What to call this dish?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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….

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)

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

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.

Enough of the !@$#! bread already

The next foray is ciabatta. An entirely different kind of bread from the baguettes - it is made with a starter and has a long starter preparation period. The dough uses a lot of yeast and then looks more like pancake batter than bread dough. So lots of challenges.

Of course Dan Leader came to the rescue again, and we have turned out some very good looking ciabatta - and to please nic, I even remembered to take some pics!!!

So let's get the pics out of the way first.....

See how wet, flat and sloppy this loaf is before baking. It is about 11 inches long and 7 wide at its widest point. Shaping it is like shaping quicksand!

After baking we are left with this beauty... See how well it has puffed up. It stays that way as it cools. The crust softens a bit and the crumb is light, airy and holey!

So, how to achieve this magic? Again, I will borrow from Dal Leader's book called "Local Breads".

Ingredients - Starter
1/2 cup (65gm) water
1/2t (2gm) instant yeast
2/3 cup (100gm) unbleached bread flour - the stronger the better


Method - Starter
About 12 hours before you want to make the ciabatta, make the starter by mixing the water, yeast and flour in a small bowl. Then knead a few times to make it almost smooth. Cover and leave to rise 1 hour in a warm place (around 80F, 25C) and then refrigerate for the remainder of the time.

When ready to make the bread, remove the starter from the fridge.......

Ingredients - Bread
1 Cup (167 gm) starter (from before - the exact quantity of the starter recipe above is what you need)
1 1/2 cups (425 gm) tepid water (70-75 F, 21-23C)
2t (10 gm) instant yeast
3 1/4 cups (500gm) unbleached bread flour
1 1/2 t (10 gm) sea salt or kosher salt

Method - Bread
Place the starter and the water into he bowl of a standing mixer. Break the starter apart with a spatula. It does not need to be completely smoothed or dissolved. Stir in the flour, yeast, salt and mix until a dough forms.

Mix the dough in the stand mixer using the dough hook on a medium speed for about13-15 minutes. You will have to stand by because the mixer will likely start to walk around the counter. The dough won't really clear the sides of the bowl. Stop periodically and scrape it down and off the hook. After giving it about 13-15 minutes, turn the speed up to high and knead for a further three minutes. The dough mass will be quite creamy and shiny looking.

Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl that has room for it to triple in size. Cover with cling wrap and leave to stand at room temperature until it has tripled in size. This takes 3-4 hours.

In most household ovens it is unlikely that you will be able to bake 2 loaves at the same time, so here's what I do...

After the dough has risen, turn it out onto a lightly floured board and immediately divide in half.

Cover a peel (or the bottom of a baking sheet) with parchment and make sure it slides. Lightly dust the parchment. Take one half of the dough mass and pick it up stretching it to about 11 x 7 inches and place it into the middle of the floured parchment. Press it flat gently with your fingers. Don't burst too many bubbles. Then wet your fingers and just dimple the surface. Do the same with the other loaf onto a different pan or peel. I do the first one on a peel and the second on a pan.

Leave to rest/proof at room temperature for 40 or so minutes - you will see bubbles forming under the top surface (they look like blisters).

1 hour before baking, heat the oven to 475F and ensure the stone is on the upper middle rack. On the lower rack put a cast iron container into which you can introduce ice.

When the bread is ready to bake, slide the first loaf onto the stone (still on its parchment paper), add 1 cup ice to the pan below and close the oven door. Add more ice 2 more times. Opening the door quickly. After 10 minutes turn the temperature down to 425F and bake until the loaf is a beautiful caramel colour. That will be another 13-20 minutes depending on your oven.

Remove the loaf (using the peel) and put on a wire rack to cool. Resist the temptation.....

Turn the oven back to 475F, slide the second loaf on its parchment onto the peel. Let the oven come to temperature (about 10 minutes). Bake the second loaf just like the first one. You do need to keep adding the ice to make steam. That is a key part of getting the crust nice!

We ate it various ways. Initially while warm with butter.

Then for supper, cut a large piece off the loaf and halved it horizontally. Toasted one side then added some ham (sliced and folded into a thickness of 4 layers), some Caerphilly cheese that Madame had brought back from England, diced tomatoes from the Farmer's Market all grilled under the grill (broiler) until the cheese had melted, with some hot English mustard on the side. No there are not pictures of that, we ate it before we could get to the camera!

