Fab crabs!

            We're going to be in Washington, DC, for a visit in a couple of weeks and as always during blue crab season, I look forward to a visit to the Quarterdeck, in Arlington, VA, for, as I call them, "smack 'em and eat 'em crabs."  You have to make reservations well ahead of time, even on weekdays, and tell them how many dozen crabs you want. 
            The table is covered with brown paper, and they dump the hot, freshly steamed crabs right onto it. Butter and lemon, with lots of paper napkins, that's all you need, although we might spring for cole slaw while we wait, since all crabs are steamed to order. Oh yum!  I promise to post pictures of our fabulous feast!
             There was an article in today's Wall Street Journal written by Harold Dieterle, who grew up on Long Island, going crabbing during the April-September season as a family outing. It makes for very good reading.

         
                There is also a delicious sounding recipe for garlic-baked blue crabs.  Unless you have a source for fresh crabs, you could make the recipe with fresh lump crab meat in a baking dish. Let me know if you give it a try!

A great salad for the season!

What’s with this weather? We should still be making warming soups to ward off the chill of spring showers, and instead I already have my herb garden planted and growing nicely.

                We were having guests last weekend and I wanted something easy, that I could do ahead, and definitely not hot.  A salad perhaps? But good summer salad vegetables aren’t ready yet, so I was leafing through some of my old cooking class recipes. I came across a Sicilian style chicken salad that seemed perfect.

                Any time Sicilian cuisine is mentioned I think “citrus” because all sorts of citrus, especially oranges, grow wild on the island. And a little spice is always welcome to a Sicilian as well. 

                It’s not unusual in several regional Italian cuisines to serve warm main course food on a bed of greens that then become slightly wilted.  Arugula works perfectly here; the slightly bitter taste is the perfect foil to the sweet and spicy dressing.

                You can do the chicken and peppers ahead a bit and let set up to an hour or so, or refrigerate.  Then heat them in the oven to warm back up.  The asparagus could roast at the same time. Bring the dressing up to a simmer and you have a perfect main course for guests, and all you’d need to go with it is good crusty bread to soak up the juices.

Sicilian Springtime Chicken Salad

2 red bell peppers, stemmed, seeded, cut into 1/2” strips

4 plump cloves of garlic, peeled

1/3 cup good fruity olive oil

Salt and freshly ground pepper

1 ½ lbs. chicken breasts, boneless, skinless

Finely grated zest of one large orange

¾ cup fresh squeezed orange juice

1 lb. asparagus, tough stem ends snapped off

2 tbsp. honey

1 big pinch crushed red pepper flakes (or more to taste)

2 tbsp. additional olive oil

4 cups arugula

A good sized chunk of pecarino romano or asiago cheese

                Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a shallow baking pan, toss the pepper strips and garlic cloves with the olive oil.  Roast for about 15 minutes, stirring a time or two.  Lay the chicken breasts in one layer on top and brush with some of the oil from the pan.  Mix the zest and juice of the orange with the additional orange juice and pour over the top.  Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper and roast until the chicken is tender, about 15 minutes more.         

                Meanwhile, on a baking sheet, spread the asparagus in one layer. Brush with the 2 tablespoons additional olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and roast in the same oven for about ten minutes. Set aside.

                Remove the chicken, peppers and garlic to a platter and tent with foil.  Pour the juices from the roasting pan into a saucepan and add the honey and pepper flakes. Bring to a simmer and let it bubble gently for about five minutes.

                Slice the warm chicken breasts about ¼ thick. Toss the arugula with a couple of tablespoons of the dressing and put on a platter. Arrange the chicken breast slices, the peppers and garlic, and the asparagus on top.  Drizzle with a bit more of the dressing.  Pass the remaining dressing at the table, and pass the cheese with a grater to be added by each guest as desired. Serves four very generously.

Game time treat!

            Occasionally a reader will send a recipe that sounds really good, and I almost always give it a try so I can share it with you.  A few months ago one of those readers, Mark Tygesson, sent one that sounded way too easy.  Of course I tried it at home. I served it first as a dinner entrée, with mashed potatoes and broccoli.

               We loved it, but I thought it would a great dish for a bigger group, served a little more casually. So last weekend when it was time to watch March Madness, I made it for the soon-to-be disappointed fans of various teams who watched some of the games with us.

                It was so popular that I’m pretty sure it will be on several other tables for the Final Four this weekend.  Perhaps you’d like to have it on yours too. It has the advantage of being extremely easy, extremely tasty, and adaptable to several ways of serving.

