Jeff and Martha: My Year of Cooking Fabulously

P.S. How to Clean Soft-Shell Crabs

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 23:58:00 +0000

Finally! Soft-shell crabs are in season, and I was able to get my hands on some fresh ones and finish the last piece of the puzzle!!

How to Clean Soft-Shell Crabs (p. 123)

I headed down to Chinatown the other day, and while I didn't have my pick of them, I did find one seafood place selling soft-shell crabs. I brought four of them home in a bag of ice, where they sat in my fridge for a few hours until I was ready to clean them.

Marcy was here (of course), and she was concerned that they might still be alive, but I assumed they would probably have suffocated or died of hypothermia by then.

So I started cleaning them.

First was cutting off their face. Actually, their eyes and mouth. Nice image, right? Then you scoop out the "soft matter just behind this cut." I'd just seen people doing this on TV, so I knew the soft matter should be a yellowish-white, but all I could see was a clear, jelly-like substance. I had to stick my finger inside its head (which is also its torso - talk about short-waisted!) and scoop out the clear jelly to get to the aforementioned "soft matter" hiding behind.

Next thing to cut off is the apron, on the other side of the crab. That was easy, uncomplicated.

And finally, you cut off the gills, which can be found underneath the shells on either side - they're sort of flappy, chrysanthemum petal-type things.

So I clean two crabs, very successfully I might add, and then I pick up the third one, and it's twitchingly alive. Ugh. Just like with Lobster Fest, I have to confront my murderer side and cut off the face of a living thing. A thing that I'm going to be eating in a matter of minutes.

Marcy was literally hiding her face at this point.

And what did I do?

I cut its face off. And then I put it down and waited until it stopped moving, which took a good couple of minutes. Thankfully the fourth crab was DOA, so I cleaned that one, while #3 took his last breaths.

I am a murderer, what can I say?

Martha's lesson is very thorough, and the photos definitely help confirm what's what. As long as you can deal with the idea of cutting a living thing's face off, you should be fine here.

Jeff: A
Martha: A

FYI, while I haven't been cooking nearly as much as I did this past year, I have definitely kept up my skills with occasional dinner parties and cook-stravaganzas.

In case you were wondering, here are the things from this book that I've repeated since completing my project:

Basic Chicken Stock
Chicken Soup
Pureed Vegetable Soup (various)
Mayonnaise
Rosemary-Olive Butter
Sautéed Skate Wing
Indian-Spiced Split Pea Soup (of course)

I know this list looks pretty meager, but mostly I've been trying all new things. This experience definitely instilled in me a desire to explore and stretch and be adventurous in the kitchen, so now I'm enjoying either trying something I haven't done before, or seeing how another recipe compares to one I've already made. I do love cooking. :-)

Until we eat again....

My Graduation Speech

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 17:31:00 +0000

As you can probably tell from the lag between Day 365 and this entry, I'm in denial about ending this project. It's been such a fun and jam-packed year of cooking and talking/thinking about cooking that I'm finding it hard to let it go! But as every student must do when his education is complete, I proceed.

When I think about the things I've learned, the benefits I've received from spending this year in Martha Stewart's Cooking School, I don't even know where to begin, so I've created some random categories to help bring order to my thoughts.

What I've learned about cooking:

I'm not going to lie. Yes, I cooked everything in the book. But could I recreate everything in the book without using the book? No way. I have learned and had the experience of performing many cooking techniques this past year, but I am still a cook who needs a recipe/directions. It would take repeating these recipes over and over again, or studying and memorizing proportions and timings and temperatures to be able to whip them out with no notice.

Some things I have picked up along the way, though:

I have cooking instincts now! I know that a recipe is working or if it's not working. I know what to do to get it closer to the desired result. I know that it needs more salt, or it needs to be hotter, or it needs to be reduced, or it needs more water. And that's a big plus in the kitchen.

I have a new appreciation for lemon juice and lemon zest (fresh, of course). I used to ignore lemons completely, but now I know what a big lift a dish can get from a last minute shpritz from a lemon.

While we're on the subject, I have an appreciation for fresh herbs, too. There was never a day this year when I didn't have one herb or another in my fridge. What a difference from dried herbs - really, no comparison. As different as raw meat and dried meat.

I know now how important it is to be prepared before I start cooking, to have read the recipe a few times, to have as much laid out as possible, to really understand the concept of the cooking process.

What I've learned about entertaining:

I really enjoy it! I like feeding people. (I am Jewish, after all.) I also like bringing people together, friends or strangers, causing conversation and creating relatedness. Sharing a meal is a perfect backdrop for this, and I'm happy to be the host.

Entertaining is not as hard as I think it's going to be. And even if it is hard, it's worth it, for reasons mentioned above.

People are much more forgiving than I am of myself. The worst food I served this year was still met with a smile and a thank you. No one spit anything out, no one stormed out screaming or crying or vomiting, my greatest failures were mostly in my head.

There's nothing a little olive butter can't fix. What I mean by that is, everybody has their own likes and dislikes, some people won't eat this, some never eat that, but it seems like everyone loves fresh bread and is inexplicably dazzled by olive butter. So always serve bread and olive butter, and no one will go home hungry/unhappy.

The best recipes for entertaining are the ones that don't require major fussing and managing as serving time draws near. (Frankly, I'm not sure when it's a good time to cook those....) In the future, I'll choose dishes that are either mostly done by the time the guests arrive or take only minutes to prepare just before serving.

Having too much food is so much better than not having enough. Too much = leftovers. Too little = embarrassing.

What I've learned about taking on projects:

Anything is possible.

Declaring a project openly and blogging about it is a great way to put myself on the line for finishing it. I can have an idea for something that I want to do, but unless I've declared it, it's going to be really tempting/easy to quit the second it becomes annoying or something else comes up. By taking on this blog, I didn't give myself an out. And even though there were times that little jeff wanted to walk away, Big Jeff knew that there was something to be gained from doing it completely.

It's a good practice to expand the limits of one's comfort zone. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have gotten all the benefits listed here.

What I've learned about blogging:

Blogging is a big undertaking. Being responsible for writing/journaling on a regular basis is time-consuming, especially when you're neurotic about grammar and spelling like I am. Also, getting the layout right was complicated, finding places for the photos so that the text laid out nicely around them. Sometimes I'd have to edit an entry 10-12 times before it looked right.

But again, no blog, no accountability. So the blogging was what had me finish it.

What I've learned about myself:

I like entertaining, feeding people, hosting meals.

I like cooking.

I like following directions, i.e. recipes. (Unlike other people who resist/hate using recipes.)

I like lemon.

I don't hate okra.

I still hate peppers.

My new(ish) apartment lends itself really well to dinner parties.

What I forgot about myself:

What did I eat before 3/17/2009? With the leftovers slowly disappearing, it was time to shop for food yesterday. And without a shopping list in hand at Fairway, I stood there, stupefied. Eventually, I had a vague recollection of eating fresh fruit with cottage cheese and yogurt. Right....

Why I'm glad I did it:

I ate really well for a year.

I accumulated lots of interesting kitchenware.

I developed a cook's intuition.

I got to hang out with and feed a lot of amazing people.

Even with all the purchased kitchenware and groceries and feeding many people, I think I ended up spending less on food this past year than I have in past years of eating out/ordering in.

It gave me a mission, a goal, something to talk about.

And last but not least, I met Martha Stewart and got a private lesson from her on her show!!

What I'm going to do next:

I'm not sure yet. Maybe a project around writing. Maybe a continuation of this, possibly blogging once a month with recipes from the MSLO magazines.

Order in.

Write a musical or two.

Perform in Anyone Can Whistle in just a few weeks!

FYI, I just scheduled my first post-Jeff and Martha dinner party for next Wednesday. And I get to cook whatever I/we want!

Big Confession

There is one lesson in the book that I did not do: How to Clean a Soft-Shell Crab, and it's not for lack of trying.

You may remember that soft-shell crab season sneaked by without my finding soft-shell crabs. Fairway never had any, and I didn't know that Chinatown was a good resource until I had already ordered frozen ones, which incidentally come pre-cleaned.

The day I saw fresh soft-shell crabs in Chinatown, I had forgotten about having to do this lesson, so I didn't buy any. And I haven't seen them since, there or anywhere else. At my cream puff graduation party the other day, I was talking about this issue, and Adinah said "I saw some at Chelsea Market," and I got all excited. But I checked, and it turns out they only sell frozen ones there. At least at this time of year.

So even though my project is done, and I feel complete about that, I'm going to do one final entry when I can get my hands on a dirty (i.e. fresh) soft-shell crab that can be cleaned.

Or maybe Martha can teach me how to clean one on her show!!

In Conclusion

It's my hope that people will be inspired by my journey to:

Take on a similar project
Entertain more
Cook more
Challenge themselves
Use my blog as a resource before setting off to cook a recipe from this cookbook
Check my blog as a curiosity after cooking a recipe from this cookbook

And I hope that people will continue to discover the blog and post comments, even though my year is complete.

It's been a pleasure sharing my odyssey with you all, and I thank you for reading and commenting and being my inspiration for finishing, whether you knew it or not.

Until we eat again....

Day 365 - Cream Puffs, Pastry Cream, Berry Glaze, and Chocolate Glaze

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:05:00 +0000

It's come at last.
At last, it's come.
The day I knew would come at last has come, at last.

I know I said Day 363 was my penultimate entry, but I lied. I'm going to write about Cream Puff night here, but I'm also going to do an overall wrap up entry later, because it's just too big a bite for me to take right now. (There's that nostalgia thing creeping back...) Plus, I'd like a few days to digest and reflect.

So for my swan song, I decided to cook swan.

No, I didn't cook swan. (Do they even sell swan?)

I saved cream puffs for the end because the recipe makes 36+ cream puffs, and I couldn't imagine serving them at the end of a dinner party. No, this called for a special event. A dedicated night of cream puffery. So I invited a handful of Jeff and Martha regulars to share in my completion celebration:

Adinah (l) and Harriet (r)

Lynnie

Charles

Kevin (l) and Dawn (r)

Annie

Tracy

And, unphotographed, Ryan and Ken and David (who wasn't on his cheat meal, so he didn't even eat a cream puff). FYI, they're all linked above to their favorite Jeff and Martha meal.

Pastry Cream (p. 476)

I love a recipe you can make a day ahead. It takes some of the pressure off the big serving day.

I've made custards before, but this one stands apart in that the thickening agent, which is usually the egg yolks themselves, is cornstarch in huge amounts here.

First you heat milk with sugar, salt, and vanilla beans (no pod, so I took Martha's margin tip from p. 469 and I'm making vanilla sugar with it). Then you whisk egg yolks with sugar, and stir in a bucket of cornstarch. Then you temper the eggs with the milk mixture and bring it to a boil.

Now I know from pie-making that cornstarch kicks into action at the boiling point, but I've never seen it at work as plainly as I did here. The mixture was liquid, liquid, liquid, and then in one second, it came to a boil, and it was super-solid. Boom.

I took it off the heat and stirred in the butter. (The recipe says to stir in butter and vanilla, but there's no vanilla extract in the ingredients list. This must have been a holdover from a version that used extract instead of seeds.)

I was shocked at how yellow the custard turned out. It's probably a good giveaway as to whether a custard has been prepared with egg yolks (more yellow) or chemicals (less yellow). It had a nice vanilla taste. Since it was still hot, I couldn't make a determination about the consistency.

Off this went for a night in the refrigerator. To be continued....

Jeff: A
Martha: A
Martha's Editor/Proofreader: B-

Cream Puffs (p. 479)

I've dabbled in the land of Pâte à Choux before, trying my hand at gougères a few times, with varying degrees of success. It's kind of amazing that pastry will do that, and by that, I mean puff up into a hollow ball. I've never been able to get the consistency just right, though. Sometimes they were too wet inside, sometimes they didn't puff very much, never quite perfect. I'm trusting Martha will show me the way....

It's really easy to make the dough. It mostly happens on the stovetop, which is so unusual for pastry. You bring water, butter, sugar and salt to a boil, then stir in flour until it really comes together and dries out a little. Then it goes into the mixer where eggs are added one at a time. Martha says to start with four eggs and add a fifth a little at a time, only if necessary. I ended up having to add the whole fifth egg to get the right consistency.

Once the batter is ready, it gets plopped into a pastry bag and piped onto baking sheets lined with mats. FYI, I didn't have the right size tip that Martha recommended, so the best option for me was just going tipless and piping right through the hole in the bag. The piping went quite quickly. It's pretty easy to match the size, once you've done one or two that you know are the proper dimensions. (Martha says this recipe will yield about 36. I piped out 42.)

Once it's all out of the bag, you flatten down the tips using a combination of your fingers and diluted egg wash, and now they're ready to bake! One tray goes in the fridge, the other goes in a 400° oven for a bit, then it gets finished at 350°. It looked to me like phase one (400°) was where the major puffing happened, and phase two (350°) was more about browning and hardening the outsides. Out comes one sheet, in goes the other. (Don't forget to raise the temp to 400° again!)

Once they're all done, they need to cool off before anything else happens. I have to say, they seem incredibly well-structured and sturdy. I like how they each have their own unique shape and character.

Martha says to fill them from the bottom, but how? I grabbed a skinny-ended knife and twisted a hole into the bottoms. Then I put a narrow tip on my pastry bag, and I was in business.

