Category: Main Courses & Meals

Entree to full boat!

Serious Mac & Cheese


OK, have had a ton of requests for more detail on comfort food faves and mac and cheese as I do it in particular, so here ya go!

If and when we do a restaurant, mac & cheese will be a mainstay, and I’ll guarantee in advance that, while it likely will never be the same twice, it’ll always make you come back for more. Here’s my secret, honed over decades of serious research…

The Roux

3 Tablespoons unsalted Butter.
3 Tablespoons Flour.
3 cups Milk.

Roux is the key to sauce, as far as I am concerned. I have an idiosyncrasy about roux making that was shown to me many moons ago by a French Chef in a French kitchen, and it was sooo durn good, I’ve done it this way ever since. The bottom line is this; never break the roux. What I mean is this: You’re adding fat and starch, (Well, gluten), to liquid to make the resultant sauce thicker. Therefore, you want the chemistry that adds those qualities maintained. The how-to is simple: As you mix flour with butter, and then add liquid, do it slowly enough that you start with almost a paste, and maintain that stretchy, thick consistency throughout your mixing. Add milk slowly, a little at a time, incorporate, allow it to get back up to heat and repeat until all the liquid is added – In other words, do not mix butter and flour and then just dump in milk – Doing that defetas the purpose of the roux completely, for my mind… The other consideration is the shade of your roux. The beauty of roux to me is the simplicity. When roux is cooking alone, it’s that sweet, bready, rich theme we want to exploit. Personally, I like my roux for stuff like this to be nut brown, the color of done shortbread, before I start adding milk. You do what smells, looks, tastes and feels best to you! Hopefully, this series of pics will illustrate my ramblings adequately…

The Cheese

2 to 3 cups of your choice, shredded.

Here’s where that statement above about my stuff never being quite the same twice comes to fruition. Put simply, I open the fridge and use what’s there and floats my boat at the moment. If you buy and eat good cheese, you quite simply cannot fail in this regard. And frankly, why do the same old thing all the time? variety is the spice of life, so mix it up! If you come upon a really spectacular blend, (And you will), write it down, take pics and do it again, by all means, but first, ya gotta discover!

Tonight, I found a bunch of candidates and decided upon a four cheese blend. I went with Swiss and Jack as dominant notes, (About a cup each), and extra sharp yellow cheddar with 2 year old WSU white Cheddar as minors, and there’s your cheese chord!

Add cheese about a half cup at a time and allow to incorporate and heat thoroughly before ya throw in more.

Once that’s all in, it’s seasoning time. Here again, other than salt and pepper, there are no hard and fast rules. Do what smells, looks, feels and tastes right! Tonight, salt, pepper, garlic, onion powder, smoked paprika and a shake of dried Tabasco chile was the stuff. Blend well and then take your sauce off the heat, and start into pasta.

Pasta

Use roughly 12 ounces of what you like

Yep, that’s it. We don’t use long and skinny stuff, for obvious reasons, but you could if you like it! We like shells a lot because they act like little boats for the sauce, but macaroni, fusilli, rotini, bowtie, radiatori, ruote, whatever floats your boat, throw it in!

Make sure your water is well salted, (As in about like seawater) and lightly oiled. Boil pasta to firm al dente, then drain and toss to remove al excess water.

Throw your pasta into a lightly oiled baking dish, add the sauce and mix well. Don’t put so much pasta in there that things will be dry. Mac and cheese needs to be luxurious, decadent, rich and creamy, not dry and pasty! I top with something, again, whatever floats my boat, but I always top. The nice, crunchy crust is a great addition and it helps seal in the casserole too. I’ve used everything from panko bread crumbs to crushed jalapeno potato chips and everything in between; again, it’s about what you have and that feels good!

