A Bronx Find

The organization I work for hosted a series of lunches for defense attorneys in four different cities across New York State to discuss the implementation of a drug law reform measure that passed in 2009. I wanted the luncheons to be something special, but defense attorneys in Buffalo and Rochester weren't very imaginative; we had sandwiches from a (nice) deli in Buffalo, but the Rochester lawyers opted for simple pepperoni pizza. When the luncheon for the Bronx lawyers came up, I posted a request on my Facebook page for some suggestions for a good restaurant nearby. Almost immediately, a friend responded by putting me in touch with a lawyer who happened to work for the organization I was visiting (but in a different department). He said: hands down, Coqui Mexicano. I visited the website and could tell from the menu that this place was a winner.

After agonizing over the menu, and deciding that I'd have to pitch in some bucks for extra food so I could bring home dinner, I called Diego and explained the plan. I was a little worried when he said that their catering menu was different, but not posted on the web, but ultimately, I just told him what I wanted in general and the amount of money that I wanted to spend.

It just so happened that D and I were traveling in the same direction the day of the luncheon, and so we decided to drive up to the Bronx and have a quick lunch together before the luncheon. (I knew that because I was speaking and asking a bunch of questions and taking notes during the luncheon that I wouldn't be able to eat during the meeting.) When we arrived, Diego seemed a bit frazzled, and worried aloud that the avocados weren't really ripe enough yet. The place was not very busy, just a few folks talking leisurely over some food in the brightly-colored dining room. Diego suggested the beef stew, which D ordered--but I knew I wanted a Cubano. I'm not a big Cubano fan, but for some reason, I wanted to try his. I'm so glad I did. Thinly sliced ham, pernil, pickle, and mayo, and a very tasty cheese on a soft roll. He conversed with us while we ate, asking if everything was alright ("some people make crusty Cubanos, I like mine like this. You like it?" I did.)

After giving the avocados a few more squeezes, he excused himself and set off at a quick trot down the street and around the corner--presumably in search of more ripe avocados for the guacamole we'd ordered for the luncheon. Watching him run down the street, I noticed an amazingly ornate, but run-down, building across the street--it was the old Bronx County Courthouse. Now covered in unartistic graffiti and grime, it appeared to be a sad symbol of a neighborhood in decline. But D told me that the owner recently sold it to a charter school, so (notwithstanding concerns about charter schools!) maybe someday soon, the beautiful architecture will shine on the block again. You can see the building in the background of the picture above, but some dude actually took photos of the inside and outside of the building and posted them on his blog, Satan's Laundromat.

Before D and I left to head over to the luncheon, I ordered a piece of Budin de Maiz, a sweet cornbread pudding with raisins, cinnamon, & grated coconut for a snack later that day. It was delicious. As the menu said, it's great for breakfast with coffee, or a dessert. I'll have it anytime, thank you.

When Diego delivered the spread for the luncheon a half an hour later, the lawyers greeted him like an old friend. I didn't know until later that about a year ago, when Coqui was struggling in the neighborhood, the legal services office organized a fundraiser to keep them in business. The bonds are tight between the organization and the restaurant. This article explains the story of Coqui Mexicano and why it's so special in the neighborhood.

I ordered a taco platter with pernil, warm corn tortillas, ricanized couscous salad, guacamole, escabeche de gandules, and five Cubanos. Diego apologized because he didn't bring as much as I ordered because he didn't want to use the under-ripe avocados, which was VERY COOL. He brought the chayote salad as a substitute--I have to admit, I didn't order it because I didn't know what it would be like, but it was outstanding. The lawyers enjoyed the food, the meeting was a success, and I brought some leftovers home so that D and I could taste the whole range of food from the place. I owe Diego a big, warm thank you for his thoughtful preparation of the food. I only wish I had more occasion to go to the Bronx--this would be my go-to place.

Photos courtesy of Welcome2Melrose blog, and The Daily News.

Can't Let Organic Buttermilk Go to Waste

For this year's St. Patrick's Day soda bread, I used an outrageously expensive quart of buttermilk ($4.99). I had at least two cups of it left a few days later and didn't want to waste it. I also happened to have set aside a bowl of sourdough sponge two days ago, and it was nice and bubbly. I found the following recipe on Cooks.com, and we adapted it to make a pancake recipe that's an absolute keeper.

Sourdough Buttermilk Cornmeal Pancakes

1 c. flour
1 c. cornmeal
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. sugar
1 1/3 c. buttermilk
1 c. Sourdough Starter (at room temp.)
1 egg, beaten
2 tbsp. vegetable oil

Combine first 6 ingredients in a non-metal bowl; stir well. Add buttermilk, Sourdough Starter and egg; beat just until large lumps disappear. For each pancake, pour about 1/4 cup batter onto a hot, lightly greased griddle. Turn pancakes when tops are covered with bubbles and edges look cooked.

