Christmas, 2010

Christmas dinner came out beautifully this year.  It was small, for just Kid Cayenne, myself and a friend.  I roasted my first duck.  I was terrified to do it, but it came out well and I'm over the trepidation hump so I think I can continue to hone the skill.  Other dishes included roasted red and golden beets with arugula and goat cheese, a nice baked mac and cheese and  roasted sweet and spicy pumpkin wedges.  We had milk chocolate and  salted caramel gelatos from La Divina for dessert.  All in all, quite lovely.

Amongst my Christmas gifts this year were these jewels:

ad hoc at home - Thomas Keller

Around My French Table - Dorie Greenspan

How To Cook Everything Vegetarian - Mark Bittman

The Art of Simple Food - Alice Waters

tart pan

madeleine pan

kitchen scale

a Kitchenaid stand mixer

1 of those beautiful iitalla EgO coffee cups I oohed over earlier this year.  *sigh*

Needless to say, I'm thrilled with the prospects.  I've hardly put my cookbook stack down since Christmas morning (and quite a hefty stack it is, since each book feels like it's about 45 pounds a piece, at least!)  I've inaugurated the mixer with a batch of tart dough which is currently chilling in the refrigerator and is destined to become a Meyer lemon tart this evening.

I'm looking forward to 2011 with great anticipation.  Rather than compile a list of resolutions for the new year, I'm just trying to think of new and interesting things I'd like to try that I haven't yet.  I'll get back to you with some of those.  Hope your holidays were warm and full of love and joy and your new year is brilliant!

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Polenta Torta with Wilted Chard

From the Alice Waters cookbook, The Art of Simple Food, I made the Polenta Torta recipe, adding the Wilted Chard variation.  It is wonderful.  Possibly not terribly photogenic (or maybe that's just me and my terrible plating and photography skills), but otherwise, truly wonderful and simple and good.

First, make the polenta.

Polenta

4 c water
1 c polenta
1 t salt
3 TB butter or olive oil
1/2 c grated Parmesan cheese

In a heavy bottomed pot, boil 4 cups of water.  Whisk in the polenta and salt.  Turn down the heat and stir constantly until the polenta is suspended in the water and no longer settles to the bottom of the pot.  Cook for 45 minutes to an hour at a bare simmer.  Stir occasionally.  Add water if the polenta gets too thick.

Stir in butter and parmesan.  Taste and add more salt if needed.  Keep warm until ready to prepare the torta.

In the last 20 minutes or so of the polenta cooking, begin the chard.  I used rainbow chard because I can never resist the beautiful colors.

Wilted Chard and Onion

1 bunch of chard
2 TB olive oil
1 onion, diced
salt

Wash and drain the chard.  Pull the leaves from the ribs.  Trim the ends of the ribs and cut them into thin slices.  Cut the leaves into wide ribbons.

In a heavy pan, heat the oil until shimmering and add the onion.  Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally,  until soft, about 5 minutes.  Add the chard ribs and continue cooking for three minutes.  Add the chard leaves and salt.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until the leaves are tender.  Add a bit of water if the pan gets dry or the onions begin to stick or brown.

When both the chard and polenta are ready, you will begin to prepare the torta.  It is important to prepare the torta as soon as the polenta is ready, otherwise it will begin to set.  You need the polenta to be soft and spreadable.

Polenta Torta

2 c soft polenta
2 c tomato sauce
1 c Parmesan cheese, grated
1/2 lb fresh mozzarella (about 2 medium balls)

Oil an earthenware or other low-sided baking dish.  I used a 9x13 and questioned afterwards, whether it was too large.  A slightly smaller one might have been more appropriate.  Alice Waters does not specify.

Ladle in 1 1/3 cups of soft polenta and spread it over the bottom of the dish.  Spread 1 cup of tomato sauce over the polenta.  On top of the tomato sauce, arrange half of the mozzarella slices.  Sprinkle with half the grated.  Parmesan cheese.  Layer half the chard.  Over the chard, ladle another 1 1/3 cups of soft polenta, spread on the rest of the tomato sauce, then the mozzarella and Parmesan and the remaining chard.  Ladle the remaining polenta over the top.  Allow the torta to sit for 30 minutes before baking to allow the polenta to set.  Preheat the oven to 350°F.  Bake the torta until hot and bubbling, approximately 30 minutes.

