Cook Until Done

Shad Roe

2011-03-28T18:05:00.000-07:00

My mother used to serve shad roe every spring. I remember that it was weird but I liked it, especially when it was served with bacon. So when I visited Connolly's fish market recently and saw a beautiful pair of roe I snatched it up, even though my failures at cooking roe have outnumbered my successes. I don't usually eat bacon any more, and I didn't want to buy a whole pound just to use a strip or two, but I crossed my fingers and reached for James Beard.

"It seems to be a dish that has but two extremes -- wonderful and horrible." Just my memory. I read on. His favorite recipe, clearly, is "smothered shad roe", which involves an unconscionable amount of butter and some bacon. I read the recipe for broiled shad roe, which included the sentence: "Personally, I think that to parboil and then broil shad roe is to make it unfit for human consumption." Unfit it often is, and I remembered somehow having done that to it in years past.

I then reached for the tried and true Joy of Cooking. All the entries under shad roe called for canned roe, and all the recipes under roe (which was also shad roe) started with parboiling. Rombauer and Becker agree that overcooked shad is tasteless. I decided to go with Beard's approach, remembering that in Julie and Julia Rombauer is portrayed as not ever having considered testing the recipes in Joy. To ease the quantity of butter I used 1/2 butter and 1/2 canola oil.

James Beard's smothered shad roe: melt and warm 3 oz of butter (I used about 1 and 1/2 oz. with an equal amount of oil) per pair of roe. Dip the roe in the melted butter; then cover the pan and simmer over a low flame for about 12 to 15 minutes. turning once. I did this, and served it with boiled whole wheat pasta dressed with sun dried tomatoes and shitake mushrooms, and a Sarah salad (post coming shortly).

It was delicious!

Seafood Risotto

2010-09-13T17:37:00.000-07:00

The foolproof way to make a risotto is with barley, but you don't get quite the creamy texture. I spent the morning at Williams Sonoma at a "risotto technique class" and on the way home I gathered up ingredients for mine. (It was much better than theirs!) I went to Connolly's and got 2 fish frames for the stock (if you decide to follow this recipe, take a look at my fish stock guidelines) and about 3/4 of a pound each of bay scallops, squid, and large shrimp. At Market Basket I got several different brands of Arborio rice (the rice they used at WS was wicked expensive and not noticeably better to my mind).
I started the fish stock. For the risotto, I diced one onion and sauteed it in butter and good olive oil in my 6 qt. pot (not as nice as theirs, but I think a better shape). Then I added minced garlic and sliced shitake mushrooms (I'd put the stems in the stock). When the vegetables were soft I added the squid, sliced thin, along with the scallops and the shrimp (peeled -- I added the peels to the stock). The problem was that the fish, except for the shrimp, was very small, and I wanted to remove it before I added the rice. I used a pair of tongs and got most of it out, but there was not much oil or butter left so I added some.
The rice went in next --the idea is to sautee it till the rice is translucent and you can see the white in the center. Not sure I got there, and I think the oil was quite moist because of the fish. Eric was visiting and asked that I not put any wine in the rice. I don't think it made any difference in the final result.
By the time the rice was ready to be moistened the fish stock had come to a boil several times. I used a measuring cup to ladel out stock, approximately 1 cup each time (or a bit less). At WS they had stirred the risotto until the liquid was absorbed each time and then added more, so I followed that process. I think it works well -- perhaps helps the rice to release more liquid.
When the rice was tender enough -- still a bit al dente -- I added the fish. Another problem -- the fish had a good amount of liquid so the addition brought the rice to a bit beyond al dente. I grated some asagio cheese and added that.
It was really good. The next time all I'll change is finding a way to cook the fish so that it doesn't mess up the rice. I think if there is so much of it and it's cut small it will need to be prepared separately. Maybe cooked first, and then strained so that the liquid can be mixed into the rice as it cooks.
What else did we have? Bread, and a salad of summer greens and tomatoes from the garden. I'm growing Polish Linguica Tomatoes this year -- no kidding! They are really good. And a great way to prepare a tomatoe salad is to cut the tomatoe up and mix it with vinegar (and herbs and onion etc if you want). Let them sit while you prepare dinner and then strain the juice off and make the salad as usual.

Mussels from OWL

2010-05-25T16:27:00.000-07:00

This past weekend Chief, Wyatt, and I gathered mussels from the beach at the Old Wharf Lot. They had been plentiful several years ago, but in the past couple of years my favorite places were barren, and a few red tides had gotten me quite out of the habit. Sunday the two grandboys and I found an amazing trove of them hidden under seaweed on the rocks at low tide. We brought up lots -- really too many. I cooked them for dinner, along with spaghetti and a salad. The boys stuck to the spaghetti and the salad.
Saturday night we'd gone to the Lobster Pool and I'd ordered mussels. Why, Chief wanted to know, were the mussels so much smaller. "The ones I crack for bait to catch crabs fill up the whole shell." I explained that when the mussels cook they shrink. But truth to tell the Lobster Pool mussels were quite overcooked. The ones I cooked were much bigger and much tastier. However, they were also quite gritty. Cleaning mussels means scraping lots of stuff -- mostly beards and barnacles -- off, and I had definitely short changed the process.
To try to clean them a bit more I boiled some water and steamed them briefly, no doubt sacrificing a major bit of flavor. Then I transferred them to a pot where I'd sauteed peppers -- red and green, plus a small hot Thai pepper -- plus an onion in oil. I added some white wine and the water I'd steamed them in, which I'd strained to try to catch sand and stuff. As they opened I turned off the heat and served them in the cooking pot.
We ate them for dinner, and for lunch the next day, and... and finally I threw the last few away.

