Aroma Cucina

Maple Syrup & Bourbon Glazed Quail, Whey Not?

 

Pizza Guru took a trip back home to Vermont and came back bearing a gift of maple syrup. It’s such an American ingredient and as I looked around my kitchen filled with very Italian ingredients I thought, “What am I going to do with this? Maple syrup pasta??!”

 

Fortunately, a quick conversation on Serious Eats, and I had more than enough inspiration, but funnily enough I paired it with another American ingredient: bourbon.  Was I embracing terroire, or just not thinking out of the box? Regardless, it turns out maple syrup and bourbon love each other!

 

Maple Syrup & Bourbon Glaze

¼ cup maple syrup

¼ cup bourbon

1 dried chili pepper, crumbled

¼ t Viet Namese cinnamon (very pungent)

Fresh nutmeg

¼ t grains of paradise

2-3 juniper berries

 

Place all the ingredients in a saucepan and gently reduce just a little, stop when the glaze starts to thicken.

 

 

I like to brine my quail, but instead of using a regular salt brine, I used the whey left over from mozzarella (the whey is that liquid that comes with mozzarella).  The intrepid experimenters at Ideas in Food and Studio Kitchen had been fooling around with whey marinades and it is an intriguing way to tenderize meat. The lactose in the whey acts as the tenderizer, and commercial meat processors will actually use lactose crystals to tenderize meat. I’ve also experimented with yogurt as a tenderizer, and it works, but then you encounter the snot factor. I don’t know the science here, but a few times I wound up with a seriously mucilaginous sauce. This describes the snot factor, which is defined as when you bring the fork up to your mouth a long string of sauce snot clings to your plate. It’s sort of charming with melted cheese; it’s just revolting with a brown sauce. I’m happy to report that whey tenderized the meat, left no discernible flavor and there was zero snot factor.

 

Science lesson is over and now the rest is easy. Brush the quail with the glaze. You really do need a brush, if you pour, you’ll waste too much. As for trussing the bird, that is up to you. I don't truss because I think it causes problems with over roasting the non trussed areas.  As long as you are not bothered by the wild abandon of the legs, and I'm a great fan of wild abandon, I do not recommend trussing. If you are a bit shy, you may want to truss.

Roast the quail at 375F for about 35 minutes, basting the quail every 8-10 minutes.  About 10 minutes before the quail is done, drain off the pan juices and added them to the glaze, reduce the sauce again and continued painting the birds with the pan juice glaze. The overall result was fantastic; the glaze was crackling hard, very flavorful and just the right amount of finger licking sticky.

 

The other night, as you can imagine with all of this hot oven work, it required a cold cocktail as everyone waited for their birdie. Since we were already in an experimental mode, we opted for a modified Sazerac, subbing the maple syrup for simple syrup and bourbon for rye (there is no rye to be had in Umbria, which is reason enough to head back to the States).  The maple-bourbon Sazerac was marvelous, an elegant variation with an elusive complexity from the maple syrup. This cocktail deserves a better name.

 

One last note about maple syrup, as Pizza Guru gave me the full rundown. He is a versatile fellow, isn’t he? This was ungraded syrup that he got at a Vermont coop and it was a revelation. Not super sweet, not particularly viscous, it was so delicately flavored you could sip it from a cordial glass and be quite happy. I’m now spoiled and will be on the hunt for some of this nectar when we get back to NY.

 

P.S. I also tried the glaze on some chicken legs….and it is a fine, fine thing this maple syrup bourbon glaze!

 

Summer Duck Confit

I only make duck confit in the winter. I’m not sure why, maybe its’ the lengthy prep time, or the whole curing in fat for a few weeks thing, but its just a winter item in our house. I make confit when there is a chill in the air. And just to highlight the paradox:  I’m perfectly happy to eat duck confit all year long. Then again, maybe a slightly lighter version might be in order during the summer heat. Ah yes, Confit-Lite! Brilliant! I can see my first million rolling into the bank account right this second.

Just in case you are not up on the fine points of duck confit: essentially it is duck legs cooked in their own fat and then placed into a crock, sealed in fat, where they take a few weeks to ‘cure’. What they are being cured of, I couldn’t tell you, but what emerges from the fat is one of the best tasting instant meals on earth, a crisped up duck leg served on a salad. You get salt, crunch, salad, and meat and fat all in the same bite, it’s sensory overload.