For these, I don't think I would combine them with fruit. Just too much going on.

Ancho Shrimp

My office is holding a chili cook-off this week, and I prepared an ancho chile puree to use in my beef and black bean chili. I had some puree leftover, so we used it for our delicious Sunday night shrimp dinner. We paired the ancho chile shrimp with spaghetti squash, spinach, and black rice. I adapted this from a recipe on eHow.

Ancho chile puree

4 cloves roasted garlic
4 dried whole ancho chiles
1 tsp. fresh cracked black pepper
1 tsp. salt
1/4 c cider vinegar

Soak the whole chiles in warm water for at least 30 minutes, turning to make sure that the floaters are coated for at least 15 minutes on all sides. Remove the stems and the seedpods from the chiles. Cut them in half, and roast them in a dry cast iron skillet over high heat. Slip the garlic cloves out of their skins and place them in the bowl of a food processor along with the salt and pepper, vinegar and the roasted chiles. Pulse the machine a few times to begin the puree. Scrape down the sides and continue pulsing the machine and adding small amounts of water until the puree is as thick as possible but still allows the machine to run smoothly. Scrape down the sides as necessary and puree to a fine paste. Use a rubber spatula to force the puree through a strainer to extract skin and seed fragments.*

*I was too lazy to actually perform this last step, although I should have.

Late Brunch on the First Cold Day

After snacking on sourdough muesli bread upon rising late on the first cold day in the country, none of us was particularly hungry for breakfast. Around 2 pm, though, knowing that dinner was a good five hours away, we started getting antsy. I had brought some red Russian kale with us from home that I'd gotten at the farmer's marktet because it looked so good, and I knew we had eggs and cheese in the house, so I wondered if I could make a quiche. I'd never made a quiche before, so I consulted our friends' extensive library and found a book by Julia Child basically describing how to cook everything. Our friend volunteered a frozen pie crust leftover from some other time, and it was on. My first quiche-making experience commenced.

What follows is a tasty adaptation of the spinach-swiss quiche in the Julia Child book.

Red Russian Kale, Cheddar, Bacon and Roasted Onion Quiche

3 tbsp chopped roasted onion
2 tbsp butter
10 oz stemmed, washed, chopped, and stir fried kale
3 cloves garlic, chopped
6 large eggs
2 cups milk or cream (or one cup of each)
1 cup grated cheddar
3 strips bacon, cooked, chopped
seasonings: salt, pepper, nutmeg
9 inch pie shell

Bake the pie crust. Best to place pie weights in the bottom and cover the side crust-tops with either aluminum foil, or by placing a cookie sheet on the top rack over the pie shell. You can brush the bottom with egg white to form a kind of seal. Bake at 250. If you don't bake the pie crust first, the quiche will be mushy.

Cook the bacon in a pan and remove the slices, chop and set aside.

Saute garlic and kale in the remaining bacon fat and butter, set aside to cool.

Sprinkle half the grated cheese on the bottom of the cooled pie crust.

Blend eggs and cream (or milk) with the roasted chopped onion, bacon bits, seasonings, and cooked kale.

Pour over the sprinkled cheese into the pie crust. Top the custard with remaining cheese, evenly distributed.

Season the top of the pie with salt and pepper (don't use too much salt!) and bake for 35 minutes at 350.

Slice and enjoy!

Kicking Summer to the Curb

D and I recently hosted a "Kicking Summer to the Curb" party. It didn't work--we've still had too many hot and humid days here in New York. But the food was good, the company excellent.

Inspired by a wonderful dinner party we went to in the country last weekend, we made a slow-roasted pork shoulder, a Puerto Rican dish called "pernil." People raved about it, we loved it, and we had plenty of leftovers. Here's how we made it.

Pernil

1 pork shoulder (about 10 pounds), with the skin on
15 garlic cloves
2 tbsp dried oregano
2 tbsp kosher salt
2 tbsp coarsely ground black pepper
4 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp white wine or champagne vinegar

The first thing you want to do is brine the pork shoulder about two days before you need to eat it. Place the raw pork shoulder in a pot, bag, or bin of water mixed with salt, pepper, sugar, and garlic. I recommend 4 tbsp of each. Submerge the shoulder in the water and keep for 12 to 24 hours in the fridge. This will make it really juicy.

Put the garlic, oregano, salt, and pepper in a mini chopper and chop chop until it forms a kind of paste. Remove from the chopper and place in a bowl. Stir in the olive oil and vinegar.

