Minestrone Soup

We found this recipe in an old classic Italian cookbook stashed in the kitchen of our new apartment. (This is an old post... just getting it up now... sorry.)

While the soup bubbled away, we snacked on rillettes d'oie with mustard and caperberries.

We ate the soup with grilled steaks (flatiron, blade, or paleron steaks) on the side.

Mushroom Duck Noodles

We used the leftover duck confit and rendered duck fat for this very easy, tasty one-pot meal. The veggie is frisee, but you can use any hearty green-- this frisee was a bit too hearty for salads, but cooking it down made it tender and delicious. The cilantro and mint brighten the rich duck flavor.

You'll need:
leftover duck meat from 2 legs, or confit some (see link above)
2T duck fat
1 large onion, sliced
6 cloves garlic, sliced
1 bunch frisee
1c oyster mushrooms
2T dark soy sauce
fresh egg noodles
cilantro
mint

Heat duck fat until melted. Add onion and sautee until caramelized, about 10 minutes. Add garlic and mushrooms and saute until mushrooms brown, about 5 minutes. Add duck and saute until crispy. Add frisee; cook until wilted. Add noodles and dark soy sauce; stir to coat. Serve, topped with chopped cilantro & mint.

Duck Confit

I've always wanted to do my own confit, but had never really gotten around to it 'til now. Hank Shaw's post on Simply Recipes convinced me to finally do it: perfect confit in only two hours! How could I pass that up? And the best part is, this really was the best duck confit I've ever had. Tender meat, super crispy skin, plenty of fat leftover for future cooking.

You'll need:
duck legs (1-2 per person)
salt
a pin or small sharp knife

Prick the skin on the duck legs all over with a pin or pointy knife. Don't go all the way to the meat-- you just want to make little holes for the fat to escape through the skin. Sprinkle pricked legs with lots of salt and let sit 20-60 minutes.

Place duck skin side up in baking dish that's just large enough. Put in oven at 300 degrees (don't preheat) and let cook slowly for about 90 minutes.

When the skin starts to look crispy, crank up the oven to 375 until it's really crispy-- about 10 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool 15 minutes before eating.

If there are leftovers, eat the skin off of them *now* because it'll never be as good again.

Winter Cabbage Soup

This soup tastes nothing like its name sounds. I had a lot of cabbage in the fridge from making minestrone recently, but I didn't want a cabbage diet kind of soup, nor a brothy mush of stringy cabbage. My solution was pureeing the soup using this weird blender/food processor-like object found in the cupboards here; it's incredibly useful, a small bowl with a blade and a top with a small motor. The results were a creamy, hearty cabbage soup, sweet from tomatoes and spicy from a little red chili added at the end, perfect for a winter appetizer or light lunch.

You'll need:
3 small onions, sliced
2 shallots, sliced
8 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 head cabbage, thinly sliced
1c white wine
1/2 can whole tomatoes in juice
4c chicken or veggie stock
a pinch of sugar
a pinch of nutmeg
a teaspoon of hot chili powder
chopped parsley for garnish

Saute onions and shallots in olive oil; when golden brown (about 10 minutes), add garlic, sugar, nutmeg, and cabbage; saute until cabbage wilts, stirring frequently so garlic doesn't burn, about 10 minutes more.

Add white wine and boil down until reduced by more than half (you shouldn't be able to smell the alcohol anymore).

Add tomatoes and their juice and chicken or veggie stock. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer 1 hour.

Puree in batches. Add chili powder, salt and pepper to taste. Serve sprinkled with chopped parsley.

Seared Lamb Chops, Root Veggie Puree, and Endive Salad

This is a quick and delicious dinner that can be done from start to finish in about 45 minutes. I bought lamb from the halal butcher up the street, and veggies from a nearby farmers market. The seared liver on the salad came from the rabbit made the day before.

