Category: In the Kitchen

It’s not really hummus, but what else do you call a smooth puree of something mixed with tahini, lemon, garlic, salt and oil?
Cooked my celery root till very soft in just enough salted water to cover it. Drained it then ran it over with the stick blender and squoze in half a lemon, and put in a couple of dollops of the Sabra “tahini sauce” which is essentially hummus-makings in a tub. The lazy home cook’s version of the silky delectableness available at Sofra.
Freaking fantastic. Yums.

For the manhattans we made this weekend, I needed a replacement for the disgusting maraschino cherries that most bartenders put into this otherwise delightful drink. I bought some frozen sweet cherries that I’ll have to try some other time, because plan A worked so well.
I took plain unsulfured dried sweet cherries from Trader Joe’s (and i bet this would work with dried sour cherries too, like the delectable ones I got at the Persian market), and I soaked some of them in bourbon and some in Cointreau. I wanted to see if the fruitiness of the Cointreau would be a pleasant addition or an unwelcome distraction, and the bourbon cherries were the lower-key option.
As it turned out, both were delicious dropped into a manhattan — or fished out of the dish and snarfed on their own, and I have visions of putting these into desserts or over ice cream. But though both were made of nom, the consensus was that the Cointreau cherries were the best, and so we’ve made another batch with the rest of the dried cherries.
We found that the soaking liquid was syrupy and sweet, very tasty also, but we wanted to dilute it down just a little bit so it could be used as a sauce or a drink ingredient, so we covered our latest batch of cherries with Cointreau and let them soak for a day, then we put in half again as much vodka, to see if that would thin things down a bit. When we use them, we’ll post again and let you know.

Our friends are awesome. Last night, in addition to getting out their finest tuxes, feather boas, chiffon dresses, tiaras and stuffed parrots, they braved a “snow emergency” parking ban (start time 2pm) and actual snow (start time around midnight) and proceeded to make me proud by getting through pitcher upon pitcher of manhattans and martinis, and the occasional hand-rolled cosmo and gin-and-tonic, and *demolishing* the following:
60 deviled eggs
2 pounds of cocktail shrimp
2 pans of sweet-and-sour cocktail wieners
most of a cheese plate
a bunch of grapes
2 trays of celery stuffed with blue cheese
a baked camembert with garlic-pimenton toasts
1 recipe of stuffed mushrooms
3 hefty stacks of tea sandwiches (ham-n-pickle, olive cream cheese, and cucumber dill butter)
2 trays of pigs in blankets
1 tray of salmon canapes on pumpernickel with horseradish sour cream
1 batch spicy pimento cheese and a platterful of crackers
64 scallops wrapped in bacon (in literally SECONDS)
most of a double batch of Chex party mix
a huge relish tray of sweet pickles, cornichons and stuffed olives
A tip of the hat to the lovely and talented Mr. Lauderdale, who invented the ChocoHoliday concept 20 years ago, when he strung Christmas lights along the ceiling, mixed pitchers of Tom Collinses, and fed undergraduates in formalwear ridiculous amounts of Belgian chocolates from silver trays. I just swapped out the chocolates for suburban American savories, and turned it into a bon voyage party for the lovely and talented JBar. (Bye! Have fun in Chicago!)
Notes to self:
Fingerburningly hot trays of scallops in bacon cannot safely be left unattended for 2 minutes — people will brave any danger to get at the trafest and most enticing of treats. When you come back and find the empty tray, you will laugh and laugh and laugh.
Stuffed mushrooms are the ideal companion dish for tea sandwiches, because you can use the ends of the Very Thin Bread loaves for the breadcrumb filling.
Pigs in blankets are the easiest party treat ever. LOVE!
Mild hangovers can apparently be cured by drinking a glass of water, taking 2 ibuprofen, and eating blue cheese mixed with cream cheese on crackers.
The best dance music of all time was probably made in the 1980s.

