Had a nice white bulb of fennel from the market, so did Marcella Hazan's simple braised fennel. (How can such a nice vegetable be an insult in Italian? Finocchio is not a nice thing to call a guy and it sounds even worse in Sicilian: finooch, as in "Of course they caught him with a choir boy. Everybody knows priests are all finooch!")
So take your gay vegetable--not that there's anything wrong with that--and trim off the stems. Cut in half, remove the core, and slice thinly. In a frying pan, sauté in some butter for a couple of minutes, but don't let brown. Then add stock, wine, water, what have you, salt and pepper. Cover and cook on low c. 30 minutes, until almost all the stock, wine, water, what have you, is absorbed. You can top with parmesan, if you want. But save some of the little fronds for decoration. With fronds like these who needs anemones?
The pork is a nice variation on the standard veal marsala (see below for pork instead of veal: the other, other, other white meat). Take two thickish pork steaks, pat with thyme leaves, salt, and pepper. Brown on both sides in butter (not olive oil for this dish). Add 1/2 cup marsala, 1/2 cup red wine, and 1 TBSP tomato paste. Cook covered till you no longer have pork sushi and the sauce is nice and thick. Pork and fennel are a natural match, despite the different sauces.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Enchiladas
We pride ourselves on being able to squeeze three or sometimes four meals out of a chicken. Part of it is our Depression childhoods--all right, our mothers'--part the engrained habits of having been starving artists in a garret in Paris--all right, hungry graduate students in New Haven and Cambridge--and part the sheer art form of extracting all the good out of a piece of protein. From one chicken we have a breast meal, a leg and thigh meal, then make stock or soup from the carcass, then pick the bones.
When you've accumulated enough meat bits, you can use them in my mother's enchiladas, handed down from hacienda to hacienda since--all right, probably from Southern Living, c. 1970.
2 parts grated cheese (Monty Jack or the like) to
2 parts chopped-up meat bits to
1 part minced onions
just enough yogurt to bind
Flavor with huge quantities of ground coriander, ground cumin, and chopped fresh coriander, plus a healthy shot of chile de Nuevo Mexico (Hatch for choice), and some salt.
Roll up in tortillas.
These can be nuked (c. 5 minutes), individually wrapped in tin foil for portability, frozen, etc. Best is open-baked, doused in salsa, with a dab of yogurt on top, for c. 40 minutes at the People's Temperature. This is one of the times when store-boughten salsa works better than fresh, since uncooked tomatoes tend to get too watery.
Serve with beer.
When you've accumulated enough meat bits, you can use them in my mother's enchiladas, handed down from hacienda to hacienda since--all right, probably from Southern Living, c. 1970.
2 parts grated cheese (Monty Jack or the like) to
2 parts chopped-up meat bits to
1 part minced onions
just enough yogurt to bind
Flavor with huge quantities of ground coriander, ground cumin, and chopped fresh coriander, plus a healthy shot of chile de Nuevo Mexico (Hatch for choice), and some salt.
Roll up in tortillas.
These can be nuked (c. 5 minutes), individually wrapped in tin foil for portability, frozen, etc. Best is open-baked, doused in salsa, with a dab of yogurt on top, for c. 40 minutes at the People's Temperature. This is one of the times when store-boughten salsa works better than fresh, since uncooked tomatoes tend to get too watery.
Serve with beer.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Frittata
I shouldn't have said that the Sausage, Chard and Potatoes (below) was the final meal of the bland sausages, since there was a lot of it, and some got left over. But the solution to many leftovers (even Spaghetti Carbonara!) is to turn them into a frittata. Simplicity itself: warm the leftovers on medium heat in a well buttered skillet, beat up some eggs (five does it for dinner for the two of us), pour eggs over leftovers, keep the heat low and let them start to set. In this case add some globs of goat cheese on top for extra flavor, then throw on abundant handfuls of grated parmesan or romano to help crust the top. When it's set on the bottom but not quite on top, run it under the broiler for 4-5 minutes until it's golden and puffy.
(The difference between an omelet and a frittata, is that you don't upset the eggs. Since the bottom is fixed in place by bottom heat, the broiler allows the top of the still slightly wet fritt to puff up--Science! Could Alton Brown do better? A rhetorical question.)
