blog archive for 2008

We have to admit, taste testing is not usually a hardship, especially when we see a menu where all the foods actually go together , which is usually not the case. It was the case when we tested the recipes for the Mama Mia story, which centers around Christmas dinner at the Tuckaway Family Farm in Conway, Mass.

The pork loin was a beauty and worked like a charm the first go round. We were a bit concerned that it might be dry (as lean pork loins can be), but it was moist and succulent.

Especially when we dipped little pieces of the pork in the savory pan drippings.

These Au Gratin Potatoes looked a bit more like a cauliflower casserole than potatoes because they don’t have a lot of butter or extra things in them. But they proved to be perfect with the pan drippings.

In the mixed greens recipe, we used kale, which is hearty and stands up to heat. Use your largest skillet.

We found a tongs to be the best tool to use to stir the greens around.

The sliced garlic should be slightly browned but not burned.

The steamed pudding worked great and was very tasty, but the piece de resistance proved to be the Butter Sauce adorning it.

Butter Sauce 0614
We made it ahead of time, refrigerated it (shown here) and then reheated it.

0615
Make sure the sugar completely dissolves either way.

For someone who spends as much time as I do in the kitchen, Thanksgiving should be a breeze. Instead, it's been a string of near misses, and the very thought of stuffing a turkey makes me want to lie down with a cold cloth over my head.

The trouble started the first year I was married. My plan was to wow my husband with the best Thanksgiving dinner since the Native Americans sat down with the Colonists. I bought a turkey at Macy's and carried it home on my lap on the subway. I might have made a pot of cranberry sauce the night before, but as I remember, I was in no hurry to start cooking.

The next day we went to the parade, and by the time the turkey was ready to go in the oven, it was dark.  Around midnight, I asked my husband to open a bottle of wine, and he said he was too weak from hunger.

The next year, I had a schedule. I set the alarm for the crack of dawn and by noon, the turkey was ready to go in the oven --- right on time.  But as I was lifting the pan, I noticed I wasn't wearing my wedding ring.  I knew where it had to be and was faced with one of those decisions cooks sometimes make in the privacy of their kitchens. Should I spend time taking out the stuffing to find the ring or stick to my timetable and hope it would land on my plate?  I decided to take the risk and stay on schedule.

Of course, there was always the possibility, which I did not even want to think about, that my husband would swallow the ring and end up in the emergency room with a tube in his nose. On the brighter side, there was an outside chance the ring would turn up as I scooped out the stuffing and he'd never have to know what was going on. When that didn't happen, I had no choice but to come clean. I remember offering to make his favorite pasta with artichokes and mushrooms and save the turkey for the next day, but in the end we decided to take our chances.

We poked around with our forks like a couple of treasure hunters, and after a very long couple of minutes, the ring turned up on my husband's plate buried in stuffing. We agreed it could have been worse, although at the time, I couldn't imagine how much worse things could get.  The next year, we decided to give Thanksgiving a rest and let his mother do the cooking. Ever since, I take off my rings when I cook.

This simple tart was perfection from the beginning. It turned out great the first time with no snafus at all. Be sure to cook onions until really browned and fully caramelized—which results in a sweet buttery texture.

Not long ago, I read people were cooking more from scratch. In the midst of the economic blight, it makes perfect sense and although I can't imagine anyone boiling bagels or making Jell-O the old-fashioned way with gelatin and sugar, I can picture them whisking salad dressings and stirring chocolate pudding.  

"From scratch" cooking is something Harry Balzer would know. Harry is at NPD, a marketing group that studies consumer behavior. For 30 years his specialty has been American eating habits—not what people say they eat, but what they actually put in their mouths. Off the top of his head, Harry knows ham is the most popular homemade sandwich and fruit is the nation's favorite dessert. He knows people are still going to restaurants, but instead of having supper, they're eating breakfast or buying take-out. Harry has the numbers to prove more men are cooking and packaged foods and microwaves are on the increase. But he says there's no evidence from-scratch cooking is on the rise.  

In fact, cooking is not one of America's favorite habits. According to Harry, preparing a meal is a task, which turns into a job, which people don't want. "Cooking is recreational when you don't have to do it every day," says Harry.

For someone like me, who likes nothing better than putting on an apron and cooking up a storm, it's hard to believe.  But if Harry says so, it must be true.

