Monday, October 28, 2013

Simplified Cassoulet with Pork and Kielbasa (CATKTV)

Chicken
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup table salt
  • 10 (5-6 ounce) bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, trimmed and skin removed [Oops, guess I screwed up a little by leaving the skin on]
Beans
  • 1 pound dried flageolet or great Northern beans, picked over and rinsed [Great Northern]
  • 1 medium onion, peeled plus 1 small onion, minced
  • 1 medium head garlic, outer papery skind removed and top 1/2 inch sliced off plus 2 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through a garlic press (about 2 teaspoons)
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • Ground black pepper
  • 6 ounces (about 6 slices) bacon, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
  • 1 (1-pound) boneless blade-end pork loin roast, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
  • 1 (14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes, drained
  • 1 tablespoon tomato paste
  • 1 large sprig fresh thyme
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 3 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
  • 1 1/2 cups dry white wine
  • 1/2 pound kielbasa, halved lengthwise and cut into 1/4-inch slices
Croutons [Although I didn't bother)
  • 6 slices high-quality white sandwich bread, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted 
Dissolve salt and sugar in 1 quart of cold water in gallon-sized bag and refrigerate for 1 hour.
Not all the salt and sugar got dissolved and the chicken was still pretty frozen, but I don't think it hurt the dish THAT much.
Pat the chicken dry with paper towels afterward.

Mise en place minus the beans.

Practically the same picture as the previous entry.  Except no bay leaves, less water, the onion's hole, and there's some pepper.  Cook until almost tender, 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours.  Drain beans and discard onion and garlic.

Fry bacon until it's just beginning to crisp and most of the fat is rendered.  After that, dump half in with the beans and reserve the rest on a paper-towel-lined plate.

Cook chicken until lightly browned.  Start skinned side down or since I screwed up skin-side down.

Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of fat and cook pork until lightly browned.

Add onion and cook until softened.

Add minced garlic, tomatoes, tomato paste, thyme, bay leaf, cloves, and pepper and cook until fragrant.

Deglaze with chicken broth and wine.  I sort of did this in stages since I didn't start the beans until later for some stupid reason.  I guess that reason would be not reading through the whole recipe and making the correct logical decision.

Submerge the chicken, bring to a boil, and simmer covered for 40 minutes.  Uncover and cook under pork and chicken are fully tender, 20 to 30 minutes more.

Gently stir in beans, kielbasa, and reserved bacon.  Season to taste.  (Apparently, if I had brined the chicken right, I wouldn't have needed to season with salt as aggressively as I did.) I guess this would be the right time to top with the croutons I didn't make and bake until they were deep golden brown.
When I first made this dish, back before the blog, a previous roommate had said this dish was the best thing he had ever put in his mouth.  I declared the dish a bit too rich for me though still good.  I'm not sure I got as walloped by one serving of this as the first time, but it's still rather more than I'm comfortable with eating multiple times in a day.  It's typically made with duck confit but that's hella expensive and would probably push this even further over my limits.

Good dish, I figure, if one really appreciates French food way more than I do.

White Beans with Tomatoes, Garlic, and Sage (NBR)

  • 1 pound (about 2 1/2 cups) dried cannellini beans (or Great Northern or navy beans), rinsed and picked over
  • 1 medium onion, unpeeled and halved through the root end
  • 1 medium carrot, cut into 2-inch lengths [My carrots had gone bad]
  • 1 garlic heads, top quarter cut off and loose papery skins removed
  • Salt
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 6 cups water
  • 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
  • 4 medium garlic cloves, sliced thin
  • 1/4 cup roughly chopped fresh sage leaves
  • 1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
  • 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley leaves [What do you think I did?]
  • Ground black pepper
This and my next blog entry involve a very similar start since they both involve white beans.  Bring beans, onion, carrot (if I had it), garlic head, salt, and bay leaves to a boil.  Partially cover and simmer until almost tender.  Then remove from heat, completely cover, and let stand for 30 to 60 minutes until completely tender.
The traditional manner for this dish in Tuscany:

"The dried beans are placed in a fiasco, the bulbous wine bottle used for Chianti, with some liquid, a sprig of sage, and a few garlic cloves, and then the bottle is sealed and nestled into the embers of the household fire to cook slowly through the night.  By the morning, the beans are plump and ready to eat."

The remaining mise en place.

The cooked beans.  Drain and reserve 1 cup of the cooking liquid.

