Culinary Adventures

Poulet Basquaise

This is one of my favorite recipes, and it’s easy. Every ingredient is freely available in even the smallest bodega, and it results in a foolproof show-stopper for a dinner party, or just having a few friends over.  It’s also an exercise in improvisation; within every recipe, there’s a wide latitude for changing certain elements (e.g., orange zest instead of lemon zest). At the same time, there are certain elements that make a recipe what it is, and you can’t deviate from them.

Traditionally, this recipe is made with red and green bell peppers, but I don’t particularly like the grassy flavor of green bell peppers - so I substitute yellow peppers which give a hint of bright, citrusy flavor.  I also use smoked paprika, because it adds a rustic element to the dish - like it’s been simmering in a farmhouse hearth in Basque on a Sunday afternoon. I also use chicken breasts in the dish, in lieu of an entire chicken.

Certain elements of this dish can’t be changed, however.  You must use bone-in skin on chicken breasts (even if you don’t plan on eating the skin). The fat in the skin renders when you’re browning it, adding flavor to the dish.  The skin also protects the delicate meat of the breast. Keeping the bone in allows the chicken to hold its shape during cooking, and the bone adds additional flavor to the sauce.

Serve this over rice pilaf (traditionally) or noodles (tagliatelli is my choice).

4 bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts

Salt

Pepper

Smoked paprika

2 T olive oil

2 T butter

2 red bell peppers, cut into 1/4” julienne

2 yellow bell peppers; cut into 1/4” julienne

1 onion, sliced into 1/4” slices

16 oz San Marzano plum tomatoes (La Bella San Marzano)

1 T tomato paste (Amore)

1/2 c white wine (drink the rest of the bottle while you’re cooking!)

1/2 c robust chicken stock (I make Thomas Keller’s chicken stock, which is pretty light. I reduce 1 c of stock to 1/2 c for this recipe)

Italian Parsley

About a half-hour before cooking, season the breast all over with salt, pepper, and paprika.

Heat a large pot over medium-high heat, add the olive oil. When the olive oil is hot, add the butter. When the butter has finished foaming, add the chicken breast skin side down. Sear the breast until well browned, skin side only - you may need to do this in two batches depending on how big your pot is. Once browned, remove breasts to a plate, and add peppers and onion. Reduce heat to medium-low, cook for 10 minutes, until onions are well softened.

Add the tomatoes and tomato paste, and cook until the liquid from the tomatoes has reduced by half, about 10-15 minutes. Then add the white wine and reduce again; it’s important to reduce the liquid because it concentrates the flavors. Doing it in stages ensures all of the ingredients are properly cooked and don’t fall apart.

Once the wine has reduced, add the chicken broth, followed by the chicken and any juices that have collected on the plate.  Cover and simmer 25 minutes. Remove the chicken from the pot and place on a platter to rest.  Crank the heat up to high and reduce the sauce for 5-6 minutes, until it coats the back of a spoon. It’s important to stir constantly when reducing, because your aim is to get rid of as much water as possible; otherwise the peppers will over-cook and fall apart before the sauce is thick enough.

Remove the sauce from heat and continue to stir until it reaches serving temperature. Re-season with salt, pepper and paprika.  Don’t overdo it with the paprika, you don’t want to be eating a campfire; the sauce should just have a faint hint of smoke to it.

Spoon the sauce over the chicken and sprinkle with Italian parsley.

Pruneaux à l’Armagnac

I love recipes which take a few simple ingredients and turn them into something amazing. This is one of those recipes. Prunes in Armagnac is commonly served in the Gascony region of France, there’s always a bottle at hand for when guests stop by. My recipe is below:

1 c water

1/3 + 2T wildflower honey

1/2 lemon, thinly sliced

1 t vanilla extract (or 1 vanilla pod)

1/2 t lavender

1 lb. prunes (with pits, they hold together better)

3 c good quality Armagnac

Combine all the ingredients except the Armagnac into a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium-low heat.  It’s important to cook the prunes before adding the alcohol, otherwise the skin of the prunes will get leathery.  Cool prune mixture to room temperature, then refrigerate for 12 hours or overnight.

The next day, place the prunes into a mason jar or other container - you may need to pick off some of the lavender if it gets stuck to the prunes. Strain the soaking liquid and pour over the prunes.  Then add the Armagnac and stir well.

I know it’ll be tough, but allow the prunes to soak for two weeks before cracking the jar open.

Enjoy!

Alsace Sausage with Sauteed Cabbage and Mashed Potatoes

Growing up in Minnesota, sausage and cabbage were two family staples. These recipes are cheap and really easy to throw together for a family dinner, or keep well for those of us that are single! I don’t have any photos of making the mashed potatoes, because I served leftovers that were frozen from before I started the blog, but I’ll post them the next time I make a batch.

A few tips:

A) It’s important to make sure that your cabbage is all cut the same size; if you don’t cut it properly the thick ribs will be undercooked while the thin part of the leaves will be mushy. In order to do this, cut the cabbage into a chiffonade: remove 3-4 leaves and stack them on top of one another; then roll the leaves up like a cigar. Once the leaves are rolled up, thinly slice them crosswise. Repeat until you’ve sliced up all your cabbage.

