oh sad day

I've disappeared, I know. We moved. We moved into a half finished apartment with no gas. We have no stove. But we have an oven. And we have a slow cooker and a rice cooker and an electric kettle and a microwave. And we live closer to the arepas place so now we can get delivery from them. But it's really hard to live without a stove, because I used to eat this every morning for breakfast and now I can't:



It's just a simple oatmeal, with dried cherries and sliced almonds. So simple, so easy, but so impossible without a stove. I have packets of instant oatmeal, but it's not the same. Oh, sad day. When will my gas come on?

Continue Reading "oh sad day"

in season: hide the cauliflower

That's not a particularly attractive dish right there. But it's one of those special recipes with hidden surprises. It is perfect fall food in several ways. Cauliflower is at it's best right now, and nothing is more warming and yummy on a chilly autumn day than a bowl of steamy, creamy risotto. This is a cauliflower and leek risotto. You can't really see the cauliflower hiding amidst the rice, but you take a bite and it bites back, just a tiny bit. Surprise. Need I say more? Recipe after the jump:

CAULIFLOWER LEEK RISOTTO

3 tbsp butter, separated
1 medium leek, chopped into half-moons
1 small head cauliflower, about 1 to 2 lb, cut into small florets
1 cup arborio or carnaroli rice
1 cup dry white wine
4 cups chicken broth (vegetable broth if you prefer this dish vegetarian)
3/4 cup parmiggiano-reggiano, or more to taste
salt and pepper, to taste

Heat the chicken broth in a medium saucepan until boiling, then lower to a low simmer. Melt 2 tbsp butter in a heavy 4-quart pot over medium heat until foam subsides. Add the leeks and cauliflower and saute until just starting to loose the raw color, about 2 minutes. Add the rice and toast, stirring about 1 minute. Add the wine and stir, allowing a strong simmer until the liquid is completely absorbed. Add 1/2 cup broth and repeat the stirring and simmering process. Continue to add broth 1/2 cup at a time, stirring and simmering, until the rice is tender and creamy looking, about 25 minutes. You may not need all of the broth. Remove from the heat, add the cheese, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately.

Continue Reading "in season: hide the cauliflower"

sorry to the swine

Pardon my absence last week. I had been feeling rather craptacular for several days, and wondered if my commitment to a 16-week quarter hog share with The Piggery CSA resulted in a bit of porcine revenge in the form of swine flu. I don't really know if that is what I had, but it seemed like everyone around me was afflicted and it dragged on and on and on. Anyway, to get back in the cooking saddle, I focused on - what else - bacon. A pasta that truly highlights the smokey, fatty, delicious cured meat - Pasta alla Carbonara. Technically carbonara calls for guanciale, but this is one case where I break from tradition because the bacon-based carbonara is what we in the US grew up on, and thus what I was craving on a very rainy, cold weekend.



Carbonara is pretty much the simplest pasta you can make. It takes no more time that whatever you need to boil your pasta. You may have twinges of guilt when you realize that the entire point of this pasta is egg and bacon fat, but you get over it pretty quickly. I balanced out the richness with some broccolini. Okay, I sauteed that broccolini in the excess bacon fat...recipe after the jump:

PASTA ALLA CARBONARA
Serves 4

1 pound spaghetti
6-8 ounces thick cut good bacon, pancetta, or guanciale, sliced 1/2-inch thick
3 garlic cloves
2 eggs
1/2 cup grated pecorino romano (or parmiggiano reggiano)
freshly ground black pepper

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil for the pasta. As soon as you drop the pasta in, start to saute the bacon pieces and the whole garlic cloves, rendering the fat just until the bacon starts to brown and crisp around the edges. You don't want to get the bacon too crispy or it will not incorporate nicely into the pasta. Remove the garlic cloves and let the bacon sit until the pasta is ready. Break the eggs into your serving bowl and whisk with a generous amount of freshly ground black pepper. When the pasta is done, drain, then immediately transfer to your serving bowl with the eggs and quickly toss to coat the pasta. Add the bacon, it's fat (as much as you need to coat the pasta nicely), and the cheese and toss well. Taste and adjust for pepper. You may not need to add any salt depending on the saltiness of your cheese and bacon. Serve immediately.