Heat olive oil, garlic, and sage over medium heat until the garlic turns pale gold and the sage darkens.  Don't stir or the garlic will clump together.

Add tomatoes and salt.  Simmer until juices have evaporated and the tomatoes are shiny.  Whatever that means.

Stir in beans and reserved cooking liquid and simmer until the liquid has again evaporated.

Pretty decent dish for a vegetarian one.  Interesting enough.  I guess parsley would've been nice, but perhaps it always is when suggested.
Creamy even though it's vegan.

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Three-Day Pickles (HCE)

  • 2 pounds Kirby cucumbers
  • 6 tablespoons kosher salt
  • 2 cups white or white wine vinegar
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup pickling spice
Toss halved or quartered cucumbers with 2 tablespoons salt and let them sit in a colander for 2 hours.

Bring remaining ingredients to a boil along with 2 cups water.  Let steep for 5 minutes.
Of course I make my own pickling spice.

Pickling Spice
  • 2 3-inch cinnamon sticks
  • 10 bay leaves
  • 2 small dried hot red chiles (like Thai) or 1 tablespoon hot red pepper flakes, or to taste
  • 1/4 cup mustard seeds
  • 2 tablespoons allspice berries
  • 2 teaspoons cloves
  • 2 tablespoons black peppercorns
  • 2 tablespoons coriander seeds
  • 2 teaspoons cardamom seeds
  • 2 tablespoons dill seeds

Pat cucumbers dry with paper towels and put in a nonmetal bowl.
Pour over bring and let cool to room temperature.

Transfer to airtight jars or containers and refrigerate.  The pickles are ready in three days and are then good for another three weeks. (I just realized I wrote down the expiration date wrong and just corrected them)
At various points in time, I used to make pickles every weekend or every other but have down so in a couple of years.  Ideally, I love adding habanero peppers and fresh dill during the brine cooling process, but as it tends to happen, I blanked while at the shopping market.  Added some habaneros the next day to the top of the jar, but that's certainly not a perfect situation.  The pickles are still pretty good and certainly not my best effort.

Hopefully I get back into the habit without forgetting ingredients in the near future since they are a good snack that aren't full of fat or sugar.

Braised Lamb Shoulder with Tomato, Citrus, and Anchovy

from April Bloomfield's "A Girl and Her Pig"
  • 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 bone-in lamb shoulder (about 6 pounds), neck and rib bones removed
  • 1 tablespoon kosher salt
  • 3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
  • 2 Dutch or other spicy long red chiles, pierced with a sharp knife
  • 4 small celery stalks, cut into 1/2-ince pieces [Blanked on the fact that I had tossed the celery I had. When I got home from the store, I had zero desire to go back out again.]
  • 1 garlic head, cloves separated, but not peeled
  • 1 large Spanish onion, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
  • 1 blood orange or small regular orange
  • 1 lemon
  • 1 tablespoon rosemary leaves, roughly chopped
  • One 28-ounce can peeled whole tomatoes, drained, trimmed, and squished with your hands
  • 4 whole salt-packed anchovies, rinsed, soaked, and filleted [Another Bloomfield favorite.  Eh, I'll just use oil-packed ones.]
  • About 1 1/2 cups dry white wine, such as Sauvignon Blanc
 
Mise en place.  Using boxed wine because I've heard it doesn't oxidize in a minute like the bottled stuff does.

 
Browning the lamb shoulder.  Okay, I realized the rib bones are still attached and I would've gotten more browning action if there were not.

 
It was bitch to muscle around the 4 1/2-pound shoulder around the pot, but here it is looking all pretty.  Bloomfield says to remove the shoulder to a plate and then cook the vegetables in there, but it was far easier for me to take that task over...

 
Into another pot.
Add carrots to the pot first.  Then the rest of the veggies but don't stir stem for ten minutes.  I guess, technically, the carrots are supposed to brown while the rest of the veggies steam; though I can't imagine a pot that would be used for this dish that wouldn't allow all the veggies to have some contact with the pot.  Afterwards, cook while stirring occasionally until the vegetables are all softening and browning.

 
Cut long strips of zest of the lemon and orange.  And this, the rosemary, anchovies, and tomatoes and cook for five more minutes to allow the flavors to marry.  Squeeze in the juices of the orange and 1/2 the lemon.

 
Return the shoulder to the pot.  (Or in my case dump the veggies in with the shoulder) Pour the wine and 1 1/2 cups water around the shoulder and bring the liquid to the simmer.
Some of the juices from the veggies splashed onto the shoulder as I poured it in, but I figured I was trying.

