cooking @ home

Archive for December, 2007

©2007 Harry Kenney

Welcome to the second installment of a continuing series. If you missed the first one, you can find it here: Answers to Your Questions Not Asked. This is where you the surfer asked questions without actually asking me. You — or, I should say, “they” — placed search terms in the various engines and found themselves at my site. And through my server logs I found what they were searching for.

Most found the answers here they were looking for. That’s what search engines supposedly do well. However some of these searches, these questions, were not found on my site, but Google and the others sent them here anyways. It’s to those searches that as a community service, knowing there are folks looking for these answers, that I now direct myself to. And, as before, some searches are truely bizarre, and out there, and for fun, I will at the end of this article have some wise (or is it wise-guy?) answers for those sincerely confused folks.

Food, Wine, Recipes, Chefs

“how to get crispy skin on barbeque oven chicken” – I refer you to my very first recipe on this site: Roasted Orange-BBQ Chicken Leg Quarters where I deal with this, including a photograph on scoring chicken. To answer it simply though. Crispy skin comes from scoring the fat, salting it within a rub, making certain you don’t accidentally (or purposely) baste it in any way while it’s cooking, and high heat, either at the end or at the start.

“iron chef ramsey” – Gordon Ramsey is one of the primo chefs in the world, but he is not an Iron Chef. There is Iron Chef America and a decade ago there was the original Iron Chef in Japan. As there is no Iron Chef UK or Iron Chef Britain television show, Gordon Ramsey is not an iron chef.

“eggplant lasagna without noodles” – I’ve seen this search phrase as least twice. If it has no noodles in it then it can no longer be called a lasagna, it is then called Eggplant Parmagen.

“how to reheat meat and cheese stromboli?” – In an oven or in a microwave. Ovens are always the best to reheat something breaded, pizza included. Use 300 degrees Farenheit and place on a cooking sheet or baking sheet on the top shelf. Usually taks about 10 minutes for a few slices of pizza. Closer to 14-16 for stromboli, but every oven is different so check before these times given to be certain.

If using a microwave, see my article on Keeping Food Fresh – Wrapping with Common Sense espcially the section called “What Microwaving Taught Me”. In short, wrap in a paper towel for microwaving anything breaded. For stromboli, anywhere from 50 t0 90 seconds, depending on size of slice, how packed it is and if it’s a low- or high-powered (wattage) microwave.

“godiva chocolate liquor shelf life?” – This question keeps coming up over and over, oddly. I’ve seen it asked at least once a week! Are there folks are there who have or who plan to just never open this bottle for decades? Don’t get it.

Anyways, I stumbled across something talking about Bailey’s Irish Cream which was mentioning how it should be used up within 24 months as it had no preservatives “unlike Godiva”. So, if something without preservatives can last two years. And Godiva has preservatives, then I’m guessing yes you can bury it along with the Pharoah for his drinking in the after life.

A better answer would be, just drink the stuff already! Or find some good recipes to use it in. Or both. As I’ve said prevously, I like Godiva chocloate licquor in my chocolate chip pancakes. Seriously.

“do you drink red wine with lasagna?” – You can drink red wine with anything you want. Same with white wine. Same with a blush. In all seriousness red wine does go well with lasagna, even vegetable lasagna. You see, besides my mantra of do whatever you want, wine drinkers are starting to realize that besides red with meat, white with fish, that there are other ingredients that are, like meat and fish, heavy and light.

Lasagna with it’s rich zesty tomato sauce and heavy layers (even without meat) seems to ask for a heavier wine to go with it, in this case the general classification of red. So yes, go with it. I’d pick a merlot myself. And yes I think a nice dry, medium white like pino grigio would go well with it too.

And if you want to contrast instead of complliment (you can you know) go with a white zinfandel which despite the name is actually a blush and very sweet; you might find the sweet crispness counterbalances against the tomato acidity well.

This next one should almost go to the strange section. Why? It seems like a normal question. Well, it is for someone who watches too many television commercials or eats at malls primarily. I save it here at the end of the serious questions so I can rant a bit though.

“stuffed chicken florentine recipe with tomatoes” – You are obviously watching waaay too many Olive Garden commericals. Florentine does not have tomatoes in it. And don’t get me or any other cook and most certainly not any chef on the topic of “Olive Garden”, aka the degarlicizing and homogenizing of any robust or true ingredients to fit into some body’s idea of a warped 21st century version of Ozzie and Harriet’s limited and bland pallete for the American masses. The same kind of pallete that eats a nacho and the person thinks they have truely experienced real Mexican food.

I recall watching one of Ming Tsai’s programs, probably it was “Simply Ming”. And he had another chef on and they got discussing their early days and how both of them when they were younger chefs heard about this new chain of restaurants called Olive Garden and how they were both impressed … until they heard about how one of the rules was to use very little or no garlic in any of the Italian dishes. I recall Ming saying to his friend, who agreed, “Whew, we dodged that bullet, didn’t we.” Think that sums it up nicely.

Oh and if you want a real recipe on the subject, sans tomato bits, go here: Chicken Florentine

Strange But True Searches

“do buttermilk and milk have the same volume?” – No, buttermilk tends to like the dulcet sounds of Yanni and John Tesh, where as whole milk is a lot rowdier and listens to Finger Eleven and so it’s much louder.

Why this one came here, no idea … unless it got confused with my series on Cooking Math, still …

“is 2 equal to 1?” – Only on Tuesdays in which case you now have a Royal Fizbin … Or at least that what Kirk tells me. Spock however says this is a non sequitur.

“where do apple turn overs come from?” – Ok, if a Mommy Apple Turnover and a Daddy Apple Turnover really love each other, they put on some Barry White music, and ….

I swear these two below came two months apart. Same person? I hope not.

“london broil deep fried cook time?” – If you’re actually capable of deep-frying London broil could you teach me how to saute some boiled water?

“london broil comes from what part of the turkey?” – The British side of the turkey; usually on it’s mother’s side.

Lava cake, aka molton cake, aka volcano cake (hmm, I sense a theme here) … whatever you want to call it, it’s fun and delicious, rich though lighter than you would expect — a chocloholic’s dream. Women want it and want to run away from it at the same time (because they want it, you see.) Kids love it, so do guys. What’s not to love about a miniature chocolate cake that oozes out even more liquid chocolatey goodness when you cut in to it?

There seems to be two basic ways to make this cake. The way that’s most difficult (patterned on the original “mistake cake”) that can easily fail, and the way that guarantee’s success every time. Being one of these crazy people who actually expects things to behave the way they are supposed to be — you know, purchasing a watch with the expectation it tells time, a refrigerator that stays cold, crazy things like that — my version falls into the latter category.

Ah, but first. A quickie history lesson. Where did this delight come from? In America, at least, many agree it was chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten in 1987 when he was head chef at the Lafayette in NYC. Apparently, “he pulled a classic chocolate pain biscuit (sponge cake) from the oven too soon and it had a runny, but very delicious center” says Arthur Schwartz recounting the tale. Other’s such as chef Jacques Torres say the dish already existed in Europe.

