Sautéed spicy Green Beans with Hazelnuts

I have been feeling like a supermarket version of the “Dear Abby” advice column.  I don’t know how often this happens to other people who are good cooks, but it is happening to me constantly, random people just turn to me and ask me…”How do you cook that?” everywhere.  At the farm store, at the fish counter, everywhere….  It is not like I am wearing a sign “I am a good cook, free advice here..”, neither do I make eye contact with people or god forbid smile at them… when I shop, I prefer to do it quickly, efficiently and with the least amount of interruptions… so I don’t know why people feel they can check out the contents of my cart, point to Kefir and ask “What do you do with that?”.  And here is the thing, I don’t mind, these off the cuff questions actually flatter me and I go into a lengthy recipe descriptions and poor people are probably no longer happy about the engagement….

What strikes me as interesting is that most people have no idea how to cook simple staples.  I get it that someone may need advice on how to cook squid or a whole goose, but mostly people ask about basic things.  Recently a Russian lady surveyed a big bag of sweet potatoes in my cart and asked what I do with them.  I didn’t want to admit that most often I buy sweet potatoes because my dogs love them, so I happily rattled off a dozen recipes for her and wondered if she will ever try and cook any of them.  She than pointed to Kale and asked what it was…so, I got on my horse and gave her a quick lecture on the virtues of Kale.  I think she is not coming back to that store ever again for fear of meeting me… her own fault, she started it. 

All these questions made me think of doing a post on my favorite side dish and a simple thing that everyone should know how to cook…green beans.  They are quick, easy, good for you and if done right delicious.  And if someone doesn’t like them it means somewhere in their lives they encountered the canned version which can turn even the most stoic stomach.

There are two types of green beans out there, the fatter, longer version and the Haricot Vert , which are also called French green beans, that are very thin and a bit more delicate.  I like the later just because I find them pretties, but really, there is not much difference in taste.

Sautéed spicy Green Beans with Hazelnuts

I lb of Green Beans ( Or Haricot Verts) washed and trimmed

3 Cloves of Garlic Minced

¼ tsp of red pepper flakes ( optional, or more if you want things spicier)

¼ cup of toasted hazelnuts roughly chopped

½ tbs of olive oil

Hazelnut oil (optional)

Salt to taste

Boil a large pot of water and salt it liberally, like you do pasta water.  Boil the green beans for no longer than 1 minute and immediately transfer to an ice bath.  This will preserve the crisp and color.

Pat dry with paper towels.  Heat a large skillet with olive oil to medium heat; toss in the garlic, pepper flakes and hazelnuts and sauté for 30 seconds.  Add the green beans and toss for another 30 seconds.  Taste and see if any salt is needed, if you salted the water enough, the green beans should be properly seasoned.  Transfer to a platter, drizzle with a bit of hazelnut or extra virgin olive oil and season with sea salt or Fleur De Sel if necessary.

These can stay perfectly crisp and tasty in the fridge for up to 3 days, just reheat in the microwave.  Not a bad simple staple to have on hand for a side dish.

"Kartoshka" Pastry

I did not abandon my blog, I just didn't have a single free moment in the last month.  Before the  New Year, I was too busy cooking to blog about it and after the New Year, I was nursing a slightly chopped thumb (let’s just say dull knives and alcohol should not be mixed).  So now with a fresh scar and newly minted inspiration, I can’t wait to get to cooking and writing again.
I recently came across a cook book advertising refreshed vintage recipes and it got me thinking, what makes a recipe vintage?  Are vintage recipes fads of yesteryear, where classics stand the test of time?  But even classics are constantly reinvented and refreshed with a modern spin, so why do we still call them "classic"?  This book claimed to put fresh spin on such things as macaroni and cheese, yeah, right, like that dish can be call "vintage" with every chef out there constantly reinventing it with lobsters, truffles and gold flakes.  What about cake pops or cupcakes, which are now a forgotten fad, overtaken by a cronut (this one I would like to make "vintage" right now) are they vintage yet, or do they need to be wiped off the memory of the whole generation to become old-fashioned? 
Vintage food is just like your grandmother’s lace and pearls, just waiting to be re-discovered and fashionable again. There is only one problem, often, no one is around anymore to remember what these vintage dishes were like… exactly.   People still remember eating a particular dish but no one can agree on exactly how to cook it or what exactly it is supposed to taste like.  I got one of those vintage dishes in mind to tackle and so I decided to start the year with something old.