Cover the pot and begin to braise in a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes.  Lower the heat to 300 degrees and braise for 3 1/2 hours until the shoulder is very tender.  Remove the lid for the last 30 minutes.
It all smelled pretty amazing and first but less intense later.

Let the lamb rest for 10 minutes and then spoon off the fat from the top.  Which should amount to about 1/2 cup.

 
The finished shoulder with the meat pushed off the bone.

A pretty good dish though it didn't knock it out of the park.  The length of time it had to braise was killing me since I didn't start that part until somewhat after 10pm at night.  Wish I had bread around to mop up the broth when it first came out of the oven.

Stefan's Goulash

from Top Chef: The Quickfire Cookbook
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1/2 pound veal shoulder, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
  • 1 potato, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
  • 1 carrot, peeled and coarsely chopped
  • 1 parsnip, peeled and coarsely chopped
  • 1/4 small head cabbage, cored and chopped
  • 2 strips bacon, chopped
  • 2 cups chicken stock
  • 1 cup dry white wine
  • Leaves from 2 sprigs thyme
  • Leaves from 1 sprig rosemart
  • 1 bay leaf
  • Salt and pepper
  • Chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley for garnishing [Nope]
 
Mise en place.  I doubled all the ingredients except for the olive oil where I used 3 tablespoons of instead of 4 to sautee the veal.
I've cooked this "goulash" (I've never really seen another recipe for it like this one before.  It typically only really contains beef and paprika.) 5 or 6 times but this is the first time I've done so while writing this blog.  I love the flavors and cooking the dish as is doesn't quite seem worth the time.

 
Brown the veal.

 
Dump in the rest of the ingredients and simmer for about 1 hour until the veal is tender,

Voila.  One pot meal I return to on a fairly regular basis.
Started cooking this in my early days and it's the one dish I've cooked regularly from this cookbook.  Simple.  Good

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

My Curry

From April Bloomfield's A Girl and Her Pig
  • 1 tablespoon fennel seeds, toasted
  • 2 tablespoons cumin seeds, toasted
  • 1 tablespoon fenugreek seeds, toasted [I'm not sure why I visited the same Indian grocer in Central Square a couple years back and thought I could only buy the powdered stuff, but it was sitting there this time around!]
  • 10 whole cloves
  • 2 whole star anise
  • 3 green cardamom pods
  • 3 fresh kaffir lime leaves [I could drive myself nuts looking for these or I could just used the dried stuff from Whole Foods.]
  • 1 tablespoon crumbled dried pequin chilies [Bloomfield seems to be in love with these babies, but I am not yet going to special order them from AmazonAND if they cannot be found on Amazon, it's just not happening.  L'epicerie screwed me once; it's not happening again.] or red pepper flakes
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • 2 teaspoons ground tumeric
  • 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 cups thinly sliced shallots
  • 4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
  • 1/2 small cinnamon stick [Eh, I used a whole one instead.  How bad can that be?]
  • 1/2 cup finely chopped fresh ginger (from a 3-ounce piece)
  • 3 cups drained, trimmed, and chopped canned peeled wholed tomatoes
  •  2 tablespoons Maldon [another Bloomfield favorite] or another flaky sea salt
  • 8 cilantro roots with 2 inched of stem attached, washed well and finely chopped [Shopping for Zak Pelaccio has taught me to not even try to look for this stuff.  I can wait for it to happen to me, but that's as far as it goes.]
  • A 5-inch strip of orange peel, any white pith cut away
  • A 5-inch strip of lemon peel, any white pith cut away
  • 1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
  • 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice [Maybe if I had to include the peel as well...]
  • 1 1/2 cups pineapple juice (fresh, bottled, or canned)
  • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 4 pounds boneless lamb shoulder, cut into 2-inch pieces
  • 2 tablespoons Maldon or another flaky sea salt
$60 worth of lamb shoulder.  The whole (-ish I assume) shoulder is from Whole Foods and set me back the usual crazy amount of money.  This is for another Bloomfield dish coming up.
Who knows if the "Lamb Stew" meat from McKinnon's is even shoulder.  I was going under the presumption that it was close enough.

Alas, I could not lay my hands on boneless lamb shoulder.  Since this dish involved a literally stupid amount of prep work, let's say that rendering the meat boneless cost me at least an hour.

