Boldo's Thoughts on Food

Easter Lamb

2010-04-10T10:36:00.001-04:00

Next Sunday will be Easter, a time of renewal and rebirth, a harbinger of spring, and lengthening days with the sun moving higher into the sky. The daffodils are up, as is our garlic, the ice is off the lake, and while sugaring is still ongoing, the buds are starting to appear on the trees, so the end is in sight.

Easter, a moveable feast, falls on the first Sunday following the full moon after the vernal equinox, thus is moves around from late March to late April each year. Passover roughly coincides with Easter, and fell on the full moon on April 30^ththis year. Both religious holidays are a time of feasting, celebration, family and friends.

In many regions early spring vegetables like asparagus, fiddleheads, mushrooms and ramps are appearing, and sprightly lambs frolic in the barnyard and peeping chicks are scurrying beneath a warming light. Plants are germinating in flats in a sunny window and the parsnips have been dug.

Not everyone likes lamb, the meat of sheep. Some dislike the smell, which primarily emanates from its tallowy fat while it is cooking, and some find the taste of the meat is too strong. Our local lamb is usually one month old to twelve months at slaughter, but in other countries they eat mutton and hogget, older sheep, both male and female up to four years old or more. These latter types are stronger in flavor than the lamb locally produced. New Zealand lamb, often killed at four months, is quite mild in taste, and only available frozen.

Sheep are grass eaters, but are often finished with grain over the last month before slaughter, producing a fine-grained flesh. As the animal ages, its flesh gradually changes from a pale pink to a dark red, and its flavor intensifies. As a red meat, it likes to be cooked rare (125 degrees) to medium (160 degrees) or anywhere in between. Legs and racks should be allowed to rest for 15 minutes or so before carving to allow the meat juices to redistribute themselves, resulting in a moist, juicy serving.

Lamb chops are cut from the loin, the most prized chops, and can be pan-fried, broiled or grilled, and from the shoulder, which require braising to become tender. The shoulder and shanks are also braised, and result in luxuriant sauces, which thicken themselves when reduced. Ground lamb can be combined with pork and beef, made into lamb meat loaf, grilled as burgers, or made into a meat sauce or meatballs. In the Italian section of Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, meat markets sold the lamb head to the Italian grandmothers of the neighborhood, along with whole baby lambs for Easter dinner.

As lamb is somewhat fatty, traditional accompaniments like mint jelly are meant to “cut” the fat, and in other cultures lemons, wine, vinegars, and dried fruits like quince and apricot are common with lamb. We think of garlic, rosemary and thyme to flavor our lamb, but anchovies are used in Italy and paprika in Spain and Portugal. Lamb is raised worldwide and eaten throughout the Europe and the Mediterranean, the Arab and Muslim lands, India, Australia and Africa, so it is a universal food.

Sometimes we have ham at Easter, but this year it’ll be lamb. Yum!

Raised doughnuts & new maple syrup

2010-04-10T10:18:00.002-04:00

When I was growing up, we had six maple trees lining our lawn, and Dad tapped them every spring. We kids rushed home from school to help gather the buckets for Mom to boil down the sap in her turkey roasting pan, straddling two burners on her stove, until the syrup sheeted, and the wall paper was starting to droop around the kitchen. New syrup always meant raised doughnuts, and this was the only time of the year that Mom made them for us. Still warm, puffy doughnuts and lightly heated new maple syrup…do I need to say more!

The doughnut, sometimes donut, is fried dough, although there are baked doughnuts. They are made in one form or another all around the world. Many lands and cultures have their own variations on the theme, from the French beignet and the Italian bomboloni, to meat-filled samosa, the cala, with rice and nutmeg from Trinidad, or the Isreali sufganiyah.

American doughnuts come in a large variety and are often glazed, frosted or powdered. Some are stuffed with jelly, fruit or custard, or made with cider in the fall during apple season. Potato doughnuts are sometimes referred to as “spudnuts,” and the crueler is a twisted bar of doughnut dough, often rolled in caster sugar while still warm. Old-fashioned doughnuts were spiced with nutmeg, cinnamon and sometime cardamon.

Doughnuts may be leavened by baking powder or baking soda, which make a denser doughnut, or by yeast, which makes them light and fluffy. Doughnut dough is moist, enriched with eggs, sugar and fat, resulting in a moderately sticky dough, lending to their light, springy texture when cooked.

Yeast-raised doughnuts can be made for any weekend morning breakfast, if you like to get up in the morning. They rise fast in a warm kitchen and can be prepared in 2 hours or so, if made in a stand mixer.

Doughnuts are cooked at a moderately hot 365 degrees, in plenty of oil. When the high moisture dough hits the hot oil, it quickly produces steam, which in concert with the leavening agents and any beaten egg, puffs up the doughnut to airy lightness before the outside gets too hard. The lighter yeasted doughnut rides higher up in the oil than its baking powder brethren, requiring that it be turned over after a minute or so, but leaving a lighter band about its circumference where the outside gets cooked less.

One word of caution on deep-frying doughnuts: do not over crowd the pan and allow the oil to drop in temperature. Soggy, greasy doughnuts are not only not good for you, they don’t taste very good either. Not that properly cooked doughnuts are “good” for you, but life isn’t worth living if you can’t indulge a little bit now and again. And spring sugaring season with the new maple syrup only comes once a year, so why not pair it up with the warm goodness of a yeast-raised homemade doughnut…I ate three in a row!

Yeast-Raised Doughnuts

1 ½ cups milk

2 ½ oz (1/3 cup) vegetable shortening

2 Tbl instant yeast

1/3 cup warm water (95-105 degrees F)

2 eggs, beaten

¼ cup sugar

1 ½ tsp. salt

1 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg

23 oz AP flour, plus some for dusting the work surface

Peanut, canola or vegetable oil for frying.

Place the milk in a saucepan and scald. Place the shortening in your stand mixer bowl and pour the milk over it. Set aside.

In a bowl, place the yeast in the water and allow to dissolve 5 minutes. When the milk in just warm, add the yeast mixture, the eggs, sugar, salt, nutmeg and half the flour. Mix with the paddle starting slowly but increasing the speed to medium until everything is well combined. Turn off the machine and add the rest of the flour. Incorporate slowly, then increase the speed to medium until well combined. Switch to the dough hook, and knead at medium speed for 5 minutes or so, until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

Turn dough into a well oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for an hour or until double in bulk.

On a well floured surface, turn out the dough and pat or roll out to 3/8 to ½ inch thick. Cut doughnuts with a well floured doughnut cutter, placing the rings ½” apart on a parchment paper lined sheet pan. Cover with a tea towel and let rise 30 minutes or so.

Preheat the oil in a rondeau or Dutch oven to 365 degrees. Carefully turn each doughnut over, placing the top-side down in the oil. Don’t crowd the pan or allow the oil to fall in temperature. In 1 minute, flip each doughnut over, cooking the other side 1 minute. Drain on a rack over paper towels.

Toss with sugar or glaze in 10 minutes or so, when slightly cooled. Or serve with warm maple syrup.

Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs)

2010-04-10T10:15:00.001-04:00

At the moment we seem to be having an early start to spring, however considering it’s only mid-March I don’t think old man winter is completely out of the picture yet. With Town Meeting behind us, many are planting tomatoes and other plants for their summer gardens.

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, it isn’t only this column that advocates eating local foods to the greatest extent possible, as more and more places are promoting themselves by advertising that they sell goods produced in our immediate area. Restaurants pride themselves on using locally produced fruits, vegetables, meats, eggs, cheeses and the like on their menus. More and more area grocery stores are emphasizing their array of products that are either indigenous to the area, or that some enterprising farmer is growing and developing a local following for. It’s a good, healthy trend, and it’s happening across the country. Farmers’ markets are abounding and are more crowded then ever as those that love good, healthy food can now satisfy their cravings while seeing their friends and neighbors in the relaxed atmosphere of these weekly gatherings.

For those that want a steady stream of local agricultural products, farmers offer CSAs, an acronym for Community Supported Agriculture. A CSA is a form of cooperative where local buyers contract with a local farmer to share in the risks and rewards of the farmer’s production. Usually the CSA buyer receives a regular distribution of the products available from the farm on any given week. These products may be fruits and vegetables only, but many CSAs now include the possibility of meat, eggs, flowers or started vegetable plants, and dairy products, be it cheese, butter or milk, raw or pasteurized.

In the CSA system, the buyer prepays for a summer’s harvest, receiving their weekly distribution either at the farm or sometimes at the farmers’ market. This new relationship that brings consumers into direct contact with the producer builds a stronger bond between them, resulting in the farmer being able to concentrate more on production of products their consumers want, and less on food waste and financial loss.

Buyers do not purchase a set number of pounds or pieces of a specific product, but share in the farmer’s production when their products are at their peak of ripeness and flavor. The benefit to the buyer is having a steady stream of seasonal produce, or other farm products, while knowing that their dollars are working locally. The farmer is freed up from marketing their products and can focus on the care and production of their plants, soils, crops, animals and fellow workers. It’s a win win for all involved.

CSAs are designed to provide as much or as little of the farmer’s production as the individual or family needs on a weekly basis, so they can be customized to your individual situation. There is some risk to the buyer in that weather or pests may damage or limit production, but this risk is spread over a larger number of participants in the CSA approach, while otherwise falling only onto the producer. If it helps the farmer, it helps the buyer.

So consider buying a CSA from your local farmer. Its good for you, good for the farmer, and good for our local economy.

Stews

2010-03-22T18:25:00.001-04:00

I keep finding different cuts of beef in my freezer that I purchased at the farmers’ markets last fall, and as it’s only March, it’s still stewing season. Today it is a sirloin tip cut from the round, and I’m going to make a beef stew…the only question being, which beef stew recipe to use.

Cooking meat and/or vegetables in water, or other liquid medium such as stock, wine, beer, milk or pureed fruits or vegetables, has many advantages. The liquid imparts its heat rapidly and evenly, its temperature can be easily adjusted, it carries flavor from the item being cooked, and ultimately it becomes the sauce when the cooking is complete. In stewing, the liquid should be maintained at a low temperature (i.e. 150-180 degrees) for a relatively long time to allow the breakdown of the meat’s collagen into gelatin, which aids in the thickening of the resulting sauce. This low temperature method also prevents the meat from exuding all its juices and becoming dried out. which occurs around 150 degrees. However, all the collagen won’t be dissolved until 160 degrees plus, so close attention to the doneness of the meat is important for a succulent stew. One way to help achieve this result is to place the cooking vessel in an oven at 225 degrees, uncovered or with the top askew. If covered, the liquid will come to the boil and you risk drying out the meat. It is advisable to allow a stew to cool before serving to not only allow the meat to reabsorb some of the liquid lost during its cooking, but also to allow all the flavors to meld together. As we all know, stews always taste better the next day.

While there are blanquettes and fricassees that are “white” stews, if using beef or lamb one should brown the meat quickly and thoroughly before introducing the cooking liquid. Through the Maillard reaction, which differs from caramelization as sugar is not the primary element changing color, meats brown as a chemical reaction between their carbohydrate molecules (which include sugars) and amino acids occurs, resulting, as one of its by-products, in a brown color and intensification of flavor, and brown food tastes best.

While a stew can be as simple as meat and sauce, it more frequently includes a number of diced aromatic vegetables like onions, carrots and celery sautéed into a mirepoix or soffrito. These become one of the flavor bases of the stew when cooked in the same fat as the meat was browned in. In addition, many meat stews include vegetables like potatoes, carrots, turnips, parsnips and the like which braise along with the meat, and a can of Italian style tomatoes is always a welcome addition. Sometimes flour is introduced after the meat has been browned and the mirepoix cooked to add body to the final sauce, but a slow reduction in the liquid cooking will also produce a lightly thickened sauce just through evaporation.

PS Since writing this bit on stews, I cooked this beef at a low oven temperature for 2 hours with the top of my Dutch oven ajar, and found the beef to be tough. Additional cooking at a lazy simmer tenderized the beef, but didn't seem to materially dry it out.

Chowder

2010-03-06T06:47:00.006-05:00

We had a wonderful piece of cod from the Holy Mackerel fish store in Fairlee the other night, but the whole fillet was more than we could eat in one meal. I dutifully removed the thickest pieces for dinner and reserved the balance to make a fish chowder the next day.

Chowder is a New England tradition, although we can’t lay exclusive claim to it, as its origins were probably European, given that the word “chowder” is a derivation of the word chaudiere, an iron pot French settlers brought to New England and the Maritime provinces of Canada. Upon arriving in the new world, the settlers soon met the local Micmac Indians, one of whose main sources of protein was the local clams, which were ubiquitous. With an appropriate cooking vessel and an abundance of clams, the origins of chowder were set, and logically onions and potatoes were soon added to the pot, and milk followed shortly thereafter.

While one can concoct a chowder from any variety of fish, shellfish, or vegetables, usually the only meat would be some sort of cured pork, like bacon or salt pork, although ham hocks or even minced ham is are sometimes used. In New England it is traditional to include sautéed salt pork, onions, diced potatoes, thyme, bay leaf, hard shell clams (be they quahogs, cherrystones or little necks) and milk and/or cream, with a parsley garnish. I don’t advocate the use of flour to thicken the chowder, although a lot of places make a roux as part of the chowder-making process and produce a chowder that is so thick it’ll hold a spoon upright. In my recipe, the broth is thickened by the starch given off by the boiling of the potatoes, and the addition of crushed saltines, or Vermont hard crackers, when the soup is served.

As one proceeds south from Boston, however, the chowder starts to change. In Rhode Island they don’t add milk or cream, but they do add some tomatoes (part of their Portuguese culinary tradition), thus they have a reddish clear broth. Further south in New York, Manhattan clam chowder includes not only tomatoes, but also herbs and no milk. To New Englanders, this concoction “is only a vegetable soup, and not to be confused with New England Clam Chowder, nor spoken of in the same breath.”

One can make their chowder with their clams either in their shell or not. If you are using large hard shell clams like quahogs or cherrystones, it is probably best to steam them in their shells and, after the shells open, remove the clams and chop them up before adding to the chowder, along with their juices. If using little necks or count necks, they can be steamed open right in the chowder and make an attractive presentation in a large soup bowl.

Chowder doesn’t have to include clams, as there are fish chowders, corn chowder and vegetarian chowders, with the latter often featuring beans and/or corn. In the summer, fresh corn and Maine lobsters make a fantastic chowder, and a recipe is posted on the blog under the corn articles from last summer.

Three Onion Fish Chowder

Serves 4

3/4 lb fresh cod, cut into 1' pieces

6 oz. salt pork, cubed

1 onion, chopped
1 leek, washed and cut into rounds
1 shallot, chopped fine

1 Tbl olive or canola oil

3/4 lb red Bliss potatoes, cut in half if small. cubed in larger
1 sprig fresh thyme
2 bay leaves

1 cup milk

1/4 cup heavy cream

Freshly ground black pepper

2 Tbl minced parsley

Vermont crackers or saltines

Saute the salt pork in the oil until crisp. Add the chopped onion, leek and shallot and saute 5 minutes until soft, but not colored. Add the potatoes and stir them around in the fat before just covering with water. Bring to a boil and cook, uncovered, for 10 minutes, or until the potatoes are cooked through. Add the fish cubes and cook gently for 5 minutes. Add the milk and cream and bring back just to the simmer. Remove from the heat and garnish with the parsley. Give each serving a sprinkling of the black pepper. Serve with the crackers.

Chili

2010-02-26T13:18:00.002-05:00

Chili is a spicy meat stew, which originated in the North American southwest, probably in Texas, but possibly in Mexico. Texas makes claim to chili con carne, literally “peppers with meat,” and their legislature has designated it as the official state dish, so let’s give Texas the credit for inventing it. Mexico’s claim on chili is supported by the fact that most of the peppers used in chili came from Mexico, but the dish is not part of their culinary tradition, and, therefore, the nod goes to Texas.

Chili is made with chilies, peppers from the nightshade family, and most often from the genus Capsicum, which include a pungent chemical, capsaicin, which gives chilies their heat. The capsaicin is primarily concentrated in the chilies’ seeds and placenta, the white pithy membrane that bears the seeds. By removing these seeds and the placenta, the heat of the pepper is greatly diminished.

Chili is one of those dishes that people love to argue about, particularly about what ingredients one uses in their chili. In Texas, chili is made without any beans or tomatoes, which many people believe to be an intricate part of any good chili. In Texas the chili may contain no other vegetables besides the peppers and the beef, either cubed or ground, however it also commonly includes onions, garlic, and cumin, and frequently masa, used as a thickening agent. Outside of Texas, it is not uncommon to find that beans, usually red kidney beans, are added, and most people also associate the inclusion of tomatoes as a staple in any good chili recipe. By some accounts, beans were added by Cincinnati cooks, and many popular chili recipes now include beans as a standard ingredient. You might get incarcerated in Texas if you include them, so pick your chili fights carefully.

The meat used in most often beef, however venison is not unusual in rural areas, and turkey and chicken are used in concert with great northern beans for while chili. Mexicans make a chili verde, a green chili, which includes pork stewed in a chicken broth with tomatillos, garlic and roasted green chilies. Vegetarian chili may contain such items as tofu or some textured vegetable protein, but corn and beans combine to form a whole protein, so their inclusion is fairly common, although many other vegetables show up, including squash, mushrooms, carrots, beets and/or parsnips.

Most northern people tend to use chili powder as the seasoning in their chili, although dried chilies are available and enterprising cooks will seek them out for use in chili. If you choose to do so, or use fresh chilies during their growing season in the summer, protect yourself by using gloves to handle the peppers. A small amount of capsaicin, which is oily and hard to wash off surfaces, whether your hands, knives or cutting surfaces, left on your fingertips can cause immense irritation if rubbed in the eye, so be careful.

You can control the heat of your chili when using the peppers by removing the seeds and the placental tissue. If you like it hotter, leave them in.

Beef & Sausage Chili

20 Servings

¼ Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 lb. Onions, coarsely chopped

1 lb. Italian sausage, removed from casings

4 lb. Beef chuck, ground

2 tsp. Pepper, ground

1 12 oz. can Tomato paste

1 ½ Tbl. Garlic, minced

1 ½ oz. Cumin seed

2 oz. Chili powder

¼ Cup Dijon mustard

2 Tbl. Basil, dried

2 Tbl. Oregano, dried

3 lbs. Canned Italian-style tomatoes, drained

¼ Cup Burgundy wine

1/8 Cup Lemon juice

¼ Cup Fresh dill, chopped

¼ Cup Italian parsley, chopped

1 ½ lb Red kidney beans, soaked and cooked

5 oz. Black olives, pitted

Heat the oil in a large kettle. Add the onions and sauté over low heat for 10 minutes. Crumble in the sausage meat and ground beef and cook over medium-high heat, stirring often, until the meats are well browned. Skim off any excess fat.

Lower the heat and add the black pepper, tomato paste, garlic, cumin seed, chili powder, mustard, salt, basil, and oregano. Add the drained tomatoes, Burgundy wine, lemon juice, dill, parsley and the cooked kidney beans. Stir well and simmer 15 minutes.

Correct the seasoning and add the olives, simmering 5 more minutes.

Garnish with sour cream, chopped onions and grated cheddar cheese. Serve with beer.

Poutine

2010-02-05T18:52:00.003-05:00

Poutine is the French-Canadian dish that is comprised of French fried potatoes with cheese and rich gravy. What type of French fry, what type of cheese and what type of gravy is where different purveyors and devourers of this “heart attack on a plate” find room for individuality, to say nothing about what additions one can include under the same name.

First off, it seems that poutine is a Quebecois invention, originating in the Montreal area in the 1950s. Various stories abound about the combination of French fries and cheese, but it seems that the gravy was added later to keep everything warm.

Traditionalists will tell you that the French fries need to be a standard cut from Russet potatoes. No steak fries, no shoestring potatoes, no curly fries or wrinkle cut, and no frozen fried potatoes. Pommes de terre frites are made by deep-frying the potatoes in 325 degree oil for 3 to 4 minutes before draining them and allowing them to cool. At this point they are limp, uncolored, but cooked through. When all the potatoes have been precooked, the oil is reheated to 375 degrees and the potatoes are fried a second time until golden browned and crisp. After draining on paper towels, they are lightly salted while still warm. These fried potatoes are crisp on the outside and soft and creamy on the inside.

Next is the question of the cheese. In Quebec the fresh cheddar cheese curd is the standard. This cheese is so fresh it squeaks when you chew into it. Ideally it is not more than 1 day old. If this curd were to become standard cheddar, the curd would be salted, packed into molds, and aged in a cave for a number of months before being released for sale. Some poutine purveyors use mozzarella, Cheese Whiz, shredded cheddar, American, Swiss or Gruyere.

Last is the question of what type of gravy one uses. The standard is chicken or turkey gravy, mildly spiced and seasoned with pepper. Some places use veal gravy, which has a more neutral taste but greater mouth feel, or duck gravy. Usually beef or pork gravy is avoided (unless you are at a Tunbridge Fair French fry cart).

In Montreal they like to take poutine to another level, so some restaurants offer it with bacon, the Tunisian lamb sausage merguez, Montreal-style smoked meats, shredded turkey and peas. The real fancy places take it way over the top with foie gras, caviar and even truffles.

Other cultures have their own variations on the poutine theme. In Italy they add a meat and tomato sauce to fried potatoes. Sometimes they add sausage. In Greece they top their potatoes with vinaigrette, feta cheese and gravy, and in Mexico they have carne asada fries consisting of shoestring potatoes, carne asada (roasted beef cut into strips), guacamole, sour cream, cheese and pico di gallo, the condiment made of chopped tomato, onions, hot chili peppers and lemon juice. In NY they have “Elvis fries” with mozzarella and brown gravy and cheese fries are usually made with American processed cheese or mozzarella.

Tourtiere

2010-01-28T17:28:00.002-05:00

I had a few days off from work right after the New Year, so Rosemary and I visited Montreal and explored its many and varied food offerings. Like most cities of any size, and Montreal’s population is 1.8 million, it has enclaves of ethnic immigrants from the Irish to the Italians, to the Muslims and Chinese, and others.

Montreal is known for its bagels, with which it carries on a friendly rivalry with New York city as to where the best ones are made, its poutine, French fries with cheese curds and gravy, it’s pate chinois, which we know as shepherd’s pie, and it’s tourtiere, French-Canadian meat pie which originated in Quebec, and is eaten in connection with the holidays, but also all winter long.

While I’m sure there are locations in Montreal where all these regional dishes are available, the bistros and Irish pubs we tried didn’t carry any of these offerings. The closest we came was a chicken potpie and a steak and mushroom pie. When I inquired of the concierge at the hotel about the local food, he indicated that most people made those dishes at home, So, I’m making a tourtiere at my house today.

The Quebecois meat pie is one of those dishes where every family has an “original” recipe, usually the one Grandma or Great Grandma used to make for Christmas or New Year’s Eve. They can be as simple as some sauted onions and ground beef or pork, with some holiday spices like cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg, baked in a pie shell, or a more elaborate concoction with ground pork and/or veal added, potatoes, carrots, breadcrumbs, herbs and stock added. Cognac is not unusual, as well as celery, garlic and parsley. In coastal regions, fish is substituted for the meat used in the interior provinces. It’s one of those dishes that invites the cook to be inventive and use up what might be found in the refrigerator or pantry.

Most of my food reference books don’t make mention of tourtiere, but in Larousse Gastronomique the word is defined as the cooking vessel, “ a round mould…slightly wider at the top, with high fluted or smooth sides…” Accordingly, I cooked my tourtiere in a 9” false bottom, fluted tart pan.

I also came upon a reference to the original tourtieres being made with passenger pigeons, which are now extinct. And many other sources indicate a layer of mashed potatoes is sometimes included.

The one I made included equal amounts of ground beef and pork, some diced potatoes and carrots, sauted onions with garlic and chopped celery, sauted mushrooms, a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste, ground cloves, cinnamon, allspice, fresh thyme, fresh parsley, brown beef stock and bread crumbs. First I sauted the onions, garlic, celery and meats until they were no longer pink. Meanwhile, I blanched the diced potatoes and carrots before adding them to the meat and aromatics. I added the spices and herbs, and the tomato paste, sauted it a couple more minutes before adding the stock, covering the pan and simmering 10 minutes. I then stirred in the breadcrumbs and allowed the mixture to cool completely.

I made a butter and lard pie crust, lined my tart pan, filled with the meat mixture, covered with another piece of pie crust in which I cut a vent, and baked in the oven until done, about 30 minutes. It was very tasty.

Tourtiere

1 lb Ground beef

1 lb Ground pork

1 large onion, diced

1 Rib of celery, diced

1 Russet potato, peeled and diced 1/4"

1 Carrot, peeled and diced 1/4"

1 lb Mushrooms, sliced

2 Tbl Tomato paste

1 Tbl Cinnamon

2 Tsp Allspice

2 Tbl Fresh thyme, minced

2 Tbl Flat leaf parsley, minced

1 Tsp Ground cloves

2 Cups Brown beef stock

1 Cup Bread crumbs

Put 2 Tablespoons olive oil in a large pot. Add the ground meats and saute until they are no longer pink. Add the onion, celery and mushrooms and saute for 5 minutes. Meanwhile place the diced potato and carrot in a sauce pan covered with water. Bring to the boil and let simmer 1 minute. Drain well and add to the meat mixture. Add the tomato paste and the spices and herbs. Sauce 3 minutes and add the beef stock. Cover the pot and simmer 10 minutes. Remove the lid and cook down until still moist, but not too soupy. Stir in the bread crumbs to thicken the mixture.

