Spuds - two ways

So I received a comment asking for potato recipes; here are 2 of my favorites:

Alice Waters's braised potato coins: cut fingerling potatoes (skin-on) into "coins" of about 1/4 or 1/8 of an inch thick. Put the coins into a saucepan and fill with just enough water to cover and salt to taste. Bring to a boil and cook until potatoes are tender. When the potatoes are tender, add a knob of butter and let melt with the heat off. Season with pepper to taste. Let the potatoes soak up the leftover water and butter, and serve. You can add a little chopped parsley for color if you like.

Easy roasted potatoes: Cut yellow potatoes (with skins on) into wedges. Toss with olive oil, fresh chopped herbs (such as rosemary, thyme, and/or herbs de provence), salt and pepper. Roast on a baking sheet in a 400-degree oven for 30-45 minutes or until the potatoes are crisp and browned on the outside and tender on the inside, tossing once or twice for even browning.

"A kid comes up to me in a white jacket, gives me a Ritz cracker, and uh, chopped liver, he says, 'Canapes.'"

"I said, uh, 'can of peas, my ass, that's a Ritz cracker and chopped liver! - Frank Pentangeli

Sorry for the long absence, folks. It's been a little crazy this new year.

Last night we followed up with our Godfather friends and watched The Godfather, Part II at their place. For starters we had these amazing stuffed cherry peppers from Salumeria Italiana on Richmond Street in the North End. They were pickled hot peppers stuffed with prosciutto and I think provolone cheese. Fantastic flavor. The olives were also excellent - and they came in a great variety with different olives, caper berries and sun-dried tomatoes.

For dinner, our friends made chicken parmesan, using breaded chicken breasts, pounded nice and thin, pan-fried in olive oil and then finished in the oven. Their sauce was different from my husband's: they used the same mirepoix, added tomatoes, garlic and basil, but they pureed it to get a smooth sauce. My husband leaves his sauce chunky, mostly because he can't be bothered with pureeing it, and also uses red pepper flakes and red wine. Our friends' sauce came out with a more up-front and robust tomato flavor and a touch of sweetness, which matched very nicely with the chicken parm. Oh, and there was a secret ingredient to the chicken parm. When I put the first bite in my mouth, it tasted like bacon, my favorite thing in the whole world of food. Turns out the smoky flavor came from smoked mozzarella, which they put on the chicken pieces while they finished in the oven. What a marvelous idea - the chicken got a distinct smoky flavor that was almost reminiscent of a wood grill!

I was hoping I would be able to share their recipe for chicken parm, but given the intense nature of the "who's a better Italian husband" competition, I didn't ask for it. Maybe they'll post it on the comments...

"Leave the gun. Take the cannoli." - Clemenza

One of our friends has never seen The Godfather Part II. We couldn't believe it. I mean, she's seen every episode of The Wire and Goodfellas, and even remembers watching The Godfather Part I, but never saw Part II. How could that be?

So we decided to make her an offer she couldn't refuse. We invited our friends over to watch Part I and eat my husband's famous spaghetti and meatballs. In a couple of weeks, we're going to our friends' house to watch Part II and have their chicken parmesan. Nice touch, eh?

Anyway, in Part I, Clemenza (Corleone muscle) makes pasta sauce for the boys. He teaches Michael how to make the recipe, in case he has to "cook for twenty" guys someday. During the scene, my husband and his friend made a big to-do about how Clemenza puts sugar in his sauce. My husband does not do this, but we got rave reviews, despite the lack of Sicilian authenticity. Here's the recipe (my husband does not measure anything, so this is my best guess at the amounts he used):

For the Meatballs:

2/3 lb 85% lean ground beef

2/3 lb ground pork

2/3 lb ground veal

3 slices of bread, processed into small bread crumbs (by hand or in a food processor)

2 eggs

1 onion, minced

Handful fresh parsley, minced

5-7 garlic cloves, minced

Salt and pepper to taste

For the Sauce:

1 onion, minced

1/2 large carrot, minced

1 stick celery, minced

6-8 garlic cloves, minced

1 TB dried oregano

1 TB red pepper flakes

2 TB tomato paste

1/2 cup red wine

2 28-ounce cans whole peeled tomatoes

Chicken or vegetable stock

Olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Combine all meatball ingredients with your hands. Make golf-ball sized meatballs and chill in the refrigerator while you prepare the vegetables for the sauce (5-10 minutes). Then heat olive oil (2-3 TB) over medium heat in a large heavy dutch oven or other pot until hot but not smoking. Brown meatballs all the way around, in batches if necessary. Set meatballs aside on a plate. Drain all but 1-2 TB of fat from the pan (or, if your meat is lean, add olive oil to make about 1-2 TB of fat).

