If you take some time with some nice fingerling potatoes you can carve up a French classic sauteed/roasted potato dish called pommes de terre rissolees. The dish calls for small potatoes carved into little six-sided footballs–all pretty much the same size regardless of the potato you start out with. It takes practice to carve these potatoes so that they look quite alike, but you will get the hang of it soon enough. Use a sharp paring knife. The so-called bird’s beak peeler knife works best but is not required. Carve each one and drop it in a bowl of water to prevent discoloration. When ready, dry the potatoes and then sauté them in a very hot pan with EVOO, salt and pepper. The potatoes must be well browned on all sides, which means, even after some tossing, each potato has to be turned with a tong. When browned, add some butter and maybe some herbs to the pan and then place it in a 375F oven to roast the potatoes until they are fork tender, maybe another ten minutes. If you find these shaped potatoes on your plate in a restaurant, you will know that the chef appreciates traditional fine cooking and will pay to create it. When doing a stagiaire at The George Town Club one afternoon, I prepared some pommes rissolee. The chef placed two potatoes on each plate as an amuse-bouche to delight the eye.
Archive for November, 2009
Potatoes Rissole–Knife Work
Monday, November 30th, 2009Pot Roast Tagine
Monday, November 30th, 2009Yield: 4 servings, or 2 servings with leftovers
See the article on the tagine
See Abbreviations, if needed
· 2 lbs roast of pork or lamb shoulder or beef chuck
· 1 T EVOO
· 15 oz chicken stock or canned chicken or beef broth
· 1 large onion, sliced medium thick
· 2 carrots, sliced in like-size pieces
· 1 garlic, pureed
· 8 red potatoes, small to medium size, halved
· 1 sprig of thyme
· 4 bay leaves
· S/P
1. Tie the roast, if necessary to hold its shape
2. Season the roast well with S/P
3. Place the EVOO in the iron tagine bottom over medium-high heat,
brown all sides of the roast well, using large tongs to handle it
4. Set the roast aside, add 1/3 cup of the stock and, using a
plastic spatula, loosen the residue that formed on the tagine bottom
while the roast was browned
5. Return the roast to the tagine bottom and add the veggies along the sides
6. Spread the pureed garlic on top of the roast along with a few of the onions
7. Add the spices and the rest of the stock (braising liquid) and BTB
8. When at boiling point, reduce the heat to the lowest simmer setting
9. Place the cover on the tagine
10. Braise the roast on the stovetop for about 1.5 hours or until done
11. Serve the dish from the tagine bottom
12. Optional: To make a sauce: When the roast and veggies are done, remove them carefully to a serving platter and keep in a warm place. Bring the braising liquid to a
brisk boil and reduce the volume by about one-half, or enough sauce for 4 servings. Taste and season as desired. Serve the dish with the sauce on the side
Notes: a) If the roasts at the counter are too large, ask the butcher to cut one in half and package them separately. b) All manner of veggies can be used for this dish. Try eggplant, green beans, zuchs, broccoli, sweet potato, whatever. Soft veggies should be added midway through the cooking process. c) There will be a little sputtering of braising liquid around the seal as the tagine simmers.
Pork Loin Ribs, Dry, Low and Slow
Monday, November 30th, 2009This audience does not need a basic tutorial on to barbecue or grill. Certainly not our North American and Australian gourmet geezers. Still, I have been often asked,–sometimes asked,–someone asked last week how to make great ribs.
The answer lies in two parts. Common practice is to buy a couple racks of pork loin backribs, slather them with barbecue sauce and put them on the barbecue grill for an hour or so, adding more sauce a few minutes before serving.
Been there, done that.
After awhile, and after trying a half dozen sauces and one or two of my own making, I concluded that all of them tend to drown out the great taste of lean pork ribs and that none of the sauces taste all that good, to begin with. So, why not dry rub the ribs with salt and pepper and let the taste of pork come through? And then serve heated sauce on the side for those that can’t live without it.
Try it!
