Lip-smacking lamb shanks

Always wanted to cook lamb shanks, and when Dave found some for $4/lb I had him pick up a couple. Then of course the challenge was how to cook them. I took some cues from the new CIA cookbook "One Dish Meals." Made a paste of spices, including coriander, fennel, cinnamon, pepper, allspice, caraway, curry powder, cayenne, and some salt and rubbed it into the shanks. Refrigerated for six hours. Chopped some dried apricots and raisins and soaked them in brandy. Browned the shanks in some olive oil in a cast iron dutch oven. Took them out and put in a couple of sliced onions, cooked those until they were starting to brown and added a couple of cloves of minced garlic. Stirred for about a minute, then added a couple tablespoons of tomato paste and stirred until it began to brown. Put shanks and juices back in, added a couple of cans of chicken broth and the fruit and brandy. Put a lid on, put it in the oven at 300 degrees for three hours. Served with mashed potatoes. YUMM! One of the best things I've ever made.

Easy fish

I was reminded this week how easy it can be to cook great fish fast. I was at a client offsite and we were fixing our own dinner. Not surprisingly, I volunteered to cook the entree. They had four-pound chunks of halibut and salmon. Many different dietary restrictions in the group, but fortunately absolutely fat-free isn't one of them. So I made a marinade of lemon zest, pepper, and grated ginger in olive oil, skinned the fish, and brushed on the oil. Found some broccoli stems, celery, and red onion. Set the oven to 425. Peeled the broccoli and then julienned all the veggies, tossed them with a little of the flavored oil, and spread them on a baking sheet. Put the fish on top, sprinkled the fish with salt, and roasted it for 25 minutes. Turned out just perfect, nice topping for the green salad with lemon-dijon dressing that others made.

I can't believe I ate the whole thing!

Another Gypsy Dinner last night. Four chefs and TWENTY COURSES!!! Truly, more than a little overkill. It was great, and some incredible flavors. But by the time we got to the end, I could barely eat the interesting and intriguing desserts (bacon baklava, anyone?). An incredible cured scallop carpaccio with a Thai-style cucumber salad. A corn agnolotti with chanterlles that I could bathe in happily. Wagyu beef tenderloin, slow roasted with butternut squash. Some things were a little too complicated ("too many notes," said Dave, quoting from Amadeus). But others were a symphony of combined flavors and textures, like the suckling pork chope with a clam and house-made fresh chorizo, seared off and slow roasted -- so incredibly juicy I would have sworn it was brined, but it wasn't. Duck eggs scrambled with black truffles, served in an eggshell -- the ultimate aphrodesiac, if you ask me. Mussels in cider with smoky bacon, one of absolute favorite things of the night. There were many times where I was just giggling in joy over the flavors, over the combination of wine and food, over the surfeit of incredble stuff and interactions with such great chefs. Now, to be realistic, this was an exorbitantly priced meal -- nearly $600 with tip for two. But a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get farm-fresh inspriations from some of the best chefs in Seattle, and learn how their minds work in pulling them together. Oh, and the most interesting challenge to get my mouth around? Black truffle ice cream. Loved it, I think, but way different. Not Dave's favorite.

Beef with wild mushrooms

My favorite butcher in Pike Place Market, Don and Joe's, sells trimmings from steaks and roasts for about $7/lb. Mostly these are tenderloin trimmings, so when I see a nice little pile of them in the back of the case I ask for them. Last week I got 14 oz of mostly tenderloin trimmings. Figured that since it's getting to be mushroom season (it's a little late, really, since we've had practically no rain) I'd try a little braise with some wild mushrooms. Picked up 3/4 lb of white chanterelles, hedgehog, and lobster mushrooms and 1/2 lb of fat white mushrooms (vendor was selling for $1/lb, thought they'd carry the flavors nicely which they did). Cut the beef and the mushrooms into 3/4" cubes. Tossed the beef with a couple of tablespoons of minced shallot, pepper and some kosher salt and let it sit for a few hours. Then I slow-cooked the mushrooms in a couple of tablespoons of butter with a little salt, pepper, and a sprig of thyme until they were well-cooked, about 30 min. Set the mushrooms aside (removing the thyme) and sauteed the beef and shallots, deglazed the pan with some Pinot Noir, and put the 'shrooms back in. Sprinked a couple of teaspoons of flour over it and stirred it in, then added another half cup of wine. Simmered for about 20 minutes while I cooked some radiatore pasta. (Garofalo brand is great, I finally found a pasta that is worth eating naked because the flavor is so good. And Costco carries it!) Served the beef over the pasta, with a quick gratin of some thin-sliced zucchini and tomatoes roasted for 20 minutes sprinked with some grated aged Gouda. Dave says I can make this meal anytime :)

