Kielbasa & Kale

This is a childhood dish of comfort for me and last night, I made it for The Gourmand. It’s my dad’s recipe and nothing like it exists online, as far as I could find. In my dad’s words, “you could make this as easily as boiling kale in water, or turn it into a fancy meal!”

Here’s what I did. Feel free to experiment, and share your results!

Kielbasa & Kale

1 T olive oil
1 cup bite-sized chunks of kielbasa
1/2 cup chopped onion
4-5 cups cleaned, chopped kale*
2 T Frank’s Red Hot Sauce
1 T Bragg’s Apple Cider Vinegar
~2 cups chicken stock
2 carrots, diced

Heat the oil in a pot large enough to hold all the kale. I used a 6 quart pot. Add the kielbasa and cook, stirring occasionally, until it starts to brown. Add the chopped onion. When the onion is soft, add the kale hot sauce, vinegar and stock. The stock should almost cover the kale. Simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, for about 2 hours. The stock should condense and you’ll be left with braised greens in broth. At the last 20 minutes, add the carrot.

*When cleaning kale, wash it very well, looking for grit and bugs hiding in the curly leaves. To clean kale, remove the tough core, then chop into bite-sized pieces. The easiest way to remove the core is to (if you are right-handed) hold the end of the stem in your left hand, with the ruffles of the leaves facing up. Hold your knife (a very sharp chef’s knife, ideally) in your right hand and slide the blade away from you along the stem at at 45 degree angle to the stem. If you can’t visualize this, after a leaf or too, you’ll see what I mean.

Serve as a side to meatloaf or roasted chicken, or by itself. We had it alone, with garlic and cheese brioce toasts. Yum!

Recession Special

The Gourmand & I calculated how much $$$ we’ve been spending at the farmer’s market, and then how much money we spend on take out (as a result of laziness and exhaustion at the end of long work days) and then how much of our farmer’s market veggies never make it to plate before turning odd colors, going to seed in the refrigerator or being petrified in the crisper. Not good! I have shelled lots of peas and frozen them in gallon bags, along with some strawberries to save for the cold days of winter when Driscoll’s just won’t do.

However, we LOVE to shop for food. Some women gravitate to Canal Street for knock-off purses. I go to Stinky Brooklyn for a new hunk of Mimmolette. This has led to a full kitchen pantry, a blue metal hutch filled with flax seeds and pastas and imported jellies and tuna in olive oil from Sicily, which are so much fun to buy! The colorful labels jump off the shelves and into my basket like LV embellished handbags. The more foreign the language, the better.

Like the handbags (I imagine) many of our purchases end up on the shelves, and slowly get pushed to the shadowy corners and forgotten about. Until yesterday!

Maybe its because we can’t fit one more thing on the shelves of our pantry. Maybe its because our freezer sends hardened pork chops and duck stock bouldering to the floor when we open it, or when I heard myself say, “We don’t have anything to cook.” The Gourmand rose to the challenge! Of course, feel free to substitute or supplement the recipe with whatever you have on hand. Improvising is the key to using stuff up – and making room for more!

Potato Gnocchi with Spring Peas, Garlic Scapes and Bacon

1 package Mediterranean Potato Gnocchi (from Trader Joes, purchased in March)
4 strips thick sliced bacon (from Ray Bradley Farms, purchased last fall sometime and frozen)
1/4 cup chopped garlic scapes (purchased 2 weeks ago from Farmer’s Market)
2 cups frozen sweet peas (purchased 2 weeks ago from Farmer’s Market)
olive oil
shaved parmesean  reggiano (unknown, but still smelled and tasted good and had no fur)

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil and cook the gnocchi according to package instructions. (Pillowy and light, these starchy puffs are the foundation of many italian primi piatti. As versatile as pasta but with more density and addictive chewiness.)

Meanwhile, place the bacon in a large sautée pan over medium heat. The key to cooking bacon is “low and slow” low heat and lots of patience. Allow the bacon to get dark brown and crisp and render out most of its fat. Remove from pan and allow to cool enough to handle. Chop the bacon fine and set aside.

Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the bacon fat and add in 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of butter. (I know it sounds like a lot, but this is the basis for your sauce – no other liquid will be added and you want the gnocchi to be evenly and well coated. And remember, small portions are the new mega meal.) When the butter melts and the foaming slows down, add the garlic scapes and the peas. Sautee until they are bright green. Add back in the bacon. Drain the gnocchi and add to the pan as well, tossing until coated and the peas are evenly distributed.

Serve with shaved parmesean cheese, and cracked pepper, if you have it in the pantry!

The State of “Food”

The Gourmand & I do not have cable. When we have access to cable, we are only interested in a handful of channels and on those, only a handful of shows, namely Good Eats on the Food Network, and Dirty Jobs and Myth Busters on Discovery. I can watch any documentary about anything except war so we scan the channels for those, old romantic movies like Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and Sponge Bob Squarepants.

Sponge Bob aside, the other selections have a common thread: they unfold slowly. They tell a story and the viewer is engaged in the outcome and wants to see the end, even if I have to hold my eyelids open with toothpicks to stay awake.

In Savannah, our hotel room had cable and while the Gourmand was in the shower, I turned on the Food Network. Rachael Ray was ending and Nigella Express was starting. Rachael Ray (Oprah and some very good publicists) have built a billion dollar empire on do-it-yourself fast fast fast american cookery.

My first exposure to Nigella Lawson was through her show “Nigella Bites” where this beautiful, statuesque woman poured over the food in the most sensual and provocative way, one left the room wondering why they suddenly felt so… hot!

This was years ago though, and this weekend, in Savannah, I watched Nigella Express, aghast. Her “challenge” had something to do with last minute entertaining from her pantry ingredients. She was breathless, but not sexy, much heavier than I remember and was clearly appealing to the Rachael Ray set, assuming they hadn’t yet changed the channel.

Nigella’s recipe went something like this:

Take a brick of Halloumi cheese (standard in your pantry?) and make thick slices. Lay them down in a jelly roll pan slick with olive oil. Add whole merguez sausages, and whole roasted red peppers, both straight from their packaging. Bake and serve.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this dish – I’ve cobbled together similar with questionable results. The problem is that it was aired on the Food Network! I started to look through the schedule of upcoming programs and everyone of them was competitive, either against another human being or against the clock.

Gone, it seems, are the days of love of kitchen and food. Now, success comes in serving pre-packed and processed foods and serving them up fast.

I for one still love to be in the kitchen. To pour over a slowly unfolding drama of shallots in butter, the hiss of fresh greens in a hot pan, the sizzle of meat on grill. To listen to the sounds of boiling water and garlic being mashed to a salty paste, that is where the love of food resides. Plating a dish and serving my friends and family on schedule is merely icing, but of course, I don’t get paid in advertising dollars.

I hold out for cable and watch “my programs” at family and friends’ homes (I cooked, after all!) I pray that Alton Brown and the rest will maintain their integrity in the face of the Food Network monstrosity or find a home on public television beside Julia Child and Jacques Pépin, Mario Batali and Mark Bittman.

I hope the executives at the Food Network notice that they are losing their base demographic, or I realize that there, I no longer fit into the viewer profile.

Oh, Savannah!

I have a new love, and her name is Savannah, Georgia. We fell in love over food, she being the foodiest city in the United States, in my estimation. The Gourmand & I went for a weekend to interview the city as a potential nest. Those of you who know us know, we do our homework. I had scoured the internet and found intermittent reviews of River Street (like a cruise port with no cruise ship) and while the reviews for what was mentioned were passionate, one statement was missing: Stay off River Street and you can’t go wrong!

