butter-fried potato and apple slices with porcini mushrooms, shallots, parsley and sage

Man, I can't believe how January is already flying by! And here I am, still blogging about something I made back in October. Luckily, this meal was mainly root vegetables and apples, which store pretty well throughout the winter, so this is still fairly seasonal. As you'll see in the photo above, there were three components of this meal: maple carrot turnips, garlicky turnip tops and, for the main event, potato and apple slices fried in butter with shallots, porcini mushrooms, sage and parsley.

homemade chicken stock

mirepoix of food co-op carrots and red onion, and store bought celery

With all the soups I've been covering in light of my current diet, I figure a post on chicken stock is long overdue. This might be slightly crazy, but in the last year or so, I've been pretty much exclusively making my own stock from scratch. I am well aware that canned stock is one of the most universally accepted cooking short cuts available to the home chef, but I am pretty fully committed to homemade stock. It tastes better, for one, and as an added bonus it's not loaded up with sodium and other additives. The way I see it, if I'm going to be making a long simmered soup or luscious risotto, I'm putting a lot of time and love into that dish. Why would I want the base of all that to be some processed, watery stuff from a tin can?

Plus, stock is really easy to make. You have to chop up some veggies, but all the odds and ends can go right into the pot, which saves you time of peeling carrots. Also, you don't have to worry about things being cut evenly or whatever, since you're going to be cooking all this for a really long time and it will all inevitably turn to near-mush, even if some of it cooks slightly faster or slower.

To make chicken stock, you need only a few things: chicken bones, carrots, celery, herbs and water. Obviously the least straightforward ingredient is the chicken bones. The trick is to save the bones from another chicken dish, like a delicious roast chicken or even a rotisserie bird from the supermarket. Alternatively, you can be a bit more labor intensive about it...

One of my favorite dinners that I ate growing up was my mom's simple breaded and pan fried chicken cutlets. My mom would buy chicken breasts and bone them herself, cutting them into cutlets and whacking at them under wax paper until they were uniformly flat. The little chicken scraps became chicken nuggets, and the medium sized ones were chicken fingers. It was only upon watching Super Size Me that I even realized that fast food chicken nuggets, which were my go-to order on the rare occasions that friend's moms took me to McDonalds, were such a terrible Frankenstein food.

While boning a chicken breast is a little messy and can be tricky to manage for a first timer, these added steps do have their upside. Whole chicken breasts are generally cheaper than pre-butchered cutlets, and my mom claims to like the look of them better as well. I guess maybe the pre-cut cutlets have more surface area exposed to discolor or whatnot. Anyway. That's what my mom does, and now that's what I do too. And, like my mom, I too wrap up my chicken bones and freeze them for stock!

The one thing that is tricky about stock is that you need to have at least a couple of hours for it to cook, and ideally you'd want to keep your stock simmering for up to eight hours. These days, I generally content myself with 5 or 6, but I have made perfectly good stock in only two hours. The longer you cook your stock, the more concentrated the flavor becomes, so set aside as much time as you possibly can.

Once you've found the time to make stock, the rest is easy. You begin your stock with a classic French mirepoix: carrots, onions and celery. You can use all carrot and celery ends, and even the feathery carrot tops, since it will not be eaten. Though it's not strictly necessary, I like to brown them in butter or oil a bit before continuing. If I have carrot tops, I add them after this step.

Then I add my chicken bones. These can be cooked or raw, and you can even add them straight from the freezer. Then you fill the pot with water, and add your herbs, also called a bouquet garni. Generally this is comprised of parsley, thyme and a bay leaf, but I almost never have thyme and generally forget the bay leaf, so don't fret too much if you are short of herbs.


chicken bones and veggies

One thing you don't need to worry about is seasoning. Leave the salt and pepper to the eventual end product of soup or risotto. This broth will cook down and get reduced, and so if you add salt now, you run the risk of it getting overly concentrated and ruining your end dish. For now, just focus on steeping those bones and veggies.

Once the pot is full, bring the liquid up to a simmer. You don't want to boil your stock outright, or it will turn cloudy. Just let it simmer away for however many hours you have at your disposal. If the top starts to get scummy or foamy, just skim that right off with a spoon.

For the most part though, you can leave your pot alone. You can watch a movie, read a book, clean the bathroom, do your homework... I've even been known to run a quick errand or two, although you really shouldn't stray too far from the kitchen when the stove is on. Your active cook time is done, and all that's left for you to do is to strain out the solids in, oh, about 5 hours?