That out of the way, I mentioned there’s two ways to make this, by that I mean there are probably hundreds of recipes but that they all fall into one of two groups. The first is similiar to that made by Vongerichten, where you have to time the cake perfectly within a 30 second window and not be several degrees higher or lower or you end up firming the center. To which I politiely laugh my head off at.

The second class is that which mine falls into wherein you need not be a chef skilled in the arts nor a nuclear scientist or have the so-called perfect oven. In short, there is a greater “mess it up” tolerance. Oh, you can still mess this up. I know this because I did it this time even. Fortunately another four minutes back in the oven cured it. (Two things: Do look at the photos at the very bottom to see the proper “doneness” to look for, and secondly, if I can still mess this up — and recover though — imagine how one could mess up the other class of recipes where there is no recovery from!) Not only that, mine is microwave reheatable. You see, this second class or style rests on simple common sense. Rather than partially bake something so the center remains liquid — ensure a liquid center.

Quick tip. Make more than you need. For one thing, you’ll love the “leftovers” the next day, for another, having one or two to “test” and make sure they’re where they should be (in terms of doneness) is a good idea if you’re serving guests. You yourself won’t mind eating up any mess over ones; they’ll taste just as yummy. And this way you can assure they will turn out. Again, with this recipe, you can just put them back in another four minutes or so if you’ve misjudged at all.

And of course, rarely one to leave a good thing alone without taking it up another, um, level … I had to add raspberry sauce. Both on top and on the inside. So it’s not just a chocolate lava flow, but it’s a raspberry chocolate lava flow. Simple to make. Easy to give away as a sorta food gift (though yes, I always want my ramekin back.) I don’t know if it’s possible to use muffin or cupcake pans, because how will you manage to get each out without it falling apart. Try to find individual throw-away muffin tins or minicake things. Really though, it’s worth it to get some ramekins if you can.

That said, this recipe is easy to reheat. And you are going to impress your family and guests immeasurably. Enjoy these outstanding little bites of pure decadence!

   Left: Not quite done. Right: Properly done.   

Chocolate-Raspberry Lava Cake
©2007 Harry Kenney

6 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped
6 oz butter
2 oz semisweet chocolate chips

1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3 eggs
2 egg yokes
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
confectioner’s sugar (for dusting)

Raspberry Sauce

8 tbsps raspberry seedless jam
1 tbsp lemon juice (optional)
2 tbsp southern comfort (or same amt. orange juice)

Note: This recipe is based on 6 oz. ramekin size.

Preheat oven to 350. Mix eggs and yokes and sugar together and cream. Over double-boiler melt bittersweet chocolate with butter. Slowly pour into beating mixture. Add flour, sugar, salt, and vanilla until well mixed. In sauce pan mix together ingredients for raspberry sauce.

With six ramekins, greased with butter, placed on top of baking sheet, fill the ramekins 2/3s to 3/4s of the way with cake mixture. Place 5 or 6 chocolate chips into the middle of each and sink. Pour teaspoon of raspberry sauce on top of chips, keeping to exact middle as possible. Leave a minute and let sink. Pour rest of cake mixture on top. Place in oven for 15-20 minutes until sides look firm and middle looks soft. (see photos).

When done, let cool about 3-5 minutes. Lightly go down edges with sharp thin knife, then turn over onto plate. Pat bottom gentely and let fall out upside down on to plate. Top each cake with one tablespoon of remaining raspberry sauce. Dust liberally with powdered sugar and serve hot/warm. Makes six servings.

What’s a great any-time appetizer and definitely a crowd pleaser? Stuffed mushrooms. Especially now, the “holidays” between Christmas and New Years when family and friends are more apt to come visit.

Want not one but two items that will not only impress guests but both are simple to make, taste delicious and can be done rather quickly? The first is Pancetta Wrapped Shrimp which can be done in under 20 minutes. And (bet you saw this one coming) the second one is stuffed mushrooms which can be made within 30 to 45 minutes.

Portobellos or the smaller ones, lately marketed as “Baby ‘Bellos” are perfect for stuffing. As with many other dishes (meatloafs come to mind) there’s probably a hundred different ways to stuff a mushroom, and this is only one of a handful that I like to make. I was originally intending to do this with bacon bits (real ones, naturally), but having recently purchased a container of finely-diced prosciutto and being undecided what to do with it yet, this lent itself perfectly.

So, spinch and cheese, and now Italian ham. What for a stuffing binder? Could do Italian bread crumbs, but I had still had some ricotta left over from my pie the other day, so that was perfect. Add some grated parmegena to it and little bit of onion for some bite, and wham. Although having mixed it up, even with minched garlic, it was lacking and a tad dull. To the rescue I added two tablespoons of marsala wine which rounded it out nicely and added a needed wetness. Still missing something, I opted for a recent favorite of mine, horseradish sauce. Just a tad. Turned out great.

Funny thing, this particular night I made these there were no guests — I was just in the mood for stuffed mushrooms and didn’t want the package I had in the fridge to wait too much longer and possibly go bad. So for dinner I took the remainer of last night’s fennel salad, some shrimp left over from a couple days ago when I had company over and added the stuffed mushrooms. Plus a couple of thick slices of Italian bread and some White Zinfandel, and voila a very very tasty and slightly different dinner.

Prosciutto, Cheese and Spinach Stuffed Portbellos
©2007 Harry Kenney

1/4 cup finely diced onion
1/2 cup frozen spinach (measured before taking all the water totally out)
1/2 cup ricotta
1/3 cup parmegan
2 oz. finely diced prosciutto (or ham or bacon or pancetta)
2 tbsps minced garlic
1 tbsp horseradish sauce
4 tbsps extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsps dry marsala
salt
pepper

Take off inner mushroom stems if present. Clean off top and sides of bello caps with a moist paper towel and ready. Mix all the other ingredients together in a bowl and mix well with fork.

Spoon mixture into mushroom cap with tablespoon. Now use clean hands to gently press as much as you can into cap. If lots of excess, return to bowl. Some excess, smooth around to form slight mound. Do this to the rest.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Place mushrooms on baking sheet face up. Lightly drizzle some olive oil on top and add additional pinches of parmagen. Place in oven for about 25 minutes. Cool slightly and serve hot.

The above is enough stuffing for roughly 8-10 baby portobellos. Mind you, sizes of these have no standard, so it could even be as little as 6 or as many as 12.

Fennel is one of those “strange vegetables” Americans just don’t know much about. Fortunately, as with many vegetables and many foods nowadays, there is a greater embracing of the culinary unknown — in short, where before folks would see something in a supermarket and pass it by, slowly more and more people are now not only avoiding them, but also seeking these items out.

So I was delighted to find in a single week the sudden appearance of fennel bulbs at both my supermarket’s produce section as well as my favorite produce speciality store. Interesting, in each place it showed up as, in turn, first “anise” and then “anise root” because of it’s taste.

To me, it has a consistency most like celery and somewhat like apple or potato, and a taste that is again somewhat like celery mixed with a bit of licorice. We’re talking mildly-flavored, of course. I don’t think something tasting robustly like licorace would be anything other than pungent. This versatile initially Mediterranean grown vegetable — and it’s more famous herb, fennel seed — is used from Spain to Greece, Morocco to the Middle East, to India and China (afterall fennel seed is often one of those mentioned in Five Spice Powder).

