The Great American Cooking Project

American Moxie

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:34:00 +0000

I am so pleased to let you know that this blog was featured in the Library of America's newsletter. Check it out:

When I got the call that they wanted to write the blurb, I was like, Wha--? REALLY? Which is to say I'm very flattered and proud.

This blog is a credit to the power of moxie. A sudden inspiration — I’m going to cook every one of the recipes! And I’m going to write about it! — changed my life in many wonderful ways.

Follow your instincts! (Especially when they involve food).

PS: I recently cooked Chicken Marbella again -- and my oh my, it is GOOD. Make plenty extra -- the leftovers are even better.

Eating Well in Hard Times

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:40:00 +0000

CNN’s dubious news-you-can-use on Depression cuisine (via Mills) and Steve Almond’s “recession garden” (via Cathy) got me thinking back on my “year of eating historically.”

There weren’t any recipes for squirrel, but there are some lessons.

Not so long ago, most people prepared nearly every meal as though they were in a recession. Meat was expensive. Affordable produce was seasonal. People “put up” canned fruits and vegetables for the winter. There were a few staples that they bought in bulk. Way back in the ’80s — the 1980s — I remember playing in my grandma’s cellar. I loved picking at the little white sprouts that grew out of the potatoes she kept down there over the winter.

Nowadays, we have cheap meat and cheap bananas and expensive asparagus all year round. In many cases, we’re not paying the true cost of our food: the carbon footprint of growing it on factory farms and then transporting it many, many miles to our kitchens. And although the global economic markets might have our attention, the true crisis — the one we’ll be dealing with for the rest of our lives — is environmental.

So here are a few suggestions that might be cheaper and will definitely be better for the planet….

Nut Loaf: a substitute for meat loaf. It’s improbably delicious. I made a “classic” version, as well as one with squash, carrot, and ginger. Unfortunately, nuts are expensive, unless you buy them in bulk. But their impact on the planet is much smaller than meat — and that’s important whether the stock market is up or down.
Apple butter (or apple sauce): if you pick them yourself, you can get 20-25 pounds for $20 — or less, if you’re not in NYC. That’s more than enough for several jars of apple butter, which you can eat throughout the winter and give as very thoughtful, very inexpensive holiday gifts.
Shit on a Shingle: eggs, flour, butter, milk, bread — all (still) affordable. If it was good enough for American G.I.’s, you better believe it’s good enough for their coddled grandchildren.
Bake a cake: ‘Causecupcakes are a rip-off! How about a nut cake (if you can’t get those wonderful hickory nuts, try walnuts) or that 1966 classic, the Tunnel of Fudge cake?
Rice Pudding: the price of grains has soared, but if you buy a big bag, rice is still very inexpensive. This is one of the most comforting desserts I can imagine. There’s a bonus recipe — my extra-special Rice Krispie treats — which are, unfortunately, too expenisve to make these days. Boxed cereal is also a rip-off.
Beans!: they’re cheap, especially when you buy them dried and in bulk. How about some spicy moong dal, tasty “unbaked” black-eyed peas, or heart-warming lentil soup?
“Working Girl’s Tuna Burger”: I mixed expensive yellowfin tuna and inexpensive whitefish — delish.
Irish Potato Pudding: don’t make this recipe. I repeat: don’t make this recipe. It was awful. You’d have to be in the middle of a famine to appreciate it. BUT there is a lesson: potatoes are cheap. They’re filling. And we’re so over that dumb no-carb thing, so give ‘em a try again!
Lobster Dip: lobster during a recession? Remember, it’s about moderation, not suffering. This recipe makes a delicious spread that serves about six.
Chicken Chartreuse: like the lobster dip, this is a way to make a little bit of (ideally) farm-raised, hormone-free chicken feed a crowd.
Tripe: ‘cause nothing says hard times like offal!

October Surprise

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 02:21:00 +0000

On Wednesday, September 24th, I turned 27. We celebrated with homemade pizza, wine, and five varieties of cupcakes. Three days later, I had a marvelous 2050 A.D.-themed party, in honor of my newish blog about sustainability issues. But you could say my year really started when I was thrown into the air by a Chevy S.U.V. as I was walking across the street in Midtown on Sunday evening. I hit the asphalt hard on my right side and ended up in an E.R., where they gave me a bag of Morphine and looked inside my body every which way -- X-ray, ultrasound, CT scan. Satisfied that my organs were working as they should from where they should, they sent me on my way. I spent a painful but cozy week recuperating at home.

