Cooking Together

A month or two ago (time gets hazy with me sometimes)  I got together with a cooking/food friend in San Francisco who belongs to the same cooking group to which I belong. We had talked about cooking together, and had been ruminating on what to cook for our first adventure in cooking together.   We settled on the Roasted Split Chicken with Mustard Crust, from Jacques Pepin.  How can one go wrong with St Jacques!?

It is from his book, More Fast Food My Way.  I described it to my friend and showed her the recipe, and we both agreed that it looked great.  This recipe had been tempting me for some time.

We planned a menu around it, from things we had been wanting to make or try.  One of the ideas that came up was to have a Manhattan as our cocktail.  I had never had a Manhattan, and wanted to try one.  My friend makes them on a regular basis, so she is good at them.  This was to be my introduction to the cocktail.

Now, like the conscientious drinker that I am, I decided that we should have something to cushion our stomachs from the deluge of alcohol.  Again, a recipe came up involving mushrooms on crostini that I had wanted to try, from Marcus Samuelsson.  I had seen this from his feed on Twitter, and it looked really good to me.

When I got up to my friend's house with equipment in tow, we started to cook.  First up, the mushroom appetizer.  I got to work on the mushrooms and the toast.

By the time the crostini were ready, I was ready for a Manhattan.  My friend made a small one for me, as I was not sure how I would like it and because I was driving back down to the San Jose area later on that night.

Needless to say, I liked it.  Later on, she made me another one, also on the small side.

By that time, I was starting to work on the chicken.  My friend spatchcocked it, and I went to work on the crust for the chicken.

Even before it went into the oven, the mixture that forms the crust smelled fantastic.

We put it into the convection oven, eventually turning on the fan to brown the bird more evenly.

Enter the cake that my friend had wanted to try.  I think she combined a recipe from another cooking friend, with another idea.  It had apples and rosemary in the cake, which ended up being a great combination of flavors.  Not too sweet, which is my favorite type of dessert.

As I finished up my work on the chicken, my friend got to work on the other dishes in the meal.  We kept it simple: mashed potatoes to mop up the wonderful juices of the chicken, and sauteed swiss chard.  Nothing else was needed, except wine, which we drank with dinner.

And then, the cake.

This (at least according to our planning) is not the last time we will cook together.  Everything we tried ended up being a winner in our books.

In Search of the "Real" Butter Brickle Ice Cream

My friend Serene and I were discussing our favorite ice creams, and I happened to mention that mine was Butter Brickle.  I cannot find it easily anymore.  

I did happen to find it at one of the Sunflower markets in Albuquerque and I bought some in anticipation of delight.   It wasn't a delight.  Not the right flavor and only a tiny bit of brickle.    

Serene mentioned that it was also the favorite flavor of her partner, and we both decided that we would try different recipes and hopefully come up with the "true" Butter Brickle ice cream.   We are going to work on this independently (but trying the same recipe at the same time) and then compare them.  And then tweak, and go on from there. Serene's partner will be a taste tester.

So this is a shoutout to any and all of my readers.  If any of you have a recipe for Butter Brickle Ice Cream, would I be able to experiment with it?  If you are so inclined to part with the recipe, that is.  I have a few recipes already, with which to experiment. 

I have already tried one recipe, that was way too sickly sweet, and didn't have the mellow flavor of my memory.  It went down the drain, after I could only eat a very tiny amount. 

Thanks to all of you in advance!!

To go with that pot roast...

Ya know that pot roast I fixed some time ago? Want something to serve along side of it?  

I cooked the pot roast again for some old friends a few months ago.   I was back in New Mexico for a week's vacation, and I made another dish that my mother would make every so often: Stove Potatoes.

This is from an old cookbook that my mother had, and that I often referenced when I was growing up.  I think it came out during WWII, but I cannot be certain of that.   I do know the author had a radio show, and the cookbook came from this, I think.   The Mystery Chef kept his identity secret according to his mother's wishes.  At that time, men who were cooks were considered a bit strange, unless you were a famous French chef.

 This was one of my favorite potato dishes when I was growing up.  I learned to make it early on in my life as a cook.   It is somewhat of a stove top riff on scalloped potatoes. 

Bacon fat is my choice for this dish.  Being a GRITS girl, there is nothing like potatoes fried in bacon fat.  Or anything else fried in bacon fat, for that matter.  To a southerner, it is a whole food group in itself.

Then the potatoes go into the pot.  After a few minutes, the onions.  By this time the aroma is becoming intoxicating.  Onions and bacon fat...Mmmmmmm.  I salt the potatoes and onions at this point as well.

