Broiled (panko crusted) salmon

The Goods:

2 medium salmon fillets*

1 tsp country dijon mustard

1 tsp rice wine vinegar

1 cup panko bread crumbs

juice from half a lemon

zest from half a lemon

1 clove garlic

1 tsp brown mustard seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1 small star anise pod

olive oil

Brine

1000 grams / 1 liter warm water

50 grams kosher salt

2 bay leaves

1 tsp peppercorns

1 sprig thyme

3 smashed cloves garlic

1 tsp rice wine vinegar

1 tbsp crushed brown mustard seeds

Combine all of the brine ingredients in a large container; mix until the salt is all dissolved. Brine in the salmon in the fridge for about an hour**.

Remove the salmon from the brine, pat it dry, and allow it to come to room temperature. Grind the mustard seeds, cumin seeds, red pepper flakes, and star anise in a mortar and pestle. Add the crushed spices, lemon juice, vinegar, and mustard to a shallow dish. Mince the lemon zest and garlic, add them to the mixture. Whisk the mixture until it is well incorporated. Add the panko to a second shallow dish. Cover each piece of fish in the liquid mixture and then dredge through the panko, patting off the excess.

Add a spritz of olive oil to a pyrex baking dish. Place the salmon fillets in the dish and spritz some additional oil over them. Place under the broiler (~6 inches) and broil on high for 10 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fish. Remove from the oven and cover with aluminum foil for a few more minutes (the fish will continue to cook some).

*These particular fillets were the frozen, vacuum-sealed kind you find in the huge freezer section at TJ's. I think the total combined weight was 0.7 lb. I like to buy these, toss them in the freezer at home, and cook them when I find that I'm all out of real, perishable groceries.

**In this case, the brining process also acts as a lovely defrosting mechanism. Yay no microwave.

Stuffed chicken breast, brussels sprouts, and roasted root vegetables

The Goods:

Chicken

1/2 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast

1 tsp clarified butter (or other high heat fat)

4 crimini mushrooms

1 small shallot

1 clove garlic

4 cups beef short rib braising liquid*

1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs

1 small handful fresh basil

1 small handful fresh parsley

1 tbsp crumbled gorgonzola cheese

Sprouts

2 stalks fresh brussels sprouts**

2 kg water

100 g kosher salt (5 wt% salt solution)

1 tsp butter

Root Veggies

1 lb fingerling potatoes

2 medium-size parsnips

3 cloves garlic

1 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp ground coriander

several spritz olive oil

Preheat the oven to 400. While the oven is preheating, wrap the chicken breast in wax paper or plastic wrap. Pound it down to thin it a bit. Season the chicken with salt and pepper, then dredge in some flour, patting off the excess. Add the clarified butter to a sautè pan and set the heat to medium high. Brown the chicken breast, about 2 minutes per side. Turn off the heat and set to the side.

Trim the parsnips by cutting away the skin and slicing into pieces roughly equal in size to the potatoes. Mince the three cloves of garlic. Spritz some olive oil in a pyrex baking dish. Add the potatoes, parsnips, and garlic. Season with salt, pepper, the red pepper, and the coriander. Add some more olive oil and mix. Add to the oven, it will bake for ~35 minutes, or until both vegetables are soft.

Re-heat the sautè pan (almost all of the clarified butter from cooking the chicken should still be there) on medium-high heat. Slice the mushrooms and shallot. Mince the garlic. Add the mushrooms first. Cook at this heat until the mushrooms have just begun to brown, then lower the heat and add the shallots. After a few more minutes add the garlic, then, just before the garlic burns, add 2 cups of the braising liquid. Reduce the braising liquid down to a viscous consistency.

Remove the sprouts from their stalk and give them a quick wash in cold water. Prepare the salt solution using your kitchen scale or volumetric equivalents, if you're not into the whole weight-as-a-cooking-measure meme. Bring this solution to a boil in a medium saucepan. Combine the mushroom/shallot/braising liquid mixture with the panko, basil, parsley, and gorgonzola in a bowl and mix. Depending on the size and shape of the chicken breast, the stuffing procedure may vary. In my case, I had the one piece as two smaller pieces look, so I made a crude chicken-stuffing sandwich. Place this in an oiled pyrex. Place on the top rack in the oven along with the vegetables for 15 minutes, or until the chicken has cooked through.