Oops, I forgot to tell you about the pastry cream on day two. After a night in the fridge, the cream was roughly the consistency of ricotta cheese. (!) Even after some hearty stirring, it was still pretty rigid. I guess that's what you get when you add a bucket of cornstarch.

But wait, there's another step before filling the cream puffs: you fold 1/3 cup of whipped cream into the pastry cream to lighten it up! Once the whipped cream was folded in, the custard was a perfect consistency, of course. Martha, you scared me for a second, but I should have known you'd make it right.

So, now with a pastry bag full of perfect custard cream, I filled those bad boys. Filling a cream puff is tricky, because you have no idea how much you're putting in there. You can tell when there's too much in there when it comes oozing out of the hole, and you can tell a little bit from the weight of it, particularly when it's too heavy. But it's hard to know when there's too little in there.

About halfway through the filling process, I realized I was running through the cream too fast, so I started being conservative about my fills. Ergo, some of my puffs were bursting with cream, others had merely a delicate, little cream ball. If I had had more cream, I would have been more generous throughout. My advice would be to make some extra pastry cream if you like a plump cream puff.

With all the cream puffs filled, there was naught to do but glaze them. I decided to serve 1/3 plain with powdered sugar, 1/3 with berry glazed tops, and 1/3 with chocolate glazed tops.

But before I move on to the glazes, allow me to discuss my overall feeling about my cream puffs.

I think I executed them very well, and I think the recipe is as sturdy as the cream puffs themselves. The pastry was easy to make, and the results were very consistent. Everything went as described, and there were no curve balls. For a seemingly complicated French pastry, this was surprisingly straightforward. For the record, the puffs are smaller than I expected. I thought people would want one or two, but some people were eating four +. Plan accordingly.

Again, as I've said so many times this past year, this isn't a food I particularly love or cherish, so I'm not likely to revisit this, but it's a great skill to have in my wheelhouse. I'm not much for custard, however I could see myself making a slightly larger puff and doing a profiterole take with some of this amazing Coffee Ice Cream.

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Berry Glaze (p. 481)

This glaze calls for 2 tablespoons of strained red preserves, but Martha doesn't tell us how to strain them. Luckily, I've been down this road before, so I knew that I had to heat them, maybe even add a touch of water, to get them to be strain-able. The strained preserves (I used raspberry) get mixed with a little lemon juice, a little salt, a little water, and a bucket of sifted confectioners' sugar, so much so that the preserves go from deep red to pale pink.

It's tricky getting the consistency of this glaze just right. When I first mixed it up, it was like peanut butter. So I started adding water, a little at a time. Then it was like tahini, and finally, I quit when it was like maple syrup. I wanted it to be loose enough to run down the sides of the puffs a little bit.

I think I might have gone a little too wet, since it was still tacky at serving time, but maybe another hour of drying would have solved that.

What surprised me about this glaze was the concentration of raspberry flavor. It was much tastier than I expected. But it's just so sugary. I'm pretty much anti any kind of sugar glaze, and this one only slips by because of its great berry flavor.

Jeff: A
Martha: A- (there should be a mini-lesson on straining preserves for the uninitiated)

Chocolate Glaze (p. 481)

This glaze involves only three ingredients: sugar, light corn syrup, and finely chopped semi-sweet chocolate. You bring the first two to a boil with water, then you add the chocolate and stir to smoothness.

It's very sweet, and though it looks very chocolately, it tastes only somewhat chocolatey. It was not quite smooth either. Not terrible, but slightly blotchy on the cream puffs. It didn't have the dense, impenetrable black-and-white cookie chocolate glaze. This was glossier and thinner.

Not bad. Just not fabulous. I wonder if there's a way to make this glaze that uses less sugar and delivers a stronger chocolate punch. Maybe using bittersweet or even unsweetened chocolate would balance all that sugar and corn syrup....

By the way, there was a ton of it left over. I made some fruit platters, and we were dipping the fruit in the leftover chocolate glaze, a la fondue. :-)

Jeff: A- (was the not-quite-smoothness my fault?)
Martha: A- (or was it Martha's?)

Here are the fruit platters (I had to put a picture in because I thought they turned out so pretty)

Me in my chef's hat!

I got some beautiful, congratulatory presents last night, but one that I thought you should know about: Kevin and Dawn gave me glamour knives!! I'm actually going to be able to slice things well now! We laughed about how it would have been great to have had them a year ago, but I'm so excited to use them now and so grateful for the gift. Thanks, you guys!!

Until we eat again...

Stay tuned for my project wrap-up - Coming soon!

Day 363 - Pot-au-Feu, Buckwheat Groats/Kasha, and Kiwi Sorbet

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:10:00 +0000

How is it possible that this is my last Jeff and Martha dinner party? Tempus fugit, you guys, tempus totally fugit....

I'm so happy to have squeezed in another one of my favorite couples for a first/last visit, right under the wire: Lady Susan Blackwell and Lord Steven White. You may remember Susan from my Lemon Curd entry, but at that time, she tasted the fruits of my labor via satellite. Tonight, she and her husband, Steve, are really a "part of it all," along with some other [title of show] peeps, hilarious Heidi, marvelous Michael, and [tos] friend and supporter, remarkable Ryan. Rounding out the group is my childhood friend and J+M semi-regular, beautiful Barbara.

Pot-au-Feu (p. 235)

For this very special, penultimate episode of Jeff and Martha, I'm preparing Pot-au-Feu, also known as The Thing That I Stalled Making For 362 Days Hoping It Would Go Away.

This recipe features one of the longest ingredients lists in the book, not to mention a time-consuming preparation which Martha suggests might best be spread out over two days. Yikes! And what are you serving when all is said and done? Boiled meat, chicken and vegetables. Hmph. If I'm going to be putting in that much time and ingredients, I want to be serving turducken. (Not really... I have turducken-o-phobia.)

This is a classic French dish, but it's not fancy. It's really quite basic. But since it's French, it's also somewhat complicated. Or maybe because it's Martha, it's somewhat complicated. All I know is, I've never used so much cheesecloth and twine in one day. Almost everything in the pot gets wrapped or tied. (Incidentally, I decided to do the one day version.)

Amazingly, Fairway had almost everything I needed to make this. Short ribs (cut to 3 inches), veal bones, marrow bones (although the Fairway cut isn't a cross section cut like Martha shows in the book), brisket (first-cut only, though), and of course, chicken. What they didn't have was savoy cabbage. Turns out neither did Whole Foods or Gristede's. And given that I was shopping for this meal in the horrible, horizontal rain storm of 2010, I wasn't about to search any wider. Green cabbage was going to have to do.

It all begins with the wrapping of the short ribs in cheesecloth. These, and the veal bones and brisket, go in a gigantic pot (I bought a 16 quart Martha Stewart for Macy's pot for the occasion) and get covered with water and brought to a simmer. Martha said this would take 35 minutes, and for the first time ever, it actually took less time than she said! (About 30 minutes.)

After simmering for another half hour, you add another special cheesecloth package filled with herbs and spices, as well as some onion halves (one charred, another studded with cloves), celery, carrot, and salt, and that simmers for another two hours.

By now, the meat is cooked, so that gets put aside, covered. I actually had to stall for about 45 minutes here, because I knew if I kept going, my food would be done too early. Conveniently, this gave me plenty of time to peel, trim, and wrap my carrots, trim, wash, and wrap my leeks, peel and slice the turnips and cabbage, and wrap the marrow bones in cheesecloth.

Once I was ready to start the clock again, I brought the broth back up to a boil and put the chicken in, whole, for a 15 minute head start. Then, the rest of the vegetables went in, along with the marrow bones. (The baby potatoes are cooked separately - I almost forgot to make them!)

This is definitely the home stretch, so don't start the chicken until you know you're only an hour or so away from serving. About a half hour after the veggies go in, this baby is done.

Thank god I had Barbara there. She was totally my sous chef! I was trying to assemble a Shaved Beets with Orange over arugula salad while all this was going on, and she was setting up plates for me, and basically reading my mind and doing whatever I was about to ask her to do. Sous chef - what an amazing concept! FYI, she went to ICE and worked at Aureole, so she knows her stuff. In fact, as a present tonight, she gave me her ICE graduation chef's hat and wrote "Chef Jeff" on it. :-)

I was very concerned about the brisket and the short ribs, which had been sitting in a covered pot and were definitely not anywhere near warm at this point, not to mention dry. Barbara encouraged me to get them back in the broth for a little while to warm them up, which I thought was a great idea. So she arranged the veggies and the marrow bones while I reheated the beef. Then she laid out the meat and chicken, as I carved it, very badly, I might add. Brisket gets so thready... Barbara said you can put it in the freezer, which makes it very easy to slice, then put it back in the hot liquid to reheat. Interesting....

See that picture of the platter above? That was merely one of two identical platters!

Long story long, I served the food exactly as Martha prescribed, with broth ladled over it and also served on the side, along with grainy mustard, fleur de sel, cornichons (baby pickles), croutons, and fresh grated horseradish.

Can you believe, I mindlessly threw away a half of a horseradish root last week, forgetting that I'd need it again for this recipe? This is the one I bought this week. Kind of makes you wonder how this root got its name. :-)

I was very self-conscious about serving such boring fare to all these nice people. I mean, boiled meat, boiled chicken, and boiled vegetables? It sounds like institutional food.

Well, it couldn't have been further from the truth! It was surprisingly good! Everything was cooked well and all, but I think what really made this dish was the accompaniments. Brisket tastes fine, but then you add some mustard or horseradish or a bite of cornichon, and all of a sudden, it's a whole new world, or I should say, un tout nouveau monde.

The best compliment I got was from Barbara and Michael who've eaten this before, and they said it tasted very authentic and French. Yay! Mission accomplished.

I feel pretty confident saying I'll never make this again. I probably won't even ever order it in a restaurant. But it's really satisfying to capture and experience the taste, style, essence of another culture thousands of miles away.

Jeff: A
Barbara: A
Martha: A- (reheating the meat is such a good idea, it almost seems like an element that's missing from this recipe)

Buckwheat Groats/Kasha (p. 413)

Here's another grain gratuitously and inappropriately wedged into a meal. Nothing French about kasha, that I know of.

My experience of kasha has been confined to kasha varnishkes, which is a Jewish dish that combines this grain with bow-tie pasta. The big difference between the two preparations is that in the Jewish version,

the kasha gets mixed with egg before being cooked, which seals the grain and prevents the kind of fluffiness that happens here when it's simply cooked in water.

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining about fluffy buckwheat. In fact, I think it makes the grain a little more approachable, less forbidding, less nutty. And by nutty, I actually mean nut-like, not zany.

I wouldn't say this was an obvious pot-au-feu accompaniment, but in the end, I thought it was a nice, unexpected side. That's Susan and Steve cradling the kasha.

Jeff: B (I overcooked it - thought I'd turned the heat off but hadn't)
Martha: A

Kiwi Sorbet (p. 485)

It's been a long road for me and sorbets. And you may remember, I went from being one who dismissed sorbet to being one who appreciates, even loves it, but only under certain conditions. And I've pretty much determined that those conditions are 1) a great focus of that fruit's flavor, and 2) an element of tart or acid to offset the sugar.

How does Kiwi Sorbet rate? Very high, I'm happy to say. Not only is there great kiwi flavor and tartness here, but there's also the extra added unique mouth experience, which is a sort of numbing sensation. After tasting it, one of my guests was convinced there must be pepper in it. Nope. Just lots of kiwi. Ultimately, it's a really interesting treat.

It should be said that the taste of the sorbet will really depend on the actual fruit used. There are ripe kiwis and less ripe kiwis, tart ones and sweet ones and everything in between, so it's not really fair to judge the sorbets simply on my one-time versions.

However... in case you're interested, here's my sorbet wrap up, with all the flavors listed in order of my favorite (top) to my least favorite (bottom):

Grapefruit
Pineapple
Raspberry
Kiwi
Strawberry
Lemon
Lime
Orange
Blackberry
Blueberry
Watermelon
Mango

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Until we eat again....

Here's the group: from l to r, far side is Michael, Susan, and Steve, near side is Barbara, Heidi, and Ryan.

Pot-au-Feu had very few cares...
(10 points if you can finish that line)

Day 362 - Shallow-Poached Fish Fillets with Beurre Rouge and Wild Rice

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 03:36:00 +0000

It's my last Jeff and Martha dinner for Marcy!

Ugh, I'm doing that thing people do when they start getting sentimental when something's about to end: "It's my last drink as a 30-something!" "It's the last time we'll ever perform this show together!" "It's my last fish dish from this cookbook!"

Actually, it IS my last fish dish from this cookbook!

Shallow-Poached Fish Fillets with Beurre Rouge (p. 224)

I've done versions of this dish twice now, once with flounder/kumquats and then another time with turbot/lemongrass. This last variation is actually the simplest, eliminating most of the ingredients and adding only tomato puree, hence the rouge of the beurre. (My edition of the cookbook has the word "beurre" misspelled five times in this recipe alone! WTF?)

Since Martha recommend three kinds of fish for shallow poaching, I thought I'd try a different one each time. Neither flounder nor turbot was particularly pleasing to me, so I had high hopes for sole. At Fairway, I had the choice of Dover Sole or Lemon Sole, same look, same price, same size fillets. I opted for the Lemon Sole because it was wild, and I know Marcy likes her fish wild.

So here's the drill: melt butter, sweat a minced shallot, add 1/2 cup white wine and 1 T tomato puree, bring to a simmer, salt fish, add it to the simmering pan, cover with a parchment round, and cook until opaque. Once the fish is done, put it on a platter, strain and reduce poaching liquid, stir in a bunch of butter, season and serve over fish.