It is so good to have Madame home..

Madame came home yesterday, so today we were abole to have a nice dinner. Our friend Bette came and we had a terrific time. I had bought some plump scallops earlier in the day, so it was a matter of preparing them so that they tasted really good. When you have great ingredients, often less is more. These were great! I made a wilted spinach salad dressed with an hot onion/grapefruit dressing and garnished with toasted almond slivers.

Ingredients
5 small red potatoes in 1/4" dice
3 grapefruit peeled and segmented, including all it's juice
12 Oz baby spinach
1 Medium onion sliced pole to pole
1/4 cup slivered almonds
6T High quality extra virgin olive oil
12 sea scallops (about 2 oz each)
salt/pepper to taste

Method

In a medium pan put 1T olive oil and the sliced onions. Cook over medium low heat until the onions are translucent.

In a small pan over low heat, toast the almonds until brown and nutty.

Cook the potatoes in simmering sated water until just cooked through. Drain and add 3T olive oil and 4T grapefruit juice while they are still warm.

Add all but 8 segments of the grapefruit and all its juice to the onion pan and leave to simmer. In a separate pan, heat the remainder of the oil until almost smoking and then put the scallops in carefully. Leaving the heat on medium sheck the first sid of the scallops for browning. When a good crust has developed (about 2-2 1/2 minutes) flip the scallops over, and brown on the other side. Do mot overcook.

Wash the spinach and make sure it doesn't have any stalks. Combine the spinach with the almonds, the potatoes and the hot dressing. Toss while the spinach wilts, top with the scallops, garnish withthe raw grapefruit segments and serve immediately

This bread thing is getting out of hand!

I have been so into bread making while Madame has been away. But now with the help of Dan Leader, I am turning out baguettes that are just to die for. No I don't (yet!) have a steam oven, but I am getting the really crusty outside with a tender crumb. I haven't asked Dan's permission to repost here, but I hope he won't mind. I have varied it a bit (adding cake flour), and I can't get it done in the 4 hours he says it takes. It usually takes me 4 1/2. But still that is not long for a really good tasting loaf.

So yesterday I baked, loaves came out of the oven at about 3:30, and of course I couldn't wait for them to cool. I had to try a piece. Yup! That hit the spot. So for dinner, I took 7" of baguette, split it lengthwise, layered some tomatoes from the Grapevine Farmers' Market directly onto the bread so the juice would soak in a bit, spread some fresh goat cheese (also bought at Grapevine Farmers' Market) fresh basil from the garden some salt and a little sherry vinegar. WOW a perfect sandwich.

So here's the bread recipe (adapted from Local Breads by Daniel Leader, published by WW Norton ). I would strongly recommend getting his book, he explains it so much better than I can - and he has pictures!

It is a very long recipe although it is easier to do than it looks.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups of tepid water (70-75 degrees F, 21-23 degrees C)
1t instant yeast
3 cups Organic unbleached AP flour
1/4 cup Cake flour (not self rising)
1 1/2t Kosher salt
Cooking spray to grease the bowl

Method
Pour water into a large mixing bowl and add the yeast. Leave to stand for a couple of minutes until refreshed. Then mix in the flours and stir with a spatula until you have all the water involved and the dough is kinda shaggy. Leave to sit for 20 minutes so the flour hydrates.

Empty the dough onto the board, and sprinkle the salt over it. Knead for 12-15 minutes. Try to avoid flouring the board or your hands. It will feel a bit sticky, but persevere and it will come together into a nice smooth dough. Every now and again release the dough from the board with a bench scraper. If you prefer to use a standing mixer (and I have not tested this), put in the bowl of the mixer, attach the dough hook and knead on low (number 2 setting) for 8-10 minutes. You will still need to give it a few hand strokes at the end, so I am not sure what using the mixer would buy you.

Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, cover with cling wrap and leave to sit for an hour at 70-75 degrees (21 to 23C). It will not double, but it will have expanded some.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured (very lightly!) board and shape into a rectangle of about 6 inches by 8 inches (15x20cm). Fold the dough like a business letter from the short side. Plop the dough back into the bowl and allow to rise for another hour.

