Author: momsequitur

Don’t it make my brown eyes Espagnole?

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This is week three of our journey through the five mother sauces, as decreed by Auguste Escoffier.

Today we turn our attention to Espagnole sauce, a rich beefy sauce, made thick and silky with the addition of roux (50/50 mixture of fat and flour, slowly cooked to a range of colors; from the beige of mature dry wheat, to the dark reddish brown of old bricks after a hard rain).The sauces were named by the French.  Espagnole is the French word for Spanish, or pertaining to Spain.  It’s more from a facile preconception.  The sauce is brown, the eyes of a Spaniard are brown—voila!  The French have a sauce that has a base of velouté into which eggs and cream has been mixed.  This sauce is blond.  The French associate blonds with Germans, so around its neck was hung a sign which read, “Allemande”, or German.Not unlike velouté, Espagnole is more a base than a standalone sauce.  But truthfully, this sauce has plenty of pizazz all by itself.  And despite what you may have been told, there are no roving bands of marauding sauce enforcers knocking down doors to punish those who break any kitchen commandments.

Espagnole sauce

Ingredients:

espagnole

1 small carrot, coarsely chopped

1 medium onion, coarsely chopped

¼ cup butter

¼ cup A.P. flour

4 cups hot beef stock

¼ cup canned tomato purée

2 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped

1 celery rib, coarsely chopped

½ teaspoon whole black peppercorns

2-3 bay leaves

Cook carrot and onion in butter in heavy saucepan over medium, stirring occasionally, until golden, 7-8 minutes. Add flour and cook roux over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until medium brown, 6 to 10 minutes. Add stock in a fast stream, whisking constantly, then add tomato purée, garlic, celery, peppercorns, and bay leaves and bring to a boil, stirring. Reduce heat and cook at a bare simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until reduced to about 3 cups, about 45 minutes.

Pour sauce through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl, discarding solids.When I worked at a country club as a bartender, I had my first exposure to a professional kitchen.  And one trait I have found in every single person who cooks for a living, is the pathological compulsion to feed people.  And the crew at the country club was no different, so I, the wait staff, and my fellow booze slingers ate well.

One of the sauces they always had on hand and used in many dishes on the menu was something they called bordelaise.  There are different versions, but their sauce began life as an Espagnole.

Country club bordelaisebordelais

1 batch Espagnole sauce

4 large shallots, sliced

1 tablespoon butter

1 ½ cups decent quality red wine

Salt and pepper

Warm Espagnole sauce in large heavy pot to a bare simmer.  Keep warm.

Melt butter in saucepan.  Place in shallots and season.  Cook until lightly caramelized (about 10 minutes).

When shallots are amber-colored, pour in wine and cook on medium-high, stirring frequently.  Let cook until the wine has reduces and there is about ½ cup left, and it has gotten thick and syrupy.

Strain wine and discard solids.  Stir syrup into Espagnole. 

Next week our sauce will be classic French tomato.  This fancy pants sauce was codified by one of the most revered culinary heroes in history.  But the flavor will be more familiar to American school kids than to big city food snobs.

Believe it or not, Mr. Ripley.Thanks for your time.

Hey girl! Try out for the pup squad!

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Petey looks like he’s been washing his hands with that new product sold at only the most exclusive retailers, ‘Broken Glass’.  He’s got more nicks and cuts than a near-sighted barber student.

I, on the other hand, have hands that would make Scarlett O’Hara jealous.  But much of my clothing is so perforated with pulls and tiny holes I look like a demented marksman used me for BB gun target practice.

What, you ask, is capable of making us look like the swankiest meth makers on the block?

We got ourselves a puppy, y’all.

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Riker and The Kid.

Last fall we lost our beloved pony-sized puppy, Riker.  There was never a question of if we’d get another dog, it was only when.  The Matthews family does best when there is a four-legged member.

Besides, dogs are generally easier and more reliable than people.  They’re honest.  They’ve no agenda save food and affection.  And dogs reward kindness with kindness.  Frankly, pooches are too good for us flawed humans; we’re just lucky they put up with us.

Our last dog was 200 hundred pounds.  We aren’t getting any younger, so we felt that we should downsize in the doggy department.  I started looking around at Akitas.  We’ve had one before and love the breed.   And they usually weigh in at only 100 pounds. Practically a lap dog.