Smoking turkey

Dave picked up half a bone-in turkey breast on sale last weekend. I brined it for 7 hours in 1 qt water with 1/4c kosher salt and 1/4c sugar. Then I rubbed it with a spice mixture (cayenne, paprika, cinnamon, cumin). Wrapped 1 cup of soaked mesquite chips in a foil pouch and poked holes in it. Put the left side of the gas grill on high and put the chips on that side (under the grate). Kept the right side off, and when the chips started to smoke put the turkey on the other side. Left it on there for about two hours, until the internal temp was 160F. Nice and juicy! It's great sliced for sandwiches or rollups (sliced up turkey and apples, put in warmed tortilla with lettuce leaves, a little shredded mozz, and a little mayo). Today I chopped some up along with some pears and gorgonzola, mixed with some butter lettuce and raspberry vinaigrette. Made a nice lunch.

Pizza on a gas grill

We bought a fancy pizza stone a couple of months ago. It sits on our gas grill and does a very nice job of cooking pizzas, even though it doesn't do 800-degree cooking. However, I've had a hard time finding just the right dough for pizzas. Pita dough is okay but not quite right. Neapolitan dough is okay, but ends up too tough on the bottom due to the longer cooking time at the lower temp, and it's way too salty. Finally, yesterday I think I got the right thing. It involves Caputo 00 flour, which I picked up at PFI. I did a lot of searching to do a survey of recipes, and this is what I came up with: Pizza dough for four indiviual or two large pizzas 211 g water 430 g flour (Caputo 00 flour, or bread flour) 5 g salt 32 g starter (I use the same starter I use for my bread, which is 50/50 flour and water) 1 g dry yeast Mix 300 g of flour with the rest of the ingredients until just blended. Cover and let rest for 20 minutes. In mixer (I use a KitchenAid), mix with dough hook on low speed for 5 minutes, then gradually add rest of flour and mix for another three minutes. Scrape down bowl as necessary. Put dough into oiled bowl, cover and let rise for about two hours. Divide into two or four portions. For four portions, I put them into 16-oz plastic containers and cover them, set them aside for an hour. Now they are ready to stretch into crusts. Bake on a hot stone, either in your oven heated as high as it will go or in a gas grill. Instead of using cornmeal on my pizza peel, I use Wondra flour. It's nice and granular and I prefer the texture.

Dim sum

Boy, do I love dim sum. The ultimate appetizer meal, I think. So of course I took a class on them last week. I've made steamed hom bow before, but nothing else. I really wanted to learn some of the wrapping techniques, like how you get all the little pleats in the ha gao (shrimp balls). I did, and it was fun. We also made baked shrimp toast, sticky rice in lotus leaves, shu mai, potstickers (but we steamed them, so I guess they weren't really potstickers!) and a few other things. Fun but hot and hard work. The sticky rice packets are also some of my favorites, so I was happy to get a chance to try those. We used fresh lotus leaves and soaked them in hot water, but I think you should use dried, pre-cooked leaves and then soak them. The leaves just disintegrated when we tried to fold them around the rice and meat filling. Also, I think the rice needs to steam a lot longer, either before or after putting it in the leaf. Only 15 minutes wasn't enough to get the nice sticky texture and get the flavor of the leaf infused into the rice. Good things to learn. Other thing I learned was that I had some shrimp toast topping left over and I put in into a couple of potsticker skins and put them into the steamer -- it was great. So great, in fact, that I made that at home last weekend for dinner, along with some pork potstickers using filling left over from class. We really enjoyed them. Turns out that Dave is really really good at shaping the potstickers with very even little pleats. I still rush too much so mine aren't nearly as precise. But then, I've never been a real patient cook, one of the things I fight in myself all the time.