About an hour before baking you will want to heat the oven. Ideally you want a baking stone in there, but an upside down sheet pan will work too. The oven should be heated to 450F. The bread is quite sensitive to temperature so do check the oven. Make sure the rack is just above half way and on a lower rack there is a container into which you can put ice to create steam.

When the bread s ready to shape, place a sheet of parchment paper onto a peel or another upside down rimless pan. Flour the parchment.

Turn the dough onto the board and divide into 3 pieces each of around 10oz (280gm). Pat each piece into a small rectangle fold in half. Cover lightly with cling wrap and leave to stand for 10-15 minutes to relax.

Now we are ready to shape the dough. For each piece of dough, make a 3x5 inch rectangle (8x12 cm) and fold as follows. Take the long side, fold to about the center and press the seam lightly. Do the same with the bottom edge. Then quickly roll the dough into a 14" length (275 cm) (or however wide your sheet pan or peel are). Place the loaves onto the floured parchment 2-3 inches (5-8cm) apart. Then make a little pleat in the parchment between the loaves and pull it up sliding the loaves together, but still separated by parchment. At the outside edges roll up kitchen towels and use them to bolster the loaves so they are held in neat cylinders. (This is called a couche, by the way). Sprinkle a little flour on the surfaces and cover with cling wrap to rest. This resting will take around 45 minutes - until the dough springs back slowly when you press it lightly.

When you are ready to bake uncover the loaves, remove the kitchen towels from the sides and pull the pleat out of the parchment. The loaves will separate, but retain their shape. Score them with a very sharp knife - or use a single edged razor blade. Make the scoring about 1/2 inch (a little more than 1cm) deep. Make the score marks long - don't just cut straight across. Immediately slide the parchment off the peel or baking sheet onto the hot stone (or rimless baking sheet) in the oven and add 1/2 cup ice to the container. After 2 minutes add another 1/2 cup of ice and again after a further 5 minutes. You do need to add the ice in instlments to get a shot of steam. Adding all at once cools the container too quickly.

Bake the loaves for 15-20 minutes - until they are a light caramel color. Remove fom the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack.

Devour greedily!

Breakfast outside

Today was the last day of the old patio furniture and the first day of the new. Madame is still in England, but I just had to cook - it has been too long and I get withdrawal symptoms. So the people who bought the old patio furniture came over and I made breakfast.

Hardly traditional breakfast fare perhaps, but I also wanted to practice a couple of things for when Madame does finally come home. So, we had a Spanish tortilla (except that I used zucchini and not potatoes, so it isn't really Spanish) , topped with allioli (that wonderful Catalunyan garlic/olive oil/salt condiment), a cup of chilled carrot/coriander soup, some freshly baked pain au levain (a new recipe I had wanted to try), and coffee.

First the allioli. Don't even think of trying this. It is serious work! It took about 45 minutes of serious mashing of garlic salt and oil in the pestle and moortar. Even after that, it wanted to break. So there was a little oil around the edges instead of a thick emulsion.

Allioli
This garlicky oil condiment is great on just about anything I haven't tried it on shoe leather yet, but...

Ingredients
8 Cloves garlic
2T Sea salt
1 cup high quality olive oil

Method
Peel and mash the garlic cloves. Add the salt and mash to a fine paste using the blade of your knife. Transfer to a mortar and mash with the pestle. Add 1 drop of the oil and pound until incorporated. Keep adding the oil a drop or 2 at a time until incorporated. This takes around 45 minutes. Do not be tempted to add the oil too quickly or the emulsion will break and I could find no articles on how to recover the situation when I was researching it. Probably the most interesting statement was that "many Catalunyan cheffs no longer make this because it is so hard to keep it from breaking." A lot of the chefs essentially make aioli - the French version that has an egg yolk.

Spanish Tortilla
Ingredients
1 medium zucchini
1T Kosher salt
1/2 medium onion sliced (leaving bite sized pieces)
4 eggs
6 strands of saffron
a little butter to cook the onions in
salt/pepper to taste (probably do not need much more salt)

Method
Peel the zucchini and slice into rounds about the thickness of a silver dollar. Transfer to a colander, sprinkle the salt over them and allow to drain for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile soften the onion in a little butter in a small (8") non-stick pan. Transfer the onions to a bowl when translucent and sweet. The onions should not take on any color.

