I was in the mood for some kind of fancy burger. I perused my to-try recipe collection, and up popped this recipe, from Food52 for a Japanese style burger (they called it a chopped steak) with an unusual sauce of caramelized onions, tamari, sake, Madras curry powder and ketchup. What a combination, I thought!

If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you’ll notice an absence of much of any Japanese influence. I eat sushi once in a blue moon, and only if it’s tuna or a California roll. I spent a couple of months in Japan years ago (1965 to be exact) and I wasn’t particularly enamored with the food. Tempura was good, but even then I knew it was rich and it didn’t appeal to me every day. If there were sushi restaurants in Japan when I was there, I sure never saw them. Probably the thought of eating raw fish made me cringe. Gyoza, however, I love. Fried, of course. I buy the ones at Trader Joe’s now and then and like them. I like my own better – they have more shrimp and pork in them, but oh, gosh, are they a lot of work. The TJ’s ones will do me just fine! I did make sukiyaki at home for some years after my 1965 trip, but even that recipe has disappeared and I haven’t craved it. Today sushi is king.

And, since we know from all the health experts that we shouldn’t OD on salt, I am careful about cooking with or using too much plain salt, or soy sauce, for instance. And with the scare about arsenic in rice, I also limit how much rice I eat.

All that leads up to the fact that this recipe appealed to me recently, tarmari included! As I write this, my best friend Cherrie is in Hawaii in a timeshare they’ve owned for years. She’s with her friend Jackie who also loves Hawaii as much as Cherrie does. Cherrie’s hubby, Bud, is fending for himself at home, so I invited him to come have dinner with me. Right now I have no working outdoor barbecue (an outdoor kitchen is under construction, and I’ll share the photos when it’s done) so it needed to be something cooked on the stovetop or oven. Bud is going to give me some barbecue lessons (you may remember I’ve mentioned here, that I really don’t know how to barbecue – Dave always – always did the barbecuing). I do understand the technique, but I need guidance about the brand of barbecue I have. Bud and Cherrie own the same brand (gas). I don’t know whether I mentioned it a week or so ago, but recently my cousin Gary flew down to visit me (stories on that soon) and his 2nd night here I defrosted a prime steak and I DID barbecue it. It took longer than I’d thought it would, but I think the fire wasn’t quite as hot as Dave would have used. But it worked perfectly, and the steak was done just the way I liked it – seared and charred on the outside – and at a perfect 125-128° temp on the inside, solidly pink with no gray anywhere. I was quite proud of myself. Back-patting here, okay????

A trip to the market ensued because I didn’t have the right combo of ground meats (half ground chuck, half ground sirloin), tamari, sake, and enough onions to make the caramelized ones needed for the burgers and the sauce. One thing I wondered about was what’s the difference between soy sauce and tamari. Well, not much, but tamari is generally less salty (good) and it’s also a thicker sauce than soy sauce (good in this instance since it was in a sauce). I also didn’t have sake on hand.

One thing you need to know about this dinner, if you haven’t made caramelized onions lately, is that it takes a long, LONG time to caramelize onions. And you’d be amazed at how much you start out with (2 1/2 cups) and what you end up with (about 2/3 cup). I forget how long it takes (at least 45 minutes) – good thing I started working on dinner at about 4:00. I took the photo before the onions were fully caramelized. I figured you’d not be able to even see them against that black nonstick pan if I took the photo later, when they were nearly the color of mahogany.

I made Marinated Tomatoes to go with it, and some nice steamed broccoli. (The recipe indicated sliced tomatoes, broccoli and rice are standard sides with this burger.)  Our markets are just now starting to get good tasting tomatoes, so I used Kumato again, because I really like their flavor. And I made an ancient recipe of mine for a French-style poppy seed egg noodle dish which I’ll post in a few days. I didn’t serve rice, as any self-respecting Japanese person would eat with this.

