When I saw this roast chicken being prepared on Martha’s TV show the other day, it just made my mouth water. Usually a sign that I need to cook that dish. Roast chicken is so easy. And it was. The recipe comes from Jean-Georges Vonderichten, the famous chef. Martha was rapturous about the potatoes, but I thought the chicken was pretty good too. Not off the charts unusual, but it was very good. I’m always willing to try some new method of chicken, aren’t you?

What’s different about this chicken is that it’s laid on top of a bed of chunked-up peeled potatoes. The bird is put on her side. And she’s stuffed with half of a HEAD of garlic, some fresh herbs, the chicken liver, and she’s baked high – 450 – for about an hour or more. She gets turned on her other side after 20 minutes, then laid onto her back for the final roasting. She’s golden brown by that time (not surprising at that temp). The meat – including the breast meat – was succulent and moist. That’s always my test of a good roast chicken. And the potatoes. Well, what can I say. They were delicious but not memorable, but then most vegetables rolled around with butter, oil and the fat from a chicken will become nicely browned and delicious too.

Following the recipe was easy – there’s not that much to it – potatoes, some oil and butter, and the stuffed chicken. I put about 2 T. oil and butter in the roasting pan for the potatoes, and I slathered a bit of oil on the bird (no butter). I just couldn’t quite bring myself to use more than that.
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Do you have a bunch of basil plants nearing their wilting end? I never know what to do with copious amounts of basil, except for pesto, so here’s your chance. Read on . . .

It’s only been a month or so that I’ve been Tivo-ing Martha Stewart’s TV show. Considering all the problems she’s had over the last several years, her short prison sentence, losing her job as CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Martha perseveres. And that woman’s got talent, I must say. Sometimes she stumbles a bit (whether it’s from the teleprompter or just forgetting her lines I don’t know), over one thing or another, but she has managed to get a whole lot of chefs to come on her show. Not so many Hollywood stars or starlets (although she gets a fair number of those too). They’ve been doing re-runs over the summer, I guess, but likely they chose the best shows to run again.

So, one day this week she had several French chefs on board, all cooking in her roomy back kitchen, and one by one they came out to the front kitchen to cook with Martha. Another thing Martha has is lots of kitchen skills. So I have to laugh when she takes the sous-chef role and the chefs tell her what to do. My guess is Martha’s got a lot of management skills too. Seems to me I read that while she was in prison she wrote notebook after notebook of ideas for her houses and the tv/radio shows. Most likely Martha’s got those kind of brain cells that just work in overdrive. I used to read her blog, but got overloaded on composts and crafts. Some of her photos were interesting, though. Now, somebody else is CEO of Martha’s company. I continue to wonder (wish I could be a little fly in the board room) how the board and CEO share the helm with Martha’s commanding presence in the background. The shareholders wanted her ousted after she was under suspicion. Maybe one day she’ll be promoted back to CEO.

But, I digressed there. Two of the chefs on the show did chicken and one did salmon. I printed out two of those, and also this spinach and basil side dish that sounded so different. You know me, if you put some food items together that don’t traditionally go together, I’m intrigued. As I was with this recipe. Tomorrow I’ll post the recipe for the chicken. Both of these recipes are from Jean-Georges Vonderichten, the rather famous chef of about 17 restaurants worldwide (notably New York and Las Vegas). He was born in the Alsace (the German edge of eastern France) and started cooking at a young age.

Confession time: I made a whole bunch of changes to this recipe, but it was really delicious. And yes, I’ll make it again. It’s easy – and you could do this for a company meal since you can get everything ready ahead of time (except chopping the basil). It doesn’t take but a few minutes to cook. I will indicate my changes in the recipe, but I’ll give you the chef’s recipe as it was shown.

This calls for equal quantities of spinach and basil. You might think that putting that much basil with a vegetable would overwhelm, but it didn’t. Of course, I didn’t use as much as the recipe indicated either, but the basil moves from co-star billing to bit part once it’s cooked. You can tell there’s basil in it, but that’s all. And the cream gives it a lovely softness.
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Here in California, eggplant can always be found, year around, at our local markets. Probably because of our close proximity to Mexico, where the bulk of the eggplant crops are raised. Several states in the U.S. also grow it, but it’s a minor crop. The information here comes from Russ Parsons’ book, How to Pick a Peach, a definitive tome all about the more popular fruits and vegetables we eat here. I found the book so fascinating, I’m sharing chapters of it with you when I have time to write it up.