First of all, let me say that I finally got the butter sauce right. The first time, it was too thick, the second time, too thin, this time, juuuuuuuust right. And what I thought would be a weird combo, i.e. tomato, white wine, and butter, worked beautifully. I think this had to do with how little tomato puree is used. The sauce, as you can see from the picture, would be more aptly named beurre saumoné.

Now, on to the Lemon Sole. Finally, we have a winner! This fish is delicate without being fishy. Hallelujah! And I managed to cook it perfectly, just done enough without tipping over into flaky, dry land.

I still have the issue with the fish cooling off while the butter sauce gets made, but fine, whatever. Marcy and I aren't that picky, and truth be told, I'm probably never going to shallow-poach another fish fillet again, because of this very reason.

Overall, I'm pleased because this was so much better than the other renditions.

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Wild Rice (p. 412)

My last rice! :-)

I don't think I've ever had 100% wild rice. It's always an ingredient in those wild rice mixes, but you rarely see it solo. It's completely black, long skinny black grains. Was this going to be edible?

Survey says: yes!

My rice took a bit longer than Martha said it would, probably about an hour total. I was surprised to see how fluffy it got! It starts out black, but it ends up more "salt and pepper." And it's delicious full-strength. Super nutty and fibrous. I'm a fan.

That said, it's definitely not a perfect match for tonight's fish. But at this point, it isn't about making perfect matches. It's just about getting it done. :-)

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Until we eat again....

Day 360 - Roast Leg of Lamb and Wheat Berries

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:15:00 +0000

What? Day 360? Completion is getting very real to me....

Tonight's group is partly "old-timers" (Laura, who's been here at least a couple of times and Marcy, who's been here a million times), one second-timer (Megan, who's back in town for the spring to do a limited run of Lips Together, Teeth Apart at the Roundabout!), and two newbies, Jeff (wonderful playwright - Visiting Mr. Green, anyone?) and his longtime partner, Gary (wonderful nurse - NYU School of Medicine, anyone?) whom I've been trying to schedule for some time. They made it just under the wire!

Compared to most of my dinner parties, this one was actually pretty laid back for me. There was one crazy phase where I had to abandon the soup course while I made gravy and cooked the spinach, but otherwise, it was definitely do-able.

I'm starting to learn which kinds of dishes work for entertaining and which are too labor-intensive to accommodate simultaneous socializing. (That sounded very academic, but I think you get what I mean.)

For instance, I made Winter Squash and Pear Soup, but I roasted the squash and pears the day before, saving myself some busywork on serving day. In fact, I could have made the soup completely in advance and reheated it, but I knew that I'd have a window while the lamb was cooking, so I waited. (I thought it might be nice to serve the soup with Spiced Pepitas on top, but it turned out to be a bust. They got soggy in there. But I should mention that I used my remaining White Beef Stock as the base for the soup, and it worked great.)

Also, I'm getting good at repurposing. I had leftover Roma tomatoes and white bean spread from Alysha's dinner, so I made some cute little canapes by slicing the tomatoes and topping them with the spread.

But on to the real items at hand:

Roast Leg of Lamb (p. 136)

Again, this is something I've never prepared before. It's a sort of imposing cut of meat, conjuring images of Renaissance fairs, if not Renaissance times. It makes you want to serve wine in goblets.

The first part of the prep involves trimming the extra fat and putting slits all over the meat and filling the slits with slivers of garlic and bits of rosemary and thyme. I wasn't entirely clear how deep or wide to cut - Martha says "1 inch slits." I ultimately settled on a squarish, 1x1 cut, which worked well, especially for the larger pieces of garlic. The meat was sort of elastic so I could really push that stuff in there.

For the record, my leg of lamb was pretty lean, so I didn't have too much extra fat to trim.

The vegetable preparation is pretty straightforward: onions, carrots, celery, and potatoes get roasted alongside the meat. Other than some peeling and slicing, there is very little labor involved here.

Really, this is a breeze until the lamb is cooked. Then there's a spurt of activity needed to make the gravy. (FYI, my vegetables were definitely done before the lamb, so I took them out early, but I left the potatoes in the whole time, because I like a well-cooked potato.)

Once the lamb is removed to a platter, the instruction is to pour the fat from the roasting pan. Meanwhile, there was no fat in my roasting pan. (I told you my leg was lean!) What there was was piles of herbs. I wasn't sure whether or not to remove them, but then I read ahead and saw that I'd be putting this through a strainer soon, so I left them in. Reduced some red wine, added mustard and brown stock, reduced that, then strained it into a saucepan.

My gravy base was so reduced at this point that when I started to add the beurre manie (flour and butter kneaded together), it thickened up like crazy! I frantically started looking around for some liquid I could add to thin the gravy. I was wilting spinach at the time, and I'd just used up the last of the brown stock to get that going.

Then, I spied the liquid I'd reserved from the soup before pureeing, which I hadn't needed to add back in - hallelujah! Thank god I never throw anything away! It worked great, and the gravy was done.

Slicing the lamb was challenging. I tried to follow Martha's directions, but I ended up sawing, not really able to get the thin, pretty slices she suggested.

As for the end product, it was very good, not quite great. There was a huge range of doneness with this meat. The first few slices were almost well done, the meat closer to the bone was very rare. It was all nicely tender, though.

I thought that the garlic and herb slit deposits would deliver a lot of flavor, which they did when you actually got some in your bite, but I wish their flavor were more present in the meat overall. Also, I thought I had salted the outside of the meat liberally, but you really can't salt a piece of meat like this enough. The gravy turned out well, though, and filled in any big flavor holes.

All told, I'm going to say that this was a relatively successful endeavor but probably not a cut of meat I'm going to revisit. And this is coming from a lamb lover.

What I want to know is, why is there no lamb shank recipe in the book? If anyone has a great lamb shank recipe, I want to hear about it. That's my all-time favorite lamb cut.

Jeff: A- (points off for awkward slicing)
Martha: A

Wheat Berries (p. 413)

I have a confession to make. I just threw this in there because it was on the list of things to finish. There was nothing about wheat berries that I thought would contribute an important element to this meal.

What's worse, I didn't even eat any. I tasted them to check on their doneness, but they didn't grace my plate at all.

I've sort of given up on these whole wheat grains. Unless I can repurpose them in a salad or something, I think I'm done.

But don't Gary (l) and Jeff (r) look cute flanking the wheat berries?

Jeff: A- (points off for apathy and dismissiveness)
Martha: A

Until we eat again....

The whole gang, from left to right: Marcy, Laura, Megan, Jeff and Gary.

Day 357 - Beef and Stout Stew

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:53:00 +0000

There's nothing that says birthday like Beef and Stout Stew.

On the eve of Alysha's birthday (and mere weeks before her Broadway debut!), I wanted to throw her a special, little celebration wingding, so we invited a bunch of her fabulous, fun friends to feast on my fresh and fabulous food.

Celebrating with us tonight was NY's hysterical hostess of the gay cabaret scene, Emily, lovely and amazing singer/actor Anna, Alysha's awesome American Idiot castmate Rebecca (check her out on the Grammy's!), and Jeff and Martha regular who's currently appearing Off-Broadway in Yank - David (who's using up his "cheat meal" on this dinner, fyi). Also, with us only for the first course, adorable, up-and-coming TV personality, Matthew. Such an entertaining bunch!

Beef and Stout Stew (p. 195)

Having never eaten Boeuf Bourguignon, which is the inspiration for this recipe, I wasn't sure what to expect here. The substitution of stout for red wine really confounds my expectations. I can imagine this with the wine, but stout?

I start this recipe with what I hope is not going to be a major blunder. Instead of using a clear oil (sunflower/safflower) as instructed, I mindlessly pour olive oil into the pot with the bacon. I know this oil has different burning properties, not to mention different flavor, and I hope the switcheroo doesn't bite me in the ass.

Also, I wasn't able to find cipollini onions, as listed in the recipe, so I settled for pearl onions, as used in the traditional Boeuf Bourguignon version.

This is a recipe that would really benefit from a complete mise en place, which I didn't do. Consequently, I'd get to a stage of the recipe and realize, crap, I never trimmed and cleaned the mushrooms. And everything would have to go on hold while I took care of that ingredient/task. I should know better by now....

The first part of this recipe involves browning some bacon and the beef. There was some confusion about how to slice the slab bacon. The instructions say to cut it into 1 inch lardons, which I did, but this seems like a weird proportion. The bacon is about an inch thick, so the 1 inch lardon ends up being shaped like a 1 inch square, i.e. postage stamp. (All I'm saying is, doesn't leave you with a great mouth feel as you're gnawing on a big lardon.)

Next, you slice the beef into 2 inch pieces. (Again, 2 inch cubes? 2 inches by 1 inch? 2" x 10"?) There was a fair amount of fat and silver skin on this meat, and I wasn't sure if I was supposed to trim all the fat away or leave it be. I started to trim, but I eventually decided that a little bit of fat is probably a good thing, so I went halfsies.

After the meat is browned and the pot is deglazed, you sauté some chopped onion and garlic and then throw in the mushrooms. When everything is soft, you add some flour and mustard, cook it for a minute, then you add the meat back with the liquids (stout and stock) and bay leaves and thyme.

Meanwhile, since Emily and Anna are vegetarians, I'm making a seitan and tofu version alongside the meat version. I tried to match it, step for step, so it would have a similar taste and texture, but I could only get so close with the faux meat.

After the stew has cooked for an hour, you throw in halved fingerling potatoes and the cipollini (or pearl in my case) onions and cook for another half hour or so, until everything is soft.

At the half hour mark, the potatoes weren't that soft, and thank god, because it wasn't time to serve the entree. My stews cooked for an extra 30-45 minutes, and I think it only made them better. The beef stew wasn't thick enough when I first checked (I took the lid off and raised the heat), and the veggie stew was too thick (I put the lid on and lowered the heat).

By serving time, everything had a decent consistency. I threw the postage stamp sized lardons in, seasoned with S+P, and served it over a bowl of egg noodles, with the prescribed accoutrements (julienned carrots, chopped dill, and horseradish). The horseradish was incredibly overwhelming. Merely grating it reduced me to tears, the fumes were so aggressive. Flavor-wise, a scant 1/4 teaspoon would have been sufficient per portion.

Overall, I was pretty happy with the dish. It was plenty hearty, very comfort food-y. The meat was incredibly tender. The balance of ingredients was maybe a little potato heavy for my tastes, but good. The stout ended up being a very background flavor, but an interesting one, not as overwhelming as I'd feared. For the record, I couldn't taste any olive oil weirdness, so I think I got away with it.

If I were cooking it again tonight, I might add a few more mushrooms and lose some potatoes, but all in all, it's a great recipe and a yummy, rib-sticking meal.

Jeff: A- (had to take a little off for my olive oil mishap)
Martha: A

Also served that night: White Bean Dip (nice), pain d'epi with olive-garlic butter (very popular), an arugula salad with basil, bocconcini, artichoke hearts, and Slow-Roasted Tomato Slices, roasted brussels sprouts with balsamic vinegar, and in honor of the impending special day, Chocolate Layer Cake with Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

Until we eat again....

Clockwise from the left, that's Alysha, Rebecca, Emily, Anna, and David (Matthew was gone by beef time).

Day 354 - Grilled Side of Salmon and Sushi Rice

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 03:05:00 +0000

Ted and Noah are back tonight, for salmon again. It was poached the last time they were here. Now it's getting grilled, although I'm not sure that's an entirely accurate description....

Grilled Side of Salmon (p. 175)

The reason I'm speculating on the accuracy of the term "grilled" here is that while this fish is cooked on a grill, it's cooked sitting on a bed of citrus slices and herbs which completely protect the fish from the grates, and what's more, the grill is covered. Hence, it seems more like steamed or smoked, something. All I'm saying is, there are no grill marks to be found on this fish.

The salmon gets no pre-treatment here. It's just a big slab of fish, placed skin side down on slices of lemon and orange and piles of fresh basil and oregano. Martha asks for 2 oranges and 4 lemons worth of slices, and I sliced them all up beforehand, but I had lots of leftovers, so maybe it's wiser to slice as you go.

I was surprised how not-smelly this was, as it was cooking. Salmon can be such an apartment killer, but the only smell that came through was burning citrus.

After 20 minutes, the fish was a little too rare, so I left it on for another five or so. Somewhere in between would have been ideal, as it was ultimately cooked through, and I like it a little translucent in the middle.

Martha says to lift the entire bed of citrus and herbs from the grill and put it all on the serving plate/board. I tried, oh how I tried, but those citrus slices were burned right onto the grill. There was no moving it as a piece. I had heeded the instruction to oil the grill before creating "the bed," but either it wasn't enough oil or it just wasn't ever going to happen that way.

I completely spaced and didn't get a picture of the beautiful finished side of fish, but I did get a picture of the salmon mid-service and, of course, a picture of Noah (l) and Ted (r) with their plates.

Jeff: A
Martha: A- (I'm not sure I believe the concept of moving the whole bed to the serving platter is feasible...)

Sushi Rice (p. 412)

I don't usually get excited about rice, but I really loved this rice! I think it's probably because I juzhed it with this Sesame-Lime Rice recipe, which I highly recommend. But even before I added all the magical ingredients, I tasted it plain, and it was nice and sticky and white and rice-y. Not sure if that's because it's short-grained or that it was rinsed and dried prior to cooking. Whatever the reason, this is going to be my go-to white rice from now on. Yum!