The gist of the recipe is as follows: you cook up a ton of onions (chopped) until they’re caramelized a dark brown but not burned. You mix up the ground meat, eggs, seasonings, some bread crumbs soaked in milk (which gave these burgers perfect texture, IMHO). Most of the caramelized onions are added to the burgers (reserving the remaining for the sauce) and you gently shape them into 6 thick burgers. I pressed an indent in the middle which worked like a charm for a more evenly flat shaped finished burger. I refrigerated the burgers on waxed paper at that point. Meanwhile I set up all the things to go into the sauce – easy. I made the noodle dish and that went into the toaster oven for 25 minutes. I’d already made the tomatoes and they were chilling in the refrigerator. I prepped the broccoli in my cute little Lekue steam case, drizzled lightly with oil. The burgers are sautéed in butter (not much) – seared to get a nice dark crust on one side, turned over to do the same on the other side. I used my instant-read thermometer to test the meat – I wanted it to be 130°, or even a bit under. The burgers were removed to a hot plate in a low oven while I mixed up the sauce. To the pan I’d fixed the burgers in I added the flour and curry powder and let that sizzle just a bit, then added the reserved onions, tamari, ketchup, sake (with sugar dissolved) and finally water. That just cooked slowly for a few minutes. I added a tetch of water (about 2 T) because it got thick quickly. That’s it. Burgers were plated and the sauce spooned over the top. Garnish with parsley if desired.

What’s GOOD: the flavor of the burger was stupendous. It was just tender, just cooked through, just perfect. The sauce was a bit salty tasted on its own (so be careful not to add too much salt to the burgers themselves, but they do need a little bit), but with a bite of the burger it was great. Altogether fabulous dish. It would be worthy of a company meal for sure. Not difficult for a weeknight meal except for the caramelizing of the onions.

What’s NOT: regarding flavor, nothing. Just know you have to stir and cook those darned onions for a long, long time.

printer-friendly CutePDF

Files: MasterCook 5+ and MasterCook 14 (click link to open recipe in MC)

Tweet

I don’t recall when it was that I first read about Earl Grey (tea) cookies (oops, I see I misspelled Grey in the photo). But I remember thinking hmmm, that might be very interesting. So, when I ran across a recipe for them at Food52 not so long ago, I decided to try them.

As it turned out, I came down with a cold 2 days before I was supposed to hostess a group of friends at my home for a book review. In this group the hostess obviously IS the hostess; she also selects the book, and she reviews the book too. So if the hostess gets sick, well, there’s trouble in River City! And I was sick. I’m sick as I write this – on day 3 of this cold. One of my friends agreed to have the group at her home. I took these to her – these cookies and the new cream cheese brownie batch I made also (all prepared a week ago before I had any symptoms, even, of a cold). I also took her all my notes so she could try to lead the discussion. It all worked out fine, she said, and everyone really enjoyed both cookies.

These guys were truly easy to make. But, you do need a coffee (spice) grinder, or in my case I have a coffee grinder that’s used only for grinding up herbs and spices – it’s never used for coffee. So, first off, I selected which Earl Grey tea I was going to use (Republic of Tea) and I put the amount needed into the grinder, and let it whirl. Make sure you grind the tea into a complete powder – not just ground up like coffee. You want it to almost disappear in the dough – although with a dark color, of course you can’t do that. In the cookies in the photo, you can see the tea in it, obviously.

There at left you can see the tea ground to a fine powder. It probably could have been chopped even finer. Remember, Earl Grey has bergamot in it – and I don’t know whether they use bergamot flowers or also some of the twigs. If there is any question in your mind about whether it’s ground up fine enough, grind it some more. In a cookie I ate, I did find a little tiny bit of grit – so perhaps I didn’t grind it enough myself.

In the original recipe you were offered the choice of using coconut oil as the fat in it, or butter, so since I couldn’t find my coconut oil, obviously I had to use butter. There’s also 2 ounces of cream cheese in this. Otherwise, it’s a relatively standard shortbread kind of cookie. It was chilled for awhile (I ended up chilling it for a couple of days). But it does need to be warmed slightly in order to roll it out. I didn’t get it rolled out uniformly (see picture) but it didn’t seem to matter to the flavor. The dough was quite sticky, so I had to use flour with every smaller amount I rolled up.

