Day 26: Pollo al Vino Rosso E Insalata Caprese (Chicken Thighs in Red Wine and Caprese Salad)
Well it’s been a while since i posted new pictures. School started up and I got incredibly busy with that. Didn’t stop cooking however.
Here we have a dish that fully sums up the essential attitude of Italian cooking, which paraphrased read something like “Allow the good ingredients to speak for themselves in simple ways.” The chicken is deliciously tender yet the skin is crisp. The salad is a case of beauty in simplicity.
Here we simply rehydrated some dried porcini mushrooms in hot water for fifteen minutes and then dried them by squeezing them. A generous dab of butter, 2 tablespoons, went into a pan followed by a sprig of rosemary and a bay leaf. The chicken thighs soon followed. Oh and don’t let the butter burn. Trust me on this.
Here the type of chicken parts that you use actually matter somewhat. You want something that has some fat that can render out into your pan. I would not recommend boneless, skinless chicken breasts, a favorite weapon of the culinary inquisition aimed at destroying all the flavor in our lives. Something like a thigh, a whole leg, or just buying a whole damn chicken and chopping it into pieces.
Brown the chicken until all sides of it are golden brown. Season with salt and pepper, add mushrooms and add wine. I added about one and half cups of red wine.
Don’t use cooking wine. Don’t use cooking wine. Don’t fucking use cooking wine. You will destroy the dish and you might as well start ordering take out because it’s going to taste like shit. Use something that would drink by itself. If you are worried about opening a bottle just for cooking you can and should drink the wine with the dish. Here I used a nice little number from France called Pierre Amadiu, Côtes du Rhône, Roulepierre, 2006.
Wait it’s from France!? Doesn’t that mean it’s expensive! No, my misguided friend, this particular bottle cost about thirteen dollars, and tasted great.
After you add the wine all the alcohol is going to start to cook off. When it does, reduce the heat to medium, take the chicken out, and wrap it in pancetta. I did not have any pancetta sadly so I substituted with bacon. Secure with toothpicks and reintroduce the chicken into the pan with the wine.
Cook over medium heat, turning occasionally, until tender and cooked through, give it thirty minutes or so. Take out of pan and place of serving platter. Garnish with some color if you want to make it look pretty, I recommend rosemary or parsley.
Caprese Salad is one of the easy dishes to make in the entire world. The only way you can mess this up is to use substandard ingredients. It’s three basic ingredients; tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella cheese.
Slice your tomatoes (these are good ripe organic tomatoes of noble birth right, because stop if they are not) into thick slices, slice the mozzarella cheese into think slices, and throw one or two basil leafs on there. Sprinkle salt and pepper on there and then drizzle extra virgin olive oil (and if you use the acronym kill yourself) and balsamic vinegar on top.
Day 25 Continued:
The potatoes are Idaho spuds, but a bit of slightly boiled heavy cream and butter is added in stages as they are being mashed. Then of course seasoned with salt and pepper.
The butter is dead easy to make. Take half a cup of red wine and a finely chopped shallot, place them in a saucepan on high heat and reduce the wine. A whole fucking lot. Somewhere in between 2-4 tablespoonish. Remove to mixing bowl and allow to cool. When cool, place in food processor with 1 sprig finely chopped parsley, 8 oz of unsalted butter, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well.
From here you can serve at room temperature or place it on a sheet of plastic wrap and roll it into a log and refrigerate it. For long term storage freeze it and pull it out whenever you feel like beef.
Day 25: Faux-Filet au Beurre Rouge et Pommes Purée (Sirloin with Red Wine Butter and Mashed Potatoes)
Steak is one of the most frequently butchered dishes in the American kitchen. Millions of cows have given their lives only for them to be cooked into blackened chucks that resemble hunks of charcoal more then beef.
Here I cooked a steak using a method so simple a monkey or Rachael Ray could do it. I must note that this works best with thick steaks like strip, porterhouse, rib-eye, fillet mignon, etc.
