Stroganoff is a dish that sits at the edge between two cuisines. The dish originated when Russian aristocrats requested a stew pe prepared for them by their in-house French chefs. The result was the dish we now call beef stroganoff, although variations with other proteins certainly do exist, most notably chicken. Because we eat a lot more chicken than we do beef in my family (probably 300:1, without exaggeration), this recipe, like so many others, will be presented with chicken as its main protein, with the understanding that you, the reader, can absolutely change out the chicken for beef if that’s what you have available or if that’s what you prefer.
Stroganoff has two kinds of tasks within it: some that are very hands-on, where seconds matter, and some that are very hands-off, where no work needs to be done for 40 minutes or more. This recipe is written so that the hands-off tasks can be set and left alone while all of the home cook’s attention goes to working on the immediate, hands-on tasks. The closer you are to the beginning of the process, the more hands-on it will be.
The 3 adults in my family can comfortably be fed by 1½ pounds of protein; feel free to scale this up or down as necessary given your family’s size. If you use chicken, like I almost always do, I recommend buying high-quality sustainable boneless and skinless chicken breast. If you opt for beef, then use an equivalent amount of the best sirloin steak you can find.
Stroganoff requires good resource management beyond just “having mise en place.” You need to have mise en place, but you need to get mise en place in the right order. This is doubly true if you, like me, have only one cutting surface (with dedicated “meat” and “not-meat” sides) but not two entirely separate surfaces. (This latter scenario is vastly preferable, and, even better would be to color-code your cutting boards: white or clear for non-meat and colored for meat, for instance).
Begin by dicing an onion, mincing 4 cloves of garlic, and washing and slicing 1 pound of baby bella or porcini mushrooms. Some people say not to wash mushrooms but instead to clean them just with a moist paper towel. I used to agree with that—to prevent saturation of the mushrooms—until I realized it was relatively quick to boil the water out of the mushrooms, so this didn’t need to be a concern. The mushrooms and the onion will first expel water contained in their cells. Then, they will begin to fry in the olive oil that should lightly coat the bottom of the pan, forming a thin film over the whole bottom surface, thus providing an interface between the food and the metal surface for more even heat distribution and thus better browning. It takes practice, but you’ll eventually learn to distinguish the sounds coming from your pan when the mushrooms are expelling water versus when they’re browning. Once the mushrooms are beginning to take on some color and have reduced in volume rather significantly, add balsamic vinegar to the mushrooms and the onions. Allow the vinegar to cook off its acidity for a minute or two, and then reserve the mushrooms, onions, and garlic.
Cut your protein of choice into slightly larger than bite-sized pieces. Quickly over high heat, allow your protein to get some good coloring as a result of the Maillard reaction. Do not cook your protein to its desired doneness (165 Fahrenheit for chicken; likely a lower temperature for other proteins unless you like your meat well-done) at this stage; all you want to do is to pick up some color.
Clean your board and utensils thoroughly, and cut 7 tomatoes, 1 bell pepper, and one onion into small enough pieces as to be manageable by a blender. You need a blender to make this sauce because it will ultimately be a cream sauce, and the particles of tomato and such need to be very small so that the fat from the cream can emulsify into them, thus eventually creating a smooth sauce that doesn’t split. Once the sauce has been blended, return the chicken, mushrooms, and onions to the pan, and cook on low heat, maintaining a simmer and stirring occasionally, until the chicken is cooked through, and the sauce has reduced. (If your protein of choice does not need to be cooked through all the way, sear it off, give the sauce a head-start, and then let the protein finish cooking in the sauce.) Season this sauce as you would any other tomato sauce, with salt, pepper, thyme, basil, oregano, and dill. Allow this sauce to cook just as gently, for just as long.
Simultaneously, according to the instructions on the package, prepare the starch of your choice (we choose either rice or pasta depending on what we have most easily available) so that the starch finishes at the same time as the sauce.
When the sauce and the starch have both finished cooking, turn the sauce burner off and move the pan off the heat. Place most of the contents of an 8-ounce tub of sour cream (per 24 ounces of protein) into the sauce, leaving some cream behind. Then, place some sauce back in the tub of cream, and mix the two in the tub. Introduce this mixture back into the sauce. Stir. This last step is called “tempering” the cream sauce, and, together with introducing the cream to the sauce off the heat, this minimizes the chances that the sauce will split. (A “split” sauce will have a film of fat clearly noticeable on the top surface. This isn’t technically harmful; it just isn’t the best presentation, so we try to avoid this whenever possible.) Using a blender to liquefy the sauce in the earlier steps makes the particles of the sauce much smaller than simply chopping them in a food processor, and it’s much easier for fat to wrap around the liquified sauce particles from the blender; doing all of this makes it virtually impossible that the sauce will ever split.
Serve.
Saturday, December 25, 2021
Friday, December 24, 2021
Christmas Eve Rolled Center-Cut Pork Loin with Pan Sauce
Done right, a pork loin can be a wonderful cut of meat. The general public, and especially inexperienced home cooks, get scared by pork and so they don’t cook it nearly as often as they should. Something about pork is much more intimidating than other animal proteins, and I aim to change that. When home cooks do cook pork, many times, it doesn’t fit their expectations. Sorry to burst your bubbles, home chefs, but that’s on you, not on the pork. Pork can certainly pose a challenge, but with a little bit of preparation and good technique, a pork loin roast can be as good or better than any other protein you’re more used to preparing.
First, some anatomy. The pig’s loin muscle tapers at both ends. Therefore, the biggest, fattiest, best, and most expensive part of the loin is the center. A center-cut loin roast that weighs 3-3.5 pounds can comfortably feed 5-7 people. (The center-cut loin roast can get as wide as a desktop keyboard, and the whole loin roast can get to nearly twice that.) Be sure not to confuse a loin roast with a tenderloin roast. The “loin” roast lies on either side of the pig’s spine. Pork chops come from here, and the biggest, best ones come from the center as mentioned above. This is completely different from the “tenderloin” roast—the “pig’s chateaubriand” (you get filet mignon from real chateaubriand from cattle; the tenderloin is essentially that, but on a pig). The “tenderloin” roast rarely exceeds a pound or a pound and a half, so it only barely feeds two. To clear this up, for now, this recipe is covering the “loin” roast. The “tenderloin” recipe will come out in a few months, and when it does, I’ll hyperlink it here.
This loin recipe will require butterflying. This procedure is one of the reasons this particular cut of pork can be intimidating to anyone except those who have years of experience with it. But, taken step-by-step, butterflying is actually quite simple. The idea behind butterflying is simple: cut down 1/3 of the loin almost to the point of detaching it, but not quite. This makes a flap that then opens. One side is 1/3 the original thickness, and the other side is 2/3. Make another cut that opens up the 2/3 so there’s now one flat sheet of pork that opens up like a book. Each time, cut almost all the way through, but never actually all the way through. Use the flat side of a meat mallet to pound out this opened pork loin to roughly even thickness.
Lay the roast flat and open, fat-cap-side down. (If you roll it back up into its previous log-like shape before your butterflying cuts unraveled it, you’ll notice one side has a layer of fat. That’s the fat cap.) Make a few long, shallow cuts in each direction, creating a checkered pattern on the flesh side of the open, butterflied roast. Season it with salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Soften 1 stick of unsalted butter. Into that, mix the chopped leaves of one bunch each of sage, thyme, rosemary, and tarragon, and 4 minced cloves of garlic. Apply this compound butter all over the inside of roast. Roll it up so it looks like it did before you cut into it again and tie it together at regular intervals. Depending on the size and shape of your roast, you might use between four and six knots and equivalently many lengths of kitchen twine. Apply the rest of the butter to the outside of the roast. Once tied and buttered, place the roast in a baking dish fat-cap-side-up, and place that baking dish in a preheated 450-degree oven for 20 minutes. Drop the heat to 350 after 20 minutes and let the roast come up to 140 Fahrenheit in that oven. Remove the roast from the oven at 140, and it will come up at least to 150, maybe even higher, if you let it rest for 10 or 15 minutes. This “cooking after the cooking” is called “carryover” and is an essential part of the process for cooking large steaks or roasts like this one. If you do not allow the proteins to relax and the moisture to redistribute, you’ll end up with a bunch of dry, tense protein—the opposite of the desired moist, tender protein.
There seems to be a generational divide regarding the proper doneness for pork. I’m a part of Gen Z. The prevailing guidance for most of our generation’s experience (and that of Millennials before us) has been that slightly pink pork pulled at 145 is perfectly safe. Our parents and earlier (Gen X, Boomers, and the Silent Generation) were always taught by the USDA that the only way to make pork safe was to cook it all the way well-done. Now, the USDA says medium and medium-well are also perfectly safe. But depending on who you cook for, you may have to adjust to your parents’, grandparents’, etc., preferences. This preference for a higher degree of doneness isn’t irrational. Up until a few decades ago, when Millennials and Gen Zers were growing up, the prevailing wisdom was that trichinosis infection could result from undercooked pork. While still technically true that pork can carry trichinosis, studies have shown that not only is trichinosis exceedingly rare in the American pork yield, but also that 145 is a sufficiently high temperature to mitigate its effects. However, if other pathogens are common where your pork comes from elsewhere in the world, then please, by all means, cook it to 160 to be safe.
Some fond will certainly accumulate on the bottom surface of your roasting tray. Do not let this go to waste! A piece of pork the size of a whole center-cut loin should rest at least 15 minutes (no, it won’t go cold in that time)—the perfect amount of time to make a pan sauce. Into the pan go 2 Tablespoons each of flour and butter, over medium-low heat. Whisk together until a light paste forms, being careful not to burn either the paste (called a “roux”) or the pork fond. Gradually add 1 ½ cups of chicken, beef, or pork stock. Whisk constantly to make sure there are no lumps created in the stock by the thickening power of the roux. This deglazes the pan, i.e., it lifts off those sticky caramelized bits of porky goodness left on the bottom of the pan and dissolves them into the sauce, thereby seasoning it. When the sauce reduces by half, cut off the heat and whisk in another 3 tablespoons of cold butter. Serve alongside the pork loin.
First, some anatomy. The pig’s loin muscle tapers at both ends. Therefore, the biggest, fattiest, best, and most expensive part of the loin is the center. A center-cut loin roast that weighs 3-3.5 pounds can comfortably feed 5-7 people. (The center-cut loin roast can get as wide as a desktop keyboard, and the whole loin roast can get to nearly twice that.) Be sure not to confuse a loin roast with a tenderloin roast. The “loin” roast lies on either side of the pig’s spine. Pork chops come from here, and the biggest, best ones come from the center as mentioned above. This is completely different from the “tenderloin” roast—the “pig’s chateaubriand” (you get filet mignon from real chateaubriand from cattle; the tenderloin is essentially that, but on a pig). The “tenderloin” roast rarely exceeds a pound or a pound and a half, so it only barely feeds two. To clear this up, for now, this recipe is covering the “loin” roast. The “tenderloin” recipe will come out in a few months, and when it does, I’ll hyperlink it here.
This loin recipe will require butterflying. This procedure is one of the reasons this particular cut of pork can be intimidating to anyone except those who have years of experience with it. But, taken step-by-step, butterflying is actually quite simple. The idea behind butterflying is simple: cut down 1/3 of the loin almost to the point of detaching it, but not quite. This makes a flap that then opens. One side is 1/3 the original thickness, and the other side is 2/3. Make another cut that opens up the 2/3 so there’s now one flat sheet of pork that opens up like a book. Each time, cut almost all the way through, but never actually all the way through. Use the flat side of a meat mallet to pound out this opened pork loin to roughly even thickness.
Lay the roast flat and open, fat-cap-side down. (If you roll it back up into its previous log-like shape before your butterflying cuts unraveled it, you’ll notice one side has a layer of fat. That’s the fat cap.) Make a few long, shallow cuts in each direction, creating a checkered pattern on the flesh side of the open, butterflied roast. Season it with salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Soften 1 stick of unsalted butter. Into that, mix the chopped leaves of one bunch each of sage, thyme, rosemary, and tarragon, and 4 minced cloves of garlic. Apply this compound butter all over the inside of roast. Roll it up so it looks like it did before you cut into it again and tie it together at regular intervals. Depending on the size and shape of your roast, you might use between four and six knots and equivalently many lengths of kitchen twine. Apply the rest of the butter to the outside of the roast. Once tied and buttered, place the roast in a baking dish fat-cap-side-up, and place that baking dish in a preheated 450-degree oven for 20 minutes. Drop the heat to 350 after 20 minutes and let the roast come up to 140 Fahrenheit in that oven. Remove the roast from the oven at 140, and it will come up at least to 150, maybe even higher, if you let it rest for 10 or 15 minutes. This “cooking after the cooking” is called “carryover” and is an essential part of the process for cooking large steaks or roasts like this one. If you do not allow the proteins to relax and the moisture to redistribute, you’ll end up with a bunch of dry, tense protein—the opposite of the desired moist, tender protein.
There seems to be a generational divide regarding the proper doneness for pork. I’m a part of Gen Z. The prevailing guidance for most of our generation’s experience (and that of Millennials before us) has been that slightly pink pork pulled at 145 is perfectly safe. Our parents and earlier (Gen X, Boomers, and the Silent Generation) were always taught by the USDA that the only way to make pork safe was to cook it all the way well-done. Now, the USDA says medium and medium-well are also perfectly safe. But depending on who you cook for, you may have to adjust to your parents’, grandparents’, etc., preferences. This preference for a higher degree of doneness isn’t irrational. Up until a few decades ago, when Millennials and Gen Zers were growing up, the prevailing wisdom was that trichinosis infection could result from undercooked pork. While still technically true that pork can carry trichinosis, studies have shown that not only is trichinosis exceedingly rare in the American pork yield, but also that 145 is a sufficiently high temperature to mitigate its effects. However, if other pathogens are common where your pork comes from elsewhere in the world, then please, by all means, cook it to 160 to be safe.
Some fond will certainly accumulate on the bottom surface of your roasting tray. Do not let this go to waste! A piece of pork the size of a whole center-cut loin should rest at least 15 minutes (no, it won’t go cold in that time)—the perfect amount of time to make a pan sauce. Into the pan go 2 Tablespoons each of flour and butter, over medium-low heat. Whisk together until a light paste forms, being careful not to burn either the paste (called a “roux”) or the pork fond. Gradually add 1 ½ cups of chicken, beef, or pork stock. Whisk constantly to make sure there are no lumps created in the stock by the thickening power of the roux. This deglazes the pan, i.e., it lifts off those sticky caramelized bits of porky goodness left on the bottom of the pan and dissolves them into the sauce, thereby seasoning it. When the sauce reduces by half, cut off the heat and whisk in another 3 tablespoons of cold butter. Serve alongside the pork loin.
Wednesday, December 22, 2021
Pickling 101
Pickling is an easy, quick, cheap, and versatile method for flavoring and preserving a wide variety of otherwise-quickly-perishable foods. Of course, in the American culinary lexicon, the pickle most familiar to us—to the extent that “pickle” with no further context refers to this—is the pickled cucumber. But there are so many more possibilities for pickling beyond just cucumbers. Most home cooks don’t know how to do this either because they haven’t taken the time to learn or because they’re intimidated by the process. Either way, that’s truly a shame since the process is neither hard to learn nor complex. In fact, pickling is probably the most hands-free way to elevate components of almost any dish.
Pickling is, simply put, preserving food in a salty, acidic liquid. Almost anything can be pickled, with a few exceptions: I would stay away from Brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, cabbage, spinach, and kale) because their flavors overpower the pickling process and because their textures don’t work as well with pickling. For us, that comes in the following form (this scales up very well, so scale up as much as you want, as long as you have a big enough container). This liquid is as follows: 1 cup of water plus one cup of a good vinegar that isn’t balsamic (white distilled or apple cider are the best ones that fit those criteria that I have at home) brought to a boil with 1 teaspoon of salt per cup of liquid (here, 2 teaspoons). Feel free to infuse any whole spices into this liquid now. Bring this to a boil to dissolve the salt and infuse whatever spices you want. Thinly slice your vegetables, place them in an airtight-sealable container, and then pour the still-hot pickling liquid over them and close the lid of that container, forming the airtight seal. Once this has cooled to room temperature, place in the fridge. Leave it there for anywhere between 3 days and a week before using for the first time. These pickles will stay good—and get better over time—for anywhere between 3 months and 1 year. If you ever see mold growing in your pickling liquid, throw everything away, wash out the jar, and start over.
Homemade pickles are a great way to enjoy the flavors of pickled food while knowing exactly what went into them. They involve fermentation, so they’re a great scientific demonstration for young kids just getting started in chemistry and/or in the kitchen. And, gastronomically, they’re a great way to bring both texture and flavor to any dish where the non-pickled ingredients would be called for—as toppings for burgers and salads or eaten on their own just to name a few uses.