For argument’s sake, suppose you weren’t up to the full-blown duck confit recipe but you are craving some ducky goodness.
 Take a whole duck; season it with plenty of salt, fennel pollen, rosemary, pepper, and thyme. Then slow roast the bird at 275F for at least 2 hours. Maybe even make it a day ahead of time and let the duck rest in the fridge overnight, its sort of like going to the spa for the half day beauty cure rather than a month long retreat but it still helps. Next day, cut the legs off the duck and thickly slice the breast meat off the carcass, trying to keep the breast skin as intact as possible. 

In the meantime, cube up some potatoes and toss them into a pot of boiling salted water for 2 minutes. (Set your timer, your watch, your alarm, 2 minutes precisely. Yes, I’m kidding. Let the water come back to a boil after your potatoes go in, then give it a minute or so.) Drain the potatoes and rinse under cold water to slow down the cooking process.

Take a little of the duck fat and heat it in a skillet, toss in the potatoes, some unpeeled garlic cloves, and a sprig of time. Sauté until crispy and you can’t wait any longer. Remove and drain on a paper towel, keep warm in the oven.

Place your duck bits into the sauté pan, on high heat, skin side down and crisp up the duck skin.

While this happening, make good mustardy vinaigrette dressing, clean up some salad greens, toss in a bowl with the dressing, and arrange on a plate.

If you have some fresh parsley on hand, once you’ve removed the duck meat, toss the parsley into the remaining duck fat and make that crispy too, then with the potatoes, which of course you’ve already salted to taste. Place the crispy potatoes next to the duck pieces on the salad. Relax: potatoes and salad taste really good together, stop making that face.  I always save a little crispy potato bits for my salad.

Should you be feeling a little wild and crazy, drizzle some pomegranate syrup over the duck bits right before serving. Pomegranates aren’t in season yet, so syrup has to do but it would be delish with some fresh pomegranate jewels scattered over the whole dish. Then again if I was scattering pomegranate seeds, it would be fall and I’d be making real confit, not mock confit-lite, so therein lies the paradox of eating in season.

Now, you may be looking for the classic recipe layout for Confit-lite, but this is an intuitive dish and you’ll have to wing it. Just keep the roasting temp low, know your duck is cooked when the juices run clear and enjoy all the taste and texture sensations on your plate.

P.S. Due to strict Umbrian dietary restrictions, do not tell anyone that I was cooking French style, this is just entre nous!
 

Hawaiian Roast Turkey Dinner

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Stop! I bet you are picturing a slab of turkey with a pineapple ring on top, and what you should be picturing is the big island of Hawaii where there is a significant population of wild Rio Grande turkeys.   Although turkeys are native to North America there are reports of feral turkeys on the Hawaiian Islands dating back to the late 1700’s, however the current population was boosted by a large influx of turkeys wild caught in Texas and shipped to 6 of the Hawaiian Islands from 1961-1963. 

Jay Cassell, our dear friend and respected editor of Field & Stream magazine was invited to go to Hawaii on a turkey hunt. And, what good luck! He got a turkey! And what better luck, he asked me to cook it and serve it on Saturday night.   Wild turkey is delicious and while it wasn’t the first time I’ve cooked one of Jay’s birds, this was a bit more challenging because it came back from Hawaii as a boneless and skinless breast. Wild game is much leaner that domestic birds so the trick is to keep the meat as juicy and flavorful as possible.  This can be accomplished with brining and larding. Brining essentially means soaking the meat in a cold salt solution. There are two factors at work during a brining session: diffusion and osmosis.  Diffusion occurs when the turkey is submerged into the salt bath and following the laws of science, moisture and salt (the brine) will travel to areas where there is less moisture and salt (the meat). The meat will actually absorb moisture into its cells through osmosis and the salt causes the proteins to unravel and form a sort of sticky web that actually traps moisture and flavor.  A very basic brine is simply cold water and salt in a ratio of 1 quart of water per pound of meat and roughly 115 grams or 4 ounces of salt. The reason I’m giving you the salt by weight and not by the cup is that kosher salt takes up more room in the measuring cup because of its bigger crystals, table salt is finer and denser so a cup of kosher salt is equal to one half cup of table salt. That’s another reason why I keep saying that a scale is an essential tool in the kitchen, so you don’t have to stress about converting salt volume based on crystal   size, and besides it looks cool when you take out the scale. You want the meat immersed in the brine and kept at about 40 degrees F; allow about 1 hour of brine time per pound of meat.