Take a knife and separate the skin and fat from the meat, leaving it attached so you can fold it back over the meat. Stab the meat with a sharp knife in 1/2 inch incisions, 1 inch deep so that the paste can penetrate the meat. Rub the garlic paste on the meat, and cover the coated meat with the skin again, securing with a skewer so that it doesn't pull away while cooking.

Cover the pork and let marinate for at least three to six hours. Depending on how long you let it sit, and how warm it is out, you might want to consider refrigerating it. Make sure you allow enough time to let it sit out at room temperature for 30 minutes before you roast it.

Preheat the oven to 350 and roast for about 10-12 hours. Some recipes will tell you to roast it at different temperatures for a shorter amount of time, but this length of time worked for us and we had nicely falling-off-the-bone pork, which is how I like it. If you want to get the skin crispy brown at the end, you can put it back in the oven and roast it for about 20-30 minutes at 450.

Let the meat rest on a cutting board for 20 minutes before slicing.

I used a recipe from epicurious, found here.

We served this on a big platter with pico de gallo, corn tortillas, rice, and beans, with a cilantro-lime-garlic viniagrette dressing to drizzle on top. I also froze about three sandwich bags full to make pork tacos at some point in the future. Tonite, we're having leftovers of this pork cooked with some BBQ sauce.

Independence Sourdough Pancakes

I have three sourdough starters going in my fridge: one from San Francisco, one from Denmark, and one from the week that we got married two months ago. We're going on vacation next week, and we're also experiencing a heat wave, so I don't want to make bread today, but I hate wasting the sourdough starter when I feed it. I used the wedding sourdough to make these sourdough pancakes this morning with some leftover mixed berries from the tart we made yesterday for the family Fourth of July picnic. We made the tart with raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries from the Farmer's Market. Topped with maple syrup with a side of pork sausage, it was delicious.

Sourdough Mixed Berry Pancakes

1 large egg
1 cup sourdough starter
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 cup granulated sugar

Mix together all; drop 3 tbsp plops into a smoking cast iron griddle with melted butter. Watch carefully and turn once when the pancake top starts to bubble; turn again and watch even more carefully 'cause the second side burns quickly. Turn to make sure the pancake is a golden brown. If it is, place it on a plate, top with a prudent pat of butter, and pour some maple syrup over them to taste. Enjoy!

Potato Salad To Go!

We're off to another frisbee tournament this weekend on Long Island, so I put the leftovers to use in some yummy potato salad for us to nosh on at the field. Mayonnaise-based salads are never a good idea for a hot day, so I made this recipe up with olive oil, rice wine vinegar, and mustard. This kind of a salad is best made one or two days before you plan to eat it, although it's great fresh too.

Fresh Dill and Radish Potato Salad

6 medium potatoes (I used some butter potatoes from the farmer's market)
6 large cherry tomatoes
2 stalks of celery
4 nice sized radishes
1 scallion
2 hard boiled eggs
1/2 cucumber
2 tbsp chopped fresh dill
1 tbsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
healthy dash of salt and pepper

Make two hard boiled eggs and pop in the fridge to cool down. Boil the potatoes until tender. Drain and pop in the fridge (or freezer, depending on how quick you chop!) Chop up the vegetables. Chop the potatoes into at least six pieces each. Chop up the hard boiled eggs into small pieces, Mix the whole lot together really well. Refrigerate for at least a day.

Easy peasy.

Coffee Marinated Bison Ribs

While visiting a friend's farmer's market in Phoenixville, PA, I found another source of grass-fed buffalo meat. It was more expensive than the farm that we visit in Hamlin, PA, but I picked up two packages of buffalo short ribs anyway (about $25). I found this recipe on the web from the February 2008 Bon Apetit and adapted it to use my slow cooker. The recipe is time consuming, but well worth it. Each portion came out to be about $7 with all the ingredients.

Coffee-Marinated Bison Short Ribs

Marinade

4 cups water
3 cups chilled strong brewed coffee
1/2 cup coarse kosher salt
3 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons (packed) dark brown sugar
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2 cups ice cubes
4 pounds bison (often labeled buffalo) short ribs

Short Ribs

2 cups chopped onions
1/2 cup chopped shallots
6 garlic cloves, chopped
1 small jalapeño chile, seeded, chopped
1 cup strong brewed coffee
1 cup low-salt chicken broth
1/4 cup chili sauce or ketchup
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce

To prepare the marinade

Stir 4 cups water, coffee, 1/2 cup coarse salt, and sugar in large bowl until salt and sugar dissolve. Add syrup and next 3 ingredients; stir until ice melts. Add ribs. Place plate atop ribs to keep submerged. Cover and chill 4 to 6 hours. Drain ribs; discard marinade. Drained ribs can be made 2 days ahead. Cover and chill.