Jeff: A
Martha: A

I should mention that Ted brought a delicious, home-made Banana-Walnut Chocolate Chip bread for dessert. Ted, you'd be a great blogger! (hint hint)

Until we eat again....

Day 352 - How to French a Rack of Lamb, Tortellini, Tortellini en Brodo, and Blackberry Sorbet

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:24:00 +0000

Tonight's special guest is my little sister, Anna Lise. OK, she's not my actual little sister. But in 1993, when I was performing in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (starring Donny Osmond) in Minneapolis, the kids in the children's choir "adopted" members of the cast as their older brothers and sisters, and I got Anne Lise and Katie as my little sisters. Years later, I'm still in touch with both of them (!), and recently Anna Lise moved to NYC to pursue a performing career. (She's really talented!) Tonight was a much needed catch-up date for us to share about what's been going on. And for her to watch me cook for two hours.

How to French a Rack of Lamb (p. 116)

How to French a rack of lamb? That's easy. You take it out for a nice dinner, sweet talk it, then lean in and slip it the tongue.

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

If you didn't already know, Frenching a rack of lamb is the process of taking it from a big, fatty slab of meat to a nicely butchered rack with exposed bone handles. The last time I made Rack of Lamb, I bought it pre-Frenched, hence I couldn't take this lesson.

I actually had to go to a special butcher to find an UN-Frenched rack. And when I asked for an UN-Frenched rack, the butcher still went to trim it. (See picture.) I screamed, "No, stop, I have to do that myself!!" "Why?" "I'm taking a lesson from a book. Don't ask."

We got into a long conversation about the chine bone, which is a bone that, left on, would have prevented me from slicing each chop apart. So he offered to "release" the chine bone (he had to do this with a saw) without removing it, and that sounded like a good compromise.

Doing the actual trimming, similar to the tenderloin from a few days ago, is pretty self-evident. You are peeling off thick layers of fat (and meat) to get to the chops below. There was a point when I was peeling when I thought, I could remove all the fat from the top here, but then I looked at the picture in the book, and it seemed as if there was a thin layer of fat left intact on top, so I trimmed it down but left a little. I think this bit of fat probably makes a big difference in the cooking department, and it ended up being just the right amount.

Getting the bones clean is definitely the most time-consuming part of this process. If you have even the slightest tendency toward OCD, you will probably spend at least a half hour on the bones. I gave it my best shot, but I couldn't take the time to clean them perfectly.

In terms of the economy of doing one's own butchering, I don't think there is necessarily a great payoff here. The rack would have cost the same butchered or unbutchered. And the only thing I got out of doing it myself, other than the satisfaction of having carved "The David" from a slab of lamb, was a lamb-burger's-worth of ground meat from the trimmings. (Since I was grinding meat for the tortellini, it was easy to grind the lamb meat at the same time.)

The rack cooked up brilliantly, following this recipe. Like the beef tenderloin, this is a cut of meat that seems failsafe, as long as you have a handy dandy thermometer. 130° is the magic number. It yielded gorgeous, rare meat, with a perfect herb crust. Genius.

Jeff: A- (could have gone a little farther with trimming the bones)
Martha: A

Tortellini (p. 370)

I've been a little challenged with my pasta.... The last time I made it, Barbara showed me a few tips, so when I made up this batch of dough, I didn't try to incorporate as much of the flour in the original pile as I usually do, which resulted in a much wetter dough ball. It meant dusting with flour a lot during the rolling process, but I think the pasta was a lot better!

As for the shaping of the tortellini, it was quite painstaking and time-consuming. I kept poor Anna Lise sitting there for more than an hour, watching me fill these little mothers. Martha suggests using a round cookie cutter to cut out circles for this shape, but my cookie cutter wasn't cooperating, cutting incomplete circles, which got old fast.

I ended up switching gears and using the same shaping technique used for tortelloni, which involves a square-cut shape, filled and folded over into a triangle (vs. a half moon) and then bringing the edges together. It leaves a little "hat" on the top of the piece, but it was going so much faster that I opted for it instead. Of course, my tortellini were cut from squares much smaller than the ones used for the tortelloni squares, so they were ultimately sized appropriately.

And even though it took me forever to make all of these, they were pretty cute.

Jeff: A- (I took two points off for switching from circles to squares, but I gave myself one point back for being resourceful and getting the job done)
Martha: A

Tortellini en Brodo (p. 374)

This tortellini is filled with a really nice meat mixture, all home-ground. First, there's pork shoulder and chicken breast, ground and browned, and then there's prosciutto and mortadella, also ground and added to the other meats. I wonder if I over-cooked the meats, as my meat mixture was very dry and crumbly. And there's no egg in this recipe to hold the filling together.

Once the meat was cooled, I added some ground parmigiano-reggiano, nutmeg, salt and pepper, and I have to say, the flavor was pretty fab.

So after all that work, making pasta dough, rolling it out, grinding four meats, cooking the filling, and cutting and filling the shapes, can you believe that I blew this dish in the last few stages??

I over-reduced the broth, so it was outrageously salty and too flavory, and I didn't cook the tortellini long enough, so the pasta was too al dente and the filling was dry. We added some hot water to our broth, which successfully brought it back to the land of edible, but the tortellini was a lost cause. It tasted fine, but it should have been amazing after all that work, and it was definitely my fault that it wasn't.

Luckily, I have a bagful of frozen leftover tortellini, so I'm going to try this again and get it right.

Jeff: C (undercooked pasta and overcooked broth)
Martha: A

Blackberry Sorbet (p. 485)

Can you believe I'm still making sorbets? And this isn't even the last one!!

I made the mistake of serving this sorbet with leftover raspberry sorbet, which is so amazing that it dwarfs any other flavor with its greatness.

That said, the blackberry sorbet is totally fine. Nice texture, just a little on the sweet side. It requires more syrup than the other flavors, and the sugar definitely overpowers the sorbet. But it's a pretty color, and next time I'm going to serve it alone.

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Day 350 - How to Trim a Beef Tenderloin, How to Tie a Roast, Clams in Herbed Broth and Dill-Lemon Butter

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:44:00 +0000

Well, the snow has mostly melted, the roads are clear again, and Harriet and I are back in business with the beef tenderloin. Since we're doing this on a Sunday now, and since Harriet's brought a Costco-sized piece of meat, it doesn't seem right to make it for just us two, so I've invited Ryan and Adinah over to share in the spoils of our meat-trimming and tying lessons. And why not throw in a few more dishes while I'm at it? I've got a deadline to make!

How to Trim a Beef Tenderloin (p. 118)

I have to be honest with you. I'm not sure what the hell I did to trim this meat. I read Martha's instructions, and they seemed coherent. Until I opened the package.

The piece of meat that came out of the package bore little resemblance to the description in this lesson. Perhaps Costco sells beef tenderloin with another piece of meat attached. There was a gigantic slab of meat on one end of this tenderloin that neither Harriet nor I could identify.

No matter. I just kept trimming and cutting and cutting and trimming until it looked like a beef tenderloin. It's pretty self-evident what there is to do here. The meat almost guides you, itself. In a couple of cases, there were flaps that looked like they wanted to be trimmed off, but if you followed the fissure, it was clear that the tenderloin would be split in two had we taken that trim there.

The big mystery was that bonus brisket-sized piece of meat, probably almost two pounds, which I trimmed away and is now in my freezer. I'm pretty sure it wasn't meant to be part of the tenderloin, but I can't help wondering if I hacked off the best part.

Home-butchering can be a very economical endeavor. This was a roughly six pound piece of meat to start, costing about $45 at $7.50/lb, which is quite inexpensive when compared to most meat sellers. I think I trimmed away about one pound of waste, froze a beautiful, lean, 1.5 pound piece of mystery meat, and cooked a 3.5 pound tenderloin. I'm guessing that if I bought that 3.5 pound tenderloin already trimmed, it would probably cost at least $40, if not more.

All told, I think I did a nice job with the trimming. And even though I didn't really feel like I was following Martha's directions, per se, Harriet wants me to give myself an A for a job well done, so I will.

Jeff: A
Martha: A (?)

How to Tie a Roast (p. 119)

This was fun. It reminded me of that game you play as kids where you wrap string around your fingers and pass string shapes back and forth. Only in this lesson, you play it with a big piece of raw meat instead of your friend.

It's kind of amazing how easy it is to do this tying technique, which looks so professional and is so effective. It takes about a minute or two to figure it out, and then it's smooth sailing. Look at my beautiful roast!!

FYI, I tucked the ends under on both sides, since I somehow ended up with a piece of meat that tapered on both ends....

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Clams in Herbed Broth (p. 219)

People are funny about clams, aren't they? It's taken me a little while to assemble a group of people who were all happy to eat clams.

I've never bought clams before, and since I was picking them up a day early, I had to do a little research on how to store them overnight. (They're still alive, and if you leave them in the plastic bag from the market, they'll probably suffocate and die, which doesn't make for good eats.)

Turns out the best thing to do is to clean them and put them in a bowl with damp paper towels on top, which is what I did with very good results. Out of three dozen clams, one two of mine didn't open.

This dish is pretty easy. You make an herb-loaded oil using mounds of parsley, basil, dill and chives, food-processed with olive oil. Then you boil up some fish fumet (smelly!) and throw the clams in to steam. Since I wanted to serve mine with pasta, I boiled up some linguini on the side. Then I plated the linguini and clams, while I finished the broth.

To do that, you strain the liquid (to remove sand), then bring it to a boil again, and add butter and that herb oil. Then ladle it over the clams and pasta and serve!

As my guests remarked, there are a lot of flavor levels going on here. I attribute this to a few things. First of all, fresh herbs are always loaded with flavor. Second, home-made broths pack a great flavor punch. And lastly, clams. Nuff said.

This was fun, easy, and delicious, and while I'm not a clam lover, I'd do this again. The only thing I might want to add is some garlic....

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Dill-Lemon Butter (p. 167)

My last compound butter! Since I had dill in the house, I thought I'd crank this out. What a great idea! It tasted fab on the beautiful Italian bread that Ryan brought. A slather of flavored butter, then a dip in the herb broth? Perfect!

I don't know if I'd use this butter outside of a seafood-based meal, but in the right setting, it's super nice!

Jeff: A
Martha: A

I used this recipe to cook the beef tenderloin, and I have to say, it worked like gangbusters. Having made a pair of tenderloins before, I already knew that this is a magical cut of meat to cook. Easy and failsafe. Really, the only thing you need is a thermometer, and as long as you take the meat out when it hits 135°, you're golden. It's rare and unbelievably tender. Flawless.

Until we eat again....

Day 347 - Thyme, Shallot, and Lemon Marinade, French Fries, and Cauliflower Puree

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:29:00 +0000

I'm on a deadline, and I can't catch a break!! First the flu, and now: snow!

This was going to be a much more coherent meal as originally planned. My cousin Harriet was supposed to come in from NJ bearing an untrimmed beef tenderloin, with which we were going to give ourselves Martha's lessons on trimming and tying. Alas, the snow has postponed this tutorial, and I'm left with these rather meat-inspired side dishes.

Meanwhile, Marcy was available for dinner, so I pulled out my last marinade and took a seafood detour.

Thyme, Shallot, and Lemon Marinade (p. 173)

This marinade makes sense on the page and in my mind, but when I made it, I was a little confused. It's full of chunks of things, lemons, shallots, thyme leaves, but there's not a whole lot of liquid involved.

Since Martha said this pairs well with shellfish and fish fillets, I picked up some cod fillets and scallops to try both. The cod went into ziploc bags, so the fillets were pressed up against all the chunks. And the scallops sat in the bowl with the rest of the marinade. I guess the chunk thing didn't deter any marinating from happening, but it's just so chunky, it threw me.

I pan-seared the scallops and served them with the Cauliflower Puree, a complete rip-off of a previous recipe. And I pan-fried the cod plain, so we could really taste the marinade.

The scallops tasted great, but I couldn't get much of a bead on the marinade flavor. The puree was actually the star of that dish.

The cod, on the other hand, was obviously beautifully seasoned. It is a really balanced, delicate, French-y flavor that allows the fish to shine without overwhelming it. I offered Marcy an extra squirt of lemon, and she said no thanks, because the flavoring was so right on.

Jeff: A
Martha: A

French Fries (p. 333)

Can I just say how happy I am that this recipe marks the end of my deep-frying career??

As much as I've complained about having to deep fry so much, I will say that it has definitely given me an appreciation for well-fried foods. Frying is not an easy thing to do. At least without a Fry Daddy. (I'm told Fry Daddies will regulate the temperature of the oil automatically. No fair!!)

I was actually excited about making fries because I do like my fries a certain way (extra crispy), and I figured I'd be able to control how they came out. Alas....

Warning: this recipe requires a 4-24 hour soak!!

Accordingly, the day before, I cut all the fries and put them in cold water in the fridge. The starch run-off wasn't as extreme as when I grated potatoes for the rosti, but there was some sludge at the bottom of the bowl the next day.

The frying happens in two stages. The first is blanching, at 300°, to soften them, and the second is the browning, at 350°, to get them crisp.

As usual, my oil temps were all over the place. I think what I should have done was to get the temperature to the right place to start, then just before I put in the fries, crank the flame really high. Because what kept happening was that the temperature would drop horribly once the fries went in, and it would barely rise throughout the cooking process. I tried to play around with the flame, but I was scared of overheating the oil because I had no extra oil on hand to bring the temperature down if I overshot it.