Lots of people apparently think eggplant is bitter; hence it’s not an overly popular vegetable. Parsons debunks that – says eggplant isn’t bitter. I’d agree. Technically, it’s a fruit. Did you know that? I didn’t.

What I learned:

• The sponge-like texture of its pulp will absorb whatever you cook with it, whether it’s oil, garlic, broth, or?

• Salting eggplant does nothing to remove any bitterness (which really isn’t there, but people think it is), but it does pull water out of the fruit, collapsing the cells, which then absorb oil more easily during cooking.

• It’s a myth that salting will prevent the eggplant from absorbing as much oil in frying.

• There are over 56 varieties of eggplant out there, and its origin is in Burma. It’s a staple food in India, China, Southeast Asia, much of Africa and the Mediterranean.

• Eggplants vary in how thick their skin is and how seedy they are (the big globe ones are the seediest), and they vary in the exact texture of the flesh.

How to choose them:

• They’re fragile – they bruise easily.

• Buy them heavy for their size, and the skin should be taut and almost bulging.

• Eggplant HATE cold. They should NOT be stored at lower than 45 degrees F (most refrigerators are between 35-40 degrees).

• Keep them as dry as possible (moisture will cause water damage) – ideally put them in a plastic bag with a paper towel. They’ll keep up to a week that way.

• Eggplant can be peeled or not. And only salt it if you’re going to FRY it.

Russ Parsons included four recipes in his book: Smoky Eggplant Bruschetta, Silky Eggplant Salad (a steamed version that he says produces a really smooth flesh), and Grilled Eggplant with Walnut Cilantro Pesto. He also details a quick grill version: cut the eggplant lengthwise into 1/2-inch thick slices. Brush both sides with garlic-flavored oil and continue brushing during the cooking. Grill just until tender – trying not to char it. When done, transfer to a heated platter and as its subsequent slices are done, stack them on top of one another.

I’ve posted about eggplant a few times here, notably one of my very favorite appetizers: Layered Hummus and Eggplant. And a few months ago I posted a recipe for a Sweet, Sour & Spicy Eggplant.

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As I analyzed this recipe, I was trying to figure out what, exactly, made these Turkish. Must be the feta cheese (a staple in the Turkish breakfast menu) and the walnuts. We certainly never had anything like these in our travels in Turkey. But then, we only ate in restaurants, and this likely wouldn’t feature on any dine-out menu. What appealed to me about these was – first – the zucchini. I had some home grown ones in the refrigerator that are a week old and needed to be used. Secondly, they have very little flour in them – the egg provided most of the binding. I wanted to make something that was more vegetables than pancake, and this fit the bill perfectly. Zucchini by and of itself doesn’t have tons of flavor. I guess I’d call it a kind of neutral vegetable, kind of like eggplant. Not like fennel. Or artichokes. Or broccoli.

The recipe came from Bon Appetit (found on Epicurious) magazine, circa 1996. Lots of other people have made these and left comments on the recipe site. Lots of alternate ideas (like using basil and mint instead of dill and tarragon, neither of which I had on hand) and suggestions for serving (with different kinds of salsas and sauces) all of which sounded good. I decorated mine with a tiny dollop of sour cream and a tiny mint leaf that was left on the chopping board. Next time I might try a different cheese (like Parmesan), but that would mean it’s likely not Turkish anymore. I added more feta (per somebody else’s suggestion) but still didn’t taste it in the finished product. I think I want a stronger cheese. Feta is a fairly strong cheese, and salty, but it got lost in the pancakes. So, if you decide to make these, keep that in mind. I still have more zucchini left, so maybe I’ll try these again with my own interpretation.

