Halibut and Fall Harvest Saute

   

   

The end of the year brings to a close the harvest and root vegetables that define fall cooking.  And so, last night I put that lonely butternut squash on the countertop and the old parsnip in the vegetable drawer out of their misery.  I shouldn't have waited, for this dish is tasty, easy and a good way to prepare fish.  Too often, we think of a piece of white fish and rice and the need for a sauce.  Dover sole cooked in butter can be nice, but hardly inspiring.  Likewise, a hearty fish stew can be involved and take time with different types of seafood and cooking times.  This meal combines the heartiness of a broth and root vegetables, along with a sauteed fish for a healthy meal.  I found it in Food & Wine, October 2004, and it serves faithfully every fall.  What's more, if you happen to cut up too many vegetables, just put the extras along with a diced leek in another pot and simmer with chicken stock for 20 minutes.  You'll have one of the best soups you've ever tasted.  Serves 2.

Ingredients:

3 tbsp butter

1 large shallot or half a small onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 cup diced, peeled butternut squash

1 cup diced, peeled potato

1 small parsnip, peeled and diced

1/2 cup dry white wine

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1 bay leaf

1 1/4 cups low-salt chicken stock

1 tbsp olive oil

2 halibut fillets

salt/pepper

2 tbsp flour

Directions:

In a large saucepan, melt 2 tbsp of butter over low heat.  Add the chopped shallot and garlic and cook until softened, abotu 3 miutes.  Add the squash, potato and turnip and cook over medium heat until they begin to soften, about 5 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add the wine, thyme and bay leaf and cook a few minutes until the wine reduces by half.  Add the stock, cover and simmer over low heat until the vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a large nonstick skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat until just smoking.  Season the halibut with salt and pepper and then dredge through the flour, shaking off excess.  Add the halibut and saute until golden, about 3 or 4 minutes per side.  Stir in the remaining tbsp of butter to the broth, serve into bowls, and place the halibut on top to serve.

Roman-Style Chicken

     

    

What to do with chicken?  The eternal question.  There are whole cookbooks devoted to chicken recipes, and I own a few of them.  This recipe, from Giada De Laurentiis, proposes braising browned chicken along with prosciutto and sweet bell peppers. Hard to go wrong there and it is quick and delicious.  Capers added at the end can send this dish in a direction of other traditional chicken preparations such as chicken piccata cooked with lemon and capers.  I switch things around, as should you, depending on how I'm feeling any given night.  For example, last night I did not add the recommended diced tomatoes.  No particular reason, just didn't feel like it.  Similarly, many times I will use just yellow peppers, which are a little sweeter than the red peppers Giada suggests adding.  Adding red with the yellow bell peppers make a nice visual presentation, but the taste will be a little different.  Again, up to you.  I do suggest one switch in the preparation order, which I think improves the dish.  Giada recommends browning the chicken first in just the hot olive oil and then cooking the bacon.  I recommend cooking the bacon and peppers along with the garlic first, and then browning the chicken in that fat combination.  You can imagine how much tastier that will be!  Serves 2.

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil

1/2 yellow onion, diced

3 ounces prociutto, or 2 slices of bacon

1 yellow bell pepper, seeded and sliced into strips

1 clove garlic

2 skinless chicken breasts pound to 1/2 flat

salt/pepper

1/4 cup wine

1/2 a 15-ounce can diced tomatoes

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1/4 tsp dried oregano

1/2 cup chicken stock

2 tsp capers

2 tbsp chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves

Descriptions:

Heat oil in a large saute pan over low heat and cook bacon, onions, and peppers until onions are softened and bacon is browned.  Add garlic and cook for a further minute.  Remove mixture with a slotted spoon to a plate, raise the heat to medium, season the chicken, add and cook a few minutes on each side until browned.  Remove the chicken to the same plate as the bacon mixture and add the wine to the pan, scraping up the browned bits to deglaze.  Return the chicken and bacon mixture to the pan and add the tomatoes, stock and spices.  Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer, cover and cook for 10 minutes to finish the chicken cooking process.  Before serving, add the capers and parsley, stirring to combine.

