Monday, June 23, 2008

Mexican Yang



It doesn’t get hot in Seattle. I truly love this weather phenomenon, being the hot-blooded, easily over heated, lazy with sun screen, sweaty beast that I am. There are a lot of folks in this city who kvetch and moan about the summers here because they want more sun and more heat. Honestly- 90% of this country experiences hot and sunny summers. Why do they even bother living here?

ANYWAY, this past Friday afternoon it was hot. Like 85 degrees and sunny hot. Yuck. I was sweaty and yucky and grumpy from just having ridden the stinky bus home yet I had to cook something nourishing for myself and my mate. But what could possibly be appetizing in this type of oppressive weather? Of course….MEXICAN FOOD! I found the best tostada recipe. (Ok…all of the recipes I’ve posted about so far are from food and wine. So?? It’s a great resource!) This is a real yin yang type of recipe- the sweet mushy pineapple avocado bean mash vs. the chewy smoky spicy shrimp all stacked on a crunchy tostada shell- honestly, though, I think that store bought tostada shells are ga-ross and I prefer this recipe with a baked flour tortilla and some chili powder sprinkled on top. Totally just a personal preference, though.

The coolest part about this recipe is that you get to set it on fire. The first time I set fire to a hot pan full of cooking food I was terrified. It lights up very quickly with a WHOOSH and then it burns a really tall flame for a couple of seconds before it dies down. It’s very fun. You should try it some time.

Anyway- if you don’t eat shrimp you could probably substitute something else in there but I don’t know what. Seitan? Ha ha- I dare you to try that.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Leftovers!

Tonight we had leftovers. Leftovers don't have to be dull! The best advice that I have ever heard about leftovers is don't simply reheat them, use them as ingredients in a new dish.

I got this recipe from Jacques Pépin's Encore with Claudine, which probably the best book of his to buy if you don't have any at all. (It is currently available for <$1 used on Amazon.) The leftovers featured here are the leftover baguette and lamb from two nights ago, but you can use any leftover meat that you have. I hollowed out some tomatoes, made a stuffing out of the meat, the leftover bread, green onions, white onion, garlic, and mushrooms. I used the insides of the tomatoes as a sauce.

For 4 tomatoes which weight about 1.5lbs total, use 4 oz leftover meat and chop it up, 3 oz dried bread chopped into 1/2" pieces, 4 green onions coarsely chopped, 1/3 C chopped white onion, 1/3 C chopped mushrooms, and 2 cloves of garlic, chopped. Combine these ingredients in a bowl along with some salt and pepper, 1/3 C water, and 1 egg. Mix it all together. Cut of the tops off the tomato, and hollow out the insides, reserving the insides for the sauce. Coarsely chop the insides and place them in your baking dish, along with some salt. Fill the tomatoes with the meat-mixture, place the caps on, place them on the sauce in the baking dish and cook them for 45 minutes at 400F, or until the tomatoes are nicely browned.

An important lesson here is that you don't need to use precisely this list of ingredients. You could use chopped leek instead of the onions, or put a T of capers or a few anchovy fillets in there. If I did it again I might use bulgar wheat instead of bread, although Elyse liked the bread. I think that I would also add some olive oil to the tomato innards.

Serve one per person as an appetizer, or two each along with another dish for a light dinner. We began the meal with a turnip, sweet potato, white potato and leek soup, from the same book. It helped that I had some stock on hand for a tasty, hearty soup base! The soup, along with 2 stuffed tomatoes each made for a nice, light, nearly vegetarian dinner.

(Of course, if you really are a vegetarian the chopped lamb in the tomatoes and beef stock in the soup would disqualify this meal as truly vegetarian, but for the rest of us, its a little peak into the world of vegetarianism, sort of like how you can watch a movie about war, without actually having to risk your life.)

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Mango infused habanero grilled chicken.


Welcome to my $6 lunch. I got this in the hospital cafeteria today and took the picture with my camera phone. Although the name of the dish might lead you to believe that I work in some kind of foodie heaven I have long since learned that the names of the dishes rarely correspond to the flavors. The names seem to be just that, names. These are curious names, really, mango is fine, but habanero is poor marketing, especially if you aren't even going to cook with it. In this part of the country the red bell pepper is considered spicy, (that is not an exaggeration, but I do hope that your reaction is something like, "I refuse to believe that any sector of humanity has reduced itself to such fecklessness of flavor without tasting the evidence with my own tongue," because, you see, I have an undying faith in the ability of humanity to be positive when faced with an epicurean foe such as a public which prefers bland, tasteless food) and basically steered everyone in front of me towards a hamburger. I still ordered the chicken because they always grill well, and the skin looked perfect. So even if there was a mango and a habanero in the same room as the grill and that's where they got the name, it'll still be good cafeteria food.

