Stay at Stove Dad

The Eggs Stay In the Picture: An Oscars Guest Post

The Oscars are coming up on Sunday, and while I wish I had something interesting to say about them, the truth is that I get to the movies about twice a year. I can tell you that the latest James Bond film was actually very good, but I don’t think it’s up for an award.

Fortunately, I heard this week from my Boston-based friend in the kitchen Paul Kidwell (who has contributed to this blog before; his most recent post was particularly poignant), and it turns out that he is a big movie buff. He offered the following guest post. Enjoy!

For many who follow movies, this coming Sunday is their Super Bowl as Hollywood's best and brightest are honored at the film industry's annual Oscar ceremony. Movies used to be one of my passions, but growing out of Hollywood's target demographic means two things. You come head on with the demands of home and family that keep you away from the local art house or cineplex, and reach a certain age where you realize that movies are made for your kids and not for you. It has been a while since I paid attention to the movies, although I remember that as a young graduate student in Boston I used to steal away to the old Harvard Square Theatre with my brother to watch double features like "Last Detail" and "Chinatown," or "Take the Money and Run" and "Bananas." There was a time when I could almost recite the entire dialogue in "Chinatown" which I have seen more than 50 times.

Movies have been replaced by cooking in my life and, of course, it makes me wonder about food's place in many of the movies I have seen in years past or the current crop of films that I will never watch. Some of my favorite food scenes include “The Godfather,” where Michael Corleone stakes his claim in the family business by killing Virgil (The Turk) Sollozzo in a little Italian joint after they order dinner. "Try the veal, it's the best in the city," says Sollozzo. Then, BLAM!! An other favorite scene is a very young Jack Nicholson in "The Last Detail" talking about the virtue of Heineken Beer. "It's only the best God-damn beer in the world. President Kennedy drank Heineken." Plus, the movies like "Dinner Rush," "Tortilla Soup," or "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman," all of which have food at center stage. But, my all-time favorite movie food scene, and one that deserves Oscar consideration as best food scene ever is the final kitchen scene in "Big Night."

Two brother restaurateurs, played by Stanley Tucci and Tony Shaloub, put all their resources into creating a night that would finally put their struggling Italian restaurant on the map by preparing a feast for then-famous bandleader Louis Prima. When Prima pulls a "no-show," the brothers are crest-fallen and we assume the restaurant's days are numbered. A visibly forlorn Tucci enters the kitchen and whips up some eggs for his equally depressed brother and waiter (played by Mark Anthony). Few words are spoken, yet the elegance in how he prepares and cooks these eggs, and shares with the other two men is beautiful. Food at its simplest and most captivating, as it nourishes a broken heart and tortured soul. As a pre-Oscar dinner, why not try a frittata with a side salad; and maybe a hot bowl of tomato soup. It’s still winter after all. The envelope please.

Paul Kidwell's Oscar Night Frittata

• 4 eggs
• ¼ cup liquid, such as milk, tomato juice, broth
• ¼ tsp. dried thyme leaves OR herb of your choice
• Salt and pepper
• 1 cup filling, which could include leftover meat, chicken, seafood or a couple of handfuls of cheese like Gruyere.
• 2 tsp. butter OR vegetable oil

BEAT eggs, liquid, herb and salt and pepper in medium bowl until blended. ADD filling; mix well.

HEAT butter in 6 to 8-inch nonstick omelet pan or skillet over medium heat until melted.

POUR IN egg mixture; cook over low to medium heat until eggs are almost set, about 8 to 10 minutes. 

REMOVE from heat.

COVER and LET STAND until eggs are completely set and no visible liquid egg remains, 5 to 10 minutes.

CUT into wedges.

Chinese New Year Guest Post: If You Build it They Will Come

For whatever reason, I’ve never really taken to Chinese food, and therefore I don’t cook it around the house. I have friends at work who rave about stinky tofu in Queens and other friends who go crazy for Dim Sum in downtown Manhattan, so I know it has its virtues. My friend Mark Satlof, a music and entertainment publicist and father of two boys, is so obsessed with Chinese food that he built a wok in his kitchen of his house. When he offered to write a guest post about cooking Chinese food for the family, I eagerly took him up on it. As it turns out, he has a recipe for what was a staple around the house when I was a kid (though my mom never made with such flair, I’m sure). And if you read to the end of his post, you’ll learn an insider's tip for watching the Chinese New Year parade in Chinatown, which is coming up in a week or so. Mark is on Twitter at @msatlof, and without further ado, 
here's his guest post:

I dreamed I would cook Chinese food a couple times a week -- at least, but probably more -- when I sketched out our new kitchen in 2001. I wanted to make it to semi-pro wok slinger, like those guys you see behind the counter at the fast food take out Chinese joints in our neighborhood in Central Harlem (but with better recipes), cooking in a whirlwind of dipping, frying, throwing, tossing and in just a few minutes, done. I put a corner in the kitchen with a built in counter top wok burner -- 15,000 Btus -- a larder for Asian ingredients and drawers and cabinets for chopsticks, pots, platters, strainers, steamers and spatulas. That October, our first son, Leo, was born. I wasn’t stir frying every night, but I got to the “wok corner” many weekends and during the week here and there. 