Mustard-Spice Rubbed Pork Tenderloin with Mustard Sauce

   

    

Roast pork tenderloin always sounds so fancy to people, but it's really a very easy and quck meal to make, even on weeknights.  Just brown the meat in a pan and roast in a hot oven until it reaches 160 degrees.  After you've prepared this a few times, the challenge then becomes to do it a little differently each time.  Mustard is a go to for lamb, and can also go onto pork.  The flavor left is not "mustardy," but does enhance the meat and help whatever herbs you apply stick.  The easy herbs are any of the herbs de provence combination, either those premixed, or thyme, rosemary, etc.  I keep an herb garden for just such purposes.  But, seeking something more, I found this recipe from Martha Stewart's The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook:  The Original Classics.  Her recipe envisions a blackberry-mustard sauce.  I did go as far as adding blackberries, but I did follow her suggestions to add coriander, cumin and ginger to the spice rub mixture.  While my proportions below are not as agressive as Martha suggests, it still came out as a very tasty mid-week meal.  I also like to brown my tenderloin before roasting, which Martha has yet to discover.  I browned the tenderloin first and then slathered it with Dijon and the spice mixture before roasting.  Feel free to reverse the order and let me know how it works.  Serves 4.

Ingredients:

1  1 1/4-pound pork tenderloin

2 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp ground mustard

1 tsp coriander

1/2 tsp cumin

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp dry white wine
2 cups chicken stock
1 tbsp flour

Directions:
Preaheat the oven to 450 degrees F.  Heat the oil in a large saute pan over medium heat and brown the tenderloin on all sides.  Meanwhile combine all of the spices, salt, pepper and sugar.  Remove the tenderloin to a cutting board and brush 1 tbsp of the Dijon onto the tenderloin.  Sprinkle the spice mixture onto the tenderloin and press to make it stick.  Return the tenderloin to the pan and roast in the oven.  Cook until the pork is 160 degrees F on an instant-read thermometer, 15 minutes or longer.  Transfer the cooked tenderloin to a cutting board and cover with foil to keep warm.  Return the pan to the stove top over medium heat and add the wine, scraping the bits off the bottom of the pan to deglaze.  Reduce the wine a bit and then stir in the stock, reducing it by half, about 8 minutes.  If a thicker sauce is desired, mix the flour and 1/4 cup of water in a bowl and whisk into simmering stock.  After a couple minutes more, whisk in the mustard.  Slice pork into medalians and serve with sauce. 
      

"Weeds" with Sausage

   

    

The “weeds” in this sausage pasta dish are so named because of the shape of the pasta. I don’t know what kind of enormous weeds they have in Italy, but I agree with Mario Batali that this pasta looks more like an unraveled, twisted phone cord. Such coiled, hollow pasta is hard for me to fund in local stores, so he recommends fusilli or rotelle, although last night I used a a narrow ziti. The reason this recipe (and picture) from Mario’s Molto Italiano: 327 Simple Italian Recipes to Cook at Home attracted me is that Italian sausage and spaghetti was one of my favorite comfort foods as a kid. However, I do not eat it so much anymore because the acid of the tomato sauce upsets my stomach somewhat. I am growing into the place Italians have been always, sauce based on things other than a heavy dose of tomato sauce as the Americans prefer. This sauce does start with a tomato paste base, but its liquid is provided from white wine and milk, along with some of the pasta cooking liquid. It is a wonderful sauce, still extremely easy, but deeper and more flavorful than any jarred sauce. Try it instead the next time you think of sausage and spaghetti.  Serves 4.

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp butter

1 yellow onion

4 sweet Italian sausage links, removed from casing and broken into pieces

1/2 6-ounce can of tomato paste

1/2 cup dry white wine

1/2 cup whole milk

salt/pepper

1/2 pound fusilli or rotelle

freshly grated Parmigiano

Directions:

In a 12- or 14-inch saute pan over low heat, melt the oil and butter and soften the onions for 6 to 8 minutes.  Increase the heat to medium, add the sasage and cook until very brown, about 10 minutes.  Drain most of the fat from the pan and add the tomato paste, stirring often, until a deep rust color, about 5 minutes.  Add the wine, stir, and boil down until almost evaoporated.  Stir in the milk, season with salt and pepper, and reduce the heat to a simmer.  Cover and cook for 15 minutes.  Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to boil and cook the pasta until al dente.  Scoop out 1/2 cup of pasta water and then drain the pasta.  Add the pasta to the sauce and toss.  Add some of the cooking water if desired to loosen the sauce.  Divide the pasta among bowls, top with grated Parmesan and serve.

