CSA week 13 - Komatsuna udon

This is actually a cross between two traditional Japanese dish--sansai udon and ohitashi--to create something that isn't quite either but I think takes some good elements from both.

The common element between the two is greens--komatsuna commonly--and a soy-dashi broth. I created a somewhat richer and more complex broth by caramelizing (or at least browning. I haven't got the patience or temperature control on my stove to properly caramelize onions.) half an onion and then sautéing the CSA oyster mushrooms until they'd browned a little and started releasing moisture. Then I added:
4 cups water
2 teaspoons instant dashi crystals
4 Tablespoons soy sauce
2 Tablespoons rice wine
4 teaspoons mirin, and
2 teaspoons sugar.

Once I had brought that to a simmer I added a pack of udon noodles and cooked for the three minutes recommended on the package. Then I fished those out and set them aside.

Then into the broth went the thicker komatsuna stems and six ounces of deep fried tofu. You can buy pre-fried tofu, but the stuff you buy is puffy and I prefer the chewy texture of homemade. The six ounces is half a standard block of tofu. After a minute of simmering I added the komatsuna leaves, waited until they wilted down, and then turned off the heat and let them soak for ten minutes. One of the recipes I drew from instead left the komatsuna whole and had you tie the leaves into a bunch with butcher string and dangle the stem ends in the broth for a minute before dropping the leafy ends in too. I didn't really have room in my pot for that, but it's an interesting idea.

After the ten minutes are up, warm the soup back up and put serving portions of the noodles into individual bowls. Once the soup's at serving temperature, add greens and tofu to each bowl, ladel over the soup and garnish with scallions, garlic chives and shredded nori.


I accidentally deleted my first draft (first time since starting the blog which isn't a bad run) so I don't have a detailed description of my impressions of the dish when I ate it last Thursday. The broth, I recall writing, was rich and complex, having absorbed flavors both from the onion and mushroom but also komatsuna. The noodles, greens and tofu each absorbed some flavor from the broth too, but not so much that they lost their own distinctive flavors. There's a nice variety of textures in the bowl too. I particularly liked how the tofu squishes out stock when you chew it. It's a tasty and pretty hearty dinner considering the lack of meat (beyond a bit of fish in the dashi).

Another interesting idea in one of the source recipes was, instead of udon, cooking rice in the broth. I tried that the following day but was a bit disappointed in the result as a lot of the broth's flavor disappeared, locked away inside the rice. Plus the rice got kind of mushy. That's probably more because of my rice cooker's sensors getting confused than anything inherent in the broth, though. I did like the suggestion in that recipe of adding a beaten egg to the rice when it was just about done cooking, but you'd be better served adding an egg to the noodle variation.

CSA week five - Mushroom bread pudding

This is only marginally a CSA recipe; I used the oyster mushrooms, but lots of other mushrooms too. This was, as I said on Saturday, more about using up half a loaf of staling bread and too many eggs, a task at which it succeeded quite well. As usual, I looked at a bunch of different recipes and cobbled together my own version of the dish. Many recipes suggested using this as a side dish to steak, but, as my own innovation, I decided to incorporate the beef into the dish proper.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 Tablespoons butter
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, finely diced
1 pound of assorted mushrooms
I used:
3 1/2 ounces oyster mushrooms, chopped
8 ounces cremini mushrooms, sliced
4 1/2 reconstituted assorted dried mushrooms including criminis, porcinis, cloud ears, shiitake, chanterelle and oyster mushrooms, chopped. Save a little of the soaking water.
1/4 pound sirloin tip, sliced against the grain into strips and cut into 2-inch lengths
1 handful parsley, chopped

6 cups semi-stale bread, cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes
The bread I had on hand was a 5-minute-a-day recipe with good amounts of whole wheat and rye. It had a dense spongy texture good for sandwiches, but not really ideal for this application. For the record, I wasn't entirely thrilled with the bread and I'm going back to normal no-shortcuts baking.

6 extra large eggs
2 cups cream
1 cup milk
1/2 cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese plus a little more
salt
pepper
hot sauce
Worcestershire sauce

0. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and lightly salt the sirloin tip.