I began collecting Chinese cookbooks, studying them, as I was heading towards fifty or so, for the recipes I’d cook  -- regional styles, multiple methods, a panoply of exotic ingredients. For a while, I kept it up, a bit, stopping in Manhattan’s Chinatown on my way to work in Brooklyn for groceries; slicing meat and vegetables before leaving in the morning; getting home in time to get the rice going and the meal made.

Eli, our second son and last child, was born in 2004.  Dads, Moms, you can guess what happened next. Two little kids suck up your time and energy and my Chinese chef fantasy took a hit. Then, all of a sudden, the boys were growing, developing their own culinary tastes and food quirks. Not the way I’d want it, though. They are picky eaters (one of them eats no bread). Each has a minimalist roster of a few dozen foods they will eat. The overlap is minimal (plain pasta, hot dogs, carrots, chicken nuggets and fries. And, luckily, for the Chinese chef, plain white rice and soy sauce). Neither eats much with flavor or sauces (no ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, gravy) or mixed foods like stews or even rice or pasta with other ingredients. This makes Chinese stir fries losers in multiple ways.

The kids’ food habits do not encourage the Dream. But following a half dozen years of trial and error, I’ve developed one Chinese menu that will get everyone at the table something they will eat. My wife, Dana, and I will eat it all. Eli will wolf down as many potstickers, bought frozen at Prosperity Dumpling, on Eldridge Street, as I cook. Leo will be happy with the one green vegetable he eats in quantity, string beans, dry fried in oil with garlic and a sprinkle of salt.  They both will eat the beef part of Beef and Peppers.

The wok stays cold for long stretches and most of the cookbooks are in storage now. One that is still on the shelf and is dirty, wrinkled and soy sauce stained from use, is Ken Hom’s "Easy Family Recipes from a Chinese-American Childhood." Our fail-safe Traditional Pepper Beef is adapted from Hom, upping the proportion of soy and oyster sauce to provide a deeper, if saltier, flavor.

For the last several years, we’ve made it to Manhattan’s Chinatown for the Chinese New Year parade. This year it is scheduled for Sunday, February 17th. I have never found a map of the parade route but here is a secret: Eldridge Street between Division and Canal is prime viewing and not too crowded. You can pop up a block to buy dumplings from Prosperity, find a stand in the neighborhood for green beans and peppers, and then at home try this for your picky kids.

Traditional Pepper Beef

Adapted from Ken Hom's "Easy Family Recipes from a Chinese-American Childhood: 150 Delicious Chinese Dishes for Today's American Table."

For the marinade:

• ¾ lb flank steak
• 2 tsp light soy sauce
• 1 tsp Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry
• 1 tsp Asian sesame oil
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cornstarch

For the main dish:

• 3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
• 1 red onion, thinly sliced
• 1 tbs fermented black beans (optional, don’t sweat if you don’t have any. If you don’t use black beans add some salt in its place, ½ tsp)
• 1 red, 1 green, 1 yellow pepper seeded and cut into 1” pieces. (or whatever combination of peppers you have on hand)
• 1/4 cup reduced-salt chicken broth or water
• 1 tbs Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry
• 2 tsp light soy sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 3 tbs oyster sauce
• 2 tsp asian sesame oil
• cooking oil

Cut steak into thin slices 2 inches wide by ¼ inch thick. Mix with marinade ingredients in a bowl or plastic bag. Let sit for 20 minutes or longer.

Heat wok or deep pan, add two or three tbs peanut or other cooking oil, stir-fry beef until pink is just gone. Turn heat off, remove beef and drain then blot with paper towel. Leave about a tbs of oil in wok.

Reheat the wok, toss in the garlic, onions and fermented black beans (if you are using). Cook a couple of minutes until onions soften. Add peppers, cook for a minute, then add chicken stock (or water), rice wine, soy sauce, sugar and black pepper and cook for two minutes. Pour in oyster sauce, mix well. Add beef, toss around for a minute. Add a little more stock or water if the dish looks too dry. Add sesame oil, turn out on a platter and serve hot.

Note: Swap out the vegetables in any combination, for variety.

Guest Post: The Take Away

I threw a small dinner party on Saturday night, and it threw me for a loop. It's not the drinking that gets me anymore (given that a couple of glasses of wine is my max), it's doing the dishes at 12:45 a.m. So I was tired this afternoon, and when I opened my email to find a guest post from my Boston-based friend in the kitchen Paul Kidwell (who has contributed to this blog before), I was very grateful. Then I read it, and I knew that I had to post it right away. I found it very moving.

