Mushroom and broccolini curry

The Goods:

1 cup jasmin rice

1/2 dozen crimini mushrooms

1 bunch broccolini

2/3 cup coconut milk

1/4 cup fresh lemongrass

1/4 tsp ground coriander

1/4 tsp turmeric

1/4 tsp chili powder

1/4 tsp sriracha sauce

1/4 tsp dried thai chili peppers*

1 tsp chopped galangal

1 tsp shredded kaffir lime leaves

1 black cardamom pod**

1/2 tsp soy sauce

1 tsp fish sauce

1 tsp peanut or sunflower oil

Set the rice to cook in a rice cooker (or a pan). Thinly slice the lemongrass. Add the lemongrass to a mortar along with the coriander, turmeric, chili powder, sriracha, chili peppers, galangal, and lime leaves. Grind these ingredients together. Quarter the mushrooms. Trim off the stems (or not, if stems are your jam) from the broccolini and slice the remaining stalks. Add the oil to a wok and set to medium-high heat. Once the oil is hot, add the mushrooms to the wok. The oil is hot enough when it thins out in the pan and begins to show ripples, but before smoking. Cook the mushrooms for a few minutes, then add the broccolini. After another few minutes (the vegetables should not take long to cook on high heat), add the spice mixture from the mortar, a bit of ground black pepper, the soy sauce, and the fish sauce. After yet a few more minutes, the bottom of the wok will begin to brown. Finally, add the coconut milk. The milk is thin enough to crudely deglaze the bottom of the wok. Cook until the coconut milk has thickened a bit. Serve over jasmin rice.

*Christina's in Inman Square boasts an incredible selection of dried chili peppers (and everything else). These thai chilis are definitely toward the hotter end (8 out of 10, per Christina's internal rating system).

**Also obtained from Christina's.

Oregano couscous + golden beets

The Goods:

4 medium-sized golden beets

1/2 cup couscous

1/2 cup fresh oregano

1 sprig parsley

1 clove garlic

1 tbsp greek yogurt

1 tsp olive oil

1 tsp lemon juice

1/4 tsp ground coriander

Sauce

1 tbsp butter

1/2 cup water

1 tsp brown sugar

1 tsp honey

1 tsp balsamic vinegar

Boil salted water in a 3/4 filled medium saucepan. Add the beets. Boil the beets for ~25 minutes or until they feel soft. Place the couscous in a pyrex measuring cup. Strain the beets, set aside 3/4 cup of the boiling liquid. Add the liquid to the cous cous and set aside.

Skin the beets. The skin should be easy to remove with one's hands, though it helps to run them under cold water. Slice the beets into 1/2 cm thick slices. Finely chop the oregano, parsley, and garlic. After about 5 minutes, the couscous should cook in the pyrex quickly, add it to a mixing bowl. Combine with the oregano, parsley, garlic, coriander, yogurt, olive oil, and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper and thoroughly mix.

Melt the butter in the same beet boiling saucepan over medium heat. Once the butter is fully melted, add the other liquid ingredients to the sauce. Cook until the sauce appears to thicken; it should be somewhere between water and maple syrup.

Fancy serving suggestion*: Build vertically, alternate layers of beets and couscous. Drizzle the sauce over the beet/couscous stacks.

*I have no idea how this came to me. In fact, this entire recipe was an exercise in building a meal around something I recently purchased and was craving mightily (the golden beets). One might even be able to get a higher beet stack than this. After all, I am terrible at Jenga.

Veal and potato stew

The Goods:

1 lb cubed veal stew meat

1/2 lb fingerling potatoes

1/2 cup frozen peas

1/2 large onion

1 clove garlic

1 sprig parsley

2 bay leaves

4 cups vegetable broth

1/2 oz flour (plus more for dredging)

3/8 oz butter

1 pinch cumin seeds

Spice Rub

1/4 tsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp coarse-ground black pepper

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp ground coriander

1/4 tsp turmeric

1/4 tsp ground cardamom

Place the meat in a seal-able container or zip-lock bag. Add the spice rub, shake vigorously until all of the meat has been coated. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

In a large stock pot, heat a tablespoon of high-heat-friendly oil to medium. Add some flour to the meat container, shake until they have a light coating. Add some of the meat to the pot. It is important not to crowd the meat, so two or more batches may be needed. Sear the meat for approximately 2 minutes per side, or until each side has developed a brown crust. Turn off the heat and set the meat aside on a plate.

