Carrot Soup

This was an unusually good carrot soup, and incredibly simple, so I just wanted to record it so I remember what it was.

Ingredients

• 1 lb carrots, peeled and chopped into 2-3" pieces (large parts quartered)
• 1 small onion, roughly chopped
• 1 tsp dried ginger, or 1 tbsp fresh, minced
• 2c chicken stock
• 1 tbsp butter
• olive oil
• salt

Preheat the oven to 375. Toss the carrots in some olive oil, then roast for 60 minutes, flipping them about half-way through.

When those are nearly done, start the onion sauteing with the butter. When the onion is soft (and possibly a little caramelized), add some ginger. Then toss it around a minute or two. Then add the carrots and the chicken stock. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for 45 minutes.

Let the soup cool, then blend until smooth, adding more water as necessary. Return to the pot and salt to taste.

Thoughts: Very simple recipe, but the soup is really good, and very carroty. I wonder if it couldn't handle like 1/2tsp sugar, though, to bring out the sweetness in the carrots.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Blueberry Cherry Bourbon Barbecue Sauce

Ingredients:
1 cup fresh blueberries
1 cup fresh cherries
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp ketchup
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/4 cup bourbon
1/4 brown sugar
1/2 tsp cayenne, maybe more
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder

Combine everything in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let it simmer for 20-30 minutes, until the blueberries have burst and the sauce has thickened. Blend it all using a stick blender. Put it on things. Eat those things.

Thoughts: Pretty legit.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Buttermilk Dressing

This is borrowed from Food52.com

Ingredients:
1/4 cup buttermilk
2/3 cup plain, non-Greek style yogurt
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
3 tbsp minced vidalia onion
1/4 cup olive oil
garlic, as much as you want
salt, as much as seems reasonable
pepper, all the pepper

Stir everything together.

Thoughts: We served it with a pretty legit corn/dill/cucumber/feta salad, and also used it to bind together cole slaw. Make it! It's delicious!

Disaster Index: 1/10

Watermelon Gazpacho

It's been forever since we've had time or inclination to put up any new recipes. But this isn't the first time we've made watermelon gazpacho, so I thought it was high time I blog this sucker. Maybe we'll get back into posting our recipes here.

Ingredients for the Soup

• 2 lbs of seedless watermelon, roughly chopped.
• Three medium tomatoes, stem bits removed, roughly chopped.
• 3c of crusty bread, crusts removed, rough chop
• A cucumber, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1/2c water
• 1/4c basil
• 1/4c mint
• 1/4c cilantro
• 1/4c olive oil
• 1 shallot, roughly chopped
• 3 cloves garlic
• 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1.5 tsp salt
• Somewhere between 1/2 and 1 tsp of adobo seasoning (or just 1/2 tsp of cumin)

Ingredients for the Basil Oil

• Didn't realize we were going to get fancy, did you?
• 1/4c basil
• 1/4 olive oil
• Salt  & pepper to taste

Garnish

• Some little bits of cubed tomato, watermelon, avocado, and/or feta.

This is a pretty easy recipe, and the results are fantastic. So basically, blend together the basil oil ingredients in a blender, then set aside and rinse out the blender (doesn't need to be totally clean). Toss all of the soup ingredients into a bowl and let them sit for a little while (5, 10 minutes) and then blend those, too (in batches if you have to). Set in the fridge to chill for 20 minutes, then adjust seasonings.

To serve, pour some soup in a bowl and top with the garnishes and drizzle with basil oil. If you want to be really fancy, you could serve this as a shooter, actually, or you could put a pile of the garnishes in the center of a plate and pour some soup around it. But we weren't as concerned about that.