Meanwhile prepare a butter and lard pie dough and line a 9" false bottom tart pan. Line with 2/3s of the pastry dough and fill with the meat mixture. Cover with the balance of the pie dough, crimp the edges and cut a vent in the center. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and delicious. Remove from the oven and let cool for 20 minutes or more before removing from the tart pan. Cut into slices to serve with a nice green salad.

Polenta

2010-01-26T06:45:00.001-05:00

Paiolo

While I’m not a huge fan of the corn industry due to it’s inordinate influence on the American diet, there is one corn dish that we have made for years and recommend to others. When I was a child, it was known as corn meal mush, but today it is more commonly known as polenta. It is a food borne of poverty, but today it appears on menus of some of the finest restaurants not only in America, but worldwide.

Polenta is indigenous of northern Italy where it was originally made with either barley, farro, or chestnut flour. As it was the sustenance for life in many economically depressed areas of Italy, “preparing it was a ritual, and eating it was like receiving the sacrament,” as Marcella Hazan states in The Essentials of Italian Cooking.

Corn meal can be fine or coarse in its grind. I prefer to use the coarser grained corn meal as it produces a somewhat more robust, corny flavor than the fine grind. It becomes creamy as it cooks due to the gelatinization of its starch during the cooking process.

It is traditionally made in an unlined cooper pot known as a paiolo, although any heavy bottomed saucepan will work just as well. Whatever quantity of corn meal you wish to cook, add 4 times that amount of water to your cooking vessel. Bring the water to the boil, add salt to taste, and while stirring the boiling water into a vortex, slowly either pour the corn meal into the water or add by handfuls, allowing the grains to slip between the fingers. If added too fast, the corn meal may lump up, producing an unsatisfactory result. Once all the corn meal has been added, stir the mixture with a wooden spoon until the water returns to the boil.

As regular polenta requires 45 minutes or an hour of slow cooking, it was always stirred constantly to prevent it from scorching on the bottom. Today we know that if one covers the pot and keeps it on low heat, you can stir every ten minutes or so, freeing the cook to prepare accompanying items for the meal. Instant polenta has been developed which reduces the cooking time to less than 10 minutes, but, being a traditionalist and devotee of the Slow Food movement, I always use the long cooking variety.

Once the polenta starts to pull away from the edge of the pan and/or the spoon will stand up in the polenta, it is done.

Plate of cooked polenta cooling

At this stage, one can either add parmesan cheese and a dollop of butter to the polenta before serving, stir in some softened gorgonzola cheese, or allow it to cool, usually after having poured it out onto a large surface, like a cutting board. If served warm, it can be eaten alone, or sauced with the juices from the meat or vegetable course. If allowed to cool, it stiffens up and can be cut into triangles, diamonds, or batons which are either sauted in oil until crispy, grilled or baked. When sauted, we usually eat it with an accompaniment of sauted greens like spinach or Swiss chard, mushroom ragout, or any meat or vegetable side. It’s fun and delicious.

Brining

2010-01-07T07:46:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago, I wrote about “corning” some beef brisket. In this instance, I was flavoring the beef foremost and preserving it to a lesser extent. “Marinating” meat is somewhat different, as most marinades, which are used to add flavor and include acid in the form of vinegar, wine or lemon juice, are of shorter duration, from literally minutes for fish to hours for meats. Marinating not only flavors, but also assists in breaking down tough muscle fibers, tenderizing the meat. “Brining,” wherein salt is included in the liquid, usually water, but no acid, and the meat is immersed for a few hours to a few days, is actually two processes; a short brine to enhance flavor and moisture content of the meat, and a long brine that not only flavors, but also aids in preservation by allowing salt to impregnate the muscle tissue. “Pickling” is a similar process involving anaerobic fermentation in brine, and traditionally produces a sour or salty taste. Pickling is used not only on meats, like tongue, but also vegetables are often preserved by pickling, like our dill cucumber pickles or giardiniera, the Italian relish made of pickled vegetables.

For many years now, chefs have advocated “brining” certain meats for moisture retention and seasoning. We are all familiar with the fact that the breast meat on a turkey will be cooked before the red meat deep in the thigh is done, but by brining the bird for 6 hours or more, it will keep the breast moist and juicy, while allowing the thighs to be thoroughly cooked. How does this happen, and what other meats can benefit by placing them in a salted water solution?

Roast in brine with aromatics

To answer the latter question first, the principal candidates amongst our meats for brining include poultry and pork. Beef and lamb are not candidates for brining as they have more fat within and around their muscle, which aids in keeping the meat moist during cooking. In addition, they are usually cooked from a rare to medium doneness, which prevents them from drying out. Poultry and pork, on the other hand, are cooked to a higher internal temperature, making them susceptible to being dry if overcooked.

Brined roast with rub makings

By producing a salty brine which includes aromatic vegetables and seasonings, one can not only enhance the protein’s flavor, but also its moisture retaining properties. Two scientific principles are at work here; osmosis and diffusion. Nature supports equilibrium, and when we have a 5% salt solution on the outside and a minimal salt concentration inside, the law of diffusion states that the area of greater concentration (the brine) will flow to the area of lesser concentration (the protein cells). Osmosis is the physical process that abets diffusion, by allowing molecules to pass through a semi-permeable membrane. Thus not only the salt and flavor from the aromatics enter the muscle cells, but moisture does also. The salt in the solution denatures the proteins, allowing them to form a matrix that traps the water inside the cells. Thus the meat is prevented from becoming dehydrated, and it stays moist and juicy.

Juicy roast pork

Try brining you next chicken or pork chops and you’ll love the results.

Pork Brine

1/4 Cup plus 2 Tbl honey

12 Bay leaves

3 Rosemary sprigs

1/2 oz fresh thyme

2 oz flat leaf parsley

1/2 cup garlic cloves, crushed, with skin left on

2 Tbl black peppercorns

5 oz kosher salt

8 cups water

This amount of brine is good for up to 4 lbs of pork. Feel free to substitute other herds or aromatics, as you please.

Combine all the ingredients in a large pot, cover and bring to a boil. Boil 1 minutes, stirring to dissolve all the salt. Remove from the heat and cool completely, then chill before using. You can keep it in the fridge for up to 3 days.

Place your pork in a plastic bag and pour the brine over it. Place in the fridge and brine for 10 hours or overnight. Remove the pork and proceed with your recipe.

Chicken Brine

Enough for up to 10 lbs chicken

5 lemons, halved

24 bay leaves

4 oz. flat leaf parsley

1 oz fresh thyme

1/2 cup honey

1 head garlic, halved through the equator

1/4 cup black peppercorns

10 oz kosher salt (c. 2 cups)

2 gallons water

Combine all the ingredients in a large pot, cover, and bring to a boil. Boil 1 minutes, stirring to dissolve the salt. Remove from the heat and cool completely, then chill before using.

Add the chicken in either a brining container or a large plastic bag. Pour the brine over the chicken to cover and place in the fridge for 6 to 10 hours, before using. Dry the chicken thoroughly and proceed with your recipe.

Antibiotic use in feed animals

2010-01-02T07:36:00.000-05:00

With New Year’s looming, it is a time when we all assess the past year and set up some anticipated changes for the next annum. Some will join a gym in an attempt to take off holiday pounds or improve their cardio-vascular health. Some hope to give up smoking or drinking, or make other life style changes in an attempt to improve their lives. If improved health is your goal, you might want to reassess your eating habits and sources of your food.

An issue that has been debated for over a decade now if the continued use of antibiotics in the raising of the food livestock in factory farms, from whence meat sold in most supermarkets emanates. Swine, poultry, beef and veal are routinely fed antibiotics in their feed, even when they are not sick. Producers have discovered that including small amounts of antibiotics in animal feed decreases the bacteria in the animals’ gut, thus increasing the animals’ ability to gain weight faster. Faster weight gain reduces the ultimate amount of food fed, thus increasing producers’ profits, and profit is the name of the game in agribusiness. The presence of antibiotic residues in American meat is not a problem, as the USDA requires a withdrawal period before slaughter.

What’s wrong with feeding sub-therapeutic amounts of antibiotics to healthy animals? Advocates assert that it keeps the herd, which is confined to a non-pasture feed lot, healthy and prevents the spread of disease, while promoting growth and limiting the amount of grain necessary to achieve market weight. Concerned scientists, on the other hand, are troubled by the rise of bacteria that mutate to become antibiotic-resistant, and whether this poses a risk to humans. It has been documented that antibiotic-resistant campylobacter and salmonella bacteria have caused illness in US consumers. In Europe and Japan, the use of non-therapeutic antibiotics is not allowed in livestock production.

Of all the antibiotics produced in this country, it is estimated that as much as 50% or more is used in livestock production, either as a therapeutic treatment when an animal is sick, or as a sub-therapeutic prophylactic to increase immunity and promote growth. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that 76 million Americans become ill each year from food borne bacteria, viruses, parasites, toxins and metals, and 5,000 of these illnesses result in death. However, it is not clear how many of these illnesses and deaths are directly related to antibiotic resistance.

There is evidence, however, that antibiotics used to treat human illnesses, like penicillin, tetracycline and erythromycin, are being impacted by the overuse of antibiotics in animals. While antibiotics are probably over-prescribed for human illnesses (i.e. 40% of children with a cold are prescribed an antibiotic), and this will eventually lead to more resistance amongst bacteria populations, there is an established connection between the use of certain antibiotics in animal production and increased antibiotic resistant disease bacteria in human illnesses. Scientists want the

FDA to ban the use in feed animals of antibiotics used by humans in an attempt to slow down the development of bacterial resistance in those drugs. The industry, including producers, pharmaceutical companies and large agribusiness companies like Monsanto and Cargill are lobbying Congress to prevent this from happening.

Changes to our agricultural system will take time, so consumers who want to support a non-agribusiness form of food production have it within their power to promote the status quo, or not, with their food dollars. Consumers are the ultimate arbitrator in this issue. If you don’t buy their products, businesses will change to products you will support. Local farmers offer a product that does not rely on drugs to fatten their herds. They use grass and responsible animal husbandry techniques.

You decide.

Happy New Year!

Brussels Sprouts

2009-12-26T07:21:00.001-05:00

So we’re coming down the home stretch to Christmas dinner. We made the plum pudding the weekend after Thanksgiving and the brown beef stock for the gravy, which was frozen in 2 qt. plastic bags. The standing rib roast is waiting in the fridge, and on Christmas day will be going into a hot oven in the late morning. We’re going to have Yorkshire pudding, herb-roasted potatoes, baby buttered peas, glazed carrots, and a mixture of roasted cauliflower flowerets and Brussels sprouts.

Many people find Brussels sprouts undesirable as a vegetable. They are often eschewed as “those little cabbages,” and when overcooked they do emit sulfur compounds that are bitter and odiferous, making them unappetizing. However, if properly handled, they are crisp and tasty, with a mild bitterness that is not displeasing. Those that have been touched by fall’s frosts are the sweeter for the nipping.

One way to make them less bitter is to cut them in half, exposing their inner leaves, which will allow the bad flavor elements to leach out. Another is to give them a preliminary blanching in boiling water for a minute before draining and proceeding with your recipe.

Brussels sprouts provide a hearty winter vegetable to accompany turkey, steaks or liver, but they really love pork, duck or goose. They pair well with cauliflower, Jerusalem artichokes, leeks and chestnuts, whether as a vegetable combination or in a wholesome fall vegetable pie.

Brussels sprouts, a member of the Brassica oleracea family, are derived from the wild cabbage and, therefore, other family members include collards, kohlrabi and kale. Something akin to the modern Brussels sprout was cultivated in Italy, but Belgium has recorded evidence of its growing there in 1587, as the vegetable proliferated in northern Europe due to the cool climate in which it thrives.

Rich in vitamin C, Brussels sprouts also have large amounts of vitamin A, folic acid and dietary fiber. Some of their unappetizing compounds are actually thought to be helpful in preventing colon cancer

Through the fall months, one can purchase local Brussels sprouts on long stems at farmers’ markets. The little green heads grow up and down the stalk, becoming 1” to 2” in diameter at maturity. The heads should be tight with bright green leaves. Any that are over mature, wilted or worm-eaten should be discarded. Sometimes one or two leaves at the base may have to be removed. It’s advisable to trim the base of each sprout and, using a paring knife, cut a small X to facilitate even cooking.

After prepping the sprouts, they should be washed and parboiled in salted water for 5 to 6 minutes or until almost tender. They can be refreshed in cold water and saved for final cooking later. Whether braised in butter, cooked in cream or cheese sauce, or braised with chestnuts, cook slowly to allow the sprouts to absorb the sauce, but don’t overcook.

Brussels sprouts also lend themselves to roasting in a hot oven. Toss in olive oil, salt and pepper and scatter on a parchment lined sheet pan before cooking at 425 degrees for 25 minutes, tossing once or twice.

Cookies

2009-12-20T07:43:00.005-05:00

At our house, Christmas means Rosemary will be baking her wide variety of Christmas cookies that she only makes this time of year. Her Festive Cherrry-ettes (aka Thumbprint cookies) are a shortbread cookie, studded with a red cherry or fruit jam, that my Mom used to make, and are wildly popular amongst my siblings. Her rum balls are legendary, and the date and Rice Krispy snowballs with coconut are tops in my book. The sugar cookies are cut into Santas, Christmas trees, reindeer, bells and other seasonal shapes and decorated with a wide variety of red, green, pink and other colorful frostings along with decorative sugar crystals and nonpareils. Of course she makes gingerbread molasses cookies as well as toffee bars, date filled sour cream cookies, Baklava, chocolate brownies and a Greek almond crescent cookie known as Kourabiedes. Her brother Gary loves her divinity fudge, but that more a confection than an actual cookie.

Cookies, known as biscuits in England, can be crisp or chewy depending on how they are made. There are a numerous kinds of cookies, including drop cookies, formed from a soft dough that spreads out as it cooks (usually with chocolate chips and/or oatmeal), cut-out cookies which are made with a stiffer dough and which retain their shape while cooking such as sugar or butter cookies, hand-shaped cookies which are formed from refrigerated batters that are piped or molded, like ladyfingers or madeleines, bar cookies which are cut from a thin cake-like mass baked in a shallow pan like brownies and date or nut bars, and ice-box cookies which are sliced from a pre-made cylinder of dough stored in the refrigerator until ready to be baked.

Festive Cherryettes

The amount and type of fat one includes in their cookie recipe is one of the key determinants in the final texture of a cookie. While fat affects the richness and moistness of the final cookie, it also has an impact on the cookie’s suppleness. Butter melts are a lower temperature than shortening or margarine, allowing the cookie to spread out more before its protein and starches have set. In shortbread cookies, the 15% moisture content in butter is usually the only moisture included in these low-egg cookies, contributing to shortbread’s crumbly texture.

Normally pastry or all-purpose flours are used for cookies, however bread flour and cake flours are used in some instances where spreading is discouraged by their gluten content. For the most part, however, gluten development in cookies is not desirable as it tends to toughen the resulting product, although high protein content means more browning during baking. Low protein flours are often coupled with higher amounts of moisture in recipes, producing a puffed up cake-like cookie.

Peanut Butter Cookies

For the most part granulated sugar is used in cookies, although moist brown sugars help the dough to spread and confectionary sugar with its added cornstarch prevents spread and keeps the texture dry. Molasses and honey attract moisture from the air and keep cookies soft.

Eggs soften cookies and help then rise and stay pliable. When used, they provide the bulk of the moisture in the cookie and bind the flour particles together while cooking. Their fat and emulsifiers keep the cookie moist and rich.

Toffee Bars

Plum Pudding

2009-12-10T22:03:00.006-05:00

A Christmas tradition in our family is the serving of the plum pudding for dessert after the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. My grandfather was from England where this dish is more commonly known as Christmas pudding, and it is reserved for a once a year eating on this holy day. We have a recipe that has been handed down in the family for years. We make it right after Thanksgiving and allow it to age in a cool place until Christmas day. I have read that in some families, they make the plum pudding a year in advance, but that seems a little extreme to me, so we’ll stick with the Thanksgiving day making as my Mom used to do.

Plum pudding contains no plums. It is a mixture of dried fruits like raisins, currants, dates and sultanas, citron or candied peel, and nuts like almonds. It includes rich spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, brown sugar, brandy or dark rum, eggs, breadcrumbs and suet. It can also have flour, lemon or orange zest, carrot or apple. It is very dark, almost black, when removed from its mold, due to the dark sugars used and its long cooking time. The inclusion of beef suet harkens back to earlier times when English puddings included meat.

Sometimes cooks secrete a silver coin, thimble or wishbone as a sign of good luck or wealth for the lucky recipient.

Once all the ingredients are mixed, the pudding is placed in a rounded mold and steamed for 5 or 6 hours. When it is cool, we wrap our mold in wax paper and store it in the garage. On Christmas day, we bring it in and steam it for another hour while we eat Christmas dinner.

Rosemary has previously made and refrigerated the hard sauce by creaming some butter with confectionary sugar, vanilla and brandy. She also makes the ever popular, in the Palmer family, foamy sauce, which includes similar ingredients plus whisked egg and cooked in a double boiler until frothy and the consistency of cream. It is quite sweet.

The pudding is removed from the mold onto a serving plate, topped with a sprig of holly, and doused with warm brandy and ignited. It is brought to the darkened dining room table, flaming, to the gasps of pleasure from the assembled revelers.

Once the flames die down, it is served with a wedge of hard sauce and a spoonful of the foamy sauce topping the rich, fruity mixture. It is always a hit at our house, and a holiday ritual that Rosemary and I have carried on from my folks. It’s not too late to start a plum pudding tradition for your holiday.

Plum Pudding

½ c. currants

1 ½ c. raisins

½ c. figs

½ c. dates

¼ c. citron

¼ c. candied orange rind

2 c. ground suet (3/8 lb.)

½ loaf day-old bread

1 ½ tsp salt

½ tsp nutmeg

3/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp cloves

1 c. milk, scalded

½ c. brown sugar, firmly packed

4 eggs

2 TB red wine

2 TB Brandy

Look over currants and raisins with a hawk’s eye for stray bits of stem. Cut up figs, dates, citron, candied orange rind, in tiny pieces with your kitchen scissors or a sharp knife. Put suet through your food chopper, using medium blade.

Remove crusts from bread and crumble bread into small pieces into your larges bowl. Now add salt, spices, scaled milk (in other words, milk that has been heated until a film, shows. Not boiled) and sugar. Mix these ingredients well and set aside to cool. While this mixture cools, beat eggs until light and airy in a separate bowl. Stir into crumb combination along with all fruits, suet, wine and brandy. Mix thoroughly, pour into two small, ungreased, molds or one large mold (1 ½ qt) and cover with close fitting lid or several taut layers of waxed paper tied on very securely. Steam on top of stove for 5 hours.

Easiest way to steam, this pudding is to use our large roasting pan. Place a roasting rack n bottom of the roaster (pie tins will do or any utensil which keeps pudding from resting on bottom of pan, fill roaster with enough boiling water to cover 2/3 of the mold and put on tight fitting lid. As water evaporates keep filling roaster with boiling water to cover 2/3 of the mold.

This makes 1 plum pudding large enough to serve or feed 12. You’ll find pudding keep beautifully in mold steamed in. Cover top of mold tightly with waxed paper and store in cool, dark place.

When you are ready to reheat plum pudding for your wonderful dinner, heat in same fashion in which you steamed pudding in first place for 1 hr. Let sit 15 minutes.

Sprinkle granulated sugar on top of hot pudding (sugar plus alcohol gives a brighter flame). Pour two jiggers of any brandy or whiskey that is at least 80 proof over top. Touch off with a match to top of pudding and you’ll have a real holiday conversation piece.

Hard Sauce

Work or cream 1/3 c. butter until soft, gradually mix in 1 c. confectionery sugar and 1 tsp vanilla extract or 2 Tb Brandy. Serve cold with the hot pudding. Enough sauce for 6.

Foamy Sauce

Work or cream ½ c. butter then gradually work in 1 c. confectionery sugar until smooth. Beat 1 egg in separate bowl until creamy. Stir egg and 1 tsp. vanilla extract or 2 Tb sherry into creamed sugar and heat over boiling water stirring constantly until warm and thick as heavy cream. This makes enough for 6.

Meat stocks

2009-12-03T18:06:00.003-05:00

It’s not too early to be thinking about Christmas dinner as it is only a few weeks away. I have many plans to make, but as Christmas dinner at our house involves roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, most of the menu is preordained. Hors d’oeuvres can change from year to year, as can the vegetables, but potatoes are required and they call for a rich gravy.

I make my gravy with home made meat stock, so I usually make up a few gallons of stock in advance. It freezes beautifully, and having some on hand is great for last minute braises, soups or stews.

Meat stocks, beef, chicken or veal, as well as vegetable stocks, have long been part of restaurant cooking, primarily when sauces were used more extensively then they are today. To make a flavorful stock, it is best to use a combination of bones and meat. While both will give off gelatin into the stock as their collagen breaks down, bones give off more than meat, but meat gives off more flavor. While veal stock is the most gelatinous when made, it has a very neutral flavor. Beef and chicken, on the other hand, if made with some meat, will have decidedly beef or chicken flavor.

Stocks can be white or brown. In a white stock, the ingredients are added in a raw state and the stock remains clear to slightly colored, whereas when the ingredients are either roasted in a hot oven or fried in oil to caramelize their exterior, they produce a brown stock.

A classic stock is clear without cloudiness or gray impurities suspended within the broth. This can only be accomplished if the cook pays strict attention during the stock’s initial phases of cooking. First, if making a white stock, it is advisable to wash the bones and meat, place in a pot of cold water and slowly bring it to a boil. As soon as the water starts to simmer, drain the ingredients into a colander and rinse them well. This step removes surface impurities and coagulates proteins on the meat and bone surfaces, preventing them from making the stock cloudy. If one browns their meat and bones first, this step can be eliminated.

The ingredients are again placed in cold water and slowly brought back to the simmer. The cold water and slow heating allow the soluble proteins to migrate from the solids into the liquid, where they gather together in gray clusters which rise to the surface and are easily skimmed off. At the same time, fats dissolve and rise to the surface, where the attentive cook removes them. During this time, the pot is left uncovered, not only to permit evaporation and thus concentration of the cooking liquid, but also to aid in dehydration of the surface scum, making it easy to skim off.

The stock is then simmered at the laziest pace with only an occasional bubble breaking the surface for three to eight hours for beef, ninety minutes for chicken, and only 30 minutes for fish. When the stock is strained, it should be cooled as rapidly as possible to prevent any bacteria build up.

Brown Beef Stock

10 lbs beef bones

3 lbs shin of beef

1 lb onions, quartered

1 lb carrots, sliced in large chunks

1/2 lb celery, chopped into large chunks

3 bay leaves

A bouquet garni of thyme and parsley

1 Tbl peppercorns, whole

Brown the beef bones, shin and vegetables in a hot (425 degree) oven for 20 to 30 minutes, turning the ingredients over a couple of times so they are nicely browned. Place all the browned ingredients into a large pot, cover with cold water and add the bay leaves, bouquet garni, and peppercorns. Bring to a simmer, skimming any scum that rises to the surface. After 10 minutes or so of simmering, most of the scrum will have risen, however continue to skim and scum and or fat that accumulates on the surface. Simmer partially covered for 3 to 8 hours.

Strain the stock to remove the bones and other ingredients. Cool rapidly and refrigerate. Any remaining fat will congeal on the surface and can be removed. Store the stock in 1 or 2 quart containers. It is best to freeze the stock as soon as possible. If using soon, it will keep in the ice box for 3 days, but should be re-boiled if kept beyond that time.

Corned Beef

2009-11-27T22:49:00.006-05:00

Untrimmed brisket with brining crock

A couple of weeks ago at the Norwich Farmers’ Market, Ray Williams from Back Beyond Farm (http://www.backbeyondfarm.com/) had fresh beef brisket for sale. I purchased a half brisket and brought it home to make my own corned beef. It was so good, I picked up a second brisket this past weekend and am trying a slightly different brine to cure this one.

They sell corned beef in the supermarket, but these products are made in large industrial plants where time is at a premium, so speed dictates, and taste and flavor are secondary. Instead of submerging the beef to be corned into a vat of brine with aromatics, and allowing the process to proceed at a natural pace, which can take from 1 to 2 weeks, the muscle is injected with brine, tumbled to distribute the cure, and cryovaced in plastic for delivery to the retailer. Any curing is done in the bag.

I believe there is also a canned corn beef, but I can’t comment on how it is produced or how it gets in the can, so I avoid it.

Different cuts of beef are candidates for salting including silverside, flank, bottom round and brisket, with the latter being the preferred piece. The brisket is the piece of meat that covers the breast or lower chest of the beef, is where the majority of the beef’s weight falls when it lies down, and is one of the eight primal cuts on American beef. As the brisket on a mature animal can weigh 10 to 15 lbs, it is often separated into two pieces, the “flat cut” and the fattier “deckle,” “point,” or “triangular” cut. It is a tougher cut and is usually braised when cooked fresh.