You can store the stock in the fridge for a couple of days, but if you aren't going to use it right away, freezing it is your best bet. If you like, you can put it in ice cube trays and then transfer those to a zip lock bag, so you have smaller portions around for when you only need a little bit of stock. Otherwise, a larger container will do, and you'll be set for your next big soup or stew.

If I haven't convinced you of the merits of homemade stock, I'd like to remind you of the saying "he comes from good stock." It means that a person's good qualities reflect well on their family and upbringing. Of course, there are exceptions, where people rise above humble beginnings, or fail to live up to the advantages afforded to them. Far be it for me to say that no one has ever made a crappy soup from homemade stock, or that you can't make a delicious soup from commercial stock in a pinch. That being said, I believe the maxim still applies. Dishes that are made from real homemade stock have an extra depth of flavor that can't be faked. If you take lots of shortcuts, you can taste them, just like you can tell when a well made soup comes from good stock.

So put on a pot of chicken stock after work, or on a Sunday when you're lounging around in pajamas. It takes very little active effort, but pays off with big flavor!

maple carrots and turnips

maple syrup glazed carrots and turnips

Last summer, my very first food co-op share included turnips. I had never ever cooked a turnip in my life, and thus had no idea what to do with them. My friend Megan lives and runs an organic farm, (and earlier this year was blogging about it), so I asked her how she liked to cook them. The resulting recipe, rich with butter and maple syrup, was so delicious I immediately submitted it to the CSA newsletter. I admit that the combination might sound strange, but it highlights the veggie's natural sweetness and gives it a beautiful sticky sweet glaze and is just off the hook good every time I make it, which is every time I have turnips. Megan also gave me a nice method for cooking turnip tops, which I haven't made recently, but will include nonetheless. Here is my submission, first composed on 6/17/09:

A newcomer to community sponsored agriculture, I was excited to receive my first share of vegetables from Norwood. However, I have to admit I was intimidated by the selection, as I had never cooked a turnip in my life! I put out a cry for help on facebook, and a very good friend of mine, who lives on an organic farm, responded with a pair of recipes which she dubbed "the best way to eat turnips." I am not too sure on the measurements, so this is the closest approximation I can come up with.

Caramelized Maple Turnips and Carrots
6 small white turnips
2 carrots
3 or 4 tbsp real maple syrup
quarter stick of butter
1 cup stock (or enough to cover the carrots and turnips in the pan)
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Wash turnips and remove the greens, which can be cooked separately. Chop into small slices. Peel carrots, and slice into thin disks. Place carrots and turnips in a pot, and pour in enough stock to more or less cover them. Cook on medium high heat until carrots and turnips are almost cooked all the way through and the stock has mostly boiled off. Then add butter and syrup, and let that cook down until it gets nice and caramelized. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve to guests who won't mind if you lick the plate.

Braised Turnip Greens
6 turnip tops
1-2 cloves garlic thinly sliced
1 tbsp bacon grease
red wine or apple cider vinegar
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Wash and chop turnip greens. Peel and mince garlic. Heat bacon grease in pan over medium high heat. Add garlic and turnip greens and cook until tender. Serve with a drizzle of vinegar and a dash of salt and pepper. Enjoy!

mushroom risotto/fava bean toasts

a Mother's Day feast

This was the dinner table for Mother's Day this year, and I think Dad and I have reason to be proud of the spread we put out. Matt would have helped had he not been working, but he did buy the lovely flowers. I picked up a nice bottle of chardonnay at Lenox Wines, and then whipped up some mushroom risotto and a fava bean spread on Arthur Avenue bread. Dad chipped in with some luscious dijon mustard sword fish. It was a heavenly meal.

Since graduating college, I've become a big fan of risotto and have made it a number of times, including a particularly memorable batch prepared in honor of Nathan's twenty second birthday with pumpkin, porcini mushrooms and red wine. To die for. However, there was a time that I found this simple dish absolutely intimidating. If it were not for my friend Anthony, who is an amazing cook, I doubt I would have ever even attempted the dish. I remember Tony making it for Natalie's birthday senior year and being amazed that he had prepared such an ambitious menu. Pork loin and risotto for 20 people is certainly an impressive feat, but the risotto itself is not nearly as complicated or tricky as I had one believed. With good ingredients and a little patience, anyone can make a delicious, creamy risotto in under an hour.


mushroom risotto

The trick to risotto is knowing that unlike regular rice, which typically uses a 2:1 ratio of water to rice, risotto can absorb more than four times its volume in liquid. In order for the rice to cook properly, the broth must be added gradually so as to not overcook it. The broth should also be warm, or the rice won't cook properly.