This past Friday was the final day of our son's semester break and that evening we drove him to the airport where he boarded a plane to London, where he will begin the second phase of his studies at the London School of Economics. It was splendid having him home for three weeks and he and I shared and cooked some great meals together; including a Cioppino, lasagna, and baked ham at Christmas, and a lobster-fest on New Year's Eve. Interspersed were some of his favorites like Paella, beef stew, bolognese, scampi, risotto, and some tasty omelettes, croissants and pancakes at breakfast, plus savory soups for lunch.

Cooking with him has been a joy and he is definitely turning into a rising man with a pan. More proud I could not be. Of course, the time spent sharing those meals with he and his mother are time capsule moments that I continue to store in my memory as it serves as emotional sustenance when he is away. Which, unfortunately he will continue to be more of as the years pass.

Next month he will turn 21 and my wife and I recognize that we will see less of him; more and more. If we do our jobs as parents, each lesson we teach to our children prepares them for independence and takes them one step closer to leaving us. It's the natural order of things and from the day he was born, his mother and I began to instill in him knowledge that would lead to his self-sufficiency, self-motivation and self-awareness. And when we do this, it leaves us happy and proud; albeit more than a little bit heartbroken. I lose a sous chef, but give to the world a gifted young man who is thoughtful, smart, polite (courtesy is the only thing I expect from him, the rest is negotiable) and knows his way around the kitchen. We do our job well as parents if these are the types of kids we raise and the efforts of our labor are so splendidly displayed.

I thought about what to make for his final lunch - our last meal together until June - as I pondered the fact that from now on he will miss my cooking more than he eats it. It would have to be something nourishing, comforting and simple; not to mention distinctly American. My desire is to feed him, make it memorable and wanting more. If he comes home only to eat, I am comfortable with that. Whatever it takes.

So I decide on chili, which I make with a touch of cinnamon. It's the perfect meal for this slate grey January day and balm for my soul which feels a little less of him today. We have come to that odd point in our lives where he needs to be set free and I want him near me more than ever. 

Paul Kidwell's Chili Recipe

 

• 1.5 lb. ground beef
• 1/4 cup dry wine (can also substitute beer)
• 1 tbsp chili powder
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1 clove garlic minced
• 1 cup onions
• 1 15-oz can red kidney beans, drained
• 1 15-oz can black beans, drained
• 1 14-oz can tomatoes
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• Shredded cheddar cheese

Heat oil in stock pot and when shimmering add beef; cooking for 5 minutes.

Dump everything else in, bring to a simmer and cover for 30-45 minutes

Serve in a bowl and cover with cheese.

Better Cooking Through Technology: A Guest Post

Paul Kidwell, a Boston-based reader of this blog and a cooking father, wrote to me recently offering to contribute a guest post. I always enjoy hearing from Paul. He has previously written here about Mushroom Bruschetta and Christmas, as well as about a Father’s Day meal his son once made for him. This time, he has a tale of how technology helps him help his son, who is living abroad, in the kitchen. Here it is:

Like most fathers I tried to do my best in preparing my son for the rigors of the world, especially when he left for college. In between admonitions and advice on courtesy, relationships, honesty, and "not doing as I say, but rather as I do," I helped him develop an interest in my raison d'etre; cooking. Happy to say that he mostly listened to me and my wife, as we shaped this kid into a young man and turned out to be someone in whom we take great pride. He's a good kid and we are quite happy with the outcome. Personally, I am extremely pleased that he has taken after me when it comes to cooking and being around food. As much as it's terribly important to be kind, courteous, and respectful of others; I also feel that every young boy should know a few of the basics around food and its preparatio—particularly if he wants to impress a young girl, which is a story for another time.

When I introduced him to the fine art of making a marinara sauce, roasting a chicken, smashing garlic, and testing the "doneness" of a steak or pork tenderloin with his finger ("when it's undercooked, the downer I push, the upper it goes"), little did I know he would have an opportunity to put to use my teachings so soon. This was a life skill and I thought at the very earliest it would be a post-college activity. But this year he finds himself in London for a year of economics study at a school that has not embraced the concept of the U.S. college dining hall. Students are expected to fend for themselves in the daily provision of sustenance, which in his case means shopping for food and turning those purchases into meals, by himself or with a gaggle of his fellow classmates. Through the marvels of technology, though, I am not altogether absent in this process, and I help him shop for groceries and triage his meals as he cooks them, in real time.

One of the best cooking tools for us has become the iPhone's Face Time and Skype. Through these tools—though I am thousands of miles away—I help my son pick out produce at the market and navigate his cooking. Typicaly, I do this from the comfort of my office. I’m not sure if the manufacturers of these advanced technologies ever envisioned this novel use, but it certainly provides a "I am there" immediacy that I would otherwise miss. Also, he might not be feasting as good as he is. A recent meal of his was one of our family's favorite and a quick fix for when we would get home late from work and school during his younger years when there was always a PTA meeting, violin/swim practice, etc. to waylay me and take me out of the kitchen. The recipe below (my son called it "books of chicken" because the butterflied chicken breast resembled an open book) has now become a staple of his London cooking repertoire and, I must say, what I saw recently, stacks up favorably to anything I make back at home.