To prepare the short ribs

Heat until smoking a deep cast iron pan and add olive oil. Sprinkle ribs with salt and pepper. Working in batches, cook ribs until browned on all sides, about 7 minutes per batch. Transfer to large plate. Add onions, shallots, garlic, and jalapeño to pot. Reduce heat to medium, cover, and cook until vegetables are soft, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes. Add coffee and broth; stir, scraping up browned bits. Add chili sauce and all remaining ingredients; bring to boil. Transfer all to a slow cooker and cook for at least 6 hours, more to taste. We like our ribs falling off the bone, so we cooked them for about 8-9 hours.

We weren't ready to eat ours right away so I put them in the freezer almost immediately after they cooled with a generous portion of the liquid they cooked in. When we were ready to eat them a few days later, I defrosted them overnight, and then when we got home from work, I put them into a foil covered pan and heated them at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes. They were delicious.

Spicy Tofu with Mushrooms and Spinach

We've been eating a lot less meat lately, and the tofu from the Korean place a block away is terrific: $1.50 for about 16 ounces of firm, white tofu. I don't know how they do it, but I like it. It's not overpackaged and it always seems fresh. This dish has become a staple because its so easy to prepare the night before and cook up quickly after a long day. I've been using spinach and mushrooms from the farmer's market.

Spicy Tofu with Mushrooms and Spinach

12 ounces firm tofu
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
8 ounces fresh mushrooms, chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon ginger, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon garlic, chopped
6 ounces baby spinach, chopped

Slice the tofu into squares that are about 1/2 inch thick. Place the blocks of tofu in a clean kitchen towel and press down gently to try and soak up as much water as possible without breaking the tofu. Cut into 1/2 inch cubes. Whisk together the soy sauce, vinegar, honey, cornstarch, sesame oil, and crushed red pepper. Add the tofu, and gently combine. Cover and place in the fridge overnight. You can marinate for as little as an hour, or as long as 48 hours (I've never kept something marinating for longer than that, but you might try it). When you're ready to cook, take the tofu out and drain, reserving the leftover marinade in a separate blow. Set a wok or large iron skillet over high heat. Pour the 2 tablespoons of the oil in pan and heat until smoking hot. Add the tofu, stirring gently and occasionally until the tofu is browned, about 2 minutes. Remove the tofu and place in a separate bowl. Pour in the rest of the oil, and then add the mushrooms, ginger, and garlic. Stir and cook for about a minute. Add the spinach and the marinade. Cook until the spinach has wilted, and then add the tofu back in. I serve this over soba noodles, brown rice, or if I'm feeling decadent, jasmine rice. Sometimes we even eat it all by itself. This recipe makes enough for two dinners and two lunches for the next day.

Not-so-Seder

My favorite local meat vendor at the green market in Prospect Park, the Flying Pig farm (http://www.flyingpigsfarm.com/) handed out a recipe for Cumin-Citrus Pork Cutlets a few weeks ago. I've made the dish twice and it was delicious, even better for leftovers the second day. The citrus part certainly isn't localvore, unfortunately, but I think exceptions always need to be made for lemon.

Yesterday when I defrosted the cutlets, I didn't realize until later that day that it was the beginning of Passover. I have to admit, it felt a bit like a heresy to have pork on the first evening of Passover, despite the fact that I'm not Jewish. Next year, I promise something more seder-like.

Here's the recipe, which the farm found in an August 2001 issue of Bon Appetit. I adapted it only slightly.

Cumin Dusted Pork Cutlets with Citrus Pan Sauce

4 tbsp flour
4 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne or hot paprika
1 tsp salt

1 lb pork cutlets or pork strips
olive oil
4 minced garlic cloves
1/2 cup orange juice
6 tbsp fresh lemon juice (2-3 lemons)

Orange wedges

Combine on a plate: 4 tablespoons flour, 4 teaspoons ground cumin, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon black pepper, ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper. Dredge each piece of 1 pound of pork cutlets in the flour mixture. Heat olive oil in large cast iron pan over high heat. Add pork and sauté for about 3 minutes per side, until just barely cooked through. Don’t overcook! Transfer pork to serving plate, cover with foil to keep warm. Add a bit more olive oil to the pan. Add 3 or 4 minced garlic cloves and sauté until golden brown. Add ½ cup good quality orange juice, 6 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (from 2 or 3 lemons), some citrus flesh (chopped up oranges or lemons from the lemon you squeezed), and a pinch of salt. Boil until slightly thickened. Pour sauce over pork and serve.

I've served this dish with any combination of daal, black beans, quinoa, rice, and quinoa, but always garnished with the orange wedges. Dumping all of the leftovers on some greens makes an amazing lunch the next day.

