Cook Like Mad

Ignore those button mushrooms next to the broccolini (or don’t)- I just sauteed them and put them on the plate to use up leftover mushrooms in the fridge. They married well with the other ingredients, though.

I’m cooling off from my sugar rush and getting back to my culinary school basics. While I cooked some great recipes in school, there’s one that stood out for its easy yet powerful flavor. Balsamic braised chicken is deceptively simple and sensible, and easily multiplied for extra guests. The rich brown sauce that drenches it isn’t ladden with butter, but instead, its full of rich, slow cooked chicken stock, balsamic vinegar, vegetables, tomato, and a touch of flour, to thicken it. No roux, no heavy cream, just a deep, dark, delicious sauce.

Now you may be wondering what in god’s name are those potatoes on the plate. Good question. In culinary school we were tortured by this exercise where we made “tourne” potatoes. (There should be that little accent over the “e” but alas, I’m new to this blogging thing, and don’t know how to add accents, so forgive me French cooking masters, as you roll in your graves.) Anyway, “tourne” means turned, and that’s what’s done to these potatoes. You peel and quarter your russet potato, then trim it, turning it dangerously in your hand as you point the tip of your knife towards your finger, to create a football shaped potato nugget. Yum. Now you could make any shape you want, but having a food blog makes you an anal cook, so I made pretty shapes with my potatoes. Also, football was on that evening. Get it? Yeah, dorky, I know. Parboil them in salted water for about 10 minutes (or until they barely resist being poked with a sharp knife tip), dry them with a clean towel, and saute them in olive oil, sprinkling with coarse salt as they come out of the pan. You’ll find they are a perfect pairing for your chicken (the main squeeze) and your broccolini (your obligatory veg). Double yum. Or is that triple?

The only trick to making this recipe excellent instead of just “good” is to taste your sauce and add more balsamic if the flavor isn’t coming through. It looks as dark in person as it does in the picture, so don’t be shy. Also, balsamic vinegars vary greatly in sweetness, viscosity, and acidity, and I won’t dare to tell you which you should buy, so feel free to add a touch of sugar or lemon juice, to balance the flavors of the sauce. Enjoy!

Balsamic Braised Chicken

Makes 3 Servings

6 chicken thighs, bone-in

1 large carrot, diced

2 stalks celery, diced

1 small onion, diced

2 tbsp tomato paste

3 tbsp flour

2 cups Chicken Stock

1 cup Balsamic Vinegar (the better the quality, the better the outcome, but don’t go crazy)

vegetable oil, as needed

salt and pepper, as needed

Sauteed broccolini and tourne potatoes, to serve (factor in 1 small bunch broccolini and 1 medium potato per person)

Method

1. Add 2 tbsp oil to a large, deep pan (one that has a lid that fits, ideally) and turn heat to medium-high.

2. Sear chicken thighs, meaty-side down, turning once, to color both sides a nice golden brown. Remove from pan and set aside.

3. Add carrots, celery, onion, and a pinch of salt to the same pan (do not wash between steps!) and saute until golden brown and slightly softened, 5-7 minutes.

3. Add tomato paste, “pincage” until the tomato paste turns an even darker red and add the flour, mixing well. Cook 1 minute to get rid of the raw flour taste.

4. Add chicken stock and balsamic vinegar to the pan, turn the heat up to high, and bring to a boil. Add the chicken thighs back in and reduce to a simmer. Cover immediately and let cook for 25-35 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through. You may want to turn chicken over after 15 minutes to ensure even cooking, as the liquid will not cover the chicken entirely.

5. Remove chicken to serving plates, taste sauce for seasoning, and adjust as necessary with salt and pepper. If you desire, the sauce can be strained, but I prefer it unstrained. Thicken a little if necessary by cooking the sauce a little longer on the stovetop, without a lid, and pour sauce over the chicken. Add broccolini, potatoes, or whatever sides and vegetables you wish, to the plates and enjoy!

-M : )

Aw, they look like hearts… Good thing v-day’s coming up!

