Stay at Stove Dad

Roasted Red Pepper Recipe for Arugula Salad

A year or so ago, I was making my winter quinoa salad—the one with sweet potato, red onion, and red pepper—just about every week. Lately, though, I haven’t been eating it as frequently. The last time I thought I was going to make the salad, I bought a red pepper and the rest of the ingredients, but I never got around to using them.

The red pepper sat in the fridge for weeks, and I saw it every time I opened the crisper. It sat there mocking me. Why did I really buy it? What was I thinking? What was I going to do with it?

A few days ago, shortly before it would have gone bad, I came up with an answer: I would roast it. A roasted pepper, marinated in oil and vinegar, is not only delicious, it will last a while on its own. I could buy time to find a use for it.

Roasting a pepper at home is very easy. You just put the pepper in the flame of the gas burner on your stove, either by standing it up on the stove itself, or by holding in the flame with a pair of tongs. Move the pepper around so it gets charred on every side. Once that’s done, put the pepper in either a brown bag or place it in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap.

Leave the pepper until it cools, at which point the skin will come off very easily. Rinse the pepper to get the seeds out and any little bits of skin that may remain. Slice the pepper into long narrow strips, and then marinate them in olive oil, vinegar, and a bit of oregano, or other herb.

The peppers will keep a few days, at least, in the fridge, and they’re great on their own, on a sandwich, or, as I discovered, in an arugula salad with shavings of Parmesan.  The sweetness of the pepper counteracts the tartness of the arugula, making it a colorful and perfectly balanced salad.

Mashed-Potato Pancakes

I started this blog for a couple of reasons. One was to help other dads learn about how to cook for their families. Another was to help me remember what I cooked myself for dinner each night. I tend to forget, and such was the case this evening when I found mashed potatoes in the fridge. When did I make those?

I know I made them, but for what meal was it? Oh, now I remember; I whipped them up last week when I made pork chops with corn grits, one of my favorite, quick-as-a-whistle, weeknight dinners, for Santa Maria and myself. The mashed potatoes were an easy side.

One of the things I love about mashed potatoes is that they are simple to make. That evening, I started the mashed potatoes at the same time I started to put Nina and Pinta into bed for the night. By the time lights were out, the potatoes were ready.

Another nice thing about mashed potatoes is that they make great leftovers, and with a little onion and parsley, they can be turned into savory potato pancakes. I made some this evening, and paired them with hamburgers, blue cheese, and a Romaine and spinach salad. It was a dinner I won’t soon forget.

Mashed-Potato Pancakes

For the mashed potatoes:

• 2 or 3 baking or other potatoes, washed but not skinned (or skinned, if that’s your preference; mine is for ease and nutrition, two things leaving the skin on gets you)
• A bit of milk
• A bit of butter
• Salt and pepper

Boil the potatoes in a small pot until they are cooked through, about thirty minutes

Drain the water, and return the potatoes to the pot

Put it on a low heat and add some milk and butter and mash them until they are creamy. Adjust the milk and butter to your taste and/or your doctor’s orders

Salt and pepper, to taste

For the pancakes:

Add a bit of minced onion and chopped parsley to the mashed potatoes

Form the mashed potatoes into small patties

Saute the patties in a frying pan with a bit of oil until brown on each side

Thanksgiving Fallout: A Tasty Oatcake Recipe

Our plan for Thanksgiving was to spend it out of town with Santa Maria's folks, but everything was thrown for a spin last Wednesday when Pinta came down with strep throat, and we couldn't get on the road in time to visit them. The doctor said that twenty-four hours of antibiotics and no fever meant that she wasn't contagious, though, so I called my sister, who was hosting a big gathering in Connecticut with my extended family, to see if she had room at her table. "Of course," she said, and that's where we went.

My sister did have one request, though. She wanted us to bring a side dish. She suggested Santa Maria's biscuits, but they don't travel well (and actually suffer in the time it takes them to get from the oven to the table), so that wasn't a good choice. Because we were planning on being out of town, our pantry was nearly empty (our refrigerator looked like one from the quintessential Manhattan apartment, with plenty of empty shelves for leftover take-out containers), but we did have oats in the cupboard. Oatmeal is a staple of our winter breakfasts, and Santa Maria also knows how to make them into delicious, if crumbly, oatcakes. They're great for breakfast, as a side for a big dinner, or as a dessert treat. Here's her recipe:

Santa Maria's Mom's Scottish Oatcakes

 

• 2 1/2 cups of organic rolled oats
• 1/2 cup of organic flour
• 1/4 cup brown sugar or organic maple syrup
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 cup melted organic butter
• 1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Combine the dry ingredients; mixing them well.