Christmas 2009

2009-12-26T09:22:00.000-08:00

This is to remind myself about our Christmas festivities. I always forget what comes first, and so does everyone else. So here's the 2009 schedule:
1:30 or so -- Paddle Tennis
4:00 or so -- People get here
4:30 or so -- open presents. This year there were 16 grandkids -- 8 under eleven, 8 over. Secret Santa was just the grandkids, and there were a few random other presents. Great Uncle Evan, as always, played Santa. The under-elevens were so pumped about presents that it was the earlier the better, so we started a bit before the Sards and Michaeline were there.
Then we eat... More on that in the next post.
And the we light the candles and sing caroles until the candles burn down.
And then we sat around in the kitchen -- whoever was left -- and just hung out.

fusion stir fry

2009-04-25T18:07:00.000-07:00

The stir fry included onions, garlic, shrimp, a can of water chestnuts, and chopped fennel and broccoli rabe. I used plain vegetable oil (maybe soy?), added a bit of hot sesame oil at the very end, and served it with soy sauce. The brocsolli rabe and fennel were already sending it in a kind of Italian direction, so I served it with orzo, to which I added both butter and sesame seeds. That's it!!

Back to my basics

2009-04-15T18:57:00.001-07:00

For some reason, I have not made a simple vegetable stir fry with rice for ages. Last night Duncan's train was late, so we decided not to go to the poetry reading at the Pleasant Street Tea Company. We got to the library just before closing and picked out 3 DVD's to take home. Duncan chose which one to watch while I made a quick supper.
I made a quick stir fry in the wok with sliced onions, garlic, ginger sauteed in vegetable oil (soy, I think). When the vegetables were soft I added cubed tofu (firm, or extra firm?), and then broccoli in small pieces which I microwaved for a couple of minutes, and sliced red cabbage which I added to the broccoli for the last minute. A bit of hot pepper sauce, and then chopped fresh parsley and basil, completed the stir fry.
I served it with rice to which I added about a half cup of carrot juice (because the rice came out kind of dry).
The movie was fabulous -- After the Wedding, a Danish film. We ate the stir fry with chopsticks. Ever notice how hard it is to eat with chopsticks and watch a subtitled movie?

Monkfish Vietnamese style

2009-03-13T18:30:00.000-07:00

Monkfish was under $8 per pound today at Conneley's. I bought about a pound and three quarters to feed me, Eric, Don, and Duncan -- and then realized that Lee might be arriving as well. I added shrimp (I try to keep a few pounds in my freezer), and they were a good addition.
When I think of monkfish I think of that wonderful picture of Julia Child holding what looks something like a huge oil spill. She is holding the fish above her head with one hand; its head is resting on the floor. It is surely ugly!
Monkfish have the consistency of lobsters and very little flavor. I looked up how Julia cooks them, but decided to use Vietnamese flavors and preparation. Here goes (it was good, of course, otherwise I wouldn't bother you with it):
Use a large, flat pan (I used a wok, but think my paella pan would have worked better). Warm up olive oil (1/3 cup?) and saute one chopped onion, 2 or 3 minced cloves of garlic, and a good bit of chopped ginger. Add about one half small head of white cabbage, shredded, and mix around with the other stuff. I also added chopped brocolli stems and some shrimp.
Cut the monkfish into serving size pieces and place them in a mixing bowl. Add fish sauce, lemon and lime juice, soy sauce, and a bit of hot sesame oil. I would have added plain sesame oil as well, but I've run out. Mix this and let the monkfish marinate briefly. Then add the fish to the cabbage mixture, burying each piece of fish in the cabbage. Turn the ingredients over several times as you cook them on medium to high heat. Child says to make sure they cook through but not so long as to begin to fall apart. I think it took about 10 minutes.
I served it with brocolli and pasta.

Winter Salads

2009-03-09T18:37:00.000-07:00

Last spring and summer my garden produced the most wonderful lettuce and other greens. We had salad after salad, with rich, complex tastes and "toothiness". Evening is time to go out and pick whatever is ready to go into the salad -- kale, lettuce, herbs, and at this remove I can't even remember what else. I just know that yesterday, which by my reckoning was the first day of spring (count them from the first nice one in March or you may not get any), I began to think about starting lettuce in a cold frame. I've never done that before.
Between last summer's salads and now there's a long time. You have to have salad in the winter, but I just can't any more serve those pallid bowls full of "annie's organic greens" from Chile or California, packed in plastic and containing at least a couple of black and wilted leaves. So I've invented winter salads.
1. I use a lot of Romaine lettuce. No one thinks that Romaine is gourmet -- it's the new iceberg. You buy a bag of three heads in a sealed plastic bag. Sometimes I wash it, sometimes I don't. I usually cut it with a sharp knife, starting with the leafy end and slicing in 1/2" (or so) pieces. It keeps for a long time in the fridge and can be added to my "winter salad" no matter what other ingredients I use.
2. I usually make the dressing with cider vinegar. I have a quart bottle of Bragg Raw Unfiltered Organic Apple Cider Vinegar. According to Cooks Illustrated, vinegar lasts just about forever, and that's been my experience. I find the raw, acidic taste of cider vinegar perfect for winter salads. (Sometimes I use rice wine vinegar.) I use the exellent oilve oil that my brother in law Evan keeps be supplied in.
3. The other ingredients of a "winter salad" might be -- thinly sliced -- cabbage (white or red, or savoy), bok choy, endive, radicchio, spinach. I sometimes add grated carrot, fresh parsley, fennel -- kind of whatever is in the fridge. The fennel adds a really nice texture and flavor.
4. My brother Eric is staying with us and he doesn't do well with raw onions. So I often slice a red onion and marinte it in baslamic vinegar and serve so that people can add it as they want.

Your commets please, and more to come...