Palmiers are the biggest trick in the book. They not only require two ingredients, frozen puff pastry and sugar, but maintain their addictive crunch for days after they’re baked. Using a silpat makes clean up especially easy, but the puff pastry has enough butter in it, and the sugar retains pliable enough out of the oven, to ensure easy removal of the cookies from the baking sheet even without pre-greasing.

A recipe really isn’t necessary for these scrumptious cookies, as they’re really a cinch, but here we go. Enjoy!

Palmiers (i.e. Mini Elephant Ears)

Makes 20 cookies, but can be easily multiplied

1 4” x 7” sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed in the refrigerator overnight

1/2 cup sugar, plus extra for dusting

flour, as needed, for rolling

Method

1. Preheat oven to 385 degrees and line a baking sheet with a silpat baking mat. If you’re not using a silpat, leave the baking sheet ungreased.

2. Roll out puff pastry on a lightly floured flat surface until it is less than 1/8” thick and sprinkle heavily with sugar. The layer of sugar should be nearly as thick as the layer of puff pastry dough.

3. Fold both ends (lengthwise) into the middle so they meet. Repea, doubling over your last fold. Fold in half lengthwise, so you have a log, roll in sugar, and place in the freezer for 10 minutes to firm up.

4. Slice cookies with a very sharp knife, each should be about 1/4” thick. Place cookies down on the baking sheet or silpat so you can see their layers (i.e. lay them flat) and sprinkle again with sugar. Bake 10 minutes, or until they turn light golden. The bottom will be a darker golden than the top- that’s what you’re looking to see. Cool on a rack. These cookies are best once completely cool, when they’re at their crunchiest. Yum!

-M : )

Tonight’s dinner was both simple and impressive- simple for the chef, impressive for the bf. Does weeknight cooking get any better than that? I named these pork chops “Autumn” since they share the plate with mushroom-stuffed tomatoes. Stuffing, in any form, epitomizes fall to me, and here, crammed inside hollow tomatoes, it enriches a would-be tasteless fruit this time of year.

The pan sauce is simple and efficient and there’s no need to follow my recipe if you don’t have cherry tomatoes on hand (they can be kind of pricey this time of year). Instead, replace the cherry tomatoes with the chopped innards you removed from the large tomatoes and save yourself 4 bucks. The point of adding tomatoes is twofold: color and acidity. While the pan sauce has thyme in it, the red perks up the color while simultaneously balancing the stock-based sauce. The sauce, having been thickened with flour, needs the acidity to draw it out of “dullsville,” as my mother would say. No need to go there- sliced cherry tomatoes, tomato scraps, or even some lemon juice, will keep you far away.

No story necessary for this dinner, its just good, fresh, healthy food. Oh, and the stuffed tomatoes are an excellent vessel for getting more veggies into your child’s diet (or your boyfriend’s!). An untrained palate will never know there are mushrooms hiding in there, but the body that mouth feeds will reap the benefits. Enjoy! : )

Autumn Pork Chops with Stuffed Tomatoes

Serves 2

2 boneless pork chops
2 3” wide tomatoes, insides removed so only 1/2″ thick shell remains
3 large mushrooms, diced
1 small yellow onion, diced, separated in two equal portions
2 ribs celery, diced, separated in two equal portions
1 tsp fresh thyme (dried can be substituted), separated into 2 equal portions
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
2 tbsp parmesean, grated
1/2 cup (about 8-10) grape tomatoes, thinly sliced
1 tbsp flour (all purpose works well)
salt and pepper to taste
oil for sauteing vegetables (about 2 tbsp)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees and place cover a small cookie sheet or ovensafe dish with a layer of aluminum foil.

2. In a small saute pan, heat 1 tbsp olive oil and add mushrooms and one portion each of onions and celery. Season with 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper. Saute until golden over medium high heat, about 5 minutes.

3. Turn the heat to low, add 1/2 cup chicken stock and mix well.

4. Take the pan off the heat, add breadcrumbs and 1/2 tsp thyme to pan, and once the mixture has cooled slightly, add the egg and mix well.

5. Using a spoon, distribute the stuffing evenly into the two tomatoes. Pack tightly and place the tomatoes on the aluminum foil covered baking sheet and transfer to oven. Cook for 25 minutes or until stuffing is golden.