1. Heat butter and olive oil in a medium cast iron (or non-stick) pan over medium-high heat. When the butter finishes sizzling add the onion and cook until softened and translucent, around 5 minutes. Push to one side and add a quarter of the mushrooms and a pinch of salt. Cook until softened, golden (and a little browned) and any expressed liquid has evaporated, around 5 minutes. Don't stir too much. Push to the side with the onion and add the next quarter of the mushrooms. Continue until all the mushrooms and cooked. Empty the mushroom/onion mixture into a bowl leaving a little fat in the pan if possible.

2. Meanwhile, cube the bread if you haven't already and put them in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the eggs, cream, milk, cheese and seasonings.

3. Add a little more olive oil to the pan if necessary and add the sirloin. Cook for a few minutes, continuing to restrain yourself from fussing with the pan so the meat can sit still and brown. When the meat is browned add it to the bowl with the mushrooms. Also add the parsley and stir well. Deglaze the pan with a quarter cup of the mushroom soaking liquid and add that to egg mixture.

4. Butter or oil an 8x11-inch baking dish. Add the mushroom mixture to the bread cubes and stir well. [I found my bare hands to be the best tool for this.] Dump the mixture into the baking dish and spread out evenly. Pour the egg mixture over top and let sit at least 10 minutes to soak. [If you're using dense bread like I did, over night would be better. Lighter bread needs less time, but you could soak a brioche or french bread overnight to let a lighter bread fall apart to create a more pudding-like texture which is not a bad option.]

5. Top with the extra Parmesan and bake at 350 degrees for an hour until a knife inserted into the center comes out almost clean. Let cool a bit before cutting.


You might have gotten the impression that I wasn't entirely happy with how the bread I used turned out. It's not actually bad, it's just distinct and the wide range of textures--crisp, tender, creamy, chewy--it gives the dish is actually a pleasant effect. I would like a more integrated flavor, though. As it is, it's very much a steak and mushroom omelet with a side of toast. Now there's certainly nothing wrong with that (although I wonder where the richness of all that cream went), but I feel like it could have been better. Barring using a different bread, I probably should have processed it down into coarse bread crumbs and let it soak longer. That's a tweak for next time; This turned out pretty tasty as is.

Mushroom, mango and brie fondue

Last week was the new faculty reception at my library. Turnout's been lousy since the faculty realized we've dialed the catering back to wine and cheese. On one hand, that's pretty lousy since it's one of the few chances we get to pimp library services to a skeptical and indifferent audience. On the other hand, hey, free cheese.

Specifically, I liberated a big wheel of mediocre brie. I've been whittling away at it by eating it with crackers and in sandwiches with jamón ibérico and basil, but I wanted to do something more interesting with it. Not a lot of choices out there. You can bake it, of course, but the wheel was in two pieces so it would be an awkward process. Giada de Laurentis has a recipe for a brie, chocolate and basil sandwich that gets some mixed reviews. I was more interested in the pairings of brie with tart apple. I figured I could substitute in mango and get some interesting results. I was thinking of a mango, brie and bacon risotto, but I also had my eye on a brie fondue recipe and I don't think I've ever had fondue. So I thought I'd give it a try. Adapted from this recipe.)

Ingredients:
1 Tablespoon butter
2 shallots, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 handful dried cremini mushrooms, rehydrated and finely chopped (the original recipe called for an implausibly large amount of porcinins which were sold out in the two places I looked. I used what I had and, to boost the umami, added...)
a few slices of jamón ibérico, finely chopped (although jamón serrano or prosciutto would have done fine)
1/2 somewhat underripe sweet-tart mango, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup fruity but not overly sweet white wine
3/4 pound rindless brie (maybe 4/5 pound with rind), cubed
2-3 ounces goat cheese (I used Humboldt Fog, an ash-aged cheese whose fresh, slightly funky flavor nicely rounded out the brie.)
2/3 cup light cream
salt and pepper
parsley, chopped

1. Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. When it stops fizzing add the shallots, garlic and ham. Sweat until the shallots are softened.

2. Stir mushrooms and mango into the mixture in the pan. Add wine and cook briefly to blend the flavors and soften mushroom and/or mango if they need it.

3. Add the cheeses and stir until they start to melt. Add the cream and continue stirring until the cheese melts into a thick sauce.

4. Remove from heat and check seasoning. I found it needed a bit of salt and pepper. Garnish generously with parsley and serve before it clots with bread for dipping. (The original recipe also suggested serving with broccoli. I didn't think it would work so well with the adjusted flavors. I did try grape tomatoes, but I didn't care for the combination.)


