Flageolet and Meatball Peasant Stew


I love Autumn. I love the temperature, the colors, the clothes, and of course the fact that my favorite cooking style fits the weather more naturally. This recipe falls squarely into that bucket, and was a huge hit with Lisl and a friend who came over this evening.  It combines a homemade Italian meatball with a French-style peasant stew.

Meatballs
1 lb ground pork shoulder
1.5 tsp fennel seed
1 tsp kosher salt (halve if you use table salt)
1/4 tsp hot red pepper flakes
12 black peppercorns

Rest of Stew
1 lb dried flageolet beans (alternative: great northern)
1 large spanish or vidalia onion, diced
4 carrots, diced
3 celery stalks, diced
large handful of white button mushrooms, diced
1/2 to 1 cup diced tomato
3 or 4 cloves of garlic, minced
handful of parley
2 fresh rosemary sprigs
1/2 cup dry vermouth or white wine
1 tbsp tomato paste

Cook the flageolet beans until al dente: place in a large pot with 1″ of water above the top of the beans. Add 3 bay leaves, bring to a boil, then remove the lid and simmer. Soaking beforehand will speed up cooking time. While the beans cook, do the next few steps.

Pound up the fennel seed, peppercorns and pepper flakes with a mortar/pestle, then add to the ground meat along with the salt. Mix together then mold into meatballs about 1.5″ in diameter. Heat up your stew pot (I use a dutch oven) on med-high heat with a little olive oil and brown the meatballs. Then set them aside and turn off the heat.

Spoon out most of the oil left in the stew pot, leaving enough to coat the bottom. Turn the heat back on to med-low. Cook the onions until translucent, then add the garlic, celery and carrots. Cook for a few minutes, then add the diced tomato and mushroom.

Separate the parsley stems and leaves, setting the leaves aside. Create a bouquet garnis by tying the parsley stems, rosemary sprigs, and 1 bay leaf together with kitchen twine. Add the bouquet garnis to the pot, and continue to let the vegetables gently cook.

Once the beans are al dente, drain or optionally reserve the cooking liquid. Add the beans and meatballs to the stew pot, add the wine, and add either water or the bean cooking liquid until the liquid level is about three-quarters up to the top of the food. Make sure the bouquet garnis is immersed, cover and either place the pot in a 350F oven or let simmer on the stove top.

After 40 minutes, taste for salt and gently stir in the tomato paste.

Remove about 1/2 of beans and vegetables to a food processor and puree.  Return to the pot and continue to cook until the beans are soft and the flavors have melded.  This step improves the texture, thickening the stew (I hate the common use of flour or starch to thicken).

Chop up the parsley leaves waiting in the wings all this time. Serve with the parsley and a little fresh pepper scattered on top.

Chard and Cranberry Bean Gratin

chardplusgratin
It feels like forever since I’ve had a moment to write a post.  Interesting recipes have come and gone, never written down, photo-less, and unblogged.  Furthermore, it sucks not having the time to keep up with the blogs of all the friends I have made in the food blogosphere. Such is the nature of starting a company, Speaking of, please come over to Aprizi, try it out, and let me know what you think.  We just opened up a fledgling beta, and if you like shopping online and discovering cool new stuff, I hope you love what we’re doing.

OK, shameless plug complete! Let’s talk about this dish, which was a tad involved but oh so good.  Hearty vegetarian fare, although suited for a cooler evening.  It is inspired by Alice Waters’ Chard Gratin.  I just turned it into a meal. It has been a few weeks, but here is my best recollection of the dish:

Chard and Cranberry Bean Gratin

Large bunch of chard, leaves and stems separated
1 onion, diced
2 or 3 carrots, diced
1 stalk of celery, diced
1/2 lb of cranberry or borlotti beans
1 tsp fresh winter savory, finely chopped
salt and pepper
4 tbsp unsalted butter
3 tsp flour
3/4 to 1 cup milk
1 cup fresh breadcrumbs

I was working with dried cranberry beans. Put them in a pot with water an inch over the top of the beans, tossed in a couple bay leaves, brought to a boil for a couple minutes, then let simmer until just tender (time will depend on whether you soaked beforehand). Save 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid and drain the rest.

Make breadcrumbs by placing stale or fresh bread in a food processor. Spread them out on a baking tray, dot with pieces from 1 tbsp of butter, and toast in a 350F oven until lightly golden.

carrots

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and cook the chard leaves for about 3 minutes, then remove with a slotted spoon and let them drain and cool.  Dice the chard stems and cook them in the boiling water for 5 minutes, then drain.

Melt 2 tbsp of butter in a large (ideally oven-capable) skillet and saute the onions on low heat until translucent.  Add the carrot and celery and continue to cook for 10 minutes.

chardplusgratin-inprocess

Add the beans and the bean liquid and/or some white wine, and continue to let it simmer (turn up the heat a tad, if necessary), stirring occasionally.