I’m no fan of Craigslist.  The Kid found an apartment for an internship in upstate New York on the site.  The landlady was so batty she made Caligula look like the poster boy for mental health.  And then there was that “Craigslist Killer” guy.

But for some reason, one Sunday night, I found myself looking at dogs on the Greensboro Craigslist.  One seller had two male Akita puppies.  In the photos, they were watched over by their father, who coincidentally looked just like our earlier Akita, Steve, who we’d gotten the year The Kid started kindergarten.  That dog and that child were closer than siblings.

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Steve, otherwise known as The Kid’s “little” brother.

We arranged for a visit to meet the pooches.  I asked The Kid to come along, to be a voice of reason in case Petey I fell in love and lost our cotton pickin’ minds.

We met the owner Chad, and his family, both the two and four-legged members.  The humans were nice, and the dogs were sweet and beautiful

We were goners.  I held our new puppy on my lap for the ride home.

Crowley’s the guy in the shades.  Maybe naming him after a demon wasn’t the smartest idea…

We named him Crowley, after a character in a book that’s a favorite of both The Kid and me; Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Our Crowley’s a funny little guy who’s convinced, like Will Rogers, that a stranger is a friend you haven’t met yet; or possibly just a chew toy.

A few times a day the puppy goes on a tear and employing many tiny needle-like teeth, perforates Petey from fingers to elbows.

His signature torture for me though, is sneakier.  I have become his prey.

Dude, hold up!  I need my inhaler!

While walking through the house, minding my own business, Crowley will fling himself at the back of my legs, seemingly to hamstring me.  I feel like the kind of slow, asthmatic gazelle that always gets picked last for kickball, but first for dinner.

So far though, my tendons are intact.  And we’ve known enough dogs to understand that the bite-y behavior is a passing phase (Oh please let it pass).

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Let’s all play ‘Find the puppy’!

After we got home with Crowley, The Kid ‘fessed up.  Once the father dog was glimpsed in the ad photo, all bets were off.

My child, the voice of reason, had fallen head over heels in love and all objectivity had vanished like Krispy Kremes at a Weight Watcher’s meeting.  We’d been on our own the whole time.

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Crowley, the crown prince of hell.  But ain’t he cute as a new pair of shoes?

Thanks for your time.

Man can practically live by breadcrumbs alone

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Last week I made one of the best meatloaves I’ve ever made.

And it was all because of the breadcrumbs.

But those crumbs didn’t come from bread.  It was the end of a box of Wheat Thins.  Which bring us to the very best thing about breadcrumbs.

They don’t have to contain bread.

What?

No, really.

You know, I was gonna say I’d rather have the bread crumbs, but now…not so much.  He’s awful purty.

Japanese panko is the super trendy man-bun of the breadcrumbs world.  A few years ago, to get some you could only procure them by mail order.  Now, they carry them at Big Lots.  You can pick some up at the dollar store.  They even use panko on fish sticks, for the love of Mike.

But panko comes from bread in the same way that jelly beans come from the farmers market.

To produce those Japanese breadcrumbs, they make a slurry of wheat and a few other ingredients.  They then spray it onto canvas sheets, dry them, and flake them off.  That’s pretty much it, but panko was never, in its life cycle, bread.

In my freezer, I have a bag.  Whenever we have a bag or box of crackers that is almost empty, or has gone a little stale, I toss them into that bag. When I make a casserole that needs a crispy breadcrumb topping, I grind up enough to make a cup or so.  Then I season it, add herbs or spices that fit the flavor of the casserole, and pour in a couple of teaspoons of olive oil, or melted butter and stir it through.  After baking, there is a beautiful, golden, crispy crust on top.

When I want shake and bake-style pork chops, I throw all the orphan crackers into a food processor.  Then I throw in some olive oil, salt, pepper, and herbs and spices.  Cheese is also mighty tasty in the mix.  Dryer cheeses like Parmesan and Spanish manchego are really good, and easier to work with, but I’ve used things like provolone and cheddar as well.And nuts are a breadcrumbs best friend.

Whole Foods has a collection of breadcrumbs that have been enhanced with different nut and herb combinations.  But they are pretty dear, with a couple of cups coming in at more than ten dollars.

But think about the combos you could make in your own kitchen.