Once the water has boiled, add the sprouts. Prepare an ice bath using several ice cubes and a large boil full of cold water. Boil the sprouts for 4 minutes, then remove them using a wire strainer and blanch them in the cold water bath. Strain them from the bath and return them to the saucepan. Add the butter and cook on low until the butter has melted and coated all of the sprouts.

While the chicken and root vegetable are finishing in the oven, place the original sautè pan back over medium heat and add another 2 cups of braising liquid. Reduce this to the same viscous consistency as with the mushroom/shallot mixture. This will be the sauce for the chicken and root vegetables. With any luck, everything should finish around the same time. Depending on the size of the chicken breast, this is most likely a meal for two.

*Yeah, they don't sell this one in the supermarket, even Whole Foods. I had another go at beef short ribs last week and saved the braising liquid. More to come on this. I suppose one could combine red wine and beef stock (the braising liquid tastes like I imagine these two things taste like together) as a substitute here.

**I was floored to learn that they look like this fresh out of the ground. These came from a farmer's market, though I have seen them at WF.

(Nearly) Empty Fridge Meal

The Goods*:

2 smallish leeks (the packaged, pre-trimmed kind from Trader Joe's)
1 small red bliss potato
1 fennel bulb
4-5 crimini mushrooms
1/2 cup israeli couscous
1 tsp butter/ 1 tsp flour
1 sprig thyme
1/3 lb-ish turkey keilbasa (also of Trader Bro origin)

Place the couscous in a small saucepan along with 1 1/2 cup water. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to low, stirring occasionally until the water is absorbed. After the couscous has cooked, add some butter. I also chopped up the leafy portion of the fennel and added it to the couscous.

While the couscous is cooking, heat a bit of olive oil in a skillet on medium-high heat. Chop up the leeks**, fennel (the white part, below the stalk), and mushrooms. Slice the potato thinly (for fast cooking). Slice the sausage, add to the hot pan. Cook in place for a few minutes, until it develops a bit of crust. Lower the heat, add the leeks. Cook for a few minutes, add the fennel and mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper. Cook until the leeks have softened considerably, add a cup of water, the thyme, and the potato slices, cover. Simmer the liquid for 10 or so minutes until the potato slices have softened. Add the flour/butter mixture to thicken the cooking liquid. Serve over the couscous.


*Yeah, I need to go grocery shopping, soon. Before cooking this meal, I assumed that I had considerably more types of foods on hand. Sadly, I was wrong. This was an attempt at cooking with what I had. I am pleased that I've overcome at least one personal cooking taboo: the potato. I've always seen it as something you bake, roast, mash, or generally cook up to be part of a stand alone thing (side dish, or whatever). Including it in the main dish worked well. It didn't combine with the couscous and over-starch everything, as I had feared. Potato/leek + aromatics (fennel, mushroom) + protein (sausage) + grain-ish (israeli couscous) = seriously hearty winter night fare.

**If you are using whole leeks (as opposed to the prepackaged Joe's variety), be sure to not include the wholly green (tough) portion of the stalk.

Dressed up Annie's #1

The Goods:

1 box Annie's Mac and Cheese*

1/2 cup fresh fontina cheese

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp milk

1/2 medium-sized yellow onion

4-5 crimini mushrooms

3-4 broccolini florets

1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs

1 tsp cumin powder

Fill a medium saucepan with water, set on high heat to boil. Mince the onion, slice the mushrooms, and chop the broccolini. Add some olive oil to a skillet and set the heat to medium-low. Saute the onions for a few minutes, then add the mushrooms and broccolini. Season with salt, pepper, cumin, and red pepper and/or chili powder (depending on your preference for heat). Once the onions are translucent and the other vegetables have cooked, remove from the heat.