Thoughts: This is remarkably easy. It's good for summer, since it's like 97 degrees out and who wants to cook? And it's refreshing. I guess it took a little while to put together, bit if you make a smaller portion it wouldn't have to take very long. Honestly, you could skip the basil oil and just use some basil in the garnish. That would also mean you can dirty fewer dishes, and you can just toss ingredients into the blender as you go.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Swedish Meatballs

Ingredients

• 8oz ground pork
• 12oz ground beef
• 2 slices sandwich bread
• 1/3c milk
• 1 small yellow onion, chopped finely
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cardamom
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 5tbsp butter
• scant 1/4c flour
• 2c beef stock
• sour cream

Saute the onion in a tablespoon of butter until translucent and starting to brown a bit, about 5-8 minutes. Meanwhile, in the bowl of a food processor, add the bread (torn up) and the milk so that it can soak. You can also add the salt, cardamom, and nutmeg right now.

When the onions are done sauteing, add to the milk/bread mixture and toss the meat in there and the egg. Pulse the mixture until it comes together. You will probably need a spoon to kind of turn the mixture every so often between pulses.

Melt the remaining 4 tbsp butter in a wide saute pan (you can reuse the one you used for the onions). Form the meatballs to be about 1-2tbsp in size, placing them in the butter as you go. Keep the heat low-ish so that they sizzle a little but don't splatter. Also you don't want to burn the butter. Don't crowd the pan, you're going to have to do a couple batches. Turn the meatballs as they cook until they're pretty well browned. You don't need to cook them through at this stage. When you're done, fish them out and put them aside on a plate or cookie sheet and continue cooking the other batches until you've done all of them.

When the meatballs are done, set aside. In the pan, add the flour and whisk around in the remaining grease. Then add the beef stock and continue to whisk as you bring it to a simmer, scraping up the bottom of the pan.

When the gravy comes to a simmer, re-add all of the meatballs. Turn heat to low and cover the pan to cook for another 8-10 minutes. Then you can add sour cream to the gravy (if you're feeling decadent) - go for about 1/3c, tops, though.

Serve with mashed potatoes, black pepper, and lingonberry jam.

Thoughts: Nailed it. We really wanted comfort food tonight, and I think we did it. This is probably our most successful meatball recipe yet, also. This makes enough to feed about 4, but we made it for 2 with a lot of leftovers, as it should be.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Pan-Seared Duck with Cherry-Port Reduction

A fitting 350th post! This was the inaugural dish for using our new Wusthoff steak knives (thanks Paul and Erin!) and it was also New Year's Eve, so we kinda went all out. This was actually the second course (after a cream-based oyster stew from Saveur) but I kind of procrastinated on that, and I know we made some significant modifications but I can no longer remember what they were. I may blog it anyway and kind of make it up. That's the kind of quality you can expect at DCCDI.

All of this was served with some rustic bread and truffle butter. We're so fancy.

Edit: I guess this is the 350th post, but not the 350th PUBLISHED post. We have 9 unpublished drafts. Whatever. It's still impressive.

Ingredients

• duck breasts
• 1/2c pitted cherries. We used sour cherries, which I think is better, though some use sweet.
• 2tbsp tawny port
• 1tbsp honey
• one small-medium shallot, finely chopped
• 1/2c chicken broth
• salt

Start out by preparing the duck breasts. Take a sharp knife and score the skin side in a diamond pattern. You're aiming to cut all the way through the skin without cutting through the meat. Do this across the entire duck breast. Pat the duck breasts dry.

Preheat the oven to 400. Now take a clean, dry pan. Place the breasts in the pan, and put over medium or medium-low heat. I know, right? The thing is that you want to render the fat out of the skin so you have a really crisp skin, and that takes a lower heat. So what you do is cook the breasts on the skin side for 15-20 minutes over this low heat. As the pan fills with duck fat (and it will SEVERAL times), you should pour that off into a separate container - you'll want to save that. You don't want too much more than 1/8" of fat in the bottom of the pan at any time. Also, move the breasts around from time to time so they don't burn and so they brown evenly.

Once they're a deep golden brown on the skin side (and 115* on a thermometer, apparently, though we eyeballed it) you want to flip them to the non-skin side and cook for 30 seconds. Flip them BACK to the skin side and pop them in the oven for about 5 minutes (in the pan if you're using stainless steel or cast iron). You're aiming for an internal temperature of 125, though we just did 5 minutes. Take the duck breasts off the pan and put them on a rack to rest (or at least set them aside on another plate).

