Archive for March, 2009
I know – a little ridiculous, isn’t it? Lobster? Me? On a Tuesday of no real consequence? I don’t think I’ve ever bought and cooked a lobster tail before, but found myself picking up a frozen one yesterday in order to address the issue of a glut of last year’s frozen lobster in the Maritimes (which doesn’t seem to be affecting prices on the prairies at all) on the show this morning. Marketers are calling it the new bologna. (Which, I can’t resist saying, is baloney. Bologna is selling for $2-$4 per pound, lobster is still around $30+ for the frozen stuff.)
If a couple weeks ago I went through a cake phase, I’m now tripping through a sort of dumpling phase; these food themes seem to come out of nowhere. I never plan them; if I do, they hardly ever pan out.
This week I have made peroghies, two kinds of ravioli, pork wontons, spinach pasta (I suppose that doesn’t technically count, although it was doughy) and sourdough dumplings. Am I missing something? Oh yes, my waist. Not that I had one before.
To top it off, this morning I made lobster gnocchi. Or rather I made the actual gnocchi last night, in between shifts searching in the cold, windy dark for a lost dog. I mixed the dough, rolled it into ropes, cut and rolled the pieces on the tines of a fork while talking on the phone (to a friend who kindly went out in search of said dog. No, it wasn’t Lou – have I mentioned I’m dogsitting, and currently have three in my charge? Does inhaled dog hair count as fiber intake?) It is due to this circumstance I can attest making gnocchi by hand is neither time consuming nor requires a particular degree of focus. The idea came from one of my favourite dishes at Brava Bistro. You can find the recipe on their website, but it was altogether too complicated for my level of motivation. I decided to dumb it down a little, and wing it.
I was going to make ricotta gnocchi, but the ricotta was used up in that lasagna, so I ended up throwing a few russet potatoes into the oven to make plain old potato gnocchi instead. I thought I was settling. I was not.
My biggest problem with gnocchi has always been that it’s just a little too much – too heavy, too gummy. Something I can’t eat an entire bowl of, even when I have no problem downing that much pasta. It just tends to sit in a lump in my stomach. But these were ethereal little dumplings, even eaten plain, straight out of the pot. They were even better tossed with melted butter, which is how W ate his. (After much protest, let me tell you.) But with the lobster stock, simmered down a bit and whizzed with butter? There are no words.
Seriously, I thought this would be a nice sort of thing to make for a special occasion. And it would, but it isn’t nearly as fussy as I imagined it would be.
Potato Gnocchi with Lobster
If you like, throw a handful of frozen peas into the water along with the gnocchi.
Gnocchi:
4 small-medium russet potatoes
1 large egg
2 Tbsp. cream (heavy or half&half)
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 lobster tail, thawed if frozen
1/4-1/2 cup butter, cut into bits
To make the gnocchi, bake the potatoes in a 350 F oven for about an hour, or until tender. (This keeps them from getting watery, and also retains more nutrients and potato flavour.) When they are cool enough to handle, peel them and press them through a potato ricer (looks like a giant garlic press – very effective in getting rid of all lumps) or mash until smooth with a potato masher. Stir in the egg, cream and salt until well blended, then stir in the flour. You should have a nice, soft dough – if it’s sticky, add a bit more flour, a spoonful or so at a time.
Divide the dough into 6 chunks, and roll each into a rope that’s about 3/4″ thick. With a knife or pastry cutter, chop into 3/4″ pieces. Roll each piece over the tines of a fork (I do this by rolling the back of the fork back and forth over each piece, starting at a cut side so that it grips better), then place them on a lightly floured baking sheet. At this point, the gnocchi can be covered and refrigerated for up to 2 days, or frozen.
To cook the lobster tail, put it in a medium pot with about half an inch of simmering water; cover and cook for 7 minutes. Remove the tail and set aside; continue to simmer the small amount of liquid until it reduces a bit, then add the butter and cook until it melts. To emulsify it, put it through the blender or blend it with a hand-held immersion blender – it should remain liquidy but as it cools will have a consistency closer to hollandaise. Pull the meat out of the lobster tail and chop it.
When your lobster and sauce is ready, cook your gnocchi: bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook the gnocchi in batches, not crowding the pot, for about 4 minutes or until they rise to the surface of the water and puff up a bit. Remove to a bowl with a slotted spoon.
Drizzle the sauce and lobster meat over the gnocchi, season with pepper if you like, toss to coat and serve.
Serves 4 (with extra gnocchi left over).