Not bad at all. Mostly cheesy of course, but the other flavors bring some real complexity. There are earthy notes from the mushrooms; sweet and tart from the mango emphasized by similar notes in the wine; some herbal counterpoint from the parsley. The flavors intensify as the fondue thickens so it's a balance between ideal texture and flavor that shifts as you eat which adds a bit of interest.

I just did a search and found a recipe with paired a brie fondue with a mango chutney. Not quite the same, but close enough that I don't feel entirely original. Darn.

A meatloaf experiment

I did a good bit of cooking this weekend, but nothing much worth posting about. I made a pot of chicken stock, a mess of beans, a batch of scallion buns (I took out the bacon and chives that messed up the last batch and instead just added a little cabbage. That worked very nicely.) and, as you can see from the post title, a meatloaf.

I hadn't planned on the meatloaf being particularly interesting either, but I had a thought that brings it just barely into range. If you read my last post you know that's a pretty low bar, but the results promise possibilities to come.

So, meatloaf. In my last post about meatloaf included a schema that I stole from somewhere for a generic meatloaf. Here's a bit more detailed version:
2 pounds ground meat
1 1/2 cups finely chopped starch (but not too finely. Breadcrumbs, not flour)
1 cup somewhat more coarsely chopped vegetables
2-3 eggs
1/4 - 1/2 cup dairy of some sort
copious seasonings

mix everything, pack it into a loaf pan and decant it into a baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for around an hour until the inside reaches between 140 and 160 degrees depending on who you ask. If you're going to glaze, wait until the last 10 minutes.


Now you could fuss about making sure your choice of vegetable matches nicely with your choice of meat and starch, or you can throw together whatever you've got and count on the seasoning to smooth things out. I went the latter route this time around.

The actual experiment was how far I pushed the definition of "starch". Usually, that means bread crumbs or sometimes oatmeal or crushed croutons. Instead I, while looking at the remnants of the chicken stock cooking process, wondered if mashed carrots and turnips might do. (I also had a good bit of well-boiled chicken. I put that in the beans.) I thought I'd have the full cup and half, but after sqeezing the soup out of the vegetables, they had compressed down to only half a cup, and that's including the bits of onion I left in the there. On the plus side, it had the texture of squished white bread which a lot of meatloaf recipes use. I filled out the rest of the volume with half panko bread crumbs and half oatmeal. (My homemade breadcrumbs went grotty with all the humidity recently so I had to toss them out and make due with what I had left in the house.) I ground those together with the carrot/turnip mush and ended up with this promisingly mealy-looking stuff:


For the meat, I used a pound of ground beef, half a pound of pork and a few Argentinean-style chorizos. I usually buy the Venezuelan-style ones, but I thought I'd try Argentinean this week. I dunno, though. They smell like cheap hot dogs and they're full of fat and gristle.


For the vegetables, I used cabbage, red and yellow sweet peppers, some past-their-prime cremini mushrooms and carrot tops. I fried them up to add a bit of flavor from browning and to drive out some moisture so they can absorb meat juices later.

For the dairy, I used about a third of a cup of well-crumbled goat cheese and the whey it came packed in.

And for the seasoning, adobo con sazon, Pickapeppa sauce and Crystal hot sauce.

Here it is all mixed and molded.




And here it is afterward. I did a simple glaze of ketchup, brown sugar, hot sauce and white vinegar.





It holds together nicely without being tough or crumbly. I should have chopped the vegetables more finely and there's some sinewy bits from the sausage, but otherwise, the texture's very nice.



The flavor is a bit more carroty than perhaps one might wish and I went light on the salt, but otherwise, the random assortment of ingredients I threw together work well enough. It's not great, but random assortments rarely are. [It's tomorrow now and I can report that the flavors work rather better cold and I've decided that I quite like the textural interest of the vegetable chunks. So I'm happier with the results than I was yesterday.] The interesting bit is that the soup vegetables have vanished entirely into the meat mix and I do think they had a beneficial effect on both texture and, subtly, on the flavor.

