Archive for August, 2007

What is the difference between a parfait and a trifle? Well, first, this is actually a British trifle as they contain lady fingers, where as the American version, one thinks more of ice cream. Nowadays they are fairly interchangable words. That having been said though, one can still easily a web forum full of people arguing strongly as to which one it really was. Myself, I always like to go with the an alliteration when given the choice.

What is this then? It’s a multi-layered desert in a glass. Note: A trifle can be done directly in the glass, but is often done in a (you guessed it) trifle bowl, and then put into glasses. The idea as you see is two-fold. First, the repeated mention of glass is an easy clue that this is a desert to be as much relished by the eyes as it is by the tongue.

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I personally enjoy white wines over reds. Some say I must not have a cultured palette therefore. I tell them take a long walk off a short pier. I like what I like. You like what you like. Neither of us is wrong. It’s called a preference. Take your snobbery elsewhere and stuff a cork in it.

And then to really tweek the wine snobs — that’s not why I do it, again, it’s my preference — when I do have red wine, I like mine chilled. No doubt that statement is sending many a sommelier into a hissy fit on the light side, and for others a full-fledged turrets syndrome attack. C’est la vie.

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Where does cooking inspiration come from? Well I can only say where it comes from for me. And it’s a variety of sources. Hmm, before I go on, I should explain. I’m not talking about following existing recipes, I’m talking about making my own up.

Often they are inspired from other recipes. I might be watching at television cooking show and say, hmm, that’s interesting. But you know, I’m not sure I really like that particular ingredient. I think if you switched that with this, it would taste much better. Come to think of it, I’m not too impressed with that second ingredient either. Not only would this other thing go better with theirs, in my opinion, but with the first switch, this would defnitely enhance that as well.

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I guess if I had to choose what was my so-called signature dish this would be the one.

This recipe wasn’t inspired by anything I saw elsewhere, just the ingredients at hand. I had a lot of left over ricotta and didn’t want to make another desert with it; in other words, I’d already done sweet, now I wanted to do something savory. There was chicken on hand, and frozen spinach too. Aha, florentine. The incredible sauce came about as an after thought initially when I had made way too much stuffing. And then the sauce was so wonderful it just had to be put on something, and thus came the idea for egg noodles as I was tired of putting things atop the usual pasta or rice, and the noodles seemed to lend itself better to it. (That said, you could substitute fettucini I’m betting, but still, how often do you have an egg noodle dish? So I’d still go with the noodles as my number one choice.) It’s my very own version of a classic and so rich and tasty, I tend to even over-eat this meal at times.

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I love and I hate this show sometimes. I’m talking about the current season of “Top Chef” shown on Bravo. Make that shown and shown and reshown and shown again so much on Bravo that it’s beginning to appear the have only one show in their lineup. Enough with reruns of the reruns all week

From what I’m seeing, the judging is all over the place lately. This week, with Tre, I hate to admit it, but they were 100% correct. Did Tre have a bad night, yes. How bad? Three items bad. What about last week? I recall the over-smoked potatoes and something else wrong. That’s two weeks in a row, not one.

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What makes for great cooking? Two simple things: How it’s cooked and what’s in it. And when it comes to the latter, we need to look at the concepts of complimenting and contrasting.

Whether it’s making a single dish or the entire meal “go up another notch” lies in the complimenting and contrasting. Let’s bring this down further. Complimenting is comparatively easy, contrasting isn’t. And of the two, it’s the more important element. And that’s what we’ll be concentrating on.

My favorite definition for “contrasting” I’ve found is “to set in opposition in order to show or emphasize differences”. When it comes to cooking, then, make that: “to showcase or emphasize flavors”.

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Here’s a bit of a departure. This recipe uses pretty much all off-the-shelf ingredients to make a nice quick meal and a trip for the tongue to another country’s cuisine.

Yes, I like fresh. But I also like fast. So what happens when they conflict? Which one wins out? Pretty much the same answer as everyone else: When the difference in the end taste is comparitvely small and the difference in the time to make it is relatively great, then go with the quick one. (And conversely, if a little bit of increased time produces a much more tastier dish, then go with the fresh.)

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You can probably do this with a can of pineapple rings … but … they’ve been so long in their own syrup, it might not work. Probably would work in a pinch. Not as well, but well enough. (One day I’ll try it and let you know.) In any event, when in season, I love fresh pineapple. How can anyone not?

Ok, you’re wondering where the photograph of the finished product is … I don’t have one this time. Enjoy the one here of them on the grill and use your imagination. What happened? Family and friends were literally taking these out of my hands as I was finished making each one! Not making this up either!

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This is one of those meals I had way long ago. It was my first big vacation when I was out on my own. It fell at the end of September, top of October and my initial choice of the Bahamas looked to be too shaky with hurricane season. So I took my second choice first: Santa Fe-Taos area of New Mexico. Why? What’s not to love? American Indian pueblos, a church bell cast before the Pilgrims landed, Indian art, cowboy art, the home of Georgia O’Keefe, southwestern cooking, adobe houses, you name it.

It was also the first vacation I took solo, and learned the art of eating by one’s self. And one of the things they all suggest for dining alone is to slowly savor the food. Maybe that’s why I remember one of those meals, this one, so well. Maybe that’s in part why I became a “foodie” and then got into cooking. Anyhow, this is my best effort recreation of that awesome breakfast I had one day in some restaurant in Santa Fe. I think it turned out pretty delish if I say so myself.

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We all love fresh herbs. And yes I too highly recommend them. But let’s face it. We can’t all just walk down the street or hop in the car and get fresh herbs every day. Sometimes not even every week and with a three to five day shelf life, very often life intrudes here in the real world enough, that by the time you’re finally ready to cook that put-off (and put-off and put-off) dish you’ve been wanting to do, you go in the fridge only to find wilted, blackened or spotted, but definitely unusuable herbs. So often, it’s the dried herbs and spices we lean on to get the job done. And you know what? There’s nothing wrong with that! We all do it.

Here’s some of my thoughts about those things that make food go round. Spices and liquor.

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Now we all know I like to keep things simple. That doesn’t mean we can’t make some gourmet dishes or what’s called cuisine sometimes. It also doesn’t mean that we can’t buy some fancy gadgets or extra appliances. I mean let’s face it when you really get into cooking, you start to really want some things beyond the so-called “norm” of an average kitchen.

That said, simple is still good. And right now I want to share a few things I like that are simple. Are not expensive. Make your cooking easier on you. Makes your kitchen look a little pizzazz and gives you more control while cooking. What more you want in life: simple, makes things easier, cheap and more control.

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If I had my druthers, the best way to do this recipe would be on my charcoal grill with the lid down — the perfect combination of flame and air moving all around the poultry. But that’s not the goal of this recipe. The challenge I set up for myself here was how to get a BBQ-like chicken with savory, crisp skin in the oven. (Cause not all of us are crazy enough to shovel through three feet of snow at 10 degrees F and use the outdoor grill in the winter. Or, for me the day I came up with this, it was was a 98 F day with 85% humidtiy. I’ll take the indoors with AC blasting and an oven on, then cooking by a roaring fire outside, thank you.)

This is one of those ideas that took two trys to nail down, call them version one and two. As I am known to say, you learn as much (if not more) by your mistakes. So I’m sharing it with you because like me, you’ll pick up some ideas when you run across these problems again. I certainly know I’ll be keeping these solutions in mind myself next time and at least avoid these same errors. (As always, you can feel free to skip down to the bottom and get the “unvarnished” recipe. Or take the ride with me and continue reading. Your chice.)

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