What's Cooking (Take Four)

A worthy celebration, Jenise. Sounds like a delicious meal. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I've always wondered what Gary Puckett meant by the "Union Gap".

Last night, we went hyper-local, with locally made pasta with local pancetta, porcinis, butter boletes, ramps, and scapes (we needed to get rid of the alliums). With that, we had a corn salad and a tomato dish that was billed as a dip but was really more of a pico de gallo sort of thing that we served on slices of (local) bread as a bruschetta. Dessert was a blueberry fennelseed cake that my wife made, which was not so entirely local.

My life has been very busy lately but I've finally gotten back into the kitchen. I riffed off a French recipe for braised fennel to add a couple pounds of cut-up pork shoulder and a pile of sweet onion. I'm looking for a variant choucroute sort of thing. It's in the fridge, mingling with itself; I'll warm some up for dinner on Wednesday. (There's arctic char for tomorrow!)

I also made some double-stuffed potatoes with shallot and pancetta, I poached some Anjou pears in a wine-honey-grenadine mix with star anise, I made a batch of vinaigrette for salads, I gussied-up a plain sheet of focaccia with a pestle full of herbs, seeds, and garlic, and I re-purposed the brine from my pickled ramp bulbs to pickle a couple of cut-up mini cucumbers.

Tonight was gnocchi with the end of a batch of red sauce flavored with strips of red bell pepper and a little stir-fry beef. Hearty stuff.

ETA: Oh, yes, almost forgot: turned a pound of coffee into cold-brewed concentrate. Iced coffee drinks for me!

Simplicity tonight: a deconstructed BLT sandwich.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Wow, Jeff, you've been busy!

Last night was a leftover asparagus tamale and the rest of the Cherry Garcia I made on Sunday. NO ambition.

We just had takeout Thai food last night, but our daughter made lemon posset for dessert. It was served in the lemon shells with raspberry coulis. This is one I'm surprised we don't see more of. It's dead easy to make and really tasty.

Simple but good: Cast iron spatchcocked chicken, corn on the cob, and some leftover sides.

Had a hankering for Chinese food, so I made kung pao chicken--no recipe--and added some bok choy. The leftover rice will wind up as fried rice. Try a dash of oyster sauce in your fried rice. It really works.

[Jenise]

Yes on the oyster sauce, Larry!

Wednesday night, at my brother's house, I made manila clams with Italian sausage and farfalle in a light romesceau-flavored broth. It was fabulous with a salad made from a volunteer lettuce plant that showed up in their garden.

Last night I had dinner with my book group. The book had been The Secret War of Julia Child, a novel with the irresistable premise of creating what Julia's life in the Asian theater of WWII (DC, India, Burma, Ceylon and China) might have been like. Unfortunately, it leaned closer to bodice ripper over-sensationalizing than factual historical fiction by an author who used ten words where five would do, but we had fun trashing it. Of more importance to WLDG, our host's menu was spot-on: shrimp curry, a chopped quinoa salad with tahini dressing, and coconut pie with various teas for dessert.

Sounds better than most book clubs I've heard of, Jenise.

We needed something quick and easy last night, so I made a Bon Appetit dish that involves searing chicken thighs skin side down in a dutch oven, pulling them out and sauteing ginger, garlic, and shallots in the fat, then adding rice, water, and the chicken thighs and simmering until done. It was served with cucumber slices, cilantro, and a sriracha peanut sauce. We had green beans sauted with butter boletes on the side. Pretty good supper for as easy as it was to put together.

[Jenise]

Mike, one of the reasons I wanted to join this group was the 1) intelligence of the ladies and 2) dinners! The prior month was a book whose story took place in Nova Scotia. We started with sparkling wines and a garden tour (the host's husband is a clever gardener and metal-worker). Then we sat down for dinner on the patio: tea sandwiches and an assortment of British chips. We then retired to the family room to watch a documentary about an explosion in Halifax just before WWI so massive that it took the atomic bombs on Japan to surpass that kind of force in an urban setting--it had been referenced in the book. After that, tea and cookies in the dining room.

I'm doing July--a book called Minke River about a tiny fictional town on the Oregon coast. The author has a fine, poetic style and the book's main characters include a crow, a nun, and an do-gooder public works department of two geezers who fix leaky pipes and give hair cuts. Arriving guests at home will be greeted by a sign on the front door advising them that this premesis is patrolled by trained crows. And there will be more surprises.

Your chicken dinner sounds great. I've never met a rendition of chicken and rice I didn't love. I like the Thai touches in yours.

Jenise, sounds like a fun group. I used to belong to one years ago, we had a lot of fun.

Today's menu includes lamb shoulder chops, seasoned with Quebec seasoning, browned in roasted garlic-infused EVOO, surrounded by red bell peppers, and multi colored carrots. I put Honey Crisp Apple Cider and mint sauce in the braising pan. This will go into the oven later today. I am making a wild rice and Basmati rice mix with green onions and garlic, cooked in chicken stock and a little mint sauce, salt, and pepper. I will also have corn on the cob, plain, as the corn around here is very tasty. I love the white, sweet corn.
A salad mix of Romaine Lettuce, carrots, red cabbage, iceberg lettuce, and radish with a lemon vinaigrette dressing.

[Jenise]

Dinner at your house tonight sounds great, Karen!