(If I loved fried foods, I would definitely invest in a Fry Daddy.)

As for the fries, they were just OK. A little soggy, definitely not crispy enough. Again, I think it's a temperature issue. If the oil in Part 2 had been hotter, I think I could have achieved that crisp on the outside, soft on the inside thing. As it was, they were only slightly crispy, which was fine, but not my dream.

I tried adding the optional rosemary and lemon zest, but I don't think it made much of a flavor impact.

For the last batch, I left the fries in the oil until they were a lot darker, which still didn't get me the results I wanted. These were overcooked, with no white inside, and they still weren't super-crispy. I think for that kind of result, I probably should have heated the oil even higher, maybe 375° or more. (?)

It's funny - whenever I order fries in a restaurant, I always say "extra crispy - have them cook the crap out of them," because I've always imagined that crispiness is a function of cooking time, so why can't they just cook mine longer? But it's really not as simple as that. They'd probably have to have multiple fryers going at different temperatures to accommodate requests like mine. I'm going to be much more forgiving now.

The next time I make fries, I'm definitely going to try...

Kidding! I feel pretty confident saying that I'm never, ever going to deep-fry again.

But I will definitely give props to well-fried food from now on.

Jeff: B- (not even close to having worked out the oil temperature thing...)
Martha: A

Cauliflower Puree (p. 310)

This recipe is a variation of the Fennel Puree recipe, hence the scallop-pairing idea. Using cauliflower is even easier, in that once the cauliflower is softened and pureed, there are basically no solids to filter out. Every bit went right through the sieve.

There's a crazy taste thing that happened here. Marcy and I both caught it. The cauliflower is cooked in milk and pureed with just a small amount of that milk, then it's seasoned with salt, white pepper, and a touch of nutmeg. Pretty basic, right?

Well, for some strange reason, we both tasted smoked meat, i.e. bacon. There's no logical connection that I can think of, but we both went there.

The only possible explanation is that the flavor came from the browned part of the scallop, but we were both pretty sure we were tasting it in the cauliflower puree. Go figure.

In any case, this is a beautiful vegetable side, simple and flavorful. And while it may be time-consuming, it's not difficult.

Jeff: A
Martha: A

I also served this Celery Root and Apple Slaw, which we liked, but I'm not sure if it's going to make it into my regular repertoire. I actually love celery root, but I'm a little put off by all the muddy crevices.

And since I had hot oil going on my stove, I fried up the remaining corn tortillas from last week's Mexican fiesta. Freshly fried tortilla chips are a nice snack to serve. In fact, that might be one of the few things that could get me back to the fryer.

Until we eat again....

Day 344 - Kamut

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:19:00 +0000

I picked a lousy time to get the flu. Three weeks left to do 26 more things, and I'm down for the count. Just to keep myself in the game, I thought I'd knock off a grain.

Kamut (p. 413)

As a one-time vegetarian and somewhat health-conscious person, I've been aware of grains like kamut for a long time. Chewy, earthy, starchy nuggets of grainy goodness are an occasionally welcome addition to a dish/meal/life.

That said, I can't say I have any idea what distinguishes kamut from, say, spelt or farro or wheat berries.

OK, I just looked up the differences, and they do exist. But from a purely aesthetic eating standpoint, these seem pretty much of an overlap.

Martha's kamut recipe is very successful. The grains are perfectly cooked. And I enjoyed a biteful or two. But if these are going to play a part in my life, I'm guessing they will have to take a supporting role in a salad or pilaf. Alone, I'm just not that interested.

(Incidentally, in the picture, the kamut is cooked. It's in a strainer because it gets boiled and then needs to be drained.)

Jeff: A- (for whining about grains)
Martha: A

Until we eat again....

Day 340 - Fried Fish, Fish Tacos, Tortilla Soup and Fried Tortilla Strips

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 05:04:00 +0000

It's not Cinco de Mayo, but it might as well be at my house tonight! I thought I'd knock out all the remaining Mexican dishes for a group of people I know will appreciate them: my friends from the TMLP. TMLP stands for Team Management Leadership Program, a course we all took together at Landmark Education in 2003. One of the things I learned in this course is how to create a project that inspires me and see it through to completion. It would be crazy to mention the TMLP (and Landmark) on this blog without acknowledging that I would never have had the vision, will, and follow-through to do a project like Jeff and Martha without that education.

Tonight, I've got Steve and Rory (yes, they're a couple and they've been together for about 100 years - amazing), and Vicki and Courtney (no, they're not a couple, but they act like they've been together for about 100 years). And they do like their Mexican food. And drink. Margaritas were the choice of the evening.

Fried Fish (p. 274)

I'm sure you're all tired of hearing me say how much I hate deep frying. I hate it so much that even though it's crazy to serve two big main courses to five people, I really wanted to kill two fried dishes with one fry stone. And since I was going to be frying tortilla strips, I thought, "Just do the fish too."

The batter is quite easy to put together. Cake flour, salt, beer, and eggs. Meanwhile, I was stalling to make the batter until the oil was ready, but then I reread the recipe and saw the part about refrigerating the batter for at least 20 minutes before using. Crap.

I can't believe how long I kept my friends waiting for this dish! Don't be afraid to make this batter in advance like I was! It can sit in the fridge for up to 2 hours!

One of the most maddening things about frying is keeping oil at a consistent temperature, something I definitely haven't mastered. In this recipe, Martha wants the oil to be 375° when the fish goes in, and between 350° and 375° for the duration of the cooking. My oil temp dropped way too low with the first batch. Accordingly, they were a little soggy. The second batch was a little better, but still the temperature was all over the place. The last batch was the best because I cranked the oil. Lesson: hotter is better.

Cod was the chosen fish tonight, and I was happy with the taste and texture of the cooked fish, but the batter seemed a little lackluster. I think it's probably a great batter for onion rings. It has that heavy/fluffy batter appeal. (This is a wet batter, i.e. dry and wet ingredients are pre-mixed, unlike a dip in flour, dip in eggs, dip in bread crumbs kind of frying.) I wonder if a little more salt would have resulted in a tastier breading....

PS Leftover update: reheating this fish in the toaster oven is very successful. They get crispy and brown with perfect texture. And a little salt solves the lackluster batter flavor issue.

Jeff: B- (bad temperature control, and points off for keeping friends waiting for food)
Martha: A

Fish Tacos (p. 276)

I've never eaten fish tacos before, so this uncharted territory for me. The garnishes are easy enough to put together. I already had the cilantro, lime, and cabbage on hand for the tortilla soup. The only extra things I needed to get were radishes and the cream. Martha doesn't specify amounts for the ingredients in the cream - she just says to add lime juice and chipotle adobo sauce to it. My ratios were roughly 1 C of sour cream, 1/4 C of lime, and 2 T of chipotle sauce, and Courtney, our resident fish taco expert, said that it was right on. For me, it was a little spicy, but I'm a wimp.

I don't know what a great fish taco is, but I don't think I served it tonight. My tortilla was a little tough. (Martha suggests serving double tortillas, but no one wanted that, and I don't blame them. Too much tortilla!) The fish wasn't crispy enough. And as much flavor as there was in the garnishes, it just didn't add up for me. Salting helped, but I couldn't find the "there" there. I can't help thinking that I'd prefer a fish taco with unfried fish.

That's Courtney, right, with a taco and some salad.

Jeff: B (tough tortillas and no "there" there)
Martha: B (we could have used more info about the sauce ingredient proportions)

Tortilla Soup (p. 47)

Here's another Mexican dish I've never experienced before. I took Martha's make-the-day-before option for this soup, and I'm so glad I did. This was a really interesting process to go through, with amazing results.

First of all, this soup starts with chicken stock and builds on top of that, so there's tons of flavor. First thing that happens is a cut-up chicken gets cooked in chicken stock. Then while that's happening, you make a puree out of sautéed onions and garlic, char-broiled tomatoes, and dried pasilla chiles that have been charred and then softened in water. Then you add this amazing-tasting puree to the super-enriched chicken stock. The resulting soup base is like nothing I've ever tasted before: smoky, complex, and delicious.

The cooked chicken gets shredded and refrigerated separately from the stock. Then on serving day, you reheat the stock and once it's hot, you add the shredded chicken and cook long enough just to heat through. I forgot to add the lime juice before serving (a common Jeff error), so I had to go around spooning lime juice into everyone's bowls. (Now THAT'S service.)

Survey says? Amazing. I was really proud of this dish. Even if there were no garnishes on hand, I would still stand behind this soup. I took a little poll of my guests how this compared to tortilla soups they'd had elsewhere, and the unanimous response was that this was definitely steps up from your average tortilla soup. (Go Martha!)

And everyone liked being able to choose their own garnishes - I served all the recommended ones in the book: onions, avocado, shredded cabbage, cilantro, lime wedges, tortilla strips, and cheese. I've never had cotija cheese, which I liked. That's Vicki with her soup, surrounded by garnishes.

Would I make this again? I just might. It's nice to be able to get the heavy lifting out of the way the day before. And as I said above, the flavor is stellar. I was worried about serving this a main course, but it's quite hearty, and I'd encourage others not to be self-conscious about that.

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Fried Tortilla Strips (p. 75)

Homemade fried tortillas! Nothing to it! As long as you're willing to heat up a huge pot of oil. I had some of the same temperature control issues here that I had with the fish, although tortilla strips don't bring the temperature of oil down as drastically as chunks of battered fish. FYI, I fried these before the fish - I thought I'd rather have tortilla-tasting fish than fish-tasting tortillas.

Not much to say here other than it was easy and delicious, particularly on top of my tortilla soup. That's Rory on the left and Steve on the right.

There's definitely something special about freshly fried corn tortillas. And it occurs to me that if I wanted to serve a really tasty snack, this would be a good one. I wonder how little oil I could get away with using?

Jeff: A
Martha: A

I made this Pumpkin Flan for dessert, which was delicious, but not what I expected. You can see my comments on the linked page.

Until we eat again....

Day 337 - Winter Squash Puree

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:37:00 +0000

Oh boy, I'm eating well today! Lunch started with a Poached Chicken and Lemon + Olive Relish appetizer (yum) and then a Macaroni and Cheese main course. Is it possible that it's even better the next day? OMG...

Now, for dinner, I'm cooking up some things that are about to expire in my fridge: a package of butternut squash chunks and that last duck confit leg.

Winter Squash Puree (p. 311)

This recipe is the height of fast, easy, and delicious. Boil water, add salt and chunks of squash, simmer 10-15 minutes, drain and dry in hot pan for a couple of minutes. Then puree with butter. (Martha says to use a blender, but that never works for me so I did it in a food processor.) Add salt and pepper. Serve.

Whole journey? Not even a half hour. Which makes this a perfect side dish for a thrown-together meal. But there's nothing thrown together about the end result.

Creamy, sweet, salty, smooth, rich, comforting, satisfying, colorful. And elegant, to boot. I'll bet this would even taste great without the butter....

Jeff: A
Martha: A

As for that duck confit leg, it was the first one I ate on its own. (The other five served as ingredients in a pasta filling and cassoulet.) The flavor is absolutely amazing. And the meat is nice and tender. But I have not had success with reheating these. It's not a big deal when you're removing the skin and putting it into another dish, but this one was out in the open, and it wasn't cute.

Martha says that 10 minutes in a low heat heavy pan, covered, with another five minutes on the flip side, will crisp the skin, but I haven't gotten anywhere near crispy skin. I've tried cooking them uncovered, I've tried draining the accumulated oil, I've tried leaving the accumulated oil, I've tried turning up the temperature a little, I've tried cooking them for three times that long, all with no success. I don't want to fry the hell out of it, but I would like to know how to prepare a perfect, crispy duck confit leg with skin intact. Any ideas?

Until we eat again....

Day 336 - Slow-Roasted Tomato Slices, Macaroni and Cheese, and Lemon and Olive Relish

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 17:56:00 +0000

It's Valentines Day! And what's a single guy to do on Valentines Day but throw a dinner party for other fabulous single types!

Tonight's roster includes Jeff and Martha regulars: Marcy, Ryan, and Tracy C. And on the menu, the greatest comfort food of them all...

Slow-Roasted Tomato Slices (p. 390)

This is sort of a weird name for tomato slices that are roasted for 20 minutes, especially considering that there are other tomato-roasting recipes in the book that roast for six + hours. I'd vote to change the name of this to "Quick-Roasted Tomato Slices."

Unlike the other recipe, these tomatoes are sliced thinnish and are cooked at a relatively high temperature (400°) minus garlic. Otherwise, the ingredients and flavors and results are very similar.

My question is - if you can get similar results with the 20 minute version, why would you opt for the six hour version? I thought these slices packed the same kind of super-tomato-ey punch that the other ones did, along with that nice olive oil/thyme marriage. I think I'll opt for this recipe, if I want roasted tomato in my life again.

As for roasted tomatoes on top of mac and cheese, I'm suspicious. It doesn't seem like an ideal match, but I'll wait until it's all done, and then I'll weigh in.

Jeff: A
Martha: A (although now I want to go back to the six hour recipe and give Martha an A- for making me work so hard for it)

Macaroni and Cheese (p. 389)

Probably the biggest American "classic" in the book, this is a dish I've never made from scratch, and I couldn't wait to experience Martha's interpretation. My workout buddy Ken had told me about a Martha mac + cheese recipe he'd made which was a big hit (he credits some hidden cayenne), so I had high hopes. This recipe has some hidden cayenne too!