Pickling is, simply put, preserving food in a salty, acidic liquid. Almost anything can be pickled, with a few exceptions: I would stay away from Brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, cabbage, spinach, and kale) because their flavors overpower the pickling process and because their textures don’t work as well with pickling. For us, that comes in the following form (this scales up very well, so scale up as much as you want, as long as you have a big enough container). This liquid is as follows: 1 cup of water plus one cup of a good vinegar that isn’t balsamic (white distilled or apple cider are the best ones that fit those criteria that I have at home) brought to a boil with 1 teaspoon of salt per cup of liquid (here, 2 teaspoons). Feel free to infuse any whole spices into this liquid now. Bring this to a boil to dissolve the salt and infuse whatever spices you want. Thinly slice your vegetables, place them in an airtight-sealable container, and then pour the still-hot pickling liquid over them and close the lid of that container, forming the airtight seal. Once this has cooled to room temperature, place in the fridge. Leave it there for anywhere between 3 days and a week before using for the first time. These pickles will stay good—and get better over time—for anywhere between 3 months and 1 year. If you ever see mold growing in your pickling liquid, throw everything away, wash out the jar, and start over.
Homemade pickles are a great way to enjoy the flavors of pickled food while knowing exactly what went into them. They involve fermentation, so they’re a great scientific demonstration for young kids just getting started in chemistry and/or in the kitchen. And, gastronomically, they’re a great way to bring both texture and flavor to any dish where the non-pickled ingredients would be called for—as toppings for burgers and salads or eaten on their own just to name a few uses.
(Credit to Southern Bite)
Sunday, December 19, 2021
Frittata
Frittatas, like quiches or omelets, are simple egg dishes that should be in every home cook's repertoire. They don't require much active preparation, and the technique is very versatile, so it could be applied to any set of ingredients you might have. In general, though, frittata ingredient lists follow a simple pattern: eggs, milk, cheese, proteins, and vegetables.
Crack 2 eggs per portion into a large bowl. This dish is quite rustic; don't get fancy trying to separate yolks and whites. That's entirely unnecessary. Beat the eggs until homogenous-- that is, until no streaks of white remain in the yolk. To these beaten eggs, add 4-6 ounces of milk, depending on how much volume the eggs have.
Ideally, hand-grate 5 ounces of cheese (for a 6-egg frittata). I use sharp white cheddar because I like its creamy texture and because it melts well, thus helping maintain the frittata's structure. If you don't have a box grater, buying pre-shredded cheese will work. (But be warned that pre-grated or pre-shredded cheeses usually contain anti-clumping/anti-caking agents that slightly alter the flavor profile of the cheese.) Slice 2 bratwurst links into coins about a quarter-inch thick. Dice 1 onion and one bell pepper, and mince 4 cloves of garlic. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
In an oven-safe saute pan, cook the onions, garlic, and sausage until they take on some color and become fragrant. Reserve. Clean out the pan with a paper towel.
Place 2-3 tablespoons of oil or melted butter (melted as needed, not ahead of time) back in the pan. Carefully pour the egg mixture into the pan, over medium heat. Retrieve the accouterments and place them into the eggs. Place the cheese into the eggs.
Take this pan and place it into the oven, leaving it undisturbed (no flipping, no rotating, etc.) for 15-20 minutes or until the eggs are cooked through and the frittata appears golden brown.
Allow the frittata to rest for 2 minutes after it comes out of the oven. Frittatas are protein-heavy dishes not unlike steaks--when you sear off a steak, you let it rest to allow its protein structures to relax, and you should do the same for the frittata. A well-rested frittata is less likely to disintegrate when cut. Don't worry, resting for such a short period will not make it go cold.
Ideally, make slightly more than I've indicated here of each of the filling components: the sausage, the peppers, and the onions. Check that the outer edge of the frittata is not stuck to the perimeter of the pan. After the frittata has rested and comes out of the oven, cover the pan with a plate large enough to cover the whole area of the opening of the pan. Carefully flip the pan onto the plate (so the opening of the pan, where the lid would go, now faces the floor). Garnish with the extra toppings. Serve, either as a main dish or as an accompaniment.
Ideally, hand-grate 5 ounces of cheese (for a 6-egg frittata). I use sharp white cheddar because I like its creamy texture and because it melts well, thus helping maintain the frittata's structure. If you don't have a box grater, buying pre-shredded cheese will work. (But be warned that pre-grated or pre-shredded cheeses usually contain anti-clumping/anti-caking agents that slightly alter the flavor profile of the cheese.) Slice 2 bratwurst links into coins about a quarter-inch thick. Dice 1 onion and one bell pepper, and mince 4 cloves of garlic. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
In an oven-safe saute pan, cook the onions, garlic, and sausage until they take on some color and become fragrant. Reserve. Clean out the pan with a paper towel.
Place 2-3 tablespoons of oil or melted butter (melted as needed, not ahead of time) back in the pan. Carefully pour the egg mixture into the pan, over medium heat. Retrieve the accouterments and place them into the eggs. Place the cheese into the eggs.
Take this pan and place it into the oven, leaving it undisturbed (no flipping, no rotating, etc.) for 15-20 minutes or until the eggs are cooked through and the frittata appears golden brown.
Allow the frittata to rest for 2 minutes after it comes out of the oven. Frittatas are protein-heavy dishes not unlike steaks--when you sear off a steak, you let it rest to allow its protein structures to relax, and you should do the same for the frittata. A well-rested frittata is less likely to disintegrate when cut. Don't worry, resting for such a short period will not make it go cold.
Ideally, make slightly more than I've indicated here of each of the filling components: the sausage, the peppers, and the onions. Check that the outer edge of the frittata is not stuck to the perimeter of the pan. After the frittata has rested and comes out of the oven, cover the pan with a plate large enough to cover the whole area of the opening of the pan. Carefully flip the pan onto the plate (so the opening of the pan, where the lid would go, now faces the floor). Garnish with the extra toppings. Serve, either as a main dish or as an accompaniment.
Saturday, December 18, 2021
Classic Caesar Salad
Caesar salads are some of my favorites, and whenever I have open access to a salad bar (like here at my university, where this access is dependent on sanitizing my hands before and after, and wearing a mask at all times), they’re one of my favorites to build. The story behind this salad goes back about 100 years and has a number of twists and turns I didn’t know about until very recently—just a few weeks ago.
I had assumed that such a classic dish by that name would have been brought to the United States in the 1800s through one of the waves of mass migration to America from Europe around that time. But it turns out that the salad actually originates much later (in the 1920s or 1930s) and much further southwest (in Mexico) than I had imagined. Apparently, this dish originated around the time of the Great Depression when an Italian-American chef working in Mexico wanted to prepare a salad to feed American expats in Mexico. Until I found this out, I had expected the Caesar salad to have been an old Roman classic, what, with that name and all.
This classic salad, original geography aside, has 3 main components: good Romaine lettuce, croutons, and a dressing. I am notorious in these recipes for doing as much as possible myself, but there has to be a line somewhere. Luckily for you, dear reader, that line is somewhere around “I’m not going to make you grow your own lettuce.” (But on the off-chance that this makes it to Chef Frank Proto—we Epicurious fans would love to see your take on a Level-3 Caesar, Chef!)
Romaine is a head lettuce, and that means it needs to be cleaned a certain way. Chop the lettuce first, and then clean it. Lettuces anatomically similar to Romaine are held together at a single point, so unless you free each leaf from its connection to that central point on the core, dirt and other residues can still accumulate and remain hidden.
As for the dressing, there are two ways of making it—entirely from scratch or by combining a number of premade ingredients. This binary option comes from the fact that Caesar dressing is a mayonnaise-based dressing. You can either make your own mayonnaise according to the method I laid out in the Mother Sauces series, or, if you aren’t comfortable with raw eggs, you can use a high-quality store-bought mayonnaise. Mince or press 3 garlic cloves into ¾ cup mayonnaise (store-bought or homemade) and 1½ tablespoons of Dijon or whole-grain mustard. Juice and zest one lemon into the mayonnaise and mustard. Grate in parmesan to your liking. Season to taste with salt and fresh-cracked black pepper. This is a completed Caesar dressing.
Finally, we have the croutons. Mince 6 cloves of garlic into 6 tablespoons of softened butter. Cut one loaf of sourdough into slices 1½ inches thick. Cover each slice with some of this butter. Then, cut each slice into cubes. Place these buttered cubes in a 300-degree Fahrenheit oven until golden brown, but not burned. Allow the croutons to cool once they come out of the oven. Hot croutons will change the chemistry of the dressing (especially if you made it fresh) and wilt the lettuce. To avoid these problems, only toss the dressing, croutons, and lettuce when everything has cooled to room temperature.
To serve, toss everything together and optionally garnish with extra parmesan.
I had assumed that such a classic dish by that name would have been brought to the United States in the 1800s through one of the waves of mass migration to America from Europe around that time. But it turns out that the salad actually originates much later (in the 1920s or 1930s) and much further southwest (in Mexico) than I had imagined. Apparently, this dish originated around the time of the Great Depression when an Italian-American chef working in Mexico wanted to prepare a salad to feed American expats in Mexico. Until I found this out, I had expected the Caesar salad to have been an old Roman classic, what, with that name and all.
This classic salad, original geography aside, has 3 main components: good Romaine lettuce, croutons, and a dressing. I am notorious in these recipes for doing as much as possible myself, but there has to be a line somewhere. Luckily for you, dear reader, that line is somewhere around “I’m not going to make you grow your own lettuce.” (But on the off-chance that this makes it to Chef Frank Proto—we Epicurious fans would love to see your take on a Level-3 Caesar, Chef!)
Romaine is a head lettuce, and that means it needs to be cleaned a certain way. Chop the lettuce first, and then clean it. Lettuces anatomically similar to Romaine are held together at a single point, so unless you free each leaf from its connection to that central point on the core, dirt and other residues can still accumulate and remain hidden.
As for the dressing, there are two ways of making it—entirely from scratch or by combining a number of premade ingredients. This binary option comes from the fact that Caesar dressing is a mayonnaise-based dressing. You can either make your own mayonnaise according to the method I laid out in the Mother Sauces series, or, if you aren’t comfortable with raw eggs, you can use a high-quality store-bought mayonnaise. Mince or press 3 garlic cloves into ¾ cup mayonnaise (store-bought or homemade) and 1½ tablespoons of Dijon or whole-grain mustard. Juice and zest one lemon into the mayonnaise and mustard. Grate in parmesan to your liking. Season to taste with salt and fresh-cracked black pepper. This is a completed Caesar dressing.
Finally, we have the croutons. Mince 6 cloves of garlic into 6 tablespoons of softened butter. Cut one loaf of sourdough into slices 1½ inches thick. Cover each slice with some of this butter. Then, cut each slice into cubes. Place these buttered cubes in a 300-degree Fahrenheit oven until golden brown, but not burned. Allow the croutons to cool once they come out of the oven. Hot croutons will change the chemistry of the dressing (especially if you made it fresh) and wilt the lettuce. To avoid these problems, only toss the dressing, croutons, and lettuce when everything has cooled to room temperature.
To serve, toss everything together and optionally garnish with extra parmesan.
Friday, December 17, 2021
Bucatini all'Amatriciana
Amatriciana is a classic Roman sauce named after the nearby town of Amatrice. (Sadly, a few years ago, most of the town was destroyed by a very strong earthquake, and the area is still in recovery after all this time.) This is always properly served as a sauce with bucatini pasta, a close cousin of spaghetti. For a long time, given its base, it has been thought of as a close cousin of carbonara. (That recipe will be coming in four weeks.) Even given this close association with carbonara, it is nowhere near as well-known as its relative. If everyone who knew how good carbonara was tried amatriciana, I am sure a significant majority would also become fans of this tomato sauce. This sauce, though a relative of carbonara, is far less technical than it—much closer to the skill level of my sauce tomate from my French Mother Sauces series than to the skill level required for proper carbonara.
Cut 6 ounces of your pork product into strips and then cut across those strips to make lardons. Bear in mind that the lardons will contract significantly (by about half) as the fat renders out while the lardons are cooking, so cut them larger than you want them to end up in the final dish. Place the pork product (ideally guanciale) into a cold sauté pan. When the guanciale has been placed into the pan, turn the heat to medium (but no higher) and allow the fat to gradually render out of the guanciale. You don’t need any extra fat for this process. The fact that you are starting at a low temperature means the guanciale will be able to cook solely in its own fat since the low temperature gives the fat a head-start at melting relative to the cooking of the protein in the guanciale.
Cook 1 pound of bucatini as directed. 2 minutes before draining, reserve ¾ cup of the pasta cooking water. Drain the remaining water when a timer set according to the manufacturer’s instructions beeps. Place the pasta in the sauce. Toss to combine. If the sauce is too thick, use some of the reserved pasta cooking water to adjust the consistency and build an emulsified sauce.
One thing stands in the way of the average home cook being able to make this sauce regularly: confusion about one of the ingredients and its substitutability or lack thereof. Amatriciana (and its relatives like gricia or carbonara) call for a protein called guanciale. Guanciale is a salt-and-spice-cured cut of meat that comes in a slab cut from the cheek of the pig. Guanciale has a very distinct flavor not only because of the muscle it comes from but also because of the spices that are used to cure it and the fact that it remains unsmoked. Try to find good guanciale, but if you can’t then get pancetta. If you can’t find either, go for good prosciutto. Only if guanciale, pancetta, and prosciutto (in that order) are nowhere to be found, look for slab bacon.
Cut 6 ounces of your pork product into strips and then cut across those strips to make lardons. Bear in mind that the lardons will contract significantly (by about half) as the fat renders out while the lardons are cooking, so cut them larger than you want them to end up in the final dish. Place the pork product (ideally guanciale) into a cold sauté pan. When the guanciale has been placed into the pan, turn the heat to medium (but no higher) and allow the fat to gradually render out of the guanciale. You don’t need any extra fat for this process. The fact that you are starting at a low temperature means the guanciale will be able to cook solely in its own fat since the low temperature gives the fat a head-start at melting relative to the cooking of the protein in the guanciale.
After about 10 minutes or however long it takes the guanciale to get to your desired state of crispiness, place 1 28-ounce can of San Marzano tomatoes into the saucepan where the guanciale is. Be careful since the tomatoes have plenty of water in them and there is plenty of fat in the pan from the guanciale. Because of this, there may be some splattering. Be careful to avoid burning yourself at this stage. Stir to prevent anything from catching and burning on the bottom or sides. Allow the sauce to simmer uncovered on low heat for 20-30 minutes.
Cook 1 pound of bucatini as directed. 2 minutes before draining, reserve ¾ cup of the pasta cooking water. Drain the remaining water when a timer set according to the manufacturer’s instructions beeps. Place the pasta in the sauce. Toss to combine. If the sauce is too thick, use some of the reserved pasta cooking water to adjust the consistency and build an emulsified sauce.
Garnish with fresh-grated Pecorino Romano. If you make this, be sure to leave a comment down below letting me know!
Saturday, December 11, 2021
Garlic-Red Wine-Dijon Vinaigrette
Building an emulsion is one of the most fundamental skills in the kitchen, and yet it’s the one the average home cook is the least proficient with. Most home cooks don’t know how to make an emulsion, let alone define or classify one. My mission with this post will be to completely demystify emulsion sauces and make them accessible to any home cook with good ingredients, a lot of patience, and a willingness to fail and try again. Believe me, you will fail. But that’s okay. You’re cooking at home, not at a 3-starred restaurant. Failure will come, and you will learn from it. And when you learn from your failures, in that, you will find your success. Once you find what works, repeat it over and over, and your days of failure will be behind you.
There are certain substances, like oil and water, that, for a number of reasons, don’t mix. They have different densities, different polarities, and so on. Mixing them by physical agitation will keep them stable, but only for a few seconds. “Stable” or “unstable” in this context is the answer to the following question: after you apply physical force to the two substances to combine them, do they stay together (they’re stable) or do they eventually come apart again (they’re unstable). Let’s look at the easy case first: the stable world. Apple juice and water. Pour one into a glass and then the other, and they’ll immediately mix and stay there in that mixed state forever. Change the first substance to oil, and you have a phenomenon most of us probably first observed in third or fourth grade: apply all the physical force you want, but the oil and water won’t stay together. Creating an emulsion is fundamentally about answering the following question: what third substance can I add to two unstable substances that will interact with those two substances in a way that makes all three substances together stable?
Answering this question is as much art as it is science. Science because you have to pick the right kind of substance to be the mediator between the other two. Art because, from that class of substances you found, you now have to know what each one tastes like in isolation and when combined with your other substances, and so which of the possible candidates is best.