Birthday dinner

Dave celebrated a birthday last weekend. He doesn't really "celebrate" per se, but he does like me to cook some of his favorite things and I am more than happy to oblige. This year that meant seared duck breast with Gorgonzola polenta. The duck is easy, I brine it in a brine seasoned with juniper, allspice, and garlic. For the polenta, I am a firm believer in the microwave oven as a great way to make polenta. I've seen some purists sneer at me about this, but you just can't argue with the results. I learned the technique and proportions from "Microwave Cooking" by Barbara Kafka and have since of course put a few spins on the recipe. I use medium grain polenta; you really can just use cornmeal (called for in the original recipe) but the texture isn't as interesting. Gorgonzola Rosemary Polenta 3/4 C polenta 4 C water 1 t minced fresh rosemary 1 t minced fresh thyme 1-2 T minced shallot 2 t salt 3 T butter 1/3 C Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled (or more if you really like it) Mix everything but the butter and cheese in a 2-qt. microwave-safe dish. Cook, uncovered, on high power for eight minutes. Stir and cook for another six minutes. Remove from oven and stir in butter and cheese. (Note: if you use regular cornmeal, only cook it the first time for six minutes.) The "birthday cake" was "La Bete Noire," the cover recipe from the September issue of Bon Appetit. Wow. Another in a string of flourless chocolate cakes, it got additional creaminess by using sugar syrup instead of granulated sugar. Better be sure you have quite a few people to feed, though, since it serves about 16 and it is really rich! Dave wanted it served with flaming cherries, but I decided that would not be a good idea since it would melt the ganache and it would run all over the place.

Date night -- Brasserie Margaux and 94 Stewart

We haven't been out to eat at restaurants much lately, so decided that last night was time (as Dave noted, I've been "cooking a lot of good stuff lately" so no need to go out...). We had a really nice dinner at Brasserie Margaux a couple of months ago, and since at that time everything on the menu looked good, we thought we'd see if we could confirm our initial impressions. We were a little disappointed. Service, while friendly, was pretty slow and forgetful. They did comp a couple of glasses of wine to make up for some of the service issues, which was quite kind. Dave's pork chop had nice flavor but was overcooked (we prefer them medium, this was cooked well-done and was somewhat dry). The prime rib from the carving station was okay, but medium instead of medium rare. I love the truffled risotto with parmesan, but they forgot to bring it to me and so for a while I had to gaze longingly at my dish of risotto sitting in the kitchen. Overall, okay meal but not "over the moon." What was fun was dropping into 94 Stewart for a post-dinner glass of wine. It just feels good to stop in somewhere where they know you. The restaurant was slammed, so we sat at the counter and hung out watching the kitchen until Lindsay, the sommelier, had a chance to chat with us. In the meantime I got plenty of time to exchange ideas with Jeff, the sous chef, as he stood at the stove. Watched him slice off a beautiful strip steak from a loin he was dry-aging himself, about 14 days. It was mouthwatering (and we weren't hungry!). It got us talking about meat curing in general. He also dropped off a spoonful of the red wine-port-shallot reduction he was using on the tenderloin. It was great, both in flavor and in texture. When Lindsay finally had time to catch her breath (she was serving as well last night) she let Dave try both Pinot Noirs she had by the glass so he could pick the one he liked better, always a nice touch. He picked the "funkier" of the two, demonstrating his continuing adaptation and appreciation of the nuances of Pinot. As for me, I tried the "Brown Bag" special where I had to guess what I was drinking. It was easy for me to tell what it wasn't, and Lindsay's hint that it was Old World but not French finally helped me narrow it down to Tempranillo from the Ribiera del Duero, a very nice wine (and quite a bargain at $8/glass). Jeff and I talked more about charcuterie and he shared his current favorite book on the topic, when skimming it I realized that Gabe was using the same book as the source for many of the recipes in the charcuterie part of the Preserving classes I took. I have to get a copy of that book...Jeff brought out some foie gras they are in the process of turning into a torchon -- I felt a little ungracious after I blurted out that frankly I thought it was too salty. But I think he took the comment in the spirit of frank and hopefully helpful commentary. Dave seemed to get a real kick out of watching me interact with Jeff and "talk shop." I know I sure enjoyed it, it was worth spending $40 on wine there for that nice social experience. We've got to get back there to eat more often! (and so should you, if you're reading this...)