Squeeze much of the excess liquid out of the chard leaves and coarsely chop them.  Add the chard stems and chard leaves to the skillet.  Add the winter savory (Note: I think oregano or tarragon would also work).  Let simmer for a few minutes.

Sprinkle and stir in the flour, then stir in the milk.  Cook for 5 more minutes, adding more milk if the mixture gets too thick. Add salt and pepper to taste.

If you are not using an oven-friendly skillet, transfer to a baking dish.  Spread the breadcrumbs on top, dot with bits from the last tbsp of butter, and bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the 350F oven.

Summer meals: gratins and sauces

eggplant-board

I’ve been on a gratin kick again the last few days.  The first one was a remake of an eggplant, zucchini, basil and cheese gratin dish I blogged a year ago.  It was one of my favorite meals of 2008, and it struck gold again. It should have been enough for 4 people, but was so good, Lisl and I pigged out and finished it off in one sitting! I’ve gone back and updated the recipe if you are interested.  Make it while everything is in season!

I also grilled a skirt steak last night and wanted to share/record the sauce after very good reviews from our guests (no photo, was too busy getting food on the table).

Mustard Sauce for Skirt Steak
1 medium shallot, finely chopped
1 1/2 cup chicken stock
1 tbsp grain mustard
2 tbsp dark rum
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
salt to taste

On medium-low heat, saute the shallots in a splash of olive oil in a medium-sized pan for a few minutes, until they soften. Pour in the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Stir in the mustard and rum and reduce to a light sauce consistency, then stir in the vinegar. Taste and add a small amount of salt if you desire.

Note: an important thing with skirt steak is to give it lots of salt and pepper before you toss it on the grill, and then thinly slice across the grain (I usually cut it into 6 inch lengths before grilling, so that it’s easier to slice).

Lulu’s Baked Halibut with Mushrooms and Cream

halibut-mushroom

Some days you see a recipe and weather be damned.  That’s what happened to me when I was flipping through Richard Olney’s homage to Lulu Peyraud, Lulu’s Provencal Table and saw:

“Baked Halibut with Mushrooms and Cream”

Yes, I’m a sucker for breadcrumbs.

I cooked the dish that very night to bid adieu to L’s mother, flying back to Sydney the next day.  I made a few small adaptations, and the results were absolutely delicious and comforting.  This dish will be back on the menu again in future, no question.

Continue reading “Lulu’s Baked Halibut with Mushrooms and Cream”

Slow Baked Dry Rubbed Spare Ribs

ribs-dryrub-done

Theoretically, I should experiment more with dry rubs but, well, it’s just… for me, this stuff is like the grill equivalent of crack.  Crack and pork. Pork and crack. I play around with ratios and leading actors, but I always come back to the same basic cast of characters.  When these players hit the stage of Fleisher’s berkshire pork, spectacular things happen.

If you are looking to shut down all table conversation, and revert your guests to a neanderthal state of grunting and gnawing, try the following:

Buy two racks of (berkshire if possible) pork spare ribs for every 3 people.

With a mortar and pestle, grind up:
1 tsp coriander seed
1 tsp cumin seed
1 tsp yellow mustard seed
1/2 tsp black pepper

Then stir in:
2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp kosher salt
heaping tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp dried oregano

ribs-dryrub-pre

I sometimes use pre-ground cumin, but I really like using the seeds for the coriander, mustard seed, and black pepper for that extra texture.  I also will note that I don’t bother removing the membrane on the bottom side of the ribs.

Rub the spice mixture all over the ribs, then place them in a suitable holder (I use a baking dish), cover with plastic wrap, and return to the fridge for 6 hours or more (overnight is ideal).

You can cook these with indirect heat on the grill, or with low heat in the oven.  In this case, it was raining, so I baked these on broiler trays (so any melted fat didn’t pool) for 3 to 3.5 hours at 250F degrees.

That’s it. Easy peasy. Dig in caveman!

Urgh gllrgh mmmmmmmm

ribs-dryrub-close

The ribs before cooking

Additional notes: I usually don’t use oregano with this dry rub, but really enjoyed it here.  Another good spin is to add some heat with cayenne or red pepper flakes.

Lulu’s Ratatouille (and the benefits of elbow grease)

ratatouille-lulu

I’ve been reading Julia Child’s My Life in France and the difficulties she faced trying to publish Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  In 1959, when Houghton Mifflin finally passed on the book, and before Knopf picked it up, Julia read a note from her champion at Houghton who explained the rejection, “They feel [the average housewife] wants ‘shortcuts to something equivalent’ instead of the perfect process to the absolute.