Because of it’s licorice like taste you would expect to see this in many a sweet dish and possibly a few savory ones. Turns out to be the absolute opposite about 20 to 1 in favor it being used in something savory, often in a sauce or soup.

I decided in this case to take advantage of both it’s celery-like consistency and it’s fruity (anise, anyhow) taste and make a light salad with it. It was a good choice. Definitely highlighted the taste of the fennel and showed me how it can stand up well against other flavors without overpowering them. No wonder it’s used in soups and sauces so much. Trust me, this salad — which is oh-so amazingly simple — will surprise you. My one “taste tester” who can never take anything too far out there — aka, different from the norm — loved this. So did I. So I’m betting will you.

Fennel Tangerine Salad
©2007 Harry Kenney

One medium fennel bulb, cut off top, take out inner core, slice into chunks
Three tangerines, peel, deseed, make into half slices
Half one-red onion, chunks (or a quarter one yellow onion, minced)
Half bag of assorted spring mix lettuces

salt
pepper
orgeano
basil
garlic powder

Mix together veggies in bowl. Add lettuce, season, place in refrigerator for 10-15 minutes so flavors mix and to add slight chill. (Do this with all salads) Preferrably top with bottled or fresh Italian dressing. Serves four.

French fries. Another item that is so very “all-American”, yet, as with the people who populate the U.S., it came from elsewhere. We just popularized it. How can anyone not like the quintessential “fry”. It goes with everything. Like it’s cousin, the potato chip, you put it on the side of something else and it turns whatever it’s accompanying into a meal.

And name any other food in the world in which all women will say they don’t want, but when your meal comes with fries, they will eat a third of them from your plate! Admit it, ladies. Guys, you know this is true.

Different Names, Condiments, Toppings

In America, sometimes the fry replaces the potato chips (as with a sandwich or hot dog). Sometimes it’s replacing mashed or baked potatoes next to a pork chop or even a steak (as in steak fries or steak potatoes already mentioned). And sometimes we just eat them by themselves. Not to mention the endless possibilities of toppings that turns it into cheese fries, crab fries (Old Bay seasoning, not actual crab meat), chilli fries, pizza fries or Mexican fries to name a few. And there is curly, shoe-string (super thin) and steak (thicker) ones as the cuts of the potato and slightly different.

Of course there’s also the region differences. In the Northeast part of the US where I live, you eat them plain or with ketchup. And when I crossed the Mason-Dixon line a decade ago and took a trip to Baltimore, I was shocked to find my burger and fries came with brown gravy dumped on top. I quickly learned afterward, if you don’t say hold the gravy in Maryland, it comes automatically without asking for it. And if you go further South, well I know that Paula Deen the Georgian television cook likes them with mayonnaise.

And, of course, (sigh) as with any talk of food, if it’s in America, then sure enough the Brits call it and it’s relations by totally different names, totally confusing things and requiring yet another discussion of “two countries, one language” — or so they say. (Yes, I know, and if you’re British then your point of view is the exact opposite, that those Yanks always have to mess with the Queen’s English.)

Where They Came From

In the United States french fries are thin sticks of deep-fried potato. In the UK, Ireland and the various Commonwealth counties, they are called chips. Also the sizes, shapes and thicknesses vary. The US one is usually the “thin style” of roughly 1/4 inch or less widths and fairly even, though sometimes long. The UK chips tend to be thicker and often shorter. As to it’s “cousin”, in the US, thin oval slices of deep-fried potato are called potato chips, while the same in the UK are called crisps.

As to their origin, it is of course a matter of great debate. Though it seems the so-called French fry probably comes from Belgium. Among the questions though are, is it Belgium that was the Spanish Netherlands, the Belgium that was part of France or the Belgium that was, well, Belgium. And depending on which, the French and the Spanish also claim therefore that they made them first. Again, though, it’s America that both consumes the most, and who via various foreign hamburger chains, have made the thin-width, longer, skinner french fries the version the world tends to eat. What gives me a little chuckle is when an English-speaking chef refers to them as pommes frites in the title of a recipe; I always think their egos be a little flattened that day and so they want to call everyone’s attention to their classical “culinary chops”.

All of that history, names, type of cuts, condiment or food add-ons said, it comes down to deep-frying. Sort of. Deep-frying is how they should be done, though there is also oven-baked from frozen when it comes to home cooking. Today I’m talking about the deep-frying, which involves a whole totally different way of cooking. So much so, there’s no way I’m going to cram all of what is involved into one recipe or even a single article.

It’s About Oils and Deep-Frying

So, I advise you to check out my recent article on Everything You Need to Know about Cooking Oils for now. And I’ll be adding in the near future a second one on deep-frying which I suggest you look at when it’s available.

For now, I’ll say use a good cooking oil with a high-smoke point. I personally prefer canola, vegetable oil or peanut. You will need specific equipment for this if you do not have an electric deep-fryer: A big pot that is stainless steel or cast iron or otherwise “non-reactive”, a deep fry or candy thermometer is a must, and either a spider (usually stainless steel or copper and looks a bit like a spider web with lots of thin wire, sometimes called a steel strainer) or a skimmer (wide, round, many holes, see accompanying photo). You should also have a brown bag and tons of paper towels.

As you see in my photos, one of the great things about having a galley-style kitchen as I do is it makes it easy to set up a “station” where you can cut the potatoes, have them ready for the fryer, and then space to set out a ripped brown bag, on top of which are paper towels for padding the oil off, and also for placing on a baking sheet to maintain the first ones staying warm while the rest are being done.

Worth It? Maybe

Two things I have to tell you. First, yes, these were absolutely delicious fries. Among the best I’ve had. The double-fry method used makes all the difference. And it’s difficult to beat fresh and warm and just-made. That said though, (the second thing, the sound of the other shoe dropping in some ways …) I’m uncertain if I’ll make these again. At least in this way. Why? It is a lot of work. And if you don’t already know one of my big items when it comes to cooking is the taste versus time equation. If something is tremendously better the long way than the short, I’ll go that extra mile. However if something is very difficult and time-consuming and the taste difference doesn’t likewise go up a similar number of levels, then I’ll take the easy way.

With this recipe, it was reusing the oil. It took over and hour and a half to pour 8 cups of oil into a small funnel with a coffee filter in it. Even if I had a really big funnel, there was still the size of the coffee filter. I know, maybe cheese cloth will work better, that and a large funnel. Maybe a microfine coned strainer is the answer. Or maybe, tossing the oil. But then ouch, the world’s most expensive french fries! Another thing, to not crowd the pan I did the first fry in six parts (that’s 6-8 minutes per) and the second fry was three batches for about 2-3 minutes. So, prep time, plus 50-60 minutes plus another 15. The mess and paper towels everywhere, and the long long time of filtering for reuse made this not worth it to me.

Anyway you’ve been forewarned. All in all, I’d rather either buy frozen and put them in the oven or I may try figuring out an oven-only method since I did really enjoy the taste of fresh. Now, I am not flip-flopping in the least here; just presenting the pros and the cons both for you to consider. One big reason you might want to do this is it is the best way to start out deep-frying. I mean if you’ve never done it before ever, or you haven’t for a quite some long time, what you rather mess up a bunch of chicken or a few potatoes? So, this is excellent “beginner training” or “refresher course” for someone getting into or back into deep-frying. And yes they will taste yummy. And if you’re willing to not reuse the oil or you have a better filtering system, go for it. Or if you doing it for a party or for four or more people. Or … it might be worth the investment and get an electric deep-fryer which is something else I myself am considering. Anyway, enjoy!