The cookies are baked at 375°F for 10-12 minutes. Mine were done at 11 minutes, but your oven might be different. They are baked on parchment paper and you do have to allow them to rest for 10 minutes or so before removing them from the pan. I was able to fit this batch onto two half sheet pans. They freeze just fine too.

In the original recipe the originator of the recipe likes to make sandwich cookies with chocolate ganache in the middle. That sounded richer than I wanted for a morning event, so I just left them as is, and I was certain the chocolate would overpower the tea. They were delicious as is.

What’s GOOD: the subtlety of the tea – you have to concentrate to even taste it. I think it would be really nice with some Earl Grey tea – I haven’t tried it that way as yet, but I have some in the freezer, so I will on some cool morning. They were easy to make and certainly different!

What’s NOT: nothing at all.

printer-friendly CutePDF

Files: MasterCook 5+ and MasterCook 14 (click on link to open recipe in MC)

Tweet

Since I’ve made cream cheese brownies by an age-old recipe for a lot of years – and liked them – I thought why should I try something different? But as I read about the development of the recipe, I concluded that there probably was sufficient reason to try them.

With an upcoming group of ladies coming to my house for a book review, I decided to make these a week or so ahead. As I read the article in Cook’s Illustrated, the recipe developer talked about never being completely satisfied with the old recipe – it produced either a dry-ish brownie with a soggy kind of cream cheese middle, or the cream cheese part was chalky and tasteless, or the brownie part was wet and too dense. Or even worse, she found the brownies overpowered the subtle flavors of the cream cheese layer. So, off she went to figure out how to make these a better way. And indeed she did.

The pictures at left: (1) the foil slings; (2) the brownie bottom layer with the cream cheese batter poured over the top; (3) the cream cheese layer has been spread out, then a reserved amount of the chocolate batter is poured on top and then – (4) it’s swirled just 10-12 times, and (5) baked.

Here’s the more detailed directions. First off, you prepare a foil sling for the 8-inch pan (no, don’t use a 9-inch, please!). Get those foil liners folded just right and they fit perfectly. Pressed into the sides and corners, you spray it with baking spray or grease it with butter if you’d prefer.

Then you make the cream cheese filling – it’s easy – the cream cheese is briefly warmed in the microwave, then mixed with sugar, sour cream and a tablespoon of flour. That gets set aside.

Next is the chocolate – it’s melted in a small bowl in the microwave with butter. Then you mix up the main part of the brownies and add in the chocolate. This 8-inch pan uses just 4 ounces of chocolate. That’s all! A small amount of the batter is set aside, then you spread the cream cheese filling on top and dollop the remaining chocolate batter in 6-8 blobs and using a kitchen knife, you swirl it all, leaving a 1/2 inch edge unswirled. Into the oven it goes for 35-40 minutes and they’re done. The brownies need to cool for an hour in the pan, then once removed from the pan still in the foil slings for another hour. So, NO, you can’t eat these immediately! I let them cool a couple of hours, then cut them into smaller than the directed size. I thought my book group friends might like a smaller sized brownie, so I cut the pan into about 1 1/4-inch squares.

What’s GOOD: indeed, these cream cheese brownies had just the right distinction of brownie (chocolate) and cream cheese (filling). You could definitely taste the cream cheese part, but you could also taste the chocolate, but it wasn’t overpowering at all. I used Valrhona chocolate (just about the best out there). These were just delicious. Definitely worth making again.
What’s NOT: nothing in particular – it does take a few extra dishes to make the 2 different layers, though.

printer-friendly CutePDF
Files: MasterCook 5+ and MasterCook 14 (click on link to open recipe in MC)

Tweet

Today is a holiday. Not usually a day I’d choose to write sad stuff. But it’s what’s on my mind. If you don’t want to know the details about my grieving process, skip this post!