America’s culture has changed a lot since then, but anyone who reads Simone de Beauvoir’s 1947 America Day by Day will be struck by how much has remained consistent.  The business instincts of the Houghton execs remains somewhat true today if Rachel Ray’s empire is any evidence.  Thankfully, there is room for more ambitious efforts, as Julia Child and Simone Beck proved and as new author/chefs continue to show; a recent example is Paul Bertolli’s almost literary Cooking by Hand.

Ratatouille strikes me as a perfect dish to highlight the merits of the two mindsets (and there are indeed merits to both).  Sometimes I will throw together a ratatouille very quickly, let all the components stew together for a while unaided, and enjoy a perfectly good rendition.  However, with a little more effort and time, you can take the dish to a different level entirely.

On Friday evening, after picking up some lovely fresh vegetables from the local farm, I rolled up my sleeves and put together an adaptation of Lulu Peyraud’s ratatouille from Richard Olney’s cookbook Lulu’s Provencal Table. It is considerably more involved than my usual, but the result, which we ate the next evening, was the sweetest, most delicious ratatouille I have had in a long while.

Continue reading “Lulu’s Ratatouille (and the benefits of elbow grease)”

Shiitake, Chard Ravioli in Dashi Broth w Watercress and Shimeji Mushrooms

dashi-ravioli

Homemade ravioli, stuffed with shiitake mushrooms, chard stems, shallots, pine nuts, parsley and parmesan, made from fresh beet-leaf pasta, served with a dashi-mushroom broth with watercress, scallion greens, and shimeji mushrooms.

That’s a mouthful to say, but was an absolute delight to eat.  It was also my first attempt to make up an Asian-European fusion dish, and emerged out of my need to give the old creative cooking juices a swift kick in the pants.  For the last few months, I poured my energy into a startup project, but unfortunately it became clear that the necessary funding resources were not going to emerge. Creative cooking took a back seat, but last night’s meal was its way of pounding a fist on the table and crying “my turn, dammit!” I was quite proud of the results, if I can say so myself.

I’ve been a fan of fusion since it burst on the New York City restaurant scene in the mid-nineties (flashback to an incredible dinner with Aun, my then-roommate and now the author of the marvelous blog Chubby Hubby, with a Japanese-Italian pasta-and-squid-ink dish served in a bowl made from a huge cheese rind. I love me some cheese!).

With the arrival of my pasta machine (recommended by Zenchef, and after using it last night, I love it!), I decided that I wanted to serve ravioli with a Japanese broth. This led to cracking open Kimiko Barber’s The Japanese Kitchen, which has been waiting to be read for the last 6 months, and a hop down to the Japanese grocery store in Harrison, NY.  This is a fairly involved meal, so with no further ado:

Continue reading “Shiitake, Chard Ravioli in Dashi Broth w Watercress and Shimeji Mushrooms”

Salsa: if you can’t beat the heat, join it!

salsa

There’s an old saying, “if you can’t beat em, join em.”  It applies quite aptly to summertime heat and a good, fresh salsa don’t you think?

My current favorite method of salsa making is about as simple as it gets, and just relies on fresh ingredients.

Fresh Salsa
6 medium tomatillos, diced
2 large ripe tomatoes, diced
1 red onion, diced
5 or 6 spring onions, finely chopped (use all the green)
1 green pepper, diced
1 red pepper, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 to 3 fresh jalapenos, minced (add heat to personal taste; can also use cayenne or serrano)
juice of 1 to 2 limes, to taste
large bunch of cilantro, chopped
1 tbsp rice vinegar (or to taste)
salt and pepper to taste

Just chop everything up and combine in a bowl.  Serve with some tortilla chips, or toast some bread with a little olive oil for a simple bruschetta, or serve as a garnish alongside a well-seasoned and grilled flank steak.

Don’t forget the beer. 🙂

Today Lisl had some friends from her choir over for lunch, and this went over quite well (we also had a hit with a black-eyed pea salad that was sort of a combination of this and this).

Below the fold, I’m attaching a few more photos from our recent trip up to the Catskills.

Continue reading “Salsa: if you can’t beat the heat, join it!”

Summertime: mint watermelon lemonade; cilantro chimichurri w/ flank steak

audrey-field

Summertime has finally come, although here in the Catskills the spring rains have decided they like hanging around. They enjoy our company in the afternoons. That, or they’re out to kill everyone’s tomato plants, and doing a good job of it too. We are just finishing a week vacation here in “slightly-upstate” New York, and while work and mozzies invaded quite a bit, it has been quiet and beautiful. (if you don’t speak Oz, mozzies = mosquitoes)

The farms have been fighting with the weather – what a tough profession farming is, subject to the whims of weather.  I was really looking forward to the return of fresh roma beans at our local farm, but the wet weather has left them tough and unenjoyable, resistant to even a long stew in tomato sauce.  The cucumbers have suffered even worse, including the little kerbys.

gills-09-start

Still, the chard, wax beans, and golden zucchini are all beautiful, and I have high hopes for the corn season. I was glad to see Gill’s farm stand open for business.  Here is my first payload:

09-first-produce

Given the onslaught of work (trying to get a new venture off the ground in this environment is not a simple task), I have only had time to cook oldies but goodies, rather than creating new dishes.  With summertime eating, I also tend to go simple — fresh salads and well-seasoned meat cooked on the grill.