Trimmed flat cut

The “corn” in corned beef refers to the coarse salt crystals used to cure the beef, which are about the size of a kernel of corn. Beef was salted to preserve it, the salting drawing out the moisture in the meat, allowing it to keep longer. Corned beef is made by pickling the meat in brine comprised of salt, sugar, herbs and aromatics, allowing it to cure for a week or two in a cool place. Thereafter it is rinsed off and poached at just about a simmer for 2 ½ to 3 hours, or until fork tender. It can be served hot, but when cooled it can be sliced thinly and makes great sandwiches.

Brine coming to a simmer before being cooled

Here in the northeast we traditionally accompany corned beef with boiled potatoes, carrots, turnips, beets and cabbage, all cooked in the same broth the beef cooked in, for New England boiled dinner, and, of course, corned beef is an Irish specialty on St. Patrick’s Day.

Corned beef is a cousin to pastrami, which is corned beef rubbed with black pepper and spices and smoked. It is usually served as a cold cut on sandwiches, whether cold or warmed up. Coarse mustard and dill pickles make a common accompaniment.

Here's the recipe I used:

Corned Beef (or Tongue)

4-6 lb brisket, flank or beef tongue

1 bouquet garni

1 carrot, chopped

1 onion, chopped

1 celery stalk, chopped

1 leek, chopped

1/2 bulb of garlic

For the brine:

5 quarts of water

1 lb light brown sugar

3 lbs coarse sea salt

1 tsp black peppercorns

1 tsp juniper berries

5 cloves

4 bay leaves

A sprig of thyme

3 tbl saltpeter or Instacure #1

Put all the brine ingredients in a large pot and stir well to dissolve the salt and sugar and bring to the simmer. Remove from the heat and cool completely, refrigerating the brine so its very cold. Place your brisket or tongue in a non-metallic container and cover the meat completely with the cold brine. You will need to use a plate or something to keep the meat submerged. Place in a cool place for 5 to 10 days (pieces less than 6 lbs should be brined for the shorter time period)

Remove the meat from the brine, rinse well and soak in cold water for 24 hours.

Place brined beef in a pot, add the rest of the aromatics and fresh water to cover. Poach very gently on top of the stove (or in a 275 degree oven) for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, or until completely tender and yielding when pierced with a fork.

Serve warm with potatoes, cabbage, beets, turnips and carrots cooked in the broth.

Bread # 3

2009-11-21T06:52:00.007-05:00

Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve examined bread flours, yeast, pre-ferments, and mixing of bread dough. Now its time to understand fermenting the dough, retarding the dough, shaping the loaves, proofing and baking the final product.

If you’ve made traditional white bread in a loaf pan, the “fermenting” part of bread baking is what you know as the first rise. During this time, the yeast in the dough is feeding on the sugars in the flour, producing carbon dioxide, alcohol and acids. These chemical reactions contribute the bread’s flavor and aroma. The carbon dioxide becomes trapped by the gluten network we created through kneading, and the bread rises.

Bacteria in the dough consume maltose, a sugar that yeast can’t digest, producing lactic and acetic acids, which provide a tangy flavor to the bread. However fermenting bacteria won’t contribute significantly to the bread’s flavor unless it has at least eight hours of fermentation, so to receive the full benefit, one must retard the bread, by refrigerating it for a period of time. Retarding can be done after the initial fermentation or after the loaves have been formed.

While most bread recipes call for an initial rise to double the dough’s original bulk, I prefer to allow the dough to rise to triple its original bulk. During this rise, I “turn” the dough once or twice. In turning the dough, I gently lift it and fold the drooping sides into the center of the bowl, redistributing the yeast and its food supply, evening out the dough’s temperature and reinvigorating the yeast. The gluten is strengthened by this action, and most of the air cells remain trapped in the dough.

Once the dough is fully risen, its time to divide the dough into to pieces that you will later shape into the loaves to be baked. Most of the breads I make do not use a bread pan, but are free-standing loaves, either shaped like a football with tapered ends or round loaves. I do have some willow bread baskets that I use to proof my round loaves, and these leave distinctive coiled markings on the outside of the loaves when they are baked. Other loaves I allow to proof on a couche, a piece of floured canvas used in professional bakeries, and which can, within its folds, hold several loaves.

The divided dough is allowed to rest for about 10 minutes to relax the gluten, which makes forming the loaves easier. Shaping the loaves is an art form that varies from bakery to bakery. Depending on the bread, shaping can be easy or very complex, but suffice it to say that one of the main objectives is to create a surface tension on the outside layer of the dough.

Once shaped, the loaves need to proof, or rise again before being baked. Usually they rise to close to double their original size before being placed in the oven to cook.

I use a baking stone in my oven on which I place my proofed loaves to bake. I also score or slash my loaves with a razor blade to control the “oven spring,” that final rise that occurs in the oven before the heat kills the yeast. By scoring the loaves, one weakens the surface tension is those areas the razor cuts, and this tends to control where the dough expands during these first few minutes of baking.

Lastly, I spray my loaves during the first 10 minutes of baking with water from a spritzer. Wetting the surface facilitates heat transfer to the loaves from the oven while also keeping the exterior flexible to maximize oven spring. The result is a higher, lighter loaf with a crackling crust.

Como Bread

Pane di Como

Makes 2 round loaves

Biga: (Pre-ferment)

2/3 cup, 150 g, water, tepid

1 tsp, 5 g, instant yeast

1 1/2 cup, 250 g, unbleached bread flour

A day before you plan on baking, pour the water into a large bowl, add the yeast and flour and mix a stiff dough. Turn out and knead a couple of minutes, round the dough, place it in an lightly oiled container, allow to sit at room temperature for an hour or so, then refrigerate until the next morning, removing the biga from the refrigerator an hour before you plan on mixing the rest of the dough.

Bread dough:

Biga, 450 g

1 3/4 cup, 400 g, water, tepid

1 1/2 tsp, 10 g, instant yeast

3 1/4 cup, 500 g, bread flour

2 tsp, 12.5 g, sea salt

Scrape the biga into a large bowl and pour the water over it, stirring to break the biga up. Stir in the yeast, flour and salt until a dough forms. You can add just the water and flour and allow to rest for 25 minutes before adding the yeast and salt, if you wish.

Either knead the dough by hand for 10 to 15 minutes. The dough will be sticky, so use some extra flour, but not too much. If you use a stand mixer, knead with the dough hook on medium speed for 10 to 12 minutes until the dough is elastic and smooth. To check that the dough is properly kneaded, tear off a small piece and stretch it into a "bakers' window" until it thin enough that you can see through it. If it tears, continue to knead a few more minutes.

Transfer the dough to an oiled container, cover and allow the dough to double (or triple) in volume. It will be very light and airy. This can take 2 to 2 1/2 hours. You can retard the dough at this point by placing it in the refrigerator. You will need to turn it or deflate before refrigerating, and you may need to do so a second time in a few hours. If not retarding, or after retarding, divide the dough into two pieces and allow to rest on a floured surface for 10 minutes before shaping.

Shape the dough into rounds, pulling across your board to stretch the outer surface of the dough taunt. I place my rounded dough into floured willow baskets to rise, but they can also be placed on parchment paper and covered with plastic wrap to proof.

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees and place a baking stone on the second rack to preheat. This can take up to an hour. Place a cast iron skillet on the rack below the baking stone.

When the loaves are proofed, either slide the parchment paper onto the baking stone or onto a sheet pan in the oven. If using baskets, the loaves can be turned onto the baking stone next to each other. Place ice cubes in the cast iron skillet and quickly close the oven door. Bake until the crust is glossy red-brown, 30 minutes or so. Cool completely on bread racks before slicing.

Bread #2

2009-11-07T07:52:00.006-05:00

Biga

Flour, yeast, water and salt are the ingredients in bread. Sounds simple, and in many ways it is, but the combination of these ingredients and the way they are handled can produce a large variety of different breads, each distinctive from the other. How does this happen? How can these four ingredients produce such a wide diversity of products with different crusts, different crumbs and different tastes?

Let’s start with the flour. Wheat is the most commonly used grain in bread production. It’s main advantage over other grains like millet, barley, corn and rye is its’ gluten proteins. These proteins are compact when dry and insoluble in water, but when they are wetted they change their shape, become elongated, and form and break bonds with other gluten proteins. As they are both plastic and elastic, they allow the bread to change its shape under the pressure of kneading, while at the same time allowing it to return to its original shape when the pressure is removed. The web created by the gluten strands are so strong that when carbon dioxide is released by fermenting yeast, it doesn’t break through the dough, but gets trapped inside, causing the dough to rise.

Flour is composed of the outer bran, the fiber part, the inner endosperm, the starchy and protein part, and the germ, which contains multiple nutrients. Through the milling process, the bran and germ, while full of nutrients and flavor, but which can go rancid in a short period of time, are removed from most bread flours. However, stone ground flours, as the stones crush the grain more thoroughly than steel rollers, contain some bran and germ, thus they make more flavorful breads.

Whole-wheat flours have not been sieved to remove the bran and germ, and while more nutritious than white breads, they are heavier, denser and darker in color. Many whole-wheat recipes contain a combination of white and whole-wheat flour to make then lighter and more appetizing.

The degree to which flour has been refined is known as its “extraction rate.” This number represents the amount of the whole grain that remains after milling. Whole-wheat flours are usually about 90% or greater. White flours are between 70% and 72%, while many European flours are 72% to 78%, making them somewhat more flavorful than American flours.

Different wheat flours contain different amounts of protein. The higher the amount of protein, the “stronger” is the flour. Bread flours, which include 12.5% to 14% protein, make the lightest, highest, chewiest loaves. Cake flours, which have lower amounts of protein (7%), make tender baked goods. All-purpose flours fall between bread and cake flours, in the 11-12% range. King Arthur makes an Artisan European style flour that is 11.7% protein and their White Whole Wheat flour, ground from white, not red, wheat, is a great substitute for the heavier red winter whole-wheat flours.

The other major ingredient that affects the final bread is the amount of hydration used. Bakers use a system known as “bakers’ percentages” in calculating their recipes. In this system, all ingredients are a percentage of the amount of flour in a recipe. So a standard 65% hydration rate means that the water in the recipe is equal in weight to 65% of the flour used. The higher the hydration rate, the softer, less elastic the dough, and an open-textured loaf is produced, while less water produces a firmer, denser loaf.

Next week we’ll discuss yeast, mixing and proofing techniques that also have an impact on the taste and texture of the bread produced.

Bread

2009-10-24T07:27:00.005-04:00

I’m excited that real, artisan, hand-crafted, organic bread is now available Fridays at South End Market, just up from the library in Bradford, where Calista is carrying Red Hen Bakery products, but you have to pre-order. Red Hen breads come in paper, not plastic, bags, are crusty on the outside with a wonderful yeasty flavored crumb inside. Different products have different crusts and crumbs, but every one I’ve tasted has been delicious. On bread day, the seeded baguette I get on my way home is half devoured when I arrive.

During my youth in the 1950s and 1960s in Bradford, Mom made traditional white loaf bread often, but Wonder Bread or its equivalent was available in the stores, so it was in the pantry in the bread box, You know, it’s still around, with it homogeneous cake like interior inside a non-existent “crust.” Spread it with peanut butter and marshmellow fluff for the quintessential “Fluffer-nutter,” but pardon me, the bread is insipid.

Industrial America has figured out how to make a bread that had little human interaction with the product once the basic ingredients are mixed together. It produces bread in a few hours from start to finish, whereas flavor and texture can only be developed over time. It is not just in America that bread experienced a significant decline during this time, and many of those signature products of that earlier time persist even today. In Europe, commercial bakeries’ cheap products bankrupted traditional shops, and inferior bread became prevalent for many years, with, of course, some vestiges of the past preserved in certain enclaves.

Fortunately, in the 1980s and ever since, the rise of traditional approaches to baking breads has been revived. The methods of mixing the ingredients, manipulating the dough whether by kneading or turning, fermenting the dough, retarding the dough, shaping the dough, proofing the breads and baking them have been developed to maximize taste, aroma, structure of the crumb, texture and flavor. These methods take time and some labor, but the resulting products are so much more than industrial breads that there is no comparison. They have body, heft and a satisfying goodness that nourishes more than the body alone.

Now big bread companies have figured out how to make an artisan-like product by following similar production techniques and par-baking their breads before freezing them. These breads can now be finished in a hot oven at the store for sale as baked on the premises breads, and some of them aren’t all that bad.

There are many books on breads out there, but I will mention here some of my favorites. The Bread Builders by Dan Wing, from Corinth, and Alan Scott tells not only the science of bread making, but also how to build your own wood fired bread oven. The Taste of Bread by Raymond Calvel is an English translation from the original French and is one of the definitive texts on bread. If you want to learn about real bread, read this book. Yeast, water, flour, salt. Perhaps the American version of Calvel’s classic is Bread by Jeffrey Hamelman of King Arthur in Norwich. Also worth noting are both of Dan Leader’s books, Bread Alone and Local Breads, his latest offering, as well as Joe Oertiz’s The Village Baker, and Maggie Glezer’s Artisan Baking Across America.

Sunday Dinner with pommes Anna

2009-10-12T21:08:00.001-04:00

It’s Sunday and my daughter’s family and my brother Peter are coming by after the Giants’ game for hors d’oeuvres and dinner. While it’s not cold out, it is rainy, so we’re going to have some fun appetizers and a comfy chicken with dumplings dinner.

I’ve poached two chickens in water with onions, celery, carrots, bay leaves, fresh thyme, parsley sprigs and a dozen whole peppercorns. I removed the meat from the bones, which I returned to the stock for another hour of simmering, before I reduced what’s left to about 4 cups of rich broth. The chicken meat has been cut into bite sized pieces and stashed in the fridge till later in the day. I have cubed butternut squash, green beans, and fresh corn to simmer with the meat and thickened broth while the dumplings cook on top.

I picked some basil and made a batch of pesto with toasted pine nuts, garlic, olive oil, salt and parmesan cheese. I roasted a Marina di Chioggia squash and pureed the flesh for squash gnocchi. I moved on to pommes Anna, a potato dish for my Irish son-in-law, which we’ll eat with the starters.

Pommes Anna requires the use of clarified butter to facilitate a non-stick result. This is a classic French dish where thin slices of potato are layered in concentric circles in a cast iron or non-stick skillet before being baked in the oven. The result is a beautiful, crisp potato cake with creamy interior.

Clarifying butter requires melting it, (sweet, unsalted butter is best) and when the moisture has bubbled away, decanting the resulting liquid from the milk solids that remain in the bottom of the saucepan. This butter has a much higher smoke point than non-clarified butter, so it’s ideal to cook with when one wants a butter flavor, but wants to avoid burning the butter.

The potatoes must be sliced very thin and uniformly for this dish to be successful. I use a mandoline to accomplish this task. While I have a stainless steel French mandoline, I opt for my plastic Japanese mandoline for most everyday jobs. Both of these instruments have a blade that can be adjusted up or down to make thinner or thicker slices. All come with a hand guard, which I recommend you use, as it is very easy to cut oneself deeply on these utensils.

The skillet is placed over medium heat, buttered, and the potato slices are arranged in circles starting from the outside of the pan. Each layer is sprinkled with salt and pepper (and grated onion &/or grated parmesan cheese) and brushed with the clarified butter. A total of 6 to 8 layers of potatoes are used, the potatoes are compressed by pushing them down firmly, and the pan is placed in a hot oven to finish cooking. When removed from the oven, it is inverted onto a serving plate and sprinkled with a little minced parsley. Served in wedges, it is good hot or at room temperature.

Lastly, I’m making some gougeres, a cheese puff made with pate a choux, which is used to make éclairs. Milk and egg are mixed and cooked with flour before allowing the dough to cool and then eggs are beaten in one at a time. Flavored with Gruyere cheese, they are formed into spoon sized dollops, and double in size when baked in a hot oven. These are also good hot or at room temperature.

Fall Foods

2009-10-04T21:41:00.004-04:00

So it’s clear that we are in early fall from the colors bursting forth on our hillsides. The mornings are crisper and wood smoke is in the air. The apple and winter squash crops are filling the farmers’ markets. Last year I wrote about Craig Putnam’s Echo Hill Farm which was selling a large Italian squash known as Marina di Chioggia and what great squash gnocchi they make. While I picked up one of these squashes this weekend from Craig, the market abounded with a large variety of unusual winter squash, beyond the traditional buttercup, butternut, acorn, Hubbard and delicata.

I saw Banana squash, Musque de Provence, Spaghetti squash, Pie Pumpkins, Muscat de Provence, Galeau d’Eysines, Red Kuri, Jarrahdale, Sunshine, Valencia, Amish Pie Squash and others whose names I can’t remember. I was delighted with the abundance of varieties produced right here in the Upper Valley.

If you look back to September and October of 2008 you will find columns on winter squash, so I won’t repeat that information here.

All the root vegetables are now also showing up in the markets including turnips, rutabagas, parsnips, carrots, red and golden beets, celeriac, red, yellow and sweet onions, shallots and potatoes. These are the basics for some heart warming, stick to your ribs, comfort food, which warm not only our kitchens, but also our souls. Casseroles, shepherd’s pie, pot roast, short ribs and similar dishes abound during this time of year. The churches are having chicken pie and ham dinners with lots of fruit pies for dessert.

Chicken pot pie is a favorite with many people. This time of the year, and before the frost kills off our gardens, you can still include green beans, spinach or Swiss chard, as well as roasted butternut squash or potato with the chicken and gravy that simmer while the crust cooks to a golden brown. We also like chicken with dumplings, in which I include parsley and thyme from the garden to make the dumplings more flavorful.

This is the beef stew season and the number of recipes for this universal dish abound. I’m inspired to make Boeuf Bourguignon, the classic French stew made with red wine after seeing Julie and Julia, the movie about Julia Child’s life and a young lady who blogs about cooking every recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in a single year.

A classic Italian dish appropriate for this time of year is braciole in which thin slices of beef top or bottom round are stuffed with pork stuffing with cheese before being browned and braised in wine or stock.

This is also the cabbage season, whether its green cabbage, Savoy cabbage or red cabbage. Cole slaw with carrots and raisins is a classic, but we like our cabbage braised or steamed as a fall vegetable. Stuffed cabbage leaves cooked in tomato sauce is heart warming on a cold evening. Cabbage is also great in soups or as an addition to stews, and, of course, this is the time to make some sauerkraut, where the cabbage is fermented in its own juices created by salting the shredded vegetable.

Eggplant

2009-09-26T06:41:00.007-04:00

We’ve been harvesting eggplants from our garden for a number of weeks now. I was first introduced to eggplants when I worked at the Blair Mansion Inn in Silver Spring, Maryland in 1971, while I was courting Rosemary in the District of Columbia area. We made Eggplant Parmigiana there, and I remember prepping eggplants a bushel at a time. We’d cut them into slices, salt the slices, let them sit for 30 minutes or more, then brush off the salt and liquid they had exuded, and bread them by dredging in flour, then beaten eggs, and fresh breadcrumbs. Thereafter the breaded eggplant slices were par cooked in hot oil and frozen for future use. When an order came in, the chef would splash some Marinara sauce on a sizzle plate, layer the eggplant with grated mozzarella, parmesan cheese, and sauce, and roast in a hot oven until the cheese was melted and browned and the eggplant cooked through.

Eggplant, known as aubergine in Europe and the Middle East and brinjal in its native India and Pakistan, is a member of the nightshade family, Solanaceae, and closely related to tomatoes, potatoes and tobacco. A perennial plant in temperate climes, Solanum melongena is grown as an annual in New England. While we know it primarily as a dark purple, elongated ovoid, it also grows in a variety of shapes (short and squat to long and thin, often curved, to even egg shaped ones) and colors (pink, yellow, green, white and stripped). As it is related to tobacco, historically its nicotine alkaloids contributed to a bitter flavor, which was purged by salting the sliced flesh. Over the years, breeders have selected against the bitterness, so while today it no longer remains a problem for cooks, salting eggplant before cooking still has benefits in lessening the absorbent properties of its flesh. Anyone who has sauted some eggplant knows it will soak up all the oil you put in the pan before it starts to brown. The application of salt collapses the cell walls of the eggplant flesh, expelling air as well as liquid, and leaving less space for oil to enter and become trapped.

One of the most famous Arabic eggplant dishes is Iman bayaldi, “the priest fainted.” In this dish, the eggplant is stuffed with onions and tomatoes and cooked in copious amounts of oil, most of which it absorbs. Supposedly the priest fainted either because the dish was so delicious, or later when he heard how much oil his wife had used to make the dish.

In an earlier column I wrote about Ratatouille, the French dish comprised of eggplants, tomatoes, zucchini and onions. The Greeks have their Moussaka, a native dish that combines lamb with eggplants, tomatoes and cheese, the Italians their Melanzane alla parmigiana with eggplants, tomatoes and cheese, and the Middle East its baba ghanoush where creamy roasted eggplant is combined with tahini (ground sesame seeds), lemon and garlic. These are just a few examples of world class dishes comprised of eggplant, so if you haven’t tried any lately, they are available from local sources now, so it’s a good time to check out this savory vegetable known as “vegetarian’s meat.”

Melanzane alla parmigiana

Eggplant Parmesan

Serves 6

3 Eggplants

2 Tablespoons salt

3 eggs, beaten

1 cup all purpose flour seasoned with a 1/2 tsp. salt & a grinding of pepper

2 cups of bread crumbs and possibly more

2 quarts canola or vegetable oil

2 cups Marinara sauce

1 1/2 cups grated mozzarella

1 cup grated parmesan cheese

1/3 lb sliced sharp provolone

Slice the eggplant into 1/2" rounds. Sprinkle with the salt and drain in a colander for 30 minutes or more.

Place the seasoned flour and bread crumbs in separate bowls. Beat the eggs in a third bowl. Pat the moisture off the eggplant, dip each piece of eggplant in the flour, shaking off the excess. Place floured eggplant in the eggs and turn over to coat both sides. Place in bread crumbs and turn over to coat. Place breaded eggplant on a rack while you do the rest of them.

Deep fry the breaded eggplant in 375 degree oil for a minute or so on each side, until the bread crumbs are browned and the eggplant is just cooked through. Drain on an absorbent towel.

Select a baking dish and cover the bottom with a layer of Marinara sauce. Place eggplant over the bottom, sprinkle on half the grated mozzarella and 1/2 the parmesan cheese. Cover with a layer of Marinara sauce and repeat a second layer, ending with sauce. Cover the top with sliced provolone.

Bake uncovered in a 375 degree oven for 20 -25 minutes or until hot and bubbly with the top browned.

Let rest for 15 minutes at least before serving. Good at room temperature, and better the next day.

Apples

2009-09-17T21:11:00.006-04:00

This year’s apple crop is starting to hit the markets. I bought a peck bag that included my choice of Ginger Gold, Macoun, McIntosh, Honey Crisp and Paula Red, some for eating and some for an apple tart. I know, it’s “American as apple pie,” but Rosemary makes the pies and I make the tarts. She’s Fanny Farmer and I’m Julia Child, or maybe Paul Bocuse.

Apples, which are related to pears, are part of the rose family. Malus demestica consists of 15,000 or more varieties, or which some 2,000 are American. Originating is Asia Minor, apples are grown all over the world, and are the most popular fruit not only in the US, but also Britain, France and Germany. China, of course, is the world’s leading producer, the US second while Iran and Turkey vie for third.

The apple is propagated primarily by the asexual act of grafting, as planting an apple seed will not result a seedling with the same characteristics as its parent. In fact, the result is often radically different. When Johnny Appleseed hastened westward to keep ahead of a burgeoning population, planting his orchards of apples, the settlers found that most of the apple crop consisted of “spitters,” that were so astringent as to be inedible, but they made great cider, which converted into alcohol, so his coming was legend. While hard cider is fermented, applejack, apple brandies and Calvados are distilled apple liquors.

Cider apples (real tart) are one of the four apple groups, the others being dessert or eating apples (crisp and juicy), cooking apples (tart when raw, balanced when cooked), and now dual purpose apples like Golden Delicious and Granny Smith.

Apples are most associated with desserts, and American originals include apple crisp, apple grunt, and apple pandowdy. Applesauce, flavored with cinnamon, is eaten with pork, and apples are stewed with red cabbage and braised with chestnuts, and included in Waldorf Salad. Sliced apples, chutneys and cheese are a common appetizer, but most apple concoctions are for after the main meal. Apples, with their cell-wall pectins, have good jelling characteristics when cooked down, so they are often made into apple jelly.

Sliced apple will oxidize to an unappetizing brown in a short time if left untreated. This browning can be prevented by tossing peeled, or sliced apples, with an acidulated liquid like lemon juice, where the high acid environment slows down the natural browning process.

Most varieties of apple store well in an atmosphere rich in carbon dioxide, which restricts ethylene gas from ripening the fruit prematurely, so even local apples are available well into the winter and early spring after a fall harvest.