Once the onions are cooked, rinse the zucchini and pat dry. With no extra oil, fry the zucchini in the pan that the onions had been in, in a single layer. They should just atrt to take on color.

Crack the eggs into a bowl, add a little salt/pepper and the saffron. Beat the eggs with a fork until they become homogenous. Leave to stand.

Place a layer of zucchiniin the bottom of the pan in which the onions had cooked. Cover the zucchini layer with the onions and another layer of potatoes. Place the pan on a med/low flame and warm them. Press the zucchini/onion mixture with the back of a spatula to squeeze out any air.

When the zucchini are warm, pour the egg mixture over them. Pull the cooked edge of the eggs away from the pan, allowing more raw egg to come in contact with the pan. Turn the heat to low and leave to cook for about 10 minutes - until set in the center. Invert the mixture in the pan and cook for a further 3 or 4 minutes - until the whole tortilla is fully cooked.

Serve at room temperature

Carrot and Coriander Soup
This soup appears to be a British staple. Madame has been eating it for about 6 weeks, so I am expecting an orange pallor and floppy ears when she gets off the plane on July 4. The version that I found has no fat added and counts 0 weight watcher points. This uses the seeds stalks and leaves of the coriander (cilantro) so has lots of hearty coriander flavor

Ingredients
1 Medium onion - diced finely
1 Carton stock (about 900 ML, I believe - or a bit less than a US quart) - divided use. Could be chicken or vegetable. If chicken, home made would be better!
2T ground coriander seeds
2 T ground cumin seeds
1/2 fresh cayenne pepper finely chopped
1 garlic clove mashed
Small handful Cilantro stalks and leaves
500gm (just over a pound) carrots peeled and roughly chopped into small pieces.
Salt/pepper to taste
Creme fraiche, quark or sour cream, soft goat cheese as a garnish

Method
Put the finly chopped onions in a sauce pan and just cover with the stock. Do not use all the stock at this stage. Bring to the boil and simmer until all the liquid has cooked off. The onion will be translucent. Add the coriander, cumin, garlic and the cayenne. Cook over low heat until the color has changed a bit. Add the chopped cilantro stalks, the carrots and the rest of the stock. Bring back to the boil and simmer until the carrots are cooked. Turn the heat off and leave to stand for a few minutes. Then puree the soup until it reaches the desired texture.

Either reheat and serve immediately, or chill and serve in icy bowls. Either way garnish with the white dairy product and sprinkle finely chopped cilantro leaves over it.

Man cannot live by bread alone..

But with Madame's absence from May 30 until July 4, I am doing my best. I have used the time to learn about breadmaking After all, how hard can it be? There are 4 ingredients (for most breads) - Flour, water, yeast and salt. A single baking temperature (well almost always at 450, but there are exceptions), a couple of simple techniques - and as I discovered to my horror almost infinite variety. o wonder there are learned tomes devoted to bread making. No wonder they all conflict with each other. Bread making is personal, your own styles and rhythms greatly affect the finished product.

Proportions matter, technique matters, ingredients matter, temperature matters. Every possible variable you can think of matters! So it has been an instructive month. Just the flour has been giving me fits. I have settled on using 1/8th (by weight - yes everything works better when you weigh it) of cake flour to all purpose flour in most breads. For every 100 gm of AP flour I use 12 gm of cake flour. I have not been using bread flour - although of course I have tried that. You can get a much softer, more delicate crumb with a great tasting chewy exterior this way. Of course there are some breads that demand bread flour - especially those that use other grains (like rye) as well. I haven't graduated to them yet.

I have made Ciabatta, I have made baguettes, I have made ordinary rustic loaves, I have made the no-knead bread. I have used sourdough starters as leaveners, I have made poolishes, I have made up couches (no not the kind I sleep on when I am banished), but the kind that shaped loaves live in when they are resting and recuperating after a hard knead.

Bottom line of all of this is that I now have massive respect for artisinal bakers. This is hard! However, with the help of Dan Reader's books and articles, a steady stream of absolutely delicious bread is coming out of the oven at last. The 4 hour baguettes are the current project - we will see what gives there, but I have high hopes for them.

