Mad house and citrus marmalade.

My absolutely favorite time is early weekend morning, when I am the first one up.  When my kitchen is still and quiet, just sunlight streaming through the windows and the dogs are still snoozing in the corners.  I am all alone with my cup of coffee, free to ponder the day ahead and enjoy these few moments of silence…This is what I like…  Now this is quiet picture is the absolute opposite of what my house is like lately.  It closely resembles a circus inside an insane asylum.  With the arrival of a new puppy, my morning begins way too early for any human, and by the time I get to that first cup of coffee, I have walked the puppy four times, fed her, cleaned up a few messes and screamed “No, Bad dog!” couple of hundred times.  It is exhausting….

There is not much difference between taking care of a puppy and baby, except that the puppy stage is over by 6 months and theoretically at this point a dog should have achieved its full training potential.  Now a full potential for a dog, in my mind, is learning a few basic household rules and most importantly learning how to control her drool when sleeping on my pillow… that’s the height of mastership.  With the baby you are still “on” for at least another 18 years or longer…. This makes a puppy a much more attractive in my mind.

Of course now I cannot concentrate on anything other than her poop schedule and all those wonderful cooking projects I had in mind for the ultimate winter comfort foods will have to wait.

 

  I wrote them down on my menu board so that I can have something to look forward to when things come down a bit and I get my sanity back.  I can’t wait to make cannolies ( I finally bought the tubes), fried chicken and waffles ( long ago promised and never delivered), New England clam chowder and spicy Asian noodles and duck meatballs in broth ( also long overdue).  I have wonderful plans for gnocchi and pasta but all those things will have to wait a little longer.  But they are coming, I promise, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, I didn’t waste this week totally.  I made 24 jars of Meyer Lemon and Blood Orange marmalade.  I used three different techniques to make three different kinds of preserves.  First I made a combo Blood Orange and Meyer Lemon marmalade using the pressed pulp and added the zest at the end.  Then I made a pure clear Blood Orange marmalade, all pulp strained completely and again adding zest at the very end.  The third technique was my favorite, and it is what I am posting today, a Meyer Lemon marmalade made with whole lemons, no peeling, no straining, just a bit of patience.

I also made an interesting apple spice cake, courtesy of Alton Borwn’s recipe.  I have been itching to make it for a while as this cake uses a very interesting spice combination – ginger, allspice, star anise, rosemary, cardamom, seeds of paradise…   Looked interesting enough to try, the cake looks beautiful, but I am writing this before I got a chance to taste it so we will see…

All in all, not a completely wasted week, jam, cake, and the puppy did gain two pounds ( not eating jam and cake)…I must be doing something right.

Meyor Lemon marmalade

This recipe can be used for any citrus fruit.

25 – 26 Meyor lemons very thinly sliced and seeds removed.  Leave the zest on.

8 cups of water or enough to just cover the lemons

8 – 9 cups of granulated sugar.

Combine all ingredients in a large pot.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 20-30 min.  Turn off the heat, cover and let stand for 3 to 10 hrs.  Uncover the pot, bring back to boil, turn the heat to simmer and walk away… seriously, go write a novel or something… it takes a long time…. 3 to 4 hours or more depending on your pot.  The marmalade should reach a temperature of 230-245F on a candy thermometer or you can test a drop on a frozen plate.  If the drop “jells” right away when it hits the plate and does not run…. Your preserves are done.  The marmalade will keep for up to 3 weeks in the fridge or up to 6 months in the pantry if heat sealed into sterilized mason jars.

Spread it on a buttered baguette and you can instantly transport yourself to the English country side…. Anywhere away from here sounds very good just about now….

Recipe for Alton Brown’s Apple spice cake can be found here.

The fear of Blini.

Russian blini is not what you see on Iron Chef that looks like a tiny thin silver-dollar pancake (this is actually a totally different Russian dish called “oladuski”).  It is a delicate, lacy edged, light as air, glistening with butter crapes my mother used to make.  Just like she was taught by her mother-in-law.  My mother was known as a great cook in our family, a phenomenon baker, but the little secret was that my grandmother taught her everything she knew, literally starting from how to boil water.

 I can cook anything.  I taught myself how to make the most complex dishes and desserts.  I can whip up French macaroons and croissants, I learned how to debone poultry and make bread, I can plan and execute a menu of 30 dishes for 30 people in two day, but I can’t make blini.  I just can’t. 