I like to add some seasoning to my brine so I usually add dried herbs such as rosemary, thyme, and a good handful of peppercorns.  This part of brining is completely subjective, so use whatever flavors you enjoy.  Many brine recipes call for sugar but this is optional as the salt does the lion’s share of the actual work of breaking apart the meat proteins.

Larding is just what it sounds like, you are adding fat. In this case I used bacon. You can’t go wrong with bacon.

Remembering our friend Kevin’s delicious mango stuffed turkey breast I thought a little mango sauce would be perfect for our Hawaiian bird. This recipe should also very well with a whole chicken breast just in case you don’t have any wild turkey hunting friends.

Brine for about 1 hour as each breast weighed about a pound or less. (You, of course caught on to the math: 4 breasts = 4 pounds, does not = 4 hours in the brine because you are brining each individual breast.  But you knew that, right?)

Roughly chop up 1-2 mangos and 1-2 cloves of garlic. Combine in a roasting pan large enough to hold the breasts.

Portion the mango mixture into 4 parts and wrap each breast around the fruit.  Add a thick slice of bacon on top of each breast. Roast at 350 until done (about an hour, check for doneness with a probe thermometer).

Remove the breasts, cover and let sit for 10 minutes while you finish the mango sauce.
Pour the roasted mango bits and all the pan juices into a saucepan; reduce the mixture until it is a fairly thick sauce. I had a lot of juice so I need to reduce the mixture for a good 10 minutes. Puree with a stick blender; add a tablespoon of light cream and 2 ounces of cognac.

Slice, serve, smile and pretend you are dining on the big island of Hawaii. Thank you Jay! It was a great dinner with great friends!

Fundamentals, Evolution and the Tyranny of the Recipe

Being tied to a recipe makes me nervous, I keep checking and double-checking the ingredients, the procedure; my cookbooks are filled with notes on how to tweak a recipe to suit my tastes.  I encourage people to trust their instincts and cook with passion and abandon instead of adhering to the written word.

But, as I was putting dinner together last night, I started to think about how I ‘knew’ to put these ingredients together and the value of learning the fundamentals of flavor combinations and cooking techniques. Let’s just say some knowledge and experience narrow the risk factor dramatically.

Here’s how Pork Polpette in Salsa Rosa evolved:
The weather has been hot-hot-still-summer, but in mid-afternoon the wind shifted and you could smell a whiff of fall. I have a boatload of tomatoes in the house, and a ton of frozen peas in the freezer, the result of being gifted with frozen peas right after I bought some. The slightest chill in the air, the thought of stewing peas, and I was thinking about a classic blanquette de veau (a white sauced veal stew).   That still seemed a bit heavy for dinner, and it needed to “Italian-ized” with the addition of tomatoes. We have tomatoes at every meal these days in one form or another, I’m thinking about developing an all tomato breakfast cereal.  And, are tomatoes an anti-oxidant, or do they tame free radicals? Because if so, I’m completely oxidant free and my radicals have become submissive conservatives.

Salsa Rosa
5 or 6 large ‘sugo’ or sauce tomatoes (use plum tomatoes in the states)
1 carrot
2 ribs of celery
1 small red onion
2-3 cloves of garlic
¼ cup white wine
¼ cup heavy cream
1 cup of frozen peas
nutmeg
¼ cup of heavy cream
olive oil, salt, pepper

½ lb ground pork
3 T grated cheese
2 T breadcrumbs
1 clove of garlic, finely minced
1 egg
Salt and pepper to taste

For the sauce:
Clean and roughly chop the fresh tomatoes and place in a saucepan with a scant bit of water in the bottom. Let the tomatoes soften and cook for about 5 minutes over medium heat. You want them to just be yielding, not mush, and be careful there is enough water in the pot so that the tomatoes don’t scorch.  After 5 minutes, turn off the heat and let the tomatoes get cool enough that you can handle them. Process the tomatoes in a food mill, using a medium sized plate. This is a common item in an Italian kitchen; it’s a cone shaped cylinder that is hand cranked and comes with different, interchangeable size plate holes. The beauty of the food mill in this case is that all the seeds and skins remain in the mill and only the tomato juice and pulp are reserved. If you don’t have a mill, before you cook them, skin and seed the tomatoes (plunge in boiling water and then peel, the skins will simply slip off).  Place the ground tomatoes in a small pot and cook over medium heat until you have a thickened, sauce consistency (about 10 minutes).