Have I expressed strongly enough how excited I am to be sharing my starter with you? And that no one (who identified themselves, anyway) thought I was crazy? I am frantically cutting and feeding bits of it in jars that are quickly taking over my fridge like a giant science experiment. I will come up with the logistics of distribution (and try drying some) soon!
One Year Ago: Homemade Mozzarella
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March 31 2009 | one dish and pasta and seafood | 14 Comments »
Yes, I do have a peroghy recipe for you. Do I ever. (So does Cheryl, who I made them with last week.) And I have been DIE-ING to settle down into a warm, soft (with crispy edges, of course) bowl of them. That was my biggest plan for this Sunday. Before, that is, I noticed “Daring Bakers Post” on my calendar this morning. Like all homework assignments I have left this one to the day we’re all supposed to post. And the monthly challenge wasn’t even cake or something I could save for dessert – it was fresh spinach pasta. (The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.) Not exactly something that fits into the same meal as potato-dough dumplings.
I almost came up with an excuse and bailed. Emailed in sick. But then… I should know better than this. Wasn’t this the whole point of taking on a monthly challenge? And couldn’t I make it easy enough to bother with?
Homemade pasta is a rarity, mostly because it is so cheap and readily available. But like any other dough-based product, it is pretty sublime when made from scratch, and easy to mix and knead together. (Note: you don’t have to do the mountain of flour on the counter thing – it just makes me feel more authentic. You could minimize clean-up by doing it all in a bowl.)
The speed bump is the pasta machine, which you don’t even really need to make fresh pasta. You can roll the dough out with a rolling pin into a rustic smear, and then cut it into strips (for fettuccine-type noodles) or leave them as is and layer with sauce, meat, veg and cheese to make the very best lasagna ever. Which was my plan. And being fresh, these are the ultimate no-boil lasagna noodles. Oh yes, I am really getting into this idea now.
The only part that’s sort of a hassle is kneading the dough for 10 minutes or so. (Then again, everything is relative.. if there was a product on the shelves that promised fresh pasta dough in under 15 minutes, it might seem like a steal.) But this is how I typically get around it – I call Mike into the kitchen and then say “knead this”, and then leave the room. He won’t stop until I come back, at which point it’s usually smooth and elastic, likely due to his superior upper-arm strength (being a drummer and all). Done.
I was just going to roll out some sheets and be done with it. But it was (yet another) snow day, and W was bored, so I decided to pull my pasta machine out of the basement, figuring it was really just the ultimate Play-Doh contraption. And then it occurred to me that I have my kids’ birthday gift solution for the next decade or so. Because wow, these are fun. I’ve made fresh pasta with teenagers and toddlers, to equal rapture.
It’s funny, how skewed our views are on things. Mike came into the kitchen and surveyed W (naked, as usual) and I cranking pasta sheets through, then threading the sheets through the noodle cutter, and said “wow, pasta making is such a hassle, isn’t it? I mean, why even bother?” Which is true, sort of – it is cheap and easy to find. Then again, once the dough is mixed up you can play Play-Doh with your kids for an hour or so and at the end of it have fresh spinach pasta for dinner. No one has ever called playing Play-Doh with your kids a waste of time.
And really, it’s fun for grown-ups too. How many kids’ activities can you enjoy as well? This was much more satisfying than playing Woody and Buzz, which tends to slow time virtually to a standstill. And requires a lot of crawling around on the floor.
You don’t even need to trim rolled-out dough into rectangles for your lasagna – it doesn’t matter if the thin sheets overlap, or if they have round edges. If you leave them on the countertop for a bit, they will get a little leathery and easy to trim, or stack, roll and cut into ribbons.
So here’s the recipe for pasta Verde – I, as always, adapted it a little. The original called for 2 jumbo eggs, but I see no reason to not use the large ones in your fridge. It also called for fresh (which you then cook) or frozen spinach, finely chopped – I went for a block of frozen, and gave it a pulse in the food processor but found it a bit tough to cut with bits of spinach in the dough – I think it would work better pureed completely, liquid and all. It does look cool with the chunks of spinach in there though.