Homemade French Fries (Deep-Fried)
©2007 Harry Kenney

5 large or 7 medium potatoes (russets or Idahos)
6-8 cups of cooking oil (with a high smoke-point)
salt to taste

Place oil in a large stainless steel stock pot. Add and adjust thermometer on the side so it is not touching the bottom, 1/4 inch to 1 inch from the bottom is good. Turn heat on to high. Keep watching and if it gets past 300°F while you are still prepping/cutting, turn heat down to low.

Choose in your mind first the width you want for your fries, 1/4 inch thick or 1/3 inch. I went with the latter. With your (hopefully) starchy, large and ovalish potatoes, slice across the horizontal making several 1/3 layers. Place them down and now cut through this layer at roughly 1/3 inch apart. Let the length fall where it may. See photo. Into an ice water bath place your potato cuts as you make several. This not only preserves the color, but more importantly helps remove the starch making for a crispier potato for deep frying.

Keep an eye on the oil. If it’s under 300, leave burner on simmer, if it’s over 340°F, turn it off. For the first part you are aiming for 325°F. Continue with the next “level” you cut and the rest of your potatoes, each time you have several placing them in the ice bath. When everything is cut. Leave them in the ice another five or ten minutes, giving you time to set everything up for your stations. You need to have a place to put the potatoes and blot them dry with paper towels. Have them ready for putting in the oil. A place to put them when you take them out of the oil to drain off the excess oil, preferably using a combination of a brown bag and paper towels. And a baking sheet to place those in the oven to keep warm as you finish the rest. Turn oven on now to 200°F.

With fries dried well of moisture and oil at 325°F, place a handful or two of fries into the oil carefully. I suggest between 10 and 12 of these is a good number. You don’t want too much in. Your oil will drop with the addition of food into it. Keep an eye out and turn heat up and down to maintain close to the 325°F mark, neither too far down nor too far over. For this, time I found is a better indicator than eye-balling it for color. About 7 minutes take them out and place on bags/towels. Do not put the next batch in until your oil is once again at the target temperature.

When through with this batch, start again. This time you want your temperature to be at 375°F for your target. Be careful this time not to go over 400°F, if you do, remove the pot to a burner that’s cool, and place back in between batches. You can also add fresh oil in 1 cup increments to help cool, but this trick you probably don’t want to do more than twice as the most. For this second dip, eyeball for color more than time. Should take anywhere from 2-3 minutes (if you’re at the right temperature and over 4 minutes you have browned, tough fries). Golden brown you want.

Blot and place into baking sheet.as they come out. After a couple batches of these, place baking sheet on top rack of your 200°F oven to keep warm as the rest come out. Continue this cycle until done. Salt fries on baking sheet as desired. Serve as soon as possible. Though you can leave fries up to 30 minutes max in the warming oven. Makes about four servings.

Quick note: I said I would try to make up for the five or six days down with the virus with daily posting. That’s obviously not happening. Pre-Christmas shopping, wrapping, card mailing, house decoration and all the other miscellaneous holiday-related tasks are just taking way too great a toll on my time that I’m finding it difficult to do many of my normal things, let alone pushing it from an every-other-day posting to making a daily recipe or article post. Thanks for understanding.

Meanwhile some things you can look forward to in the near future. An article on deep-frying plus three deep-fried recipes, a chocolate raspberry lava cake, a review featuring chef Robert Irvine, plus I have in the house right now: mascarpone cheese, polenta, proscuitto, a large fennel bulb, yogurt, gelatin, white asparagus and a spaghetti squash. No idea yet what I’m going to do with each of them but it will be interesting. I’m also going to break-in my new KitchenAid Artisan mixer in style with a bunch of cookie making. Two I definitely know already I’ll be posting will be Italain cookie recipes that worked out fanstasticly in the past: biscotti and anginetti cookies. Til then … Happy Holidays!

As with meat loaf, I have several different ways to make beef stew, depending upon my mood du jour. Actually the ways are not all that different, so maybe variants or “slight variations” would be the more correct phrase. But this one is pretty much what I would consider the “master” verion.

There are so many great things about stews. Number one is they turn any tough meat into delicious meat. Second they bring together so many wonderful things — meat, vegetables, herbs, sometimes wine — into this well amazing orchestra, basically. For what is an orchestra but something which at times you hear (in this case taste) all the individual elements, and yet they also work in harmony with each other Kill me for saying this, but it’s music for your mouth and your stomach

You can use way inexpensive meat, such as ground beef, and turn it into something of a feast. Stew has to be the ultimate way to cook a budget meal for your family. Budget if you’re using beef chunks, and major budget-saver if you’re using burger. Stews are an excellent way to use up some leftovers, definitely leftover vegetables. Together they also form an amazing broth. I know whenever I make stew I use a tablespoon over a fork and I must have plenty of bread or rolls in the house to lap up every drop of that flavorful brew. It’s one of the ultimate comfort foods. And during the frigid winter, it just might become for that season the ultimate comfort food. And if you are into the cook a lot on one big day so you can microwave it multiple times the rest of the week, then stew is indeed your friend.

What more to say? Always sear your meat prior to putting it in the stew. Get it carmelized. If you’re using ground meat, this isn’t as necessary. What is more important for “hamburger stew” is drawing out the fats in the pan and putting the meat and the fat (aka, the flavoring) into the stew itself. But you don’t want it too dry either.

More tips: Chunky is better. You can also cut it into smaller pieces in your bowl with your spoon or fork. (No knifes here except for spreading margarine on your bread!) Sometimes I use tomato sauce as an important base element. Sometimes wine. Often both.

You’ll have noticed that I do not suggest using premade broths in my stew. But, why, Harry? Two reasons, the main one being: hello, it’s stew! — It makes broth, it doesn’t require broth! Second, the entire idea of adding broth to a stew reminds me one of those science fiction time warp anomalies. Adding broth to a stew means someone first had to make a stew to make the broth in order for you to now be making your stew! Yes, it gives me the same headache as when I hear about how if you go back in time to shoot your grandfather then you no longer exist and if you never existed then how could you have gone back in time…. Ouch! See what I mean?

Last tip or tips. Don’t be scared that this uses a lot of water. There is plenty of juices in the veggies and meats and all to flavor it. On the flip side, do not be shy with using your spices. With the exception of bay leaves in which a few can flavor two to three gallons of stew handily, when it comes to putting in your other spices, do it liberally. And yes I mean a lot. There’s a lot of water and a lot of food in there. It needs it to get around. Again, we’re going for eight quarts of stew here. A dash here and there is nice for a little meat chop or a burger, but it will be lost in all of this if that’s all you put in.