To bake or not to bake; there ain’t any question…
Bake, plain and simple. 350 F for 30 minutes, preheat your oven first, of course. Baking infuses and blends flavors, textures and smells. Do it – Eating something like this without doing so is like taking the middle out of an Oreo, throwing it away and just munching the wafer – Good, but not right…

See? doesn’t that look incredible?!
Yes. Yes it does…

Pair It

Now, I am the first to say that stuff this good don’t need nuthin’ to help it, but that would be wrong. Pair your mac with a nice, light salad. That will provide a counterpoint to the incredible richness, help clear your palate, let you eat and appreciate everything more, and that’s good! Monica did a beautiful job with fresh greens, onion, pickled radish, homegrown tomatoes and cucumbers, dusted with dill, and tossed with a light balsamic vinaigrette – Perfect counterpoint!

And there you have it – The cat’s outta the bag – Bon appetit!

Serious Mac & Cheese


OK, have had a ton of requests for more detail on comfort food faves and mac and cheese as I do it in particular, so here ya go!

If and when we do a restaurant, mac & cheese will be a mainstay, and I’ll guarantee in advance that, while it likely will never be the same twice, it’ll always make you come back for more. Here’s my secret, honed over decades of serious research…

The Roux

3 Tablespoons unsalted Butter.
3 Tablespoons Flour.
3 cups Milk.

Roux is the key to sauce, as far as I am concerned. I have an idiosyncrasy about roux making that was explained to me many moons ago by a rather famous French Chef, and it was sooo durn good, I’ve done it this way ever since. The bottom line is this; never break the roux. What I mean is this: You’re adding fat and starch, (Well, gluten), to liquid to make the resultant sauce thicker. Therefore, you want the chemistry that adds those qualities maintained. The how-to is simple: As you mix flour with butter, and then add liquid, do it slowly enough that you start with almost a paste, and maintain that stretchy, thick consistency throughout your mixing. Add milk slowly, a little at a time, incorporate, allow it to get back up to heat and repeat until all the liquid is added – In other words, do not mix butter and flour and then just dump in milk – Doing that defetas the purpose of the roux completely, for my mind… The other consideration is the shade of your roux. The beauty of roux to me is the simplicity. When roux is cooking alone, it’s that sweet, bready, rich theme we want to exploit. Personally, I like my roux for stuff like this to be nut brown, the color of done shortbread, before I start adding milk. You do what smells, looks, tastes and feels best to you! Hopefully, this series of pics will illustrate my ramblings adequately…

The Cheese

2 to 3 cups of your choice, shredded.

Here’s where that statement above about my stuff never being quite the same twice comes to fruition. Put simply, I open the fridge and use what’s there and floats my boat at the moment. If you buy and eat good cheese, you quite simply cannot fail in this regard. And frankly, why do the same old thing all the time? variety is the spice of life, so mix it up! If you come upon a really spectacular blend, (And you will), write it down, take pics and do it again, by all means, but first, ya gotta discover!

Tonight, I found a bunch of candidates and decided upon a four cheese blend. I went with Swiss and Jack as dominant notes, (About a cup each), and extra sharp yellow cheddar with 2 year old WSU white Cheddar as minors, and there’s your cheese chord!

Add cheese about a half cup at a time and allow to incorporate and heat thoroughly before ya throw in more.

Once that’s all in, it’s seasoning time. Here again, other than salt and pepper, there are no hard and fast rules. Do what smells, looks, feels and tastes right! Tonight, salt, pepper, garlic, onion powder, smoked paprika and a shake of dried Tabasco chile was the stuff. Blend well and then take your sauce off the heat, and start into pasta.

Pasta

Use roughly 12 ounces of what you like

Yep, that’s it. We don’t use long and skinny stuff, for obvious reasons, but you could if you like it! We like shells a lot because they act like little boats for the sauce, but macaroni, fusilli, rotini, bowtie, radiatori, ruote, whatever floats your boat, throw it in!

Make sure your water is well salted, (As in about like seawater) and lightly oiled. Boil pasta to firm al dente, then drain and toss to remove al excess water.