                Turkey wings are available in most local supermarkets, but are not always with the rest of the turkey parts. Ask at the butcher counter if you can’t find them. Turkey wings are REALLY big, so one will serve two generously, and maybe even three.  Just the drumette part of each one we’ve gotten was way bigger than a regular chicken drumstick.

                You can, of course, serve it as we did the first time, as a dinner main dish.  Last weekend we served the segments with broccoli cole slaw, chipotle baked beans and corn bread. The leftovers made a tasty pulled turkey sandwich the next day, and would be another very good way to serve first time around.

                I served the flavorful juices from the pan as a sort of au jus sauce, as well as with bottled BBQ sauce.  I mixed half each mustard BBQ and regular BBQ sauce and it was the perfect complement.  However you choose to present it, I’m pretty sure your friends will enjoy it as much as ours did.

 NOTE:  Since in Memphis pretty much our only chance for supermarket shopping is Kroger, and they don't stock nearly the variety of products that sadly departed Schnucks did, there seems to be a problem finding the Wham seasoning.  You can order it on the Willingham website if you can't find it in your local supermarket. Add on note: there was a comment added to this post that SuperLo has the Wham seasoning.

MARK'S WHAM TURKEY WINGS

3 or 4 turkey wings (or however many will fit into your crock pot)

Willingham’s Wham Seasoning

4 to 6 peeled garlic cloves per wing

                Rinse the turkey wings and sprinkle very generously on all sides with the Wham seasoning. Cover and refrigerate at least overnight.  When ready to cook, place in a crock pot and sprinkle the garlic cloves around them. No added liquid! Cook on low for six hours.  .

                They are delicious as they come out, but I like a little crisper skin, so I put them on a baking sheet. and run under the broiler for a few minutes. Cut each wing into three segments and serve with the garlic cloves and pan juices.

NOTES:  1) Mark emphasized that it must be the “real” Wham seasoning.  I used the mild variety, but there’s a  hot one too.  You may use that one if you’re into spicy food.   2) He adds a bag of frozen Italian beans about a half hour before the wings are done.  I haven’t tried that but it sounds good, so I will next time.

Moroccan Osso Buco

When I first went to study in the South of France, it hadn’t been more than ten or twelve years since the first of their North African colonies had been liberated, and only three or four years since the last, Tunisia, had been liberated. (Boy, I’m really dating myself!) I had several friends whose parents had been “pieds-noirs,“ or “black feet”, those who had been French nationals in the territories and had to leave. Many of them had never before set foot on continental French soil.

The dinners I had at their homes were nothing like what I’d had in French restaurants or other French homes. I fell in love with the flavors, and when I worked in Paris the following summer, I sought out the many small North African restaurants in the student neighborhood, the Quartier Latin.

Still, it was years before I attacked this style of cooking, first to learn to cook it and then to teach it to others. My initial inspiration came from the fine cookbooks on the subject by Paula Wolfert.

Recently I was having friends over for dinner and had picked up veal shanks for osso buco. This is the Italian term for veal shank slices, meaning “bone with a hole”. I wondered why I couldn’t turn this into a North African dish. So I did, with considerable success.

It would typically be served with couscous, but I served it with a rice pilaf instead. Roasted asparagus made the perfect complement. The marrow in the bones is delicious, so set the table with tiny spoons or seafood forks so it can be dug out.

The spice mixture, ras el hanout, can be purchased from Penzey’s, or you can make your own from the recipe below. For our dessert, I mixed a spoonful into chocolate ganache, which I used to fill little sweet tart shells. And it is very interesting as a spice in apple or peach pie. It’s also great dusted over sliced oranges and black olives on a salad, or mixed with olive oil as a rub for poultry or pork.

Moroccan Veal Shanks

6 slices veal shanks, about 1-1/2” thick (total about four pounds)

½ cup flour

2 tsp. ras el hanout, divided

¼ cup olive oil

1 large onion, diced

4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

½ tsp. ground cumin

1 tsp. ground ginger

Juice and finely grated zest of two large lemons

2 cups chicken stock

½ cup each dried apricots, halved, and golden raisins

½ cup whole blanched almonds

Garnish: slivered zest of two lemons and ¼ cup, packed, chopped cilantro

Preheat the oven to 325. Pat the veal shanks dry with a paper towel. Mix the flour with 1 tsp. ras el hanout and lightly dust the veal shanks on both sides. In a heavy skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Brown the veal shanks on both sides, starting with the side with the larger bone end. As they are browned, remove to a roasting pan with a cover, just large enough to hold the meat in one layer. Place the smaller end down, so that the marrow remains in the bone.

In the same pan, sauté the onion and garlic in the remaining oil until very soft but not browned. Add the remaining ras el hanout, ginger and lemon juice and zest. Stir a couple of times, then add the chicken stock and dried fruit. Bring to a simmer and pour over the veal. Sprinkle the almonds around the edges, cover, and bake for two hours.