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Sauteed Cauliflower with Garlic

I have an excellent reason for never having picked up an Alice Waters cookbook before.  I once saw an episode of Sundance's Iconoclast with Alice Waters and Mikhail Baryshnikov.  Alice Waters annoyed me. A lot.  There you have it. 

Of course, I sometimes come across recipes credited to her that seem right, right up my alley.  After having that happen enough times, I figured I might be missing something.  I found a copy of  The Art of Simple Food at the library last week and have been engrossed in it ever since.

The first recipe I tried was for Sauteed Cauliflower.  The only ways I've cooked cauliflower in the past was as a simple puree or mash.  I've considered roasting it (my favorite way to cook any vegetable) but hadn't gotten around to it.  A saute sounded very simple and potentially very good.  And it is.

1 head of cauliflower
salt
olive oil
minced garlic

Remove the leaves from the cauliflower.  Remove the base of the stem with a sharp knife.  From the top down, cut the cauliflower into 1/4 inch slices.

Heat olive oil in a heavy bottomed pan over medium-high heat.  When the oil is shimmering but not smoking, add the cauliflower and salt.  Let the cauliflower sit until it begins to brown.  Turn or toss, cooking until the cauliflower is tender, about 7 minutes total.  In the last minute or two of cooking, add minced garlic and toss.  When finished, season with additional salt if needed and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil.

That's it.  It's lovely.  She offers a number of variations as well including adding parsley, chopped salt cured anchovies and capers, hot chili flakes and coarsely chopped olives and using it to dress pasta.  I put it alongside seared pork chops and beets.

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Hansen's Sno-Bliz 2010: Four New Flavors!

WOOO!  Hansen's Sno-Bliz opened today for the 2010 season!  Hooray!  I hustled down fast to get my favorite Nectar Cream Sundae (I've been craving since last summer) and because I was so quick on the draw, I only had to stand in line behind one person!  I'm the luckiest.

What's more, Ashley Hansen gave me the scoop on four new, all natural flavors she is bringing out this year and gave me a sneak peek taste test.  The flavors are Vanilla Bean, Raspberry, Gingersnap and Cardamom.  I tasted the Raspberry (delightful) and the Cardamom.  When she first told me Cardamom, it was so unexpected that I didn't even recognize the word and had to ask her to repeat it a few times.

Ashley: "Cardamom."
Me: "Huh?"
Ashley: "Cardamom"
Me: "What??"
Ashley: "Cardamom!"
Me: "What is that?"
Ashley: "It's a spice."
Me: "OH, YOU MEAN CARDAMOM?!?"  

Yeah, I know.  I'm an idiot.  Anyway, cardamom does happen to be one of my all time favorite spices so I was thrilled to get a taste and guess what, it tastes exactly like cardamom!  Only cold.  And sno-blizzy.  It's utterly delicious.

On my way out, I stopped at McKeown's Books and picked up copies of Simple Cuisine by Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper by Fuchsia Dunlop and Comfort Me With Apples by Ruth Reichl.  Looking forward to some leisurely perusing this evening.

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Making Donald Link's Fried Chicken and Andouille Gumbo

Gumbo making is stressful business for me.  I didn't grow up with a Southern Louisiana mama to show me the ropes, so I've had to figure it out on my own, with only vague recipes and the occasional video on making roux to assist me.  To be honest, I spent the first seven or eight years of living in New Orleans making gumbo from a box of Autin's Cajun Cookery gumbo mix.  When I finally decided that I really wanted to learn to make it from scratch, I realized that I was a complete idiot at making roux.  I didn't understand how long it was supposed to take to get dark brown.  Didn't know just how much to stir to keep it from burning.  Didn't understand how to get it from that medium caramel-y brown to the dark chocolatey brown it is supposed to be for gumbo without having a coronary in the process.  Still don't.  However, I persist.

For the Saints game on Saturday, we had our lovely neighbors over for gametime and dinner.  I decided to try the Fried Chicken and Andouille Gumbo recipe from Donald Link's Real Cajun.

Also made a side of his potato salad since I love a scoop of potato salad in the bowl alongside my rice.