Fish en Papillote

2009-03-01T19:41:00.000-08:00

I picked up a copy of Cook's Illustrated when I was in DC. I'd never really looked at it before. I am intrigued. The tone is forthright, conversational; the approach is empirical. They try things; they tell you what worked and what didn't.
Tonight I tried two of their recipes. Or, I followed some hints and remade a couple of their recipes.
One is Fish en Papillote. Here's what I did:
I bought 1/2 pound of fresh pollock and 1/2 pound of Maine shrimp (qv). Each was $3.99 per pound. I mixed the shrimp with cubed pollack, cut about the size of the shrimp, added chopped baby bok choy (two small heads) and 1/4 of a white onion, also chopped and mixed with a bit of sesame oil and a few drops of hot sesame oil and sweated in the microwave for a couple of minutes. I added the juice from 1/2 a lime and divided the mixture onto three sheets of aluminum foil, covered each sheet with another sheet, and crimped the edges to make three packages. (Eric reminded me that aluminum was a suspected contributor to Alzheimers -- I'll try parchment the next time.)
Since I was going to put them into a hot oven to cook I decided to try Cooks Illustrated's method for rice, slightly altered. I started long grain brown rice in a heavy metal pot on the top of the stove, added a couple of tablespoons of chopped ginger (it gives the rice a great flavor), and when the rice was simmering, the laundry was folded, and the oven was hot, transferred the rice to the oven.
When the rice was cooked (a bit over cooked, in fact), I turned the oven to 450, waited a minute or so, and put the papillotes in the oven on a rimmed baking tray (they can get pretty full of liquid). I left them in for about 15 minutes and served one per person. They were excellent -- full of juices that flavored the rice, tasty, not overcooked. I was quite delighted and ready to learn how to fold parchment, even though Cook's compares it to having to do origami.
I served it with asparagus, two pounds of it to make up for the skimpiness of the dinner, which I cooked in the microwave in two minute intervals -- three in all, I think. The microwave cooks from the inside out -- the asparagus was warm and tender and crisp.
Check out Cook's. The idea for the fish and the rice came from the April 2009 issue.

Dinners with Becky and Mark

2009-02-27T16:42:00.000-08:00

I'm visiting my friend Becky in Washington DC. We went to college together; after college we traveled through Europe and then lived together in Paris for a half a year or so. I'd never cooked before. I started to learn to cook from her.
We lived in half an apartment in the 16th arrondissment (the fanciest one) in Paris. Madame, our widowed landlady, lived in the other half. In French fashion, she kept the kitchen, we had the bathroom. She used our bathroom to take a full bath once a month or so.
So my first cooking experience was in the bathroom, cooking on a hotplate, one of us sitting on the toilet, the other on the bidet, stirring our dinner in the bathroom. We put groceries on the fire escape to keep them cool, and shopped for dinner on the way home from work at l'Ecole Berlitz, where we both worked teaching English to our mostly French students.
Becky's still a cook, and so now am I. Her kitchen has most of the same things to cook with that mine does. She and her husband Mark are going through some nasty health issues and I'm here cooking and helping get the car inspected -- and making more messes than I want, like spilling coffee on the dining room rug and freezing the lock on the porch door.
The first night we served up a bunch of leftovers. For the second night I cut up a bunch of vegetables that were almost over the edge -- cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, celery. I started by sauteeing garlic and onion and a few red peppers, then added the vegetables and a cup or so of water. Hmmm. How do you get this to taste like vegetables but not too bland? Becky had a jar of Nellie's African Sauce, mild. I added a couple of big tablespoonfuls.
Then, we went shopping at Whole Foods. I had planned to cook a chicken, but we'd gone to get the car inspected and the chicken would take too long. So I found some haddock -- a long way from Gloucester -- and poached it in the vegetable broth. It was good.
Tonight we did the chicken. The 4lb. roaster from Whole Foods was super. I cut up a lone potato, an onion, and a weary bag of little carrots. Becky produced a beautiful blue pottery roasting pan from Poland. I added the vegetables to the pan and tossed them in olive oil, and found fresh thyme in the 'fridge which I put in the "cavity" along with about 7 or 8 whole cloves of garlic.
Joy of Cooking suggests a preheated 400 degree oven for an hour or so, plus a 15 minute wait before carving. I melted butter and olive oil and dribbled it over the chicken, and then dribbled a bit more a half an hour later. After an hour the chicken was not quite done. We upped the temperature to 425 for fifteen minutes and then let it sit for a while before carving. It was delicious. The vegetables were wonderful. I hope they use all this to make a great soup next week!
Becky's daughter Alexandra has a brussels sprouts recipe which we did tonight. You cut the sprouts in half, melt butter and olive oil in a frying pan, sautee chopped garlic and then remove it from the pan, then place the sprouts carefully, face down, in one layer in the pan. Sautee the sprouts until they are close to cooked, then add the garlic back in and stir it all around.
I'm going to try this with big pieces of garlic - maybe half a clove each.

Mexican wraps

2009-02-03T17:59:00.000-08:00

We have a wonderful restaurant in Gloucester called Jalapenos. Is that why I've been cooking more TexMex lately? Or because I got a crock pot and started cooking more beans, and one way to serve them is in a wrap? In any case, I've been searching for the perfect wrap, and here it is.

Joseph's Flax, Oat Bran & Whole Wheat Flour Lavash Bread. It's great for any kind, any cuisine's idea of a roll up, and works well with cheese and beans and sour cream and avocados.

It's a wrap, as they say on the label.