Set the oven's broiler to high. Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a small bowl (roughly 30 seconds in the microwave will do nicely). Slice the fontina into small cubes. After the water has boiled, season with some salt, and add the Annie's pasta. Boil for 8-10 minutes (per the box), then strain. Combine the pasta with the mix included in the Annie's box, the other tablespoon of butter, the milk, the vegetables, and the fontina. Mix until the butter and fresh cheese have melted completely.

Add the mac and cheese to something oven safe. I used three 6 ounce ramekins, and it everything fit perfectly. If one opts for ramekins, people can have contained individual portions, which can be nice. Place a layer of panko on top of the mac and cheese. Spread the melted butter evenly over all of the panko. Place in the oven, under the broiler, for 2-3 minutes, or until the panko has browned.

*Feel free to use any sort of Annie's, though I make no promises for the quality of the dish if one opts for a rice pasta variety.

Thyme & Mustard Pork Chops

The Goods:

Brine
2000 grams water
100 grams kosher salt*
4 cloves garlic
1 small bunch thyme
2 tsp mustard (country-style)
2 bay leaves
2 tsp rice wine vinegar

The Rest
2 pork chops, ~1" thick
1 tbsp flour, plus some extra
1 tbsp butter
some canola or other high heat oil
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp mustard
1 small bunch thyme
4ish crimini mushrooms
some parsley
1 shallot
1 cup water/stock

To compose the brine, add the water (hot tap) to a large container. The hot water will help the salt fully dissolve. Alternatively, you can heat cold water on the stove, but I find that the water is then so hot, one must wait for it to cool, and this can take a while. Add in the salt, stir it up until all has dissolved. Add the remaining brine ingredients and the pork chops. Be sure they are fully covered by the brine liquid. Transfer to the fridge and brine as long as you like**.

After the pork chops have finished brining, pat them dry. Dredge in some flour, patting of the excess. Place the oil in a skillet and set to medium-high heat. Once the oil has heated, add the pork chops. The goal is to cook them through and develop a good crust while not burning the exterior. I found that 6 minutes per side on medium high heat (6 on the dial, on my unreliable electric stove) cooked the chops (still slightly pink in the center) and gave a non-burned crust. This will vary depending on chop thickness, the pan, and your stove's flakiness. Slice the mushrooms thin. Mince the shallot, thyme (taking care to separate the leafy part from the hard stems), and parsley. Set the butter in a small bowl. When it is soft, add the 1 tsb flour and mix until they are incorporated nicely***. When the chops are cooked, remove them from the pan and set aside in a dish.

Turn the heat down to medium-low and add the mushrooms. After about 2 minutes add the shallots, then the herbs. Saute for 3-4 minutes. Add the water/stock (deglaze, deglaze, deglase!), the lemon juice, and the mustard. Once this has heated up (~1 minute), add the flour/butter mixture. Serve over the pork chop.




Now with pic-goodness. Here is the completely chop, with salad and rice.


*Ok, ok, ok. Yes, I know, weights are slightly annoying. The goal here is to make a 5 % (by weight) salt solution. Scales are a fine investment. You can do it by volume, its roughly 2 liters, and I hear a 1/3 cup of kosher salt is roughly (seriously, this was highly estimated) 50 grams.

**I brined for 2 hours. I've seen recipes that talk of over night brining for pork chops, though I imagine the thickness matters here. I'm sure it is possible to over brine them, but I wouldn't begin to know the exact cutoff point.

***This is another gem I found in Ratio. This is a beurre manié, which to me is a poor (read: lazy) man's roux. Adding this will achieve instant sauce thickening, without the foul flour clumps. Plus, adding butter to anything makes it better.

Hot oil (chinese style)

The Goods:

1 cup sunflower, peanut, or any other high temperature oil
1/4 cup toasted sesame oil
1/4 cup dried chiles*
1 tsp chili powder
2 tsp turmeric (for color)

I find myself visiting the local chinese restaurant by my office frequently, say, once a week or more. I've begun to notice a crippling pattern, which is not unique to this particular chinese restaurant. One asks for hot oil with one's combination plate. Sometimes one doesn't even get hot oil at all, but instead some strange chili paste. When fortune smiles upon me, and actual oil is provided, typically the quantity is on the order of a thimble-full. It is time to end our (royal we) dependence on foreign (he he) oil.

