Amy's Food Adventures

Planning Thanksgiving

I like most of America am busily planning for Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays just beyond.  I've read the newspaper articles that argue for abundance but being thrifty and the recipes that throw all caution to the winds.  (Who wants stuffing with foie gras and chestnuts, anyway?)

I don't know about your family but mine are definitely stick-in-the-muds.  I can ADD anything I want to the menu, but subtractions are definitely frowned on.

Over the years, this can lead to a very long menu, just as your family size shrinks.  I threaten rebellion, but no one takes me seriously.

So once again we are having roast turkey with herbed bread stuffing and giblet gravy, three kinds of cranberry sauce (we have four one year), mashed and sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts with bacon and pine nuts, white corn, yeast rolls, and no doubt something else.  And then at least three kinds of pie.  I still haven't figured out whether to have a first course (why?) and what to have for hors d'ouerves.

I know the solution.  Invite more guests!  We have plenty of dishes and silver and everyone offers to serve and clean up so we're only limited by the size of turkey I can lift and the size of our oven (fortunately, the new stove has a big one).  

Now all I have to do is avert my eyes and not read any wonderful recipes between now and the 28th. 

Traditional Food for Rosh Hashonah

Whenever I propose a gourmet feast for a holiday -- Jewish or other -- my family rebels.  They want the food they associate with the holiday.  So for many Jewish holiday dinners that means gefite fish, chicken soup with matzoh balls, brisket in a sweet and spicy onion gravy, a starch and a vegetable (some variability permitted here), my German-style cucumber salad, and a desert that includes both some fruit salad and a cake. 

It's a lot of work!  So I admit I do someo judicious cheating.  You should consider that, too.   Make the things that you do uniquely well and buy high quality repliques for the rest.

So I buy gefilte fish (from a deli that makes that own), but make my own chicken soup and matzoh bals, make the main course, and buy the cake.  I've discovered a new line of side dishes (starches and veggies) in my super market and after I've had a chance to try them I might consider using them, too.

Make sure you decorate everything as if you cooked it yourself.

Whether you confess your little deception is entirely up to you.

Burnt Offerings

I had a plan, formulated after reading several food magazines.  I would roast a chicken and have a hot dinner from it the first night and then use the remains for several other meals.

This was the plan:

Dinner One

Roasted chicken (simpll done, stuffed with lemons, parsley, and garlic, with olive oil and lemon juice squeezed over it, and some salt and pepper).  Cooked at 350 until the skin is crisp and the meat is just cooked through.

A baked sweet potato, cooked beside the chicken

Arugula salad dressed with lemon juice and olive oil

Dinner Two

Sliced cold chicken breast with Mango Chutney and Raita (Yogurt, Shredded Cucumber, and a bit of Cayenne and Cumin)

A Baked Russet Potato to share the Raita

Lightly Cooked String Beans

Dinner Three

A Play on Salad Nicoise

Slices of Chicken with Quarters of Hard-Boiled Egg, Tomato, String Beans, Thin Slices of Red Onion, Slices of Potato (a second baked potato, made with the one for Dinner Two), all drizzled with a dressing of olive oil, red wine vinegar, chopped shallots, and a bit of Dijon Mustard.

Crusty Bread

Dinner Four

Everything that's left of the chicken (including the bones), cut into two-inch pieces and tossed into a soup pot in which a chopped onion, two chopped carrots, and 2 chopped stalks of celery are sauteeing in a few tablespoons of butter.  Toss them with the vegetables and add a quart of chuicken stock (from the grocery store is fine).  Season with bay leaf and thyme and perhaps some fresh parsley and dill.  Go easy on the salt and pepper -- the chicken has some already.  Cook it all for 90 minutes.   Strain the soup and discard the solids.  Serve the soup with your favorite pasta -- I particularly like the fresh filled pastas you can buy at the supermarket in the dairy case.  Offer grated Parmesan and crunchy bread -- and salt and pepper to taste.

That was the plan.  The reality was that I fell asleep after I put the chicken up to roast and awakened after it had been in the oven for nearly three hours.  Fortunately, I didn't burn down the house, but my ideas of a string of meals all made easy by previous efforts went from the roasting pan into the garbage can and I had a cheese sandwich for dinner!