The first thing I did wrong was grossly underestimate how long it would take to cook.  I skimmed the recipe a few times and settled on 2.5 - 3 hours in my mind.  It took much longer than that.  Probably closer to 6.  Making the roux took me an hour.  Is that right??  The book says that the process should take about 40 minutes, but I stirred and stirred and fretted and frowned over it and still didn't have the dark brown I needed until 60 full minutes had passed.  When I finally gave up and threw the onions in, it had just barely reached a dark brown and could easily have gone darker still, but I was so exhausted by the effort at that point that I decided good was good enough.  I don't know what I do wrong.  Maybe I stir too fast.  Maybe I'm too timid with the heat.  Whatever the case, making roux makes me feel like I'm going to have a panic attack, every time.  I've got to master this.  Any suggestions are welcomed.

Oh, the gumbo?  It was excellent.  Best gumbo I've ever made.  The poblano pepper and jalapeno made it lip tinglingly hot in just the right way.  The potato salad was a perfect accompaniment.  Donald Link mentions that he likes it in seafood gumbo, but it was delicious in the chicken andouille as well.  When all is said and done, I think that if I spend the next few years of my life figuring out how to perfect my roux technique on this gumbo recipe, it will be time well spent.

p.s.  I didn't use chicken on the bone for my gumbo, even though the recipe calls for it.  Kid Cayenne wouldn't have eaten it.  While I'm sure that using only boneless, skinless breast caused it to sacrifice in flavor, we didn't feel one bit deprived.  It was truly delicious.

p.p.s.  WHO DAT!

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In Contemplation of Cabbage and Pasta

Ever since having the Smoked Duck and Chestnut Pasta at the Green Goddess a couple of months ago (a dish that includes caraway and duck fat braised Napa cabbage, 5 year Dutch gouda and wild mushrooms and about which I have longing-filled daydreams continuously), I've been thinking about cabbage with pasta.  Since I am neither worldly or wise, it was a small revelation to me.  Initially, I thought I had never before eaten the pairing, but deeper consideration reminded me that I have done so frequently... just, in Asian noodle dishes instead of Italian.   I've been looking for an opportunity to stick cabbage in pasta ever since.

Last night, I was seeking inspiration from one of my new cookbooks, Italian Easy: Recipes from the London River Cafe, and found a recipe for Rigatoni, Cabbage, Fontina. It seemed a good place to begin.  

Here is the recipe, as shown in the book.

I made a few ingredient alterations to accommodate what was available to me.  The grocery was out of Savoy cabbage, so I substituted regular green cabbage.  There was only one Fontina at Whole Foods which was much too expensive and seemed as though it would be wasted if melted into a pasta dish instead of eaten in it's own right, so I substituted with a more commercial grade Fontal.  Additionally, I cut all of the measurements in half, to make a dish that feeds two.

I also made a few minor changes to the process described in the recipe.  I cooked the pasta and potatoes in the same boiling water I had cooked the cabbage in (not at the same time, of course).  The recipe doesn't mention salt at all, so I added it where it felt appropriate... to the boiling water and to the final dish, just before serving.  The finished product was warm, creamy and deeply comforting.  One disappointment was that there were no stand out flavors.  The cabbage blended in to the whole seamlessly, both in texture and in flavor.  I may have been better served to blanch it, rather then let it boil until tender.  Since there is still plenty of time for it to cook, between the time it leaves the boiling water and when it is joined with the pasta, I think I would have preferred it to have held on to a bit of crispness and tang. When I think of the dish at Green Goddess, I instantly remember the wonderful assertion of the cabbage ribbons against the smooth tenderness of the tagliatelle.  While these are two very different dishes, I would have liked mine to have a bit more of that contrast.

All in all, it was a nice but not standout meal.

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Cookbooks For Christmas

My Christmas loot included three great cookbooks:

* Real Cajun by Donald Link
* Italian Easy - Recipes From the London River Cafe by Rose Gray and Roth Rogers
* Jean-Georges: Cooking At Home with a Four-Star Chef by Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Mark Bittman

Three very different types of cuisine with one connecting theme: simple, flavorful dishes for the home cook.  I spent yesterday reading them, cover to cover, and am really looking forward to digging back in and putting them to good use in the new year.

If you have cooked out of any of them, can you recommend a favorite recipe?

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