I wonder how other vegetables with a similar texture might work. Mashed potato or yam should be comparable. I'd be surprised if there aren't recipes out there that already use them, but it's tough to search for them as they're often mentioned as side dishes where they're not ingredients. Going further afield, might an avocado, with much of the moisture squeezed out, work? Or a roasted canistel? Canistels firm up to a yam-like texture when roasted. Now I'm thinking about roasted avocados. There are a bunch of recipes out there, but they're really just warming the avocados through and melting cheese on top. What does happen to avocados when you roast them long enough to affect the texture? Have any of you tried?

CSA week 14 - Barley soup with mushrooms and kale

Last week was kale week in the New York Times. No particular reason that I saw; they just had a few different recipes over a few days. I was ready for an alternative to the Portuguese kale soup I had planned since I had made a Spanish carrot soup last week so it was easy for this recipe to catch my interest.

I've always thought of mushroom barley soup as Northern European, quite possibly due to poor geography skills. Italian barley soup--and this is just one of several recipes for such a thing you'll find on the web--is rather a surprise to me. Live and learn.

I had a lot of ideas to tinker with the recipe--add tomatoes and/or sausage, leave out most of the broth to make a barley risotto, switch out the barley for millet, change up the seasonings--but I'm tired and I don't feel like screwing around today so I just made it by the numbers. A few small changes, though: I used half butter for the fat, used a spring onion and since, like last week's collards, the kale seemed particularly tender, I didn't remove the stems.

---
March 6, 2009
Recipes for Health
Barley Soup With Mushrooms and Kale
By MARTHA ROSE SHULMAN

This is a comforting winter meal in a bowl based on a classic Central European mushroom and barley soup.

1/2 ounce dried porcini mushrooms
2 cups boiling water
1 to 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, as needed
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 pound cremini mushrooms, cleaned, trimmed and sliced thick
2 large garlic cloves, minced
Salt, preferably kosher salt, to taste
3/4 cup whole or pearl barley
1 1/2 quarts chicken stock or water
A bouquet garni made with a few sprigs each thyme and parsley, and a bay leaf and a Parmesan rind [I'd usually add a little soy sauce to a mushroom soup, but a Parmesan rind is just as good an umami infusion device.]
8 to 10 ounces kale (regular or cavolo nero), stemmed and washed thoroughly
Freshly ground pepper to taste

1. Place the dried porcini mushrooms in a bowl or a Pyrex measuring cup, and pour on two cups boiling water. Let sit for 30 minutes. Set a strainer over a bowl, and line it with cheesecloth. Lift the mushrooms from the water and squeeze over the strainer, then rinse in several changes of water. Squeeze out the water and set aside. Strain the soaking water through the cheesecloth-lined strainer. Add water as necessary to make two cups. Set aside.

2. Heat the oil in a large, heavy soup pot or Dutch oven over medium heat, and add the onion. Cook, stirring often, until just about tender, about five minutes, and add the sliced fresh mushrooms. Cook, stirring, until the mushrooms are beginning to soften, about three minutes, and add the garlic and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Continue to cook for about five minutes, until the mixture is juicy and fragrant. Add the reconstituted dried mushrooms, the barley, the mushroom soaking liquid, and the stock or water. Salt to taste. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer 45 minutes. Meanwhile, stack the kale leaves in bunches and cut crosswise into slivers. Simmer the bouquet garni during the 45 minute simmering, then pull it out when the soup is done.

3. Add the kale to the simmering soup, and continue to simmer for another 15 to 20 minutes. [That's a whole lot of kale. I had to add it in batches and then wait for each to wilt to make room in the pot for the next.] The barley should be tender and the broth aromatic. The kale should be very tender. Remove the bouquet garni, taste and adjust salt, add a generous amount of freshly ground pepper and serve.

Yield: Serves six to eight

Advance preparation: The soup will keep for about three days in the refrigerator, but the barley will swell and absorb liquid, so you will have to add more to the pot when you reheat.
---

I did give in to the temptation to meddle and fried up some sweet Italian sausage to added with the kale. But it was a small sausage and a big pot of soup so it didn't make much of a difference, the soup was still just kind of blah. What did make a difference was a bit more salt, a bit more pepper, a whole lot more Parmesan, just a small shot of balsamic vinegar and an extra ten minutes on the stove to get the last of the al dente out of the barley and kale. Then the flavors started to pop. A little acid brings out the best in hearty greens so the vinegar turned it from mushroom barley soup with some kale floating in it to kale soup with barley and mushrooms. I'm not sure that's entirely a good thing as I do like barley mushroom soup. Eh, the flavors will balance in the refrigerator overnight. That's what soups do.