It's Too Hot to Cook

It's been over 90 degrees for six days in Philadelphia and it will stay that way for at least a few more.  I'm melting.  Outdoor activities seem impossible.   Even sitting on my flower-filled terrace (usually breezy) under the umbrella, isn't inviting.

What to have for dinner?  It must be cold and require little or no cooking.

I'm thinking of my favorite Middle Eastern Cucumber Soup -- just blend a quart of non-fat yogurt (Greek if you have it) with 2 peeled and seeded cucumbers cut in chunks, a clove or two of peeled garlic, a few tablespoons of red wine vinegar, and lots of fresh dill (I get carried away and use a whole bunch, but not the stems).  Chill in the refrigerator and stir before serving.  If you want a very light meal, just serve it with some delicious bread or float a few medium size shrimp on top of each glass bowl of pale green coolness.

If you (and your guests) will need more, I suggest saving the shrimp.  Make a salad, laying a bed of mixed small lettuces (Mesclun) and fresh herbs into a big shallow bowl.  Top it with chunks or thin slices of ripe tomato or halved cherry tomatoes, sprinkle with thin slivers of sweet onion (red or white), and then top with lots of cold shrimp (buy them cooked and cleaned from a good fish market -- let them do the work).  If you want you can add other goodies -- halved artichoke hearts in olive oil, guardineria, and ribbons of very fresh zuchini would all taste good.  I usually mix a bowl of lemon or lime vinaigrette dressing and toss it at the table for the freshest taste.  And I'd provide some interesting bread, butter, and a slab of cheese for the really hungry.

Dessert is obviously fruit, fresh berries gently washed and placed in a large bowl with my berry spoon and a pitch of cream -- it's too hot to even whip it!

The Myth of American Regional Cooking -- and an Antidote

There is a myth that the best (perhaps the only) real American cooking is regional cooking, cooking specific to the settlers and migrants to a particular region and the things that grow there.  Once that might have been true and occasionally -- particularly at the very high end -- you may find something wonderful.  (I am thinking wistfully of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, CA, Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Westchester County, New York, and any lobster roll eaten at the end of a pier in New England on a sunny day.)

The reality is that in most places authentic regional food has been overtaken by bevies of chain restaurants, not just at the Macdonalds and Wendys level, but also at the $50 and up dining experience.  Everywhere we are offered the same homogenized foods and experiences at places I would never eat at in my own home town, where I know where to find great food at every level from a juicy hamburger to Fine French Cuisine.

In the great cities there are still authentic experiences (and new restaurants experimenting with nearly anything, some of which may be very pleasant).  But when you go to a tourist area (and there are lots of reasons to do that -- children to entertain and educate, historic sites or relatives to visit, foreign guests to expose to Americana), one falls into a deep culinary abyss -- except for the traditional American breakfast, which is available everywhere.

To the extent that any native cuisine still exists, it is likely to be bastardized, combined with gift shops and petting zoos, railroad museums and golf courses.  You are likely to be sent away from the Pennsylvania Dutch country surrounding Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for example, convinced that the settlers existed entirely on protein and carbohydrates.  We went to a polite but entirely formulaic (and expensive) steak house for dinner, just to be guaranteed that we could get a salad. 

Since we're on the east coast, summer means frequent forays to the New Jersey, New England, or Maryland sea shore.  There are still some authentic Italian restaurants and  seafood houses tucked  away here and there, but even then one must be careful to avoid  pompous places that pretend to be seafood houses but are really Continental Restaurants in disguise (complete with truly dreadful wine lists and waitresses who  know nothing about either wine or fish). 

We have worked out a returning home strategy from weekend trips, however.  Dinner is always Chinese (takeout or not) or Philadelphia Cheese Steaks and Hoagies.  At least we can vouch for their authenticity.

Something Quick

Sometimes you thought the weekend would be over by Sunday brunch, but it wasn't.  Guests lingered and it became clear that dinner would be required. 

What to do?  Sometimes we just go out to dinner -- Chinese being the preferred solution. 

But sometimes it's just so pleasant sitting in the garden or watching the ballgame that going out isn't going to be the right solution.  In that case, something quick and easy is called for.