This recipe, to demonstrate proper emulsion, will teach you how to make a garlic-red wine-Dijon vinaigrette. This vinaigrette has four components: minced garlic, vinegar, mustard, and oil. Vinegar and oil don’t mix. It will ultimately be the job of the Dijon mustard to do what I’ll say suffices to call “chemical magic” to keep those two unfriendly substances together.
Begin by mincing 1 large clove of garlic, or two smaller cloves of garlic. Place the minced garlic in a wide bowl together with a tablespoon each of Dijon and red wine vinegar. Using a whisk, combine those ingredients. At this point, we’ve only combined ingredients that “like” each other—that is, those that don’t resist each other.
That was the simple stage. The complex stage begins now. Pick an oil. I would use extra virgin olive oil. If you can get one of those squeeze bottles where dressings and condiments come in at restaurants or when you’re getting your condiments at a place that makes sandwiches from scratch, that would be amazing. They have really narrow openings that are much easier to control than the average opening in an oil bottle. Without this equipment, the process is still doable, but it requires a lot more attention and control.
Begin streaming in the oil on the side of the bowl, literally drop by drop. As I said in some of my Mother Sauce explanations, DO NOT STOP WHISKING. Getting the first few drops of oil to incorporate is the hardest part of this process. After starting out drop by drop, you can increase your flow to a light, constant stream. As you do this and throughout this phase, DO NOT STOP WHISKING. You should notice that, paradoxically, as more (liquid) oil is added to your (liquid) vinaigrette, it will thicken ever more and behave more and more like a solid as its viscosity increases. After a few seconds at a thin flow, you can increase your flow even more—the more oil is incorporated, the faster the next measure of oil can be incorporated. Stop doing this when you have enough vinaigrette, but until then, NEVER STOP WHISKING. Once you have enough vinaigrette, add salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Use this in a variety of applications: as a salad dressing; as a marinade for beef, pork, or poultry; or in any other context where a vinaigrette is called for.
This recipe, to demonstrate proper emulsion, will teach you how to make a garlic-red wine-Dijon vinaigrette. This vinaigrette has four components: minced garlic, vinegar, mustard, and oil. Vinegar and oil don’t mix. It will ultimately be the job of the Dijon mustard to do what I’ll say suffices to call “chemical magic” to keep those two unfriendly substances together.
Begin by mincing 1 large clove of garlic, or two smaller cloves of garlic. Place the minced garlic in a wide bowl together with a tablespoon each of Dijon and red wine vinegar. Using a whisk, combine those ingredients. At this point, we’ve only combined ingredients that “like” each other—that is, those that don’t resist each other.
That was the simple stage. The complex stage begins now. Pick an oil. I would use extra virgin olive oil. If you can get one of those squeeze bottles where dressings and condiments come in at restaurants or when you’re getting your condiments at a place that makes sandwiches from scratch, that would be amazing. They have really narrow openings that are much easier to control than the average opening in an oil bottle. Without this equipment, the process is still doable, but it requires a lot more attention and control.
Begin streaming in the oil on the side of the bowl, literally drop by drop. As I said in some of my Mother Sauce explanations, DO NOT STOP WHISKING. Getting the first few drops of oil to incorporate is the hardest part of this process. After starting out drop by drop, you can increase your flow to a light, constant stream. As you do this and throughout this phase, DO NOT STOP WHISKING. You should notice that, paradoxically, as more (liquid) oil is added to your (liquid) vinaigrette, it will thicken ever more and behave more and more like a solid as its viscosity increases. After a few seconds at a thin flow, you can increase your flow even more—the more oil is incorporated, the faster the next measure of oil can be incorporated. Stop doing this when you have enough vinaigrette, but until then, NEVER STOP WHISKING. Once you have enough vinaigrette, add salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Use this in a variety of applications: as a salad dressing; as a marinade for beef, pork, or poultry; or in any other context where a vinaigrette is called for.
Friday, December 3, 2021
Spaghetti Aglio e Olio
Today, we’re going back to basics with spaghetti aglio e olio, a Neapolitan pasta with a family twist. Everyone should have this simplest of pasta dishes in their repertoire. It tastes great, it’s cheap, and its ridiculously easy, so even a beginner cook (even a kid, with proper supervision!) can make this without much of a fuss.
Aglio e olio is so simple, and yet so flavorful. This will, quite possibly, be the shortest recipe I’ve ever written. Bring a gallon of water to a boil in a large, lidded pot. When the water comes to a boil, put in a pound of high-quality spaghetti or another long pasta. Cook that according to the package’s instructions, reserving a cup of the cooking water into a heat-proof container at the halfway mark.
Finely chop 3 large cloves of garlic. Coat a sauté pan with about 4 tablespoons of olive oil—enough to generously cover the whole surface of the pan. Be more generous than you think you should be since this oil will form the bulk of your sauce. Fry the garlic until aromatic. Zest and juice one lemon into the oil, being sure to catch any seeds. Lightly season the oil with salt and pepper, bearing in mind that more salt (from parmesan) will be coming later.
Once the pasta has cooked according to the manufacturer’s instructions and drained into a colander, place the pasta into the lemon-garlic-oil sauce, and start stirring. Keep stirring, and slowly stream in your pasta water. Go slowly to avoid splattering. (This step and the draining of the pasta—getting rid of a gallon of boiling water—are steps that require not just supervision but hands-on help from an experienced adult if a kid is making this.) Use as much or as little as you need to form a glossy, emulsified sauce.
Aglio e olio is so simple, and yet so flavorful. This will, quite possibly, be the shortest recipe I’ve ever written. Bring a gallon of water to a boil in a large, lidded pot. When the water comes to a boil, put in a pound of high-quality spaghetti or another long pasta. Cook that according to the package’s instructions, reserving a cup of the cooking water into a heat-proof container at the halfway mark.
Finely chop 3 large cloves of garlic. Coat a sauté pan with about 4 tablespoons of olive oil—enough to generously cover the whole surface of the pan. Be more generous than you think you should be since this oil will form the bulk of your sauce. Fry the garlic until aromatic. Zest and juice one lemon into the oil, being sure to catch any seeds. Lightly season the oil with salt and pepper, bearing in mind that more salt (from parmesan) will be coming later.
Once the pasta has cooked according to the manufacturer’s instructions and drained into a colander, place the pasta into the lemon-garlic-oil sauce, and start stirring. Keep stirring, and slowly stream in your pasta water. Go slowly to avoid splattering. (This step and the draining of the pasta—getting rid of a gallon of boiling water—are steps that require not just supervision but hands-on help from an experienced adult if a kid is making this.) Use as much or as little as you need to form a glossy, emulsified sauce.
Garnish the pasta with parmesan. Serve.
Our family twist is that we serve this alongside sauteed broccoli; the fact that we sauté the broccoli in garlic-infused oil (separately from the sauce, but with the same intentions of infusing the garlic into the oil) brings a nice unity to the dish, and the cooked-through-but-still-somewhat-crunchy broccoli provides not only a good color contrast (yellow/green) but also a nice texture contrast against the pasta.
This pasta truly is a work of genius. Don’t embellish it too much; let it speak for itself. That something so simple can be so good truly is one of the marvels of proper authentic Italian cuisine.
This pasta truly is a work of genius. Don’t embellish it too much; let it speak for itself. That something so simple can be so good truly is one of the marvels of proper authentic Italian cuisine.
Friday, November 26, 2021
Red-Wine Braised Short Ribs
You may have noticed I’ve been on a little bit of a braising streak lately, putting out recipes for chicken cacciatore, coq au vin, feijoada, and beef bourguignon. That continues today with a dish perfect for the late fall and early winter. The days continue shortening and cooling, and this dish is the perfect comfort food for this weather.
While the potatoes are boiling, be sure that no more fat has separated from the sauce, and if that is the case, reduce the de-fatted sauce by a third. Then, return the ribs, vegetables, and reduced sauce (which now glazes the ribs and the vegetables) to the oven at 300 Fahrenheit for another 20 minutes or so, just to warm them through.
Once all the components of the dish are heated through, serve.
Unlike most of the other braises I’ve posted, this recipe has no latitude whatsoever in what its main ingredient is. These are braised short ribs after all, so braising anything else would necessarily mean you aren’t braising short ribs. If I’m not mistaken, the inspiration behind this recipe (Wolfgang Puck’s short ribs, which, if I remember correctly, he aid he serves annually at the Oscars) was the way I learned how to properly braise meat. I’ve since applied the techniques I learned from studying Puck’s recipe to my other braises.
There are two different “Western” (as opposed to “Asian” styles—we won’t get into those here; I still need to eat and study a lot more kalbi before I feel confident enough in my understanding to post a recipe) styles of short ribs: English- or flanken-cut. Each Western style is cut perpendicularly to the other. For this recipe, I recommend bone-in English-cut. If you can’t get the English kind, get flanken-cut. You might also decide to use boneless short ribs, but they have two shortcomings. First, the bone imparts flavor, and not having the bone loses out on the flavor. Second, the goal is for these ribs to be fork-tender but not completely falling apart; using bone-in ribs helps preserve this structure, and plating with the bone makes for a particularly nice presentation.
Ribs vary quite considerably in how much of their weight is flesh and how much is bone. Boneless ribs are then most cost-effective since you’re not paying for any bone. But if you buy bone-in, the way the ribs were cut and where they were cut from (the front or back of the animal) makes a considerable difference as to how much meat each rib has. Plan on buying at least one meatier rib (or at least two bonier ribs) per person per portion.
Braised short ribs have four components: the ribs themselves, the braising liquid, the vegetables cooked in the braising liquid, and a starch base. Each of those requires a considerable amount of prep work, but the good news is that 3 of the four components also have (collectively) dozens of hours of idle time where you can be doing other things.
Let us begin with the ribs. I recommend dry brining them. That is, salt them quite heavily and place them, salted and uncovered, on a wire rack in the fridge for 24 hours. The salt on the surface will draw out unsalted moisture from within, then the salt will dissolve into the moisture it extracted by osmosis, and then, again by osmosis, the salty moisture will go back into the ribs, leaving them poised to be perfectly seasoned and remarkably tender at the end of this process. Salt them, put them away, and forget about them for a day. I recommend you do this a day in advance of the day you cook them, which itself should be a day in advance of when you serve them. Thus, do this 2 days before you intend to serve the ribs.
On “cooking day” (in between “brining day” and “eating day”), preheat your oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. While your oven is preheating, coat a Dutch oven (mine is 8 quarts; you don’t technically need a Dutch oven—a casserole dish would work—but I find that most vessels that are big enough are classified as “Dutch ovens”) in a thin film of extra virgin olive oil over medium-high heat. Just before it smokes, place as many ribs as can fit in the pan in one layer into the pan. Do not crowd the pan. Your objective is to sear the ribs, not steam the ribs. Moisture needs space through which to escape, and if the pan is too crowded, this space will not exist and the ribs will steam and go gray, instead of searing and going brown. Give the ribs a few minutes on each side. You will know that the Maillard reaction is complete on a given side when a particular rib releases from the pan without any resistance at all. If you feel resistance, the reaction hasn’t finished. Stop trying to move the rib and come back to it later. Brown the ribs in batches if you need to. Turn the heat up or down as needed. Color should come fairly quickly, but it is possible that it might come too quickly. If the latter case occurs, the meat will be irreparably scorched and the fond (the sticky caramelized bits on the bottom of your pan we’ll deal with later) will be irreparably burned. If either the ribs or the fond scorch, throw everything away and start over.
After the ribs are browned, reserve them somewhere. Dice 4 yellow onions, 1 pound of carrots, and 1 pound of celery by hand—even the coarsest setting on a food processor is too fine for what we need. This is the basic flavor base called “mirepoix”—and, if your knife skills are good enough, your cut might also be the “mirepoix” cut. Sweat off these vegetables in the same pan where the ribs were browned until the vegetables soften and the onions turn translucent. Stir frequently. Once the onions become translucent, add 4 cloves of minced garlic (this can be done by hand, in a press, or in a food processor), and sauté with the other aromatics until fragrant, for about 45 seconds.
Then, deglaze the pan with what will, in time, become the braising liquid. At this stage, that means a whole bottle (about 3 cups, so ¾ of a quart) of good red wine—something you would drink. Never cook with something you would not drink on its own. Replace the ribs, and supplement with enough homemade beef stock (follow this recipe, but use beef bones, and keep the stock simmering for a minimum of 16 hours and up to 48) to just come to the top of the ribs, but no more. It is crucial that you use your own beef stock here. Whether you dry-brined or salted your ribs immediately before searing them, using an industrially made stock will make the ribs and the braising liquid inedibly salty, even if the product you bought claimed to be “low-sodium.” Further, homemade stock (especially beef) contains much more gelatin than industrial stock. Together with the collagen in the ribs that will cook out into gelatin, these two sources of gelatin will lend a rich, unctuous, umami character to the sauce that simply cannot be replicated if an industrial stock that contains +less gelatin is used.
Partially cover and allow to braise for anywhere from 2½ to 4 hours—until the ribs are fork-tender but not falling apart. Once the ribs are cooked through, place them in another container; place the vegetables in that same container, and run the sauce through a fat separator. Discard the fat and place the remaining sauce in a separate container. Refrigerate the two containers (de-fatted sauce; ribs/vegetables).
On the third day of this process, prepare the base. Typically, buttered noodles, polenta, or mashed potatoes work well as a base for beef braises like this one. For this recipe, I will recommend my mashed potatoes.
Ribs vary quite considerably in how much of their weight is flesh and how much is bone. Boneless ribs are then most cost-effective since you’re not paying for any bone. But if you buy bone-in, the way the ribs were cut and where they were cut from (the front or back of the animal) makes a considerable difference as to how much meat each rib has. Plan on buying at least one meatier rib (or at least two bonier ribs) per person per portion.
Braised short ribs have four components: the ribs themselves, the braising liquid, the vegetables cooked in the braising liquid, and a starch base. Each of those requires a considerable amount of prep work, but the good news is that 3 of the four components also have (collectively) dozens of hours of idle time where you can be doing other things.
Let us begin with the ribs. I recommend dry brining them. That is, salt them quite heavily and place them, salted and uncovered, on a wire rack in the fridge for 24 hours. The salt on the surface will draw out unsalted moisture from within, then the salt will dissolve into the moisture it extracted by osmosis, and then, again by osmosis, the salty moisture will go back into the ribs, leaving them poised to be perfectly seasoned and remarkably tender at the end of this process. Salt them, put them away, and forget about them for a day. I recommend you do this a day in advance of the day you cook them, which itself should be a day in advance of when you serve them. Thus, do this 2 days before you intend to serve the ribs.
On “cooking day” (in between “brining day” and “eating day”), preheat your oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. While your oven is preheating, coat a Dutch oven (mine is 8 quarts; you don’t technically need a Dutch oven—a casserole dish would work—but I find that most vessels that are big enough are classified as “Dutch ovens”) in a thin film of extra virgin olive oil over medium-high heat. Just before it smokes, place as many ribs as can fit in the pan in one layer into the pan. Do not crowd the pan. Your objective is to sear the ribs, not steam the ribs. Moisture needs space through which to escape, and if the pan is too crowded, this space will not exist and the ribs will steam and go gray, instead of searing and going brown. Give the ribs a few minutes on each side. You will know that the Maillard reaction is complete on a given side when a particular rib releases from the pan without any resistance at all. If you feel resistance, the reaction hasn’t finished. Stop trying to move the rib and come back to it later. Brown the ribs in batches if you need to. Turn the heat up or down as needed. Color should come fairly quickly, but it is possible that it might come too quickly. If the latter case occurs, the meat will be irreparably scorched and the fond (the sticky caramelized bits on the bottom of your pan we’ll deal with later) will be irreparably burned. If either the ribs or the fond scorch, throw everything away and start over.
After the ribs are browned, reserve them somewhere. Dice 4 yellow onions, 1 pound of carrots, and 1 pound of celery by hand—even the coarsest setting on a food processor is too fine for what we need. This is the basic flavor base called “mirepoix”—and, if your knife skills are good enough, your cut might also be the “mirepoix” cut. Sweat off these vegetables in the same pan where the ribs were browned until the vegetables soften and the onions turn translucent. Stir frequently. Once the onions become translucent, add 4 cloves of minced garlic (this can be done by hand, in a press, or in a food processor), and sauté with the other aromatics until fragrant, for about 45 seconds.
