Kate Says . . . delicious

I bought Marcella Hazan's Marcella Says . . . this past summer, but had not tried any of the recipes yet. When I moved back home in August, I had to box up most of my cookbooks, and they've been in giant containers in the attic of the barn ever since.

After Sunday night's lamb, my mother asked if I might make dinner again this week, and I mentioned risotto.

"Is there such a thing as squash risotto?" Mom asked.

I had to have a recipe somewhere, and I ran out across the driveway to the barn in the rain to find one. I really love trying new recipes.

I had a little trouble finding a recipe at first; it wasn't until the fifth cookbook that I looked at - Marcella Says . . . - that I finally found what I was looking for. Then I realized why I'd never used this cookbook.

I buy most of my cookbooks used and sight-unseen off of Amazon - if the reviews are good, and the cookbook looks interesting and is under three dollars, I'll probably buy it eventually. So I bought this cookbook back in June without having looked through it. When I received it in the mail, I read through it quickly. The recipes are not traditionally Italian, but used a variety of Italian cooking techniques and styles with new, different ingredients. Hazan experiments with traditional Italian ingredients in non-traditional recipes as well. The layout is beautiful, with a short introduction/biography of Hazan, then "At Master Class" - seventy-some odd pages of cooking-technique advice that is very helpful - and then sections on appetizers and tidbits, soups, rice, pasta sauces, homemade pasta and gnocchi, fish, chicken, veal, beef, lamb, pork, veggies, salads, and two dessert chapters. Each recipe has helpful hints; all highlighted, but in the text of the recipe where they will be most helpful. It is an amazingly easy-to-use cookbook, and the advice is great - each recipe would be very easy to adapt or experiment with. However, many of the ingredients are either prohibitively expensive for me or unavailable.

Hazan's recipe, Risotto di Zucca, Porri, e Vongole [Risotto with Butternut Squash, Leeks, and Clams] calls for live littleneck clams, which, though available here, aren't worth the price, and are 95% dead anyway after the trip from the ocean to the fishmonger's. Luckily, I was able to find canned baby clams, and they worked well. I made a few other time-saving changes as well.

The risotto was delicious, but to enjoy it as I made it, I feel that a person would really have to like the taste of clams. The pungent, salty aroma was very noticeable, and the sweet, meaty taste of the clams was there in every bite. The slightly sweet and creamy squash, and the crispness of the leeks - also sweet, but in an entirely different way, provided nice contrast to the clams. The pecorino added a nice dimension as well. The risotto itself turned out perfectly creamy and delicious.

Here is the recipe as I made it:

Risotto di Zucca, Porri, e Vongole
Risotto with Butternut Squash, Leeks, and Clams

About 2 cups butternut squash - peeled and diced into 1/2-in. pieces (1/2 lb.)
About 2 quarts water
1 14 oz. can clams (I used the Roland brand baby clams)
1 large leek, white and light green parts only, scrubbed, cut in half the long way, and sliced thinly
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons scallions, the white part only, cut into very thin rounds
sea salt
1/2 tablespoon dried marjoram
1 cup Arborio rice
1 cup dry white wine (Villa Maria Chardonnay, 2003)
12 whole green peppercorns
1/2 cup grated Pecorino Toscano cheese

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Lay the squash in a baking dish big enough that it doesn't overlap. Pour in 1/2 cup water, and put it in the preheated oven. Cook for 20 minutes. Take it out of the oven and let the dish cool on the countertop before draining. Set aside.

Set the water, unsalted, on a burner next to the one that you will use for the risotto. Bring the water to a rolling boil, and then turn down the heat, so that the water continues to simmer, but doesn't reach a boil.

In a heavy 4 quart saucepan, heat the olive oil until it runs around the pan, and then turn the heat to medium high. Cook, stirring from time to time, until the leek and scallion become a pale gold color. Add half of the squash and some salt, and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring once or twice. Add the marjoram, and stir to mix all of the ingredients.

Add the rice, stirring to coat.

Add half of the wine while steadily stirring the rice. When the wine has cooked off, add the other half, still stirring. When this has cooked off, pour the clam juices from the can into the risotto. Continue to stir until all of the juices have cooked off, then add a ladle of water from the saucepan on the side. Stir constantly, adding more water each time the rice begins to dry out.