For an Asian twist, what about Chinese five spice powder and cashews?  Feeling Italian?  What about hazelnuts, Parmesan, lemon zest and basil?  For a taste of Spain mix Marcona almonds, pimiento powder, and some delicious Manchego into your breadcrumbs.

Hey!  What if I tossed the pasta tonight with some stale, gound up bread?

You can even dress pasta with breadcrumbs.  In the days before freezers, frugal Italian peasants came up with a way to use stale bread.  This recipe is a take on one from the lovely mind of Nigella Lawson.

Pasta with lemon & garlic breadcrumbs

Ingredients (serves 2)breadcrumb-pasta8 ounces pasta

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

Zest & juice of 1 lemon

¼-½ cup shredded Parmesan

½ cup breadcrumbs

1 clove garlic, minced

Salt and pepper, to taste

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley

Directions:

Bring heavily salted water to a boil.  Add pasta, and cook until al dente. Before draining, remove a cupful of cooking water.

While pasta’s cooking add 1 tablespoon olive oil to a non-stick skillet and add lemon zest; it’ll sizzle.  Add breadcrumbs, lightly season, and toast until golden.  Set aside.

After draining pasta, pour it back into pot, then add second tablespoon of olive oil and half the lemon juice.  Toss to combine in hot pan until much of the liquid’s absorbed.  Add garlic and cheese.  Toss again, while adding enough pasta-cooking liquid to emulsify it into sauce consistency.  Season then taste, and add more lemon juice if desired. Right before serving, gently fold in parsley and breadcrumbs.Here’s something else nifty about breadcrumbs.  There doesn’t have to be any kind of bread/cracker product in them.

Don’t believe me?

Next time you need breadcrumbs, break out the potato chips, corn chips, or leftover rice that has dried out in the fridge and you’ve ground up in a food processor.

Now you never need to buy a pre-made can of saw dust…I mean breadcrumbs again.Thanks for your time.

That velouté’s one mother

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Last week I talked about mother sauces.  Back in the 18-somethings, the man-made-culinary god Auguste Escoffier declared the existence of the five root sauces from which all sauces come.

This week’s special guest is velouté; a simple sauce made from broth and roux, which is flour and fat, cooked to a range of shades, from the blond of Jean Harlow’s tresses, to the burnt sienna of a Crayola crayon. Classic velouté

3 tablespoon butter

3 tablespoon flour

2 cups warm chicken stock

Salt and pepper (to taste)

Melt butter in saucepan over medium heat.  Whisk in flour and continue to cook until it’s light blond.Whisking continuously, slowly pour in stock and cook until it thickens and just comes to a boil.  Season, taste, and season again, if needed.  Makes about two cups.

To make a simple, very tasty chicken gravy, add a few tablespoons of heavy cream to the sauce.  You can then serve it on chicken, mashed potatoes, or rice.

In the mood for the easiest chicken pot pie ever?chicken-pot-pieMix the chicken gravy with a couple handfuls of shredded rotisserie chicken.  Stir in a couple cups of frozen mixed vegetables.  Either pour it into a frozen pie crust and cover with another piece of store-bought pie crust, or pour it into 4-6 mugs or crocks and cover with a piece of puff pastry.  Cut a few vents into top crust and brush with an egg wash.  Sprinkle the tops with some kosher salt and freshly cracked pepper and bake at 375 until it is golden brown and bubbly.

Our friend velouté is the base for cream soups.  For a deceptively simple cream of mushroom, heat 2 batches of velouté and some freshly grated nutmeg in a saucepan until barely simmering.  Keep warm.  In a separate skillet, caramelize 24 ounces of cleaned, sliced ‘shrooms, a big shallot that you’ve diced, and a teaspoon of dry thyme.  When the veg are golden amber, add a tablespoon of tomato paste.  Let the paste cook until the color darkens, and then pour in a cup of white wine, and let reduce until the liquid’s almost fully absorbed.Stir your caramelized veg into the velouté.  Pour in about ½ cup of heavy cream.  Check for seasoning and serve.  Serves 4-6.  You can also put this on pasta, and meat, or pour it over a baked potato (a sweet potato is really delicious this way).

You can make velouté vegan by using vegetable stock and replacing butter with coconut oil.  Some of this drenching tofu or tempeh, would be virtuous, but taste luxurious.