CSA week 11 - filet mignon with Gorgonzola creamed arugula and rosemary garlic roasted potatoes

I don't often make the classic American dinner plate of meat, starch and vegetable, but I wanted to make the arugula into a side dish, I've got these potatoes here and half the tenderloin I bought is still taking up precious freezer space so it seemed like the way to go.

The filet mignon I seasoned with salt and pepper then cooked a couple minutes on each side and a minute on each edge in plenty of butter and olive oil at medium high heat. Nothing fancy there.

The potatoes are the recipe Fabio used to wow the chef Jedi council on Top Chef this week. I quartered four of the new potatoes and simmered them until tender. Then I drained them and tossed them with a couple smashed garlic cloves, a dismembered stick of rosemary, salt, pepper and a little olive oil. That went into a 375 degree oven for a bit over an hour. I turned the potatoes at around 40 minutes so more than one edge would brown well.

The arugula is a variation of a pasta sauce and includes mushrooms and tomato too. I'm out of fresh mushrooms so I used some dried creminis. I briefly sautéed them in a little butter, added the finely chopped tomato and arugula and sautéed for another minute until the arugula wilted. Then I poured in a bit too much cream and added the Gorgonzola and salt, pepper and a little nutmeg. I originally used half the arugula but it wilted quite away while the sauce was cooking down so I threw in the rest. I added a bit more Gorgonzola too while I was at it. When the cheese had melted and the cream reduced enough to form a clingy sauce, it was done.

Pretty simple, but pretty impressive too (although a smaller plate would have displayed it better). I've got to hand it to Fabio's grandmother; these are great potatoes--crispy and chewy on the outside, but with a soft fluffy center and full of flavor. The steak was done perfectly medium rare, if you consider medium rare perfect as right-thinking people do. And the creamed arugula retained a bit of texture against the creaminess of the sauce and the soft tomatoes and mushrooms. All those flavors match nicely and the Gorgonzola is fine with both the steak and potatoes so the sauce did triple duty. Add a spicy dry red wine to cut the fat and you've got a lovely meal.

CSA week three - sukiyaki with hon tsai tai

I had heard the term sukiyaki and had a passing familiarity with the dish when I decided to make it, but I really didn't know what I was getting into. It's a dish more suitable for a family or party than one guy, but once I get an idea in my head for this sort of thing I find it tough to change course.

Sukiyaki, if you break it down to its basics, has two main parts: a sampler platter of chunks of raw ingredients and some sauce to simmer them in.

I used the most complicated sauce recipe I could locate which I found here.

"Warishita (Sukiyaki Sauce):

1/2 Cup Soy Sauce
3/4 Cup Mirin
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/4 Cup Water
1/4 Sake
1/4 tsp Dashi No Moto(optional)
1 clove garlic smashed (optional)

Combine Warishita ingredients(except for dashi no moto) and bring to a boil while stirring, turn down heat and simmer for 3-5 minutes to burn off alcohol. Remove from heat and add dashi no moto, if desired. Remove from heat and cool. Let the sauce "rest" at least 20 minutes, or over night."

Dashi, in case you're unfamiliar, is a fish/seaweed broth which is probably the most common broth in Japanese cooking. It's available in dried granulated form. From the 1/4 teaspoon measurement I'm pretty sure that's what Kirk K., whose recipe I'm filching, means. Which is a good thing as that's what I've got handy.

This sauce is the good stuff. Sweet but with several layers of rich savory flavors even before I start to simmer anything in it.


As for that anything, there's a a lot of variation--regional I think--about what goes into the pot. There's most agreement on beef, enoki mushrooms and yam noodles. Beef I'm using, of course, enoki mushrooms I wish I had but I'm not willing to go out shopping for them right now. Instead I'm using shiitakes, also common, and creminis. Yam noodles are pretty bland and have a nasty rubbery texture so I'm substituting in egg noodles, a move sure to appall purists. Also going in are sliced bamboo shoots, onion, (scallion if I wasn't just about out of it), tofu, and hon tsai tai.

I didn't turn up any sukiyaki recipes that actually called for hon tsai tai, but I did find plenty using spinach and one using mazuna so it should fit in fine.