(The difference between an omelet and a frittata, is that you don't upset the eggs. Since the bottom is fixed in place by bottom heat, the broiler allows the top of the still slightly wet fritt to puff up--Science! Could Alton Brown do better? A rhetorical question.)
Soupe au Pistou or Summer into Winter
This is the perfect soup for autumn nights. It's from the old Julia Child The French Chef (the first book of the TV series), with the punctuated equilibrium form of evolution of any kitchen. Soak a mess o' white beans overnight (beans only come in a "mess o' "). Pressure cook for 15 minutes. Add spoon-sized cubes of carrot, onion (since you used all the gen-u-wine Frenchy leeks for creamed leeks and chicken), and rude--root--vegetables of your choice, in this case turnips. You can add green beans, etc., at this point. Pressure cook for 15 more minutes. Then stir in a pinch of saffron and a half doz. cubes of your previously frozen pesto. You get the last of summer with the basil and the first of winter with the rude vedge.
The great thing is, you can mess with this infinitely. It's the perfect bottom of the vegetable drawer soup: just add any tender vedge, like zucchini, after the pressure cooking. Tart it up with any thickener/starch you like: dry bread, pasta, rice, etc. JC adds tomatoes, but I think it fights with the pesto taste.
The great thing is, you can mess with this infinitely. It's the perfect bottom of the vegetable drawer soup: just add any tender vedge, like zucchini, after the pressure cooking. Tart it up with any thickener/starch you like: dry bread, pasta, rice, etc. JC adds tomatoes, but I think it fights with the pesto taste.
Antipasto
I know that Antipasto is supposed to be only a preliminary to the typical Italian three-course extravaganza, but sometimes we live dangerously and make a meal of it. So here's what went into it:
•Provolone (which we finally got from Krause's);
•Genoa salami (Krause's again; we were never able to find Genoa salami in Italy, but then we never went to Genoa, where it's doubtlessly known as "Salami di Milano");
•Roasted red peppers - Did these at the same time as we did the too mild chilies. I've tried the hold over a gas fire technique, but nothing beats just putting them under a broiler till blackened. Then in a paper bag to steam, then in water to cool off. The skins peel right off, and the peppers are tender. Top with minced garlic, chopped capers, mixed with olive oil, then thickened with oregano and kosher salt.
•Roasted asparagus - nice plump ones: put in a baking dish with regular veg oil (olive oli has too low a burning point) and put in a 500-degree oven for about 15 minutes, turning every so often till nicely browned, then douse with EVOO and salt--I guarantee you'll never bother to boil asparagus again;
•Artichoke hearts (straight from the giant Costco jar);
•Cherry tomatoes (from farmers' market and our garden - now that's more like it);
•Green olive and artichoke tapenade, which Holt made a while ago. It used up some poor-quality green olives that we'd bought by mistake and somewhat improved - but not enough - by soaking them in David Warda's wonderful balsamic, fresh herb, and orange peel marinade. The tapenade was great, though, and got spread onto:
•Holt's homemade Italian rye bread - yes, you read right (from Carol Field's The Italian Baker: one of the cleverest presents Barbara ever gave Holt). Made us think of an Alto Adige glockenspiel band we saw in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence one day; we called them "The Marching Pinocchios."
•Provolone (which we finally got from Krause's);
•Genoa salami (Krause's again; we were never able to find Genoa salami in Italy, but then we never went to Genoa, where it's doubtlessly known as "Salami di Milano");
•Roasted red peppers - Did these at the same time as we did the too mild chilies. I've tried the hold over a gas fire technique, but nothing beats just putting them under a broiler till blackened. Then in a paper bag to steam, then in water to cool off. The skins peel right off, and the peppers are tender. Top with minced garlic, chopped capers, mixed with olive oil, then thickened with oregano and kosher salt.