Finally, a word about the wine in this dish. Just the other day I did as the story lead up to a recipe where I talked about the statistics for alcohol evaporation in cooking. Compare that to this recipe. There’s about .75 quarts of wine among a total of 8 quarts of water, beef, potatoes, carrots, etc. When you take that with the statistics mentioned and stewing for about an hour and a half, that has now burnt off 80% of the wine. Considering how much wine is in this dish with the rest of the dish and that less than 20% of it remains, no, no one is going to get drunk. Remember, wine with food stops that. Even a little wine with no food it rarely happens. And how can you get more wine with food then wine actually in the food?

So for those of you who think I’m getting you drunk … well, it will either gladen you or sadden you to know, that it won’t happen with this dish. Enjoy, bon appetite and (hehe) salute!

Homemade Beef Stew
©2007 Harry Kenney

2 lbs chuck (or other stewing beef), chunks
(you can substitute ground meat for “hamburger stew”)
6 cups potatoes (about five large potatoes, I prefer the medium-starch potatoes), chunks
3 cups carrots (about five medium-large), cylindrical chunks
2 cups yellow onion (about 2 large onions), triangular chunks
2/3 cup celery (about 3 stalks), small chunks
1 cup frozen peas
1-1/2 cups Italian flat beans (or regular green beans)

8 or more cups water
1 cup dry Marsala wine
2-3 cups dry red wine (suggestion: Merlot)

16 oz diced tomatoes
6 oz tomato paste (or 4-8 oz of spaghetti sauce)
5 cloves garlic, crushed, cut finely

to taste:

salt
pepper
3 bay leaves
basil
oregano
garlic powder
onion powder
Worcestershire
hot sauce (or Tabasco)
cornstarch (if needed)

In your giant stewing pot, dutch oven, or other similar container that is going to be your “final” pot, put in the mirepoix, in other words, your onions, carrots and celery with oil on a low to medium-low flame and sweat them for 10 minutes. Do not brown. Meanwhile in a large pan, start browning your beef with oil and 3/4 of your fresh garlic, salt and pepper.

When your core vegetables are looking nice (and the onions going translucent), time to add 2 cups of water and a ton of seasonings including your bay leaves. Remember, you’re starting to season this not just for what is currently in the pot, but to some degree for what will be the entire pot, so go crazy with it. See photo above.

As your beef is browning and you’ve been turning it to brown on all sides, now add more seasonings and splash with some red wine. After a few minutes, toss in the main pot with the veggies. Add the potatoes. Add the Marsala and red wine and if needed, more water, enough to cover everything. Cover with lid, simmer on medium-heat.

After about three-quarters of an hour, add more water as needed. Mix around and taste. At this point you can usually tell how bland it might be and if it needs some kick to it. Add more seasoning if needed, including Worcestershire and or hot sauce to taste. Add tomatoes, and green vegetables.

Check on it about twenty minutes or so later. Again, add water or make any other seasoning adjustments, including adding tomato paste or sauce at this point. Add cornstarch if it seems too thin. Mind you, you are not aiming for gravy nor sauce, but you do want a very well seasoned not-thin broth with body to it. Continue stewing for another 15-30 minutes. Basically at this point you’re checking every 10 minutes until you are happy with it all. Besides tasting the broth, be sure to open up at least one chunk of beef and taste a bit of it to see if you agree with the consistency and taste of it to your liking. When you are happy with it, that’s when it’s done. Makes 8 quarts, feeds a small army or enough leftovers to last the bulk of a week.

If you’re relatively new to cooking — or not so good at it — you definitely must read this. And even if you’re an experienced pro, you too will no doubt find a few bits of information here that will surprise you. One thing for sure, when it comes to talking about cooking oils there is a surprising amount to say.

Don’t think so? At first glance it seems pretty short and cut and dry. There’s margarine and butter. And then there’s the oil you put in your frying pan, usually called vegetable oil. The end. Right?

Were that only the case. Ok, think about just this one element: What about olive oils? Oh, right, butter, margarine, vegetable oil and for some “Italian” flavoring olive oil. The end. …. No?

What about the oil dressing on your salad? What about flavored oils for, say, Asian food? What kind of oil burns at low temperatures? What oil is good for deep frying, say, french fries? And what about the dozen or so different cooking oils? How do they differ? What do they taste like? Why are there something like four kinds of olive oil and which is best for what? What’s the difference between refined and unrefined oils? Why does the saying “hot pan, cold oil, food won’t stick” work? When doesn’t it seem work? What about the health issues regarding saturated fats? Unsaturated fats? What is trans fat? Which oils have which? Is margarine or spreads actually worse than oils? Can some oils or fat lower your chance for heart disease? What do I need to know about oils and “smoke point”? What about flash and fire points? …

Have you said “uncle” yet? Ok, so we agree then; there is a lot to know about oil after all. Think about this too. Without cooking oil, there’s no oil, no butter, nothing but animal fat and raw meat. Everything would stick to everything and we would eating foods, meat, veggies, anything either raw, on a stick over a fire or boiled. There would be no cakes, no pies and only flat bread. After all, what would them together? Ok, you get the idea. Oil is a not an enemy, it’s a necessary thing we use each day and is found in most if not all of our foods each day. That said, let’s jump right in and learn more about cooking oils.

Health, Oils and Cooking Fats

It’s impossible to talk about cooking oils without talking first about fats. That said, the entire “fat thing” is very important to health, and therefore, it could be it’s own article or series of articles right there. Because it’s important, we’ll touch on it. But for in-depth reading on this subject there are other places that have gone into great detail and research. For now, the highlights or the “Cliff Notes” you need to know start with: There are four kinds of fats, saturated, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated and trans fat.

In short, what we know today is all the stuff they used to tell us about fats … toss that out the window. Most of it was not true or not fully understood. Proof of that an eight-year study where eating a low-fat diet did not prevent heart disease, breast cancer nor colon cancer. It didn’t even do much for weight loss. It turns out some fats increase chance of diseases and some fats actually lower the risk of disease and the key is to substitute good fats for bad fats.

Remember these basics: LDL is often referred to as the “bad” cholesterol. HDL is often called the “good” cholesterol. Saturated fats and trans fats are bad. Trans fat raises LDL. Saturated fats are worse, raising both the LDL and the HDL. Unsaturated fats, both polyunsatureated and monounsaturated are good fats. These lower LDL and raise HDL. The direction(s) you want to go.

Under “good” then comes the following oils: olive, canola, peanut, corn, soybean, and safflower among others. Under bad comes most margarines, vegetable shortening, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, and even butter. Also, with one odd exception, cooking oils do not contain trans fat, where as shortening and stick margarine made of 70% soybean oil have the highest trans fat. (For some of you, this probably turns your world upside).

More info you may not have been aware of: butter has the highest saturated fats of anything out there with the exception of coconut oil; and palm oil comes in a close third. Meanwhile cooking oils and various other combination margarine-type spreads all come as having the lowest amounts of saturated fats. (Remember though some of these spreads still do contain trans-fat where as the oils do not.)

Certainly shows cooking oils are overall the best way to go. For this article, we’ve explored fats enough now and will go on to other areas. But if you’re interested in more details and charts they can be found at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Note, obviously, all oil is 100% fat. Despite the various differences in oils, one thing is a constant. All cooking oils contain 120 calories per tablespoon. Also, fatty acids are required for good health in some measure. If we had zero fat in our diet, we would not be able to metabolize fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D, E and K in our bodies. In cold climates, greater amounts of dietary fat is required for greater survival.