When I was little, my mother taught me many things in the kitchen, but she mostly let me watch and listen, rarely letting me get down to the actual cooking.  On the contrary my grandmother let me get down to business in her kitchen.  She let me make and mess up cakes, clean berries for jams even though I ate more than I cleaned and help her make dumplings even though my share came out looking more like clumps of glue.  Her house was an ultimate playground and she spoiled me rotten.  She always wanted a little girl and having had two boys, I was adored beyond measure.  She let me finger-paint and roller-skate in the halls of their apartment; she sewed dresses for my dolls and indulged the messiest and smelliest chemistry experiments I could find.  Her huge kitchen was my favorite place in the world; it always smelled of my favorite foods and was filled with adventure.  It was technically a communal kitchen as my grandparents shared a huge pre-war apartment with an old maid who lived in a tiny room just of the kitchen.  (The room was originally meant for a maid, and its occupant instilled a paralyzing fear in me when I was little.  She was old and never married nasty woman, who wore her mousy hair in a bun and would appear and disappear without warning, never smiling or talking, just grunting at me through her pursed dry lips. I pictured her sitting in that little room contemplating ways to poison my whole family so she can have the apartment all to herself.)

It was in that kitchen that my grandfather was waging his never ending war on mice, it was that kitchen that had a stain on ceiling from an unfortunate condensed milk explosion (my grandmother was boiling cans of condensed milk for dolce-de-leche for her famous rum cake.  She forgot about them and they exploded with a force of a small nuclear bomb, covering the entire ceiling in sticky, delicious goo).  The place was filled with wonders, like a huge copper bowl that my grandmother made jams in, that doubled as my bathtub when I was a baby.  A mysterious water heating device, which was the only thing I was not to go near, pretty little tea cups decorated with pink roses, meant for guests that I could actually play tea-party with, many different rolling pins (one was said to belong to a famous baker to the czars) and many other trinkets that I could explore on my visits.  It was in that kitchen I was actually allowed to sift flour and separate eggs, spill things, burn things and start from scratch, stuff that was unimaginable under my mother’s reign of perfection.  My visits with my grandmother were cherished and anticipated like most welcome of gifts and we made a great pair.  We were the best of friends.

My relationship with my grandmother turned rocky after my mother’s death.  As a young teen I was burdened with a sense of misplaced loyalty, confused by a complex mother-daughter-in-law relationship.  And then one day, I grew up and realized that whatever battles I was fighting in my mom’s name were meaningless.  Overnight my grandmother became my friend once again, generously forgiving all the teenage bullshit that came before.  I visited her Brooklyn apartment often, sometimes to escape, sometimes to talk, sometimes just to eat. She was a tiny little thing, barely tall enough to fit under my armpit, but you should have seen her move around that kitchen.  She was like a little silver-haired hurricane feeding me my favorite fried potatoes and “kotletki”; which are little pan-fried Russian chicken meatballs, which I am now known for and are the only truly secret family recipe I possess.  She taught me how to make her rum cake and proper sponge cake and crapes.  How to make them thin and lacy and light as air.  Piled on with her homemade jam, they were a solution to any ailment.  And I made them impeccably as long as she was standing near.  Not helping, just standing, chatting, gently reassuring before each turn.  If she would leave the kitchen for any reason, my blini would clump and be ruined.  As soon as she would come back, each came out perfectly once again.  It was a mystery I could not explain, but didn’t think of much at the time.

She died shortly after my wedding, unexpectedly, leaving me with bitter regret of wasting so many years with her, wishing I had more time.  There was so much more I wanted to ask her, learn from her…

I didn’t try my hand at crapes for years and when I finally did it was a disaster, they were clumpy and lumpy.  They tore and fell apart when I tried to turn them and I didn’t know why.  I tried again and again with no better result, following batter recipes to a ‘t’, I had no explanation for my failure other than she was not there, standing near me.  After many unsuccessful tries I gave up, resolute to accept it as just something I cannot do without her.

Recently, on a quiet Sunday morning, I woke up, went downstairs and made blini.  No fuss, no big whoop. No metal preparation of any kind.   I mixed the batter by memory, and each one turned out perfectly fine, just like my grandmother’s.  I missed her more that morning than I did all the years she was gone…She would never stand next to me…she would never teach me anything…I could do this all by myself now… 

Russian Blini ( Crapes)

Makes 12-15 crapes

2 large eggs

1 cup of milk

¼ cup of water

2/3 cup all-purpose flour

2 tbs melted butter (cooled)

3 tbs melted butter for the frying pan.

