Tag Archives: lunch

Cooking Food

Rosemary Balsamic Chicken

October 6, 2012 – 6:47 PM

It’s been a busier week than usual and I’m not up for doing anything complicated in the kitchen. Twice this week I relied on the magic of the Bumble and Bumble Dry Shampoo since I couldn’t find the time to do the necessary hair washing (TMI?). In my zeal to de-grease my hair though I got a little too aggressive and ended up looking like a member of the Whig party.

I’m taking it easy tonight, and I’m not even taking pictures — the picture above was taken when I was in England this summer, and made this dish for a large dinner party. The one below was taken later this summer when we had some friends over for an impromptu dinner. So the point is, I make this dish a lot, because it’s easy, tastes amazing, and looks pretty if you don’t take a picture in bad lighting with a purple lighter in the backdrop like I did. This tastes a thousand times better than my picture makes it look.

I first had it at my friend Patricia’s house. We all greedily mopped up the drippings with bread, and I kept trying to think of ways to get everyone else out of the room (“Fire!!!”) so that I could drink the sauce. I begged her for the recipe and couldn’t believe how easy it was — the ROI on this is very high indeed.

In fact, I’m thinking I may save the sauce next time to start my own master sauce. Anthony Myint, one of my food heros and a fellow high school alum, in his book Mission Street Food: Recipes and Ideas from an Improbable Restaurant (you HAVE to read this book — it’s hilarious, inspiring and will change your life) writes that a master sauce is “…a fortified stock achieved by reusing the same sauce over and over. Some Western cooks find this gross, but to me, wasting perfectly good meaty broth is gross. The concentrated braising liquid results in a richer flavor, so if you’ve got it, flaunt it.” Well said, Anthony.

So this is how easy the recipe is: make a vinaigrette, essentially — olive oil, balsamic vinegar, dijon mustard and garlic; add in some rosemary and brown sugar, salt and pepper, and mix it all up. Place the chicken in the vinaigrette and let it marinate over night.

Stick it in the oven to bake, and be sure to serve with big crunchy slabs of bread to dip in the sauce.

ROSEMARY BALSAMIC CHICKEN (Patricia Lee)

Ingredients

  • 8 skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs or half-breast, fat trimmed off

Marinade:

  • 1/2 C balsamic vinegar
  • 1/4 olive oil
  • 1/4 C brown sugar
  • 3-4 T dijon mustard
  • 4-6 cloves of garlic, chopped
  • 3-4 sprigs of rosemary— remove leaves and finely chop
  • 1-2 tsp each kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, or to taste

Preparation

Combine marinade ingredients and mix together in a 9×13 baking dish. Place chicken pieces in marinade for 4-24 hours (with 24 hours preferred). Ensure chicken is coated well w/ marinade.  Place dish in oven at 400 degrees, 35-45 minutes, depending on your oven (watch the skin as it burn easily from the brown sugar).  The marinade should create a nice, yummy sauce for bread dipping.

**Note if there’s too little marinade in dish, it will evaporate during baking.  If there’s too much, the chicken will “steam” rather than “roast.”

Serves 4-8.

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Cooking Food

Kale Gruyere Beef Burgers

August 19, 2012 – 5:39 PM

The other day, I was drying my hair and my daughter came into the room. She looked at the tall red bottle of  Big Sexy Hair Root Pump on the counter, then at my hair, then back at the bottle, and had the startling realization that using a product called Big Sexy Hair does not, in fact, guarantee you Big Sexy Hair. If only I had been equally immune to its marketing.

But it’s way too hot to try to style my hair today. And if I’m not going to do my hair, then I’m not going to turn on the stove either. I’m pretty sure it’s one of the Ten Commandments.

I’m worried that kale’s going to get as overexposed as bacon someday soon, but it does have nutrition going for it. My local farm’s still giving me lots of it, so I’m stealth-stuffing it into everything nowadays.

I recently bought a part of a grass-fed, grass-finished animal from Glacier Grown and have lots of ground beef and bison. Today, I’m using beef.