Paella

We got a paella pan as a wedding gift last year, and I finally got around to using it this weekend. I've had paella in Spain, and on several other occasions in restaurants and made by people who specialize in it, so I knew what I was looking for in terms of flavor and texture. Did a survey of assorted paella recipes, and decided I (sort of) liked the recipe on spanishtable.com best. What's good about that one is that it gives measurements for each serving, so you can customize it to what you need. I did it for four, and it filled my 15" paella pan all the way to the brim. So I might make three portions next time. I substituted a blend of fish and shrimp stock for the chicken stock, and used calamari, clams, and shrimp for the seafood. Also changed around some of the seasonings etc. You don't have to use a paella pan, of course -- a big saute pan will work just fine but isn't as aesthetic. So here is my version: Per person: 1 chicken thigh, skinned and boned, cut into bite-size pieces 3 medium shrimp, shelled (tail on) and deveined 4 small clams (manila) 1 calamari tube, cleaned and sliced into rings 5 saffron threads 1/2 C valencia rice (or other short to medium grained rice) (Do not rinse!) 1 C chicken or seafood broth 1/4 C peeled, seeded, and chopped tomato 1/2 t smoked sweet paprika 1 soft Spanish chorizo, 1/3" slices 1/4 C chopped onion 1 garlic clove, minced 1/8 C frozen peas Optional: green beans (1" pieces), canned artichoke hearts, halved Per pan: 1/2 C dry white wine 2 T olive oil Heat wine and put saffron in it to steep. Heat oil in pan over medium high heat and saute chicken until browned. Add onion and garlic, stir until translucent. Add sausage and stir for about five minutes. Add rice and stir until the rice is beginning to turn milky. Add tomatoes and paprika, stir, then add broth, wine/saffron mixture, and peas as well as optional vegetables. Stir just to distribute ingredients evenly, and bring to a low boil. Don't stir any more -- a crust is supposed to form on the bottom. Simmer for five minutes, then distribute clams evenly around the pan. simmer for another five minutes, turn the clams over, and distribute the calamari and shrimp evenly over the top. After another five minutes, turn the shrimp over. Let simmer about another five minutes, and discard any clams that have not opened. Serve immediately. A green salad with a caper viniagrette is a nice side dish.

Cooking radishes

Until the other day, I'd only ever eaten radishes raw. But Dave thought we should try cooking some. Since we had a bunch of them from our CSA basket, I decided to give it a try. Looking for recipes didn't give me a lot of help but there was some guidance. So I decided to braise/glaze them. Halved the radishes, put them in a saute pan with some butter, salt, and a little water. Browned them a little on the cut side, flipped them over to cook a little more, then turned back when the water had evaporated to glaze them. They were really good, and held their color well (some of ours were purple). Nice side dish with meats.

Onion jam

Lately the focus is on preserving things so that they don't all spoil before I get to eat them! I had four HUGE sweet onions in my pantry and as you know, they just don't keep. Thus, the onion jam experiment. This stuff is killer on bread with a little stinky cheese or goat cheese, or tossed into pasta with some capers. The hardware: 1 big saute pan (I used nonstick) and a wooden spoon The software: 4 lbs sweet onions, quartered and medium sliced 2 T sugar 1/2 C white wine vinegar 2 sprigs fresh thyme 1 T salt 1 t oil Put oil in pan, pile onions on top and sprinkle with salt. Sweat them over medium heat until the pile is reduced some so you can stir them around without them flying out on the stovetop. Stir in the sugar and about a tablespoon of the vinegar. Reduce heat and cook for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onions start to carmelize and stick. Stir in a couple more tablespoons vinegar to deglaze, and the thyme. Keep cooking and stirring until the onions are very thick and the mixute is a pale beige. Taste and add more vinegar (and salt) for balance if the sweetness is too cloying, and cook a few minutes longer to blend the flavors. The onions should not be browned, because you're stirring in any carmelization and redissolving it into the mixture. Take out the thyme sprigs (there should only be stems left, the leaves will be in the jam). Let cool, then put into a container. Keeps for a couple of weeks in the fridge.