To start your risotto, heat some olive and then cook onions and garlic until they begin to soften. This is called the sofrito. Then you can add your extra ingredients, like the cremini mushrooms we used. There are plenty of great potential additions: anything from sausage, meatballs, shrimp, lobster, chard, asparagus or squash will be great. Once they're just about cooked, removed them from the pot with a slotted spoon to leave behind the olive oil, which will be nicely infused with the flavor of your added ingredients.

Toast the rice in the drippings for a few minutes, making sure it gets well coated. Pour in some wine, and stir until it evaporates. Then you can start to add the broth, one ladle at a time. Recipes vary on the exact amount to use, but you can probably get away with less if you cook over lower heat and let most of the broth absorb between additions. Cook at too high a temperature, and your broth will boil away before the rice can absorb it properly. Add more stock when the risotto starts to look dry, but be carefully not submerge the rice in liquid. Stir frequently to make sure the rice gets cooked evenly and doesn't stick to the pot.

Your risotto is done when the rice can't absorb any more liquid, and the two elements have become one cohesive mass. The individual grains should be soft but slightly chewy, and the risotto should be liquidy enough that you can pour it slowly, but solid enough that the broth won't separate from the rice. Add your mushrooms or whatever you're using, and stir to incorporate. Mix in some pats of butter, a good amount of grated cheese and freshly ground black pepper, and serve immediately.

As for the rest of the meal, dad handled the fish so I can't say much about it, but I can tell you about my fava bean toasts. They're something I learned to make when my food co-op threw a number of the then unfamiliar legumes at me last summer. I first tried making a stir-fry-esque dish with fennel and bacon that didn't quite come together. For my second attempt, I put the beans front and center with this bright green spread. It was an unqualified success. Basically, it's just a mash of olive oil roasted garlic, boiled fava beans, a little cream, Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. It's so simple and tasty!

The only catch with fava beans is that getting them out of the shell is a little labor intensive. First, you have to peel the pods, and then you have to boil the beans for a couple of minutes. After that, you cool them off in ice water and shell them. It's a bit of a pain in the ass, actually, but it's not that hard. It's probably not worth the trouble on a regular basis, but they are a nice change of pace every so often.


fava bean toasts

celeriac soup

celeriac apple potato soup

This is a 100% food co-op inspired dish. Before joining my CSA, (short for community sponsored agriculture), I had never even heard of, let alone eaten or tried to cook with celeriac. Also known as celery root, this knobby root vegetable has a tough, woody looking peel that hides a plain looking white interior. Back in the fall, it was included in one of our weekly veggie deliveries. When I made my way past the lettuce and carrots, what I found was a box of dirt. Skeptically, I dug my hands in a pulled out two scrawny and filthy roots. Like much of what we get at the CSA, that day's celeriac was much smaller, misshapen and dirtier than anything that you'll find at the grocery store, or even at a farmer's market. That being said, I was pleasantly surprised when I successfully transformed such an utterly unpromising vegetable into a delicious soup. It was so good that I was inspired to make it again from the giant celery roots on sale at the Union Square green market, and that I am about to tell all of you about it!

First of all, I only discovered this soup via the magic of teh internets. Every time I would come home from the co-op with a strange and intimidating vegetable, (fennel, kohlrabi, rainbow chard, cardoon, garlic scapes, lambs quarter...), the internet would have the answer I was looking for. In the case of celeriac, there were multiple answers, but the one I settled on was a celeriac, apple and potato soup. Although it sounded tasty, I was a little worried about how the sweet apples would stand alongside the savory stock and starchy potatoes. However, the celeriac really brought it all together. If you're still scared, know that Hell's Kitchen's Gordon Ramsay does his own variation with stilton cheese.

The two recipes are very similar: saute onions in melted butter with salt and pepper until soft. Add chopped potatoes and celeriac and cook for about ten minutes. Pour in stock (I used about three cups), dry or fresh thyme, the juice of half a lemon, and one large chopped red apple, (not red delicious, the good kind). Bring to a boil and then turn down the heat and let it simmer for a half hour or so. At this point, I went to town with the immersion blender, but you can also use a blender or a hand masher and sieve if need be, because everything should be nice and soft. Once it was nice and creamy, I added some crumbled blue cheese in lieu of the stilton, and if I had parsley, I definitely would have chopped it and tossed it in for color, as this soup is not the prettiest. The first recipe suggested adding cream, which probably accounts for her soup being lighter than the yucky gray color that mine is, but I didn't have any. I topped it with crumbled bacon and sliced scallions (because I didn't have chives) the first night, and tossed in some extra blue cheese upon subsequent reheatings.

