Water for Ethiopia (Zucchini and Mushroom Bombe with a Tomato Coulis)

It is all too common for people my age to rage about how kids these days are internet-absorbed, lazy, video game playing couch potatoes who are going nowhere fast.  With much self-congratulatory confidence we assure ourselves that we were soooo much better when we were young, forgetting all those times when we bagged school, grabbed a case and went fishing at the shore on a school day.  There are good and bad in every age and I can guarantee from personal experience that my group was not always gold.  Likewise, today most kids are great, some are slugs.  They party like rock stars, flunk tests, act out and listen to that “Damn Rap!”  They don’t really care about others.   While there are young people who do all that crazy stuff, Marta Djalleta is not one of them.  She is making a difference.

I met Marta, her sister and parents at our church.  Her mother is one of the talented music ministers and I cook chicken with her father every 4^th of July for our big neighborhood Jazz Vespers BBQ.  For her 16^th birthday, she raised money for Charity: Water to dig a well in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.  We’ll be getting the GPS coordinates and pictures soon.  Now, she is on to a new thing.  Here’s what Marta has to say:

“… I would like to tell you all that I am doing another Chairty: Water campaign for my 40-day veganism during Lent.  I have a small goal of $500, but I hope to soon surpass this goal!  As a reminder, 100% of your donations will fund the building of a well. My eggs and cheese-loving self would appreciate your support during this trying period of my life!  You can show your support by going to: http://my.charitywater.org/MartaGoesVegan and donating whatever you can!”

Send Marta your money!  Thirsty communities in the developing world are counting on you.  And as soon as you are done, whip up this vegan dish to celebrate and honor Marta and her effort to help the neediest in our world.

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Zucchini and Mushroom Bombe with a Tomato Coulis (serves 4)

2 medium zucchini, sliced lengthwise into strips 1/4 inch thick

1lb. white mushrooms

1 28 oz. can of tomatoes, drained

1 tsp. fresh basil leaves, sliced julienne (long, thin strips)

1 small shallot

5 tbs. olive oil

salt and black pepper

Roughly chop the mushrooms and shallot by hand or in a food processor.  Be careful not to liquefy the mushrooms, you want them to be cut into uneven pieces about 1/4 inches in size.  Sauté the mushrooms and shallots in a heavy pan until dry, about 10 minutes.  Use a wooden spoon to keep them moving so they will not burn.  When fully cooked, they will be black and will clump onto the spoon as you stir them.  Move the mushroom stuffing into a bowl and reserve it while you do the next step.

Preheat the oven to 400°.  Spread 2 tbs. of olive oil on a baking sheet.  Lay the zucchini slices on the baking sheet, season with salt and pepper, bake for 10 minutes, until the zucchini cooks and begins to brown on the edges.  The mushrooms and zucchini can be cooked a day ahead and refrigerated until final assembly.

Preheat the oven to 350°.  Oil the inside of a small bowl or 6 oz coffee cup.  Lay the zucchini slices in the cups with the ends hanging over the outside of the cup.  Fill the cup with mushrooms to within 1/4 inch of the top.  Tap the cups to settle the mushroom mixture and drive out any air bubbles.  Fold the zucchini slices over the top of the mushrooms, sealing the Bombe.  Bake the Bombes in a shallow baking pan filled with 1/2 inch of water for 30 minutes, until they have heated through.

While the Bombes are cooking, puree the drained tomatoes in a food processor.  Strain them through a fine strainer into a 6 qt. saucepot.  Heat the tomato Coulis on high until reduced by 1/3.  stir in the remaining olive oil, add the julienne basil, adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper, cover and allow the flavors to blend and marry for a minute.

Serve the Zucchini Bombes on a large dinner plate.  Briefly reheat the coulis.  Cover the bottom of the plate with 4 tbs. of the Tomato Coulis.  Turn the Bombe out of the cups in the center of the plate.  Serve immediately.

I'm a Teddy Bear! (puree of broccoli soup)

I’m told that I can be cranky.  I’m doing my best to moderate that, anger isn’t my “go to” anymore.   Seriously, in the past, I was one of those chefs that threw things, rolls, pots, sauté pans, rolls, even knives.  The little paring knives get the point across to the waiters, because with a little practice, you can stick them in the wall, right beside their head as they are gabbing instead of running “this %#@& venison to table eight!” I will admit to have been less than pleasant at times. 