A sidebar on the hon tsai tai before I continue here. One common thread I noticed in the sparse documentation on using hon tsai tai was complaints about the woody stems. Our batch this year seems rather better on that score than last year's. I think that's because this is younger. I don't see the distinctive yellow flowers and many of the stems are still green. The more purple the stem the woodier it is so I'm avoiding the worst this time around.

There is still some woodiness, though, so I'm going to pick through the bundle harvesting the leaves and keeping only the most tender stems. Everything else I'm packing away for the next time I make stock.

Last year I suggested cooking the hon tsai tai like kale, but I think this batch is more on par with spinach so it's not going to need a long braise, just a quick simmer in the sauce.

So, step two, after making the sauce (and pre-cooking the noodles), is to brown everything that needs pre-browning. In my case that's the tofu and the beef. Traditionally, a cast iron pan is greased down with a chunk of beef fat. I've still got some lard kicking around so I used that. And can I point out that my fresh-rendered lard is substantially less hydrogenated than the big block from the supermarket so it's no worse for me than butter? First I fried the tofu (which isn't traditional but I like a little texture on my tofu), removed it from the cast iron pan and let it rest to crisp up. Then, when I was ready to eat, I seasoned the beef with a pinch of salt and a few drops of soy sauce, browned it quickly on both sides and gathered it up into a pile at the side of the pan.


Next I poured in the sauce and added the greens. I wanted them to wilt down before adding anything else so I put them in right away to let them cook as the sauce came to a boil.





Once it got there, everything else went in--each to its own sector of the pan--and I simmered at medium heat for three minutes before it was ready to serve.




The traditional method of eating sukiyaki is too keep the pot simmering away. Everyone sits around it picking out what they want and cooling each bite by dipping it into a small bowl of slightly thinned beaten egg. Yeah, I know and I understand your trepidation. Japanese folks accept a wider range of food textures than most anyone else. But it's not a problem in this case; There's no raw egg mouth feel at all. The boiling hot meat and vegetables cook the egg they come in contact with and the tiny bit that sticks to them mixes with the clinging layer of sauce to add body and temper the sweetness--improving flavor and texture as well as doing its job as a heat sink. It's actually an essential step that does a lot for the dish.

I don't have a hibachi to set up on a table--heck, I don't have a dinner table--so I had to eat at the stove which is not a dignified operation let me tell you. I think I had the burner cranked up a bit too high because the beef overcooked pretty quickly; I probably should have used skirt steak or the like instead of the more delicate cut I had in the freezer. The onions passed through a properly cooked, firm but not raw, stage at around five minutes and then started cooking down. On the other hand, the noodles and the mushrooms stayed good throughout which was nice.

The hon tsai tai turned out to be much tougher than it looks and took a very long time to soften up. The leaves aren't as thick as most tough greens, but they're very fibrous. It's like chewing on a strip of fabric if it's undercooked. On the other hand, its slightly bitter flavor played against the sweet sauce beautifully. Even with the textural issue, it was the best component of the dish.

Overall, an interesting experience but I could use a bit of practice to get this right. On the CSA end of things it wasn't the best possible use of hon tsai tai. That really needs a braise. If we get any more I'm just going make up a mess of greens southern-style with a chunk of salt pork and a dollop of molasses and be done with it.

I also made a daikon/cucumber salad but since I accidentally made enough food for four people, I didn't eat much. I'll give it a separate post tomorrow.

CSA week one - my Thanksgiving meal

I'm not visiting family this year so I thought I'd make a little thematically appropriate dinner for myself. Mainly, I wanted to try making a green bean casserole. As I mentioned in a previous post I've never had it before but I've known about it for decades and I've been curious what the big deal was. I used the Good Eats recipe; it says "Best Ever" right there in the name and the many reviewers agree so I was sold. Maybe I should have used canned ingredients to get the authentic experience, though.

I didn't make any major changes to the recipe beyond halving it, changing to an 8" cast iron to accommodate, and fixing the thoughtless oversight of not including any bacon.

Here's my slightly modified version:

Ingredients

For the topping:

• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
• 1/8 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon panko bread crumbs
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• Nonstick cooking spray

For beans and sauce:

• 1 tablespoons plus 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
• 1/2 pound fresh green beans, rinsed, trimmed and halved
• 1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 6 ounces mushrooms, trimmed and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 2 thick-cut slices of smoked bacon
  
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1/2 cup half-and-half

Directions

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees F.

