San Francisco Fresh and Seasonal Cooking

Hollandaise Sauce

2010-03-25T11:30:00.000-07:00

Maybe it was the "spring forward" time change that motivated the first Sunday brunch service; or do folks like to sleep in on Sunday morning after celebrating on Saturday night? For whatever reason, brunch has become a springtime tradition. When the occasion is special, I like to make a special dish. To me the perfect hollandaise sauce makes the perfect condiment to make a perfect brunch.

Hollandaise sauce is essentially warm mayonnaise that uses clarified butter in the emulsion instead of vegetable oil. Since butter is essentially "frozen" at room temperature, hollandaise sauce is served warm. The classic eggs Benedict has hollandaise sauce keeping the delicate poached eggs warm while adding richness and delicious flavor. Hollandaise is also excellent with asparagus just like lemon scented mayonnaise is with the spring vegetable. When you read the recipe below, do not be alarmed by the amount of butter in the sauce, just don't serve it more than once a year!
While hollandaise is a difficult sauce to make in the classic style, it is worth the effort. It will also keep you in training for making your own mayonnaise and aioli. Two keys to a perfect hollandaise: 1) Heat the egg yolks slowly and gradually. If heated too quickly the sauce will become granular while overcooking scrambles them. 2) Hollandaise is an emulsion much like mayonnaise. The melted butter must be added slowly at first and adding too much of the total amount of butter will cause the sauce to break or curdle.

Today I was unable to work because of a back injury, so I practiced making hollandaise sauce to prepare for our upcoming meetup. It was awesome served over poached egg on a toasted bagel for my singular brunch today. We will make the sauce to crown eggs Benedict souffle's in our meetup on Saturday.

Hollandaise Sauce (Serves 4 to 6 as a condiment)

Ingredients

3/4 cup butter
3 egg yolks
1 tablespoon cold water
1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice
Large pinch salt
2 tablespoons cold butter (each tablespoon will be used separately)
Cayenne or Tabasco plus salt and white pepper to taste

Method

Cut the 3/4 cup of butter into cubes and melt in a small saucepan. Reserve and use while still warm.
Beat the yolks with a wire whisk off heat until thick and sticky about one minute.
Add the water, lemon juice and pinch of salt and whisk together about a half minute more.
Have a pan of cold water standing by in case needed to control cooking of yolks.
Place egg mixture over barely simmering water in a double boiler, add 1 tablespoon cold butter and whisk until it thickens into a smooth cream about 2 minutes.
If the yolks seem to be thickening too quickly or even suggest a lumpy texture, plunge the bottom of the pan into cold water to slow the cooking process. Then continue beating over heat. When you begin to see the bottom of the pan between strokes and there is a light cream on the wires of the whisk the yolks have thickened enough.

Immediately remove from heat and beat in the second cold tablespoon of butter to cool the yolks and stop the cooking process.
While beating the yolks off heat with the wire whisk, begin adding the melted butter a droplet at a time until the sauce thickens into a very heavy cream. At this point you may add the butter more rapidly while continuing to beat vigorously. Do not mix in the milky residue at the bottom of the melted butter (milk solids).

Season the sauce with cayenne, salt and pepper to taste. Hold over lukewarm water.

Spicy Chevre Stuffed Endive Cups (Using mustard greens in the garnish)

2010-02-22T08:34:00.000-08:00

This month's Iron Chef in my local food adventures group featured mustard greens as the secret ingredient.
I adapted an appetizer that used basil as an herb in the mix by using mustard greens instead. The mustard greens are in season now along with the rest of the ingredients. I liked the racy flavor of the greens, too.

The original recipe called for the filling to be in phyllo "purses" and baked with the greens and orange zest and red peppers added as garnish for service. I like the endive better.

Spicy Goat Cheese Stuffed Endive Cups

Ingredients
½ cup roasted walnut pieces
¼ cup roasted and peeled red peppers (if bottled, rinse thoroughly and pat dry)
4 oz soft goat cheese (Cow Girl Creamery sells a good one)
1 teaspoon Asian chili sauce
1 teaspoon lemon or lime zest (I like the lime which was used with the mustard greens version)
2 tablespoons chopped chives
2 tablespoons chopped mustard greens (basil or mint may be substituted)
½ teaspoon orange zest

Endive lettuce separated into individual leaves and washed – these are the cups

Ingredients

(Orange, chives and red pepper are missing)

Method

In a bowl combine goat cheese, chives, lemon zest and chili sauce – mix well
Slice red pepper and chop
Place a dollop of the cheese mixture in each endive cup
Top with walnut pieces, some red pepper, some mustard greens, and some orange zest.
Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Pulled Pork Sliders

2010-02-15T10:36:00.000-08:00

This week I am sharing my recipe for pulled pork sliders which is Southern comfort food at its best. It goes great with coleslaw made from Dirty Girl green cabbages, their carrots, and fresh sour cream. This dish was a hit as an appetizer at our wine tasting event for our wine making group. We served it with a light prosecco that paired nicely with the acidity and sweetness of the barbeque sauce and pork. It is tasty and inexpensive. One pork shoulder yielded enough for the tasting event and to feed Stacy and me one dinner and several lunches. While pulled pork takes a long time to make, the crock pot does most of the work. Be sure to serve the finished pork on a high quality bun like potato rolls from the Cakery in Burlingame. They make them fresh six days a week.

Pulled Pork Sliders
Yield: Serves 12 (24 sliders)

For dry rub
3 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper
3 tablespoons (packed) dark brown sugar
3 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons coarse salt
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 bone-in pork shoulder (also called Boston Butt). Have your butcher trim it leaving some of the fat cap for braising. Having the bone in during braising adds a silky texture to the finished pork, too.

For braise
2 onions coarsely chopped
1 cup apple cider vinegar
2 12 oz bottles of amber bee
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper
1 tablespoon coarse salt

Finishing Sauce
1 can (24 oz or 750g) strained tomatoes
1 6 oz can tomato paste
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
¼ cup brown sugar (packed) or agave nectar
Salt to taste

To serve:
24 potato rolls, split and lightly toasted (available at the Cakery in Burlingame)

Make dry rub:
Mix first 5 ingredients in small bowl to blend.
Sprinkle dry rub all over pork; press into pork. Cover with plastic; refrigerate at least 2 hours. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Keep chilled.)

Braise the meat:
Place onions in crock pot.
Place marinated meat fat cap up on top of onions and add remaining braise ingredients to pot. Cook on low, covered for 12 hours.
Remove meat from pot and cool enough to handle. Shred pork using a fork and reserve. Discard bone and remaining fat. Strain and de-fat braising sauce and pour into a large saucepan.

Finishing:
Add finishing sauce ingredients to sauce pan, mix well, and simmer for 30 minutes. Add pork to pan and reheat. Season with salt to taste. Adjust sweetness to taste with brown sugar or agave nectar.

Serve:
Divide pork among bottoms of buns. Top with coleslaw (optional) and bun caps and serve.

Hanger Steak Ragu with Farro

2010-01-26T09:41:00.000-08:00

Farro is an ancient grain that is expensive because it has a low yield per acre compared to the wheat more widely grown. After tasting it, though, it will be on our table on special occasions. Farro is also called emmer wheat. Beware the spelt as a substitution as it will not be as firm when cooked.

Once I found the farro at Lunardi's in Burlingame and reading the "Traditional recipe" on the back of the $6.50, 1.1 lb bag, I decided to go Italian by treating it as a traditional pasta. I also had some hanger steak that I bought from Golden Gate Meats that had been rubbed with a garlic and herb dry rub, which delivered the total inspiration to make my Hanger Steak Ragu mixed with farro as our dinner last night.

The recipe was not very detailed, so I had to wing it a bit. I also doubled the recipe to have leftovers for lunch with my friend Bill today.
Here's what was on the bag with some annotations by me to clarify it and to double it:

8.8 oz of semi-pearled farro (2 cups dry measure)
3.5 oz of ground beef (1 hanger steak, approximately 3/4 lb with garlic and herb dry-rub, sliced into medallions)
2 tablespoons Olive Oil
2 celery sticks (I did not double the celery; the celery was chopped into dice brunoise)
1 small carrot (I used 2 carrots chopped into dice brunoise)
1 medium onion finely chopped (I did not double this either; the onion was diced)
Salt and pepper to taste
A splash of white wine (I used a Sonoma County sangiovese blend, which is red, from Unti about 1/4 cup. We drank the rest of the bottle with dinner. It was a perfect pairing)
Tomato Sauce (no measure given. I used a 24.5 oz jar of Amy's Organic Tomato Basil pasta sauce)
Beef or vegetable stock (no measure given again. I used about 1-1/2 cups of home made beef stock)
Grated Parmesan Cheese or Pecorino (I used Parmesan Regganio. 2 cups plus one cup grated fine)
I also added a diced leek which I found in my fridge after I photographed the ingredients
I also added some finely chopped Italian parsley about 1/2 cup loose

The ingredients mis en place

Method (this is my interpretation)
Brown the meat in a saucepan with the olive oil. Remove to a plate with a slotted spoon.
Add the vegetables to the oil and saute until translucent about 10 minutes. Pour in wine and cook until it evaporates scraping up brown bits. Add all of the browned beef plus any drippings, 1/2 of the beef stock, and tomato sauce and bring to a simmer, cooking for about 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, cook the farro in salted boiling water for 10 minutes. Drain.
Add the farro and parsley to the sauce and cook for 15 more minutes at a low simmer adding stock when necessary.
Add 2 cups of cheese to the sauce and mix to combine.

This may now be served family style in the Italian tradition on a platter with the remaining 1 cup of cheese sprinkled on top or into bowls for individual servings again with some cheese sprinkled on top.

It was delicious!

Emmer Wheat

The delicious leek

2010-01-25T10:01:00.000-08:00

Onions and garlic are ubiquitous ingredients in savory dishes from many cultures around the world. The leek, however, seems to be almost ignored except by the French, of course, who use leeks in stock making and the famous soup, Vichyssoise, that is traditionally served cold. Leeks provide lots of vitamin C, vitamin B6, vitamin K, vitamin A, iron, magnesium and fiber. The only downside for leeks is that they contain, for vegetables anyway, a larger than normal amount of sodium. Since leeks are widely available throughout the winter months from local growers in Northern California, it is a vegetable that will provide a new level of flavor and texture to your cooking if you embrace it. I especially like the dry-farmed leeks sold by Dirty Girl Produce at the San Francisco Farmer’s market. Their leeks are small, tender and succulent.

Include leeks in pretty much any dish calling for onions that are sweated in butter or oil in the foundation of the dish. The leeks add another dimension of flavor and silkiness to the finished dish, which is why I add leeks to stocks whenever I can get my hands on them. In her ponderous tome The New Making of a Cook, Madeline Kamman instructs to “add as many leeks as you can afford” to stocks (especially veal stock) along with the traditional carrots, celery, and onions. Your soups and sauces will burst with flavor when leeks are included.

Leeks grow partially underground and partially above ground so they tend to get mud into the stalk. The structure of the leek invites the dirt downward, so cleaning is a key to using leeks. To prepare a leek, cut the dark green tops off and discard as they are bitter. Then slice the light part of the vegetable in half from root to top and wash thoroughly while gently separating layers to remove all grit. For stock, simply remove a bit of the root part and toss the halves into the pot with the rest of the vegetables. For sauté, chop the leek into ¼ pieces.

Our favorite leek dish is the warm version of Vichyssoise called potato leek soup. This hearty soup makes a complete nutritious meal. Be sure to use your own gelatin-rich chicken stock to get the flavor, mouth-feel, and health benefits from the home made version of this important foundational ingredient. The following recipe is easily adjusted to become Vichyssoise by omitting the parsley, using heavy cream and serving the finished soup cold with snips of chives.

Leek and Potato Soup (Vichyssoise)
Yield: Serves 2 generously

1 medium boiling potato (about 1/2 pound)
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 medium onion, chopped fine
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 medium leeks (white parts only), halved lengthwise, washed well, and sliced thin crosswise
2 1/2 cups chicken stock or broth
3 tablespoons half and half (or cream for Vichyssoise)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leafed parsley leaves (wash and dry before chopping)
Note: For Vichyssoise, omit parsley and add snips of fresh chives.

Peel potato and dice fine. In a 3 1/2- to 4-quart saucepan cook garlic and onion and leek in butter over moderately low heat, stirring, until onion is softened. Add potato and cook, stirring occasionally, 2 minutes. Stir in stock or broth and simmer, uncovered, 15 minutes, or until potato is very tender.

If desired, in a blender purée soup in batches until very smooth (use caution when blending hot liquids), transferring to another saucepan. Stir in cream, parsley, and salt and pepper to taste and heat over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until hot. Serve immediately.

For Vichyssoise, puree the soup until smooth and season with salt and white pepper to taste. Chill. Add snips of chive to bowls filled with the soup and serve.

Leek

Leek and Potato Soup (Vichyssoise)

Chicken Pot Pie

2010-01-19T13:02:00.000-08:00

On Sunday seven of us cooks gathered at my home to make stocks including some delicious, low fat chicken stock that will add nutrients, protein and texture to many varied dishes in the coming months. One of our favorites is chicken pot pie. Meat pies made from scratch with proper stock that has lots of gelatin are divine comfort food. We even serve this simple dish at dinner parties elegantly presented in gold soup terrines that came from Sur La Table. My chicken pot pie is a dish that leverages the cycle for chicken usage at our house to the hilt. The thighs and legs are in the filling while the carcass from a previous chicken is in the stock that makes the sauce velvety and complex in taste and mouth feel.

The filling of a chicken pot pie has chunks of meat that contrast the silky supreme sauce. A supreme sauce is a veloute sauce (one of the five mother sauces we call "gravy" which is meat stock thickened with roux) with milk added and then thickened into a white sauce. Once a cook masters the five mother sauces and the common variations, recipes become easier to prepare when the cook recognizes the sauce portion of a recipe and lets the muscle memory of making the sauce take over.

Overall the recipe is easy to prepare. When key ingredients are made ahead like the filling and pie crust dough, the pies can be assembled and in the oven in just a few minutes followed by 25 minutes baking time which makes the dish ideal for quick weeknight meals with minimal clean-up.
Chicken Pot Pie
Serves 4 as a complete meal (may be scaled by half for 2 servings)

Special equipment: 4 1 1/2 cup soup terrines or ramekins

Ingredients

Pie crust ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, diced into 1/2-inch cubes (best to chill cubes in the freezer for at least 15 minutes before using)
1/4 cup vegetable shortening, chilled
3 to 4 Tbsp ice water

Filling ingredients
1 2 1/2 lb chicken de-boned, roasted, and cut into chunks (if scaling for 2 servings, use legs, thighs and wings)
6 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 large onion, diced (about 1 1/4 cups)
3 carrots, brunoise
3 celery stalks brunoise
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups chicken stock
1 1/2 cups milk
Dash ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme leaves
1/4 cup dry sherry
3/4 cup green peas, frozen or fresh
2 Tbsp minced fresh parsley
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Egg wash

1 egg whisked with 1 Tbsp water

Method

Prepare the pie crust dough. Sift together flour and salt and place in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the sharp blade. Add the chilled butter cubes and pulse 5 times to combine. And the shortening and pulse a few more times, until the dough resembles a coarse cornmeal. Slowly stream in ice water, a tablespoon at a time, pulsing after each addition, until the dough sticks together when you press some between your fingers. Empty the dough from the processor onto a clean surface. Use your hands to mold into a ball, then flatten the ball into a disk. Sprinkle with a little flour, wrap with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, or up to 2 days, before rolling.

Prepare the filling. Preheat oven to 400°F. In a large skillet, melt butter on medium heat. Add the onions, carrots, and celery, and cook until the onions are translucent, about 7 minutes. Add the flour and cook, stirring, 1 minute more. Add the nutmeg. Whisk in chicken stock. Whisk in milk. Decrease the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring often until thickened. Add chicken meat, thyme, sherry, peas, parsley, salt and pepper and stir well. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Divide the warm filling among terrines or ramekins. (Cook’s note: Filling may be cooled and refrigerated for up to two days. Re-warm cold filling before proceeding)

Prepare the crust. Roll out dough on a lightly flour surface to a little less than a quarter-inch thick about the same size as for a 9" pie crust. Cut into 4 rounds, slightly larger than the circumference of the terrines. Lay a dough round on each pot pie. Fold the excess dough under itself and use the tines of a fork to press the dough against the edge of the terrines. Cut a 1-inch vent into each individual pie. Use a pastry brush to apply an egg wash to each pie. Place the pies on a baking sheet. Bake at 400°F for 25 minutes, or until the pastry is golden and the filling is bubbling. Let cool for at least 5 minutes before serving.