Beans in a pot

2009-02-01T15:15:00.000-08:00

My friend Mary Kay Timm lived in Lincoln, MA, about 10 minutes from my home in Sudbury. Our sons were friends. She was a potter. I still have several great cooking pots she made. She's no longer a potter, and now her name is Yanna Coffin, and she lives in Gloucester, about 10 minutes from my home in Gloucester.
One of Yanna's pots is round and tall. It rounds in just over half way up, and has a small lid. It's a perfect bean pot. I've also cooked rice in it. A few days ago I was looking through my cookbooks and came upon the rice recipe I used to cook in Yanna's pot. It's in the Deaf Smith County Cookbook that my brother's first wife, Beth, gave me years ago. Beth and I cooked and gardened together.
A few days ago I cooked beans in Janna's pot. As far as I can remember it was red beans with an onion, some garlic, a bit of red pepper -- I didn't actually serve them as a meal. My brother Eric, who had them for dinner while we were away, said they were a bit "crunchy." I refried the beans and used them in echiladas a few days ago, but there was still a half pot left tonight, and Judith, who had prodded me for not posting recipes, was coming for dinner.
So -- I sauteed an onion in olive oil, added some chopped garlic and a diced pepper and a chopped mushroom. To this I added a cup of brown basmati rice, stirred it, and then added a bit of white wine. To cook the rice I poured in a large can of crushed tomatoes, brought it to a simmer, and simmered it till the rice was beginning to get soft.
Heeding Eric's warning that the beans were still crunchy, I put the bean pot in the oven at 250 degrees. I added the rice to the bean pot before the rice was cooked. The pot is still in the oven -- I'll edit the post after dinner and let you know how it turned out!
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A couple of hours later: We watched the beautiful match between Nadal and Federer and ate the beans and rice. It was excellent. Judith and I figured out that I must have added cumin to the beans -- it made a wonderful smoky base of flavor to the whole dish. Thank you Judith, thank you Yanna/Mary Kay, thank you Beth.
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Duncan, Eric, and I are having the third night of "beans in a pot." I sliced and fried two chicken sausages with one green pepper, and a can of corn to add a bit of liquid. I also snuck in a bit more cumin. We warmed it up in a 250 oven, then added the extras and served it with lavash flat bread, grated cheese, and a bit of sour cream (all we had left was a bit). Reminds me of a recipe I wrote down years ago: chicken for three days in one pot.

squash and salad for dinner

2008-12-19T05:35:00.000-08:00

-- another one of those "no food in the house" dinners --

You can keep winter squash for months. Frozen vegetables, though they don't hold a candle to fresh ones, keep for years. Onions and garlic and ginger root are keepers -- I'm never without them. Leftovers can make the difference between boring and great. This dinner surprised me!

Cut one butternut squash in half lengthwise and remove the seeds. Moisten with a bit of oil and/or butter and put on a baking sheet in a 375 degree oven. It takes about 45 minutes for the squash to cook -- keep testing it with a fork "until done."

Chop an onion and stir fry it in a wok in some olive oil. Add chopped garlic and chopped ginger (I probably would have added chopped peppers if I'd had any). Meanwhile steam a pound of frozen small brussels sprouts until somewhere between thawed and almost cooked. Drain and add them to the wok, and stir them into the onion mixture. I added a bit of chopped lime rind and the juice of about 1/4 lime and 1/2 lemon (the leftovers in the icebox), some hot sesame oil and some regular sesame oil -- I think that was it. Probably would have been good also with some sesame seeds. Keep stirring till the sprouts are cooked.

To serve, spoon the sprouts into the hole in the squash and around the squash (the sprouts won't all fit in the hole). This with a fairly large squash fed three of us with some to spare.

The salad: chop a fennel root and put it in your salad bowl. Add some diced cheese (I had some little bits of very good cheese from Ned's Groceria left over from a few weeks before). Add the vinegar (balsamic was good) and toss. Then chop a head of romaine lettuce, add that to the bowl, add the olive oil and toss it all well. I also added about a quarter cup of shredded cheese (left over from a package one of Duncan's students had given him) and a small handfull of slivered almonds.

I put the leftover third of a baguette in the oven for the last few minutes of squash cooking.

I had planned to serve the leftover lentils from the night before, and to cook up some Italian chicken sausages, but as I got into it this seemed like quite enough and it was.

Maine Shrimp or Pandalus borealis

2008-12-16T09:30:00.000-08:00

You can park all day for free at the site of Gloucester's Fiesta, except when there's a Fiesta. Yesterday I noticed a sign at the edge of the lot that read "Native Shrimp" with pictures of the large headed tiny shrimp I know as Maine Shrimp. I went in to ask about them and found InterShell's retail store where you can buy fresh fish and other stuff like Asian sauces, wasabi, sesame seeds...

InterShell's retail store has native shrimp "every day" and you can get them shelled and cleaned ("we dip them in salt brine first. Most of the roe gets washed off.") or you can buy them just as they come out of the water -- head and shell on. The guy I talked to recommended steaming them heads on before cleaning and peeling ("the heads have a lot of flavor") and told me that I should use the broth ("that's a lobster bisque!").

Almost all the shrimp have a lot of roe which is visible on the outside of the shell. What a curious creature! I wondered if their species had figured out that only a few males were actually necessary -- about five per five pounds, by the looks of it.

I googled a site that helped explain a lot. It begins, "These sex-changing crustaceans are also called native shrimp and they’re harvested from the cold waters of the Gulf of Maine. They’re considered to be a delicacy — some people eat them raw – and are only available for several weeks in the dead of winter." The site -- http://foodpluspolitics.com/2008/01/19/about-maine-shrimp/ - also has a nice looking recipe for shrimp seviche and tips about handling and preparation.

Maine shrimp

2008-12-14T17:15:00.000-08:00

Years ago, when we lived in Sudbury, a truck selling Maine shrimp would appear from time to time in the parking lot at the corner convenience store. I used to buy them and I remember liking them, but I hadn't seen them for years. This weekend, we drove to Camden, ME, to visit Peter. I saw several places offering Maine shrimp, including a truck or two. Peter asked me to cook dinner on Saturday in his new house. I walked with grandson Leao to the nearby grocery store and along with haddock I bought some Maine shrimp. They were little and pink and ready to be cooked.

The shrimp, which I used as a garnish or topping for the haddock, reminded me of the flavor and texture of the shrimp I used to buy. I can't quite find the words to describe it, but Maine shrimp has a softer texture, quite unlike the shrimp I usually buy. They are tiny, deserving of the name "shrimp" ("jumbo shrimp" strikes me as an oxymoron!) James Beard, in his encyclopedic Fish Cookery, asserts "as for the tiny shrimp, I think they are much underrated in this country. They are remarkably good in salads and excellent in some cooked dishes. A huge bowl of tiny shrimp, shelled, makes a perfect snack with cocktails."