After preparing a few ribs with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper you might wish to substitute a prepared dry rub. I have three that I like. The Penzey Spice people offer a dry rub immodestly called “Barbecue of the Americas.” It’s a tasty blend of salt, paprika, allspice, cayenne, other peppers, ginger and cinnamon. The Spice House people have a “Jamaican Style Jerk Seasoning” that I use once in awhile on ribs and often on grilled chicken. They also have a “Baharat,” a Mediterranean style blend that works well on grilled meat. Rub one of these spice blends on evenly and shake off the excess before grilling. As for a favorite barbecue sauce: find one that tastes good off the spoon. Of late, I have been using “Stubbs Bar-B-Q-Sauce.”
After watching innumerable barbecue cook-offs on TV, where good ole boys cook ribs, briskets and whole pigs for most of the day, I concluded that they may be on to something but probably to excess. To get ribs falling-off-the-bone-tender, they need to be grilled over low heat for quite some time. This is a difficult task over a charcoal- or hardwood-fired grill since the fuel and fire must be tended. It takes a skilled, devoted and attentive cook at least a six pack of beer to produce acceptable results.
The task is greatly simplified–though the process is not as much fun and the product taste is arguably inferior– if using propane or natural gas. Here’s how:
- Trim the meat-side of pork backribs of excess fat and, on the bone-side, loosen and peel off the silver skin (optional).
- Rub the ribs evenly with S/P or a selected dry rub preparation.
- Select a grill with a cover and one that can provide indirect heat, as described here. If it has a thermometer, all the better.
- Shake off the excess seasoning, and place the ribs on the grill
- Fire up the grill burner(s) that does not fire directly under the ribs.
- Close the cover and adjust the burner(s) to produce and maintain, within the enclosure, a temperature of 230F. 230F is the target temperature. Do not exceed 260F.
- Grill the ribs, starting bone-side-down, for three hours.
- Turn the ribs once or twice favoring meat-side down. (If they look dry, drizzle a little oil on the meat side.)
Cut the ribs into groups of two or three bones and serve with whatever you been brung up to have with barbecued ribs.
Pesto
Monday, November 30th, 2009Pesto, Pesto!!
Our parsley and basil pot was county class this summer. By mid-September, however, the basil began to look sun-bleached and a little tired: a reminder for The Little Woman to harvest it all, before the first hard freeze, and have me make a batch of pesto .
Pesto is an uncooked sauce that goes wonderfully with pasta. Just boil up some farfalle-, fettuccine- or fusilli-shaped pasta, drain, add it to a mixing bowl filled with an ounce or so of warmed pesto, toss and serve on heated plates as a light lunch, an appetizer or as a side with meat. James Peterson recommends pesto as a sauce over grilled meats, fish and vegetables, as well as stirred into a soup a la minute.
Pesto is easy to make if you have a food processor and a lot of fresh basil leaves. Here’s how:
(See abbreviations, if needed)
1.5oz pine nuts, roasted
2C loose, fresh basil (about 80 leaves or 2 oz), thoroughly dried
1C shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano
3/4C EVOO
3-5 garlic cloves
TT S/P
1. Place the pine nuts into a very hot pan and stir them until they begin to brown (don’t burn ‘em) remove nuts from pan to hold
2. Place the nuts, basil, cheese, garlic and S/P in the food processor and add 2oz of EVOO
3. Pulse to create a thick emulsion
4. With the food processor running, drizzle in the rest of the EVOO
5. Place the pesto in an air tight jar and hold in the fridge. It freezes well too.
Purple Pesto
We got together with some dear old friends to enjoy a beautiful fall day over a late lunch and to admire our hosts’ patch of purple basil. We’ve never seen the stuff before, so of course I had to take an armload of it home with the promise that I would return with purple pesto–possibly the world’s first. Pesto is an uncooked fresh-tasting sauce. According to Herbst, it originated in Genoa. Its classic use is with pasta, always diluted with EVOO or hot pasta water (1:1/2 or 1). Diluted with EVOO, it’s delicious on oven roasted veggies and potatoes–whether oven roasted or sautéed and then finished in the oven. Undiluted, a tablespoon stirred, a la minute, into minestrone or served over corn on the cob, green beans or grilled meats, works well. Go here for my pesto recipe.