 Add a lot of ground pepper.  I mean, a LOT.  It smooths out in the cooking, but the correct amount is a LOT.   More than you think you should add. I use regular black pepper.   If you are like Julia Child and don't want the black pepper to show up, I suppose one could use white pepper.  I have never tried it with white pepper.  Either way, use a lot of it.

This is where it gets a bit tricky.   I use milk instead of water or stock.  But not too much; just exactly what the directions say.  I have made this in the past and have thought it wasn't enough milk.  Believe me, it is.

Cover the pot and let the potatoes cook til they are tender.  A warning here: they will stick to the bottom of the pan.  Maybe some of you out there know of a trick or two that will prevent that, but in all the years I have made these, I have never been able to find the one trick that will prevent sticking.  Non-stick pans?  They still stick to the pan.

 I haven't fiddled with this recipe in all the years I have made it.  It is just so simple and so good the way it is.  And it is the perfect accompaniment to the pot roast.   And it is a reminder of my mother and her cooking.

It's On Again, Off Again Time!

This is an old favorite.  It is from one of my favorite cookbooks, Cafe Beaujolais Cookbook.  The author, Margaret Fox, used to own one of my favorite restaurants, Cafe Beaujolais, which is up in Mendocino, CA.   The restaurant still exists, but not under her ownership and direction any more.   In the cookbook, she mentions this as being a pot roast that her mother used to make a lot.

For you cookbook collectors, this cookbook has a lot of gems in it, of which this pot roast is only one.

In the cooking newsgroup I frequent, this is considered one of my signature dishes.   I only make it frequently, but never developed the recipe myself.  I consider Margaret Fox the real author, along with her mother.

I had been craving beef this past week or so.  I would smell someone roasting beef, or grilling something beefy, and I would immediately get such a craving for something beefy.  I finally decided this weekend, that I needed to do something about it.   So, I set about looking in the supermarket ads, and what did I spy?  And ad for chuck blade/7 bone roasts at a very good price.   Someone must have been reading my mind!!

So I got a roast last night.  And two sweet onions, although I usually use regular onions for this.This is an unusual pot roast, in that it is essentially dry braised/roasted.  No liquid is added, only the flavorings of salt, pepper, garlic and onions. Minced garlic is rubbed into the roast after it is salted and peppered.

Then a pile of onions are strewn over the roast.

The magic happens when the onions melt down and form a sauce, along with the condensation in the pot.

The On Again, Off Again, refers to the method.  The cover of the pot is on for the first hour, then taken off for the second hour, then back on again for the third hour of cooking.  The second hour, when the cover is off, is when the onions brown and produce a richly flavored sauce.

I have on occasion, pureed the sauce so that the onions are blended in. Most of the time I don't.

A friend, to whom I passed on the recipe, adds carrots and potatoes to the roast during the last hour.  I haven't tried it that way yet.   

Unfortunately, the last picture I took of this, doesn't show how glorious a pot roast it is.   As you can see, it is hidden under a mass of onions.   And this time, most of the juices cooked down.  I am blaming that on the enameled cast iron pot I used: I am thinking it retained more heat than usual.

This goes well with a side that will sop up the sauce, such as broad noodles or mashed potatoes.  

Congruence in Red

I got my Le Crueset Tarte Tatin pan out of storage a few weeks ago. .  I was happy enough with that, but then I swung by Monterey Market on my way down south to Pismo Beach, where I am staying these days.   And what should I see, but my beloved Winesaps.  This could mean one of several things (like my mother's panned apples) but right now with both of them, it means Apple Cake!  I was ecstatic!

It was always made with Winesaps, which were our staple apple when I was growing up in Virginia.  They are plentiful there, but not so much out here in the west.   They are now considered heirloom apples, and well they should be.  I keep my eyes open for them, and I can find them at my favorite produce markets in the bay area in the fall and early winter.   Anywhere else outside of the South, not so much.

I  grew up with this Apple Cake.  So did my mother.  Her mother used to make it, and my mother wrote about it in her book Once There Was a Farm: A Country Childhood Remembered.  

This isn't an elaborate apple cake. It is more like a kuchen, I suppose.  I have nothing to really compare it to, and I have no idea of where my grandmother got the recipe.  But it was a staple dessert when I was growing up.  And always with Winesaps.   It is the voice of memories to me.  Lovely memories.

And always served with hard sauce.

