November 27, 2009
Posted by Caroline Russock, November 27, 2009 at 1:00 PM
Two solid days of cooking have gone by and I'm happy, though a little exhausted. My Thanksgiving was a resounding success and everyone left full, happy, and armed with a bag of leftovers to last them well into mid-December.
The curse of being the Thanksgiving meal host is that it doesn't matter how many dishes you make, you never get to eat to the point of Thanksgiving gratification. This recipe for Turkey Salad from Good Eats: The Early Years by Alton Brown is one of the best and easiest ways to use up your Thanksgiving leftovers.
Just take the great turkey that you made last night, mix it with the rest of the stuff you have leftover in the fridge, and put it in a sandwich. No extended family plus mayo and bread—this turkey salad is the perfect Thanksgiving decompression meal.
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Posted by Robin Bellinger, November 24, 2009 at 2:45 PM
[Photograph: Robin Bellinger]
Shopping List
Lemon: $0.99
1 head romaine: $1.99
Medium bag Fritos: $2.50
1 1/2 cups cranberries (pro-rated): $1.50
1 apple: $0.56
1 jalapeno: $0.21
Cilantro (pro-rated): $0.25
Pantry items: Olive oil, buttermilk or yogurt, salt, pepper, cooked turkey.
Total cost (for 2-3 portions): $8.00
This week and this week only I am declaring turkey a "pantry item" and plugging it into a salad we used to eat growing up. We would toss lettuce, ground beef, kidney beans, salsa, shredded cheese, and tomatoes together in a pie dish and call it Frito pie. Since this might be confused with traditional Frito pie, a scoop of chili dumped right into a bag of Fritos (ahhhhh!), I suppose we should have called it salade composée avec Fritos; but the gleaming garnish, not the crunchy one, is the true star of cranberry salsa salad.
I have an aunt who would sometimes bring this unusual salsa to Thanksgiving, which was great except that I would inevitably eat too many Fritos before the meal. If you have better self control than I, you might put it out while the turkey is in the oven. Otherwise, save it for day two and introduce it to the bird then.
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Posted by Blake Royer, November 17, 2009 at 5:00 PM
[Photograph: Blake Royer]
Fall is the one time of year I really look forward to getting my vitamins. When the season is in full swing, I cook up a batch of simple sautéed greens almost every night. Kale, collards, chard—doesn't matter, as long as it's full of sliced garlic, a pinch of chili flakes, and finished with a hint of lemon juice. They're completely addictive, especially when fresh from the farmers' market, when they're still tender and sweet. They're also affordable and healthful. Hardly a meal goes by without them.
However, sautéed greens do not a full meal make. Enter this recipe, which I found torn out of a copy of Bon Appétit in a bulging recipe file, from the May 2008 issue. Described as "a spicy main course that's popular in Tuscany," it's basically the typical greens recipe with the addition of squid, which is braised first in red wine. It gives the dish a rich, inky color and a complex flavor. If you don't like squid or if the squid isn't fresh, it's just going to taste fishy. But I loved it.
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Posted by Caroline Russock, November 13, 2009 at 12:45 PM
[Photograph: Caroline Russock]
After a week of recreating recipes from How to Roast a Lamb by Michael Psilakis, it occurred to me that I haven't had such consistently healthy meals in a long time. During normal weeks I'll go through at least a pound of butter, a dozen eggs, and more heavy cream than I care to admit.
My shopping list this week—tons of vegetables, a little bit of meat and fish, barely any dairy aside from some crumbled feta and a few spoonfuls of yogurt—was almost puritanical compared to my usual haul. Thinking back over a week's worth of healthy Greek-inspired meals, I didn't miss a thing.
This recipe for Grilled Sardines with Chopped Salad and Skordalia Soup is a prime example of how a seemingly humble combination of fish and vegetables can be turned into a thing of beauty with Psilakis' Aegean expertise.
If you have never grilled sardines, seriously, you have to try them.
If you have never grilled sardines, seriously, you have to try them. They have nothing to do with the oily, sometimes stinky variety that has turned so many people off of the lovely little fish. This particular preparation couldn't be easier since your fishmonger does most of the work for you. All that's left is for you to debone them (it takes about 30 seconds per fish), season, and grill them. The Skordalia is a Greek garlicky puree of potatoes and vinegar, which serves as the glue that brings this plate together.