Roughly chop the carrot, onion and celery. Warm a sauce pan with a tablespoon or so of olive oil and add the chopped carrots, onion, celery, sprinkle with a bit of salt and let soften. When the vegetables have gotten soft and all cozy together, add the white wine and let this cook until it evaporates, then add the cream and turn down the heat to the lowest possible simmer, add the tomato puree and let cook for about 45 minutes.

For the Pork Polpette (Meatballs)
Combine all ingredients in a bowl, mixing well, and then form nice little meatballs. Lightly fry in olive oil and place in a covered baking dish. What, did you expect some long involved recipe? They’re just meatballs!

Keep the meatballs in a covered dish, warm in the oven.
Make your favorite pasta. I had some fresh spaghetti alla chitarra on hand, so I got lucky.

Add the peas to the sauce, a few scrapes of fresh nutmeg to add some depth to the flavor, then check to see if you need any more salt or pepper. You should have a sauce that is like a thick, creamy tomato soup. Toss with the pasta, layer the meatballs on top and then eat your dinner. Maybe have a glass of a nice medium bodied red wine and a crust of bread around for sopping up the extra sauce.

Anatracceta: Duck meets Pig

Every third Saturday of the month there is an artisinal produce market in Sansepolcro, a small city just north of us, barely across the Tuscan border. Sssshhh...don't tell anyone that we cross the border into tuscany! 
The farmers market was fun, and we got to chat with Brent, the goat cheese maker from Valle di Mezzo, as well as buy some of the elusive local saffron, but our greatest discovery was the butcher in town.
The shop is picture perfect with gorgeous meats and an astonishing flat screen TV that shows how porchetta is made. Porchetta is a local specialty where a whole pig is roasted with garlic and fennel until it's skin is a varnished crackle. That sounds just fine, but when you literally see a whole, boneless pig...it's huge!  The salt is massaged in by the trowel load, the garlic is dumped in by the scoop, the fennel is the whole long stalk of fennel tied into huge bunches about 6 inches across and they use two of these bundles...well, the scale of the operation is simpy massive.
Our friend John bought the biggest rabbit hindquarters any of us had ever seen and I bought a rolled, boneless duck breast. Because it's built right into their DNA, the butcher and the fishmonger cannot hand over their product without a recipe, it's as natural as breathing.  I was told to just roast my duck as it had alrady been seasoned with garlic and fennel. Just having watched the pig video, I was more than convinced that my duck was adequately seasoned. What I didn't expect was that it had been seasoned with pancetta (think of a cured, not smoked, bacon). Big cubes of pancetta were embedded in the heart of the anatra, or duck. So you have one of the fattiest birds around, stuffed with bacon....needless to say, it was delicious! Simply roasted, then finished with some bourbon roasted peaches.  So turduckin move over...there's a new guy in town, the anatracceta!
P.S. John made an outstanding dish with those big bunny hindquarters, braised with sweet peppers that reduced down into a thick sauce that begged to be scooped up with a spoon or a piece of bread. It's almost worth a trip to Tuscany to go back to the butcher!

Sausage Stuffed Peppers

Sausage Stuffed Peppers

Seriously good.

4 small to medium sized red peppers
½ pound sausage meet
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic
Salt, Pepper, Fennel powder to taste

Bulgur Wheat
1 cup Bulgur Wheat
Thinly sliced, diced or chopped vegetables like onion, carrots, celery, fresh fennel, zucchini, tomatoes, and chili peppers if you like a little heat.

Pre-heat over to 180C/350F.

