Stephencooks

Julia's Onion Soup

  

As winter drags into the February doldrums in Maine and even though the latest snowstorm has once again turned our corner of the world into a soft and snowy wonderland we are deeply chilled by the cold blast it brought, and the deep-freeze nights with their diamond-hard stars in the inky black, and the squeak of boots on cold, dry snow. Thoughts naturally turn to long slow cooking, pots bubbling on the back of the stove, the house filling up with warm vapors and tantalizing aromas.

This blog is almost completely dedicated to the inventions and adaptations that evolve in my kitchen, but every once in a while I've got to go back to roots, to the old favorites that can't be improved by messing with them. Like Julia's onion soup, from my battered sixties-era copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume I.

"The onions for an onion soup need a long, slow cooking in butter and oil, then a long, slow simmering in stock for them to develop the deep, rich flavor which characterizes a perfect brew," Julia says at the start. Sounds like just the thing for our current mood. And did I mention that the stock to which she refers, if you don't have any waiting in the freezer and don't like the canned stuff, requires its own "long, slow simmering" before you even start the soup? Needless to say, this project kept us warmed and lifted our spirits for a couple of days before it even made it to the table.

One note: although it is one of the world's favorite comfort foods, and has been for generations, I've never been a huge fan of the gratinéed version of onion soup, in which the soup is covered with toasted bread, to which a large amount of gooey cheese is added and then baked into a crust. To me the soup in that preparation is pushed to the background, overwhelmed both by the taste of the cheese and the whole sensual event of crusty baked cheese, with softer bits and strings clinging to it, all attached to crusty French bread soaked with the soup -- though I assume that it was okay with Julia since she included a recipe for the preparation (Soupe à l'Oignon Gratinée).  Don't get me wrong...I like the whole sensual event...it's just that I like the onion soup, too, which is why I follow Julia's primary recommendation for onion soup garnishes: floating a few hard-toasted rounds of bread, topped with cheese all bubbly and crusty from the broiler, in the soup. You get some of the crunch and bubble and cheesey soup-soaked bread sensuality, but in better balance with the not inconsiderable pleasures of the "perfect brew" that comes from all that long, slow simmering.

Radicchio Gratin

  

We had dinner with friends a few weeks ago at M C Perkins Cove, in Ogunquit, the bistro opened last year by Mark Gaier and Clark Frazier (always referred to around here as "Mark and Clark," hence the M C name), the owners and chefs at Arrows, also in Ogunquit, one of the only destination restaurants in Maine. Arrows was anointed as one of the top 50 restaurants in America in 2001 by Gourmet and nominated last year for a James Beard award. On their website there's a long list of other awards and rave notices.  Mark and Clark met while working under Jeremiah Towers at Stars in San Francisco, and they brought to Maine the San Francisco mantra:  fresh & local, fresh & local, fresh & local... While the climate here puts the idea of totally local a bit out of reach, they do cure their own meats (from local suppliers), make all their breads and desserts in-house, and supply most of the produce and herbs for the restaurants from their garden, which surrounds the Arrows property.

While the concept of M C Perkins is "casual upscale American bistro," the quality and style of the Arrows operation inevitably shines though. In a beautifully designed restaurant like this, with a fabulous view of the surf crashing on the rocks along the Marginal Way, exquisite appointments, stylish accessories and attentive service, it's almost a surprise to find such standard fare as hamburgers, fries, fish and chips and a roast turkey sandwich on the menu. Of course there are also steaks and grilled fish available, which are accompanied by sides selected by the diners from lists of "Evil Carbos" and "Virtuous Vegetables." Plates are designed carefully, but with simplicity, and while the food looks artful when it arrives there's no fussiness.