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, November 11, 2009 at 4:45 PM
[Photograph: Nick Kindelsperger]
Now this is the kind of salad I love. There is no need for twenty ingredients or a gloppy dressing to get in the way. No, all that's needed in this late-fall dish from Martha Stewart is a solid base ingredient and a few well-chosen additions to accentuate its flavor. Though the escarole gets the main billing, it takes on more of a supporting roll—its crunchiness is mainly used to balance the tender and slightly sweet roasted butternut squash (the real star).
The apple slices bring a bracing acidity to the salad and the salty cheese add a little zing. But I still felt like it was missing something, so I did want any sane person would do—add bacon. It played extremely well.
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Posted by Caroline Russock, November 11, 2009 at 12:45 PM
"The final dish is a happy meeting of opposites: hot and cold, sweet and sour, cooked and raw."
This Pork Soffrito with Spicy Peppers and Cabbage is a one-plate meal that combines ingredients I never would have thought to add together. And I have to say, it's one of the most satisfying meals I've had in a while.
Thankfully, Michael Psilakis did all the leg work and laid out the framework for this fantastic winter recipe in How to Roast a Lamb.
The dish is reminiscent of a scaloppine or saltimbocca but the flavors are all Greek. Thinly pounded slices of pork tenderloin are floured, fried, and topped with a sauce made from the pan juices along with white wine, capers, shallots, and the uniquely Greek pickled yellow peppers known as pepperoncini. The pan-fried tenderloin would be a stand-alone dish with the addition of the pan sauce but Psilakis pairs the dish with a salad that's all at once perfect and totally unexpected.
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Posted by glutenfreegirl, November 10, 2009 at 2:30 PM
"Millet was first grown in China, where it was revered for thousands of years as one of their five most sacred grains."
[Photograph: Shauna James Ahern]
Millet is the tofu of the grain world.
OK, I know that might not make some of you hungry. Tofu has a bad reputation, just like millet. Some of us associate tofu with that watery block of white goo, sealed in plastic. Unappetizing. Truly good tofu, however, is made fresh that day, still warm, silky on the spoon, and something else entirely than what you have in your head.
The same is true for millet. Where have you seen millet before? For most of you, that's probably in a bag of birdseed. Yep, millet is the small round grain fed to the birds in the park by crazy old ladies. Does that make you want to eat it? Probably not.
How about this? That salad you see up there? That's a chilled millet salad with red peppers and golden raisins, honeycomb tangerines, goat cheese, red leaf lettuce, and prosciutto. Plus, a little apple gastrique.
Millet does not have to be boring.
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Posted by Caroline Russock, November 4, 2009 at 5:00 PM
The following recipe is from the November 4 edition of our weekly recipe newsletter. To receive this newsletter in your inbox, sign up here!
The recipes in New Classic Family Dinners by Mark Peel are, at their heart, restaurant recipes adapted for the ease of home cooks. They range in difficulty levels from beginner to very advanced. But even the most simple recipe includes a few extra steps that prove to be infinitely beneficial to home cooks.
This recipe for Green Bean Salad with Walnuts is nothing more than blanched green beans with a lemony vinaigrette, but hidden in the instructions are a few tips that only someone with years of kitchen experience can bring to the table. Peel recommends that you blanch the lemon zest to counter any bitterness that it might bring to the vinaigrette. Freshly shelled walnuts taste pretty good on their own, but toasting them and adding the smallest amount of walnut oil brings out their nuttiness. Finally, and probably my newest and most favorite trick that I've learned from Peel, briefly soaking raw onions does wonders to eliminate any overly pungent onion aromas in dishes that call for raw onions.
Combining all of these chef-worthy techniques makes for a green bean salad that might take a little longer than you are used to, but is well worth it. These few extra steps ensure that all of the flavors are not only balanced but heightened to new levels.
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Posted by MichaelNatkin, October 28, 2009 at 1:45 PM
Michael Natkin of the vegetarian blog Herbivoracious drops by every Wednesday to share a delicious recipe to expand our vegetarian repertoire.
[Photograph: Michael Natkin]
Even in the colder months, I still crave a salad with dinner, but often with warm or lightly cooked ingredients. This salad with grilled romaine hearts and rustic bread is a perfect example. With an intensely flavored vinaigrette made with olive puree and lemon zest, it scratches the itch for a fresh but substantial first course.
