Author Archives: Eric

05.24.11
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STATE FAIR CHILI

A few years ago, I posted “Chili: My Top Five“. (April 4, 2007). A couple of years later, Carol found this chili recipe on the Food Network (or saw the show, or something), and made it for dinner. It incorporates pretty much everything a chili aficionado would hate: ground meat, lots of canned beans – 2 kinds, canned tomatoes and red and yellow bell pepper. I call it “state fair chili” because it’s just like my mother used to make for the Methodist Church booth at the Ohio State Fair. Not too soupy, not too spicy.

Carol made it pretty straight, with all the canned stuff, but I twist it a little. Still, it’s nothing like my top five, but a nice change of pace from time to time when you want a hearty meal.

Do you ever read the “Prep Time” and “Cook Time” in recipes… especially in Food Network recipes? I used to, but now I glance at it and then glance at the recipe. If the ingredient list is fairly long and the word “chopped” is used a lot, then it will probably take way longer than they say — unless, of course, you have a team of prep cooks. I don’t. So this one said:
Prep Time: 15 min
Cook Time: 1 hr 45 min
Let’s see, we have some chopping to do:

6 slices thick-cut applewood smoked bacon, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 medium onions, finely chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 yellow bell pepper, chopped

and we need to do some measuring:

3 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon chipotle chili powder
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Prep Time: 15 minutes? In a pigs ass… It took me an hour — I really did time it. Now I may be a bit persnickety – I like to peel my bell peppers, for example, but still.

Cook Time 1 hour 45 minutes? Closer. It took 30 min from bacon to bubbly (cook bacon, cook vegetables, brown meat, stir in beans and tomatoes and get bubbly). Then it says “simmer for 1 1/2 hours, then it says “best if you let it sit for an hour after cooking.” So where does that hour go? So I get 4 hours from start of prep to start of dinner. That’s OK… just tell me.

start off by cooking your bacon

start off by cooking your bacon

add your vegetables and spices and cook until softened

add your vegetables and spices and cook until softened

add your beef and brown, add your sausage and brown, stir into the vegetables

add your beef and brown, add your sausage and brown, stir into the vegetables

add your beans and stir in

add your beans and stir in

add your tomatoes, bring to bubbly and simmer

add your tomatoes, bring to bubbly and simmer

I cooked my chili in the afternoon, then re-heated for dinner (a massive amount of chili in a cast iron pot doesn’t cool very quickly).

c_chili_served

The chili turned out quite thick, making a pile of chili rather than a bowl of chili. Carol said I could have served it on a plate, recalling the first time I went to her house to meet her parents. Continue reading →

05.18.11
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Not Your Average Beans n Ham

Ham Loaf LO
White Beans with Celery
The cutest Cauliflower you’ve ever seen
b_caulif_detail We were getting ready for the first “regular” night of the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF54 or “The International”); we had been to Opening Night, Thursday, and it featured a party after with all the food you could eat… much of it good. The International runs for two weeks and most of the films occur before, during or after dinnertime, so we home cooks need to plan ahead… something easy that can be eaten without fuss.

On this night, a Friday, I planned leftover (LO) ham loaf with something. Perusing my ‘to cook’ files on the computer, I came across White Beans with Celery by Martha Rose Shulman who writes Recipes for Health in the New York Times. I thought I had cooked that, but there were no notes to prove it. In any case, I had a half-pound of flageolet beans and a big head of supermarket celery, so I went for it. I got four lovely tiny baby cauliflower from Dirty Girl Produce at the Market and they hadn’t yet found their way into our bellies. Those would be nice as a side dish.

It’s a whole day affair, what with the soaking of the beans, cooking of the beans and baking of the dish, but the active time is scant. Again, plan ahead for this dish:

11am beans in to soak
4pm ready to cook
5pm beans cooked
5:30 beans in oven
6:30 beans on table
8pm leave for Kabuki
9pm Meeks Cutoff (Carol)
9:30 The City Below (Marc)

I cooked the beans in plain water… the flageolets take only about 45 minutes. I hacked 5 cups of celery in about half inch pieces from the top of my head and carefully rinsed them. My time schedule worked just fine as I cooked the celery. That went in the baking dish, a soufflé dish. I lifted the beans from their liquid with a slotted spoon and mixed that together with the celery, mixed in my home made tomato sauce. It took all of the bean cooking water to cover the beans as directed and into the oven it went for an hour. Continue reading →