Dice the onion and garlic clove. Chiffonade the parsley. Slice the potatoes in half (the smaller ones will not need to be sliced). Place the stock pot back on the burner, set to medium-low. Add the butter (there should still be some residual oil/fat from the meat searing remaining in the pot). When the butter has melted and begun to bubble, add the flour. Cook the roux for a few minutes, stirring often. Add the onions. Sweat the onions for a few more minutes, then add the garlic, cumin seeds, and parsley. After another minute, add the stock. Bring the stock up to temperature, then add the peas, potatoes, and bay leaves. Drop the heat to low and simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the potatoes have softened. Add the meat and simmer for as long as desired. It should have a slightly-thicker-than-soup consistency*.

*Per Ratio, the quantity of roux I've used here won't properly thicken 3 cups of liquid, let alone 4. I was half going for a thinner consistency and half wondering how much the other ingredients would add to the thickening. They did not add much thickening, so I had a thinner stew. By increasing the amount of butter and flour used, a thicker stew may be obtained. After all, in the words of the imitable Agador Spartacus, "Its a stew!"

Shitake and leek calzone

The Goods:

1 leek

1 dozen shitake mushrooms

1 clove garlic

1 sprig parsley

1/3 cup vegetable stock

1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese

biscuit dough*

Prepare the dough. It should take ~ 2 hours. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Finely mince the leek (only the white and white-ish green parts). Chop off the dirty ends of the mushroom stems then dice the mushrooms. In a sautè pan, heat a few spritzes of olive oil to medium heat. Sweat the leeks in the heated oil. After a few minutes, add the mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper. After both vegetables appear soft, but before anything has browned, add the garlic and parsley. Cook together for two minutes, then add the vegetable stock**. Cook off some of the liquid, then remove from the heat. Add the cheese, mix, and set aside.

On a floured surface, roll out the dough as thinly as is possible. Add the vegetable mixture to the middle and fold up into a calzone. Bake for 15 minutes, or until the crust cooks.

The Leeks, pre-mincing.

The vegetables begin to cook.

The finished product.

*This is the dough recipe used here, with the quantities halved.

**I recently made a batch of homemade vegetable stock per Ratio. I really enjoy making vegetable stock because unlike chicken or beef stock, there is no 'special' ingredient one must have on hand (e.g. fresh animal bones). Perhaps this will be a subject for another post.

Butter and parsley spaetzle

The Goods:

7 oz all purpose flour

2 eggs

5 tbsp water

1 pinch nutmeg

several sprigs parsley (about a cup chopped)

butter/olive oil

Place a large pot of water on the stove to boil. Weigh out the floor in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the center. In another, smaller bowl, beat the eggs with the water and nutmeg. Add some of the liquid to the middle of the flour well and mix the flour in gradually. This is a lot harder than it sounds. I find that when doing something like this its best to try to assign one 'wet' hand and one 'dry' hand, but of course even that tends to break down sometimes. Needless to say, one's hands become useless, over gobbed with sticky wet spaetzle dough. If your eggs are of the larger variety, you may need to add slightly more flour. The final dough should not be too wet.

Roll out the dough on a well-floured surface to a thickness of about a centimeter*. Cut a vertical strip about a centimeter thick. Form the spaetzle by cutting this strip into little 1 cm (or desired thickness, but try to be uniform for cooking time purposes) bits. Repeat until all of the dough has been formed into spaetzle.

Once the water is boiling, add salt and the spaetzle. While the spaetzle boils, chop the parsley. Boil until all of the spaetzle floats to the top. It is helpful to test one (or many) spaetzle(s) for done-ness. Drain in a colander, then return to the pot. Add the parsley and a bit of butter/olive oil**. Toss together and serve immediately.

*Some spaetzle recipes preach the utility of extruding one's spaetzle through a colander. This idea is seductive in its simplicity. I mean, hey, not only am I multitasking with the colander (THE VERY TOOL I WILL LATER USE TO DRAIN THE SPAETZLE), but I'm also saving time with the rolling pin, floured surface, etc. Let me say, it is extremely difficult to extrude spaetzle through a colander. The dough is sticky and not terribly flow-able.