As becomes an invalid, I've wanted to eat little but soothing soups and tasty teas, and fortunately, I have wonderful friends who supplied me with both. But I'm a cook. The space between fridge, chopping board, and stovetop is where I simply am, where my elements are in harmony -- and it's where I start to put those elements together when they come undone. I am lucky, indelibly. Not only did I survive what a friend called "a blatant assassination attempt by Big Fossil Fuel," but I survived with the ability to cook. Happy birthday, indeed.

Earlier this week, I made tortellini in brodo with homemade broth, something I remember my Dad, a great cook, making in my childhood. It is my ultimate comfort food. And today, I made lentil soup -- perhaps the soup I most enjoy making at home. It's so delicious, so nutritious, so filling, and, unlike other legumes, lentils need no soaking and cook quickly, in about half an hour.

Before I started, I checked Mark Bittman's lentil soup recipe in How to Cook Everything, as I am wont to do, but improvised from there, adding potatoes we had on hand, and loading up on extra carrots. In a fit of inspiration, I sprinkled in nutmeg, then -- why not? -- cinnamon. The spices lent natural sweetness, an unexpected foil to the earthiness of the root vegetables and lentils. The thick soup was revelatory: an October surprise, no mud-slinging involved.

October Surprise Lentil Soup

Sometimes I like a lentil soup so thick even the label "stew" doesn't do it justice, other times I like a brothy soup. I generally prefer the latter when I'm using good, homemade stock. Adjust this recipe by adding more stock at the end if it gets too thick for your taste. Play with the recipe -- add spinach or celery, substitute shallots for onion, skip the potatoes, maybe even the carrots (though I do think some vegetables are crucial). The thing that makes this soup unique is the seasoning: thyme and (surprise!) nutmeg and cinnamon. The taste is pure comfort, whether you're recuperating after a run-in with a two-ton vehicle -- or just warming up on a blustery autumn day.

1 1/2 cup lentils, washed and picked over
1 pound carrots, peeled and sliced into 1/2-inch coins
1/2 pound small white potatoes, scrubbed, sprouts removed, and sliced into 1/2-inch chunks
2 bay leaves
4-6 sprigs of fresh thyme or 2 big pinches dried thyme
1 big pinch ground nutmeg
1 pinch ground cinnamon
8 to 10 cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped to a 1/4-inch dice
1 tablespoon minced garlic, or more, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Place the lentils, carrots, potatoes, bay leaves, thyme, cinnamon, and nutmeg, in a medium pot with 8 cups of stock. Bring to a boil, turn the heat to low, and cook, stirring occasionally.
Meanwhile, swirl the olive oil in a skillet and turn the heat to medium-low. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring, until the onion softens, about 5 minutes. Turn off the heat.
When the lentils, carrots, and potatoes are tender -- about 30 minutes -- remove the bay leaves and the thyme sprigs and pour the onion mixture into the soup. Taste and adjust the seasonings. It should be faintly sweet, with just a hint of cinnamon and nutmeg.
Add more warm stock if necessary. I like a very thick lentil soup, though it can be nice with more stock, especially if the stock is homemade. Season with salt (if needed) and black pepper and serve.

Serves 6.

The Brooklyn Chili Takedown

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 19:37:00 +0000

On Sunday, my roommates Jane, Andrea, and I entered the Brooklyn Chili Takedown hosted by Matt Timms. My friend Cathy Erway of Not Eating Out in New York gave me the heads up on the seriously competitive cook-off that's held two or three times a year. The second I read her email, my jingle-jangle happy-nerves started buzzing. With someone like Jane on my side, I knew we'd be bringing home a medal for the Midwest (dintcha know? I'm from St. Paul, Andrea's from St. Louis, and Jane's from Kansas City.)

Much to Jane's embarrassment, we christened our team, "Jane and the Kansas City Corn Rows" (rejected by the grace of good taste: "Kansas City Devil-ettes" and "Kansas City Krunk").

Jane's idea-packed emails started flying immediately. At 4:40 pm on Thursday, August 7th, she wrote:

what if we made a 'summer chilli' that was maybe really spicy flavorful ground turkey chili with white beans or something, and then what if we topped it off with some sort of fresh corn and tomato salsa that would be cold (like andrea's AWESOME dip) and sour cream and maybe that yummy white mexican cheese. i think that could be a winner!!!

At 4:41 pm, she added:

and fresh cilantro! love that.

And at 4:46 pm:

i also think that we should make home made crispy tortilla strips to put on top. yum! i hope there are left overs!

And this is almost exactly what we did: a lighter "Summertime Chili" with ground turkey and pork, turkey sausage, white northern and pinto beans, fresh tomatoes, a bit of half-and-half, and a whole mess of secret seasonings.