On the way home I stopped at a truck and bought a five pound bag of uncleaned, fresh Maine shrimp for $7.50. Beard's words were enouraging, but neither Beard nor Child nor any other cookbook on my shelf gave me any hint about how to procede. The shrimp have large heads, and I was pretty sure that the first thing you do is remove the heads. They are also filled with roe -- at least I think it's roe -- and they have many long pink feelers. These shrimp are pink when raw, unlike most other varieties. When Eric and I had removed all the heads and discarded some of the ones that looked a bit under the weather, I rinsed them and then steamed them. I figured that I could have saved the water I'd steamed them in, but I felt better just throwing that water away.

Eric and I peeled the steamed shrimp once it had cooled. We tried to save the roe, but agreed that it would take all night to be really careful about it. So again we lost some of what might have been nutritious and flavorful. Compared to most of the food we buy this is so "in the raw" that I forgive myself for not being scruplous about preserving all of it. Most of the peeled shrimp are now in the refrigerator, tossed in lemon juice and a bit of lemon grass and awaiting some other "treatment" tomorrow or the next day.

For tonight, we had steamed artichokes stuffed with Maine Shrimp Salad.

Steam one artichoke per person. (I tend to undercook them -- it's better to over than undercook. Pull a leaf from the bottom -- if it detaches easily and is tender, the artichokes are ready.)
Let the artichokes cool, and then remove the central small leaves and the choke. Cut the stem away so that the choke will sit upright, and cut the stem into tiny pieces. Place them in a small mixing bowl. Add peeled shrimp, a small bit of chopped lemon grass, a handful of raw kale (if you have any on hand -- the texture and flavor goes really well with the shrimp), and a half of a chopped pepper, and mix with a T or so of mayonaise and the juice of a lemon. Spoon the shrimp salad into each artichoke.
Serve with crakers and cheese. Artichokes tend to fight with wine. I had vino verde, a Portugese white wine, and found it works very well!

Most of the shrimp that we buy comes from all over the world and is raised in farms that disturbe the ecosystem. Maine shrimp grow in their natural habitat and are caught by Maine fishermen. I'm planing to serve them for Christmas if I can get Peter to bring down a couple of bags...

Fall Roasted Vegetables

2008-12-02T05:40:00.000-08:00

My friend Patricia Sutherland makes great roasted vegetables. I tried to call her last night to get some advice, but she wasn't home and I was on my own. It turned out GOOD!! I cooked it in my wonderful, decades-old pallea pan from Dansk. It has a sloping bottom so it's almost like cooking in a wok. They don't make it any more, and the ones I've found are all flat bottomed.

Here's what I put in my roasted vegetable dish:
Cut up two medium onions into about 8 pcs each. The onions create the basic size for everything else. (I know, they'll fall apart, but it gives you something to go on.) Add one large or two small fennel roots, 4 or 5 carrots, a parsnip, a handful of peeled garlic cloves (whole), a half a head of cabbage. I think that was it.
I added olive oil (maybe 1/4 cup?), roasted sesame oil (a few tablespoons), hot sesame oil (just a bit), and stirred it all together (with my hands). The dish went into a 375 degree oven (my brother Eric says that you don't have to preheat -- it just wastes energy) for -- I'm not sure how long, maybe half an hour? Test from time to time. When it's just about done, add a good sprinkling of sesame seeds and a handful of cilantro.

I served it with semolina bread from Vergillio's warmed in the oven and a rare ripe cheese from Ned's Groceria.

I used the vegetables that happened to be in my fridge. Could be just about anything on hand, but this is a really nice late fall combination.

Carrot-mushroom soup

2008-11-12T19:37:00.000-08:00

Cover bottom of pot with oil and then some

Add chopped onion and two chopped potatoes

Sauté, stirring to keep them from burning

Wash and trim shitake mushrooms

Reserve a handful and chop the rest. Add chopped m’rooms to pot

When it starts to smell good, add a cup or two of water and 4 – 6 large carrots, cut in smallish pieces. Add several grinds of cracked pepper

Slice and lightly sauté the reserved mushrooms

Grate two largeish pieces of ginger in the food processor; add the vegetables when they have cooked to medium tenderness. Blend it all, adding soup liquid as necessary to get it to blend.

Return to heat; add reserved mushrooms and a good handful of cilantro

Serve

It’s good

Fish Stock Musings

2008-11-12T19:27:00.000-08:00

When I first moved to Gloucester, I had been a vegetarian – almost a vegan – for a decade or more. This was inspired by our son, Evan, who at six said that if we had to eat animals it would be ok, but since they weren’t necessary to keep us alive it was wrong to kill them. On occasion he would retrieve hamburgers from the lunchroom trash at school, on the theory that the damage had already been done, but more and more he became a strict vegetarian, and I learned to cook healthy meals for him. Once we went to a really fancy club in Newport with my dad (if I think of the name, I’ll go back and fill it in) and they made a great vegetable plate for him. Now, of course, they’ll do that for you almost anywhere.

I was an organic gardener and grew most of the vegetables we ate in the summer time. Shifting over to vegan cooking and eating seemed quite effortless. I learned to cook all sorts of whole grains with vegetables and seasonings. I baked bread so much that I could set out a dish of flour, sugar, and water in the kitchen and it would begin to bubble from the yeast in a few hours. I felt better too. I just about stopped eating meat and fish altogether, and ate eggs and milk only a little.

One of my most disappointing vegan moments was on a trip to France. We stayed in a converted abbey in Nantes for a week. We were served an elaborate beef dish for lunch on the first day; I told the waiter that I was vegetarian and he served me a replacement meal. For the rest of the trip I ate tomatoes and pasta. Waiters would place a beautiful dish containing fish or lamb or chicken under my nose and then sweep it away with an “oh, pardon madame. Vous etes vegetarian.” “Non, non” I wanted to shout, but in those days putting people out to serve your dietary needs had to be backed up with medical or quasi-religious claims, so I ate my meal. “Voila! Encore une salade de tomate!”