Then, deglaze the pan with what will, in time, become the braising liquid. At this stage, that means a whole bottle (about 3 cups, so ¾ of a quart) of good red wine—something you would drink. Never cook with something you would not drink on its own. Replace the ribs, and supplement with enough homemade beef stock (follow this recipe, but use beef bones, and keep the stock simmering for a minimum of 16 hours and up to 48) to just come to the top of the ribs, but no more. It is crucial that you use your own beef stock here. Whether you dry-brined or salted your ribs immediately before searing them, using an industrially made stock will make the ribs and the braising liquid inedibly salty, even if the product you bought claimed to be “low-sodium.” Further, homemade stock (especially beef) contains much more gelatin than industrial stock. Together with the collagen in the ribs that will cook out into gelatin, these two sources of gelatin will lend a rich, unctuous, umami character to the sauce that simply cannot be replicated if an industrial stock that contains +less gelatin is used.
Partially cover and allow to braise for anywhere from 2½ to 4 hours—until the ribs are fork-tender but not falling apart. Once the ribs are cooked through, place them in another container; place the vegetables in that same container, and run the sauce through a fat separator. Discard the fat and place the remaining sauce in a separate container. Refrigerate the two containers (de-fatted sauce; ribs/vegetables).
On the third day of this process, prepare the base. Typically, buttered noodles, polenta, or mashed potatoes work well as a base for beef braises like this one. For this recipe, I will recommend my mashed potatoes.
While the potatoes are boiling, be sure that no more fat has separated from the sauce, and if that is the case, reduce the de-fatted sauce by a third. Then, return the ribs, vegetables, and reduced sauce (which now glazes the ribs and the vegetables) to the oven at 300 Fahrenheit for another 20 minutes or so, just to warm them through.
Once all the components of the dish are heated through, serve.
Friday, November 19, 2021
Thanksgiving Pan Sauce
This post is a direct continuation of my previous post on how to ake a Thanksgiving turkey, although this method works for any poultry—or any meat (a steak, a roast, chops, etc.). Making a pan sauce is a simple and effective way of getting maximum flavor and utility out of your meat or poultry, and yet few home cooks know how to do this, and even fewer do it well. In the current lingo, doing this will instantly “level up” the flavor of your dish and its perceived complexity (and thus your perceived competence as a chef) to all your guests.
Move your turkey (or chicken or beef or whatever you’re working with—just don’t do this with fish) to a platter to rest and take the vegetables in the bottom of the roasting pan with it. Transfer any liquid there might be in the roasting tray somewhere else and reserve it. (Please don’t throw this liquid away; doing so will make all the effort meaningless.)
After you move everything out of the roasting tray, you should be left only with a roasting tray with some fond in it—tiny sticky bits of poultry/meat and vegetables that got stuck to the roasting tray and got caramelized. We want to dissolve this eventually, so it becomes part of our pan sauce, but before we do that, we need to make a roux. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, there are different colors of roux attained by cooking the mixture of flour and fat (almost always butter, as in this case) for different lengths of time. For this, we need a white roux—one part flour to one part butter (about 2½ tablespoons each) cooked together until a paste forms but without developing any color, just until the raw flour smell gets cooked off. Whisk the roux constantly so it doesn’t burn, and so the fond in the bottom of the pan doesn’t burn either.
Once the roux has formed and the raw smell has been cooked off, keep whisking, but now reintroduce the reserved liquid that used to be in the roasting tray. This will deglaze the pan, i.e., it will lift off those caramelized bits and dissolve them into solution in the pan sauce, flavoring and seasoning it. Bring this to a boil and then back it down to a simmer to activate the thickening power of the roux. Depending on how much liquid the cooking process generated and how much the roux thickened/reduced it, you may want to adjust the consistency of this sauce by adding more liquid. As with the mother sauces, the objective is to make the sauce thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. If the sauce is too thick, add more chicken stock and continue whisking until you are happy with the consistency. If the sauce is too thin, keep reducing it. Check for seasoning and adjust as necessary.
Move your turkey (or chicken or beef or whatever you’re working with—just don’t do this with fish) to a platter to rest and take the vegetables in the bottom of the roasting pan with it. Transfer any liquid there might be in the roasting tray somewhere else and reserve it. (Please don’t throw this liquid away; doing so will make all the effort meaningless.)
After you move everything out of the roasting tray, you should be left only with a roasting tray with some fond in it—tiny sticky bits of poultry/meat and vegetables that got stuck to the roasting tray and got caramelized. We want to dissolve this eventually, so it becomes part of our pan sauce, but before we do that, we need to make a roux. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, there are different colors of roux attained by cooking the mixture of flour and fat (almost always butter, as in this case) for different lengths of time. For this, we need a white roux—one part flour to one part butter (about 2½ tablespoons each) cooked together until a paste forms but without developing any color, just until the raw flour smell gets cooked off. Whisk the roux constantly so it doesn’t burn, and so the fond in the bottom of the pan doesn’t burn either.
Once the roux has formed and the raw smell has been cooked off, keep whisking, but now reintroduce the reserved liquid that used to be in the roasting tray. This will deglaze the pan, i.e., it will lift off those caramelized bits and dissolve them into solution in the pan sauce, flavoring and seasoning it. Bring this to a boil and then back it down to a simmer to activate the thickening power of the roux. Depending on how much liquid the cooking process generated and how much the roux thickened/reduced it, you may want to adjust the consistency of this sauce by adding more liquid. As with the mother sauces, the objective is to make the sauce thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. If the sauce is too thick, add more chicken stock and continue whisking until you are happy with the consistency. If the sauce is too thin, keep reducing it. Check for seasoning and adjust as necessary.
Classic Roast Turkey with Vegetables
I would like to begin this post with an acknowledgment, a brief word of thanks—appropriate, after all, given the holiday this series commemorates. The most widely-known chef who lives closest to me is, without a doubt, Alton Brown. If you know my parents, ask them and they’ll tell you I’ve definitely been influenced by his style of communicating about food and preparing it. Some of the techniques I will recommend here are his, adapted to my palate. Certainly, though, having a chef and communicator of his caliber close enough to me that we’ve probably shopped at the same grocery store multiple times without realizing it has been a tremendous influence on my style in and referring to the kitchen. For this, I am incredibly grateful.
After brining it (if you choose to do so), or when it is time to cook it if it is fresh, either remove the turkey from the packaging or take it out of the brine. In any case, pat the exterior of the bird dry with clean paper towels. At this point, begin preheating your oven to 500 Fahrenheit. If the bird was not brined, season it generously with salt and black pepper on the exterior and inside the cavity. Quarter an orange and place it inside the cavity. Do likewise with a lemon, quartering a second one to scatter around the bird as well. Quarter 4 onions and peel 3 of them. Those that were peeled go under the turkey with the lemons, and the one that was not peeled will join the lemon in the cavity. Halve a head of garlic through its equator so that all the cloves are exposed. Place that into the cavity. Roughly chop (into 3 or 4 pieces each) 1 pound each of celery and carrots. Scatter the vegetables throughout the roasting tray. Peel 3 shallots and place them in the roasting tray. Not all shallots are like this, but if any of your shallots have two distinct halves, pull them apart. Insert a probe thermometer into the thickest part of the thigh without touching the bone. (Bones conduct heat much better than flesh, so touching a bone will give you an inaccurate reading much higher than the true temperature). Set the probe thermometer to beep when it registers 165 Fahrenheit. Look around in either of the halves of the breasts; there, you might find a small white circle. That’s an epoxy-based thermometer where un-melted wax keeps a piston down that pops up when the wax melts. They aren’t very precise, and the wax isn’t very good, so it doesn’t melt when it should. Those thermometers are useless, but don’t remove them. Go with your thermometer.
This next idea comes straight from Brown’s Romancing the Bird—even the name is his. Cut a triangle of aluminum foil that fits the dimensions of the breast. Mold the “Turkey Triangle onto the breast now, and once you’re sure it’s the right size, reserve it for later.
Put the bird in the oven at 500 degrees legs-first (that is, legs facing the back of the oven). Time it for 30 minutes. Then, drop the temperature to 350, cover the breast with the Triangle, and continue roasting until the probe beeps. (This is straight out of Brown's method in his classic Thanksgiving episode "Romancing the Bird.") Depending on the weight of your bird, it should probably take another 2-2½ hours. But again, don't go by time or by the little pop-up thermometer. For the best, safest results, rely on the probe. Rest uncovered for 15 minutes before serving with the vegetables. Place the vegetables and the turkey on a platter to rest and from which they will be served, leaving any liquid in the roasting tray. Return the roasting pan to a stovetop burner and click here to learn how to make the proper pan sauce.
As I did in my chicken recipe, let’s begin this discussion with what kind of bird to buy. I prefer air-chilled over water-chilled; and a turkey with as natural a diet and as much outdoor time as possible. Buy a “heritage” bird if you can. These breeds not only have a stronger flavor but they’re raised the way poultry was raised centuries ago, long before the advent of any kind of factory farming.
As for the size of the bird, I recommend about 2 pounds total weight per guest. (This is why my family of 3 adults always buys a chicken—we are 3 people, and I can certainly get a 5-7 pound whole chicken, but a 5-7 pound whole turkey is practically impossible to find.) 2 pounds per person (this includes the weight of bones and any giblets or organs sold within the bird) is generally a good number. If you’re feeding a lot of kids, use a slightly smaller number to calculate how much to buy for them. If you’re feeding an NFL team, go higher. Chances are, your family get-together will be a mix of kids and adults, and you’ll probably want leftovers, so sticking to 2 pounds per person is generally a good idea.
I’ve heard of turkeys as light as 10 pounds (several years ago, an uncle, aunt, and cousin came over, and we bought a 10- or 11-pound bird for the 6 of us) and as heavy as 30. Birds that big take hours to cook, and when they finally do come out of the oven, chances are they’ll be drier than any other meat you’ve ever eaten. There is a way to mitigate this and preserve the turkey as the culinary star of your Thanksgiving gathering. If you do your calculations and you need more than 20 pounds, split that into several birds. That is, don’t buy a 24-pound bird. If that’s what you need, buy an 11 and a 13, or 2 12s, or a 10 and a 14, and so on.
If your turkey is frozen, you must thaw it before proceeding. Budget 24 hours per 5-6 pounds of turkey in your fridge. Keep the turkey separate from everything else in a clean, cold (in your fridge, not getting any hotter than 40 Fahrenheit) space. Exact timing will vary depending on the power of your fridge, the exact weight of your bird, the shape of the bird, and how much other stuff is in your fridge when you thaw your frozen bird, so be conscious of that. Only after your turkey is thawed (or if your turkey was bought fresh) should you move on to these next steps.
Some people brine their turkeys. That is, they make a solution of salt and spices dissolved in water and they leave their turkey (taken out of its packaging, neck and organs removed from the cavity and discarded) in that solution for up to 36-48 hours before they cook it. The point of doing this is that osmosis pulls unseasoned moisture out of the turkey and replaces it with moisture from the brine—properly salted and infused with all the herbs and spices in the brine. In principle, I love this idea. I’ll do just about anything to make my food as flavorful as possible. In practice, though, it’s a lot more complicated. You need the right time, location, and vessel to do this in a way that is both safe and effective. Most people cannot meet all three criteria. You need a cooler that’s at least 5 gallons (the size of the cylindrical coolers of Gatorade that the winning coaches get dunked with at the end of the Super Bowl), you need a place big enough to keep that cooler’s contents at around 40 degrees, and you need access to enough ice and water to fill that container several times over since you need to renew the ice at least every 8 to 12 hours, or as frequently as needed to meet the earlier temperature threshold. If you can meet those requirements, sure, make a brine. Bring a gallon of water to a boil with 6 ounces of salt and whatever spices you want. Stir to dissolve. Allow this solution to cool. Remove your turkey from its packaging and place it legs-up in your cooler. Then, pour all of the cooled brine into your cooler. Fill the rest of the cooler’s volume with ice. Change the ice regularly.
As for the size of the bird, I recommend about 2 pounds total weight per guest. (This is why my family of 3 adults always buys a chicken—we are 3 people, and I can certainly get a 5-7 pound whole chicken, but a 5-7 pound whole turkey is practically impossible to find.) 2 pounds per person (this includes the weight of bones and any giblets or organs sold within the bird) is generally a good number. If you’re feeding a lot of kids, use a slightly smaller number to calculate how much to buy for them. If you’re feeding an NFL team, go higher. Chances are, your family get-together will be a mix of kids and adults, and you’ll probably want leftovers, so sticking to 2 pounds per person is generally a good idea.
I’ve heard of turkeys as light as 10 pounds (several years ago, an uncle, aunt, and cousin came over, and we bought a 10- or 11-pound bird for the 6 of us) and as heavy as 30. Birds that big take hours to cook, and when they finally do come out of the oven, chances are they’ll be drier than any other meat you’ve ever eaten. There is a way to mitigate this and preserve the turkey as the culinary star of your Thanksgiving gathering. If you do your calculations and you need more than 20 pounds, split that into several birds. That is, don’t buy a 24-pound bird. If that’s what you need, buy an 11 and a 13, or 2 12s, or a 10 and a 14, and so on.
If your turkey is frozen, you must thaw it before proceeding. Budget 24 hours per 5-6 pounds of turkey in your fridge. Keep the turkey separate from everything else in a clean, cold (in your fridge, not getting any hotter than 40 Fahrenheit) space. Exact timing will vary depending on the power of your fridge, the exact weight of your bird, the shape of the bird, and how much other stuff is in your fridge when you thaw your frozen bird, so be conscious of that. Only after your turkey is thawed (or if your turkey was bought fresh) should you move on to these next steps.
Some people brine their turkeys. That is, they make a solution of salt and spices dissolved in water and they leave their turkey (taken out of its packaging, neck and organs removed from the cavity and discarded) in that solution for up to 36-48 hours before they cook it. The point of doing this is that osmosis pulls unseasoned moisture out of the turkey and replaces it with moisture from the brine—properly salted and infused with all the herbs and spices in the brine. In principle, I love this idea. I’ll do just about anything to make my food as flavorful as possible. In practice, though, it’s a lot more complicated. You need the right time, location, and vessel to do this in a way that is both safe and effective. Most people cannot meet all three criteria. You need a cooler that’s at least 5 gallons (the size of the cylindrical coolers of Gatorade that the winning coaches get dunked with at the end of the Super Bowl), you need a place big enough to keep that cooler’s contents at around 40 degrees, and you need access to enough ice and water to fill that container several times over since you need to renew the ice at least every 8 to 12 hours, or as frequently as needed to meet the earlier temperature threshold. If you can meet those requirements, sure, make a brine. Bring a gallon of water to a boil with 6 ounces of salt and whatever spices you want. Stir to dissolve. Allow this solution to cool. Remove your turkey from its packaging and place it legs-up in your cooler. Then, pour all of the cooled brine into your cooler. Fill the rest of the cooler’s volume with ice. Change the ice regularly.
After brining it (if you choose to do so), or when it is time to cook it if it is fresh, either remove the turkey from the packaging or take it out of the brine. In any case, pat the exterior of the bird dry with clean paper towels. At this point, begin preheating your oven to 500 Fahrenheit. If the bird was not brined, season it generously with salt and black pepper on the exterior and inside the cavity. Quarter an orange and place it inside the cavity. Do likewise with a lemon, quartering a second one to scatter around the bird as well. Quarter 4 onions and peel 3 of them. Those that were peeled go under the turkey with the lemons, and the one that was not peeled will join the lemon in the cavity. Halve a head of garlic through its equator so that all the cloves are exposed. Place that into the cavity. Roughly chop (into 3 or 4 pieces each) 1 pound each of celery and carrots. Scatter the vegetables throughout the roasting tray. Peel 3 shallots and place them in the roasting tray. Not all shallots are like this, but if any of your shallots have two distinct halves, pull them apart. Insert a probe thermometer into the thickest part of the thigh without touching the bone. (Bones conduct heat much better than flesh, so touching a bone will give you an inaccurate reading much higher than the true temperature). Set the probe thermometer to beep when it registers 165 Fahrenheit. Look around in either of the halves of the breasts; there, you might find a small white circle. That’s an epoxy-based thermometer where un-melted wax keeps a piston down that pops up when the wax melts. They aren’t very precise, and the wax isn’t very good, so it doesn’t melt when it should. Those thermometers are useless, but don’t remove them. Go with your thermometer.
This next idea comes straight from Brown’s Romancing the Bird—even the name is his. Cut a triangle of aluminum foil that fits the dimensions of the breast. Mold the “Turkey Triangle onto the breast now, and once you’re sure it’s the right size, reserve it for later.