Spinach Egg Pasta (Pasta Verde)
1 10 oz. pkg. frozen chopped spinach, thawed
2 large (or jumbo) eggs
3 1/2 cups (14 ounces/400g) unbleached all-purpose flour
In the bowl of a food processor, whiz the spinach (don’t bother squeezing it out) until relatively smooth. (Alternatively, you could chop it up finely by hand.) Mound the flour in the center of your work surface and make a well in the middle. Add the eggs and spinach. Use a fork to stir the eggs and spinach up a bit, then gradually start incorporating the flour from the sides of the well into the liquid. As you work more and more flour into the liquid, you could use a pastry scraper to keep the liquids from running off and to incorporate the last bits of flour into the dough. Just get in there with your hands and blend it all together. Don’t worry if it looks like a hopelessly rough and messy lump.
Start kneading the dough. Once it becomes a cohesive mass, use the scraper to remove any bits of hard flour on the work surface – these will make the dough lumpy. Knead the dough for about 3 minutes. Its consistency should be elastic and a little sticky. If it is too sticky to move easily, knead in a few more spoonfuls of flour. Continue kneading about 10 minutes, or until the dough has become satiny, smooth, and very elastic. Cover the dough with plastic wrap or a tea towel and let it relax on the counter for 30 minutes to 3 hours.
Roll the dough, in small pieces at a time if you like (or about a quarter of the dough at a time) as thinly as possible on a lightly floured surface. I took walnut-sized balls of dough and rolled them, and then ran some through the pasta machine.
If you cut it into ribbons, dry the pasta at room temperature by draping over the rolling pin or the back of a chair, or dust with flour and twist into loose nests. Store in a sealed container or bag, or freeze it fresh. Makes the equivalent to 1 lb. dried pasta (lots).
I froze a bunch and then layered the rest with ricotta and chunky tomato sauce, topped it with cheese and baked it for almost an hour.
While we’re on the topic of handmade pasta, I’m teaching a pasta class next weekend – or more accurately assisting Lina de Gaeta, master pasta maker and owner of Lina’s pasta – at The Cookbook Company Cooks. As good a way as any to spend a Saturday afternoon, I think.
And on the subject of sourdough, a) I am so excited that so many of you want some starter! b) what I meant by free-for-all was that I’m not going to draw for it, I’m going to share with whomever wants some. Since there is so much interest, I am starting to split and feed it already. AND – I read in one of my bread books that you can actually dry starter, then reconstitute it – which means it should be mailable!
How crazy will people think you are when you excitedly receive a small chunk of dried paste in the mail?
One Year Ago: Braised Lamb Shanks, Pavlova and Creme Brulee
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March 29 2009 | pasta | 25 Comments »
One of the many benefits of making your own crusty loaves of bread on a regular basis is a plethora of bread ends to turn into the very best croutons ever. Honestly, I have been spoiled forever and will never buy a box of them again. Not that I ever really did before.
So I made some. And remember those spiced nuts I put away for a salad later? Well this is it. I had so been looking forward to a big salad since that no-shop drought… Mike went and bought a box of organic salad greens. I finely cubed a butternut squash and roasted it, and had some soft goat cheese. The whole thing was orchestrated like a perfect salad symphony.
And when the time came to assemble it, I pulled the box out of the back of the fridge. W had been playing with the temperature control, cranked it up as high as it would go, and the greens were frozen. Solid.
So I ran over to the market, but they only had Romaine. Which was a bit of a letdown. But I made up for it by – drumroll, please – instead of sprinkling the spiced nuts overtop, finely chopping them and then rolling walnut-sized balls of soft goat cheese in them to coat, making little goat cheese truffles that were crunchy-spicy on the outside with a soft interior; they would have been great for a party plate, but worked perfectly atop a salad as you can cut through them with your fork like soft butter.
Really, you could do this with any kind of soft cheese and finely chopped toasted nuts, and any variety of spiced or candied nuts, given a pulse (do it gently to avoid making nut butter, although that would be pretty damn tasty too) in the food processor.
Good news! I have been scouting out some stuff for FSF, and have been promised some fun and yummy things. Which I will wait to have delivered into my own hands before I give away.
Meanwhile, I’ve been pondering whether my idea for this week’s Free Stuff Friday is completely silly or not. (I imagine opinions will be split on the matter.) But I keep coming back to not – because of the whole idea of our food having a history and a story to tell. So this week I’m going to instigate our first (and perhaps only, depending on how it goes) Free-for-All Friday and give away 40 year old sourdough starter that originated in the kitchens of the Banff Springs Hotel, to anyone who would like some, complete with instructions on how to keep it going once it takes up residence in your own fridge. And of course you can then pass it on.