But when we moved to Gloucester, it seemed ridiculous to avoid fish. I began to cook more and more fish. Neighbors used to give us fish – usually bluefish, which most people don’t like and that I’ve learned to cook really well. I have even experimented with harvesting shellfish from the shores below our house. I don’t do it in the summer, though, when the kids are here. I don’t worry much about serving a bad shellfish and getting us sick, but to involve the whole family seems not quite right.

I soon found that the best place to buy seafood is at Connolly’s, a wholesaler that has a small retail shop. The cases are always filled with translucent, shiny fish very carefully marked as to type and source. The dish I want to memorialize here is fish stock. Connolly’s will give you fish frames – free – whenever they have them. They filet fish in the back room – from the retail store you can see them working in knee high black boots and yellow slickers – and they save the skeletons. Just today my brother Don picked up the ingredients for paella, along with a huge cod frame. I’m preparing fish stock for the paella as I write this.

The first thing to know is that fish frames usually have the gills intact, and that according to the Joy of Cooking the gills impart a very bitter flavor. So before you prepare your stock, find the gills (they are right where the ears would be, and bright pinky-red). Pull them out and discard them. Then check the frame over for anything else that displeases you. Usually Connelly’s frames are clean as a whistle. I just wash them off and put them into a big pot with water to cover. Today I added peppercorns, a few small carrots, garlic, leek tops (I’m saving the rest of the leeks for the paella), and a kind of bouquet garni from the garden of thyme, parsley, and marjoram.

I once read, I think in an Asian cookbook, that you should bring the stock to a boil and then turn off the flame and let the stock sit for a while, and repeat this several times. So that’s how I do it. It seems to make sense – the fish is so delicate, and each time you return the stock to a boil it smells more and more fragrant. That’s what I’m doing now – writing a few paragraphs and then going out to the kitchen to bring the stock back to a boil for a second or two.
After the stock has been brought to a boil three or four times I’ll let it sit until it’s cool. Then I’ll strain the broth and reserve the amount I’ll need for tonight’s paella. The rest I’ll freeze in 2 cup containers for later.

There’s usually enough flesh on Connelly’s frames to make it very worthwhile picking it out. I’ll do that when the whole thing is drained and cool, and use the fish in the paella along with the scallops, mussels, and two little lobsters that Don brought back. Tonight’s paella – which I’m going to cook with barley, not rice – will also include peppers and zucchini from the garden, a Chorizo sausage, a can of bamboo shoots, and a half a package of frozen peas.

Fusion Spelt

2008-11-12T19:26:00.000-08:00

Spelt with carrots

Soak 1 lb spelt for a few hours. Bring to boil and cook until tender (maybe 45 minutes). Add four carrots in coins and simmer a few minutes until the carrots are tender. Add the juice of ½ lime.

Serve with:

Fusion veggies

In a wok sauté 1 chopped onion in 2 tbs. olive oil. Add two sliced garlic cloves, 1 minced hot pepper, 4 or 5 sliced mushrooms and a small hunk of ginger in slices, adding each as prepared and stirring all the while. Add juice of ½ lime and two heads of broccoli, stir and cover the wok. When the broccoli is tender, add the skin of ¼ of the lime sliced into tiny slivers.

Serve the spelt covered with the veggies and their liquid.

Sadana’s Indian Eggplant

2008-11-12T19:20:00.000-08:00

Sadana visted us with her family for a week several years ago when they were visiting from India. She cooked meals for all of us every day. The one thing she didn't like about living here was that the market was so far away. One day I asked her if I could cook dinner with her. When I arrived in the kitchen, all the prep was done. All we had left to do was to combine and cook.

She never used curry, but in many of her recipies she used canned tomatoes, tumeric, and ground pepper. I wish I had written down more of her recipies -- even this one was half-remembered weeks after they left.

Saute one onion in 2 T vegetable oil. Add 1 clove garlic, chopped fine. Rinse and cut in half, lengthwise, baby Italian eggplants (2 per person). Lay the eggplant cut side down in the oil/onion mixture and sauté until the eggplant is lightly browned. Add 2T of Sadana’s favorite spice (turmeric) and stir. Add 20 or more serious grinds of pepper. Add 1 can chopped tomatoes. Simmer gently until the eggplant is tender. Add ½ cup chopped cilantro (optional). Stir and serve.

Serve with brown rice.

Ginger rice and vegetables

2008-11-11T18:11:00.000-08:00

This one got rave reviews. It's really simple, and you don't need to use any particular ingredients. I started with the broccoli, celery, and cabbage that had been in the fridge for days. Then I remembered that I could get some jerusalem artichoke and kale from the garden. The key is cutting the vegetables into similar size pieces. And I would, next time, add the artichokes to the wok early -- they didn't quite cook through.
My friend Robin suggested that if you are cooking rice to be served plain, you can add ginger (or garlic) to add flavor. It really works!
The fish sauce and lime juice are Thai inspired. Not adding soy sauce allowed those flavors to stand out, along with the ginger in the rice.
Here's the recipe:
Cut up about a square inch of fresh ginger root into pieces about the size of a grain of rice. Add it to the water in which you cook a cup or so of brown rice.
Saute one onion, chopped, and a package of reconstituted mushrooms, also chopped, in oil in a wok. Add a head of broccoli, several stalks of celery, Chinese cabbage, jerusalem artichoke, and kale, all cut in small pieces. Add fish sauce and lime juice.
Steam all this in the wok and serve it over the rice.