05.16.11
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Roast Chicken

…and reviews of two bistro cookbooks, Bouchon by Thomas Keller and Les Halles Cookbook by Anthony Bourdain

I wrote this in February 2009 and somehow it slid to the bottom of the drawer. I’ll blame it on getting busy preparing my income tax. In any case, its just as relevant today. Roast chicken does not go out of style, and Bouchon and Les Halles Cookbook are still in print, so you can rush right out and get your own copy (don’t get it from Amazon, they don’t pay California sales tax and owe the state about a bazillion dollars).

I had never roasted a plain, whole chicken before, always left that to Carol. I loved eating roast chicken, either home made by Carol or brought home from a rotisserie shop or the roli roti truck at the Farmers Market. I don’t know, a roast chicken always seemed mysterious to me.

In his book House:A Memior, Michael Ruhlman, co-author of Bouchon, described inaugurating the new kitchen of his new house with a simple roast chicken:

“I turned on the oven. I took a cast iron pan off its hook. I set a fresh chicken in it and salted the bird well.

“There was never a doubt what the first meal n the new kitchen would be. Roast chicken, baked potatoes, green beans with lemon and butter. Roast chicken is to me the iconic meal of the home. Many pleasures attended its cooking; in a way it seasoned the kitchen, the way you’d season a pan. Its smell filled the room, the house. I like to baste a chicken, to hear the crackling juices from the cavity spill into the fat, to spoon hot, clear fat over the darkening skin. A perfectly roasted bird is a beautiful sight.”

I was envious of his ability to simply and effortlessly roast a chicken. I read House in 2004. It took me until now to roast a chicken myself.

Roast Chicken Bouchonw_bouchon_ckbk
My Favorite Simple Roast Chicken
Mon Poulet Roti, Thomas Keller

I was looking through Bouchon, one of my favorite books about cooking. I think of a cookbook as a book of recipes. Bouchon is so much more than that, it’s about food and cooking, with recipes used as illustration. In any case, I was thinking of writing a review of Bouchon. As I leafed through, I came across a two-page spread entitled My Favorite Simple Roast Chicken, Mon Poulet Roti. Below the title was Thomas Keller’s narrative description of how he roasts a chicken at home. On the facing page was a gorgeous picture of a roast chicken. It looked so good, I just had to give it a try.

Here’s the picture from the book that enticed me to make THAT chicken.

rc_book

rc_wrapped_chixIt looked pretty simple: Heat the oven to 450°F. Rinse and thoroughly dry the chicken. Truss it with butcher’s twine. Rain salt and pepper over the bird.

“Place the chicken in a roasting pan and, when the oven is up to temperature, put the chicken in the oven. I leave it alone – I don’t baste it, I don’t add butter; you can if you wish, but I feel that creates steam, which I don’t want. Roast it until it’s done, 50 to 60 minutes.”

I had questions. Roast on a rack? Brine the bird? I referred to page 192 to learn how to truss the bird and found the restaurant recipe, answering my questions. Rack: no. Brine: he brines in the restaurant, but not when he does it for enjoyment at home.

I can do this. I got out my chicken and my cast iron skillet. Continue reading →

05.10.11
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FRESH PEA SOUP

English peas.JPGBy about this time of year, the English peas from Iacopi farm are abundant, piled high in their brown paper bags at the market, the shells bright pea green and firm to the touch;  just squeeze one and it will snap open to reveal rows of perfect peas inside. This is the time when I MUST make fresh pea soup. I’ve been working on the perfect fresh pea soup for some time. After a few tries, I found one from The Washington Post that made some sense to me.
“A surprising amount of flavor can be coaxed from spent pea pods by simmering them in water.”
Why wouldn’t anybody think of that?

I made my first batch from that recipe. It called for 1 pound peas in the pod, pods scrubbed. That’s not very many peas. My Iacopi bag is 2 1/4 pounds of peas-in-the-pod = 2 cups or 12 ounces by weight, shelled.