Put the bird in the oven at 500 degrees legs-first (that is, legs facing the back of the oven). Time it for 30 minutes. Then, drop the temperature to 350, cover the breast with the Triangle, and continue roasting until the probe beeps. (This is straight out of Brown's method in his classic Thanksgiving episode "Romancing the Bird.") Depending on the weight of your bird, it should probably take another 2-2½ hours. But again, don't go by time or by the little pop-up thermometer. For the best, safest results, rely on the probe. Rest uncovered for 15 minutes before serving with the vegetables. Place the vegetables and the turkey on a platter to rest and from which they will be served, leaving any liquid in the roasting tray. Return the roasting pan to a stovetop burner and click here to learn how to make the proper pan sauce.
Creamed Spinach
Creamed spinach is yet another essential in the (especially Southern) American Thanksgiving menu. This recipe is actually two in one, so, rather than repeating the whole text of the second recipe here, I’ll simply provide a link to it when the time comes, and I’ll follow that with any modifications this recipe needs over that one.
Spinach—and most leafy greens— cooks down to an incredibly small volume relative to how much was in your pan to begin with. You need about 3-4 ounces of dry spinach (60-80% of the volume of a typical 5 oz package. For those in the metric system, that’s about 60-80% of a 140-gram package) per person. Most of this mass is water trapped inside the cells of the spinach, and when you sauté the spinach, most of that liquid will be boiled off, thereby losing all that volume, but, at the same time, concentrating the flavor of the spinach.
Before you start sauteing the spinach, mince or press 3 cloves of garlic and slice one onion into half-moons (cut the onion through the stem and the root; cut off the stem; make thin slices parallel to the root until you reach it; repeat this for the other half of the onion; your slices should look like a bunch of copies of the letter “C” made out of onion). Sweat out the onions over medium heat, then add the garlic. Make sure the onions go in first so that the garlic doesn’t burn. “Sweating” for onions means “cooking just to drive off moisture until the onions turn translucent, but no further.” If you go any further than this, you’ll start getting jammy, golden-brown, sweeter onions. These are very good in certain contexts (that’s exactly what you want for French onion soup, which I’ll probably write a recipe for in the winter at some point, and if I do, those words will become a hyperlink to that recipe), but not here. Here, caramelizing onions messes with the texture, color, and flavors we want in this side dish, so if they get caramelized, unfortunately, throw the onions away or use them for something else—they aren’t useful here.
At this point, start making a mornay sauce. Make a béchamel by following this recipe from my Mother Sauces series from early October. Turn it into a mornay by melting in a freshly grated well-melting cheese, like a white cheddar, gruyère, or gouda. Grate in as much cheese as you would like, and whisk to melt and properly emulsify. Industrially pre-shredded or pre-grated cheeses won’t work for this. They have too many emulsifiers and stabilizers that chemically alter the taste and texture too much when melted to work well in a mornay.
Once the onions and garlic have sweated out and become fragrant, add a touch more olive oil to your pan and place in the spinach (4-5 people need a pound of raw spinach. Scale that up or down according to your family’s needs.).Cook out the spinach until it wilts and most of the moisture in it evaporates away. Let it cool in the pan in which it was cooked. Once it is at room temperature, remove as much more moisture as possible by running it through a salad spinner. Once you have removed as much moisture as possible, return your spinach to the same pan (which you have now dried) and ladle in as much mornay as you would like.
Spinach—and most leafy greens— cooks down to an incredibly small volume relative to how much was in your pan to begin with. You need about 3-4 ounces of dry spinach (60-80% of the volume of a typical 5 oz package. For those in the metric system, that’s about 60-80% of a 140-gram package) per person. Most of this mass is water trapped inside the cells of the spinach, and when you sauté the spinach, most of that liquid will be boiled off, thereby losing all that volume, but, at the same time, concentrating the flavor of the spinach.
Before you start sauteing the spinach, mince or press 3 cloves of garlic and slice one onion into half-moons (cut the onion through the stem and the root; cut off the stem; make thin slices parallel to the root until you reach it; repeat this for the other half of the onion; your slices should look like a bunch of copies of the letter “C” made out of onion). Sweat out the onions over medium heat, then add the garlic. Make sure the onions go in first so that the garlic doesn’t burn. “Sweating” for onions means “cooking just to drive off moisture until the onions turn translucent, but no further.” If you go any further than this, you’ll start getting jammy, golden-brown, sweeter onions. These are very good in certain contexts (that’s exactly what you want for French onion soup, which I’ll probably write a recipe for in the winter at some point, and if I do, those words will become a hyperlink to that recipe), but not here. Here, caramelizing onions messes with the texture, color, and flavors we want in this side dish, so if they get caramelized, unfortunately, throw the onions away or use them for something else—they aren’t useful here.
At this point, start making a mornay sauce. Make a béchamel by following this recipe from my Mother Sauces series from early October. Turn it into a mornay by melting in a freshly grated well-melting cheese, like a white cheddar, gruyère, or gouda. Grate in as much cheese as you would like, and whisk to melt and properly emulsify. Industrially pre-shredded or pre-grated cheeses won’t work for this. They have too many emulsifiers and stabilizers that chemically alter the taste and texture too much when melted to work well in a mornay.
Once the onions and garlic have sweated out and become fragrant, add a touch more olive oil to your pan and place in the spinach (4-5 people need a pound of raw spinach. Scale that up or down according to your family’s needs.).Cook out the spinach until it wilts and most of the moisture in it evaporates away. Let it cool in the pan in which it was cooked. Once it is at room temperature, remove as much more moisture as possible by running it through a salad spinner. Once you have removed as much moisture as possible, return your spinach to the same pan (which you have now dried) and ladle in as much mornay as you would like.
Black Bean, Red Onion, Corn and Bell Pepper Salad
Up until I sat down to write this, the menu felt like it was incomplete and needed something else to bring just a little bit more seasonal personality to it. I wanted to come up with another vegetable dish, this time a cold one. This dish, typically served cold, is perfect as a Thanksgiving side or for any cookout or barbeque and suits the skill level of any home chef, no matter how inexperienced. There are three ways to make this dish: one using a gas stove, one in a pan, and one using a broiler (UK/Ireland readers: you call this a “grill”—the top, really hot element in your oven). All of them yield the same results, so use whichever you feel most comfortable with (or whichever your equipment situation allows for).
This dish has several components that require a few different knife skills, but none are too complicated. Slicing, dicing, filleting (a pepper, not a fish. Don’t worry about the knife work for a fish’ that’s much more complicated), and roughly chopping will all be involved.
The first method involves a gas stove. This one gets the best results, but it’s the one that requires the most attention since you will be dealing directly with an open gas flame. Only use this method if you’re comfortable (and if you actually have a gas stove—electric, induction, or other stoves don’t work for this). Grab at least one, maybe two ears of high-quality corn. Husk each ear, removing all the green husk and all the yellow or white “hairy” strands. (If any of this is left on the corn, it’ll burn and that burned flavor will go into the corn kernels.) Turn on one of your burners to medium high. Using metal tongs (nothing made of plastic or with plastic-coated tips), place one ear of corn at a time directly on the burner, turning it a quarter-turn every 15 seconds or so, for about 2 minutes, or until the corn is fire-roasted to your liking. Please be careful. In between each ear, turn the burner off, get the next ear, and turn the burner back on again to repeat the process. After the last ear has been roasted, turn off the burner. Set all the corn on a plate. We’ll come back to it later. If you are using a broiler, set it to low and turn every 30 seconds.
Now, repeat this same process of roasting individual vegetables on an open gas flame with half as many bell peppers as you have ears of corn. I recommend red bell peppers or a mix of red and another color. (Red and yellow or red and orange work particularly well if you want to mix.) This time, however, after you have roasted the peppers, their skins will go black. Wrap them in aluminum foil and let them stay there for about 15 minutes undisturbed. This does a number of things: it steams the peppers inside out, softening them. It loosens the skin from the peppers. And it allows the peppers time to cool enough to be handleable.
In the meantime, drain the liquid from one 15-once can of black beans, reserving only the beans. Finely dice one red onion. (Red onions are better in salads like this; white or yellow onions would be too pungent raw).
After the peppers are cool enough to handle, you should, just by rubbing the skin with your hands, be able to remove the skin charred skin. This removes the blackened outer layer but, thankfully, does not remove the smoky flavor this process created. Now, cut the pepper like you do when you slice an apple: hold it by its stem and slice down around the core taking off all the flesh and leaving only the core behind to minimize waste and maximize flavor. (If you’re doing this only in a pan, now is the time to follow this technique with the raw pepper). Dice the pepper and place it in a bowl (or in a pan if still raw).
You need a Bundt pan to deal with the corn. Bundt pans are those cake pans that make “mega-donut” shapes; you sometimes use them for flan, sometimes for regular cakes, and sometimes for other applications. If the corn is already roasted, stand it up in the central column of the Bundt pan and run your knife along the side of the cob. Shave off the kernels and let them fall into the Bundt pan. If the corn is not already roasted, do this process, and then transfer the corn into a sauté pan into which unroasted diced peppers have already been placed.
If you want to do this without a broiler or without a gas stove, simply chop all your ingredients as indicated, coat a sauté pan in a thin film of oil, and cook the diced peppers and corn kernels until fragrant.
In any case, once the peppers, onions, corn, and beans are all ready, combine them in a single bowl. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Serve chilled.
This dish has several components that require a few different knife skills, but none are too complicated. Slicing, dicing, filleting (a pepper, not a fish. Don’t worry about the knife work for a fish’ that’s much more complicated), and roughly chopping will all be involved.
The first method involves a gas stove. This one gets the best results, but it’s the one that requires the most attention since you will be dealing directly with an open gas flame. Only use this method if you’re comfortable (and if you actually have a gas stove—electric, induction, or other stoves don’t work for this). Grab at least one, maybe two ears of high-quality corn. Husk each ear, removing all the green husk and all the yellow or white “hairy” strands. (If any of this is left on the corn, it’ll burn and that burned flavor will go into the corn kernels.) Turn on one of your burners to medium high. Using metal tongs (nothing made of plastic or with plastic-coated tips), place one ear of corn at a time directly on the burner, turning it a quarter-turn every 15 seconds or so, for about 2 minutes, or until the corn is fire-roasted to your liking. Please be careful. In between each ear, turn the burner off, get the next ear, and turn the burner back on again to repeat the process. After the last ear has been roasted, turn off the burner. Set all the corn on a plate. We’ll come back to it later. If you are using a broiler, set it to low and turn every 30 seconds.
Now, repeat this same process of roasting individual vegetables on an open gas flame with half as many bell peppers as you have ears of corn. I recommend red bell peppers or a mix of red and another color. (Red and yellow or red and orange work particularly well if you want to mix.) This time, however, after you have roasted the peppers, their skins will go black. Wrap them in aluminum foil and let them stay there for about 15 minutes undisturbed. This does a number of things: it steams the peppers inside out, softening them. It loosens the skin from the peppers. And it allows the peppers time to cool enough to be handleable.
In the meantime, drain the liquid from one 15-once can of black beans, reserving only the beans. Finely dice one red onion. (Red onions are better in salads like this; white or yellow onions would be too pungent raw).
After the peppers are cool enough to handle, you should, just by rubbing the skin with your hands, be able to remove the skin charred skin. This removes the blackened outer layer but, thankfully, does not remove the smoky flavor this process created. Now, cut the pepper like you do when you slice an apple: hold it by its stem and slice down around the core taking off all the flesh and leaving only the core behind to minimize waste and maximize flavor. (If you’re doing this only in a pan, now is the time to follow this technique with the raw pepper). Dice the pepper and place it in a bowl (or in a pan if still raw).
You need a Bundt pan to deal with the corn. Bundt pans are those cake pans that make “mega-donut” shapes; you sometimes use them for flan, sometimes for regular cakes, and sometimes for other applications. If the corn is already roasted, stand it up in the central column of the Bundt pan and run your knife along the side of the cob. Shave off the kernels and let them fall into the Bundt pan. If the corn is not already roasted, do this process, and then transfer the corn into a sauté pan into which unroasted diced peppers have already been placed.
If you want to do this without a broiler or without a gas stove, simply chop all your ingredients as indicated, coat a sauté pan in a thin film of oil, and cook the diced peppers and corn kernels until fragrant.
In any case, once the peppers, onions, corn, and beans are all ready, combine them in a single bowl. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Serve chilled.
Thanksgiving: A beginner's guide to how to cook for it
Just like I did for the Mother Sauces, I’m going to make a whole series dedicated to Thanksgiving, perhaps the most iconic holiday in our country and to the rest of the world in terms of its classic gastronomy. Recipes normally go out on Fridays, but all of this needs to be out by Thursday, so Black Friday would be too late in the week for any of this to be useful. The feijoada recipe had originally been scheduled to go out on November 12 (a Friday, like normal) in anticipation of Republic Day (one of the two biggest civic holidays in Brazil, the other being Independence Day in early September), but instead, to make room for this series, I moved the feijoada to the 15th, and this series will all go live on the 12th during the normal Friday slot. This way, there’ll be more than enough time for all of you to plan and purchase everything you will need for Thanksgiving 13 days later on Thursday the 25th.
The image of modern Thanksgiving that everyone recognizes, of course, is a big turkey served whole on a platter with vegetables and surrounded by gravy and a whole smorgasbord-worth of other accoutrements.
This series will follow that image and will take you step by step, dish by dish, down to the minute, for how to plan and execute your perfect Thanksgiving meal.
Especially since I took over the kitchen, we haven’t been doing much entertaining, and our thanksgivings are never really big anyways—it’s almost always just my parents and me—so we make some modifications. Those of you who have been long-time readers remember my whole chicken recipe from last Christmas. That, or something very similar, will be coming back in our house in a few days when Thanksgiving rolls around. After all, we’re three people, and if we ate from that “picture-perfect Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving turkey,” we could probably eat for a week. That’s too much, so we nearly always change that out in favor of my chickens. And as a general rule, we as a family like to have Thanksgiving lunch instead of Thanksgiving dinner.
This series will follow that image and will take you step by step, dish by dish, down to the minute, for how to plan and execute your perfect Thanksgiving meal.
Especially since I took over the kitchen, we haven’t been doing much entertaining, and our thanksgivings are never really big anyways—it’s almost always just my parents and me—so we make some modifications. Those of you who have been long-time readers remember my whole chicken recipe from last Christmas. That, or something very similar, will be coming back in our house in a few days when Thanksgiving rolls around. After all, we’re three people, and if we ate from that “picture-perfect Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving turkey,” we could probably eat for a week. That’s too much, so we nearly always change that out in favor of my chickens. And as a general rule, we as a family like to have Thanksgiving lunch instead of Thanksgiving dinner.
The holiday has as many correct ways of expressing itself gastronomically as there are families who celebrate. I’ll try to hit all the core elements, but, of course, feel free to customize this to your tastes and needs, just as we do here at home.
This series will cover:
a. The turkey (and I will link to the already-published chicken)
b. Cranberry Sauce
c. Asparagus (and there I will link to both the Hollandaise and Béchamel segments of my series on the Mother Sauces)
d. A pan sauce
e. Creamed Spinach
f. Brussels Sprouts
g. Corn-Bean salad
Two important items on our Thanksgiving menu, the farofa (the traditional Brazilian analog to the American Thanksgiving classics of stuffing and/or dressing) and the mashed potatoes, will not be covered explicitly, except in the final post where I offer a schedule template. These recipes have already been published here, and I have had no reasons to make major revisions to either of them, so I will simply post links to them within this post. The names of those two dishes are hyperlinks to elsewhere on this blog where you can find those two recipes.
This series will cover:
a. The turkey (and I will link to the already-published chicken)
b. Cranberry Sauce
c. Asparagus (and there I will link to both the Hollandaise and Béchamel segments of my series on the Mother Sauces)
d. A pan sauce
e. Creamed Spinach
f. Brussels Sprouts
g. Corn-Bean salad
Two important items on our Thanksgiving menu, the farofa (the traditional Brazilian analog to the American Thanksgiving classics of stuffing and/or dressing) and the mashed potatoes, will not be covered explicitly, except in the final post where I offer a schedule template. These recipes have already been published here, and I have had no reasons to make major revisions to either of them, so I will simply post links to them within this post. The names of those two dishes are hyperlinks to elsewhere on this blog where you can find those two recipes.
Thanskgiving Vegetables: Balsamic-Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Asparagus Hollandaise (or Béchamel)
Every Thanksgiving meal needs at least one vegetable side. (For these purposes, potatoes aren’t vegetables—they’re starches. If you came here thinking you were going to find my Thanksgiving potato recipe, click here instead.) This recipe is actually two in one, for the two most common vegetable sides I serve at Thanksgiving or at any of the other few times a year (Christmas, New Year’s, and Easter being the others I can think of right away) where I pull out every culinary stop.