Market basket caponata

I was faced with a fridge and counter full of vegetables this week -- not quite keeping up with our CSA basket. So, after taking stock of the stock, so to speak, I decided to try my hand at caponata today. Everything was in the the pantry or the fridge. I am allergic to bell peppers, so I don't use them. But you could roast and peel a couple of green and red peppers, chop them and add to the pot with the rest of the ingredients. Dave always complains that I don't write things down when I cook good stuff, so honey, if you're out there somewhere reading this, this one's for you :) Market Basket Caponata 2 C eggplant in 1" cubes, unpeeled if skin is tender 2 C zucchini in 1" cubes Kosher salt 1 1/2 C carrots, 1/4" slices 1 C onion, rough chopped 1 C celery, chopped 5 cloves garlic, sliced thin 2 T raisins, soaked in hot water and drained 2 T small capers, drained and rinsed 2 T pine nuts 1/2 C peeled, seeded, and chopped chiles (like Anaheim or sweet Italian peppers) 1/2 C sun dried tomatoes, julienned (not oil-packed) 1/2 C black olives, pitted and chopped (I used Nicoise because I had them) 1 14-oz can diced tomatoes in juice 1/4 C red wine 1/4 C red wine vinegar 1/4 C balsamic vinegar 2 T honey 1/2 C chopped fresh basil 1/2 C water 2 T olive oil Salt and pepper to taste Put eggplant and zucchini in colander and toss with salt. Let drain while you're prepping the other ingredients. Then rinse with cool water and drain. Heat the olive oil in a pot or dutch oven, and brown the eggplant and zucchini. Add the onions, carrots, and celery and cook until onion is translucent. Add garlic and stir for a couple of minutes more. Then add all the rest of the ingredients except the water. Bring to a simmer, cover and simmer for 30 min. Check it -- it should be saucy, add some water if it is not. Cover and simmer another 30 minutes, or until the carrots are tender and the flavors have melded. It should be a little spicy, a little tangy, a little sweet with good texture from the vegetables. Serve with just about anything -- pasta, meats, bruschetta, fish steaks. Will keep for about a week, or you can freeze it for longer storage.

Fridge: finally ALL DONE

The repairman just finished replacing the nicked handle on the new fridge, and Whirlpool called me today to apologize for sending the check to the wrong address and assure me they were sending it out today. So I think the saga of the fridge is over. The trauma, of course, still lives on. I check the temp way too often, and actually have nightmares about the whole thing. But I don't think you can sue an appliance mfg for mental cruelty, so I'm just going to have to take the time to get over it. Bless Dave's heart, he came home this afternoon to supervise the handle replacement so I didn't have to worry about it -- because, as I was sure would happen, the tech got here and had never replaced a handle on this model. Sigh. But I went and hid at my computer while they got the whole thing sorted out. The funny thing was that this was the same tech who had come to "repair" the fridge in the first place, so I got the pleasure of telling him that his repair lasted all of 48 hours and then I made them replace it. Dave told him that under the circumstances, he hopes we never have to meet again! Let's hope now that Fridge and I have a long and happy life together :)

Gypsy Dinner

We got to attend our first Gypsy dinner last weekend. What a great experience! (What's a Gypsy dinner, you ask? I can't really tell you, but a Google search might help...) Peche, Peche, Quack, Quack was the theme -- all about peaches and duck. Well, who can argue with that? A couple of memorable dishes, including a duck taco with spicy peach taco sauce, which matched marvelously with a nice spicy Argyle Pinot Noir. (Now I think I'm going to serve Pinot with tortilla chips and fruit salsa, just to confirm that the toasted corn goes as well with it as I thought that night.) The first course -- a peach-scented consomme with a poached quail egg, a couple of little cubes of smoked duck, and a preserved-lemon tortellini -- was a marvel of textures and tastes. It was fun to watch the faces of diners who were unfamiliar with preserved lemon. Boy, were their mouths surprised! I knew what to expect but it was still such a great counterpoint to the quail egg. And the wine pairing, a Scheurebe, was very interesting. With all the different tastes going on, the wine seemed to be different with every sip. Too bad these dinners are seemingly always oversubscribed -- I sure hope we're able to get in on another one. It was so great to be at a communal table where everyone else cared about food as much as I do.

