I Want My Kitchen Back!!!! (Italian grilled cheese sandwich, garlic butter)

Some of you know that we have been rehabbing the downstairs of our house, so that we can begin teaching cooking and later Reiki and yoga.  http://www.freshfunfoods.com/ourkitchen/  The contractors are great guys, doing top quality work at a reasonable price.  If anyone wants a quote on a concrete counter or vinyl flooring, I’d be happy to set you up with Brett, Bill and Tim. 

The gas company is a different thing.  We are changing over to LP from electric, so some piping and electrical work needs doing.  The guy showed up last Friday with a big tank, but insisted that he couldn’t do the wiring or punch a hole in the wall to run copper to the new stove.  I would have to find a contractor to do that work, and then he’ll come back.  If his company wasn’t the cheapest, I’d go elsewhere, although I don’t really have a choice, since it would take about two weeks to line up another supplier.  Bill is knocking out the work right now.  After a few calls, I found Green Propane in Hatfield.  Their manager was out this morning and by 9:00 am had speced out the job and given me a price that was far lower than the previous company.  Installation and hookup is scheduled for early Thursday morning.  Additionally, the cost for the gas is $.50 lower than the other guys, a big win all around.

I feel like I’m camping, cooking in such a stripped down way.  Remember that I normally don’t think anything of using a half dozen knives to make a salad.  The whole idea of chopping on a cutting board on a card table and then cooking either on an electric griddle or a crock pot bugs me a bit.  We’ve have not pasta in a couple of weeks.  It is a hassle to brew my last remaining addiction, coffee, in the morning.  I had to go into four rooms to retrieve a knife, butter, bread jelly and finally the toaster for breakfast yesterday. 

The high point, and this may sound silly, has been the rediscovery of my love for grilled cheese.  Seriously, you would not expect a heavy weight chef to go nuts over something as simple as melted cheese on grilled bread.  Maybe it answer is in the process or the ingredients or the limitations that only having an electric griddle being loaded on my head.  Whatever, grilled cheese is good, food of the Gods on a cold day and something you should make right now.

Start with the bread.  It has to be good, as it makes up most of the sandwich.  Stay away from grocery store air bread, no flavor plus it burns quickly.  You’ll want something that has character and texture.  Bakers on Broad in Souderton is your place for good bread.  http://bakersonbroad.com/  The baguettes are everything you expect from French bread, the whole wheat is toasty and nutty, their Italian loaves are great smeared with garlic butter.  Slice it yourself.  You’ll want slightly thicker slices than their machine will produce.  Use top quality cheese.  Cheddar and Asiago are my favorites and both are available in any supermarket. 

Electric griddles are cheap these days.  I saw one at Kohl’s for $7.95 on Black Friday.  Even if you do spend $30, consider it disposable, that’s the society we live in.  It will be Teflon coated, so use only plastic spatulas.  Your griddle will have one of those dials to adjust the temperature, but don’t trust it.  These things are normally blazing hot or cold, not much in between.  Size, not more than 25 inches across.  The space is wasted and the Teflon tends to burn out on the unused space.  Don’t buy a used electric griddle.  It is probably unsafe.  You are only buying someone else’s problem.

Today, I’ve provided a recipe for an Italian grilled cheese sandwich.  You’ll be able to cook the whole thing on an electric griddle, even sautéing the rapini.  Do yourself a favor, grate your own Locatelli cheese.  The bagged stuff has “powdered cellulose” in it to prevent caking.  Powdered cellulose is better known as sawdust.  Ummmmmmmm!!!!  You’ll also need to make garlic butter for this sandwich.  It’s a good thing to have hanging around in the fridge, since you’ll learn to use it on pasta, vegetables, garlic bread, grilled chicken…

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Italian Style Grilled Cheese Sandwich

4 slices of Italian bread, ½ inch thick

8 slices sharp provolone cheese

2 oz. Locatelli cheese, grated

½ bunch broccoli rabe (rapini)

2 tsp. garlic butter

4 tsp. olive oil

salt and pepper

Heat the griddle to high.  Trim the thick bottoms from the broccoli rabe.   Pour 1 tsp. of olive oil onto the griddle.  Sauté the broccoli rabe for five minutes, until cooked, but still crisp.  Move the broccoli rabe off to the side of the griddle. 

