Jack is home from India! (green pepper bean cakes, tomato and fennel stew)

Jack is home from India! 

Jack is home from India!!!!!!!

His mother is very happy!!!!!!!!!!!

My son has been teaching in Dhrangadhra in Gujarat for the past six months.  We picked him up this morning at EWR and drove down the turnpike home in complete joy.  We are very proud of the kid.  He went to the other side of the world to do a job that he had never done before and apparently did it well.  We got some stories out of him, but mostly we’ll have to wait until the jet lag wears off and he is a little more coherent.  So now, he has taken a shower and is resting.  For how long, dunno, he was pretty jangled before he stumbled upstairs. 

Readjusting to Pennsylvania in winter will be a challenge.  He said that it was awful cute that his students would show up for class wearing sweaters and gloves whenever the temperature in Dhrangadhra dropped below 65°.  Today was 20° and windy, with a covering from yesterday’s snowfall.  The bigger adjustment will be with food.  That part of India is populated by Hindus and some Muslims.  The diet is largely vegetarian with the occasional chicken, no pork and certainly no beef.  Jack lost 30 pounds.  And this is a kid that didn’t have 30 pounds to lose to begin with.  Someone asked me what his “re-entry” plan is.  I don’t think he has one, other than loading up on kielbasa from Czerw’s http://www.kielbasyboys.com/, Banh Mi sandwiches and strombolis from Romano’s http://www.romanostromboli.com/.  We’ll have a processed meat theme for the next few weeks, I’m sure.

Jack said that he learned some of his favorite recipes before he left by hanging out with the women in the kitchen.  He has to formally write up what they taught him and that might be tricky since they were teaching in Hindi or Gujarati and he was learning in English.  In spite of that, I expect some good meals. 

I don’t know Indian cooking; however I did spend almost a year solely cooking vegetables in a French place in Philly.  Vegetables are difficult to cook properly, less forgiving than say, a pot roast.  It takes surprising skills to make a vegetable preparation that has real depth of character.  There’s technique involved.  You can’t simply throw everything in a pot and stew it for an hour.  Following is a recipe for bean cakes with a tomato and fennel stew.  The absolute best thing about this dish is that you can make it ahead of time and reheat the thing in about 10 minutes.  Really!  And it is better reheated!  Resist the urge to use canned beans.  The texture will never be right.

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Green Pepper Bean Cakes

1# dried white beans

1 green pepper, seeded, roughly chopped

1 cup spanish onion, roughly chopped

2 cloves garlic, peeled

3 tbs olive oil

3 qts. water

salt and pepper

In a large stockpot, put the beans in water, season with salt and pepper and put on a low heat.  When it comes to a boil, lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes. 

After 30 minutes, the beans will have begun to swell and soften.  Add the green pepper, onion and garlic.  Continue to simmer the beans for a further 30 minutes.  By that time, they will have completely softened and started to break down.  The water will have almost evaporated.  The bean cake mixture will be the consistency of thin mashed potatoes.

Remove from the heat and add the olive oil.  The olive oil is added last to preserve its delicate, aromatic  flavor.  With a spoon or a hand potato masher, smash the bean mix until it has a consistent, lumpy texture.  It should resemble thick mashed potatoes.  Transfer the bean cake mixture to a plastic container and refrigerate until cold, overnight is best.

When it is time to serve the bean cakes, heat a large sauté pan or electric griddle.  Coat the bottom of the pan with olive oil and fry patties of the bean cake mix that are about the size of small, thick pancakes.  When one side has browned, after about 5 minutes, flip the cakes and brown the other side for a further five minutes.  Transfer to a platter for serving and top with the tomato and fennel stew.

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Tomato and Fennel Stew

1 28 oz. can of diced tomatoes

1 head fennel, sliced, about 1 ½ cups

1 cup finely diced onions

1 tbs. sugar

2 tbs. olive oil

salt and pepper

In a large sauté pan on low heat, fry the onions and fennel in olive oil.  Season with sugar, salt and pepper.  The sugar will help moderate the acidity of the tomatoes.

When the onions and fennel have cooked, becoming transparent, add the tomatoes, increase the heat and simmer the stew until it has cooked down to sauce consistency, similar to a chunky tomato gravy.  Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.  Serve immediately over top of the green pepper bean cakes or refrigerate to be reheated later.

Leftovers?  This will make a serious stuffing for a morning omelette.

Since You Asked... (quick chicken stock, roasted red pepper soup)

Over the last days a few readers have commented that the chicken stock recipe looks good, but since they normally use canned chicken broth in their cooking, couldn’t they just substitute that for the home made stuff?  There are a number of reasons that I would not recommend that particular strategy.  

Flavor is the big reason to make your own.  Your stock will have a clean chicken taste, even when you reduce it to make a soup.  Secondly, the canned/boxed stuff has all sorts of ingredients.  Really, look at the side of the box.  Do you want chicken and aromatics or is it OK to include dextrose, caramel color, stabilizers, salts, preservatives, thickeners, whey and a bunch of stuff that I can’t spell?  Me, when I die, I want to decompose.  (the decomposition thing may become a theme)

Clarity should count for something.  The stock you’ll make will never come to a rolling boil.  All that fat and protein will be skimmed off the top leaving a crystal clear broth below.  I’ve never seen a commercial stock that wasn’t muddy.  If you use bones you will get double the yield with only a small additional cost.  Finally, chicken stock freezes well, why not make it yourself in big batches.

If you must use canned broth there is a way to fix it.  It involves watering down the canned broth to even out some of the off flavors, then enriching it with aromatics.  Don’t add any additional salt, there’s already plenty in the canned broth.  This isn’t a substitute for the real stuff, but it will do in a pinch.  And since today we are cooking with canned ingredients, there is also a recipe for a roasted pepper soup that has an oddball ingredient that gives it a velvety texture.