Many folks have made hard sauce, and often with some spirit or other.  We only flavored it with vanilla.  Hard sauce wasn't much heard about in the last few years, but now it seems like folks are rediscovering this sweet sauce that melts upon contact with heat.  It is a delight with tartish desserts, adding the necessary sweetness.

This cake isn't as good the day after it is made, but I never turned down a piece of it for breakfast the day after.  Or any other time.  

It never got much farther than the day after.  At least that is my memory of it.  And it didn't this time, either.

Traveling: packing up.

I have been here in Bakersfield for the last 3 months.  At the end of this coming week, I will be heading back to New Mexico.   At this moment, I am not sure where I am heading next, although there are things in the works, so to speak.

I am packing up the stuff I bring with me.   I thought I would give you all a glimpse of what and how I pack all the stuff that I bring with me.  I bring probably way too much, but I like to have my cooking comforts here.

Mind you, I am almost done packing.  Most things are in boxes, but are not sealed up yet. I am going to show you the unsealed boxes, to give you an idea of the stuff I bring with me.

Since I bring cookbooks with me, I also need a place to put them.  So I have folding bookcases which house the cookbooks I bring.

You can't really see them now, but I also bring some folding cast iron racks, to house various things like cookware, utensils, and whatever can't fit on the counters.  The main one is packed in this box, and this is what it is:

Cookbooks. Me and my cookbooks.  I bring way too many with me, but they comfort my soul. They feed me, both literally and figuratively.  I have more that I brought with me, but they are up in my storage unit in Vallejo.  I miss them.  Next contract, should it be in CA, will have me getting the rest of them from storage and having them with me.  

Gadgets.  I am a gadget geek.  I have a whole box of them here, and I have more packed in a box that I can access immediately.  And I have some in a rolling backpack, so I can be up and running within a few minutes.

Cookware.  This is my main cookware box.  I have another box in storage in Vallejo, which has some not as used cookware, although I am finding I really miss it now. Like my wok.  But I can survive and survive nicely with what I have here.

I am packing up my Le Crueset.  I have a box of it.  As you can see, it is not all packed yet.  One piece broke the last time around, which is slightly unheard of. Le Crueset breaking?  It was my gratin dish.   I am heartbroken, but I am calling Le Crueset and will see if this is covered under their incredible warranty.  I try to carry less of it with me, and I will probably leave part of this back in New Mexico when I get there.  If I can get to the box..

Did I mention spices?  I have a ton of them.  I had them all in this box until the last time I was back in New Mexico, then I realized I couldn't cook some of the things I wanted to, cause they were buried in this box.  So I separated out some of the most common ones I use and now I can access those easily..in this bag.  No, you can't see what they are right now, cause they are packed for traveling.

I carry a few bags with me, of ingredients I use a lot.  I used to buy them almost every contract, but it got expensive.  So now, I carry them with me.  Stuff like vinegars, oils, Asian condiments, Worcestershire sauce, and the like.  And a bag of ingredients that I want to be able to access almost immediately. So nice to have ingredients to make a meal in case I don't feel like getting to a grocery store right away, Pantry ingredients, so to speak.

I have boxes of groceries too.  I can't see buying all this every time I land somewhere.  So it comes with me as well.  This time, I am putting baking supplies in their own little box, as I found out the last few months, that I had to go scrounging to find anything with which I could bake.   Things like yeast, baking powder, and the like. 

My liquor cabinet, so to speak.  I don't drink much of this..most of this is used for cooking.   But again, it gets expensive to buy these every time I go somewhere.  Especially the stuff like Kirsch, or Grand Marnier.  Or Framboise.  So they travel with me.

By the time the van is loaded, I can barely get to anything I need. I try to get the van loaded so that I can pull out the things I need almost immediately.  I have a box that holds those types of things, like my dishpan, and dish drainer.  A few utensils I need.  A dishtowel, dishrag.  Sometimes my teakettle, although this time I might have it shipped to New Mexico. A few pots or pans that I need.  My baking mat.

I have other boxes too.  A few boxes of dishes, to round out whatever my apartment has.  Baking dishes, a box of cutlery.  My food processor. My KitchenAid mixer.  A box of measuring cups and mise en place bowls.  Glassware. 

Oh, and my knife bag.  I can never forget my knives.  They go wherever I go. 

And my pot rack.

These are only the boxes with my cooking stuff.  This doesn't include my suitcases, my boxes with other essential stuff, like office stuff/desk stuff.   But those don't count.  Really, they do, but to me, my home is where my kitchen is.