When about 1/2 of the water in the saucepan is gone, and the rice is chalky, but still hard to the bite, stir in the remaining squash, and then add more water as necessary. When nearing the end, add the water as it disappears, but before the rice beings to stick to the bottom of the pan. This will give a creamier consistency.

When the rice is done, add the clams, stirring them quickly into the risotto. Add the peppercorns, and the pecorino. Remove the pan from the heat and stir vigorously. Taste and correct for seasoning. Serve immediately.

We served this with a 2003 Villa Maria Estate Private Bin Chardonnay. ( I love the screw off cap. Love it.) The wine matched the risotto well, I thought, but next time I might go for something drier.

I really enjoyed this dish - I look forward to making it with fresh clams, if I can find some good ones. Next time I think tha tI'll double the squash as well.

In closing, I can't tell you how fun this book is to cook from - it was a really enjoyable experience. I don't know if it is the instructional style or what, but I'm glad that I bought way too much squash for this dish - I'm looking forward to making the Rapini and Butternut Squash Soup later this week.

Meatballs

Food and Wine magazine publishes a great series of "Quick for Scratch" cookbooks that I love. I bought the "Quick from Scratch: One Dish Meals" a few years ago from the clearance rack at Barnes and Noble, and I've made many meals from it. The variety of dishes is always great, and I've never made a recipe that didn't turn out. This past week I received "Quick From Scratch: Herbs and Spices" from Amazon.com. Last night I made the Lamb Meatballs with Cumin, Mint, and Tomato Sauce. Here is the recipe:

Lamb Meatballs with Cumin, Mint, and Tomato Sauce

Serves 4

1 1/2 lbs ground lamb
3 T chopped blanched almonds
3 T dried bread crumbs
5 T chopped fresh mint
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 t ground cumin
1 12/ t salt
1/4 t fresh-ground black pepper
4 T cooking oil
1 onion, chopped finely
1 28-oz can crushed tomatoes with their juice (preferably organic)
cous cous, for serving

In a medium bowl, combine the lamb, almonds, bread crumbs, 3 T of the mint, the farlic, 1 t cumin, 1 t salt, and the pepper. Shape the mixture into 16 meatballs, about 2 in-in diameter, and flatten them a little in the palm of your hand.

In a large, deep frying pan, heat 2 tablespoons of the oil over moderately high heat. Add the meatballs and cook, turning, until browned all over, about 3 minutes. Remove from the pan and drain on paper towels.

Add the remaining 2 T oil to the pan and turn the heat down to medium low. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and the remaining cumin and 1/2 t of the salt. Bring to a simmer, then reduve the heat and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes.

Make the cous cous according to the package instructions.

Add the meatballs to the tomato sauce and simmer, covered, unitl the meatballs are cooked through, about 10 minutes longer. Stir in the remaining 2 T mint and serve over the cous cous.

The cookbook suggests that this be served with a wine that is crisp, and not too tannic nor assertive, and suggests a Rioja. We ate this with a Torres 2000 Gran Sangre de Toro Reserva from Catalunya. The wine was excellent with this dish: full and with a smooth finish, it complemented the spicy-smokiness of the meatballs perfectly.

The almonds added a crunch to the meatballs that was interesting texturally, but not much flavor. (I just used the planters slivered almonds, though, and I wonder if they might have been a little stale.) The mint added an extra dimension to the sauce, but beyond that was barely detectable in the dish - perfect. I think that this recipe could very easily be made ahead and frozen - it might even taste better. Next time, I might add some red pepper flakes or cayenne for an extra kick.

Apples

It's fall here in Michigan, and apples are in abundance. My parent's have 15 or 20 apple trees on their property, though I've never bothered to try to pick or eat any of them - they seem to fall to the ground as soon as they are ripe and the wasps get them. I often sit on their patio to read or just stare out at the yard, and every once in a while, I'll hear a "THUMP" as an apple falls from a tree and hits the hard ground. Around dusk, groups of white-tailed deer will take a stroll through the orchard, stopping to munch the apples on the ground.

