Having made the beautiful potage last night, I woke this morning craving roast chicken. I have a well-salted bird resting on the countertop right now, and a Provencal Butternut Squash Gratin and a wonderful Spinach gratin. Now, this spinach is one of the best things this side of heaven. The spinach has only salt, pepper, a little flour, and olive oil.
Cut to three hours later. The chicken is in the oven, the spinach next to it. The squash is in the other oven, slowly roasting away. These last two recipes come from Richard Olney’s Simple French Food, one of the classic cookbooks of all time. His descriptions and daring are really something else. According to the recipe, the butternut squash should be almost black when pulled from the oven. These sides are really out of this world. I will make a light gravy for the chicken, which is flavored liberally with lemon, garlic, olive oil, rosemary, thyme, tarragon, majoram, and fennel. I hear it sizzling and smell that holy congress. The frigid wind is whipping down the street but inside it is warm and smells beautiful.
Now, it is three hours later. I forgot to take a picture before the eating, but I took one after, with my sated dinner guest.
I don’t recall that I’ve written about this before, but my go-to roast chicken recipe is from Alice Waters. Art of Simple Food Vol.1 Perfection, every time. OK, more to come.
I know many people have a hard time figuring out what to cook for dinner each night. I advocate planning beforehand, but more importantly, not overthinking the subject. The irony of overthinking things is the more we overthink, the less information we believe to be in the brain. If I am trying to think really hard about what I want for dinner, I will forget about what ingredients I have, how much time it will take, and focus on what I am trying to want. Take, for instance, last night. I was restless, confused, and didn’t know what I was “in the mood for”. I scoured books and looked online, and thought yes! yes!, only a few minutes later to be discouraged and contrary. It’s the trouble with being overly inspired- too many things to get excited about. I did the only thing I could in such circumstances. I took a walk.
I went to Duc Loi, the local grocery store to buy a roll of paper towels. I was strolling down the produce aisle and saw some big fat leeks and thunderbolt! Thunderbolt thunderbolt! I suddenly recall a bag of potatoes sitting around doing nothing. I rushed home.
Within the hour I was enjoying a hot bowl of Leek and Potato soup. This soup is the first recipe in Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking because she believed it exemplified the essence of French Cooking. It is incredibly simple with very few ingredients, and the result is so amazing, so unexpectedly complex you’d never think it had such humble beginnings. Leeks, potatoes, butter, water, salt, pepper. That’s it. Cook it all in a pot till it’s done, then put it through a food mill. If your food mill didn’t survive the holidays, as mine didn’t, then use an immersion blender. No regular blender and no food processor, they make the potatoes gluey and gross.
Smooth, creamy, earthy, and very slightly smoky. Cheap. Delicious. It was dinner last night. I’ve said before and will surely say again, we put too much emphasis on mood for food choices. I wasn’t in the mood for Potato Leek Soup last night, and it didn’t matter. I let the food make the choice for me. Great idea. Try it.
6 February Monday
Sometimes the simplest foods can be the most annoying. Take for instance, pancakes. What the hell, I mean really. Keeping the pan at the right temp whilst trying to cook pancakes and keep them warm while everyone is impatiently waiting at the table. It frustrates me when they burn on the outside, stay raw on the inside, so then you drop the heat, then they sit there forever, not cooking. It is important that you keep the pancakes smallish, because they will raise up (especially if there is 4 tsps. of baking powder in the batter). My pancakes molted, and one of them began crawling across the griddle pan to the South, toward Daly City. They tasted ok, but oh my, the carafe of freshly squeezed Navel and blood orange juice. Just wonderful.
Having enjoyed such wonderful comfort foods, laden with meat and cheese, I am going to go vegetarian this week. Last night at a Turkish restaurant, I had an amazing red lentil soup that had a flavor of smoked paprika and cinnamon. I think there was parsley and mint in it as well.
9 February Thursday
I had a bit of a cold earlier this week and so, needed rest and recoup. I’m now back on my feet in time for beautiful weather, so beautiful it is impossible to stay indoors.
The air smells like spring. It’s on its way for sure.
13 February 2023
If you’ve made it this far, you know I haven’t had a lot cooking lately. Early last week, I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed the kitchen floor, deep cleaned the sink and the oven. It was (and still is) a moving sight to the see the afternoon sun hit the completely clean floor. I made simple things, not worth the writing about, and kept the kitchen clean. But now, well, the feeling has worn off, and I am restless to get creative. I am taking a different approach.