Oh and during this orgy of bread baking, butter slathering, eating and drinking, I am down 9 pounds for the month. I must be pining away! Carbs who says carbs are bad??????

Iron Chef

The Event
Every year the Sports Club at the Four Seasons in Las Colinas does an "Iron Chef" competition. This year was no exception. The rules are simple - 4 teams, one secret ingredient, a shared pantry, countertop burners only (no oven), 90 minutes to make 2 or 3 dishes. How hard can it be? Oh, and of course the club members are wandering around, getting up close and watching carefully, and a film crew was filming it for television.

First, the staff at the Four Seasons are to be commended for arranging this excellent event. It was part of the regular theme of "Club Dinners", and about 95 people came to watch. I had the honor of being the captain of team 4. The other team members were Juan, Elena, and Kathryn. All good cooks, and a more compatible group would have been hard to find.

We knew ahead of time what the secret ingredients might be - it was going to be either "onion family", "pepper family" or "zucchini family". Zucchini are also known as courgettes (for European readers). We had done some work ahead of time thinking what we would make for each secret ingredient, so that when the ingredient was unveiled, we would have less time planning and more time to cook. Especially as we knew that if the ingredients were onions, we would need a lot of time - caramelized onions would play a strong part in our dishes and that is a good 45 minutes to an hour monopolizing a burner.

The general observations that I gave to the team were, "keep what we are doing simple and tasty, and the key is managing the time carefully."

The ingredient was unveiled and was onions, so here's what we did.

Asian inspired onion soup:
Inspiration
The idea for this was to have a clean tasting soup that clearly said "onion", but didn't have any of the tongue coating effects that sauteing the onions would leave. This dish was executed beautifully by Juan and Elena.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups diced sweet yellow (e.g. Vidalia or TX 1015) and white onions
10 scallions - white and 1/2 green parts
7 cups chicken stock
4T soy sauce
1/4 cup cider vinegar+1/4 cup water mixed. (Should be rice wine vinegar, but not available)
1 cup dried mushrooms reconstituted and chopped
1 chicken breast cut into small bite sized pieces
2T dark sesame oil (divided use).
3 cloves garlic mashed to a fine paste
1 finely chopped chile pepper (we used jalapeno because that is what was there!)
Salt to taste
3 eggs lightly beaten with 2T water
Finely chopped red pepper for garnish

Method
Into a saucepot put the diced onions, 8 of the chopped scallions (white and 1/2 the green parts), chicken stock, soy sauce, vinegar, mushrooms (chopped into the same sized pieces as the onion and chicken), and the chicken. Bring to a simmer and simmer for 15 minutes. Towards the end of the time, add 1T sesame oil and the mashed garlic, chopped chile pepper and salt if necessary. That depends on the soy sauce you use. Set the soup aside.

Before serving (we did this with 15 minutes to go), reheat the soup to a simmer, swirl in the beaten egg. Serve in bowls garnished with diced red pepper, the remainder of the green onions (white and most of the green) cut on the bias and a few drops of sesame oil on the surface.

Tilapia on a bed of caramelized onion mashed potatoes, garnished with flash fried yellow squash peel and basil

Inspiration
This dish was designed to create intensely flavored mashed potatoes, but with no dairy. The dairy in a traditional mashed potato tends to overpower the delicate fish. The fish was rolled and served vertically with some quickly sauteed yellow and red peppers and green onions as a kind of visible stuffing. The yellow squash peel and basil were flash fried in 375 degree oil to make them very crispy and feathery. This dish was executed mostly by Kathryn, with help from me on some of the fiddly bits.

Ingredients
3 Russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 8 pieces each
Salt to taste (divided use)
2 Sweet yellow onions and 1 white onion
2T Vegetable oil + 1T for the peppers/fish
2 cups Vegetable (peanut is better) oil for flash frying the garnish
3/4C Extra Virgin Olive oil (doesn't have to be the highest quality!)
1 yellow squash (or zucchini) peeled with a vegetable peeler - use the peel only
8 Basil leaves
Julienne strips of red/yellow pepper
4 green onions (green parts only)
4 tilapia fillets
Salt and pepper to taste
Small amount of very finely chopped lemon zest

Method
Peel and chop the onions pole to pole in thin slices. Add 2T of vegetable oil to a large saute pan, warm the pan and add the onions and about 1t of salt. Heat over medium until you hear a slight hissing, and then turn the heat to medium low and cook the onions down, stirring frequently. The onions will darken and sweeten. If you want a little more sweetness add a good pinch of sugar. This step takes almost an hour. This recipe will use 2/3 of the caramelized onions. Once the onions are caramelized, they need to be turned to a puree. For the contest we did this by turning them out onto a board and running a knife through them several times. This left a little texture in the onions.

