intellectual relish

Successful Failure

Two days ago, I failed at making Sweet Orange Marmalade. The good news is, I succeeded in making a delicious batch of Bitter Orange Marmalade.

While following a traditional method for orange marmalade I found myself two cups shy of the required ten cups of sugar the formula required. Necessity - bringer of innovation – coupled with fatigue - and it being too late to go to the grocery store - made me bold. I substituted a couple cups of honey and added it to the mix. Using a cooked jelling procedure, I continued without much care, trusting that plain old heat and evaporation would eliminate any excess water from the final product. My trust was well placed in simple science, the Marmalade jelled perfectly and (I know it is bad form to compliment your own food, but…) YUM!

I know standard “English” Marmalade isn’t everyone’s bag. To be perfectly honest, it isn’t normally my bag either, but the amber wildflower honey adds such a nice floral complexity that I can’t keep my spoon out of the jar. It’s especially good on toasted sour-dough bread with a smear of goat cheese.

Marmalade (01-04-10)

Starting the year right.

Getting a leg up on my New Year’s resolution, I’m posting a brief update today. Last nights festivities, if you can call it that, included all the usual suspects: stuffed mushroom caps, olives, cornishons, prosciutto wrapped fruit, pea pesto, chips and dip, and something I’m calling Devils on Horseback. Really, I sliced into some pitted dried prunes (plums) stuffed the center with plain goat cheese, wrapped that in Serrano ham and warmed in the oven for ten minutes. Partner and I stuffed ourselves on hors d’oeuvres and various munchies, I had a couple cocktails (Black Russian) we watched Kathy Griffin and Anderson Cooper until the ball dropped and then we went to bed. Exciting? No. Relaxing and enjoyable? Absolutely!

Tonight I’m making a Chateau Briand with the traditional sautéed mushrooms, and a blue cheese sauce/dressing. I’m planning to serve the meal with a celery root and potato puree, and sautéed kale. Since I’m the only wine drinker in the house, I don’t usually plan a wine accompaniment for meals unless we’re having guests. Tonight, I’ll be cracking into a bottle of “Our Daily Red” from Wholefoods Market, which reportedly has no detectable sulphites. The specialty foods manager claimed it was fruity, young and easy drinking, but we’ll see, usually “young” is a nice way of saying “green,”  or “not ready yet.”

Happy New Year!

…no realer than this.

It’s my intent to be positive and encouraging in this blog. I’m writing this to demonstrate that I am not some kind of domestic-culinary god but to remind everyone (including me) that some degree of frustration in the kitchen – as well as in life – is normal, and, while I can’t allow myself to wallow as I would like, it’s OK to admit to being human.

It’s December 30^th, and I’ve had some kind of low-grade “cold/flu/ick” since Christmas. Between holiday preparations, and my utter lack of domestic enthusiasm, the kitchen has been a revolving mess for about a week now. Despite efforts to the contrary, I seem to be waking up to the same sized pile of dishes every morning: the contents of the pile change but it never seems to go away. There is a stack of 8 or 10 storage containers next to the sink that, if I’m being totally honest, I have rinsed out but have been collecting there for weeks, and, horror of horrors, this morning while I was making my coffee I noticed the bottom of my foot sticking to the floor next to the stove. EW! In short; I’m caught in a frustrating loop of having to clean the kitchen before I can cook a meal after which I can’t seem to muster the gumption to clean the kitchen again: I am defeated before I begin.

A year of careful cooking and endless ruminating has passed and I have managed to post a sum of three posts here. Not good. I have a back-up of articles written, and have only just managed to master both my digital camera and photo shop. So fingers crossed, there should be more content in the following year. Being forty, I’m begrudgingly learning that I can no longer retain information like I used to…or at all! I have the odd bit of luck, but I must get better at jotting notes down as I’m cooking and planning meals or face the consequence of having a spark or genius disappear into vapors. Not that I’m excepting genius, but it would suck to solve world hunger, or just perfect puff pastry (I’m not sure which is harder) and not remember the answer the next day. I’ve vowed to become obsessive about note taking and photo snapping in the next year.

Cooking continues, as it must, but inspiration is low. Two nights ago I roasted a chicken - my usually schedule being thrown off by the holiday - stuffed with Navel oranges and rubbed with butter and dried thyme. The orange flavor penetrated the breast more than I usually like, but it was still delicious. Last night I concocted a Moroccan Stew with some of the leftovers, chickpeas, squash, onions, cumin, cinnamon, tomatoes, stock, chili flakes, salt and pepper, which I finished with fresh lemon juice. I must confess the flavor profile was serviceable but kind of one note before I added the citrus: it’s amazing how much a squeeze of lemon can change a dish. I plan to remake the dish sometime after our first batch of preserved lemons is ready. The complete recipe for the stew will follow soon.