Refined and Unrefined Oils

In researching parts of this topic I found some places will go into long explanations of the differences between refined and unrefined oils, detailing what types of heat or cold-presses or whatever went into these. Does the average cook need to know three pages on this? No. So, simply, this is all that matters:

Unrefined oils have a low smoke point, below 320°F. Anything that low you can’t use for deep-frying and you also have to be careful you don’t make your frying pan too hot. These are used for light sautes, low-heat baking, salad dressings and sauces primarily. They tend to be made to impart flavor, such as dark sesame oil which is used heavily in Chinese, Indian and other Asian cooking.

The refined cooking oils are the all-around ones we think about most when it comes to cooking: olive oil, canola oil (rapeseed oil), peanut oil, vegetable oil and the rest. Good for low to (depending) deep-frying and which usually impart no, little or slight added tastes to a dish.

Oil Flavors, Cooking Uses, Smoke Points

One thing we’ll leave out of this article — or rather, just touch upon — is the technique of deep-frying for two reasons: It really is a “specialty” in many ways and there are so many things you need to know specifically for that process, that all of that will be dealt with in a separate future article just on deep-frying. So other than “smoke point”, we’ll pretty much stick with basic cooking, pan frying and oven baking when we talk about oils.

I can’t totally avoid talking about deep-frying though or some things wouldn’t make sense. One often deep-frys around 375°F. So a cooking oil at 400°F is not desired for deep-frying because the oil can easily rise that 25° quickly, even with a careful eye on things, and that’s it, burnt oil. So even though a smoke point of 400-410°F might sound good in theory as they are over the level for cooking — they are actually for me and most cooks too close for comfort and should not be used for deep-frying nor for high oven baking.

Unless otherwise mentioned, oils listed below tend to have a smoke point of 450°F.

Olive Oil. Starting out with this one since it’s the one that has all those different sub-types. Extra virgin olive oil has the lightest taste and the lowest smoke point at around 406°F. Virgin is slightly more robust. Extra light has a high smoke point. The lightest work best in salad dressings and good for cooking with a slight taste. The “heavier” ones are often too strong for simply putting on foods that are not cooked or even those that have been cooked; they are best used in the cooking and only if you want a robust carry-over flavor. Myself I use only a single type of olive oil for everything, extra virgin, and that keeps it simple.

Safflower Oil. Clear and nearly flavorless. Often used in salads as it doesn’t solidify when chilled. Good for all cooking. All purpose.

Sunflower Oil. Light flavor. High in polyunsaturated fat. All purpose.

Canola Oil. Similar to safflower. Mild flavor. 400°F smoke point. Often the least expensive and also the lowest saturated fat at 6%.

Peanut Oil. Very subtle flavor and scent, can impart a nutty, roasted flavor. Doesn’t absorb nor transfer flavors. Excellent all around oil. Contains 18% saturated fat, the highest among oils (though low compared to margarines, butter, lard and vegetable shortening.) A cook might need to consider if anyone eating the food has a peanut allergy is a singular drawback to an other-wise excellent oil.

Corn Oil. Nearly tasteless. All purpose. High in polysaturated fat it’s often used for salad oils, mayonnaise and put in margarines.

Soybean Oil. Very mild. All purpose. Almost 80% of anything labeled vegetable oil as an ingredient in a commercially manufactured product contains this oil.

Vegetable Oil. A blend of different refined oils that is designed to have a mild flavor and a high-smoke point. That said, it’s no higher than any of the other oils.

Food Sticking in the Pan — Part One

I’m taking this right off, as I couldn’t explain it better. This comes from the Office of DOE Science Education and Division of Educational Programs (DEP) of Argonne National Laboratory.

“Question – There is an old saying in cooking, “hot pan, cold oil, food won’t stick.” It is a true statement, but I can’t come up with a plausible explanation as to why. Why does food tend to stick to a pan if the pan and the oil are brought to the proper temperature together?

“[Answer:] A small amount of oil added to a very hot pan almost instantly becomes very hot oil. The oil quickly sears the outside of the food and causes water to be released from the food. This layer of water vapor (”steam”) lifts the food atop the oil film and keeps it from touching the hot pan surface. If the oil is not hot enough, the steam effect will not occur and the food will fuse to the (too) cool pan surface.”

Food Sticking in the Pan — Part Two

What happens when, for whatever reason, you seem to have done things correctly and the meat is sticking to the pan?

I’ve read this in one place and I’ve since heard this on television a few more times. To quote chef Tom Colicchio from his book “Think Like a Chef” on the section where he explains the proper way to pan roast: “Brown the food on top of the stove, in a pan with a small amount of oil, at about medium heat. [...] Don’t worry about the food sticking to the pan during this step. If you pat it completely dry first, use only medium or medium-high heat, and be patient, the food will release itself from the pan when it’s browned.”

Try it. The chefs are right. I put this to the test a month or so ago when I was making my braciole recipe and since it was going into the oven after a nice sear in the pan I was not using my non-stick pan but one of my anodized aluminum ones that would be able to withstand the oven heat. In other words, a plain old pan. I put it on medium-high, poured in olive oil, took my braciole rolls and put them in. When I thought it was time to lift and turn them, they all stuck. So I remembered this and “left them alone”, meaning I would come back every minute or so and lightly see if I could move them with my tongs. When I got resistance I stopped trying. Finally, they would let go on their own accord. I’d give the steak logs a quarter turn and repeated the process until they were done and ready for the oven. In short, it worked, to my amazement, it actually worked.

So there you go. Except for deep-frying, there you have nearly everything you need to know about cooking oils. Hopefully you’ll find this of value next time you’re in the market and trying to decide what oil to purchase for what purpose, and hopefully that parts about “sticking” will help you become a better cook too — especially those of you new to cooking — and not leave scads of seared meat clinging to the frying pan or wondering why the oven is smoking because you used the wrong oil for your high-degree baking!

You might recall I mentioned before that one of my earliest “dishes” I ever made was simply baking some chicken breasts in the oven and five minutes before they done pouring creamy Italian dressing over them. It was simple and delicious. Well, if that was the first-ever dish I made back in my teens. Then this one here would no doubt be my second one. And likewise is both super simple and delicious. And as you see, one that stood the test of time and that I still make today.

You’ll also see one of the key components in this is liquor. Yes, I do love my liquor — when cooking. Why? It’s an ingredient. It’s very flavorful. Remember extracts, vanilla extract and the rest also come from liquor, and they are likewise very potent tastes, that is,they pack a lot of flavor in a very small, concentrated amount.

So, you’re going to ask me what’s the children’s version of this? Or you might be wondering can you give this to children? In which case you’re probably actually asking one of the most-asked questions when it comes to cooking with alcochol: how much actually stays in the dish and how much is actually burnt off? While prevailing wisdom and tales handed down throughout the years say most of the liquor is cooked off immediately, it turns out that’s somewhere between an old wife’s tale and an urban myth.