Now create the sauce. You should pour off all the remaining duck fat in the pan so you have just enough to cook the shallots. Toss the shallots in there and cook until they're getting translucent, then add everything else (cherries, port, honey, broth). Bring to a simmer and reduce to a glaze, then salt to taste.

Thoughts: We didn't hit "rare" for the duck, or even a "medium rare," but more like a "medium." Which was fine, though - the duck was still fantastic. The skin was really delicious (so success there) and the duck was still tender and flavorful. I was surprised how easy this was. When I get duck in a restaurant, they usually sear it quickly rather than with this method, so the layer of fat on top is actually quite thick - I think I like this method more, actually, because you can theoretically get that crisp duck skin and still have rare or medium-rare duck. We just need to work on the timing. Also, the steak knives made short work of this. A testament to our cooking skills, or the sharpness of the knives? Not sure.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Naan

We were making Chicken Tikka Masala (from Cook's magazine - awesome recipe!) and needed something to go with it. So instead of rice, we went for naan.

Ingredients

• 2 tsp yeast
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/2c warm water
• 2.5-3c flour (until the dough is about right so it doesn't stick to absolutely everything - we did about 2.5c then used an extra 1/2c for kneading
• 1tsp salt
• garlic powder (we used like 1/2-1tsp), or any other flavorings you might want
• 1/4c vegetable oil
• 1/3c greek yogurt (we used nonfat and it worked perfectly)
• 1 egg

Combine water, sugar, and yeast. Set aside. Combine all the other ingredients except the flour, then add the water/yeast/sugar mixture. Mix well, then add about 2.5c flour and fold together with a wooden spoon or your hands or whatever. Turn out onto a counter and knead for 3 minutes, adding as much flour as necessary to make this possible. Grease the bowl you were using originally and toss the dough back in there. Let it rise for about 45 minutes to an hour.

Now, without punching the whole thing down, grab a chunk of dough (as large as you want to make the naan - about 3" diameter will make about a 6" naan) and press / roll it out to about 1/4" thick. Spray a frying pan with cooking spray (you REALLY don't want too much oil here!) and heat until just smoking, then add the naan. You can kind of start the pan heating while you roll out the naan. Anyway, once the naan is on the pan, turn it to low and cook for 3-4 minutes, then flip it and do the same. You can flip it early if you think the naan is getting browned a little early - it will depend on how hot your stove is. If you flip it TOO early, you can always re-brown that side (we did this several times). Repeat with the remaining dough. sprinkle with salt as they come off the pan.

Thoughts: The texture of these was really great. I think they could have used a bit more salt, personally, and I think Claire agrees with me on that. In the future, it would be cool to add chopped chives or something. But otherwise, these turned out great. I would do this again.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Banana Muffins With Stuff

Lots of stuff.
Ingredients

• 2 very ripe bananas
• 1/2c oil
• 1c white flour
• 1tsp salt
• 3/4tsp baking soda
• 1/2tsp baking powder
• 2 eggs
• 2/3c brown sugar
• 1/2tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla
• ~1/2c chocolate chips
• ~1/2c raisins
• ~1/4c sunflower seeds
• ~1/3c chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 375. Then basically mix everything except the various "add-ins". Then add in the chocolate chips, raisins, sunflower seeds, and walnuts. We actually soaked the raisins in some boiling water for ~5 minutes then drained them before adding them. You can add just about anything to these - we just added what stuff we had on hand.

Distribute to 12 muffin cups. Bake 20 minutes.

Thoughts: These were awesome. I wouldn't change anything.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Glazed Salmon

I should probably blog something.