“In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, bring the empty pea pods, scallions, parsley, 1/2 teaspoon of the salt and water to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer briskly for 20 minutes. Strain the broth, pressing on the solids to extract as much liquid as possible. Reserve the broth; you should have at least 3 cups.”

So I put all my shells, etc, in a big pot… it took 16 cups of water to cover. [Revelation: I don’t have to use all the pods for the pod stock] So… I reduced the stock for about 15 minutes after removing the pods. Otherwise, I pretty much doubled the recipe. The resulting soup (eaten warm after cooking) was a little thin for my taste, but tasted good, with a nice, bright fresh pea flavor. As a result, I re-wrote the recipe for future use.

Since I’m not a pro test kitchen, I don’t make batches and batches of a dish when developing or refining a recipe. Therefore I made good notes and as we were in the mood for fresh pea soup, I would make some modifications and more notes. I adjusted quantities of each ingredient and added potatoes for thickening. I spared some peas from the blender to add interest to the finished soup.

Finally, I have what I consider to be a perfect fresh pea soup recipe.

w_fresh_pea_soup

The soup can be served warm, room temperature or chilled; I prefer warm.

FRESH PEA SOUP
Adapted from a recipe that appeared in The Washington Post, April, 2005 where it was
adapted from “A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen,” by Jack Bishop (Houghton Mifflin, 2004).
About 10 cups

Ingredients:

1 bag peas from Iacopi Farm, about 2 1/4 pounds in-the-pod = about 2 cups shelled, scrubbed
6 scallions (white and light-green parts), chopped
sprigs fresh parsley (optional)
1 teaspoon salt
10 cups water

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 medium onions, finely chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
5 cups pod broth
1 cup potatoes, diced to about “pea size”
4 cups chopped tender green lettuce leaves, preferably Boston lettuce
creme fraiche or sour cream, for optional garnish
Finely torn mint leaves, for optional garnish

Directions:
Shell the peas and reserve both peas and pods.

In a large pot over medium-high heat, bring about 10 cups of the empty pea pods, the scallions, salt and water to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer briskly for 20 minutes. Strain the broth, pressing on the solids to extract as much liquid as possible. Reserve the broth; you should have about 6 cups.

Melt the butter in the empty saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the onion, salt and the sugar. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is softened but not browned, about 10 minutes. Add the 5 cups broth and the potatoes, increase the heat to medium-high and bring to a boil. Simmer briskly for 2 minutes, add the peas and simmer for 3 more minutes. Add the lettuce and cook for another 2 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and set aside to cool for at least 10 minutes.

With a slotted spoon, remove about 3/4 cup of the peas and potatoes. Puree the soup in batches in a blender until very smooth. Add back the peas and potatoes. Serve warm or, if desired, cover and refrigerate until chilled through.

To serve, ladle the soup into individual bowls. If desired, top with a dollop of creme fraiche and/or scattering of mint.

04.14.11
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SOUP ‘n’ SANDWICH

asparagus and mortadella
dinner thursday

I had a meeting at 7pm. That always makes for an awkward dinner. Carol gets home about 6:20 and I have to leave about 6:30, so maybe we can work in a first course together.

am_asparagus_cooks_1

After lunch, I made some asparagus soup. When we have asparagus for dinner, the first step is to snap off the bottoms. I’ve taken to saving those to make asparagus soup and have developed a fabulous go-to recipe based on a stephencooks.com recipe. He uses “the good part” of 12 spears and garnishes with a tip or two. I use whatever I have, in this case about 15 bottoms.

Cut the asparagus into one-inch pieces. Cook the asparagus in chicken or vegetable broth, uncovered for 30 minutes.

am_asparagus_cooks_2

Should have used a smaller pot. In this pot, the asparagus cooked nearly dry and I had to add more broth… no big deal.

While that is going on, make a batch of Tomato Coulis.(included with the SC asparagus soup recipe)

am_tomatoes

Take two medium tomatoes and put in a blender. (I used four of my smallish San Marzano tomatoes home-canned last fall.) Add 1 clove garlic, 2 teaspoons olive oil, 3 anchovy fillets, 1/2 teaspoon dried basil, 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper and puree at high speed for 3 minutes.

