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Archive for the ‘Recipes’ Category

Plum Chipotle Chutney

Posted in Food, Recipes, tagged , , , on 16 Sep 2016| Leave a Comment »

PlumsWant to bring a little pizzazz to that sandwich? Want to add some zip to that cold-cut platter? Here’s a suggestion. A complex mix of flavors — earthy, sweet, tangy, spicy — designed to enhance rather than smother.

Cook up a batch of this, set it in the fridge for a couple of weeks to mellow, and enjoy.

Plum Chipotle Chutney

Makes about 4 pounds

Hardware

  • Glass jars and rings/lids for preserving (optional, for long-term storage)

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds plums, halved, stoned, and chopped
  • 3 onions, chopped
  • Scant 1/2 cup dried cranberries, chopped (use an oiled knife to keep them from sticking to the blade)
  • 1 tablespoon ground ginger
  • 1 tablespoon black/brown mustard seed
  • 1 tablespoon ground cumin
  • 1 tablespoon sweet (not hot) paprika
  • 1 teaspoon ground chipotle
  • 1  2/3 cups red wine vinegar
  • 2 cups dark brown sugar (or 2 cups light brown sugar plus 2 tablespoons molasses)
  • 2 teaspoons kosher salt

Procedure

  • Put all the ingredients (except sugar and salt) into a large pot over a medium heat and stir well.
  • Bring slowly to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and let simmer for 10 minutes until plums are tender.
  • Stir in sugar and salt, and stir until dissolved.
  • Keep at a light boil for 20–30 minutes, uncovered, stirring to keep it from sticking, until it thickens.
  • Store in the fridge for two weeks to mellow. It’s great right away, but it’s better if it rests for a while.
  • Optional: For long-term storage, spoon into sterilized jars, seal, process, and store for up to 6 months in cool, dry place.

Notes

  • If you’re not going to share or can the result, make a half recipe. Four pounds is a lot of chutney.
  • I prefer to roughly chop my plums/onions, as this gives more texture to the chutney. If you prefer a more homogeneous texture, chop finely.
  • For a smokier flavor, use smoked paprika.
  • You can substitute raisins or sultanas for the cranberries.

k

 

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The Original General Tso’s Chicken

Posted in Food, Recipes, tagged , , , , on 10 Oct 2015| 8 Comments »

You find it everywhere, on virtually every Chinese restaurant menu and behind just about every supermarket deli counter. It’s a staple of what Americans call Chinese food: General Tso’s Chicken.

Recently, I watched The Search for General Tso, a documentary that searches for the origins of this ubiquitous dish. From it, I learned that this concoction is about as Chinese as chop suey. While it was indeed created by Hunan chef C.K. Peng in Taipei, and while it carries the name of the famous Hunan general Zuo Zongtang, it has been so Americanized as to be nearly unrecognizable. It’s sweeter. It’s milder. It’s festooned with scallions and mixed with steamed broccoli.

Naturally, I took this as a challenge. I like the American version just fine, but would I like the original version better? Even factoring in my bias toward traditional ethnic food, the answer is an unmitigated “Yes!”

On balance, I find Chinese cuisine intimidating. There is usually a lot of prep-work and I’m not well-educated as to what many of the ingredients are. This recipe, though, has ingredients that are familiar and easy to find, and the recipe itself is easy if you break it into three basic steps: Cook the meat, make the sauce, mix.

See? Easy peasy. (more…)

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Don’t Call It a “Jaffa” Cake

Posted in Food, Recipes, tagged , , , , , on 06 Apr 2015| Leave a Comment »

Don't Call It a "Jaffa" CakeThe last time I was in Britain there was a flap over the use of the phrase “Jaffa Cake.” McVities, the biscuit company who introduced the original Jaffa Cakes in 1927, neglected to trademark the name and thus it was open for others to use.

I adore Jaffa Cakes–small disks of sponge cake topped with orange jelly and a cover of chocolate–so when a friend asked me to bring a dessert for Easter dinner, I had an inspiration for a super-sized version of my little favorites. But don’t call it a “Jaffa” cake…I don’t want an infringement lawsuit slapped on me!

For those with celiac disease, this is a gluten-free cake. (more…)

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Twice-Cooked Times Two

Posted in Food, Recipes, tagged , , , , , , on 18 Dec 2014| Leave a Comment »

Simple LivingBiscotti. You can’t have just one.

No…literally, you can’t have just one biscotti, because biscotti is the plural form. If you only have one, you have a biscotto. The word biscotti (and biscuit, for that matter) comes from the Latin root: bis – coctus, meaning “twice-cooked,” and they are, indeed, baked twice. What I like best about biscotti is that the recipe is essentially a blank slate that allows for myriad variations.

Below you’ll find two of my variations: Classic biscotti, with that lemon and anise-seed flavor, and my Holiday biscotti, with orange and cranberries. Check the Notes for ideas on additional variations.

(more…)

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Braised Pork Shanks

Posted in Food, Recipes, tagged , , , , , , on 17 Jun 2014| Leave a Comment »

Braised Pork Shanks - FinalSay the word “braise” to most home cooks and you’ll likely get a blank stare.

Leaving out crock-pots and pot-roasts, I think it’s safe to say that the braise is rarely used in the modern kitchen. Even if you love pot-roasts, you may not know what a braise is or what it does.

