I had to go to the Jully Black concert tonight, so wanted to ensure our houseguests were properly subdued on the couch before I left, so that I didn’t miss anything. Remembering how easy it is to make risotto, and with a bag of near-wilted spinach in the fridge, I thought I’d stir up a pot. Their reaction: risotto!! That’s so hard to make! Not really - it’s about the same as making oatmeal, only out of rice and stock. You don’t need to attend to it religiously; contrary to popular belief, you can walk away from it once in awhile. And it takes on all sorts of additions beautifully.
So I made the same lemon Parmesan risotto I’ve made before, stirring in a few handfuls of torn spinach after the cheese, and then threw in some thawed frozen raw tail-on shrimp, stirred them into the hot risotto and put the lid on the pot until they turned pink. Finish it with the juice of a lemon, and that’s it.
Unfortunately, I forgot that R is allergic to shrimp. I’m not the greatest host. (We were brainstorming all the risotto possibilities and dreamt up a sweet one with caramelized pears and mascarpone, and another with crumbled blue cheese, swirled through so that it only partially melts, served with thinly sliced steak on top.)
After the concert, I came home and we assembled the pavlova we made yesterday but were too full to eat. A big one this time, that we cut into crunchy wedges that were filled with sweet whipped cream and topped, again, with tangy passionfruit. (I know, once I do something that works so well, I tend to repeat myself.) And because passionfruit isn’t all that common, people are always interested in trying it out, even though the insides look like something that might be used in a low-budget sci-fi movie.
R summed up the passionfruit perfectly: “it looks like you killed it by cutting it open.”
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May 15 2008 | one dish and seafood and vegetarian | 2 Comments »
I know, steak twice in under a week? This time I blame our Vancouver friends, who spied the BBQ and wanted a taste of Alberta beef. All we did was rub them with canola oil, salt and pepper and grill them medium-rare. I took some pork ribs out of the freezer too (best to pawn them off on company, rather than down a rack between the two of us), which, as always, I preroasted on a rimmed cookie sheet, covered with foil, at 300F for a couple hours before throwing on the grill. (You can do this a day or two ahead and keep them in the fridge; the long slow cooking time breaks down tough connective tissues, which is what makes the meat fall-off-the-bone tender.) I crushed a few cloves of garlic and grated some ginger into the last third of the jar of hoisin sauce, and then stirred in a couple spoonfuls of honey. This got brushed onto the ribs before they went on the grill, but promptly caught fire on account of the high sugar content. (This is typical of most barbecue sauces, which usually have sugar as the first ingredient.)
We tried to offset the quantity of meat with an even greater number of salads; the usual brown and wild rice one, a tossed green salad with croutons made of bread that I brushed with garlicky olive oil and grilled, then tore into pieces, and another Ichiban salad since I had leftover dressing. And quinoa with mango and curried yogurt - something I made for a segment on CBC radio this morning, which I was decidedly less thrilled with than the 63 people who voted 97% in favour of it on epicurious.com.
Quinoa with Mango and Curried Yogurt
Dressing:
1/3 cup plain yogurt
1 Tbsp. fresh lime juice
2 tsp. curry powder
1 tsp. finely grated fresh ginger
salt and pepper
2 Tbsp. canola oil
Salad:
1 1/2 cups quinoa
1 ripe mango, peeled, pitted, and diced
1 roasted red pepper, chopped
1 fresh jalapeño pepper, seeded (the seeds and membranes contain the most heat) and minced (optional)
a handful of fresh cilantro, chopped
1/2 cup salted roasted peanuts or cashews, chopped
In a small bowl, whisk together the yogurt, lime juice, curry powder, ginger, salt and pepper. Add oil in a slow stream, whisking until combined.
Rinse quinoa well in a few changes of water, rubbing grains and letting them settle before pouring off water. Cook in a large pot of boiling water for 15 minutes, rinse under cold water to stop it from cooking, and drain well in a sieve.
In a large bowl, toss the quinoa with the mango, red pepper, jalapeño and cilantro. Drizzle with dressing and toss to combine; top with chopped peanuts or cashews.
Serves 6.
