Category: In the Kitchen

I keep reading about matsutake and how magical and delicious they are, but I’d never even seen one before last Saturday [really more like 3 weeks ago, I’m a little behind, sorry], when I found some wrapped tidily in plastic at Kotobukiya in the Porter Exchange. Each pack of 2 mushrooms was at least $7, and I did waver in an attempt to be fiscally responsible, but I came home with two adorable little brown mushrooms.
Having no clue what to do with them, but operating on the assumption that simplest would be best, so as to clearly showcase the flavor of the shroom, I did what any cook would do: I Googled. About.com had a very simple matsutake rice recipe, which seemed perfect. And it was. The aroma & flavor of the mushroom goes all through the rice, extending and amplifying itself. It’s quite lovely: it tastes a bit like a woodland floor smells, and it’s strongly savory in the most delicate way. (Of course, like truffles, these mushrooms aren’t necessarily worth the price, but setting filthy lucre aside, they’re wonderful.) Given what I read, the forest floor echo seems about right for the “pine mushroom” (they really do smell a bit like pine needles when they’re raw), and a hot dish of piny earthy rice was exactly what I needed on this blustery autumn day. Let’s hear it for seasonality.

Most recipes for yakitori I’ve tried didn’t taste anything like the glorious stuff I’ve had in izakaya in Japan and in one fabulous, lamented Brookline restaurant (how we miss you, Kiyoshi-san, o drunken master of the charcoal grill). But I happened on one here, which I’ve stripped down to its simplest to great effect. The vinegar is the key. You can make this for a crowd pretty easily if you’ve got a big enough grill. I slice the meat before serving, so it’s easier to nibble.

pack of boneless chicken thighs
4 tablespoons soy sauce
4 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
4 tablespoons sugar
Mix soy, vinegar & sugar in a marinating dish. You want to stir & stir, b/c it will stay gritty a long time – you could probably also heat it to speed up the melt. Marinate thighs about an hour, or less/more if you’re busy. Grill them — you’ll get a bit of char on the outside, but meat will stay moist & yummy because of the salt & sugar.

What with the general insanity in my world lately, I haven’t gotten around to frying up those green tomatoes. And this morning I looked outside, where I’ve been storing them, and found them frozen solid. Oops. So I needed a way to cook a lot of them fast — The Gift of Southern Cooking to the rescue, with a scalloped green tomato recipe. Slightly adapted by me because I love Lawry’s seasoned salt on cooked tomatoes. Tangy, savory, and warming. Mine was very pretty, with mostly green tomatoes with a few red ones and nut-brown cubes of whole wheat toast making a nice contrast.
10 or 12 green tomatoes (if you have a few reds too, that’s ok)
small onion
big clove garlic
1 tsp sugar
1 generous tsp Lawry’s seasoned salt
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp or dash ground nutmeg
3 slices bread
few tablespoons butter
Melt butter, cut bread into 1/2″ cubes, mix together and toast in oven 8-12 min at 375F. Cut onions & tomatoes into 1/2″ cubes, mince garlic, and toss in a bowl with sugar, salt, thyme, pepper & nutmeg. Mix in the toasted bread. Butter a nonreactive baking dish (I used a big glass lasagne pan that i’d already used to toast the bread) and dump veg/bread mix in. Spread flat, cover with parchment paper, and bake 40 minutes or till tender at 375F. Take paper off, bake 10 minutes more to crisp up top. Serve hot. You could probably use foil instead of paper — it called for both but i was too lazy, and the paper worked fine alone.

The always-fabulous K had us over to her place this weekend, and whipped up a terrific, blindingly fast pantry dinner: saute garlic & chili paste in oil, add shredded kale to wilt, then put over pasta and douse the works in vietnamese fish sauce. Add some grilled meat or whatever if you want protein. Delicious! You can add fresh lime, but i prefer the saltiness of the fish sauce on its own.

I suppose it actually would be nice if I gave the recipe for my soup, even if it didn’t really help.
1 buttercup squash, cut in quarters & seeds/strings removed
madras curry powder
spicy paprika or cayenne
black pepper
1 bouillon cube (I used a mushroom flavored Italian one)
1/2 onion, diced
clove garlic, minced
few tbsp heavy cream
1/2 to 1 cup water
1/2 to 1 cup milk, fat level irrelevant
Wrap squash quarters in saran wrap and microwave until mushy & tender — start w/ 5 minutes; mine took about 10. Saute onion & garlic in a bit of olive oil & a dash of salt in your saucepan until softening and just starting to color. Add a bit of water and the bouillon cube. Scrape the cooked squash from its skin & add to pot. Add curry powder & spicy paprika to taste. Add cream, milk & water until the soup is the consistency & richness you desire — you may want to stop & puree the soup before you finish up adding extra liquids, so as to be sure not to misjudge consistency. Add a bit of fresh ground black pepper, adjust seasonings as needed.
I ate mine with a crumbled slice of wheat toast and some stinky old cheddar crumbled into it.