Bring the potatoes to a simmer in a large pan of salted water until they are just cooked through. Do not overcook. When the potatoes are cooked, drain them and put back on the heat briefly to drive out any remaining water. Rice the potatoes. and mix with 2/3 the caramelized onions. Stir in the warmed olive oil, add salt/pepper to taste.

Salt the squash peel for about 15 minutes and pat dry. Bring the 2C of oil up to 375 degrees. You can tell that it is hot enough when a small piece of bread dropped in browns very quickly. Put the squash peel into the hot oil (carefully it will hiss and spit) and leaving the heat medium high, cook until crispy. (3 minutes or so) Remove the fried peels, set aside to drain on paper towels. Leaving the heat medium high, add the basil leaves. These will spit and hiss even more! They take about 30 seconds to become crispy. Remove from the oil and drain on paper towels.

Gently saute the julienned peppers and the scallion ends in a little oil. Set aside.

Roll the fish fillets and tie. Season with salt/pepper. Cook them in the oil on all sides.

To serve, using a 3 inch diameter ring, make a round of the mashed potatoes. Gently set one cooked tilapia fillet so that it has a hole pointing upwards. Fill the hole with the strips of julienned vegetables. Sprinkle a little lemon zest onto the fish. Garnish the dish and the plate with the flash fried peel.

Caramelized onion ice cream with fresh mango

Inspiration

Heston Blumenthal would have been proud. We had some time left, and Kathryn is an ice cream fan. Knowing how sweet caramelized onions are, she thought it would be a good idea to make an ice cream using them. To freeze the ice cream quickly without an ice cream maker was the major challenge. The kitchen had a supply of dry ice, so we borrowed from Heston Blumenthal's approach and used the dry ice to freeze the ice cream. This was truly a team effort. Kathryn for inspiration and base recipe, Elena for mixing (adding the dry ice is a 2 person operation), Juan for harrying chefs to get vanilla, etc. Chris for ensuring that the onions were the right texture and sweetness and for the preparation of the mango.

Ingredients
2/3C Heavy whipping cream
1/3C Whole Milk
1/3C Granulated sugar
1Vanilla bean - seads scraped out
1/3 of the caramelized onions from the previous recipe
1 mango
1lb of dry ice pulverized in a plastic bag

Method
Chill a large stainless steel bowl in the freezer. Add the milk, sugar and vanilla bean seeds to the bowl and mix until the sugar dissolves. Stir in the cream and whisk the mixture incorporating a little air. Addd the cooled, pureed, caramelized onions and chill it in the freezer. Do not allow it to freeze or crystallize.

Pulverize the dry ice in a plastic bag. Make sure the dry ice is essentially powdered. Add the dry ice into the ice cream base 1 cup at a time. Taking great care because dry ice can cause "freezer burn" on any exposed flesh. All the while you are adding the dry ice, whisk the ice cream base. This incorporates extra air and prevents crystals from forming. The ice cream will foam slightly and set. You want to add enough dry ice so that the ice cream is soft set. Cover the ice cream and transfer to the freezer until ready.

Meanwhile on the serving plate, fan 1/2 a mango, dust with a little vanilla and immediately before serving (in our case with 1:30 on the clock) place a scoop of the ice cream onto the plate.

The Overall Experience

Sadly we didn't win :-(. We did have a wonderful time cooking together. We made new friends, our ie cream was the talk of the evening. We executed our dishes well, we achieved the goal of creating relatively simple dishes and were never under time pressure. So we felt we deserved our beverages afterwards!

Using rice wrappers

Last evening I went to a Yelp event at a Vietnamese restuarant in San Jose. Lots of people mostly Vietnamese there. What a terrific experience. But from my rather selfish point of view, I learned how to roll up those wonderful Vietnamese spring rolls. The kind that have a thin, translucent rice wrapping around tasty ingredients.