And here’s something cool: if you moisten a paper towel, sprinkle it with quinoa and top it with another damp towel, it will sprout. (If you live in Calgary, you may have to re-moisten the paper towel once in awhile.) Germination activates natural enzymes and boosts vitamin content, and the wee sprouts are perfect to add to salads.
May 14 2008 | grains and salads | 1 Comment »
Some good friends of ours arrived from Vancouver tonight, and since we didn’t know their ETA or whether they’d be hungry upon their arrival, we made a pot of black bean soup, baked a loaf of no-knead bread and some pita chips, and mixed up some roasted red pepper hummus. All things that keep well and provide the sort of nourishment one might need after spending 10 hours in the car with a toddler. (Further post-drive therapy included the couch, The Big Lebowski and plenty of White Russians.)
Earlier in the day I had baked a sweet potato cake (similar to a carrot cake, but with grated sweet potato in place of the carrots) to take photos for an article in What’s Up Kids magazine in Toronto. Willem stood guard by it all afternoon, and by the time our friends arrived and we got to eat it, the swirly icing had been further festooned by his tongue.
Sweet Potato Cake with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 Tbsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
1 cup canola oil
4 large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
1 medium sweet potato, unpeeled and coarsely grated (about 2 cups)
1 cup applesauce
1 cup chopped dried fruit, nuts or a combination (optional)
Cream Cheese Frosting:
1 8 oz. (250 g) pkg. regular or light cream cheese, at room temperature
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
2-3 cups icing sugar
Preheat the oven to 325°F (170°C). Spray a Bundt pan or two 9″ round cake pans with nonstick spray.
In a large bowl, stir together the flours, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. In a smaller bowl, stir together the oil, eggs, and vanilla. Add the oil mixture, grated sweet potatoes and applesauce to the dry ingredients and stir by hand until almost combined. Add the nuts and dried fruit and stir just until the batter is blended.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan(s). Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes for a Bundt cake, or 40-45 minutes for layer cakes, until the tops are cracked and springy to the touch and the edges are pulling away from the sides of the pan. Cool the cake(s) in the pan for 10-15 minutes, then loosen the edge with a knife, and invert onto a wire rack to cool completely.
To make the frosting, beat the cream cheese and butter with an electric mixer until smooth; add the lemon juice and 2 cups of the icing sugar and beat until well blended. Add the remaining icing sugar, a bit at a time, until you have a soft, spreadable consistency.
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May 12 2008 | cake | 2 Comments »
My mother and sister-in-law came for dinner tonight. (Or more accurately this afternoon… they arrived at 3:55, presumably on time for the blue plate special?)
For Mike’s family, the absolute fanciest dinner you can have (with the exception of turkey at Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas) is steak. (Or cornish hens circa 1982.) So when I was at my sister’s for Mother’s Day brunch this morning, I ran across the street to Sobey’s, one of few grocery chains that sells fresh bison in their meat case, and picked up some steaks.
I know I’ve talked about bison before, but just a reminder: because it’s so lean (containing half the fat of beef, and even less fat than skinless turkey or chicken, or even halibut) cuts like steak need to be given about a third less cooking time than a similar cut of beef. Because it looks and tastes like beef, people tend to treat it the same way in the kitchen, often drying it out. If you’re a beginner, try using ground bison first - it’s foolproof in chilis, meatballs, pasta sauces, etc.
When I did some foodstyling for Trish Magwood a few months ago, while she was in town promoting the 100th birthday of Melitta coffee, she taught me a quick spice rub that included actual coffee grounds. I’ve revised it a little.
Mike: “I can’t imagine ever having steak without this rub on it now!”
Coffee Rubbed Steak
steaks of your choice
Rub:
2 Tbsp. dark Mexican chili powder (or any good quality chili powder)
1 Tbsp. cocoa
1 Tbsp. finely ground coffee or espresso
1 tsp. coarse salt
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
Make sure your steak is at room temperature. Combine all the rub ingredients and rub it all over both sides of the steak(s); let them sit for about 10 minutes.