Let’s first address asparagus. Asparagus spears have two parts: a part we can eat and a part that’s too woody. The bottom end (the end opposite the side that looks like an arrowhead) is the woody end. Somewhere along the length of the spear, that woody part gives way to a more tender part. Where exactly that point is located will depend on the individual spear, so the best advice I can offer is to bend each spear and let it break where it wants to.
After I break each spear individually, I cook asparagus twice. I blanch it in boiling water for 2-3 minutes and then shock it in an ice bath. This sets the vibrant green color and stops the cooking process, so the spears don’t overcook and go mushy while I’m resetting my station for the next phase (which I guess is actually two phases in one). Once I blanch and shock the asparagus, I like being really quick about having pressed or minced garlic ready. Coat the bottom of a skillet or a sauté pan with a thin film of oil and sauté the asparagus in the oil. Season the spears now with salt and pepper. If after a few minutes they aren’t as tender as you want them, put a splash of water in your pan, cover it with its proper lid, and let the spears steam for a few minutes. As the spears cook, I like to make a batch of either béchamel or hollandaise to serve atop the spears.
I also typically serve another side: brussels sprouts glazed in balsamic vinegar. As I’m preparing my sprouts by trimming their root ends and cutting them in half through said roots (never at their equators—that would destroy their structure!), I preheat my oven to 400 Fahrenheit. I recommend starting Brussels sprouts on the stovetop in a pan (that was initially cold) with a thin film of olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper. After a few minutes in said pan, they get drizzled with balsamic vinegar, tossed so the vinegar coats them completely, and they go into the oven (which by now should be up to temperature) until a paring knife goes through them with almost no resistance. I don’t want mush, but I want something soft and buttery—literally, like the texture of softened butter you would use while baking. Getting the outer layers crisp and caramelized and the inner layers tender and buttery (without burning anything) is quite the challenge, but the rewards are immense.
After I break each spear individually, I cook asparagus twice. I blanch it in boiling water for 2-3 minutes and then shock it in an ice bath. This sets the vibrant green color and stops the cooking process, so the spears don’t overcook and go mushy while I’m resetting my station for the next phase (which I guess is actually two phases in one). Once I blanch and shock the asparagus, I like being really quick about having pressed or minced garlic ready. Coat the bottom of a skillet or a sauté pan with a thin film of oil and sauté the asparagus in the oil. Season the spears now with salt and pepper. If after a few minutes they aren’t as tender as you want them, put a splash of water in your pan, cover it with its proper lid, and let the spears steam for a few minutes. As the spears cook, I like to make a batch of either béchamel or hollandaise to serve atop the spears.
I also typically serve another side: brussels sprouts glazed in balsamic vinegar. As I’m preparing my sprouts by trimming their root ends and cutting them in half through said roots (never at their equators—that would destroy their structure!), I preheat my oven to 400 Fahrenheit. I recommend starting Brussels sprouts on the stovetop in a pan (that was initially cold) with a thin film of olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper. After a few minutes in said pan, they get drizzled with balsamic vinegar, tossed so the vinegar coats them completely, and they go into the oven (which by now should be up to temperature) until a paring knife goes through them with almost no resistance. I don’t want mush, but I want something soft and buttery—literally, like the texture of softened butter you would use while baking. Getting the outer layers crisp and caramelized and the inner layers tender and buttery (without burning anything) is quite the challenge, but the rewards are immense.
Thanksgiving Cranberry Sauce
Cranberry sauce is nearly ubiquitous in a traditional American Thanksgiving, so even though we’ve rarely if ever, had it at home (but I’ve had it dozens of times away from home), I feel compelled to include it here. Likely, you’ll find it one of the easiest parts of this menu to prepare, and thus a welcome reprieve from the otherwise hectic day of holiday cooking.
Cranberries are loaded full of a compound called pectin—the same compound found in equal abundance in tomatoes that allows a tomato sauce to thicken up incredibly well given enough time without any additional thickening power from a roux or anything else. How you like your cranberry sauce will determine how long you let the pectin in your cranberries be active before stopping the reactions and determining the final form of your sauce. It could be very runny, almost watery, at one end of the spectrum with almost no pectin extraction and development, and it could be practically cranberry Jell-O at the opposite extreme where the pectin is fully taken advantage of. Everything in this extravagant Thanksgiving meal is, as I see it, the Platonic ideal of the dish. The Platonic ideal of cranberry sauce, then, is not at either extreme of thickness, but somewhere in the middle. (This isn’t sponsored, but this is the best product I ever had, so I have to give them a shoutout: Years ago, in Brazil and, to a lesser extent in the US, I could reliably find a “St. Dalfour”-brand blueberry jam; the consistency of that jam is perfect. If you can find this line of products near you, buy it, taste it, and learn the consistency, because that’s what we’re going for in this recipe. Sidenote, I don’t know who St. Dalfour was—so if any of you know anything about this saint (even as basic as if he/she was real or not, please drop a comment and let me know!)
Whatever your preferred cranberry sauce thickness, maceration of the berries is an essential step in the cranberry sauce-making process. Maceration is the process by which, by coating the berries in sugar, we allow some liquid to be extracted, and so the berries essentially sit in their own sweetened liquid for a few minutes. Zest—don’t peel, since that’ll bring the white bitter pith with it—an orange, and juice it, placing that in a 3qt saucepan with 12 oz cranberries and 8 oz sugar, plus just enough water to cover everything. Cook this over medium heat, stirring often so nothing sticks and burns. Once the sauce has not quite thickened to your desired consistency (remembering that it will continue thickening as it cools), remove it from the heat, check for seasoning one last time, and transfer it to your intended serving vessel.
Cranberries are loaded full of a compound called pectin—the same compound found in equal abundance in tomatoes that allows a tomato sauce to thicken up incredibly well given enough time without any additional thickening power from a roux or anything else. How you like your cranberry sauce will determine how long you let the pectin in your cranberries be active before stopping the reactions and determining the final form of your sauce. It could be very runny, almost watery, at one end of the spectrum with almost no pectin extraction and development, and it could be practically cranberry Jell-O at the opposite extreme where the pectin is fully taken advantage of. Everything in this extravagant Thanksgiving meal is, as I see it, the Platonic ideal of the dish. The Platonic ideal of cranberry sauce, then, is not at either extreme of thickness, but somewhere in the middle. (This isn’t sponsored, but this is the best product I ever had, so I have to give them a shoutout: Years ago, in Brazil and, to a lesser extent in the US, I could reliably find a “St. Dalfour”-brand blueberry jam; the consistency of that jam is perfect. If you can find this line of products near you, buy it, taste it, and learn the consistency, because that’s what we’re going for in this recipe. Sidenote, I don’t know who St. Dalfour was—so if any of you know anything about this saint (even as basic as if he/she was real or not, please drop a comment and let me know!)
Whatever your preferred cranberry sauce thickness, maceration of the berries is an essential step in the cranberry sauce-making process. Maceration is the process by which, by coating the berries in sugar, we allow some liquid to be extracted, and so the berries essentially sit in their own sweetened liquid for a few minutes. Zest—don’t peel, since that’ll bring the white bitter pith with it—an orange, and juice it, placing that in a 3qt saucepan with 12 oz cranberries and 8 oz sugar, plus just enough water to cover everything. Cook this over medium heat, stirring often so nothing sticks and burns. Once the sauce has not quite thickened to your desired consistency (remembering that it will continue thickening as it cools), remove it from the heat, check for seasoning one last time, and transfer it to your intended serving vessel.
Friday, November 12, 2021
Feijoada
This coming Monday, Brazil will celebrate Republic Day, the 132nd anniversary of the end of the rule of the Bragança dynasty (1822-89 in Brazil), and the establishment of the republic by Marshall Deodoro da Fonseca, who at that time became the first president (and as of this post in 2021, president #38 is in office).
Today’s dish, then, will be the Brazilian national dish: feijoada. It will become the first in a line of national dishes. To that end, if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of this post where you can see that I wrote it and what time I released it, you’ll also be able to click on a number of labeling tags, one of which will be “national dishes.” Click there to view all the recipes of several countries’ national dishes quickly and conveniently (or, if not technically their national dishes, then at least a dish very closely tied to them and their gastronomical culture) as they are published. As of the time this recipe was originally published, it is so far the only one in the category, but more will surely be added.
Today’s dish, then, will be the Brazilian national dish: feijoada. It will become the first in a line of national dishes. To that end, if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of this post where you can see that I wrote it and what time I released it, you’ll also be able to click on a number of labeling tags, one of which will be “national dishes.” Click there to view all the recipes of several countries’ national dishes quickly and conveniently (or, if not technically their national dishes, then at least a dish very closely tied to them and their gastronomical culture) as they are published. As of the time this recipe was originally published, it is so far the only one in the category, but more will surely be added.
Feijoada can be an intimidating dish to an American home cook because it takes so long to prepare and has so many distinct ingredients and layers of flavor, but it need not be intimidating. (This is certainly not a weeknight meal.) Feijoada preparation has four main components: searing meat, sweating off aromatics, cooking beans, and braising meat. The name of the dish, “feijoada,” is derived from the star ingredient, beans (“feijão” in the singular, “feijões” in the plural). In the part of the country my family comes from (and thus where I learned the dish), the vast majority of feijoadas use black beans (as will be the case in this recipe), but pinto beans are an occasional and acceptable substitute. But in other parts of the country further inland or to the north, the situation is exactly reversed: a pinto feijoada is the norm, and a black feijoada would be exceptional. A “feijoada” can also refer to a party at which the most important food being served is this dish.
Begin with the first step, searing meat. I have talked about creating “fond” (in the English sense where this word means “sticky caramelized bits of flavorful stuff stuck to a pan”) several times in previous recipes. This step is first precisely because we want fond which we will deglaze later, enhancing the flavor of the dish. Pretty much anything good in a braise, soup, or stew works well here—German wursts (Weiss or brat), smoked ham hock, and bone-in short ribs, just to name a few. Whatever you choose, sear it off to get some good color and to build some fond in a large pot (I use my Dutch oven, which is 8 quarts, and I recommend something about the same size), but don’t expect to cook anything all the way through. Allow these meats—the bigger the assortment the better—to get some color, and then reserve them.
Then, sweat off at least one, if not two, diced onions. Follow with 3 large cloves of garlic that have been minced. “Onion first, garlic later” is critical: putting both aromatics in simultaneously, or worse, putting the garlic in before the onions will burn the garlic. And if you burn the garlic, you might burn your fond. If you burn your fond, clean your pan and start over. Preparing these aromatics before the meat is seared is a fantastic way to establish and preserve mise en place throughout this dish. Once the onions and the garlic have given up some of their moisture, but before they take on color because they have started caramelizing, deglaze with a dash of good vinegar. Typically, I use apple cider or red wine. (I also always have a good balsamic available, but it gets too fruity and too sweet over time in dishes like this. There’s a time and a place for an amazing balsamic, and, in general, that’s not in a feijoada.)
Reintroduce the meat. Add enough water to cover everything by at least an inch, bearing in mind that this should never dry out and will simmer on low to medium-low for 2-3 hours. Drop in a bay leaf. Bring everything to a boil, then back it down to a simmer, leaving it there for several hours, until the meat nearly falls apart and the beans are tender. Wait to season until the end of the cooking process. Some of the seasonings in whatever meats you put into the feijoada, if there was any cooking or processing done by anyone else before you, may be salted. If you salt too early, the liquids will concentrate and, given the amount of salt already in the food from the beginning, the end result will be excessively salty.
Begin with the first step, searing meat. I have talked about creating “fond” (in the English sense where this word means “sticky caramelized bits of flavorful stuff stuck to a pan”) several times in previous recipes. This step is first precisely because we want fond which we will deglaze later, enhancing the flavor of the dish. Pretty much anything good in a braise, soup, or stew works well here—German wursts (Weiss or brat), smoked ham hock, and bone-in short ribs, just to name a few. Whatever you choose, sear it off to get some good color and to build some fond in a large pot (I use my Dutch oven, which is 8 quarts, and I recommend something about the same size), but don’t expect to cook anything all the way through. Allow these meats—the bigger the assortment the better—to get some color, and then reserve them.
Then, sweat off at least one, if not two, diced onions. Follow with 3 large cloves of garlic that have been minced. “Onion first, garlic later” is critical: putting both aromatics in simultaneously, or worse, putting the garlic in before the onions will burn the garlic. And if you burn the garlic, you might burn your fond. If you burn your fond, clean your pan and start over. Preparing these aromatics before the meat is seared is a fantastic way to establish and preserve mise en place throughout this dish. Once the onions and the garlic have given up some of their moisture, but before they take on color because they have started caramelizing, deglaze with a dash of good vinegar. Typically, I use apple cider or red wine. (I also always have a good balsamic available, but it gets too fruity and too sweet over time in dishes like this. There’s a time and a place for an amazing balsamic, and, in general, that’s not in a feijoada.)
Reintroduce the meat. Add enough water to cover everything by at least an inch, bearing in mind that this should never dry out and will simmer on low to medium-low for 2-3 hours. Drop in a bay leaf. Bring everything to a boil, then back it down to a simmer, leaving it there for several hours, until the meat nearly falls apart and the beans are tender. Wait to season until the end of the cooking process. Some of the seasonings in whatever meats you put into the feijoada, if there was any cooking or processing done by anyone else before you, may be salted. If you salt too early, the liquids will concentrate and, given the amount of salt already in the food from the beginning, the end result will be excessively salty.
Feijoada is served with rice (steamed in a covered saucepan, 2:1, water:rice), oranges, and a salad. Often, a rodizio de churrasco (an enormous range of different skewered meats barbequed over a fire, cut by a waiter tableside, and served from the spit they were cooked on) provides even more protein than what is in the feijoada per se. Especially if the churrasco is served with it, farofa (toasted cassava flour with a whole array of mix-ins, including eggs, raisins, and onions) is non-negotiable as a side dish. Fresh-squeezed orange juice or a soft drink made from the fruits of the Guaraná tree are common drinks with feijoadas, especially at parties. Be careful drinking guarana if you don’t sleep well when you drink coffee—it has about twice as much caffeine as caffeinated coffee per volume. If you choose to drink the guaraná (no, this isn’t sponsored) my preference, and that of most Brazilians, is the "Antarctica" brand.
Enjoying a feijoada is meant to be an experience that lasts several hours; this is not an ideal weeknight meal. If you need a quick weeknight meal, then simpler rice and beans would be a good option. But if you’re willing to put in the work and wait long enough, it will be well worth it for the full feijoada experience. And lastly, remember that a feijoada is never a private occasion: it is meant to be enjoyed in the company of many family and friends, coming together as a community to celebrate something and enjoy Latin America's most populous nation's signature dish.
Enjoying a feijoada is meant to be an experience that lasts several hours; this is not an ideal weeknight meal. If you need a quick weeknight meal, then simpler rice and beans would be a good option. But if you’re willing to put in the work and wait long enough, it will be well worth it for the full feijoada experience. And lastly, remember that a feijoada is never a private occasion: it is meant to be enjoyed in the company of many family and friends, coming together as a community to celebrate something and enjoy Latin America's most populous nation's signature dish.
(Credit to Spark Recipes - SparkPeople)
Friday, November 5, 2021
Fall/Winter Oven-Roasted Butternut Squash Soup
I think I was 18 and a freshman in college the first time I had butternut squash soup—that's probably incredibly late given that, I, unlike my parents, have spent my whole life in the South of the United States, where butternut squash is a fall/winter classic—but since then, I’ve understood exactly why this simple soup is such a classic. If you’re a new cook, this is the recipe for you. It’s an easy process with few ingredients, and everyone likes a good butternut squash soup as fall turns to winter, the days get shorter and the nights longer.
Preheat your oven to 400 Fahrenheit on a traditional setting or 375 if you have a convection oven. (In general, drop the temperature 25 degrees from what’s indicated if you have and would like to use a convection setting.)
The most complicated part of the recipe deals with the squash itself. Each butternut squash has two sections, though they may be easier or harder to differentiate depending on the exact shape of each squash. The top of the squash is a solid column of pure squash flesh. Underneath that is a more-or-less spherical bulb that’s mostly hollow. The squash’s seeds are all contained in the hollow part of that bottom sphere. Here’s how I recommend breaking down a squash. The curvature of the squash will smooth out the connecting points between these two parts of the squash, and there isn’t actually a separation between the two—no membranes or anything. It just helps to think of the squash in those two sections. Find the dividing line between the two sections, with the bulb on the left and the pillar on the right. Now, cut straight down to separate the bulb from the pillar. Ignore the pillar for now. Using the cleaver again with the cut side of the bulb pointed at the ceiling, find the diameter and cut straight through it from the cut side to the cutting board. You should now have a left hemisphere of squash, a right hemisphere of squash, and a pillar of the squash off to the side. In turn, take both the left and the right hemispheres and scoop out the seeds that should now be exposed. Once the squash has been deseeded, place it back cut-side-down on the cutting board. Now, deal with the pillar. The pillar is a cylinder. One base is the cut side where it used to be joined to the now-halved bulb, and the other is the very top of the squash where you can probably still see a little bit of stem. Make a cut down parallel to the previous cut, this one a little less than an inch behind the stem, to get rid of it. Now, you should really have a perfect cylinder of squash. Stand it up on one of its bases. Find a diameter, and cut down through it, all the way to the board. You have now cut your squash. Do not peel it. Place it on a roasting tray skin-side up, and coat both the skin and flesh with olive oil. Season with salt and fresh cracked black pepper.