Ingredients

• Salmon accouterments:
• Salmon fillets (we used about 6oz per person, 12oz total)
• 1/2 tsp brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• scant 1/4 tsp cornstarch
• pepper
• 1 tsp vegetable oil
• Glaze:
• 1.5 tbsp brown sugar
• 1.5 tbsp pomegranate juice
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 tbsp mustard
• 1/2 tsp cornstarch

Preheat the oven to 300. First prepare the glaze. Mix all the ingredients in a microwave safe container and microwave about 30 seconds, then stir and microwave another 10. Just get it boiling, basically, so the cornstarch will thicken a little. You can do this on the stove, but why bother?

Pat the salmon fillets dry, and sprinkle with black pepper. Coat with the brown sugar, salt, and cornstarch mixture. Heat 1 tsp vegetable oil in a pan until just smoking. Cook 1 minute on the flesh side, then 1 minute on the skin side. Then take it off the heat and cover with the glaze. Be careful - if it's hot (it should be), the glaze might pop a little. Throw the whole thing in the oven. Did I mention the pan should be oven safe? Because yes, it should be. Bake for 7-10 minutes, until a thermometer in the deepest part of the fillet reads 125ish. Remove and serve.

Thoughts: Really good. I would experiment with different glazes, though, too - possibly some kind of miso or asian barbecue? Anyway, the salmon was cooked perfectly. I might go a LITTLE less long on the flesh side and a LITTLE longer on the skin side so that the skin is crispy, but we can think about that.

Disaster Index: a solid 1/10

Ratatouille

Why did it take us so long into our cooking careers to make this? Well, because Claire doesn't really like vegetables. Or ratatouille. So we got a bunch of eggplants in our farm share and I was sick of making baba ganoush, so I made something more substantial. To be fair, though, eggplants are kind of a waste of a vegetable. The big Western eggplants aren't nearly as flavorful as Asian varieties, and I gather that they're nutritionally nil. Maybe the skins are healthy. They're purple. That's something, right? This recipe makes enough for about 8-10 servings. But we had to use the eggplants.

Ingredients

• One yellow onion, sliced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 medium eggplants, cut into 1/2" dice, skins on
• About 2-3 zucchinis (depending on size), 1/3" half-moons
• about 1.5 lbs of cherry tomatoes or similar, cut in half
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp dried basil
• olive oil, salt, pepper
• goat cheese and couscous, to serve

To a pan, add the yellow onion and a lot of oil. Saute over medium heat while you cut up the eggplants, stirring occasionally. Add the garlic. Add the eggplants, basil, adn thyme after 5-10 minutes and stir around (while you do the zucchinis). You may want to sprinkle a little salt to help encourage the eggplants to give up their water a bit. After 3-5 min, add the zucchinis. Cook another 10 minutes or so, adding oil if necessary. When the zucchinis are starting to get cooked, add the tomatoes. At this point, my ratatouille was getting a little dry, so I added about 1/2c of stock, turned heat to low, and covered. I left that for about 10-20 minutes, checking on it occasionally. When everything looked like it was starting to meld, I uncovered and turned the heat up to evaporate a little of the stock. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve over couscous with a dollop of goat cheese.

Thoughts: This was really easy, relatively healthy, filling, and vegetarian? What the hell? I would make this again. Maybe Claire not so much. Maybe next time I'd try Japanese eggplants. That would also allow me to make a much smaller (single) serving if I used one Japanese eggplant, one zucchini, etc. Anyway, if you let this stuff cook down long enough, it's great. Actually, it might be possible to make this in a slow-cooker. Or maybe it would turn to mush. I'm not really sure. Hm. Something to ponder.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Rustic Pear Tart

Maybe more of a general use recipe. Hm.

Ingredients

• Crust
• 1/2c wheat flour
• 1/2c AP flour
• 4 tbsp butter
• 3 tbsp buttermilk
• 2 tbsp water
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp sugar
• Filling
• About 3 pears, cored and cut into 1/2" slices
• Also two nectarines, or I guess whatever you'd like to add
• 1.5 tbsp corn starch
• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• ~1/4 tsp cinnamon - we kind of eye-balled it.

