mis en possible

More ventures into Fowl territory…

Just not trying to reinvent the wheel or do anything way out in left field.

I have to admit, begrudgingly, that the Food Network was primarily responsible for my renewed interest for cooking. Within a few months, however, the programming I enjoyed was beginning to fall to the wayside, replaced with shows about candy corn and pop rocks, travel shows, and Rachael Ray.

We have recently started recording two shows on FN, though: The Cooking Loft and Secrets of a Restaurant Chef. I cannot recommend them highly enough. The recipes have been beyond excellent and the instruction not really all that dumbed down. They’re not difficult, but they’re not 30 minute meals either.

Here’s a picture of a take on one of the recent recipes. Braised Chicken Thighs with an Almond and Applewood Smoked Bacon Sauce, over Saute of Haricot Verts:

… either how to cook or that this blog exists. But alas, there will be no pictures this go around.

We had a guest over Tuesday for dinner, the first dinner we’ve done since New Year’s Eve. 

Things I’ve learned — It’s not as difficult as I remember it being; it’s more difficult than I remember it being.

Anyway, we started off with  a trio of tartares — Asian Tuna, Salmon with sweet red onion crème fraiche and tomato (the latter two French Laundry recipes, though I added caviar to the salmon). Served these with toasted baguette as well as beet, taro and other assorted vegetable chips.

The second course was, surprisingly, not potato leek soup but cream of arugula soup with goat cheese. This is, by the way, not a good time to find out your guest does not really like cheese all that much.

Third course was a simple spring mix salad with apple wood smoked bacon, gruyere (damn cheese again) and a cassis vinegar vinaigrette. 

The main course was a prime New York strip with spinach noodles and basil pesto cream sauce.

Then a cheese course. Mental note: ask more questions next time. Stichelton (local bleu cheeese), Manchego and Montegro Bucheron did not go over so well (though Heather and I liked them). The Moscat-bloomed cranberries, sautéed apples and brandied fig jam went over well.

On to better things though – Mango Sorbet, port wine reduction infused with oranges and cinnamon, sprinkled with lime zest.

Heather brought out some almond and coconut crisp cookies and followed that with pots de crème.

Next time… pictures.

Surprise, surprise, I’ve been ignoring my food blog. Finding this ‘multiple blog’ thing a bit harder than I’d intended, I’ve been focusing my efforts on getting photos of my daughter out to the interwebs for my family to enjoy.

I’m still cooking, though, being fairly busy, not as frequently as I’d like to. The other day I made this (pictured), though, and it turned out rather well, I’m happy to say.

I picked up some spicy Italian sausage, beat the living daylights out of a few breasts of chicken, stuffed it with the sausage and Parmesan cheese and then baked the. Finished with a cream sauce with basil and oregano. I believe I’ve found a way I like to eat chicken!

I’ve been working on a multi-course dinner idea and maybe we’ll have another soon. Until then, happy eating.

This is my second foray into attempting dishes using Asian flavors. As a base, I used this Ming Tsai sauce. More on this dish later.

This is a work in progress though the first pass was tasty. Again, there’s not many ways a beurre blanc can fit into a ‘cutting calories’ diet, but each plate here used only about a tablespoon of sauce if that.

We only had some button mushrooms on hand for this, but I think I will eventually use trumpet royal mushrooms trimmed like scallops.

The brunoise is a collection of shallot, carrot, broccoli stem, Swiss chard, celery and zucchini that was sauted until aldente in Greek olive oil with a bit of the white wine thrown in at the end and garlic powder (I know, the horror).

I don’t have a recipe just yet, but maybe soon. In any event, this worked out well for a small-portion appetizer.

This town (Austin, FWIW) has a severe lack of coleslaw that I like. The fast food chains tend to be too sweet, some restaurants have some that’s too soggy, some put bell peppers in it (why I’m not sure, but they make me very ill so must be avoided at all costs), and there are a few places that I won’t name that I’m not even sure if they’ve heard of coleslaw yet insist on putting something under that moniker on the menu. Bone Daddy’s is decent, though, but I don’t go there very often.

So rewind to a few weeks ago and I was looking for a good coleslaw recipe. I tried a few, and, though satisfactory, none really stood out as being exceptional. I wanted the rich flavor of a traditional coleslaw but with a twist, something to make it interesting. Also, the first recipe I tried made like 129309101 servings. I swear, we had a coleslaw slum sprout up in the ice box.

The next week I abandoned said recipe and went my own direction. I added a bit of spice in the form of both Tabasco added to the dressing and the single-most-potent cayenne pepper I’ve ever had in my life. Needless to say, ‘3 alarm’ coleslaw was not exactly the direction I wanted to go.

Then I got on a ‘healthy’ kick and I needed to lighten it up a lot. The first recipe I’d tried required a cup (yes, a cup) of mayonnaise. I mean, there’s no real way you’re going to make coleslaw ‘healthy’ but give it a good punch, a good flavor and you can cut down the portion size.

In order to infuse some flavor, I turned to my new stand-by: Smoked Paprika. This is secret weapon #23 in my ‘hey where did THIS flavor come from?’ arsenal of tricks. You can blend this stuff into sauces, sprinkle on meat, salads, vegetables, whatever and get an instant ’smoked’ flavor that you can’t get anywhere else.

But why stop there? Instead of the standard Tabasco, I used hot sauce made with chipotles. And not quite as much of it so as to save what few taste buds I had left, and to balance it out some of the flavors, I added in another secret weapon (#27), Yuzu vinegar.