Combine the onions, flour, panko and salt in a large mixing bowl and toss to combine. Coat a sheet pan with nonstick cooking spray and evenly spread the onions on the pan. Place the pan on the middle rack of the oven and bake until golden brown, approximately 30 minutes. Toss the onions 2 to 3 times during cooking. Once done, remove from the oven and set aside until ready to use. Turn the oven down to 400 degrees F.

[This is not nearly as easy as Alton Brown makes it sound (and again the reviewers agree). My onions stuck badly, despite a well oiled pan, so tossing didn't work so well and I lost maybe a third of the onions to burning and much of the rest didn't get the contact with the pan they needed to crisp up. I should have used my non-stick cookie sheet instead of a glass baking dish.]

While the onions are cooking, prepare the beans. Bring a gallon of water and 2 tablespoons of salt to a boil in an 8-quart saucepan. Add the beans and blanch for 5 minutes. Drain in a colander and immediately plunge the beans into a large bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Drain and set aside.

Melt the butter in an 8-inch cast iron skillet set over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms, bacon, 1 teaspoon salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms begin to give up some of their liquid, approximately 4 to 5 minutes. Add the garlic and nutmeg and continue to cook for another 1 to 2 minutes. Sprinkle the flour over the mixture and stir to combine. Cook for 1 minute. Add the broth and simmer for 1 minute. Decrease the heat to medium-low and add the half-and-half. Cook until the mixture thickens, stirring occasionally, approximately 6 to 8 minutes.

[I should have crisped the bacon first, removed it from the pan, cooked the mushrooms and added the bacon back in with the green beans. As it was, the bacon, while adding good flavor, was kind of flabby. I forget to adjust for the thick cut of the bacon I've been buying recently.]

Remove from the heat and stir in 1/4 of the onions and all of the green beans. Top with the remaining onions. Place into the oven and bake until bubbly, approximately 15 minutes. Remove and serve immediately.

[And you'd better serve immediately because it's good for five minutes while it's bubbling hot and then it rapidly fades in quality. When it's just warm, the textures get kind of icky. Personally, I would have liked a shorter blanch on the green beans so they'd stay a little crisp, but maybe that's just because my onions weren't. I think both the flavors and textures were best out of the refrigerator the next day. Although neither were really any great shakes; it's beans, onions and mushrooms in a cream sauce. The smokiness of the bacon was a nice addition to that, I think ,but still this is probably a dish enjoyed more out of tradition than for it's own sake.]

Anyway, that's the side dish; I still need some poultry for a proper Thanksgiving. Cornish game hen is a popular choice for those dining solo on this day, but I think it looks rather sad on a little roasting dish in the toaster oven. In an aside at the end of a how-to-cook-your-Turkey TV special I saw Alton Brown cook one in a panini press (probably standing in for a George Forman Grill which is likely far more common in American homes). I haven't got one, but I thought I might be able to cook it the same way I cook grilled cheese sandwiches without one.

Step one is to spatchcock the bird. From what I read on-line that's the same as butterflying, but I suspect there's some subtle distinction in arrangement of the limbs afterwards that I'm missing. I've decided I prefer the word 'spatchcock' so that's what I'm saying from now on. That's simply cutting out the backbone, slicing the meat away from the keelbone, flipping the bird over and flattening it out. That's generally followed by seasoning and oiling both sides. In this case I used the Gullah baked chicken seasoning blend I bought when I passed through the Carolinas last year which gives a good straightforward southern cooking flavor to a bird.

Step two is to heat two cast iron pans over high heat for five minutes or so. I don't know why my camera couldn't capture the cherry red of the back burner you can see there. It would be nice to have burners that could get white hot, though.





Once the pans were piping hot I lightly oiled the large one, turned down the heat to medium high, laid out the hen skin-side up, put the small pan on top (with it's hot bottom against the hen), put my heavy cast iron pot lid on top and squished it down. It took a bit under 20 minutes to cook through and since the small pan cooled I flipped the bird a couple times.




The results are rather better than I expected from a novelty cooking method: crispy browned skin and flavorful not-too-dry (although not noticably juicy either. Maybe I should have brined it.) meat.