There is a Russian pastry called "Kartoshka", which means "potatoes".  I believe it is Russian, or to be exact Soviet in origin as I have never came across anything similar in any of the master pastry books.  It is meant to be made with sub-par ingredients easily found in Soviet era shops such as breadcrumbs, rum essence and chocolate substitute.  But according to legends told by grandmas it was not always that way.  These tales were told in tiny kitchens of mass-produced apartments, in voices hushed by the fear of being labeled a dissident.  Only dissidents would discuss the times of ‘Before”.   Before all food disappeared from the stores, before "kartoshka" started tasting like sawdust it was rumored to be the delicate indulgence made with good cocoa, brandy and real whipped butter.  If done right it has the perfect balance of sweetness, booze and chocolate.  And if the taste is hard enough to get right, the texture is even harder.... It is supposed to be perfect... Whatever that means.
No one in my generation knows what it supposed to taste or feel like.  We taste the dozens of varieties offered by every Russian bakery and can only agree that even the good tasting ones are not exactly "IT".  Even my mother's generation didn't quite know.  But i remember she tried to re- create it using my grandmothers taste buds memory as her guide.  I was very young so I don't remember the process or the taste but I do have her scribbled notes and her pastry books so at least something to go on.  I am not sure how I will know if I succeed but certainly a few tasters can be found around here.  And if I do succeed, generations of my family will benefit from this resurrected vintage recipe.
"Kartoshka" is not a baked desert, the pastries are rolled and then refrigerated to set up. And you have to start with a staple of Soviet desert products - dry vanilla bread. 
If you live in a 50 mile radius of a Russian grocery I suggest you go buy some, it is worth the trip, because the process of making vanilla bread and then drying it just to crumble it into breadcrumbs is probably not worth any desert, no matter how heavenly.  The best substitute for the vanilla bread crumbs is store bought angel food cake (try to find one that is not too sweet), slice it thinly and dry it in a 300F oven for about 20 min.  Than zap it in the food processor to make the crumbs.
Secondly you will need good cocoa powder and chocolate.  And most importantly booze.  Kartoshka  can be made with brandy or cognac but I didn’t have any so I used a combination of bourbon and very good dark rum.

 This recipe will make about 15 golf size pasties.

Kartoshka

2.5 cups of vanilla bread or dried angel food cake crumbs

1/3 cup walnuts zapped in the food processor so they are as fine as the bread crumbs

2.5 tbs of good cocoa powder ( not Dutched) + more for dusting

1 cup half and half

4 oz of butter

1 cup brown sugar

Pinch of salt

½ cup semi-sweet or bitter-sweet (or mix) chocolate chips or baking chocolate

¼ cup of sweetened condensed milk

2 tbs burbon

1/3 cup dark rum

In a sauce pan combine half-and-half, brown sugar and salt and heat until sugar just dissolves.  Add the butter and melt over the low heat.  When butter if fully melted, stir in the chocolate and whisk until it is fully melted.  Take off the heat and let cool slightly.  Stir in the condensed milk.

Combine the bread crumbs, nuts and cocoa powder in the food processor and pulse a few times so that the mixture is even. 

Place the mixture in a large bowl. 

Add liquor to the half-and-half / chocolate mixture, stir well.  Slowly pour about half of the liquid over the breadcrumb mixture and stir until just incorporated.  

Add the rest of the mixture in small dozes until your batter is very soft but can still be shaped into a ball and hold its shape. Form small, golf size balls with your hands and place them on a cookie sheet covered with parchment.  

Cover with plastic and refrigerate for a few hours but better overnight.  When ready to serve dust with a little cocoa powder and bring to room temperature.

I think I might just go on a vintage recipe quest, those long forgotten Russian books look mighty interesting all of a sudden….

The best gravlax I ever had ( and made)

I am sure somewhere in Florida right now, this picture would be a very common site, but this is New Jersey, and it is almost winter and this is not the tropics…it is a crazy orange lime tree that is wintering in my bathtub…  My citrus growing track record is by no means stellar, I am currently on my fourth lemon tree, which has been either blooming or dying for the last two years only teasing me with a crop.  Every time the damn thing blooms and little tiny lemons appear by the dozens and I get all exited, it gets sick, shedding all the fruit until I can get it healthy again to bloom, than the whole cycle begins again.  I have lives of countless mandarin trees on my conscience as well, so when I dragged home another citrus this past spring, my husband was very skeptical.  This little crazy tree is actually an orange-lime tree, which produces tiny round fruit, with bright orange skin and interior, this skin that smells like orange, juice that smells like oranges but the taste is purely lime.  Each little pod can give us much as ¼ cup of juice, I am not kidding, these things are bursting….and I have a gazillion of them.