Now 3 minutes is a really long time when you’re standing looking at a blender whirring at high speed. I have pureed this for 3 minutes and have also pureed for 1 1/2 minutes. Didn’t see much difference. Continue reading →

03.31.11
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April in Reno

Springtime in blossom…

We really left SF on March 30, but who is counting. March in Reno sounds kind of harsh, just not poetic. So why did we go anyway?

  1. We hadn’t been since last July for Brian and Natasza’s wedding. That’s one good reason.
  2. I have a pile of Sports Book tickets to cash in (plus more that I can’t cash), reason number two.
  3. It is actual spring in Reno, a condition that comes and goes in San Francisco at various times of year. In Reno, spring is here. Cool, crisp nights and warm green days; reason three if you need it.
  4. And finally, there is food in Reno and environs that we haven’t yet experienced.

A huge storm raged in the Sierras for nearly a week, ending only on Sunday, 3 days ago. Reportedly, the Tahoe area received over 15 feet of snow. At one point on Friday or Saturday, I-80 was closed simply because there was no place to put the snow. We were eager to see what it looked like up there.

r1_donner_hidden

As you can see, we were traveling on a simply beautiful day; the snow glistened and wasn’t too dirty yet. Here we are at Donner Summit, but the sign is buried in the snow.

Before we reached Auburn on I-80, a halfway lunch stop, Brian called to say that we should not have a big lunch; we’re going to a place for dinner that is an institution in Reno.

flower cookies

flower cookies

At Brian’s house, Natasza greeted us and offered a “flower cookie.” They actually taste good. And she was busy preparing cured salmon for Friday’s dinner.  Continue reading →

03.22.11
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beet snack

…or whatever

scrub beetsb_snack
place on foil and drizzle with water, olive oil, salt and pepper
wrap
roast beets 400°F for 50 minutes or so
cool
peel with a paper towel
store inna jar in the fridge

take out a beet
slice in a dish
drizzle with vinegar or lemon juice
drizzle with olive oil
salt
pepper

eat with a fork

yum

got some nice fat carrots?
same deal

beets in foil just out of the oven

beets in foil just out of the oven

roasted beets, these are formanova or cylindra

roasted beets, these are formanova or cylindra

peel with a paper towel... with luck, the skin will come off in one piece

peel with a paper towel... with luck, the skin will come off in one piece

composed salad of chioggia beets, tokyo turnips, snap peas

composed salad of chioggia beets, tokyo turnips, snap peas

roasted beets and carrots

roasted beets and carrots

03.08.11
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Pot Roast of Pork

Here’s what Fatted Calf had to say in their first week of March newsletter:

While I will gladly pile up stacks of dirty pans and bowls in pursuit of culinary glory and happily turn up the radio, roll up my sleeves and attack a sink of dirty dishes, if it’s the price for a good meal I have to admit there is something awfully appealing about a one pot wonder, the kind of cooking that takes its time but not yours.
The Versatile Pork Country Rib Roast slow cooked atop a bed of root vegetables makes for a tender, juicy pot roast.

I bought the Pork Country Rib Roast. This is not my first time, but I haven’t yet fixed on the perfect way to roast it.

When Niman Ranch was in the Market, they sold a Pork Country Rib with about 2 ribs and they sold it on the cheap, about $6 the pound. Then they changed their operation around and moved out of the market and I haven’t seen a similar “country rib.” I believe they described it to me as the first two ribs at one end or the other. I bring this up because Carol had a perfect way of roasting that country rib, so when I got one of those, I was pleased to let her do it.

p_pork_detail

But that country rib is not this country rib and I have a checkered history with this country rib:

Roasted Country Rib 12.09
I have a country rib roast from Fatted Calf, 3 ribs, 2.3 pounds, marinated with Mandarin oranges and Tournantes olives. C sez stick in the countertop convection oven on fan bake at 400° for 30 to 45 minutes.
Took 50 minutes to reach 150°. Yum.
I put it in the square roasting pan on no stick foil with a splash of water in the bottom. C sez she uses the pan that came with the oven and the wire rack to hold it off the bottom.

11.10
FC Country Rib roast with apples and walnut. 2.09 pounds.
Not so good.
First, on the wire rack the roast barely fit in the oven.
Second, it took way long to cook, and was more stringy than tasty, which I attribute to the HOT oven and the tight fit. I think I would go longer and slower next time (see Pernil Pork Roast by Mark Bittman).

