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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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?

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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.

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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.)

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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!

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