A dry rub of smoked paprika, ground coriander, salt, and brown sugar was a smashing hit with our niece visiting from Sydney.  We have also been playing around with chimichurri-like green sauces to go with flank and skirt steak, some with parsely and some with cilantro.  My favorite so far was the following:

flank-steak-chim

Cilantro Green Sauce (chimichurri inspired)
large bunch of cilantro (fresh coriander)
2 cloves of garlic
1/3 of a hot jalapeno
pinch of salt
1 tbsp of olive oil
red wine vinegar and rice wine vinegar to taste

You can finely mince everything and combine with the liquids, or just use a food processor (which is what I did last night).  The bite of the vinegar and the heat of the jalapeno are a fabulous complement to a flank or skirt steak, well seasoned with salt and pepper, cooked to medium-rare on the grill, and sliced thin across the grain.

lemonade-and-mint

I also love making twists on lemonade.  Last summer I had fun freezing watermelon cubes and using them instead of ice.  This year I did a similar thing, but with more of a mohito-making approach.

Lemon-limeade with Watermelon and Spearmint

Juice 4 or 5 lemons and 2 limes, and place in a large jug.  Add mint leaves from several sprigs of spearmint or regular mint.  Add in 1 lime, washed and quartered.  Cut a half-inch slice from a watermelon half, and slice into 1/2 inch cubes.  Add in 3 tbsp of sugar.  Mash everything up.  Pour in cold water and ice, then taste for the amount of citrus juice and sugar, adjusting to taste.

Pork Shoulder Braised with White Wine and Napa Cabbage

pork-braise-napa-cabbage

I keep on playing around with pork shoulder braises, and what’s not to love? They make a great meal, and the leftovers can be used in a myriad of ways such as pulled pork sandwiches, stews, chilis, meat pies, etc.  The picture above was the only one I had time to grab for this recipe, but I was so happy with it, I wanted to record it up here.  I made it the night before, so putting on dinner the next day was a snap, and boy was it good!

Pork Shoulder Braised with White Wine and Napa Cabbage

5 or 6 lb pork shoulder butt, on the bone (preferably Berkshire pork)
1/2 lb slab bacon, 1 to 1.5 inches thick
1/2 napa cabbage, sliced 1/4″ thick
3 medium vidalia or yellow onions, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 celery stalks, diced
4 or 5 cloves of garlic, minced
1 1/2 tsp fennel seed
1 tsp coriander seed
bouquet garnis of parsley, winter savory, and 2 bay leaves, wrapped in string
salt and pepper
dry white wine
water
grapeseed oil

Preheat oven to 300F.  In a mortar and pestle, coarsely grind the fennel and coriander seed.

Remove the skin from pork shoulder and score the fat. Rub 1 tsp of salt and the ground spices around the pork, let it come to room temperature for 20 minutes or so. Heat a splash of grapeseed oil in a dutch oven until very hot. Sear all sides of the pork and then remove to the side.

Slice the slab bacon 1/2 inch thick and brown it in the dutch oven, then turn the heat down to medium and remove the bacon to the side as well.

Saute the onions until they start to turn translucent, then add in the carrot, celery, garlic, and spices.  Place the pork shoulder on top and pour in half a bottle of white wine.  Bring the liquid about 1/4 up the side of the pork, adding water if needed.  Scatter  the slab bacon around, place the bouquet garnis in the pot, and scatter around the napa cabbage.  Cover and cook for two hours, then flip the shoulder and cook for another 2 hours.

Remove the pork shoulder to a cutting board and let cool for 15 minutes, then using two forks gently pull the shoulder apart to separate the bones and fat from the meat.  Also remove the slab bacon.  If you refridgerate the pork and bacon overnight, as I did, then slice any large chunks of pork into half-inch-thick pieces, and sear the meat on both sides in a hot non-stick skillet.  Do the same with the bacon, and plate, grinding some coarse salt and pepper onto the pork.

If you are serving the braise immediately, skim the liquid fat off the top of the braised vegetables in the pot. If you put in the fridge overnight, the fat will solidify on the top making it much easier to remove.   Re-heat in a pot, not a microwave!  Ladle several large spoonfuls into a food processor and blend into your gravy.

With a slotted spoon to drain excess liquid, plate some of braised vegetables next to the meat and serve with a side of your choice — in our case, Lisl made a salad of fresh peas (parboiled and then immediately cooled in ice water), jicama, red onion, and cherry tomatoes, with a lemon juice, olive oil and thyme dressing.