So, the first month of the year has come to an end. What have I learned? First, I could be a little more ambitious. I achieved half my of year´s cooking goals in the first month. Second, all those recipes on the ¨to cook¨list? Cook them, you´re not getting younger. I´m so happy I made that Chicken Spaghetti and made it exactly to the word of the recipe. OK, those are probably the things, aside from the good food I´ve made and eaten, about which I´ve already been written.
Now the leftovers are gone, the fridge is fairly empty, and whatever. I sat for a moment in my living room, looking at my cookbook bookcase, and let my mind wander. What is the next thing to get excited about? I was drawn to a book, long on my shelf called The Mushroom Feast by Jane Grigson. Jane has featured prominently of late, as she wrote the recipes that were the basis for or taken by word for our Shepherd´s Pie, the Three Kings Salad, and the Dark Chocolate Orange Marmalade cake. A good Christmas.
This book explains the varied types of mushrooms available for food, and the best ways to use them. It is a bitterly cold night here in Northern California, and in this weather I crave ramen noodles. I went to my local joint, which is excellent, and ordered the vegetarian mushroom ramen and read this book. The market up the street is known all over the city for its variety of fresh mushrooms, from porcinis to oysters to trumpets, and those cute little ones that grow by the dozens from a single stem.
As a kid, I learned to enjoy mushrooms in two typical ways- 1. Deep fried, the hot mushroom juice bursting in your mouth after the crispy crust. 2. Stuffed- with sausage, breadcrumbs, cheese, herbs. Those were the gateway mushrooms. Then, pizza topping, pasta sauce, omelettes, stir-fries, risottos, you name it. I wonder how often I would use Mushroom ketchup if I made it? Or mushroom powder, which sounds really interesting, in a delicious way? What about a braised chicken with walnuts, bacon, mushrooms, brandy? Mushroom fritters with tomato sauce? Mushroom and grape sauce? There are a variety of fish, shellfish, and mushroom dishes.
Casseroles are like classical music. There are millions of recordings of well-known pieces and most of them are half-baked, poorly prepared, and carelessly executed. There is at least one bad casserole for every bad recording of the Beethoven 5th. Then there is Beethoven fifth, like a tuna noodle casserole, every choice, every detail is carefully considered, every ingredient judiciously incorporated. Every rest, fermata, tenuto, rubato, and stringendo like the perfectly boiled noodle, the perfectly blanched vegetable, the perfect dice. Knowing when to stop, knowing when to push forward. I enjoyed lately the casserole that debuted in my kitchen last night. So full, rich, and more than it was yesterday. I am taking more now to friend´s for dinner.
Kathleen Claiborne´s Chicken Spaghetti. In one of the only times I can remember craving a leftover, I woke up this morning craving a serving of the leftover Chicken Spaghetti. Eating it last night, I thought that it was beyond magical. A wonderful treat of meat, noodles, vegetables, and cheese really fit for someone special. Or several special someones. Having made the dish, I can tell you the process of putting the dish together is pure genius.
Although this dish was popularized by Craig Claiborne´s sharing of it from his childhood and attributing it to his mother, the recipe can be found in Southern cookbooks of the 1920s and 30s, when factory made pasta was being introduced to the southern market, and they were devising ways of making spaghetti their own. Some assert that Southern cooking is the closest thing we have in the US to a formal cuisine. I never liked this idea, because I am from Ohio where there are certainly regional dishes, and living in California now, I mean come on. This recipe helps me understand the difference between regional dishes and local ingredients and the development of a way of cooking. In this way, the great Southern home keepers of the past may have more in common with the farmers of Southern France with their resourcefulness and ingenuity than European immigrants in the Midwestern US bringing their native cuisine and methods with them.
Taking the chicken spaghetti as an example, I have never encountered a method like this in any recipe I´ve ever read, any dish I´ve ever eaten, or anything else. The sauce was wacky. It was basically a creamy Bechamel stirred into a hearty, meaty tomato sauce. The barely cooked spaghetti, pouring hot broth over the entire assembled dish and just leaving it there on the counter for hours.
Fun fact- even though this recipe is a real dish user, you can have all the dishes done and put away by the time the guests arrive. I wish I had taken a photo of the foil covered casserole, quietly absorbing chicken stock on the pristine counter top.
No short cuts on this recipe. It will not work. It will not work if you only use chicken breasts. It will not work if you cook the spaghetti completely or anywhere close to completely. It will not work if it doesn´t sit and come together. The amazing this is that when you let it rest, everything is already cooked, it is the sitting that allows the dish to firm up and spread umami joy in every direction. Then, when everyone is ready to eat, ya just pop it in the oven, let it heat up and the cheese brown on top, and bang, you done.