There's a jar of fines herbes sitting on the shelf, which I always mean to use, but when I take off the cover and take a whiff, the only thing I get is tarragon. This would be OK if I wanted tarragon, but fines herbes is supposed to be more than that. In its purest form, it's a combination of parsley, chives and tarragon, but my guess is French cooks doctor it with other herbs. Unlike many Americans, who tend to season as if they need a jolt of something strong to cover what's underneath, the French use herbs to quietly enhance the flavor of a dish.  

Although I would never count myself as a French country cook, I'm pretty careful about what I add to a recipe. And so, whenever I've been tempted to sprinkle a pinch of supermarket fines herbes, I decide to go with my own blend of fresh parsley, dried rosemary and thyme.  

All that changed when a friend gave me a cellophane packet of fines herbes she bought in Provence. In addition to little flecks of green, which smell like a balance of thyme and possibly sage or rosemary, there are tiny bits that might be lavender. One sniff and you understand why people go to France for the food.    

I know cookbooks say fines herbes are for soups, eggs and cheese dishes, but when you have a seasoning so good, you become amazingly creative. I've been crumbling it over sauteed vegetables and chicken dishes and adding it to cream sauces and grain pilafs. I'm planning to use it in a pot of white bean soup and sprinkle it into a spaghetti frittata. Sooner, rather than later, it's going to run out and I'll go back to my parsley, thyme and rosemary routine. In the meantime, I'm feeling très chic.

The first apple pie of the season just came out of the oven, and if I must say, it’s a culinary work of art. It’s the pie I bring to potluck suppers, and people rush through their meal to get in line for dessert. Grown men push their way to the front and, when they think no one is looking, lick their plates clean.   

Before the pie goes into the oven, I brush a little milk and sprinkle sugar over the top so it’s got a bit of a glaze, and while it’s still warm, I give it my signature topping — a sugary drizzle of thick white icing.  Also, it’s covered with a lattice crust — you don’t see those very often on apple pies, but it seems to make a better balance of pastry and fruit than the usual vented top crust.

About the apples — I know some cooks swear by Romes, but I think Cortlands make the best pies. Besides their great taste, they hold their shape. Macs also have good flavor, but they tend to fall apart when cooked so instead of nice slices, you end up with something resembling cinnamon applesauce sandwiched between two crusts.

For the crust, combine 1 1/2 cups flour and 2 1/2 tablespoons sugar. Cut in 1/2 cup shortening and add about 5 tablespoons ice water or enough to form a dough. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and put in fridge.

For the filling, combine 2 1/4 pounds apples, peeled and sliced (about 7 cups), 3/4 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons flour, 1 tablespoon lemon juice and 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon.

Preheat the oven to 425F. Roll about two-thirds of the dough into a rough 12-inch circle and fit into a 9-inch pie plate. Fill with apples. Roll remaining dough into a rough 12-inch circle and cut in 8 strips. Place strips in lattice pattern on top of pie and seal edges.   

Brush pastry with about a teaspoon of milk and sprinkle with 2 teaspoons sugar. Bake 20 minutes. Lower temperature to 375 degrees and bake another 20 minutes or until the crust is golden brown. Cool the pie on a rack and when it’s at room temperature or still warm, whisk 1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar and about 1 teaspoon warm water to make a thick glaze. Drizzle over the top. Makes a 9-inch pie.         

arry it to the table and stand back so the crowd can get through!

The January 2006 anniversary issue of Gourmet magazine has always been one of my favorites. After 65 years of publishing, the magazine celebrated by  featuring the best recipes from every year.

Like anyone who was around when celery stuffed with cream cheese and sprinkled with paprika, and onion soup mix mixed with sour cream were the rage, I’ve always known there were trends in food, but it took that Gourmet for me to see how much has happened the nation’s kitchens.   

For instance, in the 1940s, Americans were starting to cook “ethnic,” and the magazine had recipes for Indonesian fried rice and duck a l’orange with homemade duck stock. This was, after all, Gourmet, and if you were going to caramelize sugar and sieve vegetables, you might just as well make stock.

Ten years later, the magazine announced that baking was making a comeback, and readers were treated to butterscotch pie and galette des rois (almond butter cake), which took almost a whole page of instructions and hours to make. Beef was also popular, and there was a steak au poivre with four 10-ounce steaks, half a stick of butter and heavy cream — a recipe that should have come with a health warning.

Over the next couple of decades, home cooks tiptoed into vegetarianism and chefs into nouvelle cuisine — small servings of “light” food arranged like works of art. I remember a man who said his only question after eating a very expensive nouvelle cuisine lunch was how many hands it took to “plate” his food.   