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” may be an old saw, but it has a lot of truth in it. While apples are not high in Vitamin C and other antioxidant compounds, they show preventive properties relative to cancers of the colon, prostate and lungs. As they are cholesterol free, contain fiber and are bulky, they assist with bowel cleansing, heart disease and weight loss, which many of us could benefit from.

So be it a glass of cider, an apple pie or the crisp crunch of a snappy new McIntosh, now is the time to enjoy our most prolific fruit that grows all about us.

Apple Golden-Brown Betty

Serves 6-8

Vegetable oil cooking spray

1 1/2 cups dry, stale cornbread crumbs, finely crumbled

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup white or Turbinado sugar

1 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground allspice

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1/8 tsp ground cloves

A few gratings of nutmeg

7 or 8 (3 lb) apples, peeled, cored, and sliced into 1/3" wedges

2 lemons, halved

1/3 cup frozen apple juice concentrate, thawed

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

Ice cream, custard sauce, yoghurt or whipped cream

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a shallow 8 1/2" X 11" glass or enamel baking dish with vegetable oil and set aside.

Toss together the crumbs, sugars and spices in a medium bowl. Set aside.

Place the apple slices in a second medium bowl. Squeeze the lemons over the apples, straining out the seeds. Toss the apples so they are all coated with lemon juice. This will prevent browning.

Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of the crumb mixture on the bottom of the prepared dish. Follow with half the apples. Pour the apple juice concentrate over the apples, then scatter about half the crumb mixture. Dot with half the butter. Repeat a layer of apples and then the rest of the crumb mixture and the rest of the butter.

Cover the dish tightly with aluminum foil and bake until the apples are tender, 30 to 40 minutes. Remove the foil, increase the heat to 400 degrees and let bake until the top crumbs are deeply golden and crisp, about 10 minutes. Serve, warm but not hot, with one of the accompaniments.

Tomatoes II

2009-09-12T15:06:00.000-04:00

Since last week, the late blight has ravaged our tomato crop so bad that we’re destroying all our plants except a few cherry tomatoes, mostly Sun Gold, which still seem to be doing OK. We’ve enjoyed the shortened harvest, and some fruits are still ripening on our porch, but for the most part a very promising crop has been laid low as so many of our neighbors’ crops have also.

Fortunately, many area farmers cultivate a large part of their plants in hoop or green houses, and these enclosed environments are better able to keep the late blight spores from infecting their crops. There were many heirloom varieties available at the farmers’ market his past weekend, and they should continue to be available for a number of more weeks. So stock up if you’ve had blight problems so you can enjoy some local products this winter when all you’ll see are California or Florida tomatoes in the store.

While China is the largest grower of tomatoes, the US is second in worldwide production, with California growing over 90% of the processed tomatoes, meaning plum or sauce tomatoes, which are available canned year round.

Some tomatoes are determinate, meaning they grow to a specific height and set their fruits, most of which ripen at or about the same time. Indeterminate tomatoes continue to grow until either frost kills them, or the gardener cuts off their top. Indeterminate varieties have their fruits ripen as they grow, so they can produce a continuous crop over a long period of time. At Longwind Farm in East Thetford, David Chapman fills his greenhouses with a single planting, which bears fruit from early March through the middle of November.

Tomatoes are considered a vegetable, a term that is culinary in nature and has no scientific meaning. Botanically tomatoes are a fruit, however they don’t share the common characteristic of most fruits, sweetness, and they are not used in desserts, where most fruits appear in a meal. Rather, the tomato is typically served as part of a salad at the beginning of a repast, or they are included in the main meal itself.

While the tomato is naturally acidic, and this makes it any easy plant to can for home gardeners as a hot water bath is all that needed, not a pressure canner, it was the suspected source of a major salmonella outbreak a couple of years ago. While the FDA and the USDA were never able to pinpoint the source of the contamination, Mexico was a suspect, although Serrano and jalapeno peppers were also identified as a possible source of the infection.

Tomatoes contain lycopene, a powerful anti-oxidant that has cancer preventing properties. It has been positively identified as beneficial in preventing colorectal, breast, endometrial, lung and pancreatic cancers. In fact, organic ketchup is found to have much more lycopene than non-organic ketchups, so a word to the wise the next time you need this condiment.

In addition, tomatoes have been shown to provide benefits in preventing heart disease, and lowering cholesterol profiles. They are a great source of Vitamins C, A and K as well as manganese and potassium and they are low in calories.

So enjoy the local vine ripened harvest while it’s still available, and put some up for winter if you can. They’re delicious right now!

Tomatoes

2009-09-07T08:43:00.000-04:00

You have been able to purchase local tomatoes for quite a while now, despite the tomato crop devastation brought on by the late blight. This disease struck many farmers hard in August just as their field crops started to bear fruit. Many heirloom varieties that would normally be crowding farmers’ markets and roadside stands right now, while still available, are found in smaller quantities and with fewer varieties.

We’ve been pretty lucky so far at our house, for while we lost some plants that Rosemary planted on the periphery of the herb garden, our main crop in the vegetable garden is daily bearing a variety of fruits from sauce tomatoes, to heirlooms like Black Russian and Green Zebra, to red and Sun-gold cherry tomatoes to large lobed Brandywines and oval yellow Lemon Boys. I love the tomato harvest; tomato salads with Vermont farmstead blue cheese, tomatoes with fresh mozzarella, basil and extra-virgin olive oil, fresh Marinara sauce, BLTs on toasted Red Hen bread with pesto, arugula, Hogwash Farm’s pasture raised bacon, and a slab of Big Boy tomato still warm from the sun, oven dried plum tomatoes with garlic and fresh thyme, or noshing down a ripe Cherokee Purple right out in the garden. Yum!

Solanum lycopersicum is a member of the nightshade family, and long suspected of being poisonous (its leaves and the roots of many of its cousins are poisonous). It is grown as an annual plant in our clime, producing the ovary of a fruit, which we refer to as a vegetable. Usually colored red, many varieties are yellow, orange, purple, black, pink, mottled green and yellow, or red and green, and some are almost white. Their shapes can be large and round, to heavily lobed, to cherries, grapes or currants; from smooth to having pronounced ribs, to elongated and plum shaped to squat and flat. There even is one called the Ugli Tomato, which was banned in Florida due to its multi-ribbed appearance, in spite of its excellent taste.

Penne with fresh tomato sauce and parsley

Heirloom varieties have made a strong come back recently, as their taste and texture are superior to commercial varieties bred more for their shape, size, and color, and mutated to resist natural pests. This is the time of the year to really enjoy a good local tomato, ripened on the vine. What is in the supermarket was picked green in California or Florida, “ripened” by ethylene gas which turns it red, but doesn’t really ripen the flesh, and shipped in a refrigerated container across America to your local store. NEVER, and I mean never, refrigerate a tomato! It not only dulls and kills its taste and muddies its texture, even when returned to room temperature, it will not improve.

The tomato originated in South America, probably Peru, before migrating to Mexico, where explorers returned to Europe with seed in the 1500s. Here it was grown as an ornamental plant until its culinary properties were realized, particularly in Italy, Spain and the Middle East. Today the tomato is central to the Mediterranean diet, which emphasizes lots of fresh vegetables and fruits, olive oil, cheese and yoghurt with moderate amounts of seafood and poultry, and modest quantities of red meats and wine.

Next week we’ll continue to look at this flavorful “vegetable” that is used so commonly in everyday cuisine.

Peeled fresh tomatoes for sauce

Proteins

2009-08-30T11:28:00.000-04:00

I've been writing a lot recently about the local harvest available at farmers' markets, area farm stands and those markets that sell locally raised produce. Today I want to turn from fresh vegetables to protein sources, as many area farms are beginning to harvest chickens, beef and pork, with the turkeys still fattening for a fall crop.

I personally purchase all of our meats from people I have met and visited their farms to observe their production practices. I didn't have that luxury when I first switched from supermarket meats to grass fed meats in 2004 while shopping at the Union Square Greenmarket in Manhattan, while attending culinary school. However, I did talk with the producers to learn their methods, and I wasn't inundated with the plethora of confusing and contradicting terms that our government agencies, which are heavily lobbied by agri-business interests, use to describe protein products sold in large supermarkets.

What is generally sold in supermarkets is confinement raised animals without access to pasture and fed a variety of corn or soy products including various "animal byproducts" which can include any number of questionable ingredients, like chicken guts and blood, amongst other things. Their feed is laced with antibiotics, otherwise they would become sick and die on their unnatural diet, and growth hormones to speed their weight gain. They routinely live in close confinement, covered with and standing in their own excrement, and experience higher than normal mortality rates due to these conditions. Cattle fed corn for too long develop health problems that will lead to their death, so getting to market before that point is paramount to operating a profitable business.

Thse feeding practices have led to the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria, which may pose a public health threat in the future. Also, confinement raised cattle include higher amounts of E. coli in their guts that pasture raised cattle, and this, combined with the manure on their hides, translates into more contaminated beef being released for sale to the public by slaughter facilities that are more concerned with speed of the kill than public health.

Many area farmers practice not only a more humane, but also a more natural production process. They allow their animals to forage on grass and other vegetation, which they were born to eat. The cow has four stomachs for a reason, and that is to process otherwise indigestible grasses into food they can live on. Grass fed meats are usually less marbled with fat then corn-fed meats, however they contain much higher levels of Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) and omega-3 fatty acids, both of which have shown positive effects in areas of heart disease, cancer and the immune system.

Seeking out and finding local pasture raised meats is more challenging that strolling into your local mega-mart to pick up a steak or some chicken for the grill on a pleasant evening, but in my mind, the benefits in terms of taste, the environment and our health are worth the effort. So I encourage you to visit a farmers' market or a store dealing in local meats and try some home grown goodness. It's a great time to fill up your freezer for winter.

Dry Marinaded Pork Chops

I usually make up this marinade for pork chops or roasts a day or two before planning on serving. It is a recipe I've adapted over the years from one originally published in Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The major change I made, to make it more Italian, was to add either ground toasted fennel seed, or fellen pollen, which is fairly expensive and difficult to find.

For each pound of pork, make a mixture of the following ingredients:

1 Tsp Sea salt

1/4 Tsp freshly cracked black pepper

1/2 Clove of garlic, minced

1 Pinch of Allspice

1/2 Bay Leaf, ground

1 Tbl Fennel seed, toasted and ground or substitute 1 Tsp Fennel pollen

1 Sprig fresh thyme, leaves stripped from the stem, or use 1 Tsp dried thyme leaf

Combine all the marinade ingredients and rub on the pork. Cover with plastic wrap and keep refrigerated. Turn the pork over once or twice, depending on the length of your marinade time. When ready to cook, scrape the marinade off the pork before proceeding with your recipe.

Zucchini

2009-08-09T15:40:00.001-04:00

The wet weather doesn’t seem to have hurt our zucchini crop as it is starting to produce some fine little specimens, many with their bright yellow flowers still attached. Growing zucchini, which almost all home gardeners do, is not difficult, however keeping after the budding fruit is an almost daily chore. You know what happens when you’re away on vacation for week in August…ZONKERS up to three feet long take over your zucchini plant, and they’re no good for anything except the compost heap.

While most squash plants are American in origin, the zucchini, also know in many parts of the world as courgette, seems to have been developed near Milan, Italy, where the Italians cook them in an infinite variety of ways. The plant was brought to America by Italian immigrants and has been readily accepted in the American market. It is a member of the Cucurbita pepo family and closely related to our yellow crooked neck summer squash, which is can be substituted in any zucchini recipe. The Italian word for squash is zucca, so the feminine diminutive zucchine is used in some areas of Italy, however the male diminutive zucchini is most commonly used.

Zucchini, which is actually the fruit of the plant, being the female ovary, needs to be harvested while it is immature. As the fruit grows, so too do its seeds, which become unappetizing as they get larger. The flesh of an overgrown zucchini can become fibrous, making these large marrows undesirable. So pick them when they are small with the flowers still attached. They will range in color from a light green to a luxurious, deep green color, their skin will be taunt and firm and the flesh white with a few immature seeds. While zucchini are available year round, they are best when locally grown when their flavor is at its height. If purchased in the market, they should be glossy and free from blemishes. Any with dark spots or bruised flesh should be avoided.

Zucchini are low in calories and contain beneficial amounts of Vitamin A, folate, potassium and manganese.

When it comes to cooking zucchini, let us count the ways. They are grilled, steamed, sautéd, deep fried, baked, stuffed, steamed, made into a risotto or included in a frittata, or with pasta, or grated, or included in a ratatouille, or a soup…the list goes on and on. They are frequently sliced into rounds or ovals, but can also be cut lengthwise into quarters or matchsticks, depending on the application. They are most commonly eaten with the skin on, so they should be carefully washed before using, especially when purchased in the supermarket.

We particularly enjoy the zucchini flowers. If you pick the male flowers, those that grow on a long stem, you can deep fry them in fritter batter, or stuff them with mozzarella and anchovy and bake them in the oven. They make a distinctive presentation and an interesting side dish.

Pastella for Fried Zucchini Flowers

1 Cup all purpose flour
1 Cup +/- water

Place the flour in a small bowl. Slowly mix in the water until you have a smooth batter, slightly thicker than cream.

Heat deep frying oil in a cast iron skillet, not allowing the oil to exceed 1/2 way up the side of the pan. Using a deep fry thermometer, heat the oil to 375 degrees. Dredge the zucchini flowers in the pastella and slip into the hot oil. Fry a minute or two and turn the flowers over with thongs. Allow to cook on the other side a couple of minutes. Remove to paper towels to allow to thoroughtly drain. Immediately sprinkle with sea salt and serve while hot.

Carrots

2009-07-18T05:54:00.000-04:00

Almost always present in our iceboxes, but often overlooked as an item to be utilized alone, the carrot is now is season at area farm stands and farmers’ markets. At this moment, they are young and sweet, crisp and crunchy when consumed raw, and full of good nutritional elements. It’s true that carrots have beneficial properties relative to your vision, as they are full of beta-carotene, which is metabolized into vitamin A when consumed by humans. Poor vision can be restored by including vitamin A in the diet.

Daucus carota var. sativa is a taproot vegetable consumed by mankind for centuries after the wild carrot was domesticated. It seems to have originated in Afghanistan before traveling westward in an Arab migration to the eastern Mediterranean somewhere in the 8th to 10th century AD. Reportedly when carrots were introduced to America, the otherwise honest natives, who had no flavorful taproots, used to raid the settlers’ gardens for these tasty treats.

While it is a biennial plant, we grow and harvest in its first year when the taproot grows large and stores up sugars for the second season flowering stage. While the common carrot is yellow to orange in color, many varieties today range from red to purple to a pale yellow, almost white carrot, and they can be short and stubby, or long and tapered, or conical or cylindrical, depending on the cultivar.

The first new carrots, usually displayed and sold with their leafy green tops still attached, are tender and full of flavor. They should be enjoyed as a separate dinner item to accompany any roast, steaks, chops or seafood. Be sure to remove the carrot tops promptly or the leaves will draw the carrots’ moisture into themselves, leaving you with limp carrots, which aren’t much good, except for the stockpot. We enjoy them simmered in butter with a little stock, and glazed with a glug of maple syrup and a light dusting of Parmesan cheese.

Later in the season, when the carrots are larger, they lend themselves to roasting in a hot oven, which concentrates their sweetness and carrot flavor. I include finely diced or grated carrots in my Marinara sauce as their sugars counterbalance the tartness of the tomatoes. Carrots should not be scraped or peeled as most of their nutrient value lies in the skin. If you purchase carrots in the supermarket, I do suggest peeling them, as pesticide residues from conventional farming may not be able to be just washed off. If purchased from a local organic farmer, unpeeled, but washed with a stiff vegetable brush, is OK. Late season carrots may have a tough core, so it’s not a bad idea to cut them lengthwise to remove it before proceeding.

A pound of carrots will feed 3 to 4 people and will yield about 3 ½ cups when sliced, diced or quartered. They make a delicious soup, are always added to stews and braised dishes, are essential for stocks, casseroles and sauces, and are part of the triumvirate of basic French vegetable cookery combination miropoix, which also includes diced onion and celery.

In America we love our carrot cake, and ribbons of carrot, made with a vegetable peeler, make a nice impromptu salad when combined with vinaigrette and chopped chervil or parsley. Many add it to their coleslaw, and cabbages are coming into season right now, too.

Artichokes

2009-07-11T06:42:00.000-04:00

Artichokes are not usually thought of as a New England vegetable as California, due to its temperate climate, is the largest producer of these plants, which are related to the thistle family. However, more and more vegetable farms in Vermont and New Hampshire are producing these tasty little globes, which consist of the flower of the artichoke plant picked before it ripens.

The Globe Artichoke, a member of the Cynara cardunculus family, is a perennial thistle, which came from the Mediterranean area, although it is not clear if it developed in Northern Africa or Sicily first. It is also a biennial plant, which is now grown as an annual by northern growers as it is not frost tolerant, and must be replanted each year. Northern growers trick the plant into thinking it is in its second season by subjecting the young plants to a period of cold temperatures when they are about 6 weeks old. First year plants only make leaves, but when convinced it is in its second season, the plant puts forth its buds.

Artichokes do require a little work to prepare for eating. I usually cut off about 1/3 of the top of the artichoke, removing the thorns that emanate from the leaves. You have to rub the cut surfaces with lemon to prevent discoloration of the leaves, which will quickly oxidize and turn brown if not treated. When preparing a bunch of artichokes, I acidulate a bowl of water with lemon juice and place each prepared artichoke in the water while I’m prepping the rest.

I remove the outer leaves of the choke until I reach the light green inner leaves. If one chooses to, one can take only the first row of outer leaves off and then simmer the entire choke in salted water until tender. Break off each leaf, known as a bract, dip in melted butter, vinaigrette, aioli or mayonnaise and gnaw off the edible base of the leaf. When all the leaves have been eaten, remove the hairy choke, and the base and upper stem of the artichoke are delicious.

Artichoke hearts are used as the base for other vegetable preparations, and constitute a part of the Arabic diet, which favors stuffed vegetables. Filled with baby peas and onions in a light cream sauce they make an appealing side dish to most any meal.

In Italy, where you see them growing in many yards, the artichoke is deep fried to produce the golden Carciofi alla Romano, a dish we make at our house, and in France they are prepared in an infinite variety of ways including Stuffed Artichokes, where they are par cooked, then stuffed with sausage, onion and parsley, wrapped in bacon, and braised in white wine and veal stock with onions and carrots.

Artichoke hearts, sold prepared in grocery stores, are often added to salads or can top a pizza. They make a tea from artichokes in Viet Nam, and it Italy the liqueur Cynar is primarily flavored with artichoke.

So take a little culinary adventure, pick up a few artichokes from the farmers’ market or farm stand and try some Mediterranean cuisine with locally grown artichokes. They’re fun!

The pictures above include artichokes growing in our garden in Fairlee, Vermont, as well as a seasonal dish we concocted on the evening we harvested 3 artichokes. Here's the recipe.

Artichokes with Garlic & Peas

3 small artichokes, trimmed of their outer leaves, cut in half
3 heads of green garlic
6 scallions, red and/or white
1 1/2 cups fresh shelled peas
2 Tbl butter
1/2 cup chicken stock
salt & pepper
1 Tbl fresh mint, minced
1 Tbl fresh flat leaf parsley, minced

The small local artichokes we used did not have a developed choke, so we trimmed off the top of each artichoke, rubbing the cut surfaces with lemon juice, and removed the outer leaves until we reached the yellow-green inner leaves. We peeled the outside of the artichoke heart and stem, and placed the prepped artichokes in a bath of acidulated water to prevent browning.

We prepped the green garlic by removing its light husk and trimming the root end, leaving the heads whole. The green onions were trimmed to just their bulbs.

We sauted the green onions and green garlic in 1 tablespoon of butter for a couple of minutes before adding the artichokes, which we bisected through the stem, and the chicken stock. After simmering for 3 minutes we added the shelled peas, and allowed to simmer 3 minutes. We raised the heat to high to cook off some of the stock, hit it with another pat of butter, and the minced herbs. Season with a little salt and pepper. Delicious.

Beets

2009-07-03T09:53:00.000-04:00

Over the past few weeks I’ve had the pleasure of shopping at farmers’ markets in Bradford, St. Johnsbury, Montpelier and Norwich. The quality and variety of the produce, proteins like chicken, pork, beef and elk, maple and honey products, cheeses, crafts, and prepared foods is wonderful to behold. It’s time to eat the season and enjoy our local bounty brought to us by dedicated stewards of the land who honor their husbandry traditions.

We have been enjoying some fabulous beets, both red and golden, from Your Farm in Fairlee (www.yourfarmonline.com). They grow three varieties, a traditional red beet, a golden one, and Chioggia or candy-strip beet.

The garden beet is a member of the beetroot family, Beta Vulgaris, which includes other vegetables like chard and spinach beet, grown for their leaves and midriffs, sugar beet, a tuber from which sucrose is derived, and mangle-wurzel, a tuber grown as a fodder crop.

Beets have been cultivated for thousands of years, at least since the second millennium BC, and were probably domesticated around the Mediterranean before spreading through Babylonia to China in 850 BC. Originally the beetroot was a long taper, similar to a carrot, and the plant was grown for its leafy greens. The Vuglaris variety with its red, fleshy tubers became popular after the rise of spinach supplanted the beet green as the cooking green of choice. My Larousse Gastronomique claims that some “long-rooted varieties…have more flavour and are sweeter than round varieties…” but I’ve never seem any beets like that around here.

Beets have a lot of health benefits from their consumption and have a long tradition in folk medicine. They have been used as a laxative to treat constipation, as an aphrodisiac, for illnesses related to digestion and the blood. It’s high in antioxidants, boron and oxalic acid, and has been used in cancer treatments, mostly in Europe. Drinking beet juice lowers blood pressure and the pigment molecule betanin seems to provide protective benefits against cancer.

Beets can be cooked in boiling water, roasted in the oven, or grated and eaten raw in salads. I like to roast my beets, unpeeled, with about an inch or so of the beet top still attached. I put them on a sheet of aluminum foil with a couple cloves of crushed garlic, a spring of thyme, a swirl of olive oil, and a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Wrap them up and put in a hot (400-425 degrees) oven for 45 minutes or so, depending on the size of the beets. When a fork pierces them easily, remove and allow to cool somewhat. When you can handle them, peel them and go on with your recipe. Roasting concentrates their flavour more than merely boiling, and I’ve seen older recipes which recommended placing boiled beets in the oven for an hour or more to accomplish the same effect.

Pickled beets are popular with many as a condiment, and borscht is a rightly famous cold soup, indigenous to Eastern Europe.

Here's a recipe for pickled beets that takes a couple of days, but is well worth it. Try it and enjoy.

Pickled Beets

1 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon pickling spice
1/4 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/4 onion, halved
1 small bay leaf (not California)
3/4 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
1/4 bunch fresh dill
3 beets (1 pound without tops)

Bring all ingredients except beets to a boil in a 2- to 3-quart saucepan, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Cover and simmer 30 minutes.

Cool marinade, then chill, covered, 1 day to allow flavors to develop. Pour through a fine sieve into a bowl.

Cook beets in a saucepan of boiling salted water until tender, 1 to 1 1/4 hours. Drain and cool. Slip off skins and cut into 1/2-inch pieces.

Stir together beets and marinade, then marinate, covered and chilled, 1 day.

Beet Salad with Almond Butter and Gorgonzola Bombolini

For almond butter:
1/2 cup toasted Marcona almonds
1/2 garlic clove, chopped
Pinch of cayenne
1/2 to 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

For beet salad:
1 1/2 pounds small (2-inch) beets without greens (2 pounds with greens)
2 tablespoons Sherry vinegar
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons finely chopped shallot
3 tablespoons finely chopped chives

Accompaniments: Gorgonzola bomboloni (recipe follows) ; coarse sea salt such as Maldon or fleur de sel

preparation

Make almond butter:
Grind almonds to a paste with garlic, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and cayenne in a food processor. With motor running, add just enough oil to make a silky paste. Season with salt.

Make beet salad:
Simmer beets in 3 inches of water in a large saucepan, covered, until tender, about 30 minutes. Cool in liquid, uncovered, about 30 minutes, then peel and cut into 1/2-inch wedges.

Whisk together vinegar and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a bowl, then whisk in oil. Add shallot and chives and toss with beets.

Divide almond butter among 6 plates and top with beet salad. Put a bombolone on each salad and sprinkle lightly with sea salt. Serve remaining bomboloni on the side.

Gorgonzola Bombolini

1 teaspoon active dry yeast (from a 1/4-ounce package)
Scant 1/2 cup warm whole milk (105-115°F)
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1 large egg
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 pound chilled Gorgonzola, rind discarded and cheese cut into 16 (3/4-inch) cubes
About 4 cups vegetable oil

Equipment:
a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment; a deep-fat thermometer

preparation

Stir together yeast and milk in bowl of mixer and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. (If mixture doesn't foam, start over with new yeast.) Mix in 3/4 cup flour. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel and let dough rise in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until doubled and bubbly, about 1 hour.

Mix in egg, butter, sugar, salt, and remaining 1/2 cup flour at low speed until combined. Increase speed to medium and beat dough until satiny and elastic, 5 to 7 minutes. Scrape dough into center of bowl and dust lightly with flour. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel and let dough rise at warm room temperature until doubled, about 1 hour.