Another variation is the addition of lemon zest and a whole head of roasted garlic, which you’ve mashed into a paste.  I’m pretty sure, left to your own devises, you could come up with a few uses.  To my thinking, bathing in it, while possibly alluring, is not an acceptable use.

You can switch out the stock, too.

Get yourself some seafood stock (like shrimp), add the juice and zest of one lemon before you add the roux.  Ladled onto a piece of stuffed flounder, it would gladden Chef Escoffier’s little French heart.

For one of Petey’s favorite foods, make a tetrazzini.

Sautee two pounds of mushrooms.  Then combine the chicken gravy, shredded precooked chicken, the mushrooms, and one pound of cooked egg noodles.  Stir in a bag of frozen peas, and cover with buttered breadcrumbs.  Bake at 375 until hot, browned, and bubbly.

Next week is espagnole.  It’s a velvety beefy sauce.  It’s another sauce which isn’t eaten much in its original form.  Think if it as Spanxx.  It’s the foundation of numerous saucy edifices.Thanks for your time.

Outdo Cupid on Valentine’s Day

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This is a very special column.Normally this column is written for those of you who have an affinity for all things culinary.  Cooking, dining, food history, tips and recipes; it’s all fodder for the person who knows their way around a kitchen.  I write for the person whose refrigerator contains more than panty hose, batteries, and cocktail olives.

But this week’s column is for Petey-level cooks who desire to be heroes on February 14th.

If I disappeared tomorrow, my ever-loving spouse would probably be hospitalized for malnutrition and most likely scurvy within weeks.  His diet would consist of frozen pizza, microwave popcorn, dum-dum suckers and fast food.But even he could pull off this recipe.  I promise.

If you can read a recipe and follow simple instructions, you can create a delicious, impressive treat that will wow your significant other.It’s a combination cookie and candy.  There are layers of buttery shortbread, creamy caramel, decadent chocolate, topped with a light sprinkling of flaky sea salt.  It’s normally known as ‘millionaire’s shortbread’.  But because this version is so deceptively easy, I call it, ‘Windfall shortbread’.

The shortbread portion is adapted from a recipe by Martha Stewart.  But it’s simple to prepare.  As for the chocolate, the type is up to you.  Grocery store chips or gourmet artisan bars, pick either.  Milk chocolate, dark chocolate, a combination, or even (heaven forfend) white; choose the recipient’s fave.

Making caramel from scratch is an extremely tricky business, with candy thermometers and napalm-like molten sugar.  Even for professionals, the results might be perfect, or instead, toffee-like, watery, or one big rock.  Pre-made caramels guarantee consistent, perfect results every time.

Windfall shortbreadmarthas-shortbread

1 1/3 cups (2 sticks plus 6 tablespoons) brown butter, room temperature (brown butter is optional-regular salted butter is perfectly acceptable instead)

2/3 cup sugar

¾ teaspoon salt

The beans scraped from 1 vanilla bean

3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

Make brown butter: melt butter on medium-low in small saucepan.   Watch it constantly until it foams, and then browns.  When it smells nutty and the milk solids are caramel-colored, remove from heat and pour into a bowl.  Cool until it solidifies and is room temperature.

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Butter a 9X13 baking pan, and line bottom with buttered parchment paper with enough overhang on sides to act as handles.

In bowl of electric mixer fitted with paddle, cream butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add salt and vanilla scrapings.  Beat to combine.  Add flour, 1 cup at a time, beating on low until combined, but still crumbly.

Pour dough into prepared pan and press it down.  Level and smooth the top, using something like a metal measuring cup to pack it into a nice, neat, even layer in the pan. The pieces will separate easier after baking if you slice before baking.  Cut into 2X2-inch pieces by lowering blade all the way through.  Don’t saw, you’ll disturb the shortbread’s surface.  To forestall it from bubbling up, prick each piece with a toothpick about 4-5 times—push it all the way to the bottom. 

Bake shortbread until evenly pale golden, but not browned, 70-85 minutes. Transfer pan to wire rack to cool.

Time for the caramel:Unwrap 1 ½-11 ounce bags of Kraft caramels, and place in a microwave-safe bowl.  Pour in 1 ½ tablespoons milk.  Nuke for 1 ½-2 minutes or completely melted and silky.  Pour over cooled shortbread in pan.  Place in fridge for 20 minutes.