Clary’s Café
404 Abercorn Street, Savannah

Recommended by a post-carrier. We ordered a Reuben with fries and a fresh-roasted turkey breast with swiss, mayo, lettuce, tomato and chips & two sweet teas. Here’s the thing about Clarey’s, the food was perfectly proportioned. The sandwiches were stacked for a human-sized mouth and no Russian dressing ran down our wrists. Wholly satisfying – and free sweet tea to go!

Bacchus Wine Bar
102 E. Liberty Street, Savannah

Snob-free (except that they don’t have a website because they “don’t need one”) awesome wines list featuring a few standy-bys (Gnarly Head but no Yellow Tail!) and some really out there finds. Example: Gruet Sparkling Rosé – by the glass! If you aren’t familiar, the vineyard is in New Mexico – buy stock now. The bartender and the owner both cited Local as their favorite restaurant.

Local 11 Ten
1110 Bull Street, Savannah
(website reflects old menu)

Get it? Local flavors served in an haute cuisine atmosphere with the most gracious and knowledgeable servers (Hi Tess!) I’ve ever encountered. And, upscale peanut butter and jelly. Served in a Ball jar, complete with hinge and rubber ring, filled with one layer of fois gras and a second layer of strawberry-rhubard jelly, topped with crush roasted peanuts, with brioche toasts and flaked sea salt. Oh. My. God.

Bar Bar
219 W. Julian St. Savannah

Where oh where was Hunter S. Thompson? When River Street empties and it’s boatless drunks need a night cap, they stumble downstairs to Bar Bar. Its a cavernous space, would be perfect for a wine cave, but instead dance balls hang from the vaulted brick ceiling, Vanilla Ice and Bel Biv de Voe blare through the mediocre speakers and tourists dance and sing aloud to strains of “Baby Got Back.” The tourists on this particular night were a group of women in their sixties (a book club, perhaps?) and some mom-types in elastic waist pants and matching t-shirts bedazzled with “Hilton Head” across their chests, and some younger aficionados of Wet Willies bopped and slide-stepped, leaving behind she who drew the short straw to stay at the hotel chaperoning girl scouts – in town to visit the home of the troupes founder.

J. Christopher’s
122 E Liberty Street, Savannah

To chase away the hangover and eat like a cardiologist’s wet dream, J. Christopher’s offered up the BEST blueberry pancakes I’ve had outside my own kitchen. Served with granola and (for $1.50 extra) a bum bottle of real maple syrup. We also had the Route 66 – a cast iron skillet filled with fried potatoes, corned beef hash and two sunny side up eggs – and an order of elliptical machine, defibrillator and Lipitor.

The Crab Shack
40 Estill Hammock Rd., Tybee Island, GA

“Where the elite eat in there bare feet” but not well. Except for the Brunswick stew which was passible, but enhanced with a suspicious liquid smoke flavor that was best finished by shoveling the remains into the whole in the middle of the table under which was a proper receptacle for salty, overpriced tourist trap. You can feed alligators in a neon green “pond” and stand in front of a webcam to call loved ones – perfect for a Father’s Day surprise to our dads back north. To be fair, not in Savannah but on Tybee Island where we swam earlier in the day, with rays.

Blowin’ Smoke
514 MLK Jr. Blvd., Svannah

A former theater (though you’d never know it from the shape of the building) that housed the teachers of Louis Armstrong, this BBQ joint comes with mixed reviews. It, ironically, was the only establishment we went to that didn’t allow smoking. We sat at the bar and drank beer and ate fried pickles which were awesome, until about 3am. Then, ugh. not so much.

Sweet Potatoes
6825 Waters Ave. Savannah

We finished our culinary tour at Sweet Potatoes, way outside the historic district and it was a 4-mile drive for heartwarming comfort food. I had the lemon-pepper catfish, the Gourmand, the fried catfish. Both perfectly seasoned. Sides of dilled lima beans, sweet potato salad (with an unplaceable flavor, not bad, just…weird, like cilantro or lighter fluid) creamy sweet peas and tomato salad which, while pitched as local, were crunchy and not earthy or heirloom.