I had made these kinds of rolls before, but had always found it a bit finicky and not as successful as I would have liked. One of the Vietnamese guys at the event let me into the secret. I had been soaking the wrappers for too long in the warm water. My way they become slippery and quite fragile.

However by soaking them for less time - essentially until they are pliable, but not flaccid they are much easier to control.

So good food, great company and lessons too. The only thing missing was Madame - she was at home while I am gallivanting in San Jose.

Practice, practice, practice

For me, using a knife properly is very important, but it isn't the most natural of motions. Whether it be slicing, chopping, paring, carving or whatever. So, to get around deficiencies I practice continually.

For example, when I am going to eat an orange, I always peel it as if I am going to segment it for an elegant salad or dessert. In the words of Gordon Ramsay, "Using a small sharp knife, slice off the top and bottom of the fruit. Standing it firmly on the chopping board, cut along the curved sides of the fruit to remove the remaining peel and pith. Holding the fruit with one hand over a sieve, set on top of a bowl, cut along each side of the membranes to release the segments. Let each segment fall into the sieve as you continue segmenting."

Why when there is no real need? Because that way when I need to have elegant segments I have practiced enough to be able to handle the technique with confidence.

I was working on a project for 3 months - just outside Paris. The project hotel (The Marriott Courtyard near the airport) had a very good breakfast buffet. Anything that has unlimited smoked salmon and crusty bread gets my vote. They always had whole, unpeeled kiwi fruit in the fruit basket. I had seen Christopher Kimbell peel these whole using a spoon. Top and tail the fruit, and then slide a spoon between the peel and the fruit and rotate to loosen the peel. In Christopher Kimbell's hands this looked simple. It isn't! I practiced almost every day I was there - again not because that was the easiest way to eat the fruit, but because I wanted to have the technique in my back pocket. This of course became a project standing joke.

So practice in cooking techniques is like practice in everything. We do it to improve our abilities, but there aren't many opportunities. With food as expensive as it is, we want to be able to make sure we eat the results of our practising.

Now that warmer weather is here and the butter is impossible to deal with

Butter - my favorite fat(well fat/water combo). Nothing tastes as good on toast, in pastry, for cooking eggs, making cakes......

However butter is problematic to make usable. Keep it in the fridge and you can't spread it easily, keep it on the counter when the weather is warm and it spreads in a greasy pool all over the place. So, what to do?

Enter the butter bell. This is a clever little device that keeps the butter away from the air so it doesn't go rancid, and keeps it cool by immersing it in cold (icy) water.

So to use it, you follow the simple steps....

Step 1: put about 1/2 cup water into the base of the butter bell, and then begin to add the butter into the lid.

Step2: Push the butter firmly into the lid.

Step 3: Immerse the lid into the base. Store the butter bell on the counter. Do not put in the fridge - if you do all your good work will be for naught.

That's the instructions according to the official site. However because we live in Texas and during the day our kitchen gets kinda warm, we use a slight variant. I fill the base with crushed ice to the top. Then add chilled water. When I invert the top into the base, some water runs out. I place the whole butter bell close to the sink, so that as the ice melts, the top slips down into the water, displacing some water into the sink. This give maximal cooling, but because the volume isn't huge, the effect of the ice is minimized - i.e. the butter goes a bit hard, but we do this after breakfast, and by lunchtime the butter is nice and usable again.

Using the butter bell means we don't have to resort to whipped/processed/artificial/chemistry set tasting spreads on our toast - and we end up not using as much as we would if we attempted to spread it straight from the fridge.

The web site sells these, but any good kitchen store does too. We have used ours for 5 years now, and can't imagine being without it.

The Producers' picnic

All those hamburgers were for the picnic yesterday (Sunday). We were expecting between 30 and 40 people - and it topped out at 34. Since almost everyone is under 25, we were all ready for the hollow leg brigade - those people who can eat and eat!

We put out some home made guacamole, a jalapeno/quark dip, and chips for people to nibble on before the grill got cranking.