I’ve been looking for an excuse to make Renee’s boozy potatoes (actually, Eric Gower’s boozy potatoes) ever since she posted her porn-rific pictures of them. Finally got the opportunity, but sadly I didn’t really have enough sake left in the bottle to do them justice. Even in this appallingly under-boozed state, and with a bit of mirin added as a Plan B, these taters were fabulously yummy! Whew! I am so running out to buy a new bottle of sake right away so I can make more.
I served them with some chive-flavored salmon cakes made from the new pink salmon in a pouch, which is quite nice and according to Cook’s Illustrated is more cost effective than canned because there is no water weight. The accompanying wasabi mayonnaise is just a good thing no matter what you eat it with. Mmmm, wasaaaabi… mayonnaiiiiise….

So when it gets damn cold all of a sudden, and your tomatoes not only no longer ripen on the vine but seem to be practically frozen, you gotta figure out what to do with a big-ass pile of green tomatoes.
I set the nicest ones aside to slice & fry in breadcrumbs (yum), and used the gnarliest ones to make green tomato relish. I got the recipe from (again) the old edition of The Joy of Cooking, but I recently noticed it bears a strong resemblance to the chowchow recipe in the fabulous The Gift of Southern Cooking. It’s a sweet-sour tangy relish that goes well on ham sandwiches, with roasts, and with cheese & crackers.

I had a big colander very full of tomatoes, and they made two batches once sliced. For each batch, I used:
potfull of thinly sliced green tomatoes
1/2 lb brown sugar
1/2 quart cider vinegar
1 onion
1/2 red pepper
1/2 green pepper
roughly 5 cloves garlic
1 tsp whole cloves
1 stick cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp celery seed
3 tsp ground dry mustard
kosher salt
Take the thinly sliced tomatoes and sprinkle with a bunch of kosher salt and let sit in the fridge overnight. My first batch I skipped this step, being lazy, and it came out much too watery and I had to boil it to death to reduce it. It tastes better if you salt them first, so suck it up and do it. Drain them and rinse and drain again.
Put tomatoes in a pot with onion & peppers, both finely diced, and garlic, minced. Add the vinegar, sugar, cinnamon stick & mustard, and stir till all combined. Put the cloves, ginger, & celery seed into a cheesecloth bag (or a tea ball, if you have no cloth — i haven’t been able to find cheesecloth in ANY market lately) and add to pot. Bring to a boil, then simmer on low heat until tomatoes are soft & translucent and liquid is reduced – probably 2-3 hours. Stir occasionally, especially as it gets closer to done, as it will be more likely to stick & burn. Your house will smell like vinegar pretty strongly, so be warned. Remove spices, duh.
You can bottle it that way, or you can have at it with the stick blender to even out the texture a little as I did. I like it still a bit chunky, but not with big honking pieces of tomato. Then give a bunch away, because it makes a hell of a lot.

For IMBB9 I really wanted to make the Basque fish terrine recipe from epicurious, because we have such lovely hake here lately, and it sounded so delicious. But I’ve been traveling lately, and work has been really busy for a change, and it got to be Friday and I realized I hadn’t even begun to deal, and I was so tired I knew I never would. So I went to Plan B.
When I was a kid, my mom would sometimes make something that I think of as “stuffed bread.” She made it up out of her head, and it is just exactly the sort of cross between white-bread-yankee and white-trash that we so often concocted in our kitchen. I loved it because it was fun to make, and messy to eat, and mushed a lot of flavors up together. I haven’t had it in probably 10 years or more, and the terrine theme brought it to mind. It’s not really a terrine, but it’s terrine shaped, and it’s as uniquely personal as foods get. Here’s what my mom said when I emailed her for the recipe:
“I made up the recipe. Crust can be removed or not. I used “salad” type fillings such as ham, tuna, egg , chicken, or whatever. I have seen recipes where they make a turkey or chicken one and put cranberry sauce in one of the layers. I always put in a speadable cheese layer — sometimes made myself or sometimes used the little glasses of cheese spread. Often I used an olive or pickle layer. If they are not mixed with anything, such as cheese or mayo or mustard, then spread the top and bottom layers with something, so the bread does not soak up too much juice. I usually patted them dry first before putting them in the bread. I usually didn’t mix the kinds of salad.–ie. not ham and tuna togther, etc. Ideas for colorful layers would be good.
I mixed something with the cream cheese to spread it. I think it was milk. One time I colored it. Always thought a sweet one would be good. Maybe like a dessert. Ground up date and nut filling, strawberries in cream cheese, maybe a canned frosting (coconut?) etc. etc. I might put a bit of confectioners sugar in the frosting for this one? Maybe use cinnamon or raisin bread? Or one of Grandpa’s favorites — cardamom bread.
Sorry no recipe. Hope this helps. Probaly never made it the same way twice. Can be made the day ahead or on the day. But cover well with saran so cream cheese won’t dry out. Keep in refrig. It garnishes nicely, but would put that on at last minute. To serve, cut fairly thick, but not jumbo.”
Here’s what I did this time. First of all, you must locate a loaf of the unsliced soft squishy white bread that they sell as “stuffing” bread (the idea being that you rip up irregular chunks to make poultry stuffing rather than having regular slices). Apparently it’s not yet close enough to Thanksgiving for supermarkets to stock it, because I couldn’t find an unsliced loaf ANYWHERE. I was reduced to buying a loaf of artisanal white at the farmers’ market, which is delicious but much too dense for the recipe. It doesn’t blend enough with the fillings, is too chewy, and it’s a bitch to slice properly when it’s filled with squishy moist filling layers and covered in cream cheese.
My fillings were based on what was lurking around my kitchen gathering dust or threatening to go bad, which is I believe how this recipe came to be in the first place. It seems to be vaguely mediterranean, as conceived by mainstream American markets. I made egg salad with lots of mustard & minced onion & black pepper. I took a can of flavored black olives I’ve had since my parents gave it to me last christmas and attacked them with the stick blender, then added a can of tuna for extra protein. And I got a jelly glass of olive & pimento cheese food, because I adore that stuff. I used the cheese to coat both sides of that layer so I could put sliced tomatoes (salted, drained & blotted) in between.
To assemble, cut the loaf of bread into four slices horizontally (or however many slices you like that will still be stable). Put one filling on each layer, as thickly as you can without endangering structural integrity, and spread evenly all the way to the very edges. Put the top of the loaf back on and press *gently*. Take two 8oz packs of cream cheese at room temperature, and mix them with a few tablespoons of cream or milk until it’s a spreadable texture. Spread the entire outside of the loaf thickly with cream cheese to keep it from drying out. It’s a bit tricky not to get the fillings smeared into the frosting, but if you glob it on first and smooth it out later, it should go okay. Garnish at will.
Mine came out a little lopsided, because the thicker bread had a more irregular shape than is optimal, but it tastes just fine, kind of like a dagwood sandwich with more cream cheese than is truly healthy. But since I am the kind of girl who finds those single-serving pots of cream cheese about enough for three bites of bagel, I have no problem with that at all. *grin*
GO SOX!!