Make the crust: Mix the dry ingredients, and cut in the butter. When it's a sort of coarse, sandy texture, add the liquid and stir to combine. Don't over-mix or knead. Then form into a 4" disc and wrap in plastic. Place in the fridge for an hour or two. I think we let ours go for about 3-4, actually - doesn't hurt it to go a bit longer.

When you're ready to make the tart, preheat the oven to 425 and make the filling: slice up the pears (and other fruit you want to use) and toss with the corn starch, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Roll out the crust with a lot of flour until it's about 18" wide and 8" tall. Place crust in a baking pan on parchment. Arrange the pears in a line running the length of the crust, and fold the crust up over the pears. It won't cover them completely, which is fine. Dot the top with a little butter (optional) and place in the oven. After 15 minutes, reduce the temperature to 350 and continue to bake for another 30 minutes.

Thoughts: It went surprisingly well, even though it includes pastry dough. I guess you just have to not be afraid of butter. I would make this again. And I may wind up doing that because we have like 10 pears going bad in our fridge right now.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Chocolate Coconut Milk Ice Cream

Ingredients

• 1.5 cans of coconut milk (about 1.5 to 2c)
• 1/4 c semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips
• 3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 tsp cornstarch
• 1/2 c sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• pinch of salt

Pour a small amount of coconut milk (about 1/2c) into a pot. Add the chocolate chips, cocoa powder, sugar, and salt. In a separate bowl, mix another 1/4c of coconut milk with the cornstarch. Set the pot with the chocolate on the stove on medium heat until the chocolate chips have melted and the mixture is starting to boil a little. Remove it from the heat and stir in the cornstarch mixture, then return to the heat and bring to a boil. After about 10-30 seconds of boiling, remove the whole thing from the heat and add the vanilla extract and all the remaining coconut milk.

Let the mixture cool in the freezer for about 20 minutes, then churn in an ice cream maker once you think it's cool enough.

Thoughts: 20 minutes in the freezer is not enough to cool the mixture down initially, so when we churned this, it didn't freeze. So I removed everything from the ice cream maker, put it in the refrigerator again, reset the process, and waiting 8 hours to re-churn it. Second time's a charm. The flavor is really nice and chocolatey, but the coconut flavor started to come through the second day. I would count this among the most successful ice creams we've ever made. I wonder if coconut milk wouldn't be a good base for other flavors.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Roasted Carrot and Apple Soup

Ingredients

• 1 lb carrots, scrubbed (about 4-5 large)
• 1 medium-large onion, chopped
• 2 medium-large apples (we used pink lady), washed, chopped, unpeeled
• olive oil
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 black pepper
• 2 tbsp butter, divided
• 2 tbsp garlic
• 1 tbsp fresh ginger
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 3 cups chicken stock
• 1/2 tsp smoked Spanish paprika
• crema mexicana, for garnish (you can also use creme fraiche)

Preheat oven to 400 and line a baking sheet with foil.

In a large bowl, combine the carrots, onion, apples, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Spread them in an even layer on the baking sheet. 

Roast for 30 minutes, turning once halfway. 

Heat 1 tbsp of the butter in a soup pot and put all the spices in it (garlic, ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, nutmeg, black pepper). Cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. 

Add the roasted vegetables and the stock. Stir to combine, then turn the heat off. 

Use an immersion blender on everything until it's smooth. Return to heat and cook until it simmers.

While this is happening, make the paprika brown butter, viz. heat butter over medium/low heat until it starts to simmer and smell interesting. THIS DOES NOT TAKE LONG. DON'T BURN THE BUTTER unless you want to make a beurre noir. But don't. 

Remove from heat and add paprika. Stir while it's still hot. 

Serve soup garnished with the brown butter sauce and crema mexicana. We also served it with goat cheese crostini, which was boss.

Thoughts: Well, this was a fine soup. Flavor was pretty legit, but it was a little thick. I might try to thin the soup out a little if I were to make this in the future. Not sure I will though, because it's not a 1, and why re-make anything that isn't a 1? Dan really liked it -- he thinks it's better than the other carrot soups we've done. I guess I believe him. He also says he wouldn't thin it out, so.....? 