Throw your pasta into a lightly oiled baking dish, add the sauce and mix well. Don’t put so much pasta in there that things will be dry. Mac and cheese needs to be luxurious, decadent, rich and creamy, not dry and pasty! I top with something, again, whatever floats my boat, but I always top. The nice, crunchy crust is a great addition and it helps seal in the casserole too. I’ve used everything from panko bread crumbs to crushed jalapeno potato chips and everything in between; again, it’s about what you have and that feels good!

To bake or not to bake; there ain’t any question…
Bake, plain and simple. 350 F for 30 minutes, preheat your oven first, of course. Baking infuses and blends flavors, textures and smells. Do it – Eating something like this without doing so is like taking the middle out of an Oreo, throwing it away and just munching the wafer – Good, but not right…

See? doesn’t that look incredible?!
Yes. Yes it does…

Pair It

Now, I am the first to say that stuff this good don’t need nuthin’ to help it, but that would be wrong. Pair your mac with a nice, light salad. That will provide a counterpoint to the incredible richness, help clear your palate, let you eat and appreciate everything more, and that’s good! Monica did a beautiful job with fresh greens, onion, pickled radish, homegrown tomatoes and cucumbers, dusted with dill, and tossed with a light balsamic vinaigrette – Perfect counterpoint!

And there you have it – The cat’s outta the bag – Bon appetit!

Green Chile & Pork Enchiladas


Green Chile & Pork Enchiladas

There’s not much more seminal Tex-Mex than a nice enchilada. My fave combo for this is pork and green chile, hands down – There’s something about it that’s juuuuust right.

Chile sauce is something we make and can for later on; you need to pressure can to do that, but it is well worth it and another great way to take advantage of the annual Hatch chile release! This sauce goes great with enchiladas, tacos, burritos, chimichangas, huevos, and on and on…

Classic Green Chile Sauce

5 – 7 Hatch green chiles, roasted, field stripped, skinned and rough chopped.
1 cup diced sweet onion.
1-2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced.
1-2 sprigs cilantro or ½ teaspoon coriander.
2 cups chicken stock.
1 teaspoon flour.
1 teaspoon butter.
Salt and pepper to taste.
2-3 tablespoons vegetable oil.

Heat oil to medium high in a deep sauté pan. Sauté onion until it start to become translucent. Add garlic and briefly sauté. Add chiles, cilantro, and stock and simmer for about half an hour. Remove pan from heat. Pour mixture into blender and blend until you hit the consistency you like. Heat flour and butter in sauté pan. When roux is well blended and heated through, pour blended mixture back in and allow to blend and thicken. Remove from heat and allow to sit covered.

For the enchilada filling, I cut the pork thin and then diced it. That went in to a deep sauté pan, was lightly browned, and then doused with enchilada sauce and allowed to simmer for about ½ hour on low heat. I diced up more onion, black olives, some of our tomatoes, and shredded some jack cheese. I used lovely flour tortillas from a local tortillaria, since I was too lazy to make my own today… I also did up some plain red beans and rice, with no seasoning other than a little salt.

Finally, I put everything in a production line, did some assembly and off we went.

I left plating to your imagination, because I was way hungry. I assure you that none of those poor things survived the night! (FYI, we like to bed these on shredded lettuce tossed with a little more cilantro, salt and pepper.)

M’s 4th o’ JulyFest


It was M’s kitchen, 100% and just fine with me – She has imagination and flair and builds killer eats. Here’s what she came up with.

Red, White & Blue Spud Salad

3 cups multi-tone spuds, boiled to fork tender and chopped.
2 eggs, hard boiled, chopped.
6 – 8 stems garlic chive, slivered.
1/2 Lime.
1 Pickled Radish, fine diced.
1 small shallot, diced.
1 small Tomato, sliced.
Fresh Thyme to taste, fine chopped.

Dressing:
50% Real Mayo
25% each pickle relish & hearty mustard

Combine spuds, eggs, shallot, radish and thyme. Squeeze lime juice over mixture. Sliver garlic chive and set aside. Slice tomato and set aside.

Mix dressing components, add pepper to taste, (No salt needed in this mix).