FYI, Martha's serving suggestion for this dish is to bake it in individual serving dishes, but since I don't have the right sized dishes, I took the casserole option.

The first thing I did was grate the cheese. There were so many kinds to deal with, I just wanted to get it all out of the way before I started dealing with what looked like it might be a time-sensitive sauce.

Next, I boiled the pasta. Yes, even Martha uses dry elbow macaroni for this recipe. I followed her instructions to the letter, re: undercooking the pasta, but I was very skeptical. It just seemed way too hard/chewy. Still, I obeyed like a good student.

Starting the sauce with diced onion was an interesting twist. I was talking to Tracy P. on the phone while I was sauteing the onion, and she found it quite distressing that there should be any onion at all in mac + cheese. Purist. She's convinced her kids wouldn't want to eat this, that they're only interested in the Kraft-style boxed version, but I think she's underestimating her kids' palates and I intend to prove her wrong someday! :-)

After the onion is sweated in some butter, then flour is added, cooked briefly, then a bunch of milk is whisked in. Once that's thickened (about five minutes), you add most of the grated cheese and season with salt and pepper and a small amount of both cayenne and nutmeg.

I could tell at this point that the flavors were going to be pretty great, but I didn't want to count my chickens.

I added the pasta into the cream sauce and then poured it all into the buttered 1.5 quart casserole, which looked amazingly measly for a dish that's supposed to serve eight people. Eight side dish portions maybe, but eight entree portions? This casserole looks like it will barely serve four!

Final touches: the rest of the grated cheese goes on top next, then fresh white bread crumbs which have been tossed in butter (I can't remember the last time I bought a loaf of Wonder Bread), and finally, the tomato slices. In the version with individual-sized serving dishes, Martha puts one tomato on top of each serving, making a total of eight slices, but since I had enough tomatoes to completely cover the casserole, I did. (Fifteen slices.) I figured we could peel them off if we didn't like them.

After 25-30 minutes in the oven, it was bubbly and brown, just as Martha predicted.

The verdict? Eight thumbs up, for sure. This is so far beyond Kraft, it's not even funny. The cheese flavors are great - it's a really nice balance with America (sharp cheddar) leading the way, but subtle undertastes of Switzerland (gruyere) and Italy (parm and fontina). The cayenne and nutmeg are indistinguishable yet contribute to an overall awesome taste. The consistency is right on, and Martha's advice re: undercooking the pasta really paid off. This macaroni was perfectly done.

As for the tomatoes, I thought they were a great match, an extra burst of flavor sort of underlining any Italian connection you may have made. Also, the tomatoes were a way of measuring portion sizes. (Do you want one tomato or two?)

Considering that I thought this wouldn't be enough for the four of us, I was amazed how far it went and how much I had left over. The guys each had three tomatoes worth, the girls had two or less. With a total of 15 tomatoes on top, that means this dish makes up five pig-out portions or eight I-can-show-some-moderation portions.

This is a definite home-run mac and cheese - I can't imagine anyone, adult, child, dog, gerbil, not loving this one.

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Lemon and Olive Relish (p. 179)

Boy, this one really confounded me on the page. I kept reading this recipe thinking, What is THAT going to taste like? And what would I want to pair it with? I couldn't wrap my mind around a whole diced lemon, chopped onion, olives, lemon wedges, and sugar all wrapped up in one relish.

But then I made it. And amazingly, it works! It's not too sweet, and it's packed with beautifully balanced flavor, a running theme in Martha's recipes.

I'm not sure what the ideal pairing is, but I don't think it's meat or fish. Probably chicken or pork is the way to go. Even though this is in the grilling section of the book, I felt like making poached chicken to go with it, so I did.

A few warnings to those who are making this: Plan ahead. It takes a long time to suprême seven lemons. Also, I think it was a mistake to add all the lemon juice that had collected in the bowl where I was putting the suprêmed wedges. My relish came out a little looser that I would have hoped.

Still, great flavor! Martha scores again!

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Also served in this meal, a green salad with fennel, pear, and walnuts, and this Pumpkin Custard, which seems plenty naughty but is actually not as bad for you as you might think.

Until we eat again....

Day 333 - Fish Fumet

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:19:00 +0000

Here's another one of those things I've been stalling on... When I drag my feet around making something, it usually has to do with the difficulty of getting one of the ingredients. In this case, that ingredient was: fish heads and bones. Yuck.

Fish Fumet (p. 55)

Fish Fumet is my last broth!! Yay!! It's an ingredient in a clam dish I have coming up, but I'm only going to need a couple of cups for that, so I'm not sure what I'll be doing with the rest of this. I mean, how often do you have the need for a fishy fish broth?

Back to the fish heads.

I thought I was going to have to buy a bunch of big fish and fillet them to get enough heads and bones. It never occurred to me to just ask at Fairway if they sell those parts separately. Turns out they do, and cheaply, to boot: $1/pound.

I asked for two pounds, and the fishmonger proceeded to butcher a bunch of heads for me. He was doing quite a bit of cleaning, chopping them down the middle and taking out a bunch of stuff that looked like liver. It was probably fish brain or something equally distasteful, and I was really glad he was doing it because otherwise, I would have had a very brainy soup.

I ended up with three relatively big fish heads, which went in a cauldron with eye of newt and three cat whiskers. Not really. The ingredients were normal, but the smell was a little "double, double, toil and trouble."

The rest of the ingredients were chopped leeks and celery, then some white wine that got reduced, and finally, a bunch of water, a bay leaf, and peppercorns. The potion is cooked for a comparatively short amount of time, 35 minutes, before being strained and cooled.

I'd been skimming the stock throughout the cooking process, but after putting the cooled stock in the fridge overnight, I was shocked to see a thick grey layer covering the top of the stock in each of the containers, resembling the kind of stuff I'd been skimming during the cooking process. I don't now what it was (fat? impurities? brain juice?) but I was happy to be able to spoon it all away.

What was left underneath was a clear fish stock, which I was surprised to see had that same kind of jellied consistency that the chicken and beef stocks have. Magic!

I'm excited to make the clams now, but I'm going to have to find some other recipe where I can use the rest of this stock. Cioppino, maybe?

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Until we eat again....

Day 332 - Rosemary Balsamic Marinade and Grilled Steak

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:52:00 +0000

Since Adinah was going to be spending a few hours here, watching me set up her new computer, I thought I'd take the opportunity to feed her.

I started her off with the last of the Cassoulet. (Big hit. I had added some liquid to the leftovers, so they were wet. Yummy!)

Then, I did some more indoor grilling....

Rosemary Balsamic Marinade (p. 173)

Martha says this goes really well with steak, so it seemed crazy not to use it on the Grilled Steak recipe.

It's quite easy to put together: it's just coarsely chopped garlic and rosemary sprigs, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. (But wait- can one really coarsely chop rosemary sprigs? Mine were so twiggy, I ended up having to snap them instead.)

It's curious that there's no salt in this marinade. Is it a mistaken omission? Intentional? Maybe I'll be able to tell when I eat the steak....

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Grilled Steak (p. 164)

Porterhouse: it sounds so 50's/Mad Men. Translation? A nice big steak with a bone through the middle.

This steak sat in the marinade for 3 hours refrigerated and 1 more hour as it came to room temperature. Then I tied some twine around it. I was very excited about tying it. In fact, at the store, I flipped through a bunch of steaks until I found one that looked like it would benefit from some tying. (I don't want to miss a thing!)

Martha says season generously with salt and pepper on both sides, so I went to town with the S+P.

The first side went on the very hot grill, and after rotating once, the cross-hatch marks were a thing of beauty. Then I repeated on the other side and turned down the flame for the "continue cooking with indirect heat" part of the process.

Now, I'm grilling this on a stovetop cast iron grill, so there are certain things I can't quite achieve, i.e. cooking with indirect heat. I try to simulate the heat environments by raising or lowering the flames on the burners, but the way that cast iron conducts heat, I'm not sure if this is terribly effective.

The biggest indicator that it's not effective is that my steak reaches it's desired internal temperature in about 5 minutes, when it's supposed to take 14-16 minutes. Granted, my steak isn't outrageously thick, but still, that seems fast. Ah well.

The texture? Just OK. A little tough. Maybe it's the meat, maybe it's that part two of the cooking process went too fast at too high a temperature.

The flavor? Pretty good. The marinade isn't overwhelming, after four hours of service. It's a nice background flavor, but it's not changing my life.

Meanwhile, what happened to all that salt? It was as if I hadn't salted or peppered this meat at all! I guess I could have seasoned more generously. Or maybe there was supposed to be salt in the marinade...

I almost forgot to top this with compound butter but remembered right under the wire. Not sure if it brought anything to the experience, other than a few more calories.

As you can probably tell, I was underwhelmed by this marinade/steak.

But here's the crazy thing. When I ate the leftovers cold today as the filling in a sandwich, it tasted completely amazing! Much better than when it came right off the grill. Go figure....

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Day 330 - Eleventh Tally

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:57:00 +0000

What?? Wait!! How did that happen? I'm a month away from my deadline?!? I feel like I just started!

I've been getting sentimental about this year... remembering certain meals, certain failures and successes, friends, flavors, and a ton of dish and pot washing....

I can't believe how much I've learned, how much I've eaten, how many I've served, how many groceries and housewares I've bought, how infrequently I've eaten out... Wait - this is starting to sound like my farewell entry, and though I've completed a total of 318 recipes and lessons, I still have another 48 yet to do!

:-O

48 recipes in 35 days. Whoa.

Can he do it? Will he do it?

I can and I will. If it means throwing a dinner party every other night. If it means making a leg of lamb just for myself. If it means staying up through the night filling cream puffs. I will finish this thing, by God!

I had a reader request (my first!) for pictures of my "wellworn" cookbook, which frankly doesn't look that bad. Maybe it's the dark colored cover that hides how much it's been abused... I tried to find a couple of angles that exposed the wear and tear: cracked binding and frayed creases.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Cathy H for her sweet gift of the KitchenAid mixer sausage attachment. There are no sausage recipes in the book, but I put this on my wish list anyway because who doesn't fantasize about making their own sausages? (Um... actually, Jeff, you're the only one who fantasizes about making his own sausages.) OK, fair enough. But if I don't get around to making sausages and writing about them on this blog, it's only because I have 48 recipes left, not because I don't love my new sausage attachment. Thanks again, Cathy.

And look what arrived in my email box today - my photo with Martha!! Jeff and Martha, for real! Photo credit: Nick D / ‘The Martha Stewart Show’

Until we eat again....

Day 329 - How to Coddle Eggs

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:57:00 +0000

This was supposed to be for Marcy and me, but she called in sick to our weekly date, so I'm treating myself to a special breakfast.

How to Coddle Eggs (p. 90)

This sounds like a children's story....

Coddling eggs, in fact, is cooking them in coddlers (or in my case, ramekins wrapped tightly in foil) that sit in simmering water, first uncovered for four minutes, then once the heat is turned off, covered for another 4-7 minutes. Before the egg goes in, though, the coddler is brushed with butter and filled with a teaspoon of cream to keep the egg moist.

The finished effect is really quite adorable. It's like naughty soft-boiled eggs (naughty because of the added butter and cream). One of mine was cooked through, and the other was softer. I liked both, but I think this is better with a slightly runny yolk. Of course, it's impossible to judge how cooked your eggs are if you're using ramekins vs. glass coddlers, so you just have to guess. Or peek. I checked one at 4 minutes, but it looked undercooked, so I left them in for another minute or two.

Martha serves these with toast soldiers, so I did too. (I'm such a good student. Teacher's pet...)

It's some extra effort to pull this off, but if you're looking for a cute twist on an egg breakfast, this is a good one.

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Until we eat again....

Day 328 - Pan-Seared Scallops with Fennel Puree and Cassoulet

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 18:34:00 +0000

I was very excited when my incredibly accomplished friend, Emily, invited me to be a part of a small group of people with whom she wanted to watch her new HBO movie Temple Grandin, which she executive produced. The film centers around an actual woman named Temple Grandin (played brilliantly by Claire Danes) who is famous not only for revolutionizing cattle slaughterhouse design but also for being autistic. I was so touched by Emily's invitation that I offered to host a dinner party around the movie-watching, and she accepted.

My guests tonight are Emily and her husband Andy, and Emily's (and my) Northwestern University classmates: James, of the Duck Breast and Bolognese dinners, and newbie Beverly, with her husband Philippe.

Note: Philippe is French, and I'm making Cassoulet. What am I, crazy?

Pan-Seared Scallops (p. 260)

How easy is this? Very!

And quick too. It's a little messy, what with very hot oil involved, but it's over really quickly. Just be prepared to turn on the fan for a minute or two.

All you have to do is cut the scallops in half (to make two thinner circles, not half-moons), salt both sides, get oil very hot, throw the scallops in the pan for not even a minute, flip them over for another 30 seconds, drain on paper towels, and Voilà! Delicious hors d'oeuvres in seconds!

My first batch didn't stick at all, but I think the pan got a little residue-y and the second batch was a little tricky to flip. Still, there were no scallop casualties.

I should take a moment to mention something I've learned from this Cooking School experience. I've learned that if I want to have six perfect portions of scallops, I should plan on making eight. One of the raw scallops might be split (as one of my was) or one of the scallops might stick to the pan and tear.