Wash the red peppers, carefully cut the tops off and remove the seeds and ribs.
Coarsely chop the onion and garlic and mix with the sausage meat, adding some salt, pepper and fennel powder to the meat mixture.  Fennel powder is widely available in Italy, and when I am in NY, I take fennel seeds and grind them up into powder. It’s a great flavoring for all sorts of roasted meats.

Loosely pack the peppers with the sausage mixture and place in a roasting pan and roast for about 45 minutes. Timing will vary depending on how tightly you’ve packed the pepper and how big it is. If you are worried that the sausage may be underdone, use a probe thermometer inserted into the middle of the stuffed pepper to determine if it is properly cooked.

About 15 minutes before the peppers are done, slice up every fresh vegetable that you have in the house, toss in a saucepan and with a little olive oil, salt and pepper, cook the vegetables. We like the heat so there were a few chilies added to the mixture.  The smaller and finer the vegetables are cut, they more they will blend together and add an overall vegetal taste. If you want to taste the individual flavors of the vegetables, cut them into larger chunks. When they are all soft and mellty, add ¾ of a cup of water to the pan, let it come to the boil and then add the bulgur and cover the pan. The bulgur will be completely cooked in about 10 minutes.  If it seems a little dry, add more water or a touch of olive oil. The water quantity is approximate here because bulgur comes in all different qualities, so read any info that may be printed on the label or box to give you a better idea of how much liquid to use.

When the peppers are done, fill a bowl with the bulgur and vegetable mixture and place the sausage stuffed pepper on top.  A nice crisp white wine like a Verdiccho or Tokai, and a piece of bread and you are all set. Enjoy.

Hot Coffee and Farewell to the Mountains

One of the coolest things about being back at sea level is hot coffee.  Water boils at around 180F degrees at Snowbird, where the altitude is 8500 feet at the base, so coffee cooks away in my trusty Moka machine, but it’s not really hot. Food can actually burn on the stove, but not even be close to being cooked, so it can be an exasperating experience to try and turn out a meal.
One of our last meals was a Franco-Italian version of lamb scotto ditto. Scotto ditto is an Umbrian style lamb dish where thin slices of lamb are quickly seared on the grill and you eat them with your fingers while they are scorching hot.  Scotto ditto literally means burned finger.   We don’t have a grill in Utah, so we used the stovetop, and then used a French technique where you burn dried branches of thyme over the meat and let the thyme ash scent the room and flavor the meat. Besides, it’s big fun to light a fire on top of your dinner, just be sure not to do it near a smoke alarm.
If you want to do the scotto ditto thing, get your butcher to slice some lamb shoulder as thin as possible. If you are laughing at the idea of getting a butcher to cut anything, then either track down a good butcher or look for the thinnest possible cut of lamb you can find.  An hour or two before serving generously salt and pepper the meat and layer it with fresh rosemary and bits of garlic. Sear on a hot grill or in a pan and serve. It’s that simple. If you use the indoor pan method you can also deglaze the pan with a bit of red wine and pour over the meat.
If you want the full flame effect, coat a good quantity of fresh thyme with some scotch or bourbon and dry the thyme in the oven.  Lay the dry thyme on the meat, start the bonfire, let the thyme reduce to ash and then eat those lamb bits before they get cold!

We had a great month with lots of fun visitors and plenty of snow and laughs. I’m already looking forward to next year. And Kevin….hope you aren’t too lonely! We’re missing you too!

Steak and Parsley Frites

Steak and Parsley Frites

I’m a bistro girl at heart, or a trattoria girl; occasionally I’m a brasserie girl, especially if there is good charcouterie involved. So, what’s better than a Saturday night bistro dinner at home?  A simple steak frites is comfort food.  The only finicky part is the fries, but take the time to do them right and you will be rewarded with crispy, delicious fries.

I like classic parsley butter on my steak; it’s the only parsley dish that I can serve to my parsley adverse son.  Why on earth does he have such sensitive parsley radar??

Recipe and step by step instructions to get dinner all out at one time are below.

Oxtail

Oxtail

I adore oxtail; it’s rich, meaty and flavorful, just like any meat is that is close to the bone.
I’m also pretty certain that oxtail is really bull tail, which doesn’t sound near as good, but that’s just a guess. I mean, really, how many oxen have you seen lately?