Depending on how this goes I’ll either spend a morning delivering jars all over town, or we could coordinate a coffee somewhere, or something. (We’d be like the groups of moms with babies, only all with jars of smelly starter.) But if you love the idea of a sourdough starter and want to get your own going from this monster, here’s your chance. Put your name in, and next week I’ll compile them and figure out the logistics.
And as a consolation prize for those of you who are not in town (or don’t want starter), I’ll draw for a copy of One Smart Cookie. (I take all your comments and then use a random number generator to pick a number – or sometimes I yell downstairs to Mike and say “pick a number between 1 and 58!”)
This week I’d love to know about those dishes that have a story to tell. Perhaps a history in your family, or with friends; those that have been handed down from past generations, or anything you do for a particular holiday or season. Or… whatever you ate for dinner last night.
March 28 2009 | appetizers and cheese and salads | 52 Comments »
The living being in my fridge – right. Sorry, I forgot I had teased you with that.
To be honest I didn’t really think of it as a tease; I thought the headline “Sourdough Dumplings” was a giveaway. Sourdough. Sourdough starter is the living being in my fridge. Although there may very well be others. Like the tweedlebugs’ neighbourhood on Sesame Street, with rows of buildings all constructed out of old milk cartons and yogurt containers. That is entirely possible. But if it is in fact happening, this new sourdough monster is the mayor of Julie’s Fridgeville.
So yes, I am very excited to have acquired a peanut butter jar full of bubbly, pungent sourdough starter that is older than me. A CBC listener called in with a rush-hour tip while I was taking over traffic duties one afternoon and thought I might really like to hear about the sourdough starter (or “monster”) he had in his fridge, and not only did I want to hear about it, I wanted to drive over to his house and get some. Of course I did.
So here’s the story, in short: his Mom’s friend was dating a chef at the Banff Springs Hotel back in the early 70s, who got a chunk of the monster from him, and then gave some to her. (Who knows how old it was at the time?) She had a baby boy at the time, who grew up eating sourdough pancakes every Christmas and sourdough biscuits and dumplings with his dinners. He grew up, left home, and years later asked for some starter, which meant relocating some of it from Campbell River, B.C. to Calgary. And now a small vat of it is taking up residence in my fridge. Which excited me more than I probably should admit, but I love that this thing has been kept alive for so long, and has been so enjoyed.
A sourdough starter is essentially an alternative to commercial yeast. Flour and water is mixed together into a sort of soupy paste which then attracts and cultures wild, natural yeasts from the environment (as well as from the grain), and the lactic acid bacteria is what gives it its characteristic tang. The starter can then be used in place of commercial yeast in bread recipes. I tried adding some to my usual no-knead bread with very happy results: all I did was knock down the flour to 2 cups (mixed with 1/4 tsp. yeast and 1 tsp. salt) and add a cup of starter. I wasn’t brave enough to eliminate the yeast entirely; I’m not sure it would have worked. May have. In this case it just added the sourdough flavour and a slightly chewier texture. (If you have not tried the no-knead bread yet, PLEASE DO. Don’t worry about the sourdough part. Just make it!)
Truly, even if you don’t have a friend dating a chef from the Banff Springs, it’s simple to start your own sourdough starter. The simplest ones are no more than just flour and water, although it’s common to add some squished unwashed organic grapes (to take advantage of the yeast that’s naturally present on its skins, and sugar, to aid feeding) or starchy potato water to help get things going. You’ll need a week or two to properly establish your starter, and then you’re good to go.
There are two basic types of starter: one scenario involves mixing up a batch of dough, pinching off a piece (called the “chef”), and baking the rest; the chef is kept to add to the next batch, and so on. The other way to do it is to mix up a batch of “wet” starter, which is what I have, and keep it alive in your fridge, using it as needed and replenishing it each time by feeding it more flour and water (or sometimes milk).
If you want to try your own The Kitchn has some good basic instructions, as does Wild Yeast and Joy the Baker. And on YouTube you can even watch a video. If you want to visit the bookstore or library, Nancy Silverton’s Breads from the La Brea Bakery, Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Bread Bible and Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Maker’s Apprentice are good choices. Now from what I know, you want to avoid adding commercial yeast to your starter, which is a little like cheating – the packaged yeast sort of overpowers the natural yeasts you are trying to attract
It’s a fun project to take on, especially if you have kids and are running out of things to do on spring break. If they really want a pet, you can fulfill their wish. And if they don’t kill the starter, maybe they can get a puppy.