Get to know your butcher

2010-01-10T14:14:00.000-08:00

Always at the end of the year Stacy and I reflect on our journey for the past twelve months and make plans for what we want to accomplish in the year to come. The exercise seems to bring us closer as a couple and helps us keep on track together as a family. In my reflections this winter I am appreciating the many relationships that spice up our lives. The people we rely on and those that rely on us in the fabric of our community whether it be our neighbors that lend a hand occasionally and their friendship all of the time, or the folks that we have shared our home with during our meetups, to friends that have opened their homes to us for parties and get-togethers, and the folks like Chris at Golden Gate Meats or George at Hog Island and many other local farmers and shop owners whose businesses we frequent to procure the food that sustains our bodies and to build the relationships that enrich our lives.

Last night Stacy's birthday dinner featured a standing rib roast from Golden Gate Meats where we buy most of the meat I cook. Golden Gate Meats is a family owned and operated business with Chris, the proprietor, at the helm and many members of his extended family working in various roles at the shop at the Ferry Plaza. This holiday season Chris and his family cut two turkeys that we served for Thanksgiving, a drop-dead-gorgeous crown roast of pork I cooked for our family Christmas party, hanger steaks for Stacy’s holiday luncheon I prepared for her and her colleagues at our home, a standing rib roast we devoured with our friends Jacque and Dale for our annual Christmas Eve dinner, beef short ribs that I braised and offered in our New Years Eve progressive dinner with our neighbors and friends, and the standing rib roast that Buda and I served with sautéed red cabbage as the entrée for Stacy’s birthday dinner.

Everything we buy from Golden Gate Meats seems to taste fresher and better than meats we buy anywhere else. It pays to get to know the butcher behind the counter because there is so much more available from the shop than what is visible in the case. For example, they keep an array of rubs that they will apply to your purchase if you just ask. For very special occasions we absolutely love aged New York steaks. While there are excellent steaks in the case, they sometimes have exceptional cuts in the back if you ask for them. The standing rib roasts we had were the most beautiful prime rib I have ever had. Chris told me he had asked his providers for high quality roasts for the holidays which they specially selected for the store. Chris took the cuts over the top by adding rub and then coating the entire roast in suet to keep the meat from drying out during the cooking process. After we tried the first one Christmas Eve, Stacy declared that was what she had to have for her birthday which I was happy to provide. When I went in to pick up the roast yesterday, I chatted with Chris about chicken which is the primary protein in our day-to-day diet.

I only like chicken if the bird is less than three pounds with two-and-one-half pounds as the ideal size. A chicken of that size is still relatively juvenile, so the meat is tender and succulent without being stringy. Chris agreed with me and mentioned that the shop keeps an ample supply of birds that weight in a barrel of brine. They rotisserie cook the birds on-site then offer the them for sale at their deli counter that faces the main Ferry Building hallway. They also sell brined and uncooked chicken from the barrel. Brining chicken tastes best but can be a hassle for a home cook to do regularly depending on space in the refrigerator, so having them available all ready brined is a real advantage. And they sell them for the same price as what is shown in the case. All you have to do is ask! As we wrapped up our conversation, Chris showed one of the birds to me and then gave it to me for free to try it. I broke the bird down as I normally do into boneless breasts and thighs, legs and wings, then roasted the pieces alongside the carcass for about 15 minutes at 350 degrees. It was delicious. From now on I plan to buy all of my chickens from them out of the barrel of brine in the back, please.

Meyer Lemon Crab Souffle

2010-01-03T17:34:00.000-08:00

Stacy and I hope all of you enjoyed your 2009 holiday. We shared the holiday with our family and many of our friends at events that always included good food and good wine. We capped the season with a New Year’s Eve progressive dinner for twelve that started at our friends Rich and Ann’s for some delightful appetizers, followed by the entrée at our house, then we finished at Mark and Alan’s place for divine crème brulees. We ate and drank well for over five hours without having to leave our neighborhood which made the evening fun and stress free.

Our part of the meal included three courses starting with individual Meyer lemon crab soufflés which were light, fluffy and delicate in texture and flavor. Home cooks may be intimidated by the complexity of making soufflés and so miss out on offering the item as a scrumptious course or side dish that would add mystique and elegance to their menu. I invite you to make the following savory soufflé recipe which is fun to do and can be used with any filling whether a protein or vegetable or combination. Once mastered, this soufflé can be used with most any filling that is in season.

All savory soufflés start with a béchamel sauce which is one of the mother sauces. A béchamel is a basic white sauce that has many uses besides being the base for soufflés. A properly made béchamel will keep in the refrigerator for several days so you can make it ahead and then build the soufflé or lasagna or white sauce for fish or pasta during the final prep for a meal. This greatly simplifies the cooking especially when you are both cook and part of the party as we were for New Year’s dinner.

Recipe for béchamel Sauce (use to make 12 one-half cup individual soufflés)

Ingredients:
1/2 stick unsalted butter
4 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole milk
Dash ground nutmeg

Method:
Set milk in a saucepan and warm to scald but not boiling.
While the milk heats, melt butter in a large skillet over med high heat.
When foam subsides, lower the heat and whisk in flour, then cook, whisking, until pale golden, about 2 minutes.
Add milk a little at a time, whisking constantly until very smooth.
Add nutmeg and bring sauce to a boil, whisking, then simmer, whisking, until quite thick, about 1 minute.

Now you have a beautiful, silky white béchamel sauce. Congratulations! A common substitute for béchamel is the ubiquitous can of cream of mushroom soup that tastes like metallic wall paper paste compared to a fresh béchamel so if you see it called for in a recipe, try making the real deal instead as your food will turn out much tastier!

Recipe for Crab Soufflé

Special equipment:
12 ½ cup ramekins
Pizza Stone

Ingredients:
Béchamel sauce (per recipe above)
6 eggs separated
1 cup shredded crab meat
1/4 cup grated Swiss cheese
1 tablespoon minced preserved Meyer lemon rind (you may substitute a tablespoon of lemon juice and 1 teaspoon salt mixed together)

Make Soufflés:

Pre-heat oven to 400°F with pizza stone in middle.
Generously butter ramekins, then sprinkle with flour knocking out excess.
Stir together crab, lemon and cheese in a bowl.
Make béchamel from scratch or re-heat if made earlier.
Remove from heat and whisk in yolks a little at a time (this is called tempering the yolks so that they heat without cooking into scrambled eggs).
Stir in crab mixture filling.
Beat whites in a bowl with an electric mixer at high speed until they just hold stiff peaks (they should not look dry). Stir a heaping spoonful of whites into yolk mixture to lighten, then gently fold in remaining whites until just combined.
Gently spoon into ramekins (leave space at top) and bake directly on the pizza stone until golden brown and top appears set, about 20 minutes.
Remove from oven and set aside to cool for 8-10 minutes if you want to remove from ramekins. Otherwise, serve immediately

Buda and I made a demi glace that we thickened a bit with another roux and flavored with a bit more of the preserved Meyer lemon rind. We also chopped some parsley that was sprinkled on each plate for color.

Stacy and I wish you all delicious 2010 filled with good food, good wine and good friends!

Chocolate Chip Cookies, the classic holiday treat

2009-12-21T14:02:00.000-08:00

The cookie, that tasty little morsel baked just for you to enjoy. For me cookies mean two things: Stacy’s favorite treat and holiday cookie parties.
Stacy is a master cookie baker. She makes a dozen chocolate chip or m&m chocolate chip cookies almost every weekend. (I try to sneak one off the baking sheet moments after they come out of the oven to devour while still warm.) Stacy makes the best chocolate chip cookies I have ever had, ever. They are the perfect crispy outside and gooey inside with just the right amount of chips. Her cookies bake to just the right thickness so that they are not too thin or crispy or too chewy. They are a confectionary masterpiece.

They key to baking any product well is controlling the temperature and melt rate of the fat in the product. Stacy starts her cookies by tossing a stick of butter into a mixing bowl that sits out in the kitchen to soften for at least two hours. Once soft, the butter is creamed which means it is worked with the back of a soup spoon in the mixing bowl until it is the consistency of mayonnaise. She then mixes the cookie dough adding the chips last. Finally, she forms the dough into balls about half the size of golf balls. Each ball is placed on a baking sheet as she forms them. As each cookie bakes, the butter melts as the other ingredients cook and the ball becomes a disk. Stacy usually makes a half batch of the Original Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe which can be found on the back of a bag of Nestle’s Semi-Sweet Morsels:

Yield: About 5 dozen cookies

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cup Nestle semi-sweet morsels (1 12-oz pkg)
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
Pre-heat oven to 375
Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla in a large bowl until creamy (note: Stacy first creams the butter with the back of a soup spoon and then adds in the sugar and vanilla using the spoon to combine. At this point the mixture should be fluffy). Gradually beat in flour mixture (Stacy continues with her spoon). Stir in morsels and nuts (Stacy gently fold in the morsels again with the spoon). Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for two minutes (this is when I snatch my warm treat); remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Pomelo Segment with Savory Meringue

2009-12-18T11:09:00.001-08:00

The first pomelos of the season are arriving. You know, the dinosaur grapefruit. My favorite treatment of the giant fruit is to make an amuse bouche for a dinner party by segmenting the pomelo and dressing with a dollop of savory meringue and a petal from a pansy flower or a sprig of mint. The components can be prepped well in advance and stored in your fridge until you are ready to assemble the dish. I bought some spoons from Sur La Table specifically for amuse bouche service that I use for this dish. Stacy received a long pressed glass platter that is perfect for 12 servings. It looks spectacular and tastes good too.

Pomelo segments with savory meringue

Yield: 12 small servings

Ingredients
1 Pomelo
1 Pastuerized egg
Pansy petals or mint sprigs for garnish

Method
Segment pomelo, cut each segment in half or thirds, place on towels and chill.
Separate Pasteurized egg and reserve yolk for other purposes (like mayonnaise or ice cream)
Whip the egg white to froth
(Optional: Rub copper bowl with the inside of the pomelo rind to add some acid to the meringue before whipping)add a pinch of salt and pepper whip the white to firm peaks. Chill meringue until ready for use.

To serve, place two segment pieces on a large spoon or small plate refresh meringue and place a small dollop on segments garnish with a pansy petal or sprig of mint.

Egg Safety - Pasture-raised chickens from sustainable farms produce by far the safest eggs. However, there is always a remote chance of bacterial infection, so we Pasteurize the eggs for recipes that call for raw eggs.

How To Pasteurize Raw Eggs

Place the eggs in a pot with cold water. Put the water on medium heat while gently stirring watch as the temperature rises. You don't want the temperature of the water to exceed 150 degrees. To be exact, keep a thermometer probe in the water. When you reach this temperature, keep it. To do so, lower the heat, and watch so the temperature doesn't rise, then keep the eggs in the water for about 3-5 minutes.

Meyer Lemon Sorbet in Lemon Cups

2009-12-13T14:16:00.001-08:00

The citrus crop is coming on strong now at the Farmer’s Market. We now have our pick of tangerines, oranges, pomelos, grapefruit, and lemons. Stacy and I bought our first pomelo and fifteen more Meyer lemons during our outing to the market Saturday. The market traffic was light this week as folks were driven away by the heavy rains and cold winds. Despite the bad weather, we shopped for a luncheon I am cooking for Stacy and her group at work. In addition to the citrus, I bought fingerling potatoes, cauliflower, and placed an order for hanger steaks that will be ingredients in the six-course I plan to prepare and serve to the party of twelve this coming Wednesday.

I included a palette cleanser course between the cauliflower soufflé course and the grilled hanger steak with sea salt crusted roast fingerling potatoes entrée course. The palette cleanser is Meyer lemon sorbet in lemon cups. I made the sorbet from the fifteen Meyer lemons yesterday and it tastes incredible. The presentation of the sorbet will be in cups made from the shells of the lemons. There are several citrus dishes I serve that use the colorful shell as the cup which makes a charming statement on the plate. To remove any citrus from the shell, cut off the top 1/3 of the fruit and reserve the top to use as the “cap”. Then use a grapefruit spoon or small teaspoon to remove the pulp. This neat trick is accomplished by gently working the spoon between the pith and the pulp in a circular motion around the shell being very careful not to puncture the shell. Usually the pulp will release all except for the bloom end at the bottom. To finish the removal, gently hook the spoon under the pulp and pull from the shell. If some strings are left in the bottom of the shell, use a kitchen shear or paring knife to extract. Then cut a small flat spot on the bottom so the fruit will stand on a plate. Be careful not to open a hole in the bottom of the shell when making this cut. Now you have a shell cup and cap to use as the vessel to serve the dish you make from the pulp. Sometimes I will cut a design in the top lip of the cup for large fruits like oranges. The cup will also resist oven temps for a dessert prep that has cold filling in the cup and a piped meringue on top, sort of like a baked Alaska.

Here’s the recipe for the sorbet.

Lemon Sorbet in Lemon Cups For 8
12 lemons - You'll need one lemon per person plus a few to cut zest from. Make sure the bloom end (not the stem end) has a nice shaped "bump" and try to purchase uniform lemons.
Cut off the top 1/3 of the lemon (stem end) and reserve for the "cap." Hollow out each lemon by using a grapefruit spoon gently working just inside the rind and circling the flesh while being careful not to puncture the lemon. Remove juice and flesh and put it in your juicer. Make a slight shallow cut on the bottom of each lemon shells while being careful not to cut through to the inside of the lemon) This will allow them to sit upright on a plate without falling over.
Freeze the shells at least one hour or overnight. Then fill with sorbet for service. The frozen shell will help keep the sorbet frozen.

LEMON SORBET:

1/3 cup lemon zest cut from the extra lemons
1 cup strained fresh-squeezed lemon juice - from lemons used for cups and extra lemons
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon vodka (keeps the sorbet from freezing solid)
1 1/2 cups water

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine sugar and water until sugar dissolves. Add lemon zest. Stir until mixture comes to a boil; boil 2 minute. Add the lemon juice and vodka, stir well. Remove from heat, cool completely and strain.

Ice Cream Maker - Transfer mixture to ice cream maker, process according to manufacturer's instructions.

Freezer Method - Pour into container, cover, and place mixture in the freezer. When it is semi-solid, mash it up with a fork and refreeze again. When frozen, place in a food processor or blender and process until smooth. Cover and refreeze until serving time.

Can be prepared 3 days in advance. Cover and keep frozen.

Makes 8 servings.

Preserving Meyer Lemons

2009-12-05T17:38:00.000-08:00

At this time of the year we see the beginnings of the citrus crop signaling that it will soon be winter with long, cold nights and rainy days. One of my favorite ingredients to make using citrus is preserved Meyer lemon rind. The Meyer lemon is a hybrid between a lemon and an orange that came from China. It was widely planted in California until it was understood to cause blight of other citrus crops. Nowadays there is the "improved" Meyer lemon that does not carry the blight. The fruits have delicate skins that will turn a blush of orange if left hanging on the tree long enough. When preserved, the rind is a savory, lightly sour and complex flavor balanced with salt that is used in the curing process. Any recipe that calls for acid and salt will benefit with preserved Meyer lemon rind as a substitute. One of my favorite is lemon-scented cauliflower. Simply mince some preserved Meyer lemon rind then mix with a bit of butter,salt and pepper, and brush onto washed florets. Roast the cauliflower for about 8 to 10 minutes until lightly golden brown. This is an excellent side dish. I also use the cooked cauliflower in savory soufflés.

To preserve Meyer lemons, use a 1/2 liter canning jar. I like the kind with the glass lid and rubber band for sealing. Always sterilize the jar and use a new sterilized band before proceeding. Thinly slice the lemons and toss in a bowl with kosher salt.

Pack into jar and top with lemon juice to within 1/4 inch from the rim. Add three bay leaves and five or six black pepper corns. Wipe the rim with a damp towel and seal the jar. Over the next two weeks, leave the jar on your kitchen counter. Shake the jar every morning and every night. The lemon rind undergoes a lactic fermentation much the same as a kosher dill pickle or sauerkraut. Place finished jar in refrigerator. Preserved Meyer lemons keep at least a year. They also make a nice holiday gift.

Mulligatawny Soup

2009-11-18T11:47:00.000-08:00

I recently saw this soup on the Food network show Diners Drive-ins and Dives and decided I had to try it. It is delicious. A nice comfort food for the cooler months that is basically chicken curry in gravy over rice. The recipe has everything in one pot as a soup. I like rice, so I used 1 Cup rice cooked instead of 1 cup cooked rice which was a change I made after I photographed the ingredients.

The recipe was scaled to serve Stacy and me for a Tuesday after work dinner with enough left-over for a lunch for me. Since the rice and chicken are already cooked, it is a good use of left-overs (I guess that makes my lunch a left-over left-over?).