I took a trip to Grand Rapids this weekend to visit my old friend B. Saturday, we went to Robinette's Apple Haus, an apple-picking farm just outside of G.R. We didn't pick any apples - I hate the bugs and that rotten-apple smell that always come with apple-picking - but we visited the cider mill and got donuts. Their cider was perfect; it was spicy-sweet but without that tooth-achiness that comes with drinking most cider. The donuts were good, too - light with a crusty outside. B. and I each got a pumpkin-spice donut - a plain donut coated with cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg and allspice. I picked up a cute little cookbook called The Apple Lover's Cookbook by Shirley Munson and Jo Nelson. B. picked up some apples and cider.

Back at B.'s apartment, we made the Sour Cream Apple Pie. A one-crust pie, it took about 15 minutes to put together (we used a pre-made crust) and 40 min to bake. The recipe is very simple, and the pie, when done, is best eaten chilled. We added a lot more cinnamon than the original recipe called for - and the pie has a wonderful apple-cinnamon aroma. The pie has a creamier filling, and so wouldn't require any icecream or whipped cream on top. My families reaction was "It's good," so I figure it's not a break-through recipe or anything, but I liked it, and would probably make it again next fall. Here's the recipe:

Sour Cream Apple Pie

1 unbaked 9" pie shell (we used Pillsbury)
2 Tbsp. flour
1/8 tsp. salt
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup sour cream (we used Daisy brand, which is lighter - not quite as sour)
1 tsp. canilla
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 cups peeled, sliced apples (about 3 MacIntosh)

For the Nut Topping:
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped nuts
1/4 cup butter

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. When the oven in preheated, place the pie shell in the pie plate, prick with a fork, and prebake for about 10 minutes. Combine flour, salt, sugar, egg, sour cream, vanilla, nutmeg, and cinnamon; beat well. Stir in apples. Pour into prebaked pie shell.

Bake for 15 minutes at 400 degrees. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake 30 minutes longer. While the pie is baking, combine all of the ingredients for the nut topping and mix until crumbly. Remove from oven; spinkle with the nut topping. Return to oven for 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Baking

I cook quite a bit, though my lack of posts recently does not suggest this. [And, I've moved home with my parents, and I've been eating my mom's food.] Cooking is fun, and easy, and as long as you sort of follow a recipe, use most of the right ingredients, and keep your eye on the kitchen timer, pretty much anything that you cook is going to turn out all right.

Baking on the other hand, can be stressful and hard. This is difficult to admit to, because the act of baking is very similar to what I do every day at work in the lab. Baking is all about chemistry. But, as my dad said, you shouldn't ever try anything at home that you do at work - you're bound to mess it up.

If I were to make the mistakes that I made today, trying to finish the Apple and Goat's Cheese Clafoutis that I made this evening after work, while at work, I would get fired. People would begin to question the validity of my diploma. I'd be sent back to eighth grade physical science.

The first mistake that I made was to dump too many of the ingredients into the mixing bowl at once. The recipe says to "mix the sugar, butter, eggs, and cheese . . ." and I just kept going down the list and added the flour too. If I were cooking, this wouldn't be such a problem. I'd probably go in and scoop out the prematurely added ingredient, or simply keep going, and hope that it didn't get too mushy. Problem here is, you can't exactly fish flour out of egg yolk.

Flour is a tricky thing; it's used in both baked desserts like cake and cookies, but also in breads and rolls, and it serves a different function in each. In bread, flour serves a structural purpose. When the flour is kneaded with wet ingredients, a fibrous protein called gluten contained in flour polymerizes, forming long, sinewy chains that you can see forming the outline of those big air pockets in good bread. Gluten is what makes bread and pizza dough stretchy, and what allows them to maintain their shape on a baking stone, instead of running all over the place like a cake batter would. This sinewy quality is highly prized in bread dough - as long as it doesn't get too tough.

In cakes, cookies, and even clafouti, flour is present mostly for substance, a little extra something to hold the important ingredients together. You'll notice that this recipe calls for almost twice as much sugar as flour, and that it directs the flour to be folded, not mixed, into the batter. Clafoutis is sort of like a structured pudding or custard; developed gluten would turn it into sweet, gooey hard tack.