Apropos of nothing, Jackie over at The Daily Bread was saying that though the idea of creating something yummy from a picked-over chicken carcass is appealing, one of the reasons she finds actual stock-making irksome is because she spends too much money on ingredients for something she can buy quickly and easily for much less. I have the same problem, so what I do is use the peelings from my onion & carrot, stems of my parsley, and trimmings from my celery, in the broth and then use the “good” parts of the veg later in the soup, or in something else. That way the entire broth is made from what would otherwise be garbage. You cook it to death and strain it all out anyway, so why not? I freaked the tallasiandude out the first time I did this, but since he is Soup Man in a major way, he’s gotten totally on board. And honestly, Jackie’s right that canned broth is perfectly fine; I only do the broth making when I have the carcass around and intend to make a broth-based soup, where the broth is the star.

Well, I’m an idjit and forgot that the foodsluts are in New Zealand for three weeks (except a few days in Fiji, which apparently have resulted in appalling meals, awkward sleep, and potential tapeworm — they’re *very* happy to be heading to the land of good tea and honey-yogurt breakfasts), so i had to eat the tamales by myself. Tallasiandude and I ate 6 for dinner the other night, accompanied by a quick salsa and a batch of this recipe for spicy chocolate black beans from 101 Cookbooks, adapted somewhat by me. It was awesome. The tamales were fabulous, I wish we had a better source for them here; I will have to scout around.
But what was somehow more satisfying, probably because of its total serendipitousness, was the lunch I had the next day. In the midst of a total crisis at work, no less, so it had to be fast and filling and joy-inducing, no small challenge given the state of my fridge. Two small corn tortillas, spread with the last of the beans, topped with slices of cheese (regular old sandwich cheddar slices) and microwaved for a minute, then topped with the salsa & some sour cream. Holy god it was yummy.
Salsa = 2-3 fresh diced ripe tomatoes, minced onion, minced serrano, juice of 3 limes, cilantro for those that like it. Very limey and tangy, nice against the sweet thick beans.
Beans = 1/2 onion & 1/2 red bell pepper, diced & sauteed in a tiny bit of olive oil with a couple cloves thin sliced garlic added once things soften. Salt, cumin, cinnamon, cayenne, allspice to taste, and fry a bit more till dry. Then add about a third of a bottle of beer – i used IPA because it was all I had, and it lent a bitter note I didn’t totally appreciate, so I’d probably recommend something else, like, I dunno, Negro Modelo. *wink* Add water to thin down the beer, add a drained can of black beans, and smash the beans roughly with your spoon as they cook. Adjust spices as it cooks down. When it looks & tastes like nice spicy chunky refried beans, add 1/2 a disk of Ibarra Mexican chocolate and let it melt in and blend. You could probably use any decent dark chocolate and to be extra diligent you could add a bit extra sugar & cinnamon to get the same effect. It ends up earthy, sweet, and spicy, kind of mole-like in flavor, awesome against corn tortillas & lime-y salsa.