Stir in the melted butter and then the milk (you can then crush the oats a bit with your hands, which is especially fun for the wee ones).

Press the mixture into a buttered 11 x 6" pan and bake in oven until
golden brown (about 20 to 25 minutes).

Slice into any shapes you like and serve warm with more butter and
some honey, or just plain with a glass of cold milk.

Notes: This is a great recipe to cook with kids, and it can also be made gluten-free by substituting quinoa flour in place of the wheat flour.

The Magic of Blue Cheese and Spotify

One of my favorite sayings about parenting and running a home kitchen is: “Amateurs talk strategy and professionals talk logistics.” The line comes from the military (it is often attributed to the U. S. Second World War field commander Omar Bradley), and to me, it means that getting food into the kitchen and keeping the supply lines running is the central thing to achieving victory at dinnertime. I’ve long been obsessive about keeping a shopping list, and making a weekly pilgrimage to the store to make sure we have milk, bread, chicken, eggs, and other staples on hand.

Occasionally, the advance shop pays off in unexpected ways. Over the weekend, Santa Maria picked up a few things up at Brooklyn Larder, including a wonderfully stinky cheese, Jasper Hill Bayley Hazen, a raw cow's milk blue, from Greensboro, Vermont. On Wednesday, it transformed a rather dull weeknight dinner of pasta, jar sauce, and mozzarella, into savory treat when, much to my delight, I remembered that it was in the refrigerator. I sprinkled it over a salad of hearts of romaine and arugula, and suddenly I was transported. I felt like I was sitting on a sunny hillside eating lunch while on vacation in France.

Of course, you need to like blue cheese for this sort of thing to work, and I know it’s not the most advanced bit of culinary advice to tell you to shop ahead of time for things you like, so I’ll leave you with something more.

Just as stocking your larder can lead to joy in the kitchen, having a good collection of music can do the same for your soul. In the past, this meant going out and buying a bunch of LPs or CDs, but now you can just go to the Internet. A few months ago I started using Spotify, and it has about 85% of any music I might want to listen to, ever.

Beirut, Raul Malo, Devotchka, the Cowboy Junkies, and other artists I’ve mentioned before are all available (as are thousand and thousands of other, including the great flamenco singer Diego El Cigala, who I saw perform the other night; if you’re on Spotify already, click here for my favorite album of his, “Dos Lágrimas”). The best thing is that it’s free, easy, and legit. I’m as excited about it as I am about blue cheese. Go and get thee Spotify.

More on Homemade French Fries

The night of Halloween, I felt it was important to feed Nina and Pinta a healthy dinner before they headed out into Candy Land. So I gave them hot dogs and homemade French fries. Okay, I'm not going to win the Nutritious Dad of the Year award on account of that meal, but I needed something quick and easy (and when Nina said "woof, woof" is what I want for dinner, I found it impossible to resist such a cute clue).

Because I was in a hurry, I cut the potatoes very thinly, and set the oven for 425 degrees. I dried the cut potatoes on a dishtowel and then roasted them for about twenty minutes. They were magnificent, I have to say; the best ever.

I'm going to stick to making them in the oven, but since my original post, it has come to my attention that there is more than one way to make a homemade French fry. Two readers commented with very interesting ideas.

Stan Harrison suggested trying things the Belgian way. "If you use a reasonably sized pot filled two thirds with oil the results are fantastic. Fry once at 250, let the potatoes cool, then fry again at 350 to crisp the outside. Sorry for not providing the particulars but they can be found online. If you let the fries sit on a paper towel you can remove much of the oil. As you'll see, most of the oil remains in the pot." I looked online, and found a site that promises "Real Belgian Fries."

Bob del Grosso provided an even niftier solution. He said, "Baking maybe healthier but the easiest, safest and most delicious way to make "fried" French fries at home is to start them cold. This method was described in enough detail for anyone nail it in a NYT diner's journal post in 19 Mar 2010. I've made thousands of pounds of fries over the course of my career and am still amazed by how well this works." He thoughtfully provided a link.

If you make French fries at home, how do you do it? What kind of oil do you use? What kind of potatoes? How did you learn?