Every week I buy a whole broiler chicken, usually 2-1/2 lbs, that I break down into boneless breasts, boneless thighs and bone-in legs and wings leaving the carcass almost bare. I roast the carcass, giblets (without the liver), wings, legs and thighs while the breasts brine. Later that evening, the breasts become the center of a nice dinner for Stacy and me while the carcass and giblets go into the freezer until I have enough bones to boil in my 16-quart stockpot, which is about once a month.

My rice is steamed in my home-made chicken stock, which adds protein and imparts a deep, rich flavor to the long-grain white rice. In total this recipe used 6 cups of chicken stock.

Recipe adapted from the recipe contributed by Judy Miles, owner of The Little Depot Diner in Peabody, MA to DDD.

Ingredients
• 1 medium onion diced
• 3 carrots, diced
• 2 celery stalks, diced
• 1 medium leek minced
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1-1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 3 teaspoons curry powder
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 2 Sierra Beauty apples, peeled, cored and diced
• 1 cup white rice cooked in chicken stock (1 cup rice, 2 cups chicken stock, dash of salt, 21 minutes steam time)
• Legs and thighs from one chicken roasted 15 minutes, cooled and diced.
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon herbs from Provenance
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup cream, hot

Directions
In a large pot, over medium heat, melt the butter and add the onion, leek, carrots, and celery stalks. Cook until tender, but do not burn them. Stir in the flour and curry and cook for 3 minutes. Pour in 4 cups of chicken stock and let simmer for 30 minutes. Then add in the remaining ingredients, except the hot cream. Let simmer for 15 minutes and then add in 1 cup hot cream. Ladle into serving bowls and serve.

Stacy and I loved the soup snug in our warm house on a frigid, drizzly Tuesday evening. One idea I have to improve the soup is to puree the mirepoix after the 30 minute simmer then add the rest of the ingredients. I believe this will make the soup more like a bisque.

Apple Oatmeal Crisp

2009-11-01T21:27:00.000-08:00

Can you believe today is Nov 1? The beautiful beguiling weather the past week feels more like summer. Except Saturday morning. Stacy and I went to the market early Saturday morning groping our way up the Peninsula in the heavy fog that draped the roadways. The traffic was light on the highway and at the stalls around the market as it seemed the cool, damp weather kept folks tucked away somewhere warm. The Bay Bridge closure may have also discouraged people from making the trek to the market. Too bad because they missed the fall seasonal fruits and vegetables at their peak. Squashes, lovely Brussels sprouts, all sorts of root vegetables including turnips are available all around the market. The highlight for me, the apples right now are incredible. We stopped at the Apple Farm (Philo) stand to buy apples for an apple crisp that would punctuate our dinner with our friends Rich and Ann at our home Saturday night. We bought six Sierra Beauties, which are a wonderful cooking apple. Another really good apple is the pink lady which is available now through April from a farmer with a stand in the front of the Ferry building. The pink lady is a good snacking apple and really stands out in apple stuffing that I make to complement a crown pork roast that takes center stage at our family Christmas dinner. We also bought a dozen kumamoto oysters to go and two to eat there from George at Hog Island. The oysters are a creamy, briny treat this time of year. The dozen would be our appetizer at dinner with Rich and Ann.

We started the meal at 6:30 PM with oysters on the half shell from Hog Island accompanied by Hog Wash and cocktail sauce, Bellwether cresenza cheese and Acme baguette rounds which were complemented by two chardonnays, one from Lodi that Rich and Ann brought, and the Landmark Overloook that we served. We slurped the oysters and smeared the cheese on the bread rounds as Rich barbequed a 2.5 pound chateaubriand that he had marinated in cabernet and garlic for 24 hours. Meanwhile I boiled some purple potatoes from Zuckerman’s farm and steamed some dry-farmed haricot verts from Dirty Girl Produce in Santa Cruz. The meal was hearty and delicious.

Earlier in the afternoon Stacy and I did the prep to mis en place a tasty apple crisp using the sierra beauty apples. Stacy popped the desert in the oven when the meat went onto the grill so that it would be done and piping hot when we finished our entrée. It was served with a dollop of homemade vanilla ice cream that I froze after lunch. The apple crisp is a home dessert that was commonly served in the fall at family dinners. It’s easy to make.

Here’s the recipe:
Apple Oatmeal Crisp
6 firm apples (Sierra beauty or pink lady work well) cored, peeled, and cut into ¼ inch slices
Juice of 1 lemon
Zest of 1 lemon minced
¼ cup calvados (or a high quality brandy)
¾ cup light brown sugar
½ cup unsalted butter
¾ cup flour
½ cup regular rolled oats
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp ground nutmeg

Method:
Mix together apples, lemon juice, lemon zest, and brandy. Place in a buttered 9-inch round cake pan. Mix sugar, butter, flour, oats, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg until crumbly. Scatter evenly on top of apple mix. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Serve warm (it’s really good with vanilla ice cream).

Crazy about pumpkin?

2009-10-18T19:29:00.000-07:00

What a coincidence that the Food & Wine section of the Chronicle today was all about pumpkins in the middle of a few weeks of being crazy about pumpkins. I have always loved pumpkin pie. I mean LOVE pumpkin pie. To give an example, when I was in college I would reward myself with a slice from the cafeteria every time I aced an exam. I graduated summa cum laude. Was it the pie? Is pumpkin brain food?

We love our winter squashes, particularly the brilliant orange dumpling squash and the faithful butternut. We like to roast our squash and then make a soup or serve the flesh mashed as a side dish. It occurred to me last year that a pumpkin is just another variety of winter squash that I should be able to treat in much the same way in the kitchen and vice versa. As the pumpkins started making their appearance at the Farmer’s Market a couple of weeks ago I have been experimenting with them.

I started with the classic treatments for pumpkin by making a pumpkin bread and then a pumpkin pie, both started from a sugar pie pumpkin. My pumpkin pie was so good that I ate the entire pie in three days save a forkful that Stacy stole before I devoured the tasty treat. It was the best pumpkin pie I have ever eaten. It probably benefited some from being the first pumpkin pie this season, although I give credit to poaching a fresh sugar pie pumpkin and grinding fresh spices to making the pie light, fresh and sublime. I also made a pumpkin bread that I steamed like an English pudding. It was good, seriously good. Again, I started with a fresh sugar pie pumpkin and then used fresh, organic ingredients to make the best bread I could. Stacy took the finished bread to work which received accolades from her co-workers. Seriously good indeed. Here’s the recipe which can be made in a simple loaf pan, a fluted tube pan, or a traditional English pudding pan (a fluted tube pan with a lid to contain the steam).

Ingredients
3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
1 ½ teaspoons fresh ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon fresh ground cloves
½ teaspoon salt
3 cups sugar (granulated definitely works. I plan to try brown sugar in the next bread)
1 cup vegetable oil (I used canola for the pie last week. I plan to try ½ cup vegetable oil and ½ cup melted butter in the next bread)
3 eggs
2 cups fresh pumpkin puree (I poached a sugar pie pumpkin)
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
1 cup chopped raisins (I used some dried red flame raisins from a farmer on the plaza)

Method
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees
In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and soda, spices and salt
In a mixing bowl, combine sugar, oil and eggs whisk to blend well.
Stir pumpkin into the egg mixture.

Gradually add the dry ingredients about ½ cup at a time stirring after each addition. Fold in the raisins and walnuts. Prepare tube pan with butter and flour. Spoon batter into tube pan. Bake for about 1 hour and 15 or 20 minutes until a knife inserted in thickest part of bread comes out clean.
Remove from oven and cool on a rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan. And cool completely on rack before slicing.
This loaf serves a large dinner party of 12 easily for dessert with seconds.

Market Report:
What else? Pumpkins are all over the market. Lots of stalls have sugar pie pumpkins and the Balakian Farm stall also has several heirloom varieties. I plan to try one of the Musquee de Provenance which is also known as the Fairy Tale pumpkin. If you like eggplant there are many varieties available now from several stalls at the market. I plan to use some as a stuffing for poultry using the recipe in the Café Beaujolais cookbook. We arrived at 9:30 AM and already Marin Sun Farms had sold out of their eggs from pasture-raised chicken. Bummer. The best news for us was that Mountain Home Ranch had chickens that weighed about 2 pounds each. We found the small birds to be delectable last spring before the farmer starting growing the birds too large (over 6 pounds each). He is being rewarded with bringing smaller fowl as some upscale restaurants around the City have discovered him. I hope that keeps him motivated to continue to harvest his flocks while the birds are young and tender.

There are still some tomatoes available, which are pretty much all early girl variety. Still sweet and firm, they make an excellent caprese with the fresh mozzarella from Cow Girl Creamery and some basil from the garden. It is the last gasp of summer as we get into the cooler and blustery fall season.

Stacy and I rounded out our trip to the market with a stop at Sur La Table to buy four Emille Henry 2-cup terrines. The vessels are perfect for my chicken pot pie with a butter crust. Stacy liked the one I made for her on Tuesday of last week so much that she wanted to serve the dish as the entrée for dinner with our weekend guests and good friends Jim and Kristin. The ceramic terrines were perfect for the dish as the shape distributed the heat evenly to the filling and the smaller opening in the top allowed me to make four perfect caps from one 9-inch butter pie crust. Our meal was simple and comforting. Kristin brought a shrimp-stuffed jalapeno wrapped in bacon as our spicy appetizer that we enjoyed on our deck with a flute of champagne. We then went into our dining room to dig into the piping hot chicken pot pies. The yellow terrine was beautifully presented with a golden brown crust on a multi-colored Kate Spade dinner plate that had yellow accenting a red and black rim and white center. It was a simple meal with gourmet flavors. We drank some wonderful wines grown and made by a mutual friend on their vineyard in El Dorado. We finished the meal with Kristin’s homemade carrot cake cupcakes. It was divine.

We are all booked up for the Thanksgiving Prelude meetup coming up November 7. It promises to be a fun day with some interesting and enthusiastic cooks.

Peas and Carrots yin yang soup

2009-10-16T10:10:00.000-07:00

Carrots are ubiquitous in my cooking usually as one of the trilogy of mire pois aromatics that create the canvas of flavors in stocks, soups, salads, braises, and on and on. I am a big fan of soups especially vegetable or fruit soups. This dish is a combination of two delicious soups that complement one another in flavor, texture and color. When served together in a single bowl the presentation is spectacular.
Be careful to prepare the soups with the same hearty textures so that they flow together to form the yin yang design without being too runny.

Prepare carrot soup and pea soup separately

1/2 cup crème fraiche

To Serve:
Simultaneously pour both soups from opposite sides of serving glass and offset to form a Yin-Yang design. Slide the bowl back and forth to bring the soups to the same level.

Place a dollop of crème fraiche in individual sauce boat and serve alongside or drizzle on top.

Carrot Soup

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 pounds carrots, peeled, sliced
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, brunoise
2 whole cloves
4 cups (about) chicken stock (vegetable stock may also be used)
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
dash of nutmeg

Heat oil in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add carrots, onion, garlic, and cloves and sauté until onion is translucent, about 8 minutes. Add 3 cups broth. Cover and simmer until carrots are very soft, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes.

Remove cloves from broth and discard. Puree soup in batches in blender. Return soup to same saucepan. Mix in lemon juice and nutmeg. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Thin to desired consistency with more broth. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)

May be served cold or reheated.

Green Pea Soup with Tarragon

2 lb fresh shucked peas (weight after shucking)
1 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup sliced shallots
4 cups (or more) chicken stock or vegetable stock
2 teaspoons chopped fresh tarragon, divided

Heat oil in heavy large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add shallots and sauté until golden and almost tender, about 7 minutes. Add peas, 3 cups broth, and 1 teaspoon tarragon; bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium and boil until flavors blend and peas are tender, about 7 minutes. Cool slightly. Working in batches, puree remaining soup in blender until completely smooth. Return soup to same saucepan. Bring to simmer and thin with more broth by 1/4 cupfuls, if desired. Stir in remaining tarragon. Season with pepper.

Scratch pumpkin pie

2009-10-12T11:42:00.000-07:00

The Ferry Plaza was packed on Saturday when Stacy and went to do our weekly shopping and to meet our friend Crosby for lunch. Crosby had invited us to watch the air show from the roof of his building on Telegraph hill so we invited him to join us for lunch to make a full day together. I enjoy how the changing of the seasons affects our diet as we try to eat seasonally from the farmer’s market as much as possible. As we are moving into the cooler and wetter months, we are craving comfort foods and our taste for white wine wanes as our enjoyment of full bodied red wines increases.

This week I am experimenting with making pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread starting from fresh sugar pie pumpkins instead of opening a can. Several vendors at the market offer the small orange gourds for sale. I bought one last week that I cleaned, quartered and roasted. This week I bought another pumpkin to try poaching to see if it works better. The roasting method caused a tough skin to form on the inside of the pumpkin. I am sure poaching the pumpkin will prevent that from happening, although I am concerned about having too much moisture content in finished product.

Why go to all that trouble when canned pumpkin is so widely available and so inexpensive? For me there are three reasons:

1) Taste: Starting from fresh produce always produces a fresher tasting final dish. It also lets me control all of the seasonings that get added to the produce.

2) Source: When I start from fresh produce that I buy directly from the grower I know where the plant that bore the fruit grew and how it was tended by the farmer. I get to know the farmers that I buy from so that I know that we are eating produce that is grown using protocols that do not include chemicals or manipulation of the produce (like hot housing).

3) Satisfaction: Making a dish all the way from fresh produce to finished product is a satisfying and fulfilling journey. The simpler the better for me too.

Here’s the recipe for pumpkin pie:

2 cups pumpkin puree:
To make the puree, get a sugar pie pumpkin and cut off the top. Cut the pumpkin in half from stem to bloom. Scrape out the seeds and the stringy innards. Clean and toast the seeds for a nice snack. I like mine with sea salt and a bit of pepper.

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Place the pumpkin halves skin side up in a baking dish with 2 inches of water (This is the poaching method). Bake for about 45 minutes until the pumpkin flesh is soft. If the water gets nearly all evaporated, add boiling water to keep the poaching process going. Cool, remove the skin and puree the flesh of the pumpkin.

¼ teaspoon salt
¾ cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
2 eggs
12 oz unsweetened evaporated milk

Mix the ingredients together well.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees

Pour mix into a 9 inch baked pie shell (blind bake a nice flour and butter crust). Protect the exposed crust edges with aluminum foil so they don’t burn.

Bake the pie for 15 minutes then reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees and bake for another 30 to 45 minutes until a knife inserted in the center of the pie comes out clean. You may remove the crust protection in the last 10 minutes of baking to crisp up the crust edges.

I like my pumpkin pie with a dollop of whipped cream (not the stuff from a can!). I sometimes whip my cream flavored with a bit of almond liqueur.

This pie is always a hit at Thanksgiving. We will make the pie at the November 7th meetup. There are still four spots available.

Cooking on Howell Mountain

2009-09-16T09:29:00.000-07:00

In June of every year there is an auction event held somewhere in Napa to benefit the Howell Mountain Elementary School, a charming school that serves the community in and around Angwin atop Howell Mountain. Our good friends Jacalyn and Allen Spence have a vineyard and winery they have been building nearby for over a decade now. It is one of our favorite places to visit with the only kitchen I like to cook in other than my own. Jacalyn volunteers for the auction in some major leadership role every year. We make sure to attend the auction to support Jacalyn and Allen and to share their company afterward overnight at their home. It is absolutely bucolic.

Well, usually it is. This weekend Stacy and I along with a few of our friends cooked, served, and cleaned up after a five course meal for 60 folks that was auctioned in June for $100 a seat. Saturday was a very long and busy day that started at 3 AM when our frightened dog awakened us to let us know there was a thunderstorm directly over our house as all 95 pounds of quivering mutt-head tried desperately to get under Stacy’s pillow to become invisible. Sleep deprived and groggy, we rose early to start the day. After walking our dogs, starting 8 pounds of beans to soak, and loading my truck and borrowed trailer full of food and service equipment, we headed north just after 9 AM to pick up our friends Buda and Deb at their home on Portero Hill. The four of us made a hectic twenty minute stop at the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market to pick up three flats of stone fruit, 20 sweet baguettes, and a few other items to complete the shopping for the feast. After driving another hour and a half, we were atop Howell Mountain by noon to drop off the trailer at Summit Lake Winery so the team there would set up the dining table and the plating station. At about 1 PM we started cooking at the Spence Winery at the other end of Summit Lake Drive.