Place the oil in a wok** and set to medium high heat. Mince the chilies. A food processor or dedicated spice grinder would be lovely here. I did not want to chance it with my coffee grinder***. Once the oil has heated, turn off the heat, add the chilis, chili powder, and turmeric. Let the chilis steep in the wok for 10-15 minutes. Strain through a wire strainer, then a cloth. One will probably lose around 1/4 cup of oil (some remains in the pan, some sticks to the chilis, etc). Add the sesame oil to the infused oil, making a total of approximately one cup hot oil.


*I used these tiny thai chiles that have a nice, sharp heat. They should really be as hot as you like (read: Guatemalan insanity peppers). The hotter the oil, the less you'll probably need to use.

**Any thick-bottomed pot will do here, provided it did not come from Ikea. I kid, I kid, but if it did come from Ikea, chances are there is nothing thick about it.

***I probably don't have to say this, but for the love of god, and all that is holy, do not touch your eyes, nose, or genitalia whilst preparing this recipe.

Braised Short Ribs

The Goods:

1 750 ml bottle red wine*
2 boneless beef short ribs (1 lb total)
1 onion
1/2 a medium-sized carrot
1/2 cup fennel
1 shallot
5 cloves garlic
2 handfuls parsley
1 small bunch thyme
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp good, dark, country-esque mustard
1 pinch red pepper flakes
1 tsp peppercorns
2 cups stock/water**

First off, I should say I was inspired by a co-worker's*** story of a Sunday afternoon well spent braising short ribs and had to race home and try it. One thing I noticed when doing the quick internet recipe search to see what one generally does with these things, is that there is great variety in short rib recipes. They run the gamut from simple, almost short rib/pasta/stew-ish things (see: De Laurentiis, Giada) to crazily intricate (see: Keller, Thomas). The one unifying theme is: sear meat, combine with aromatic vegetables, flavorful liquid, and braise for a long time in the oven. In this case the choice of aromatic vegetables (and what you do with them before adding to the flavor liquid) and flavor liquid are completely free to the cook.

I did the braising in an 8 quart Le Creuset stockpot (not the dutch oven ones, which would have been much better). You will need something that can comfortably hold the ribs and the braising liquid, while being oven safe to around 400 F. Add the whole bottle to your braising pot, set the heat to medium low. The goal here is to reduce the wine by around half and cook off much of the alcohol. Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Add some canola (or other high heat friendly oil, I used sunflower) to a heavy bottomed skillet and turn the heat to medium high. While this is heating up, season the ribs with salt and pepper. Dredge them in some flour, patting off the excess. Sear the meat on both sides until a nice crust develops (2-3 minutes per side). Set the meat aside on a plate and turn off the heat. Mince the onion, carrot, fennel, shallot, 3 cloves of garlic, and half the parsley. Pour off the fat in the pan until only a thin coating remains, and set the heat to a medium low. Begin to saute the chopped vegetables, adding them in the order listed. Season with salt, pepper, and the red pepper flakes. If the mixture feels dry, spritz on some olive oil. Once the vegetables have sweated a bit and the onions look translucent, but not brown, add them to the reduced wine. Add the rest of the parsley (un-chopped), the bay leaves, the remaining cloves of garlic (smashed), the peppercorns, and the mustard. At this point, one has to assess how much liquid to add. It is important that the ribs be entirely covered by the braising liquid. Add water/stock to increase the liquid level in the pot.

Add the ribs to the pot and place it in the oven, covered. Let it cook for roughly 1.5 hours covered, then another hour uncovered. One can cook the beef really as long as one wants, though I imagine that after a long enough time the meat will start to fall apart. After 2.5 hours of cooking, I found that it was quite tender. To serve, I did the easiest thing. Plate the beef, add side(s) (in this case cous cous, though any grain or legume would work), and spoon braising liquid over the whole thing. From here, one can get ambitious and create a more complicated sauce for the beef out of the braising liquid, or use the braised beef as a base for another preparation.


