Extra Schmaltz!

This topic keeps coming up and it can be hard to find a definitive guide when you're in the heat of the kitchen moment. I'll try to sum up the most important facts about brining. Brining is a great way to tenderize and add flavor to meat. It is more effective than marinating, which can backfire when the acid in the marinade starts denaturing the outer layer of protein on your meat, thus degrading its final texture. The 'magic' of brining was described to me this way (though I am omitting the more scienc-ey terms): Because the meat contains far less salt than the brine, the salt from the brine is inclined to more into the meat to even out the overall salinity of the brine + meat system. As the salt moves into the meat, it brings other flavors from the brine with it, such as aromatics, herbs, sugar. It also hydrates the meat so that even as liquid is lost during the cooking process, there's more liquid in the meat in the first place and the liquid is attracted to th...

After being badgered for years by my youngest son to brine my turkey, I finally did it. Naturally, I overthought the process and compared website recipes for days, including the information about where and how to actually do it. My eventual container was an XXL ziploc bag (big enough to hold a small adult) since it is food-grade plastic and doesn't leak all over the place. I put the turkey into the bag, put the bag into a cooler (brilliant idea from several websites since there is never enough room in the refrigerator for such a thing) and poured the prepared brine into the bag. I covered it with bags of blue ice, although it probably wasn't necessary. Weather permitting, you could also leave it outside; usually the temp around here on Thanksgiving is slightly cooler than the fridge. Every so often I turned the bird around and upside down, which was made easy by using the bag.  I made my brine by boiling an assortment of root vegetables in 2 gallons of water: carrots, garlic, c...

Stir Fried Leftover Salad in Black Bean Garlic Sauce (If I had known how delicious this was I would have taken a picture) Saute in un-flavored oil: Onion, carrot sticks, green vegetables, pre-soaked shiitake mushrooms Stir in a heaping spoon of Black Bean Garlic Sauce, combine well Add the leftover salad that didn't get dressing on it: ours was spinach, green leaf lettuce, shredded carrots, craisins, walnuts, sunflower seeds, raisins, fresh parmesan cheese. Continue to stir fry at high heat until all ingredients are cooked approximately the same amount.  Serve with rice noodles or rice. Whenever I see weird combinations like this on menus at yuppie restaurants I make rude remarks and keep looking. But, by golly, it was really, really good! 

Here's the recipe for sweet potatoes that I think is essentially how I remember them from all of my childhood Thanksgivings. And I should know, since I ate the vast majority of them... Sweet Potatoes I can't tell you exactly how many to get - I had around 5 pounds (the store was having a 5#/$1 special on sweet potatoes, which was great.), but I increased the amount of sugar sauce later on. Chop the potatoes into 1-2 inch chunks - you want them to be big enough that it's not too time consuming to skin them later, but at the same time they need to cook pretty quickly. Put them in a big pot, cover with water, then boil the potatoes until a fork goes into them easily. Drain the potatoes, then let them cool. Once cool, use a dull knife to help slip off the skins of the potatoes - it should be easy, and you really shouldn't have to use much force. I recommend putting the skinned potato chunks back into the same pot. Sugar Sauce Melt 1 stick butter in a small sauce pan, then a...

This, like most French foods, is a quintessential peasant food that, through whatever process it is that idolizes french shit, is thought of as something vaguely patrician. Fish soup is exactly what it sounds like; what poor fishermen and sailors eat when they arrive in port. This particular version is considered Provencale, originating in Marseille and the surrounding area. I guess northern sailors eat different stuff. Maybe whale. The basic idea is to take as many different kinds of the cheapest fish you can find, and cook them down whole with some veggies until its a mushy slurry, and then strain it finely so you're left with a super savory, fishy broth. I will demonstrate the traditional method of service as well. I found some french language recipes, and they all basically go like this: Onion Tomato Garlic Lots of different fish - only big ones gutted, small ones whole. Brown the fish bits, add veggies and sweat until clear, simmer the whole mess without lid adding water as it...