For some reason, I can´t say why, I think this dish would be really popular in Great Britain. I can just see it being a pub favorite. They could use a little comfort food right now too, let me tell ya.
“I would never make this at home,” many of us have said. True, though I never say never, I am less likely to make sushi rolls at home than other things. I would really not make a burrito at home because there are so many better ones right in the neighborhood. I doubt that I would make a pork broth for Ramen that stands up to the giant vats of low, long, slow simmer. However, I am a fan of home cooking from cultures other than my own. Like Indian food, when made at home with your own spice blends and fresh yogurt, really puts restaurant offerings into perspective. The same is true with Chinese food.
Yesterday, I did it. I made Lion’s Head meatballs. One of the truly great things about Chinese food is the name of the recipes. Cat’s claws, Lion’s head, Dragon’s tails. These names, so much more exciting than, say, pot roast and mashed potatoes, add to the fantasy of this cuisine. I wonder how many more American children would love to eat new things if they had fantastical names. Instead of pot roast and potatoes, we could call it Little Cow Sleeps in the Clouds? I don’t know.
Lion’s Head meatballs- finely diced pork belly, scallions, ginger, in this case Dungeness Crab meat, wrapped in cabbage leaves, simmered in stock. Boiled noodles, tossed in soy sauce, sesame oil, and scallions. Stir fried boy choy with shiitake mushrooms.
I got these recipes from a wonderful book called Land of Fish and Rice by Fushia Dunlop. She has written several great books based on her travels, research, and culinary adventures in China. She has an insatiable passion for China and its food, and her books are inspiring. I learned something very interesting about making meatballs in a Chinese fashion that is guaranteed to make your life better.
After finely dicing the pork belly, we mix it in a bowl with several other ingredients, preferably by hand. Here’s the thing-you should always mix in the same direction. For me, clockwise. The reason for this is fascinating. When you mix meat mixtures in the same direction, the fibers of the meat line up, making the meatballs much softer and smoother than typical Italian meatballs which have a more chewy texture. Now, I think the best Italian meatballs are also smooth and tender, but I definitely notice the difference when I mixed this way. The meatballs just barely held together and were so soft and so tender, so rich with ginger and scallion, they were lifted to the status of Lion’s Head.
The noodles could not have been simpler, and are the perfect way to make them on a weeknight if you are stir frying other things or what not. Chinese wheat noodles, boiled in water, then tossed in a bowl with soy sauce, sesame oil, and scallions. So so good and easy. Kids will love them, especially if you omit the scallions.
I didn’t take any pictures, because I am not a photographer and I was so focused on making the food, I forgot that I am not a photographer, and really, that’s the better excuse. A friend took a picture of me throwing the bok choy in the wok, and then, apparently thinking about bok choy. Notice that the bok choy is most certainly adult, baby is all grown up.
The Lunar New Year begins this weekend, the year of the Water Rabbit. There are many good things said to come in this year, with peace, hope, and positive expectation among them. I choose to believe this is a good theme for the year to come. To celebrate, I am making appropriate Chinese dishes for the season, including noodles, and a new one for me, Lion’s Head Meatballs with crab. But more on these things later. As it has stopped raining and the sun has come out, I decided to stroll through the neighborhood. Of course, I was lured into the community thrift shop, called Community Thrift Shop by the scent of old books and cheap things.
As I have written before, I love to find old cookbooks and root around for the winning recipes. I love to buy used cookbooks and bake from the batter caked pages. I love that I can get these treasures for a dollar. In fact, I never pay more than a dollar fifty for a book at the thrift shop. Today, I was browsing when my eyes caught the green plastic comb binding. Talk About Good! Le LIVRE de la CUISINE de LAFAYETTE is the name of the book, published in Layfayette Louisiana in 1967. I have the the 1971 printing. I thought for sure that I had found some totally obscure work that would not be in my Eat My Books index. Wrong again, Jerry!! It turns out to be a very popular book that was published for nearly forty years. It is amazingly New Orleansy, with lots of different dishes (and drinks) I have never heard of. More in a bit.
If you live in California, you may be feeling what I have been feeling the last few days. It´s as if the New Year hasn´t really started yet, at least in the way we like. It has been raining almost non-stop since the beginning of the year, which is good in one way, not so good in other ways. For instance, the downstairs unit and the area where the garbage and recycling are has flooded, making it almost impossible to remove the refuse. So, it has piled up in my kitchen. It was taken out this morning during a little break in the weather, but it wasn´t exactly pretty.