Chocolate layer:Melt two 10 ounce bags of chips or five 4 ounce baking bars, of your choice.  Put in large bowl and microwave on 15 second intervals, stirring after each.  When completely melted, pour chocolate over the cooled caramel; smooth top with spatula.  Sprinkle with flaky finishing salt.  Allow to fully set.

When set, lift up shortbread with parchment and place on cutting board.  Using serrated knife, gently break off pieces at original cuts.  Store in an airtight container.  Recipe makes approximately 18 pieces.

Wrap these up nice and pretty, present them to the object of your affection, and then drop the mic.Because my friend; you just won Valentine’s Day.

Thanks for your time.

Obey your mother

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They still make them.  Who knew?

When I was a kid, there was a clothing line called Garanimals.  For fashion challenged folks, all you had to do was make sure the same animal was on the tags for both tops and bottoms.

 

Voila!  You had a matching outfit.  That’s flexibility.

Growing up in military families, every three years or so, Petey and I would be dropped into a new town and a new school, where with very infrequent exceptions, we knew nobody but our own families.

Within a few months or so, somehow, we made these places our home.  I honestly don’t know how we were able to keep doing it, over and over.  That’s adaptability.

Last week, talking about cream sauce, I mentioned a term; mother sauces.In classic French cooking, there are five mother sauces.  These are the Garanimals, the army brats of food.  With a familiarity of them, you can make just about any sauce for any dish you’d like.  They are the base for all that follows.

For each of the next five weeks, we’ll look at one sauce and talk about all the things you can do with them.

Since we’ve already started with cream sauce, we’ll just continue.

Known as béchamel, this is the one mother that most people, regardless of culinary ability, can make.  My Aunt Polly, who possesses something less than enthusiasm in the kitchen, actually makes a pretty delicious dish of creamed cauliflower (literally just béchamel over frozen cauliflower which has been microwaved).Just in case, here is the recipe again.

Classic White sauce (béchamel)

¼ cup butter

¼ cup flour

2 cups 2% milk

Salt & pepper

Put a saucepan on medium.  Melt butter and whisk in flour; this is a roux.  Let cook for a couple of minutes, then pour in milk.  Whisk constantly until it thickens and comes to a boil.  Season, taste, and season again.

Most of the time, I grate a bit of fresh nutmeg into the sauce.  It’s easy to go overboard, so I suggest no more than 15 gratings on a nutmeg grater or microplane.  I always use nutmeg in dark greens, and it’s wonderful with scalloped potatoes. For some really cozy, comforting scalloped potatoes, pour ½ cup of béchamel into greased casserole dish.  Thinly slice 5 cups of potatoes and layer them in the dish alternating with another cup of cream sauce.  Spread out the final half cup of béchamel on top and cover with foil.  Bake at 350 covered for 30 minutes, uncover, and bake for thirty more, or until browned and bubbly.

Mix some parmesan into some hot cream sauce, and stir into some spinach that you’ve wilted in the microwave and drained of liquid.  Either serve as is, or put under the broiler with another couple tablespoons of parmesan.  It’s as good as you’d get at the best of steak houses.

Our creamy white friend is also the base for cheese sauce.When making the white sauce, whisk in a teaspoon or so of mustard powder.  After it comes to a simmer, stir in a couple cups of your favorite melt-able cheese.  My mom, who makes the best baked macaroni and cheese, always uses Velveeta for about a third of the cheese.  This gives you creaminess that won’t separate while baking.  I’d use at least 2 batches for each pound of pasta.

Next week we’ll take a look at another pale sauce, Velouté, which is more a jumping off place than a stand-alone sauce.

Oh, but the places it jumps to.Thanks for your time.

All the cool kids are doing it

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We all have a picture in our heads of the ultimate “us”.It’s ourselves; but the best of ourselves: thin, attractive, brilliant, witty, and magnetic.  Our most sophisticated bon vivant selves.  No society guest list is complete without this sparkling personage.  This paragon’s regrets to an invitation render hostesses suicidal.

In New York of the late 1800’s there was a squidgy little problem and two very proper and pedigreed people took it upon themselves to solve it.