•Roasted asparagus - nice plump ones: put in a baking dish with regular veg oil (olive oli has too low a burning point) and put in a 500-degree oven for about 15 minutes, turning every so often till nicely browned, then douse with EVOO and salt--I guarantee you'll never bother to boil asparagus again;
•Artichoke hearts (straight from the giant Costco jar);
•Cherry tomatoes (from farmers' market and our garden - now that's more like it);
•Green olive and artichoke tapenade, which Holt made a while ago. It used up some poor-quality green olives that we'd bought by mistake and somewhat improved - but not enough - by soaking them in David Warda's wonderful balsamic, fresh herb, and orange peel marinade. The tapenade was great, though, and got spread onto:
•Holt's homemade Italian rye bread - yes, you read right (from Carol Field's The Italian Baker: one of the cleverest presents Barbara ever gave Holt). Made us think of an Alto Adige glockenspiel band we saw in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence one day; we called them "The Marching Pinocchios."
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Sausage, Chard and Potatoes
The final meal of the bland sausages, after Bangers and Mash and Sausages and Peppers. This one came out of a tidbit Barbara read in Food & Wine, about a dish composed of sausage, kale, and cannellini beans. No details, no recipe, and we had none of the required ingredients except the sausages. But instead of kale we could use rainbow chard from the garden, of which there was such an overflow that we gathered a bouquet of it for a table centerpiece.
In fact, we cooked that bouquet as follows.
Separate chard leaves from stems; chop stems up separately from leaves, which are torn up and rinsed, but not spun dry. In the biggest frying pan you have, sauté chard stems in oil for 3-4 minutes, then add leaves, which is what will take up all the room in the pan - it's like fresh spinach, which seems like a huge amount but cooks down to nothing. When the leaves have collapsed enough to give you some room, push the chard to the sides of the pan and fry the de-skinned, crumbled sausage in the center, in its own fat; don't mind if there's some chard liquid in there too. Then throw in some unpeeled, diced potatoes and fry those among the sausage fat for a bit. Lower the heat, cover the pan, and let the contents steam in the chard water, adding a little more water if it gets dry. When the potatoes are tender, taste, season ad lib with salt and pepper, and put the whole pan under the broiler for about 5-7 minutes, which will brown the sausages and crisp the edges of the potatoes.
This has certain hash-like qualities, though it's really farmhouse food of no particular country. I wish the chard stems kept their rainbow colors when cooked; guess I'll have to pick another bouquet for that.
In fact, we cooked that bouquet as follows.
Separate chard leaves from stems; chop stems up separately from leaves, which are torn up and rinsed, but not spun dry. In the biggest frying pan you have, sauté chard stems in oil for 3-4 minutes, then add leaves, which is what will take up all the room in the pan - it's like fresh spinach, which seems like a huge amount but cooks down to nothing. When the leaves have collapsed enough to give you some room, push the chard to the sides of the pan and fry the de-skinned, crumbled sausage in the center, in its own fat; don't mind if there's some chard liquid in there too. Then throw in some unpeeled, diced potatoes and fry those among the sausage fat for a bit. Lower the heat, cover the pan, and let the contents steam in the chard water, adding a little more water if it gets dry. When the potatoes are tender, taste, season ad lib with salt and pepper, and put the whole pan under the broiler for about 5-7 minutes, which will brown the sausages and crisp the edges of the potatoes.
This has certain hash-like qualities, though it's really farmhouse food of no particular country. I wish the chard stems kept their rainbow colors when cooked; guess I'll have to pick another bouquet for that.
Chiles Relleños
Got some New Mexico Long Greens from Nancy at the market. Anaheims I will not call them (though Nancy says it's at least a tribute to the farms that used to be there). Roasted them like I usually do with poblanos. But they just aren't as malleable and the slivers of cheese that most recipes call for don't help the packages adhere the way the grated cheese mixture that I use in stuffed poblanos. So they rather fell open, if not apart. Good though, if not as zippy as I'd hoped. So maybe they were Anaheims after all.
The tomatillo salsa, however, was excellent. Just the soapy little green guys, stripped and washed, then ground in the RobotCoupe with garlic, coriander, salt, and lime juice. We tried a cooked tomatillo salsa a number of years ago but it was bland--cooking removed most of the acid bite from the tomatillos.
The tomatillo salsa, however, was excellent. Just the soapy little green guys, stripped and washed, then ground in the RobotCoupe with garlic, coriander, salt, and lime juice. We tried a cooked tomatillo salsa a number of years ago but it was bland--cooking removed most of the acid bite from the tomatillos.
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