But there I was with unmixed eggs, sugar, butter and chevre and a lot of flour. So I set the mixing bowl by the stove where my mom was reheating some soup, and let the butter and cheese get really soft. Then I took a whisk and slowly tamped up and down on in the bowl, combining all of the ingredients but trying my best not to stretch the flour too much. After a half an hour, I finally got it to the right consistency. I poured the batter into the cake pan and set the apple slices on top in concentric circles. Fifteen minutes after I put it in the oven, when the cake was half-done, I realized that I'd forgotten to add salt. Doh. [The addition of salt may have aided in the leavening action of the eggs, and the end result would have been less dense.]

The apples I sliced super thin (1/8 inch) with my food processor. I hadn't used the slicing blade on the food processor since I'd gotten it, and it was amazing - three apples took ten seconds to slice. I also coated the top of the apples before baking with raw cane sugar.

In the end I was lucky - none of my screw-ups really mattered (sort of like cooking.) I've never had clafoutis before and neither had my parents or my sister, and so none of us knew what it was supposed to taste like. But it tasted good. The edges of the clafoutis had gotten crusty, and the sugar (of which there is a massive amount) had carmelized. The inside, however, was soft - like a thick custard. The apples added just the tiniest bit of tartness, the goat's cheese just a little bite, and with a cup of hot coffee, this made a great dessert. I am going to try making it again, soon - but following the directions. Here's the recipe, from Chef2Chef.net:

Apple and Goat Cheese Clafoutis

Makes 6 servings

Ingredients:

3 Gala apples, peeled, cored and sliced thinly
10 Tablespoons (5/8 cup) sugar plus additional for sprinkling (I used white sugar for the batter and sprinkled the cake with turbinado, or raw cane, sugar)
2 eggs
6 Tablespoons (3/8 cup) softened butter, unsalted
1/2 cup (1 4-oz package) softened goat cheese
6 Tablespoons (3/8 cup) flour
salt

Preparation:

Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Mix sugar with eggs, butter and cheese. Sift flour and salt together, fold in with the rest of ingredients except apples.

Pour batter into 9-in. buttered and sugared springform pan, or a 9-in cake pan lined with parchment paper. (I lined a cake pan with parchment paper, and the folds in the paper gave a really pretty texture to the edge of the cake.) Place the apple slices in concentric circles, overlapping one another, on the top of the batter. Sprinkle the top with raw cane sugar, if you have it, or regular sugar. Bake thirty to forty minutes in the oven until it is brown on top. Pierce the top with a toothpick and if it comes out clean, then the cake is done. Let cool a few minutes and serve with coffee and vanilla ice cream.

Birthday Dinner

My Grandmother turns -- on Thursday, and she drove down to our house to celebrate with us today. My mother and I devised a four-course menu with Spanish/Cuban elements for the occasion, filling in with stuff that we like:

Cheese

1 yr. Aged Gouda
1 yr. Irish Cheddar

Soup

Caldo Gallego
Galician Bean and Garlic Soup


Salad

Grandpa's Coach House Salad

Main

Grilled, Marinated Pork Chops with Mojo
Sauce

Dessert

Honey-Roasted Plums with Thyme and Creme Fraiche

The meal was great. Besides a small mishap in which I couldn't find the right dish to cook the dessert in, and Mom spilling the jus from the pork chops inside the oven and the smoke detector going off, everything went well.

To save time, I made the soup yesterday. I found the recipe in a new cookbook of mine, Our Latin Table: Celebrations, Recipes, and Memories by Fernando Saralegui. Here is the recipe, as I followed it. It should make enough soup for ten to twelve people as a first course.

Caldo Gallego

Ingredients:

2 14-oz cans white beans
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 lb. chorizo
7 cloves garlic
1 1/2 carrots, finely chopped
1 1/2 stalks celery, finely chopped
1/2 large white onion, finely chopped
[the three above ingredients, together, are called a mirepoix]
8 cups chicken stock (2 homemade, plus 6 free-range organic)
1 1/2 bay leaves
3/4 t dried thyme
1 ham hock
2 leaves Swiss chard, washed and chopped, hard stems removed
2 cups diced potatoes
Freshly ground pepper and salt, to taste