Add dressing to mixture and coat thoroughly. Toss garlic chive and sliced tomato as topping garnish.


Chicken Breast with Citrus-Chile Reduction

Marinate Chicken breasts in a base of grapefruit juice, with lime, lemon, and red Hatch chile powder.

Braise breasts in marinating liquid until done through. Broil briefly for color and slight crust. Set to rest for at least 10 minutes before slicing.

Reduce braising liquid by 50% until the reduction coats a spoon nicely. M sliced the breast and set it back in the excess reduced liquid.

Served with spud salad, this was amazing flavor, let me tell y’all!

Happy Forth!

Weird Veggies of the World, Unite!


My dear old friend Darcy sent this in from Sunny California, and I’ve taken way too long to answer!

Ok – fennel (whole) and kohlrobi . . . . picked them up at the CSA and hove no idea what to do with them. Any (non animal) ideas?

Yup, I sure do! And let me just add that this post is titled as it is not ’cause Darce is weird using such stuff, but because all three of the mainline veg ingredients here are often either completely overlooked or, at best, treated as redheaded step-veggies. And they shouldn’t be, because they are all wonderful, unique and very tasty indeed.

So, in the interest of better late than never, here’s a great slaw for summer. We love O & V based slaws as much as the mayo/aoli style, and especially in summer, where lighter is better. This one really lets the veggy mainstays sing!

Fennel – Kohlrabi Slaw with Sautéed Kale.

1 Bulb each Kohlrabi and Fennel, washed and sliced sliver thin.
1 bunch Kale sliced into strips roughly ¼” wide.
Juice and zest from 1 Lemon.
½ teaspoon prepared Horseradish.
2 cloves Garlic.
¼ Cup dry white wine.
¼ Cup Veggy stock.
1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard.
2 Tablespoons white wine vinegar.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
Salt and Pepper to taste.

Combine lemon juice, zest, horseradish, salt, pepper and whisk thoroughly. Mix the sliced fennel and kohlrabi until well coated and allow to marinate, refrigerated, for at least 3 hours.

Remove veg mix, discard marinade and set fennel-kohlrabi aside.

Combine white wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper. Whisk in up to 6 tablespoons olive oil slowly, allowing vinaigrette to emulsify – Stop when you hit your preferred mark for the dressing, (And if you like more oil than that then use it!)

Combine dressing and marinated fennel-kohlrabi and coat thoroughly. Return to fridge for at least 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, blanch kale in boiling water for about 30 seconds. Remove quickly and dunk in a bowl of ice water to shock it, (AKA, stop the cooking RFN). Pat dry, and set aside.

Mince garlic.

Combine 2 tablespoons olive oil, white wine, stock, salt and pepper in a sauté pan on medium high. Sauté Kale to al dente, adding minced garlic in last minute or so. Remove kale and discard sautéing liquid.

Plate a nice layer of the sautéed kale, then toss a nice big portion of the slaw on top. Serve with a nice, crusty bread and some more of that dry white wine!

Enjoy!

P.S. – I apologize for no pics, but I’m working freelance on this one…

Memorial Day Twist


Ah the holidays of summer!  Each is and should be seen with very particular focus. That is, view them as a day to cook, eat, read, enjoy each other and little else!

Memorial is the first of these, of course, and we used it as a chance to do a nice Surf & Turf dinner.

For the Surf, we went with some fresh caught gulf shrimp, which I marinated in citrus, chipotle chile, salt and pepper, a very straightforward preparation as we always do here.

The dominant sub-theme to this post is food safety, so let’s talk about handling proteins.  We paired some nice T bone steaks with the shrimp. I pulled the steaks out just long enough to apply the rub, and then put them back in the fridge right away. Shrimp came out for thawing in very cold, running water, (Which gets it done as quickly as possible), deveining, (Which you must be conscientious about!), marinating, and then also went straight back into the fridge. NEVER leave proteins out in room temperature long enough for them to get into the Food Temperature Danger Zone! I’ll add that these shrimp were stated to be ‘Cleaned with tail on,’ and there’s a lesson to be learned there. They were lovely shrimp, sweet and tasty and smelling good right out of the package, but very few of them were actually clean – Moral of the story, check and correct, don’t assume! Post marinade and immediately before cooking, I hit the shrimp with some melted butter and more fresh squeezed citrus.