Paul Kidwell's Books of Chicken

• 3 chicken breasts
• 1.5 cups of Swiss cheese shredded
• 1 lb. asparagus
• 1 lb. baby Bella mushrooms, sliced thin
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Butterfly chicken breasts and place in baking dish, book side up

Sauté asparagus and mushrooms together about 4-5 minutes

Salt and pepper inside of chicken breasts, and spread cheese, followed by asparagus and mushrooms inside one side of each chicken breast.

Fold over other side of breasts to cover the other; like closing a book. Stick 2 toothpicks into top of each breast.

Slather olive oil onto each breast, and salt and pepper.

Bake for about 30 minutes.

While chicken is baking make a couple of cups and rice. Serve rice covered with leftover asparagus and mushrooms. Don't forget to take the toothpicks out of the chicken breasts before eating.

Mouthwatering New Cookbook

I’ve had a rewarding but exhausting weekend (compounded somewhat by multiple margaritas at a dear friend’s fiftieth birthday party on Saturday night) and Santa Maria kindly volunteered to write the lastest post, about a little brunch we threw on Sunday, a great new cookbook, and a stellar salad. I hope you enjoy it.

Stay at Stove Dad recently met the lovely author of the forthcoming cookbook “Small Plates and Sweet Treats," the gluten-free chef par excellence Aran Goyoaga, and for our pleasure cooked one of her superb salads today:

 “Warm Roasted Brussels Sprout, Black Quinoa, Pear and Crispy Chorizo Salad.” 

The occasion for the salad: Over a year ago, friends invited us over for a brunch the morning after our move into the neighborhood, correctly surmising that we would be exhausted and have a bare larder.

In their honor, SASD created a brunch to appeal to both carnivorous and vegetarian palates:  scrambled eggs with fresh dill; fresh Brooklyn bagels and cream cheese; and Aran’s yummy salad. It may have taken a while for us to get around to hosting the brunch, but, perhaps, this salad made up for it.

What is so amazing about the salad:  it’s ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS (granted, I’ve spent many years addicted to his other quinoa salad preparations). It has a point/counterpoint marriage of sweet (pear) and salty (chorizo), crunchy (quinoa) and tender (roasted Brussels sprouts) and the slightly bitter vegetal surprise of arugula.  Plus, it’s high protein, gluten-free (if that is important to you), eye-catching, and incredibly nourishing. Quinoa, a staple of ancient Incas and modern Brooklynites alike, has the highest protein of any grain. It is known as the “Mother Grain.”

I’m going to check with my friend Aran about posting the recipe. In the meantime, I strongly suggest you order a copy of her book. It’s a remarkable cookbook, and I’ll have more to say about it shortly, I'm certain.

"A Fatal Debt" Novel Giveaway!

I think I’ve established that I like throwing dinner parties, but I also like going to them, too, in part because you never know whom you’ll be seated next to at one. At a recent gathering, I met a financial journalist named John Gapper, and he mentioned that he had his first novel—a thriller set on Wall Street—coming out soon.

A few weeks after that, at my office, I came across an advance copy of something called “A Fatal Debt,” which the publicity material described as, “A swift and convincing thriller about a fallen Wall Street titan driven to violence and the young psychiatrist who must unravel the mystery of his broken psyche.” I was intrigued. I like thrillers and genre fiction—having recently torn through books by Alan Furst, Alan Glynn, George Pelecanos, and Robert Harris—and I also like books about money, from straightforward advice books like Carl Richard’s “The Behavior Gap” to more bizarre fare like “Street Freak,” a Lehman Brother’s trader’s account of the end of his firm and his mental breakdown (which, oddly enough, weren’t directly related).

I thought I might like “A Fatal Debt,” and then I looked again at the author—it was the same financial journalist who I had met a few days before. Fantastic, I thought. So I read “A Fatal Debt,” and I really enjoyed it—it reminded me in an atmospheric way of Kenneth Fearing’s noir classic “The Big Clock.” I liked it so much, I'm going to give a copy away.

A passage late in the novel got me to thinking about cooking. The protagonist, Ben, whips up an impromptu dinner of tomato sauce and past a for Anna, one of the female characters. He sets the table with candles and they have a romantic dinner. From the quick but precise description of the food and cooking, I could tell that Gapper knew his way around the kitchen.

So, having had the good fortune of having met him at a party, I decided to drop him a line, and ask him about the cooking he does. He wrote back with the following guest post, and I’m so keen on “A Fatal Debt,” that I want you to have a copy. Leave a comment or write to me and tell me the most seductive meal you’ve ever cooked. I’ll send "A Fatal Debt' to the author of the one I think is most intriguing.