You can either buy the romaine hearts pre-packaged or in whole head form (reserve the outer leaves for another use). It's fine to trim the base, but leave enough intact so the head will hold together when you cut it in half, lengthwise. If you have a grill on your stove, use that. If not, a stove-top grill pan is ideal for this recipe.
For the olives, you want a variety that is fleshy, easy to pit, and not overpoweringly salty. Alphonsos are a nice choice. Whatever you do, don't use the tasteless canned "Ripe California" olives. If you only have the very salty kind, pit and soak them for ten minutes in hot water, then squeeze them out.
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Posted by Carolyn Cope, October 27, 2009 at 8:30 AM
Note: You may know Carolyn Cope as Umami Girl. She stops by on Tuesdays to help us cook through seasonal surplus with ease.
[Photographs: Carolyn Cope]
Ever since my inaugural trip to Zuni Cafe in San Francisco with my sister last month, I've been showing all the signs of a borderline-creepy unrequited crush on the restaurant. Whatever you tell me, I guarantee I'll find a way to relate it to my dinner at Zuni. What, you don't like your hair today? That reminds me of the insanely delicious ricotta gnocchi at Zuni. You know, because in Italian they're sometimes called malfatti, which means poorly shaped... like your hair.
I leaf through the cookbook wistfully three, maybe four times a day. I wish I could tell you I don't sometimes stroke it a little, trying in vain to evoke a response. It's been a month now since our night together, and Zuni hasn't called. Not once. Still, I wait by the phone night after night, turning down invitations, just in case. It's getting downright embarrassing, and everyone can see that. Everyone except me.
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, October 23, 2009 at 4:00 PM
[Photograph: Nick Kindelsperger]
In search of a humble dinner that would use up leftover roast chicken, I somehow ended up here. This dynamic recipe from The China Moon Cookbook by Barbara Tropp was featured in the New York Times. It indeed calls for leftover roast chicken, along with a host of thinly-sliced vegetables including red bell pepper, celery, and jalapeño. I could just imagine the crunch of all those vegetables and the heat of the chiles, balancing the chicken.
But what honestly sold me was the dressing. Just odd enough to still work, it's a combination of rice wine vinegar, sugar, Dijon mustard, and ginger. Slightly tart and sweet, it's what ties all the other strands together, providing a perfect balance for the crispy and spicy salad.
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Posted by Tara Mataraza Desmond, October 13, 2009 at 12:10 PM
Editor's note: Philadelphia food writers Joy Manning and Tara Mataraza Desmond drop by each week with Meat Lite, which celebrates meat in moderation. Meat Lite was inspired by their book, Almost Meatless.
I can skip the usual preface observing the seasonal bounty, endless variety, and countless purposes of apples, because that propaganda is well-covered by all food publications this time of year already. This recipe, though, suggests grilling apples, which may be a less common approach to cooking our fall favorite. And if nothing else, it certainly makes an argument for extending grilling season way into autumn, because it's definitely more pleasant to stand around a red hot grill when it's 50 degrees out, than when it's 90 degrees, no?
I prefer crisp, sweet and tart apples for this recipe and for munching in general, but feel free to experiment with your own preferred and/or local varieties. The salad is full of texture, easy on the meat, and light without lacking any flavor- particularly with a generous drizzle of the cider maple vinaigrette.
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Posted by Kerry Saretsky, September 30, 2009 at 11:45 AM
"The harissa adds a punch; there's a pause when you first bite into the salade cuite, then you swallow and it just starts to burn."
[Photographs: Kerry Saretsky]
Salade cuite, or cooked salad, has one of those funny names that doesn't quite translate well in any language. Sounds kind of gross, right?
But salade cuite is one of my family's most traditional, guarded, and beloved recipes. And I assure you, it is not gross. Usually a stew of roasted Cubanelle peppers, garlic, tomatoes, and olive oil, it's served hot, cold, or anywhere in between. Something of a pepper-filled ratatouille, salade cuite is best a day or two later from a jar in the fridge.
At large French-Moroccan family dinners, salade cuite, usually in several incarnations, forms about one-fifth of the requisite salad spread—where most of the salads are, indeed, cooked. In addition to the traditional salade cuite described above, there's an all-green version without the tomatoes and Cubanelles in exchange for a variety of spicy green peppers.
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Posted by Caroline Russock, September 23, 2009 at 5:00 PM
The following recipe is from the September 23 edition of our weekly recipe newsletter. To receive this newsletter in your inbox, sign up here!
