelievably rich, but very tasty. I guess that the sprinter requires a lot of calories. By the time you have added dumplings and yams (well in our case sweet potatoes) you have a potentially very high Calorie course. Again this was done for a good sized group of people, so the amounts look huge. Starting with 10lbs Pork Belly. Fortunately we have a good connection (Ali Morgan at rare edibles in Dallas). She was able to source a big piece of Berkshire pork belly for us. So big that I will be using some of it to make bacon.

Ingredients (marinade)

16 green onions (trimmed, but both the white and green parts)

2 heads garlic

3 Habanero peppers

24 stalks of thyme - leaves only

8 fresh bay leaves - no stalks

2 t ground cloves

2 t ground all spice berries

1 t ground nutmeg

1/4 cup white wine vinegar

1/4 cup Jamaican rum

2 T honey

Ingredients (bonus flavor)

1/4 cup white wine vinegar

12 whole allspice berries

1 habanero sliced thinly

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1/4 cup water

1 t kosher salt

Ingredients (everything else)

10 lbs pork belly. Remove some of the exterior fat, but you do want to make sure that you leave plenty. Do remove the skin if the pork still has skin on.

6 large yellow onions sliced.

12 fresh bay leaves

6 lbs sweet potatoes (mixture of yellow and red) cubed into 3/4" cubes

8 oz AP flour

3 t baking powder

pinch salt

2 oz masa harina (corn flour, usually used for making tortillas)

1 cup water (for the dumplings)

2 oz unsalted butter

oil for frying (unmeasured, but generally shallow)

Method (marinade)

Place all the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. If it won't blend, add a little oil. 

Method (pork)

Cut the pork into 1 12" cubes. Cover with 1/2 of the marinade and leave to sit overnight in the refrigerator.

Preheat the oven to 300F. Oil a saute pan, heat the pan until you just see some wisps of smoke. and start to brown the pork. At these quantities, you will want to work in batches. It is important to get the meat browned. Better to do in 3 or 4 batches than to overcrowd. Place the browned meat into a dutch oven with a tight fitting lid. With the last batch of meat, add the onions to the pan and stir, scraping the brown stuff off the bottom of the pan. Add a little salt at this stage. It helps the onions release some liquid which in turn deglazes the pan somewhat. Pick the meat pieces out and add them to the dutch oven. Continue to sweat the onions until they are soft. Add the rum and cook down. I suggest that you briefly turn the heat off, add the rum, and then turn it back on. You don't want the rum catching fire and spreading. When the rum is almost dry, add the remainder of the marinade. and 2 cups of water. Stir to combine.

Pour these contents over the browned meat in teh dutch oven. Stir well to combine. Cover and place in the oven for 3-4 hours. Check every now and again to make sure it has not dried out. It will release a lot of fat. Depending on your sensitivities, you may want to pour some of the fat off.

Meanwhile make the bonus flavoring by bringing the liquids to a boil, adding the flavorings, simmering for a few minutes and allowing to rest. Strain the liquid and discard the solids. The bonus flavorings are there to boost the flavor of the dish as it nears the end of the cooking time. This was not in the original recipe, but the long cooking time had dulled the flavors a bit, so this boosted it back up. Add the strained bonus flavors at about 30 minutes before serving

Also, about 30 minutes before serving remove the prok from the oven and crank up the heat to 400F, Bring the sweet potatoes to a boil and cook for about 5 minutes. Drain and dry. Heat the butter and a similar quantity of oil in an oven proof (not nonstick, and make sure the handle isn't plastic) saute pan. Transfer the sweet potatoes to the hot saute pan and place in the hot oven. They will take about 15-20 minutes to brown and cook through.

Make dumplings by combining the flour, masa harina, salt and baking powder together with the cup of water. You will have a sticky dough. Knead a few times, and form into a log about 1" in diameter. Bring a pan of salted water to the boil. Break off pieces of the dough about the size of a ping pong ball. Roll into a sphere and then flatten the ball into a disk. Boil the disks in the water for 12-15 minutes. They wil initially sink, but then float. I flip them over about 1/2 way through. They become nice and puffy.