Here’s his guest post, and a recipe for this pasta:

The first time I persuaded my now-wife to visit my apartment, I offered her tea and cake. As evening loomed, I was trying to think of a way to persuade her to stay longer, so I suggested cooking her dinner. I made a kind of improvised pasta with a tomato and bacon, which she seemed to enjoy at the time but wasn’t as good as she pretended.

That probably influenced the scene in “A Fatal Debt” where Ben cooks Anna spaghetti alla puttanesca. There’s a touch of author’s wish fulfilment in that because I’ve made him a better cook than I am. Still, the general point that cooking is a good way to please an attractive woman clearly stuck in my mind.

Later, she introduced me to an innovation: buy a cookbook and follow the instructions.  For some reason, I hadn’t really gone with that before but I soon found that it works well. She does more of the cooking for us and our two daughters these days but I try to cook a few meals a week.

Lately, she’s encouraged me not to revert to the same old favorites but to mix it up a bit. As a result, I was looking through an old Jamie Oliver book (Jamie’s Kitchen) that we’ve had for a decade and found this recipe for pasta with prosciutto, garbanzo beans, leeks and sage. I’ve cooked it a few times and it’s highly appreciated.

I like it because it’s quick and easy but it tastes both great but sophisticated, as if you really know what you’re doing. The ingredients are a little expensive – bacon, prosciutto, fresh sage, heavy cream etc – but worth it.

The original recipe calls for dried beans soaked overnight and boiled with tomato and potato for flavor, but I just use a 15oz tin, which works fine. You can use cannellini beans but I think garbanzo come out better. You do need fresh sage leaves, which are easy enough to find.

This recipe serves four:

 

15 oz tin of garbanzo beans

8 slices of prosciutto, torn into pieces

4 rashers of smoked bacon, sliced

1 handful of fresh sage leaves

3 ½ oz butter

2 leeks, trimmed, washed and finely sliced

1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

½ pint of chicken stock

3 ½ fl oz double cream

14 oz of lasagnetti (I usually use tagliatelle instead)

1 handful of grated Parmigiana cheese

Extra virgin olive oil

 

Put two lugs of olive oil in a casserole-type pan and fry the prosciutto  and bacon pieces until lightly golden. Add sage leaves and stir until lightly crisp. Add the butter, leeks and garlic and fry until leeks are softened. Add the chickpeas to the pan, mushing up about a quarter of them to give a smooth consistency to the sauce. Stir around a bit. Pour over the chicken stock and add the cream. Bring to the boil and simmer slowly for 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper as required.

Cook the pasta, drain and throw it into the pan with the sauce. Add most of the Parmigiano and stir it all together. Loosen up with some water if you need to. Serve with a drizzle of olive oil and the remaining cheese. 

 

Father's Day Feast: A Guest Post

Paul Kidwell, a working father, home cook, and devoted reader of this blog (who has also contributed to it previously—see here for his holiday creamy mushroom bruschetta story) wrote me recently with a Father’s Day story. Here it is:

I think every father wants his child – particularly his son - to take on some of his characteristics, interests or personality traits. And while I think I am a decent role model for my son, and it wouldn’t be a bad thing if he took after some parts of me; I definitely want mostly that he become his own person. There is; however, a particular area of influence where I have made my mark in his life and I am grateful that he has followed me into the kitchen where I prepare meals for my family.

I cannot recall when I first interested him in cooking, but I remember he was a little boy, barely able to reach the kitchen counter without the aid of a stepstool. As a self-professed “man-with-a-pan,” I have been cooking at home for 30 years, so I figured it was inevitable that at some point he learn to share kitchen utensils with his Legos, Power Rangers, and a myriad of sports equipment; and take his rightful place beside me as we made our way through countless meals and recipes. Over the years he has graduated from benign whisking and mixing together ingredients, to more serious cooking tasks such as handling the sauté pan, hand mixer, and my all-time favorite kitchen gadget, the immersion blender. Perhaps his greatest maturation as a home cook came about two years ago when he was 18 years old and took over the summer grilling chores from me.

Honestly, I’ve never been enamored with the whole barbecue/grilling phenomenon and, as a man, I know that statement calls into question my Y chromosome, and is nothing short of espousing sacrilege or blasphemy. I am not a fan of warm weather and anytime the temperature rises above 60° Fahrenheit, I begin to wilt quicker than Scarlett O’Hara in front of Rhett Butler. Happy to pass along those skills to my son, who on this Father’s Day* will be putting them to good use.

For this year’s Father’s Day I have eschewed tradition that can include a gift I don’t need or a restaurant meal I don’t want, and asked my son to prepare a Father’s Day meal for me, my wife and his grandmother. I think he is up to the challenge; however, to ensure that he not walk alone on the high wire without a safety net below, I have volunteered to be sous chef to his chef de cuisine and have already helped with the menu. My plan is watch in the wings as he prepares not just a meal, but a memory that – whether it’s edible or not – will be everlasting, and one that I will forever savor.