Last week I told you all about my irrational disdain for making salads—a week later, nothing has changed. I still get testy when a pile of greens needs to be washed, dried, and dressed. So this week I am going to share a recipe with you for an anti-salad—there are raw vegetables involved but no pesky greens to deal with.
This Ribboned Zucchini Salad from Gourmet Today by Ruth Reichl and John Willoughby is a wonderful alternative to a mixed greens salad. If you haven't experimented with raw zucchini, I strongly advise you try it out. It has a slight sweetness, a faint but satisfying crunch, and it's the perfect vehicle for an acid-rich dressing. The mint, basil, anchovy paste, and Kalamata olives called for in this recipe give this composed salad a decidedly Mediterranean feel. Once you feel comfortable making a raw zucchini salad, variations will come naturally. It's wonderful dressed with lemon juice, olive oil, a few red pepper flakes, and some shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano or ricotta salata and fresh oregano or marjoram.
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Posted by Caroline Russock, September 16, 2009 at 5:00 PM
The following recipe is from the September 16 edition of our weekly recipe newsletter. To receive this newsletter in your inbox, sign up here!
I have a problem with salad. This problem has nothing to do with a leftover childhood fear of vegetables—in fact, I loved vegetables as a little kid. My problem with salad is that I absolutely hate making them. I love the mindless chopping of vegetables and the preparation of a perfectly tart dressing, but washing and drying greens—do I really have to? (I'll admit that I have no idea why I have developed such an irrational scorn for preparing greens.)
That's why when it comes to me making a salad at home, it had better be a good one. This recipe for Dandelion Green Salad with Hot Bacon Dressing from Zingerman's Guide to Better Bacon by Ari Weinzweig is a good one, indeed. The combination of flavors is unbeatable: salty fatty pancetta, bitter vegetal dandelion greens, and a tang and astringency from the mustard and vinegar. The hot bacon dressing wilts the greens into a stage somewhere in between raw and cooked. This salad could easily be turned into a satisfying breakfast or lunch with the addition of poached eggs and a few slices of toast, or act as a handsome side dish at dinner. Think of it as an anti-salad, and don't worry too much about getting the greens perfectly dry.
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Posted by Kristen Swensson, September 14, 2009 at 10:45 AM
"It had prettier colors than a bag of Skittles."
[Photograph: Kristen Swensson]
Last week, my friend Rachel split her CSA's tomato haul with me. When she spoke about it, I expected a few pounds of produce, maybe 10 or 15 individual 'maters at most. There would be a salsa, maybe a sauce, and it’d be done. No sweat.
40 yellow tomatoes later, plans changed.
What does one do with 40 yellow tomatoes? I had no idea, but since the husband-elect and I were traveling for the weekend, they had to be used up, fast. So, an APB went out to my blog readers, who had all kinds of ideas, from yellow tomato soup (five thumbs up) to Provencal stuffed tomatoes (watery, but good on pasta) to freezing any leftovers (done and done).
Lunch that day came courtesy of Kalyn’s Kitchen, a South Beach Diet-oriented site with well over 40 billion recipes. Fortunately, yellow tomato salad with roasted red pepper, feta, and mint was among them. It was fast (came together in about 30 seconds), fresh, and delicious, and had prettier colors than a bag of Skittles. Do not adjust your computers—that’s actually what the salad looks like.
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Posted by Gina DePalma, September 3, 2009 at 8:30 AM
In Rome, my favorite fall vegetable is always puntarella, a type of wild chicory particular to the region of Lazio and eagerly anticipated in Roman kitchens. There, it is served with an assertive dressing of anchovy, garlic and extra virgin olive oil—flavors that can stand up to its slightly bitter edge. It is hard to find this bit of greenery here in the United States, and as fall approaches and the first slightly chilly mass of air settles over my home in New York, I'm daydreaming about my favorite autumn Italian salad. The arrival of puntarelle in Rome is a signal to pull out the sweaters and move the sidewalk tables inside.
Over the years I've had to satisfy my year-round craving for puntarelle in salsa by matching other varieties of bitter greens with the same dressing. Curly chicory is visually similar, but has too much bitterness for my taste. Dandelion greens have the right amount of green color, but the older they are picked, the tougher they are to chew. In escarole, I finally found my ideal substitute mate for the delicious anchovy dressing that reminds me so much of Rome.