If I don't care what my food looks like, I won't overbuy, but if I care about the presentation, I now make extra.

I was just talking to my friend David about how steamed scallops can taste icky. And I'm also remembering how the Chinese scallops were my least favorite of all the Black Bean Sauce variations.

But these scallops are perfect! They really don't need any seasoning other than salt to shine. Seared is definitely the way to go!

That's Emily, James, and Andy, from left to right.

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Fennel Puree (p. 310)

How easy is this? Not very.

The fennel gets trimmed and chopped, then simmered in a milk bath, then pureed, then strained, then strained again, then reheated. And all this for 3/4 C of puree. Humph.

That said, it tastes pretty great. And it tastes great with the scallops, which is Martha's serving suggestion. (She serves one scallop half on each plate, but I served two.)

I do want to say that I got a little confused by this recipe, but having reread it, I now see that it's totally clear.

Here's the confusing paragraph, verbatim, which comes after having pureed the cooked fennel:

"Transfer to a fine sieve set over a large bowl or liquid measuring cup and press with a rubber spatula to extract as much puree as possible. Discard remaining solids and rinse sieve thoroughly. Return puree to the sieve and set over a bowl to drain for 1 1/2 hours longer."

First of all, when I use my finest sieve for jobs like this, it never works out. I always try, but then inevitably nothing pushes through, and then I have to swap it out for a less fine sieve. You'd think I'd learn my lesson, but no.

So I'm on my second sieve, I've pushed the puree through the sieve with my spatula, and now I have a slightly more refined puree (very few solids left in the sieve). Then I wash the sieve and put the puree back in it.

For some reason, I've got it in my head that I'm going to have to push this puree through again. But after letting it sit for an hour, it's clear that the only thing coming through that sieve is liquid, no puree. That's when I realize that Sieve Part 1 is for keeping solids out, and Sieve Part 2 is for getting liquids out.

Yes, I now realize it says "drain," but for some reason, I missed it before.

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Cassoulet (p. 403)

I can't believe I'm finally making Cassoulet. It's been a punch line for me for the past 11 months, often inserted as an example of some terribly complicated, arcane dish (e.g. "It was tricky, but it was no Cassoulet.")

One of the reasons I've waited so long is that I needed to have made duck confit to proceed. But with that task completed, I was anxious to give this a try.

I've never made Cassoulet. I've never even eaten Cassoulet. I was so perplexed by it that I called Martha on her radio show to ask what I should serve with Cassoulet. (Her answer was: a green salad and a citrus-flavored dessert.)

I'm not going to lie- there were a few curveballs in the recipe. But if you're reading this and contemplating making Cassoulet, I can at least save you from some of those confusions/potholes.

It all begins with an overnight soaking of navy beans. (Well, it really all began with the duck confit last week, but you already knew that.) Next is the assembling of a bouquet garni, i.e. herbs and vegetables tied up in a little cheesecloth package. Then, some fatback (or pork belly, which is what I used) is cooked to render the fat in which to cook the pork shoulder pieces.

Here's the first divergence - Martha says that the pork pieces should brown in about 5 minutes. After about 10 minutes, mine were cooked but still not brown, so I moved on. FYI, at this point, she says to pour off all but 1/4 cup of fat. I didn't even have that much in the pan.

Now comes the cooking of the beans, with various added ingredients: onion (unpeeled?? and halved with one clove stuck in), canned tomatoes, the bouquet garni, a ham hock (in my case, three small pieces of ham hock - same weight), and a carrot, halved. Martha says 8 cups of water will cover the ingredients by 2 inches, but I needed more like 12.

She also specifically states that the beans should be cooked in an 8 quart pot and the casserole should cook in an 8 quart Dutch oven. I actually bought an 8 quart Dutch oven specifically for this purpose. And I'm here to tell you that I think I would have been fine doing this in my 5.5 quart Dutch Oven. Both the beans and the final casserole didn't come anywhere near the top of either vessel, so if you only have a 5.5 to 7 quart pot, I think you'll still be OK.

Once the beans are tender, you remove the onion, carrot, bouquet garni, and the ham hocks, from which you remove the meat and dice to put back in.

Next, you rub the Dutch oven with garlic halves. I didn't think this would make much of an impact, but I really could taste it in the end. Interesting flavoring technique.

Then you layer half the bean mixture in the bottom of the Dutch oven, place the duck confit and French garlic sausage on top, and then cover with the rest of the beans.

Side bar: When Martha and I were chitty-chatting about this meal, she recommended a great place for me to get this sausage (aka saucisson a l'ail), Salumeria Biellese, which just happens to be two blocks away from my apartment! I went over there to pick up the sausage, and I mentioned that Martha sent me. I'm so glad I started a conversation with the guy behind the counter, because he offered up some info without which I would have been sunk. He said I should leave the sausage out (i.e. unrefrigerated) overnight, and then before using, put it in cold water, bring to a boil, and let simmer for a half an hour. I was confused, and I explained that I was making cassoulet, so the sausage would cook in that, but he said if I didn't simmer the sausage, it would fall apart in the cassoulet. I nodded and thought, Whatever, and figured I would make a judgment call in the morning.

Well, when I cut into the sausage, I realized why he made this suggestion. The sausage was uncooked! I thought I was buying a cooked sausage... So I cut the one pound sausage in half and followed his instructions. When the half hour was up, I looked at the cooked sausage and I thought, hmmm, that looks a lot smaller than what I started with. When I weighed it, it was only 4 ounces! And I needed 8 ounces! Yikes! I quickly cooked the other half, and it all worked out fine. But clearly, the lesson is, you will need one pound of raw sausage to get a half pound of cooked.

Martha doesn't really deal with this in the recipe at all. She says to cut the sausage into 1/2 inch thick half moons, so I'm assuming she means cooked sausage as uncooked sausage would never be able to hold that shape. But you should know that if you buy this sausage raw, which I guess is how it's typically sold, then you should plan some extra time into your preparation, and double the weight.

Once the cassoulet is assembled, it goes in the oven for hours and hours. I started mine at 300° with the convection fan going, but there was no bubbling after a half an hour (which there should be) so I switched the fan off and raised the temperature to 325° and I got a nice steady bubbling around the sides. I only had to add liquid once, as the level barely dropped the whole time.

Finally, I added the buttered bread crumbs.

Another side bar: What does Martha mean when she says "Fresh Bread Crumbs?" Does she mean not dried, i.e. take some fresh bread and make crumbs in the food processor and use that? She probably does. I actually let my bread crumbs dry overnight, but I think I may have gotten this one wrong. Ah well.

For the last hour in the oven, the bread crumbs brown and the stew finishes cooking.

I had started my cassoulet a little early, and then we ate a little later than I expected, so my cassoulet was done about 45 minutes before we were ready to eat it. I didn't want to cover it, because I didn't want it to get soggy, so I decided to turn off the oven and leave it in there... without checking to see what was going on underneath all those breadcrumbs.

Alas, the cassoulet was totally dry. I have to say, I really liked it anyway. Even Philippe said that though it was definitely drier than the cassoulet he'd eaten in France, he enjoyed this consistency. (Maybe he was just being polite. That's him, pictured to the right with Beverly.)

I take full responsibility for having dried this out. I should have checked to see how dry it was when I shut off the oven. However, I will say that it would have been nice to be offered some ideas of how to stall the serving of this dish. I mean, it's in the oven for 3 to 3.5 hours. It's impossible to know at 3:30PM precisely what time everyone will be ready for the entree.

Flavor-wise, I really didn't know what to expect. I was concerned that there was no seasoning whatsoever, not a speck of salt added anywhere along the way. Yet this was a plenty salty dish! Must have been a combination of the ham hocks and the sausage. The flavors are really unique, and the overall effect is homey, comforty, and hearty. I sort of felt like I was eating gourmet Franks and Beans.

I probably won't make this again - as much as I enjoyed eating it and relished the experience of having made it, there are a hundred other things I prefer to eat that are easier to pull off. Still, it was fun pretending I was French for a couple of days.

Jeff: C (major points off for drying it out, but major points added for the rest of the efforts)
Martha: B (we could have used more info about the sausage and also some tips for stalling the serving of it)

I should mention that Emily's film was sensational, truly compelling and quite moving. I'm so proud of Emily, who in addition to being a very successful personal manager, is also a wife and mother of two teen-aged sons (one just started his freshman year at Northwestern, the other is autistic), and a major mover/shaker around raising money and awareness for autism issues. She accomplishes more in a week than I do in a year.

After watching the movie, we ate my beautiful Lemon Curd Tart, elements culled from several other recipes in the book. It looks great, but I'll own up to some mistakes made along the way. (The little tart baby was made with the extra ingredients.)

First of all, I should have used the optional gelatin when making the Lemon Curd. Even though I served it cold, the lemon curd was oozing out of the slices.

Second, I should have let this get to room temperature before I served it. The crust was too hard and it didn't taste nearly as good when I served it as it did an hour later. (Although can you imagine how oozy the lemon curd would have been? Oy.)

Until we eat again....

Day 325 - Lime Sorbet

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:22:00 +0000

If you've been listening to Ask Martha, Martha's call-in show on Sirius Radio, then you know that I've become somewhat of a fixture lately. I can't seem to resist calling Martha with the most trivial of questions, and why? Because I CAN! I can literally pick up the phone and get advice straight from the queen once a week, as long as I'm willing to do it on the air.

So the other day, I called because I'm gearing up for a dinner party this weekend where the main attraction will be Cassoulet. I've never had Cassoulet before, but just looking at the recipe, I can tell that it's a pretty distinctive, all-encompassing kind of meal. And my question for Martha was: What do you serve around Cassoulet? Her advice -- actually, their advice (she was working in tandem with a special cohost - Anna Last, editor of Everyday Food) was: green salad before, citrus dessert after.

Martha went on to talk about Lemon Cream, but my mind went straight to Lime Sorbet, since this is something I still need to tick off my master list.

Lime Sorbet (p. 485)

The first few sorbets I made, I stayed absolutely true to the recipe, no extra-added flavors or ingredients. But I reread the sorbet "lesson," and it seemed that Martha was encouraging me to be adventurous, try some interesting combinations.

So then I moved into my experimental sorbet phase, which brought such treasures as a pineapple sorbet with apricot/ginger/cinnamon syrup (leftover from the Poached Apricots recipe) and my recent orange "Christmas" sorbet, both pretty great.

Since the Cassoulet meal is going to be very Frenchy, I thought I'd swing out by Frenching up this sorbet with a splash of Pernod (still making my way through that bottle I bought for Bouillabaisse). I've read that adding liqueur to a sorbet can give it a better texture, so that might be an added bonus. Plus, I'll be serving fennel puree with an hors d'oeuvre, and it'll be cute to bookend the meal with anise flavored dishes.

Martha estimates that eight limes will generate two cups of juice, but she must be talking about some special jumbo limes, because it took me more like 13. Just to drive home the limey citrusiness of it all, I steeped the syrup with a few strips of lime zest. I couldn't really taste a whole lot of extra limeyness in the syrup, but who knows? Maybe it'll come forward once frozen.

I mixed the juice with the syrup, did the infamous egg test (perfectly balanced) and then splashed in about two tablespoons of Pernod. (I did the egg test again, just to make sure I didn't screw anything up.) It tasted fine, maybe not the most spectacular flavor combination, but interesting. Not sure about the sourness, though. Seemed pretty sour.

I chilled the mixture, then froze it in the ice cream maker. Still tastes pretty sour. I'm feeling even less confident about the flavor combo.

After a night in the freezer, I tasted it once more. OK. Now I'm sure: I can't serve this for dessert on Saturday. It's not that it's terrible, it's just not right for that meal. For the record, there was a significant texture improvement - the sorbet was scoopable right out of the freezer. It's amazing that such a small amount of alcohol could make that much of a difference. Too bad it tastes so weird... Maybe I could serve it as a kind of bizarre, between-courses palate cleanser? Nah.

I'm now making what I'm sure is going to be a beautiful Lemon Curd Tart (taking the Pâte Sucrée recipe and filling it with Lemon Curd instead of Panna Cotta). See, I'm learning to mix and match!

It must be noted that this degree of analysis about dessert appropriateness is a completely new phenomenon.

Jeff: B (maybe I should have tasted lime juice and Pernod before contaminating a whole batch)
Martha: B (eight limes = two cups of juice? oh, eight elephant limes...)

Until we eat again...

Day 324 - Chicken Soup

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:47:00 +0000

I'm finally doing this perennial favorite, after already having completed its two variations, Matzo Ball Soup and Chicken Soup with Spring Vegetables. Based on the variations, I have high hopes for the original....

It's just Tracy and me tonight, reminiscing about our dreamy trip to Spain last month.

Chicken Soup (p. 43)

This soup is the best example of what I think is so brilliant about Martha's soup technique. Instead of the ancient (Jewish?) tradition of throwing everything in a pot, cooking it all to death, and then just serving it, Martha's version involves more ingredients and more dirty dishes and utensils, but it's so worth it.

In a nutshell, you bring chicken, herbs, and coarsely chopped vegetables to a boil, then simmer. Once the chicken is cooked (in my case roughly 10-15 minutes), take it out, remove meat from the bones and put bones back in the stock. (Chicken goes in the fridge until ready to use.) Simmer for another hour, then strain into a clean pot and skim fat.. Put all NEW vegetables in and cook until tender. (I actually like mine with a little crunch.) Then add chicken back in and heat through.