Given that background, a radicchio gratin we selected for one of our Virtuous Vegetables was a real shock to me, because when it arrived at the table it was so lacking in visual appeal. I was impressed that such an ugly duckling would appear on their menu at all, and at the same time attracted to it by my instant assumption that if it's that unpretty it must be a taste triumph to survive in a place like this. After all, once the radicchio has been fired the magenta streaks lose their brilliance, the leaves look shriveled and wilted, and the food just lies there on the plate, flattened and limp from the heat. But the flavor of the dish, with cheese and onions and the characteristic bitterness of the radicchio, was very interesting, and it paired well with the grilled cod and trout dishes that most of us had ordered, and particularly well with a deep fried chicken that had been marinated with orange, star anise and ginger.

A few days later I had to try to make it at home. I don't usually make notes while dining at restaurants, so I doubt that my version is all that close to the M C dish, but the essential elements of roasted radicchio, onions and cheese are definitely present so the experiment was deemed a success around our table. (Leftovers, by the way, served well a few days later when cut into bite-sized pieces and added to a simple salad of baby spinach, tomatoes, goat cheese and toasted pine nuts. )

Tuna Crusted with Wasabi Peas

  

A few days ago I ran across Cin's presentation of Wasabi-Pea Encrusted Barramundi on her blog A Few of My Favorite Things and suddenly I couldn't get the idea out of my mind - and I don't mean the barramundi  (which is a diadromous fish native to Northern Australia, which as Cin mentions in her post, is farmed in Australia as well) since it isn't available here in the U.S.  No, it was the idea of fresh fish rolled in crushed wasabi peas! It seemed to me an absolutely perfect concept, so the next trip to the market saw me bringing home a package of the spicy peas, and a few days later I came across a beautifully fresh chunk of yellowfin tuna at my neighborhood fish market.

Wasabi is prepared from the root of a plant in the mustard family, and if you've been to the sushi bars around the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo (mecca for sushi lovers) and had the fresh-grated wasabi served there, you know that the wasabi paste we get from tubes or mixed up from powder is a pale imitation. Nonetheless, this impostor paste, which is made from horseradish, mustard and food coloring, is a ubiquitous flavor in Japan, accepted and enjoyed even while everyone knows it's not the real thing. Wasabi peas are green peas that have been dried, coated with wasabi paste and baked crisp.

The combination of the crunch and passage-clearing impact of the wasabi peas with the fresh tuna, flash-cooked rare to retain its delicate flavor and texture, made for a memorable meal. The fish was served with a dipping sauce based on teriyaki sauce, and, in keeping with the Japanese theme, accompanied by somen noodles flavored with red miso (a non-authentic Stephencooks concoction), garnished with minced scallions, and a little mound of vinegared cucumbers (from Shizuo Tsuji's Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art).

A little Google-sleuthing turned up the fact that wasabi pea crusting has been in the air lately, both for fish and chicken, but I have to thank Cin for first bringing it to my attention. This was a great meal: simple, fresh ingredients in familiar flavor combinations but with a wonderful twist.

Shrimp and Creamy Grits

  

If you have lived or have roots in the Southeastern coastal U. S., shrimp and grits is an old friend. Once a breakfast staple, this dish has pushed its way onto lunch and dinner menus across the Mid-Atlantic, and now even appears on menus in the North.  The styles, variations of and additions to this dish are seemingly endless.

When my daughter lived in South Carolina I was fortunate to be introduced to this and many other Low Country dishes. In particular, I learned about creamy grits, made from stone ground grits. Previously I had only tried the "instant" variety of grits, a poor representation of the real thing.

For other dishes using Maine shrimp, and information about this delicacy, see these previous posts: California Roll Salad; Maine Shrimp Boil; and Flounder and Shrimp Roulades.

Grits are basically just dried and ground white corn. Long slow cooking, reminiscent of the process for making risotto, produces a flavorful and satisfying porridge which makes a perfect partner for additions such as eggs, sausage or gravy. Stone ground grits can be hard to find, especially in the North, partially because this variety has a short shelf life. (Ground slowly, like other stone ground grains, stoneground grits contain oils that can become rancid fairly quickly. This can be mitigated by keeping stone ground grits in the freezer.) However,  stone ground grits can be ordered from several on-line suppliers.