The problem; New York was being flooded by parvenus.  The old families, many from the original Dutch settlers of Manhattan, were having their shoes pinched by an influx of immigrants and their children who’d made buckets of money in the industrial revolution.  They had cash, but it had been acquired by the most vulgar means possible; labor, rather than inheritance.

ann-and-ward

Mrs. Astor and Cousin Ward

Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor and her cousin by marriage, Ward McAllister, relying on their own instincts and impeccable breeding, would create the definitive list; announcing to the world, via The New York Times, who made the cut, and more importantly, who did not.

Some of the socially acceptable were Clement C. Moore, whose family was long-time New York royalty and whose father was author of ‘The Night Before Christmas’.  The Post family, as in the doyenne of etiquette, Emily.  And some guy with the extra-fancy name of Marquise de Talleyrand.

Left off this very exclusive index were folks with names like Vanderbilt, Roosevelt, Carnegie, and Duke.

Sorry, bub.

I would definitely not be considered for anybody’s list of old, aristocratic money.  I may be old, but don’t know my family lineage past one great grandmother.  Until I was in junior high I thought aristocrats was a Disney movie about cats.  And there sure ain’t no money, honey.

But I like to think of myself as having enough personality to be an asset as a party guest.  I’m well-mannered, up on current events, and many people think I’m vaguely humorous.My theory was cruelly disproved last week at a party I was invited to in connection with my food columns.  It was a chic party at a new and extremely fashionable location.  The guest list was chock-a-block with beautiful people.

I’d attended a very similar gathering a couple years ago, and was so uncomfortable I went home after about 7 ½ minutes, feeling like the countriest of country cousins.

This time I decided to get The Kid to come along for moral and comedic support.

After about 7 ¾ minutes, The Kid and I felt like sweat suits at a royal wedding.  We escaped to the bar for a couple very expensive drinks, and then went home.We just aren’t ‘beautiful’ people.

But you know, I don’t think that those other guests, almost visibly straining to be stylish and sophisticated, were all that beautiful either.

Here is a partial list of sights that I think are truly beautiful:The exhausted face of a nurse who is 14 hours into a double shift.

The eyes of a groom as he watches his bride coming toward him.

The hands of an old woman which have cooked, and nurtured, and loved for decades.

The embrace of a mother and soldier son on his return home.

hubbell

A.R.T.

Robert Redford in The Way We Were.  I mean c’mon, that guy was walking art.

So, I’m not the sparkling social butterfly I’d always thought I was.  But I still think I’d be fun at a Tupperware party.  And if you invite me to your cookout, I’ll bring the potato salad—and I make banging potato salad.

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My broccoli/cheddar tater salad.  It’s just one of the many recipes I have for my very favorite non-cake food.

Thanks for your time.

 

Big Dipper

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You know how when you buy a car you then see that kind of car everywhere?It’s funny that you never noticed all those 1975 AMC Gremlins on the streets of the Bull City until you were rocking your very own groovy ride.

It’s been that way this week with dip.

I’d been thinking about doing some snacks for watching the big game.  I wanted to do something really different.

I saw this dish on Chopped on Food Network.  It hails from Greece.

Skordaliaskordalia2 russet potatoes, peeled, cut into ¾ inch cubes

½ cup almonds (I love Marcona almonds, but use what you like)

1 head of roasted garlic, or 6-8 cloves raw garlic

1/3 cup fresh lemon juice

¾ cup olive oil

2 tablespoons cold water, + more as needed

Salt & pepper to taste

Rinse suds under cold water to get rid of some of the starch.  Then cook potatoes in heavily salted water until they are very tender—a little softer than you’d want for mashed.  Drain, rinse again, then spread out onto a baking sheet and cook in a 250 degree oven for about 10 minutes to really dry them.

While the potatoes are cooking, put the garlic, almonds, lemon juice, and 2 tablespoons water into a food processor.  Blitz until it becomes a smooth paste.  Season, taste, and season again; remember lemon needs lots of salt.

When the potatoes are cooked and dried, either put them through a ricer, a food mill, or mash them with a potato masher until they are completely smooth.Put potatoes and garlic/almond paste into a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment if available.  Mix on low until it becomes a smooth emulsion.  If necessary (if it wants to separate), add more cold water a tablespoon at a time until fully cohesive.

Makes about 3 cups.     

I’m not normally somebody who likes to put a carb on a carb (pizza or wraps with potatoes are criminally wrong).  But I really think this would be legendary eaten on shards of fried pasta.  And also, pretty darn unique.  Skordalia is also expectantly good on grilled meat.