For the garnish, combine the lemon zest with the cilantro and sprinkle over the top. Serves 6.

Ras el hanout:

1 tsp. each freshly grated nutmeg, ground black pepper and ground white pepper

2 tsp. each ground cinnamon and ground cardamom

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Mix all together. Keeps a long time at room temperature in a tightly covered jar.

Should we send him to the Bluebird Cafe?

I have, on many occasions in the past, recommended posts from Adam Roberts, who is often insightful and always hugely amusing. You MUST hear the clever song he devised when a waiter took his plate away way before he'd finished it.  He claims it's a country-western song.  Well, remember, he IS a yankee.  God love him anyway, okay? You can find it here on his blog.

I'm never going to be a total vegetarian, but...

Take a look at this blog. It's a regular part of Huffington Post. It gives a very interesting view of a foodie who pledged to be a vegetarian for just a month, and what she learned, both for herself and how her family reacted to it.  I think I could probably be a "flexitarian." A diet of mostly vegetables and grains wouldn't bother me at all. Well, except sometimes I really need a burger. Or chicken. And my husband doesn't consider a meal complete without some sort of animal protein. (His comment on Cochon 555: "oysters, pork, pork, pork pork and pork: the perfect six course dinner").

I would love to hear from you about your views of any part of what she went through!

An amusing way to pass a few minutes...great chef's best meals!

       On the Zagat website, there's a slide show of what a group of chefs consider their best meal ever: Best Meal Ever: An Epic Look At Favorite Meals.  I think you'll find it an amusing way to pass a few minutes. Of course I had to click on all the links to the restaurants cited, and then look at the menus of each.  It took me an hour to get through them all!

Sicilian Shrimp Pasta: Great for any weather!

Last week I had friends in for a very casual dinner. I had shrimp in the freezer. This was a small group.  Shrimp isn’t something I often think of for big crowds, partly because it’s a little costly. And partly because it’s hard to find a good shrimp recipe that doesn’t take a lot of last minute work. And I just don't like a lot of last minute work when I'm entertaining a large group of guests.

But for a smaller group, I love to make some sort of shrimp pasta, and I’ve got a new one for you. You can make the sauce completely (up to adding the shrimp) an hour or two ahead and let it set at room temperature. You can also make it even further ahead and refrigerate, bringing it to a simmer before adding the shrimp.

This is quite typical of Sicilian cooking. Citrus grows wild on the island, and capers and raisins are often used with tomatoes there. Marsala wine is native to Sicily. The sauce is thinner than a typical Italian tomato sauce. That’s how it’s supposed to be.

You may wonder about the lack of cheese. Italians rarely use cheese with seafood pasta dishes, but if you want it, I won’t tell on you!

With a simple salad, this makes a great meal to share with friends on a winter evening.

Gamberoni alla Siciliana

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 or 5 plump cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
1 medium red onion, cut into ¼” dice
1 bulb fennel
1 16-ounce can diced tomatoes with garlic and herbs
2 tbsp golden raisins
2 tbsp capers, drained
1 cup dry Marsala
Juice and finely grated zest of one large orange
½ tsp fennel seeds, lightly crushed
1 large pinch crushed red pepper flakes
1 ½ lbs shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 lb fettuccine or linguine, cooked al dente

In a large heavy skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and stir a couple of times. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, about 2 minutes.

Cut the top stalks off the bulb of fennel. Cut the bulb in half vertically. Cut out and discard the solid core. Sliver the remaining fennel bulb and reserve the top green fronds for garnish. Add the fennel slivers to the pan with the onions. Stir and continue to cook about another five minutes.

Add the tomatoes, raisins, capers, Marsala, orange juice and zest, fennel seeds and pepper flakes. Simmer uncovered for about 10 minutes. Taste and add salt if needed.

When ready to serve, bring the sauce to a simmer and add the shrimp. Cook, stirring frequently, until the shrimp are pink and opaque, about 5 minutes. Serve over the pasta and garnish with the reserved fennel fronds. Serves 6 to 8.

NOTE: The red pepper flakes give a little zing without being too hot. You may increase them if you like, or leave them out entirely if you prefer a milder dish.

The perfect first course soup!