Here then, from the USDA, are the actual facts on alcohol or liquor burn off during cooking:

Ok, so back to one of the first questions, can I give this to children? Your call. What does your family do? In Europe, and we Americans often think first of France and Italy, children drink wine and such while quite young and it’s socially-acceptable. Here in “the States” in the past generation such things have been considered a no-no. Although (and I say this with no proof, pun intended) that there’s a more calming down of late as this is not the worse thing in the world, in other words, I think it’s becoming slowy more socially-acceptable. But then in private in the home with family such things always were more accepted. The upshot (no pun this time) is it’s a family thing dependent upon house to house, family to family. So I leave it up to you.

And finally to the last question: Substitutions for liquor in this particular dish? And, as writing compresses time, it’s taken me a while to think up something. For the very reason I said, alcohol like extract packs a ton of flavor in a small amount of volume. I’m thinking you could try nectar. Hit the Spanish section of your supermarket and grab one of the fruit nectars in a can made by Goya. That would probably be the best. Juice? Juice is so watered down. If you have a can of apricots, the syrup would work better than juice (and less than nectar or liquor). All I can say is two things, if you really must, and secondly, taste it for yourself and see if it works. I’m guessing it’s passable as a children’s topping with juice, maybe Maybe a teaspoon of corn syrup and juice. It needs something not only for flavor it needs something to give it body.

Let’s go with nectar first. Juice or syrup combined with a small amount (teaspoon, maybe) of corn syrup is probably second. That said, I’ve never tried it either of those ways and since I’m not America’s Test Kitchen I probably won’t. Let me know, seriously, how either or both of those works out. And if you’ve come up with a different or better substitute.

Hot Apple Topping over Ice Cream
©2007 Harry Kenney

1 apple, peeled, sliced into thin chunks
butter
1/4 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup Apricot brandy (or peach schnapps or apple schnapps)
   (non-alcoholic substitutes: nectar, syrup or juice plus tsp corn syrup)
ice cream, preferrably vanilla

Into a small sauce pan on medium heat place in butter, let it melt and add apple slices. Turn and cook until softened. Add sugar and cinnamon. Cook a bit longer. Remove pan away from heat, add in liquor, place pan back on heat another minute or so. When apples are softened but not limp, and there’s a thin sauce, it’s done. Spoon atop ice cream and serve immediately before ice cream melts. Makes two servings.

If you’re a regular follower of this blog — first, many thanks!, and second — you’ve probably wondered why no posts this week. I got hit by a virus — two in fact — badly. Long story short. I’m surfing, I go to a seemingly normal web page, wham, my anti-virus goes off. Eventually this trojan (BHO.CVX) locks out Window’s restore capabilities, then later disables my ability to log on the web for two days. Three days later and most of it cleared out and boom, a second “time bomb” virus (Packed.Morphine.d) planted by the first one goes off, and it’s harder to kill then the first was. How did it get in? Through Google’s toolbar. You see, browser toolbars leave coding holes that make it easy for viruses to attack you. That said, Google still touts theirs. I say, do not install any toolbar and if you have any installed: remove them! You’ve been warned.

That said, I make no promises but I will definitely try to make up for this week by posting a recipe or article each day for the next week to catch up. Thanks.

I wrote before about where cooks get their inspiration, and it comes from a variety of different sources. Sometimes you just look at one simple item and think of it as an ingredient and say what can I do with this that’s different than I’ve done before. I recently did that with London broil. (Yes, I know London broil is actually a method of cooking and not a meat, but the super markets do not know that.) I thought, I can do the broil thing, I can do the mini roast thing … Hmm, it’s a slab of top round, I know, I’ll make braciole.

Often it’s two ingredients: If I were to put this and that together, what other things would highlight those, or in what varying ways can I make things with those. I have mushrooms and I have wild rice. I could make a pilaf, I could stuff the mushrooms, I could add veal or chicken and it becomes something else yet again; and this way of thinking continues until you have more ideas and then finally settle on which one to do that day. (And remember the others for the future.)

On another note there a couple of pairings that I’ve found out are fantastic. And they are not two normal ones. For instance pork and apple is a familiar duo, but I found something else that goes as well or better with pork. Another example might be chocolate and orange or chocolate and raspberry. That’s actually two duos, well known. But I came across something long ago that goes as well with chocolate and yet one rarely sees the two ingredients together. No, I won’t say what at the moment. (I know, I’m a spoils sport.) Only because I want to “play” with these in different combinations. When I come up with dishes that really rock, trust me, I’ll let you know via my recipes.

But, there you go, that’s another kind of inspiration. These two go well, but there are few or no recipes (instead of hundreds), and so I need to figure out myself what’s the best way or ways to bring the flavors of these out with my own recipe ideas.

Sometimes it’s someone else’s recipe and what you have on hand. “Hmm, I just saw Emeril make this Hawaiian dish using seaweed, well you know, I don’t like that part of it, but hmm, fish and maybe spinach instead. Yeah, that sounds good. Now how would I proceed would be like this…” That is how the process works.

Lately, I’ve been staring at five pounds of red bliss potatoes and five pounds of russets and going. There’s a million things I can do with these I’ve never done before … and yet I keep doing the same 12 or 14 things. I run over to the Food Network website and it tells me there are 3,346 recipes involving potato in one form or another. Funny, sometimes it’s when you have too many options you end up drawing a blank. In this case, I’m either going to just go through a few hundred til something hits me or I’ll think of a style (deep frying?) or another item (carrots? garlic?) to go with it to help me narrow down my options a tad.

Sometimes you want to really taste something, especially something new to you, in a basic form. Few ingredients, no “lost in the sauce” or have it fighting with or masked by other ingredients either in number or in their strength of taste.

Recently I finally after a long search got my hands on some mascarpone, that creamy Italian cheese, and then, with thousands of ways to use it, from sweet to savory, I “stood still” not knowing what to do with it. Yet again, too many choices. I boiled them down to wanting something simple enough that I could actually taste it. In other words, after such a long time finding it, I didn’t want it smothered or lost. I wanted something “basic”. Few ingredients. I picked puff pastry with a mascarpone-apricot filling. Three ingredients. Delicious! (And I could see why cooks like mascarpone so much, finally. It’s as versatile as ricotta in that it could be used for sweet and for savory, but less grainy, almost a butter. Whereas with American cream cheese, one tends to only think of sweet connotations.)

I did the same recently when I finally got a hold of pancetta. I could use it in tons of dishes, but now that I had it, I really wanted something basic so I could get a good taste of it. Wrapping it around shrimp was my answer there. Mmmm.

Other times cooking inspiration works when you take something you have, and something you know, but you do it differently. Hmm. For instance, Thanksgiving and a ton of leftover turkey. What to do with this? My thinking went this way. What, other than turkey dinner, does one usually see turkey as a part of? And from there, what ingredients therefore go well with turkey? My first thought was turkey soup. It’s noodles and it’s mushrooms. Ok, but I don’t want to do turkey soup, what else — now that I’ve pegged two ingredient combinations that go with it — can I come up with instead? And this eventually led me to my Turkey Mushroom Pasta thingy.

I’m explaining this thinking process because maybe this will help you get inspiration on your next dish.

What else do you often find turkey in or with, I asked myself. The only other item that came to mind was the turkey club sandwich (sometimes known as a triple decker). Ok what are it’s ingredients? Turkey, bacon, tomato, lettuce, cheese, toast, and mayo. Now, as I did with the pasta dish, what knowing those various elements of a turkey club might inspire you to make? In a moment I’ll tell you one of my thoughts, but before then, stop and think what you might do.