Cut an onion in half from root to stem (that is, not along its equator), peel it, cut off the stem and the root, and remove the outermost layer. Halfway through the roasting of the squash (about 20 minutes), add the onion to the roasting tray with the squash. Continue roasting the squash until a paring knife goes through it without resistance. At that point, use a spoon to scoop out the flesh. Place the flesh of the squash together with the onion in a blender. Liquify. Stream in chicken stock while the blender is still running until the soup is at your desired consistency. Check for seasoning once again. Serve while still hot.
Preheat your oven to 400 Fahrenheit on a traditional setting or 375 if you have a convection oven. (In general, drop the temperature 25 degrees from what’s indicated if you have and would like to use a convection setting.)
The most complicated part of the recipe deals with the squash itself. Each butternut squash has two sections, though they may be easier or harder to differentiate depending on the exact shape of each squash. The top of the squash is a solid column of pure squash flesh. Underneath that is a more-or-less spherical bulb that’s mostly hollow. The squash’s seeds are all contained in the hollow part of that bottom sphere. Here’s how I recommend breaking down a squash. The curvature of the squash will smooth out the connecting points between these two parts of the squash, and there isn’t actually a separation between the two—no membranes or anything. It just helps to think of the squash in those two sections. Find the dividing line between the two sections, with the bulb on the left and the pillar on the right. Now, cut straight down to separate the bulb from the pillar. Ignore the pillar for now. Using the cleaver again with the cut side of the bulb pointed at the ceiling, find the diameter and cut straight through it from the cut side to the cutting board. You should now have a left hemisphere of squash, a right hemisphere of squash, and a pillar of the squash off to the side. In turn, take both the left and the right hemispheres and scoop out the seeds that should now be exposed. Once the squash has been deseeded, place it back cut-side-down on the cutting board. Now, deal with the pillar. The pillar is a cylinder. One base is the cut side where it used to be joined to the now-halved bulb, and the other is the very top of the squash where you can probably still see a little bit of stem. Make a cut down parallel to the previous cut, this one a little less than an inch behind the stem, to get rid of it. Now, you should really have a perfect cylinder of squash. Stand it up on one of its bases. Find a diameter, and cut down through it, all the way to the board. You have now cut your squash. Do not peel it. Place it on a roasting tray skin-side up, and coat both the skin and flesh with olive oil. Season with salt and fresh cracked black pepper.
Cut an onion in half from root to stem (that is, not along its equator), peel it, cut off the stem and the root, and remove the outermost layer. Halfway through the roasting of the squash (about 20 minutes), add the onion to the roasting tray with the squash. Continue roasting the squash until a paring knife goes through it without resistance. At that point, use a spoon to scoop out the flesh. Place the flesh of the squash together with the onion in a blender. Liquify. Stream in chicken stock while the blender is still running until the soup is at your desired consistency. Check for seasoning once again. Serve while still hot.
Friday, October 29, 2021
Boeuf Bourguignon
Boeuf Bourguignon is a classic French beef stew (made famous here in America by French-trained American chef Julia Child) made with stock (this recipe can be modified to use beef bones instead of chicken, but the process is exactly the same), red wine, and onions. It's a great way to learn to be comfortable with braising, and an all-around great winter comfort food everyone should have in their arsenal of soups, stews, and braises. I have designed this recipe using chuck-- specifically a chuck roast. Chuck isn't really used for steaks per se (like the ribeye, filet, strip, etc.) because it's not really suited for that kind of cooking. Steaks are meant to be cooked relatively quickly over blisteringly high heat in a pan with oil or over a fire-- but without very many liquids. Chuck, on the other hand, is far too tough for this. You can either grind chuck (and combine it with brisket and short rib) for an excellent burger patty, or you can buy a whole roast like I recommend for this. If you buy the whole roast, follow the lines of fat and sinew present in the meat (a typical chuck roast weighs anywhere from 3 to 7 pounds; 4 pounds is ideal here) and cut along them. Then, progressively break down the meat into slightly larger than bite-sized cubes.
The reason chuck doesn't work well as a steak is twofold: first, because of the length and orientation of the muscle fibers, and second, because the muscle used to work literally 24/7 to support its entire weight when the animal was still living. The best steaks are from the muscles that barely do any work at all. Because the animal's shoulder supported so much weight for so long, chuck gets chewy if not tenderized mechanically (by grinding, as I mentioned RE: burgers) or by allowing it to cook at a low temperature for several hours, as I'll prescribe here in this recipe.
Peel and chop 1 pound of carrots, and peel and slice 4 large yellow onions into rings. Wash and slice 1 pound of white, crimini, portobello, or baby bella mushrooms. (A quick note to bouef bourguignon traditionalists: yes, I know I’m supposed to use pearl onions. But I don’t have the time or the patience—and you probably don’t either—to peel the requisite number of pearl onions. I would much rather do less work for the same results (peeling fewer regular onions for the same amount of usable onion) than more unnecessary work (peeling all the baby pearl onions when the big yellow ones work just as well). If you insist on using the smaller onions, go right ahead, but for your sake, I would make sure you buy pre-peeled (usually frozen) baby onions.)
Begin by seasoning the cut chuck with salt and freshly ground pepper and lightly dredge it in flour. Coat the bottom of a large pot or dutch oven with oil. Just before the oil begins to smoke, place the chuck in the pot and sear on all sides. Your objective is not to cook the chuck all the way through-- this wouldn't do that, anyways. You just want to get some color on it and to develop a "fond" (in the American sense, referring to the caramelized bits of flavorful goodness stuck to the pan that most home cooks throw away at their peril; the French use "fond" to mean "stock").
Cut several strips of bacon parallel to the short side of the bacon to create lardons. Lower the heat in the pan to medium-low to not burn the fond, add a touch more oil, and slowly render out the bacon. Reserve.
Saute the carrots and allow the onions to caramelize in the fat already in the pan from the beef and the bacon. This will create a little bit more fond in the bottom of the pan. Use bourbon, cognac, or another liquor (or more wine, if you don't have any liquor) to deglaze the pan. Once the fond has been picked up off the bottom of the pan, add 1 quart (4 cups) of chicken or beef stock, 2 cups of water, 1 bottle of red wine, and 1 can of tomato paste to the Dutch oven and reintroduce the seared beef.
Allow to braise, partially covered, for three hours at 275 Fahrenheit. Then serve alone, with egg noodles, with potatoes, or with your accompaniment of choice.
The reason chuck doesn't work well as a steak is twofold: first, because of the length and orientation of the muscle fibers, and second, because the muscle used to work literally 24/7 to support its entire weight when the animal was still living. The best steaks are from the muscles that barely do any work at all. Because the animal's shoulder supported so much weight for so long, chuck gets chewy if not tenderized mechanically (by grinding, as I mentioned RE: burgers) or by allowing it to cook at a low temperature for several hours, as I'll prescribe here in this recipe.
Peel and chop 1 pound of carrots, and peel and slice 4 large yellow onions into rings. Wash and slice 1 pound of white, crimini, portobello, or baby bella mushrooms. (A quick note to bouef bourguignon traditionalists: yes, I know I’m supposed to use pearl onions. But I don’t have the time or the patience—and you probably don’t either—to peel the requisite number of pearl onions. I would much rather do less work for the same results (peeling fewer regular onions for the same amount of usable onion) than more unnecessary work (peeling all the baby pearl onions when the big yellow ones work just as well). If you insist on using the smaller onions, go right ahead, but for your sake, I would make sure you buy pre-peeled (usually frozen) baby onions.)
Begin by seasoning the cut chuck with salt and freshly ground pepper and lightly dredge it in flour. Coat the bottom of a large pot or dutch oven with oil. Just before the oil begins to smoke, place the chuck in the pot and sear on all sides. Your objective is not to cook the chuck all the way through-- this wouldn't do that, anyways. You just want to get some color on it and to develop a "fond" (in the American sense, referring to the caramelized bits of flavorful goodness stuck to the pan that most home cooks throw away at their peril; the French use "fond" to mean "stock").
Cut several strips of bacon parallel to the short side of the bacon to create lardons. Lower the heat in the pan to medium-low to not burn the fond, add a touch more oil, and slowly render out the bacon. Reserve.
Saute the carrots and allow the onions to caramelize in the fat already in the pan from the beef and the bacon. This will create a little bit more fond in the bottom of the pan. Use bourbon, cognac, or another liquor (or more wine, if you don't have any liquor) to deglaze the pan. Once the fond has been picked up off the bottom of the pan, add 1 quart (4 cups) of chicken or beef stock, 2 cups of water, 1 bottle of red wine, and 1 can of tomato paste to the Dutch oven and reintroduce the seared beef.
Allow to braise, partially covered, for three hours at 275 Fahrenheit. Then serve alone, with egg noodles, with potatoes, or with your accompaniment of choice.
Friday, October 22, 2021
Polish Papal Cream Cake on St. John Paul II's feast day
Those of you who know me in real life know that, when Archbishop Gregory of Atlanta (now Cardinal Gregory of Washington) confirmed me on November 19, 2016, I took upon myself the name of Pope St. John Paul II, thus assuming him as a personal patron. Today is his feast day, so I thought this week’s recipe would be the “Polish Papal Cream Cake” (“Kremówka Papieska” in Polish) as it’s become in recent years—since people found out it was his favorite dessert. As a young boy, the young Karol Jr. (the future Pope) would get some money from his father (Karol Sr.) and go to the corner bakery after school to get some of this cake on a fairly regular basis. The affinity remained as he grew and became Fr. Karol, Bishop Wojtyla, Archbishop (and then Cardinal) Wojtyla, and Pope John Paul II.
For John Paul, connecting back to his Polish roots was his way of relaxing-- eating Polish food, watching Polish TV, reading Polish literature, speaking in Polish. No matter how long he was away from his homeland, he never lost that part of his identity, and always treasured the things that reminded him of where he had come from.
I haven’t ever made this myself (but I remember having the idea but not being able to make this last year), but I have read a number of recipes, and this is my presentation of this one.
This recipe begins with creating puff pastry. I have never made puff pastry, and that process is quite complicated and labor-intensive, so I’ll let Josh Weissman explain how to make it here.
For John Paul, connecting back to his Polish roots was his way of relaxing-- eating Polish food, watching Polish TV, reading Polish literature, speaking in Polish. No matter how long he was away from his homeland, he never lost that part of his identity, and always treasured the things that reminded him of where he had come from.
I haven’t ever made this myself (but I remember having the idea but not being able to make this last year), but I have read a number of recipes, and this is my presentation of this one.
This recipe begins with creating puff pastry. I have never made puff pastry, and that process is quite complicated and labor-intensive, so I’ll let Josh Weissman explain how to make it here.
Once you have a completed pastry, move on to the cream. The first recipe I mentioned I would be going off of reminds us we have three crucial elements of mise en place (I’ve talked about this a lot in savory cooking, but of course, it’s just as important in sweet baking): (1) finding a bigger bowl than the one in which we’re mixing the cream and filling it with ice, (2) locating a fine-mesh strainer and (3) setting that strainer on top of a bowl about the same size as the original, in the ice inside the bigger bowl, to receive the contents of the mixing bowl. Hang on; this game of “musical chairs with bowls” will soon make more sense.
The recipe online says to “bring milk, sugar, vanilla, salt, cornstarch, and egg yolks to a boil, stirring constantly with a wire whisk. [My comment: you’re trying to create a custard cream, not a sweet take on scrambled eggs, so if you see little bits of egg yolk floating around, you’ve made an irrecoverable mistake and should throw everything away and start over. You want to pasteurize the yolks so they are safe, but you want to keep their creamy consistency] Keeping this mixture moving with a wire whisk by hand (since it’s so essential that this be done constantly) might get tiring, so I suggest using a hand-held mixer on low to medium-low speed, with a whisk beater instead of the traditional beater design. In a pinch, I suppose the traditional beater design might also work, but it’ll certainly incorporate less air into this mixture, so the risk that something will catch on the bottom and burn increases if you either don’t whisk by hand or use the mixer at a low speed with the right whisk attachment.
That online recipe then recommends switching to a wooden spoon to reach the corners and allowing everything to boil for another minute once everything has been incorporated thanks to the step above involving the whisk. Whether you switch implements, don’t allow anything to burn on the bottom or on the sides. Keep everything moving constantly. Once you’re satisfied with the cream, move it from the saucepan through the strainer into the small bowl about the size of the saucepan. The small bowl should be sitting on ice in a big bowl. According to the original recipe, the ice is only there to stop the cooking of the custard, not to chill it to room temperature or even further.
Then, according to the same recipe, assemble the cake first with one piece of puff pastry (you should divide your block of pastry made according to Josh’s recipe in half), then the cream, then the other piece, and chill in the fridge until set. The original recipe calls for a 13-by-9 pan, but I suppose any dimensions would work, as long as you make your pastry the right size for your pan and having more or less height than the original recipe assumes is acceptable to you.
Once the cake has chilled and set in the fridge overnight, dust with powdered sugar, cut into square portions, and serve.
The recipe online says to “bring milk, sugar, vanilla, salt, cornstarch, and egg yolks to a boil, stirring constantly with a wire whisk. [My comment: you’re trying to create a custard cream, not a sweet take on scrambled eggs, so if you see little bits of egg yolk floating around, you’ve made an irrecoverable mistake and should throw everything away and start over. You want to pasteurize the yolks so they are safe, but you want to keep their creamy consistency] Keeping this mixture moving with a wire whisk by hand (since it’s so essential that this be done constantly) might get tiring, so I suggest using a hand-held mixer on low to medium-low speed, with a whisk beater instead of the traditional beater design. In a pinch, I suppose the traditional beater design might also work, but it’ll certainly incorporate less air into this mixture, so the risk that something will catch on the bottom and burn increases if you either don’t whisk by hand or use the mixer at a low speed with the right whisk attachment.
That online recipe then recommends switching to a wooden spoon to reach the corners and allowing everything to boil for another minute once everything has been incorporated thanks to the step above involving the whisk. Whether you switch implements, don’t allow anything to burn on the bottom or on the sides. Keep everything moving constantly. Once you’re satisfied with the cream, move it from the saucepan through the strainer into the small bowl about the size of the saucepan. The small bowl should be sitting on ice in a big bowl. According to the original recipe, the ice is only there to stop the cooking of the custard, not to chill it to room temperature or even further.
Then, according to the same recipe, assemble the cake first with one piece of puff pastry (you should divide your block of pastry made according to Josh’s recipe in half), then the cream, then the other piece, and chill in the fridge until set. The original recipe calls for a 13-by-9 pan, but I suppose any dimensions would work, as long as you make your pastry the right size for your pan and having more or less height than the original recipe assumes is acceptable to you.
Once the cake has chilled and set in the fridge overnight, dust with powdered sugar, cut into square portions, and serve.
To all of us under John Paul II's patronage, happy feast day! St. John Paul II, pray for us!
If you make this, be sure to leave a comment letting me know what you think!
If you make this, be sure to leave a comment letting me know what you think!
Friday, October 15, 2021
Pico de Gallo
Chances are, you’ve been to a Mexican restaurant at least once; and if you have, I can virtually guarantee you’ve eaten and enjoyed the dish we’ll cover this week: salsa, specifically, pico de gallo. The world is your oyster when it comes to salsas. “Salsa” is literally “sauce” in Spanish, even though a salsa doesn’t look like what you probably imagine a sauce to be: a relatively thick, flavored liquid like the ones I covered in my recent Mother Sauces series.
A basic pico de gallo salsa contains a few basic elements: a tomato, something spicy, an onion, and something acidic. This is wonderful for new cooks who don’t have much experience handling ingredients or knives. Pico de gallo ingredients must be chopped by hand and not in a food processor or blender, so a pico is a simple and safe way to get plenty of practice holding and using a good chef’s knife.