Overall, an amazing place that I will forever dream of spending a weekend of discretionary funds and lazy time, strolling the squares, admiring the architecture and watching my back for ghosts and roving bands of girls clad in green sashes. I will forever dream of upscale PB&J and save my pennies for a return trip to a lady who truly made me feel like I’m welcome in her kitchen, anytime.

Off to the South

The Gourmand & the Peasant will be exploring the Belle of the South. A FULL report when we return. In the meantime, test one of our recipes and let us know how your results turned out!

 

xoxo

Quel dommage. An hommage to Julia.

Quel dommage
Catastrophie!
Big ideas – wasted

BURNED!
Smoke filled apartment.
Oh no. So sad.
Four Seasons hot dogs from bike messenger friend
But what to make?
Marcella Hazan pasta carbonara con gnocchi!
Farmer’s market peas
Reducing wine
reducing…
reducing…
reducing…
forever!
Let’s go smoke a cigarette
real quick.
SMOKE!
BURNED!
No gnocchi
No carbonara
No meal
Oh! Julia!
Quel dommage.
Fans, everywhere, blowing sucking smoke.
Quel dommage.
Take out
Chinese?
Mexican. 

Don’t Forget the Lemon

I have a collection of recipes that I have clipped from the pages of the New York Times for years. The other night, I was looking for something to do with organic chicken parts that I had bought at the farmer’s market and remembered that I had a recipe for chicken cooked with green olives. I LOVE green olives and had chicken and so I flipped through my book at found the recipe.

I made it and it was okay. The Gourmand liked it, but I thought that the chicken skin was slimy and the olives were overpoweringly briny. And I like briny! So, you can imagine…

The Gourmand asked, “Did you put in the lemon?” and I realized, that I had neglected that last step. I didn’t think it could be that important. I decided that I needed to revamp the recipe and that the venerable NY Times had failed me. The Gourmand had other ideas. He got up and sliced a lemon. (By the way, there is a global shortage of lemons. They are going for $0.79 a piece!) 

Squirting the lemon on my meal completely transformed the experience. The briny-ness was transformed into something…almost…creamy. I had made lebanese cous-cous as a side and suddenly this combination…made sense. So, I give you this lesson: don’t forget the lemon. 

Chicken with Green Olives (Adapted from the NY Times)
Serves 4

2 T olive oil
3-4 lbs cut up whole, bone-in organic chicken pieces, cut into serving size, extra fat removed
salt and pepper
1 large onion, chopped
2 tsp fresh ginger, diced fine
1 cinnamon stick
1 T minced garlic
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp paprika
2 cups organic chicken stock
1 1/2 cup green olives, drained, pitted, and chopped
Lemon juice
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

In a large pot (big enough to hold all the chicken pieces for braising) heat the oil over medium-high heat. When hot, add the chicken pieces in a single layer and brown both sides, seasoning with salt and pepper as you go. This will take several batches, and when you put the chicken in, don’t move it. Let it sear.

Remove the chicken pieces to a plate and turn heat down to medium. Add the onion, ginger, cinnamon, garlic, cumin, & paprika, stirring occasionally, until the onion softens. Add the stock, raise heat and add the chicken pieces back in. Cover and simmer until the meat pulls away easily from the bone, about 30 minutes. Add the olives and bring back to a simmer.

To serve, I made cous-cous. You could use rice, egg noodles, quinoa, etc. Put the chick on the plate and squirt generously with lemon juice. Sprinkle with cilantro.

*I found this was even better the next day, when I took the chicken off the bones, shredded it, and put it back in the sauce. I served that over egg noodles and it was amazing.

On Blackening Fish

For one dinner last week, The Gourmand decided to recreate our wedding dinner. Just the main course really, Blackened Mahi-Mahi with Grilled Pineapple Salsa. It is my favorite dinner in the world and, when it was done and the smoke had cleared (literally) we were transported back to our beachside wedding last July.