In the summer time, for me that always means a cold soup or a big salad plus something grilled or quickly sauteed and a little something on the side.  Ice cream usually suffices for dessert, with perhaps some berries drizzled over the top.

Here are some menus we've served recently:

• Gazpacho with Garlic Croutons
• Thin Pork Chops in Mustard Cream Sauce
• Steamed Rice
• Steamed Green Beans
• Vanilla Ice Cream with Blue Berries

• Caesar Salad
• Grilled Porterhouse Steak, Thinly Sliced
• Oven Fried Sweet Potoatoes with Cumin and Cayenne
• Coffee Ice Cream with Raspberries

• Cold Cucumber Yogurt Soup with Dill
• Grilled Butterflied Leg of Lamb with Olive Oil, Oregano and Garlic
• Pilaf
• Greek Salad with Mint/Oregano/Garlic Vinaigrette
• Mixed Berries with Greek Yogurt and Honey

Summer is for Simplicity

We are having to be inventive this summer.  My condo manager informed me that although I have one of the four (of 81) condos with an open terrace, I may no longer have a barbecue.  I'm in the process of trying to sell the condo and move to a house, so this is but a temporary setback, but it did require rethinking our first outdoor meal.

In the past, we've often cooked outside and eaten inside.  Now, I think we may be cooking (grilling) inside and eating outside, since the terrace is at its best in the evening, wrapped in flowers and breezes.

For a debut meal, we tried out my new Cuisinart Pannini Grill, which made very good hot dogs and hamburgers (we always go with an all-American theme first).  They shared the table with a great Tomato Salad (recipe follows), corn on the cob (not bad for so early in the season), my daughter's superlative Baked Beans, and a big bowl of mixed berries.

Tomato Salad is an all-summer dish at our house and comes in many variations.  We sometimes even eat it out of season (if we can get reasonably good tomatoes, such as grape tomatoes or cherry tomatoes on the vine).  First make vinaigrette.  Our house standard is two of extra virgin olive oil to one of balsamic vinegar, seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground pepper.  Sometimes we use red wine vinegar and occasionally we make a salad which has many more cucumbers (half tomatoes and half cucumbers) with no oil at all and mild Japanese vinegar.

To the dressing we add the best ripe tomatoes we can find.  For us that means local farm-grown big tomatoes in season (we're already there) or grape or vine tomatoes otherwise.  Later in the season, we'll be able to get baskets of mixed heirloom tomatoes which will go right in.  Then you need to decide what else?  We always add some onion -- red, sweet white (Vidalila right now), shallot, and perhaps one clove of minced garlic.  We often add some cucumber (peeled, quartered lengthwise, seeds removed, and sliced -- as much as you like.  At this time of year it's more of a condiment than an ingredient.  Then we pick an herb.  Basil would be the choice right now, but at other times it might be parsley or dill (especially when the salad is half cucumber and no oil).  How much?  A few handfuls, chopped or julienned.  Everything but the herb can be mixed together and left out at room temperature for a few hours.  Mix in the herb just before serving.  Expect people to want seconds.

If you have leftover, this makes a good base for Gazpacho.  Just add to Tomato Juice or V-8 with some more garlic and whatever else seems not enough and whirl in the blender.

Surviving Passover

Every Year we end up with lots of food (naturally) that we prepared for holiday dinner and that no one ate.  It's a Jewish tradition to make sure that there's plenty of food and that seems to mean there's plenty of leftovers.

Some of them are good leftovers.  There's no trouble getting rid of leftover chopped liver or matzo ball soup.  Some leftovers are perfectly good, it's just that no one particularly wants to eat them.  Since none of us want to throw them out (another Jewish tradition), figuring out how to be inventive could be considered part of surviving Passover.  Here are a few of the tricks I've come up with over the years. 

Everything depends, of course, on what you decided to serve.  Our main courses usually rotate between roasted chicken(s), brisket, roast beef, and leg of lamb.  If we have a lot of people coming, we sometimes make two main courses just to make sure everyone's happy.