Later today I’ll be with friends, thankfully. I’ve had a few emails, and a few comments this week from some of you, my readers, asking about how I’m doing. With the grief thing. Three days ago I would have said I’m doing really, really well. Today, not so much. There’s simply no predicting. Last week at my grief class I said I was a 5 on the scale of 1-10. I was really proud of myself.  Too proud, probably. Then a bunch of little things happened.

(1) First, I’m still buried in paperwork. We had/have a living trust. And although trusts are designed to protect some of the assets couples own (they do and it will for me), they also carry with them a “burden” of paperwork after the death of the first spouse. My Quicken program just wasn’t cooperating in trying to do the online handshake with my bank. It took me 2 weeks to sort that out with my bank. Way too long. Now I’m starting with the monthly reporting the estate attorney needs, and I must backtrack them, date wise, to when my husband passed away. None of it is difficult. It’s just that every check I write, or arrange to pay online through a new account I was required to open, must be categorized and accounted for. Like many of us, I pay a lot of my bills online and many are automatic. All those have to be changed to this new account. Tedious work. Never the same from one firm or utility to the next. Time consuming. Frustrating. I’m continuing to work on it, but it’s just a whole lot of work and none of it is any fun. I am/was the financial person in our marriage – I paid 99% of the bills, did the tax preparation, etc. My darling husband would have been dumbfounded by all this work. He wouldn’t have known where to begin. He’d have just sent all the bank statements to the attorney and let them charge their $165/hour paralegal and $650/hour attorney fees that would have accompanied that work.

(2) Next, a couple of days ago I had a little phone snit with an insurance company about a very old bill. From 2012. The bill I just received was from our pharmacy – claiming that our insurance hadn’t paid what was owed on this small monitoring equipment Dave used for measuring his blood sugar. All the way back that long ago. Right after Dave died, I paid it just to get it out of my hair ($142), but then got billed again for it. So I started digging. The pharmacy said our secondary insurance company didn’t pay. So I called the insurance company, only to find out that their files don’t go back to 2012. Really? They claim they never received the initial bill from the pharmacy or notice from Medicare. However, to go back that long ago (even though this is a new bill) I’d have to go through some kind of written claim to get the ball rolling to re-bill them. The pharmacy won’t give me my money back. I explained to the kind lady (she really was kind, but couldn’t really help me much) that my husband had recently died and that I’d paid it in error. Well, sorry. No, we can’t give the money back. I hung up and burst into tears. It just was overwhelming. That one thing should not have overwhelmed me, but it did. It became my tipping point, the edge of the precipice. Or the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’m detail oriented. I keep notes and records. But Dave’s not here to ask. He probably knew all about it. And would have had a ready answer. And probably would have told me NOT to pay the bill. But I had, just because right after he died I wasn’t coping very well with anything. After I had a good cry, I just said “oh well,” it’s over and done with, and I’m simply not going to fight the insurance company over $142. I’m going to let it go. But it put my emotions into turmoil. After working frantically the night before on balancing the new checking account and laying awake half the night, I was tired and cranky. I don’t cope well when I haven’t slept well.

(3) In the process of calling this insurance company I had to go find Dave’s secondary health insurance card. I went to the “Dave box” I have and found his wallet that I had put there right after he passed away. And memories came flooding into my consciousness. I’d handled his wallet before – it had been on his bureau for the week he was in the hospital, but after he died I put it in a safe place. I hadn’t touched it during that time. The wallet itself wasn’t myundoing – it was looking at his driver’s license (and the picture on it) and handling the few plastic cards (I’d already cut up the credit cards in there), but also a couple of little notes in his handwriting. A couple of receipts from when he’d been to the grocery store for me a couple of days before his stroke. My mind and senses were filled with memories, and tears came afresh to my eyes. In the back was $32 in cash. I’ve left the bills there. I simple can’t take them out yet. Maybe next year. These are silly things – and some spouses would find my actions peculiar, perhaps. Some widows or widowers will identify mightily with my emotions and actions or lack of. For every grieving spouse, the actions and reactions will be different. And that’s okay. But my tears were very real and quick to spring from my eyes.