As I was looking for a good gravlax recipe to make for Thanksgiving, I came across this article http://www.gnolls.org/1887/the-best-gravlax-recipe-on-the-internet/ and it gave me a great starting point for my gravlax recipe, it also gave me an idea how I can use up some of my orange limes.  I changed the original recipe quite a bit but never the less have to give the guy credit for a wonderful idea. 

Gravlax is a Scandinavian recipe, and in the old times, pieces of fish would be buried in the sands of the shore, where they would naturally be cured by sea salt remaining in the sand.  Modern gravlax recipes calls for salt, sugar and dill and although I made gravlax countless times before I never got the proportions quite right.  Also, the idea of introducing citrus into a gravlax recipe never crossed my mind, after all where have you seen a lime tree on the shores of North Sea?

This particular recipe is the best gravlax I ever made or had, anywhere, ever… it was absolutely perfect and I will never make it any other way again.

A few notes…if you are not lucky enough to have orange limes growing in your bathtub like I do, just use a combination of navel oranges and limes (proportions below).  Also, this fish needs to be eaten in 3-4 days as it will spoil more quickly than any other cured by more salt.   Honestly, I don’t think this would be a problem; a real issue is not to eat the whole thing while you are cutting it.

Gravlax

The recipe is for 2 equal salmon filets totaling 2.5 lbs.  If you have less or more fish you need to re-calculate the recipe using a “by ounce” method (figure out how much salt and sugar is needed per ounce than multiplying by the amount of ounces you have).  The filets have to be equal size so they would “Sandwich” perfectly.

The recipe is also using more sugar than salt, don’t worry, your fish will not come out sweet.

2 Salmon filets 1.25 lbs each, skin on

4 tbs granulated sugar

2tbs + 1 tsp kosher salt

A large bunch of dill coarsely chopped

5 orange limes or ½ of regular lime + ¼ of nave orange chopped as fine as you can

Mix the sugar and salt, divide by half and season each filet evenly, do not rub the mixture in.  Top one of the filets with half of the chopped dill.  Place all the limes and oranges on top of the dill and cover with all the remaining dill (having the citrus insulated from the fish by the herbs will prevent the fish from being “burned” with the citrus acid). 

 

 

Place the second seasoned filet salted side down onto the dill.  You now have a little gravlax sandwich of two filets skin side out.  Wrap the fish sandwich in generous amount of plastic very tightly. 

 

 When you are done wrapping, wrap it again as it will leak no matter what, but you want the wrapping to be very tight.  Now it will go in the fridge for anywhere between 42 – 56 hrs.  Anything before 42 and your cure will not be complete, anything over the 56 and it will over cure…   You want to place it on a plate or inside a plastic container as no matter how well you wrapped it, it will leak.  You also need to flip it every 8 or 10 hrs, I usually do one flip in the early morning, one in the late afternoon and one right before bed. 

After at least 42 hrs, unwrap the fish.  Quickly wash off the lime, dill and reaming salt mixture with cold water.  Pat dry with pepper towel and slice thinly until only the skin remains.  Try not to eat the whole thing while slicing, it can be very tempting.

You can eat the gravalx on its own, serve with bagels and cream cheese or as I did with little pumpernickel bread and watercress, capers cream ( a bunch of watercress, 1 tbs of capers and ¾ cup of crème fraiche blended together until smooth).

 

Thanksgiving thoughts and holiday menu ideas

Whew….its over, I am exhausted but happy and thankful.  I am thankful for my family of course, for the warm words said around the table, for a chance to see people I don’t often do…. I am also thankful and happy for the fact that I executed the entire menu, that nothing burned and no one got food poisoning, that everything was more or less delicious and that I didn’t break a single glass while washing the dishes…  Here are a few lessons learned and some highlights:

If you have a chance to cure your own gravlax -  go for it, I discovered yet another recipe and honestly this was the best gravlax I ever made or tasted…. It will be in the next post so keep an eye out…

It totally pays off watching Iron Chef… I swiped the recipe for a modern clams Casino from Bobby Flay from the Thanksgiving battle he just did partnered up with Michael Simon… I tried to duplicate what I saw and this is a delicious dish with creamy clam, salty bits of pancetta, freshness from the pesto and crisp from the topping (recipe at the end of this post)…

Every Thanksgiving should begin by painting cookies with your child the night ( or two) before…it will be the last peaceful moment, you the cook will know until Friday morning…

 

If you going to invent a great appetizer, go all out... here is the roast of venison served on a crostini with truffled chestnut pure, sweet and tangy sauces, topped with crispy onions and enoki mushrooms 

Sometimes it does not pay to listen to Iron Chefs so much, I made the Cherry chili tart that won Alex Guarnaschelli the Iron Chef post and all I can say it was very creative if not delicious…. But now that I already made a trip to the city for Pastille chilies, I have another great idea for desert which is totally my own so look out Iron Chefs…

If you are going to make something like boudin blanc from scratch yourself, make sure you have at least once tried it made by professionals otherwise you will embarrass yourself… as delicious a the my white sausage and warm cabbage salad was… it was no boudin blanc…or so I was told by one of the guests who is in fact French. 