All afternoon six of us chopped, sliced, emulsified, and tasted enough salad, heirloom tomatoes, vinaigrettes, cucumbers, and humus to finish the prep. We sizzled a full 750ml of garlic oil that made the whole house smell like a Texas toast factory. All went smoothly in the Spence kitchen with only a few hiccups like ransacking my coolers for the Dijon mustard and not finding it until after we had scrounged some from Jacalyn’s fridge. This made getting the taste profile of the vinaigrettes a challenge as the mustard we scrounged had a much higher salt content than what I written the recipe for, which is why the recipe says “salt to taste”. After removing some of the mix and adding more vinegar, the base balanced and we added the oil to emulsify a delicious balsamic vinaigrette for the bruschetta.

By 4 PM we had reloaded my truck and headed for Summit Lake Winery. As we pulled into the long gravel drive between the blocks of vines towards the house, we saw what the team had accomplished while we were cooking. The table was beautifully set with white table cloths and chair covers, gold chargers, gold flatware, and alternating red, gold, and black napkins and chair bows. The look of it took my breath away, and the length of it reminded me that we had a lot of work ahead of us.

The house at Summit Lake is essentially a cabin with drop-dead gorgeous views of the Valley, but a small 1940’s kitchen. We set up our stations on tables and a hutch to finish our dishes. The final prep involved blending the avocados and lime juice into two gallons of avocado corn soup and staging the containers of it in a large cooler while the beans simmered in my 16 quart pot on a portable stove on the patio adjacent to the kitchen. We also had to make the cilantro oil which turned out to be the biggest challenge of the afternoon. In the confusion of moving from one location to another to prepare the meal, the Italian parsley brought to garnish the entrée was chopped with the cilantro and blended with extra virgin olive oil for the cilantro oil. This mistake caused the blender to be overloaded and the straining process was completely clogged as the parsley absorbed the oil. After struggling with the green glob for 45 minutes, Buda was able to extract enough of the herb oil for the soup course. We would find out later though that we would have a crisis looking for a garnish to add color to the entrée dish.

At 5 PM our first guest arrived a full hour early. Heather welcomed him, gave him a glass of wine and took him away from the kitchen to the lawn to enjoy the view and the beverage. By 5:45 several guests had gathered in the orchard in front of the winery building, so we decided to send out appetizers 15 minutes ahead of the “official” start time of the party. Humus was piped onto cucumber rounds along with a dollop of Greek yogurt and toasted sesame seeds as the first appetizer. Mark, proprietor of Summit Lake, sliced gorgeous figs in half and then opened each one into a v-shape. He then nestled a small piece of chevre into the slit followed by a drizzle of peppered honey over the cheese as the second appetizer. Meanwhile Stacy and Jacalyn sliced four gallons of rounds from the fresh baguettes. They then went to Allen who brushed one side of each round with the garlic oil and toasted them in my toaster oven as the base for the third appetizer: heirloom tomato brushetta. Buda and I topped the toasted rounds with the tomatoes we had chopped earlier in the day which had been marinating in a balsamic vinaigrette for a few hours. With a bit of basil chiffonade to garnish the dish, we sent them out to the hungry guests. More and more guests arrived over the next half hour as my team continued to crank out appetizers to feed them. We were operating like a well oiled machine.

At 6:30 PM I went out to the appetizer station to let Heather (the other half of the Summit Lake team), know that the kitchen was standing by ready to start meal service at the table. Around 6:45, we transported the soup course to the plating station near the dining table about 150 yards from the kitchen. We executed the plating process by spreading bowls onto a table followed by two of us ladling soup into each bowl; two more drizzling crème fraiche onto the pale green soup; followed by another adding avocado balls; finished by another team member drizzling cilantro oil to finish each bowl. Once plated, the bowls were loaded onto trays for service and sent to the table. This was repeated over and over again until the entire table was served. Serving four courses on that long table was looking like hard work!

After all of the soups were on the table, we met the biggest challenge of the day: The team had to be split in two. I would travel back to the Spence’s kitchen with Jacalyn as my helper to finish the entrée and make the cabernet sauce while Buda led the rest of the team to bus soup bowls and send out the stone fruit salad. Jacalyn and I left on a dead run to my truck to make the trip to her house as Buda took command of the service team. As the old beast roared to life, the clock on the dash read 7:08 PM. This created yet another concern as the sun would set at 7:20, leaving us in the dark to finish service. Four minutes later we were at the Spence’s. We quickly removed the one-time-use aluminum braising pans from the oven one by one, each one containing over 16 pounds of short ribs. Each pan made a trip to the sink where I let it protrude a bit over the sink from the counter with a container ready in the sink to catch the braising liquid. I then punctured the end of the braising pan with my knife to let the liquid run out of the pan. The drained pan, with the ribs still inside and covered, were then placed into an identical braiser to keep any remaining juice in the pan. This technique enabled us to drain the braising liquid from 48 pounds of ribs without uncovering the pans. The liquid was then strained into a large pan on the stove to make the cabernet gravy. We repeated this procedure three times with one mishap when one pan leaked a trail to the sink. With her dog lapping ahead of us, Jacalyn and I made a quick cleaning of the floor as the sauce heated on the stovetop. The liquid was thickened into a beautiful red gravy using a roux I had made from the tallow I skimmed from the initial braise of the meat. This saved time and made a rich, flavorful gravy.

Once we had the gravy into containers we loaded them into my truck with the braising pans and covered both with a blanket to keep them hot. It was 7:20 PM as we headed back to Summit Lake with twilight falling. Other than a moonless darkness quickly falling around us the timing worked well as the last of the salad plates were being bused as we starting plating short ribs with cabernet sauce and cannellini runner beans with Italian parsley. Where is the parsley? Buda and I dashed back to the kitchen to find the missing herb that would garnish the pale white beans. It was then that I realized we had blended all of the parsley along with the cilantro earlier during the last prep. Oops. Undaunted, we quickly made a chiffonade of the basil left-over from the bruschetta, and flew back to the plating station. By this time it was full darkness with very little lighting provided by some decorative lights strung in a nearby tree. I had to remove the ribs by feel from the scalding braise. Somehow we managed to plate for all of our guests followed by plates for our hungry staff that had been hard at work since early morning with very little to eat other than samples of what we prepared for our guests. We were famished and satisfied that we had fed so many people an elegant and scrumptious meal.

We all grabbed a plate and settled into some empty seats along the table that were left unused by eight no-shows. They really missed out on some good ribs. The sauce had started as 12 pounds of beef knuckles a week earlier. I had roasted the bones with the little bit of meat they had on them which all went into a stock that was slow simmered for over 12 hours. The finished stock contained so much gelatin that it set up like Jell-O. This was added to the braise along with heirloom tomatoes that had been canned in our August 2nd meetup , and a beautiful Napa Cabernet Sauvignon that the Spence’s had made. The ribs were braised last Thursday for two and a half hours at 320 degrees. Once cooked, the braising liquid was de-fatted and added to the one-use aluminum braising pans along with 20 ribs in each pan. The tallow was slow cooked with all-purpose flour the same day to make a blond roux which was then stored in my refrigerator. The pans were then sealed and refrigerated until Saturday at 2:30 PM when we put them into 250 degree ovens to reheat for dinner. The long cooking process married the flavors of the allspice and wine and tomatoes to succulent perfection. The velvety gravy executed a perfect pairing between the dish and the Howell Mountain Cabernet that was served with dinner. The beans added that contrast that created a magical combination of flavors and textures and with the basil chiffonade, color too.

Once done with the entrée, it was back to work to clear the dinner plates and serve our dessert. Heather had made four Mexican chocolate tortes that were like cinnamon chocolate ganoush. These were plated alongside a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Both received a generous spoonful of raspberry sauce that I had made a few weeks before, froze, and thawed that day. Although plating in the dark meant some drips on the plates, it was decadently delicious.

Now all that was left was to clean up. At 9:30 PM we wearily made our way back to the Spence’s for some beautiful 2006 Cabernet from their winery. We sat up until about 11 PM chatting about the dinner party, laughing at our mistakes, loving the wine, and just having fun together. The last things I remember from the night were my head hitting the pillow, blinking once and seeing morning.

Time to get up and enjoy the Wine Country!

Grilled corn and mushrooms

2009-09-06T14:51:00.001-07:00

Last week I promised to recreate the corn and mushroom dish we fell in love with at Slanted Door. It is actually quite simple to do, as many dishes are that let the fresh ingredients express themselves. Here’s the recipe:

Slanted Door Grilled Sweet Corn
Serves 4 as a side dish

Grill 2 ears of fresh sweet corn. Cool and strip the kernels from the cobs.
Chop a dozen small chanterelle or shitake mushrooms into medium dice (each dice about four times the size of a kernel of corn)
Heat 1 tablespoon peanut oil to smoking in a wok.
Keep the heat below the wok on high and work quickly.
Add mushrooms and sweat until they release their moisture
Add corn kernels and 1 teaspoon fish sauce.
Once corn is heated, serve and enjoy.

Last week, Stacy and I had one of those rare Friday vacation days to enjoy together, just the two of us. After luxuriously sleeping in until 7:30 AM, we rose, fed our dogs and walked them a couple of miles to get our blood flowing again. One back home and showered, we enjoyed a light breakfast of Bellwether Farms sheep’s milk yogurt with fresh berries followed by a hot shower. What a wonderful way to get our goof-off day started.

Well, not quite a goof-off day. We did have a mission to accomplish as part of our preparation for the Sept 12 benefit dinner party on Howell Mountain: I needed to measure the oven at Spence Vineyards to make sure 48 pounds of braised short ribs would fit in it, which is the one hot dish we plan to serve next Saturday. A trip to Howell Mountain gave us the opportunity to make a day trip to the Wine Country, which is one of our favorite things to do to relax and enjoy each other’s company. I also had several phone calls to make to stay on top of my consulting business, which I planned to do from the car during the hour and a half drive from our home in Burlingame to Angwin on top of Howell Mountain.

Then there was the Bay Bridge closure to contend with. We chose to route across the San Mateo Bridge to get to 880 and travel North to Vallejo on 80 and over on 37 to 29 for the drive up the Napa Valley. Traffic was stop and go on the East side of the San Mateo Bridge as we crawled towards 880. It took a half hour longer than expected to get to Napa which meant I had to lead my conference call from the passenger seat of the truck as Stacy sped North. As we neared Saint Helena, the traffic slowed to a craw again prompting Stacy to leave the line of cars to taste some wine at Hall Winery. I was able to wrap up my call as she eased the truck into a shaded parking space much to Stacy’s delight.

Scott, our pourer at Hall was very friendly and eager to share all of the sustainably farmed wines including some delicious single vineyard bottling of three different varietals. We really like the two sauvignon blancs that comprise all of the white wine program for Hall. Their T-Bar-T at $22 was a rich and complex blend of SB and vigonier and a touch of new French oak that we highly recommend. We also loved the Diamond Mountain Cab which is only available at the winery. It was luscious with a good balance of dark berry fruit and oak and a long finish. Yum. It is $100 per bottle though, which makes it a special occasion wine and more than we wanted to pay. It was nice to have a taste, though.

After our tasting, we back tracked a few hundred yards to buy three of specialty sandwiches from the deli in the back of Dean and Deluca. Stacy also bought a bag of chips and a German chocolate cupcake to share. Then we got back into traffic to make the final slog into Saint Helena to pick up a case of olive oil from Olivier Napa Valley. They recycle bottles and the customer fills their own bottle from the large copper vats of oils that include small tasting cups and crunchy bread for tasting the oils. It is nice to taste and compare the different oils to find what you like the most before buying. We bought six Mission and six Arbequina that I will use for cooking, making vinaigrette, mayo and aioli.

After loading the case of oil into our truck we headed up Howell Mountain to Spence Vineyards where we enjoyed a leisurely lunch with Allen Spence on his porch overlooking his vineyards and expansive herb garden. It was such a beautiful day to munch delectable sandwiches in an Eden-like setting even with the swarm of hornets that wanted part of our lunch, or a nibble of our skin for their lunch. I felt reconnected to nature in a very real way, and content too.

The oven checked out so I believe there will be enough room for braising all 48 pounds of short ribs next Saturday if I combine the space of their Viking oven in the kitchen with the gas grill on their porch. It will be challenging to control the heat of the grill and to pack the braisers so that the meat fits and still develops the flavor profile I’m looking for to delight 60 diners at dinner next week, but I think we can manage.. Wish me luck, please!

After lunch, Stacy and I were back on the road, although this time we were on back roads between Calistoga and Occidental. The drive over the mountains was glorious as we sought to accomplish our second mission: picking up two cases of Baletto Pinot Gris that will be served with the dinner next Saturday. It’s a crisp refreshing wine that sells for $9.80 a bottle if you buy a case. When a wine is both affordable and good we like to buy quantity to share. A quick stop at Baletto and then we went around the corner to Lynmar to relax in their garden overlooking the Quail Hill Vineyard while enjoying their reserve tasting of two chardonnays and two pinots. They served the 2006 La Sereinité and 2007 Old Wente selection chardonnays. The La Sereinité was superb and priced accordingly. The Wente was okay and while priced much less than the LS, it wasn’t something we would buy as it seemed to heavily oaked. The pinots were the 2006 Russian River and 2007 Terra de Promissio Vineyard. Both were quite good and priced fairly (if you get the member discount that is). Stacy and I lingered at Lynmar to enjoy the smells of their organic vegetable and herb garden and to stroll the grounds to enjoy the late afternoon mild weather. It was blissful.

We headed south on 101 from Santa Rosa just before 4 PM. As we got to Petaluma a half hour later we saw miles of cars stacked up to get onto roads that connected North Bound 101 to points east. I mean miles and miles of cars that didn’t seem to be moving at all. Then just north of Sausalito, Southbound 101 came to a grinding halt. It took us ½ hour to go 2 miles to the Spencer Avenue exit to make our way down the cliffs into the downtown district of Sausalito. We decided to take refuge in our favorite sushi restaurant for an hour or so to let rush-hour traffic dissipate.

Sushi Ran is one block of the main drag just across from the marina in Sausalito. It is housed in the ground floors of two buildings separated by a breezeway in a small office complex. One building is the sushi bar and restaurant which is always crowded with narrow passages between tables making it difficult for the patrons and wait staff no navigate without occasionally jostling a seated diner. We prefer the bar across the breezeway with expansive spaces to relax both at the bar and at cocktail tables inside and on the patio. They serve a full dinner menu to patrons there along with wines, a vast selection of sakes, and beer and well drinks. We sat and enjoyed fresh hamachi nigiri, roasted kumamoto oysters, spicy tuna rolls, and scallop dumplings along with a chilled, floral sake called Akitabare that was poured to overflowing into a clear glass set inside a lacquered wooden box. Everything was great although the spicy tuna rolls were something we would not order again.

The bar at Sushi Ran is a typical sushi bar atmosphere where patrons will strike up friendly conversations with strangers seated next to them. We met a fellow foodie couple also taking refuge at the bar before the showing of Julia & Julie at the nearby theater. They live in Tiburon and make their own wines at their weekend place in Sonoma. They are very fortunate to get access to fruit that is contracted for Napa Silver Oak Cabernet. Apparently during harvest some clusters fall off the tractor onto his crush pad where he just lets the fruit speak for itself. We hope to be invited to dinner there soon!

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

Gourmet Corn on the Cob?

2009-08-30T14:13:00.001-07:00

How many of us remember going to a picnic where there was a pot of boiled corn on the cob? I always remember thinking what a perfect food – it tastes great, looks great, and comes on its own serving utensil. I always liked mine rolled in butter with a bit of salt. Give me a burger with ketchup and onions then I’m in heaven.

As an adult I still love corn on the cob, especially if it is picked no more than the the day before I eat it. This is a great year for sweet corn. There is a stall at the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market that has pretty good white corn. The best I have had, ever, is the heirloom yellow and white that a farmer offers at the Burlingame Farmer’s Market on Sunday. The corn is grown in Gilroy where the hot weather is perfect for growing grain like corn. The farmer has consistently had white corn that is super sweet and crisp. Occasionally they have the heirloom variety which is also crisp and sweet with a more complex almost nutty flavor that comes through when I grill it.

There are a few basic ways I cook fresh corn depending on if I want to fire up my grill or not. Friday and Saturday were sweltering hot in Burlingame, so I took the kitchen outside to my simple Weber kettle grill. About 30 minutes before grilling the corn, I start the coals in my chimney to get the grill going, and I put the ears in my sink in cold water to soak. Be sure to leave the husks on for outdoor grilling. When ready, I pour the glowing coals onto one side of the grill so that I have two distinct cooking areas: One over direct heat which has the coals below, and the other side for indirect heat that does not have any coals below. I always set up my grill this way no matter what I plan to cook. For meats, I sear over the coals with the lid off to get perfect grill marks, and finish indirect with the lid on to get the perfect temperature and a good infusion of smoke. Before the meat or vegetables go on, I place the corn at the edge of the direct heat area to get the steam going inside the husks. I rotate the corn a quarter turn every three or four minutes as the husks get a toasted look to them. Once the whole corn is tan, I remove from the grill and wrap in foil while I cook the meat, which takes five to seven minutes depending on what I am grilling (usually boneless chicken breasts, hamburgers, or steaks). While the meat is resting I shuck the corn. If all I want is some butter and salt, I shuck an ear, roll in butter, have Stacy sprinkle a bit of salt while I rotate the ear, and put it back into the foil to keep it hot. I repeat this process one ear at a time. If I want some grill marks on the corn, I take the shucked ears to my grill for a quick sear over direct heat and then move them to the indirect side to keep hot. I then repeat the butter and salt process and rewrap the ears to keep them hot until opened at the table. Delicious!