Well, the dishes await, but first, Wholefoods beckons.

 

And now a picture of my clean kitchen...

The Chicken Archives #1

Whether I can legitimately blame Ina Garten for this, or not; Friday nights in our house have become synonymous with Roast Chicken, and, nothing could be easier. One quick visit to the butcher counter and I’m on my way home with a delicious, air chilled 4.5 to 5lb (2.5kg) chicken, confident that my now dispatched little friend had a good life, full of pecking scratching and squawking. I know it sounds mad to call roast chicken “simple”, but I assure it’s not. It takes me about fifteen minutes to prepare the bird, about the same time it takes to pre-heat my oven, and then I’m on the couch with a cocktail and a treat from the olive bar. Sure, I have to be home (oh darn) but for most of the roasting time, I actually DO nothing. Yet, it provides ample excuse to sit quietly and contemplate the contents of my own navel if I wish: after all, I AM cooking dinner.

As far as side dishes go, I have one rule; it must be something that I can prepare, from raw ingredients to done and on the table, in the last thirty minutes of cooking. When it comes to preparing the bird, anything goes, but admittedly I have my proclivities. Usually I rub the skin with olive oil, salt, pepper, and dried herbs; then I season and stuff the cavity with some variation of onions, garlic, apples, or citrus. I’ll sometimes go through the added work of mixing some fresh herbs into room temperature butter, then wrestling that under the skin on each breast, and then finish rubbing the skin with butter and fresh herbs, but most Friday nights I’m just plain too tired. I start my roast chicken hot, 425ºF (220ºC) and I do not use a proper roasting pan. I use instead a wire rack fitted into a half sheet pan. After the first half hour, I drop the temperature to 325ºF (165ºC) for an additional 1 - 1 ½ hours. Twice during cooking I toss a cup (or more often a glassful) of water onto the sheet pan to stop the drippings from burning: the first occurs at the same time that I drop the oven temperature, and the second approximately forty five minutes into the lower roasting time…or whenever a convenient commercial break falls.

Once the meal is on the table, it receives the type of reviews I only wish had something to do with the cook. I must be completely honest; it really has everything to do with quality of the chicken. Nothing I can do, no parlor trick or spell can make a bad bird taste good. To me, a bird should have pink skin - not pallid or pale - the breast should be shape like an large almond with two elongated drumsticks that appear muscular but not overly plump and stocky. In short, it should look like a creature that once walked on the earth, not a vaguely pear shaped lump. Price wise, I cap out at $10 – $14 however; I must be clear, that investment makes an easy lunch the following day, and at least one other meal or two. I also reserve the carcass for stock, another priceless commodity that involves time, but little effort.

Butternut Squash and Carmelized Onion Tart

Here, in the Great Lakes state, the wind coming off the water has turned from refreshing to down right cold. The brightly colored leaves of early fall are now decomposing on the ground filling the air with a vegetal earthy musk. Everything has turned grey and brown, but winter has not yet arrived to blanket the world with an austere frosting of snow. For now, we wait, and try to make the most of the (rare) sunny days we have.

It may sound like the preface of a lavender-hued novella, though I promise you it’s not, but I love this time of year. The unpredictable stew of autumn is invigorating compared to the dogged sameness of late summer. Hard frosts bring out the best in apples, Brussels sprouts, potatoes, turnips and carrots. Cooler temperatures - and a cold frame - allow for a second or even third crop of garden fresh greens like radicchio, and arugula: bitter crunchy greens that are an excellent foil to gamey roasted meats and vegetables. Comfort foods abound, and, as if to compensate for it, clothing is once more forgiving of all our wobbly parts. But, my favorite of all the things that simply ARE autumn, is the many varieties of squash. I eat it roasted, braised, boiled, cubed or mashed, with or without marshmallows, in sweet desserts, savory sides, or as a silken main course.

This recipe could be the makings of an elegant lunch, or supported by a bitter salad with an acidic dressing would make an excellent supper worthy of serving to guests. Included is one of my favorite pie dough recipes, the combination of the two different fats makes a crust that is flaky, has good body, and is tasty too. And, for my friends who are gluten intolerant, this makes a very tasty casserole, simply omit the crust altogether, and maybe replace the bread topping with some ground pecans.

Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Tart