Fried pasta chipsfried-pasta16 ounces lasagna—not the no cook kind

Vegetable oil

Fine sea salt & pepper

Cook the pasta in heavily salted water until al dente.  When done, drain and gently mix with a little oil, to keep from sticking.

When cool, cut each noodle into 2-inch wide strips (you should get five from each).  Lay out on parchment-lined tray.  

Set up frying station:

Put paper towels on a large rimmed baking sheet.  Set next to the burner you’ll be using for the frying portion of the program.  Place salt nearby.  Put saucepan on medium heat, fill about halfway with oil, and heat to 350 degrees.

Fry:

Pasta really wants to stick when frying.  To minimize, do no more than three pieces at a time. Gently place pasta into hot oil, one at a time, slowly and carefully. They’ll drop to bottom. Leave them alone until they pop up.  At this point they will have a little protective skin to help keep them from sticking.  If, after all this, they try to stick, gently separate them.Fry until lightly golden, and most of the bubbling has stopped.  Remove to lined baking sheet, and salt. 

They take a while, and honestly, are pretty messy.  But they are shockingly delicious and addictive.  The Kid would mug a little old lady for fried pasta.

I have one more unexpected dip and its vehicle.

Peel two pounds of regular carrots and cut ½-inch slices diagonally so they resemble chips.carrots-and-dipPut 2 cups of peanut butter into a bowl, and whisk in a big pinch of Chinese five-spice powder and cayenne pepper to taste.  If needed, whisk in a little cold water until you have dip consistency.  Season with salt and pepper, taste, and season again, if necessary.

Refrigerate dip and keep carrots cool until service.

So, here are a couple ideas for game day snacking.  They work for all manner of contests.  It could be gin rummy, judging fashion on the red carpet, or even if your game is one of thrones.

Any type of game…

Thanks for your time.

 

Snafu

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So you’ve got a game plan for dinner, you get started in the kitchen, and you run into a couple of roadblocks.What do you do?

What.Do.You.Do?

It kinda depends on the roadblocks.

My troubles, luckily, were fixable.  One was of my own making, and one was a little bit my fault, but mostly microbiology.

Let me start back at the beginning.I decided to invent a new pasta bake.  It would be orzo, in an asparagus pesto cream sauce, with peas and spinach, all covered in parmesan breadcrumbs.

I cooked the orzo until it wasn’t quite al dente.

While the orzo was cooking I made a basic cream sauce.

Classic Béchamel

bechamel

¼ cup butter

¼ cup flour

2 cups 2% milk

Salt & pepper

Put a saucepan on medium.  Melt butter and whisk in flour; this is a roux.  Let cook for a couple of minutes, then pour in milk.  Whisk constantly until it thickens and comes to a boil.  Season, taste, and season again.

White sauce is one of the ‘mother’ sauces in classic French cooking.  For the casserole I was making, I stirred in ¼ cup of grated Parmesan, a couple tablespoons of snipped Chinese chives, and 10 good gratings of nutmeg.

When I made the roux, I was afraid I’d made too much, so I discarded a little.  Then of course, I realized I actually needed it thinner so that the finished dish wasn’t dry.

Oops—snafu #1.

I was planning to put fresh spinach into the bake.  I’d wilt it in the microwave, squeeze out the water, then chop it.  Instead, I put four big handfuls of raw spinach into the hot béchamel.  This thinned the sauce. Next, I planned on adding half of a jar of asparagus pesto which I had in the fridge.  I unscrewed the lid and looked inside.  Right on top was a big ole spot of mold. I guess I’d had it for much longer than I thought.

Oops—snafu #2.

After some regret and self-recrimination, I grabbed my jar of preserved lemons and a pack of fresh dill from the produce drawer.  I diced up a few lemon slices and chopped about a tablespoon of dill.  I stirred them into my sauce.  This approximated the slightly sour herbaceousness.

lemon-dill

Green orzo bake

green-orzo-bake1 batch béchamel, adjusted as above

1 cup frozen peas, unthawed

½ pound orzo, undercooked by about 2 minutes

3 slices multigrain bread, toasted, and ground in food processor

¼ cup grated Parmesan, in addition to the cheese in the sauce

1 tablespoon olive oil

Salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease an 8X8 casserole dish.  Mix together the first three ingredients and pour into dish, smoothing the top.