My version is extremely simple, with little to distract from the wonderful combination of the creamy grits and the fresh shrimp cooked in a broth made from their shells and heads. Good for breakfast, lunch or dinner, I look forward each year to the arrival of the local Maine shrimp and the opportunity to make a few more meals of shrimp and grits.

Roasted Baby Vidalia Onions with Balsamic Sweet-Sour Sauce

  

When I shop I'm always on the lookout for produce items that are only available in certain seasons. Not only do they add interest and variety to the menu around here, but also I have this idea that vegetables and fruits that haven't yet become industrialized to the point where they are available in boring sameness every week of the year are somehow better: more authentically connected to our agrarian past, perhaps, or maybe just less genetically messed with.

It's probably just that I like the change of pace, but for whatever reason I love it when these guys show up in the case. Baby Vidalia onions are only available for a couple of months in the winter, and they're easy to miss if you're not looking for them. They look like scallions on steroids, with a glossy, new-looking creamy white bulb.

This preparation is extremely simple and satisfying. I served it a couple of nights ago as a side to a Herb-Lemon Roasted Chicken, to general approval from the diners. The sweet and sour variation on balsamic reduction sauce worked particularly well with the sweet onions and alongside the slightly lemony chicken.

Fish and Lobster Pie

  

Living on the coast in New England, with access to dock-fresh fish, is a constant inspiration to me in the kitchen, and a constant challenge. I almost always go into the fish market with no specific target in mind, preferring to see once I get there what's available, what looks good, what triggers an idea, what simply has to come home with me. Quite often the result is a bag of several different fish and a mind humming with thoughts of bouillabaisse, seafood stew, a nice chowder or pasta sauce, or some other way to use a mixed lot of fruits of the sea.

Thus was born my version of Fish and Lobster Pie, first made in 2000. It differs from most recipes for seafood pie, which are usually a mixture of fish and cheese baked in a pie shell, in that it's an adaptation of quiche, based on a savory egg and cream custard. This gives it a lighter feel than the cheese and fish pies (though no one would claim it's a diet preparation). The result is deeply flavorful and chock full of fresh fish and shellfish. Served with a salad, some French bread and a crisp sauvignon blanc, it makes a pleasant and casual supper for two, or four, at any time of year.

Guacamole

  

Whenever I'm asked to bring something to a party, or I'm faced with drinks with a gang at home, I fall back on good old guacamole. I know it's a cliché food, seen everywhere, totally forgettable, and base in its very conception (something you dip chips in), but that doesn't keep me from making about 12 gallons of the stuff a year.

Why? Because my guacamole is so damned good that people ask for it all the time, and then they want the recipe.  I know: it's just guacamole. But something about mine makes it irresistible. I didn't create this site to brag about my cooking -- it's intended just to be a record of what I cooked, since some people seem to be interested in that -- but I'm just reporting the facts here: apparently I have some kind of guacamole mojo.

What's even more interesting about this situation is that until now I didn't really have a recipe for guacamole. I just threw it together and corrected it by tasting.  People have their prejudices and beliefs about guac (garlic or not; tomatoes?; onions?; jalapeños? cumin? cilantro? food processor or hand mash?), and I'm sure there are other good recipes, but I don't really listen to that noise, since my version works for me. It's just avocado, garlic, lime juice, cayenne pepper, salt and cilantro, usually with a chopped tomato garnish, and it's made in a food processor.

Anyway, after another party and twelve more requests for the recipe, I finally measured and recorded what I threw into my guac. I also did a little web-surfing, looking for something interesting to report about guacamole. Nada! Or, almost-nada: It dates back to the Aztecs, several sites say. 5% of U.S. avocado sales take place around 4 days of the year:  Easter (go figure), Cinco de Mayo, July Fourth and Super Bowl Sunday (from Wikipedia). Also, after reading a lot of other recipes, it seems that the Hass variety of avocados (pear shaped, nubbly dark green skin, which gets darker as they ripen -- shown on the right) that I use is pretty much the standard...which is a good thing because it's available nearly everywhere (in the U.S.), nearly all the time.