A Miracle: The Best Mushroom Risotto Ever

On Sunday, we cooked dinner for old friends who were visiting from England. Because they had just arrived in town, there was some issue with their cell phones, and we didn't know until the last minute that they were coming over.

Santa Maria was on the way back from the Food Coop when she finally connected with them. Among other things, this meant that we really didn't have enough food. In particular, we didn't have enough bread. I had already made a double batch of frikadeller, which are Danish meatballs (I'll share the recipe and that story later in the week), so we had our main course set. But the starch for the meal was another story.

Because she thought that it was going to be just the four of us for dinner, Santa Maria had bought one tiny  boule. When I looked at it, I felt a bit like what I image Jesus must have felt when he was preaching to the masses and had but five loaves and two fishes. Lacking the power to deliver a miracle, I decided to make a mushroom risotto. I had fresh cremini mushrooms in the fridge, and I always have aborrio rice on hand.

I got started, and then realized that I was out of two key ingredients: chicken stock and dried porcini mushrooms. As our guests arrived, I shuffled through our cabinets and found vegetable-bouillon cubes, but I knew the risotto would need something else to give it a good flavor base, to stand in for the porcini.

What could I put in it to make it richer and fuller tasting? Anchovies. Sure enough, a couple mixed in before I added the rice gave the risotto a remarkable flavoring. The anchovies didn't make it taste fishy, they just made it taste better. Santa Maria said it was the best she'd ever had.

Miraculous Mushroom Risotto

•  olive oil and butter (about 2 tablespoons, or so, to taste)
• 1 small onion, diced
• 2 anchovy fillets
• 1 cup sliced cremini mushrooms, or to taste
• 1 cup aborrio or other short-grained rice
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 3-4 cups chicken or vegetable stock, heated
• Parmesan cheese, grated, to taste

In a heavy-bottomed stock pot on a medium-high flame, heat a bit of oil and butter and saute the onion until it is soft.

Once the onion is soft and translucent, add the anchovies, and saute a bit more.

Add the mushroom slices, and saute until they start to give up their juices.

Toss the rice into the pan and stir until the grains are coated with oil.

Pour the white wine into the pot and leave on a high heat until it boils off.

Turn the heat down to medium and spoon a ladle full of stock in with the rice and cook, stirring occasionally, until the stock is absorbed. Repeat.

Repeat ladling in the stock until the rice is cooked, about twenty minutes. It should be tender but firm inside.

Finish with grated parmesan.

Homemade French Fries: The Oven Way

One of our favorite rituals is going to Bark, the high-end hot-dog place near our old house. Bark is wonderful, and I love it, but it has a few strikes against it. First of all, eating hot dogs, French Fries, and beer for dinner every night is a quick way to a short life. And if you frequent Bark, you risk going bankrupt before you get to the grave—it's expensive.

Don't get me wrong. I think Bark is amazing, and for a special treat, it's one of my favorite places to take the family. But as the dad who does most of the cooking at home, I need to feed everyone, whether it's a special night or not.

Recently, I tried to recreate the Bark experience at home. The hot dogs were easy to replicate (sort of, that is: my Applegate Farms organic dogs were delicious, but they were a far cry from Bark's, which are basted, “like a Peter Luger porterhouse," according to New York Magazine, "with housemade smoked lard butter”).

But the fries were another question. Could I make French fries at home? Or at least something close?

I don't have a deep-fat fryer, and I've never used one before. I wasn't about to start now, so I turned to the oven. It had worked for me before: my rosemary roasted potatoes are always popular, so I figured I had a chance.

I started with three potatoes.

I sliced them lengthwise.

Then again.

And kept little hands out of them.

Then tossed them in a bowl with a bit of olive oil and salt.

After spreading them out on a cookie sheet and roasting at 450 degrees for about twenty minutes (all the while carefully keeping an eye on them, and shaking them around every so often), I dropped them on paper towel to remove the excess oil.

The kids were happy enough with them, though they knew these weren't real French fries, and they knew we weren't at Bark. We had a good time, all the same, and next time I do it, if I don't get around to deep frying the potatoes, I will be sure to cut them into as small sticks as I can manage. The smaller they are, the faster they cook, and the crispier they become.

Mushroom Sauce for Steak

Over the weekend, I had a chance to work on my steak-cooking skills. We don’t eat red meat very often, at least not steak, and so I’ve never felt confident about cooking it. The more I make it, though, the better I get at it. It's a bit like learning to ride a bicycle.