Announcing the first of the Thanksgiving recipes! I got this recipe from NPR during a show about cranberries. It's a very simple and easy pie (great if you need to make a last-minute dessert), which uses our favorite seasonal fruit. It can be served warm or cold and with or without whipped cream, though I argue it's best as-is. I didn't take this awesome picture--it's from the NPR website (Andrew Pockrose). Yes, it's as delicious as it looks. Preheat the oven to 350 and butter a 9" or 10" pie plate. Filling: 2 c. cranberries (fresh or frozen), coarsely chopped* 1/2 c. walnuts, coarsely chopped* 1/2 c. sugar Batter: 2 eggs 3/4 c. melted butter 1 c. sugar 1 c. flour 1 tsp. almond extract *(Retain some of the most attractive cranberries and walnuts for decoration) Toss together the chopped cranberries, walnuts, and sugar for the filling. Place this mixture in the buttered pie plate and pat it down gently. I chopped these using a food processor but you can ju...

Here's another one for posterity. I found it in my old email box, back when I asked mom for the recipe while living in the dorms: POPOVERS Begin by preheating the oven to 400 degrees - place well-oiled iron muffin pan in oven while you prepare batter. Put into blender*: (you can double or multiply by 1.5) 1 cup milk 1 cup flour 2 eggs 1/4 tsp salt 1 1/2 TBSP sugar 1 TBSP melted butter Blend until smooth; pour into muffin cups about 2/3 of the way. Check at 20 minutes; remove if brown. The magic is the hot oil in the hot pans. They will be popunders if you do not preheat the pan. Enjoy! *I find they work pretty well if you use mixers. You can actually just mix vigorously, if it comes to that.

This recipe was sort of implied in our previous gnocchi post , but I thought I'd post it as a stand-alone recipe because it's just so darn good. The time consuming part is making the gnocchi, but once that's done with the rest goes quickly. If you want to freeze some for future use (which you will be very thankful you did), freeze the gnocchi in a single layer after they are formed, but before they are boiled. Once they're frozen fully, place them in a ziploc bag and simply dump them in boiling water when you're ready to eat them. They can be eaten right after boiling or fried in a little oil if you want crisp edges. Use the guidelines below as a ratio, which you can increase for a larger batch. This makes enough for 2 meals for 2 people or so. Apparently true gnocchi don't even contain egg, but I haven't tried the recipe that way. If you try that and it works out, let me know. The gnocchi with lamb summer sausage and steamed brussels sprouts (I grew them!)...

Who is Susan? We don't know! This recipe comes from the Melting Pot II Cookbook, which was a kick-ass collection of recipes from the parents of one of the pre-schools in Santa Barbara. A friend of ours, Debbie Lipp provided this recipe from her friend Susan. Whoever Susan is, she makes a good scone! 1 1/2 c. flour 2 Tbsp. sugar 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder 1/2 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp. salt 1/3 c. melted butter 1 egg, beaten ~1/2 c. buttermilk Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Beat egg in measuring cup and fill with buttermilk to make 2/3 cup. Stir in melted butter [should now be 1 c. of liquid]. Add liquids to dry ingredients and beat until just smooth [I have read that in Ireland this is done in a maximum of five strokes!]. Do not overmix. This is a very soft dough. Turn it out of the bowl onto a well-floured board. Flour your hands and pat the dough into a round. Cut it into six to eight wedges. Move the wedges onto a cookie sheet, spacing about 1/2 inch apart. Bake at 400 for 15-...

Here is my delicious Sunday dinner: With blueberry muffins for dessert: The enchiladas are as per Lillian's procedure, but using a mole instead of a red sauce , derived from this recipe but with total and utter lack of regard to their proportions (also with shredded chicken, black beans, and much cilantro): http://www.recipezaar.com/35659 And the Spanish rice as per this recipe, again following it quite loosely: http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/000040spanish_rice.php For those of you with large quantities of homemade chicken stock, you could obviously just make these, however, I needed some stock-like-substance, so I cooked the chicken with carrots, onion, some cinnamon stick, some cloves, and a bit of other stuff, then used the chicken broth for both of the above recipes. This worked out super duper well, since the chicken also tasted really good when it went into the enchiladas. The muffins are from the following recipe, though I didn't have real yogurt so I just added w...