What I can tell you about this soup is that having exact quantities isn't all that important. The first time I made it, I had the tiniest tiniest of celery roots, and a big old bag of baby purple potatoes. The second time I made it, I had a big ass celeriac, and three or four itsy bitsy red potatoes. I would say to try to use more celeriac than potatoes, because the flavor of the celery root is really what makes this soup unusual, but if you're a bit short it will still be good. I'd also say that you shouldn't waste your time peeling your potatoes or apples, as it all gets blended together in the end.

Serve this soup with some crusty bread and a nice salad, and you've got a first rate dinner!

jambalaya

jambalaya and salad

Now, I consider myself to be a pretty good cook, but I'll be the first to admit that my range does not extend much beyond Italian food, American food, and maybe some basic French stuff. However, with the Saints playing in the Superbowl earlier this month, I got inspired to make some jambalaya, which is definitely outside my culinary comfort zone. My mom hates sausage and peppers, but selflessly agreed to my dinner plans, and cooked everything with me.

I found two recipes that we used, but I wasn't quite happy with the result. Sometimes AllRecipes can come through with something great, but I think the tendency there is for recipes that are overly simplified for the home cook. With such short cuts, it is difficult to develop any real depth of flavor. Unfortunately, in this instance, we took a cue from the AllRecipes jambalaya that we probably shouldn't have, and served our jambalaya over rice, rather than cooking the rice with chicken stock and all the other ingredients, as the second recipe had instructed. There wasn't much to taste other than the smoky and spicy andouille sausage, green peppers and tomatoes. If I made this again, I would definitely cook the rice in with all the other ingredients, as I suspect that would impart the whole dish with a richness and depth of flavor that it sadly lacked.

I wish I knew more about Creole and Cajun cuisine, as I felt completely out of my element trying to make a New Orleans classic. We used chicken and shrimp in addition to the sausage, and stuck to the so-called Holy Trinity of green peppers, onions and celery. Basically, we cooked it all up with tomato paste and canned tomatoes... It was fairly tasty, but I wasn't satisfied. I would definitely try this again and try to infuse the rice with the flavors of the dish, rather than mixing it in after it has been cooked. As it was, it just didn't seem like real jambalaya, even to my inexperienced palate. However, I did happily eat the leftovers while watching the Saints win!

broccoli soup save

If you ever kill perfectly good broccoli by steaming into oblivion, fear not, there IS a save:

creamy broccoli soup

I destroyed the broccoli I made to go with our mushroom ravioli, but before I went to bed that night I transformed it into to a perfectly good meal. This salvation soup was my mother's genius suggestion, and this epicurious recipe served as my guide. Should overcooked broccoli happen to you, simply saute the soggy florets with a little garlic and butter, and then mix in a spoonful of flour or two, (I used gluten free bread mix, which was fine in such a small dose). After the flour is properly cooked, add stock and let simmer. Puree it up with an immersion blender and then add half and half, with salt and pepper to taste. I then grated in what was left of my parent's white cheddar cheese and almost all of their romano cheese. This became a lovely and not overwhelmingly cheesy dish.

To prove to you the restorative powers of this preparation, I'll recount my brother's initial skepticism and ultimate conversion. I offered some to Matt when I was heating it up for lunch, and he gave me a look you would expect from a picky four year old. Broccoli is not without its detractors, and that is probably due in large part to how bland and tasteless it becomes when it is terribly, horribly overcooked. This soup, however, completely rescues a dead vegetable. When I finally convinced Matt to try just a spoonful, he was all "wow, Sarah, this is DELICIOUS!" and helped himself to a big ladleful. So lest you think I'm biased, know that this one has the Matt Cascone stamp of approval!

ravioli with creamy mushroom sauce

ravioli in creamy mushroom sauce

So on January 31st, I moved, leaving the Italian mecca that is Arthur Avenue for the food ghetto of Harlem. In many ways my living situation has improved, but not in terms of food vendors. Therefore, I made a point to take full advantage of Teitel Brothers, Casa Della Mozzarella and Vincent's Meats while they were still in walking distance.