Heat half of the oil in the stock pot over medium-high heat, add chorizo, cook 3 minutes, remove and reserve. Heat the remaining olive oil and add garlic, carrot, celery and onion to the stockpot. Cook until soft, then add chicken stock, bay leaves, thyme, ham hock, and beans, bring to a boil, and reduce heat to low. Allow soup to simmer for 2 hours or until reduced by one quarter. Remove ham hock and bay leaves.
To the soup in the stockpot add the kale, potatoes, chorizo, salt and pepper and cook over medium heat for another half hour. Taste and adjust seasoning.
The soup can be made up to three days in advance and kept refrigerated in an airtight container. [I let it cool to room temperature, then put it in the fridge. The next day, I heated the soup back up to the proper temp over medium-low heat. It took about thirty minutes.]

The broth is a beautiful yellow-to-orange color, and the chorizo and swiss chard add nice touches of color to the soup. The original recipe called for three times as much chorizo. I remembered my old roommate, Kathy, mentioning once that the chorizo at Zingerman's was very flavor-ful and that just a little was necessary to flavor an entire pot of soup. Even with a third of the recommended chorizo, I felt that the soup was a little too flavorful, and if I were to make this again, I wouldn't bother with the ham hock, as the sausage itself was enough. [Something delicious: Taking a ham hock out of a pot of soup that it has been boiling in for a couple of hours and eating the meat that flakes gently off of the bone. mmmmmm. . .] I would also add more leafy vegetables and beans. Next time, I'll probably use dried beans, as well.

I also made the marinade and sauce for the pork last night, as well. I'd read about Mojo (pronounced MO-ho) before, I'd heard it was delicious, fantastic, and addictive, but I was not prepared at all for the experience. Fernando Saralegui, the author of the recipe, describes Mojo this way:
"This dish is what Cubans are weaned on and live for."

I usually don't like citrus with meat, but I was the first one to finish my double cut pork chop at dinner today.

To make the sauce, which is drizzled over the meat after it is grilled, and the marinade you'll need:

10 cloves garlic
3 T dried oregano
2/3 cup olive oil
3/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
juice of 2 limes
1/8 teaspoon cumin (or to taste - I added more)
salt and pepper to taste (I added a pinch of salt and a couple grinds of pepper)

Puree the garlic, oregano, olive oil, 1/4 cup of the orange juice, lime juice, cumin, salt, and pepper in a blender or in a food processor fitted with the metal blade. Reserve 1/3 cup of sauce and set aside.

To make the marinade, whisk the remaining 1/2 cup of orange juice with the remaining mojo sauce in a nonreactive bowl.

I had one more thing to do last night, and that was to make the creme fraiche. I could have bought it at the store, but I thought it'd be more fun to just make it at home. To make creme fraiche at home, whisk together the following ingredients:

1 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup plain yogurt with live acidophilus cultures ( I used organic goat's milk yogurt - I ate the left overs, and it was the best tasting yogurt I've ever had.)

Let the mixture sit on the countertop uncovered, overnight. In the morning, put it in the fridge. It will keep for two weeks.

I covered mine, so it wouldn't spill, and because of this it did not culture as much as I would have likes, and it was runny. It still complemented the dessert, though.

Three hour's before dinner, we started making the pork chops. Here's the rest of the recipe:

Grilled Marinated Pork Chops with Mojo

Mojo Marinade (see above)
6 double-cut pork chops
Mojo Sauce

Put pork-chops in a non-reactive dish and cover with the marinade. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 hours, turning the chops occasionally.

Discard marinade and grill the pork chops on a hot grill for 5 to 7 minutes on each side until cooked to medium. Serve with the reserved mojo sauce.

We ended up grilling the chops until they were well done. They were good, but I can't wait to try them medium.

For dessert we had Honey-Roasted Plums with Thyme and Creme Fraiche. [Hit the link for the recipe.] In my opinion, it was one of the most beautiful dishes that I have ever made. My review is on epicurious (katieh1) but I have to mention here the wonderful dimension that the thyme added to the dish. I never would have considered thyme for a dessert seasoning, but it works quite well here, imparting a fullness to the otherwise extremely sweet sauce. I used the honey that my mother had on hand, but I'm sure that a higher quality would add to the dish.