First rest your steak for 10-15 minutes before cooking. Yes rest your raw meat in the open, the reason being is that you want to decrease the temperature difference between your meat and your eventual cooking surface. If you are already starting to freak out about bacteria and germs, keep a cleaner kitchen slob
Next put your oven at 500 degree Fahrenheit. Yes your oven. Next place your cooking vessel in it. It should be heavy. The kind of heavy that would leave you with no doubt what would give way first, the pan or a skull. The best cooking vessel for this purpose is the 12 inch cast iron skillet, a pan that makes everything from steaks to cakes. If you don’t have an ovenproof skillet, go buy a cast iron and cure it.
Next season your target piece of meat. First you want to place a small bit of oil all over the steak. If the first thing that came to your mind was extra virgin olive oil…stop just stop. You want something with a high smoke point, a good vegetable oil. Peanut has one of 450. If you have a peanut allergy canola has one of 435. The next step is to salt your meat. Simply place a generous sprinkle or two of salt on each side and rub it in. Do the same with pepper, don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty. And remember the cardinal rule of seasoning, “If it needs to seasoned at the the table, you fucked up.”
Turn your stove as high as it goes. Open up a few windows and turn on a fan or two. Put on your heatproof gloves (you do have ones that can take the heat rather the just having pretty patterns right) Take your pan out of the oven and put it on the range.
Now place your meat best side down first on the pan. It will sizzle like mad and a shitload of smoke will pour out. You may be scared and frightened now wanting to move the steak or take it off the pan. Don’t fucking do it you fucking idiot. The reason you have this insanely hot pan cooking your meat is to induce a sear on the outside of your meat. Moving it would destroy all of the work.
Keep the meat on the pan for 30 seconds and then flip it. Cook for another 30 seconds. Then place the whole thing, pan and all, in the oven immediately.
Here cooking times vary on the desired final temperature of the meat. For medium rare cook 2 minutes, open oven, flip, close, and cook 2 more minutes. I prefer rare because I feel there is not enough danger and risk in my life, so I subtract 15-30 seconds depend on how ballsy I feel that day. Medium well do the same. If you want well-done, stop eating meat. If you want it blue, you probably don’t need to read this (also you have brass fucking balls)
Finally take your meat out and place it on a rack with a plate under it to catch juices. Cover it loosely with tinfoil and let it rest for 5-10 minutes. Do not skip this step
Now technically this is not the “best” method for cooking steak. However this method is so quick and efficient that everyone from home cooks to restaurants (maybe even some with Michelin stars, although they will all tell you to shut the fuck up if you ask them)
Next post has the rest of the meal. I just felt that properly cooking beef is so essential to learn how to do properly that it deserves it own special post.
Day 24: Salade Niçoise (Salad of Nice)
Being sick means that cooking is hard. Sorry for the break, illness (still ill in fact) and other aspects of my life have now made the title of this blog inaccurate.
Today we have some classic French bistro food. First I crushed a garlic clove, impaled it on a fork and rubbed it around a salad bowl. Add a 2-1 ratio of extra virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar, mixed with your garlic studded fork. Season with salt and pepper.
The inner leafs of Boston lettuce, blanched haricots verts, tomatoes, boiled red bliss potatoes, green bell pepper strips, and olives are the primary vegetables in the salad. Add in the bowl along with a quartered anchovy fillet per diner and toss in a combination of extra virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar.
Divide the dish among the plates/bowls, place a sprinkle of olive oil, and finish with a bit of high-quality canned tuna, a quartered hardboiled egg, and whole anchovy fillets.
Day 23: Bananas and Cherries with Chocolate Frosting
Today’s dish is half a lesson in lazy and half a lesson in flavor pairings.
I had frosting. I needed fruit to pair with it. however not just any fruit would do. When you start to notice food beyond the “stuff in mouth” school of study, it becomes clear that certain combinations of flavors seem more popular then others. Raspberry, blackberry, blueberry, and strawberry, commonly called fruits of the forest, are an excellent example. Here I had to pair with chocolate. While I’ve seen chocolate paired with such things as chillies and caviar, I decided to go with two of the classic pairings.