You'll need:
lamb chops

carrots
turnips
parsnips
garlic
nutmeg

endive

asian pear

duck liver

dressing

Peel carrots, turnips, and parsnips and cut into roughly equal pieces. If the parsnips are large, remove the woody core. Place into a medium saucepan. Add peeled garlic cloves (as many as you like) and water (the water should come about halfway up the vegetables. Cover and cook until just tender. Drain. Mash. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

While the veggies are cooking, take apart the endive and place in a bowl. Add thinly sliced asian pear. Toss with dressing-- I used tarragon vinegar, lemon juice, and olive oil.

Wash, dry, and trim lamb chops. Salt and pepper generously. Heat olive oil in a large skillet. When hot, place lamb chops (do it in batches if necessary-- do not crowd the pan). Sear on each side about 2 minutes, depending on thickness, to medium rare. Set aside in warm oven. 

Salt and pepper liver. In the same pan as the lamb, sear liver briefly until just brown. Serve on top of endive-pear salad.

Braised Rabbit with Leeks and Fennel

We're in Paris! 

I was really looking forward to things like rabbit being commonplace and not too expensive, but tonight's dish was probably the same as it would have cost back in California, and my fellow shoppers looked on with undisguised horror as my butcher hacked the rabbit into pieces. I'll have to do some rabbit shopping around. The past few days we've done a lot of cooking in our new kitchen-- dorade with a wine pan sauce, steaks, minestrone soup (which you'll probably see posted soon). It's small but very well equipped. The only real drawback is the electric stove, which will take some getting used to. In this recipe, I really missed my gas stove when trying to gently render the fat on the bacon, then sear the rabbit on high heat but without burning. It worked-- I just have to get the hang of it. We've also had plenty of non-cooked meals, involving copious amounts of cheese, pates, stuffed petits pains, and, our first night, rotisserie chicken. Expect some tasty things in the future, probably involving lamb.

You'll need (serves 4):

1 rabbit, cut into 6 pieces (mine weighed about 4lbs, or almost 2kg)

1 thick slice of bacon, cut into lardons

2c chicken stock

2 onions, sliced

2 heads of fennel, cored & cut into eighths

3 leeks, sliced

Half a head of garlic, crushed

1t fennel seeds

1/2t dried thyme

1 bay leaf

½ bottle of white wine

A shot of Ricard

Preheat oven to 325F (160C).

Bring the chicken stock to the boil with any trimmings from the rabbit (head, ribs, kidneys, etc).

In an oven-proof saucepan, brown the lardons and set aside; in the bacon fat brown the rabbit and set aside.

Saute onion and leeks in the same saucepan. Add garlic and fennel seeds and stir until fragrant. Add the white wine and reduce by half.

Return rabbit and bacon to pan. Add thyme, bay leaf and fennel. Add pastis and bring to a simmer. Add strained stock to cover rabbit. Cover pot and cook in preheated oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until tender.

We served this with mushroom wheat pilaf and caramelized endives; for those of you who can get endives cheaply, they're absolutely delicious seared and then braised with a bit of water. And they count as a vegetable! Yay.

To hold you over...

I'm still in the process of moving from place to place, suitcase to suitcase, and soon, country to country. In the meantime, for your comic pleasure:

Thank you, toothpaste for dinner. And I promise, very very soon, new recipes featuring tasty French ingredients.

Creamy Leek & Potato Gratin

This is easy and quick because the potatoes are parboiled, so you don't have to spend an hour constantly checking the oven. It's based on a recipe posted on Bittman's blog, which I really recommend checking out. You can easily make this vegetarian by using veggie stock in place of chicken stock (or vegan by omitting the cream and using veggie stock instead of milk, but I wouldn't recommend it; in fact, I wouldn't recommend being vegan at all).

I made this alongside a roast chicken. We've pretty much perfected the roast chicken, though it was more the result of years of trying various "recipes" before finding the best one (which, as I should have known from the start, is Alice Waters'). But now I am posting this while eating the leftovers (which are actually what's in the photo above-- we forgot to photograph the fresh gratin) alongside Portugese sardines and an arugula salad. I forgot how good sardines and potatoes are together; perhaps I'll make something involving both soon. There are certainly plenty of both (and leeks, too) for very little money in Paris.