   

Chicken Apricot and Almond Tagine

    

    
I may have mentioned that my favorite spice is cumin and Moroccans do use cumin and coriander in many of their recipes. However, they are famed for their sweet tooth and so many of their chicken recipes will instead use cinnamon and pair it with apricots or raisins, along with saffron and garlic. Either way, it can all go into a tagine, the traditional conical cooking vessel of Morocco which recirculates the cooking steam into the dish as it stews. I own a tagine, although mine is a Le Creuset enameled cast iron. No particular reason for that, I might have even bought it on sale at an outlet store. Even if you don’t own a tagine, you can still make wonderful Moroccan tagines with a Dutch oven or any kind of heavy pot. I make tagines with some frequency because they are easy, fun and quick, often times finishing in the time it takes to cook rice. While I know that the traditional Moroccan pairing is couscous, many times I will make rice instead. That’s just me and the beauty of cooking, make what you like and will enjoy most. The recipe below is from one of my Moroccan cookbooks, Traditional Flavors from Northern Africa: The Moroccan Collection, although all are very similar: start by browning the meat, then soften the onions and vegetables, then add the spices and stock, return the meat and simmer. Ten minutes active time and 30 minutes to a meal. Take that Rachel Ray! Serves 2.
     
Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil
2 chicken breasts
1/2 yellow oninon, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 large pinch of saffron threads, crushed
1/3 cup slivered almonds
2/3 cup dried apricots
2 1/2 cups chicken stock
salt/pepper

Directions:
Heat oil in a tagine, Dutch oven or heavy pot over medium heat.  Add the chicken and brown on both sides.  Turn down the heat to low and transfer the chicken to a plate.  Cut the breasts into bite size pieces.  Add the onion and garlic to the pot and cook until softened but not browned.  Stir in the cinnamon for 1 minute.  Add the saffron, almonds, apricots, stock and chicken.  Heat until the stock is just simmering then cover and simmer for 20 minutes.  Season to taste and serve with couscous or rice.
     

B'stilla - Moroccan Pigeon Pie

   

      

I was recently reminded of a meal I had in Morocco. Earlier on the second day of our trip, we had toured the massive Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca and then driven up the coastline to Rabat, Morocco’s capitol. Evening approached as we walked from our hotel to the medina, which in Rabat is quite small. Unfortunately, most of the shops were closed and our dining options seemed limited. However, we did come upon a Moroccan man dressed in a kaftan holding a single lantern. He stood in front of a sign indicating a restaurant, but there was no restaurant in site, only shuttered doors and vacant streets. He did not speak English and could not answer our questions. Instead, he beckoned for us to follow him. With hopes for dinner ahead, we left caution behind and followed this solitary light into the narrow, twisting alleys of the medina. All was dark and quiet around us as we walked, him in his padded shoes and flowing robe, us with only uncertainty. First right, then right again, a left and then a right. Where were we going?  Where was he taking us?  Then, finally a door where we stopped. With a knock a small portal opened - foreigners for dinner, would it be ours or theirs? 

    

With a small tip and thanks we stepped through the door and into another world. The first thing that encountered us was music, traditional drums and stringed instruments, then the warm light of a many lanterned interior, then colors of festooned fabrics and patterned rugs and pillows, then the din of fellow diners, a dozen or more sitting at tables throughout the space, enjoying their conversations and their meals. Finally, the smells of Moroccan spices and cooking: cinnamon, cumin, turmeric, and saffron. Relief was quickly replaced with indulgence in all that surrounded us. On this night I had bastila - Moroccan pigeon pie.  A traditional dish in a traditional setting, it found my pigeons under a sweet and savory crust with onions, almonds, egg, cinnamon and saffron. So why no recipe below? Well, I didn’t particularly like it. It was a little dry for my tastes and there’s not much meat on a pigeon! But, that was an evening that has inspired my Moroccan cooking countless times since. The sights, the sounds, the emotional trepidation and release, all of that can be recalled with our most basic sensory perceptions: smell and taste. It is thoughts like this that inspires me to cook, travel, and perhaps cook a chicken, apricot and almond tagine tonight!

      

Rabbit Cacciatore

    

   

There is a small portion of the frozen food section at my market devoted to surprising me with wonderful cooking ingredients. I know it’s not really just for me, but it is fun to think that, and it is fun to discover what new thing may be there. On one occasion it was partridge, so I made partridge with a chausseur or hunter’s sauce. Many times it's venison.  This past week, it was rabbit, cleaned and cut into pieces. Fall brings the opportunity to cook and enjoy game and different meats, so I thought why not? Needless to say, I don’t have rabbit recipes off the top of my head and had never prepared it before. Braised rabbit came to mind, but sounded boring. So, I consulted my The Silver Spoon cookbook. The Silver Spoon is one of the great treasures of Italy. It is said that The Silver Spoon is most successful cookbook in Italy, the book that has its place in every family kitchen and that every Italian passes on to their children. Not disappointing, The Silver Spoon has over 20 recipes for rabbit, and another 4 for hare. I chose the recipe below for Rabbit Cacciatore. It was really very simple, dispelling any notion that something as foreign as rabbit would be hard to cook. So, next time you see rabbit in the case, grab it and take it home and cook it, you’ll be glad you did. Serves 4.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp butter