Day 22: Blackberry Grunt
A grunt is a dessert from New England. The name grunt supposedly comes from the sound it makes when the fruit filling bubbles up through the crust while baking. Similar to a cobbler, it’s basically biscuit dough put on top of a fruit filling. Here we have a fruit filling of water, blackberries, ginger and sugar. The crust is good old southern buttermilk biscuit dough just placed on top of the filling and then baked in the oven. Traditionally these are made entirely on the stove, but I didn’t feel like taking up the range with this.
Day 21: Lentil Rissoles and Spring Vegetable Stir Fry with Herbed Butter
A croquette is a small fried roll. A rissole is a type of croquette. It’s usually made with sweet or savory ingredients. Here I initially sweated some minced onions and garlic in peanut oil, coriander, and cumin. I then added finely chopped carrots, lentils, and vegetable stock. The mixture is brought up to a boil, and then allowed to simmer until the lentils have gotten pulpy and soft. I allowed the mixture to cool, mixed in panko breadcrumbs, and then mashed it a bit. It is cooled in the fridge, dredged in flour and eggs, breaded in panko, and fried in peanut oil.
The stir fry is simply baby carrots, asparagus, green beans, snow peas, and bamboo shoots. It is then stir fried in hot olive and peanut oil. I then added a good amount of butter and three fourths, yes that was three fourths, a cup of fresh chopped herbs. The herb mixture is equal parts basil, chives, and parsley.
Day 20: Fudge Cake
This cake is rather strange from most cakes. Made from scratch, it has sour cream and boiling water added into it. When the butter and brown sugar were creamed, the butter disappeared into the sugar rather then the usual method. This was due to using much more sugar then butter.
This results in a batter that is very lose and runny for a cake batter. And a cake that is incredibly gooey in the middle when the cake is done. I had to left it cool for several hours in order for the center to come together. Next time I am just going to put it into the refrigerator.
The frosting is a mixture of semisweet milk and white chocolate, whipping cream, butter, and confectioner’s sugar. Today I learned that frosting is a real pain in the ass to make from scratch. I’m not even sure if i did it right.
Taste wise the cake is moist and has an interesting flavor. The chocolate is less pronounced then most chocolate cakes, which all seem to be aimed a chocoholics. The way I poured the cake lead to it having separate sections, getting less like a cake and closer in texture to fudge the closer you go to the center. I like the effect, even though it was completely accidental.
Still this cake was something of a pain in the ass to bake and I may be on the search for a differing approach.
Day 19: Mushroom Moussaka and Beetroot Hummus with Whole Wheat Pitas
Moussaka is a cooked salad that originates from the Middle East. The variant shown here is the Greek style, comprised of several distinct layers of ingredients. Here I made the layers of a cooked mushroom, onion, and tomato mixture, roasted eggplants, and roasted potatoes. Traditionally there would be layer of minced meat, but I decided to have this meal be vegetarian to prove that I could make dishes that I enjoyed without meat.
I then layered the whole mixtures and then poured over it a parmesan cheese béchamel sauce. It then baked in the oven until it turns golden brown and then given a few minutes to come together outside the oven.
The beetroot hummus is simply the addition of cooked beets to the basic hummus recipe of chickpeas, lemon juice, garlic, tahini (sesame paste). I also added an onion cooked with cumin and a bit of vegetable stock for salting purposes and to help with consistency of the final dish. The beets give this variation on basic hummus a subtle sweet flavor that goes well with the pita and the moussaka,
Day 18: Saumon Grillé á la Danoise / Pommes de Terres et Pois à la Crème (Grilled Dilled Salmon Fillets and Potatoes with Peas in Cream)
Just a salmon fillet marinated in peanut oil, chopped dill, salt and pepper. I threw it under the broiler and let it cook through. Protein done in 10 minutes at most.
I boiled the potatoes, then sliced them up. They then stewed in a whole milk/heavy cream mixture seasoned with salt, pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg. Frozen peas were added to cook as well. Finally I added a large handful of chopped scallion about a minutes before the sauce had come together.