Disaster Index: 1/10 (Dan), 2/10 (Claire)

Peach Salsa

Ingredients

• 3 ripe peaches (1 lb)
• 1 tomato, diced
• 1/4 cup red onion, diced
• 1/4 cup bell pepper, diced, seeded
• 1 jalapeno pepper
• 1 tbsp mint, chopped
• 1 tbsp basil, chopped
• juice of 1/2 lime
• salt and pepper

Peel the peaches by cutting an x into the bottom of them and dropping them in boiling water for 1 minute. Remove them and put them in an ice bath. Peel them when they're cool enough. If they're ripe, the skins should come off super easily. Dice them.

Combine the peaches with everything else. If you'd like, you can pulse them in a food processor for a sec or two. Chill for an hour to let the flavors come together. Eat it.

Thoughts: Super easy, super delicious. What else is there? OM NA NOM NOM NOM.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Tomatillo Salsa

Ingredients

• 1 pound fresh tomatillos
• 1 large onion, cut into chunks
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 cup chopped cilantro
• 1/2 hot pepper, any kind you'd like
• 1/2 lime, juiced
• salt, to taste

Peel the tomatillos and scrub them until they're less sticky. They probably won't be COMPLETELY unsticky, but just do your best. Cut them into quarters and put them in a food processor. Put everything else in the food processor and pulse it until it's the consistency you want. I don't like my salsas super smooth, but whatever. Do anything you feel like doing. 

Put it all in a small saucepan and cook until the salsa is less watery. This might take a while. 

Chill it, then eat it.

Thoughts: Pretty legit, though we had to cook the salsa FOREVER for it to get less watery. Maybe next time I would chop the onion and then drain that sucker. Onions are watery, yo. But the flavor was pretty good. I wonder whether we would even cook it in the future. But maybe you have to cook tomatillos? Maybe we would blanch the tomatillos and leave everything else raw? Anyway, we used this as a substitute for enchilada sauce, and it was serviceable. 

Disaster Index: 3/10

Chicken in a Dutch Oven

I don't know if this is really necessary as a recipe, but I kind of wanted to remember the specifications for how we did this, because the chicken really came out perfectly.

Ingredients

• 1 Chicken - ours was about 2.5lbs, but you can go up to 5-6 lbs so long as it fits in your (covered) Dutch oven
• 1/2 lemon, sliced thin
• Something onion-y - we used 2-3 shallots, cut in half (root to tip), though you could use onions.
• Celery - we used about 2 stalks worth, cut down so they fit inside a bird.
• Garlic - about 2 cloves, chopped
• 1:1:1 mixture (ish) of sage, rosemary, and thyme, with a bit of salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 250. Yeah, just 250. Wash the bird thoroughly in lukewarm water, including the inside. Then pat dry with a towel, making sure the outside is quite dry. Insert the onion, celery, and garlic into the bird, then fit the lemon slices in under the skin and in the cavity. We then trussed the bird, but that's not really necessary. Coat with some olive oil and sprinkle liberally with the seasoning mixture to coat the bird.

Place the chicken breast-side up in a lightly oiled dutch oven and cover. Place in the oven for about 80-120 minutes, until a thermometer inserted into the breast is just shy of 160 and the thigh is just shy of 175. Then turn on the broiler onto high and uncover the dutch oven. Let the bird cook just a little while longer (flipping it over after a couple minutes) to brown under the broiler. Remove from oven and cover with the dutch oven lid. Allow to rest for 20-30 minutes.

Thoughts: This was really easy. Why don't we do this more often? We prepared this chicken for use in chicken matzo ball soup (we used the carcass and vegetables again afterward to make the stock). It was really delicious. Would make again. Some recipes recommend searing the chicken FIRST and then just baking it, but I thought, well, it's in the oven already. Why not use that? It worked pretty well, but toward the VERY end the oil started to pop inside the oven. Not great. Maybe searing would be better if we want to eat the skin. OTOH, I could still sear individual pieces AFTER carving it. I think that may be my preferred approach, since it's so much more manageable.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Salmon with Fennel and Pernod

This is what magic tastes like. CLASSY MAGIC. From Bon Appetit.