*Father’s Day comes on June 17 this year around the nation, but in my home it was celebrated last week and in some other homes the date is flexible, too.

Here’s what he’ll be preparing:

Grilled seafood kabobs
Grilled asparagus wrapped in prosciutto
Rice
Key lime pie

 

And here are the recipes.

Grilled Shrimp-Scallop Kabobs

• 1/4 c. lite soy sauce
• 1/4 c. vegetable oil
• 1/4 c. white wine
• 1 tsp. sugar
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2 dashes hot pepper sauce
• 1 dash of black pepper
• 1 (2 inch) strip fresh orange, lemon, or tangerine peel
• 1-1.5 lbs. sea scallops
• 1-1.5 jumbo shrimp
• 1 lb. baby bella mushrooms
• 2 large onions chopped in “kabob-able” chunks
• 2 red/yellow peppers chopped in “kabob-able” strips

Combine first seven ingredients in small bowl. Pour over seafood and veggies, and let marinate 1 to 8 hours. Thread marinated seafood and veggies on skewers. Grill until seafood is done.

Grilled Prosciutto Wrapped Asparagus

• 2 pounds asparagus spears
• 14-16 slices of prosciutto
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• black pepper

Preheat grill for medium-high heat. Trim ends off of asparagus. Cut prosciutto slices into strips. Place half of one slice onto each asparagus spear. Add minced garlic to olive oil and brush each spear with oil. Season with black pepper and place onto grill and cook for 4 minutes, turning occasionally. Remove from heat and serve.

Coconut Rice

• 2 cups Thai jasmine-scented white rice
• 2 cups good-quality coconut milk
• 1 3/4 cups water
• 2 heaping Tbsp. dry shredded unsweetened coconut (baking type)
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. coconut oil, or vegetable oil

You can easily prepare this dish in a medium-sized pot, but save yourself a bunch of trouble and invest in a rice-maker. They are not expensive and you will have it forever.

Place rice, coconut milk, water, shredded coconut, and salt in the pot and set over medium-high to high heat. Stir occasionally to keep rice from sticking to the bottom of the pot and burning.

In about 10-15 minutes the red light indicator will pop off and revert to the start position. Thjis means the rice is done. A few final stirs to fluff up the rice and top with a half-cup of shredded coconut and quarter cup of chopped scallions.

Key Lime Pie

 

• 2 (14-ounce) cans condensed milk
• 1 cup key lime or regular lime juice
• 2 whole eggs
• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 tablespoons powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon lime zest

I’ve made this pie myself and sometimes I make the crust and other times I buy a pre-made graham cracker crust. Not sure if I can tell the difference and will not expect my son (or you) to make the crust from scratch.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

In a bowl, mix the graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and butter with your hands. Press the mixture firmly into a 9-inch pie pan, and bake until brown, about 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature before filling.

Lower the oven temperature to 325 degrees F. (My brother who is a trained chef told me to do this. Not sure I understand why, but have followed his instructions in savant-like fashion.)

In a separate bowl, combine the condensed milk, lime juice, and eggs. Whisk until well blended and place the filling in the cooled pie shell. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes and allow to chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

Once chilled, combine the sour cream and powdered sugar and spread over the top of the pie using a spatula. Sprinkle the lime zest as a garnish on top of the sour cream and serve chilled. 

White Bread and a Guest Post

As I mentioned on Monday, I’m not much of a baker. Cakes, breads, and other starchy delights interest me mightily, but my interest, until recently, has stopped at eating them. I never learned how to make anything in an oven that didn’t at some point in its life move on its own.

But that is changing. After eating Santa Maria’s homemade birthday cake, how could it not? And recently, I was sent a copy of a fascinating new book, “White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf,” by Aaron Bobrow-Strain, a dad and an associate professor of politics at Whitman College in Washington.

In the introduction to the book, Bobrow-Strain tells of being twenty-five, in the mid nineties, and offering to bake twenty loaves of bread for a friend’s wedding, though he had nothing but “one cheap oven and no electric mixer.”

“The bride and groom were devout Christians and bread radiated spiritual connection for them. For me, it evoked community and sharing. The word “companion” itself came into English from the Latin from com and pan—“with bread.” To share bread, I thought, was to tap some ancient chord of togetherness.”

I loved learning the etymology of companion, and someday I’ll learn how to bake bread, too. A good place to start, I would think, would be with my friend Elisha Cooper’s “Bread for Simpletons” recipe, which he shared with me a few years ago. Cooper’s recipe is below, following a few thoughts on baking bread with kids from Bobrow-Strain, who clearly knows what he is doing. He wrote a book on the stuff, after all. 