So, I'd love to wax eloquent about guacamole, or bring some interesting tidbit of history into play, but in the end, it's just guacamole. One of our favorite comfort foods, and a preparation I make all the time. Enjoy!

California Roll Salad: Maine Shrimp, Avocado, Rice and Cucumber

  

Last week I presented Maine Shrimp Boil, and there ensued a discussion in comments and by email with MagicTofu, of Slurp and Burp, about these little shrimp.

Once we had established that what I call Maine Shrimp are called Matane Shrimp in Eastern Canada (named after the principle port of the fishery), Magic told me that a favorite way to prepare them in Canada is with mayonnaise and avocado.

Well, mayonnaise, avocado and pink sweet seafood immediately triggered in me a thought of the famous California Roll, the sushi preparation created to appeal to Americans who are squeamish about eating raw fish...and I knew it wouldn't be long before I had to try something along those lines.

Of course, traditionally the CA Roll is made with fake crab, but I think my substitution of real sweet pink shrimp for dyed and processed fish sticks is a big improvement.

So here it is: the California Roll Salad, featuring rice, fresh shrimp, mayonnaise, avocado, cucumber, wasabi and soy sauce -- the exact ingredients that an improved California Roll would have, with condiments, reimagined as a salad. This is the kind of fun that keeps me coming back to the kitchen every day!

Grilled Mozzarella Sandwich with Roasted Peppers and Basil

  

Today I had a cheese sandwich...because it's Cheese Sandwich Day in the foodblogosphere! It seems that a writer (Pete Wells) for Food & Wine magazine wrote an article about food blogs that rubbed some bloggers the wrong way. It opened with a reference to a now-outdated phrase ("cheese sandwich blog") which, according to Wells, was inspired by blog entries along the lines of  "...today I had a cheese sandwich..." and which he says is "Webspeak for all the dear-diary scribblings that don't acknowledge, let alone describe, life outside the author's dorm room." He then went on to paint most food blogs with the cheese sandwich brush, enunciate his ideas about what a good food blog is, and refer to a few sites he thought were good (only half of them actually blogs, but who's counting?).

The article wasn't all that bad. Wells has respectable food writing qualifications, and clearly spent at least fifteen minutes on research and maybe thirty minutes on writing, proofing and editing, which is probably all we can expect these days for this type of article. There is a soupçon of the paranoia that print writers rightly feel these days about their blogger competitors, but with the tsunami of blogs inexorably in their faces, can you blame them for feeling that they might be soon washed away? The only egregious error Wells made, really, was to quote (without identifying), for the purpose of ridicule, a few current food bloggers.

Wells, living outside this subculture, must have assumed that a few words from one or two of the thousands of cheese sandwichers would be ignored, or at least untraceable to any real blogs. Unfortunately, this assumption was false, and the wronged bloggers and their friends reacted with venom on a food blogger community site, and along the way created the latest web event: "Cheese Sandwich Day! Because in fact some people do care what we had for lunch!"

I don't feel wronged by the article (though of course I wish that Stephencooks.com had been mentioned!) but I'm happy to join in this food blog flash mob event by presenting my favorite grilled cheese sandwich: fresh bufala mozzarella, roasted peppers and basil on slices of freshly-made focaccia. It's a good bit of work for a lowly cheese sandwich but, of course, attention to detail and fresh, top-quality ingredients will raise an ordinary sandwich to memorable heights.

I hope someone thinks this is somehow interesting...

Salad of Pears, Roasted Beets and Three Aphrodisiacs

  

Once again food bloggers all over the world are scrambling to come up with a creative and  tasty response to the Paper Chef challenge. Invented by Owen at Tomatilla!, the Paper Chef (hommage à Iron Chef) provides four "secret ingredients" and a weekend in which to gather them, cook with them and put up a post about the results. The winning entry gets bragging rights and a spiffy winner's badge to be displayed on the blog.