Simple Turkey & Spinach Flatbread

This is my favorite quick meal on a weeknight. Nothing about it disappoints. The simplicity of it is what makes it so satisfying I think. Leftovers are perfect for lunch the next day. I found this recipe in a magazine several years ago, and it's the one staple I always return to. The spinach makes the dish taste so clean and fresh. You'll think you're putting in too much spinach, but remember how much it cooks down. If you use organic turkey meat, the dish will taste that much better.

Paprika Ground Turkey Flatbread with Spinach and Cheese

1 lb ground turkey
4 cups spinach
2 medium onions
salt, pepper, paprika
olive oil
1/2 cup jalapeno pepper jack cheese
3 pita rounds/flatbread

Coarsely chop the onions and sautee in olive oil until just starting to brown. Add the turkey meat and seasonings and cook through. Once the turkey meat is starting to brown, add the spinach. Stir in well until the spinach is wilted. Shred the cheese and toast the flatbread. Serve the turkey-spinach mixture on the flatbread and top with cheese. Enjoy! Serves two for dinner, with enough left over for lunch the next day (1/2 a pita each).

Chicken Soup from a Chain Deli is SO BAD

I have a cold. A bad cold. It's the cold that everybody's getting, and of course, there's no time to take a sick day at work this week. Add to that that I've been too busy and too tired from being sick to cook much, and too scared to spend money on non-essentials given what's going on with the economy. But I broke down this afternoon and went out for a cup of soup at Pax deli in lower Manhattan. Seven dollars?! But that's not the worst part of it....the soup was TERRIBLE. I mean, really super terrible. It was so incredibly bland, the broth was almost like water.

Fortunately, I brined and roasted a small organic chicken on Sunday night, so tonite, so I decided to invest a small amount of time making my own damn chicken soup for tomorrow.

One good thing about being a refrigerator packrat is that you can always find something to make soup. I found two wilted carrots, some wilty celery, wilty parsley, and some brittle rosemary. I threw the brittle rosemary into a pot with enough water to cover the chicken carcass (we had already made two roasted chicken dinners and some salad with shredded chicken on top) and started a rolling boil. Then I sauted the chopped carrots, celery, a medium onion, and about six cloves of garlic that I chopped together with the wilty parsley and some thyme. Chopped those together so that the garlic absorbs the flavor of the herbs, and the herbs pick up a garlicky flavor. It's kind of like a mash when it's done, or like an herb paste. I sauteed those until they were nice and carmelized.

Once the broth was cooked down and clear, and the rest of the chicken was falling off the bone, I took a bowl and poured the entire chicken stock mixture through a strainer into the bowl. I put the broth from the bowl back into the soup pot and added the sauteed vegetables. I like to sort through the stuff that ends up in the strainer and pick the good pieces of meat out to throw back in the soup.

I'm tellin' you. This soup will definitely warm your heart, and help your immune system get itself back up and running.

Healing Kale

Whatever your ailment, I honestly believe that kale could help. That might sound unappealing to you right now, but you should try it out. Add some kale to your diet next week, and you'll see what I mean. It is the very definition of roughage, really. According to the "world's healthiest foods" website: "Sulforaphane, which is formed when cruciferous vegetables such as kale are chopped or chewed, triggers the liver to produce enzymes that detoxify cancer-causing chemicals, inhibits chemically-induced breast cancers in animal studies, induces colon cancer cells to commit suicide." Anything that causes cancer cells to commit suicide is top of my list of foods I'd like to promote. Apparently, kale is not only an antioxidant, but it's like an antioxidant catalyst-collaborator, spurring partner antioxidants into action. And you can totally get double your Vitamin A--more than a whole day's worth--with only one cup of chopped kale. And almost a whole dose of your Vitamin C for the day. It contains nutrients that inhibit rheumatoid arthritis and memory loss, too.

I made a kale stir fry this week that looked as good and healthy as it actually was. I didn't intend to write a post about it, but so many people in my office commented on how it looked (and asked for the recipe) that I changed my mind. It was super simple, for those readers who are put off by my complicated recipes, and it only took about 1/2 hour to make.

Kale and Tempeh Stir Fry

1 package of tempeh (see prior post)
1 red bell pepper
4 cloves of garlic
1 1/2 cup kale (3 whole leaves)
1 medium onion
2 yellow carrots
coriander, sumac, salt and pepper
olive oil

Chop the kale into small bits (larger and they will be harder to eat and take longer to cook). Dice the red bell pepper, and cut thin circles of carrots. Dice the garlic. Coarsely chop the onion and saute in oil until transluscent. Add the tempeh and garlic, and saute a bit more until the onion is nearly carmelized and the tempeh is browning. Add the red pepper, carrots, and kale and season with coriander, sumac, salt and pepper to taste. Add some water and cover to steam the vegetables. Saute to desired veggie limpness and enjoy all by itself--no rice, no nothin'. Bring your leftovers to work.

