Tater Town

In my attempts to avoid grains (see here for why), and with my love of starchy carbs still fully intact, I've been eating more potatoes these days. And this has caused me to rip off things I've seen on the Food Network or in cookbooks or whatever. This is one of those recipes. I would give the appropriate credit, but I really can't recall the details. Just know I wasn't smart enough to come up with this on my own, and we'll go ahead and get on with it.

I also don't have many pictures of the actual process of this creation, but the final product should tell you all you need to know. Oh, I'll be giving you the usual descriptions with my cheerful interjections thrown in for free. Fear not.

First, get yourself a potato and make vertical slices most of the way through it. Leave it intact on the bottom so it will stay in one piece. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Get yourself some fat garlic cloves and cut them into thin slices too. Stuff these thin slices between the tater slices, dump olive oil over the top along with a good pinch of kosher salt and wrap the whole thing in some foil. Bake for 40 minutes. Open the foil and sprinkle with sesame seeds. We used black and white cause it looks cool. Cook for another 20 to 30 minutes. There you have it- a simple way to change up your usual tater routine. You should really click on these pictures to see the full sized versions in order to pump up your food lust. You know, if you're into that.

Ghee for You, Ghee for Me

First off, don't believe the hype about saturated fats. You actually need some, and there are certain fatty acids in butter and coconut oil specifically that are anti-viral, anti-microbial, and generally just good for you. Ghee, for the uninitiated, is butter with the milk solids removed. The advantage of this is that the smoke point rises and the butter/ghee won't burn nearly as fast like olive oil or regular butter. Plus it tastes great. But enough talk- making ghee is easy, and the following will be more of a picture essay than a lot of words. I will inject some witty banter here and there, so don't you worry. First off, take a pound (four sticks, one box) of unsalted butter and add it to a pan over medium low heat.

Melt it slowly.

You will get some white foam that rises to the top. This is part of the milk solids. Skim them off the top with a spoon. You can keep the solids to spread on other stuff if you want, although I usually throw it away since I don't really eat bread or other stuff that I would be spreading mild solids on.

Once you get it skimmed, the butter will start to clarify (Ghee is sometimes called "clarified butter."). Keep cooking it on low/medium low to get it as clear as possible.

There will still be some solids on the bottom. Start watching them, and when they start to turn light brown it's time to strain. You can use a coffee filter if you have no fancy pants strainer. I have a fancy pants strainer, so that's what you see here.

I also have a glass jar to keep the finished product in. You can use whatever you want, but I prefer glass. Once your ghee cools you can store it a room temperature. Actually, I suggest that you do exactly that so your ghee will be soft and easy to use.

Once your ghee is solid it will turn a pale, beautiful yellow that you will now forever associate with the flavors of good eatin'. It's now time to saute something.

Risotto

Risotto usually falls into one of three categories for most people: 1) they're not quite sure what it is. 2) They like it, but they're not sure how to make it. 3) They like to bust it out on people for special occasions. Nothing says you're about to get all gourmet on your guests like the mention of risotto in the menu. Today, you are going to become a number 3.

You'll need a few things (the following amounts are for 2-3 people): one cup of risotto rice, a dry white wine (like a chardonnay), 3-4 cups chicken stock, Parmesan cheese, an onion, some (about a tablespoon) butter, and a touch of kosher salt. You will also want something to go in the risotto to trick it out a little. For this batch I used caramelized onions and sauteed mushrooms, but any leftover vegetable would be good, as well as herbs you happen to like.A note on risotto rice- and keep in mind here that I'm not telling you anything I didn't learn from watching the Food Network, and specifically Alton Brown's show on risotto...

Risotto rice is a short grain rice. The shorter the grain, the more starch content. The high starch content is what allows risotto to become creamy and delicious without adding any actual cream. The trick is to cook the risotto slowly so that the individual grains of rice get cooked though at about the same rate that it gives up its starch. The most common variety is Arborio, which is an Italian variety (I think). If you go to the rice aisle in the store you'll see that good ol' Texmati Rice sells a generically named "Risotto Rice." Don't let the lack of a specific variety scare you away- Cook's Illustrated rated it as one of the best tasting, and they don't mess around at Cook's Illustrated. You should subscribe if you haven't already. Really.