The finished product? Well, they were good. I won’t call them exceptional – not like the fennel fritters I made last year that knocked my socks off. But these were good. Healthy even. If you used Eggbeaters they’d be even lower in calorie and fat. Next time I’ll play around with the herb mixture – I couldn’t taste the mint or the basil at all. Odd that I couldn’t. I used plenty in the recipe. I particularly like thyme with zucchini, so perhaps I’ll try that instead of the basil. And maybe the tarragon would be good instead of the mint. And definitely I’d change out the cheese. Parmegiano-Reggiano would be my first substitution. But I think children would like this – providing they liked zucchini. We had leftovers of these, and 2 days later I think they tasted better than they did when I made them. I didn’t expect that with a pancake, but then, it’s mostly zucchini, not pancake. So these could easily be made ahead and reheated (I did it in the microwave which worked admirably well).
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Very rarely do I fix the kind of old-fashioned summer outdoor dinner menu for which our fore-mothers are so remembered – can’t you just picture them in their long dresses and bonnets, stirring the fire? Adding more wood to the indoor range? Whether they made hamburgers or not, I don’t know. Likely hot dogs didn’t come into existence until the last 1800’s. But the menus I’m talking about include hamburgers, hot dogs, fried chicken, cole slaw, potato salad, pickles, baked beans, strawberry shortcake and watermelon. You know, that kind of thing. Preparing that hasn’t appealed to me for several decades. The outdoor part, the barbecuing . . . all that’s just fine. I guess the food is just a bit too . . . uh, something. I’d be happy to have it at someone else’s house, but to fix it myself? No.

So, when I was planning our family’s annual 5-birthday get-together (we have five immediate family birthdays between July 26th and August 9th), as I mentioned a day or so ago, I didn’t want to do all the cooking for this crowd (ended up being 18). So we purchased ready-made Que and I made the sides. The day before, I made and posted the story about KFC’s cole slaw. I had made this before – and in case any of you printed the recipe – it’s NOT the same as KFC’s, but it’s close. Close enough? Well, only you can judge. I decided this time that maybe 4-6 hours of marinating is enough – by the next day the cabbage seemed kind of wilted. By yesterday it was over the hill.

Then I made a really nice green type salad I’ll post tomorrow from a recipe brought by my daughter, Sara. It’s supposedly a Soup Plantation version. I like it, whatever it is, although it’s also on the sweet side. I also made the oh-so-tasty watermelon with feta and mint that my friend Kathleen fixed for us last month. It was a big hit at this party – it mostly disappeared, and it’s so darned easy, and amazing how the combination of the salty feta and the sweet watermelon and mint is like a marriage made in heaven. I added more feta and more mint than Martha’s recipe indicated, as you can see from this picture.

And then I opted to make one high-carb side that just seemed right for the menu – baked beans. In my book there are two kinds of baked beans – barbecue type and sweet baked beans. Barbecue beans are more savory tasting. With things like onions, garlic, celery maybe, some tomato sauce perhaps, ham hocks or bacon for flavor. And probably some herbs or spices to liven it up. Baked beans, on the other hand, were developed in New England during the early frontier days of America’s founding. The early settlers must have found good land for growing beans, and they discovered the sweet syrup from maple trees. Combine them and you have “Boston baked beans.” Over the hundreds of years since, maple syrup leaned toward molasses (the early settlers probably had molasses too, brought in from the Caribbean). I don’t know any of these things for sure; it’s just my conjecture. Year ago I bought an old New England style bean pot (crockery type), and used it for a long while. I made baked beans in it many a time. I don’t recall what happened to it – maybe it cracked? People who live in New England and make baked beans regularly swear by the crockery style pot – they believe the flavor is immensely enhanced by using that vessel.

I’ll wager that I hadn’t made this in 20+ years. In my old recipe book, it’s written out in longhand, with cryptic notes (no measurements). Here’s what the list says:

1 huge can B&M baked beans
brown sugar
cinnamon
ground cloves
salt pork

Then, in red ink, I’d written in on the side:
Pineapple (crushed)

So, you see, although this little list comprises mostly ingredients for sweet beans, I added salt pork (from the savory side). Never let it be said that I prepared any recipe (except baked goods) exactly as written. I tampered. When I made it this time, I used bacon instead of salt pork. I added some onion. I left out the ground cloves and the brown sugar (because I thought the canned beans were sweet enough as is). Rather than keep them simmering on the stovetop, I opted to put them in the oven. And because they were quite soupy, I left the lid off. Probably a mistake. They lost way too much fluid, even though the oven temp was about 250. So they were almost dry and had almost reached the point of mush by the time dinner was served. I will say, though, that everybody ate them with relish – there are only a few spoonfuls left. Enough for leftovers. And you know what? They tasted even better the next day. To me anyway.
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The other night when I made the Chicken Tikka Masala, I also had an eggplant in the refrigerator. I looked through my one and only Indian cookbook for some ideas and found a recipe for a combination of eggplant and potatoes. I didn’t have any potatoes, and was making rice for the chicken anyway, so I just made this dish with eggplant only and served it as a side vegetable. Indian food is traditionally very heavy with vegetables. I’ve enjoyed the vegetable dishes I’ve made at home better than ones at restaurants. Maybe they’re overcooked from a restaurant kitchen.