You'll need (serves 4-6):

2 enormous leeks, or 4 medium ones

3 medium yukon gold potatoes

1/4c heavy whipping cream

2c milk (lowfat's fine but nonfat's not)

1T chopped fresh thyme

1T butter

1c chicken stock

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Quarter leeks lengthwise and clean them well. Slice thinly. Melt butter in a large pan. Add leeks, salt and pepper. Cook over low heat for 15 minutes.

In the meantime, peel potatoes and slice thinly (not too thinly-- 1/4 inch at most-- you don't want them falling apart). Put in a small saucepan with milk just to cover. Add salt and dried herbs, if you want (we use French cooking salt that has herbs in it). Simmer gently until just tender. Milk has a tendency to boil over, so be careful.

When the leeks are tender, add chicken stock and raise heat. Boil until almost dry, then add cream and stir until slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Turn off heat and let sit 1 minute to thicken. Stir in chopped thyme.

Spread 1/2 leek mixture in a baking dish. Using a slotted spatula or spoon, remove potatoes from milk and spread onto leeks. Top with the rest of the leeks. This shouldn't look dry; if it does, add a little of the milk the potatoes cooked in.

Bake until top is golden brown. Let cool 10 minutes before serving.

Sushi Bowl

This is a tasty, healthy, and very easy to put together lunch. You can buy pickled mackerel from Tokyo Fish, if you live in the East Bay, or any market that sells Japanese or sushi products. This is a great way to use leftover rice but it's great with fresh rice too.

You'll need (serves 1):

2/3c cooked brown rice

1/2 avocado

1/2 filet pickled mackerel

wakame seaweed (soaked in boiling water to reconstitute)

nori seaweed, cut into strips

small piece of ginger, minced

1T soy sauce

1t rice vinegar

1t mirin (sweet cooking wine)

1T Sriracha

1T hoisin sauce

Combine ginger, soy sauce, rice vinegar and mirin in a medium bowl. Add rice and stir to coat. Chop wakame seaweed and toss with rice. Top rice with sliced avocado (salted and peppered), sliced mackerel, nori sheets, and a squirt of Sriracha and hoisin.

Chicken and Dumplings

This post was prompted by my sister, who is very upset that I haven't been blogging lately. I've been really busy in the past few months, working, moving, and packing, and getting ready for a year in Paris. While I can't promise regular blogging in the next month, this is definitely a rib-sticking kind of dish that should hold you through January (though I'll do my best to write a few more posts before leaving). Come February, I promise a return to regular posting, and many Parisian-inspired dishes over the next year.

Chicken and Dumplings is a dish popular in the Southern US that originated during the Great Depression. It's cheap, tasty, and the ultimate comfort food: a thick and creamy broth, chewy but fluffy dumplings, the requisite peas, and flavorful mouthfuls of tender chicken in every bite. This version is based on a Cooks Illustrated recipe and has a nice tarragon flavor. For the base stock of the recipe, I used a vegetable-laden homemade broth (chicken carcass, leeks, carrots, celery) that I cooked for about 10 hours until it was very reduced and flavorful. You can use store-bought chicken stock but (need I say) it's not as good.

You'll need (serves 6):

8 chicken thighs (with bones & skin)

2T cooking oil

1/2 stick butter

2 medium leeks, cut lengthwise and then cut into 1-inch pieces

1 large onion, diced

6T flour

1/4c vermouth

4 1/2c chicken broth

1/4c whole milk

1t minced fresh thyme

1c frozen peas

3T minced fresh tarragon

for the dumplings:

2c flour

1T baking powder

1 1/2t kosher salt

1c whole milk

3T reserved chicken fat (you'll get this as you cook)

1. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Heat oil until just smoking. Cook chicken in batches, skin-side down first, until golden brown on both sides. Transfer browned chicken to a plate. When you're done, pour fat into a bowl and set aside. Remove browned skins from chicken, and eat them if you are so inclined.