Pour the remainder of the olive oil onto the griddle.  Put the bread on the griddle, spread a ½ tsp of garlic butter on each piece of bread.

Top each with a slice of provolone cheese.  Divide the Locatelli cheese equally and spread it on top of the provolone.  Top the sandwiches with the broccoli rabe. 

Cook for two minutes.  Put the tops on the sandwiches and cook, flipping every two minutes, until the cheese has fully melted.  The bread should be browned evenly.  Remove from the griddle, cut in half and serve immediately.

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Garlic Butter

8 tbs. unsalted butter

4 tbs. olive oil

4 cloves garlic, chopped

2 tsp. fresh parsley

2 tsp. fresh oregano

½ tsp. pepper

pinch of salt

In mixing bowl, soften the butter by leaving it sit at room temperature for an hour.

Add the remaining ingredients; mix with a rubber spatula, folding the aromatics into the butter.  Put the garlic butter into a plastic container and refrigerate.

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.  

Your Culinary Salvation (chicken stock, Avgolemono soup)

Ok, admit it, because confession is good for the soul.  You threw away the turkey carcass on Thanksgiving.  You probably didn’t even pick the meat off of it before it went in the trash.  There, didn’t that feel good?  You are not off the hook yet.  Redemption only comes after you show a willingness to change from your previous bad behavior and that’s what I’m here for, to offer you a chance at culinary salvation.

A continuing theme in the Fresh Fun Food Blog will be making stocks, soups and sauces simply.  My methods will show you how to get the most flavor and nutrition out of things that might have been tossed out in the trash.  Onion and carrot peels are a good example, similarly the turkey carcass mentioned previously.  When you learn to think at the stove, you will have learned to recognize where flavor comes from and how you can best exploit the ingredients in front of you.  Following is a recipe for chicken stock that can easily be adapted, using that turkey carcass instead of the chicken bones.  Since the turkey has already been cooked, there is no need to soak it in salted water, simply add it to the pot with the vegetables.

Chicken stock is one of the most overused ingredients in American kitchens, particularly when making soups.  It has its place, but if you are making a carrot or broccoli soup, wouldn’t you rather taste the vegetables instead of reduced broth.  Water is cheaper and makes a cleaner tasting, brighter flavored soup.  With that rant out of the way, you really should make your own stock.  Used properly, it makes a big difference in your cooking.  A Greek Avgolemono soup recipe is included.  The technique of tempering eggs is a little tricky, but the result is worth the effort.  Since you have made a nice stock, why not show it off with an egg and lemon enrichment.

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Chicken Stock

2 pounds of chicken necks and backs

2 large carrots, roughly chopped

1 large Spanish onion, roughly chopped with the skin

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

sprig of parsley

sprig of fresh thyme or ½ tsp. dried

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

2 bay leaves

4 black peppercorns

1 ½ gallons cold water

1 tbs. kosher salt

In a large basin, soak the chicken bones in cold salted water for one hour, in order to draw out any remaining blood, which would cloud the stock.  Drain the water and rinse the bones with cold water after soaking.

Add the bones, the carrots, onion, celery and water to a large, heavy bottomed stock pot.  Turn on high heat.  When the water boils, skim any scum that rises to the top, lower the heat.  Add the parsley, garlic, bay leaves and peppercorns.  Bring the stock to a low simmer.  Simmer the stock for 90 minutes.  It will have reduced by 1/3.

Remove the stock from the heat.  Strain the liquid through a fine strainer, reserve the liquid and throw away the remainder.

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Avgolemono Soup

1 quart chicken stock

2 egg yolks

the juice of 1 lemon

salt and pepper

½ cup cooked white rice, cooled

Combine the egg yolks and lemon juice in a stainless steel mixing bowl.  Heat the chicken stock to boiling, season with salt and pepper.

With a whisk, mix the eggs and lemon juice.  Using a ladle, slowly add 1/2 cup of the chicken stock to the egg/lemon mix, stirring constantly to temper the eggs, cooking them by bringing them slowly up to temperature.  Continue to ladle the stock into the eggs and lemon.  It will thicken slightly.

When approximately ½ half of the stock has been enriched, stir the egg mixture into the rest of the stock.  Return to the heat, but take care not to boil the soup.  The eggs will scramble in the soup.  Add the rice and serve immediately.