Heat your grill, a cast iron skillet or grill pan over medium-high heat until it’s hot but not smoking. (If you don’t have cast iron, use a regular skillet and drizzle with canola oil.) Put the steak onto the grill or into the pan and cook for 4-5 minutes per side (2-3 minutes for bison steaks) for medium-rare. Let them rest, tented with foil so that they don’t cool down, for 10 minutes before slicing.
The smashed potatoes were simply my easiest option. My in-laws are very much the type to construct dinner out of 1) meat. 2) potato. 3) vegetable, preferably boiled. Mashed potatoes I love, but they are more tedious and require peeling, something I’d prefer not to do. Baked potatoes seemed far too steakhouse; I pondered going the twice-baked route with chives from the garden, but Yukon golds tend to have flimsy skins for that sort of thing. They are ideal, however, for a rough mash. To shake things up a bit, try throwing a small sweet potato into the mix as well; the mashing is so quick that they aren’t completely incorporated into each other, which keeps things interesting.
You don’t need a recipe for this; just like traditional mashed potatoes, add low fat sour cream, buttermilk, oil and Parmesan until you have the consistency you like. Leftovers are sturdy enough to be easily shaped into small patties (with or without the addition of a drained can of salmon or leftover flaked fish) and fried until crisp. (Stay tuned for Day 133.)
Smashed Potatoes
If you ever happen to have a head of roasted garlic on hand, squeeze it into the potato mixture. Or to infuse your potatoes with garlic, toss a few cloves into the water as they boil.
Yukon gold potatoes (I used 5, and have leftovers)
grated Parmesan cheese (a handful)
low fat sour cream and/or olive or canola oil and/or buttermilk
salt and pepper
Cut the unpeeled potatoes into 4-6 pieces and boil in plenty of water until very tender. Drain and return to the pot. Add the Parmesan cheese, sour cream, oil and buttermilk (or any combination of them) along with some salt and pepper, and roughly mash with a potato masher or fork.
The Ichiban salad is a throwback to the 80s, when my Mom made it a lot. It’s made with ramen noodles (but sorry, I can’t bring myself to call it ramen noodle salad) - the kind that come in the little packets of instant soup, not deep fried chow mein noodles. I haven’t had it for probably two decades, but thought of it as I wondered how to use up the last of the head of cabbage I’ve been chipping away at for the past two weeks. I’m glad I rediscovered this; to be honest it was my favorite part of the meal, and I finished it off straight from the bowl. (Hey, the noodles are just going to get soggy by tomorrow anyway.)
Ichiban Salad
This salad is great with shredded leftover roast chicken.
1 pkg. Ichiban or other ramen noodles
1/4 cup sliced or slivered almonds, and/or sesame seeds
2 cups thinly sliced cabbage
1/4 small purple onion, thinly sliced (optional)
1 carrot, grated
Dressing:
1/4 cup rice vinegar
2 Tbsp. sugar
1/4 cup oil - I use about 1 Tbsp. sesame oil and 3 Tbsp. canola oil
the packet from the noodles
Crumble the ichiban noodles onto a baking sheet, sprinkle with the almonds and/or sesame seeds and toast in the oven or under the broiler until golden and fragrant.
Toss the salad ingredients in a bowl. Shake all the dressing ingredients up in a jar. Toss them together.
Because I completely burned my first batch of noodles and sesame seeds, I had to open a second package, which meant an extra seasoning packet, and you know how much I hate throwing stuff away, so I mixed up a second batch of dressing to keep in a jar in the fridge. It will go very well with any sort of Asian noodle salad.
The pavlovas I made so that I could bring half to brunch this morning and use the rest at dinner. They seem fancy, but are one of the easiest things you can make. All you do is beat egg whites with sugar until you have a stiff mixture you can spoon onto a cookie sheet and scoop a divet into the middle of; they can be any size you want. Then bake them at 250F for a little over an hour, until they are dry on the outside but still chewy and marshmallowy on the inside. As a bonus, they will take care of dessert anytime you need to feed someone who has an intolerance to wheat or lactose or fat. And you can top them with cream, custard, ice cream, and any kind of juicy fruit that’s in season.