(4) Then, lastly, the other night my griefshare class had it’s final gathering – week 13. Each person talked, as we always do, and when it was my turn to share about how I am this week, I said “last week I was a 5, but this week I’m a 3.” Not very good. I explained in brief about the accounting stuff I’m doing and the frustration of it all. And about fighting with an insurance company. But also, I said, I need to  say that I’m blessed to have a lovely home to live in, that’s paid for, and hopefully, enough money to live on for my remaining days, however many there are. I didn’t go into any further detail. I do thank God for those blessings. We watched a 30-minute video about heaven. About what scripture tells us heaven will be like. Among many other things we were told that we won’t be married in heaven. Our loved ones will be there, but it won’t be anything like our earthly life.

Then we adjourned to another room for a potluck dinner, which was very, very nice. Lots of good food brought by all the class attendees and the two leaders. During that, we were asked to share a funny story about our loved one. I talked about Dave’s proclivity to never let a few facts get in the way of a good story. He was famous for that. Next we were asked to share something we gained from our relationship with our loved one (two women in the class had lost a father, the remaining are widows or widowers), but not something material. Like many others around the table, I said that Dave gave me the joy of laughter. I’m a more serious person – he was full of jokes and smiles! The leader read 4-5 poems about losing a loved one. Then, the part that these two paragraphs are leading up to, she lit a taper candle and lit a votive in front of her and said “I light this candle in the memory of my husband, Doug.” Then she passed the candle. When it got to me and I struggled to get the words out, “I light this candle in the memory of my darling husband, Dave,” I burst into tears. Lighting the candle was so very symbolic. It was wrenching. After everyone had lit their votive, the leader prayed, then she asked each of us to – in silence – blow out the candle. That was my undoing. I sobbed. And they handed me the Kleenex box that makes its way around the table sometimes. This was my week to need the tissues.

I’m better today, but far from okay. As I keep telling myself, this is a process, and I can’t expect every day to be better than the last. It’s up and down, cyclical, but generally in an improving direction. Three months isn’t all that long and I need to give myself plenty of opportunity to grieve and cry. As my close friends know, I cry easily and I do. They’ve been kind to let me and not tell me things like “buckle up” or “it’s time to get over this.” Grief lasts as long as it needs to and can’t be rushed or predicted. So today is a better day and I’ll hope to have more of them. Thank you, dear readers, for listening to me. I hope that what I’m experiencing will help some other widow or widower who goes through the same feelings.

Tweet

In Mexico, this is a kind of comfort food – maybe like mac and cheese to us, or chicken noodle soup perhaps. It could be made without meat, but usually it’s made with chicken. It’s a great way to use up some leftover chicken that’s already cooked, like a rotisserie chicken. Fideo? Know what that is? It’s a little, tiny pasta noodle – like angel hair. What’s also on top is a Mexican white crumbly cheese, a Mexican kitchen staple – sometimes you’ll see it sprinkled on top of enchiladas.

You may recall that I had a Mexican fideo soup at a Nordstrom Café recently, and vowed I’d research it and find a recipe. There are lots of recipes out there, but I finally settled on this one  from a blog called www.azucarandspice.com that I thought would have more flavor and texture than most of the others. Maribel’s recipe, from her much beloved grandmother Elvira, has lots of little tips and tricks to making it, all of which I included. I did, however, take a few liberties with the recipe – I liked the carrots that were in little cubes in the soup I’d tasted, and although most of the soup was a puree, there were a few pieces of things in the soup I had at Nordstrom’s, so I only blended about  2/3 of the total amount so there was still some texture from onion, celery, leeks and carrots.  I also added a can of enchilada sauce – not traditional – but I thought it added a bit of extra flavor. And lastly, I sprinkled some salty Mexican cheese on top. I used Queso Fresco, but Cotija would be really nice too. Cotija is saltier and a bit drier cheese. They’re both good, however.