Our garden basil is gone with the first hard freeze, so it is an autumn ritual to harvest it and make pesto, which I did last week. I did it again with this purple basil, only to discover that we did not have enough Parmigiano-Reggiano to make a double batch. “Why not shred two cups of the Pleasant Ridge Reserve Cheese and make it with that,” the Little Woman suggested. Sure enough, that cheese, described below, was equal to the essential task of imparting strong cheese notes to balance off the basil and garlic. Note the difference in color between the green leaf basil and the purple leaf variant. Neato!
Pepper and Tomato Salad
Monday, November 30th, 2009Sweet peppers and tomatoes are in season now, and your garden patch of basil and mint should be resplendent. Why not place them all on one plate as a nice cool fresh summer salad?
Pepper and Tomato Salad
Yield: 4 servings
See Abbreviations, if needed
· 2 large ripe tomatoes (heirloom varieties are nice here)
· 1 large garlic clove, pureed
· 6 fresh basil leaves cut in thirds lengthwise
· 5 fresh mint leaves cut in halves lengthwise
· 3T EVOO (your very best)
· 4 large bell peppers, any color or mix
· S/P to taste
· 2T capers, drained
1. Char the peppers directly over gas burners or under the broiler. Place each in
an aluminum wrapper and seal to cool
2. Cut the tomatoes into pieces, deseed, and pass them through a food mill, fitted with
the medium or large hole disk, and into a small glass mixing bowl
3. Puree the garlic, cut the basil and mints leaves and place all in the bowl
4. Add the EVOO and mix well
5. Add S/P to taste, cover the bowl and let rest in the fridge for an hour
6. Remove each pepper from its aluminum foil and scrape off the charred skin
| TIP: Over the sink, scrape off the charred skin of a roasted bell pepper with a paring knife (better still, a serrated paring knife). Use running water to clean the knife. Do not run water over the pepper. It gets messy. |
7. Slice open the roasted peppers, deseed and devein
8. Slice the peppers into long strips about 3/8-inch wide
9. Arrange the peppers on a serving plate and drizzle the
tomato/EVOO mixture over them
10. Drain the capers and distribute them over the top of the salad
11. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest in the fridge for an hour.
12. Remove the salad from the fridge about 30 minutes before serving
Peanut Butter Cookie with Coconut Flakes and Heath Bits
Monday, November 30th, 2009
Here is my peanut butter cookie with the addition of coconut flakes, which serve both as a binder and added texture surprise, and Hearth Bar bits in the cookie and on the top, along with one strategically placed peanut half. The coconut flakes are unsweetened but sweetened would be OK. (Since I prefer unsweetened coconut for all savory recipes there is always some in the pantry.) Whole Foods carries it.
Peanut Butter Cookies with Coconut Flakes and Heath Bits
See Abbreviations, if needed
Yield: 36 cookies
½ lb (2 sticks) butter
1C firmly packed dark brown sugar
1C sugar
1t vanilla extract
2½.C AP flour
½ t baking soda
½ t baking powder
1C chunky peanut butter
2 eggs
1C unsweetened coconut flakes
½ C Heath Bar bits
1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Cream together butter and sugars in the KA, add vanilla
3. Sift together flour, baking soda and baking powder
4. Add peanut butter and eggs
5. Add flour mixture
6. Add coconut and Heath bits, mix briefly, remove KA bowl, finish by hand and fridge to hold
7. Scoop dough with 2 TB scoop (#36) and place well apart on sheet pans or cookie sheets
lined with parchment paper or silicone mat
8. Flatten balls with crisscrossed meat tenderizer mallet
9. Top each cookie with a peanut half and a couple pinches of Heath bits
10. Bake 12-14 minutes, or 11 minutes if using a convection oven or until cookies are set: fully shaped with a dry
surface top and with edges sharly defined and not clinging to the silicone pad and not yet starting to brown
Pleasant Grove Pâté Terrine
Monday, November 30th, 2009According to Herbst, pâté, with an accent over the “e” (French for pie) refers to “various elegant, well seasoned, ground meat preparations . . .they can be satiny-smooth …or coarsely textured.” What we have here fits the definition, save for the elegant part. It’s just mom’s meatloaf in pâté attire!