The previous month's winner also gets to be the judge (or "supreme ruler," as some have pronounced themselves) and this month the ever creative and energetic MagicTofu, of Slurp and Burp, is the Paper Chef majordomo. Mr. Tofu has decreed the target ingredients to be pears, beets, limes and -- in honor of Valentine's Day -- any ingredients with aphrodisiac powers.

Pears, beets and limes immediately said salad to me, because of the sweet-sour juxtaposition of the lime and pears, and because beets bring a nice textural element to the mix, and their tangy sweetness always pairs nicely with a sweet-sour dressing. For aprhodisiac ingredients I consulted gourmetsleuth.com, where I found a list of 27 foods believed to have aphrodisiac qualities -- 18 of which I had in the house already, for what it's worth. I chose ginger, honey and pine nuts for my aphrodisiac ingredients, and fashioned an elegant Valentine's Day salad of roasted golden beets, ripe Bosc pears, fresh goat cheese, and a dressing made from lime juice, honey, ginger and toasted pine nuts.

Aside from looking great, this combination turned out to be a really nice meeting of textures and flavors. The honey-lime-ginger dressing had a lively, interesting flavor that really did feel like a food of love, and the similar textures of the roasted beets and pears, with their quite different but compatible flavors, made for an interesting mouthful, especially when the creamy goat cheese and crunchy toasted pine nuts got in on the action.

The presentation, too, worked well for a special Valentine's Day dinner, since it suggested a big open flower, thus evoking one of the most popular of romantic gifts for Valentines Day, as well as bringing the frankly sexual connotations of big open flowers into play. Talk about your food porn!

As usual, we had fun with the Paper Chef challenge, so thanks once again to Owen for inventing and nurturing the Paper Chef event, and to MagicTofu for hosting and judging this month's edition!

Broccoli Rabe with Oil and Garlic

   

It's come to my attention that some of my readers are a little unsure of themselves with respect to broccoli  rabe -- a situation that needs to be corrected ASAP!

Broccoli rabe (pronounced RAAB; also called rapini, or just rabe) is a plant of the mustard family which also includes cabbage, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, and  mustard (genus Brassica).  As you can see, the family resemblance to broccoli is strong.

Braccoli rabe has long been popular in Southern Italy, and in the last ten or so years has become widely available in the U. S. Like some of its relatives, it's slightly bitter, but once you develop a taste for it you'll be coming back to it again and again.  Long time broccoli rabe devotées (like me) can work up a good bit of passion for this simple weed!

This is the basic method of preparation, no matter whether you're going to serve it as a side dish, as I usually do, or in combination with other ingredients (subject of future posts).

Maine Shrimp Boil

What Exactly are "Maine Shrimp"?        - - - - - - - - -
Magictofu (Slurp and Burp) asked me if Maine shrimp are the same as the Matane shrimp they get in Eastern Canada. The answer is yes: they are both Pandalus borealis.

 This is the simplest and probably the most popular way to cook and eat Maine shrimp: boil them in salted and herb-perfumed water and just set them out in bowls. Diners snap off the heads, slip the shells from the fresh pink shrimp and pop them in their mouths. Like eating popcorn, it's hard to stop.

Some people like cocktail sauce for dipping the shrimp, but I feel that the sauce obscures the flavor of the shrimp so usually we just eat them plain with a little lemon juice squeezed over them.  Beer is the traditional beverage pairing, but white wine works well too.

Jerusalem Artichokes and Fava Beans

 

As regular readers of Stephencooks know, I'm not much of a trendsetter -- or follower. My rule is: if I like to eat it, I'll cook it, and then blog it -- so I happily present timeworn recipes that I love, things that were hot twenty years ago, and a lot of my dishes, while tasty, are about as ordinary as apples. But this week it turns out I'm livin' large, trendwise.

Elise was away for a few days last week and I tend towards meals of rice, steamed vegetables and beans when I'm just making dinner for myself.  So the other night I set out to make a simple meal with some Jerusalem artichokes and dried fava beans I had in stock. 