Line a baking sheet with wax paper and lightly sprinkle with flour. Punch down dough and turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Cut into 16 equal pieces. With lightly floured hands, flatten 1 piece of dough and put a cheese cube in center. Pinch closed, then roll into a ball and transfer to baking sheet. Make 15 more balls, arranging 1 inch apart.

Heat 2 inches oil in a 2-quart heavy saucepan over medium heat to 350°F. Fry bomboloni, 4 at a time, turning frequently, until puffed and golden, about 2 minutes per batch. Transfer with a slotted spoon to paper towels to drain. Return oil to 350°F between batches. Serve hot.

High Fructose Corn Syrup

2009-06-18T18:37:00.000-04:00

In last week’s column, the words “high fructose corn syrup and other industrial additives” triggered an email letter from the Corn Refiners Association, a Washington, DC lobby for large food companies like Archer Daniels Midland Co, Cargill, Inc. and others, all located in the mid-west corn belt and involved in corn refining. The corn refining industry is involved in numerous activities in processing corn, with their main products being sweeteners, ethanol, and starch. They also make bio-products, corn oil and feed additives.

Here's the letter I received via email at 5:35 pm on June 11th, the day the paper came out.

June 11, 2009

Hod Palmer, III

90 Grandview Ave.

Fairlee, VT 05045

Dear Mr. Palmer:

We read the June 11 article “Boldo's Thoughts on Food,” with interest. Unfortunately, the suggestion that high fructose corn syrup is an “industrial additive” is misleading. We would like to provide you with science-based information on this safe sweetener and be a reference for you for future articles.

High fructose corn syrup, sugar, and several fruit juices are all nutritionally the same. High fructose corn syrup is essentially a corn sugar.

All sweeteners require processing to produce a food-grade product. Many of the same processes are used to make both high fructose corn syrup and sugar.

The process for making high fructose corn syrup involves separating the corn kernels into four basic components that are fairly common – starch, germ, fiber and protein. The starch is further refined to make high fructose corn syrup.

The sugar refining process consists of numerous steps and process aids including: multiple clarifying steps with heat and lime, polymer flocculent and phosphoric acid; multiple evaporation steps; centrifugation; washing with pressure filtration or chemical treatment; and decolorization with carbon or bone char. Hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide, or enzymes are added to liquid sucrose to break the bond between glucose and fructose to make invert sugar. Sucrose from sugar beets is processed by similar methods.

High fructose corn syrup is used in the food supply because of its many functional benefits. For example, it keeps food fresh, retains moisture in bran cereals, helps keep breakfast and energy bars moist, maintains consistent flavors in beverages and keeps ingredients evenly dispersed in condiments. High fructose corn syrup enhances spice and fruit flavors in yogurts and marinades. In salad dressings and spaghetti sauce, it improves flavor by reducing tartness. In addition to its excellent browning characteristics for breads and baked goods, it is a highly fermentable nutritive sweetener and prolongs product freshness.

To read the latest research and learn more about high fructose corn syrup, please visit www.SweetSurprise.com. Please feel free to contact me if you would like additional information about the products made from corn.

Thank you for your consideration,

Audrae Erickson

President

Corn Refiners Association

Washington, DC

(202) 331-1634

In 2008 the CRA launched a multi-million dollar public relations campaign called “Changing the Conversation About High Fructose Corn Syrup.” According to the CRA’s website “Articles in the publication discuss the elements of the campaign and the science-based messages it employs to dispel the myths about high fructose corn syrup and highlight the nutritional equivalence between high fructose corn syrup and sugar.”

HFCS has been the derided as a primary or contributing cause of increased health problems like obesity, diabetes, cholesterol, and heart disease. It is used in a wide variety of products like soft drinks, cookies and cakes, ketchup, spaghetti sauce, tomato soup, yoghurt and salad dressings. It’s benefits to the processed food industry include it’s cost, which is less than sugar, it’s moisture retaining and fermentable properties, it’s browning ability, and it’s flavor maintaining elements, amongst others. Estimates are that HFCS is found in 25% or more of products in an average supermarket.

The industry asserts that HFCS is the same as sugar, and that it’s consumption by the public is safe, with no impact on obesity and the other health problems it has been accused of causing.

However, a quick check of respected sources such as WebMD, the Mayo Clinic and the American Diabetes Association suggest caution about over consumption of HFCS, that some refining processes leave mercury residues in HFCS, and concern that it may suppress the hormone leptin which makes one feel satiated, thus leading to over eating.

My concern with HFCS lies in it’s origin: the industrial agribusiness of GMO hybridized corn utilizing large amounts of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides to produce a monoculture crop, and the resulting destruction of the land including massive amounts of run-off pollution that degrades water qualities way down stream, and has resulted in dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico. The corn industry touts it’s increasing corn yields as more bushels are produced per acre, so less land needs to be planted, and it’s decreasing reliance on fertilizers and herbicides. Sugar tariffs keep out inexpensive foreign sources, protecting our domestic industries, and allowing HFCS to enter the sweeteners’ business, where, because of its relative pricing power it fast became the sweetener of choice.

I don’t have space to go into the subsidized giant agribusinesses in our country, and the abuses to the food chain the Farm Bill, the FDA and USDA support or fail to regulate. The good news is that there is a food revolution occurring in our country as more and more people become involved in localvore groups, Slow Food conviviums, and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) offerings from nearby farms. Our agricultural base is diversifying and more people are purchasing their foods from area growers, including many grocery stores, which are carrying local products, as well as farmer’s markets and farm stands.

Vinaigrette

2009-06-11T18:58:00.001-04:00

The Farmer’s Markets are in full swing or opening this weekend, and they are full of beautiful salad greens, radishes, and scallions. Already this spring I’ve harvested arugula, also know as rocket, and Rosemary has been bringing home mesclun mix, baby spinach, green leaf and baby romaine from Cedar Circle Farm in East Thetford. So with the salad season in full swing, let’s discuss how to make your own salad dressing so you can avoid the high fructose corn syrup and other industrial additives found in supermarket salad dressings.

Vinaigrette is the classic oil and vinegar mixture popularized by the French, but adopted by other cultures with their own variations. It is often referred to a “French dressing,” although the reddish orange conglomeration of oil, sweeteners, tomato puree and spices sold under that name bears no discernible relationship to a true vinaigrette.

Classically, vinaigrette is 3 parts oil, usually extra-virgin olive oil, but other oils can be used, to 1 part vinegar. Lemon or other citrus juices can be substituted for the vinegar, but when doing so, the proportions are usually closer to 1 to 1 between the oil and the acid. Aromatics like minced shallot, onion, and/or garlic are often added, along with salt and pepper, and fresh herbs are frequently included.

By itself, a mixture of oil and vinegar will separate quite quickly due to their immiscibility. If shaken together in a jar, the oil will become dispersed in microscopic droplets throughout the vinegar and a temporary emulsion will occur. However, within a few minutes, the emulsion will break and the oil, being lighter, will accumulate above the vinegar in the jar as the dressing separates.

So classic vinaigrettes should be mixed just before dressing the salad, which should be just before serving.

There are a couple of ways to preserve the emulsion longer; one can make the mixture in a blender or food processor, which will not only disperse the oil into even more tiny droplets, allowing them to maintain their suspension in the vinegar longer, but also air will be trapped in the dressing, delaying the inevitable force of nature to separate the components. Or one can add an emulsifier, like a little mustard, which contains lecithin, a natural substance that lowers the interfacial tension between the liquids, allowing the emulsion to persist longer. The mustard, of course, adds additional flavor to the dressing, so its presence has multiple benefits.

Other possible additions to vinaigrette include capers, anchovies, gherkins, hard cooked egg, or even raspberries. Oils other than olive one might use include corn, safflower, canola, peanut, walnut, hazelnut, pistachio or one of the infused oils. The salt should be dissolved in the vinegar first, as it will not dissolve in the oil.

Dress the salad just before serving as the greens will tend to wilt and exude their moisture under the presence of the vinegar and salt if allowed to stand for too long. It’s best to use a glass or ceramic bowl for the salad, as wooden salad bowls will turn rancid with repeated use, no matter how well and often washed.

Sauce Vinaigrette

½ cup

½ to 2 Tbl good wine vinegar or a mixture of wine vinegar and lemon juice
1/8 Tsp salt
¼ Tsp dry mustard or 2 tsp Dijon mustard
6 Tbl salad or olive oil
Big pinch of ground pepper
1-2 Tbl minced fresh herbs such as parsley, chives, tarragon, basil or a pinch of dried herbs
Optional: 1 clove minced garlic

Either place all ingredients in a glass jar and shake vigorously fore 30 seconds to blend. Dress salad immediately. Or place all ingredients in a blender and blend at high speed 1 minute. Dress salad or place in cruet and serve salad and dressing. Or combine vinegar, salt and mustard then blend in oil drop by drop whisking with a balloon whisk until emulsified. Stir in herbs and dress salad immediately.

For Sauce Ravigote stir in 1 tsp chopped capers, 1 tsp minced shallot or green onion, 2 Tbl minced fresh parsley, chives, tarragon, or chervil. This sauce is served with cold beef, chicken, fish, or vegetables.

Risotto

2009-05-28T06:25:00.000-04:00

So it’s asparagus season again. My three-year old bed is producing more abundantly than last year, and we had Asparagus Risotto with our first cuttings. Risotto is a northern Italian braised rice dish. It has some common elements with pilaf and paella, in that the rice absorbs a broth and other ingredients are added, but it is a unique dish unto itself. Italian short grain rice must be used to create an authentic risotto. Long or short grain American rice or basmati rice will not work. Risotto is not boiled rice.

Risotto is based on indigenous rice strains, like Arborio and Carnaroli, which evolved in Lombardy and Piedmont in northern Italy. In the Veneto, Vialone Nano is preferred, where risotto is prepared “wavy” like risi e bisi, or rice and beans, a soupy risotto-like dish. Risotto is actually a technique for preparing these short grain rice kernels by gradually adding a liquid, like brodo or stock, which slowly dissolves the rice’s exterior starch, amylopectin, which combines with the rice and broth resulting in a creamy liaison with other ingredients; cheese, meat, vegetables or seafood. Risotto is velvety and sticky; the rice kernels are homogenized with the flavor base while still retaining an al dente bite.

A thick-bottomed saucepan is needed and medium heat. A simmering pot of broth or stock is preferred, but water is also used. The total amount of liquid will be about 4 times the volume of rice being cooked. The rice is never washed and never covered, and it is stirred frequently, if not constantly, requiring diligent attention during the cooking process. Some cooks use a wooden spoon, others insist on a fork to fluff the rice to avoid breaking the kernels as they approach doneness. Butter is required as the cooking lipid, although small amounts of extra-virgin olive oil can be added, but detract from authenticity. Onion is the only required aromatic, but garlic, minced carrot and celery often are included. The aromatics are cooked until they are dry and exude the butter, and then the rice is toasted in the hot fat a few minutes. Wine is used to deglaze the pan, and is allowed to totally evaporate before the first ladles of broth are added. As a result of adding the broth gradually and allowing it to be absorbed by the rice while constantly stirring, the starch is slowly released, and amalgamates with the rice kernels and the flavor base to produce a truly satisfying dish.

Risotto is traditionally finished off the heat with a knob of butter and a handful of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese stirred in. It is allowed to stand for a few minutes, and then served warm as a first course, or it can be a main meal with a salad and some crusty bread.

If you ever have left over risotto, it makes great risotto balls when breaded and deep fried, usually with a morsel of fresh mozzarella or gorgonzola inserted inside, or as risotto cakes, which can be rolled in dried breadcrumbs, or not, and sauted for a few minutes to warm them through.

Wild Mushroom Risotto

Ingredients

* Extra-virgin olive oil
* 2 cloves garlic, smashed with heel your hand
* 1 1/2 pounds assorted fresh mushrooms, such as shiitake, oyster or cremini, cleaned and sliced
* Kosher salt
* 1 cup dried porcini mushrooms, soaking in 3 cups hot water
* 1 medium or 2 small onions, cut into 1/4-inch dice (about 1 1/2 cups)
* 2 cups Carnaroli or Arborio rice
* 2 cups dry white wine
* 6 to 7 cups hot chicken stock
* 2 tablespoons butter
* 1/2 cup grated Parmigiano
* 1/2 cup chopped chives

Directions

Coat a large saute pan generously with olive oil and add the smashed garlic cloves. Bring to a medium-high heat. When the garlic cloves have begun to brown and are very aromatic remove and discard them. Add the assorted fresh mushrooms to the pan and season with salt. Saute the mushrooms until they are soft and pliable. Turn off the heat and reserve.

Using your hand, carefully scoop the porcini mushrooms out of the hot water. (At this point the water should have cooled off significantly. If it is still too hot for your hand, use a slotted spoon.) Pour the top 2/3 of the mushroom water into another container and reserve for use while making the risotto. Discard the bottom third. It contains a lot of sand and dirt from the mushrooms. Puree the re-hydrated mushrooms with a little of the reserved mushroom water to make a smooth mushroom paste. This will not look good but it will certainly taste good! Reserve.

Coat a large saucepot abundantly with olive oil. Add the onions and season generously with salt. Bring the pot to a medium-high heat. Cook the onions, stirring frequently until they are very soft and aromatic but have no color. Add the rice and stir to coat with the olive oil. Cook the rice for 2 to 3 minutes to toast, stirring frequently. Add wine to cover the surface of the rice and stir frequently until it has completely absorbed. Add the reserved mushroom water and then add chicken stock until the liquid has covered the surface of the rice. Stir frequently until the stock has absorbed into the rice. Repeat this process 2 more times. Check for seasoning, you probably will need to add salt.

During the third addition of stock, add the reserved sauteed mushrooms and 2 tablespoons of the pureed porcini mushrooms. When the stock has absorbed into the rice and the rice is cooked but still "al dente", remove the pot from the heat. Add the butter and cheese and whip until well combined. This will set the perfect consistency of the rice. The rice should flow and not be able to hold its shape and look very creamy. Serve immediately garnished with chives.

Asparagus Risotto

1 lb. asparagus, tips removed and stalks cut on the bias into 1" pieces
1 onion, chopped fine
salt & pepper
2 tbl. butter
1 cup Arbrorio or Carnaroli rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
5-6 cups stock or water
1-2 tbl room temperature butter
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmiagiano-Reggiano cheese

Have a pot of stock or water simmering on the side. Simmer the cut asparagus stalks, but not the tips, in the stock for 3 minutes. Remove with to a dish for later in the recipe. Keep the asparagus tips separately.

Melt the butter in a large skillet and saute the onion with a pinch of salt and a grinding of pepper until the onion is opaque, 4 or 5 minutes. Add the rice and saute in the hot butter 2 to 3 minutes. Deglaze with the white wine and stir constantly until the wine evaporates completely. Slowly add hot stock with a 2 or 3 oz ladle, stirring between additions until the stock is absorbed by the rice. Continue to add stock in small amounts, and stir constantly. After 18 minutes or so the rice will still retain a bite at its center. Add the cooked asparagus stalks, turn off the heat, add the butter and grated cheese. Stir vigorously for a minute or do, garnish with the asparagus tips and a final dusting of grated Parmiagiano-Reggianno cheese.

Focaccia

2009-05-09T18:54:00.000-04:00

The last couple of weeks we’ve been looking at home made pizza. Today we’ll move on to pizza’s close relative, focaccia, an Italian flat bread which has less toppings and is great for sandwiches or eaten as a quick snack.

First, however, a quick word on the various types of yeast available. Fresh, compressed yeast was the first form of yeast available to both home and professional bakers. Fresh yeast has a short shelf life, so use it up within a few days of purchasing. It must be refrigerated and while it can be added directly to the flour, it works best if bloomed in warm water first. Active dry yeast is most commonly used by bakers as it can be stored at room temperature and remains viable for a long time. It is best if bloomed before using. Instant yeast does not need to be bloomed as its small grains can be completely hydrated when mixed with the flour and water. It can be bloomed, but this step isn’t necessary. I use SAF instant yeast for most of my baking.

Focaccia is a primitive, rustic food that, like a lot of Italian dishes, arose out of poverty and the need to use whatever ingredients one might grow or forage for. It is a simple flat bread that can be topped with any number of herbs, meats, cheeses or seafood, but most commonly includes just olive oil, salt and herbs. Focaccia drives its name from focus, the Latin word for hearth, as it was originally baked either on a hot stone in the hearth or directly on the hearth floor under a mound of hot ash. While eaten all over Italy, it is generally conceded that it’s national home is Genoa, where it is called focaccia. In Tuscany it is known as schiacciata, and in southern Italy pinze. In France pissaladiere with onions and anchovies and fougasse are similar breads.

Foccacce can be thick or thin, crisp or soft, lightly topped with olive oil and salt or topped with a wide variety of ingredients. Sometimes flavorings are kneaded directly into the dough for a little surprise. It could be minced pancetta or prosciutto, garlic, currants or herbs.

The dough is stretched out on a well oiled pan, dimpled with the finger tips, which leaves small indentations to catch the olive oil that is brushed on top to not only flavor the dough, but to help retain moisture inside while the dough cooks. Coarse salt and herbs like oregano, piney rosemary or thyme are sprinkled on top before being placed in a hot oven and sprayed with a mist of cold water that not only helps with oven spring, delaying the death of the yeast, but also helping make the crust golden and crunchy.

While focaccia can be made from most any bread dough, most recipes do include a small amount of olive oil as an ingredient. I like to use a pre-ferment in my breads, so the recipe on the internet will have a biga, a pre-fermented bit of dough which adds flavor to the final product. Once you start making your own focaccia, it will become a regular treat, and it makes fantastic sandwiches when sliced horizontally and layered with your favorite sandwich makings.

Here's a recipe for a focaccia that uses King Arthur's White Whole Wheat flour.

Focaccia di Farina di Grand Bianco

Focaccia w/White Whole Wheat Flour

Makes 2 half sheet pans

Biga:

½ tsp active dry yeast
¼ cup warm water, 105-115 degrees
1 ¼ cup water plus 2 tablespoons water, at room temperature
3/3/4 cups (500 grams) unbleached all purpose flour

Sprinkle yeast over the warm water is a large mixing bowl or mixer bowl. Whisk it in and let stand 10 minutes. Stir in the remaining water and then the flour. Stir with a wooden spoon about 100 strokes to form a sticky dough.

Transfer dough to a lightly oiled container, turn the dough over so it’s covered with the oil, cover tightly and allow to stand in a cool place for 6 to 24 hours. The biga will tripled in volume and collapse back onto itself. It will be bubbly, wet and sticky when ready to use. Scoop out what is needed. The balance will keep in the fridge for 3 or 4 days, or you can freeze it for later use.

Dough:

10 g active dry yeast
145 g warm water, 105-115 degrees
250 g biga, at least 12 hours old
940 g water, room temperature
388 g white whole wheat flour
1163 g bread flour
15 g sea salt

Topping:

4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
½ tsp coarse sea salt
3 tablespoons minced fresh rosemary, oregano or thyme

Bloom the yeast in the 145 g warm water in your mixing bowl. Chop up the biga and add it along with the room temperature water to the yeast mixture. If making the dough by hand, combine the salt and flour and add it a cup at a time to the water-yeast mixture. When the dough forms, turn it out on a lightly floured surface and knead 6 to 8 minutes. The dough will be sticky, but add just enough flour so you can handle it. If using a stand mixer, use the paddle attachment to combine the flour-salt mixture with the water-yeast mixture. Mix on low speed for 3-4 minutes until the dough forms. Change to the dough hook and knead at medium high speed about 5 minutes until the dough is elastic, sticky and soft, but not wet. You will see bubbles under the skin.

Place the dough is a lightly oiled container, cover tightly and let rise until double in bulk or more, about 1 to 1 ½ hours. Deflate the dough, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and divide into two equal pieces, sprinkle lightly with flour. Set aside while you prepare the ½ sheet pans.

Oil each sheet pan with 2 tablespoons olive oil. Place one of the pieces of dough on each sheet pan and start stretching the dough out to cover as much of the bottom as possible. Cover with a kitchen towel and let it rest for 10-15 minutes, then stretch the dough out to the edges of the pan. Cover again and let rise for 45 minutes to an hour until the dough is puffy. Preheat the oven for at least 30 minutes at 425 degrees with pizza stone inside.

When the dough has risen, dimple the surface with your fingertips. Brush with 1 tablespoon of oil, sprinkle with the sea salt and minced herbs.
Have a spritzer bottle of cold water on hand. Place the focaccia on the pizza stone, spray the dough and sides walls of the oven with water. Close oven door and reduce heat to 400 degrees. During the first 10 minutes of baking, spray the dough and oven walls twice more, at 4-5 minutes intervals. Bake until focaccia is golden brown, about 18-20 minutes. Immediately remove from the sheet pan and place on paper towels to absorb and excess oil. Cool to room temperature on a rack. Repeat for the second focaccia.

Pizza Dough

2009-04-30T12:38:00.000-04:00

Last week we took a peek into the world of pizza. This week were going to look a little deeper into exactly what pizza dough is made of, and the varieties that one can easily make at home.

First off, however, I need to highly recommend that if you want to make a first class pizza that will knock the socks off any locally produced pie, you have to have an appropriate surface to cook your pizza on. Your choice will affect the outcome of your crust, and, when it really comes down to it, it’s all about the crust. I’m a fan of a pizza stone, which can be purchased at any good kitchen supply store. They are available in a round or rectangular shape. Mine measures about 17” X 15.” I keep in on the bottom rack of my oven most of the time. Alternatively you can use a pizza pan or even a sheet pan, but the crust will not be as good as one cooked on a hot pizza stone.

Secondly, I like to allow my dough to ferment before baking. Fermenting the dough, which to commercial bakers means the “first rise,” allows the yeast and bacteria to feed on the sugars in the flour, producing carbon dioxide, alcohol and acids, which make the dough rise and gain flavor. A single rise of the dough, however, will not be long enough to really affect the flavor, so I allow my dough to rise to between double and triple it’s size, deflate it and either allow to rise a second time, or I refrigerate it until closer to the time I need it. If refrigerated, remove at least 30 minutes before using, and an hour is even better.

Another fermentation method is to produce a “pre-ferment,” what the Italians call a “biga,” This is a piece of dough made from water, flour and a small amount of yeast. It is mixed and allowed to ferment for nine hours or more. After being mixed, allow it to sit at room temperature for an hour or two, then refrigerate until ready to mix the rest of the dough. It will be glossy and porous and have an acidic smell, which will add flavor to the dough.

There are many pizza doughs that can be made without fermenting the dough, however these doughs are more for those who worship the toppings, not the crust. To me, the toppings are a great addition to the pie, but the dough is where the ultimate flavor is brought to the party. I tend to keep my toppings simple and few in number, and the crust is the star.

A commercial baking technique called autolyze in France is helpful in making pizza doughs. The flour and water are combined and allowed to rest for 20 to 25 minutes before the other ingredients are added. During this rest period, the starches and gluten in the flour are allowed to fully absorb the water, which shortens the kneading time and makes a soft dough easier to handle. It also adds to the dough’s extensibility and the dough will have a higher rise.

Next week we'll review focaccia, an Italian flat bread related to pizza. We'll discuss yeasts and which ones you might want to use and I'll provide a white whole wheat focaccia recipe that was very popular at Boldo's.

Here's the highly hydrated dough that is my current favorite. Try it and I think you will like it.

Roman-style White Pizza

Pizza Bianca alla Romana

2 pizzas

Equipment:

Heavy-duty stand mixer with dough hook
Pizza baking stone
Pastry brush
Bench scraper
Pizza peel
Parchment Paper

Ingredients:

425 g (1 ¾ cup) Tepid water
5 g (1 tsp) Instant yeast
500 g (3 ¼ cup) Hi-gluten bread flour
10 g (1 ½ tsp) Sea Salt

60 g (1/3 cup) Extra virgin olive oil
10 g (1 ½ tsp) Sea Salt, coarse preferred

Optional additional toppings:

2 cloves or more garlic, minced

1/4+ grated Romano or Parmesan cheese, grated

Pour water into stand mixer, add yeast, flour and salt and stir until a dough forms. With the dough hook, mix the dough on medium high speed (8 on a Kitchen Aid) for 15 to 17 minutes. Periodically scrape down the dough hook as the dough will climb it. Up the speed to 10 and knead the dough 3 minutes more until it clears the sides of the bowl, collects on the hook, and is glistening, creamy and very elastic. Check with a baker’s window and if it tears, knead another minute or so.

Transfer to an oiled 3 qt container and allow to triple in volume. Cover and let sit at room temperature 3 ½ to 4 hours. It can be deflated and allowed to rise again, or refrigerated. Remove from fridge at least 30 minutes before using.

Preheat oven and baking stone at 500 degrees for 1 hour.

Divide the dough in 2 on a well-floured board. Let rest a moment before stretching into a long even sided rectangle on pizza peal sprinkled with corn meal or flour. If you don't have a peel, place a piece of parchment paper on the back of a sheet pan, and continue with the recipe. Dimple the dough all over to stretch it out, but don’t over handle. Brush with evoo and sprinkle with coarse salt and optional toppings of garlic and cheese, if using. Slide onto a pizza stone from the peel by sliding edge onto back of pizza stone and quickly jerking pizza backwards, leaving pizza on hot stone. If using parchment paper, slide it and the pizza onto the hot stone. Bake until bubbled and golden, 15 to 20 minutes. Turn a couple of times as the back of the oven is often the hottest part. Remove to a rack, brush with a little more oil and serve hot.