Platfforms

2008-11-10T17:47:00.000-08:00

The other day, teaching a yoga class, I realized that I had totally forgotten a posture sequence called "rock the baby." It's a nice hip-opener that I often do at the beginning or end of class, or when I'm practicing on my own. It had just dropped out of sight, leaving no perceptible gap.
Then I realized that recipies do that too. Ever since we redid our kitchen and my cooking habits got all messed up, I've been realizing how many of the cooking routines had slipped away.
That's what made re-starting this blog a bit more urgent. I had a vague memory of some basic recipe that I had used, principally with fish -- nice, white, poachable fish. But what was it, and where could I find it? I had started this blog to find out what blogs were so I could instruct my students to blog me their journals. I hadn't looked at it in a year -- and there it was. Betty Burr's Leeks a la Provencale. Recipe #1 in my blog (1 of 2).
Improvisational cooking depends on what product developers call "platforms." There are myriad ways that you can prepare a meal using some or all of the stuff in you kitchen. I learned that when I realized that a wonderful cookbook by Perla Myers, The Seasonal Kitchen, really had only 5 or 6 actual recipies. Having been pretty much a recipe slave, I started branching out and trying someone's idea for chicken with beef or fish (I was much more a meat eater back then).
So having nearly lost most of my "platforms" during the kitchen redo, I am going to use this blog to capture the favorites that I can remember.

Green beans for dinner

2008-11-10T17:45:00.001-08:00

We didn't want a lot to eat, because we'd had a late lunch.
Steam about a pound of green beans just a little bit. Drain them and rinse in cold water to keep them from cooking more.
Chop 2 - 3 cloves of garlic; slice a pepper into longish/thinnish stips (they should work with the shape of the beans). Chop a hot pepper if you have one. If not, use red pepper flakes.
Add the peppers to hot oil in a wok (I used grapeseed oil, but any vegetable oil will do). Stir until they begin, as the cookbooks say, "to release their fragrance" and then add the chopped garlic. When you can smell the garlic, add the beans. Of course you are stirring and mixing quite constantly.
While all this is happening, rinse a large handful or two of cherry tomatoes. If they are large, slice them in half. Add them to the beans and continue to stir and cook. Be sure to adjust the heat -- you want the mixture to cook briskly but not boil or splatter.
At this point I added a good tblspn of tumeric. This brings a wonderful subtle heat. It also stained my wok orange. It's optional, but try it.
At the end you can add pine nuts, mozzerella balls, and chopped basil. Stir and serve.
Serving note: use this a side dish, serve with pasta, or serve with just a green salad and bread for a really light supper.

Sette Vegetale

2008-11-10T17:40:00.000-08:00

One night in Chicago, after a cocktail hour following a conference on technology mapping, brain dead from making conversation with earnest engineers, I headed out and found an Italian restaurant only blocks from the hotel. It was a warm June night. I chose an outside table and ordered an appetizer called "sette vegetale" and a glass of wine.
The waiter brought me a heaping plate of vegetables of many different colors and textures, all cut approximately the same size and shape. I was enjoying my light dinner and, intrigued by the recipe, I pulled one vegetable cube after another to the side of the plate and counted them. The waiter give me a sidelong glance. But I'm glad I spent the time not only enjoying the meal but inspecting it. It's become a favorite basic recipe.
I have no idea which vegetables I ate that night. But I have made some simple rules for composing sette vegetale.
1. Always use seven vegetables. Why? It stretches you. And you do have seven on hand. You have fresh broccoli or asparagus or beans or peas or brussel sprouts. You have peppers and mushrooms and carrots. You have onions, and you might have tomatoes or watercress or cucumbers or jerusalem artichokes. If your fresh supply doesn't come to seven, you can add canned artichokes or chick peas or in a pinch even a can of corn, well drained. Or maybe you have a box or a bag of frozen peas. Sometimes I cheat and count the garlic, but more often garlic goes in as a "no count-em".
2. Choose the smallest vegetable -- for instance, peas or beans -- or choose a basic shape if all your vegetables are on the large side. This will be the template for the size and shape of all the vegetables. If peas are your smallest vegetable you'll cut the others into small cubes. If you choose string beans, you might cut them into one inch lengths and then cut the other vegetables into small inch long rectangles. (This is a good rule for lots of other dishes -- stir fries, cobb salad, and so on.)
Those are the two basic rules. Having chosen your seven vegetables (and no more), prepare each according to its needs or your preferences. Canned vegetables simply need to be drained; frozen vegetables need to be steamed briefly, rinsed in cool water and drained. Fresh vegetables might be steamed or served raw.
Next, dress the vegetables. One might be happiest in a balsamic vinagrette. Another might do well tossed with a little soy sauce. Some might go in naked, or tossed with a bit of parsley or garlic or olive oil. The safe thing is to dress them all alike, like bridesmaids. The more interesting tack is to vary the dressings and let them come together when you mix the whole lot together.
I have often arrived home with no clue what we were going to have for dinner and searched out seven vegetables to serve with a glass of wine and a loaf of bread. I have also brought this to pot lucks, and served it as a salad dish as part of a grilled summer meal. Sometimes, but not often, I buy the vegetables specifically for the recipe. This is most fun in the summer when the local farm stands are overflowing.
Here are a few more rules. It's OK to use beets, but add them at the last moment. Add fresh chopped herbs at the end. Add garlic any time, and lots.
Try it, and let me know what you used and how it worked!