On Saturday, we threw a dinner party for my brother-in-law’s fiftieth birthday, and I took the gamble of serving steak. I had six steaks to cook, and I filled the house with so much smoke it looked like a Civil War battlefield. I knew this was going to be the case, so I had sent Santa Maria and the kids out of the house for a half hour. I was left along with the meat.

I have a crutch when I make my broiled leg of lamb—the instant-read meat thermometer, and I figured I could use it to help insure that I got the meat right. I was feeling a lot of pressure—my brother-in-law is from Texas, and he’s the one who schooled me over the summer on how to grill steaks. I had to get these right.

Three different cuts of meat—New York strip, rib eye, and Delmonico—were before me, and they were each of a varying thickness. I took them out early, got them to room temperature, and salted them heavily. I heated a cast-iron pan until it was smoking, then rendered in the pan the big side strip of fat on the steak. I charred one side nicely on a high heat, then flipped them and turned the heat down.

I was cooking the meat about an hour or two in advance of the dinner party, so I wouldn’t have to work when my guests were here, so I knew I would have time to let the meat sit. This, it turned out was key. I cooked each steak until it was 125+ degrees internally (raw, according to the printing on the thermometer's dial), and figured I had it made. The steaks would sit while we had our drinks, and they would be nice and pink inside.

Alas, it didn’t turn out exactly that way. A few of the cuts were a bit too raw inside for me. I think that next time I will cook them to 130 degrees, and see how that goes. It didn’t make a difference the night of the party, though. At the last minute two guests cancelled because their child was sick, so there was more than enough well-cooked food for everyone.

Nina and Pinta gobbled up their servings. It was the first time they ate steak, and unlike other new foods, it one went down without any problem. In fact, we had steak for lunch the next two days, and then we ran out. That didn’t stop Pinta from asking for it at the other evening. When I told her I was serving flounder, she said, “Why aren’t we having steak?” Yes, why not, indeed.

I served the steak with fennel risotto, and a simple mushroom sauce. The sauce proved to be as popular as the meat; here’s the recipe.

Mushroom Sauce for Steak

• One medium shallot, diced
• A handful of Cremini mushrooms, washed and sliced thinly
• ¼ cup or more of a decent red wine
• Some very good butter

In a good sauté pan, sauté the shallots in a bit of olive oil until they are soft.

Set the shallots aside.

On a high heat, sauté the mushroom slices until they brown a bit on the edges. You don’t have to cook them all the way. Work in batches, if necessary, and don't crowd the pan.

As each batch of mushrooms cooks set them aside with the shallots.

When the final batch of mushrooms is cooked, toss the shallots and the previously cooked mushrooms back in the pan. Add the wine and the butter and reduce to desired thickness.

Salt to taste, and if you have a herb you like, such as thyme, or tarragon, by all means add that, too.

Server with the steak, and allow guests to spoon it over their cuts of meat.

Time Saving Trick: Cook the Green Beans in the Pasta Water

I like to think that when it comes to running the kitchen in my house, I know everything. This despite the fact that I am humbly reminded almost daily of ways in which I don't (I'm thinking about Santa Maria's banana bread, homemade biscuits, kale chips, and apple pies).

Recently, she put on water for spaghetti while I unpacked after our trip to my mother's house. On a stroll through the kitchen, I noticed green beans floating in a pot and thought that she had stopped making the pasta. "What are you doing?," I said. "I always do that," she replied. "It saves time, and nutrients."

Après le Déluge: Mushroom Risotto

It has been raining so much these days in NYC that I think we’ll soon have mushrooms growing on the sidewalks and in the subways, and this idea reminded me of a guest post that my friend Michael Dorf, a father of two boys and one girl and the owner of the fantastic club City Winery, sent me last year about his risotto. I was too busy with “Man with a Pan” to run it, but things are quieter now.

Mushroom risotto is one of my favorite foods, though I don’t often have the chance to make it these days. Nina, my eldest, has become deathly afraid of mushrooms, and her younger sister has not been immune to Nina’s fears. This, despite the fact that one of the earliest things Nina ever said was “Quak o Van" (a.k.a Coq au Vin), but that’s another story. Here’s Michael’s take on mushroom risotto.