B) Always remember to re-check your seasoning balance at the temperature you’ll be serving the dish.  When you season a dish that’s straight off the stove it’s probably much hotter than you’ll be serving it to your family or guests. Season once when it’s hot off the stove, and then always always always check again before you serve it!

Sauteed Cabbage with Fennel and Pernod

2 T unsalted butter

2 T olive oil

2 medium onions, coarsely chopped

1 T caraway seeds

1 oz Pernod

1 bulb fennel, thinly sliced

1 small head green cabbage, thinly sliced

1/2 t salt

1/4 t pepper

2 t lemon juice

Melt butter and olive oil in a large pan over medium-low heat.  Once butter has foamed, add onions and saute for 4-5 minutes until softened and beginning to become translucent. Raise heat to medium-high, add caraway, fennel, cabbage, salt and pepper. once the cabbage has reduced a bit and added some moisture to the pan, add the Pernod and continue to saute until the cabbage is tender but still has a bit of crispness when you bite it (5-7 minutes). Add lemon juice, then re-season with salt and pepper to taste.

Grandma’s Refrigerated Mashed Potatoes

5 lb potatoes, peeled

2 (3oz) pkg. cream cheese

1 c. sour cream

1 t onion salt

1 t salt

1/4 t pepper

2 T butter

Boil potatoes in water until very tender. Drain and mash with other ingredients. Beat until light and fluffy. Serve immediately or cool; cover and refrigerate. They’ll taste better after a day or two in the fridge, I’ve had them last about 1.5 weeks in the refrigerator, and much longer in the freezer.

Seared Salmon with Brown Sugar & Balsamic Glaze

I cannot begin to stress how easy or delicious this dish is to put together - it’s perfect for a Monday night!  I only made one salmon filet but the recipe below is intended for four (it’s tough to shrink it down to only one serving)

4 6oz salmon filets (skin on)

1/4 c water

1/4 c balsamic vinegar

1 T brown sugar

1/2 t lemon oil

Salt & pepper

Finishing salt

First of all, it’s really important to make sure your protein is at room temperature before cooking it, especially so for fish. If you throw it in a pan right out of the fridge the outside will be overcooked and the middle will still be cold.

Heat some olive oil in a pan over medium-high heat until hot but not smoking. Season the fish with salt & pepper, then add skin side up to the pan. Crank the heat up to high and cook for about 4 minutes, then flip over and cook for an additional 3 to 4 minutes or until finished.

When the fish is done cooking, place it on a plate to rest. Remove the pan from heat for a minute or two to cool it down, then add the brown sugar, water, vinegar, and lemon oil. You can use one tablespoon of lemon juice in lieu of the lemon oil, but I like to use the oil because I think the vinegar is acidic enough. The lemon oil adds the flavor of lemon without the additional acidity. Boil for 2-3 minutes until a thin glaze is formed.

Spoon the glaze over the fish, and sprinkle with a little fleur de sel or other finishing salt. I think this would work well with some mashed vegetables (potato, sunchoke, use your imagination!) and fava beans.

Enjoy!

Hangar Steak en sous vide with Tomato & Asparagus

For the tomato & asparagus, I used the bacon - tomato sauce from the Ad Hoc cookbook, it was pretty easy to put together and had a lovely flavor - just a hint of bacon to round out the acidity in the tomatoes.  I also added about a teaspoon of Amore double-concentrate tomato paste to give the sauce a bit more flavor since tomatoes aren’t exactly in season right now.  I think next time I might ad a bit of esplette too.

For the asparagus, I just boiled them in salted water until tender and spooned the sauce on top.

For the hangar steak, I simmered bay leaves, thyme, rosemary, garlic and peppercorns in some olive oil and then let it cool.  I added the hangar steaks and olive oil mixture to a ziploc bag and sucked the air out through a straw.  I warmed a large pot of water on the stove to 145 degrees using my probe thermometer - fortunately the low heat setting kept the water at 145 perfectly! I let the hangar steak cook for about 3 hours then took them out of the oil, let them cool for a bit and then seared them in a cast-iron pan.

Over all, the tomato-asparagus side was great, but I think the hangar steak was a little bit to robust for the marinade I used.  It was perfectly tender, but I think that the (relatively) delicate flavors of the marinade would work better with a different cut.

There you have it, with a big pot of water, a ziploc bag, and a thermometer anyone can do the basics of sous vide at home!

Chicken Soup with Dumplings

Made this yesterday to freeze for lunch next week. It’s Thomas Keller’s recipe from the Ad Hoc cookbook, and is pretty easy to throw together - especially if you already have some chicken stock waiting in the freezer.

The dumplings essentially a pate a choux with chives and mustard, next time I might mix things up a bit and add some tarragon and Italian parsley.

For the soup, TK recommends simmering some additional leeks, onions and carrots in your chicken broth for added flavor.  If you don’t have home-made chicken stock on hand, this is a great way to doctor up some of the store-bought stuff. Just remember if you’re using store-bought you’ll probably have to use less salt than the recipe calls for.

Keller also cooks each of the vegetables for the final soup separately, in order to get them to the perfect level of done-ness. If you’re in a hurry you can probably skip this step and just simmer all the veg together in the broth.

Finally, adding a roux to the finished soup makes it especially satisfying.

This recipe is a bit labor-intensive for a weekday dinner; but is fairly straightforward to pull together on a Saturday afternoon and freezes well. Mix up a batch and see for yourself!