'Chokes and beans: extremely basic, not indulgent or over-the-top in any way, and certainly not that sexy-looking. It was a good meal, though, and I got a pretty nice picture of it, considering, but still -- like MagicTofu (Slurp and Burp) in his recent post about sautéed watercress -- I was wondering why I would even want to post this recipe.

But then, just when I was about to move on to the elegant and groundbreaking breakfast post I've been working on (Oeuf en Gelée avec Hijiki et Saucisson de Canard) I came across a Bon Appetit feature, "Top Trends: The Hot 10" (no longer available on their site) in which the ugly little Jerusalem artichoke pops up in slot #9 on the tastemaking 'zine's list of "the year's most delicious obsessions!" Well, that puts my lonely little dinner in a whole new light, now doesn't it?

Of course, there is an argument to be made for the idea that it's history, not a trend, when you read about it in Bon Appetit, but please: let me feel trendy and hip for a day or two...!

Polish-Style Pork, Sausage and Barley Soup

  

A few years ago business took me to Warsaw a few times, and I was fortunate to be in the company  of a Western businessman who had been living in Poland for several years and had developed a love for the traditional foods of Poland. (Most business travelers in Poland stay in the few luxury hotels oriented to international travelers, and eat in the excellent -- but not Polish -- restaurants in the hotels.)  This soup is my reinterpretation of the taste of Poland as I remember it from the small local restaurants of the city: a rich broth with pork, barley and smoked sausage, garnished with braised cabbage and dill pickles.

Pistachio Cream Tartlet

  

A search on the 'net for "pistachio pie" will return dozens of recipes based on something called "pistachio pudding and pie mix." This stuff might be wonderful but it's the type of fake-sounding food product that I don't have the nerve to try so I'll never know, I guess.  Anyway, I had an urge to make a pistachio tart and reading all those recipes drove me to try to make up my own, based on my Pistachio Ice Cream, in which the flavor comes from a bagful of pistachio nuts.

Herby Macaroni and Three Cheeses

  

With the winter winds howling and the sun lying low in the sky, we've been on a comfort food kick around here. Mac and cheese is one of the all time favorite comfort foods, and I couldn't help noticing that Kevin, over at Seriously Good, made mac and cheese on his first night cooking in his new kitchen, where he's crying the blues because he says it's too small. These are the kind of moments mac and cheese was made for: your new kitchen is too small, your dog ran away, the oil bill's too high and it's way too long until spring.

This version of mac and cheese is a little upscale, with a bunch of herbs and some high-fallutin' cheeses, but it's still just good old mac and cheese at heart: the food you need now, when things seem to be crumbling and falling apart all around you. We had this on a blustery night with a crusty bread, salad and a light, mellow pinot grigio. It made things so much better for an hour or so!

Fettucine with Roast Pork and Three Cheeses

 

I love having leftover roast pork in the house. There are so many satisfying things that can be done with it, especially in the dead of winter when we need warming constantly. This preparation, with the pine nuts, basil oil, parsley and cheeses, is a cousin of pesto, but a more hearty, complex dish -- again, just what we need in these days of early sunsets and harsh winds.

Stuffed Pork Roast with Balsamic Reduction Sauce

  

It's been cool and clammy -- and raining! -- here in Maine for about ten days and everyone's getting cranky. Winter we can take, because if you're not ready for below zero temperatures for weeks on end and snow up to your hips you're not ready to live in Maine! But this sort of halfway winter we're having, all brown and gray, does nothing for the spirit and seems to chill deeper than real winter.

All of which must have influenced me the other day as I got an urge for a nice pork roast, with Braised Cabbage  with Apples and Onions and White Bean Ragout on the side. Pork roast, for me, is about as good as cold weather cooking gets, even with the challenges inherent in today's overly lean pork. The stuffing adds back some of the missing richness and infuses the roast -- and the house, while it's cooking -- with herby aroma. The balsamic vinegar reduction sauce adds a special note, plummy and vinegary at the same time, with a silky-smooth texture, and also contributes a bit of richness without being overpowering.