I knew the ball was rolling my way today when I ordered the chicken and he asked me "white or dark" as he laid his left hand on some white meat. As you know, white meat is "healthier". He had apparently - subconsciously, of course - determined that I was decidedly healthy looking and for sure got they way by eating chicken breast! A subconscious compliment, I'll take them where I can get them. Imagine the surprise, the chaos, the utter calamity in his id when I decadently and confidently ordered "dark". Of course, if all you saw was the look on his face you would think that he was barely aware of my existence, but his subconscious certainly mulled it over for the better part of a day.

Imagine my dismay when, as I was practically drooling over the stainless-steel food bin of steamed carrots and green beans that for once didn't look overcooked, he asked if I wanted vegetables or salad, and proceeded to quietly lay his left hand on the salad tongs. Again, not one to lose hope in the flavor of food so quickly I craned my neck to see if they had invented a new salad, maybe with mâche, tarragon, sliced beets, Dijon mustard, white wine vinegar, and some olive oil, and thickened with a raw egg yolk, but no, that must have been a dream I had online, for the only thing in the stainless steel salad bin was iceberg lettuce. So there I was, moments after receiving a subconscious compliment I learned that the other half of his id thought that I was a pansy! Iceberg lettuce is for pansies! I immediately asked for the vegetables but I don't know if he understood, I probably should have beat him up just to prove a point to his subconscious, but without having had lunch first I probably would have lost, and if I went back later his subconscious wouldn't make the connection. So I left him there, id in a swirl, looking for another healthy pansy to feed.

The lunch was well worth $6, the chicken was no more spicy than a red bell pepper, there was some sweetness, maybe not mango, but still good. The carrots and green beans were fine, although the green beans were a little overdone. The cumin-rice, however, tasted like they dumped raw cumin over the rice after it was done. That's not the only thing keeping the place from earning a Michelin Star, however, and for $6 I shouldn't complain, but still do.

Tomorrow I'll wear a power tie, and maybe they'll guess my order right.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Grenadins of Lamb with Morels and Artichoke Hearts



These recipes are a little involved, so I won't go into them, but they are again from a book by Jacques Pépin, called Jacques Pépin Celebrates. This was a Happy Birthday meal for Elyse!

I would like to recommend that you make your own stock. That is the only way I was able to pull this meal off. The sauce is a reduction of my stock, along with a reduction of the water that I soaked the morels in, butter, and some cognac, which I flambéed. Making your own stock will mean that you spend an entire day relaxing at home, and if you have it frozen you can produce an impressive meal in no time.

Most of the effort in this meal for me was in the artichokes. I haven't worked with them a lot, and the artichoke can be a little daunting. Really, make sure that your knife is sharp and then just remove everything that doesn't look edible. (There are a lot of artichoke heart slices on the plate, because I bought jumbo artichokes at Whole Foods today. Half as many would have been plenty.)

I should mention tarragon, the garnish, which you should try to substitute the next time you have a hearty meal which is garnished with parsley or chives. We don't use tarragon often in this country, but we should!


Saturday, June 14, 2008

Fried Whitebait.

About 2 months ago we were at HT, our favorite Chinese market, and I had just picked up a pound of frozen smelt. Elyse said simply "what are you going to do with those?" although the tone in her voice was more like "Dude, aside from this package of frozen catfish heads, you just picked up the grossest looking thing in here." Several months earlier I had seen a recipe in Chez Jacques that I was determined to cook if I could ever find Whitebait. I did remember Jacques mentioning that if you can't catch your own you will probably find them at a Chinese market, but these were labelled smelt. I bought them anyway, figuring they would fry up just fine.

Whitebait, as I later learned, is also called smelt and is usually immature Herring, but the word refers to different immature fish in different parts of the world. I had wondered if these whitebait were what I knew as minnows as a kid, but it turns out that minnows are fish that grow up to be small, whereas Whitebait are fish that are still growing up.