Anyway, I was very pleased with this rendition, from Easy Indian Cooking, by Suneeta Vaswani. Several years ago I attended a cooking class taught by the author. Sunetta’s family favorite, Pepper Chicken, I posted earlier this year. I’ve made it many times. I’ve learned to trust this cookbook when it comes to anything Indian, and this eggplant dish lived up to the reputation. I’d definitely make it again, even if it wasn’t an Indian-themed dinner. I liked the spice combo, and the vinegar-sugar (Splenda) mixture poured over the eggplant just at the end was delightful. There’s just a hint of sweetness, and really no sign of the vinegar. I simply couldn’t taste it at all – it gets absorbed into the eggplant completely. As is always the case with brown or beige food, this dish doesn’t photograph very well, but the taste was great.
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We have a restaurant chain here in the West (California, Oregon and Arizona) called El Torito. There are “regular” restaurants (maybe 20-30 of them), and also about 10 called El Torito Grill. For some years our family frequented the Grill for Sunday buffet-style brunch. It was the best bargain in town. This was when our children were ravenous teenagers and even into young adulthood. Our son could put away plates and plates of food from this place and still be hungry for more. Back then it was about $12.95 for brunch. If they even serve brunch now, am sure it’s a whole lot more money these days. One of the staples amidst the hot trays for the brunch was this Sweet Corn Cake. It’s kind of a cross between a soft cake and a savory pudding. It’s served with most of their entrees as well. It is sweet, although it’s supposed to be a side dish to an entrée, not a dessert. But, as good as it is, you could likely serve it with a bit of cream and call it dessert. The recipe was printed in the Los Angeles Times many, many years ago.

It’s made with masa harina. Shortened to the word “masa,” it’s a finely ground corn flour that’s mixed with lye – a staple of the Mexican diet. The recipe also calls for lard. Now I don’t have lard in my pantry, so I just substituted additional butter, or you could use shortening too. I also didn’t have quite 10 ounces of frozen corn, either, but once it’s whizzed up in the food processor (or blender) it hardly mattered. And the corn I did have was the scorched, roasted corn from Trader Joe’s, so it gave the cake a bit of a dark fleck. Those alterations made no difference in the scrumptious taste.

My opinion is this recipe should be made in 150% quantity (so it’s deeper in the pan), or maybe even double. You’d have to watch the baking time – naturally it would take longer. And doing it in a food processor won’t make the corn into complete mush. It takes no time at all to mix it up, but note that it takes a good long while to bake (covered with foil) and an additional 15 minutes to sit. So, start an hour and a half ahead of serving time! Serve it hot.
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In the most recent issue of Food & Wine, I spotted a recipe for Spanish mackerel (I don’t think we can even GET mackerel in this part of the world; at least I’ve never seen it) with a Cauliflower Tabbouleh. Well, I promptly discarded the part about the mackerel and extracted the part about the tabbouleh.

Tabbouleh (or tablouli, plus other spellings, I’m sure) is a Middle Eastern cold salad mostly composed of bulgur wheat. I well recall the first time I had tabbouli with bulgur wheat, in about 1966. A friend of my mother’s served it at a lovely luncheon (back in those days ladies did lots of luncheons in one another’s homes). At the time I was mesmerized by the delicious combo of the chewy bulgur wheat, lemon juice, cucumber and fresh tomatoes. My DH doesn’t care much for tabbouleh, or I’d make it occasionally, but then, it’s really high in carbs, which we try to limit. So that’s why this recipe – made with cauliflower instead of bulgur wheat – looked like such a WOW recipe. I had to try it, pronto. My DH still didn’t like it, but our guests were totally mystified about what it was – one thought it WAS bulgur wheat.