Every new chef needs to learn to trust and respect his or her knives; they can be extremely helpful if you know how to use them, but you can’t be reckless with or around them. Knives also cannot do the impossible; if you ask of a knife something it cannot do, you may get seriously hurt. Be careful. There’s no harm or shame in being careful. I hurt myself peeling potatoes Christmas Eve 2020, so now, with no shame whatsoever, I wear Kevlar gloves when I work with vegetable peelers. This is perfectly fine. There is no shame in doing anything to keep yourself safe. Speed and precision like the chefs on TV or the internet will come, but before that, you must be safe. Prioritize safety above all else.
Knife safety comes in three parts. First, a dull knife is unsafe, and a sharp knife is safe. Use a honing rod and/or a whetstone on your knives every few weeks or months, depending on how often you use them. Keep them sharp, and they will keep you safe. High-quality knives and high-quality steels and/or stones can literally last long enough to become family generational heirlooms. Second, how you hold the knife. At some point, you’ll notice the blade and the handle meet. With the index finger and thumb of your dominant hand, pinch the knife at the blade at that point, and curl your three remaining fingers behind them on the handle. Hold the knife firmly, but you don’t need a tense “death grip” on it either. Be in control but stay relaxed. Controlled and relaxed is safe, controlled and tense is unsafe. Finally, how you hold the food. Always hold whatever you are cutting with your non-dominant hand, and hold your food with your dominant hand. Use what I call a “three-layer claw grip” to hold the food. As with the knife, be firm but be relaxed. Raise your non-dominant hand like you see people doing when they get sworn into office. Now, curl your fingers down so each one looks like it only has its first knuckle (the biggest one, closest to where each finger joins with the hand) still pointing up. Put your hand in this position flat on a table with the back of your hand facing up. Your palm should touch your table. Raise your palm slightly so your fingernails go from completely touching your table’s surface to being perpendicular to it. You now have a claw grip. Furthest out in front is the middle finger, then the index and ring fingers, then the thumb and pinky. Keeping your fingers curled like this is the safest way to hold the food so it doesn’t move while you’re cutting, and the best way to keep your fingers away from the action of the knife.
Find a few tomatoes on the vine, wash them, and pull them off the vine. Using a sharp knife and this claw grip, cut each tomato through its stem end (straight down through where the vine was attached). Turn each half of the tomato cut-side down (we always want to cut things with flat surfaces; this is why we cut two hemispheres, not one sphere, as much as possible). Now, find the stem end in the middle and cut directly through it, creating a left half and a right half. Cut each half in half along its long side once more. Now, turn your board 90 degrees, and cut parallel to the “short” side of these segments of tomato three or four times, depending on the size of the tomato and your skill with the knife. Repeat this with all your tomatoes. Once this is done, your tomatoes have been diced. Set them aside.
Now, dice a red onion. Onions have two ends: one is fuzzy, and that end will be called the “root end” from now on. The other end has some strands of onion peel coming up in a mass together. That end will be the “stem end” from now on. Find the middle of the onion, cutting it in two from stem to root. You should have a left half and a right half with otherwise intact stem-halves and root-halves. Lay each half flat on your board, and cut the stem end off, but LEAVE THE ROOT END INTACT OR THIS METHOD WILL NOT WORK. Peel away all the onion paper and the first layer of the onion. Rotate this stemless, peeled half-onion so that the stemless side faces you and the root half is facing away from you. Carefully place your knife parallel to your cutting surface and make 2 or three cuts. The onion should still be together, but now the half should have a “top third,” a “middle third,” and a “bottom third.” Now, starting very close to the root BUT NOT GOING THROUGH IT, cut down the length of the onion. Make as many or as few cuts as you like. For salsa, I usually make six to eight of these cuts, but for sauces like my variation of Sauce Tomate, I have made as many as 14 of these cuts. Turn the board 90 degrees and start making cuts from the stem side all the way until just before the root. Stop as close to the root as possible to minimize waste. Once you have done this to all the halves of all of your onions, they are ready.
Every pico has some kind of pepper. For those of you who like heat, follow these instructions on a jalapeno or your pepper of choice. If you want the mildest possible pico, use a bell pepper, either red or green. Cut off the top to remove the stem but cut close to the stem to minimize waste. If you find you cut off too much, then cut around the stem to save the flesh you cut off too. Cut along the length of the pepper. You should now have two long halves of peppers that should have lots of seeds and pith inside. Remove those, unless you have a hotter pepper and you want to keep them in deliberately, knowing that the pith is where most of the capsaicin (the chemical that makes spicy peppers spicy) is stored. The peppers so the skin is on the cutting board, and now cut along the length of each half-pepper to make sticks. Cut parallel to those sticks to dice the pepper. The spicier the pepper, the finer your dice should be.
Use a Microplane grater to zest as many limes as you would like—as many as you think you need to balance the heat from the peppers and the pungency of the onion. Be careful to only remove the colored zest with the grater, not the white pith. The zest has several aromatic flavoring oils. The pith, on the other hand, is extremely bitter and unpleasant.
If you want to add anything else to your salsa (I’ve seen salsas that include peaches, mangoes, pineapples, and other fruits), now would be a good time to cut them. I can’t possibly guess all the additions every reader would try in their salsa, so I won’t give specific instructions on how to cut any of them. But I will reiterate this: the general principles of creating flat surfaces as quickly as possible, using the claw grip, and cutting one axis (x, y, z) at a time of the cubes that make up dice are always good guidelines.
Under-seasoning food is probably the most common mistake home cooks make. Use the learning experience of making salsa to correct this. Add some salt and freshly ground pepper. Taste the salsa. See if it needs more salt, pepper, or more acidity from the lime. Compensate as necessary. Learning to taste food as it is being prepared, then adjusting the rest of the preparation based on the results of a tasting is an essential skill most home cooks don’t have. Learning this skill will immediately massively improve the taste of the food the average home-cook puts out, and it will also increase the motivation to cook, the desire to try new ingredients, and the willingness to experiment and rely less and less on recipes and more and more on intuition.
Garnish your salsa with chopped fresh herbs. Cilantro is perhaps the most “traditionally Mexican” herb in this context, but I know there is a not-so-insignificant population with a genetic trait that means they perceive cilantro as having a “soapy” taste. If you fall into this category, run your knife through a bunch of parsley a few times. If you don’t, and you like cilantro, use it instead. Serve.
If you make this, be sure to leave a comment down below letting me know!
Every new chef needs to learn to trust and respect his or her knives; they can be extremely helpful if you know how to use them, but you can’t be reckless with or around them. Knives also cannot do the impossible; if you ask of a knife something it cannot do, you may get seriously hurt. Be careful. There’s no harm or shame in being careful. I hurt myself peeling potatoes Christmas Eve 2020, so now, with no shame whatsoever, I wear Kevlar gloves when I work with vegetable peelers. This is perfectly fine. There is no shame in doing anything to keep yourself safe. Speed and precision like the chefs on TV or the internet will come, but before that, you must be safe. Prioritize safety above all else.
Knife safety comes in three parts. First, a dull knife is unsafe, and a sharp knife is safe. Use a honing rod and/or a whetstone on your knives every few weeks or months, depending on how often you use them. Keep them sharp, and they will keep you safe. High-quality knives and high-quality steels and/or stones can literally last long enough to become family generational heirlooms. Second, how you hold the knife. At some point, you’ll notice the blade and the handle meet. With the index finger and thumb of your dominant hand, pinch the knife at the blade at that point, and curl your three remaining fingers behind them on the handle. Hold the knife firmly, but you don’t need a tense “death grip” on it either. Be in control but stay relaxed. Controlled and relaxed is safe, controlled and tense is unsafe. Finally, how you hold the food. Always hold whatever you are cutting with your non-dominant hand, and hold your food with your dominant hand. Use what I call a “three-layer claw grip” to hold the food. As with the knife, be firm but be relaxed. Raise your non-dominant hand like you see people doing when they get sworn into office. Now, curl your fingers down so each one looks like it only has its first knuckle (the biggest one, closest to where each finger joins with the hand) still pointing up. Put your hand in this position flat on a table with the back of your hand facing up. Your palm should touch your table. Raise your palm slightly so your fingernails go from completely touching your table’s surface to being perpendicular to it. You now have a claw grip. Furthest out in front is the middle finger, then the index and ring fingers, then the thumb and pinky. Keeping your fingers curled like this is the safest way to hold the food so it doesn’t move while you’re cutting, and the best way to keep your fingers away from the action of the knife.
Find a few tomatoes on the vine, wash them, and pull them off the vine. Using a sharp knife and this claw grip, cut each tomato through its stem end (straight down through where the vine was attached). Turn each half of the tomato cut-side down (we always want to cut things with flat surfaces; this is why we cut two hemispheres, not one sphere, as much as possible). Now, find the stem end in the middle and cut directly through it, creating a left half and a right half. Cut each half in half along its long side once more. Now, turn your board 90 degrees, and cut parallel to the “short” side of these segments of tomato three or four times, depending on the size of the tomato and your skill with the knife. Repeat this with all your tomatoes. Once this is done, your tomatoes have been diced. Set them aside.
Now, dice a red onion. Onions have two ends: one is fuzzy, and that end will be called the “root end” from now on. The other end has some strands of onion peel coming up in a mass together. That end will be the “stem end” from now on. Find the middle of the onion, cutting it in two from stem to root. You should have a left half and a right half with otherwise intact stem-halves and root-halves. Lay each half flat on your board, and cut the stem end off, but LEAVE THE ROOT END INTACT OR THIS METHOD WILL NOT WORK. Peel away all the onion paper and the first layer of the onion. Rotate this stemless, peeled half-onion so that the stemless side faces you and the root half is facing away from you. Carefully place your knife parallel to your cutting surface and make 2 or three cuts. The onion should still be together, but now the half should have a “top third,” a “middle third,” and a “bottom third.” Now, starting very close to the root BUT NOT GOING THROUGH IT, cut down the length of the onion. Make as many or as few cuts as you like. For salsa, I usually make six to eight of these cuts, but for sauces like my variation of Sauce Tomate, I have made as many as 14 of these cuts. Turn the board 90 degrees and start making cuts from the stem side all the way until just before the root. Stop as close to the root as possible to minimize waste. Once you have done this to all the halves of all of your onions, they are ready.
Every pico has some kind of pepper. For those of you who like heat, follow these instructions on a jalapeno or your pepper of choice. If you want the mildest possible pico, use a bell pepper, either red or green. Cut off the top to remove the stem but cut close to the stem to minimize waste. If you find you cut off too much, then cut around the stem to save the flesh you cut off too. Cut along the length of the pepper. You should now have two long halves of peppers that should have lots of seeds and pith inside. Remove those, unless you have a hotter pepper and you want to keep them in deliberately, knowing that the pith is where most of the capsaicin (the chemical that makes spicy peppers spicy) is stored. The peppers so the skin is on the cutting board, and now cut along the length of each half-pepper to make sticks. Cut parallel to those sticks to dice the pepper. The spicier the pepper, the finer your dice should be.
Use a Microplane grater to zest as many limes as you would like—as many as you think you need to balance the heat from the peppers and the pungency of the onion. Be careful to only remove the colored zest with the grater, not the white pith. The zest has several aromatic flavoring oils. The pith, on the other hand, is extremely bitter and unpleasant.
If you want to add anything else to your salsa (I’ve seen salsas that include peaches, mangoes, pineapples, and other fruits), now would be a good time to cut them. I can’t possibly guess all the additions every reader would try in their salsa, so I won’t give specific instructions on how to cut any of them. But I will reiterate this: the general principles of creating flat surfaces as quickly as possible, using the claw grip, and cutting one axis (x, y, z) at a time of the cubes that make up dice are always good guidelines.
Under-seasoning food is probably the most common mistake home cooks make. Use the learning experience of making salsa to correct this. Add some salt and freshly ground pepper. Taste the salsa. See if it needs more salt, pepper, or more acidity from the lime. Compensate as necessary. Learning to taste food as it is being prepared, then adjusting the rest of the preparation based on the results of a tasting is an essential skill most home cooks don’t have. Learning this skill will immediately massively improve the taste of the food the average home-cook puts out, and it will also increase the motivation to cook, the desire to try new ingredients, and the willingness to experiment and rely less and less on recipes and more and more on intuition.
Garnish your salsa with chopped fresh herbs. Cilantro is perhaps the most “traditionally Mexican” herb in this context, but I know there is a not-so-insignificant population with a genetic trait that means they perceive cilantro as having a “soapy” taste. If you fall into this category, run your knife through a bunch of parsley a few times. If you don’t, and you like cilantro, use it instead. Serve.
If you make this, be sure to leave a comment down below letting me know!
(Credit to Natasha's Kitchen)
Tuesday, October 12, 2021
Viral TikTok Tomato Feta Pasta
In February 2021, one recipe went so viral on “food TikTok” (not a separate app, just the section of the audiences/creators on TikTok whose content preferences revolve around food) that according to multiple sources there was a run on feta cheese in Finland because this recipe got so popular.
I am not usually up to date with what's trendy, and when I am, I don't usually care much, but this has been an exception. Of all the food-related topics to go viral, this is one of the few that has managed to do this because it is good (my family can attest to this flavor combination working remarkably well-- this is the crux of the flavor profile of one of our favorite pizzas), so it not only merits my attention but also my promotion.
Feta comes in a variety of textures and it can be made from a variety of kinds of milk (i.e., from different animals). Cow, sheep, and goat milk are all used for feta, but 70% sheep-30% goat is the most traditional. Feta’s texture depends on how long it ages, usually no less than 3 months. It is commonly sold either as a block or already crumbled. For this recipe, buy the highest-quality majority-sheep block feta you can find. As a second choice, if no sheep feta is available, go for goat feta, leaving cow feta only as a last resort. Whatever milk your feta is from, make sure to buy it as a block and not pre-crumbled.
Place the block of feta in the center of a baking dish and surround it with an equal amount of cherry tomatoes (1 pint). Drizzle olive oil over the cheese and tomatoes. Add freshly ground black pepper to taste. Do not add salt. (Traditionally made feta is already salty enough.) Place in a 400-degree oven for 25 minutes or until the feta melts and the tomatoes burst out of their skins, releasing their juices. While the feta is in the oven, bring 1 gallon of water to a boil in a large pot. Cook 1 pound of short pasta (penne, rigatoni, farfalle, casarecce, etc.) and cook according to the package instructions. Time the pasta so it finishes at the same time as the tomatoes and the cheese finish in the oven. Using a short pasta rather than a long one will allow the feta and tomatoes to get into the shape of the pasta in a way that is next-to-impossible when using a long pasta. Not all shapes of pasta work for all sauces.
Feta comes in a variety of textures and it can be made from a variety of kinds of milk (i.e., from different animals). Cow, sheep, and goat milk are all used for feta, but 70% sheep-30% goat is the most traditional. Feta’s texture depends on how long it ages, usually no less than 3 months. It is commonly sold either as a block or already crumbled. For this recipe, buy the highest-quality majority-sheep block feta you can find. As a second choice, if no sheep feta is available, go for goat feta, leaving cow feta only as a last resort. Whatever milk your feta is from, make sure to buy it as a block and not pre-crumbled.
Place the block of feta in the center of a baking dish and surround it with an equal amount of cherry tomatoes (1 pint). Drizzle olive oil over the cheese and tomatoes. Add freshly ground black pepper to taste. Do not add salt. (Traditionally made feta is already salty enough.) Place in a 400-degree oven for 25 minutes or until the feta melts and the tomatoes burst out of their skins, releasing their juices. While the feta is in the oven, bring 1 gallon of water to a boil in a large pot. Cook 1 pound of short pasta (penne, rigatoni, farfalle, casarecce, etc.) and cook according to the package instructions. Time the pasta so it finishes at the same time as the tomatoes and the cheese finish in the oven. Using a short pasta rather than a long one will allow the feta and tomatoes to get into the shape of the pasta in a way that is next-to-impossible when using a long pasta. Not all shapes of pasta work for all sauces.
Reserve 1 cup of the cooking water in a heat-proof container. This water contains starches that leeched out from the pasta. Together with the proteins in the milk in the feta and the pectin in the tomatoes, this will emulsify the sauce. Drain the pasta, having reserved that cup of water. Combine the cheese and tomatoes with the pasta. Stir and create your sauce. It should emulsify on its own, but if it doesn’t, or if it does and is still too thick, take advantage of the leftover pasta water to adjust the consistency and create/maintain/reestablish an emulsified sauce.
If desired, chiffonade some basil (gather up several leaves and roll them into a bunch, then cut the bunch narrow ribbons) or simply tear it into the pasta and mix. Optionally, crack more black pepper. Serve.
If you make this, be sure to leave a comment down below letting me know!
If desired, chiffonade some basil (gather up several leaves and roll them into a bunch, then cut the bunch narrow ribbons) or simply tear it into the pasta and mix. Optionally, crack more black pepper. Serve.
If you make this, be sure to leave a comment down below letting me know!
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