Continue Reading "sorry to the swine"

french food i DID eat in france: boeuf bourguignon

Technically J-Cat ate it, for our last dinner in Paris at "Josephine" Chez Dumonet. But obviously I had a few bites. With the weather getting chillier by the day, it's time to break out my favorite types of foods - slow-cooked, hearty, warming, intensely flavored, meaty.



There are thousands of recipes for Boeuf Bourguignon out there, ranging from the straightforward to the excessively complicated. And here is where I am conflicted. I love to make dishes in the most authentic way possible. But I also love simplicity and dislike fussiness. So where to find the balance without sacrificing authenticity? When it comes down to it, a dish like Boeuf Bourguignon just doesn't seem like it should be so complicated. Complex in flavor, yes, but at it's roots a simple, rustic stew. So this recipe by Ginette Mathiot, the "French Julia Child", which was published a few weeks ago in The New York Times, seems to strike a nice balance. Authentic in that it is the version that a French cook would cook in their own home, not the complicated beast of a restaurant version popularized by Julia Child. Both recipes authentic in their own way, and both yielding a more than satisfying result. Recipe after the jump:

BOEUF BOURGUIGNON
Adapted from "I Know How to Cook" by Ginette Mathiot

1 tablespoon oil
3 ounces onions or shallots, chopped
3 1/2 ounces thick-cut bacon, diced
1 1/2 pounds stewing beef, cut into 1 1/2 -inch pieces, patted dry
Scant 1/4 cup flour
1 1/4 cups any type of stock, hot
1 1/4 cups red wine
1 bouquet garni (1 bay leaf, 3 sprigs fresh thyme and 3 sprigs parsley, tied together)
Black pepper
3 1/2 ounces mushrooms, diced
Salt

1. In a heavy pan over medium heat, heat oil. Add onions and bacon and cook, stirring, until browned. Remove them and set aside; leave fat in pan.

2. Add beef and brown on all sides (work in two batches if needed to avoid crowding).

3. Sprinkle browned beef with flour, stir until browned and add stock. Stir, scraping bottom of pan, then add reserved bacon and onions, the wine and bouquet garni. Season with pepper.

4. Simmer very gently for 2 hours.

5. Add mushrooms and cook 30 minutes more. Season with salt and serve. Or, even better, reheat and serve the next day.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings.

Continue Reading "french food i DID eat in france: boeuf bourguignon"

in season: italian plum torte

A recipe so popular that reader demand insured it's publication in The New York Times just about every year between 1983 and 1995. Now this is something that I had to try. It just looks so incredibly simple on paper, could it be so good as to develop this cult-like following?

Well, as I've said over and over, simplicity is often the best insurance that a recipe will be memorable and perfect. And this was the essence of simplicity. It took no time, it took very few ingredients, it took barely any effort, and it seemed like the kind of thing you can't really mess up. But it looks somewhat impressive, and tastes much more complex than it is. The sweet-tart of the plums, the warmth of the cinnamon, the slight crispness of the cake top dusted in sugar. Recipe after the jump:



ITALIAN PLUM TORTE
From The New Elegant But Easy Cookbook, by Marian Burros and Lois Levine.

3/4 cup PLUS 1 or 2 tablespoons sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs
Pinch salt
24 halves pitted Italian (aka prune or purple) plums
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, or more
Vanilla ice cream, optional

1. Arrange a rack in the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

2. In an electric mixer, cream the 3/4 cup sugar and butter. Add the flour, baking powder, eggs, and salt and beat to mix well. Place in a 9- or 10-inch ungreased springform pan. Cover the top with the plums, skin side down. Mix the cinnamon with the remaining 1 or 2 tablespoons of sugar and sprinkle over the top.

3. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes (mine took a little over 50), until the center tests done with a toothpick. Remove and cool to room temperature or serve warm. Serve plain or with vanilla ice cream.

Continue Reading "in season: italian plum torte"

j-cat cooks: chicken cordon bleu

J-cat is definitely showing a tendency towards cooking those old-school classic dishes with questionable heritage(Beef Wellington, Chicken Francese, etc.). This time it was Chicken Cordon Bleu, which I must admit I had never eaten before. I probably never ate it because the only places I ever saw it on the menu were diners, where it is not exactly wise to veer from the burger or breakfast realm. But if you think about it, there's no way it could be bad - chicken, prosciutto or ham, gruyere, bread crumbs. I always imagined it would just be layered but J-Cat got all fancy and made it roulade style. I did my best at slicing it to show off the fanciness.

J-Cat does not use single recipes, and he almost immediately forgets what he did, so it's pretty tough for me to post a recipe. But it was pretty straight forward - pound out chicken breast, layer prosciutto slice, layer gruyere slice, roll it up, do the flour, egg, panko bread crumb breading process, bake, yum.

Continue Reading "j-cat cooks: chicken cordon bleu"

french food i did not eat in france: coq au vin

The French seem to really love their chicken. I was just craving some homey, classic, filling food as the weather starts cooling down. Coq au vin really hit the spot. Now, I did not have a rooster for this dish, so there is a disclaimer that this is not completely authentic.



I also didn't marinate the chicken in the wine before cooking, which many recipes call for. I think I might try that next time to see how much of a difference it makes, but I did not think this version was lacking flavor at all. In fact, the intensity of the wine and mushroom flavor - set off by the sweet pearl onions and the salty bacon - was really perfect for my taste. I almost felt like we were back in Paris, and it prompted J-Cat to say that he wants to do that whole trip over again, with more foods. Recipe after the jump:



COQ AU VIN
Adapted from Simply Recipes

1/2 lb bacon slices
20 pearl onions, peeled (blanch in boiling water to ease peeling)
3 lbs chicken thighs and legs, excess fat trimmed, skin ON
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
6 garlic cloves, peeled
Salt and pepper to taste
2 cups chicken stock
2 cups red wine, preferably pinot noir
2 bay leaves
Several fresh thyme sprigs
Several fresh parsley sprigs
1/2 lb cremini mushrooms, trimmed and roughly chopped
2 Tbsp butter
Chopped fresh parsley for garnish

Blanch the bacon to remove some of its saltiness. Drop the bacon into a saucepan of cold water, covered by a couple of inches. Bring to a boil, simmer for 5 minutes, drain. Rinse in cold water, pat dry with paper towels. Cut the bacon into 1 inch by 1/4 inch pieces.

Salt and pepper the chicken parts. Place in a large resealable plastic bag with the flour and shake to coat the chicken. Shake off the excess flour and set aside.

Brown bacon on medium high heat in a dutch oven big enough to hold the chicken in one layer, about 10 minutes. Remove the cooked bacon with a slotted spoon, set aside. Keep the bacon fat in the pan. Working in batches if necessary, add onions and chicken, skin side down. Brown the chicken well, on all sides, about 10 minutes. Halfway through the browning, add the garlic.

Discard any excess fat. Add the chicken stock, wine, and herbs (it is easiest to tie the herbs into a bouquet garni). Add back the bacon. Lower heat to a simmer. Cover and cook for 20 minutes, or until chicken is tender and cooked through. Remove chicken and onions to a separate platter. Remove the bay leaves, herb sprigs, garlic, and discard.

Add mushrooms to the remaining liquid and turn the heat to high. Boil quickly and reduce the liquid by three fourths until it becomes thick and saucy. Lower the heat, stir in the butter. Return the chicken and onions to the pan to reheat and coat with sauce. Adjust seasoning. Garnish with parsley and serve.

Serves 6. Serve with potatoes or over egg noodles.

Continue Reading "french food i did not eat in france: coq au vin"