**It is all about personal fat preference here. I used a mixture, roughly 1 tbsp butter and 2-3 spritzes of oil.

Hoegaarden/curry steamed mussels

The Goods*:

2 lb mussels

2/3 cup coconut milk**

1/2 cup fresh lemongrass

1 shallot

1 sprig fresh parsley

1 cup Hoegaarden

1/4 tsp ground chili powder

1/4 tsp ground coriander

1/4 tsp ground turmeric

1 pinch ground cumin

1/2 tsp grated galangal***

1 star anise pod

1 black cardamom pod

One needs a stockpot with an integral strainer/steamer (thanks Glenn!) or a metal colander that will fit within a stockpot. Dump the mussels into the strainer and rinse under cold water. Remove any beards that remain and pick out any obvious dead ones****.

Finely slice the shallots and mince the parsley. Slice the lemongrass and muddle together with the chili powder, coriander, turmeric, cumin, and galangal in your favorite mortar and pestle. Spritz some olive oil in the stockpot and set the heat to medium. Sautè them for a couple of minutes, then add the parlsey, lemongrass/spice muddle, star anise pod, and the black cardamom pod. Season with salt and pepper. After a few minutes, before the shallots begin to brown or the spices to burn, add the beer. Raise the temperature to medium high, and insert the colander with the mussels.

Steam for 3-4 minutes (my mussels took a full 4 minutes to fully open), then remove the colander and put the mussels in a bowl. Add the coconut milk to the liquid in the stockpot and cook down to the desired thickness. Pour the liquid over the mussels. Serve with a good crusty bread.

*The inspiration came from an rerun of Good Eats. Alton's original recipe is a bit different. I find the idea of liquefying some of your mussels to thicken the sauce a bit odd (I also lack an immersion blender), hence the thought to use coconut milk and make a sort of curry.

**The Thai Kitchen line of thai products makes a lovely 161 mL (~2/3 cup) single serving can of coconut milk.

***Available in handy pre-grated form (thanks Thai Kitchen!). I have seen fresh galangal at WF, though it is uncommon and camouflages well with the ginger.

****I went kind of food-borne illness crazy while preparing these. It IS normal if they open while you're washing them (HT: McGeary). It is not ok if they refuse to open after cooking.

Ravioli in broccolini sauce

The Goods*:

1 lb frozen cheese ravioli

1 16 oz can peeled chopped tomatoes**

1 bunch broccolini

1/2 medium yellow onion

3 large cloves garlic

1 sprig fresh parsley

1/2 tsp basil

Fill a large pot with water and set on high to boil. Finely dice the onion, garlic, and parsley. Chop the broccolini into bite-sized pieces. Spritz some oil in a sautè pan and set the heat to medium low. Sweat the onions for a few minutes and add the garlic, broccolini, and parsley before they (the onions) brown. Continue to cook for another couple of minutes then add the basil, salt, red and black pepper, and the tomatoes. Raise the heat to high and bring the liquid to a vigorous boil. Continue to keep the heat on high, stirring often, until the sauce has thickened to your desired consistency, then lower the heat to low until the pasta is done. Toss with the drained pasta, serve immediately.

*This might seem like a lot for ravioli with tomato sauce. It really is not. Boiling water for pasta takes time (boiling being the preferred cooking method); this preparation will fill that time and not a whole lot more.

**I would love to substitute fresh tomatoes when they're in season.

Roasted parsnips

The Goods*:

3 medium-sized parsnips

1 clove garlic

olive oil

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Scrub the parsnips under cold water. Trim off the top and slice the parsnips at ~ 1 cm thickness**. Finely mince the garlic. Spritz some olive oil in a pyrex baking dish. Add the parsnips and garlic to the dish; season with kosher salt and ground black pepper. Spritz some more olive oil over the parsnips and toss by hand. Bake for 35 minutes or until the parsnips reach a nice brown color without drying out.

*Last week was a very cooking (at least in my own kitchen!) free week. I'm getting back on the horse, as it were, though gently. I served these parsnips with a duck liver mousse and a hunk of bread. Incidentally, I'm really into parsnips lately. They seem perfect for a cold New England winter.