A great side dish... creamy polenta cakes with fall vegetables ragout...

 

If you decide to serve soup shots in chilled cucumber glasses, make sure you have a plan B...like the real shot glasses...  Making shots out of cucumber only looks easy on TV

No pictures of the turkey or deserts because by the time the second and third courses are served, I am to tired, drunk to give a crap about the pictures… I always regret it later… because the bird was beautiful and delicious.  If you have a smoker and you are not smoking the turkey, it is a crime…. Only slow smoked turkey in my future, thank you very much (recipe at the end of the post)…

Thanksgiving should not be about the food, we all know that, but it is nice to know I can still make people cry for mercy as they crawl out of the dining room undoing the top button of their pants…

Baked Clams

12 large clams

4 tablespoons finely diced pancetta or bacon or spec or chorizo (I used pancetta for the clams and chorizo for the topping)

½ cup chopped fresh basil

1 garlic clove

¼ cup olive oil

Salt and pepper

2 tbs crème fraiche

For the topping

1 cup bread crumbs

2 tbs finely diced chorizo

2 tbs butter melted and cooled

Make the topping… in a small skillet crisp up the chorizo, than mix the rendered fat and melted butter with the bread crumbs ( food processor is very useful for this)… set aside

Scrub your clams, than place them in a shallow pot with ½ inch of water, cover with a lid and cook on medium for 1 minute or until they just slightly start to open up.  The idea is not to cook them but to open them.  With a dull or oyster knife, force open the shells, scoop out the clam meat and reserve the half shells.

In a small skillet crisp up the bacon or the pancetta, let cool.  In a food processor, make quick pesto by zapping basil, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper until the mixture is smooth and a little runny.  A little lemon zest is nice in here as well.  Chop up the clam meat, combine with pancetta, a little pesto and crème fraiche, mix well.  Stuff each half shell with the clam mixture, top generously with the chorizo bread crumbs and cook under the broiler for a few minutes until the toping is crispy and golden brown.  Serve immediately on a platter covered in thick layer of salt ( helps the shells stay in place and not rattle around)….

 

 

Smoked whole Turkey

The recipe is for a 20 lb turkey but can be easily scaled up or down.

For the brine:

1 gallon apple cider

1 gallon of water

2 large oranges cut up

2 apples cut up

1 lemon cut up

2 inch knob of fresh ginger cut up

1 ½ cup of kosher salt

1 cup brown sugar

Whole head of garlic

A large bunch of fresh thyme

1 bay leaf

1 tbs of whole peppercorns

1 tbs smoked paprika

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp mild chili powder

A large brine bag

Turkey stuffing (just aromatics and not meant as actual stuffing)

1 lemon cut up

1 apple cut up

1 stalk of celery

1 inch knob of fresh ginger

6 garlic cloves

One small shallot

A generous bunch of fresh parsley

Seasoning

Kosher salt

Fresh ground pepper

Montreal Chicken Seasoning

1 tsp smoked paprika

¼ cup of olive oil

1 stick of butter cut in cubes

Basting liquid

2 ½ lbs of butter melted and cooled

8 oz of amber beer

8 oz of apple cider

4 oz of orange juice

1 orange

1 small red chili pepper ( seeds removed)

¼ cup maple syrup

½ tbs salt

A large cheese cloth

Make the brine… combine all the ingredients in a large stock pot, bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes… Cool the brine completely.  Rinse your whole turkey inside and out, place in a the brining bag breast side down and pour the brine over it, submerging the turkey completely.  Tie the bag securely and  store in the refrigerator for at least 36 hours or up to 4 days. 

On cooking day, take out the turkey, pat it dry inside and out.  Salt and pepper the cavity generously than stuff with all the stuffing aromatics…  With your palm of your hand separate the skin from the breast (try not to tear it) and stuff all the butter cubes between the breast meat and the skin.  Rub the outside with olive oil, season with seasoning spices and let it sit out of the fridge for at least 1 -2 hrs before going in the smoker.