On two recent occasions, The Little Woman tasked me to prepare a meat loaf to serve, cold and sliced, at a board meeting of the Friends of Pleasant Grove. OK the first time, but I was underwhelmed by the presentation–simply a mound of meatloaf holding down a bed of lettuce, too broad in the center and too narrow at the ends. Folks were breaking up the slices to fit their crowded plate.
Seizing the opportunity to buy yet another pan, I rushed to Sur La Table and brought home a Corvette-yellow Le Creuset Terrine. Nancy, the clerk asked me, in jest (I’m known there), if I knew what the pan was for. I said, “ya, pâté en terrine.” She said, “no! It’s really a lasagna-for-two pan!” “Well, I’ll be darned. I didn’t know that” said I.
The idea here was to shape and dress up a meatloaf. Readers might recall the recent article on soppressata salami. Since I had some of it in the fridge, I proceeded to carefully line the terrine with overlapping slices of soppressata, leaving a good portion as a flap to overlap the top of the pâté (the flaps don’t show up well in the photo). The salami lining also provided a bit of fat to the lean ground sirloin.
Pleasant Grove Pâté Terrine
Yield: about 20 slices, more if cold and cut thin
See abbreviations, if needed
|
1. Preheat oven to 350F 2. Line the terrine with overlapping slices of soppressata, with a half length hanging over the top rim. Set aside 3. Sauté onions to transparent in the EVOO 4. Add the garlic and optional jalapenos and heat briefly 5. Empty the sauté pan into a SSB 6. Add the dry seasonings, mustard, Worchester, hot sauce and mix well 7. Break the eggs in a prep dish, mix briefly and then add them to the SSB 8. Add the sirloin and mix all well by hand 9. Add a splash of milk if the mixture appears too dry 10. Add the bread crumbs or Panko and mix thoroughly, again by hand 11. Turn out the pâté and shape to fit the terrine 12. Carefully place the pâté into the terrine and press to fit into the sides and edges 13. Fold the soppressata flaps over the top of the pâté 14. Cut 2 inch lengths of the thyme sprigs and tuck one end of each sprig under each soppressata flap 15 Bake, uncovered, to 160F inside temperature, about 40 minutes 16. Let cool before removing the pâté with the sopressata jacket or serve hot or cold in the terrine Note Use a small offset spatula or other very flexible flat blade to work the pâté out of the terrine with the soppressata lining entact–sides and bottom. |
Pantry Cookies
Friday, November 20th, 2009Happiness is a Full Sheet Pan of Cookies and an Oven Big Enough to Have Baked Them In
Two dozen cookies on one rack baked in 18 minutes. That’s production! This is the third batch of cookies done in our Blue Star oven. We’ve found that the oven blower should be used and that the big sheet pan should be rotated half way through the baking cycle.
One glance at the photo, however, indicates that I forgot Chef/Owner Laura Bell’s Basic Rule of Cookies, viz., always have chocolate chips and nuts at hand to place on top of those cookies that have none on the surface when scooped. Sage advice from my catering days at A La Belle Cuisine. Surely you can see why: If one person is served a cookie with five chips on top and another–seated adjacent–gets a cookie with none, one side glance leads immediately to all manner of introspective thoughts, i.e., “Mom does like him best,” or “I think this cute waiter really is interested in me …,” or “That fool doesn’t know who paid for this lunch.”
Anyhow, this morning The Little Women was cleaning out the pantry after a series of three dinners the past two weeks. “Why not make some cookies and get rid of these stray bags of stuff.” The stuff comprised a cup each of old chocolate chips, walnuts from the carrot cake and coconut from the shrimp (see below). So, using my chocolate chip cookie recipe as the base, we have Pantry Cookies.
Pantry Cookies
Yield: 2 dozen cookies
See Abbreviations, if needed
2C + 2T AP flour (bleached preferred)
1/2t salt
1/2t baking soda
1/2t baking powder
12T butter, melted and cooled to ambient
1C sugar
1C light brown sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1.5t vanilla
2/3C chocolate chips
2/3C walnuts, chopped
2/3C coconut, shredded (sweetened OK)
1. Preheat oven to 325F
2. Sift together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and set aside
3. Cream together butter and sugars in a standing mixer
4. Add egg, yolk and vanilla
5. Add flour mixture
6. Slow mixer to its lowest speed and briefly work in chips, walnuts and coconut, in that order
7. Scoop dough with a #36 scoop (or by hand about 1/2 golf ball size) and place well apart on a greased sheet pan
or a pan with a silicone pan liner.