Add minced vegetables, red pepper flakes and oregano and saute until soft with salt and pepper to taste, about 5 minutes. Add tomato paste and cook until the paste becomes a dark brick color. Add wine and boil until it evaporates almost entirely. Add tomatoes, crushing them with your hands as you put them into the pot (be careful - they can explode juice all over your clothes!), and bring the sauce to a simmer. Add meatballs to the pot, making sure they are completely immersed in the sauce. Add stock if necessary to loosen the sauce and provide enough liquid to cover the meatballs. Bring to a boil, partially cover, reduce heat to low and simmer for 1-2 hours or until the consistency of the sauce is to your liking. The longer it cooks, the better your house will smell and the better the sauce will taste. Have your friends over, watch The Godfather series and ENJOY!

Winter Warmer

I can't think of a homier meal on a cold, snowy night than Braised Chicken with Shallots, Garlic and Balsamic Vinegar. I love this recipe. Because it's braised, the chicken comes out moist and flavorful. I use skinless breasts because I found that, with the skin on, it just gets kind of slimy because the crispiness goes away during braising. If you need stovetop space, or just don't want to watch your pot while it's simmering on the stove, I have put the whole pot, covered, in a 350-degree oven for 30 minutes instead.

This is supposed to be a one-pot meal, but since my husband makes the best-ever mashed potatoes (recipe coming soon), we end up with a two-pot meal. Enjoy!

"Teflon brain...nothing sticks." - Lily Tomlin

I've read some disturbing things about Teflon, some of which have been commented upon by the American Cancer Society, and I'd like to find a suitable replacement for my non-stick pans. I've heard that a cast iron skillet can become essentially non-stick if properly seasoned, but I don't know how to do that properly so that fried and scrambled eggs can still be part of my breakfast routine on the weekends. I've also heard that the Calphalon pans don't use Teflon, per se, but they do use some other type of polymer to create their hard anodized non-stick pans. Does that also flake off like Teflon does, and can it get into your system if you inadvertently overheat the pan? What about the enamel-coated cast iron pans such as Le Creuset? Do they act like non-stick or more like stainless steel?

Rabbit, Chicken or Pork?

One of my pet peeves is when people write into a recipe site and basically admit that they didn't follow a recipe at all, and then go on to say how much they disliked the end results, and therefore the recipe (which they did not follow).

On the other hand, sometimes a recipe that seems too complicated on its face can be saved with a few shortcuts, and sometimes even different ingredients. Case in point: a few years back, I was intrigued by a recipe for rabbit in a grainy mustard sauce. At the time I couldn't get rabbit in my grocery store, so I used chicken thighs instead. I've tried boneless and bone-in chicken thighs (but in each case skinless) and I couldn't tell much difference between the two. White meat chicken does not work so well - it doesn't hold up to the strong flavors in the sauce and despite the braising, can get too dry. Although I can now get rabbit at my local butcher, it comes whole and vacuum-packed, and I have no idea how to cut a rabbit into serving pieces.

The problem I've had with the rabbit recipe is all the steps and multiple pans. To make it a whole lot easier, I brown the meat (sprinkled with salt and pepper) in a heavy braiser with a little olive oil. Once the meat is browned, I remove it from the pan, and add onion, garlic, thyme and butter to the pan and scape up the brown bits. Then the wine, and a little stock, and bring to a boil. I then put the chicken back into the boiling sauce, cover and put the whole thing into a 350-degree oven for about 30 minutes (longer if the meat has bones) or until the meat is cooked through. Then I take out the meat and put the pot on a medium flame to boil down the liquid by about half. Then add the mustards directly to the pan, and boil for another 5 minutes, or until the sauce is the consistency you want. Then add back in the meat to warm through. I have never added the cornstarch mixture, and it always comes out just fine. Depending on how fatty your meat is, you may not need the extra butter at the end either.

Anyway, I was planning on making this over the weekend, along with french green lentils. My husband and I were going grocery shopping on Saturday afternoon after having hit the after-Christmas sales downtown. We were laden down with other packages, so I stopped at Savenor's while my husband went to the wine shop for the white wine. I discovered (to my dismay) that they were completely out of chicken of any sort (other than ground white meat).

Dejected, I went to the wine shop and told my husband to forget the wine - we weren't going to be able to make the recipe. He then suggested we buy a pork tenderloin instead, since pork goes pretty well with mustard too. But, we didn't think braising would work. Instead, we made a paste out of garlic, rosemary, lemon zest, salt, pepper, fennel seeds, dijon mustard and olive oil and spread that all over the tenderloin (thank you Ina Garten). Then we put the roast in a 400-degree oven until a meat thermometer registered 140 degrees in the center of the pork. The pork rose (under a tented piece of tin foil) another 10-15 degrees while it rested. The result was delicious, and went very well with the lentils, which I prepared as written.