I recently came across a 1974 New York Times column by the great Craig Claiborne (definitely not a dad).  In it, he offers readers the following instructions for generating steam in their home ovens (steam during the initial phase of bread baking puts the crisp crust on European artisan loaves):

Take two iron ingots, about 6-10 pounds in total, and heat them on a stove burner until “fiery hot.”  Then, “using extreme caution and wearing padded asbestos gloves” transfer the glowing ingots to a baking pan at the bottom of your oven.  Next, place your loaves in the oven and pour boiling water over the ingots.  This will immediately produce billows of scalding steam so “shut the oven as hurriedly as possible.” 

I was hooked after “fiery hot” and “asbestos gloves”—what a great project to try with kids!

“Or maybe not,” my wife commented from the other room, reading my mind. 

I’m a slightly obsessive amateur baker and author of a new book on the history of fluffy white bread (America’s ultimate icon of industrial eating), but I have to confess something here.  My kids don’t really like to bake bread—they like to eat bread.  And they like to putter around the edges while I bake.  But they don’t yet have the patience to see a loaf of European artisanal bread through its 8-15 hours of waiting.  Or even through its short bursts of mixing, shaping, and baking.

Instead of fighting this, I weave my kids into the baking process with quick, fun activities.  Since I’m a food historian, they usually derive from an oddity of the past.

Here are two favorites:

Instant Bread

In 1939, scientists at the Wallace and Tiernan Laboratories in Newark hooked a ball of dough to two electrodes, cooking it perfectly evenly with no crust formation.  This demonstrated something that most bakers already knew: bread’s rich, nutty flavor comes primarily from browning reactions in the crust.  No crust, no flavor.

When I asked another dad, who is an experimental physicist when not brewing beer, how to reproduce this experiment, he offered an easy option: microwave the dough.

It was an immediate hit, and a great source of instant gratification at precisely the stage in baking when my kids start to lose interest in the slow, slow sugar magic of yeasty fermentation.

Here’s how it works:  have your kids shape a small lump of rising dough into a ball (about the size of a golf ball).  Then microwave it on low for about a minute, or until the dough has doubled in size (and just before it bursts into flames).  The result—as predicted by science—is a doughy, flavorless gumball.  But my kids love it more than anything.  Hands down it’s their favorite thing to do on baking day.

Finish with a Pizza

European artisan breads need to cool for at least an hour, if not more, after baking.  Tearing into a loaf too soon interrupts key chemical processes of flavor and texture development—but try telling that to your kids. 

Instead, I distract them with an old Italian bakery tradition: set aside a hunk of raw dough (it can sit on the counter or in a bowl under a damp towel while you proof and bake your loaves).  Then, as soon as you take your bread out to cool, take advantage of the hot oven and baking stone by making a pizza out of your leftover dough. 

There’s a lot of talk these days about how to make “the perfect” pizza crust.  All kinds of complicated formulas and mystical thinking circulate on this topic.  But, really, any well-fermented Italian or French bread dough will make a delicious pie. 

Let your kids stretch out the crust. It will get dropped on the floor and torn full of holes, but they’ll love it (and it’ll distract them from the cooling loaves).  Top the crust with whatever you have around.  A simple pizza bianca (topped with olive oil, salt, and rosemary) is easy.

And here is Cooper’s recipe for bread for simpletons. Cooper’s baking technique might be modest but he’s quite accomplished outside the kitchen. He’s a talented artist and the author of a number of lovely children’s books, the latest of which, “Homer,” is due out shortly. 

Bread For Simpletons  

• 3.5 cups flour,
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1.5  teaspoon yeast
• 1.5 cups hot water
• cornmeal

Mix the flour, salt, yeast, and water in a bowl in the morning. 
Let it sit all day with saran wrap across top of bowl (think about other things, go on about your business).   

When ready to bake the bread:
Heat oven to 425 degrees.
Throw the dough in whatever shape on cornmeal-sprinkled pan and wait fifteen minutes.
After the quarter-hour passes, fold the dough over on itself.  
Place in oven and bake for 22  minutes (or however long), until it browns and it sounds hollow when you whack its belly.
Eat!

Creamy Mushroom Bruschetta: A Guest Post

I was recently interviewed by Paul Kidwell, a public relations consultant and freelance writer, for an article about men and cooking on the Good Men Project website. It was a pleasure to hear from Kidwell, who lives in Boston with his wife and son, a nineteen-year-old sophomore at Boston College. Kidwell told me that “he thinks about food – its preparation and consumption – about every two seconds, and is happiest when in the kitchen making a meal for his family.”

Naturally, I wanted to hear more, and he was kind enough to send me a beautiful guest post. I like it for two reasons. One, I love mushrooms; and two, my kids are still very young, and I can only imagine what it will be like when they are in college. It kind of makes me misty-eyed, frankly, but I’ll stop. Here’s his guest post.