I made this once and it was still missing something, or rather, two somethings: a bit of sweet and a bit of texture. The second time I experimented, I added in a handful of raisins and a handful of almonds. I was very happy with the results.

So here it is:

“Smoked” Coleslaw

Ingredients:
1/2 small head of cabbage, sliced thinly into strips of about 2″ in length
3 scallions, sliced thin on an extreme bias
1 large carrot, grated
1 shallot, small-dice
1/4 cup golden raising
1/4 cup thin-sliced almonds (roasted, if you wish)
Salt and pepper to taste
Smoked paprika (1-2 tablespoons, to taste)

Assemble the cabbage, onions, carrot and shallots in a bowl. Give it a pinch of salt and maybe a grind of pepper or two. Make the dressing (below).

Pour the dressing over the salad and gently toss (this is more of a ‘fold’ really) with a pair of tongs until evenly distributed. It may not seem like enough dressing. Trust me, it is.

After the dressing has been absorbed, add the raisins and the almonds, and sprinkle the smoked paprika over the top. This will seem like a lot of paprika. It’s not, but start small and add more as desired. Toss/fold until all elements are more-or-less distributed evenly.

Put plastic wrap over the bowl and place in the ice box to chill for around 2 hours or so before serving.

Dressing:
1/4 cup Mayonnaise
2 tbsp Yuzu vinegar
1 tbsp whole-grain mustard
1/4 cup Kalamata (greek) olive oil, extra virgin
10-12 dashes of Chipotle hot sauce
Salt

In a small bowl, whisk together the vinegar, mustard and mayonnaise until fully incorporated. Drizzle in the olive oil while whisking somewhat furiously (actually, with the mayo and mustard, you can be pretty slack about how much you whisk). Once olive oil is in, dash the hot sauce in and stir until incorporated.

Plating:
When I plated this, I laid out a bed of Mizuna greens (another secret weapon, though seasonal) and dashed a bit more paprika on top.

I don’t particularly like chicken, but since I’m eating healthy, I figure I ought to give it one more try.

My first attempt at this recipe was an unmitigated disaster. Flavorless or off-flavor, dry… it was everything I hate about boneless, skinless chicken breasts made worse by whatever the heck was coating it.

So on my second attempt, I made a few tweaks.

The first thing I did was get rid of the sesame seeds. They add nothing. I replaced them with sliced almonds (though only a few. I’d originally used a whole-wheat cracker, but this time around, I used an Italian-flavored organic cracker that I found at Central Market.

When it came time to bake, instead of putting them on a baking sheet, I put them on a rack on the baking sheet. This prevented the bottom from becoming soggy. I also cooked them 40 minutes (or rather to temperature, 167 before carryover).

And, because I love it, I garnished it with a hefty dose of Hungarian Smoked Paprika.

Finally, to kick up the spice a bit, I set it on top of a bed of my recipe-in-the-works healthy but fiery cayenne coleslaw.

On the topic of healthy eating, I’ve found that I can actually cook in quite a bit less fat as well as substituting relatively-healthy olive oil in for the massive amounts of butter I used to use. And I’ve found I can eek a lot more flavor out of butter simply by taking a small amount and letting it brown slightly.

This dish was made, literally, with what we had laying around the house left over from other projects. Heather was toying with the camera so captured a bit of the mis en place for the dish. One onion, two carrots, two yellow squash, two zucchini. I sauted the onion for a few minutes in a bit of olive oil, then added the carrot, then about 2 minutes later, the squash and zucchini. To the saute I added a hint of cumin and a good helping of Hungarian smoked paprika and a bit of garlic salt (the horror! but it works here) as I didn’t feel like cutting up any garlic. After it had all started to soften, I added in a half cup of white wine and let that boil away.

All while this was going on, I sliced up half a tomato we had left over, a seeded cucumber, and zested a meyer lemon. The juice of half the lemon went into the saute. On another burner, I was boiling the Acini di Pepe away.

At the last minute before combining, I added a handful of sliced almonds to the sauted vegetables and let that cook for a minute or so, then combined the warm vegetables, lemon zest, pasta and a little bit of oil, browned butter and salt.

The plate was garnished with a wedge of the remaining lemon half, the cucumber and the tomato.

It was good. Fresh and the contrast between the saute and the clean vegetables and the lemon really added some punch. We ate it and have had it the last two nights as a side dish.

I love food. I love French food, rich food, and lots of it.

However, there comes a time when that will catch up to a person. Sadly, it caught up with me a few years ago, I just hadn’t realized it yet.

So I’m trying to alter my diet such that it’s significantly more healthy. I’m not doing a ‘fad diet’ or even any particular diet, just watching what I eat, when I eat, and how much I eat.

How’s it going? Meh. I’m sticking to my guns, but the food could leave a bit to be desired. When you consume a very unhealthy amount of butter, going to a scant tablespoon or so of olive oil for similar dishes changes things. In any event, baked chicken, pasta with saute of squash, zucchini and tomato, rice with steamed broccoli and saute of mushrooms, non-sugary cereals, whole grain breads. I feel better, which I guess is encouraging.

The first ’shot worthy’ dish is not the most impressive dish I’ve ever come up with. That’s angel hair, tossed with a scant bit of olive oil, a wee bit of white wine in the vegetable saute (batonettes of squash and zucchini, diced tomato and diced onion), and a bit of parm cheese over the top (not much!), and finished with a squeeze of lemon juice and some parsley chiffonade.

I ate it. Heather liked it. Zoe devoured it. It’s not the prettiest dish ever, but then again, I’m not going for pretty.