A braise is a long, slow cook in moist heat. It’s great for stews and pot roasts, as it transforms a cheap cut of meat into succulent, tender morsels of flavor. It breaks down those tough connective tissues–tendons, ligaments, cartilage–transferring them to the braising liquid, building that unctuous mouth-feel we love in sauces and gravies. Technically, my In-the-Oven Chicken Stock is a braise, cooked at low temps for a ridiculously long time, and the difference shows in the results. It has a complexity of flavor you just don’t get with other methods.

Our most common mistakes in using the braise are:

  1. We cook with too high a heat
  2. We cook for too short a time

A braise requires patience and subtlety as we build flavors layer upon layer. However, a braise doesn’t have to take all day. Here’s an example…

(more…)

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Ilene’s World Class Lasagna

Posted in Food, Recipes, tagged , , , , , , , , on 20 Feb 2014| 3 Comments »

LasagnaMy wife is not Italian. She’s Irish. She just married an Italian. (Actually, I’m mostly French, but try telling that to someone who’s struggling to pronounce “Giambastiani.”)

She calls herself a “truck-stop cook.” She isn’t what she would call a “chef.” She is a craftsman who has a few really good recipes.

Over the years, she’s cooked these few (these happy few), receiving raves from friends and family lucky enough to partake. Over the years, she’s tinkered with each concoction, improving and perfecting her enchiladas, banana bread, beef stew, spag-bol, quiche Lorraine, cinnamon rolls, cookies, fudge, and–notably–lasagna.

She’s been working on her lasagna recipe for 30 years. She measures by eye, always has sauce and cheese left over, always makes them two at a time–a large one for the feast, a smaller one to be frozen, uncooked, for later–and always, always it is wonderful, flavorful, and unlike any other lasagna I’ve ever tasted.

Last weekend, Ilene made her lasagna for a large gathering of friends and neighbors. The occasion was specifically to introduce her masterpiece to folks who’ve never had it before. Normally, I am her sous chef, doing all the chopping and grating, stirring and cleaning, while she swans in and casts her magic alchemy with handfuls of spice and multiple taste-tests. This time, however, I followed her around, noted her every move, measured every handful and pile she used, and weighed all the ingredients left behind. I calculated the mounds and pounds that went into each of the two mismatched pies, then got out my slide rule and conversion charts and constructed a single recipe for a 9×13″ lasagna.

Last night, I tried it myself, and got Ilene’s stamp of approval.

As with all recipes, I can think of things I want to try next time–a dash of this, a spoonful of that–but this is the radix, the omphalos, the groundwater source of Ilene’s wonderful, delectable, world-class lasagna.

Caveat: This is not a health-minded recipe. It’s a heart attack on a plate. We don’t have it every week, or even every month. For us, it’s a once-, maybe twice-a-year treat, usually bookended by days of low-calorie meals and exercise for preparation and recovery.

Trust me. It’s worth it.

(more…)

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Recipe for Love

Posted in Food, Recipes, tagged , , , , on 18 Feb 2014| 1 Comment »

Lasagna

“I’m a gourmet chef and I don’t measure anything.”

———

“Some people can cook. Others can follow recipes.”

These statements and others like them were leveled at me this weekend, after I mentioned I was going to attempt to capture the recipe for my wife’s world-class lasagna. Frankly, they caught me unaware. Never before had I come up against such blatant and illogical snobbery regarding recipes.

The fact is, if you’ve ever…and I mean ever…been taught how to cook something, you’ve used a recipe. “Recipe,” with its last century cousin “receipt” and the pharmaceutical “Rx,” all come from the Latin recipere, meaning “to receive or take.” Recipe, in fact, is the imperative form: Take! as this was the first word of almost every recipe written in that language.

Whether you were taught at your nana’s knee or trained at the Cordon Bleu, you were given step-by-step instructions on how to construct a dish. Whether you measure by the handful or the gram-weight, you’re following a recipe. Whether it was written down by Julia Child or passed down by oral tradition, you are following a recipe, and to pooh-pooh recipes (and those of us who follow them) as being somehow less than you is to ignore facts and to uselessly denigrate what is for many of us a gift of love.

That little 3×5 card with your grandmother’s crabbed scrawl, that brittle age-browned scrap of paper written by your mother’s hand, and that ancient notebook packed with torn clippings and annotated soup-can labels, those are physical manifestations of devotion, of love. You don’t cook out of hate. You don’t feed people you dislike. You don’t note what pleases the palate of enemies.

You don’t slave in the kitchen for hours and serve it up to people you don’t love.

Recipes are captured moments, repeatable moments. Recipes are confidences held between friends. “Here,” they say, “this is a secret from my heart.”

My wife has been making and perfecting her lasagna for thirty years. Each time, something is a little bit different. Ask her for the recipe (and many have), and she can’t tell you; she measures by eye, often has mounds of cheese or cups of sauce left over. And though I am working to write down her recipe from this last weekend’s bake-off, I know that in ten years’ time, it will be different.

But this recipe–this weekend’s recipe–is a starting point for everyone who’s ever asked for the secret. It’s a place for us all to start and then say, “Oh yes, it is wonderful; now I will make it mine.” They can add a bit more heat, a bit less ricotta, cook it a bit longer. They may still call it “Ilene’s World-Class Lasagna” or they may change it enough until, over time, it will be something all their own. It does not matter to me. It does not matter to my wife.

A recipe shared is an act of love. It’s your best effort, writ down and passed along, from hand to hand, kitchen to kitchen, family to family, heart to heart.

k

No-Knead Bread

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