This weekend Stacy and I enjoyed one of those rare weekends that our plans were simply “do nothing”. We savor the opportunity to be completely spontaneous for two days particularly over a hot and lazy late summer weekend. We made our usual trip to the Market with our only task to buy a few items for our meals over the coming week. After picking up eggs, plums, peaches, strawberries, runner beans, red onions, a few varieties of heirloom tomatoes, English peas, Brussels sprouts (the first of the season), and some carrots, we decided to have lunch seated at the bar at Slanted Door. If you arrive a few minutes before eleven you are guaranteed a seat at the bar, and lately even a table if you want. We like to sit at the bar to chat with the bartender as we enjoy a sort of Asian tapas meal. Stacy loves the Reposado (rested and aged in wood) margarita up with no salt which is served in a chilled martini glass. I always ask the bartender for a white wine recommendation since their wine list is incomprehensible to me as I rarely drink the floral sweet wines from Eastern Europe that they feature. I usually get a dry Riesling reminiscent of Chablis that pairs well with the flavors Chef Phan imparts into his dishes.

The food is always fresh and a mix of seasonal and regional ingredients that Phan uses to achieve his fusion of East and West. The menu includes a vegetables section at the bottom that features something sourced from a local farm as an ingredient in a vegetable side dish. We frequently order a vegetable dish accompanied by broken white rice as our entrée, as we did this Saturday. The dish was white corn from Catalan Family Farm that was grilled and stripped from the ears. The chef then fired some chanterelles in a hot oiled wok with some scallions, fish sauce, a hint of chili, and the corn kernels.

I plan to duplicate the recipe tonight using my Lodge cast iron wok and the heirloom corn I bought today at the Burlingame Market. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Chicken Salad

2009-08-26T11:18:00.000-07:00

Chicken salad sandwiches were something I grew up eating. Recently I reconnected with this simple dish and found I really like it when it is made from scratch with fresh ingredients. It is also a healthy and inexpensive meal. I buy whole chickens and then de-bone them myself because I know where the meat comes from and how fresh it is. Also, I buy a whole natural chicken for what it costs to buy just the breasts from the meat counter.

On September 19th I plan to lead a class at my house to teach the knife skills necessary to accomplish this simple task and create a few dishes from a single, whole chicken. From one chicken Stacy and I get a nice meal of roasted or grilled "airline" breasts. I also make stock from the carcass which I use for soups or to make risotto or steam rice or let soak into pasta. I use stock as a base for pan gravy sometimes when I want a bit more comfort in our meal when we eat the breasts. The other parts: the legs, thighs and wings are used for quick meals.

When I de-bone the chicken, I de-bone the thighs and leave the bones in the legs and wings as I don't find the resulting boneless cuts worth the effort. I roll the boneless thighs and set next to the legs and wings and roast them with the carcass as part of the de-boning process. The roasted carcasses and pan drippings go into the freezer in a bag until I have enough bones to make it worthwhile to spend a few hours making stock. The legs and thighs go into the refrigerator and the breasts to a brine for dinner that same day. It takes me about 5 to 10 minutes to complete the deboning and another 15 minutes to roast and de-glaze the roasting pan.

Later in the week I slice the boneless thighs and strip the meat from the legs to use in salads. The wings are used for spicy wings or just eaten cold for lunch one day. My favorite salad is my aioli based chicken salad. I love it on toasted bread for lunch. Sometimes Stacy and I will eat it for dinner. I usually produce four portions from the legs and thighs of one chicken, so it is a very inexpensive food. It is labor intensive to make a fresh salad if you cut the vegetables to get the best texture and flavor from the salad..

I start by making my own aioli which is described in an earlier post. This is not hard with a power mixer and tastes so much better than store-bought mayo. For my salad I use one egg yolk and 1/2 cup of oil in the aioli. Then I cut fresh carrots into a brunoise; fresh onion and celery into a small dice; And then I add pickles. I love pickles. I make my own dill using all sorts of vegetables like zucchini squash, radishes and even turnips. I make bread and butter pickles with onions and cucumbers and sweet red or yellow peppers. For my salad, I drain the pickles and then chop them into dice the same sizes as my fresh vegetables. Next, I add a bit of mustard and paprika. Sometimes I throw in some drained capers if I have them in the fridge. I mix the chicken meat and everything else in the aioli, adjust the seasonings and it's ready to eat.

I did the math to calculate what all of the meals cost when I start from whole chickens. A whole natural Fulton Valley Farms chicken costs about $3 per pound. I recommend that you buy natural over organic free range as the chickens live a better life. The best are pasture-raised if you can find and afford them. They cost $5 or $6 per pound. With a natural chicken the whole 3 lb bird costs about $10. Add a pasture raised egg for the aioli which costs 60 cents each. I make egg white omelets from the whites since the aioli only uses the yolk. I estimate that the oil, vegetables, pickles, mustard and spices adds about $4 (I use 50% extra-virgin olive oil and 50% salad oil in my aioli for chicken salad). So for $15 I get two entrees, an egg white omelet and the filling for four sandwiches. Not only do all of these meals taste great, the are also inexpensive!

Do I have to go back to school?

2009-08-23T19:11:00.001-07:00

Every August it seems like summer will last forever. The long days and warm weather make our back deck perfect for dining, or just sitting and reading a book or chatting over a glass of wine. Then suddenly it seems everyone kicks into a frantic gear to get the kids back to school which markedly changes the character or our neighborhood. Instead of leisurely walks with our dogs along quiet streets on weekday mornings, we either rise at 6 AM or share the narrow roads with speeding cars driven by parents dropping off their children at the high school in our neighborhood. Summer is coming to an end, which means it will soon be harvest season.

We should have been more prepared for the coming change when we saw table grapes appear at the Market stalls. There are all sorts of sweet red and yellow grapes available now that add color and texture to appetizers or make simple snacks. And they are good this year. My friends in the wine business are telling me that 2009 looks like a strong harvest of high quality fruit for California. The 2007 vintage was good with many white wines now available from that vintage. We have been enjoying many 2005 red wines lately, too. We tend to drink more white wine in the summer because our diet focuses more on light and raw dishes like cold vegetable-based soups and salads. Our entrees are usually fish, chicken, or legumes, which complement the acidity and light fruit in white wines. As the weather turns cooler we tend to eat darker greens like chard and kale and our entrees are built on a canvas of sauces which complement the bolder flavors of red wines.

I am already thinking ahead to what we will be cooking and eating as the harvest peaks and wanes. We want to capture the best of the harvest to preserve for winter in our freezer or in canning jars. This Saturday Stacy and I held our class that was donated to benefit the Lick-Wilmerding High School. It was also the first time since March that I braised beef. I designed the menu to be fun and interesting for the folks that bid so generously to participate and to practice the September 12 menu that I will cook for 60 people that generously bid on seats to benefit the Howell mountain Elementary School. We became involved in both benefits through friends. Our friend Mark, who teaches physics at Lick-Wilmerding collaborated for the Saturday class donation; and our friends Jacalyn and Allen Spence of Spence Vineyards along with Summit Lake winery conceived the September 12 party, which I volunteered to cater. It seemed fitting to me that the menu for both events would be the same. The first in August to teach and practice at the scale of a 12-person garden party followed in September as a catering job with experienced cooks by my side to serve 60 in the vineyards at Summit Lake Winery.

The menu is typical of what I would serve to my friends at a dinner party since it offers the cook the opportunity to make almost everything ahead so the cook enjoys the meal at the table along with the guests. It is also useful for a larger scale party where there are limited kitchen resources. When I say limited, I mean cooking for 60 people at a location that has what I believe to be an antique 1940’s Autogas stove and oven. Suffice to say, it isn’t nearly large enough to cook for a dinner of that scale. My solution to this challenge is to serve all courses cold except the entrée which will be braised offsite and transported in coolers to the dinner. The menu is a juxtaposition of summer and winter reflective of the time of year.
Here’s the menu we cooked on Saturday.
I have posted the recipe files here.
(You must be a member of Cooking-Fresh to view the file)

Appetizers: Heirloom Tomato Buschetta
Fresh Figs with Peppered Honey and Chevre

Soup: Chilled Avocado Corn Soup with Cilantro Oil

Salad: Stone Fruit Salad with Asian vinaigrette

Entrée: Beef Short Ribs Braised in Howell Mountain Cabernet
Cabernet Sauce
Canellini Runner Beans Dressed with Garlic Infused Olive Oil

Dessert: Ghiradelli Award-Wining Chocolate Brownies
Home Made Raspberry Ice Cream
Raspberry Sauce

This five course meal may seem complicated and way too much work for one cook to prepare and serve, but it is easy with a bit of planning and cooking ahead to spread the work out so you aren’t slaving in the kitchen hours before the meal. Here’s how:

Weekend before: Make beef stock (for entrée) and make the corn soup base (up to the point that you add avocadoes). Store the stock in the fridger. Freeze the soup base. Start thaw two days before serving in the refrigerator

Two or three days before: Make ice cream and raspberry sauce. Keep the ice cream in the freezer and store sauce in refrigerator.

One or two days before: Braise the beef using your stock. Strain and finish the sauce. Recombine and store in refrigerator in the vessel you will use to reheat the dish.

One day before: Make garlic-infused olive oil for bruschetta. Make the vinaigrettes for the bruschetta and for the stone fruit salads. Make the peppered honey, seal in an air-tight container and store at room temperature. Shop for the remaining ingredients (if we’re serving on Saturday then we buy from the Farmer’s Market in the AM). Put the white wines into the fridge to chill and stand the reds up on their bottoms in your pantry or some other dark, room temp spot in your house (This makes the wine better when opened, trust me).

With all of the work you have done during the days leading up to the party, you greatly simplify what remains to do before your guests arrive, which are:

Stone Fruit Salad: Several hours before your guests arrive, slice the fruit and onion, add to vinaigrette and stage in refrigerator. Wash the greens and stage in refrigerator. When it’s time to serve the salad course, you simply toss greens with the vinaigrette, put some greens on each plate, top with fruit and onions and serve.

Soup: About an hour before guests arrive, blend the avocados and lime with the thawed soup base and refrigerate. Also blend the cilantro and oil and sieve. This takes about ½ hour of unattended time to let the oil come through the cheesecloth, so just let it do it’s thing on a counter in your kitchen. When ready, put into the refrigerator until service time. When it’s time to serve, place ½ cup of blended soup in each bowl, add the avocado balls and crème fraiche then drizzle with cilantro oil and serve.

Bruschetta: About an hour before the guests arrive, chop tomatoes and toss in vinaigrette and leave out on the counter; slice, brush with oil and toast bread ovals. Assemble bruschetta as your guests arrive.

Figs: One hour before guests arrive slice the figs and add the cheese. Store at room temp to allow the cheese to ripen. Drizzle with honey moments before your guests arrive.

Entrée: A few hours before guests arrive, place the meat and sauce into a low oven, say 250 degrees. Just leave it in there until ready to serve. Also, shuck and wash the beans. Cut the onions and store both in the fridge. Set the beans and onions on the stove to simmer when you are ready to sit down for the soup. Check the beans between courses. When they are done, turn off the heat and let them sit until you are ready serve. To serve the entrée, take the meat and sauce out of the oven. Pool a bit of the sauce on each plate; add a rib and a side of beans that you strain out of the cooking liquid with a slotted spoon to each plate. Dress the beans with a bit of oil and salt and serve the plates.
The entree was the most kitchen time during the meal since it is the star of the meal and served hot it deserved the attention. Now linger over your wine with your guests and serve dessert when you feel it is time to transition the party.

Dessert: Bake the brownies either the day of the party or the day before. If you have two ovens and time it right you can mix the brownie dough and get them into the oven just before your guests arrive so they are warm when served. Also, take the ice cream out of the freezer and move to the refrigerator at the start of appetizers. That way it will be softened for service. The dessert service is simply place a brownie on a plate along with a side of ice cream and drizzle the raspberry sauce however you like.

You have probably noticed that the most stressful time for the cook is right before guests arrive. Don’t worry if you are still in the kitchen at the time you expect guests. It is rare that all of your guests arrive on time. I always welcome any one early into the kitchen to help with the final prep of the meal. It helps break the ice and also relieves me of some of the hectic work in that last critical half hour before the party starts. Be prepared to accept offers of help or ask for help as your guests arrive as it will make the party more fun for you and your guests.

Finally, for those of you dropping your kids off at school in the morning, please keep mindful that the groggy couple you see walking their dogs is not awake and needs a brake.

Heirloom Tomato Bruschetta

2009-08-18T08:48:00.000-07:00

The heirloom tomatoes are at their peak right now. They are plump, juicy and burst with flavor. We are eating all kinds of cherry, early girl, purple Cherokee, yellow boy, red and green zebra, and pineapple varieties. I have developed the best recipe for bruschetta which was served as an appetizer at our Lam Family cooking party on Saturday. Stacy commented that the bruschetta "disappeared like bubbles". Justine, Chrissy and Jennifer ate them almost as fast as they made them. I like the hint of garlic notes in the vinaigrette and in the oil brushed onto the bread. We used early girl, yellow boy, and red zebra tomatoes. The combination of tomatoes made the bruschetta beautiful and delicious.

Bruschetta
1 sweet baguette sliced into ovals
4 medium tomatoes chopped
2 cloves garlic minced
2/3 cup of olive oil
Basil chiffonade as garnish

Method
Heat garlic and oil to a sizzle and remove from heat (infuses the garlic into the oil)
Brush one side of bread slices with oil and toast
Reserve garlic oil to make vinaigrette

To serve, toss tomato chunks in vinaigrette
Top bread slices oil side up with tomato chunks using a slotted spoon
Garnish with basil and serve

Balsamic vinaigrette

Ingredients
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
1/2 cup garlic infused olive oil (see above)

Method
Mix first four ingredients into a bowl
vigorously whisk oil in a stream to emulsify

Fresh figs with chevre and peppered honey

2009-08-11T11:23:00.000-07:00

Fresh figs are in season now and they are delicious. I came across a wonderful appetizer recipe using fresh figs that I used as an amuse bouche for a multi-course meal on Saturday evening. It is elegant, delicious, easy to make and beautiful to look at.

Fresh figs with chevre and peppered honey

2 oz of floral honey ( I used blackberry)
Several grinds of black pepper from the mill

Mix honey and pepper together in a small bowl.

12 figs
2 oz chevre. (I used the Humbolt Fog which is made by Cypress Grove)

Wash and clip the points off the figs.
Slice the figs into quarters from where the point was to almost the bottom, leaving the bottom attached so that you can open the fig. Did you know that figs are actually flowers that have turned in on themselves? That's why the inside looks like a flower when opened up.

Place each fig on a platter as an appetizer or on individual small plates as an amuse bouche. Put a small piece of the chevre in the center of each fig. Like all cheese courses, let the dish rest for about an hour so that the cheese ripens. Then drizzle the peppered honey on top and serve.

Note: The honey goes on just before service since it will run out of the fig onto the plate if you put it on and then ripen the cheese.

Enjoy!

Veal Stock is Elegance

2009-07-17T14:28:00.000-07:00

If you want to run with the big cooks you gotta learn to make veal stock as veal stock is the perfect canvas to illustrate a sauce onto. Veal stock is rich although by itself seems neutral. When it is the base of a sauce, though, it makes the flavors of the sauce pop.

I don't like stocks that are in boxes and cans at the grocery store for many reasons pertaining to healthy eating. I especially don't like them since they seem devoid of what makes stock magical in a sauce: GELATIN! To get the best flavor and texture in my stock, I make from scratch. I make gallons of chicken stock particularly in the summer when chicken appears as our entree frequently. Chicken stock is the most versatile stock for light soups and I love it in risotto and pasta. Veal stock, on the other hand, I make in small quantities since I buy the bones from my butcher specifically for stock making (for chicken stock I always have plenty of carcasses in my freezer because I buy whole chickens and de-bone them myself). The expense and scarcity of veal stock in my freezer means that we only use the stuff for special occasions.