Oh, 2 cups of finely sliced shallots.  I'm unsure how much time this took me, but I sat in front of the computer playing a poker tournament while doing it.  I don't think that two hours is unreasonable.

A direct quote from "A Girl and Her Pig":
Don't let the long ingredient list scare you off; this curry is easy to make.  The only time-consuming part is collecting all the spices.

NO!  I have many of the spices already.  I'd say that even if I had managed to find boneless lamb shoulder, the shallots and the garlic prep was fucking retarded.

I think I'm toasting cumin seeds here since there seems to be an awful lot of them.

I was being coy and thought I could grind up all the spices in one batch, but that wasn't true.  In any case, like I mentioned, this was a minor pain in the ass compared to other stuff I had to do.

Mise en place.  Finally!

"Oh, hey," Bloomfield says to me.  "I'm pretty sure if you cook these shallots over medium-high heat for ten minutes, they'll wind up deep brown."
I'm like "WTF.  Are you kidding me?  Caramelizing onions takes more like a hour than 10 minutes."  I give this a shot, but I know what's up.

The garlic goes in at the same time, but that's besides the point.

Add spices and ginger (I think I lost close to an hour to the ginger.) and stir constantly for 3 minutes.

Add tomatoes and salt and cook, stirring frequently, (Um, ok) until most of the liquid has evaporated and the mixture looks quite dry.

Add juice and peels and set aside.  Cilantro roots if you got them I guess, but I don't.

Brown the lamb.  This took ages since, um, like every other kitchen I've dealt with the stove-top is slanted.  Eventually I figured there was enough grease in the pan to use the full area, but it wasn't until pretty late.
As you go, dump the browned in that laborious mixture above.

Another dish that called for a broad range of ingredients but failed to live up to the effort involved.  After all, it's really an unspectacular curry dish.
So after the whole browning process, the dish goes into a 350 degree for 1 1/2 hours.  Then you turn down the heat to 250 and it's a whole other hour.

I was pulling out the dish every 1/2 hour to give things a stir, and I'm not sure when I noticed this but all of a sudden the knob had gotten wrenched up to 450 degrees.  Honestly, I don't think my brushing up against the knob trying to reach something on a high shelf did this, and I don't think the brain-dead roommate we might be rid of soon would touch the oven...
In any event, the meat was tender enough without the extra hour at low heat.

Lord knows if I would've noticed any real nuance to the dish if the temperature stayed where it should've been.  I say because I'm never ever doing this again!

Potato and Kale Soup

from the America's Test Kitchen Healthy Family Kitchen
Or as I like to tell Helen S who is a big fan of this book over the company's more serious work, this book is America's Test Kitchen for Dummies.
  • 1 teaspoon canola oil
  • 4 ounces chorizo, halved lengthwise and sliced crosswise into 1/4-inch thick pieces
  • 1 onion, minced
  • 4 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • Pinch red pepper flakes
  • 6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
  • 1 1/2 pounds red potatoes (4 to 5 medium), scrubbed and cut into 3/4-inch chunks
  • 1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas, rinsed
  • 12 ounces kale, stemmed and leaves sliced 1/4 inch thick
  • 1 teaspoon minced fresh oregano or 1/4 teaspoon dried
  • Salt and pepper
Since this is ATK for Dummies, the recipe doesn't care if you use Mexican or Spanish chorizo when there is a world of difference between the two.  Since I'm a gourmand I sprung for the expensive dry-cured expensive stuff.
Man, I want to be able to make this some day.

Whole Foods: Shame on you for not carrying any type of chorizo.

I was supposed to cook the chorizo until browned, but I didn't think the dry-aged stuff was going to get there.  I gave up when I figured that enough fat had rendered out.

Again, the mise en place in process.  I weighed out the chorizo on my scale, but when it came to the kale...  I just stopped once that bowl was full.

After transferring the chorizo to a plate, soften the onions in its beautiful fat.

Add garlic, cumin, and pepper flakes and cook until fragrant.  Stir broth, potatoes, and chickpeas.  Bring this all to a simmer and cook until potatoes are almost tender.

Add chorizo, kale, and the fresh oregano here (I used dried so I'm pretty sure I added that in with the broth) and cook until the kale and potatoes are tender.  Crush some of the potatoes against the sides to thicken the soup up a bit...
And what can I say?  I'm kind of a sucker for brothy soups with good flavor and veggies.  Immensely charming dish.