Visiting Frank and Dana

2008-11-10T17:37:00.000-08:00

Frank and Dana's house is very old, just like Frank's first house, and like Frank's first house it has a large lawn and outbuildings. They have three cats. One of the cats is very insistent about coming into the bedroom through the window at about 6:30 am.
Frank and Dana are in Ireland, and we are in Connecticut for Duncan's 55 [!] reunion from Wesleyan. We're staying here for one night, and they told us we could "use anything we wanted" in the kitchen.
I've always thought it would be great to stay in other people's houses so I could read all their books. At Frank and Dana's, I want to drink all of Frank's wine and use all of Dana's cookbooks.
The kitchen is full of everything you need to prepare a wonderful supper. I found a brownish green pepper, and Duncan found the garlic, and cooked them together in oil. Duncan found a half an onion in the fridge, so that went in too. I probably should have taken the vegetable mix out of the frying pan before I put in the veggie burgers, but I didn't and they survived anyway.
I added a scant 1/2 tsp of Thai curry paste, and feeling slightly guilty, about 2T of the incredible Chateau Neuf du Pape that Frank had left for us. Mixed all that about and served the vegetables on the veggie burgers. The only bad thing was that I wiped my nose after I sliced the peppers and suffered from nose burn all the way through dinner.
[Note: always taste peppers before cooking them if you don't know their hotness -- and only taste a tiny bit!]
So that was dinner -- veggie burgers with a wonderful, rich sauce. And salad with chopped dried tomatoes. The salad was wonderful, I realized. Way better than mine. And I think I've found the reason -- the balsamic vinegar cost $16. I know that's a crass way to put it, but it does suggest that they may be going for somewhat higher end stuff than I do. It was so worth it. I read the whole label and found that it was sold by Williams Sonoma.
Now let's talk about the wine. Frank's Chatneau Neuf du Pape was amazing. As we drank it we found ourselves trying to describe it -- hints of cherry, something that reminded us of chocolate and raspberry. And we didn't finish the bottle. It was a whole different experience, not at all like opening the usual $10 Merlot or Cab and drinking it down with dinner.
As I wandered around the kitchen trying to figure out what to make for dinner, I realized how like my kitchen theirs is. The basic equipment, and lots of condiments from all over the world. Hot sauces, peanut sauces, cans of this and bottles of that. You could cook for weeks and never have to repeat.

No food in the house...

2008-11-10T17:31:00.000-08:00

Tuesday January 17, 2006 - 10:12pm (EST)
Shrimp 'n Cabbage -- January 08, 2006 The other day -- not unusually -- there was "no food in the house." Except cabbage. So I tried this recipe:Slice cabbage; stir fry chopped garlic in a wok w/oil; add shrimp (which I happened to have in the freezer); when the shrimp is pink, add the cabbage and some fish sauce (which I happened to have in the fridge). Stir and cook till the cabbage is a bit cooked but still crisp. Serve with rice, with fresh lime, and with hot peppers or pepper sauce.The recipe is adapted from Thai Home-Cooking, by Wm Crawford and Kamolmal Pootarakasa. It's really good and really simple. I've also tried it with brussel sprouts instead of shrimp. Also good, not quite as.

Leeks a la Betty Burr

2008-11-10T17:30:00.000-08:00

Leeks a la Provencale
Betty Burr gave me a wonderful recipe which she calls Leeks a la Provencale. I have used it as is, and altered it for many others. The mild oniony-garlicy leeks, plus the subtle taste of the lemon rind, are super in a lot of combinations, which I hope to catalogue here. When I use it in other combinations, for instance witn fish, I often leave out the olives.
Here goes:
Leeks a la Provencale
1 1/2 lbs leeks, cut in 1/2 inch slices, three tomatoes cut in quarters, 16 black olives stoned, 1/4 cup olive oil, rind and juice of one juicy lemon.
Put leeks, salt and pepper into warm oil. Cover pan and simmer 10 minutes. Add other ingredients and cook slowly 20 minutes.
Serve cool.

Lyle's lobster paella

2008-11-10T17:26:00.000-08:00

My grandson Lyle has 5 or 6 lobster traps just off the Old Wharf Lot. He's been setting the traps for three or four years now. He checks them every day, and lots of times the lobsters in his traps are too small, or egg-bearers, and have to be released. Sometimes, however, he gets a keeper, and recently he's been getting two at a time.
Still, with the size of our family (tonight's gathering was 13), two lobsters don't go very far (though one night he trapped a really big one and Duncan, Margi, William, and I shared it). So I had to come up with a recipe that would foreground the lobster and still feed a small army. Paella is it.
Paella, according to Julee Russo and Sheila Lukins (The New Basics Cookbook), was a Spanish cowboy dish "originally cooked outdoors and eaten directly out of the pan." I use their "grand gaucho paella" as an inspiration and starting point.
Tonight Lyle provided two lobsters, which his mother Julie cooked ahead of time (to make sure they lived and died in a proper way). The other key ingredient for my version is chorizo, the hot version, cooked on the grill.
I cook 4 or so cups of risotto rice, following the usual risotto recipe (saute onions, peppers, garlic in oil; add the rice; stir until the rice is golden; add a cup or so of white wine and stir and cook till the wine is absorbed. Continue to cook the rice by adding, one cup at a time, hot broth. Clam juice or mussel broth would be great -- tonight I used a can of crushed tomatoes cut with an equal part of water). Since we're doing a paella, I use lots of peppers.
When the risotto is al dente, spoon it into a paella pan. (I have one that I've had for over 40 years -- it's a Danske pan, about 14 inches in diameter, round and with sloped sides and two handles. If you don't have a paella pan, I think a large frying pan, or maybe even a wok, would do.) Put the rice in the pan into a warm oven (250). I stirred in some cut up steamed vegetables -- three small zucchini (one from my garden -- it's been a slow zucchini year), and a half a pound of green beans -- and a handful of pitted Calamata olives. I had some saffron, so I added that. I can't tell what difference it makes. I also added some frest cilantro.
Next cut up the lobster; add the tails, in little chunks, to the risotto. Reserve the claws and the feelers, and if there's any good roe or tamale stir that into the risotto. Grill the chorizo, slice it thin, and add that and shrimp to the paella, but don't stir those in. Put the pan back in the oven until you're ready to eat. Then add the lobster claws and the feelers -- decoratively. There's always a fight about who gets a claw.
This recipe fed 13 people with leftovers. We had some slices of grilled steak and chicken. They could have gone into the paella, but I left the meat on the side for the picky eaters. (I don't think there actually were any.) I served it with bread and butter, and a green salad (lettuce and cucumbers from my garden!)
Just before dinner I walked down to the beach. It was extreme low tide. I was tempted to harvest mussels and clams to add to the paella -- but I was just not sure enough that they'd be safe.
This is a real improv meal. A risotto or rice base, with whatever added in. After all, the gauchos were using whatever they happened to have on hand that night.

Cook Until Done

2008-11-10T17:14:00.000-08:00

My brother Eric says "it sums up your philosophy around cooking. Just dive in and cook something."