Loaves & Fishes

Cleaning up after the holiday, I was putting away all of the different kinds of flour I'd been using and I just didn't have enough space in my already-cluttered-with-ingredients-and-cooking implements Brooklyn kitchen. The biggest problem with a large bag of rye flour, which I only ever used for one recipe. So I looked up a recipe for rye bread online and decided to give it a go. I was thrilled with the amount of flour it used, because it was going to make it very easy to put smaller bags away. Unfortunately, I didn't read the entire recipe until the end....especially the part where it said that the recipe made 5 LOAVES! It took quite a while, but they turned out pretty nice.

We made an enormous pasta salad with smoked salmon tips over the holidays, and we had a lot of extra salmon. A piece of salmon on some of this bread was very tasty.

Grandma's Rye Bread

2 Tbsp. dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 tsp. sugar

Let set for 10 min.

3 cups rye flour
2 Tbsp. salt
5 cups warm water
3 tbsp caraway seeds

Mix flour, salt, and water well. Stir in yeast mixture. Let stand overnight.

In the morning, mix:

5 cups warm water
12 cups white flour
Add to the first mixture. Knead until dough comes freely from hand. Let rise and then make into round loaves on floured pans.

Let rise until 50% higher. Brush with water, egg whites, or a bit of olive oil and sprinkle some caraway seeks on top. Bake 1 hour at 375 F Makes 5 good sized loaves.

Yucatan Empanadas

My favorite Christmas present this year was a set of empanada makers from D's sister. I've been thinking about making empanadas since before Thanksgiving. Frozen ground turkey from an organic bird was just waiting in the freezer to get doctored up into some spicy turkey empanadas. I'd never made them before, so I kept putting it off, mostly because I am not usually graceful enough with dough. But I threw a bag of the frozen turkey meat in our cooler for the few days we were staying at our friends' country house in PA between Christmas and New Year. Just before we left, D's sister dropped off some presents, and the empanada makers were among them. I researched some recipes, packed together the ingredients, and off we went.

This is the recipe for the dough, and followed by a website that gives a step-by-step tutorial on how to make empanadas.

Cornmeal Whole Wheat Crust

1 cup flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 minus 2 tbsp cup yellow cornmeal
2 tbsp almonds
1 1/2 t baking powder
1 t salt
1/2 t nutmeg
6 whole coriander seeds
1/2 cup cold water (or more as necessary)
1 stick cold butter, cut into small pieces
1 egg, lightly beaten

Combine flours, cornmeal, baking powder, seasonings and salt in a blender or food processor; pulse just til combined.

Add water, butter, and egg; pulse just til combined, adding additional water if needed. Place the dough on a lightly floured surface; knead gently 4 to 5 times. Place in a bowl, cover and refrigerate 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 425°. Spray two large cookie sheets with cooking spray.

Divide dough into 12 equal pieces. Roll each piece into an approximately 6" circle on a lightly floured surface. Spoon 1/4 cup of filling into center of each circle.


This is what I did for the filling, but you could do so many things with empanadas....

1 lb ground turkey
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves garlic
½ cup currants
1 cup chopped mushrooms
2 tbsp Yucatan spice mix
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
½ tsp salt

Bake at 400 degrees F for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 and continue baking until the crust is browned.

Step-by-step instructions: http://latinfood.about.com/od/appetizersandsnacks/tp/empanadas.htm

And this is how we served it:

Happy Boxing Day!

There are so many different holidays this time of year.  It was just Christmas, and Chaunnakah, and Kwaanza, and now it's Boxing Day!  We were at our friends' country house and we all hosted ten friends for brunch.  After feasting and drinking champagne for a few hours, I had to lie down with the cat and take a nap.  Later that evening, we were here with just four of us, and one of our friends prepared leftover plates with parsnip puree, smoked salmon pasta salad, and a green salad on the side.  He served up sandwiches with sliced duck on french bread with mustard.  After dinner, I rehabilitated the pizelle batter and made these for dessert that we served with jasmine tea.

Italian Pizzelles

3 eggs
1 3/4 c. flour
1 1/2 tsp. bourbon vanilla, or a very good vanilla, extract
1/2 c. butter
2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 c. sugar


Beat eggs and sugar. Add cooled melted butter and vanilla. Sift flour and baking powder and add to egg mixture. Batter will be stiff, but supple enough to be dropped by spoon. Batter can be refrigerated to be used at a later time. Makes 30 pizzelles.

My mother gave me a pizzelle iron a few years ago, so that's what I used. I dropped a heaping teaspoon of the batter onto the greased iron, and let cook until they steamed. I removed them with a knife. They weren't as neat as they could be; it takes practice.