**The thinner the cut, the faster they'll cook.

Celery root and leek soup

The Goods*:

1.5 ounces flour (~3 tbsp)

1 ounce butter (~2 tbsp)

1 medium-sized leek (white part only)

3 cups milk

1 lb celery root

3 ounces cream

fresh lemon juice

Melt the butter over medium-low heat in your favorite soup-making pot. Add the flour and cook until the color of the roux matches your preferred shade of roux-done-ness. Cut the leek into 1/4" slices. Add the leek slices and a pinch of salt. Be sure to keep the contents of the pan moving to avoid the roux sticking to the bottom of the pan and burning. Cook until they've softened considerably, then add the milk. Allow the milk to come up to a simmer and thicken a bit. Trim the rough outer skin from the celery root. Slice the root into small cubes and reserve some for garnish, if you're into the whole presentation thing**.

Add the celery root chunks and cook in the milk until they are soft. Remove from the heat and add to the blender or food processor (this would be a good place to use an immersion blender). Pass the pureed soup through a strainer. Add the cream and a splash of fresh lemon juice before serving. This will provide five small starter portions, or probably a meal for two.

*This is a much more verbatim following of a Ratio^ recipe. In fact, Ruhlman talks about using Celery Root as the focus vegetable here. I swapped the onion for leek, because I've been on a leek spree of late and they are oh so tasty.

^If you cook at all, even a tiny bit, purchase this book. Today.

**I decided to save some and slice it thinly. I then fried these in canola oil to make celery root chips.

Beef short rib wellington

The Goods:

1.5ish lbs beef short ribs*

2 cups braising liquid

1 medium shallot

4-5 crimini mushrooms

2 tbsp gorgonzola crumbles

1 sprig thyme

1 sprig parsley

Pastry Dough**

9 ounces flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

3 ounces cold butter

6 ounces milk

Remove the beef from the bones (if any). Shred the meat, taking care to remove any large portions of fat. Place in a bowl and set off to the side.

Weight out the dry ingredients for the dough. Weigh out the butter, then dice into very small cubes. Pinching off small portions of butter, incorporate it into the flour mixture so it is well distributed and the butter pieces are no bigger than peas. Add the milk and form the dough. Shape into a 4" by 6" rectangle, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Unwrap the dough and dust it with flour. Dust the working surface with flour. Roll the dough out to about three times its size. Fold in the thirds and roll it out again. Fold in thirds again, press down firmly, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for another hour***. Toll out the dough to a rectangle, cut in half to form two equal squares. These will be the two wellington crusts.

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Add a spritz of olive oil and/or clarified butter to a sauté pan and set the heat to medium-high. Slice the mushrooms, dice the shallot, and finely chop the two herbs. Sauté the mushrooms for a few minutes, then add the shallots and reduce the heat to medium-low. Once the shallots have begun to sweat, add the herbs and braising liquid. Cook this mixture down until the consistency is viscous. Add a tablespoon of gorgonzola to each dough square. Divide the mushroom/shallot reduction evenly between the dough squares. Finally, add the shredded beef to each square. Fold them up by pinching opposite corners together. Place on a baking sheet (folded side down) and brush or drizzle some olive oil over each wellington****. Bake for 20 minutes or until the dough has browned on top and cooked through. Incidentally, someone eating this dish remarked that it kind of looked like a Hot Pocket. This was an incredibly prescient observation. So in summary, this was a beef short rib/mushroom/gorgonzola hot pocket. Definitely not haute cuisine, but as delicious as it sounds.

All photos by Gwen Tuxbury.

*Since my original preparation of beef short ribs, I've become enamored with them. Enough so that when a couple of weeks ago, while strolling through the local Whole Foods meat section, I saw beef short ribs on the bone and had to get them. I braised them just like the last time, but in the Keller-ian manner, allowed them to rest refrigerated in the braising liquid for three days. So this is where the this recipe picks up: three days after braising the short ribs and with several pints of incredibly useful braising liquid on hand.

**Once again, I have another concept from Michael Ruhlman's wonderful book Ratio. In this case, I'm quoting his biscuit dough recipe^ (3 parts flour : 1 part fat : 2 parts liquid). In reality, if one didn't feel highly ambitious, store-bought puff pastry dough would not only be considerably easier, but will certainly have a flakier crust.

^Why I selected biscuit dough instead of pie dough or puff pastry dough is something of a mystery. I think, in hindsight that is, that I was hoping to achieve maximum flakiness with minimum effort. Of course, I could have gotten even MORE flakiness with even LESS effort by using store-bought puff pastry dough. Logic and home cookery sometimes don't get along.

***If one is not pinched for time, this folding procedure can be repeated.

****Brushing egg wash here might be a neat thing to try.