My solution was to do nothing until I had an idea.

After rumination, the idea came on a trip to Sonoma to pick up some Cline wine and have Sunday brunch on a drizzly but not nasty day… “cook it like a pot roast, using a beef recipe as a guide.” I have a bunch of root vegetables from Mariquita that are taking up space in the refrigerator. Perfect. Continue reading →

02.24.11
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Lidia's Chard Soup

Uncharted Territory
Carol often has Lidia Bastianich on the kitchen TV when I get home from the Farmers Market on Saturday morning. Usually I treat it as background noise, but this one particular day, she was doing something interesting. I made some notes and put them on the computer, tacked onto her recipe for Bucatini with Italian Tuna and Kalamata Olives. So it was effectively hidden for a few years.

Recently I was at the dentist to be prepped for a crown. Across the street is an A.G. Ferrari store. I had been thinking about Bucatini with tuna, so I stopped in and bought some; Ferrari is the only store I know that has these particular ingredients. (I learned the next day that Cheese Plus, near my house has fresh bucatini and better tuna.) So I got out the recipe and found these notes.

Lidia From the TV
7.7.07
Soup
Make a pestata
Onion, celery, parsley, basil inna food processor
Chop fine but don’t puree
Cook inna pot to caramelize
Add about 2T tomato paste inna hot spot, brown and stir in
Add boiling water
Add chard
Simmer 40 minutes
Put some broth inna sauté pan, poach eggs innit
Grilled bread inna soup bowl, eggs on bread, soup around

Here’s what I did. There is nothing in the notes to suggest amounts, so I borrowed the proportions of onion, celery, carrot, green pepper from K-Paul meatloaf and loaned them to Lidia’s ingredients:

3/4 cup onion
1/2 cup celery
handful parsley
handful basil – didn’t have any, used arugula

I chopped those in my handy little food processor. For the arugula and parsley I stuffed the bowl of the little food processor full and whirled away.

vegetables cook, sausage at the ready

vegetables cook, sausage at the ready

Cooked that with a generous amount of olive oil for about 8 minutes to caramelize the vegetables. Continue reading →

02.22.11
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Reinvented Chop Suey

Not your Mom’s Chop Suey

To say that chop suey gets a bad rap is a gross understatement. Its origins aren’t entirely clear, but some believe that while the wealthy miners were eating Hangtown Fry during the Gold Rush, Chinese immigrants with limited funds were scrounging together meals with whatever they could find.

Chop suey can translate as “chop into bits” or “odds and ends.” Everything from celery and carrots to chicken parts and onions (thickened with some kind of starch) went into this ultimate scraps dish.

It was among the first of the “Americanized” Chinese dishes, thought to be mild enough for Western palates.

From Amanda Gold’s 5 Classic Dishes published in the SF Chronicle, May 2009.

c_chop_suey_detail

Ah yes, odds and ends in a wok, my favorite kind of thing. Back in the day, my Mom had a chop suey recipe — which no doubt circulated among the women at Westgate Methodist Church — that was made entirely of canned ingredients. This one — reinvented by the chef at Betelnut, an Asian restaurant on Union Street that’s been there as long as I can remember — is the antithesis of that; nearly everything is fresh. A trip to Chinatown was in order to deal with an ingredient list like this one that includes:

Shaoxing rice wine
fresh water chestnuts
ginger
garlic chives
Shanxi black vinegar
bean sprouts
Hodo Soy brand yuba (tofu skin) omelet

Parked my scooter on Jackson Street at Stockton and went into the store on the corner. Right away, I saw fresh water chestnuts and picked out five. That set me back 35¢. That store had none of my other needs, so I crossed Jackson to the store on the other corner. Not much there, I went to the next store and scored the rice wine $1.59, and the bean sprouts 34¢. They had the black vinegar, but it doesn’t say Shanxi on the label. I have the same black vinegar at home. Most stores have ginger, but its in net bags of a pound or more.

I crossed Stockton to the biggest store on the block and bought one piece of ginger. Nowhere have I seen garlic chives or even chives. No matter, I don’t think this dish is going to break the bank.

I have everything else in my fridge or pantry.

Ready, set, chop… Continue reading →