But that’s all in the past.  I’m cuddly now.  I like kittens and flowers and puffy clouds.  I decorate with posters of puppies.  Yeah, my heart rate is no longer like that of a hummingbird and my gastric juices are not swirling like Hell Gate.  Life is good, really good, at least until I start looking at recipe web sites.  It’s good to keep up with the competition.  I like to see what the other folks are doing.  It also sets me on edge.

As a professional chef, I read cookbooks like literature.  Honestly, as I page through a cookbook, I know what the food is going to taste like.  Think that’s odd, well I know a bunch of musicians and they can look over sheet music and hear the whole thing, preformed, complete down to every nuance.  My recipe channeling is the same thing.  It is also a curse because, as I read I have the acrid taste of scorched onions or the combination of kiwi and shrimp in my mouth.  I know that the author never made the dish and that the result of following their advice will be horrid.  Some posters just don’t know what they are doing.  That’s OK, they’re not pros, but they are published authors so they should at least test out what they recommend.

One sin that has become so common is the reposting of someone else’s work.  This bugs me.  I’m asking for a little honesty here.  If you wrote the recipe, take credit for it.  Brag!  You have done something spectacular.  If not, tagging something like “Recipe adapted from Simply Recipes” on the bottom of the page doesn’t cover it.  (”adapted” means that they changed the font)  Even the most distracted middle school teacher would bust you for plagiarism if you tried that in the real world, so why is it cool online?

The other thing that works me up is that everyone uses chicken stock in every recipe they can, without thinking about what the final flavor is going to be.  Wouldn’t it be better to make broccoli soup with vegetable stock or water and let the green stuff shine.  Why mask those good ingredients with a reduced stock.  The reason may be the fault of poorly trained commercial chefs who feel that soup base or bullion, that salty, fatty evil substance that substitutes for stock, is included in most commercial recipes, from soup to Waldorf Salad (really, I’ve seen it).  Some chefs see it as a given, necessary to boost the “flavor profile.” 

I want to encourage you to think at the stove.  That’s why today’s recipe is, like the previous recipe for creamy salad dressing, is a chart.  You’ll get a basic recipe for broccoli soup and then a bunch of ways to vary it.  This way, you will have the technique under your belt and won’t freak out if there is no broccoli in the market that day, you’ll just hum along the aisles and grab up something to replace what you originally came for.  You’ll be able to make parsnip soup in the winter and tomato soup when it’s hot out.  While the ingredients may change, the technique will always be there in your back pocket. 

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Puree of Broccoli Soup to serve six

1 bunch broccoli, about 3 cups chopped

1 ½ cups white potato, peeled and diced

1 cup onion, diced

2 tsp. butter

6 cups water or vegetable stock

salt and pepper

Roughly chop the tops of the broccoli.  Deeply peel away the tough outer skin of the broccoli stems.  Chop the peeled stems into ½ inch pieces.

In a heavy bottomed stockpot, over a low heat, melt the butter then sauté the onions until transparent, about 5 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add the broccoli and potatoes, continue to sauté the onions, potatoes and broccoli until the broccoli has wilted.

Pour in the water or vegetable stock, increase the heat and bring the soup to a boil.  Lower the heat, simmer for one hour, skimming occasionally to remove any proteins that rise to the top.

Puree the soup with a minipimer or pass it through a food mill.  Bring the soup back to a serving temperature, adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper and add an enrichment or serve as is.

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Use the following chart to make a soup of your own.  The process is easy.  Use the Broccoli Soup recipe above as your guide, then choose an ingredient from the chart below to vary the master recipe.  For example, you can make a great soup by substituting 3 cups of chopped spinach for the broccoli.  Additionally, you could make a butternut squash soup with rice as a starch to thicken it.  If you would add ½ cup of heavy cream to your squash soup, that would be a special thing.  If you want to get a little crazy, use 2 vegetables, say 1 ½ cup tomatoes and 1 ½ cup red peppers and thicken it with white beans.  Got it?  Use your head.  Play, have fun with your food.

Vegetable	Starch	Enrichment
carrot	rice,  ¾ cup uncooked	butter, 3 tbs.
spinach onion tomato red peppers celery sweet potato mushrooms parsnips asparagus salsify butternut squash pumpkin yam	ditalini, ¾ cup uncooked pastina, ½ cup uncooked bread, 2 cups diced red or white beans, 1 cup             cooked lentils, 1 cup uncooked	heavy cream, ½ cup whole milk, 1 cup yogurt, 1 cup buttermilk, 1 cup pesto, 3 tbs.

Ours/Yours?

Here's our menu for today.