1 onion, chopped

1/3 cup prosciutto, chopped

1 rabbit, cut into pieces

3/4 cup dry white wine

1/2 tsp dried thyme leaves

2 14 ounce cans of diced tomatoes

1 tbsp flour (optional)

salt/pepper

soft polenta, to serve

Directions:

Melt the butter in a Dutch oven or deep saute pan over low heat, add the onion and prosciutto.  Cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes.  Remove the onions and prosciutto to a bowl and add the rabbit to the saute pan.  Increase the heat to medium and brown the rabbit on all sides.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Stir in the wine and scrape up the bits of the bottom of the pan to deglaze.  Return the onions and prosciutto and add the thyme.  Cover and cook for 15 minutes.  Add the tomatoes, bring to a gentle boil, reduce the heat to simmer, cover, and cook for 45 minutes.  If the cooking juices are still too runny, thicken the sauce by stirring in the flour and simmering a few minutes more.  Remove all the rabbit pieces except the legs, and with a fork, shred or remove the meat from the other pieces such as the neck and back, looking for and separating any bones.  Return just the shredded meat to the stew and stir in.  Serve by plating over soft polenta.

Braised Veal Rolls in Tomato Sauce

      

   
Braising, of course, is a fancy name for stewing a meat, that is cooking if for a fair amount of time partially submerged in some kind of liquid. Beef stew is a hearty and homey brasied meal. It brings a simple, warmness to any winter day. Interest and sophistication comes when beef stew goes to beef bourguignon, both in name and ingredients. Bacon provides a base oil to brown the meat, which is stewed in wine instead of stock or water. On top of these extra layers of flavors, I also love the variety of flavor that can be added by stuffing the meat. Many times, I think of this in the context of stuffing some kind of chop, such as veal chop, and roasting it. This recipe combines the wonderful goodness of a sophisticated stew with added layers of the ingredients in the stuffing. It remains easy to prepare and cook, and the results are to die for.  I paired it with angel hair pasta as in the picture above.  That was just my feeling for the evening, but feel free to serve the rolls by themselves, with a vegetable side, and the sauce ladeled on top.
   
The original recipe, from Mario Batali’s Molto Italiano: 327 Simple Italian Recipes to Cook at Home calls for dry red wine in which to braise the meat. Instead, I used a Vaqueyras leftover from the wine I served on Thanksgiving. This southern Rhone region is near to Chateauneuf-du–Pape both in location and taste with its grenache grape base and medium- to full-bodied round and smooth taste, as opposed to a more tannic Cabernet Sauvignon. The former style wine, as with a Burgundy or pinot noir based wine, I think does more to bring out this dish’s flavors, including the ingredients in its stuffing, which is why many translate beef bourguignon into beef burgundy. Anyway, enough geeky wine talk. Just make this recipe and you’ll be glad you did.  Serves 2.

Ingredients:
2 tbsp olive oil
2 ounces sliced pancetta, diced
1 yellow onion, sliced
6 thin slices of veal
1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted and chopped
2 tbsp golden raisins
2 tbsp grated pecorino romano
1 1/2 ounces sliced prosciutto di parma, diced
1/4 cup chopped italian parsley
2 cloves garlic, diced
1 large egg
1 cup red wine such as pinot noir
1 cup tomato sauce
salt/pepper

Directions:
In a medium bowl, combine the pine nuts, raisins, cheese, prosciutto, parsely and garlic.  Add the egg and mix well.  Season the veal slices on both sides with salt and peper and lay out flat.  Spread a portion of the stuffing mixture in a layer over each veal slice.  Starting from the narrowest end, role up each piece and pierce with a toothpick to hold in place.
In a Dutch oven or deep saute pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat, add pancetta and cook for 4 minutes.  When the pancetta starts to brown, add the onions and cook a few minutes to soften.  Remove the pancetta and onions and add the veal rolls, browning on all sides.  Remove the veal rolls and deglaze the pan with the wine, scraping the browned bits from the bottom of the pan.  Add the tomato sauce and the cooked pancetta and onions and stir to combine.  Bring the sauce to a boil, return the veal rolls to the pan and spoon some of the sauce over the rolls.  Reduce the heat to a simmer and cover.  Simmer for 1 hour, turning the rolls and spooning sauce on top periodically, and adding a little water if the sauce dries out too much.  Serve by plating the rolls and spooning the sauce over the top.