Sourdough Berry Coffee Cake
1 cup flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
pinch salt
1 cup starter
1/3 cup canola oil
1 egg
fresh or frozen berries, or sliced apples, pears or plums
Crumble:
2-3 Tbsp. each: brown sugar, flour, butter, sliced almonds (optional)
Mix the dry ingredients; add the wet. Stir just until combined. Spread into an 8″x8″ pan, top with berries or other fruit. Rub together crumble ingredients and sprinkle overtop. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.
(If I may, I need to sidetrack here and tell you that if my camera was within arm’s reach I would take a photo of my gut. It looks as if I might deliver quads at any time. I just ate a piece -plus two or three shavings- of chocolate Guinness cake my sister made for a surprise party we just held for my other sister, who just became Vice Principal of her school. It was thickly topped with cream cheese frosting that was just barely sweetened; enough to differentiate it from plain old cream cheese, but not enough to allow it to do anything but slump over the cake. I have to obtain that recipe, which came from her Irish friend.)
One Year Ago: Smoked Chicken Tortellini Salad
March 26 2009 | breakfast and cake | 30 Comments »
My name is Julie, and I’m a recipe-a-holic. There are worse vices (unless recipe addiction involves stockpiling decades’ worth of food magazines, and taking in any others that friends threaten to recycle). I have loved them since I was a kid. I know I’ve told you the story of pilfering peoples’ cookbook shelves and recipe boxes when I’d go over to babysit, after the kids went to bed.
I have in my travels thumbed past many a recipe for chicken & dumplings. So many, in fact, that I have become oblivious to them, even though it’s something I’ve never actually made before. Somehow it just blips past my radar: chicken & dumplings – know that one. Not even a glimmer of interest flitters through my mind. (Chicken and biscuits, yes – but that’s a whole different thing.)
And today, I only made it because I was talking about sourdough starter on the radio this morning, and had to make something, and was passed on a recipe for sourdough dumplings. It seemed the most interesting of the lot (biscuits, pancakes, coffee cake). And you need a vehicle for dumplings. I searched around for something that used up frozen lumps of pork shoulder, but mostly dumplings go on chicken, souped or stewed. Fortunately I had some chicken thighs deep in the freeze.
Of course it was stupidly easy. And used only stuff I always have, unless of course I’m out of chicken. I imagine a few meaty Portobello mushrooms would make a mighty fine vegetarian version.
It went over so well at the studio this morning that I actually stopped and picked up more chicken on the way home to make another batch for lunch for my sisters, who were coming for a sit and visit (being spring break and all). You can imagine how good the kitchen smelled with chicken & biscuits simmering on the stove. How did I never realize the potential of pillowy wads of dough, simmered in creamy chicken gravy so that they tasted like fresh biscuits saturated with said gravy, only without losing their structural integrity? duh. (Note: they do taste better than they look.)
Tomorrow, I will spin the tale of the adoption of the new living being in our fridge.
Chicken with Sourdough Dumplings
Stew:
6 skinless, bone-in chicken thighs
canola or olive oil, for cooking
butter, for cooking (optional)
1 large onion, finely chopped
2-4 Tbsp. (ish) sherry (optional)
3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1L low-sodium chicken broth
1 tsp. fresh thyme leaves (or a few sprigs)
1 cup frozen green peas
1/4 cup half & half or heavy cream
Dumplings:
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup sourdough starter
2 Tbsp. canola or olive oil
1 egg
Pat the chicken dry with paper towels, then season with salt and pepper. Heat s drizzle of oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat uand brown the chicken until golden on both sides, working in batches so that you don’t crowd the pan. Transfer the chicken to a plate, add a bit more oil (and a bit of butter if you like) and saute the onions until golden. Add the sherry and cook for a minute (it will almost cook off), scraping up any browned bits at the bottom of the pan (or you could use a bit of the stock or some water to do this), then add the flour and stir to coat the onions. Add the stock and thyme, then return the chicken to the pot and bring to a simmer; cover and cook over low heat for about an hour.
Meanwhile, stir together the dumpling ingredients. Take the lid off the pot (if you like, shred the chicken with forks and pull out the bones – you could refrigerate it at this point and do this with your fingers, then reheat when you want to), add the peas and cream and bring back to a simmer. Drop walnut to golf-ball sized dumplings over the top of the stew, about 1/4 inch apart. Cover and cook until the dumplings have doubled in size, about 15 minutes. Serve warm.
One Year Ago: Arancini and Beef Tataki with Ponzu Sauce
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March 24 2009 | chicken & turkey | 26 Comments »
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