This Saturday I am cooking for three other couples and us as our turn in the HDASA annual rotation. HDASA, "Hammered, Drunk, and Stupid Again", is our wine and food group. The odd name was chosen to make the point that we don't take ourselves too seriously. I think it was captured in a round table brainstorming when we all had drunk quite alot of really good cab which made the name reflect the condition we were in at the time. But I digress. I care a great deal about these folks, so I put my heart and soul into the meal whenever it rotates to our house. As part of the prep, I made a pot of veal stock that I will use in a sauce for the lamb shank with Cabernet sauce entree.

This stock started with three veal necks from the local butcher. Necks and other knuckles make excellent stocks because of all the connective tissue in the joints. The total weight of the three necks was about five pounds which is a good amount for my 8-quart stock pot (I make chicken stock in a 16-quart model).

Veal Stock
5 lbs veal necks or other joints
3 yellow onions cut into chunks
4 medium carrots cut oblique
6 outside celery stalks cut on a bias
2 leeks washed. Pale parts sliced length-wise. Some of the dark green leaves reserved for the bouquet de garni
1 bunch parsley

Bouquet de Garni
A selection of herbs and spices tied into a leek leaf bundle.
For this stock I chose two bay leaves, rainbow peppercorns, fresh rosemary, fresh thyme, fresh oregano, and fresh marjoram.

Method
I like to roast the bones for a richer, more complex stock.
Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees F
Spread vegetables in a roasting pan and set the veal on top of the vegetables.
Roast until the meat is golden (lighter color makes a lighter stock, darker makes a darker stock)

Place roasted meat in stock pot and fill the pot 3/4 with water that covers the meat.
Bring the stock to a slow boil and skim the scummy foam from the top.
Add the roasted vegetables and bouquet. Return to a slow boil, skim, and lower heat to a tremble. A tremble is barely a simmer. You see the occasional bubble at the surface of the stock. This allows the stock to develop without turning the vegetables to mush.
After three hours add the parsley and cook one hour more. Add water if it gets too low. As the bones break down they make room for reduction. When I finish I have about 1/2 to 2/3 of a pot loaded before straining.

It is important to cool a stock quickly to avoid souring the stock. I fill my sink 1/2 with cold water and place the stock pot into the water. I let the water continue to fill the sink until the pot is about to float or the sink overflow, whichever comes first. Stir the stock and the sink water simultaneously to speed heat transfer.

Once cool enough to hold your finger in the stock, start the straining process. I start by using a slotted spoon to scoop out bones and vegetables from the stock pot to a coarse strainer set over a mixing bowl or other pot. Press hard on solids. When the solids are removed from the stock I strain the stock through a fine-mesh china cap into the bowl, followed by a second strain back to the stock pot. I then put the strained stock into containers that will be set in the refrigerator overnight to "freeze" the fat. It is important to de-fat any stock and this is the most efficient way. The next day you skim the frozen fat off the stock. I use the fat for frying eggs.

If you did a good job on the stock, the cold stock will be set like Jello, which is a protein-rich, low-fat goldmine. If you want demi-glace reduce the stock by 3/4.

Now, to make the peach ice cream dessert!

Urban Foraging

2009-07-14T09:55:00.000-07:00

As Stacy and I walk through our neighborhood every morning with our dogs, we see the changing seasons which includes the ripening and all too often wasting of fruits from ornamental fruit trees. Stone fruit trees are beautiful in the spring when they show their tiny, blushing blooms. As spring turns to summer, the fruits grow into flame-colored spheres hanging beneath the green leaves. One particular house along our walk has two plum trees that grow between their back fence and a street. They don't prune or water the trees, yet the trees faithfully produce an abundance of small, intensely sweet plums year in and year out. One is a green plum and the other a small red. Both are of the Hardy Plum variety which are more well suited to Northern climes, which also do very well with little or no water, and thus appear as drought tolerant trees in home landscapes.

In mid summer as the fruit ripens and falls to the ground, it saddens me that the homeowners don't show more respect to their faithful trees by eating and preserving the fruit. Instead it falls to the ground to turn into mush which feeds the rodents, opossums, and raccoons that sulk around our neighborhood at night. Or it rots, which attracts green-bottle flies, biting flies, ants, and other annoying insects.

This year, I decided to harvest as much of the fruit as I could reach when it ripened. In about fifteen minutes I had acquired one and one-half gallons of the tasty fruits and only a few puncture wounds and scrapes from the nasty thorns hiding on the thicker branches. The project made me appreciate why our ancestors devised ways to preserve fruits as almost the entire crop ripened within one week. We are hosting a meetup August 2 when we will be preserving fruits using the hot-water bath processing method, in which we will process jars of jam. These plums will make a star appearance at the event and later this year when I am enjoying some on a piece of toast I will remember the warm July day that I picked the fruits.

The epitome of summer: Chilled Watermelon Mint Soup

2009-07-13T18:45:00.001-07:00

This refreshing soup is the epitome of a warm summer day. I first made this dish as part of a multi-course meal paired with champagne and was hooked. This is not an easy dish to make as the watermelon must be pureed and sieved. I recently purchased a power juicer that makes the job much, much easier. If you don't have a juicer, I have made it many times using a sieve, so I invite you to take the time as your guests will love it.

Here's the recipe

Another challenge with this dish is to balance the sweet, salt and chile flavors. I have over spiced, over salted and over sweetened this soup to learn how to dial in the flavors. The best technique is to pour a small amount of the soup into a separate bowl and experiment with the flavors. When you get the small portion to taste perfectly, then scale the measure to the entire pot. I also recommend that you chill the soup overnight to let the flavors blend and mellow the chile a bit.

I also made watermelon sorbet from the other half of the melon since a half a melon easily makes enough soup for eight servings.

Avocado Corn Soup

2009-07-06T18:09:00.000-07:00

When the weather warms up, I like to prepare dishes that are served cold for two reasons: One the dishes are refreshing; and two, I don't have to heat the kitchen to serve the dishes, although they often do require cooking which may be done ahead. Also, I like to serve dishes in the summer that pair well with crisp wines, which introduces a broader palette of spice flavors and citrus to my cooking. One of my favorite is this avocado corn soup that is served chilled. The flavors in this dish are bold yet perfectly balanced. It may be made a day ahead except for the cilantro infused olive oil that is made no more than three hours ahead. It's a nice vegetarian dish which can be made vegan if the sour cream is omitted.

It's fun to make too. The stock of the soup is made by boiling corn cobs, corn and onions together with a bit of salt as if the cobs are the bones in the stock. The soup is brought together in a blender and then chilled for serving. Avocado balls are added to the soup as the meat of the soup to give texture to the dish. It is delicious and beautiful to look at too.

Avocado Corn Soup

6 servings as a soup course

Soup Ingredients
1 fresh ear of corn shucked
1 garlic clove peeled and smashed
4 cups water
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/4 cup minced sweet onion (vidalias work great)
1 fresh Serrano chile stem and seeds removed then the chile is minced (add the seeds back if you want more heat)
2 firm-ripe avocados
Juice of one lime
Sour cream (about 1/4 cup)

Cilantro infused olive oil ingredients
1 bunch cilantro torn from stems
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt

To make the soup, grill the corn until the kernels are lightly caramelized. Cut corn from cobs, and cut cobs into thirds. In a saute pan add water, corn cob pieces, corn, 1/2 cup onion, garlic and salt and bring to a boil. Reduce by half, remove and discard cobs, and transfer the rest to a blender and add in the chile. Blend until smooth. Add the flesh of 1-1/2 avocados to blender and blend until smooth again. Adjust seasonings and cool.

Prepare cilantro oil: Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until the cilantro is pulverized. Strain through a fine sieve into a bowl without pressing on solids. The oil should be bright green.

To serve, place soup in a bowl and cut balls of avocado with a melon baller and add to soup as the meat. Drizzle with sour cream and cilantro oil and enjoy.

Menu Planning

2009-06-23T08:26:00.000-07:00

Stacy and I support the Taste of Howell Mountain auction every year which is a wine tasting and auction that benefits the Howell Mountain Elementary School. The only public school on the mountain. Our good friends Jacalyn and Allen Spence have been building a boutique winery around their home off White Cottage Road in Angwin up there. She is the President of the Howell Mountain Vintner's and Grower's Association that produces the auction each year. This year Spence Family Vineyards has teamed up with Summit Lake Vineyards to host a dinner and movie party for fifty at Summit Lake on September 12 as one of the auction items. Since I have been unemployed for several months now, Stacy and I decided we wouldn't bid at the auction, so I volunteered to cook the meal for the September 12 party. The party is oversubscribed for 52 diners at $100 per person, which is a huge success. Of course when you add in the staff to support the event, I have to plan and execute a meal for at least 60 people at a location that has limited kitchen facilities.

The first step to planning a dinner party is to align all stakeholders on the vision for what a successful event is. The criteria we agreed on are:

Elegant outdoor dining experience for the guests that will be served in the vineyard

Pair the entree with Howell Mountain Cab

My constraints include :

Cook off site and transport to the dinner

Make the meal profitable for the charity

Use volunteers as kitchen and service staff

Limited kitchen facility at the dining location

Once we agreed on the vision for the meal and understand the constraints, then comes the menu planning. With that many people there will likely be some folks that subscribe to a vegetarian diet, so the menu will be all vegetarian except the entree which will have both a meat and vegetarian option. Elegance means multiple courses served on individual plates delivered to the diners at the table versus a buffet style meal. I decided to execute a five course dinner with four courses served cold and the entree served hot. Here's the menu:

Appetizers

Heirloom Tomato Bruschetta

Hardy Lodge Cheese Straws

Soup

Corn Avocado Soup with Cilantro Oil

Salad

Heirloom Tomato Salad Napoleon with Bufula Mozzarella and Basil

Entree

Lamb Shanks braised in Howell Mountain Cabernet with Germolata

Atop Tuscan Runner Bean Puree

Tuscan White Beans in Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauce with Germolata (vegetarian)

Gorgonzola Polenta

Dessert

Flour-less Chocolate Cake with Homemade Raspberry Ice Cream

Sounds good, huh? Note that only one course is served hot which is braised. This entire meal can be made days ahead with minimal cooking for service. Also, note how the appetizer links to the salad course. The salad is made by slicing tomatoes of different colors; staking four slices per serving then cutting the stacks into perfect squares. This creates a beautiful presentation while removing the skins from the salad. The trim is then chopped into small chunks for the bruschetta so that nothing is wasted. The dressing for the salad is the same as the bruschetta. To make the meal more interesting, the bruschetta will be served on a baguette slice that is brushed with garlic-infused olive oil. That way the two dishes become distinctly different despite being made from common ingredients. Also, since the soup course separates the appetizers from the salad course, the diners will feel that the meal is diverse and varied. And also beautiful and delicious. Also, there are two appetizers that are completely different to add depth and complexity to the tastes the diners will experience. All while making it easier for the cook to execute the meal. The cheese straws will be baked that morning and served room temperature.

The soup is served cold, so it is easily transported. However, the dish does present challenges: While the stock of the soup is a combination of white onions and corn husks, which can be made days ahead and chilled, avocado easily spoils, which is the meat in the soup. The soup will be made one day ahead and transported in coolers then the avocado balls added on-site so that the avocados are transported in their shells and processed right before serving to ensure freshness. Another challenge in the soup is the cilantro oil since the herb carries bacteria that are harmless until they see an environment with no oxygen, like being suspended in olive oil, so the cilantro oil must be made about an hour before service. The ingredients will be blended on-site to execute that ingredient and avoid making any diners ill. The tomatoes are also a challenge to keep them fresh, so they will be cut on-site and the slices refrigerated until time to serve the salad. The entree will be made days ahead, which makes a better product since the flavors marry in the dish. It will have to be re-heated on-site, so we need oven space for 60 lamb shanks. That will be a challenge. The ice cream will be made ahead and brought frozen. Cakes can be made ahead too, so that won't be hard.

I will describe the process for planning the execution of the meal in an upcoming blog. Stay tuned!

Pluot Jam

2009-06-19T09:28:00.000-07:00

Sometimes we buy more pluots and plums than we can eat at the farmer's market. We also grow Santa Rosa Plums in our yard and a guy that works with Stacy brings Santa Rosa plums to the office to give away. The season is so short every year that we want to gobble up as much of the delicious fruits as possible, but we can only eat so much. So I use the extra to make jam.

Jam is so easy and you don't need any expensive equipment. Since I put jam into 8 oz jars, I use my stock pot as the canning processor. I buy the jars at the local supermarket. I like the Kerr Quilted Crystal Jelly Jars.

The recipe is simple and works with all kinds of fruits and berries.

For every cup of cooked fruit add 1 cup of sugar and a squeeze of lemon. I peel the fruit by scoring an x on the bottom of each pluot; boiling for 30 seconds to a minute until the skins start to curl a bit; then into an ice water bath to cool. Then I peel the fruit over the sauce pan I will cook the fruit in so I don't lose any juice. Then on the stove to simmer with the lemon juice for about 20 minutes to 30 minutes to cook the fruit to mush. I leave the pits in during this part.

To test if the fruit is ready to be jellied, freeze a plate in your freezer. Put a spoon of the fruit on the frozen plate. Let it cool for a minute and then drag your finger through the dollop. If the fruit runs back together, continue cooking and test again in five minutes. If the valley stays in the fruit, then you're ready to can. I use a jar lifter, canning funnel, lid caddy (to sterilize the lids) and a magnetic lid lifter. These gadgets are cheap and make the whole job so much easier.

Remove the pits from the cooked fruit. My food mill works great for this. A colander also works. While the fruit finishes cooking with the sugar I have the jars in boiling water in my stock pot to sterilize. When ready to can, I lift and empty the jars and put on a towel where I will fill them. I then remove the same amount of water from the stock pot that will be fruit in the jars when I process the jars. That's important to avoid a big mess on your stove when you place the filled jars into the pot. Once the jars are out of the water, in go the lids to sterilize and soften the seal a bit. Careful not to leave these in more than five minutes. Meanwhile, fill the jars leaving some head room in the jars and set the lid with a ring just snug. Don't over tighten. It's okay if the last jar isn't completely filled. It will be the first one eaten! Process the jars for 10 minutes. Remove and let stand for a few hours. You can tell if the jars are sealed if the lid doesn't move when you press on it. If you're in the kitchen as the jars seal they make a clicking sound which is reassuring that you are getting good seals.

A note about pectin. Many recipes call for pectin which you can buy at the grocery store usually in the baking section. Pectin occurs naturally in fruits. Less ripe fruits have more and riper fruits have less. If the jam doesn't pass the jelly test, you may can it anyway without adding the manufactured pectin. Then rename your jars pluot spread instead of jam. It tastes divine and goes great on pancakes and toast. If you want a jam that stands at attention on the toast, then add pactin according to package instructions.

New kitchen gadget

2009-06-17T13:30:00.000-07:00

With cherry season at its peak right now, I need to find ways to process more of the fruits quickly! Last Saturday at our Summer Fruit meetup, we made a cherry sorbet that was incredible. We used the dark bing cherries that we pitted using my new cherry pit remover gadget, juiced in my Breville Elite juicer, then mixed with a bit of simple syrup I had made ahead that was perfumed with Meyer lemon, and then we froze the sorbet in my Cuisinart ice cream maker. The recipe is a basic sorbet recipe that I use with many different fruits. I use the juice of the fruit I have on-hand in the same proportion each time. Stacy calls it the essence of the fruit. For the cherry sorbet I used kirsch brandy as the spirit, which makes the cherry flavor "pop", while preventing the sorbet from freezing too hard.

The cherry pit remover gadget is a simple tool that makes pitting cherries a snap (olives too, I have been told). It is the Oxo Good Grips cherry pit remover. I bought mine at Sur La Table in San Jose. Here it is on-line for $13. There is one trick to perfect pitting: align the vertical seam of the cherry to the inside toward the handle and make sure the plunger is perfectly aligned where the stem was removed. After a few cherries, I got the hang of it and pitted a whole pound in less than two minutes. Worth every penny!

Canning Day

2009-06-16T09:26:00.000-07:00

I love pickles of all kinds. My favorites are always home canned because the flavors and colors are so much brighter. It is satisfying to open a can of homemade pickles, too, because you know where everything in the jar came from.

I spent a few hours canning some bread and butter pickles, garlicky dills, and some strawberry jam on Monday. I processed all three together since my water bath requires so much energy from my stove to bring to a boil. Also when canning I get into a rhythm so it is less work to do more in the same session versus canning small quantities each time over a series of days.

The strawberry jam was made from some left-over berries we bought fresh on Saturday. Most of the berries were used in a dessert later that same day. Since the berries don't have sulfates on them they don't keep more than two days. Canning some jam is a good way to preserve the wonderful fruits for later use. The cucumbers, peppers, onions and dill were purchased specifically for making pickles. Next year I hope to have my garden in so that the fruits and vegetables will come directly from our own land.