Garlic and chile pickles
Corn and fresh cheese fritters, preserved lemon mayonnaise dip 

Turkey with sage, sausage and mushroom stuffing
Giblet and roasted garlic gravy
Orange cranberry sauce
Mashed potatoes
Braised sweet potatoes with maple syrup
Cortland applesauce
Brussel sprouts cooked with bacon and aromatic vegetables

Apple pie
Pumpkin pie
Pumpkin and cinnamon ice cream

Beaujolais Nouveau
Home fermented hard cider
Trimbach Gewurztraminer

...and yours?

Back to the kitchen.  Happy Thanksgiving. 

Lou

It Begins! (Fritters)

I like to cook.  Even when I’m at home alone, I’ll whip up something that my wife thinks is extreme, overly complicated and dirties up too many pots and pans.  That said, whatever I’m making up tastes good and reflects my individual flair.  I once read that any of her acolytes could pick out the egg that the great chef and educator Alice Waters had fried, just by looking at the way that the whites had scorched around the outside.  I hope that I have a similar, distinctive style.  Fritters may be an example of that.

For most cooks, the coming Thanksgiving holiday is a hassle.  You’ll be cooking for more people than usual, the kitchen will be cramped with inefficient “helpers” and the food is expected to be perfect, just like Grandma used to make.  The problem is that everyone’s memory of Grandma’s meal is really just a misremembered bit of Norman Rockwell.  At her house, the turkey was dry, the TV was too loud and Uncle John said something inappropriate every year and got slapped by Aunt Sarah.  Psychological balance is a tricky thing.  I repress a lot!

A great cook at Thanksgiving works hardest at making their life easy.  Over the next few days, I’m going to help you survive and thrive during what can be an extremely stressful day.  One of the best ways to do that is to plan ahead what you’ll be serving and make most of your offerings dishes that can be reheated at the last minute and put on the table.  You’ll want to keep the final work to a minimum, just in case the unexpected, which will happen, happens.  This way, you’ll be able to deal with the craziness that comes with family dinners with panache.   So, our focus over the next few days will be on dishes that can be prepped ahead of time.  You’ll look good and be able to enjoy that Beaujolais Nouveau, rather than needing that water glass of Scotch RIGHT NOW, DAMNIT!

Fritters are a good hors d'oeuvre.  They can be prepped two days ahead and are easily varied.  Without too much of a problem, you can make a few types, say maybe ham, shrimp or cheese.  Just split the batter in half and stir in the savory ingredients.  Toss a plate of fritters out into the family room and the kids will leave you alone for a while so you can get down to business.  What follows is just a basic recipe.  There are plenty of substitutions that you can make.  For example, switch buttermilk for the milk or if you care about taste not longevity, bacon fat for butter.  I sort of feel that if you are making fritters, you probably aren’t counting calories.  Don’t eat them every day, but when you do, do it right. 

Fritters

2 cups flour

½ cup milk

1 egg

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon melted butter

a pinch each of sugar and salt

In a large mixing bowl, combine the milk, egg, butter, salt and sugar.  Mix with a wooden spoon to combine.  Add the baking powder and flour.  Mix the fritter batter until it pulls away from the sides of the bowl.  You’ve done nothing wrong.  It should be a sticky mess.  Add any extra flavorings at the end.

Heat a three inch deep pot of oil to 375°.  Use a thermometer.  The oil must not be too hot or the center of the fritters will not cook.  With a small spoon, drop one teaspoon of batter into the oil.  Turn the fritter when one side is cooked.  Fry for about three minutes until brown and crispy on the outside.  Remove from the oil with a strainer and drain on some newspaper.  Fry the fritters in small batches.  You can also fry them on an electric griddle like lumpy pancakes.  Hold the cooked fritter in a 165° oven.  Season with salt.  Serve hot.

For savory fitters, I usually add 1 sliced scallion and 2 slices of bacon that have been cooked and crumbled.  You can mix it up by adding whatever you have in the fridge.  Avoid any dried herbs.  They tend to burn.  Here are some variations:

1 cup chopped ham

1 cup cooked, chopped shrimp or scallops

1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, chevre or crumbled bleu cheese

1 15 ounce can of corn, drained well

½ cup cooked oyster mushrooms

1 cup stewed onions (cook slowly in butter until like jam, cool)

1 cup cooked, chopped swiss chard

1 cup peeled, blanched and chopped asparagus, broccoli or salsify

Some folks want to serve fritters with a sweet dipping sauce.  I wonder why you would want to coat a well-made fritter with sugary goo.  Stick with a mayo or cream based sauce with fresh herbs.