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Quick Chicken Stock

1 14 oz. can of chicken broth (or box)

28 oz. cold water

1 carrot, finely diced

½ spanish onion, finely diced

1 rib celery, finely diced

2 cloves garlic, chopped

½ tsp. dried thyme

2 bay leaves

4 black peppercorns

Combine all the ingredients in a large stockpot.  Slowly bring the stock to a low simmer.  Skim any scum that rises to the top.   

Simmer the stock for 30 minutes.  Strain through a fine strainer.

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Roasted Pepper Soup

1 28 oz. can roasted red peppers, drained, chopped, juice reserved

2 qts. chicken stock

½ loaf white bread, crusts removed

1 spanish onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, chopped

3 tbs. olive oil

3 tbs. fresh basil, sliced into thin strips

salt and pepper

In a heavy bottomed stockpot on low heat, sauté the onions and garlic until the onions are transparent.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add the roasted peppers.  Sauté for five minutes, until they begin to brown.  Add the bread, stir to break it up and then add the chicken stock and pepper juice.  Increase the heat and bring the soup to a simmer.  Simmer for 30 minutes. 

Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.  Puree the soup with a hand blender or a food mill. Serve hot during cooler months, or chilled in the summer, garnished with fresh basil.  

Mashed Potatoes and The Rolling Stones (mashed potatoes)

Yesterday, I heard Jack Bishop and Bridget Lancaster of America's Test Kitchen being interviewed by Terry Gross.  http://www.npr.org/2013/11/26/247336038/dont-stuff-the-turkey-and-other-tips-from-americas-test-kitchen  You should listen to their discussion.  These are folks with whom I generally agree.  They are willing to throw out a cooking myth if reality, food science, gets in the way of what yer Mom did in the kitchen.  They think at the stove, something I’m going to encourage all of you to do.

When discussing mashed potatoes, Bishop mentioned that people appreciate homemade mashed so much that they give the cook a little room to play.  He offered a recipe for paprika and garlic mashed that really sounds interesting, but would get my head handed to me by everyone at the table.  At our house, mashed potatoes are sacred.  Once, about 20 years ago, I put garlic in the mashed and I’m still hearing about it.  So, much like the “expanded, reimagined” version of Exile on Main Street that the Stones put out a few years back, altered, adulterated, messed with mashed potatoes are something that we just do not do at the Farrell house.  You don't screw with something that is already perfect.  The risks are too great.  That’s too bad, because Bishop’s recipe looked good.  Maybe I’ll make it some evening when Cathy is out of town and I know that the kids won’t be dropping by.  It will have to be a dark, long night.  If I should get caught with anything other than the standard mashed…I don’t even want to think of the penalty.

There’s good reason for the kids love of my mashed potatoes and it has to do with the selection of the ingredients and the method used to make the stuff.  What we do is suspend as much butter and cream in the potatoes as is possible.  First, use peeled white potatoes and peeled russets.  The combination gives a fluffy finished product with enough body to make that lake of gravy that we all want.  Additionally, they fry up better the next morning as potato pancakes, if by chance you have any leftovers.  We never do, in spite of the vat of taters that I make.  No Yukon golds, too waxy and no boiling in their skins, too much waste when you try peel them hot.  Learn to drain them properly.   

Secondly, you shouldn’t worry about heating the butter and cream.  Potatoes have an atomic number above Plutonium, so they hold heat like nothing else.  Pouring hot liquid into a mixer is something you see in a workplace safety movie as a “don’t.”   Lastly, whip the potatoes in small batches in a mixer, I have one of those Kitchen Aid counter models.  Yeah, they cost $200, but we bought ours 20 years ago and I haven’t been able to kill it.  Mix all the batches together in a large pot and keep it warm in a double boiler.  A crockpot on low would also work.  You can prepare the mashed 2 hours before serving, making your life easier on Thanksgiving, continuing our theme of promoting sanity on a day that is inherently loony.

So, the following is the best mashed potato recipe that you will ever see, hands down, don’t argue.  Ask the Farrell children and all the people who have dropped by for dinner over the years.  (You should see what the Franklin and Marshall football team did to a 20 pound batch!)  We’ll be making a big batch in the foolish hope of leftovers.  If you think that it is too caloric, and you’d be correct, simply back off on the butter and follow Julia Child’s advice to “Just add more cream.” 

One last tip, don’t eat sticky buns while you are typing up your blog!  Thank you, Ann.

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Mashed Potatoes

4# white potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch chunks

2# russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 inch chunks

12 tbs. unsalted butter, cut into ½ inch slices

1 pint heavy cream

salt and white pepper

Heat a large stockpot filled with 1.5 gallons of salted water to boiling.  Add the white and russet potatoes.  Cook about 20 minutes, until the potatoes are soft and a knife goes through them evenly.  Drain in a colander until dry, about 5 minutes. 

It is important to work quickly so that the potatoes do not cool too much.  Put 1/3 of the potatoes and 1/3 of the butter in a mixing bowl.  Season lightly with salt and white pepper, then whip on a medium setting, breaking up the large chunks into a smooth puree.  Take care not to over whip the puree or the potatoes will get gummy, resembling taffy, instead of creamy. 

Transfer the puree with a rubber spatula into a large pot that can serve as a double boiler, keeping the potatoes hot until serving.  Repeat this process until all the potatoes have been pureed.  Adjust the seasoning with salt and white pepper before serving.

Happy Thanksgiving gang!  Thank you for following the Fresh Fun Food Blog.