The ones I got were headless, and already cleaned, and about 2 inches long. I was disappointed that they were headless, I wanted to eat the head! The head makes the dish all the more hardcore, still hardcore-for-beginners, though, not like eating bone marrow, or intestines, or simmering a chicken in its own blood. Yum! If yours aren't cleaned you will need to squeeze their guts out of their poop hole. This is called dead-pooping your guts out. Squeeze out the parts that are easy to remove, and don't worry if you leave some guts behind.


Lets talk about flour. Flour is an odd one because it tastes real bad when its uncooked, but real good when cooked. If you use flour to thicken a sauce but then fail to cook the sauce adequately, for example, your sauce will be pasty-tasting. If you don't believe me go shove a handful of raw flour in your mouth. You know you don't want to! Its totally bad! Now we are going to coat the fish with it! And its bad! But something happens when you cook it, it turns a tasty fish into a delectable little fish-french-fry. You get, like, notes of bread with the fish. No one ever refers to this flavor as 'notes of bread' or 'hints of bread' but that's what it is.

By the way, if 'notes of bread' doesn't sound brilliant to you then you need to be eating some better bread.

By the way, if ANY food doesn't sound brilliant to you, then are eating a bad version of it. Every member of our species likes mushrooms, liver, and even the occasional beet if is fresh and prepared properly.


So, now we bread the fish with the flour. First you pat the fish dry with paper towels, they should be pretty dry because we don't want any extra water in that hot oil. Jacques says to dissolve a tablespoon or so of flour into a cup of milk because it'll thicken the milk. Add some freshly ground pepper. Dump the fish into the milk mixture. Make sure they are coated. Then put a cup of flour into a 1-gallon bag, and take the fish out of the milk, and drop them into the bag. Close the bag and pretend you have Shake n 'Bake. Dump the fish into a colander and shake off all the excess flour.

Now we will deep fry. You only need to know a few things about deep frying, and you really need a digital thermometer for this. They are cheap, and extremely useful, I bought a Taylor model #9842 from Amazon for about $15 and I use almost every time I cook. There are 2 very important things to know about temperature,

1) Keep the oil below 400F, or it will burn, and your food will taste burnt.
2) Keep the oil above 300F or your food will absorb a lot of oil.

The 2nd rule is the surprising one, I think. If you keep the temperature high enough you won't end up with an oil-bomb of a dish. According to Hervé This in Molecular Gastronomy, the process of deep frying is the process of steaming food from the inside. As the water boils it leaves as steam, and if the steam pressure is high enough the oil doesn't seep in. He goes on to say that if you can wipe the oil off the food immediately after frying if you want to prevent that outer layer of oil from soaking in.

In order to help you control the temperature you should use a lot of oil and a heavy saucepan. I used 1.0 quart of oil, but even 1.5 qts would have been a big improvement. The heavy saucepan will prevent the temperature from falling when you drop the fish in. I recommend a 4-quart saucepan or so, because the fish really fill it up, and you so-don't wanna spill.






Now heat your oil to 360F, and carefully slide the fish in. It'll bubble like mad for the first minute, but then die down. While that happens lets talk about how to learn to cook. Its easy! Most of the things I'm telling you here I figured out as I went. This was the first time I had ever deep fried, though, and I made some mistakes. I used a sauté pan that was too small to do this task safely (2-1/2 qts), and it was too thin to keep the temperature up. After I dumped the fish in the temp fell to 280F and I had to turn the heat on the stove all the way up to keep it from falling any further! And they still tasted great! So if you don't have the "proper equipment" you can still make this dish, but I strongly recommend the thermometer, and a bigger saucepan than I used.


OK, cook the fish at least 3 minutes - stirring occasionally - until they are a beautiful golden brown. As you know, the color is a more important indicator than the timing. Take them out with a skimmer or a slotted spoon. Lightly sprinkle some salt on them. Jacques likens them to french fries! Eat them immediately. They would be especially good on a hot summer evening with friends (this recipe will serve 4-6) and a crisp white wine.

Happily, Elyse was blown away, her initial skepticism went out the door the instant she saw me dump 50 little fish into a bowl of milk. I made this about a month ago, in fact, long before we ever decided to blog, and she pulled out her camera and started documenting my activities. Unfortunately we were too busy eating them to remember to take any pictures of the finished product!