Plus, Texmati comes from Alvin, Texas, where I was born (yes, actually born in Alvin hospital) and raised (class of '88!).

The process isn't as difficult as people make it out to be- you start by "sweating" a diced onion in some butter for a minute. You don't want it to brown, just soften, which is essentially the definition of "sweating." Then add the rice and a pinch o' salt and stir it around for a few minutes until the outside of every grain is translucent, while the inside remains opaque. You should be doing all of this over medium-low heat. Getting the rice nice and pretty should only take a few minutes. Once you're there, turn the heat up to medium and add a cup of the wine. Now you have a lot of wine left to help you get through the rest of the process. Pour some into a glass. Enjoy.

Cook the wine down until it's almost gone, and then start adding your chicken stock, which should be simmering on the stove top. You want to just cover the rice, and you want it to come to gentle simmer. Gentle, not harsh, or mean. Give it a stir. Walk away. Many people believe you have to stir risotto the entire cooking time, but as Alton explained, that only causes the outer starch to prematurely enter the cooking liquid, which would be bad. So don't do it. But don't be afraid to stir either- I like to keep everything circulating nicely so the rice on top doesn't dry out.

In the meantime you can saute your shrooms, asparagus, shrimp, or whatever you want to add to the final equation. Here were mine:That's the onions in the background. Sweet, sweet onions. Caramelized and delicious.

Keep adding the chicken stock until the rice reaches a nice, creamy consistency, which should take somewhere in the neighborhood of 35-40 minutes. Then add your parmesan cheese (and please, not the stuff in the green can- get a wedge and grate it yourself. I promise it's much better that way). For one cup of rice it takes somewhere between a quarter to a half cup, depending on how cheesy you want it. I always go heavy on the cheese myself. Did I mention that this is a special occasion type of dish?

Fold in your other additions, and taste for salt. You should hold off on adding salt until the cheese has been integrated, since cheese adds salt. You don't want to spend the time making this only to over season it in the home stretch. That would be bad.

I just checked Alton's version, and he only used one cup of wine for double the recipe, but I've been doing it this way for a while and it comes out great. Adjust however you see fit, but you really should use the wine component- it just won't be as good without it. Here's what mine looks like- feel free to add some protein (like the aforementioned shrimp) to make this a main course.Please try this. Really. If you do you'll have a new staple in your fancy pants dinner rotation.

Happy New Year, and Tomatillo Sauce

The new year is here, and I think you should put this on your list of resolutions: make more sauces. I say this because I already have the pictures taken of this particular sauce, but also because nothing makes a home cooked dinner seem fancy like a good one. And in this case, nothing makes tacos or scrambled eggs more delicious. As a bonus, this stuff is also actually good for you.

You've probably had some sort of tomatillo sauce in your local Texican food dive- it's the green stuff next to the red stuff. You've probably also seen tomatillos in the store and wondered what they are and what people do with them. They're the green, tomatoey looking things with the weird pale green paper looking cover. Go buy eight of them, along with a Spanish onion (or any sweet, yellowish onion), some garlic, a jalepeno or two, and an Anaheim pepper (they're the long green ones like you see in the following picture). You could also use a poblano, or any other pepper combination. Cause, you see, this ain't rocket science. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Farrenheit. Quarter the onion and remove the paper skin from one garlic clove and all the tomatillos (they'll be slightly sticky under their covers) and douse the whole lot with some light olive oil, or canola, or whatever. Also salt and pepper.Blast 'em in the oven for 20-30 minutes. They'll get this color or brown, which is the minimum. I could have easily gone another ten minutes.Peel the charred skin of the Anaheim, de-seed the peppers if you want a milder sauce, then put it all in a blender, along with any accumulated juices from your pan.

Blend. You may have to add a little water to thin it out, or if you feel extra fancy, some white wine vinegar. I added nothing.
Apply finished product to tacos, eggs, or whatever else sounds good. Bonus trivia I recently learned watching the Food Network: tomatillos are members of the gooseberry family. I have no idea what that really means, but I'm sure Wikepedia does if you feel so inclined.