Prepare your smoker, add the wood chips and make sure you get the temperature between 250F and 260F degrees…. Soak the cheese cloth in the melted butter and wrap it all around the turkey, it will prevent the skin from going too dark.

Make the basting liquid, combine beer, cider and oj in a sauce pan, add orange, chili, maple syrup and salt.  Simmer for 20-25 minutes until the liquid is slightly reduced.  Discard the orange and chili, add the rest of the melted butter.

Smoke the turkey at approximately 250F for 5 -6 hrs, basting every  30 -40 minutes with basting liquid.  You need to keep the cheese cloth moist and buttery otherwise it will stick to the skin.  Remove the cheese cloth the last 30 minutes of cooking and the skin will be perfectly crispy.

Let the turkey rest for at least 30 minutes before carving, and if you have any basting liquid left over you can pour it on top of the turkey before carving.

 

 

Thanksgiving menu.

 

Every year around mid-October I start to freak out about my Thanksgiving menu.  I cook a lot and throughout the year I put together quite a few menus for large and small gatherings, cooking projects and Sunday dinners, but I go all out for Thanksgiving.  It is the most important meal of the year for me, I honor my family by showcasing my best, and everything I learned through the year and aside for a few favorite staples I do not like to repeat myself.

I have to have a theme, an inspiration of some sorts, whether a specific cuisine, a showcased ingredient or one dish that I am dying to make that I can build a whole menu around.  I had French inspired Thanksgivings, Mediterranean, and all American.  I had color inspired Thanksgivings, when I was obsessed with orange one year and yellow the next.  Last year’s inspiration was a “perfect byte” concept and this year I struggled to come up with a fresh idea… but that is what fiends are for.  I have a coworker who I call my “culinary” friend ( she is of course much more than that), she shares my passion for cooking and gets the lengths I go to ( Let’s just mention that every year she makes an edible animal to represent the Chinese symbol for the year…. The year of the snake was especially creative).  I bounced a few ideas off her and loosely came up with an October fest theme, but it didn’t quite fit my personality, besides I have baked pretzels before and have no desire to do it again.  We were taking a lunch stroll when she mentioned I should showcase venison somehow (God knows I have a lot of it this year), I started playing around with that idea and it hit me… The original Thanksgiving!  The settlers and the Indians did not eat turkey (well maybe wild ones), they had venison and clams and chestnuts and  corn and small birds…. Why not showcase the original Thanksgiving ingredients before we get to the Turkey, and while we are at it, why not use the original cooking techniques if I can, such as open fire roasting and grilling on coals. 

Also, because the second night of Hanukah happens to fall on Thanksgiving Day this year, I included a few modern twists on old and trusted Jewish favorites.

I sincerely hope that I will be able to execute on this very ambitions menu.  At this point I think that the only things that can derail some of the dishes are either lack of peculiar ingredients or the fact that there are only 24 hrs in the day…. Anyway, now that it is in print, I guess I am committed.

I am off to make my stocks now… as always, there will be highlights and tastes post after the holiday.

 

Thanksgiving 2013

Appetizers

Chilled cucumber shots with warm roasted squash and tomato soup, garnished with pop-corn

Lobster salad stuffed eggs

Homemade boudin blanc with warm cabbage salad, lentils and walnut cider vinaigrette

Tiny polenta cakes with fall vegetables ragout

Home cured gravlax with spicy brown mustard or watercress cream sauce served on pumpernickel bread

Clams on half shell baked with crème fresh and pesto and anchovy bread crumbs

Roast of venison served on crostini with chestnut pure, horseradish sauce and crispy fried onions

Pork roulade stuffed with apples and onions with spicy apricot balsamic sauce

Duck liver mouse with red-wine prune preserves

Micro-greens with fresh pomegranates, spicy pepitas and  pomegranate dressing

Apple, cucumber, radish and watercress salad with mint yogurt dressing

Fresh Zucchini bread with choice of sweet and savory butters

 

Main course

BBQ Smoked Turkey with apple cider, ginger sauce

Bourbon cranberry sauce

Potatoes and wild mushrooms

Roasted corn and tomato salad

Hericot vert with roasted hazelnuts and red pepper dressing

Red rice and quinoa salad with oranges and pistachios

Poblano pepper and cheddar corn bread

 

Desert

Fruit tartlets

Bourbon Pumpkin cheese cake

Assortment of macaroons (Lemon, Cassis, Chesnutt and Pistachio)

Assorted of decorated butter cookies ( Jam stuffed, sour cream and chocolate stuffed or salted caramel)

Cinnamon  doughnut holes with chocolate and berry dipping sauces