This recipe will make about 40 small (two or three bite) pavlovas, which could not be more perfect for a summer party. One passionfruit will pretty much do the lot of them. I adore passionfruit with pavlova - the sweetness, crunch and cream offsets the intense flavor, juiciness and incredible tang of the passionfruit.
(This is what to look for. I got mine from More than Mangos, at the Canyon Meadows Community Hall every Friday from 2-8pm.)
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May 11 2008 | bison and salads and veg | 2 Comments »
I had a request a few weeks ago to post a photo of my kitchen, so that readers could get an idea of the space this blog is really all about. Since then I have been waiting for a moment during which my kitchen is spanking clean to take a photo. Since it hasn’t happened yet, I finally got over myself, gave the counters a wipe and just took some.
I really love my kitchen. It has a nook/booth (nooth?) and lots of sunny windows, which in the summer open up to the patio, so I can cook while people sit outside and chat. It has old countertops salvaged from the UofC science lab (who knows what has been dissected and exploded on them before they even reached me?) and a really cool sink that fills up fast, always looks dirty and drips constantly, but I don’t care. I had always envisioned myself in a sunny kitchen with lots of windows and a big white porcelain sink. Usually I was baking pies for my husband John (Cusack) and had a 29 inch waist, but this will do.
I made a quick frittata for breakfast/lunch this morning - quickly sautéed the last chunk of purple onion (from the Greek salad), a few sliced mushrooms and a chopped tomato until the moisture cooked off and the veggies started to brown. Then I tossed in a handful of spinach, cooked it until it wilted, and poured over 4 whisked eggs. When the whole thing was close to set, I sprinkled it with grated cheddar and ran it under the broiler for a minute to melt the cheese.
Leftover wedges make great sandwiches served on toast or open-faced on half a bagel, but since I had neither I wrapped it in half a whole wheat flour tortilla. Mike is in Edmonton tonight, so W and I grazed on this, some leftover chicken, and the last of the brown and wild rice salad.
(I should mention here, if I haven’t before, that wraps are not the low-carb, low-calorie bread option they are often made out to be. I’m not sure who started this trend, but a wrap is simply unleavened bread. Imagine if yeast had been added, it would be the same thickness as a slice of bread, but just as large in diameter. Or conversely imagine rolling a slice of bread with a rolling pin until it flattens to the thickness of a wrap. No fewer carbs or calories in it.)
May 10 2008 | leftovers | 1 Comment »
Conclusion: the roast chicken stuffed with crumbled falafel was a stupendous success.
I decided that since the bird had already been given a middle Eastern theme, I’d dress it up a little with a rub - a paste made with 2 Tbsp. olive oil, a crushed clove of garlic, 1 tsp. cumin, 1 tsp. paprika, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. pepper and 1/4 tsp. allspice. (Mashing it together proved once and for all that my mortar and pestle is useless. Pretty, but the smooth marble does not promote grinding; it rather allows everything to slide around unless you directly bash it with the end of the pestle. I’ve seen those coarse ones at Winners for under $20, and imagine they’d do a much better job of it.)
I’ll spare you the photo of the goopily rubbed raw chicken. It just doesn’t look appetizing at all. But after an hour and a half in the oven:
Huge success. The rubbed-down crispy skin was fantastic paired with the falafel stuffing, which was admittedly mushy, but in the best possible way, all loosened up by the chicken juices. I could hardly contain myself from picking at the crispy bits coming out of the bird and in the bottom of the pan. OK, I didn’t restrain myself at all.
To go with it, a Greek salad. Chopped tomato, cucumber, slivered purple onion, crumbled feta, tossed with a balsamic vinaigrette - Newman’s Own Balsamic Vinaigrette makes a perfect Greek salad dressing, but I don’t buy bottled salad dressings since they’re so easy to make - particularly balsamic vinaigrette.