Friday, June 13, 2008

Salt-Baked Red Snapper.

Every once in a while I see a dish that blows my mind and I HAVE TO MAKE it. The first time that ever happened was when I saw Jacques Pépin bone out a chicken. I would have thought that if you removed the bones from an animal that you would have a pile of bones over here, and a pile of flesh over there. Nope! Now I can remove the bones from the chicken, and stuff it, and you can't even tell that the bones are gone. It just looks like a plump chicken.

I haven't been obsessed with a dish in a while, until last week when I was streaming José Andrés Made in Spain on Netflix's Watch Instantly.

This dish uses Red Snapper. That alone had me hooked. I have always wanted to cook Snapper, probably because its red. I think that this is the first red thing I have ever cooked, aside from members of the plant kingdom. I haven't worked with fish very much, because getting a whole, fresh fish around here is a nuisance. Its possible, but you need to spend some time in traffic if you want one for dinner tonight because there are only a handful of places in this city which stock a selection of beautifully fresh fish. Getting a fish with scales is what makes this a hassle. Most grocery store fish are already cleaned and de-scaled. This fish, by the way, had beautiful eyes. The picture makes the eyes look cloudy, but they were as clear as the ocean

Here's the list of ingredients:
a 2.5 lb Red Snapper, cleaned, but scales left on.
3 bay leaves
3 lbs kosher salt.

That's the whole list. There are no typos, that's 3 pounds of salt, and you really need the scales of the fish.

Put the bay leaves into the body cavity of the Snapper. Dump the salt into a bowl, and add water until its pasty. Put a layer of salt onto an oven safe dish, put the Snapper on the salt, and cover the Snapper with the rest of the salt. Bake for 30 minutes at 375F.
When you are done, the salt comes off easily in large chunks, and the scales come off easily with a fork. It'll be the tiniest bit salty, but those layers of scales and salt will prevent any moisture or flavor from escaping the fish! The fish will be perfect.

By the way, cooking times will vary with different ovens. I jabbed a digital thermometer through the salt and scales and into the fish at around 25 minutes, and then cooked it for about 5 more. It didn't hurt.

This dish captured my imagination; it looks impressive coming out of the oven, and it will leave you wondering 'what the hell is going on' while it is cooking. This is the only time that I have ever seen food used for something other than eating. The salt is used partly to keep the flavor of the fish in, and its thermal properties affect the cooking as well. But you don't use it for its flavor! And you throw it away in the end! That's why you need to leave the scales on, otherwise the fish will be very, very, salty. Yes, you throw away the bay leaves, too, but they leave their flavor behind.

I like to make an entire meal from one chef, so I found another of José's dish on Food & Wine, Leeks Two Ways with Morel Mushrooms. He used a different mushroom, but use whatever you can find. The Morels were $28/lb, but I only needed $3 worth for two people.

I like José a lot, by the way. My favorite quote from his show is, "Everywhere you go in Spain you find the perfect combination between tradition and innovation." That's quite a statement! There are no qualifiers, it wasn't even clear that he was talking about the food in Spain. Everywhere the combination is perfect? Well, I've never been so Spain, so how can I argue.? I am going to assume that its true! I never do that! Go José!

Thursday, June 12, 2008

The Malay-no Bowl


In college, I basically never cooked any food that didn't come frozen in a bag. Therefore, my humble entry into the world of cooking began in grad school, when I lived in a house full of hippies who actually cut up real vegetables to cook with. I was amazed! So…naturally I began experimenting for myself and eventually developed a style of cooking that resulted in a roommate of mine calling me "Iron Chef Gruel". I cooked these bland colorless meals that were all mushed together in one bowl- starch, veggies, sauce, meat- you name it, all scrambled together. This type of meal is Wade's nemesis. He named it the "Monobowl" and turns his nose up at such dishes when I attempt to cook them. What a spoiled brat, right?

Anyway, there are two exceptions to Wade's monobowl ban- Sukiyaki, and this crazy Malaysian dish I made once, Loh Shi Fun. Loh Shi Fun is this crazy mess of ingredients and flavors that somehow comes all together like a symphony and tastes wonderful (like most Malaysian dishes in my limited experience). Last night I decided to make it again after a trip to my favorite Asian grocery store, HT (I swear- after I shop there I feel kind of dirty because IT IS SO INEXPENSIVE).