Our three secret weapons (what another contestant called "the woman's touch") were a sweet and spicy fresh corn relish, cilantro-lime sour cream, and corn strips.

We took special pride in the fact that nothing came from a can. And the effort paid off. We won second place in the People's Choice category (with all due respect to Cathy, who was a judge, this was totally the category of the night.) This was out of 25 entries, some quite excellent, others quite unusual (there was even a crazy-good chocolate chili.) It was such a thrill!

Check out more photos from Andrea and myself, and this video I've put together (much to sweet Jane's embarrassment!):

The Chili Takedown from Nora Leah on Vimeo.

Where is she now?

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 04:39:00 +0000

I'll continue to post updated recipes from my collection of vintage cookbooks, but in the meantime, please stop by 2050 A.D., a blog I've created to explore a wide range of sustainability issues (including food!).

And for your daily Nora Leah fix, check out my personal blog, Thought for Food.

My Year of Cooking Historically

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:08:00 +0000

This is it. The final recipe of the Project. And it ends with the beginning: the earliest recipe in Molly O'Neill's American Food Writing and the first recipe for ice cream in the United States, taken from a 1780s holograph (hand-written) manuscript by Thomas Jefferson, the founding foodie.

But before we get to the ice cream, indulge me a look back on this year of cooking historically. The single most amazing thing this blog has brought is the attention of Ms. O'Neill herself -- and a job. Working with her, I learned to approach food writing as an anthropologist might, digging into people's stories -- not just their cupboards -- to find out why they eat what they eat, and rolling up my sleeves to cook beside them any chance I get.

Just as I look at myself differently -- I'm so much more confident in my ambitions as a writer -- I look at my country differently. Taking on dozens of recipes from the past 230 years has give me insight into the evolution of the American diet and taste. The things I love most about this country are right there in the kitchen and on the plate: we build communities around the cultivated earth, sharing crops, labor, and meals; we struggle, collectively, to strike a balance between the indulgent and the puritanical; we celebrate the humble, the refined, and the kitsch; and, best of all, there's always room in the pot for more: Indian heat, Moroccan spices, hell, even Chinese tacos. This culinary and cultural education has spurred me to take risks, tossing traditions together like a chopped salad and approaching the act of cooking and eating with a pioneer spirit. Why not turn a basic risotto into an innovative and decadent chocolate dessert?

Today, I identify with a line of cooks and eaters and writers that stretches back generations. Women, in particular, have expressed their identities through food and food writing. Remember the Hayes and Tilden cakes of 1877? Miss Flora Ziegler of Columbus and Mrs. T. B. of Chicago couldn't vote, but they could bake and publish recipes in support of their candidates. In effect, they voted with their wooden spoons. How remarkable that, 131 years later, a young woman in Brooklyn would be reinventing their cakes for two Democratic candidates for the presidential nomination -- a woman and a black man!

I made the Obama and Clinton cakes for a tea party thrown by an effervescent young man named Nick whom I met through blogging; Nick brought another remarkable guy, Mark (pictured below), to my Good Friday gumbo party, we bonded over soul music and soul food; in April, I cooked at Mark's Williamsburg loft for the private supper club he runs with his roommates, and last Friday, I joined him and a few other friends, food and Internet enthusiasts all, to make a wholly unconventional version of Jefferson's ice cream.

And that is the final piece that I have gained through this blog: a network of dedicated, active foodies -- bloggers as well as people who open their homes to strangers to serve them some of the best food in Brooklyn. I've cooked by their side and witnessed their singular approach -- steeped in creative, unusual technique and fueled by boundless curiosity. They push me to push the envelope.

Which is my very long-winded explanation of how I came to make tobacco-flavored ice cream. My thinking was as simple as this: Jefferson grew the crop at Monticello, my friends are game, and -- why not?

Cathy, the lovely and curious food writer behind Not Eating Out In New York coached me on the custard-making (I've never made ice cream before), while taking the photos you see on this post. Mark, being Mark, goaded me into tossing in twice as much American Spirit tobacco as I first, rather timidly, added. We let the half-cup of tobacco and fresh vanilla bean infuse the custard for ten minutes or so, strained it, and tasted.

"Mmm. It's goo--," I started to say. And then the tobacco hit the back of my throat -- at once both spicy and, somehow, numbing -- and I had to take a step back.

"Woah. You've gotta taste that." Cathy and Mark dug right in.