8. Bake about 12-14 minutes or until cookies are set: fully shaped with a dry surface top and with
edges sharly defined and not clinging to the silicone pad and not yet starting to brown
9. Cool cookies on the sheet pan a while before racking
NOTE: These cookies cooled out rather too crisp. Consulting Corriher, I’ll substitute cake flour for AP flour next time and see if that helps.
Paella a la McLean
Friday, November 20th, 2009
Awhile back, we had a dinner for eight. We decided to do Cioppino and had all but filled out our event planner, when The Little Woman saw a write-up on paella in the current Williams-Sonoma catalog. “You’ve done cioppino to death, why not do paella?” “Why not,” said I. (Besides, I thought, maybe I can go buy a paella pan.) The Little Woman read my thoughts again as she said, “You can use the big roaster pan in the garage instead of one of those special paella pans, which I don’t even want to hear about.” So, paella was the dish for that Saturday night. Not having made it at home, I dug out recipes from four books (Peterson, McClane, Wolfert and Labensky) and bounced them against the school recipe in my Chef’s Companion. Paella, by the way, is a rice dish with meat, fish, shellfish and short grain rice seasoned with paprika and saffron–all cooked and presented in a round shallow pan.
I then paid special attention to the Seafood Paella recipe in the The Gourmet Cookbook (page 349). The whole article was attractive—the best, by far, of my five references. It started out with: “True, [paella] is a somewhat daunting project, but you are making a feast,” and went on to sing paella’s praises. So, while composing my own ingredients list, I decided to follow Gourmet’s instructions as a means to judge at least one of its recipes–and a complex one, at that.
I found the instructions for this dish to be descriptive and detailed. For example, when boiling the rice on the stovetop prior to baking it in the oven, it said to do so “until the rice appears on the surface about 6 minutes,” and then added “spoon should leave a path exposing bottom of pan when pulled through center of rice.” I did exactly that: boiled the rice at high heat for 6 minutes and, lo and behold, the spoon left a nice wide trace on the bottom of my new paella pan. It called for 5.5 cups of broth for 3 cups of short grain rice, which was right on. However, I found the recommended baking time to be about 20% short.
So, we did this dish twice in two weeks and I think what follows is about right. There is a lot of work required to put it together. The trick is to sauté the main ingredients early on and set them aside (or put them in the fridge if holding them for more than four hours). With the squid, fish, chicken and sausage done, all that is required then is to fire the onions, pour in the rice and stock, steam the mussels, fit all the goodies in, and get it in the oven about 30 minutes before you want to serve it. I confess that this is easier said than done. I was late serving the paella the first time, though it had as much to do with my having fun talking to guests and drinking wine as getting the dish assembled and in the oven in a timely manner. But I got it right the second time. (As the saying goes: He ain’t smart, but he’s very observant and highly trainable).
As stated in my preview of The Gourmet Cookbook, the instructions for this recipe were influenced by their Seafood Paella recipe.