Ingredients

• 1.5 tsp crushed fennel seeds
• 1/2 stick butter, softened
• 2 tbsp minced red onion/shallot
• 1 large fennel bulb with fronds -- bulb sliced into 1/4 inch pieces, fronds chopped
• 2 salmon fillets
• 2 tbsp Pernod

Make compound butter: In a large non-stick skillet, cook fennel seeds over medium-high heat until fragrant, about 1.5 minutes. Transfer to a small bowl and let cool. Mix in  butter, shallots/onion, 1 tbsp fennel fronds, and whatever salt and pepper you want. 

Melt 1 tbsp of this mixture into the same skillet over medium-high heat. Add sliced fennel and 1/4 cup water. Cover and cook until fennel is tender, about 8 minutes. Uncover and let cook until fennel is brown, another 2 minutes. Remove fennel from skillet and set aside.

Season salmon. Add the rest of the compound butter to the skillet and let it melt. Add salmon, skin side down. Cover and cook for 5 minutes. Turn salmon over, add 1/4 water to skillet. Cover and continue cooking another 5 minutes. 

Slide salmon over to one side of the skillet and add the cooked fennel back in. Add Pernod, some more butter, and the rest of the fennel fronds. Heat through.

Serve with the rest of the butter on top of the fillet.  

Thoughts:

UGH DELICIOUS. This was our first foray into cooking salmon and it was the best-cooked salmon I've ever had. I give all credit to BA. I would eat this all the time if it weren't so complicated. Dan says it was amazing and he's right. Not much to say here. Go make this. Dan edit: we actually used the salmon cooking instructions from Serious Eats. It yields a really crisp salmon skin that is super delicious. I don't think we actually cooked it 5 minutes and flipped with water. I think we cooked it just like the Serious Eats post.

Disaster Index: 1/10 but actually like -2/10. Can we do that? We just did.

Bandh Gobhi Ki Sabzi (Buttered Smothered Cabbage)

After we made corned beef and cabbage, we had half a head of Savoy left over and couldn't figure out what to do with it until I was awesome and found this recipe.

Ingredients

• half a large head of savoy cabbage (or whatever cabbage you have)
• 1.5 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tbsp butter, oil, or ghee (we used plain butter)
• 1/2 tsp turmeric 
• 1 tbsp minced ginger
• 1 tsp hot curry powder
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 large tomato, chopped
• 1/2 chicken stock, hot
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 handful of cilantro, chopped

Core the cabbage and shred it. Heat the butter in a large saucepan over medium-high heat until melted. Add the cumin and stir until fragrant (about 30 seconds). Add cabbage and turmeric and stir to coat. The cabbage doesn't have much internal water, so you might have to add a splash of water to keep everything from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Cover and steam until cabbage is wilted (about five minutes).

Add ginger, curry powder, red pepper flakes, salt, and tomato. Stir to coat/combine. When things start to stick, add the chicken stock. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and let cook for another 10 minutes.

When cabbage is tender and all the liquid is absorbed, remove from heat and stir in the heavy cream. Add chopped cilantro. Eat.


Thoughts: Pretty damn good. I was worried this recipe would be totally lame and I'd be like "why am I eating a bowlful of lame cabbage?" But it was awesome instead. You could serve this with rice, but why? Just eat it.


Disaster Index: 1/10

Kedgeree

A Victorian era Anglo-Indian colonial breakfast dish (possibly invented in a Scottish regiment?). History is interesting.