*I went with a malbec (Conquista, from Argentina, 2008); but I'm not exactly wine-savvy. I think anything that isn't especially sweet or fruity would probably work just as well. You also probably, as a rule of thumb, should only cook with wine you can tolerate drinking. Now is not the time to break out the Carlo, unless you want the dish to taste like feet. Perhaps next time I'll go with a cab.

**I used water because I was all out of stock, and the ribs did not suffer for it. I imagine that they'll be even better with a nice, homemade beef or vegetable stock to use instead of water. Also, another plus, I've saved the braising liquid for future use. This liquid, slow-cooked with all of these aromatics and beef, is stock-like.

*** A tip of the hat to the Mikes (Corbett and McGeary). The former for the original inspiration and the latter for his pointers on the basics of short rib cookery, he being the generally acknowledged supreme beef overlord.

Leek + Other Vegetable Soup

The Goods:

2 good-sized leeks
3 red bliss potatoes
1 portabella mushroom cap
1 small shallot*
2 cloves garlic
1 handful fresh italian parsley
1 small pad butter
1 spritz olive oil
1/3 cup arborio (or any other, really) rice
6 cups vegetable stock/water**

Add the butter and oil to a large, heavy-bottomed sauce pan and set to medium heat. After washing the leeks, trim off the ends and slice them until you reach the solidly green portion of the steam. Discard the tough green part. Add the leeks and a pinch of salt to the pan. Saute the leeks on medium heat for a few minutes, then turn the heat down to low to continue sweating them. Slice the mushroom cap and finely chop the shallot, garlic, and parsley. As the leeks sweat, add the mushroom, shallot, garlic, and parsley in that order. Add a bit more salt and some cracked black pepper. Once the vegetables are soft, but before they've begun to burn and/or liquefy***, add the water/stock and potatoes. Bring the liquid to a boil (turn up the heat), then simmer on low for about half an hour (adding the rice after about 15 minutes), or until the rice and potatoes are cooked.

*One can always substitute any manner of onion for shallot, though I must say that once you get on the shallot train, it is really hard to get off (or, if you prefer the Rachel Ray vernacular, "THEY BRING A LOT TO THE PARTY." They really do.).

**In this case, I only had 3ish cups of vegetable stock on hand, so I made-up the rest of the liquid with water. Obviously, the more stock you use the greater the flavor of the soup. I made the stock based on Michael Ruhlman's procedure in Ratio. If you're not familiar with Ratio, it is an excellent book on the subject of cooking. Ruhlman's deal is that rote following of recipes is bad form. Rather, you should just learn the fundamental ratios that underpin all of the key preparations in the kitchen. He tries to peel back the unnecessary ingredients to arrive at the things that fundamentally make up the character of something. Anyway, it is absolutely worth purchasing if you do a lot of cooking. Ruhlman delivers a particularly searing invective against store-bought stocks of all stripes.

***A big key here is to not burn the garlic. Nothing ruins things (read: Dinner) like burning up the garlic. I like to usually add it after I have plenty of other stuff in the pan so that it is not subject to big swings in heat from the burner.

Hello Friends!

This is a new (second) attempt at some form of regular blogging. Since I've utterly failed to get into Twitter, I think this may be my last shot at harnessing the goodness of the web 2.0 universe. Hopefully this incarnation will update more than biannually. I am enthused because rather than an unfocused collection of observations and grips (mostly gripes), I've decided to focus on one subject that I'm pretty into: cooking.

The idea is to catalog the recipes that I've been cooking at home (that is to say when I'm doing more than microwaving a tin of spam). I have noticed that even when I cook off of a preset recipe, I'm always subtracting (I never have everything they call for) , occasionally adding, and always tweaking slightly. With luck, other people may try some of these preparations and suggest improvements or different ways of doing things. It is also nice to have a written record of recipes** for the future.

Huzzah!

**I hesitate to actually employ the term 'recipe' for the rough lists of ingredients and relative cooking procedures that you will probably find in future posts. The word has almost evolved into a pejorative for me. The last thing I'd want to suggest is that a specific dish has but one definitive list of ingredients and cooking procedure that confer its dish-y legitimacy.