Pizza

2009-04-23T07:12:00.000-04:00

Everyone loves pizza, so let’s take a look at this popular dish with its many varieties, and see how we can make a high quality product at home. Pizza dough can be purchased from a local pizzeria to be cooked at home, or some stores sell pre-made pizzas that you finish in your oven at home. Frozen pizzas are ubiquitous, but I’ve never had one that could come close to a hand-crafted pizza cooked on a pizza stone in my own oven. We like to make our dough at home, and there are numerous recipes depending on whether you’re making a thin crispy crust or a thicker, chewier crust, or a deep dish crust, or a calzone, a form of folded pizza.

Pizza originated in Naples, Italy which is the epicenter of any pizza aficionado’s universe. In Naples, the making of pizza by specific traditional methods is codified into law, giving you an idea of how serious they take their pies. Consisting of a thin bread dough crust, pizza can have a large variety of toppings from the simplest to the most elaborate, as in today’s California pizzas, with their fresh vegetables and local fare, popularized by Wolfgang Puck. New York-style pizza is thin crusted, but flexible as New Yorker’s like to fold their pizzas when eating. Chicago has it’s deep-dish pizza, where the dough covers the bottom and sides of a deep spring-form pan, and a large number of ingredients like cheese, meats and the sauce, usually on top, fill the interior. Greek-style pizza has a thick crust and is cooked in a pizza pan usually with ingredients like feta cheese, Kalamata olives, and spinach.

Pizzas can be cooked on a pizza pan or directly on a stone, which has been preheated to a high temperature. Some of the best pizzas are cooked in a wood or, even better, coal-fired oven. When I was in New York, I frequented Lombardi’s in lower Manhattan and Grimaldi’s under the Brooklyn Bridge where they have coal-fired ovens. The pizzas would come to the table smoking, with little areas of the crisp crust scorched by the heat of the oven, which is heated to about 900 degrees.

We like to use high gluten flour, marketed as “bread flour,” for our pizza doughs. In addition, we prefer a more highly hydrated dough as this adds to the dough’s extensibility, which is its ability to stretch. More water means an open, bubbly structure to the dough, and a wet dough will result in a highly caramelized crust, making it more flavorful. However, a dough with more than 60% hydration gets difficult to handle, so if we’re making an 85% hydrated dough, we have to use a stand mixer for the flour to absorb all that water.

Pizza toppings are limited only by your imagination. Traditional toppings include tomatoes, either in sauce or whole slices, mozzarella cheese because it melts so beautifully, Italian meats like pepperoni, salami, sausage or ham, grated cheeses like Parmesan or Romano, vegetables like spinach, peppers, onions, mushrooms and, of course, garlic. Fish and shellfish make appearances on pizzas including shrimp, clams and anchovies. Some people put nuts on their pizzas like cashews, pine nuts or pistachios, and herbs like basil, oregano or marjoram. We sometimes add fresh arugula on top of our pizzas after they are cooked, making them a one dish meal with the salad on top.

Basic Pizza Dough

1 Cup warm water (110 to 115 degrees)
1 Package active dry yeast
3 to 3 ½ Cups All Purpose, unbleached, white flour
½ Tsp salt

Put the water in a medium sized mixing bowl and sprinkle the yeast on top. Stir gently and allow the yeast to dissolve and turn the water to a light beige color. Let stand 5 minutes.

Add the flour in 1 cup batches to the water/yeast mixture. Combine just until it forms a rough dough. Cover the mixture with a damp side towel and allow to stand 25 minutes. Stir in the salt and turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead for 5 to 10 minutes until the dough is elastic and satiny. If you break off a small piece, see if you can stretch the dough out in what is known as a “baker’s window.” You should be able to stretch the dough to the point you can just see through it without it tearing. If it tears, knead a few more minutes.

Lightly oil a bowl or other suitable contained with olive oil. Turn the kneaded dough over so all sides are lightly coated with oil, cover and set aside to rise in a warm place (70 to 75 degrees) until at least double or more in bulk, I like triple.

Gently deflate the dough by turning its edges back over itself. Don’t over handle it. Quickly cut the dough into 6 to 7 oz balls, each ball will become a pizza. You can refrigerate or freeze them, tightly wrapped in plastic wrap, at this point. You can also let them proof further, but don’t let them over rise.

If you refrigerate the dough it will continue to ferment until ready to be used. Remove the dough from the refrigerator, knead it gently to deflate, and preheat your oven. Allow at least 30 minutes for the dough to return to room temperature, then form, top and bake at 450 degrees until done.

Black Pepper-Lard Pizza Dough

1 Cup warm water (110-115 degrees)
1 Package dry active yeast
3 to 3 ½ Cups All Purpose flour
½ Tsp salt
½ Tsp coarsely ground black pepper
2 oz (2 heaping tablespoons) naturally rendered pork lard

Pour water into a medium sized bowl and sprinkle the yeast on top. Gently stir to dissolve the yeast and allow to stand 5 minutes.

Add the flour to the water-yeast mixture to form a rough dough. Cover with a damp side towel and allow to stand for 25 minutes. Add the salt, pepper and lard and mix thoroughly. The dough should be soft and sticky, but come away from the side of the bowl.

Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and proceed to knead from 5 to 10 minutes, adding small amounts of flour as needed. The dough will become elastic and smooth. When properly kneaded, it will spring back when pressed down.

Place dough is an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise in a warm place until risen between double and triple its original volume. At this point, you can cut the dough into 6 to 7 oz balls and form them into pizzas, or you can refrigerate the dough for use later.

This will produce a excellent all purpose pizza dough. It is thick and chewy. If you want it thicker, allow to proof for 30 minutes once you’ve lined a pizza pan, but top it just before baking.

Leeks

2009-04-19T07:37:00.000-04:00

If you are not familiar with those large green and white scallion-like vegetables known as leeks, you are in for a treat if you’ll give them a try. A member of the Alliaceae family along with onions, scallions and garlic, their Latin name is allium ampeloprasum. The plant is composed of a large cylinder of bundled leaf sheaths that are blanched white by hilling dirt up around the plants as they grow. For this reason, leeks often contain sand or grit and need to be washed thoroughly. The plants are very hardy and can be harvested from mid-summer right up to a hard freeze, so they can be found at local farmers’ markets during the summer and fall months. Ramps are wild leeks that grow from the Carolinas north into New England and can be foraged for in the early spring.

Long a staple in French cooking, the leek was cultivated in the Middle East and pictures of leeks have been found in Egyptian tombs. In Rome, Nero was well known for his love of leeks, which he thought would help his singing voice. Romans probably introduced the leek to Britain where it became the special vegetable of Wales. Welshmen wore leeks on their helmets in battles with the Saxons to distinguish themselves from the enemy and the leek became the symbol of Wales and an integral part of their culture.

In culinary use, the whole plant is edible, but the root is cut off and the top of the creased green leaves can be coarse and taste more like cabbage than onion, so they are generally discarded or added to the stockpot. The white stem and pale green leaves have a mild sweet onion with hints of cucumber taste and a fresh smell. Smaller leeks are preferable over large, older leeks, which can have a solid, ligneous flower stem at their core, which is inedible and must be removed before using the rest of the plant.

Leeks can be eaten raw, sliced thin and added to salads, but more frequently they are cooked, as in leek and potato soup (Potage Parmentier), which becomes Vichyssoise when you add cream and serve it chilled, Cock-a-leekie soup, which includes chicken with leek, or braised leeks or leeks au gratin with ham. As the leek contains a lot of long-chain carbohydrates, they are slightly mucilaginous, making them particularly well suited to soups and stews as they add body to the broth.

When sauted in butter, the leeks’ leaves become crispy and the mild onion taste sweetens. When cooked in water, like in braised leeks, they become soft and their flavor is mild. You can also grill leeks, but you’ll want to par boil them first or they will burn before cooking all the way through.

I'm not posting a Potage Parmentier (leek & potato soup) recipe as they are easy to find in any good cookbook like Julie Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Here's an Italian recipe we enjoy on occassion at our house.

Spaghetti with Leek Sauce in Parchment
Serves 4

6 Leeks
6 Tbl Butter
1 Chicken bouillon cube
Salt & Pepper to taste
1 Cup Milk
8 oz. Fresh fillet of sole
3 Tbl Heavy cream
4 Tbl Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, grated
1 lb. Dried spaghetti (or 1 1/12 lb fresh)

Peel away any yellow or bruised layers of the leeks. Wash thoroughly. Cut the white part only into thin slices, discarding the green part. Place 4 tablespoons of butter into a large skillet, and saute the leeks over low heat until lightly browned. Crush the bouillon cube over the skillet and add the salt, pepper and milk; cook for 5 minutes over low heat.

In a separate skillet, cook the sole in the remaining butter over medium heat. When lightly brown, remove from the heat, and flake the fish into small slivers with a fork. Add the sole to the skillet with the leeks, add the cream and the cheese. Cook over low heat 3 minutes, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon.

Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti until al dente, drain and add to the leek mixture, tossing it well. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Using aluminum foil, make a package in which to place the spaghetti & leek mixture. Seal thoroughly and cook in the oven for 10 minutes.

Serve hot.

Braised Leeks with Parmesan Cheese
Serves 4

4 large or 6 medium leeks
3 Tablespoons Butter
Salt to taste
3 Tablespoons freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Pull away and yellow or withered leaves from the leeks. Cut away the roots from the bulbous end, but do not cut off the green tops. Cut each leek in half lengthwise and wash them thoroughly under cold running water, spreading them with your hands to be sure all the grit is washed away.

Put the leeks in a pan just broad enough and long enough so they can lie flat and straight. Add the butter, salt and enough water to just cover them. Put on a cover and turn the heat to medium-low. Cook gently until the thickest past of the leek feels tender when prodded with a fork, about 15 to 25 minutes depending on how large they are. Turn them from time to time while they are cooking.

When done, uncover the pan and turn the heat to high to cook off any remaining liquid. In the process, the leeks will become lightly brown. Just before turning off the heat, add the grated cheese, turning the leeks over in the butter-cheese mixture so they are thoroughly coated. Transfer to a warm platter and serve at once.

Easter Ham

2009-04-11T07:56:00.000-04:00

Sunday will be Easter and many of us will be cooking a ham for the Easter dinner table. I bought a maple-cured ham from Hogwash Farm (www.hogwashfarm.com) where their heritage breed Tamworth pigs thrive on pasture and organic grains without antibiotics or hormones. Unless you buy a ham direct from a farmer, you are more apt to have a factory-farmed pig as this is what’s available in the supermarket, for the most part.

A ham, if not labeled “fresh,” is the cured and sometimes smoked rear leg of the pig. The curing process may be one where the pig leg is rubbed with salt and/or salt, sugar and other ingredients and left for a period of time to allow the moisture to be leached out while the salt cure penetrates the ham muscle, after which the ham is hung to dry for a period of time ranging from a few months to a year or more. These are dry-cured hams typified by Kentucky or Smithfield hams in this country, and Proscuitto di Parma in Italy and Jamon Serrano in Spain. They are usually eaten raw in thin slices sometimes with fruit like melon or figs.

Alternatively, the ham is immersed in a brine composed of water with salt, sugar and other flavoring agents, or more commonly, the brine is injected into the ham muscle. These hams are usually smoked over a flavorful wood such as hickory, apple or corn-cobs. Some hams have been injected with “liquid smoke” to provide a smoky flavor, so buyer beware. The smoking adds flavor to the ham, but is no longer used as a preservation method as in the past.

Supermarket hams come in a variety of choices, so read the label carefully. The USDA rules permit the use of the term “ham” to mean the hind leg of a pig containing no less than 20.5% protein and no added water. A “ham with natural juices” contains no less than 18.5% protein, while a “ham with water added” is at least 17% protein with no more than 10% water added. Lastly there is a “ham and water” product, which can contain any amount of water, but the label must specify the amount. Then there are tinned hams, usually pieces of ham that are “sectioned and formed,” and cooked in the tin. These hams are usually shelf stable without refrigeration for a year or more.

Commonly today you will find “spiral cut” hams where the ham has been pre-sliced around the shank bone for ease of serving. These hams run the danger of drying out while cooking, so cover closely in aluminum foil to prevent disappointment.

Hams that are “fully cooked” can be eaten without reheating, but most benefit from being placed in a slow oven until they reach between 130-140 degrees. Uncooked hams should reach 160 degrees before serving.

Americans like to glaze their hams, where the exterior is cut into cross hatched diamonds, studded with cloves, and rubbed with the family’s secret glaze, usually mustard, honey or maple sugar and perhaps some fruit juice like pineapple, or some bourbon. While we tend to bake our hams, braising them is an excellent preparation method.

Maple Braised Ham

1 (7- to 8-lb) fully cooked bone-in shank-end ham
6 cups water
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1 cup granulated maple sugar or brown sugar
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1/4 cup apple juice or pineapple juice
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves (or 10 cloves stuck into ham)
2 cups raisins (10 oz)

Put ham cut side down in a large deep heavy pot (about 10 quarts) and add water and syrup.

Bring liquid to a boil, then reduce heat to low and gently simmer ham, covered, until tender, 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Uncover and cool slightly.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

When ham is cool enough to handle, remove from pot, reserving cooking liquid, then cut off any rind and excess fat, leaving a thin layer. Transfer ham to a roasting pan.

Whisk together sugar, mustard, apple juice, and ground cloves, if using, in a bowl, then spoon over ham. Add raisins and 1 cup reserved cooking liquid to roasting pan and bake in middle of oven, basting occasionally, until ham is glazed and juices are bubbling, 30 to 40 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Mollusks

2009-04-05T19:35:00.000-04:00

Continuing with our look at seafood, mollusks include not only clams, mussels, oysters, and scallops, but also squid, octopus, abalone and snails. Here in New England we are mostly acquainted with the bivalves, which populate our seacoasts, but there are over 100,000 species of mollusks around the world.

Clams, mussels, oysters and scallops all have a two part shell lined with mother-of-pearl, which varies in color according to the algae that lives in the waters from whence they were harvested. A large adductor muscle, which is always edible, controls the opening and closing of the shell, This muscle comprises the portion of the mollusk that we consume, and it is detached from the shell when the mollusk is eaten raw, and attached to the shell when cooked. The scallop also has a coral, which is thrown away in this country, but used elsewhere to flavor the sauce that accompanies the shellfish.

Mollusks in general are lean and low in cholesterol with high protein content, abundant mineral salts and great taste and texture if handled properly. As shellfish use amino acids to counteract salt concentration, the saltier the waters they come from the more savory the shellfish. They have a mouth filling quality while being both slick and tender when consumed raw, but they are chewy when cooked.

Most shellfish should be eaten in the colder months of the year, with November to April being the ideal months. The old saying is oysters are only eaten in a month with an “r” in it, and this is primarily due to their breeding during the summer months. While today they fly oysters in from all over the world and oystermen don’t harvest from breeding beds, it’s best to follow the old rule if only because you’ll be eating a local oyster, and local is best.

Mussels are mostly farmed in gravel filled mesh bags and can be safely eaten, if acquired from reliable sources, year round as can clams and sea scallops, also. The best scallops are “diver” dry scallops, which are hand picked by deep sea divers, and have never been immersed in a solution of polyphosphates which the adductor muscle absorbs, becoming plump and glossy white. Sea scallops usually come in on boats that are out fishing for days or weeks, so they are less desirable as these scallops have been treated in solution. “Bay” scallops, of which the Nantucket bay scallop is one of the most prized, are small scallops hand dredged from harbor floors during the winter months, and are delicious eaten raw right out of the shell or freshly shucked. Any I buy around here, I always cook.

All clams, mussels or oysters should have a hard outer shell, and have been stored on ice, but not in water. They should be alive as evidenced by their shell snapping shut when they are rapped with a knife. Any that don’t close should be discarded. Clams, both hard shell and soft shell, can be soaked in salted cold water for a couple of hours with some corn meal mixed in to purge any sand or ingested foods before being prepared to eat. Hard shell clams include large chowder clams called quahogs, medium sized cherrystones and the smaller little necks, both delicious raw on the half shell with a drop of lemon. Soft shell clams, with their characteristic siphon protruding, are traditionally steamed and served with a mug of the broth for dipping, and a container of melted butter. Clams, mussels and oysters…I love them all!

Pasta with Clams
Serves 4

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
3/4 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/3 cup dry white wine
1/3 cup bottled clam juice
1 lb linguine
2 lb little neck clams, scrubbed well
2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/3 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Accompaniments: extra-virgin olive oil for drizzling; dried hot red pepper flakes

preparation

Heat oil in a 5- to 6-quart heavy pot over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then sauté onion, stirring, until golden, about 4 minutes. Add garlic, red pepper flakes, and oregano and cook, stirring occasionally, until garlic is golden, about 2 minutes. Stir in wine and clam juice and boil, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until slightly reduced, about 3 minutes.

Cook pasta in a 6- to 8-quart pot ofboiling salted water until al dente, then drain in a colander.

While pasta is cooking, stir little necks into sauce and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, until little necks open wide, 4 to 6 minutes. (Discard any little necks that have not opened after 6 minutes.) Remove from heat and stir in butter until melted.

Add pasta to little necks along with parsley and salt to taste, then toss with sauce until combined well.

Crustaceans

2009-03-22T16:05:00.000-04:00

Today we’ll look at the subphylum of crustaceans, which include such familiar creatures as shrimp, crabs, lobsters, and crawfish, but also such important critters as krill and barnacles. Now we don’t eat barnacles, those hard little filter feeding crustaceans that attach themselves to the bottom of boats and piers in tidal basins, but some varieties in Spain and Portugal known as percebes are an expensive delicacy. Krill are also unfamiliar to us, but these tiny shrimp-like creatures are one of the most important mainstays of the oceanic food chain, feasting on phytoplankton and other micro-organisms, converting these into suitable food for larger fish and mammals, like whales, for whom they comprise the majority of their diet.

Crustaceans, like spiders and insects, are anthropods, an invertebrate made up of segments with jointed limbs and an external skeleton. As a rule, crustaceans are not overly mobile, and their rigid appendages and large meaty tails allow for brief bursts of swimming short distances, crawling and attacking prey. Being both carnivorous and cannibalistic, farming these creatures, with the exception of shrimp, has not proven successful, so almost all are caught in the wild. Shrimp and prawns, however, as they grow rapidly and thrive on both plant feeds and small animals, lend themselves successfully to farming, with China and Thailand being the largest producers in the modern world. Almost all shrimp are frozen and come with the head off, but locally one can get head-on fresh shrimp from Maine on occasion, and if you see them, check them out as they are delicious.

Most edible crustaceans are decapods, with five pairs of legs, at least one of which is enlarged into claw(s), and the edible portion is skeletal meat like in fish and livestock. The cephalothorax is the forward portion, or “head,” and includes not only the mouth, eyes, and sensing antennae, but also the crawling appendages, and the main organs of the digestive, circulatory, respiratory and reproduction systems. The rear portion, or abdomen, known as the “tail,” is a large meaty block of muscle used primarily for propulsion. The main exception to this general body style is the crab, whose abdomen is a thin plate folded up underneath a greatly enlarged cephalothorax.

In lobsters and crabs the hepatopancreas, what we would call the “liver,” is the source of enzymes that assist with digesting food, and a reservoir for fatty materials that are stored to provide energy during the molting process, when the crustacean sheds its hard outer shell so it can continue growing. This “tamale” is very rich and flavorful, but is also a source for rapid spoilage if the crustacean is sold dead, but not cooked. For this reason, lobsters and crabs are available either alive or fully cooked, and shrimp, whose head includes their small liver, come mostly headless.

The flesh of most crustaceans is white, fast muscle fibers with more collagen that fish. They are usually boiled or steamed as these are the fastest cooking methods, preventing the active protein-breaking enzymes from turning the flesh mushy. They should be cooked in their shells as the cuticle prevents the leaching of flavor, and is in itself a mass of proteins, sugars and pigment molecules that can contribute flavor to the outer layers of the flesh.

Crustaceans are expensive and usually only served for special occasions. Rightly so as they also have high amount of cholesterol, so intake should be limited to once-in-a-while treats.

Here's a lobster thermidor recipe that is popular at our house.

Lobster Thermidor
Serves 4

2 (1 1/2-lb) live lobsters
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter
1/4 lb mushrooms, trimmed and thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons medium-dry Sherry
1 cup heavy cream, scalded
2 large egg yolks

Plunge lobsters headfirst into an 8-quart pot of boiling salted water*. Loosely cover pot and cook lobsters over moderately high heat 9 minutes from time they enter water, then transfer with tongs to sink to cool.

When lobsters are cool enough to handle, twist off claws and crack them, then remove meat. Halve lobsters lengthwise with kitchen shears, beginning from tail end, then remove tail meat, reserving shells. Cut all lobster meat into 1/4-inch pieces. Discard any remaining lobster innards, then rinse and dry shells.

Heat butter in a 2-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat until foam subsides, then cook mushrooms, stirring, until liquid that mushrooms give off is evaporated and they begin to brown, about 5 minutes. Add lobster meat, paprika, salt, and pepper and reduce heat to low. Cook, shaking pan gently, 1 minute. Add 1 tablespoon Sherry and 1/2 cup hot cream and simmer 5 minutes.

Whisk together yolks and remaining tablespoon Sherry in a small bowl. Slowly pour remaining 1/2 cup hot cream into yolks, whisking constantly, and transfer to a small heavy saucepan. Cook custard over very low heat, whisking constantly, until it is slightly thickened and registers 160°F on an instant-read thermometer. Add custard to lobster mixture, stirring gently.

Preheat broiler.

Arrange lobster shells, cut sides up, in a shallow baking pan and spoon lobster with some of sauce into shells. Broil lobsters 6 inches from heat until golden brown, 4 to 5 minutes. Serve remaining sauce on the side.

* When salting water for cooking, use 1 tablespoon salt for every 4 quarts water.

Fish #2

2009-03-15T08:56:00.000-04:00

It has become generally known that fish is good for you. It has long been referred to as “brain food” as eating fish regularly contributes to the development and function of the brain and retina, to say nothing of the benefits of Omega-3 fatty acids that help with the health of our central nervous system. Fish oils have anti-inflammatory properties that benefit our immune system, and lower the incidents of heart disease and cancer. Fish are a good source of protein, usually between 15% and 25%, A and B vitamins, minerals, amino acids, iodine and calcium. Fish contain phosphorous, potassium and iron. Ocean fish are particularly valuable, as they reside in very cold temperatures and consume tiny oceanic phytoplankton, from which their Omega-3 fatty acids are derived. Freshwater fish do not has access to phytoplankton, thus they have negligible amounts of Omega-3s. However as all fish are low in saturated fats, whenever fish replaces meat in the diet, they lower blood cholesterol and the risk for heart disease. Some of us eat fish roe like shad roe or caviar, and it contains thiamine and riboflavin. A caution, however, as not all fish roes, are edible and if the wrong kind is consumed, like roe from the sculpin family of fish, it can make you very sick.

As mentioned last week, the key to good fish is how it has been harvested, and handled after harvest before it reaches your fishmonger’s. Oceanic fish, due to the really cold water it lives in, must be packed in ice or frozen, immediately after harvest. As these deep-water fish live in such a cold environment, their fats and cell membranes must remain fluid and operational at temperatures approaching 32 degrees. Failure to maintain an icy environment will result in these fats and oils becoming rancid, stale smelling, and the flesh to deteriorate. Just keeping your fish in the refrigerator is not cold enough to maintain fish freshness, so plan on cooking it the same day you purchase it.

Remember, every pollutant on our planet has a tendency to leach through the ground, run off the land, and find its way into our rivers and oceans. These pollutants end up in our fish as evident by the widespread contamination of certain species with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), mercury, lead and other heavy metals, carbon containing pollutants, and toxins. Some species of fish contain so much mercury that the FDA recommends that children and pregnant mothers avoid swordfish, shark, tilefish and king mackerel, or limit their consumption to 12 oz or less a week. Even tuna, one of the most popular fish in the US, is best if eaten on a limited basis. Fish that don’t accumulate mercury and other poisons are small, shorter lived fish like Pacific salmon and soles, talapia, catfish, mackerel, trout and stripped bass, many of which are raised on fish farms where the water is filtered.

Next week we’ll learn more about mollusks, cephalopods and crustaceans, some of my personal favorites.

Fish #1

2009-03-05T22:29:00.000-05:00

Fish are aquatic vertebrates with fins, used for propulsion and
balance, and gills for breathing. They are an important source of
human food, whether derived from salt water or fresh. The
number and variety of saltwater fish greatly exceed the fresh water
varieties, with over 30,000 oceanic species identified.

Generally speaking, fish are divided into two broad groups,
according to their skeletons: cartilaginous fish like sharks, rays and
skate or bony fish, the largest group, characterized by salmon, cod
and bass. Various body shapes also exist with the round fish,
considered the most flavorsome, and the flat fish, a more mild or
delicate flavor, being the predominate varieties. Mollusks,
crustaceans and cephalopods are considered fish in the broader
sense, but these clams, lobsters and squid or octopus are outside of
today’s discussion, much as I love them as food.