And that's my Thanksgiving meal. If I had thought of it, I would have gotten a can of cranberry sauce too. To be honest, I prefer the canned to the fresh. Instead I had a couple chunks of membrillo--the Spanish quince paste that's traditionally paired with manchego cheese. The combination didn't make sense to me at first but it's grown on me over time. I suppose cranberry sauce with turkey makes just as little obvious sense. Membrillo is chewier and not as tart as canned cranberry sauce, but it substituted fine. I considered roasting some turnips and then mashing them up, but I decided to save them for stock which I'll post about tomorrow.

Beef Stroganoff

The pumpernickel bread I baked recently isn't the most versatile type of bread out there so I did a bit of research for what goes well with it. There's smoked fish and cream cheese so I had a bit of that. There's Nutella. (Actually, the combination of a sale on Nutella and poor impulse control was the initial prompt to choosing that sort of bread to make in the first place.) It sounds a bit odd, but when you remember that there's cocoa in the pumpernickel recipe it does make sense. There will developments on that combination later--predictable ones if you've been reading for a while--but you know from the subject line that the immediate topic is beef stroganoff.

There's a surprising amount of variation in recipes out there. For one thing, I didn't know that mushrooms are recent addition. I cobbled together my own version out of three recipes that had appealing elements. (Cream of mushroom soup was right out.) I liked 2/1 beef to mushroom ratio and the seasoning in the recipe from Simply Recipes. Cook Like Your Grandmother had an interesting marination technique. And Dave Campbell, chairman of the Culinary Arts Department at SUNY Cobleskill added some intriguing French elements. Here's my composite recipe:

Ingredients:
4 Tablespoons butter
1 pound tenderloin, cut into thin strips
1/3 cup thinly sliced shallots
1/2 pound not-quite-so-thickly sliced cremini mushrooms
1 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 small handful cornichons, roughly chopped
1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon
salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste

0. Take everything out of the refrigerator so it'll be at room temperature when you need it.

1. Layer beef and shallots on a relatively deep plate or shallow bowl (so as not to spill any released juices) salting as you go. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit on the counter for an hour.





2. Melt 3 Tablespoons of butter in a large cast iron pan on medium heat. Scrape off the shallots into a bowl. Turn heat up to just below high and brown beef in batches. The meat should be sufficiently salty already but check. Add pepper to the bowl of cooked meat.





3. Reduce heat to medium high and add shallots. Cook shallots until they're nicely browned, about four minutes. Add to bowl of meat.





4. Melt another Tablespoon of butter in the pan. Add mushrooms after the butter stops bubbling but before it starts to brown. It's not a very long window of time. Toss mushrooms immediately to coat, but then only stir occasionally as the mushrooms cook down. Cook for four to six minutes until mushrooms are cooked down but not shriveled up. At some point add tarragon and nutmeg.

5. Remove from heat (or turn heat to low if your pan isn't cast iron), let cool slightly and add sour cream and mustard. Mix thoroughly. Stir in cornichons, beef and shallots. Test for seasoning and adjust.

6. Serve garnished with a bit more tarragon (fresh if you've got it) over egg noodles and/or with pumpernickel bread.


Before I get to how it turned out, a note about the beef. I had every intention of talking about how the much-cheaper-than-tenderloin flank steak is perfectly fine for this sort of quick browning application, but when I got to Fresh Market I found that grass-fed tenderloin was on sale for less than flank steak. The butcher was even willing to cut it up so I didn't have to buy the whole 6-pound loin (although I think that's just because nobody in the meat department could find out the actual price for smaller pieces after I had been promised such a thing was possible). But since it was only $8/pound I bought fully half of it even though I rarely eat beef and when I do I it's cheap tough stew meat. I hope months in the freezer won't do it too much harm as I think it's going to take a long time for me to use it up.

Right, how did the stroganoff turn out? Pretty darn well, I'd say. The marination let the shallots and beef meld flavors and the mushrooms and sour cream absorbed flavors from both from bits left in the pan so the dish was well unified. Of the additions, the tarragon and the mustard give a little sweetness and vinegary zing that nicely round out the other elements of the dish. The cornichons and nutmeg I could lose. And the dish does indeed work nicely with the pumpernickel. The dense chewy bread is a pleasant textural addition and the subtle sweetness pairs well with the creamy meatiness of the dish so success all the way around.