In a blender, combine all the ingredients and blend until smooth.  Refrigerate the mixture for about an hour or longer (overnight works very well).  Pre-heat a 9 inch non-stick skillet and brush with melted butter.  Off the heat pour ¼ cup of batter and swirl it around so that the entire skillet surface is coated.  Cook on medium-low heat for about 30-40 seconds, or until the edges become dry.  Turn by either sliding the blini off the skillet edge and using your fingers or use a very thin flat spatula.  If you are really awesome you can try and flip them in the skillet.  The idea is to get the job done, so whatever work for you, use it and don’t worry about the theatrics.

Serve with sour cream, jam, red caviar, or commit an American atrocity, like my daughter, and slather peanut butter on the blini. 

And don’t forget to think of your grandmother, wherever and whenever she was from, she surely made some kind of crapes or blinis.  Maybe you are lucky and she is standing right next to you making them now.

Mexican Chorizo.

Ohh, the things we do to make our kids happy!  Everyone knows that a key to every teenager, especially a boy ,is food.  They eat first, listen later… hopefully.  But at least if their stomachs are full, you stand a chance of being heard… Notice, I did not say they will act on what they hear. 

My son has grown up into a constantly hungry gourmet… I created a monster.  No matter how hungry he is, he will not eat just anything…  I mean he will not eat anything of sub-par quality or prepared in 5 minutes or less.  He will not eat junk food; he will not eat anything out of a box.  He will try any exotic food once, and usually ends up liking it.  His favorite pass time is searching for his new favorite foods, except he can’t find it… nothing has topped Mexican chorizo yet.  Things came close, but were still a hair short of ultimate bliss.  And not any chorizo will do, the best, the tastiest comes from our neighborhood Mexican restaurant “Abby’s”.  They make their own chorizo and it is to die for, just the right texture, perfumed with spices, kicked up with chilies, fatty and deeply savory.  I have to re-created it at home or he will eat me. 

Chorizo means sausage in Spanish… that’s it, it doesn’t mean spicy, it doesn’t mean prepared with certain technique, it just means sausage.  I already knew what makes a Spanish chorizo, which is completely different from its Mexican cousin.  Spanish chorizo is all about the paprika, and Mexican is much more complex.  After scanning the web for an idea of what goes into it I realized that the only common ingredient I saw between hundreds of recipes is an apple cider vinegar and tons of dried chilies of every known kind.  Did you know that there are 30 different kind of chili peppers that grow in Mexico?  You would think they invented this sausage just to use them all.   So I made a recipe of my own, frying up small batches of sausage to taste and adjust the seasoning.  Well, the kids tasted, I salivated (yes, still dieting….).  I think I came pretty darn close to our beloved Abby’s sausage….and I acquired a good supply of chorizo to use in hundreds of ways, respect and thumbs up from my son and a new appreciation for the sausage makers everywhere. It is not easy to make those links.

Mexican Chorizo.

3 lbs of ground pork (Once again, grind your own meat.  Take a nice fatty piece ( remember, sausage is not a diet food, it could be, but why?) like a pork shoulder.  If you feel there is not enough fat in your cut, augment it by adding some of the fat from a nice slab of salt pork, just grind it together.  All the meat should be ground twice on a finest setting of your grinder)

2 Dried Ancho chilies (stems and seeds removed)

4 – 5 dried Arbol chilies (stems and seeds removed)

2 smoked and dried jalapeno peppers (stems and seeds removed)

1.5 tsp of whole coriander seeds freshly toasted

1 tsp of whole cumin seeds freshly toasted

1.5 tsp of freshly ground cinnamon

2 tsp of paprika ( not smoked)

1 tbs of Molido Chili powder

1.5 tsp of cayenne pepper

1 tbs of dry Mexican oregano

1 tbs of kosher salt

1 medium onion diced

5-6 garlic cloves diced

1 -2 cups apple cider vinegar

Toast the dry chilies in a dry skillet over a medium heat until softened slightly. 

 

Set aside in a deep bowl, cover with onions and garlic and pour apple cider vinegar over the peppers, onions and garlic until it comes almost to the top of the mixture.   Cover with a small plate, set something heavy on top (like a large can of something) and let the mixture rest for 30 min to 1 hr.

 

In the meantime, prepare the dry spicy mix, by grinding coriander, cumin and cinnamon in a spice grinder. 

 

 

Combine with all other dry spices.

 

Pour off about half of the apple cider vinegar from the peppers and onion mixture.  Put the mixture and left over vinegar into a blender, add the dry spice mix and blend until a paste forms.  You can add a little water to the mix if the paste is coming out to thick.

 

Add the spice paste to the ground pork and mix very well.  Hands work best here. 