What’s fideo? That’s pronounced fih-DAY-oh – and it’s just a tiny little pasta noodle, much like angel hair. Let’s briefly talk about fideo . . . if you have a market with some Mexican staples on the shelves, you might find a cellophane package of pre-cut, short fideo (I did, see photo below). But it’s not necessary to find a Mexican market – just use angel hair pasta and break it up into small 2-inch pieces.

Fideo soup is a fairly easy soup to make – the only different thing you must do, to make it right, Maribel’s way, is to toast the raw pasta in a little bit of oil. See photo at left. This is the same technique used for making pilaf, when you toast the rice and pasta in oil. That process hardens the pasta a bit, also gives it a nice golden brown color (just be cautious you don’t burn it) and therefore it takes longer to cook. This soup is simmered for nearly an hour after you add the pasta – normally pasta would cook in about 7-8 minutes, but toasted this way, the pasta doesn’t get mushy.

I made a nice, big batch of this, and since it definitely is NOT soup season right now, I packaged it up, except for the single serving I ate that night, and it’s all in plastic ziploc bags in the freezer. It will stay there until the fall when the weather turns cooler. My guess is that every good Mexican cook (maybe even bad cooks) know how to make fideo soup. Not everyone, though, uses all the different steps in this one that make it so good. Thanks to Maribel, you now know how to make it her abuelita’s (grandmother’s) way.

What’s GOOD: it’s just a good, tasty soup – enriched with chicken and the little pieces of pasta. Easy to make – easy to freeze too. Very comfort food. You don’t have to serve anything with it.

What’s NOT: there are a few more steps to this than just pouring in a bunch of raw veggies and adding broth, but it’s worth it.

printer-friendly CutePDF

Files: MasterCook 5+ and MasterCook 14 (click link to open recipe in MC)

Tweet

My friend Maggie sent me a link to a video the other day. Do I eat bananas regularly? Well, every week or two for sure, but by golly, I never knew how complex they are to grow, harvest, sort, pack and ship the product from Costa Rica here to the U.S. I found the video fascinating. And no, Dole didn’t pay me to post this! The image above I found online.

YouTube video from Dole

Click on the “Skip the Ad” at the beginning to get right to the video. It’s about 5 minutes long.

Tweet

Need an easy, but gussied-up way to fix chicken – easy enough for a family meal, but also special enough to serve to guests? This is a great recipe to fit all those parameters.

Watching a recent Ina Garten program, she prepared a chicken dinner (anybody who follows her shows knows Jeffrey loves chicken, right?). It was an anniversary dinner that they ate out on their patio (don’t you all want to be invited to her house for dinner?). Ina reminisced about when they were first married and lived in France for awhile, and she learned to make chicken somewhat like this recipe. I took liberties with it. In essence it’s her recipe, but she used skin on, bone-in chicken pieces. I used boneless, skinless chicken breasts. It worked. She baked hers, I pan-sautéed mine for a flash of time and dinner was ready. The Brussels sprouts took more time to cook than the chicken, but only by a few minutes.

What was different about this – was – you whiz up the panko crumbs in the food processor. Now, I have to ask the question . . . when Ina and Jeffrey were first married (that was in 1968 – I looked it up) I don’t really think they had panko crumbs in France. You think? But okay, she’s updated the recipe, and I’m glad she did. (I love Ina, don’t get me wrong, and I didn’t save the episode, so maybe she said she had updated the recipe . . .I don’t remember.) So, anyway, into the food processor go the panko crumbs, garlic, salt, pepper, thyme (I didn’t have fresh), lemon zest and once that’s all finely minced, then you add a little tiny jot of olive oil and butter. This is IN the food processor. With the panko crumbs. What this does is slightly moisten the panko crumbs with fat and allows the crumbs to brown to a nice golden brown (see picture below) all over – not just where you might have poured some oil into the pan. Actually, she baked them. I did add a bit of oil to the pan also, but I used a nonstick pan.