Mix together breadcrumbs, cheese, and olive oil.  Sprinkle over top.

Bake for 45 minutes, spinning dish halfway through baking.  Let stand for 10 minutes after removing from oven.  Serves 4-6.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAA couple nights later we had the leftovers.  I added ½ cup more milk, and a cup of some grilled chicken breast I’d picked up at Trader Joe’s.  I stirred it all together, but even without the crispy breadcrumbs on top it was pretty tasty.

Whenever I make a new recipe, I always warn Petey that there’s a possibility we will instead be dining on peanut butter and jelly.

This time, I was able to pull out a “W” for this meal; which is great, because, you know, I’m not too sure that Petey even likes PBJ.

I’ll bet if an eighteen-year-old Swedish bikini model served him this, he’d give up pork chops for this PBJ.

Thanks for your time.

 

Chuck it

/ momsequitur / Leave a comment

Ever since we started getting some really cold days (well, cold for this thin-blooded North Carolina girl) I’ve been wanting to make an old-fashioned pot roast.  I’m hankering for the kind of thing that weighs as much as a toy poodle, and cooks at 250 for 6 or 7 hours.   A big hunk of meat that comes out of the Dutch oven or roasting pan falling-apart tender.

But there are two built-in complications in my longing for slow-cooked cow meat.  And they both spring from the same source.

And have you ever noticed a cow?  Those guys are big.  I found a couple of bones in the woods near my house.   Now I’m no cow physiologist, but I think it was a femur, and a tibia.  They were insanely big—heck I don’t know, I might have stumbled upon a dinosaur graveyard.  They sure looked like something Fred Flintstone would order at the Neanderthal Bullocks. So…it’s very difficult to get a roast of a size that would make sense for just Petey and me.  And the prices of these cuts have risen along with their popularity.  An 8 lb. chuck roast can easily come to 60 bucks.

I’ve always braised a roast; that’s cooking low, slow, covered and partially submerged in broth.   But the past few times, I’ve dry roasted the roast.

Braising is great for some dishes, like stew, and chili.  But the flavor and texture that come from dry roasting is unique and unparalleled.  You get crispy bits, and that lip-smacking unctuousness that makes you keep eating long after you’re full.  A brisket cooked this way can make a strong carnivore weep.So I was in Lowes the other day checking out the meat that had been marked down.  There was a package of two steaks that were heavily marbled.  They were about five dollars.  I checked the label to see what the cut was, and it informed me I was holding a pack of chicken thighs.

What the what?

I asked the butcher and he told me when they mark down the meat, sometimes they just put in another type of meat into the computer because it’s the price they want to charge.  It was beef, and they were chuck steaks.

The only way to cook chuck steak quickly is to grind it up.  There’s lots of connective tissue that, no matter what you may want, takes time to cook down.My plan was to dry roast the meat.  When you do that, you use a rack so it’s not sitting in any juices and fat that drip off.  The rack I’d use would become part of our dinner.

Into a deep sided casserole dish, I threw in quartered red-skin spuds, a couple handfuls of mushroom caps, and some onion.  I drizzled the veg with a little canola oil, and some salt and pepper, then tossed to coat.  It’s also a really good idea to have either a liquid or a large quantity of salt on the bottom of the roasting pan, so when there are drips they don’t create a bunch of smoke.Salt wasn’t really an option, because there was food we wanted to eat down there.  So, I needed liquid.  Since the veggies would be cooking in said liquid, I wanted it to bring more than just moisture to the party.

I added a few bay leaves, fresh rosemary, and some dry thyme.  I spooned in a little umami paste from Trader Joe’s, a spoon of chicken base, and a couple teaspoons of Worcestershire.  Then I poured in a couple healthy glugs of sherry, laid the steaks on top, and slid the whole thing into the oven, set to 250.I can’t tell you exactly how long it will take.  My steak took five hours, flipping the meat, and tossing the veg every hour.  But yours could take six or eight, or three.  It all depends on how thick they’re sliced.  All I can tell you for sure is; cook it until it’s falling apart tender, and that takes some time.  But it is definitely worth it.

If you want slow-cooked deliciousness, try a chuck steak.  If you want something quick, open a can of tuna.

You really need to open the can…

Thanks for your time.