Christmas Help

The emails started coming in early December; finding my In Box at the oddest hours of the morning. 2:17, 3:47, 4:12 was when my son, Songwen, who is a Boston College sophomore, decided to take a break from one of his many all-night study excursions in preparation for final exams and end-of-term papers to send me notes requesting that I make certain dishes during his semester break. The subject lines read like a menu from a restaurant specializing in warm, cozy comfort food asking for dishes such as lobster paella, beef stew, mushroom cassoulet, Tuscan white bean soup, and veal marsala.  I had to laugh when I thought of his classmates who were probably also sharing the same pre-dawn hours dreading upcoming tests of their own academic mettle, while my boy has visions of shimmering garlic, bubbling  stews, and simmering soups dance in his head. He is nothing if not my child when it comes to sharing my passion for cooking and eating good food; something I schooled him on at an early age. 

And this Christmas he will not only enjoy eating the meals, but also join me in the kitchen in their preparation; a greater gift I cannot imagine.

For his first meal I am planning on making Pasta Alla Carbonara, Tuscan white bean soup, roasted asparagus and creamy mushroom bruschetta. The first three are classic dishes and everyone has their own recipe. The bruschetta is a recent find from a feature in the Wall Street Journal. It comes from April Bloomfield, chef/owner of New York’s Spotted Pig.

Creamy Mushroom Bruschetta

• 3 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra as needed
• 1 pound mushrooms (chanterelle, maitake or king trumpet), sliced into ½-inch pieces
• Salt
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped (about 1 tablespoon)
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 3 tablespoons roughly chopped flat leaf parsley
• 1/4 cup crème fraîche
• 2 tablespoons finely sliced chives
• 4 (¾-inch) slices rye bread

1. Set a large, heavy pan over medium heat. Add 3 tablespoons oil. Once very hot, add mushrooms and a pinch of salt. Sauté them, stirring from time to time, until browned and tender, about 6 minutes. Once mushrooms cook down, traces of their juices should streak the pan. If too dry, deglaze with splashes of water.

2. Stir in garlic, butter and parsley. Cook until garlic is golden, 3-4 minutes. Season to taste with salt. Remove pan from heat. Stir in crème fraîche and chives until evenly distributed.

3. Set another pan over medium-high heat. Once hot, add a slick of oil and lay in bread. Toast both sides until crisp and golden, 1-2 minutes per side.

4. Whisk together 2 tablespoons oil and lemon juice. Place arugula in large bowl and toss to lightly coat with dressing. Season with salt.

5. Spoon mushroom topping over toasts. Serve bruschetta with salad.

Late Autumn Sangria Recipe

In my item about Progressive Dinners, a month or so ago, I mentioned that I would post some of the great recipes for the food and drink that was served that night. In the holiday spirit, I present a recipe for Sangria, served by a dad who used to be a professional chef, so he knows what he is talking about. It's an autumnal recipe, and even though the temperature is dropping, trees are lighting, and carolers are out, it is still autumn. He does mentions glüwein, or mulled wine, in his intro, though, so I'll have to see if he has a recipe for that. It might be more appropriate for the coming months (and if you have a good glüwein recipe, be sure to let me know).

Autumn Sangria

Sangria is a great way to use bottles of wine that have been opened but not finished. A wise restaurant will use all of the opened by-the-glass bottles from the previous day to make a house sangria or similar punch e.g. glüwein, resulting in consistently fresh wines by-the glass (I hate it when I get served a glass of wine in a restaurant that was clearly opened days ago.) This is an autumn adaptation of the Spanish classic.

Many sangria recipes specify wine varietals, but due to the amount of sweeteners and adjuncts, I feel that this is irrelevant. The only exception is over-oaked wines, which I feel are inappropriate for all occasions.

The purpose of making sangria is to use the ingredients at ones disposal; including, but not limited to, the season and one's preferences. The following recipe is only a framework from which to work. The crucial ingredients after the wine are the sugar, orange juice, and citrus to provide a balance of acidity and sweetness.

 

Sangria

•       Approximately one 750 ml bottle of red wine (mixing in some white wine is fine too)
•       1 cup spiced simple syrup (see below)
•       1/2 cup orange juice
•       1/2 cup brandy
•       1/4 cup Triple Sec
•       2 juice oranges, cut into thin half slices
•       1 lemon, cut into thin half slices
•       1 red apple, halved, cored and cut into large dice
•       1 red pear, halved, cored and cut into large dice
•       1 cup sparkling apple cider (can substitute Sprite)

Combine all the ingredients, best if allowed to macerate overnight. Add the sparkling apple cider just before serving. Serve over ice.

Spiced Simple Syrup

•       2 cups water
•       1 cup sugar
•       1 cinnamon stick
•       ½ teaspoon whole cloves
•       1 teaspoon whole allspice
•       5 whole star anise
•       2 slices fresh ginger
•       Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

To make the spiced simple syrup

Place all of the ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and simmer until reduced by half. Allow to cool and strain.