The other thing is the inclement weather has brought in an unwelcome resident in the form of a tiny mouse, now named Pat-a-Toney, Pat for short. I believe Pat is alone, and it is a fact of life that if you have an active kitchen and pantry in a densely populated urban environment surrounded by eateries of all kinds and you live in a building built at the beginning of the 20th Century, well, you may have to occasionally contend with pests. And ya know, I don´t want him to die, I just want him to move.
These things have worked against my precious agenda of trying new recipes and telling you about them.
It´s a strange moment actually. For a number of reasons, the price of ordinary foodstuffs has risen dramatically, and some common things have become scarce. Right now, it is difficult to find eggs. What a strange beginning to this year, I feel almost outside myself, as though my mind is working through something that the body can´t enact until it´s finished. I hate hate hate having garbage in my house, I usually take some trash out every day. To have it piling up like that was depressing. OK, I´m moving on, this too shall pass, and before you know it, the house will be filled with scent of well-season repast, I will not fear being torn apart by flesh eating monsters when I enter my kitchen, it´ll all be great. Just great.
Let me tell bout a dish we gonna do as soon as work up the courage. It´s a party dish to share with your friends, assuming you´ve made some. It is a recipe from Craig Claiborne, something food critic for the New York Times (1960something-1990something). It is a family recipe from Mississippi, and probably the 1930s. It is called Chicken Spaghetti, and I won´t go into the deep details, but it requires that I simmer the chicken in chicken stock until it is cooked, the meat is removed from the bones and shredded (this includes the cooked giblets) is layered in a casserole with cooked ground beef and pork, a thick tomato sauce, the stock, layers of cheddar cheese, and barely cooked spaghetti where it sits on the countertop for at least four hours before being heated in the oven until the cheese melts, about 30mins. Weird, wacky, wild stuff. Wanna eat some with me?
It was six minutes after one in the morning when I awakened to the sound of heavy rain hittting my bedroom window. I laid in bed, at least half awake listening to it, and instead of being lulled back to sleep, enlivened me. I got up, grabbed a sparkling water, went to the front room and looked out the window. My beloved 18th St. had/has (it´s only 1:28 now), turned into a minor river flowing east. It made me wonder if some day my little food blog would be like Samuel Pepys’ diary, and this deluge would be my Great Fire. Who knows?
Anyway, it got me to thinking about the Mission and what a great neighborhood it is, how much it sparkles in the rain light, and other things that can only be appreciated from a warm and well appointed apartment. Furlenghetti wrote about the light of San Francisco, but I think the city is most magical and itself when it is raining. Is there any place more wonderful? So, with all this romantical thinking, and CA loving-on, I thought about one of my favorite cookbook discoveries of all time, West Coast Cookbook by Helen Evans Brown.
What an interesting choice for the cover design. What do you think she´s holding in her left hand? I first read about Helen in a book by James Beard. He praised her very highly, and gave a recipe from her West Coast Book. Indeed, when I discovered this book in the local thrift shop for the princely sum of seventy five cents, well, I just had to splurge!! She lived much of her life in CA, and is often credited with defining and popularizing California Cuisine, and introducing the wider public to a variety of produce, which included rarities for the time, like avocados, mangoes, guavas, cilantro, garlic, and all sorts of other stuff. It´s a really fun book because she writes about the origin of the foods and the towns of association; she also describes Quesadillas and Guacamole as though the reader had never heard of or tasted them, which was true for the time.
Speaking of which, her Quesadilla recipe is extra. You bake a cornmeal dough filled with cheese. It definitely takes it to the next level and makes it worthy of a dinner party. Hmmmm….dinner party. Sounds fun. It´s time to try some crazy new things. Here are some from this book.
Cowpuncher´s Sandwich – red onions mixed with oregano, ice water, vinegar, and salt overnight on the counter. Next day, drain and put between two pieces of buttered bread. There ya go.
OK, this sounds amazing. Cassoulet Carpinteria. Just like another cassoulet, except adapted for Carpinteria, I guess. Beans, meat, sausage, white wine, parsley, garlic, breadcrumbs, herbs, butter. I did a quick google search for what the origins of this recipe are and how it came to be associated with Carpinteria, and well, there was absolutely nothing. Maybe Mrs. Brown had simply eaten this dish there, and remembered the recipe by the town. Who knows?
BingoFest 