Transfer the pork to a warmed dish - bringing as much or as little of the fat as you want. Do make sure you get the thick, tasty onions and other juices, though. Serve with the dumplings in the dish and the sweet potatoes handed separately.

Escabeche or Escoveitch

Or just pickled fish.
This is a large recipe that I haven't scaled back yet. It was a starter course for dinner for 14 people. And yes there were left overs. The fish was red snapper, procured from our local fish-monger - TJs on Oak Lawn in Dallas. I had the fishmonger fillet the fish and remove the skin and pin bones. A major time saver. The dish takes a long time to make - but is not particularly labor intensive. It has to rest, refrigerated at least overnight.

Ingredients

2 cups white wine vinegar

2 cups water

1/2 t kosher salt

1/2 t granulated sugar (I think raw sugar might be more interesting)

1 cup juilenned carrot

1 cup julienned daikon (not traditionally Jamaican, but was a decent substitute for chayote

1 habanero pepper sliced thinly into rings

12 allspice berries

1 large yellow (sweet) onion sliced into thin rings

Neutral oil for frying the fish.  May need to clean the pan between batches

3 1/4 lbs red snapper fillets

Juice of 2 limes

1/2 cup (more or less) seasoned flour (salt and black pepper seasoning)

Method

Bring the vinegar, water, salt and sugar to the boil. Add the carrot, daikon, habanero, allspice and onion. Simmer for 2 or 3 minutes and set aside over very low heat to keep warm.

Rinse the fish fillets in water to which the lime juice has been added. This helps remove some of the fishy flavors. Dry the fish, cut the fish into 3/4" pieces and dredge in the seasoned flour.

Heat the oil in a large skillet until it is shimmering. Shake excess flour off the fish, then fry the pieces until nicely browned and almost cooked through (a couple of minutes/side). If you have to work in batches, at some point the flour from previous batches will start to burn and get nasty. When that happens, pour off the browned flour and oil. Wipe the pan and re-oil/reheat.

Place the cooked fish in the container in which you wish to serve it, and pour the reserved pickled carrot and daikon over it. Make sure that the liquid covers all of the fish and the vegetables are sitting on top. Cover the dish with cling wrap and refrigerate at least overnight or up to 24 hours.

Serve garnished with a sprig or 2 of thyme.

Casserole or Gratin

Whether you call a dish a casserole or a gratin may rather depend on whether you like it or not. Needless to say there is some history around tonight's offering. A whole lot of unrelated events combined to make this a must do.
First, there had been the threat of cold weather and we had a massive amount of basil. Needed to get it in so it wouldn't go to waste. I made basil oil from it. Second, we had some stale bread - no surprise there given the amount we make. Third, Fine Cooking came and it had some gratin recipes. Fourth. Madame has said that she would like more veges. 5th, we had some zucchini, tomatoes, sweet potatoes and onions left over from a farmers' market trip.
Now making vegetable gratins is a bit of an art. because the veges can have a lot of water, it is possible to end up with a rather sorry puddle of water with some limp vegetables lying in it. Now that is a casserole!
The trick for this dish is to roast the watery vegetables first in a pretty low oven - not so much for browning, more to drive off some liquid.

Ingredients

3 Tomatoes, chopped into medium dice.
1 sweet potato peeled and sliced very evenly and thinly
1 large zucchini, peeled and sliced more thickly than the sweet potato
2T neutral oil
1/2 yellow onion, thinly sliced and squeezed
1/4 cup heavy cream
6 thyme sprigs
1/2t pepper
1/2t kosher salt
a little adobo from canned chipotles in adobo
1 cup breadcrumbs (freshly made from stale breadmentioned earlier)
3T basil oil
2T chopped parsley

Method

Place the tomatoes, sweet potato and zucchini on an oiled baking sheet, add the thyme, salt and pepper sprinkle with oil and bake at 250F for 90 minutes - uncovered. Just to dry out. When dried, remove from pan, remove the thyme sprigs and place in a bowl with the raw onion. Add the cream, stir and allow to cool so the flavors come together.
About 45 minutes before serving, heat the oven to 450F. Place the vegetable/cream mixture in a grain dish. Warm the basil oil slightly. Combine the breadcrumbs, chopped parsley and basil oil and toss. Sprinkle the breadcrumbs on top of the vegetable mixture. Bake at 450 for about 30 minutes - covering with foil if the top browns too quickly.
Allow to cool for about 10 minutes and serve.