I can think of a few interesting and somewhat unique variations knowing those flavors go well together. To me, a pizza with turkey and bacon might be a winner. It’s got the toast (the pizza dough), the tomato (in the form of the sauce), it has the cheese. Hold the mayo. Now it can stop right there, or, if I want to keep the original lettuce in mind, I might say fresh basil or even wilted spinach. (We also already know from Florentine cooking that spinach works with cheese.) Now, I haven’t made this — yet. So I cannot say from experience that this tastes good. But, in theory, breaking down the component flavorings and whipping them into something totally new, I’d bet a “turkey club pizza” should taste marvelous!

Remember when I said come with your ideas, pick the one you’ll do today but don’t forget about your other ideas for the future. Well turkey club pizza is on my list for the future. Now how about you? What is going to inspire you today? A single ingredient, a combination, someone else’s recipe, trying to take several normal ingredients but putting them together in a way you never have before, or getting something from the market you’ve never eaten or cooked and looking up recipes on what other folks did with it? Doesn’t matter what inspires you as long as you’re inspired, and the only way to be inspired is to allow yourself to be, to be open to it and say I’m going to try cooking something new today I never did before.

I really do get annoyed when my market doesn’t have exactly what I want. Which happens too often actually, but what can you do? You play with the cards your dealt with or you fold or you find another game. I did what I’m often (grrr) having to do, the first. This time it was uncooked shrimp and I wanted them larrrrrrge. Big-butt. Jumbo. Prawn-like. I had to suffer with 31-40s, the only size they had at the moment, and the only ones in the store, and they didn’t even have enough to make a full pound. Sheesh.

What kind of rookie-league outfit were they running here? Why don’t I have a fish monger near me? So you take what you can get. What’s the saying? When life gives you a lemon make lemonade.. Or, with me, it turned out make margaritas!

The dish is so out-of-this world, I think I’m in a mood to do my Emeril impersonation. Bacon-wrapped shrimp? Nice, oh yeah. Let’s take it up a notch. Pancetta-wrapped shrimp. Mmm. Delicious. What? Still another notch, you say? Fine. Let’s get it drunk. Let’s give it margaritas. That’s right, tequila and lime marinated pancetta-wrapped shrimp. Bam!!

Not sure how much I’ve talked about marinades before. If I have, I’ve probably only glanced at it. To be brief, I love what I call quick marinades. Yeah, yeah, I know. A lot of cooks seem to start out by saying “… and place this in the refrigerator for at least eight hours … better yet, overnight”. I dunno about you, but I have nether their kind of patience nor their kind of planning skills. If I’m going to do a pork loin sometime tomorrow evening, the last thing on mind is, let me go defrost it and marinade it right now. Then let me do all that, put it away and still I have to make dinner. Nope, just doesn’t work for me.

And their version of short of 8 or 10 hours? That’s worse! Let me go marinade some chicken while I’m trying to figure out what I want for breakfast. Sorry Charlie, I want a cup of coffee and a danish or an egg, I am not in the mood with playing with frozen-butt raw chicken at nine in the morning. Uh-uh. Ain’t happening!

What does work for me? You guessed it — quick marinades. But Harry, that doesn’t give it enough time, one might say. Fine. It does give it a lot more flavor than if I hadn’t done a thing at all, is my reply and I’m sticking with it. But, says the “purist marinader” (is there such a thing?), you’re breaking all the rules. And I say: hell, yeah. I do what I want to do. And I’ve told you there reading this before: do what works for you. Do what tastes good for you. You don’t want to marinade, don’t. You want to marinade your buns off, hey, stick it in there a month (ok don’t). But do what you think works for you. You don’t always have to listen to whatever one else tells you. And that even goes for me. Ignore what I said. I’ll try not to loose too much sleep over it.

Next: indoor “grilling”. Natch if the weather is great, do this on an outdoor charcoal grill by all means. As this was December in the Northeast, I did it inside on my stove top grill. If you don’t have one, use your grill frying pan (a frying pan with grill lines). If not that, a “stick” frying pan. Huh? You know, the opposite of non-stick, a non-non-stick pan. Cast iron preferably, if not, stainless steel. You will never never never (did I mention never?) get any “grill” action from a coated pan that makes juices in the pan instead of evaporating them. If you’re brave you could use the broiler. But I don’t like the chances of burning up a pound of shrimp, especially wrapped in pancetta. If you want to take the chance though, more power to you.

Another thing I want to touch on …. In a way this particular recipe seems very high-end and gourmet, simply because “shrimp ain’t cheap” and pancetta is even more costly. But think about it a moment. Ok, a pound of 31-40 shrimp was six bucks a pound. The pancetta was five dollars for four ounces. I used some of it in another recipe, leaving me with 12 slices which were halved and used on the shrimp here, about two dozen of them. The left over shrimp we had unwrapped. And this fed two people lunch. (You didn’t really think that was my usual hands and arm in the photos did you?)

Now, tell me outside of McDonalds where can you fed two people lunch for USD $11? So we had an upscale “gourmet” lunch for the price of fast food. Upscale? In one sense, definitely. And yet, if you look at it the other way, pricey? Heck, it’s almost a budget meal when you break it down. Look at it another way, how much would this have cost at a restaurant? I’ve seen six jumbo shrimp wrapped in American bacon go for $12. Pancetta would probably bump that to, what, $18? Now times by two, don’t forget drinks and tips, and we’ll forget about transportation. Anyways, as you see, money well-spent. And this is why you should be cooking at home!

Besides even were it a lot more expensive than it turned out, I’d have still done it and enjoyed it. Why? Harry’s rule: Every now and then you have to treat yourself. You deserve it. And if you can do it with company, all the better.

Pancetta-Wrapped Margarita Shrimp
©2007 Harry Kenney

1 lb uncooked shrimp, “large”, 31-40
4 oz pancetta
salt
pepper
vegetable oil

marinade:

1 cup tequila
2 tbsps fresh lime juice (1/2 lime)

Place shrimp in a ziplock bag or other container with the tequila and lime juice. Place in refrigerator for 30 minutes. Take out. Dump marinade. With paper towels, pat shrimp dry. Leave out to warm up to room temperature five minutes.

Season the dried shrimp. Take pancetta, cut in to even halves. Carefully wrap as many of the shrimp as possible; 4oz pancetta will wrap approximately two dozen shrimp. (No toothpicks to hold. Careful handling and heat will hold all but one or two on.) Preferably use the stove top grill or an uncoated iron or steel pan at medium-high heat. Use vegetable oil or butter-spray to coat surface. Place on grill or pan with plenty of space to turn. About three minutes on each side. Serve.

If this is the only food, it makes a nice lunch for two. Goes with red or white wine or beer or margaritas. Fresh cut loaf of bread on the side would be great. With other appetizers or sides etc, can serve more. Double or triple this recipe easily for upscale party snacks.

You can substitute bacon but if you do and with shrimp at this size, should be thin sliced. If larger shrimp you can use bacon at the normal thickness, cut it into thirds or quarters instead of halves, and figure one additional minute for each side in grilling time.