Ingredients

• 8-12oz haddock, cod, or similar fillet
• 2 eggs
• 2 bay leaves
• 1c basmati rice
• 2tbsp butter
• 2 small onions, chopped
• 2 tsp fresh ginger, minced
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp ground mustard
• 2 tbsp madras curry powder
• 2 tomatoes, chopped
• 1/2c cilantro, chopped
• 2 lemons, juiced
• salt
• plain yogurt

Place the fish in a pan and add a little water - not enough to cover, I think. Add the bay leaves, bring to a boil and cook about 5 minutes. Remove the fish and set to cool, at which time you can flake it apart. I think smoked fish might be a good alternative here (and more flavorful) so if you can get smoked cod, I'd say go for it.

Set up the rice cooking. If you use a rice cooker, do that. I use 1c rice and 1.25c water. If you use a pot, use those ratios, bring to a boil, simmer covered on low for 10 minutes, then set aside covered for 10 minutes. Done.

Meanwhile, set a small saucepan of water to boil. When it's boiling, add the eggs. Boil for 10 minutes, then remove and run under icy cold water to stop the cooking.

OK. Now, in a large-ish saute or similar, add the butter and onions. Cook until softened, then add the garlic and ginger. Cook another minute or two, then add the mustard and curry. Cook another couple minutes, then add the tomato and lemon juice.

When that's done, remove from heat. Add the rice to the onion / tomato mixture, along with the cilantro and the flaked fish, and toss to coat. Peel the hard-boiled eggs and cut into quarters. Top the dish with the hard-boiled eggs, then serve with a little yogurt.

Thoughts: This dish was a little too lemon-y for our taste, and it needed a bit more salt. The fish lost some flavor to the weird boiling process (leave it to the Brits, amirite?) but if we had smoked fish, that might have worked well. I think next time we go with one lemon, smoked fish, and more salt. That would make this a pretty damn good dish.

Disaster Index: 3/10

Moroccan Lamb Stew with Israeli Couscous

There's getting to be a bit of a back-log of recipes in my browser's tabs. I don't want to close them because I need to blog how we made something, but I put it off until I forget what I did.

In this case, I decided the recipe was too good to let it meet that fate. Also, it was kind of made up as recipes go, so it went really well. This recipe makes about enough for two hungry people with limited amounts of self-control.

Ingredients

• 1 lb lamb stew meat (probably lamb shoulder? Cut to 1.5" cubes) - beef or similar would work as well.
• 3 smallish carrots with their greens (or you can use some parsley instead if you don't have the carrot greens? Or just leave that out); Carrots peeled and sliced, greens chopped and set aside.
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1/4 tsp thyme
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1.5 tsp ras-el-hanout (look it up - it's a moroccan spice blend. We made our own a long time ago so I can't say exactly what we put in it, but it's stuff like cumin, turmeric, cinnamon, and clove - sort of sweet-and-savory)
• 1 c beef broth
• 1/4 c dry white wine (we actually used vermouth)
• 1 c Israeli couscous
• about 1/4 c dried apricots, quartered
• about 1/4 c raisins
• olive oil, salt

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. In a large sautee pan or dutch oven, heat oil until quite hot and then add the lamb and sear it a bit. After about 5 minutes of this (when you get sick of it?) add the onion and carrots. Cook for another 5 minutes. At this point, stuff will probably be sticking to the bottom of the pan. Add the thyme, garlic, beef stock, vermouth, a couple extra tbsp of olive oil, and the ras-el-hanout. Bring to a boil, scraping up the browned bits on the bottom of the pot. Reduce to a simmer and cover, then put in the oven for 90 minutes.

When that's done, remove the pot from the oven. Using a slotted spoon, remove the lamb, carrots, and as many onions as you care about and set aside. You should have quite a bit of beef/lamb broth left over in the pan. Add the couscous, apricots, raisins, and carrot greens and probably a little water. Proceed to cook the couscous kind of like you would risotto - add water when it's looking dry until it's pretty close to cooked through. When it's very close, re-add the lamb/carrot mixture and mix. Cover and leave on the warm burner for about 10 minutes to let the couscous finish cooking through. Salt to taste.

Thoughts: For serious, my only regret is that we had just one pound of lamb so there are no leftovers.

Disaster Index: 1/10