Here's the recipe for the bread and butter pickles that are nice snacking pickles. I also use them in mayonnaise-based salads like chicken salad for sandwiches. The juice is also nice in deviled eggs:

Crisp Bread and Butter Pickles

8 medium onions
2 large sweet red, yellow or orange peppers (green can be too herbaceous)
1/2 cup coarse Kosher salt
1 gallon unpeeled cucumbers sliced 1/4 inch
2 1/2 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups white vinegar
1 tablespoon mustard seed
1/2 teaspoon s each, ground turmeric and whole cloves

Slice onions thin. Cut pepper into thin strips. Dissolve salt in 1 cup water and pour over sliced vegetables, including cucumbers. Put some ice on top of cucumbers (use about 1 quart ice: it is the ice and salt that gives an almost brittle, crisp pickle). Let stand three to six hours, weighted with a plate: drain. Combine remaining ingredients and bring to boil. Add drained vegetables and heat to boiling point (don't boil). Pack in hot sterilized jars, filling to 1/2" from top; add lids, loosely tighten rings and process the jars in a water bath for 15 minutes.

Make sure jars are sealed. Any that did not seal, refrigerate.

Makes 6 pints.

Old Fashioned Blueberry Pancakes

2009-06-15T09:37:00.000-07:00

Pancakes are one of the best comfort foods. This week we bought extra blueberries since they are at the peak of their very short season and we couldn't resist. We also had more milk in the fridge than usual, so I decided to use both to make some old fashioned blueberry pancakes. This is as basic as a pancake recipe gets. No meringue or cultured buttermilk, and no box either. These are from scratch and easy to make. Stacy commented that they reminded her of eating a blueberry muffin, which I took as a very positive endorsement. You can omit the fruit or replace it with other fruits like strawberries, sliced stone fruits, even sauteed apples. We enjoyed these for breakfast on Sunday, which was the perfect way to start our goof-off day.

Here's the recipe:

Pancakes

Yield: Makes six generous pancakes
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 1/4 cups milk
1 egg
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1 Cup fresh blueberries, washed

Method
Together, sift the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar into a large bowl. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk, egg and melted butter; mix until just combined. Add blueberries and mix with just a few strokes to distribute through the batter.
Heat a lightly oiled griddle to 370 degrees (or over medium heat). Pour the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/2 cup for each pancake. When bubbles start to break, flip and brown on the other side. Serve hot.

Simply elegant appetizer

2009-06-11T12:26:00.001-07:00

Throwing a dinner or cocktail party can be stressful, particularly for the one that cooks all of the food. I am always looking for gourmet appetizers that are easy to make ahead of a party. My neighbor Kathy has been a caterer for many years with that seasoned wisdom that comes from "been there done that". She brought these to a dinner party at our house and Stacy fell in love with them. She recently gave me the recipe which I tried for the first time yesterday. These are incredibly easy to make! Essentially it is a cheese biscuit dough rolled out and cut into strips. These versatile munchies will be used as a garnish for a scallop on zucchini sauce dish we are making this Saturday in our Summer Fruit meetup.

Here's the recipe:

McHardy Lodge Cheese Straws
¾ Cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 oz cubed butter (make sure it is cold. I have seen cooks grate frozen butter for biscuits)
a shake of salt and a fresh grind of pepper
pinch of mixed herbs
pinch of chili powder
¾ cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
About 1 tablespoon milk

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 400
in food processor pulse all ingredients to mix - it will look like coarse corn meal
add ¾ cup grated sharp cheddar cheese and pulse again
add enough milk to combine so the dough comes together without being wet

Be sure not to overwork the dough after adding the milk. The less manipulation the lighter the biscuits will bake.
roll out on floured board
cut into straws or biscuits
bake at 400 degrees until browned about 10 minutes

Enjoy!

Hopi Blue Corn Bread

2009-06-09T09:38:00.000-07:00

The cool weather of late in the Bay Area has me wanting comfort food so I baked a skillet of corn bread using Hopi-Blue corn meal from Tierra Vegetables, a Sonoma County grower of vegetables and sheep. They make a very small amount of milled corn meal, and an even smaller amount from blue corn. They offer their produce at the San Francisco Farmer's Market and also out of their roadside stand in Santa Rosa. If you can get the blue corn meal it creates a colorful bread that makes a simple peasant dish gourmet.

The recipe below can be used with any corn meal. I like the texture when the meal is fine ground for eating pieces of the bread alongside dishes like boiled beans. If I plan to use the corn bread in a stuffing, I use a polenta grind. Either way, this is a basic and versatile recipe. For this session I grilled some white corn and stripped the ears into the batter and also sprinkled some kernels on top. This adds a nice variety in the bread.

Corn Bread

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup cornmeal

1/4 cup sugar

1 cup milk

1 large egg

1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened

Preheat oven to 400° F. and pre-heat a 10" well-seasoned cast iron skillet. If you don't have a cast iron skillet, butter 1 9-by-5-by-3 inch loaf pan.

Into a large bowl sift together flour, baking powder, and salt and whisk in cornmeal and sugar until combined well. In a bowl whisk together milk and eggs until just combined. Add butter to flour mixture and work it in with your fingers until mixture resembles coarse meal. Beat in egg mixture until just combined.

If desired, grill two ears of corn until kernels are carmelized and softened. Strip kernels from ears and divide 2/3 of corn into the batter and 1/3 for sprinkling on top before placing the skillet or pan into the oven.
Pour batter into pan and bake in middle of oven until golden and a tester comes out clean, about 40 minutes for skillet or 50 minutes for pan. Cool corn bread in pan on a rack 10 minutes and turn out onto rack to cool completely. Corn bread may be wrapped in plastic wrap and kept in a cool, dry place 2 days or frozen 2 weeks.

Pickles

2009-06-08T08:33:00.001-07:00

In the warm months we love our fresh fruits and vegetables. One of my favorites is the cucumber. I use them in a variety of salad dishes to bring that light and fresh taste to summer fare. As the season gets into full swing I also think about pickles to preserve the fruits for use in the colder months.

Some restaurants we frequent seem to pickle just about everything to accompany a gourmet sandwich. Case in point is Hog Island Oyster Bar in the Ferry Building in San Francisco and now also at the OxBow Market in Napa. They make a grilled cheese sandwich that is the best I have ever tasted, which always gets served with some pickle or other. The tart flavor of the pickle is a perfect complement to entrees that contain fat like cheese and meats.

The easiest pickling method is to use a vinegar and brine mixed with spices. This is also safer than the fermentation method, which I will cover in a future blog (great for deli style dills and sauerkraut). The vinegar and salt kill the bacteria in the pickle mixture and prevent lactoid fermentation.

Here's a recipe for dill pickles that you can use for pretty much anything you want to pickle. The great thing about this recipe is that it only takes three days before you are enjoying your pickles.

Vinegar Dills

Sterilize a 1 quart jar and lid with boiling water

Ingredients

6 or so pickling cucumbers (or zucchinis, carrots, radishes, etc, enough to tightly pack the jar)

1/2 red onion thinly sliced

2 garlic cloves peeled and sliced

1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds

1 handfull fresh dill

1 1/2 cups water

1/2 cup cider vinegar

2 tablespoons kosher salt

Method

Boil liquids to dissolve salt and cool.

Once cool, set pan with brine in an ice bath to bring temperature of liquid near freezing (this is what keeps the cucumbers crisp so they still have a crunch after pickling)

Wash and remove stems from cucumbers and then make spears by slicing into quarters lengthwise.

Stuff the jar with the cucumber spears, sliced onion and garlic. Make sure to pack tightly so the cucumbers don't float up after adding the brine.

Pour the brine over the pickles and seal the lid. Set the jar on your counter for three days turning occasionally. Then refrigerate. The pickles are ready to eat and can be stored in the fridge for a year.

Stacy and John Murphy host an instructional, nutritious, and fun hands-on cooking class one or two Saturdays each month using ingredients that come fresh from the San Francisco Farmer’s Market.

Summer Magic

2009-06-07T11:17:00.000-07:00

For a cook that focuses on using fresh and seasonal ingredients, June begins the magical season of abundance and variety of produce that continues through fall every year. Like magic every week one favorite from the Market goes out of season to be replaced by several other choices. The biggest challenge for me over the next several months is to buy only what we can eat or preserve the following week. With just two weeks before summer solstice kids are out of school for the summer and the stone fruits are coming out of the orchards in abundance. Cherries of all sorts, peaches, and apricots were offered from heaping bins at several stalls around the Farmer's Market. We said goodbye to asparagus this week as the Delta is too hot for the tender shoots (grocers will source asparagus from Washington State now). It was an exceptional asparagus year for the Delta this year that we took full advantage of. Squashes, spring onions, garlic and salad greens continue to appear at several stalls in vibrant colored skins and sublime taste.

This week I yielded to the tempting look of ugly tomatoes from Capay Farms, an organic grower that brings their produce in from Yolo County. They have their tomatoes in earlier than other purveyors by growing the vines in the ground under hoop frame canopies that have clear plastic stretched over, which raises the temperature under the frame much the same as a greenhouse. They are good tomatoes, but not as good as what we will see in July harvested from vines grown in direct sun. Nonetheless, we bought some bufala mozzarella from Cow Girl Creamery that I will pair up with one each pineapple and brandywine tomatoes and some fresh basil from my garden to make our first caprese salad of the season for Sunday dinner. Let the summer begin!

Stacy and I arrived early (about 8:30 AM) at the Market this week to be sure to get chickens from Mountain Home that were promised to be fresh, never frozen this one day from the latest flock. The birds were there as promised, although they are huge, weighing six pounds and more apiece. The girl behind the counter, daughter of the farmer that raises the birds, told us that they were processed a week later than planned because the processor was vacationing. It is amazing that the birds gain two or three pounds in a single week! The price per pound was slightly lower which makes sense given the difference in product from the first two flocks we bought from. Because of their heft, though, three chickens still rang up at over $80 total. Once I got them home I de-boned two of the birds in preparation for a dinner party later that night we threw for a long-time couple friend of ours along with their two kids. The size of the birds made the work challenging. The reason I didn't de-bone all three of them was because only two carcasses along with the four legs, thighs and wings is all that would fit in my biggest roasting pan! I roasted the carcasses to put away to make chicken stock and the legs and thighs for our go-to-work lunches. I put a dry rub on the boneless breasts to marinate for a few hours. I also cooked a honey mustard and apricot glaze that was applied to the breasts during roasting. We will use the same recipe next week in our meetup for the chicken entree. The chicken breasts were good, but not as good as the birds we enjoyed two months ago when we first bought from Mountain Home. I will not buy any more from that flock. Marin Sun Farms chickens are better, with birds weighing between two-and-one-half and three-and-one-half pounds each. Hopefully Mountain Home will coordinate their processor for smaller birds for the next flock.

I also made the grilled pluot salad with some rosa flavor pluots and some red and gold apricots for our friends. It was amazing. The recipe is ready for our meetup and for us to enjoy as long as the fruit is available in the fleeting stone fruit season at the Market.

Stacy and John Murphy host an instructional, nutritious, and fun hands-on cooking class one or two Saturdays each month using ingredients that come fresh from the San Francisco Farmer’s Market.

Perfect Poached Eggs

2009-06-04T09:17:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite breakfasts is poached eggs on toast. Lately I have also seen poached eggs being served in place of fish or next to chicken in fine dining restaurants. I have an important meal coming up on June 13 where I will offer either scallops or poached eggs both on zucchini sauce as the fish course in our Summer Fruit class. The poached eggs are the vegetarian option.

I use eggs that come from chickens fed on pasture that are chocked full of flavor. The eggs are available from Marin Sun Farms at the San Francisco Farmer's Market.

To cook perfect poached eggs, I start with a saucepan filled with water and no salt. I place 2-1/2" metal cutting rounds in the water to serve as the mold for the eggs. This eliminates the need to manipulate the whites in the water. I also like my eggs poached by submersion in the water versus the double boiler method that special egg poacher pans use.

Bring the water to a boil. When the water boils, lower the heat to very low then quickly crack one egg at a time into a ladle then ladle the egg into one of the rounds. If you don't work fast the egg will start to cook in the ladle which creates a mess in the water and on the ladle.

Poach the eggs 4 to 5 minutes. At 4 minutes the yolks are almost firm. At 5 minutes they are fully firm. Less than 4 minutes and the whites are a bit runny if you like that style.

I like the 4 minute version which is the same amount of time it takes to toast the bread in my toaster oven.

To serve, remove pan from heat. I like to work the next part over my sink since the rounds are hot and some water will drain in the process of removing the rounds. Using a metal spatula (preferrable with slots), scrape the egg and round together from the pan. Pull the round from the egg while still on the spatula. The water will drain off the egg and you're ready to place on the toast. Repeat for the other egg(s).

Add salt and pepper and enjoy.

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

2009-06-01T09:52:00.000-07:00

While these might look like cow patties on a plate, they are really delicious. They are also healthy and vegetarian. If you omit the cheese, they are vegan.

We love to throw dinner parties for our friends and family. Sometimes a guest requests a vegetarian meal, which I am happy to provide. I developed this recipe for an upcoming meetup called Summer Fruit, where twelve of us will gather at my home Saturday, June 13, to prepare a six-course gourmet lunch. The stuffed mushrooms will be served with a zucchini sauce and roasted purple potatoes. For the purpose of testing the recipe, I made two mushrooms for Stacy and my Sunday dinner.

The mushrooms come from Far West Fungi, the mushroom purveyor in the San Francisco Ferry Building. I used whole portobellos for the base, a mix of wild mushrooms, fresh zephyr squash, and an aged cheddar for the stuffing. These are very tasty.

Recipe: Vegetable-Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms
Serves 4
Add roasted potatoes and the portobellos can take center stage as a vegetarian entree.

INGREDIENTS:
1 yellow onion
1 1/2 lb summer squashes including zucchini
4 teaspoons olive oil + olive oil as needed
2 to 3 teaspoons minced garlic
1/4 cup unoaked dry white wine
8 ounces chopped wild mushrooms
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme, or 1/4 teaspoon dried
Kosher salt to taste
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper, or to taste
4 large portobello mushrooms
6 ounces grated Gouda or Gruyere cheese (or aged cheddar)
1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs + breadcrumbs for topping
Chopped parsley (optional garnish)

INSTRUCTIONS:
Preheat oven to 400º.
Clean the portobellos and cut off stems flush to the caps; discard stems. Brush smooth side of the mushrooms with oil, then season both sides generously with salt and pepper. Place mushrooms on a baking sheet, gill side up and roast in oven until mushrooms release moisture about 8 minutes. Allow to cool

Cut the onion into small dice. Grate the squashes to look like short noodles. In a skillet, heat 2 teaspoons of the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and saute until it begins to soften. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant. Add the wine, squashes, chopped mushrooms and thyme. Cook until soft and the mushrooms have released their moisture; the vegetables should be fairly dry. Season with 1 teaspoon salt and a large pinch of pepper. Transfer the mixture to a small bowl and set aside.

This vegetable mixture may be made up to a day ahead; cover and refrigerate.

Combine vegetable mixture, cheese and breadcrumbs. Taste and adjust seasoning. Divide stuffing among caps, mounding generously. Sprinkle more breadcrumbs over the top. Bake until portobellos are cooked, stuffing is heated through, cheese has melted and breadcrumbs have browned -- about 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the thickness of portobellos, temperature of the stuffing and thickness of the pan.

Garnish, if desired, with parsley.

Note: If preparing filling that has been made ahead and refrigerated, allow additional time to bake.

Stacy and John Murphy host an instructional, nutritious, and fun hands-on cooking class one or two Saturdays each month using ingredients that come fresh from the San Francisco Farmer’s Market.

Pluot/Apricot Salad

2009-05-29T21:57:00.000-07:00

Stacy and I look forward to stone fruit season with great anticipation. Stacy's favorite fruits are apricots and Santa Rosa Plums. We both like the varied flavors and colors of pluots. In our upcoming June class we will be using stone fruits in several dishes both savory and sweet. I have been refining a recipe for the past two weeks for a grilled pluot salad using apricots since pluots have not yet made their appearance this year at the Farmer's Market.

The recipe is so good I decided to share it with you:
Grilled Apricot Pluot Salad

1 1/2 lb. ripe but firm pluots and/or apricots pitted and sliced
1 medium red onion, very thinly sliced
3 tablespoons seasoned rice vinegar
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 tablespoon mirin
2/3 cup extra vrigin olive oil
1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
1 jalapeno or serrano chile, cut lengthwise
3/4 cup basil chiffonade
8 cups mixed salad greens
1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard

Place vinegar, mirin, lime juice and mustard in a bowl and whisk together.
Add oil in a stream while whisking to make dressing
Mark pluots and apricots on grill (this is optional. It adds a bit of tar flavor to the fruit)
Place pluots, apricots, onion, ginger and chile in large bowl with dressing; toss. Refrigerate at least 2 hours or up to 6 hours, stirring occasionally.