I bought some ground turkey because it was on sale and because poultry is about the only organic meat that Shaw’s sells in my neighborhood. And I was at the Shaw’s rather than the Whole Paycheck because I wanted to take a walk outdoors, somewhere, anywhere, but I needed a reason to go or else I wouldn’t have managed to leave the house.
So anyhow, I wound up with this ground turkey but no actual plan for using it. As it turned out, I used it last night to make a very successful stew, improvised from a base of a couple of recipes in The New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden, a book I adore and turn to very often. Nom nom nom. I used aspects of Daoud Basha, particularly for the meatballs themselves and the cooking method of browning the balls then finishing them in a tomatoey sauce, but I also stole from an Armenian recipe that used leftover mashed potatoes instead of breadcrumbs or eggs in the meat mixture, and then I added in a bunch of diced vegetables to make it more of a stew than just a sauced meatball.
It wound up like this:
Mix one package ground turkey, about a pound, to a smooth paste with:
1/4 teaspoon each allspice, cumin, hot hungarian paprika, coriander and cinnamon, going a little heavy on the cinnamon
2-3 cloves garlic, minced then mashed to a paste with a scant tsp kosher salt
1/2 cup leftover mashed potatoes
1/2 cup raisins and 1/4 cup pine nuts (approximately), roughly chopped
(I also put in a tiny bit of finely minced onion because I had it to use up; you could use more or omit entirely, i think it would be fine either way.)
Form this meat paste into balls about the size of little walnuts, then roll them in a little olive oil. Fry in a skillet with a bit of olive oil, making sure they brown on all sides. You could also bake them, as the original recipe specified, but I didn’t feel like turning on the oven.
In a deep pot, heat about a tbsp of olive oil, and add 1-3 minced cloves of garlic until fragrant, then add vegetables: I used half a butternut squash and two carrots, cut into 1/4″ dice to match the size of the chickpeas going in later. Season the vegetables with a sprinkle of kosher salt and another good dash of hot paprika and some ground black pepper. When it seems like the garlic might burn if you wait any longer, add half a 28 oz can of tomato puree (or a 15 oz can if you have one, i didn’t), and a cup of chicken broth or water or both. I also added a little sprinkle of dried jalapenos, a pantry staple that I’ve been finding surprisingly useful in many situations — you can make salsa at the drop of a hat with canned tomato, assuming you have lime and an onion in the house which I usually do, and they add spice and green to lots of things that otherwise wouldn’t get it in the dead of winter.
Cook this at a simmer until the hard vegetables are getting semi-cooked, then add a drained can of chickpeas. Stir periodically so it doesn’t burn or stick on the bottom. When the veg are nearly done, add a zucchini cut into 1/4″ dice. After about 5 minutes, add the meatballs and nestle them into the tomato sauce. The meatballs are probably nearly done through anyway if you browned them thoroughly, so 5-10 minutes would probably do it, or whenever all the vegetables are nice and soft and the sauce starts to smell like spiced meatballs. You can let it cook longer if necessary or if you are schlepping it down the block to a New Year’s Eve gathering and need to reheat it. Serve with plain hot white or brown rice.
You’d never know this was turkey. The meatballs stay relatively moist, or at least you don’t notice if they’re dry because they’re spicy, savory and sweet from the raisins and pine nuts, and they’re draped in a bright, simple tomato sauce with a solid serving of vegetables. And it just occurred to me that this is a gluten-free dish, tricky to accomplish sometimes with meatballs because they always call for crumbs. Very tasty, and serves a crowd, I’d guess, because it made about 27 li’l meatballs — but since this got served after a cheese plate, deep fried pickles, perfect deep fried buffalo wings, and a batch of homemade dumplings, not much of it got et at the party. More for us.
Happy New Year!

I went over to B+D’s place last night to visit and to admire their magnificent 11-foot christmahannukwanzaka shrub, and of course i hadn’t had this visit planned 30 seconds before I suggested cooking dinner, only partly because I had chicken thighs in the fridge needing to be used.
anyway, it all worked out even better than usual, and we’ve got two new recipes you should try out.
Cider chicken is mine, and it’s easy easy easy. Salt the chicken thighs well. Brown the chicken thigh in some olive oil. We used bone in skin on, which i think worked nicely. Take the golden brown chicken out and put it on a plate. Pull off and eat as much of the crispy skin as you can. Pour off most of the fat, then lower the heat and saute half a chopped onion. When it’s soft, add some bourbon – somewhere between a splash and a shot. Let it bubble a minute then add a cup of cider and maybe half a cup or a cup of chicken broth. Boil that down for a while, maybe 10 mins, and then put the chicken back in and let it cook the rest of the way through. I semi-covered it, but not sure I needed to, and it did make the remaining skin go soggy. What you want to end up with is a sauce that’s just about to become syrupy, so you can spoon it over the braised chicken and have it stick. Grind a little pepper over the top toward the end.
Sage sweet potatoes is B’s, and it’s a keeper. Peel your sweet potatoes — we did 6, and had enough for 4 people. Grate them on the food processor or box grater. Heat a generous amount of olive oil in a fairly deep pan, and add the sweet potatoes. You’ll basically saute them until they’re soft. Add some salt and pepper if you feel like it. In a small saucepan, melt half or most of a stick of salted butter, then add a big handful of chopped fresh sage. The butter will go green, but keep cooking it and the butter will brown. Once you’ve got a panful of browned butter and crispy sage leaves, fish out some of the sage (if you like — it IS tasty crispy sagy goodness) and pour it into the now-soft sweet potato mash. Mix it all up, eat, and swoon.
This sage/sweet potato combo is the ideal sweet-savory approach for this often-mistreated vegetable. And it seems to me that this dish would be just as happy on a plate with a steak, or a thanksgiving turkey, or a fish fillet as it was with my cider chicken. Simple, rich, nutritious and versatile. I’m sold.