Put this away for later.  On Thanksgiving, you’ll want to stick with pumpkin pie and the like for dessert, but you should keep in the back of your mind that sweet fritters make a good dessert or side for brunch.  My favorites are with diced lemon, peels and all, which have been stewed in syrup.  Cook a chopped lemon in 1/3 cup sugar and 1/3 cup water until it crystallizes, then finely chop.  Whatever you put in the fritter batter should be cooked and cooled.  Try peaches, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, pears, brandied cherries, apples, cranberries... 

Fry ‘em up and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Stock Rant v. 1.0 (Vegetable Stock, Glazed Mushrooms)

This will be a bit of a rant, but aren’t you getting used to that?

For the moment, I’m not naming names.  Last weekend, on one of those NPR Saturday lunchtime food shows, I heard a cook book author talking about being thrifty in the kitchen.  My ears tuned in.  This is an uncommon topic on food shows.  The usual talk is about new, expensive/flashy ingredients that you can cook up at home just like they do at Le Bec Fin.  Most authors go on at length about sturgeon stewed in Châteaux d'Yquem  (a beautiful Sauternes by the way) with morilles and crème fraiche topped with beluga caviar.  I’m an OK cook and I’m unlikely to be doing that.  Last night we had pork neck stewed with cabbage, carrots, turnips and potatoes.  It was great and 1/20 the the cost.

So I hear her say that when preparing food, she always has an eye to making stocks.  Good!  She continued, saying that she has a Tupperware in the fridge where she throws peels to make a stock when there has been a good amount collected.  Also good!  The host asked her what she made the stock from and she said, “ends of celery, onion peels, carrot parings” Unbelievably good!  And then she said, “…and if I peel asparagus or tomatoes or artichokes I throw them into the pot to boil.” 

No, no, or cribbing Darth Vader, NOOOOOOOOOOO!!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF_lJTGKFP0

Here’s the thing.  If you put a bunch of what is really garbage in a pot and boil it, you really shouldn’t be surprised if what you get as the end product is, well…garbage.  Saving peels is a fine idea.  It is done in every great restaurant and by every Grandma looking to feed the family on a budget.  It just makes sense, there’s flavor in those peels.  What you don’t want to do is toss a bunch of random vegetable scraps in a pot, especially strong tasting stuff like asparagus, tomatoes or artichokes.

At some point, we’ll talk about the dark sin that is boxed chicken stock and the value of shrimp shells, but for now, let’s leave it at that stocks are under rated as flavor enhancers in this country.  They are a cheap and easy way to make dishes that have a special, layered, taste profile that you get if you think about what you are doing at the stove.  A well-made vegetable stock, in comparison to last Saturday’s boiled mess, is light, brightly flavored, versatile and truly a thing of beauty.  And it is not difficult or time-consuming.  It even freezes well, make a big batch.

A vegetable stock recipe follows, along with one for mushrooms sautéed with shallots and herbs, then glazed with the vegetable stock.  The mushroom dish is a variation on butter-braised mushrooms.  God help me, it is actually good for you.  It is the sort of preparation that shows solid technique always wins out over boiling scraps into a murky stew.

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Vegetable Stock

2 large carrots, roughly chopped

1 large Spanish onion, roughly chopped with the skin

the bottom three inches of a head of celery, cut in half

6 white mushrooms, sliced

sprig of parsley

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

2 bay leaves

4 black peppercorns

1 gallon cold water

Add one cup of cold water, the carrots, onion, celery and mushrooms to a large, heavy bottomed stock pot on high heat.  When the water boils, lower the heat and simmer these aromatic vegetables until the onions are translucent.

Add the remainder of the water to the pot.  Add the parsley, garlic, bay leaves and peppercorns.  Turn the heat to high and bring the stock to a low simmer.  

Reduce the heat to low and simmer the stock uncovered for 30 minutes.  Remove the stock from the heat.  Strain the liquid through a fine strainer, reserve the liquid and throw away the cooked vegetables.

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Vegetable Stock Glazed Mushrooms

1# small button mushrooms, cleaned and trimmed

1 cup vegetable stock

1 clove of garlic, chopped

1 small shallot, chopped

2 tbs. parsley, chopped

2 tbs. olive oil

salt and pepper

Heat the olive oil in a sauté pan large enough to hold the mushroom in one layer.  When the oil is hot, add the mushrooms and lightly season with salt and pepper. 

Keep the pan on a high heat and continue stirring the mushrooms until they begin to brown.  Add the garlic, shallots and parsley.  Sauté for one minute, then add the vegetable stock.

Continuing on high heat, cook the stock down until it has almost evaporated, glazing the mushrooms.  Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.  Serve immediately.