Steaks got a nice simple rub with a bit of olive oil to make sure everything sticks nicely.

Fresh sweet corn got butter, salt and pepper of course!

Onward to GrillLand!

The real story here isn’t the Memorial Day meal, it’s the aftermath! Yes, once again I am harping on leftovers, because that is the real deal when it comes to creativity. You’ve probably heard the term ‘Garde Manger’ before, right? Know what it means? Literally, it’s ‘Keep to Eat,’ AKA, the art of creative use of leftovers.

In a restaurant, just as in your own home, wasting food is not only wrong, it’s a waste of money as well! If you follow what we do here and subscribe to the concept of using the best ingredients you can find and afford, then you certainly can’t abide by allowing leftovers to go to waste, right? Granted, a next day turkey or steak sandwich is great, but what about letting great ingredients speak again in something a bit more creative than that? It’s easy, and fast and fun to remake a meal into something equally wonderful yet completely different, so let’s Garde Manger this Memorial Day feast!

M and I love Tex Mex, and we live in the heart of that country. It inflects our cooking more often than any other style, not because it’s local, but because we love it that much. As such, we decided to let these wonderful leftovers find a new voice as beautiful, fresh tacos.

First, we prepped our steak to become taco meat and it couldn’t be a simpler process. I cut the meat down into bite sized pieces. Note that the steak is fairly rare, which is how we like it when we grilled it. I’ll cook accordingly to assure a nice medium-well condition when reheated, which gets the food quickly to a ready-to-eat internal temperature of 165º F.  In this case, I braised the beef in a nice bottle of Shiner Bock, with no other seasoning added.  That nice rub we cooked into the steak will incorporate with the simmering beer to make a wonderful complex taste!

Meanwhile, M does up some fresh veggies for taco garnish; nice crips lettuce, cilantro, jalapenos, tomato and a 50%-50% mix of radish and sweet onion fits the bill just so.

Now, let’s address that wonderful sweet corn. Here’s another food that will go bad pretty quickly and, more to the point, I’d bet 90% of it gets thrown out after the Big Meal. Thanks be that sweet corn makes some of the finest salsa there is! We went with a nice sweet corn pico de gallo here, simply cutting the corn from the cobs and adding that to diced onion, cilantro, tomato and jalapeno, with fresh citrus juice and a dash of salt and pepper. The taste is out of this world and the corn adds a great textural pop as well.

We topped all this great stuff of with warm, fresh flour tortillas, light and tasty!

And there ya go! Maybe 20 minutes work in the kitchen, and you’ve taken a traditional grilled meal and twisted it 180 degrees into something unique and incredibly tasty. More to the point, being creative with leftovers means you got your money’s worth and then some!

A final note/reminder on safe leftover use. With every meal, you need to keep food out of the temperate danger zone. Cold means under 40º F and hot means over 140º F, period! Under or over those temperature constraints means you’re safe. In the middle for any significant length of time just plain ain’t good. Reheating hot stuff means an internal temperature of 165º F, which will kill the vast majority of nasties we don’t want to consume. Proper handling also means getting foods up or down to safe temperature ranges quickly. If you’ve made soup, and have some left over you’re gonna cool, you want it below 40º F fast, as in a matter of minutes, no more. Use an ice bath to cool quickly and a reliable thermometer to confirm you’re there!

Always keep in mind what you have to work with, and plan your preparations based on avoiding spoilage. Proteins often go bad first, so use them first. If you’re cooking with leftovers the next day, freshness shouldn’t be a problem, assuming you’ve stored things properly. If you’ve made a wonderful dish, side, etc that will store well as is, then properly contain it, freeze it and use it as you see fit. Keeping freshness in mind at all times will help you create great dishes and keep everyone safe as well.