Cuban food and whacking your bread (flour on my face)

Another excellent Culinary Communion class this past weekend: five hours of intensive immersion in Cuban cuisine. Including roasting a whole pig -- I guess you could say we went whole hog on this one, couldn't you ;-) A couple of really good things: ropa vieja ("old rags") made with flank steak instead of some of the other cuts I've seen for this dish. Really flavorful, and great with the Cuban white rice, which was made in a manner I'd never tried before, boiling oil and water together with the rice, not sauteeing it first for nice fluffy grains. And an incredible lamb picadillo stuffed into empanaditas, using puff pastry for the dough and then deep frying them. The pastry was a little greasy for me, but that picadillo was great! Which brings me to the Pan Cubano (Cuban bread). It was made with a different kneading technique: "whacking" the dough on the counter by picking it up in one hand, swinging it over your shoulder, and slamming it down on the counter. Fold it in half, give it a quarter turn, and do it again. Takes about 12 minutes to knead the bread, and takes out a few agressions to boot! HOWEVER!!!! It is very important to manage your bench flour carefully. I decided to bake bread today because I have starter that needed to be refreshed. So I tried the whacking method. Needless to say, I had a light dusting of flour pretty much every where in the kitchen and on me after doing this. Good thing my counters are pretty slick and I could cut down on bench flour. But still, a bit of a mess. Sure did turn out pretty though.

Simple things for summer

Maybe my favorite thing about this time of year is that there are so many good things that can be simple: - really fresh corn - a fresh peach sliced over cottage cheese - tiny new potatoes roasted with olive oil and a little garlic - grilled shrimp with baby zucchini - just-picked cherry tomatoes, pop them in your mouth before you get in the house - beet greens shredded into chicken stock with fresh green beans, carrots, and zucchini - greens sauteed with a little duck confit (okay, maybe not so simple unless duck confit is almost always on hand like it is in my kitchen!) - just-grilled sliced bread rubbed with a cut garlic clove and a cut tomato, with a little coarse salt All of which I've eaten in the past week or so.

Yogurt cheese and tomatoes

I'd drained some Greek yogurt for several days and was trying to decide what to do with it. Minced some fresh dill, added some shredded lemon zest and lemon juice, some salt, and voila! Lemon-dill yogurt cheese. It's really good on top of tomato slices. I'm sure of course that it will be a good topper for fish, too.

I could eat corn every day

At least at this time of year! Just lightly cooked, on the cob. Sometimes naked, sometimes with basil butter, sometimes with a squeeze of lime. And swiss chard, with balsamic vinegar and garlic. Think I'm making a dinner of that tonite. Dave will want meat, of course, so probably some grilled shrimp. Mmmmm.

Back to cooking again!

Funny how you don't know how much you need some things until you can't have them. I learned over the past month that the title of this blog is more than a little true. Last weekend I finally got to start cooking again -- new working fridge and a little trust in it meant I got things restocked and could cook again. It felt like someone took a huge weight off my shoulders when I started puttering again. Nothing really significant, some great meatloaf (notes below), stone-grilled pita bread, tandoori chicken breasts, roasted cod with greek sauce, bean soup...well, maybe I did cook a lot! Meatloaf can be humdrum and I really think that putting an egg in it dries it out (and that's kind of why the egg holds it together). So I tried instead making about a cup of mixed ground carrots, celery, onions, zucchini, and garlic and adding that plus 3/4 cup of fresh breadcrumbs, a tablespoon of worcestershire, and 1/4 cup of water to 1.5 lbs of regular ground beef. It made a nice tender, not quite crumbly loaf. Glazed it with a mixture of ketchup, brown sugar, worcestershire sauce to be a little traditional. I roast my meatloaf on a broiler pan so all the fat drains down, which I prefer to get a firmer but not fatty loaf. The pita bread was so good on Saturday that I made it again on Sunday. Easy enough recipe: 1T yeast, 1t sugar, 1.5c water, 1t salt, 1t oil, and 3.5-4.5c of bread flour. But it is just amazing that it really does puff up! I put a baking stone up on our gas grill and baked the breads on it (heated to about 550 degrees). It was fun and very rewarding. Stuffed with that tandoori chicken and yogurt sauce it made a very nice dinner that went well with a bottle of Spanish tempranillo rose.