This version is a bit different than the traditional tabbouleh that I know, since it contains smoky paprika, shallot, sherry vinegar and preserved lemon. No lemon juice. I may add a squeeze of the juice if I make it again, just because I like lemon juice so much, and it’s a required ingredient in my book. What I started with was one of these new-fangled colored cauliflower heads. It was a gorgeous golden yellow color even inside. Made it more interesting to look at than traditional white, but it did taste the same. The recipe came from Jason Wilson, chef at Crush, a restaurant in Seattle.

If you’re looking for a way to use vegetables, in a different way, this will fool lots of experts. They absolutely would NOT know this is cauliflower. Yes, there is a tiny bit of crunch to it – I mean, the cauliflower is raw – but cauliflower is mild to the tooth. You drop the florets into the feed tube of the food processor fitted with a coarse grater attachment – no pressure to be on it – allow the pieces to shred all on their own. The photo here shows what the shredded cauliflower looks like.

Then you make a fragrant small pan of oil, garlic, cumin, paprika and shallot. It’s cooked very briefly, then tossed in the cauliflower. After that you add the other ingredients: just the rind of some preserved lemon, mint, tomatoes, sherry vinegar, parsley and chives. That’s it. No cooking other than the minute or two with the garlic and fragrant spices. Different? Yes. Tasty? Yes. Repeat it? Well, maybe, maybe not. I fiddled with the proportions (more tomato, parsley and mint), but that’s all. I used very little preserved lemon, but maybe it was too much. The dish had a quite tart taste. Lemon juice in lieu of sherry vinegar might be better too.
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Doesn’t everybody need one more recipe for preparing zucchini? I really like the stuff, and this recipe was so easy to make and my DH nearly licked the pan. I’m sorry I didn’t buy more zucchini so I’d have leftovers. The recipe that gave me the idea was from a 2003 issue of Gourmet magazine. But I doctored it up some (adding thyme, lemon juice, Italian parsley and fresh mint the second time), so I suppose it’s really my own recipe now. My DH said next time I should add even more lemon juice. Guess that could be at your own discretion. In any case, I liked this a LOT and will definitely make it again. I have an Oxo brand mandoline and wrote up a post some time back about how much I like the thing (besides the fact that it was only $70 rather than $250 for the fancy French models). I set the dial for 1/8 thick and sliced away. It was done in no time.

The only caution: don’t overload the sauté pan. Reason: because the slices are thin and a bit more awkward to turn (not like using a spoon to just stir it around) the ones at the bottom would get done too quickly and the slices on top would still be mostly raw. Use tongs and a spatula to turn them over about every 30-45 seconds. If you’re in a rush, do two pans at the same time. When the zucchini is still raw, they’re kind of like thin planks and it’s just a bit more time consuming to rotate and turn, that’s all. I made these again last night for guests – I used a combination of zucchini and yellow crookneck squash – and added the mint to the mixture, which was very nice and eliminated the zest. This recipe (and variations of it) will become a regular member of my veggie repertoire.
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In preparing a dinner for guests the other evening I wanted something bright green on the plate. Regular broccoli didn’t sound right. Zucchini would have worked, but I wanted something brighter. Lots of other veggies flitted through my mind, but none seemed just right until I thought about broccoli rabe. Seems like it’s only been the last 5 years or so we can even FIND broccoli rabe (rapini) in our regular markets. Sure enough, found some easily enough. I always thought broccoli rabe was just young broccoli, but according to wikipedia, it’s its own genus, more related to a turnip than broccoli. Mine sure looked more like broccoli, so I wonder if our stores are selling young broccoli or broccolini and just calling it rabe (or raab, or rapini). Mine didn’t look anything like the photograph at that site (theirs is mostly leaf; mine was mostly stem).

In my rush to get dinner on the table, though, I forgot one step. I followed the recipe just fine from step two on. I just forgot to blanch the rabe beforehand, so it was a tad bit on the crunchy side. Still good, but the stems were a bit firm for my taste and everyone else’s, for that matter. But I like the preparation – garlic, red pepper flakes, some chicken broth and pancetta. I didn’t use the pancetta because it would have been superfluous with the Zinfandel Sausage Sauce with pasta I’d made. Hopefully next time I’ll remember to blanch it first! I definitely liked the sauce on the rabe and it was quite easy to make once you start.
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