Since we doing both burgers and bratwursts, I needed a way to keep cooked brats moist and hot. The standard way of doing that is to make a caramelized onion/beer bath to put the grilled brats into. Brats and onions are such a good combination and beer? Well those folks in Wisconsin now something about that too.

The burgers themselves were pretty straightforward - grilled for about 4 minutes per side and they were done perfectly. I didn't season the meat prior to making the patties, so I simply had some ground pepper and salt in a small bowl beside the grill. As I put burgers on, I seasoned the top side, then when they were flipped I seasoned the other side. You end up using a lot less salt that way (maybe 2tsp for 64 burgers) and you get the hit of salt in the first bite. We put out traditional fixin's and were surprised that the raw onion (a Texas 1015) went faster than the tomato. Lettuce was (rightly in my opinion) of little interest to anyone. Ketchup, relish and mustard were used in about equal quantities. Surprisingly Swiss cheese proved more popular than "American" cheese for the cheese burgers.

I found it best to cook the burgers in batches of 6 or 8 - even though the grill has larger capacity. That way, I could ensure that we didn't have burgers sitting around drying out. And, oh yes the indentations did their thing - the burgers cooked up completely flat!

Onion and beer bath for brats.
Ingredients
4 large yellow onions halved (pole to pole) and sliced into wedges
1T butter
2T Vegetable oil
1t kosher salt
2x12 oz bottles of a well flavored beer (I used Shiner Bock. I would not recommend a light beer here, nor a stout)

Method
Melt the butter in a large sauce pan and keep the heat going until it stops foaming. Add the oil, then the onions and salt. Stir to mix and leave over low heat to gradually caramelize. Mine took about an hour - but I deliberately had the heat very low since I was doing other things. When much of the water has been driven off and the onions are golden brown and very sweet and soft, add the beer and bring to a simmer.

Keep the onion/beer bath warm on a cooler part of the grill, and put the grilled brats in there to keep warm. When you serve the brats, make sure you get a good helping of the onions too, leave the liquid behind.

Burgers for a crowd

Madame and I will be having the annual "Thank you for all your hard work" picnic for the producers and staff at the TV station. This is the 5th. annual and is our way of saying thank you to all who worked so hard.

This year promises to be the biggest yet, with many burgers to be made. I don't know if Greg's record of 4 burgers (tied with Chad) will be broken this year, but we are determined to make sure there are plenty of burgers and brats.

So I was faced with the rather daunting challenge of making 64 burgers. Those who know me will recognize some obsessive behaviors (roasting coffee, baking bread, everything from scratch where possible), and burgers are no exception. Well, even though we live in TX we don't actually raise our own cattle! I like my patties to be around 5 oz in weight. That way they are thick enough to have something to bite into, and they perfectly fit a standard bun. Also, I like to use 75% chuck and 25% sirloin. I want the fat of the chuck, together with sirloin's beefiness. No off the wall seasonings...Obviously I am not about to trust my "friendly neighborhood grocery store". The local Tom Thumb doesn't grind meat to order and pushed me towards packages of mystery meat. The Albertsons at Lemmon/McKinney wouldn't either. I did however find a butcher on Lemmon who would grind meat to order. He didn't have enough chuck, but suggested that if I brought some chuck in, he would trim and grind it for me. He would also grind some sirloin and then regrind both meats together. Deal! Off to the nearest grocery store for 15lbs of chuck.

Who was this person who understands customer service? His name is Greg Geerts, and his store VG's Butcher Shoppe at 3527 Oak Lawn, Dallas.

So now I had the meat, how to shape the 64 patties? I don't like those hamburger presses that you can buy at high end stores - they produce excellent looking burgers, but I find the burgers tend to be dry. I hit upon what might be the perfect technique - learned from baking. If I were to roll out the meat to the right thickness, then I could use a cutter of some kind to cut out the patties. The challenge was, how thick to make the meat. Answer, weigh 5 oz meat and pack lightly into the ring that you are going to use to cut the patties out.





See how thick that is, and pat the rest of the meat to that thickness. Then simply stamp out the patties. Voila! 64 patties in 30 minutes without breaking a sweat!




Of course, don't forget to make an indentation in the top of the patty, so that when the burger is cooked, it doesn't create a little dome. The indentation before ensures a flat patty afterwards.


Look for the cooking results in the posting from the party tomorrow!