All fish should be purchased, if not caught directly by the eater,
from reliable sources where inventory turnover is rapid. Fish are
highly perishable and, if not frozen, should be stored on flaked ice
if not eaten immediately. Fresh fish, whether steaks or fillets,
should be firm to the touch with no “fishy” smell. If purchasing a
whole fish, the gills should be red with no browning or
discoloration, the skin taunt and springy and the eyes bright and
shining. If any of these conditions do not exist, reject that fish and
find something else for supper.

Fish are harvested wild by fishermen on the ocean or farmed from
a controlled environment where they are fed protein pellets. As a
rule, wild fish are more desirable than farmed, but the real key to
good fish is how it was harvested, how soon it was processed, and
how carefully it was handled after leaving the boat. Many large
trawlers freeze their catches within hours of being caught, so often
frozen fish can be of better quality than fresh. I have read that
most sushi-grade fish, over 90%, are frozen right after being
caught.

Fish lends itself to a large number of cooking methods from
broiling or grilling, to steaming, poaching, baking, pan frying or
deep-frying, and smoking. Whichever method is chosen, the
challenge for the cook is to get the texture of the cooked fish right.
The cooking process transforms the muscle proteins, and one must
control the coagulation process so it doesn’t proceed too far,
resulting in the muscle fibers becoming too hard and the natural
juices drying up completely. A good rule of thumb on fish is to
cook it to between 120 degrees and 140 degrees when measured
with an instant read thermometer, where the fish is still moist and
succulent. Many recipes call for cooking fish until it “flakes,” but
to my taste that’s just a little too much. An old rule, if you don’t
have a thermometer, is to cook it for 8 minutes to each 1 inch of
the fish’s thickness, but one can also make a small incision in the
fish to see if it’s interior is still translucent or has turned opaque, or
try pulling on a bone to see if the connective tissue has dissolved
enough to release it.

Here's a simple but delicious way to cook stripped bass, salmon, halibut or any firm fleshed fish with skin on.

Sauted Wild Stripped Bass With Crispy Skin

4 stripped bass fillets with skin (5-6 oz each), scaled
Salt & pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
1 non-stick saute pan

Take the fish out of the refrigerator about 10 to 15 minutes before using. Pat the skin dry with a paper towel and season the fish on both sides with salt and pepper. Heat a the saute pan coated generously with extra virgin olive oil over medium heat until the oil is hot. Gently place the fish fillets skin side down in the saute pan. Cook the fish slowly one the skin side for most of the cooking time. As fish cooks it turns from translucent to opaque as can be seem on it's sides. The idea is to cook the fish 2/3s of the way on the skin side and flip it over for the last 1/3 of the cooking time. The rule for fish is about 8 to 10 minutes per inch of thickness, a little less if you like your fish more on the rare side.

The Sandwich

2009-02-22T11:16:00.000-05:00

The sandwich is usually considered lunchtime fare. Two slices of bread enclosing some meat and vegetables with some condiments like mayonnaise or mustard and away you go. It’s quick, it’s easy and it provides mid-day sustenance that carries us until the dinner hour, and there is little clean up.

The sandwich, however, is much more than just a quick repast consumed on the fly. It’s name is derived from the 4th Earl of Sandwich who reportedly ordered cold meat between two slices of bread so he could sup without leaving the card table or getting his cards greasy. Despite the origin of its name, the sandwich existed long before the English aristocrat’s birth and far from England. In the middle ages, a slab of stale bread known as a “trencher” upon which food was placed was consumed by the diner as part of the meal, and was an early form of the open faced sandwich. Sandwiches were initially associated with men engaged in gaming or drinking, but in time they became part of polite society’s evening meal. In the US, as bread became a staple of the American diet, the sandwich became a quick, portable meal usually associated with lunch.

Every society has their own sandwiches. When I was in Brooklyn, I used to frequent a Vietnamese shop, which sold bahn mi sandwiches. A crusty baguette was filled with a pork pate, pickled onions, carrots and cucumber with your choice of roast or grilled pork, meatballs or chicken, a lot of cilantro and chili peppers. Absolutely delicious, and well worth the 10 block walk to the store.

In the Italian sections of town, panini were sandwiches filled with cold cuts like salami, prosciutto, sopressata, and cheese and toasted on a double-sided press. This sandwich is similar to the French croque-monsieurc, a form of grilled ham and cheese. Taken a step further, the French dipped the sandwich is batter and deep-fried it to produce the Monte Cristo. In the Latino sections of the city, one finds the “Cuban pressed sandwich,” another form of ham and cheese made on Cuban bread, a form of baguette made with lard. It includes mustard, Swiss cheese and pickles and is toasted.

In New Orleans they make the muffuletta, a unique cheese and Italian cold cut sandwich characterized by the inclusion of olive salad, a mixture of olives, celery, cauliflower and carrots on special round bread made specifically for this sandwich. Philadelphia is famous for it’s “steak and cheese” sandwiches served on a submarine roll, also known as a sub, a grinder, a hero, a hoagie, a po’ boy, and other names.

Ubiquitous sandwiches we encounter everywhere include the “BLT” which has bacon, lettuce and tomato, the “Club” sandwich made with at least 3 pieces of toasted bread with turkey, ham, bacon and other meats with lettuce, tomato, mayo and mustard, the “PB&J” and “Fluffernutter,” both made with peanut butter and jelly or marshmallow fluff. For big eaters there is the “Dagwood,” characterized more by its size than any specific ingredient and the “Manwich” where the size of the meat, usually beef, is larger than the bread surrounding it. Both the hot dog and hamburger are forms of sandwiches, and there are many, many more.

Here's a great sandwich known as "The Bookie Sandwich" that is ideal for a picnic lunch or a day of ice fishing.

The Bookie Sandwich

1 baguette or Italian loaf of bread
2 6 oz. New York strip steaks
Salt & pepper, to taste

Cut the end of the loaf of bread, and scoop out most of the crumb right to the other end. Leave the crust and outer crumb, and set aside.

Preheat your broiler or light a fire in your grill. Season the strip steaks with salt and pepper, and broil or grill until medium rare, about 125 to 130 degrees. Set the steaks aside to rest for no less than 10 minutes, and 15 minutes or more is even better.

When the steaks are rested, slice against the grain into 1/4 to 3/8 inch, or so, slices. The juices should not run out of the meat if it has been rested properly. Place a large piece of aluminum foil or coated freezer paper on your work surface and put your baguette on top. You can salt and pepper the slices of steak before pushing them inside the hollowed out baguette. Fill the baguette with as much steak as it will hold, replace the cut off end, and wrap tightly with the aluminum foil or paper. Place wrapped sandwich under a heavy weight like a cast iron skillet with some canned goods on top for at least an hour and somewhat longer is better. This weighting allows any steak juices to be absorbed into the bread's crumb and crust, developing a flavorsome combination. Slice the baguette into pieces before serving.

According to legend, bookies would purchase a steak sandwich and put it in their back pocket before the horse races. They would sit on the sandwich until the last race, and then consume their repast, hence the name.

Winter Turnips

2009-02-12T07:42:00.000-05:00

I went to the winter farmer’s market in Norwich this past weekend, ostensibly to purchase a whole, untrimmed, beef tenderloin from Ray William’s of Back Beyond Farm (www.backbeyondfarm.com) . I was pleased to find some baby chickens under 3 lbs. each which I got from Nancy LaRowe of Hogwash Farm (www.hogwashfarm.com). For winter vegetables, I found some lovely purple-topped turnips, baby beets and multi-colored fingerling potatoes from Your Farm (www.yourfarmonline.com) in Fairlee.

Now turnips, a root vegetable, are under consumed in many households, probably due to their sulfury taste, which predominates in the “winter” turnip. Summer turnips, which come with their greens attached, are milder in flavor and can be eaten raw, grated or lightly simmered or sauted. Look for these all white turnips in the spring when they are sweet and flavorful and go well in salads with a drop of lemon.

The purple-topped winter turnip, Brassica rapa, has been around for 4,000 years or more, coming from Eurasia. The rutabaga is a large turnip that is a cross between a turnip and a cabbage. Brassica napobrassica is also known as swede, yellow turnip, and “waxed turnip” as it is sometimes sold with a wax covering to preserve its freshness. Rutabagas can be roasted or served raw cut into fine julienne in a salad. It is frequently combined with cooked potato and/or carrots into a mash to accompany a roast.

The turnip is wonderful when it absorbs butter or meat fat, and is particularly delicious when finished in a stew or braised dish, or in the bottom of a roasting pan with the meat juices from the accompanying roast. Most cooks suggest peeling the turnip just before cooking to prevent discoloration of the flesh through oxidation, but I like to leave the skin on in some applications, unless I am using a rutabaga, which I always peel.

The turnip is rich in Vitamin C, however the greens have lots of Vitamin A, C & K as well as folate and calcium, so cook them when available and enjoy their slightly mustard flavor.

In most instances with the purple-topped turnip, the bulbous taproot is blanched in salted water to remove some of its stronger flavor before being braised in butter or meat fat, or baked into a gratin, which is a common side dish to pork, sausages, ham, goose or duck. We like to quarter unpeeled turnips and include them with other winter vegetables like potato, parsnip, peeled winter squash, carrots, beets and the like to roast with olive oil, salt and pepper in a hot oven until tender.

One note of caution: turnips that are cooked too long become mushy and an overcooked cabbage flavor develops, contributing to their lack of popularity amongst many eaters. So treat your turnips right and you will find them sweet and flavorful, and they bring an inexpensive side dish to your supper table.

Winter Turnips Braised in Butter

1 lb. purple top turnips, peeled and quartered
3 tablespoons of butter
3/4 to 1 cup chicken stock or water
salt and pepper to taste
lemon juice
fresh parsley, minced

Cover the quartered turnips with cold water, bring to the boil and simmer 3 to 5 minutes, or until they are partially tender. Drain in a colander.

Place blanched turnips in a saucepan with 2 tablespoons of the butter. Add the chicken stock to just cover. Season lightly, cover and boil slowly until they are tender, 20 minutes or so. If the liquid has not cooked off, uncover the cook it off.

Just before serving, toss the hot turnips with the rest of the butter, a few drops of lemon juice, the parsley and salt and pepper to taste.

Gratin of Turnip

2 lbs. purple topped turnips
2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
Salt & pepper, to taste
Nutmeg, fresh grated, to taste...pinch
4 oz Gruyere cheese, grated
3 oz Parmesan cheese, grated
3 oz bread crumbs, fresh
5 tbl butter

Peel the turnips and slice 1/8" thick using a mandoline. Put the milk into a skillet, add the sliced potatoes and bring the milk to the boil. Simmer the potatoes 3 or 4 minutes to parcook. Add the cream, bring back to the simmer, remove from the heat and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Butter a gratin dish and layer the potatoes slightly overlapping. Sprinkle each layer with a bit of each of the cheeses. Make 3 or 4 layers, pouring any left over liquid all around before finishing the top with the last of the cheese. Spread the fresh breadcrumbs over the top, dot with the butter and bake in a 325 degree oven, lightly covered with aluminum foil, until cooked through, 30 minutes to 45 minutes. Remove the cover, the turnips should have absorbed all the liquid. Turn oven up to 400 degrees and cook until breadcrumbs are toasty golden and a slight crust has formed.

Remove from oven and let rest at least 15 minutes, uncovered, before slicing.

Italian Food

2009-02-07T14:58:00.000-05:00

When I first became seriously interested in food I was a devotee of Julia Child and French cuisine. She introduced fine cooking in the French style in her first book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. That tome is as fresh and exciting to read and cook out of today as it was trendsetting when it was introduced in 1961. Every serious cook should have a copy of at least Volume 1 on their bookshelf.

However, over the years I tended to cook more in the Italian style than French, and I think purchasing my first pasta machine was the catalyst for my conversion. That was in the early 1970s when we were living on a small homestead indulging in a diversified agricultural experience raising everything from goats, chickens, ducks, sheep, pigs and a cow to fruits and vegetables of all kinds. We made our own cheese, churned butter, raised veal and pigs for slaughter, put down barrels of cider and cured bacons and hams. We wanted to make everything from scratch, so we scrapped up $35 and bought a pasta rolling machine. (Today I want to roll out the dough by hand, but that’s another article).

The Italian cookbook that inspired me was Marcella Hazan’s The Classic Italian Cookbook published in 1973. She emphasized local, seasonal ingredients and simple recipe construction that matched the Italian approach to meals of a primo, or first course such as pasta or risotto, followed by a secondo, or second course, usually the protein course consisting of meat, poultry or fish, with a contorno, or side dish like a cooked vegetable or salad.

While I followed Marcella’s recipes and loved the food, it was only while visiting Italy that I realized what Italian cuisine is all about. In Italy the past is a part of the present. They have a long culture stretching back for centuries, and for much of those years Italy was a series of towns and valleys that developed regional traditions and recipes based on what was locally available. In their food, their art, their way of life, they honor past traditions while carrying forward recipes and food preparation techniques that are rooted to the land and the sea. Everywhere one travels in Italy, small gardens and backyard food raising operations are common. Game is still a source of local recipes and local fish proliferate, both fresh and salt water, depending on the region. Many people forage for wild vegetables and mushrooms, and all the good truffle grounds are long ago spoken for.

One goes to the market every day, not a supermarket, but to the bread store, the fruits and vegetable store, the butcher’s or fishmonger’s or pasta maker’s store. One purchases items that are “nostrano” which literally means “local,” but is derived from “nostro” or “ours.” I always shopped as early as possible, as Italians are looking for the best of whatever is offered, so the earlier one arrives, the better chance of finding something truly unique.

Pride in local products is central to the Italian experience, so if you get a chance to visit there, do so, and enjoy the different pace of life as well as the truly delicious food that literally is everywhere.

There are lots of recipes for Sauce Bol0gnese, but here's one I've been using lately, an adaptation of a recipe by Anne Burrell, with whom I cooked in New York city.

Sauce Bolognese

* 1 large onion or 2 small, cut into 1-inch dice
* 2 large carrots, cut into 1/2-inch dice
* 3 ribs celery, cut into 1-inch dice
* 4 cloves garlic
* Extra-virgin olive oil, for the pan
* Kosher salt
* 3 pounds ground chuck, brisket or round or combination
* 2 cups tomato paste
* 3 cups hearty red wine
* Water
* 2 cups milk
* 1 cup heavy cream
* 3 bay leaves
* 1 bunch thyme, tied in a bundle
* 1 pound spaghetti
* 1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
* High quality extra-virgin olive oil, for finishing

In a food processor, puree onion, carrots, celery, and garlic into a coarse paste. In a large pan over medium heat, coat pan with oil. Add the pureed veggies and season generously with salt. Bring the pan to a medium-high heat and cook until all the water has evaporated and they become nice and brown, stirring frequently, about 15 to 20 minutes. Be patient, this is where the big flavors develop.

Add the ground beef and season again generously with salt. BROWN THE BEEF! Brown food tastes good. Don't rush this step. Cook another 15 to 20 minutes.

Add the tomato paste and cook until brown about 4 to 5 minutes. Add the red wine. Cook until the wine has reduced by half, another 4 to 5 minutes.

Add water to the pan until the water is about 1 inch above the meat. Toss in the bay leaves and the bundle of thyme and stir to combine everything. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer, stirring occasionally. As the water evaporates you will gradually need to add more, about 2 to 3 cups at a time. Don't be shy about adding water during the cooking process, you can always cook it out. This is a game of reduce and add more water. This is where big rich flavors develop. If you try to add all the water in the beginning you will have boiled meat sauce rather than a rich, thick meaty sauce. Stir and TASTE frequently. Season with salt, if needed (you probably will). Simmer for 3 1/2 to 4 hours. About 1 1/2 hours before the end, add the milk in place of the water. The last 30 minutes add the cream.

During the last 30 minutes of cooking, bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat to cook the spaghetti. Pasta water should ALWAYS be well salted. Salty as the ocean! TASTE IT! If your pasta water is under seasoned it doesn't matter how good your sauce is, your complete dish will always taste under seasoned. When the water is at a rolling boil add the spaghetti and cook for 1 minute less than it calls for on the package. Reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta cooking water.

While the pasta is cooking remove 1/2 of the ragu from the pot and reserve.

Drain the pasta and add to the pot with the remaining ragu. Stir or toss the pasta to coat with the sauce. Add some of the reserved sauce, if needed, to make it about an even ratio between pasta and sauce. Add the reserved pasta cooking water and cook the pasta and sauce together over a medium heat until the water has reduced. Turn off the heat and give a big sprinkle of Parmigiano and a generous drizzle of the high quality finishing olive oil. Toss or stir vigorously. Divide the pasta and sauce into serving bowls or 1 big pasta bowl. Top with remaining grated Parmigiano. Serve immediately.

A summer classic is basil pesto. While I made some pesto with store bought basil, because it does give us a hint of spring when we eat it, I believe that the summer basil that we grow in our garden, coupled with our own garlic, makes a better sauce. The recipe is the same for winter or summer basil.

Pesto

3 cups fresh basil (2 to 2.5 oz)
2 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons pine nuts (or walnuts)
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, grated
2-3 tablespoons Percorino Romano cheese, grated

Place the basil, garlic, pine nuts and salt in a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Puree the basil and other ingredients and slowly drizzle in the olive oil until a slurry develops. Remove the slurry to a boil and stir in the cheeses to thicken the sauce. If not using right away, place in a small bowl and cover completely with olive oil so the pesto retains in bright green color. Otherwise it will turn black on the top. When ready to use, stir in the oil and spoon over pasta, use on a sandwich or whatever.

Winter Salads

2009-02-01T11:42:00.000-05:00

I know it’s the middle of the winter and having a salad with supper poses a problem for guys like me who want to keep their dietary intake to local foods. However, in an attempt to control our weight and eat healthy during this season when we tend to be less active outside, we eat more green salads and less starches like potato or pasta with whatever protein we are having.

High quality supermarkets like the Hanover Cooperative Society carry numerous types of lettuces, most being imported from California right now. A recent trip to the market revealed green and red leaf lettuces, Boston or Bibb lettuce, romaine, endive, radicchio, watercress, arugula, baby spinach, mache or lamb’s lettuce, iceberg, escarole, mesclun, and curly endive or chicory. Sometimes they have frisee, also, and while I like them all, this time of year I prefer the heartier Boston, escarole, romaine, radicchio and endive.

I use Boston lettuce on my sandwiches I take to work, and in salads combine it with some crunchy chopped romaine, which contains both green and white leaves, and bitter chopped radicchio and endive with their red and white colors. You can add other salad ingredients like cucumbers, grated carrots, tomatoes and the like, but we usually just add some toasted pumpkin seeds, grated cheese, perhaps some left over bacon, crumbled, or sauted onion which has been allowed to cool. We’re also partial to Caesar salad, which is just romaine, home-made garlic croutons, grated or slivered Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese with home-made Caesar dressing.

I recommend you make your own salad dressings versus what you can purchase at the grocery store. I counted 18 different salad dressings at the Coop, and only two didn’t include some industrial food additive of one kind or another. The major national brands like Kraft and Wishbone were laden with multiple additives with high fructose corn syrup being the number one ingredient in many of their dressings. Only two dressings contained no additives, and popular brands like Annie’s, Drew’s and Newman’s only included xanthan gum, a polysaccharide used to promote viscosity, in small amounts,

While I will admit that I have a bottle of Annie’s Golden Goddess dressing in my refrigerator, I prefer to not ingest food additives of any kind, so I almost always make a dressing for our salads. There are two types of salad dressings, vinaigrettes and those based on mayonnaise, unless you just want to splash on a little extra-virgin olive oil and some good red wine vinegar with a dash of salt and pepper.

Vinaigrettes are a combination of olive oil and vinegar, usually in a proportion of 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar. The oil is slowly added to the vinegar while whisking until an emulsion is formed. While this emulsion will be temporary, if you add a small amount of Dijon mustard, the emulsion will last longer and it adds a nice sharpness to the results. Fresh herbs can be added as well as salt and pepper.

A Caesar dressing can be made by hand or in a food processor. Caesar dressing is made with raw eggs, however one can place the raw eggs in boiling water for 1 minute to kill any salmonella bacteria, if you are not sure of your egg’s origin.

Balsamic Vinaigrette

1 Tbl brown sugar or maple syrup
1 garlic clove, minced
1 shallot, minced
1 Tbl Dijon mustard
1/2 cup Balsamic vinegar
1 cup blended oil
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
salt & pepper

If making by hand, add mustard to minced garlic & shallots, whisk in the balsamic vinegar and slowly whisk in the oils to form an emulsion. Season with salt & pepper, adding brown sugar or maple syrup to taste.
Or,if using a food processor
grind garlic and shallots in food processor. Add mustard and with the machine running pour in the balsamic vinegar. Slowly drizzle in each oil in turn to form an emulsion. Add the brown sugar or maple syrup to taste. Season with salt and pepper.

Caesar Salad Dressing

1 egg yolk
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. hot sauce
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
A handful of Parmesan cheese
6 anchovy fillets
2 garlic cloves
1/2 cup blended oil
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/8-1/4 cup water
salt &pepper

Place egg yolks, lemon juice, hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce, Dijon mustard, Parmesan, anchovies and garlic cloves in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Turn on the machine and slowly drizzle in the oils. As the mixture gets thick, thin out with the water to desired consistency. Season with salt as needed, and lots of freshly ground black pepper.

Garlic, Parmesan Croutons

Take some left over bread, remove the crusts, and cut it into 1/2" cubes. Place in a large bowl and pour some extra-virgin olive oil over them. Sprinkle with minced garlic, salt and pepper, and grated Parmesan cheese. Toss everything together well.
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Pour croutons out onto a parchment paper lined sheet pan.
Place in top third of the preheated oven. Toss croutons with a spatula every 5 minutes, or until golden brown and delicious all over.
Store at room temperature in a covered container.

Roast Chicken

2009-01-22T22:34:00.002-05:00

In July of 2008 I published an article on chickens, their rearing, and where to find a good one. (Click on the July tab). The gist of that article focused on a discussion of factory farm raised chicken vs. local, grass fed, organic poultry, and why I favor the latter. Now let’s review how to take that fine, local bird and turn it into the quintessential chicken dish, roast chicken.

To quote Julia Child from her classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, “The most important aspect of chicken cooking is that you procure a good and flavorsome bird…A chicken should taste like chicken and be so good in itself that it is an absolute delight to eat as a perfectly plain, buttery roast…” Every cook is judged by the quality of their roast chicken, so let’s look at how we accomplish perfection.

Chickens are available in a variety of sizes from “broilers,” weighing 1 ½ to 2 ½ lbs, “fryers” 2 ½ to 3 ½ lbs and “roasters “ 4 to 6 ½ lbs. The roaster is the preferred size for our application, although a fryer can be used.

If your chicken is purchased fresh, meaning never frozen, great. However most locally raised poultry is only available frozen, except during selected times in the summer. Do not take a frozen chicken and leave it to thaw out on the kitchen counter. You risk disease from bacteria that will grow on the bird during the thawing process, and many of the bird’s juices will leak out, resulting in a dry bird when cooked. Better to wrap your frozen bird in a towel and place it in a container in your refrigerator. It will take two days or more to thaw out, but little, if any, of its juices will escape. Need it sooner than day after tomorrow, place the frozen bird under slow running cold water, and it will be thawed out in 4 to 5 hours or so.

In recent years, many chefs have recommended brining your bird prior to cooking. The brine includes salt and sugar with various herbs and aromatics to flavor the bird. The benefit is that the breast meat, which always cooks faster than the legs and thighs, will not dry out before the bird is thoroughly cooked. While I have tried this method on many occasions, I think the brine alters the taste of the flesh giving it a slightly cured flavor, and the drippings, the bird emits, are diluted by the extra moisture that was absorbed during the brining process. I am cooking my roast chicken without brining.

Step one is to wash your bird under cold running water, both inside and out. Dry the bird thoroughly with paper towels and allow it to air dry for up to half an hour while the oven preheats. A wet bird will not get that gorgeous crispy skin we all enjoy so much.

It is desirable to truss you bird, meaning to tie it up into a compact bundle so it will cook evenly. Many cookbooks describe the various trussing methods, so I refer you to them.

I like to put butter, salt and pepper, and some squeezed lemon, garlic and fresh herbs in the cavity of my roast chicken. Lemon and chicken have a particular affinity, so put the squeezed lemon inside, too.

You can roast your chicken on a rack, however, I scatter some diced onions and carrots over the bottom of my roasting pan to sit the chicken on, and they add taste to the drippings that are the basis for a light sauce. I take a lot of room temperature butter and smear it all over the bird, and baste the bird every 20 minutes or so.

I put the chicken in a hot oven, 450 degrees, for 15 minutes or so before turning the oven down to 375 degrees to finish it. Cook the chicken to 160-165 degrees recorded in the deep part of the thigh. Allow the bird to rest in the oven with the door ajar for 15 minutes or more before carving to allow its juices to settle, and carry over cooking to take it’s internal temperature up to 170 degrees. During this resting, you can make a light sauce from the renderings in the bottom of the pan.