       When I entertain, I always like to have a first course to start the meal. In the summer, it’s almost always a salad of some sort, since there is so much great produce available. But in the winter, I like soup.
       A first course soup can’t be too hearty or you’ll spoil your guests’ appetite for the rest of the meal. I’ve always loved French onion soup, but that is indeed a meal in itself. This onion soup is a great alternative.
       It takes a while to cook the onions for this soup, but the entire recipe can be made ahead and reheated at serving time. You don’t want the onions deeply caramelized, as for French onion soup; just a nice golden brown is perfect.
       You can use store-bought crostini toasts for this recipe, but I find it easy enough to make my own, and I like the way the home-made ones absorb the soup.
       For the blue cheese, get a mild one that will get soft and creamy at room temperature. Gorgonzola works well, as do the soft ripened ones like Saga or Cambozola. Stronger flavored blues, such as Roquefort or stilton, would overpower the taste of the soup.
       This soup would go well before almost any main course that doesn’t have a lot of onion in it. In larger servings, with extra blue cheese toasts, it would also make a very nice luncheon. For a less formal presentation—a Super Bowl party maybe?—you might puree the soup with a hand blender and serve it in mugs with the toasts on the side.
       However you do it, I’m sure your guests will love it as much as mine did!

Onion and Cider Soup with Blue Cheese Croutons

4 large onions, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
¼ cup olive oil
2 cups apple cider or apple juice
A few sprigs fresh thyme
3 cups beef broth or stock
1 cup water
2 tbsp brandy

       In a heavy pan, cook the onions in the olive oil over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until golden brown. This will take 30-45 minutes. Stir in the cider, thyme, broth, water and brandy. Simmer uncovered for 20 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.
       Ladle the soup into soup bowls and float blue cheese croutons on top. Serve immediately. Serves 6 to 8 as a first course soup.

Blue Cheese Croutons

Per serving:
1 slice baguette, about ½” thick
1 tbsp soft mild blue cheese, at room temperature

       Preheat the broiler. Put the bread slices on a baking sheet and toast lightly under the broiler. Spread the blue cheese on the toast. When ready to serve, run under the broiler just until the cheese is beginning to bubble and get a bit browned on top.

A great veggie soup for the season!

  

              I love this time of year, when winter weather makes us sort of cocoon in our houses and long for warming soups and stews.  Well, usually, although this year we've had precious little real winter weather!

 I’d picked up a butternut squash and was browsing online for some sort of soup that wasn’t just a squash purée.  I didn’t find a soup recipe I liked, but I did find several complimentary references to a private label canned soup from a market chain: “Butternut Squash Possole (sic) with Collard Greens.”  But  I have a friend from the southwest who had served posole once a while back.  I remembered liking it…so why not give it a try?

                The collard greens part wasn’t to my taste so I just left it out.  My very first attempt was, untypically, the version I’m giving you here.  Usually I have to work through a couple of tries in a recipe to make it to my liking. 

                You’ll only use half of a smallish (3-4 pound) squash but the other half can be diced, tossed with a bit of olive oil and an Italian herb blend and roasted in a hot oven until just starting to brown around the edges. That will make a good side dish for a chicken or pork main dish later in the week. 

                The posole I’d been served was very thick, like a stew, but if you’d like a “soupier” dish, just add the larger amount of stock.

                I served this with a wedge of lime and a sprinkling of cilantro.  I know there are those who hate cilantro (my husband, for instance), so just leave it off for them. 

However you tweak it to suit your tastes, I think this recipe will be a keeper for you, as it is for me.

BUTTERNUT SQUASH POSOLE

2 tbsp. vegetable oil

5 cloves garlic, peeled and very thinly sliced

1 medium onion, chopped

2 tsp. dried oregano

1 tsp. ground cumin

1 tbsp. chili powder blend (see note)

2 cans diced tomato, with juices

1 tbsp. tomato paste

1 to 2 cups chicken or vegetable stock

1 tsp salt

3 cups butternut squash, peeled and cut into ½” dice

1 15-oz can white hominy, rinsed and drained

1 15-oz can black beans, rinsed and drained

Lime wedges and chopped cilantro, for garnish

                In a heavy pot or Dutch oven, heat the oil over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and stir a few times, then add the onion.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until very soft but not browned.  Add the oregano, cumin and chili powder, stir well and let simmer a couple of minutes.  Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, stock and salt.  Raise heat, bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and let simmer gently for about ten minutes.

                Stir in the squash, return to a simmer, cover and cook until the squash is almost tender, about 15 minutes.  Add the hominy and black beans and continue to simmer until the squash is tender, about  another 10 minutes. 

                Taste and add salt if needed.  Ladle into bowls and garnish with lime wedges and chopped cilantro.  Serves 6 to 8.

NOTE:  Mexene is quite an acceptable supermarket shelf chili powder blend, but I am particularly fond of Penzey’s Chili 9000 blend.  It’s a bit spicier than Mexene, but if you like a milder blend, Penzey’s Chili 3000 is also quite tasty.