Greek Salad
2 tomatoes, chopped
1/2 English cucumber, chopped
1/2 small purple onion, slivered or finely chopped
1/2 cup crumbled feta (or as much or as little as you like)
Balsamic vinaigrette:
equal parts balsamic vinegar and canola or olive oil
a small squirt of Dijon mustard
a small clove of garlic, pressed (or bash it and leave it in the jar to infuse the dressing, but don’t let it pour out when you top your salad)
drizzle of honey or maple syrup
May 09 2008 | chicken & turkey and salads | 2 Comments »
I had planned to test my roast chicken stuffed with falafel theory, but after getting slowed down by a blizzard en route home from Cochrane today, then navigating through hail and lightning once I got back to the city, by the time I made it home I figured it was too late to roast the considerably large (for a chicken) chicken I had in the fridge. So I made jambalaya instead, something I had orchestrated to make use of the lone farmers’ sausage left in the freezer.
Jambalaya is typically made with chicken, sausage or ham, and shrimp. Since I always have a bag of shrimp in the freezer, that part was easy - and it’s a great way to use cheaper chicken thighs. You can make it as gutsy or mild-mannered as you like with (or without) hot sausage, spices and hot sauce. I left the hot stuff out on account of W, who gobbled it up. Truthfully, it didn’t thrill me, but the boys liked it, and it did make for a warming rainy/snowy/sleety/hail-y day dinner.
Chicken, Shrimp and Sausage Jambalaya
a drizzle of canola or olive oil
4-6 chicken thighs, with bones but no skin
1/2 lb. kielbasa, andouille, farmers’ or Italian sausage, or leftover roast ham, sliced or coarsely chopped
1 onion, coarsely chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and coarsely chopped
1 stalk celery, coarsely chopped
2-5 cloves garlic, crushed
1 1/2 cups long grain white rice
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. - 1 Tbsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. thyme
1/2 tsp. salt
A few shakes of Tabasco sauce
2 1/2 cups chicken stock
1 14 oz. (398 mL) can diced or stewed tomatoes, undrained
Salt and pepper
1/2 lb. (250 g) raw shrimp, peeled and deveined, with or without the tails on
Heat the oil in a large pot or Dutch oven set over medium-high heat. Cook the chicken thighs for a few minutes, turning as necessary until browned on all sides. Remove them from the pot and set aside. Reduce the heat to medium. Add the sausage to the pot and cook, stirring frequently, for a few minutes or until browned. Remove from the pot and set aside.
Add the onion, pepper, celery, and garlic to the pot and sauté for about 5 minutes, until tender. Add the rice and cook for a minute, stirring well. Add the cooked sausage, bay leaf, chili powder, thyme, salt and Tabasco.
Add the stock and diced tomatoes and stir everything together. Bring the mixture to a boil. Add the chicken thighs to the pot, meat side down, on top of the rice. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for about 15 minutes.
Remove the lid and stir the jambalaya, keeping the chicken pieces more or less on top. Replace the lid and cook for another 15-20 minutes, until the liquid is absorbed, the rice is tender and the chicken is cooked through. Remove the bay leaf and season with salt and pepper. Scatter the shrimp over the jambalaya, cover, and cook for 5-10 minutes, just until the shrimp are pink and opaque. Serve it while it’s hot.
Serves 6. (Makes great leftovers.)
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May 08 2008 | one dish | No Comments »
I did the food styling for a summer food photo shoot for FFWD today, which meant props like summer salads and sangria.
One of the most photo-friendly salads I know is the brown & wild rice salad with dried fruit, parsley and chopped pecans, of which there was plenty left over for dinner. I picked up a filet of salmon this morning, so when the photographer left after 6, all I needed to do was slap it on a cookie sheet and spread a bit of hoisin sauce, straight from the jar, on top, then bake it at 425F for 10 minutes, and dinner was done before the news headlines were over. (W didn’t like the hoisin salmon as much as the pesto salmon.)
I emailed my friend Robyn for her sangria recipe - the one she’d mix up and we’d drink on the stoop of our apartment on Cambie Street in Vancouver. Trashy but yummy. (The sangria, not Robyn. Then again…
She makes cheater sangria at restaurants by ordering a bottle of Orangeina and the house red, and mixing them in her glass.
Robyn’s Cambie Street Sangria
You’ll need:
Cheap red wine
Fruit juice of some kind (Five Alive or any citrus blend)
Orange pop or 7-Up
Lemon, orange and lime slices
The ratio is 1 part juice, 1 part pop, 2 parts wine. Lots of lemon, orange and lime slices, plus chunks of other fruit and berries if you want.