Gradually, I started experimenting with a few strategic additions to my ultimate escarole salad. I often used to whip up this salad as quick work lunch at Babbo, and one day a few toasted walnuts leftover from a batch of cookies found their way into my salad bowl. Not long after, I discovered that some firm, aged goat cheese grated into the mix united all these bitter components together perfectly with just the right amount of tangy richness.
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, September 2, 2009 at 4:00 PM
Though summer is nearly over, I'm still on a grilling kick. I don't have much gear—just a tiny grill and a pair of tongs, but something about the warm charcoal really elevates a simple meal. Applying this anti-overthinking, simple grilling principle, this recipe from Bobby Flay's Grill It! involves very few ingredients but over the flame, they coalesce into something special.
Each component is essential. The nectarines, in particular, are a perfect balance for the chop. My favorite bites manage to fit as many components as possible onto a fork. The blue cheese, not the first thing I think of adding to grilled food, works wonderfully. I guess Bobby Flay knows what he is doing.
Cooking times will vary wildly depending on your pork chop. Flay recommends cooking monster one-inch thick boneless center cut chops. They need to be cooked for four to five minutes per side. I used some half-inch thick chops, which really only needed a quick sear of about two to three minutes per side. To achieve the proper doneness, use a meat thermometer or the very practical poking method.
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Posted by Joy Manning, September 1, 2009 at 11:30 AM
Note: Philadelphia food writers Joy Manning and Tara Mataraza Desmond drop by each week with Meat Lite, which celebrates meat in moderation. Meat Lite was inspired by their book, Almost Meatless.
[Flickr: woodleywonderworks]
Ever since I quit vegetarianism, I enthusiastically add bacon to everything, even perfectly good meat-free dishes like this one. This dish reminds me of something a vegan friend of mine used to make on a charcoal grill, rendering the meaty-textured eggplant smoky and even more satisfying. I have a gas grill, which imparts no such depth of flavor. I have discovered, though, that a few drops of liquid smoke can help create a reasonable facsimile. (If you grill over charcoal or wood, definitely skip the liquid smoke.)
And what smoky-tasting dish isn't enhanced by a little bacon? I can't think of any. That's how I like this hearty main-course salad. But if you have vegetarians or vegans coming to your Labor Day cook out, omit the bacon and you'll still have substantial meal that even the burger-eaters will want to try, too. The recipe doubles easily. If you are only making it for one or two, scale it down, because leftovers don't keep well. Good thing you'll want to scarf it up immediately.
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Posted by Carolyn Cope, September 1, 2009 at 9:45 AM
[Photographs: Carolyn Cope]
In the Crisper
Featured Veg: Kohlrabi.
Eat: Stem and leaves, raw or cooked. Leaves are typically cooked but can be sliced thin and dressed raw.
Prepare Stem: Wash well, trim ends, and peel thickly with a paring knife.
Prepare Leaves: Wash in several changes of water. Roughly chop or slice crosswise.
Substitute: For stem: turnip or rutabaga (cooked), celery root (raw). For leaves: kale, collards.
Hiya, it's Kohlrabi. From the garden, yeah. Look, I don't mean to be that guy or anything, but there's something that's been bumming me out for kind of a while, and I just feel like I need to put it out there. Holding in the bad stuff can really wilt your greens, you know? It's not lost on me that we've only known each other for--what--a couple of months now, max? But you just seem like someone I can talk to. Maybe it's the way you smile with your eyes. Probably I should see a shrink or whatever and not wear out my friendships blabbering about all this stuff, but who has that kind of money these days, right? Anyway, sometimes I think it's the whole "both my parents are Freudian psychoanalysts" thing that got me here in the first place, so. Heheh. Ahem.
Can I ask you something? We're all adults here, and it's not like anyone thinks life is a popularity contest anymore. But--I mean--I just don't get why people consistently clam up so much the minute I walk into a room. It's like no one knows quite what to make of me. So I'm a bit of an oddball! We can't all be cucumbers and tomatoes, am I right? Honestly, I can be a lot of fun--you wouldn't believe how I was dancing on the picnic table on the Fourth of July--but I feel like no one sees me that way. And after a while awkwardness becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because how many times can a guy be made to feel like the grim reaper of good times before his foliage gets slightly bitter? Yeah, I've got a mildly assertive taste at this point. Who could blame me?
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