 

 

As you can see there was no nasty pool of liquid. Also, Madame pronounced it delicious (not, "We can serve this to people" delicious though).

Bottom line - definitely a gratin

Tarte Flambee (From Alsace)

It's getting to be the time of year when we want to cook outside. So the grill gets to become the star. Our favorite things to put on the grill are flat breads of one kind or another. We use pizza stones directly over the grill grates to help moderate and even out the cooking. Sometimes we do simple pizzas, sometimes other dishes. Yesterday was no exception. We had an old friend over for dinner and wanted to do a dish that she had never tried.
While tidying the cook book shelves the other day, I came across a book we had bought on a trip to Alsace several (about 10!) years ago. What better time to try one of the Alsacien classics. Hence Tarte Flambee.
Tarte Flambee is like a very thin crust pizza and is traditionally made using bacon, onions, and cream. Of course the recipe book was rather vague as to technique, cooking, etc. So some detective work was required.
So this is what I ended up doing:

Ingredients - 3 x 10" (25cm) Tartes

Dough

300 gm bread flour

175 gm water (room temperature)

1tsp instant dry yeast

2T olive oil

1tsp kosher salt

Tarte

2 medium onions sliced pole to pole in crescents

6 slices thick cut smoked bacon

3/4 cup heavy cream

1/2t finely grated fresh nutmeg

finely ground black pepper to taste

Method

Dough

Mix the dough ingredients together (i usually add the yeast to the water first, but am told that is unnecessary). After they are well mixed, knead for 10 minutes by hand or 6 minutes in a mixer (e.g. KitchenAid). The dough wants to be smooth and elastic. It will be relatively dry. This is typically less water than I use when making artisinal breads (58% or so hydration for those who care). This dryer dough is much easier to roll out than the relatively wet (65+%) doughs I make for normal consumption.

Place in an oiled (use the same kind of oil as you used in the dough) bowl, cover with cling wrap and leave to rise n a warm place until about doubled in volume.

When risen, remove from bowl, knead a few times and divide into three pieces (each weighing about 160gm). Form these into individual balls until you are ready to use them. Time here is fairly flexible. From beginning to mix until rolling out was 3 hours. However you can speed up/slow down the process by controlling the temperature. If the first rise is going too fast, then it does little harm to slow it down by refrigerating the dough. However, always make sure that the dough is covered when in the fridge. It can pick up off odors and dry out very quickly (both extremely undesirable individually, and deadly in combination).

Topping (can be prepared several hours in advance).

Cook the bacon lightly until much of the fat has rendered, but the meat is not crisp. You want it the same sort of texture as Canadian bacon. Cut into batons about 1/4" wide. Set the bacon aside

Slice the onions and sweat in a little oil without salt for about 10 minutes until translucent. Set the onions aside.

Assembly

Preheat the grill for about 30 minutes on as high heat as you can muster. The whole cooking time for one tarte is about 2 minutes.

For each dough ball, roll out thinly until it is 10" in diameter. Place the disk onto a peel with cornmeal on it to prevent sticking. Brush with a little oil. Ladle 1/4 cup of heavy cream onto the dough disk. Make sure you get close to the edge. Spread 1/3 of the onion and 1/3 of the bacon on each. Grate some nutmeg over the top, add a few grinds of pepper if desired.

Off to the grill! Cook on the pizza stone with the grill lid closed for around 2 minutes. You want a slight char on the bottom of the crust.

Serving

This dish goes well with a simple salad - although we served it with a Caesar salad and (of all things!) a Vinho Verde with its slight bubbles and yound, fresh taste.