The last time she made it, she made orange crush and citrus juice ice cubes, to keep it cold without getting diluted.
May 07 2008 | fish | 6 Comments »
Eureka!
I love it when I learn how to make something I’ve never made before, especially when it’s dead easy, and even good for me.
I was grumpy when I got home. I didn’t have a plan for dinner. I wanted so badly to order Inglewood Pizza. As is often the case, my mind was changed by wilting produce - in this case a bunch of cilantro in the fridge that was worth about 58 cents. One of my biggest pet peeves is buying produce, letting it go slimy in the fridge, and throwing it in the compost bin.
I had the idea about a week ago to stuff a chicken with crumbled falafel, and the thought has been rattling around in my head ever since. I’ve only ever made falafel with a mix, so I looked up a recipe on epicurious. Turns out it’s as easy to make falafel as it is to make hummus. Of course - why wouldn’t it be? I just never really thought about it. This particular recipe called for fresh parsley and cilantro, and I just happened to have both. I’m sure you could get away with using either, or neither.
The recipe I used was a good one, but far too salty (canned beans are always saltier than dried - rinse them well to get rid of as much as possible). As I was patting myself on the back for making falafel from scratch in under 15 minutes, I came to the line: “Turn into a bowl and refrigerate, covered, for several hours.”
#$@!$#%@#$%!!
So as any sane person would do, I ignored it. The falafel turned out perfectly. They might have been better after a rest, who knows. I put out a plate of them with some whole wheat pita, tzatziki, chopped tomatoes and cucumbers. They were too garlicky and salty for W, but worked for us. (The original recipe called for a full teaspoon of salt - in this version below I’ve cut it down to 1/4 tsp.)
Falafel
(adapted from Epicurious, where it was reprinted from The Foods of Israel Today)
1 19 oz. (540 mL) can chick peas, rinsed and drained
1 small onion, chopped
2-4 garlic cloves, peeled
2 Tbsp. chopped fresh parsley
2 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro
1 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. salt
pinch dried chili flakes
1/4 cup all-purpose or whole wheat flour (plus extra, if needed)
1 tsp. baking powder
canola oil, for frying
Put the chick peas, onion, garlic, parsley, cilantro, cumin, salt and chili flakes in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until combined but not smooth. Add the flour and baking powder and pulse until you have a soft mixture that you can roll into balls without sticking to your hands. Add another spoonful or so of flour, if you need to.
Roll the dough into meatball-sized balls, and if you like, flatten each into a little pattie. I like doing this for maximum surface area, which equals more crunch. (They also cook through more quickly as the distance between the middle to the exterior is shorter.)
In a shallow pot or skillet, heat about 1/2″ of canola oil until it’s hot but not smoking. Test it with a bit of falafel mixture or a scrap of bread - the oil should bubble up around it. Cook the falafel for a few minutes per side, without crowding the pan (which will cool down the oil), until they are golden. Transfer to paper towels. (You could get away with using just a skiff of oil - if you do this, best to leave the falafels round, so that you can roll them around in the pan to brown all sides.)
Serve in pitas with tzatziki, chopped cucumber, purple onion and tomato.
Makes about 20 falafel balls or patties.
Tzatziki
Regular yogurt, preferably thick Greek yogurt, is far superior to the runny low fat or fat free varieties that are most commonly found at the grocery store. Even ‘full fat’ yogurts generally only contain about 3 grams per half cup, and it’s much more delicious and satisfying.
1 small English cucumber, unpeeled
1 – 2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 cups good quality plain yogurt, preferably Balkan-style
Salt & pepper to taste
Grate the cucumber with a box grater onto a double thickness of paper towel. Gather up the cucumber in the towel and squeeze out as much excess water as you can. (If you don’t mind runnier tzatziki, you can skip this step.)
Combine cucumber, garlic, yogurt, salt and pepper in a bowl and stir until well blended. If you like, add a squeeze or lemon. The garlic flavor will intensify the longer it sits.
