Vichyssoise

 This is probably not the most traditional vichssoise you will ever have, but it was pretty good! We served about 1/2 of it to a partof 6 and the rest we just dipped into as and when we felt like it. The major differences are:

• No onions - just leeks
• 1/2 chicken stock and 1/2 water
• Crunchy salt and chives to decorate

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs leeks - white and light green parts only. Washed and cut into small pieces

2 Tbs butter

3 lbs russet potatoes cubed into 3/4 inch pieces

20 oz  chicken stock (we used home made, concentrated)

20 oz water

1/2 t ghost pepper vodka (home made)

Salt

White pepper

12 oz whipping cream

Finely chooped chives

Sea salt crustals to finish

Method

Split the leeks lengthwise and chop across the grain into a salad spinner bowl. Fill the salad spinner with water and swirl. Lift the leeks out. Discard the water and repeat. This is a handy techniquefor getting all of the grit out of the leeks.

Melt the butter in a large pot, and add the leeks and a generous pinch of salt. Cook gently for about 15 minutes withot letting them brown.

Add the potatoes, stock mixture, white pepper, ghost pepper vodka. Bring to a simmer, cover,  and simmer until the potatoes are cooked (about 12 minutes). Note, the iquid should just cover the potatoes

Blend with an immersion blender until very smooth. Adjust the seasoning, rememberig that you will also be using sea salt when serving. Chill the soup and refrigerate for 4 hours.

Just befor seving, stir in the heavy cream. Serve in small bowls with chopped chives and sea salt crystals.

We served this with an Oregaon Pinot noir.

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

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.

Leftover Chuck

In this previous post, I described cooking a piece of beef chuck sous vide. We of course ended up with more than we could eat at a single sitting. So what to do next? I could consigne it to freezer bags, freeze it so that it could be dumped three years later, or better still could find creative uses for it.

It became a voyage of discovery with a really good outcome. The other key idea is that if you have hot potatoes, you can dress withem with a flavorfull vinaigrette style dressing, the potatoes absorb the dressing and become really flavorfull. So why not do it with carrots too?

Ingredients

6 Small Yukon Gold potatoes - of roughly even size

6 small (width of your ring finger) unpeeled, but washed carrrots, cut into 1/2" thick rounds 

3 scallions, white and light green parts only, sliced finely

2T Pickled jalapeno peppers

1 Roasted red pepper, sliced into small strips

3T Pine nuts, toasted

8 Grape tomatoes

4 Radishes, quartered

1 Hot pepper ( we used a fish pepper from the garden)

1/4 cup vinaigrette (we made some using a candied tomato, roasted pepper, olive oil base)

1/2 head of butter lettuce, chopped

8 oz cooked beef chuck, sliced very thinly

Method

Microwave the carrots and potatoes on high until they are soft. The carrots took 90 seconds, the potatoes 3 minutes. As soon as they come out of the  microwave, place in a bowl with the vinaigrette. Add the scallions , hot pepper, pickled jalapenos and leave to set.

Meanwhile, warm the meat gently in a saute pan over low heat. You are not cooking it, just making sure that it has a good texture.

Plate the dish by putting lettuce around the inside edge of each bowl, leaving a small well. Into the well  put the potato/carrot mixture into the well. Srinkle some of the toasted pine nuts over the potatoes. Arrange the sliced peppers, radishes and tomatoes over the top. 

Arrange the thinly sliced beef in spokes on top. Drizzle with a little high quality olive oil and sherry vinegar.

Serve with a robust red wine.

A Shore Dinner

This recipe is adapted from a brilliant idea that we saw on an America's Test Kitchen episode. Prep time is minimal (10 minutes if you are moving slowly). Cook time is short (20-25 minutes) and the results are outstanding. You do need a tall, skinny stock pot, however. It needs to be skinny so the steam can permeate easily all the way through. Ours is an 8qt - sometimes called a pasta pot. Yes there is no liquid added.

Ingredients

1lb Kilebasa sausage - cut into 1/2" thick rounds

2 lbs mussels

3 lbs little-neck clams

2 lbs small red potatoes cut into 1" pieces

6 ears corn, outer leaves trimmed and cut in halves

salt/pepper as needed

Method

Place the kielbasa rounds in a single layer in the bottom of the cold pot. Wrap the mussels and clams in cheesecloth, and tie to make a bag. It makes then easier to remove when all is done. Put the cheesecloth bag on top of the kielbasa. Put the potatoes on top of the bag of mussels/clams. Put the corn halves on next. 

Cover the pot with its own lid. Place the pot on medium heat and cook for about 25 minutes. Check the doneness of the potatoes at about 22 minutes. When the potatoes are cooked the dish is ready. 

To serve, place the corn on a large platter, and then spread the potatoes, shellfish and sausage all around. Strain the liquid to remove any grit and serve separately.

We served it with a Spier Sauvignon Blanc, and home made, crusty bread.

This dish works because the hot air rising from the browning of the sausage hits the shellfish causing them to open slightly and drop their liquid. The liquid turns to steam cooking the potatoes and corn.

Salt Baked Potatoes

We were at a an event where appetizers were passed around. One of the finger food dishes was baby baked potatoes split and topped with sour cream and chives. Perfect one bite non-messy finger food. They tasted so good, that we just had to them at home. These potatoes are small waxy potatoes - not the kind one usually bakes. So, what to do?
The answer - bake them in a bed of salt. The salt has several effects. It keeps the potatoes off the base of the cooking vessel so that the bottoms don't burn in the high heat of the oven; it seasons the potatoes; it provides some insulation when serving them so they don't cool off too quickly. Also they look quite pretty.

The picture is a "before" picture. We were too busy devouring them to take an "after" picture. We served them with grilled lamb chops, stir fried cabbage, mint sauce and lashings of butter.

Ingredients

Several evenly sized small red/white waxy potatoes (3/4" to 1" diameter)

Enough kosher salt to cover the base of your cooking vessel to the depth of about 1/2 inch

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 425F

Wash the potatoes and pat dry. They don't need to be bone dry. The salt will take care of that

Place the salt evenly in the bottom of a casserole dish. Try and avoid bare metal because salt can be corrosive. I used a Le Creuset casserole dish.

Place the potatoes into the salt bed, pushing down slightly so each potato is abut 1/3 covered. Place the larger potatoes near the edge of the dish and the smaller ones near the center. The edge gets hotter quicker, so they turn out cooked at about the same time.

Put the dish onto the center rack of the oven and cook for about 20 minutes. Turn the heat down to 300 and cook for another 15 - 30 minutes. The time range is there to give you a bit of a margin of safety. They are done before 30 minutes, but they will hold their heat nicely - if for example you forgot to heat the grill for the lamb chops. But that is another story