Roast Chicken

½ Cup good local butter, room temperature
4 lb local free range organic chicken
Salt and pepper to taste
1 lemon
Several sprigs fresh thyme or tarragon or a mixture of both
1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed
A mixture of ¼ cup each chopped onion, carrot and celery, brunoise

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Wash the bird thoroughly and pat dry. Season the bird liberally with salt and pepper, inside and out. With your hands, smear the butter all over the chicken. Cut the lemon in half and squeeze its juices over and into the chicken. Place the herbs, garlic clove and squeezed lemon halves inside the bird. Truss, if needed.

Brunoise the onion, celery and carrot by cutting into 1/4 “ dice and sautéing in butter for 3-4 minutes. Place chicken on top of the vegetables and place in the preheated oven. Cook for 15 minutes, and then reduce the heat to 375. Baste with the pan juices every 15 to 20 minutes. Cook 40 to 50 minutes more, or until an instant read thermometer reads 160 to 165 degrees when inserted into the deepest area of the thigh, or all juices run clear when deeply pricked with a fork.

Leave chicken in turned off oven with the door ajar for 15 minutes to allow to rest. The chicken should be golden brown with a crisp skin, and the juices in the bottom of the pan will be a nut brown, buttery, lemony mix that when strained and boiled down a little and whisked will make a light sauce to accompany the bird.

Lentils

2009-01-08T22:29:00.000-05:00

Winter is upon us and local farm products are limited to stored root vegetables, frozen meats, eggs, cheeses and canned or pickled produce from last summer. This is the season when we turn to beans and other dried legumes for some of our dietary needs, and the variety is pretty broad. I made a chili with Bob’s Red Mill 13 Bean Soup Mix the other day, although it included a number of beans unavailable in New England, it was hardy and delicious.

A legume that is less used in New England than the Jacob Cattle Bean, the soldier bean, the pea bean, the yellow-eye or others that we use in Boston Baked Beans, Maine Baked Beans, or whatever you name your baked beans, is the lentil. Lens culinaris originated in the Near East where it grows with other native grasses like barley. It takes its name from the lens-shaped seeds it produces. As an annual, each plant bears pods that include several seeds, which are rich in vegetable protein. As a legume, its fixes nitrogen in the soil, where bacteria that lives in its roots takes nitrogen directly from the air, making it an important plant that enriches the ground on which it grows, and is ideal for crop rotation.

Lentils, grown primarily in India and throughout Asia, although some of the most famous lentils, like Lentilles Verte du Puy come from the alluvial soils in France, come in two sizes; the larger ones, which have had their husks removed, are light colored or yellow, and the small ones which are brown, pink, grey or green. The most common variety in India is the red or salmon colored lentil, which, when cooked, produces a soft, powdery texture that is popular in pureed dishes and soups. The smaller lentils become tender when cooked, retaining their shape, making them useful in main dishes, salads and casseroles, where they are often pared with pork products like sausages and bacon. Lentils are eaten by mourners at Jewish funerals, along with boiled eggs, as their round shape symbolizes the life cycle from birth to death.

Unlike other dried legumes, lentils do not need to be soaked before cooking, and will be tender in 30 minutes or so of simmering. They readily absorb the flavors of ingredients with which they are cooked or dressed, although their mild, earthy flavor when served alone is appreciated by many.

When cooking, it is desirable to rinse them thoroughly until the water runs clear before simmering. Inspect them carefully as foreign matter like small stones or twigs are sometimes packaged with them. Besides being about 26% protein, lentils, also rich is iron, make a complete protein when paired with other grains like rice. They are rich is animo acids, folic acid, vitamin B1 and minerals, besides supplying dietary fiber. Health Magazine has named lentils as one of the 5 healthiest foods on the planet.

Spinach & Lentil Salad with Bayley Hazen Blue Cheese & Tart Cherry Vinaigrette

yield: Serves 6 as a first course

3/4 cup green lentils
7 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
8 bacon slices (about 6 ounces)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/3 cup finely chopped shallot
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup dried unsweetened tart cherries (about 3 ounces)
2 tablespoons sugar
3 1/2 cups baby or regular spinach leaves
1/3 cup blue cheese (about 2 ounces), preferably Bayley Hazen Blue from Jasper Hill Farm in Greensboro, Vermont.

In a heavy saucepan cover lentils with water by 2 inches and simmer until just tender but not falling apart, about 15 minutes. Drain lentils well in a sieve. Rinse lentils under cold running water to stop cooking and drain well. In a bowl toss lentils with 2 tablespoons vinegar and salt and pepper to taste. (Lentils may be made 2 days ahead and chilled, covered. Bring lentils to room temperature before proceeding.)

In a skillet cook bacon over moderate heat until crisp and with tongs transfer to paper towels to drain. Crumble bacon.

In cleaned saucepan heat 2 tablespoons oil over moderate heat until hot but not smoking and cook shallot, stirring, until golden brown. Stir in water, cherries, sugar, and remaining 5 tablespoons vinegar and simmer, stirring occasionally, until liquid is reduced by about half, about 10 minutes. Reduce heat to low and whisk in remaining 2 tablespoons oil in a slow stream until emulsified. Season vinaigrette with salt and pepper.

Add half of vinaigrette to lentils and toss well. In another bowl toss spinach with half of lentil mixture, half of bacon, half of cheese, remaining vinaigrette, and salt and pepper to taste.
Divide remaining lentil mixture among 6 plates and top with spinach mixture. Sprinkle salads with remaining bacon and cheese.

Lard

2009-01-01T10:51:00.000-05:00

It’s the New Year, 2009, and while we’re all signing up for gym memberships and contemplating our diet and weight loss goals, I’m thinking about a subject that considered out-of-date, bad for our health, and prohibited by dietary canons in some religions. Yes, folks, I’m thinking about lard, a pork product that, despite its reputation as being an unhealthy fat, has applications in today’s cooking that should not be ignored. If you’ve never used lard in pastry baking, you are missing the boat. It is also used as a spread, a preservative, and a cooking medium as well as a shortener.

Lard is rendered pig fat. The pig has various fat deposits within its carcass. The most prized is the leaf lard, which is located within the body cavity surrounding the kidneys. Also known as flare, this fat, when properly rendered, produces the finest lard as it is both white in color and has very little pork flavor, making it ideal to use in pastry baking as it produces flaky, moist pie crusts. I also use this fat when I make blood sausages as it renders almost completely, leaving very little cracklings.

The fat back is found between the pig’s skin and the flesh along the loin. It is a hard fat producing good quality lard. Fat back is cured in Italy into lardo, which is consumed in small quantities as an appetizer. I purchased a small amount of lardo di Colonnata the last time we were in Tuscany and found it absolutely delicious. Fat back is also the preferred fat for inclusion is sausages, and it is used in France to “lard” meats, where long strips of fat are inserted into a lean roast with a special larding needle, keeping the roast moist inside while cooking. Salt pork is produced from pork bellies, which are also the source for bacon.

Caul fat, the thin membrane of connective tissue with deposits of fat throughout is the peritoneum of the pig, covering the organs of the abdominal cavity. This soft fat, used to wrap little sausages and other items, which, when cooked, virtually disappears, is difficult to find unless you know someone who raises their own pigs.

Commercially produced lard is a combination of the leaf lard and fat back, usually rendered either by the wet rendering method, or the dry rendering method. The best lard is produced by wet rendering, where the fat is exposed to hot water and steam. As the fat is insoluble in water it is skimmed off or separated in a centrifuge. Thereafter it is treated with bleaching and deodorizing agents, hydrogenated (which produces trans fats), and emulsifiers and antioxidants are added to make it shelf stable. Due to all this industrial manipulation and adulteration of supermarket lard, I recommend seeking artisan produced lard from a local farmer, or rendering your own.

Lard, like all fats, is composed of large crystals, which make it difficult to cream, but effective as shortening in pastry baking, which is its primary use in this country. Many chefs use a combination of lard and butter in making pastries to benefit from the flakiness produced by the lard with the taste of butter.

In Europe, wet rendered lard is used for deep-frying, and the real English “fish and chips” is made using lard. It has a relatively high smoke point, making it desirable for this application. Dry rendered lard, with is brown color and more porky in flavor is still used as a spread on bread, where it is sometimes mixed with paprika, as in Spain.

If you do come across some local pig fat, chop it up into smaller pieces and place it in a saucepan with a cup of water. Bring to the boil and cook slowly for the fat to render and the water to boil off. Skim out any cracklings and strain the liquid fat into a container, allow to cool and keep covered in the refrigerator.

One note, lard, by weight, has less saturated fat and less cholesterol than butter, and non-hydrogenated lard, has no trans fat, so while artisan produced lard is better for you than the commercial product, it should be used in moderation, just like everything else.

Pie Crust with Butter & Lard

yield: Makes 2 pie crusts (enough dough for 1 double-crust pie, 1 lattice-topped pie, or 2 single-crust pies)

2 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/2 cup chilled lard, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
5 tablespoons (or more) ice water

Blend flour, sugar, and salt in processor. Add butter and lard; using on/off turns, blend until mixture resembles coarse meal. Transfer mixture to medium bowl. Add 5 tablespoons ice water and mix with fork until dough begins to clump together, adding more water by teaspoonfuls if dry. Gather dough together. Divide dough in half; flatten each half into disk. Wrap each disk in plastic and refrigerate at least 1 hour.

DO AHEAD Can be made 3 days ahead. Keep refrigerated. If necessary, soften slightly at room temperature before rolling out.

New Year's Eve food

2008-12-28T12:42:00.000-05:00

Next Wednesday will be New Year’s Eve and we’ll all be anticipating the arrival of 2009, a new President shortly thereafter, and a new beginning for each of us as individuals and the country. It’s a watershed moment for change, and we celebrate it at our house with an evening of fellowship and food, when we again depart from tradition and honor our national non-cuisine by indulging in a couple of Cajun dishes, a seafood gumbo and a deep fried shrimp dish with an unusual twist.

America is a land of many cuisines, most regional in nature and usually rooted in our immigrant customs that have been adapted to our locally available foods. The Cajuns are an immigrant peoples whose origin was France. Originally these Frenchmen settled in Nova Scotia, where they were known as Acadians. They, however, were driven off their land in 1755, with some returning to France, but others ultimately finding the French colony in Louisiana, where they were welcomed and granted land by the Spanish. The Cajuns are distinct from the Creoles, whose origin is Africa, although their cooking uses many of the same ingredients, most of which are indigenous to bayou regions of the Louisiana delta.

Perhaps the best know Louisiana chef in Paul Prudhomme (no slight intended to Emeril Lagasse) who showcased Cajun and Creole cooking at his K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen restaurant in New Orleans. His most famous dish is blackened redfish, which has been replicated using every imaginable protein available by other chefs across the country. His cookbook, published in 1984, Chef Paul Pudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen, is a compendium of Cajun and Creole cooking, and I have enjoyed adopting recipes from that work using local ingredients. One note of caution; if you have or use his book, his spice mixes, now available for purchase in stores, can be mighty HOT!, so I go easy on the cayenne, as you can always add more if you love the heat.

Gumbo is a spicy soup/stew made with a strong stock, meat or seafood/shellfish, a thickener and the “holy trinity” of onion, celery and green pepper. The basis of all gumbos is the roux, a mixture of roughly equal parts fat and flour cooked until nearly burnt which imparts a deep smoky flavor and rich color to the stew. The Cajuns make a different colored roux for different applications, however for gumbo the choices are dark red-brown roux, or the preferred, black roux, which is more difficult to achieve. I’ll detail the roux making process with the recipe, but a big word of caution is called for as a Cajun roux is the equivalent of napalm if you splash it on yourself, so use a deep cast iron skillet or Dutch oven and long handled wooden spoons or whisks during the cooking process. The fat is heated to almost smoking (500 degrees) and the flour, which has moisture in it, is added in thirds, whisking all the time, or you risk having the fat boil over, possibly igniting and causing a fire. This Cajun cooking isn’t for the untried or the timid, however if you can master this technique, you will be rewarded with some interesting and delicious food.

Coconut Beer Shrimp w/ Sweet & Tangy Dipping Sauce

Serves 6 as a main course or 12 as an appetizer

Seasoning Mix
¾ tbl to 1 ½ tbl cayenne
2 ¼ tsp salt
1 ½ tsp sweet paprika
1 ½ tsp black pepper
1 ¼ tsp garlic powder
¾ tsp onion powder
¾ tsp dried thyme leaves
¾ tsp dried oregano leaves

Beer batter
2 eggs
1 ¾ cup all-purpose flour, in all
¾ cup fresh beer
1 tbl baking powder

2 lb medium to large to extra large shrimp, peeled & deveined
3 cups grated coconut, about 6 oz
Vegetable oil for deep-frying
Sweet & Tangy Dipping Sauce (recipe follows)

Thoroughly combine the seasoning mix in a small bowl and set aside.
Combine 2 tsp of the seasoning mix with the 2 eggs and beat until smooth. Add 1 ¼ cup of the flour, the beer and baking powder. Mix well and break up any lumps.
In a small bowl, combine the remaining ½ cup of flour with 1 ½ tsp of the seasoning mix. Set aside. Place the coconut in a separate bowl.
Sprinkle both sides of the peeled shrimp with the rest of the seasoning mix. Heat the frying oil in a large pot to 350 degrees.
When the oil is hot, dip each shrimp holding onto its tail into the flour mix, shaking off any excess, then into the beer batter, allowing the excess to drip off, before rolling in the coconut. Cook in small batches until cooked through (30 seconds to 2 minutes depending on the size of the shrimp you use). The batter should be cooked through and the shrimp not overcooked. Serve immediately with Sweet & Tangy Dipping Sauce.

Sweet & Tangy Dipping Sauce

Makes 2 ½ cups

1 18 oz jar of orange marmalade, or 1 2/3 cup
5 tbl Creole mustard (preferred) or good brown mustard
5 tbl finely grated fresh horseradish or prepared white horseradish sauce

Combine all the ingredients and mix well.

Cajun Seafood Gumbo with Andouille Smoked Sausage

Serves 5 as a main dish, 10 as an appetizer

The Trinity
1 cup chopped onions
¾ cup chopped green peppers
½ cup chopped celery

The seasoning mix
1 whole bay leaf
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp white pepper, ground
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
¼ tsp black pepper, ground
¼ tsp dried thyme leaves
1/8 tsp dried oregano leaves

The roux
6 fluid ounces (12 tablespoons) vegetable oil
3/8 cup flour

1 ½ tsp minced garlic
2 ¾ cup seafood stock (recipe follows)
½ lb andouille smoked sausage or kielbasa, ½” pieces
½ lb cooked lobster meat or peeled, medium shrimp
3/8 lb. crabmeat, picked over
½ dozen medium oysters with their liquor, about 5 oysters
1 ¼ cup cooked rice (recipe follows)

Make the seafood stock and prepare the rice for cooking.

Combine the onions, green peppers and celery in a bowl and reserve.

Heat the oil for the roux is a large, heavy cast iron skillet or Dutch oven over high heat, until it begins to smoke, about 5 minutes. Gradually add the flour, whisking constantly with a long handled metal whisk. Continue cooking, whisking all the time, until the roux is a dark, red-brown to black, about 2 to 4 minutes, being very careful to not let it scorch or to splash any on your skin. Immediately add half the trinity vegetables. Cook 1 minute, stirring, and add the rest of the vegetables. Cook another minute or so, stirring, and add the seasoning mix. Stir cooking 2 minutes, add the garlic, cook one more minute and remove from the heat.

Place the stock in a Dutch oven and bring to the boil. Add the roux mixture by spoonfuls, stirring until dissolved before adding more. Bring back to the boil after the last addition of roux and add the sausage, cooking 10 minutes at a simmer. Add the lobster meat, oysters and their liquor and the crabmeat. Return to the boil, stirring occasionally, before removing from the heat, skimming any oil from the surface. Serve immediately with a ¼ cup cooked rice placed in the center of a soup dish, with 1 cup of the gumbo ladled over, being sure to include some of each of the different sea foods and sausage in each plate.

Seafood Stock

Yield: one quart stock

2 quarts of cold water
1 medium onion, unpeeled and quartered, plus any trimmings
1 large clove garlic, unpeeled and quartered
1 rib celery
1 ½ to 2 lbs shrimp shells, lobster shells, crab shells, or fish carcasses

To increase the flavor of the stock, consider roasting the ingredients in a hot oven until caramelized. Place ingredients in the cold water and bring to a boil, skimming any scum that rises to the surface. Simmer from 30 minutes to 4 hours, depending on how much time you have, but the longer the better. If simmering for a long time, replace some of the evaporated water on occasion so that you end up with a quart or slightly more when done. Strain the stock, degrease if needed, cool and store in the refrigerator until ready to use. Can also be frozen in ice cube trays for future use.

Basic Cajun Cooked Rice

Makes 3 cups

1 cup uncooked rice
1 ¼ cup seafood stock
2 tsp minced onions
2 tsp minced celery
2 tsp minced green pepper
2 ¼ tsp butter, unsalted
¼ tsp salt
pinch of garlic powder
pinch each of white pepper, cayenne pepper and black pepper

In a mini loaf pan, combine all the ingredients, mix well, and seal well with aluminum foil. Place in 350 degree oven and bake until tender, about 1 hour or so. Serve immediately, however, it will remain hot 45 minutes or so. If done ahead, reheat in a skillet with a pat of butter before serving.

Yorkshire pudding

2008-12-21T09:15:00.000-05:00

The holiday season is upon us with the winter solstice, the day the sun is the lowest in the sky and the days are the shortest of the whole year, approaching just before Christmas day. While we love Italian food at our house, we adhere to my family’s English tradition for our Christmas meal when we splurge on a standing rib roast of local, grass-fed beef served with Yorkshire pudding, a dish that uses the rendered fat from the roast to make a starch to accompany the meal.

There are two ways to cook the beef, either using the high temperature approach, which produces a succulent joint with very little drippings, or a low temperature method, which produces flavorful meat with a good gravy. While Mom always used the latter method, I remember the first time I used the high temperature method, my Dad proclaimed it the best roast beef he’d ever eaten. As Yorkshire pudding is eagerly anticipated by my family at Christmas, I’ll use the low temperature method this year, as it is the only occasion during the year when I make Yorkshire pudding, and it really is a treat, besides being a visually spectacular event when the pudding, all brown and risen up in the roasting pan, is pulled, ceremoniously, from the oven to displayed to the seated diners. It rivals the flaming plum pudding we have for dessert.

Yorkshire pudding is comprised of a batter made from eggs, milk, flour, salt and the roast’s rendered fat. Originally the roast would have been cooked on a spit before a hot fire and the pudding would be placed below the roast to catch it’s rendered fat and juices. Today Yorkshire pudding, which is somewhat similar to popovers, is cooked either in the meat’s roasting pan (the method I use) or in smaller round tins to make individual puddings, but this isn’t the authentic Yorkshire method. Traditionally, the pudding was served before the meat with some gravy to take the edge off the appetite. We, however, serve it with the meat as one of the side dishes.

Yorkshire pudding can be very good or a soggy mass of fatty batter. The secret for success lies in a couple techniques that I recommend you follow. First, the pudding batter should be made in advance of its being cooked and it should be covered and refrigerated for an hour or more while the roast cooks. During the meat’s roasting, periodically remove some of the rendered fat to a small bowl and reserve. When the roast is done (and remember there will be carry over cooking when the roast is removed from the oven and allowed to rest, so plan accordingly) remove it to a platter, leaving all the drippings in the pan. Deglaze these drippings by adding some lightly salted water or, better yet, some beef stock to the pan, scraping up all the fond and stuck-on renderings. Pour these through a sieve or China cap into a saucepan. Remove as much fat as possible either by skimming, using a gravy separator, or by placing a sheet of paper towel on top to absorb it. Do not wash the roasting pan.

Return a couple of tablespoons of these drippings to the roasting pan and a tablespoon or two of the rendered fat. Raise your oven temperature to 450 degrees. As you want the roasting pan hot, you can place it over a burner on the stove while you retrieve the pudding mixture from the fridge. Whisk the pudding mixture to homogenize it and pour it quickly into the hot pan with the drippings and fat. Place in the hot oven and cook for 25 minutes until golden brown, puffed up, and crunchy on the top. After displaying the pudding to the eager hoard, cut it into squares and serve with the beef.

Yorkshire Pudding

Serves 12

2 Cups Flour, sifted
1 Tsp Salt
4 Ea. Eggs, well beaten
2 Cups Milk
½ Cup Beef drippings

Combine the eggs and milk. Stir in the salt and flour. Cover and refrigerate the batter will the roast is cooking. Remove the roast from the pan, deglaze the drippings with some beef stock or lightly salted water. Strain deglazed drippings thru a China cap and reserve for gravy making. Pour a couple of tablespoons of rendered fat and enough drippings to make a half cup into the unwashed roasting pan and pour batter into the roasting pan. Bake at 450 degrees until puffed and golden, 25 minutes. Serve with roast beef and/or gravy.

Turkey Soup

2008-11-30T12:49:00.000-05:00

First I want to wish all of our readers a joyful Thanksgiving. The world may be going to hell in a hand basket, but the annual joining together of family and friends to be thankful for the past year, for the harvest, for country and for each other is a reinvigoration of our spirit as we go into the light deprived winter period. We revel in the companionship, the story telling, the laughter and the food. We emerge from Thanksgiving with the busy year-end holiday season upon us, so there is much yet to do before the solstice greets us just before Christmas, and the days start getting imperceptibly longer.

Now let’s contemplate the subject of soup and later turkey soup.

Soup is a food composed of combining meat and/or vegetables, and sometimes bread, with water or stock. These ingredients are cooked together to meld their flavors and extract any gelatin from meats to give the results body and flavor with improved nutritional benefits. In the western world, soups may be served as a small first course in a multi-course meal as in a restaurant, or as the main course accompanied by a salad with bread and cheese in a household meal.

Soups fall into one of two categories, clear soups like consommé and bouillon or thickened soups like purees and bisques. Originally soup (or sop) was composed of a broth, initially made with onions and water, and bread used to soak up the liquid. Today the word “sop” has come to mean just the bread used to dip into a soup or stew.

The basis for most soups is some sort of stock, be it chicken stock, the most often used, vegetable stock, brown or white stock, or the king of all stocks, veal stock. While one can purchase stocks in the supermarket, homemade stocks are the best, in my opinion, and the household cook has ready access to the necessary ingredients in the realm of everyday cooking. Whether you have a chicken or turkey carcass left over, some left over bones if you cut up your chicken at home, as I do, or you purchase some inexpensive parts like poultry wings, legs or thighs, you are well on your way to a homemade soup.

One can roast some bones or poultry parts in a hot oven with carrots and onions until nicely caramelized to achieve a rich, appetizing brown stock or one can add these parts uncooked to a pot of cold water which, when completed, will yield a white stock. In either approach, when the protein choice is added to cold water and slowly brought to a simmer, the connective tissues in the meat, i.e collagen, hydrolyze (i.e. liquefy when exposed to heat) and gelatin is released into the liquid, thus the tendency of stocks to solidify when cool. This gelatin gives the stock body, which contributes to mouth feel when eaten. At the same time, some proteins and enzymes are freed into the water and fats, vitamins and some lactic and amino acids join the party. Usually aromatics are included in stocks and they contribute pectin, starches, acids like citric, tartaric and oxalic, which help give the stock flavor, aroma and taste.

I made a turkey stock from the bones I removed from my deboned turkey I cooked for Thanksgiving. Alternatively, you could purchase some turkey legs and/or thighs to make a stock from, or, of course, the carcass of your roasted bird always brings a lot of flavor to the party. In any event, combine the bones, roasted in a hot oven for 30 minutes or so, with onions, carrots, celery, bay leaves, fresh or dried thyme and enough cold water to cover by 1 to 2 inches. Bring slowly to the simmer, skimming the scum and fat the accumulates on the top. Simmer, uncovered, for 1 1/2 hour or so, but not for hours and hours. Strain the stock and cool quickly by placing in a cold or iced water bath in your sink, stirring the stock frequently. Change the cold water every half hour until the stock is 40 degrees. Refrigerate and later remove the solidified fat before using.

Turkey Soup

Serves 4-6

1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup diced onion
1/2 cup diced carrot
1/2 cup diced celery
1/2 cup diced celeriac
1/2 cup diced parsnip
1/2 cup diced turnip
1/2 cup diced green beans
1 cup turkey drippings
1 cup turkey gravy
3 cups leftover turkey & stuffing, diced
6 cups turkey stock
4 tbl parsley, flat leaf, chopped fine
3/4 cup orzo (rice shaped pasta) or pasta of your choice or rice
1/4 cup Parmigianno-Regianno cheese, grated
drizzle of extra virgin olive oil

Heat the olive oil in a 4 qt sauce pan and add the onions and saute 3-4 minutes. Add the balance of the diced root vegetables and saute another 3-4 minutes. Add the turkey drippings, gravy and turkey stock. Bring to a simmer, add the green beans and simmer 5 minutes. Add the turkey and the orzo and cook 10 minutes, or until the pasta is done. Stir in the chopped parsley. When serving, garnish each bowl with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, a sprinkling of grated cheese and a piece of garlic rubbed bruschetta.