By the ’80’s Americans had enough of mini-portions and were back into layer cakes and cheese grits, and by the ’90’s Gourmet’s cooks let down their hair and printed a black-bean chili from Fog City Diner in San Francisco and pizza with three cheeses and onion. For readers with time on their hands, there were homemade cheese crackers, and from Quaglino’s in London, where an order of fish can run to $75, there was apple charlotte with vanilla custard sauce.

At the turn of the century, Gourmet was focusing on zippy flavors — chocolate, chili and coffee. In the anniversary issue there is a full-page picture of a chocolate souffle cake that’s a culinary pin-up, and a cauliflower gratin with horseradish crumbs that I’m thinking about for Thanksgiving.                                   

Yesterday, I flipped back to the 1940s and found a chicken cacciatore that sounds great. I know I’ll get to it someday, but I draw the line at celery stuffed with cream cheese.

Almost everyone has heard the name Julia Child, but mention Simone “Simca” Beck, and you’re likely to get a blank stare. Beck, along with Louisette Bertholle and Julia Child wrote the first volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, the work that gave American cooks the confidence to march into their kitchens and make fricassee de poulet a l’estragon and gateau a l’orange. 

In 1972, four years after the mighty Mastering the Art of French Cooking was published, Beck wrote her own book, Simca’s Cuisine. It’s a collection of menus and recipes for everything from a chic little lunch to an Alsatian family dinner. Granted, not everyone wants help putting on chic lunches and hunt breakfasts, but there’s another side to the book that makes it a friend to home cooks.

Scattered throughout Simca’s Cuisine are trucs (culinary secrets) and conseils (advice) that Beck picked up from years of cooking. Her trucs can make the difference between a good dish and a really extraordinary one, and her conseils can help cooks organize and prepare ahead. For example, to enhance the flavor of coffee, add a pinch of salt with the boiling water and to give the aroma of garlic to a dish that’s been cooked with garlic, add more garlic towards the end of cooking.

Which brings me to a few of the little tricks I’ve learned along the way. I can’t honestly say they transform my cooking from ho-hum to over-the-top, but they bring it up a notch. For instance:

When making crusts for dessert pies, I add two tablespoons sugar to the flour and when the crust is for savory pies, I add two tablespoons Parmigiano cheese.

If the pie filling has eggs, I beat the eggs before adding other ingredients and brush the pastry rim with a few teaspoons of beaten egg to give it a nice glaze.

For potato salads and cole slaws, I whisk a couple of tablespoons of bottled blue cheese or ranch dressing into the mayonnaise to perk up the flavor.

I add a pinch of nutmeg to practically everything I cook with spinach or eggs.

I try never to forget to add a little brown sugar to tomato sauces.

If the cookie jar isn’t empty, I refrigerate cookie dough overnight before baking cookies.  (Invariably, my husband says they taste better and asks if I did anything different. “Just one of my tricks,” I say.)

I haven’t eaten out lately but from what I hear, restaurants — like the rest of us — are doing whatever they can to save money. Bread baskets are no longer overflowing, portions are smaller, and chefs are using less expensive shiitake mushrooms instead of pricey morels. Restauranteurs call it cash flow or “eye on the bottom line,” but let’s face it, they’re strapped like the rest of us.

Although I’ve always been a frugal cook, I still keep track of my expenses. Like lots of people, I check flyers for specials and when something I like is on sale, I load up. I learned the hard way that just because something is cheap is not reason enough to buy it. In my cupboard, there are three jars of jalapeno olives that will probably never make it to the table.
Store brands are another way to cut down on expenses, but only if you’re happy with the product. I never realized how many different labels were on the same soup until there was a recall years ago and the manufacturer listed all the brands that were involved. Some store brands are better than others — buy one, try it, and then decide whether to stock up.   

That said, there are some things I will not change.  For instance, I buy premium coffee because I love it and can’t bring myself to start the day without it. 

I’ve always saved money by cutting out the middleman. I never buy washed lettuce, sliced mushrooms or baby carrots. It seems ridiculous to pay someone else to shred cabbage for cole slaw, peel Butternut squash or grate cheese.

I use every last scrap of food possible and am neurotic about freezing anything freezable, which is why, in my freezer there are three rinds of Parmigiano-Reggiano I’ve been meaning to add to a pot of minestrone. I know  I’ll use them eventually, because the alternative is to buy a chunk of Parmigiano just for the rind, which a frugal cook would never do.