Roast chicken is usually the least problem.  It's good eaten cold (or at room temperature).  My rule is don't reheat it unless you're putting it into some kind of sauce -- it gets too dry.  We do sometimes cut it up and make it into a Chicken Tetrazinni.  Very old fashioned.  If you're Kosher, you can make this with a milk or cream substitute.  Cut up the chicken into large chunks (1" is good).  Make a medium white sauce (2 tablespoons of butter or margarine to 2 tablespoons of flour or potato starch to 1 cup of milk o milk substitute).  You need about oone cup of white sauce to every cup of chicken.  Cook 2 cups of Passover noodles (yes, they have them now) lightly, drain, and mix with the white sauce, which you have seasoned with salt and pepper and freshly grated nutmeg.  Mix in the chicken.  If you like you can also add some cut up, cooked, broccoli, spinach (well drained), or aspargus.  Place all into a buttered or sprayed casserole and place in a 350 oven for about 20 minutes until heated through and bubbling.

You can also take leftover roast chicken and use it in the Lamb Curry recipe below.

Brisket isn't usually a problem unless you don't have enough gravy left.  Here are some suggestions if that happens.  We have made a very successful second round gravy by browning (long and slowly) an onion or two, thinly sliced, with a clove or two of garlic.  You may then add your choice of a cup of chicken broth (don't use beef broth unless it's home made) and season and cook a bit to amalgamate everything, or a 16-oz can of tomato sauce and then include some thyme with the seasoning, again cooking a bit.  We have a friend who always cooks extra Prune Tzimmes (and keeps it tucked away) so he can use it as a sauce for the leftover brisket.

I usually just serve roast beef and roast lamb at room temperate, sliced thinly, fat removed, and served with a hot vegetable (a baked potato or a potato gratin is good) and a relish (like a chutney).  Again, like the chicken, I don't think they're improved by reheating, unless they're going into a sauce.  The only successful reheated roast beef dish I know is an old trick where the roast beef is sliced thinly, and placed in a casserole with a sauce like the onion sauce described in the brisket paragraph above, covered with some buttered crumbs (you can try matzo meal or matzo crumbs if it's still Passover) and heated in a hot oven. 

For lamb, I usually create a Kashmiri Lamb Curry.  Cube the lamb into 3/4=1" pieces.  Chop a large onion.  Chop two cloves of garlic and a 1" piece of fresh ginger.  Zest a lemon and juice it.  Peel an apple and a pear (or two of either) and cut them into small chunks (1/2").  You will also need 1/2 cup of raisins, yellow or black, 2 tablespoons of curry powder (we use Hot Madras, but you may choose a brand and heat of your liking), and 2 tblespoons of potato starch or flour, plus 2 cups of chicken stock and one cup of white wine or vermouth (you may use all chicken stock).

Heat 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil, butter, or margarine in a large saute pan and soften the onion and garlic and ginger. Add the lamb and stir into the onion mixture. Add the apple and pear and soften.   Add the flour and curry powder and stir for 30 seconds to blend in the flour.  Add the chicken stock and wine and blend in thoroughly, scraping in any brown bits.  Add the  lemon juice and raisins.  Bring to a simmer, lower the heat, and cook for 20 minutes until heated through.  Add the lemon zest and serve.  (If it's not Passover or you are of the Sephardic tradition, serve with rice.)

Time for the Holidays

In less than two weeks it will be Rosh Hashonah, the Jewish New Year, and we will serve our traditional dinner of Chicken Soup with Matzoh Balls, Gefilte Fish (purchased these days), and Brisket in Onion Gravy with a starch, a vegetable, and cucumber salad.

My recipes for brisket and cucumber salad are already on this blog, so I thought I'd give you the Wohl Master Recipe for Chicken Soup and Matzoh Balls.  Besides, I just got recipes from my friend Jonathan Hirshon and I want to be able to show him how I do it.

The chicken soup is easy -- just lots of fresh stuff into the pot.