Braised Cabbage

Tim and I eat lunch together at school most days because we both live just a little too far from campus to drive home. We also sit by each other on the front row of every class. Yet somehow we still don't hate each other. One reason for Tim's relative non-hatred of me is the fact that I turned him on to braised cabbage, a vegetable he had theretofore not particularly cared for. He's been requesting the recipe ever since.

I have to give the credit for this one to Molly Stevens, the author of All about Braising. The colder months are all about stews and soups and pot roasts, and All about Braising is one if the best books out there for one-pot meals that make your whole house smell like Northern Italy. Out of the many recipes in the book, this is one of our favorites, which is strange because there is no meat involved.

So, Tim, here's what you need: One head of cabbage, a small yellow onion, a couple of carrots, salt, pepper, chili flakes, and about a quarter cup of chicken stock (or water if you're lame). You'll also need some sort of baking dish that can be put under the broiler. You're not supposed to use Pyrex under the broiler- a fact I just discovered- but I do anyway. But you shouldn't. Or if you do you shouldn't blame me if your dish explodes and your house burns down or whatever.

A whole head of cabbage will fill two 9x13 Pyrex dishes, and brother, that adds up to some cheap eating. Heat your oven to 325.

First just divide the cabbage into some thick wedges. Try and keep the core attached at the bottom of the wedges so it'll all stay together. This is especially important when it comes time in the middle of the cooking to flip everything over. Peel and chop your carrots (I always slice mine on the bias so they'll look cooler), and cut your onion into thin ribbons (cut root to stem, turn them to the flat side and slice in the sagital plane. Like that head in the lab.).

Nestle all your onions and carrots into the dish and set the cabbage on top of that. Give it all a good dousing in olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper and the chili flakes. Pour in the quarter cup of chicken stock (or water). You need that much stock/water per baking dish, by the way. I had some homemade stock on hand for today, but when I don't I use chicken soup base, which you just mix with water. It's a lot more conveinent than buying the boxed stuff.

Now all you have to do is tightly seal some foil around your baking dish(es), and throw them in your now preheated oven. Set a timer for an hour, and go study for one of the numerous tests we have coming up. Or watch football (I'm talking to Tim, remember?).

After an hour, flip everything over. Try and keep them together, but a little messiness will ensue no matter how hard you try. Back into the oven for another hour, then take the foil off and blast it all under the broiler until you start getting some good browning in spots. You, my friend, have not only passed your boards, you've made braised cabbage. Enjoy, and I'll see you Monday on the front row.

Now with Organization!

I often refer back to this site to see how I did something, and as it's gotten longer, it's become tougher to find anything. So now, for your reading pleasure- I've tagged all the food (and blowgun) posts. Can't figure out what to do with that chicken? Start your searching!

Yeah, That's Right, I Said Cauliflower!

No really, cauliflower can be mind-blowingly (how's that for an adverb?) delicious. The key is to be patient. Well, that and butter. Lots of butter. To start, cut up a whole head of cauliflower- I just cut the core out and then make half inch "steaks" out of it- you'll get some big pieces that stay together and quite a bit of little florets that will become your favorite part later when they get all caramelized and crispy and oh so slightly sweet. You need a pan that's large enough to get plenty of browning going on, and that pan needs a lid for a little bit of steaming. Place the aforementioned pan on the stove top and get it medium hot. Now add about three tablespoons of butter and let it melt until it stops foaming. Add the cauliflower. Throw a pinch of salt (kosher, please) on top. And then hurry up and wait. It'll look like this at first:
Leave it alone for awhile- it takes time for the florets on the bottom to start browning at first. Toward the end you'll have to be more vigilant. After about ten long minutes, give it a stir. Then wait some more. Repeat. Once you've got a fairly browned bunch of cauliflower put the lid on top and let it steam for about five more minutes. The following is the progression you're looking for:
The best part: the only calories to be found here are in the butter. Well, almost. The cauliflower is so low-calorie it almost takes your body more calories to digest it than what it actually gets from it. Taste for salt, probably add some pepper, and dig in. And you should click on the above picture, because it's just so pretty in that bowl, all golden brown and all.