Ducks

I never really ate duck breast before. Last year, D. made duck confit for my birthday, but I don't really remember what it tasted like and besides, it was just duck legs. This year, our friends suggested that we have duck for Christmas dinner at their country house in Pennsylvania. They said they would prepare duck breasts for the guests, there were to be about a dozen of us. D. volunteered to get the duck from the butcher he knows, so that meant that they couldn't start the duck until we got to the country house. We were lazy that morning, and didn't really get on the road until the afternoon. When we arrived at the house at dusk, I had to deal with getting the cat all set up, and D. brought in the cooler. He ended up preparing the duck himself, though our friend had made a currant sauce to go along with it. I wouldn't know how to do it if you left me alone with a duck breast, but from what I recall, D. cut checkers into the fat of the duck breast, though not so far in that the meat itself was punctured. He seasoned them with salt and pepper, and let them cook in olive oil on the stove in a cast iron pan until the skin was crispy and brown. 

Then he popped them in the oven and cooked until they were medium-rare. He sliced the breasts and arranged them a on plate in the center of the table, and everyone passed around sides of the currant sauce, string beans, parsnip puree, and brussel sprout gratin. It was a delicious meal. The duck breast slices were wonderful on french bread with mustard and cheese the next day.

The Best of the Leftovers

Tuesdays were never meant to be this easy. D and I came home a bit late and a bit short on planning tonite. I thought I'd make turkey legs with mushroom masala sauce, but D said he was sick of turkey. We've eaten it every day since Thursday. That's five straight days: turkey slices, turkey soup, turkey slices, turkey soup (again), turkey stuffed in delicata squash boats . . . I knew I was pushing the limit. So I asked him to defrost the sirloin I have in the freezer, and to pick up some lettuce and mushrooms so that I could make a beef and ginger stir fry and a salad. But when I got home, he said he had just gotten home and didn't have a chance to do it. Well, I said, I kinda wanted to order Atomic Wings anyway, and I started getting together some money to give him so he could pick them up on the way back from the gym.

But then I thought: damn, I have so much food in this fridge right now why can't I just make something...it doesn't even have to have turkey in it! So I started taking out the cubed butternut squash that I had from the other night, the chopped kale, the ginger, an onion, some quinoa; I figured I'd make a stir fry. But then I thought: why not add some ground turkey that I haven't yet stuck in the freezer. Add some leftover ricotta cheese in there to make it all mushy. Maybe he won't even notice. And I could bake it in some of the phyllo dough that we used the other night.

I swear, this must be the best leftover turkey recipe I've ever dreamt up. I cooked it while I was listening to this awesome online service called Pandora radio (www. pandora.com, thanks so much to Ariel for the tip!) which takes a musician who you like, and collects all of the music that is like that music that you like, as rated by other pandora service users, and you just listen to it as though it is a radio station. You get to say whether or not you like the songs you hear, and pandora promises that it will not play songs like that one again. Anyway, I've been playing my Matt Nathanson station since this afternoon at work and I love it. What a great way to discover new music, seeing as how there is not a single consistently decent radio station that plays music that I like here in NYC.

I talked to an old friend while I was doing the dishes, and poured a glass of new Brooklyn Oeneology Motley Cru (very interesting...made by a local vintner so small they don't even have a website! I get my B.O. wines from LeNell's Wine & Likker (http://www.lenells.com/). Then I cooked up this thing:

Turkey Phyllo Torte

1 large onion, diced

3 cloves garlic

2 tbsp minced ginger

1 cup turkey

2-3 cups shredded kale

1 cup cubed butternut squash (uncooked)

1/4 cup chopped mushrooms

2 tbsp small black currants

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cracked black pepper

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp paprika

1/2 cup ricotta cheese

1 pkg (8 oz) phyllo dough

olive oil

Saute the onion until it becomes a golden brown and gives off a heady scent. Add the diced ginger and garlic and saute until tender. Add the ground turkey, brown for a bit, and then add in the butternut squash, kale, and mushrooms. Add some water or broth as needed to keep the mixture moist. Toss in a handful of currants. Then season with salt, pepper, cinnamon, and paprika. Saute until everything is cooked through and the butternut squash is a bit mushy, but not too mushy. Take off the heat and set aside until it is no longer too hot to work with. Line a springform pan (or a pie pan, but it won't turn out as a torte). Layer phyllo dough sheets, about five atop one another arranged to cover the pan, spraying some olive oil in between each layer.

Scoop in half of your turkey/kale/squash mixture and spread at the bottom generously but evenly. Dollop your ricotta cheese atop that layer, and repeat with another layer of turkey/kale/squash. Pat evenly, and layer another five phyllo dough sheets evenly over the filling.