1. I always make chicken soup on the French principle -- if you are going to get all the chicken flavor into the soup, the chicken itself will be trash at the end of the cooking.  I use chicken leg quarters, four pounds.  (Chicken backs would be better and more economical but they're very hard to get these days.)  I rinse them off and put them into the pot with a quart of chicken soup (the low fat, low salt kind that comes in a box).
2. Next I add the vegetables - 1 peeled large onion, 2 peeled small turnips, 2 peeled small parsnips, 4 peeled carrots (or a bag or the little guys), 2-3 leeks, well washed and split, a clove of peeled garlic, 2 stalks of celery with the leaves, a large handful of parsley and a bunch of dill.
3. Add water to cover.
4. Add seasoning:  1-2 teaspoons of sea salt, 1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper, 1 teaspoon of dried thyme, 2 bay leaves.
5. Bring to a boil, turn down to a simmer, and cook for 1 hour.
6. Drain through a fine sieve.Discard the chicken and vegetables.
7. If you like carrots in your soup, cook several thinly sliced carrots and a handful of chopped dill in the soup when you warm it for serving  We usually chill it first and remove the fat before rewarming for serving.  This means making it the day before is best.
8. If you like chicken in your soup, put several breasts (on the bone) into the soup for the last 20 minutes of cooking.  Take them out before straining the soup and reserve.  Remove skin and bones and shred the chicken to add to the soup or use as lovely poached chicken.

Meanwhile, make the matzoh balls.  These are the fluffy ones.  The secret to fluffy is really simple (if you like them this way, which is our family tradition)  just be sure not to add too much matzoh meal and don't make balls -- the compacting makes them dense.  Just scoop the mixture lightly with a spoon and drop it into the soup.  The irregularity of the shapes adds to its charm. 

We use the recipe right off the matzoh meal box, multiplied up because I always make it based on 12 eggs (we like lots to eat and lots of leftovers).

1. Whisk  12 eggs or use 3 cups of egg substitute (works great).
2. Whisk into the eggs 3/4 cup of water and 3/4 cup of vegetable oil. 
3. Slowly mix in (don't use the whisk, it will become enmired) 3 cups of matzoh meal.)
4. You can season with a teaspoon of sea salt (or more to taste) and 1/4 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper.
5. Cover with plastic wrap and put into the refrigerator for 45-60 minutes to firm up.

Meanwhile, bring a large, wide pot of water to the boil. 

Scoop the matzoh meal mixture up by the spoonful (I use a big mixing spoon that holds about two tablespoons but you can make them any size) and drop them into the boiling water.  A twist of the spoon will help them drop into the water.  You may need to wash the spoon from time to time.  I also spray it with vegetable oil spray.

Cover the pot (but leave the lid slight;y ajar) and cook for at least 50 minutes.  Test the matzoh balls until they are cooked through.  It always takes longer than you think it will -- mine usually take about 75 minutes.

If you're serving soon, remove with a slotted spoon into the soup for rewarming.  Otherwise remove to a plastic container, gently fill with cold water, cover and refrigerate for up to three days.  Makes lots (about 18-20 depending on size).

Gone Fishing

I love fresh fish.  The key word is fresh.  Fortunately I live in an area with several real fish stores and a Whole Foods with a great fish department.  That means I can have pretty much anything that's avaiable all the time.

For the last few years, I've tried to eat fish at least twice a week.  That's easy -- there's so much to choose. 

Some favorites:

• Grilled salmon with or without a glaze -- just keep it pretty rare.
• Barely charred tuna -- grilled on the outside, rare to raw in the middle, served with a sauce or a salsa.
• Any thin, white, delicate filet sauteed in a little butter and served in a lemon butter sauce.  Takes five minutes.
• Crab cakes (I don't make them -- I just buy them uncooked from someone who only makes them with lump crabmeat and seasoning and nothing else), broiled until golden brown.  I like cocktail sauce with these -- you may prefer tartar sauce or a salsa.
• Secret Fish - a recipe a first tried at my good friends' Ned and Ray when they lived in Estes Park at 9,800 feet in the Rockies.  So easy.  Spray a casserole large enough to hold the fish filets you're going to cook.  scatter some peeled garlic cloves (how many is up to you -- I usually use 3-4 per serving) over the pan.  Place the fish filets on top.  Cover with a jar (more or less) of Salsa -- as spicy as you like.  I love the Green Mountain Hot for this.  Bake for about 30 minutes until the salsa bubbles and the fish flakes.