 

 You can now case your sausages or form patties or just leave the sausage meat unformed. 
Keeps in a fridge for a few days but can be frozen in zip top bags for weeks or even months.

Believe me, it will not last this long.  Here are a few ways to serve it.

 

Sauté some peppers and onions.  Fry up some of your chorizo until crispy.  Combine together top with lots of cheese and set under the broiler until the cheese is melted and is nice and bubbly.  Serve straight from the skillet with a few warm tortillas. 

 

Or better yet, make a hash.  Skillet fry your chorizo, than add a diced potato.  Fry until everything is crispy.  Add a little diced onion and red pepper and reduce the heat.  Sauté until the onion and the peppers are softened. Top with a sunny side egg Spanish style ( That is fried in extra virgin olive oil and seasoned with salt and smoked paprika). 

 

Call this breakfast, lunch or dinner… No hangover required!

South East Asian salmon and raw vegetables salad.

Two things I hate about January, first January is the gloomiest month, with at least another 12 weeks to the first glimpse of spring.  December kind of keeps you busy with the holidays, so spring is not such a pressing though, but in long, cold and dark evenings in January, it is all I can think about.  Second, January means dieting, or in my case, a forced deprivation from something I love the most, cooking yummy food.  However, this year, I decided not to subject my family to the horrors of my diet, so I am cooking more than ever… Here is what they ate today…

I get inspiration for new recipes from everywhere.  But browsing (without the time limit) the aisles of a Asian supermarket get me going every time.  I already wrote about harassing people in that store for recipes from their homelands.  I have been very successful recently, scoring not only full recipes but explanations about some of the unusual products in that store and how to use them.  I am contemplating learning Chinese Pastry techniques and figuring out how a black chicken can fit into my next week’s menu.  This week was no different, I stumbled onto a Korean chili paste that I have been meaning to try forever, some fresh kefir lime leaves and some lemon grass and decided  - South East Asia would be an awesome place to take my family for dinner.  With a little hint of Korea thrown in for good measure.

I already had a beautiful salmon I meant to turn into gravallax, but decided to marinate and bake instead.  Served over a raw vegetables slaw, the flavors were complex and the meal was delicious ( or so I am told – remember I am not eating anything these days)

South East Asian salmon

6 – 8  8oz salmon filets

For the marinade:

4 kefir lime leaves chopped

2 cloves of garlic

1 inch knob of fresh ginger grated

Zest of one lemon

Juice of 1 lemon

Juice of one lime

2 tbs of Mirin ( sweet rice wine vinegar)

3 tbs of soy sauce

1 tbs agave syrup

1 tsp fish sauce

¼ cup of fresh squeezed orange juice

1.5 tbs of Korean chili paste (or siracha)

1 tbs of toasted sesame oil

2 tbs of vegetable oil

¼ cup chopped scallions

Salt to taste

2 sticks of lemon grass bruised

Preheat the oven to 450F.  In a food processor combine all the ingredients except the lemon grass in the food processor until combined.  Taste and adjust the salt seasoning. 

 

Place the fish in baking tray with tall sides and pour the marinade all over the fish, making sure both sides are evenly coated.  Scatter the bruised lemon grass on top and cover with plastic.  Let marinade for about an hour.  The fish should not be marinating for longer than 2 hrs. 

Remove the plastic and bake for 15 -  20 min until the fish is opaque but not dry.  Discard the lemon grass and serve over a raw vegetables slaw using the pan juices as sauce.

Raw vegetable salad:

2 large carrots – julienned

2 large yellow squash – julienned

2 large zucchini – julienned

1 small jalapeno pepper diced very fine

2 tbs of chopped cilantro

2 tbs of chopped parsley

2 tbs of chopped scallions

2 tbs of chopped mint

1 to 2 cups of fresh watercress (you can chop it roughly)

1.5 tbs of black sesame seeds

1 tsp cayenne pepper

½ tbs of honey

Juice of one lime

2 tbs of toasted sesame oil

Toss all the vegetables and herbs together.  Add sesame seeds.   Add salt, cayenne pepper, honey and lime juice and let stand a few minutes.  Add sesame oil and toss the salad lightly.  You can also add mango to this salad, it makes it slightly sweet and well suited for something like a Korean BBQ ( but that is another post)…

 

Delicious, healthy, full of flavor and takes you some place warm and exotic on a cold January afternoon.

 

Duck with Figs and Smoked Mozzarella Flatbreads and the world outside my window.