What I like about mushroom risotto, and frankly risotto in general with a million variations, is that it is a meal that requires total focus for a period of time and really requires tuning out the rest of the world.  And since there is constant stirring with one hand and chopping with the other, it appears as you are really busy, which means at dinner parties, it is fair game to not be that involved in conversation and it allows for some personal time which is rare.  Those 60 minutes or so of time I value highly, for I live a frenetic life, busy, always feeling like a worker ant in my life, back in the day at the Knitting Factory or currently at City Winery building something, dealing with artists, staff, investors, what have you and not having time to myself.  So, I relish the hour of focused stirring and spacing out, sipping wine, while it appears I am slaving over the stove.

The actual cooking is really simple.  I start with a good chicken stock, which can be a standalone meal if you’re sick. I use a whole chicken, so I have lots of fat in the liquid, along with carrots, celery, bay leaf, tons of salt and pepper.  It is best to start this a few hours before, so that the chicken has fully disintegrated in the pot.  This should be the kind of soup your mom would make when you were sick.  Then strain it to get the bones and big chunks out and you have an amazing broth to use.

Then I take my biggest pan and fill it with olive oil and finely chopped Garlic.  I get that nice and hot and pour in a lot of Arborio rice. This is measured by eye, as the amount of liquid (the chicken soup) is some ratio of the rice, which I would say is either small, medium, big, and really big.  

Quickly, I get all the rice covered in the olive oil and in several seconds it is cooking hard, turn it all over and within a minute, before it would turn brown, pour in about a glass or little more of a white acidic wine--dry chardonnay is the best.  I really try and use a white burgundy and depending on how wealthy I am feeling, I gravitate towards a Montrachet.  However, you don’t want to use much for cooking, rather save it for drinking during the cooking. Just pour enough in the pan to cover all the rice. Then, you have the rest the bottle to consume during the next 45 minutes of cooking.  

The wine makes a great sound when poured in the hot pan and if there is an audience, it is impressive, and it cooks off very quickly.  This adds a subtle flavor, as is really the first liquid getting into the dry rice.  Very quickly, ten seconds or so later, take a cup of the broth and pour over the rice and using a large wooden spoon to mix and make sure to scrape every rice piece into the overall mixture.  I use a big coffee cup with handle to get a lot of liquid quickly, but a proper large soup ladle could work. 

Constant stirring is the key for the next 25 to 35 minutes, where you wait for the liquid to absorb into the rice and just as it looks like the rice will start to burn, you pour in another cup or two of broth.  You keep doing this maybe 10 times or so, depending on how absorbed the rice is. You can make this for 4 to 25 people pretty easy, and the constant stirring and focus on this is key.  30 seconds spent talking to someone about their kids and you’re screwed; it will cause the rice and stick to the bottom, start to burn, and put a burnt flavor into the entire dish, a real bummer if you used a grand cru Montrachet...  When the rice has absorbed all the liquid it can, it is ready, with a slightly silky texture.  Taste to confirm it is cooked a much as you like.

In another pan, about midway through the cooking of the rice, you start to sauté the vegetables. I use lots of garlic, salt and pepper, as this will add a nice flavor into the big starch pile next door.  I love putting a lot of veggies in as it can serve as your vegetable dish. Mushrooms are my favorite based on what looked freshest at the market, followed by yellow and red peppers, just because they look nice.  But zucchini, peas, spinach, all work well; there are a million directions to take this. 

The sautéed veggies are started while the risotto is cooking, so that it stays hot when the time comes to mix it all together.  When cooking purely for adults, you can use fewer veggies to make it more elegant, but that is not my reputation.  When cooking for the family, I take the chance to sneak the veggies in, and usually use fewer mushroom and more corn, peas, and zucchini.

The plating and delivery is key for both the presentation and flavoring.  The rice is easily scooped into a nice round pile in the middle of plate.  Then I sprinkle Parmesan cheese over the pile, allowing some to fall on the plate which looks like a light sprinkle and something that a restaurant would do.  Then I dust chopped parsley on top.  I think it is a critical flavor to add to the mix, but usually the kids don't like the "green leafy thing,” so I leave it off theirs. 

For years, we sang the "Rice Aroni, the San Francisco treat" song when giving it to the kids, and they loved it from the time they could eat solids.  As they turned six, they got a little more picky, but would eat it depending on the veggies, and then after nine or ten, they got back into eating all versions of the theme.  Another nice thing is that this lasts for a few days in the fridge and can be heated and eaten later; thus, I always cook too much.