Pop it in the oven at 350 for 45 minutes, then 400 for 15 minutes, or until the crust is nicely browned. Serve with a dollop of yogurt and some nuts (pistacchios). But if we were to make this recipe again (which seems likely) we'd sprinkle a handful of pistaccio nuts in the middle of the torte.

What a perfect meal.

The leftovers make a great lunch for the next day. I packed ours with a few olives, a slice of mango, and a handful of pecans. If you heat everything up together, it's delicious.

Maple-Roasted Chicken with Apple-Mushroom Wild Rice and Lentil Pilaf

The only things you should have to do on Sunday are: watch Meet the Press, read your favorite parts of the New York Times, go on a bike ride, and make a nice dinner. If those are the criteria for a perfect Sunday, I outdid myself and had a more perfect Sunday. Colin Powell started my morning by giving the most eloquent and poignant endorsement of Barack Obama, the Times had an awesome feature on Rachel Maddow, the park was at its fall best and my new bike was awesome (so was my partner, who encouraged me to keep going up those hills!), and the dinner we chose was soul-warming. On the way home from the park, we stopped by a Barack O'Bake Sale run by four neighborhood kids. Their enthusiasm was something else!

I got a free-range chicken at Fairway and brined it in water, kosher salt, a chopped up onion, and a sprig of rosemary. I left the chicken in the fridge in its brine for about 8 hours. When I took it out of the fridge, I rinsed it throughly, rubbed it with olive oil, and coated it with a spice mixture I got from a poultry-seller at the Grand Army Plaza Farmer's Market in Prospect Park. The spice mixture uses maple crystals as its base, so it was nice and sweet. We didn't do anything else to the chicken--just roasted it at 400 degrees for about an hour.

For the Apple-Mushroom Wild Rice and Lentil Pilaf, we didn't follow a recipe really. I got the idea from a fall recipe newsletter that advertised an Apple-Leek Stuffing. I couldn't find leeks anywhere this weekend, so I just used the apple part to inspire a nice side dish. In general, the pilaf was made this way:

Combine wild rice with a touch of olive oil in a small bowl. Sautee onion and garlic in a sauce pan. Once they are carmelized, add chopped mushrooms and celery. When they are soft, add the wild rice, chicken stock, and about 1/2 cup of lentils. Add salt and pepper and simmer, covered, for about 45 minutes. When the rice is nearly done, add chopped apples to the mixture. Uncover and continue to cook until the rice is tender and the water is absorbed.

The dish is even better for lunch the next day.

Steak Dinner & Steak Tacos: Two Meals in One

My best friend came to visit this weekend, and we decided to barbeque up on the roof under an almost-full moon on Saturday night. It was great to just go up there with plates and beer and eat this meal right off the grill. The leftovers we turned into dinner on Monday night.

Ingredients

2 lb (2 nice thick pieces) of hanger steak
3 Tbsp cilantro or parsley
3 cloves garlic
1 Tbsp fresh chopped thyme
1 Tbsp fresh chopped rosemary
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 portobello mushrooms
4 pieces of corn in their husks
4 taco shells (wrap-sized)
1 red bell pepper, cut into strips
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
1 ripe red tomato, diced
1 avocado, cut into slices
1/2 cup yogurt
1 scallion, chopped
cumin, paprika, salt and pepper to taste

Grilled Steak Dinner

Place ingredients 2-6 in a mini-chopper or food processor. Marinate the hanger steak in a mixture of the oil, garlic and herbs for several hours, or overnight. Fire up the grill! Place the marinated steaks, the mushrooms, and the corn (still in the husks) on the grill, cover and let cook for a while until as done as you’d like them. Serve this simple meal outside under the stars: a healthy portion of steak (about the size of a deck of cards), a piece of corn, and half a portobello. You can add some steak sauce, but the meat should be seasoned just fine to eat by itself.

Place the leftovers in the fridge for the following night.

Steak Tacos

For the second meal, combine ½ cup of yogurt with diced scallion, cumin, paprika, and salt and pepper to taste. Set aside. Cut the remainder of the steak (and mushroom if you have any left!) into strip-sized pieces. Sautee the chopped onion in a cast iron pan until carmelized, and then add strips of red bell pepper. Sautee until the bell pepper is tender, and then add the already-grilled-but-now-chopped-up-steak to the pepper and onion mixture. Arrange equally on four taco shells (I like spinach ones for this one myself, but roasted red pepper ones would be terrific, too) the meat/onion/pepper mixture, some avocado slices, some diced tomato. Fold the taco and top with a dollop of yogurt sauce. (Option: you can add cheese to the taco if you want: Pepper Jack cheese works well).

Eat one taco and a piece of corn for dinner. You can wrap up the extra taco for lunch the next day, or go nuts and eat the second one for dinner!