 

I spend a lot of time at home now.  The building where I normally spend most of my life remains a victim of super-storm Sandy (They are officially not calling it the hurricane anymore, must be some guy from an insurance company who though to down-grade it).  So I spend a lot of time in my home office, in virtual isolation.  Virtual, because that is what my word has become, a collection of electronic communication with the outside world.  My days are spent looking mostly at a computer screen with only a window view for entertainment.  Maybe it is not as exciting as the latest office gossip in the pantry, but it is starting to grow on me.

 I see the resident groundhog (named Jeffery by my son when he was a toddler, it must be that groundhog’s grand-son by now…we call him Jeffery still) make his daily food run.  He is exact in his timing, right on the dot at 9:30 a.m.  I swear, it seems like he is going off to the supermarket or something, coming back about an hour later and squeezing his furry fat behind under the shed.  He must be making stores for the winter sleep.  I feel a sense of kingship with the critter; I amuse myself by making stores in my fridge.  I swear, I must be storing stuff for the winter too, like the wildlife in my backyard.  So if I am not e-mailing or staring outside my window, I make slow roasted tomatoes and duck confit, because I now have 5 hs at home.  I make pizza dough and sauce and freeze it.  A few more weeks of this and I am going to be ready for hibernation.   While I cook I wonder how long do groundhogs live and whether one day he will get too fat for the little sliver of a hole.  He’ll be like Vinnie the Poo and I will have to go rescue him. 

I see squirrels squabbling in the trees, sometimes they make so much racket fighting I want to throw something heavy at them.  Do you know, that squirrels screaming and fighting is even more annoying than when your kids do it?

Now that the leaves are gone are get a full view of the high school behind my house.  I see the kids hurrying to and from class and enjoy the daily announcements (I can hear the loud speaker, so am very versed in all high school activities). I absolutely have no need for a clock in the mornings as the “Good morning, Old Bridge High school!” comes exactly at 7:30.   I find myself pledging allegiance to the Flag every day at 7:31, rain or shine, just because it becomes impossible to ignore the daily loud chant while pouring coffee.   And I guess, I am more trainable than I would like to think.  I also have no need for an outside thermometer as the teenage fashion outside my window provides virtually exact information.  It is what I know call the “Teenage Thermometer”, it works like this:

-          Above 50F the girls are wearing shorts and T-shirts, the boys are tying their T-shirts around their wastes and going bare-back

-          40F to 50F, some girls can be spotted in a light sweatshirt, boys are reluctantly putting their T-shirts back on

-          30F  to 40F, some rebel and start putting pants on, usually not the boys

-          Below 30F, the teenagers are mostly broken, all wearing sweatshirts now, some even carry a coat (notice, I did not say wear!), boys are still wearing shorts.

So I sit here and contemplate how this country manages the birthrate that it has, with all these youngsters freezing off their future reproductive parts… I really need to go back to the office!

Since I realistically cannot wait to use up all my stores in the spring, I made flatbreads out of pizza dough and loaded them up with crisped up duck confit, dried mission figs, slow roasted tomatoes, smoked mozzarella and arugula.  Turned out to be one of the tastiest treats I made in a while.

Duck with Figs and Smoked Mozzarella Flatbreads

Pizza dough (follow the link to my recipe)

2 cups of duck confit meat only, roughly chopped (follow the link to my recipe)

6-7 dry mission figs chopped fine

¾ cup of slow roasted tomatoes ( see Note)

1 cup smoked mozzarella cubed

1 cup fresh arugula

1 tbs olive oil

1 clove of garlic minced fine

 

Preheat the oven and either the pizza stone or quarry tiles to 500F.  Combine the duck and the figs and crisp up in the skillet for a few minutes.  Roll out your dough, depending on how thin you want the bread, but I would try for pretty thin if you want a crunch to your bread.  Combine the olive oil and garlic and brush the dough with the mixture, concentrating mostly on the edges.

Top with duck and fix mixture, sprinkle the slow roasted tomatoes and cheese evenly - Do not overload!.  Bake for 10-12 minutes until the crust is crispy and the cheese has melted. 

 

Once out of the oven, top with arugula and let the pizza rest a few minutes. Slice and serve, preferably with a nice wine!

Note: Slow roasted tomatoes -  I like to use small cherry tomatoes or plum tomatoes for this.  Cut and seed the tomatoes into 1 inch cubes (if using cherry ones, just split them in half).  Seed the tomatoes well, getting out as much juice as possible.  Spread on an baking sheet covered with foil.  Drizzle with olive oil, season with salt, Pepper and a few pinches of sugar and bake at 250F for 2.5 to 3 hrs.  Store in fridge in an airtight container for up to 10 days.