cod à l'espagnol

ML has been "jonesing" for white fish, so I made this tonight.  It's from "Cooking With Claudine" by Jacques Pépin, a book I am loving these days.

Mince a bunch of green onions and thinly slice 3 cloves of garlic.  In a deep skillet with a cover, sauté these briefly in about 1/4 cup of olive oil (not EVOO).  Add a zuccini and a green pepper diced medium and sauté for another minute.  Add about 4-5 peeled plum tomatoes seeded and cut in half inch strips, a big pinch of salt (about 1/2 tsp) and a small pinch of saffron (this is important).  Nestle 4 6 oz cod fillets (could be haddock or hake) in this preparation, cover, reduce heat to low and cook for about 10 minutes until cod flake apart.  Season with pepper.  Plate and drizzle with EVOO.

The fish was a beautiful colour and everything was perfectly cooked.  The vegetables and cod release a lot of liquid which become a delicious broth.

lamb and beans, now with more prison

Following a suggestion of PMC, who (these days) is all about cooking below boiling and for a long time, I am attempting a remake of lamb and beans but with no par-boiling of the beans. This is all about one-step cooking. I put a lamb shank, a pound of dry white beans, a few glugs of olive oil, two split garlic cloves, some pepper, rosemary sprigs, thyme sprigs, and coarsely ground pepper into a bean pot. I more-than covered it all with water. I put it in a 200 F (90 C) oven. I am now going to wait 5 hours and see what I get! At or near the end I will have to add a lot of salt.

fresh-lime gimlet

Having run out of tequila, I figured on gin gimlet. Having run out of Rose's (tm) Lime Juice, I realized I had to go with fresh lime. I put a shot of gin and a handful of ice into a cocktail glass. I added the juice from half a lime, plus a tiny pinch of salt and 1/2 tsp of maple syrup (yes, maple syrup). I let it sit for a minute and then poured it into a shaker. I shook it hard and let it rest for a few minutes and then shook it and strained it into the glass. I am pleased. I have an intuition that it is all about patience.

oxtail stew

Fry some oxtail (I used half a pound) in butter, turning until it is brown all over. Add mirepoix (finely chopped onions, carrots, celery) and fry some more. Add some thin stock (I used leftover turkey stock from Thanksgiving) and wine and simmer the oxtail for two hours. Add coarsely chopped (chunks of) root vegetables (I used carrot, parsnip, turnip, potato), one heck of a lot of salt, pepper, and probably also thyme and bay leaf. Also add a roux made by browning a few tbsp of flour in a few tbsp of butter. (At this point I let it cool, put it in the fridge, and finished it the next day.) Give it one more hour of simmer until the root vegetables are tender, pull the meat from the bones, mix, and serve.

This came out very, very good with root vegetables in a rich gravy. I made it meat-as-garnish, with much more vegetable than meat, but that is a fully tunable knob. Apparently to make it more Caribbean, you should add tomato, cloves, allspice, and a chile pepper.

French-ish Onion Soup

Chop a bag of onions, toss with melted butter and leave, covered, in a 300 F (150 C) oven overnight to quasi-caramelize them. The next evening, mix these with a few cups of porcini mushroom broth (I used this because it was on hand and much better made from cubes than any beef broth that is cube-based). Add salt and pepper to taste, let it simmer for a little while. Top with a crouton, grated cheese (I used a partially aged gouda) and broil until brown on top. Serves a few. Way fast and easy!

Possible enhancements: The onions only get quasi-caramelized, not fully caramelized, because the closed pot doesn't let them dry out as much as they should; PMC suggests lowering the heat but leaving them in uncovered. Worth a shot! Alan Mooney suggests adding sherry to the broth. Duh!

cabbage and bacon

Cabbage burned (or browned) in butter (or any fat) is just downright delicious, especially in the winter! In what follows I use bacon but you can use butter or olive oil if you are vegetarian or vegan and it works well.

Try out 1/4 pound (or less) bacon, cut into tiny bits. Remove the crispy bacon to a bowl, but leave in the fat. Throw in a chopped onion and cook until soft. Add a half a cabbage, cut into small pieces. Stir it all up with lots of pepper and some salt and leave it there on medium heat until it starts to burn in the fat. Don't stir until it starts to really burn! Turn it once and let it start to burn again.

Now you have options: You can add cooked, drained pasta, a bit of cream, some grated parmesan cheese, and the bacon bits to make "cavolo pasta". You can add all of the above except the pasta to make a cabbage-as-pasta non-pasta dish. You can just mix in the bacon and serve it as a side with anything (like latkes or sausages). Another improvisation that worked well was apples, sautéed with the cabbage.

sweet and sour meatballs

As I was walking around the grocery store yesterday, a pound of ground veal whispered "meatballs" to me. I was thinking Swedish, but ended up making this, which was a huge hit with all: 1 lb ground beef 1 lb ground veal 1 cup bread crumbs 2 eggs 1.5 tsp salt 1 tsp pepper 1/2 cup very finely chopped onions I made small (1") meatballs of this mixture and browned them in a 12" pan (they all fit with a little jiggle room). In a large saucepan, I made the sweet-and-sour sauce with the following: 1 cup rice vinegar 3/4 cup brown sugar 2 tbsp ketchup 1 tbsp soy sauce Juice from 14 oz can of pineapple chunks 4 tsp corn starch in a slurry with 1/4 cup water I added the meatballs to this and kept it all simmering. Sauteed a green pepper and a red pepper in the frypan and added this and the pineapple chunks to the sauce. Served over white rice. This hits both the sweet and the sour buttons very hard.

caramelizing onions overnight

At Dstn's place, we put about 2 lb of sliced onions, 1/4 lb butter, and 1 tsp salt into an oven-proof pot. We heated it up on the stove enough to melt the butter, soften the onions a tiny bit, and make it possible to mix it all up. We then put it, covered, into a 200 F (90 C) oven for 10 hours. Bingo, caramelized onions! They went great with a Dutch cheese selected by the 'fuzz.

Chicken Tagine with chickpeas, apricots and almonds

I made this without a net and it was a hit with the fam' tonight.

• olive oil
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp coriander
• 6 deboned chicken thighs
• 3 cups cooked chick peas
• 1/2 c dried apricots, cut in large pieces
• 1 c raw almonds, chopped coarsely

Fry onion in olive oil until edges brown. Add garlic and cook until fragrant. Pour into tagine. Mix spices. Dredge chicken in spice mixture and fry briefly to toast spices and give chicken a bit of colour. Place chicken on onions. Add 1/2 cup water to pan, scrape pan and pour liquid over chicken. Add chickpeas and apricots to tagine. Cook about 2.5 hours at 300F. Fry almonds and pour over chicken and chickpeas.

I served it with cousous and a carrot and orange salad.

corned beef hash