I’m going to share the recipe, but first, I have to make a public service announcement: Do not try the following inside your apartment or home. I tried to explain this to G, but he was dead set on the idea and no amount of pleading would get him to agree to wait until we had an actual grill on which to cook.

I learned to blacken fish from my dad, who learned from Paul Prudhomme’s New Orleans Cookbook. Essentially, you take a firm filet of fish (mahi, striped bass, bluefish) something that will hold together on the grill, dredge it through a spice blend, fiery hot at best, and grill over hot heat, basting with melted butter, until the spice coat is charred and the fish is opaque.

Even Paul Prudhomme says grill outside, or under an industrial strength exhaust system with fire extinguishing capabilities. I got G to agree to close our bedroom door to keep the glorious cooking smells from permeating our clean laundry.

The Gourmand enthusiastically took from the freezer the mahi-mahi fillets we had purchased at Trader Joe’s, and the cajun pepper spice mix we brought back from the Virgin Islands. The label has two dancing chile peppers as illustration. Because it has been a hundred degrees in Brooklyn, the fish defrosted and The Gourmand lovingly dredged them in spices, reminiscing about our wedding and trips we’ve taken to the islands. When he pulled out the cast iron grill pan, I got really nervous.

Confession: It was I who bought him the grill pan. I was lobbying for a George Forman grill, which the Gourmand immediately vetoed and instead, bought a grill pan. A beautiful piece of engineering that, up until last week hadn’t actually been used for fear of smoking ourselves out of house and home and questions of how we’d clean it after cooking, as it takes up the entire sink.

I said nothing, and The Gourmand started with the pineapple. Canned rings laid in a single layer spit and sizzled their water and concentrated the sugars, caramelizing into perfect brown grill marks. However, it was smokey. And he was just getting started.

On went the fish, which immediately puffed great swirls of pepper smoke, some of which went up into our mediocre vent fan, most of which swirled around creating a pepper-spray-at-a-protest sensation in our lungs.

Within moments, my eyes were stinging and tearing and I couldn’t breath without dancing chile peppers exerting their hold on my windpipe and in my lungs. Did I mention that all our windows, save one, are painted shut? I went outside.

As I sat on the roof, I thought “would I hear a thud, if he gassed himself into unconsciousness?” As I decided to go back down and take a look, his face popped through the door, red, puffy eyes telling me dinner was served.

It was perfect. And I want to share the recipe with you, but proceed at your own risk: Mr. Prudhomme knows his shit.

Blackened Mahi-Mahi with Grilled Pineapple Salsa
Serves four

For the fish:
4 mahi-mahi fillets (you could use striped bass, bluefish, halibut, anything meaty enough to flip on a grill)
Seasoning mix (we used a blend from the islands. Paul Prudhomme sells a bottled blackening spice mix in supermarkets all over the place, specific to fish, pork, etc. If you want to make your own, start with a generous amount of salt, garlic and onion powders, chili powder, pimentone, cumin, whatever looks good. Slap a label on it and call it your own!)
Olive oil for the pan
Melted butter

For the salsa:
1 can pineapple rings
2 red bell peppers, diced
1 small red onion, diced
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1 small jalepeno, minced
1 T olive oil
1 T vinegar (We love Bragg’s)

Heat your OUTDOOR barbeque to very hot. Clean the grill very well and the oil it with vegetable oil. Place the pineapple rings on the grill. Once you put them down, don’t move them until you flip, about 2 minutes. This will give you those lovely grill marks. Chop the pineapple, and mix together with the rest of the salsa ingredients in a small bowl. Cover with plastic wrap, and chill until the fish is ready.

Clean and oil the hot grill again, put down each of the fish fillets. Like with the pineapple, don’t move them. (If you want to be fancy, and you are using a VERY hot grill, you can rotate the fillet 45 degrees halfway through cooking the first side. You don’t have to do this on the other side beacuse it will face the plate and no one will see it.) Flip and finish cooking. The fish in done when the flesh is firm, like the meaty part of your hand, where your plam meets your thumb. Serve with pineapple salsa.