we had a little dinner party, in which everyone had a go at toothbrushing some chanterelles, and then we sauteed them up and put them on toast, alongside some salad and grilled steak. Lurvely!
Leftover mushrooms were divvied, and later we ate ours over spaghetti. The faint nuttiness of pasta is perfect with butter and mushrooms and shaved parmesan. Nom.
As previously mentioned, chanterelles in butter and scrambled egg is divine, and we had a couple of go-rounds with that tastiness as well.
They are all gone now, eaten with gusto and remembered with joy. Yum.
(photos coming soon)

tallasiandude is feeling a little under the weather today, and he really wanted eggs for breakfast. so I whipped some up, but I figured I’d chuck in some of the leftover chanterelles, sauteed in butter, and then put a little parmesan on top, because he’d asked for cheese.
i got a little bite of this, because it smelled awfully good, and holy moly: THIS is a flavor combination that really works. The mushrooms come through very clearly, and the other nutty/creamy notes around it really show them off beautifully.
I am so making some more for myself later on for lunch. YUM.

holy crap. my brother went chanterelle picking yesterday, and this has arrived on my doorstep via Fedex.

he says it is my birthday present, and i think it’s one hell of a present. let’s take another look:

he claims that when they are this fresh, they give off enough liquid to reduce separately into a gravy with a light roux. he did say that the batch he made last night were drier than usual, so i guess we’ll see how these turn out. i think i am going to just saute them, make however much gravy I can with their juices, and put them over toast.
damn. it’s weird seeing so many of them all in one place. weird but GOOD.

Open the box and spread them out on some trays, a table, oven racks,
whatever. Just don’t leave them mashed up in the box.
DO NOT WASH THEM. They are sponges, essentially. Just brush/blow them
off. An old toothbrush or paintbrush works well. Sorry for any slugs,
sticks, bugs, or spiders. It goes with the territory. Cut away anything
you don’t like the looks of. This makes quite a mess, by the way. I do it
over the sink.
I cut them into bite size pieces lengthwise, the small ones I leave
whole. You can also chop them for recipes or gravy. The first night, I
usually make them in a pan with butter gravy. Here are the steps.
In a medium saucepan or frypan, heat maybe half a stick of butter over
med/low heat. Let the water bubble off. Add about an equal amount of flour
and keep stirred until golden brown (the color of the raw mushrooms is a
good guide). You want a light roux, so not too much flour.
At the same time, heat the largest frypan you have over high heat.
Add a little olive oil when hot, then the mushrooms. A mountain is ok, they
cook way down. It will be a little freaky at first, some squeaking,
sticking, etc. Soon, they will release their water and the pan will quiet
down. Soon, they may even be swimming. At this point of high water, dump
off all the liquid you can into a bowl. Continue frying the mushrooms until
they are soft and dark. You can even continue until they start to brown.
This is pretty much to taste, I don’t worry too much about overcooking
them. You may have to add more oil or butter, or adjust the heat at some
point.
Once the roux is golden, add the mushroom juice and simmer until the
desired thickness. If needed, you can stretch it with stock or water or
whatever. Salt well, and add a little fresh pepper. Serve when the
mushrooms are finished.
I have used them to stuff chickens, put them in scrambled eggs, on home
made pizza, in ravioli, on the bbq, and in many soups and stews. You can
also dry them. I have a feeling they won’t have a very long life span.

Just a note to say that chicken burgers are also good made with:
1 lb ground chicken
minced onion (1/4 onion)
minced shiitakes (4, rehydrated in a bit of hot water and some teriyaki sauce)
tbsp of korean spicy soup paste
the rest of the mushroom hydrating liquid (there was as little as i could get away with)
and then sprinkled with a little salt once they’re in the pan.
I made li’l mini-burgers, inspired by Just Bento, and they do seem to make it a little easier to eat smaller amounts of food. I had them with a scrap of leftover white rice and a pile of sauteed chard last night for dinner, and they was yummy.