Stuffed tomatoes ready for the oven!

6. While tomatoes bake, place heavy skillet over high heat and season pork chops with salt and pepper. Add pork chops to pan and leave undisturbed for 4-5 minutes, until topsides look very moist and the sides look cooked halfway up. Flip and cook other side until you have reached your desired level of doneness.

7. Remove pork chops to clean cutting board to rest and redistribute juices; reduce heat to medium high and add tomatoes and remaining portions of onions, celery, and thyme to the pan. Cook until golden, add flour and incorporate well, then add remaining chicken stock and raise heat to high.

Thickening the pan sauce

8. Cook until the sauce has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon and turn off the heat. At this point the stuffed tomatoes are ready, so take them out of the oven and place one on each plate. Top each with 1 tbsp parmesean. Place one pork chop on each plate and spoon desired amount of sauce over each. Serve and enjoy!

-M : )

I wrote a post a little while ago about using Pimms in turkey meatballs to avoid wasting it. Not surprisingly, it appears alcohol is not the only item in my cupboard that is in need of creative application! I opened a box of Kashi Go Lean cereal around the time I moved to DC two months ago and since I spend quite a bit of time at D’s place and also have breakfast provided at my office, its been sitting there, half full, since then…

Two month old cereal is not my idea of an appealing breakfast, no matter how hungry I am, but I’m disinclined to just chuck it- I mean, I had made those muffins with Smart Bran cereal a while back, and while that was fresh cereal, after it was soaked in milk, that couldn’t have made a big difference, right? So, I thought this Saturday morning, equipped with a fully stocked fridge, I’d make pancakes with my stale cereal. I figured, there is a similar preparation for both muffins and pancakes, so the cereal-soaking method could work nicely in my plan to use cereal in another warm preparation.

Before I go into the actual recipe, I must stay I did have trepidations about using Kashi Go Lean in the recipe rather than another cereal like cheerios or corn pops or anything less packed with fiber. I thought, isn’t this cereal going to make crunchy pancakes? That didn’t sound very appetizing… My goal was to make the cereal indistinguishable from the batter; to thicken it without standing out. Let me tell you, the food gods were behind me this morning. : )

The only evidence of cereal in this batter was the thickness it gave. As each pre-softened nugget of cereal melted into the batter as it was surrounded by the heat of the pan, it somehow retained its shape without adding any crunch, giving way to impossibly fluffy yet hearty pancakes! I added 1 fuji apple (diced) to sweeten the pancakes and add another dimension of flavor, but feel free to omit it. So now, I share with you my second cupboard-raiding recipe: cereal reincarnated. It’s not only a great use of another would-be wasted pantry item, but depending on which cereal you’ve neglected, it can also be a great way to sneak more fiber into your morning meal! Enjoy : )

Kashi Apple Pancakes
Serves 4

1 1/2 cups Kashi Go Lean cereal (or cereal of choice)

1 cup milk

1 cup flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder (baking soda is fine to substitute, though)

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs

2 tbsp butter, melted

1 tbsp sugar

1/2 cup vanilla yogurt

1 apple, diced (I prefer Fuji) -optional

Method:

1. Combine cereal and milk in a small bowl and let sit for 15 minutes.

2. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.

3. When the cereal has almost finished soaking, lightly beat the eggs in another separate bowl and whisk in the melted butter, sugar, and yogurt. Stir in the diced apples, if using.

4. Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture and stir just until combined. Do not overmix or the pancakes will be tough.

5. Drop heaping tablespoonfuls onto a medium-hot skillet and flip when the bubbles that appear on top of the pancakes begin to pop. Finish cooking on the other side and serve.

Such a chunky batter! I was sure these would never be light and tender, but thankfully I was wrong!

Mmm..almost ready…

D and I ate these with maple syrup and boysenberry jam (utterly delicious), but anyway you choose to serve these, enjoy!