These burgers are easy, yummy, and full of antioxidants! First, enlist a child for unpaid work separating the kale leaves from the stems. Ensure your kitchen is cluttered to project a prolific culinary image.

 Next, chop up the kale into little bits. Make them smaller if you want to hide the kale.

Mince about 1/4 cup of red onion. Mix it together with 1 lb ground beef and the kale. Add in 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper and 1 tsp soy sauce.

Form into patties, and press your thumb in the middle of each patty. This ensures a nice flat burger once it’s cooked, so that you can pile more stuff on top.

Put ’em on a hot grill.

Then flip ’em.

About a minute before you’re done, put a slice of gruyere cheese on each burger and allow to melt on a bit.

Top with tomato, avocado and lettuce, and eat!

KALE GRUYERE BEEF BURGERS

Ingredients

  • 1 lb ground beef
  • 1/4 cup minced red onion
  • 2 large leaves of kale, minced
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • 1 tsp soy sauce
  • 1 avocado, sliced
  • 1 tomato, sliced
  • 4 slices of gruyere cheese
  • 4 leaves of lettuce
  • ketchup
  • hamburger buns

Preparation

Heat a grill.

Combine the beef, red onion, kale, salt, pepper and soy sauce in a bowl and mix thoroughly. Shape into four disks. Press your thumb in the middle of each disk to make a slight indentation.

Toast buns for 30 seconds on hot grill.

Put burgers on grill for 2.5 minutes. Turn burgers over, place a slice of gruyere on top and grill for another 2.5 minutes, or until meat reaches 160 degrees.

Place burgers onto bun and top with ketchup, tomato, lettuce and avocado slices.

Serves 4.

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Cooking Food

Poached Steelhead Trout

June 25, 2012 – 2:01 PM

I procured recently a bottle of omega-3 supplements after reading about how our brains shrink a quarter of a percent (.025%) per year after age 30. The good news is that I probably won’t live long enough for my brain mass to get to zero, but the bad news is that I don’t think I’m getting any smarter year over year, and I kept forgetting to take these memory pills. Wait, who are you again?

My friend Patricia, who is currently using her brain to become a nurse practitioner, told me that you can get equivalent benefits by eating just 3 grams of fish per week. So I’ve been trying to up my fish repertoire since I rarely forget to eat.

I like fish, but:

1. It has to be moist. Eating dry fish is kind of like gnawing on socks.

2. It can’t smell or taste fishy. I know, I’m the same person who doesn’t like protein in her fruit. It also cannot make my house smell fishy.

3. It must be easy to prepare. I am lazy.

Steelhead trout is one of my favorite fish. Check out this blog which talks about the difference between steelhead trout and salmon (in his opinion, there really isn’t any). I actually prefer the steelhead, and it might just be because of the color — it’s a deeper orange-red, which goes a little better with my decor.

Here’s one of my go-to recipes — given the above you can use steelhead trout or salmon and you probably won’t be able to tell the difference — because it’s so quick and easy and comes out perfect every time.

Before you pick your saucepan, make sure that the fish can lay completely flat across the diameter of the pan. If it doesn’t, pick another pan or cut the fish in half so that each half lays flat in the pan.

First, we’ll prepare the poaching liquid. This can be made in advance, which I often do, and I just heat the liquid to a boil when I’m ready to poach. I freeze the liquid after a poach and reuse it again for a future poaching, which makes for a 10 minute meal the next time around. Chop up half an onion, heat up a tablespoon of oil in the saucepan and cook over medium heat until browned, about 7-10 minutes. Add enough white wine into a saucepan to completely cover your fish. Add in a bay leaf, 3 slices of lemon, 3 sprigs of thyme, 1/4 cup dill, 1/4 cup parsley and 1/2 tsp salt. Bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer covered for 20 minutes.

Return the liquid to a boil, off the heat and immerse the fish into the poaching liquid, ensuring that it’s completely covered. Not like I did below, because if it’s not in the liquid, it’s not getting cooked. If you underestimated the liquid, you can add a bit more wine to the pan to top it up.