Makes 2 1/2 - 3 cups.
Per 1/3 cup: 45 calories, 1 g total fat (0.6 g saturated fat, 0.3 g monounsaturated fat, 0.1 g polyunsaturated fat), 3.5 g protein, 5.6 g carbohydrate, 3.7 mg cholesterol, 0.3 g fiber. 20% calories from fat.
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May 06 2008 | beans and sandwiches and vegetarian | 5 Comments »
Kind of a weird dinner tonight, despite my (meagre) efforts to make something relatively nice for Mike’s homecoming. It ended up an hour long battle over W not wanting to eat anything but the meat.
For some reason there was a 2-pack of farmer’s sausage in the freezer, so I took it out to thaw. I wasn’t really that familiar with farmers’ sausage, a smoky, garlicky pork sausage that needed cooking (unlike something along the lines of kielbasa). The package exclaimed “perfect for the BBQ!” so I threw one on the grill.
Mike is Ukranian. You wouldn’t know it except for the fact that his dad was #12 out of 14 kids born on a farm in Cudworth, Saskatchewan and hates cabbage rolls because he lived on them growing up. I didn’t even get the benefit of marrying into a family that makes killer peroghies using a secret family recipe. He was not forced into shumka lessons as a kid, either. My point is, sausage and cabbage are pretty Ukranian, so I intended to make something of that ilk, but then discovered that the red cabbage in my fridge was going south faster than the green cabbage, and thought I had better use it while the opportunity was there.
My Belgian grandma used to make braised red cabbage with apples, so that’s what I did. I have never been able to make it as good as my friend Sue, who is one of the best cooks I know, if not the best, and I know a lot of chefs. She sent me her recipe, but not until after I made mine (I got too frivolous with the vinegar, and it ended up too sour.)
The Braised Red Cabbage & Apples I Made
1 Tbsp. butter
1 Tbsp. canola oil
1 small head of red cabbage, quartered, cored and very thinly sliced
1 apple, grated or thinly sliced (don’t peel it)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 cup apple juice, hard cider or red wine (or the dregs of the pear cider you forgot to finish last night and left on the counter to go flat)
2-3 Tbsp. red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar
In a large skillet or medium pot, heat the butter and oil over medium heat. Add the cabbage, apples and salt and cook, tossing occasionally, until the cabbage begins to wilt. Add the apple juice or wine and cook for about 10 minutes, until the cabbage is wilted and the moisture has cooked off. Add the vinegar and cook for another 5 minutes, until cooked down and bright fuschia. Season with salt and pepper.
Serves 8.
Sue’s Braised Red Cabbage
(adapted from Sheila Lukins’ All Around the World Cookbook)
1 large red cabbage (approx 1 1/2 kilos), tough outer leaves discarded, then quartered and cored
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup dried cherries
1/4 cup red wine
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup apple juice
1/4 cup honey
1 cinnamon stick
salt and coarsely ground pepper to taste
1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Cut the cabbage into thin slices and set aside.
3. Melt the butter in a large (5 litre/quart or so) heavy saucepan with lid or dutch oven over medium heat. Add the cherries and cook for about 2 minutes or so.
4. Add the rest of the ingredients and cook over low heat until warmed throughout, then add the lid and pop it in the oven for about an hour or so, stirring a couple of times. The cabbage will be cooked through, and the liquid thickened a bit. Taste and add a little more honey and/or vinegar as you like to suit your taste (or apple juice if it needs a bit more liquid).
Note from Sue: I usually make this a day or two ahead of Thanksgiving and Christmas, as it tastes even better after keeping in the fridge awhile. Many a time I make lots at Thanksgiving and freeze the rest for Christmas. The liquid keeps it all happy in the freezer for ages.
And because sausage and cabbage doesn’t quite make a meal, I rounded it out with a roasted sweet potato (done in the Easy Bake oven, so as to not heat up the whole house), split and dabbed with butter and drizzled with a bit of maple syrup. The long, thin ones are easiest for roasting. Or baking - same thing - why is it roast turkey but baked ham?
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May 05 2008 | veg | 1 Comment »
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