Service
Remove chile from mixture and discard
Remove pluot and apricot slices and onion and reserve
Stir basil into dressing mixture.
Salt to taste
Toss salad greens with dressing and plate or place on platter.
Top with fruit and onions

Stacy and I have had two versions of the dish this week as part of our dinners. The first night I added some left-over roasted chicken and sliced baguette. The second night I served a bit of leftover Yellow Indian Woman beans over rice. I soaked and boiled the beans with some onion and a bit of tomato paste and a dash of hot sauce. The rice was steamed in home made chicken stock. Both meals were complete, balanced and delicious.

Enjoy!

Stacy and John Murphy host an instructional, nutritious, and fun hands-on cooking class one or two Saturdays each month using ingredients that come fresh from the San Francisco Farmer’s Market.

Wine is food

2009-05-26T16:05:00.000-07:00

Wine and food are one of the magical marriages in our world. In my cooking, I am careful to select both the recipe and the wine to keep harmony in the union at the table. I also like to have formal meals progress from lighter white wines to heavier reds as the menu progresses from lighter selections to the heavier entrée and into the cheese course. Take care, though, because it isn’t the color of the wine that’s important, it’s the weight and power it delivers to the palate. There are some white wines, like heavily oaked California Chardonnay that are more powerful than a perfumed red Burgundy, including some pinot noirs now coming from the New World, which makes it crucial that you are familiar with what will come from the bottle to your guests’ palates. So how does one keep track? You have to taste and remember. Be sure to taste all of the wines you will be serving at an important meal long before starting the menu design, then design the menu to pair with the wines based on the freshest ingredients available. Stacy I regularly taste wines by visiting the Wine Country, attending tasting events, and asking our wine steward or sommelier to introduce us to something new when dining at a restaurant (this is also very instructional to learn how to pair wine and food). We keep a private cellar in our home that has a current stock of over 1,000 bottles of more than 500 unique wines. Stacy and I can tell you what to expect in taste and structure from all but the most rare of those wines as we tasted them before we made the purchase. This broad palate of wines and our familiarity with the cellar gives me the opportunity to design meals that are balanced and memorable.

Stacy and I have created a space to store our wines based on our desire to keep a five to seven year inventory of red wine along with some special whites on hand for aging. We also keep a secondary wine inventory which is mostly white wine that we typically turn in a few months to two years at most. By making this investment, we have created our own wine library at a fraction of the cost of purchasing aged wines. I also keep an automated inventory of our wines so that we know what we have, when to drink it, and how much we consume in a given span of time (it seems too much). The best service I have found and now use is the free cellartracker.com. This amazing web site now hosts over 80,000 users who manage over 12 million bottles of wine inventory, and who have written over 850,000 tasting notes, which are all available from the site, for free.

The love affair of wine and food is part of every meal we create. In a recent class we served two bottles of 1999 Howell Mountain Cab from Pine Ridge that were exquisite. Quoting Maya from the movie Sideways, “I know that when I taste this wine today it will taste different than on any other day.” We found the right day to open that wine for sure as it was magnificent accompanied by the braised beef and cheesy polenta.

Stacy and John Murphy host an instructional, nutritious, and fun hands-on cooking class one or two Saturdays each month using ingredients that come fresh from the San Francisco Farmer’s Market.

Heavenly Aioli

2009-05-24T15:03:00.000-07:00

Just as birds change locale as the weather warms our diets migrate from comfort foods to lighter fare including many different kinds of salads and sandwiches. One of our favorite condiments is mayonnaise and especially aioli. I do keep a jar of "Real Mayonnaise" in the refrigerator as a staple in our kitchen. However, the flavor and texture of home made mayonnaise or aioli makes the stuff from the store taste like school glue. I also preserve Meyer lemon rind in salt and lemon juice to flavor dishes with a much deeper and more complex flavor that fresh lemon juice and salt are capable of. My favorite olive oils come from Olivier in Saint Helena. If you are ever in the Napa Valley, be sure to visit the store to taste the various oils and bottle them yourself. They also recycle their own bottles with a corresponding discount on new oil for every bottle you return. The most versatile extra-virgin olive oil they sell is the Mission Variety, which is also available on-line. The preserved lemon rind and this supreme olive oil come together in my home made aioli.

Meyer Lemon Aioli

Yield: Makes about 1 cup

1 large egg yolk (Pasteurized*)
1 Tablespoon preserved Meyer Lemon rind finely minced and juice
(or 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice)
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon Dijon mustard (optional, does making whisking easier)
salt to taste
1/4 cup canola oil, 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 minced garlic clove

Combine egg yolk, lemon juice and rind, vinegar, mustard, and minced garlic clove in medium bowl. Whisk until blended and bright yellow, about 30 seconds.

While whisking constantly, add 1/4 cup canola oil to yolk mixture, a few drops at a time, about 4 minutes. Gradually add 1/2 cup olive oil in very slow thin stream, whisking constantly, until Aioli is thick, about 8 minutes. Cover and chill.

Can be made up to 2 days ahead. Keep chilled.

* To pasteurize an egg, fill a medium saucepan 3/4 with water and bring to 150 degrees using a candy or frothing thermometer to ensure accurate temperature control. Add egg and maintain 150 degrees for 5 minutes. Gently stir water to ensure uniform temperature. When done, cool the egg in cold water. The egg is now safe to eat raw.

Stacy and John Murphy host an instructional, nutritious, and fun hands-on cooking class one or two Saturdays each month using ingredients that come fresh from the San Francisco Farmer’s Market.

Bueberry-Maple Sauce

2009-05-24T11:24:00.000-07:00

We bought our first blueberries of the season on our outing to the San Francisco Farmer's Market on Saturday. They came from Svenson’s Farm which is a family owned farm that offers their delicious fruits at several Farmer’s Markets around the Bay Area. I buy from them every time I see their stall as the berries are always perfectly ripe. I will use most of the blueberries on Sunday in my favorite blueberry recipe which is simply wonderful for a breakfast or brunch:

Steel Cut Oats Porridge with Blueberry-Maple Sauce

Ingredients
For oats:
1 cup steel cut oats (available in the bulk section of most organic grocery stores)
4 cups water
Dash salt

For sauce:
6 oz package fresh blueberries
¼ cup real maple syrup (the darker the better)

Method:
Start the oats the night before by bringing water and dash of salt to boil in a sauce pan. Remove pan from heat and stir in oats. Cover and leave on counter over night at least 4 hours.

For breakfast, cook oats at a slow simmer uncovered for 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, combine berries and maple syrup in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil. The berries will pop and form a sauce in 3 or 4 minutes.

To serve:
Scoop a generous portion of the oats into a bowl and top with sauce.
Note: Stacy likes a dab of butter on her oats and I like a bit of cream or milk, or just eat the combination of oats and sauce with no dairy. No matter what, this hearty nutty flavored, early summer treat is sure to bring smiles around the table.

Blueberries have a very short season with individual varieties each only available a few short weeks. Enjoy them while you can get them as they are powerful little disease fighting miracle fruits as well as tasty.

Stacy and John Murphy host an instructional, nutritious, and fun hands-on cooking class one or two Saturdays each month using ingredients that come fresh from the San Francisco Farmer’s Market.

What Can I Bring?

2009-05-22T09:05:00.000-07:00

Whenever we are invited to someone’s home to share a meal or we invite someone to a meal at ours, the question “What can I bring” is always asked. When guests arrive and inevitably gather in our kitchen, the next question is “what can I do to help?” This is not just etiquette. Moreover, it is about sharing in the preparation of a meal which every culture on Earth has practiced since man learned how to apply fire to food.

Stacy and I hosted a party for six of our friends that was planned to be our first barbeque of the season. As the weekend drew nearer, it became clear that we would receive much needed rain on the day we planned our party. Undaunted, we continued with our plan to share a meal with our friends by moving the cooking and eating indoors. I designed the menu to answer the question, “What can I bring”, by breaking the meal into four courses where each course includes items that may be prepared ahead and then finished just before service. As our friends predictably asked I made assignments based both on what was volunteered, or recommended by me. I also included recipes for items that I suggested.

Menu and Assignments

Appetizers
Shrimp and cheesy grits with bacon (Tony and Leslie)
Oysters on the half shell with Hog Wash and cocktail sauce (John)

Salad
Green salad with vinaigrette (Jim and Kristin)

Entrée
Roasted Moroccan Style Boneless Chicken Breast (Me; would barbeque in better weather)
The Canal House Macaroni and Cheese (Mark and Kyla)

Dessert
Pound Cake (Jim and Kristin)
Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream (John)
Dirty Girl Strawberries (Stacy)

By taking our friends up on the offer to bring something we all prepared the meal together, without making it a potluck. Also, since each couple owned at least one dish they become integrated into the production of the meal with a keen sense of ownership of having a successful outcome. It also gave us the opportunity to work together on a common goal which is fun and satisfying at the same time. I believe it strengthens our bonds of friendship each time we do this. We also facilitate friendships between our friends so that we build a community of friends. It’s all good.

Stacy and John Murphy host an instructional, nutritious, and fun hands-on cooking class one or two Saturdays each month using ingredients that come fresh from the San Francisco Farmer’s Market.

http://www.meetup.com/Cooking-Fresh/

De-boning chicken pays off

2009-05-21T10:53:00.001-07:00

One of the most useful skills for a cook is the ability to de-bone whole chickens. First, whole chicken costs one-third as much per pound as a boneless chicken breast does because the cook does the labor of breaking the chickens down instead of the store’s butcher. Second, when I do the work I create a classic French style chicken breast that has the lovely drumette bone attached to the boneless breast that makes an elegant presentation as an entrée. This is the money cut and we treat it as such by featuring it at one of our more important meals together during the week. Third, I also get a meal for two from the legs and thighs. Finally, I get another meal from the stock and bits of meat stripped from the wings and other bones as a chicken soup. For about $5 and a bit of knife skill put to good use for five minutes, I yield six meals! And these are rich and nutritious meals at that.

To de-bone a chicken, I start by removing the wish bone. This is accomplished by inserting the tip of my boning knife at the top of the wish bone and cutting downward towards the neck. Once exposed, I carefully excise the wishbone by running the knife edge along the curve of the bone and then separating the stem from the backbone. Once the wishbone is removed, I then remove the wings by holding the side of the bird up off my board by the wing tip, and slicing the drumette just below the first joint. I then hyper-extend the wing so that the joint separates taking the wing and wintip sections away leaving the end of the drumette bone exposed. After repeating the same procedure on the other breast, I then remove the wing tips from the wings and toss them into the roasting pan. Next, I cut away the skin between the thighs and breasts. Once that is done, the breasts are de-boned by running the boning knife downward from the back and through the drumette joint. The legs and thighs are removed as a unit by first dislocating the thigh joint and then turning the bird over and making a sweeping cut into the back along the bones making sure to capture the “oyster” meat just above the thigh joint. If I want to separate the drumsticks, I cut the joint just inside the line of fat to complete the breakdown. Now I have the stock pieces that include the carcass, neck, giblets (without the liver), and the wingtips; I have the breasts for an elegant entrée, the wings for a spicy appetizer, and the legs and thighs for a rustic week-night dinner; All of this for about $5. The whole job takes less than five minutes. If I want a mild stock I will make that right away with the raw bones. If I don’t have the time, or want a richer stock, I will roast the bones and put them into the freezer along with the pan drippings until I have the time to make the stock.

At our Spring Color class in April, I served boneless chicken breasts from pasture raised birds as the entrée that many of the members commented was the best chicken they had ever tasted. Those six birds served twelve of us as entrée from the breasts, dinner for three from three of the legs and thighs, two lunches of cold chicken, dinner in a chicken soup for two and four lunches more from the meat and stock. The only parts of the chicken that went to compost were the bones after stock making and the livers (I will make dog food from the livers next time).

Stacy and I hope you will cook with us at a class soon!

Stacy and John Murphy host an instructional, nutritious, and fun hands-on cooking class one or two Saturdays each month using ingredients that come fresh from the San Francisco Farmer’s Market.

http://www.meetup.com/Cooking-Fresh/

Laid-back Cooking

2009-05-20T13:18:00.000-07:00

Days and especially evenings that are warm enough to enjoy a meal on our deck in Burlingame are rare, even in summer. Saturday was one of those hot days followed by a balmy evening on a weekend that let us enjoy a lazy crazy summer tapas and wine party with twelve aspiring chefs (including me). The whole thing was so much fun. We cooked seven appetizers, and a paella entrée followed by a pound cake dripping with cherries flambé for dessert. Yum! Everyone enthusiastically jumped in to do the cooking hands-on. We also got to play with lots of gadgets like a mandolin for slicing squash to be grilled, a heavy-duty mixer to whip up a pound cake, a powerful juicer and electric ice-cream maker for a strawberry sorbet, toaster oven for parmesan puffs, and electric skillet to fry grits. We also hand whipped a delicious aioli that was used in the puffs and as a sauce with the asparagus. It overwhelms me a bit to reflect on all that we cooked yesterday. Like every meal I help make, there were some glitches and small mistakes that served as lessons for me and some of the other cooks. It seemed to turn out well as every dish was devoured! Apparently there were twelve hungry cooks in the kitchen after cooking for a couple of hours. There was a fair bit of vino consumed at the party as well. Seems the cooks were also thirsty! All of the wines showed well and paired nicely with the food, too. Thankfully everyone pitched in to clean the endless stream of pots pans and kitchen tools as we mowed through our nine-course meal. I wish we could all do it again next weekend!

Stacy and I started the day with our usual trip to the Farmer’s Market in San Francisco, albeit a bit later than a normal cooking-class day. Since the party started at 2 PM, we slept in a bit which was luxurious. We landed at the Market about 8:45 AM to find throngs of shoppers taking advantage of the warm weather. There was a mix of tourists, chefs, and home cooks with all manner of carts, baskets, and even rolling coolers jostling one another at the outdoor stalls, which were overflowing with beautiful produce.

Strawberries are peaking now. So much so that Dirty Girl Produce dedicated three tables to the succulent gems along side several stalls offering oceans of red in their stalls as well. Yellow, green, and pale green summer squash were coming on stronger. We bought four varieties to brush with garlic oil and grill as one of the appetizers. They tasted so sweet with a hint of garlic flavor. And healthy too! Asparagus is still doing well, although it is showing signs of wane as we get closer to June. Another month and it will be gone for the season. The two bunches of purple we blanched and served with sesame aioli reminded me that we should take advantage now before the season ends.

Stone fruits are now appearing. The cherries have developed sweeter and deeper flavors. We bought two pounds for the cherries flambé that we poured over the pound cake for a scrumptious dessert. I also love just nibbling cherries from a bowl on the kitchen counter during the season. Cherry season is very short typically lasting less than two months which I savor every year. Apricots also made their debut at the Market which made Stacy happy since Apricot is one of Stacy’s favorite fruits. We noted that the Market was almost completely denuded of citrus this week. Some stalls had under ripe lemons that signaled that the second crop should be arriving soon. We did manage to find a grapefruit and enough lemons to use in the dishes at the cooking-class. I am glad I preserved two jars of Meyer lemon rinds to carry us through another year.

Mountain Ranch was open this week, although they had sold out of whole birds which they won’t have again until June 6. Bummer. The word is out that these are the best tasting chickens on the planet. We bought a whole chicken from Marin Sun Farms that are better than anything we find at the grocery store, so we will continue to buy them for our everyday meals. Mountain Ranch does have boneless breasts that they sell for $14.40/lb (I didn’t make a mistake, that’s fourteen forty a pound). While it’s good, it isn’t that good. Two breasts from them cost as much as a whole chicken from Marin Sun Farms. Yesterday I demonstrated how to de-bone a chicken, which we then cooked into the paella. It was the Clucky Plucky bird we bought at the Downtown Napa Farmer’s Market last week. That was a tasty bird, also. I wish they would set up shop in San Francisco!

We all enjoyed cooking and eating in a more laid-back format at the class Saturday. We plan to adopt this format for up-coming classes this summer although we will start earlier that 2 PM. We’re thinking 11 AM may work best which we will try for the next class that is tentatively scheduled for June 13. More details to follow

Stacy and I hope you will cook with us at a class soon!

Stacy and John Murphy host an instructional, nutritious, and fun hands-on cooking class one or two Saturdays each month using ingredients that come fresh from the San Francisco Farmer’s Market.
http://www.meetup.com/Cooking-Fresh/