I thawed a veal chop. Was going to braise it but I got started too late as I'm distracted by preparation for an event tomorrow, so it will get grilled. Dang it.

[Jenise]

I'm hosting the Dorks today. Am going to oven roast (225F, 45 minutes) a side of salmon and douse it with a citrusy vinaigrette with fresh lime slices and herbs, and add a lobster/pea/radish salad as well as the tomato/chinese dumpling/chili crisp salad that I'm so grateful for Dale posting about. The wine theme is sparkling wine from anywhere, plus I'm going to add some Extra Dimensional Wine Company reds to finish with. Everyone knows of Hardy Wallace but they haven't had any EDWC wines yet. And the weather is cooperating--we'll spend the evening outside!

I usually do all my grocery shopping at Market Basket, but yesterday I stopped by the Nashua Hannaford supermarket, where I picked up a pound of ground lamb, something that's rarely on offer at Market Basket. Sometime in the next few days it will become merguez sausage, using the recipe Jenise posted in FLDG.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Thanks for mentioning the sausage, Paul. I haven't made those in years. Maybe I should dust off that recipe!

No plans for today yet. Last night I just had a salad--iceberg, avocado, crab meat--because it's almost 80 degrees here and cooking's not fun.

Friday June 26 is my birthday and I'll be celebrating by making Paul Prudhomme's chicken and andouille gumbo.

I fell in love with that dish when I had it at K-Paul's while on a business trip to New Orleans. I bought Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen cookbook mainly because it contains this recipe. It came out exactly as it was at the restaurant.

It was this dish that taught me to be patient when deep-frying. The first several times I made it I started a grease fire because I was overcrowding the pan and the oil boiled over. My first attempt was a very late dinner. I was cooking at midnight. All the smoke detectors went off when the grease fire started. I had to open all the windows and doors to clear out the smoke and get the alarms to shut up. My strictly indoor cat didn't like all the smoke and noise and ran out the front door. I went out to look for her but couldn't find her, so I had to leave the front door open awaiting her return. The problem was that this was mid-February and the temperature outside was well below freezing. I had to finish the gumbo wearing a parka. After about half an hour the cat had returned and was washing her paws in the living room. The rest of the preparation went without incident.

I'm more careful now and haven't had any further grease fires. I've also become pretty adept at making black roux using Prudhomme's quick roux method. It can be tricky to do this without burning the roux and the first couple of times I wimped out and settled for a very dark-brown roux.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Paul, happy early birthday! I've only had one gumbo that was a black roux, it was in NOLA, and I can't say I liked it as well as just dark brown. For my palate, it didn't show the seafood very well. You're doing chicken and sausage, is the black roux for typical for that combination?

Betsy made t'bit last night, a Iraqi-Jewish Shabbat dish. Chicken and rice one pot. Traditionally made with whole chicken, but she used a recipe that just used thighs. Most recipes call for sumac, which we seem to be out of (have za'atar). This one was primarily spiced with baharat. Lots of onion, some tomato. We had brown basmati so Betsy upped the liquid a little, it ended up a littler stewier than normal, she will drop broth just a tad if we do again. I loved it though.

[Jenise]

Dale, I'm not often suprised but I'm going to have go look up baharat.

It's a blend, similar to ras el hanout, but more peppery/cinnamony.

Regarding dark brown vs. black roux, Paul Prudhomme writes that he considers black roux the best for gumbos, but dark brown roux will work, too. I don't do seafood so I can't comment on which is better for seafood gumbo. The two kinds of gumbo that I make are chicken and andouille (black roux) and gumbo z'herbes (a vegetarian gumbo traditional as a meatless meal on Holy Thursday and Good Friday) which uses brown roux. I think it's a matter of personal taste rather than anything else. As a general rule of thumb Prudhomme recommends dark-colored roux with light-colored meats such as chicken and rabbit and light-colored roux for dark-colored meats such as beef and venison. As with any of those sorts of rules of thumb there are exceptions in the recipes in his cookbook.

Regarding baharat, I've been exploring doner kebab and related recipes lately and baharat turns up, as does sumac. I already had sumac and za'atar lying around but I had to make my own baharat from scratch.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

No immediate plans for dinner but the conversation around chicken and rice has me craving that combination. However, it's so hot out....

No immediate plans for dinner but the conversation around chicken and rice has me craving that combination. However, it's so hot out....

No A/C up there? Or cool breezes off the ocean? Redding has some very hot days during our summer months. Years ago, Gene put in a small A/C Heat unit dedicated to the kitchen and laundry room. It uses less power than the large whole-house one and cools the kitchen down fast, or heats it. Would a mini split work for your place in the kitchen area?

[Jenise]

We don't have your heat, and being on south facing waterfront my house was designed to get air conditioned by breeze off the water. That was fine, but for 2-5 days each summer when it gets into the 90's UNTIL: someone invented summer wildfires. Air quality, not heat, forced us to install AC. But even then I'm reluctant to use it except at night to cool the house down before bedtime. So all that aside, my issue is that heat just affects my mood. I'm a human torch--I don't own sweaters or socks--and yesterday was the hottest day yet this summer. I had a slice of rye toast around 10 a.m., nibbled on cold smoked salmon around 1 p.m. and had a cold green salad around 7 with a handful of cherries. The problem isn't heating up the kitchen, it's heating up ME! Pass the iced tea, please!