Anyway, this is a fun dish to make if you have access to the ingredients. I used watercress instead of pea shoots this time (store was out of them) and rice cakes because I have yet to find pearl noodles in a store (and I'm not even sure what they are, to tell you the truth). Am I looking for the wrong thing?

I should also mention that the egg poaching step at the end of this recipe doesn't work very well. I would either just crack a raw egg on top while it is still quite hot (and if you're into that- I know I am) or poach an egg in a way you are comfortable with.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

A Quickie


I really wanted to start this blog off with a really flashy meal but let’s face it- on a Monday night sometimes you just want to make something quick and dirty. These days I’m really trying to build my “weeknight meal” repertoire- you know what I mean- the type of food where you get maximum bang from minimal effort. My trick lately is to choose a recipe like this one, where a simply prepared meat is served with an easy sauce made from a few zingy ingredients (GINGER! JALAPENO!) simmered in an effortless base (Crushed tomatoes! Coconut milk!
We come in cans!). The original recipe calls for grilled chicken but this would also be delicious with fish or tofu (SEE? My cooking blog is totally inclusive). This is also a great little dish to whip up when you live in a freaky part of the country where it’s been in the low 50s and constantly drizzling despite the fact that it’s mid June. I felt like I was in sunny Brazil for a few seconds. I have a great imagination. (the unappetizing looking pile of brown glop on the plate is refried beans. Shuttup- I love things that come in cans.)

I also wanted to quickly mention the wine that we had with this meal: L'Ecuyer de Couronneau 2005 Bordeaux Supérieur (the one with the horsey head guy on the front). This has been a recent favorite of ours since Wade picked up a bottle ($13) at Market Time several months ago- it was so peppery and delightful that we bought 3 more bottles, even though we knew that they all had moldy corks. Yeccchh. (EDIT: Wade wants me to let you guys know that the outside of the cork was moldy- not the inside. Never drink moldy wine, kids!!!!).But seriously- if you like spicy earthy reds without too much fruit this is the wine for you. Also it's organic so now I feel like a big fat jerk for announcing at the lunch table in my office that there are no good organic wines (that's what I get for parroting everything that Wade reads to me). And if you know what Bordeaux Supérieur means, let me know.

Thoughtless meals

We all have a repertoire of meals we can make that require no thought at all. For many people their repertoire is a source of deep embarrassment because it doesn't extend much beyond cold cereal, roasted squash, or a can of soup. Expanding this repertoire expand your enjoyment of cooking. linearly.

The first step in expanding your repertoire beyond frozen Trader Joe's could be roasted chicken. Imagine a drug dealer who doesn't own a gun, said "dealer" would be almost as feckless as the home cook who can't work with chicken. Now imagine a drug dealer with a gun. ooooo! scary drug dealer! Now imagine a home cook who is comfortable with roasting a chicken. That's not a cook, that's a chef! That's a chef who will get laid tonight.

Roasting a chicken is easier than you think. Preheat the oven to 425F. You'll have nice, crispy skin because you roasted at a high temperature. Pat salt and pepper all over the inside and outside of the chicken. Place the chicken on its side in your roasting pan. You will get good results roasting on anything made of metal that is oven safe, even non-stick cookware will work fine. After 20 minutes flip it to the other side. After 20 more minutes flip it onto its back. Take it out of the oven after 10 more minutes, and let it rest 10 minutes. Thats 50 minutes in the oven for a 3-4 lb bird, you may need to adjust if your bird is much bigger or smaller. I bet that you already have this recipe memorized!

You know, there's a lot of extra space in that roasting pan, why don't you add some vegetables? Cut a potato and an onion each in half without peeling either of them. Cut the onion at its widest part, so the root is entirely on one half, trust me, roasted onions are good. The first time you flip the chicken, add the potatoes and onions to the pan, cut side down. They'll absorb some fat! You'll be roasting them for 30 minutes. (If your potatoes are big you might want to start them when you start the chicken) If you want to be really fancy, keep some tapenade on hand to spread on the potatoes when they are done. Serve 1 onion and 1/2 potato per person.

Learning to work with chicken is empowering. There are fantastic things you can do with chicken, a lot of fantastic things! Keep an eye out for meals that you can make that require little thought and effort, yet will get you laid.