And, because the panko crumbs are much finer (from time in the food processor) they give the chicken a less dense coating. But before the chicken goes in the pan you prepare a mixture of Dijon and dry white wine. It’s a kind of a slurry (not exactly thick, but certainly not like water, either) and the chicken is dipped into that, then put into the panko crumb mixture.

As I mentioned, Ina baked her chicken (but they were bone-in pieces, remember). I could have done that too, but it just seemed simpler to pan fry the breasts. I also pounded the chicken breasts before I started – to an even 1/2 inch thickness, so they’d cook evenly. Another of those wonderful Phillis Carey tips that I use for any chicken breast recipe I make.

Do cut into the breasts to make sure they’re cooked through. If you question it, use an instant read thermometer horizontally into the thickest part of the breast meat and cook the breasts to 155°. Serve immediately. Do try to serve it with a bright green veggie of some kind – the chicken is a bit pale on the plate. I did Brussels sprouts, but broccoli, green beans, asparagus would all work. Or a green salad.

What’s GOOD: how easy it was to make – I’d definitely make this again. It was super-tasty, and because I watched the cooking time, they were cooked perfectly – still juicy and not a bit of dryness to them.
What’s NOT: some folks might not want to fuss with making the mustard slurry or the panko mixture (you do dirty up a few dishes in the making of this) but the result is worth the trouble, I think.

printer-friendly CutePDF
Files: MasterCook 5+ and MasterCook 14 (click on link to open recipe in MC)

Tweet

If you’re a convert to the joys of Brussels sprouts (I’ve always been a fan) that are pan sautéed, then you’ll like this recipe a lot. It uses halved Brussels, a whole-grain mustard vinaigrette and some chopped up dried cranberries and almonds for crunch and flavor. Really delish.

With a package of Brussels sprouts in the refrigerator and a dinner to prepare, I hunted through my to-try recipes and came across this one. I adapted it some (didn’t have dried blueberries; opted to pan sauté them rather than cook them in water first; didn’t have Manchego so I subbed Parm). The mustard vinaigrette was first on the list to do – an easy mixture. It was a bit too oily for me, so I added in a little more lemon juice than called for. I also used more garlic. The original recipe comes from a restaurant in Pasadena called La Grande Orange, located adjacent to the main-stop train station there. It’s a great restaurant (have eaten there and enjoyed their signature sangria and salads). Anyway, this is a veggie dish, but can also be dubbed a salad too. I served it hot, but you know Brussels sprouts – they cool quickly, so they were at room temp within a couple of minutes.

In the original recipe the Brussels were simmered in water. I like pan roasted ones, so I added a tablespoon or oil to a huge nonstick frying pan and got them nice and brown-blackened. Meanwhile I made the vinaigrette, chopped up the dried cranberries (very few) and the almonds (raw, only a little bit) and shredded Parm. I did add a bit of water to the Brussels to get them just cooked through, then dumped them out into a serving bowl and drizzled on the tiny bit of dressing and added the garnishes. Done. Easy. Definitely a make again veggie!

What’s GOOD: Well, I love Brussels sprouts almost any way they come. My DH’s good friend Joe was here for dinner and he said he wasn’t much of a fan of Brussels sprouts anytime, but he really, really liked these. He had 3 servings if that tells you anything. I gave myself a very small serving at first, but I dug in for a few more myself. And I’ll be having the last few for tonight’s dinner.

What’s NOT: nothing, unless you don’t like Brussels sprouts!

printer-friendly CutePDF

Files: MasterCook 5+ and MasterCook 14 (click on link to open full recipe in MC)

Tweet

If you’ve been a reader of my blog for any length of time you know I don’t usually FRY things. Sauté yes, but really fry in oil, no. My bottle of canola oil gets used mostly for salad dressings. But I just decided to do something different. In the background on the plate above there are the dry-pan roasted green beans that I’ve made 10 times in the last 6 months they’re so good. And easy.