Serves 8
See abbreviations, if necessary
• 7 cups chicken stock
• BG satchel
• 1.5 lbs sea bass or monkfish, cut to serving size
• 20 medium shrimp
• ½ lb squid, cut crosswise for rings
• 10 chicken legs, foot knuckle removed (see notes)
• 1 lb chorizo or merguez sausage
• 2 onions, diced
• 5 garlic cloves, pureed
• 2.5 cups short grain Spanish rice (see notes)
• big pinch saffron
• 2 t sweet paprika
• 28 oz can of diced tomatoes, drained (reserve juice)
• 2 doz mussels
• 2 oz white wine (for the mussels)
• 3/4 cup peas (frozen OK)
• 1 cup artichoke hearts (canned OK), halved
• 2 red peppers, roasted, bite size, square cut
• ½ cup fresh parsley leaves (garnish)
1. In saucepan, add BG and about 6 cups stock, BTB and hold at simmer
2. In paella or other large pan, stir fry, in seriatim:
• sea bass , shrimp and squid
• transfer all to a warm place or to fridge
3. In another pan or on the grill, season and sauté chicken legs and sausage, set aside
4. In paella pan, season and sweat onion and garlic in EVOO
5. Add the rice and coat grains
6. Add a little stock, then saffron, paprika and diced tomato
7 Add more stock to total 5.5 cups (remove BG satchel)
8. BTB, reduce heat and cook rice for about 6 minutes until rice surfaces and spoon leaves trace
9. Hold point (pre-heat oven to 400F)
10. OO, in another pot, cook mussels in white wine and 2 ozs stock. Set aside and save liquid
11. Off heat: (allow 10 minutes for this step)
• stir in artichokes, peas, peppers, shrimp, squid and sausage
• nicely arrange and push in fish, chicken and mussels
• add those platter juices that taste good
12. Bake uncovered for about 20 minutes
13. Remove from oven, check for doneness, add boiling water if too dry
14. Rack and cover for about 10 minutes
15. Uncover and add garnish
16. Serve from pan with lemon wedges
Notes: a. Chicken leg foot knuckles are removed to save space in the pan. Be sure to check (by rubbing) each cut leg to remove bone chips.
b. Short grain rice, while authentic to this dish, is not a favorite for many. Try medium grain (risotto) or long grain (basmati) rice.
c. A paella pan is ideal, but a roasting pan or a big skillet will work quite well.
Osso Bucco Tagine
Friday, November 20th, 2009
For the first time ever, the commissary had veal shanks cut osso buchi. I should have bought them all to vacuum pack and freeze, but instead settled for a pack of two. On the way home, I decided to prepare them as we were taught in school (L’Osso Bucco A La Milanaise) but, since there were only two shanks, to braise them in the tagine instead of a Dutch oven.
Earlier, I sang the praises of the Le Creuset Moroccan Tagine and the Pot Roast Tagine. The tagine is, indeed, a great braising pot for two. It’s fired on the range top where it is easy to get at; the lid can be lifted to inspect progress while cooking or to poke about or add this and that; it braises quickly on very low heart (gas or electric if you’re out of dried camel dung); and because of the design of the cover, the tagine produces a wonderfully braised product with all juices captured. So here is Osso Bucco Tagine, with no apologies to either the French or the Moroccans.
Osso Bucco Tagine
Yield: 2 servings
See Abbreviations, if needed
· 2 veal shanks (cut osso buchi)
· ¼ C flour
· S/P
· 2T EVOO
· 14oz (1 can) beef or chicken broth
· 1 onion, sliced
· 16 pearl onions, peeled
· 2 carrots, peeled and cut bite size
· 1 garlic clove, pureed
· sachet (bag) of BG plus oregano
· 1C tomato sauce
· ½ C white wine
· 1 lemon, zest for garnish
· ½ lemon, juiced
· 1T fresh parsley, chopped for garnish
1. Season shanks with flour and S/P
2. Brown shanks in EVOO using the cast iron tagine pan
3. Remove the shanks, add some broth and, using a
plastic or wood spatula, loosen the residue formed on the tagine pan
while the shanks were browning
4. Add some more EVOO and sweat onions, carrots and garlic
5. Add BG (bouquet garni), tomato sauce, lemon juice and more broth
6. Add white wine and reduce
7. Return shanks to pan and arrange veggies around them
8. Add more broth if necessary to bring the braising liquid level up to
¾ the depth of the tagine pan
9. BTB, reduce heat to lowest simmer setting
10. Place the cover on the tagine
11. Braise the shanks on the stovetop for about one hour until well done (lift lid and check now and then)
12. Serve from the pan, garnish the shanks with lemon zest and fresh parsley
13. Optional: To make a sauce:
a) Remove the shanks and veggies to the serving plates and keep in a warm place
b) Remove the BG sachet
c) Bring the braising liquid to a brisk boil and reduce the volume by about
one-quarter. Taste and season as desired. Then proceed as in Step 12.
Note: There will be a little sputtering of braising liquid around the seal as the tagine simmers.