I was going home to Long Island two weekends before I moved, so I thought it would be nice to bring along some Arthur Avenue treats. I'm glad that I did, as they're far less convenient and accessible now that it's February. When I found out my brother would be working Saturday night, I decided to pick up some Borgatti ravioli for dinner. They are the most delicious perfect stuffed pasta in the world, but Matt has celiac, (a gluten intolerance), and can't eat them, so normally we don't either out of familial solidarity. With Matt not around, we were free to indulge in all the gluteny goodness we wanted. That being said, the sauce itself is gluten free and would have been delicious over a good gluten free pasta.

With the ravioli as my starting point, I remembered that I had some white button mushrooms left over from that yummy mushroom tomato sauce I mentioned in the year's first post, so I thought I could make up a nice, earthy mushroom sauce for the pasta. I bought about $8 worth of dried porcini mushrooms at Teitel Brothers-- they sell for a whopping $39 a pound, but I saw them during the holidays at Mike's Deli for $99/lb, so this was actually a comparative bargain! Back at home, Mom got some creminis, which are really young portabellos, and I found a tasty sounding Wolfgang Puck recipe to use as reference.

I started off by making up a quick chicken stock from some bones Mom had in the fridge, carrots, celery, onion, fresh parsley, some dried bouquet garni herbs from the cupboard and lots of water. While this was simmering, I soaked the porcini mushrooms in warm water to rehydrate them and chopped up the button and cremini mushrooms, reserving the stems. Once the stock had been cooking for an hour or so, I took about a cup of it and put it in a smaller pot with the stems to make what Wolfgang calls a mushroom stock. I also took the liberty of adding in the porcini soaking water, which I poured carefully so as to leave the grit and dirt at the bottom of the glass. I let that mixture cook down by half.


mushrooms sauteing

While my mushroom stock was reducing, I sweat garlic, shallots and onions in what turned out to be too much olive oil. When they were all translucent I added and sauteed the mushrooms for about five minutes. Then I added a few glugs of white wine and the reduced stock (sans stems), and let that cook down. When I added the half and half (a cup by Puck, eyeballed by me), it became clear that the whole thing was just too oily, and the sauce never really thickened the way I wanted it too. Oh well. It was still delicious with some salt and pepper over those freshly made raviolis. Boil some water, add salt, and cook them just until they float, and they're ready.

My mom made up some awesome grilled chicken to go with it, marinaded for about a half an hour with parsley and white wine and who knows what else. I also steamed some broccoli, but I forgot about it because I started watching a Steve Martin/Goldie Hawn movie, and it wound up totally mushy and I now know the reason why everyone hates broccoli. Luckily, I was able to resuscitate it in the form of a delicious broccoli soup, but that is a story for another post.

tomato soup

creamy tomato soup with a cheerful sprig of parsley

Generally, I am not that crazy about tomato soup. I don't dislike it, but it isn't something that I really get all that excited about most of the time. However, even though I didn't really grow up eating a lot of tomato soup, it still has those homey comforting connotations that are particularly attractive in wintertime. So, when I stumbled upon this America's Test Kitchen recipe for grilled cheese and tomato soup on the Smitten Kitchen blog, which I've been all about this week, it suddenly became the perfect thing to make for dinner.

I would definitely recommend this recipe. It had a really deep smokey flavor, a product of de-seeding and oven roasting the canned canned tomatoes with a little salt, pepper and olive oil until all the liquid evaporates. The recipe called for sprinkling them with brown sugar, but I decided not to because I've always been kind of grossed out by adding sugar to tomato sauce, and I'm not the only one.

Other than that, I pretty much followed the recipe as it was written: chopped up shallots or onions, an cooked them for a bit in butter with tomato paste. Added a spoonful or two of flour, cooked that off, and then gradually added ice cubes of my frozen stock, and then the tomatoes and the extra juices, which I strained to remove the seeds. After that cooked for awhile, Nathan blended it all up with the immersion blender, and then I added the cream, the brandy, some salt, cayenne and cracked black pepper. This could easily be gluten free if you just used the right flour!

While this was going on I made up the buttered grilled cheese sandwiches in the cast iron skillet. Normally, I "grill" my cheese sandwiches in the toaster oven, without butter, but if I was doing the classic soup and sandwich combo, I was going to do it right. Also, Nathan would have pitched a fit. As it was he was skeptical of my choice of Italian bread, and kept asking charming lovely little questions like, "have you ever MADE grilled cheese before?" Shut up Nathan.

Despite his hating, I fried up those babies just fine, and let me tell you, they were delicious dipped in that tomato soup. We served them with some vinegary tomato pasty cabbage, but Nathan took the lead on that one so I'll let him write that one up later.

Here's a shot of our soup on my kitchen table to close with.

kitchen table in the bronx