-Maddy : )

Ever find a special alcohol or ingredient that you just have to have in the store, buy it, drink it or cook with it once and then totally lose interest? Yeah, it happens to me, too. Normally I can resist these urges, but when I had a Pimm’s Cup at Bar Martignetti a couple weeks ago, I loved it so much I just had to buy some Pimm’s to recreate the drink at home and enjoy it for less than $11 a glass. So I bought the Pimm’s, a cucumber, a bottle of ginger ale, and some lemonade, and recreated the refreshing drink and enjoyed it. Once. Its not that I didn’t like my version, but I was satisfied after that one glass so much that I just didn’t crave another.

Most drinks made with bitter alcohols like Pimm’s and the more familiar Campari are meant to be apertifs. That is to say, drunk before dinner (or any meal, really) to open the palate and get the stomach juices going so you can more easily digest your food. The thing is, the bitterness, even when balanced with something sweet like fruit juices or sodas, lingers in a way that makes you not want a refill. Its meant to be a small drink, rather than a cocktail you’ll want seconds (or any number of multiples…) of. So even though that Pimms Cup was delish and I was proud of myself for recreating something so tasty, I haven’t been craving one since I made the first about 2 weeks ago. Not that Pimm’s goes bad, but I hated seeing the full bottle staring back at me every time I opened my food cupboard. It nagged me to be drunk or used in some other creative fashion, and today I finally took up the challenge of the second option.

So what do I do with my Pimms? I made mini turkey meatballs. WHAT?? Yeah. You read what I said. I made mini turkey meatballs with Pimms. How were they? Well, duh, would I put the recipe up here if they weren’t delicious and I wanted to share my discovery? Of course not. They “rock” as my dad would say, and they’re healthy too. What more do you want? A sauce to go with it? Ok, you win. Heat some extra virgin olive oil with 1 clove smashed garlic and cook over medium-low heat until the garlic turns golden. Toss in some pasta (I like stringy pasta with meatballs, especially angel hair since it gives a nice light contrast to the dense meatballs, but use whatever you like) and your cooked meatballs, turn off the heat and sprinkle grated parmesan, chopped parsley, sea salt, and some freshly squeezed lemon juice over the top of the dish and serve immediately. You can also add some chopped tomatoes when you add your garlic if that interests you. It would certainly add some more color, which is always appreciated. In fact, why not add more Pimms with those tomatoes? The sweetness of the tomatoes would really balance out the Pimms’ bitterness.

And one more note about experimenting with this recipe- the point is not to go out and buy Pimms to make these meatballs, and then find yourself- as I did originally- with a bottle of liquor you don’t know what to do with (unless that is, you really want a bottle of Pimms in your liquor cabinet, and then by all means, go ahead and buy it). The point is to use Pimms or Campari if you’ve got it, and if you don’t, use another liquor. Play around- who knows, maybe cranberry juice tastes great in these. You can even mix in some dried cranberries. Food is fun, afterall! : )

Pimms Polpette

1 lb ground turkey breast

1 shallot, minced

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/2 cup grated parmesan

1/4 cup italian flat leaf parsley, chopped

1 tsp orange zest

1 slice bread, crusts removed, soaked in 1 cup Pimms

salt and pepper to taste

olive oil, for cooking

1. Mix together all ingredients except for the ground turkey until the mixture looks well combined.

2. Add ground turkey and mix it in very gently to avoid overworking the meat.

3. Form polpette from the mixture. You’re aiming for mini meatballs with 1” diameters.

4. Heat a large pan with enough olive oil to coat the bottom surface over medium high heat.

5. When the pan’s hot, add the meatballs and leave alone for 3 minutes to ensure nice browning. Flip the meatballs over and finish cooking and browning on the other side, about another minute. Transfer to a plate if you’re going to serve them immediately, or to a baking sheet if you’re going to keep them in a low oven (no higher than 150) while you finish the rest of your meal.

Note: Your pan probably won’t fit all the polpette in one go, so divide the uncooked meatballs in half and brown them in two batches to avoid overcrowding them. (If you overcrowd your pan, you won’t get nicely browned meatballs. The extra food in the pan will cause the heat to drop and your meatballs will steam in the juices they exude. Your meatballs will still be tasty, but they won’t have the depth of flavor that browning gives.)

Enjoy! : )

-M