We made a marvelous discovery on Saturday: the Essex St. Market. I remember going there about 100 years ago, and it was dirty and a little bit scary. Now it’s the perfect mix of old and new, there are 2 great cheese guys, vegetables, fishmongers, a voodoo religious guy and Jeffrey’s Meat who looks to be a great new source of meat for me.  When I asked for oxtail, the butcher handed me the whole tail, skinned but whole. Knowing that his knives are better than mine, I had him cut it up into medium size pieces, which was a good move on my part!

I think I was so happy to find this butcher because I’d just lost my local butcher, Dom’s on Lafayette St.  When I first started going there, it was the two brothers, one crankier and curmudgeonlier than the next, but they were excellent butchers. When the older brother died, the younger brother brought in some Chinese butchers and they were good too. When I walked by on Saturday, they were gone, the store is shut down and I was broken hearted as yet another old time butcher had vanished. I’ve said it before, but when you find a good butcher, kiss him, hold him and treasure him (or her as the case may be…our butcher in Montone is a woman…her husband spends far more time flirting than he does with his knives).

Now, without further ado, here is an easy recipe for oxtail braised in red wine.
1 oxtail, cut into medium size pieces
1 carrot
2 stalks of celery
1 medium onion
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
Fennel seed (1/4 tsp, ground), 4-5 crushed juniper berries, 1 crumpled bay leaf and ½ tsp pink peppercorns if you have some around
Red wine

Dust the oxtail pieces in some flour, salt and pepper.

Sear the pieces in a pan with olive oil and arrange the pieces in an ovenproof casserole that has a lid. Ideally you want a casserole where you can lay each piece flat on the bottom of the casserole, not in layers.

Roughly chop the carrots, celery and onion. Don’t stress over the chopping, but don’t leave the pieces too big. Sweat the vegetables in the same pan that you used for the oxtail, adding a little more olive oil.
When everyone is soft and relaxed in the pot, add the garlic and a bit of salt and pepper and the other spices.

Place the vegetables and spices on top of the oxtail pieces, deglaze the sauté pan with red wine and pour that over everything, adding more wine until the oxtail pieces are covered.
Cover the casserole and place in the cold oven, turn oven to 250 degrees and let braise for at least 3 hours.  Don’t peek, and don’t remove the cover until you are ready to serve.

Before serving, remove the meat and keep warm. Puree the braise juices and the vegetables into a thick, rich sauce which is then added back on top of the meat.
Last night we served it with slivered toasted almonds on top (you could even add almonds to the braise sauce).  Or you could add some color and brightness by finely chopping some parsley and orange peel and sprinkling that on top.
I served it on a bed of cous cous, but polenta would be delicious and so would rice. What ever tickles your fancy. This is good food for a winter evening and the house will smell delicious all afternoon. 

Double Pork Pleasure

Just like one of those wacky descriptions on a Chinese take out menu, it struck me that if a pork chop tastes good, wouldn’t it taste doubly good with some pancetta or bacon on top?
And if roast fennel is delicious, why not add some fennel flowers to it?
Ground fennel seed or fennel flowers act as a fantastic flavor enhancer for white meats. By white meats I mean: pork, chicken, pheasant, squab, guinea fowl, quail, any of those little birdies. The fennel works as a flavor embracer, it doesn’t stand out on its own, but blends and mutates to complement the meat.

Double Pork Pleasure

1 fennel bulb, thinly sliced
1 sweet onion, thinly sliced
1 clove of garlic, minced
Drizzle of olive oil

1 porkchop per person
1 slice of pancetta per porkchop
Salt, pepper, ground fennel seed or flower

Layer the fennel, onion and garlic in a roast pan and roast at 350 for 15 mintues. Coat with a drizzle of olive oil. Turn from time to time to prevent stickage and brownage.

Sprinkle salt, pepper and fennel seed onto the pork chops adding the slice of pancetta on top and then place the meats on top of the roasting vegetables.  Continue roasting until the pork chops are done and the vegetables are soft, another 12-15 minutes depending on the thickness of the meat.

Remove the meat to a warm plate.
Puree the vegetables until smooth, adding any pan juices to the vegetable mix, place the puree onto a plate, lay the chop on top. Eat.