Let the fish poach in the liquid for 10-15 minutes, until the flesh is firm. I like the flesh slightly rare, so pull it out at the 10 minute mark, but let it sit for longer if you prefer it well done.

Remove from the liquid, add salt and pepper to taste, and garnish with dill and lemon slices. It’s delicious served with Lemonaise as a dipping sauce.

POACHED STEELHEAD TROUT

Ingredients

  • 1 pound filet of steelhead trout
  • 1 TSP olive or vegetable oil
  • 1/2 onion, roughly chopped
  • 2 cups dry white wine (enough to immerse filet in pan)
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 3 slices lemon
  • 3 springs fresh thyme
  • 1/4 cup dill
  • 1/4 cup parsley
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a saucepan and sautee until browned, about 7 minutes. Add in the wine, bay leaf, lemon, thyme, dill, parsley and salt. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

Bring liquid back to a boil and off the heat. Put the trout in the liquid, immersing completely (top up with water and bring to boil again if you need to) and poach in liquid for 10-15 minutes, until flesh is firm. Remove from the liquid, add salt and pepper to taste, and garnish with dill and lemon slices. Serve hot or cold. Lemonaise can be used as a dipping sauce.

Serves 4.

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Cooking Food Popular

Guest Post: Creamy Zucchini Soup

April 30, 2012 – 7:42 PM

My wedding anniversary’s coming up, so I just had a flashback to the first time I was going to cook for my mother-in-law, and my then-fiance just let it slip that his mother “used to run a cooking school in France.” Oh. Thanks for letting me know, because the last time I trained at the Cordon Bleu was never.

Needless to say, my mother-in-law is an amazing cook. I’ll be putting forks on the table or something and then turn around to her making a flambe of some sort that, had I tried, would have resulted in loss of eyebrows and hair. She’s also a well-known art journalist, whereas I am a famous…uh, let me get back to you on that one.

So when she said she’d share a recipe for my blog, I was excited. And she has shared one that even I, trained only by cookbooks and the seat of my pants, can execute.

*  * *

GUEST POST: MY MOTHER-IN-LAW GEORGINA

Here is an addition to the SOUP KITCHEN that is so darn easy that it seems unfair, if not outright EVIL. I mean, how can you possibly produce a delicious soup with just TWO ingredients? (Not counting water, salt and pepper). And one you can have hot or cold?

My family has forbidden me to say “this is soooo easy” so let me just say, this is not difficult. Not even a tiny bit difficult. In fact, a child could make it. And kids generally love it!

Ingredients for four:

Three average size zucchini (we in Britain call them courgettes, which must be French originally, showing how multicultural we are…)

three squares of Kiri, or Philadelphia cream cheese

water, salt, pepper

Er- that’s it.

 

Wash the zucchini, top and tail them, slice into one inch rounds, just cover with water, season, boil until soft.

Use a wand blender to liquidize until smooth with the cream cheese (I use low fat but of course it tastes better with full fat). Adjust seasoning.

That’s it! You can serve hot, sprinkled with chopped chives, basil or parsley; or cold in small glasses as a pre-starter.

* * *

Thanks Georgina! And before we close I just had to share one of the shots that I took. As you’ve probably guessed, I do my own photography and styling (with lighting courtesy of the sun). I was trying to unwrinkle the cloth under the soup but it was stubborn, so I tried sliding myself under the table stretching out the fabric, holding an ab-crunch position to stay out of camera view, while using the remote function on the camera. It didn’t work out so well.

CREAMY ZUCCHINI SOUP

Ingredients

  • 3 zucchini
  • 3 oz cream cheese
  • water (enough to cover zucchini in pot)
  • salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

Slice the tops and tails off the zucchini and cut into 1 inch rounds. Place in a pot and fill with water enough to just cover the zucchini. Season with a dash of salt and boil until soft, about 15 minutes.

Using a blender, blend the zucchini and water mixture until smooth. Add in the cream cheese and blend to combine. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serves 4.

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