I searched around the ‘net for “pork chop recipes”, and southern fried pork chops were the top 8 or so. Really?  So I clicked over to several (one on epicurious, and two others from blogs, but were almost identical. I kind of made my own way once I got the gist of the main recipe. A flour-based breading mixture is made (flour, cornstarch, herbs, salt, pepper) and set aside. Another is made with an egg and some milk or buttermilk. The pork chops are dipped first into the flour, then egg, then back in the flour, and ever-so gently placed into the 1/4 inch of medium-hot oil.

One thing I learned (and don’t know if it’s true) is that when you fry foods like this, it’s best to raise the heat of the oil in a gentle manner – i.e., use low heat and then raise it over the course of 10 minutes or so. If you turn the flame up to high right from the get-go, you’ll end up with oil that’s too hot. Some of that makes sense, but some of it sounds crazy. Heated oil is heated oil. Isn’t it? Any of you chemistry types out there know?

Anyway, the pork chops were dutifully dipped in the proper pans and lowered into the oil, and they were done in no time flat. One of the bloggers mentioned using a heat test before you start cooking – dropping a pinch of the flour mixture into the oil – if it bubbles, then it’s hot enough. And during the cooking you do only want the oil to bubble around the meat and not burn the coating.

The cornstarch in the flour mixture gives the breading/coating a lighter texture. Not exactly like a tempura batter, but not far from it. It was nice. I liked it. I used seasonings in my flour mixture (other than the usual salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika that was in most of these recipes). I reached for Penzey’s Fox Point Seasoning and added a couple of teaspoons. I don’t really know that I could taste it once it was fried, however. So you could use whatever suits you – like an Italian blend perhaps – or don’t add any at all. In the South I think they’d go for the plain stuff (salt, pepper and garlic powder).

The pork chops bubble around the edges as they’re frying. Be sure the chops aren’t touching – I used a pan that probably could have held more – because several recipes stressed that the chops need lots of space around them. They browned in no time flat, so I turned the heat down just a little bit and turned them over and cooked the 1/2 inch thick chops about 4 minutes per side – my guess. I didn’t time it. It was all by color.

What’s GOOD: how easy it was – only time consuming thing was mixing up the coating mixture. I got everything else finished before I even started the pork chops so I wouldn’t be distracted. They were really good. Not in the “outstanding” category, but it was an easy, quick dinner that was satisfying.
What’s NOT: well, some folks don’t like frying – like deep frying – although these weren’t deep in oil – I used only about 1/4 inch (half way up the chops).

printer-friendly CutePDF
Files: MasterCook 5+ and MasterCook 14 (click link to open in MC)

Tweet

Are you ever just on overload with information? I get that way sometimes. And I was feeling information overload yesterday when I decided to catch up on reading blogs. I subscribe by RSS to a lot, including America’s Test Kitchen. Oh, I’m so glad I didn’t just skip this particular one.

One of the cooks/chefs at their kitchens had a thought . . . he observed that all over the test kitchen different chefs, when they used a wire whisk would use different motions with the whisk.

If I’d been working at their kitchens  you would have always seen me using a whisk/lift/circular kind of motion. I do that for everything I whisk just because I thought that probably was the right way. Ha, was I ever wrong. He saw people doing (1) back and forth; (2) stirring (with the whisk always in contact with the bottom of the bowl); and (3) my style, the around lift type whisk motion. So, to figure it out, they set up a test of making a vinaigrette, whipped cream and satiny whipped egg whites.

There’s a video about this – if you’re interested go watch it. It’s not long.

I was right in making just one thing – the egg whites. The round, lift motion of whisking IS the proper one for incorporating air into egg whites. You’ll get a lovely mound of satiny egg whites by doing it that way. Well, good. But then, on the other two – the vinaigrette and the whipped cream – no question, a back and forth motion is THE one to use. They give a scientific explanation for it – if you’re a chemist type you might like to read about it. Anyway, back and forth it will be from now on. Cream whips much faster with a back and forth motion. Vinaigrettes stay stable (emulsified) longer when using and back and forth motion. Okay. Learned. Done. Another nugget I need to store in my brain from now on.

Tweet