What you end up with is this amazingly bright, almost sweet stock with amazingly bright, almost sweet vegetables and perfectly cooked chicken floating in it. There's no mushy, overcooked carrots, no soggy or falling apart chicken pieces. It's just sparkly and fresh-tasting, delicious and nutritious. We were in soup heaven.

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Extra Credit :
Caramelized [Bananas] (p. 490)

There's no recipe for Caramelized Bananas in the book, but there is a little lecture about caramelizing fruit (before the Caramelized Figs recipe). I've made the figs about ten times now, so I thought I'd branch out and try something new.

I followed the recipe for the figs exactly, substituting bananas as the fruit, and white rum as the deglazing liquid. As you can see, I did some experimental slicing to see what would work best. I sliced too thin, though, because the bananas got too soft by the time they browned and it all pretty much became mush. I think it I were going to do it again, I'd slice the bananas as inch-thick disks, so they might retain their shape.

I wondered whether or not to do the final lemon juice squirt, but I ultimately decided yes, and it was a good call. Bananas are so sweet, and then there's the added sugar, not to mention caramelization. So the sweetness definitely needs some mitigation. I think I'd also add more rum next time, maybe twice as much, for extra flavor. The little bit I used disappeared flavor-wise.

All told, it's really great. I mean, how could it be bad? Bananas, sugar, salt, rum, butter, lemon juice. Killer.

Until we eat again....

Day 321 - Agnolotti, Tortelloni, Spinach and Cheese Filling, and Duck Confit Filling

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 15:54:00 +0000

When I served Orange-Braised Rabbit to Barbara and Dawn and Kevin, we had such a great time together that I've been looking forward to having the three of them back for an encore. I had been telling Barbara, who's been through culinary school, that I was having some pasta issues, so she offered to come over to give me some tips next time I attempted it. Well, tonight is that night, and Dawn and Kevin are back, on Kevin's birthday eve, for Pasta Glutfest, 2010.

We're making two new shapes and two new fillings. And Barbara's shaking things up with some of her own special goodies.

Duck Confit Filling (p. 374)

You knew this was coming.

This filling is pretty much what it sounds like. The other ingredients are sliced, sautéed shallots, thyme leaves, sherry for deglazing, and egg yolks. The duck tastes so damn good that you could probably pair it with a Snickers bar and it would still work, but these flavors are terrific.

The only thing I'm going to say is that it might be a better idea to chop/mince the shallots than slice them. It would probably make the filling easier to work with, especially when filling a smallish shape like agnolotti. I got a little hung up on shallot slices here and there.

Still, it's a small complaint about a really delicious filling. This is definitely the most substantial pasta filling in the book (although I haven't done the meaty Tortellini in Brodo yet). The duck meat has a weight to it that I like in contrast to the light pasta. Mmmm.

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Agnolotti (p. 370)

Since Martha suggested that the duck confit filling would be particularly great in agnolotti made with Spinach Pasta Dough, I thought I should try it. I whipped up a batch of dough, and for the record, it came out beautifully, no problem. (I have much better luck with the spinach dough recipe than I have with the regular dough recipe.)

One of my big pasta problems is that in the rolling out of the pasta, I can't get a nice, wide, evenly shaped sheet. But since I was going to be cutting out 2 3/4 inch round circles for this pasta shape, I didn't even bother trying! I just needed to make sure that my sheets were at least 3 inches wide, which they (mostly) were.

This is a pretty easy shape to make, following Martha's excellent directions. Put a teaspoon of filling in the center of the circle, fold in half, wet edges and seal. The trickiest part is getting the cut circles off the counter when you haven't put enough flour under them to release them. I used a bench scraper a lot. Also, these are quite small, so shaping them is TIME CONSUMING! If you want to make nicely shaped pasta, allow some time for this! (Dawn took this picture, so you can get a sense of how behind I was: still shaping pasta when my guests had already settled in. Not good....)

We thought this pasta might be nicely paired with some tomato sauce, so I whipped up this Marinara. In the end, though, the tomato overwhelmed the flavor of the agnolotti, so we swept the sauce aside and tried to enjoy the pasta solo, which was great. I can't think of how these could have been any better.

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Spinach and Cheese Filling (p. 373)

I didn't end up having enough spinach for this recipe, so I added some chard to get me the rest of the way there. Once that was drained and chopped, it was just a minute before this was done. All I had to do was add the cheeses (ricotta, parmagiano-reggiano, and pecorino-romano - any other two name cheeses I should have put in?) and the egg yolks, and it was ready to go.

This is a great, middle-of-the-road, delicious filling that could work with any pasta and any sauce. It's easy, quick, and sure to please even the most finicky eater.

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Tortelloni (p. 371)

Barbara made a batch of regular pasta dough for these, and I watched and learned. There were some differences in Martha's recipe, a slightly different egg to flour ratio, and a little added olive oil.

She showed me some great mixing and kneading techniques which, though more time-consuming, yielded a better finished product. It's hard to describe the technique without a visual, but the gist is that it's gentler, less manhandling than I usually do.

Barbara was also completely responsible for shaping these. Of course, I made her do them according to Martha's instructions, which you know secretly drove her crazy. But she humored me, and the result was fantastic.

These are nice, chunky pieces of pasta, with a good amount of filling. The filling only lasted for 18 pieces, but let me tell you, 4-5 pieces per serving was plenty, especially if you're serving these as a first course. There was something really satisfying about the scale of them. Unlike some pastas, you really felt like you were getting a meal, without feeling like you were being bombarded by a bunch of dough.

Barbara's idea for serving these was to put them in a chicken stock with some escarole and parmagiano, which was amazing. That said, I think we got the two sauces backwards. These tortelloni would have been great in the marinara, and the duck agnolotti could have shone in the broth.

Ah well, we'll know for next time....

Barbara: A
Martha: A

By the way, Barbara made a great first course: Shaved brussels sprouts tossed with olive oil, lemon juice and zest, with walnuts and pecorino-romano. Great taste and texture, really delicious.

In honor of Kevin's birthday, I made One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes with this peanut butter frosting. Here's a good tip: All the measurements in this cupcake recipe are divisible by five (except for the eggs) which makes it really easy to reduce. I only wanted cupcakes for tonight, so I divided everything by five and put in one egg, and they came out beautifully. I got five, well-sized cupcakes. Four for tonight and one for the chef to taste. :-)

Until we eat again...

Day 320 - Duck Confit

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:53:00 +0000

I have been dragging my feet for months around making this... and I love duck confit! The issue was getting my hands on a ton of duck fat, but with the deadline looming and two other recipes that depend on Duck Confit as an ingredient (a pasta filling and Cassoulet), I couldn't stall anymore.

Duck Confit (p. 232)

Fariway sells duck fat from Dartagnan in 7 ounce containers, but buying 2.5 pounds would have cost me close to $40. I knew there was a better way. I had tried at Ottomanelli, but that day, they were out of the size I needed. But this week, I was in luck!

I bought their 1.75 pound container ($16) and one of those 7 oz. containers, getting me up to 2 lbs 3 oz, which meant I was just 5 oz shy of what I needed.

Meanwhile, I was going to have to trim the 6 leg/thighs of the extra fat and skin, so I figured I could render at least 5 oz more from that. (I think I ended up with a few ounces more than that.)

The first part of this recipe involves curing these trimmed legs in a salt and herb cure. I've never cured anything before! It's like the dry version of a brine. The ingredients here are garlic, salt, bay leaves, thyme, and another thing I've never experienced before: juniper berries. Crushing a juniper berry brings forth an incredibly distinctive smell - it's really easy to get the connection between juniper and gin.

The duck legs get covered with the "cure" and popped in the fridge for 1-2 days. I went the full two, because I wanted massive flavor.

I was interested to see how the duck meat had changed in color and texture after having been cured. While it went in looking like dark meat poultry, it came out looking more like prosciutto. Fascinating....

Next is the melting of the 2.5 pounds of duck fat in a Dutch oven. (Seeing that much fat in one place is kind of gross, but at least it's not high temperature deep frying, spattering, etc.) The cure gets rubbed off, and the garlic goes in the fat, followed by the duck legs, skin side down. The duck cooks in its own fat for 2.5-3 hours. The temperature is carefully maintained at 200°, so it's a low and slow technique.

Mine were done around 2:50, when they were moved to a glass container. The solids were strained out of the fat, and the fat was poured over the legs and left to cool. Then into the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks to await use!

I expected these to look brown and crispy by this point in the process, but no, they were quite soggy and pale, so I didn't bother tasting them.

Allow me to flash forward to the next day when two of the six legs were browned and brought back to life to be used as pasta filling.

The legs were lifted from the now solidified fat, which was brushed off as much as possible. Then they went into a cold cast iron skillet and heated at medium low until the skin was crispy. Martha estimated this to take ten minutes, but mine took at least twice that long. Also, the skin was sticking very passionately to the pan, and even my offset spatula couldn't successfully separate the two. Luckily, I didn't need good looking legs for this pasta filling recipe. Finally, the legs were flipped and heated through, and I got a little taste.

Delicious!! The amazing thing to me is that the only flavoring came from the curing, which was brushed off pre-cooking. I guess two days sitting in salt is enough for full flavor. Yum!

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Until we eat again....

Day 319 - Grilling a Whole Chicken, Perfect Grilled Bell Peppers, and Perfect Grilled Leeks

jeff@jeffblumenkrantz.com (Jeff Blumenkrantz) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 04:23:00 +0000

My cousin Harriet is over for dinner tonight. Harriet was here for one of my favorite dishes in the book, Sautéed Skate Wing, so it's going to take a lot of kitchen magic to match or top that meal....

Grilling a Whole Chicken (p. 169)

I can't say I was looking forward to making this. I do love a nice chicken, but grilled? Whole? I missed the opportunity to do this on a real grill over the summer, so I'm stuck grilling on the stovetop cast iron thing. Since the chicken needs to be covered, I came up with the brilliant idea of using my fish poacher upside down, since it's roughly the same size and shape as the cast iron grill.

Since this is in the same section of the book as the Spatchcocked Chicken recipe, I was reminded of the brine that Martha uses for that dish. I figured, why not try it again? So I brined this chicken (recipe on p, 167) for a few hours in the fridge. Then I put it on the grill and waited for the automatic thermometer to tell me it was done (165° in the thigh).

About 45 minutes later, the thermometer was beeping and the bottom looked like this. Who doesn't like some nice burned chicken skin??

Then I flipped it over to brown the skin on the breast. It didn't brown as quickly as Martha said it would, maybe because I had brined the bird. In fact, where the chicken wasn't browned, it looked kind of sad and pale. (see right)

But who cares what a chicken looks like when it tastes this amazing?? OMG, I thought the Perfect Roast Chicken was the only way to go, but this is a definite contender! I don't think it's the grilling that made this so great. I'm pretty sure it's the brining. The meat was SO flavorful and moist. In fact, I'd made a Mango Pineapple Chutney to accompany what I was sure was going to be a dried-out, horrible, grilled whole chicken. But we didn't even want to use the chutney because it distracted from the amazing chicken!

The real test will be brining a chicken and then roasting it. Maybe THAT'S the ultimate whole chicken experience....

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Perfect Grilled Leeks (p. 350)

I was showing off to Harriet as I was prepping these leeks: "You know, leeks are very dirty. Wanna see a trick for washing them without chopping them?" and I proceeded to trim them and do that fanning out the leeks thing under runnning water to clean them. Meanwhile, I hadn't read this recipe thoroughly enough to remember that these were going to get boiled before grilling. I had trimmed the root end off! Now they'd never stay together in the leek pot!

Then, I came up with my next brilliant idea to use a toothpick to hold them together, which pretty much worked. (One fell apart.) I boiled the leeks, then grilled them, then slid out the toothpicks before serving.

I'm not sure if I overcooked them in the water (I didn't even go the full 8 of the 8-10 minutes Martha suggests) or if this is just the way it goes, but to me, after being drained and grilled, the leeks still seemed waterlogged.

But don't ask me. I've just come to the conclusion that I don't love leeks. Why don't I love them? This is going to sound weird, but I think they taste (and smell) a little barfy. So I probably shouldn't weigh in on Perfect Grilled Leeks.

Happily, Harriet loved them, so I'll give myself an A. :-)

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Perfect Grilled Bell Peppers (p. 349)

I may have just realized that I don't like leeks, but I have always been certain that I hate bell peppers. I don't like the taste, the first time or the fifth. They give me instant indigestion, and I can taste them a mile away.

I took the opportunity to make them tonight because I know Harriet likes them, and if she wasn't able to finish them, I could count on her to take them home (and far away from me).

I charred them on the grill, while the chicken was cooking, then put them in a paper bag, per Martha's instructions. After 10 minutes steaming in the bag, the skin is quite easy to rub off, except where the pepper hasn't been charred. I had to do a little knife work in those places, but in the end, I had four beautiful grilled pepper halves. Warning: after charring and spending 10 minutes in the bag, the peppers fill up with liquid inside, so be prepared.

Harriet was loving them so much that she insisted I try them. I have to confess, they did taste pretty good. For peppers, that is. They were surprisingly sweet. Like, fruit sweet. (I always forget that peppers are in the fruit family.) I thought there might be a pepper door opening for me, but then it slammed shut with that first burp seconds later. Why such indigestion? Ah well....

Still, this recipe is sure to please pepper lovers everywhere.

Jeff: A
Martha: A

Until we eat again....