2. Turn heat down to medium. Melt butter. Add leeks, onions, salt and pepper. Cook about 10 minutes, until soft. Stir in flour and cook until light brown. Deglaze with vermouth, stirring well to combine (it's ok if there are small lumps of flour; they'll go away). Add broth, milk and thyme. Bring to a simmer. Return chicken and any accumulated juices to the pot. Cover and cook 1 hour.

3. Transfer chicken to cutting board. Shred meat with two forks; discard bones and gristle. Return meat to stew and bring back to a simmer.

4. Make the dumplings! This is fun. Stir flour, baking powder, and salt together. Microwave milk and fat until just warm. Stir milk/fat into flour with a spoon until just incorporated and smooth-- don't overstir.

5. Stir peas and tarragon into stew. Drop small lumps of dumpling batter into stew by scooping some up with a spoon, and using another spoon to push batter into pot. You should make a layer of dumplings on the top of the stew; try not to let them touch.

6. Cover stew and cook at a simmer until dumplings have doubled in size, about 10 minutes. Serve!

Katie's Back! Feast

Katie, my partner in complicated cooking crime (see our past feasts: sushi, offal, around-the-world, & summer), is visiting from Scotland, where she's been living for the past year and a half. We designed a meal that highlighted seasonal ingredients, since she's been missing California produce. Unfortunately we were a bit too ambitious; we prepared 8 courses but our guests could only stomach 6. Nixed courses were a salad with arugula, heirloom tomato, avocado, and black radish, and a cheese course pairing Iberico with Bosc & Comice pear and Fuyu persimmon. We did manage to eat the following:

Spanish White Gazpacho with Grapes

Seared Duck Liver with Fig and Rosemary

Bay Scallop Ceviche with Avocado and Smoked Turkish Pepper

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Crispy Calamari, Baby Artichokes, Eggplant

Wild Mushroom & Goat Cheese Puff Pastry

Skirt Steak with Spicy Roasted Pepper Sauce and Savory Chimmichuri

chez johnny jump up

Ridwan made an incredible nine-course meal for John's birthday. I was lucky enough to attend and help out.

Here are some shots of the finished dishes (photos by Mike Seeman):

black truffle souffle

celery remoulade, frisee, crispy duck confit

fried artichoke, capers, lemon-heirloom jam

smoked salmon, baby greens,

matchstick potatoes, creme fraiche

kabocha squash soup, bacon lardon, fried bread

roast beef, yorkshire pudding,

horseradish cream, mustard

whipped delice d'argental, caramelized fig, balsamic syrup

carrot cake

poached pear, candied walnut

Caramelized Steelhead with Sweet & Sour Sauce

This delicious concoction was actually made by the Green Kitchen next door. Briefly marinating the fish in a sugar rub gives it a caramelized crust when you pan-sear it. The sauce is a nice touch.

You'll need:

salmon or steelhead

sugar

1 in ginger

2 cloves garlic

1 serrano pepper

juice of 2 limes

handful cilantro

Rub sugar into fish. Let sit 20 minutes.

In the meantime, combine sauce ingredients in a blender; blend and set aside.

Heat a non-stick skillet and add oil. Place fish in pan (skin side down if you eat the skin; top side down if you don't). Don't move it; let it cook about 5 minutes until the sides are opaque. Flip and cook 1-2 more minutes.

Serve with sauce, jasmine rice, and julienned vegetables.

Savory French Toast Breakfast

This is a nice brunch dish, and could also make a light lunch. Just soak thickly sliced sourdough bread in an egg, milk/sour cream/yogurt, cayenne pepper mixture. Then lightly fry, as you would french toast. Top with heirloom tomato, fresh mozzarella, basil and arugula. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar & olive oil.