The result was simply fascinating: it drew you in just as it pushed you away. Mark served it at our friend Michael's home as a "meal-ending trio of frozen weirdness." Reviews were good, but then again, the diners were comparing it to a Serrano & Raisin Granita that Mark likened to a "pork snow-cone." (See why I love cooking with these guys?)

And so. That's it for this project -- but it's not over. I'm too engrossed in cooking historically to give it up. Thanks to my unholy addiction, I have a vast collection of vintage cookbooks. From time to time, I'll post my adventures with dusted-off recipes, and I'll keep you updated on everything else I'm up to. And please keep in touch. Email me at nora(at)shermanhome(dot)com.

Tobacco-Flavored Ice Cream

Made with just heavy cream, egg yolks, sugar, vanilla, and tobacco, this is so thick it's closer to a frozen custard. But Thomas Jefferson called it ice cream, so I do, too. A half-cup of tobacco will make a very kicky, almost spicy ice cream. For a more subtle flavor, opt for less, about one-quarter cup, or as little as a tablespoon.

2 pints of heavy cream
6 yolks of eggs
1 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean
1/4 to 1/2 cup high-quality tobacco (I used American Spririt)

1. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the yolks and sugar until thick. In a saucepan, warm the cream over medium-low heat. Slice the vanilla bean down the middle and scrape out the seeds into the cream. Add the bean and the tobacco, stir well, and let cook, without boiling, for about 15 minutes. Strain. Remove from heat and slowly add the yolks and sugar to the cream mixture while strring. Place the saucepan over medium-low heat and slowly warm the custard, stirring gently, until it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Leave to cool completely. When it's cold, transfer to the bowl of an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Makes 4-6 servings.

Philadelphia Freedom

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 06:01:00 +0000

Concentrate, for a moment, on six words: the stomach lining of a cow. Got the image in your mind? Good. Now go ahead -- savor it.

There are phrases in the English language that are more unappealing, but not many. Add a couple more words -- soup and honeycomb -- and you begin to understand why it's taken me so long to make Philadelphia Pepperpot Soup, one of two remaining recipes on my American Food Writing-inspired "to do" list.

The soup is a soul food institution little known to outsiders, and it's not hard to figure out why: it's main ingredient is honeycomb tripe, the rubbery, textured lining of a cow's second stomach. The recipe -- a contribution from Sheila Ferguson, '60s girl group singer turned cookbook author -- has potatoes, cream, beef bouillon, spices, and, of course, peppers. But the tripe towered über alles.

Tripe, you shouldn't be surprised to learn, is not stocked at the Park Slope Food Coop, so I'd have to make a special effort to find it. But the promise of Pepperpot Soup didn't succeed in motivating me, even in the cold of winter, when (theoretically) any warm stew would be welcome. Before I knew it, daytime temperatures were topping 100 degrees, and I still had a soup to make and consume -- a tripe soup, at that.

Without really looking for it, I found tripe in a butcher in Chinatown. Two dollars and twenty-nice cents a pound. I gazed at it through the dirty glass window: honeycomb-rippled, gelatinous, and pale, in a basin of ice and water (the tripe above is from the same shop on a different day; it's darker and more expensive than what I bought. That tripe can vary so much is not exactly comforting!). Even though I only wanted no more than a pound, I bought what was there: 1.3 pounds (the meatmonger wouldn't let me shave off that extra 0.3), and brought it home to an apartment that was losing a battle against the AC window unit. As I got up the nerve to touch it bare-fingered, I started to think about cooking it.

Sheila Ferguson's recipe -- which has its roots in the soup that George Washington's troops ate to stave off starvation during a fatal winter in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania -- starts with cooked tripe, finely shredded. She doesn't explain how to cook it, though she mentions her aunt Ella's preferred method ("the soul way"): boiling until "it's nice and tender" and then breading and frying. So i tried that. I cut the tripe into a few pieces -- it was surprisingly resistant to my knife -- and boiled it in salted water for 15 minutes ... 30 minutes ... 45 ....

The cooking tripe gave off a peculiar odor, unmistakable to anyone who has spent time in Chinatown, any Chinatown, and I instantly regretted that the hard-working air conditioner unit prevented me from opening windows. After an hour, my patience was worn thin. Even though the tripe wasn't quite tender, I rolled it in highly seasoned flour and started frying.

Of course, being me, I had taken significant liberties with the other ingredients. Where the recipe called for bacon, I used turkey bacon; where it calls for bell pepper, I used fresh corn. I replaced white potatoes for sweet potatoes, and toyed with the seasonings a bit. My sautéd sort-of-succotash was spicy-sweet and delicious. Barely glancing at the printed recipe, I was so flush with freedom that I decided to hell with it. It's too hot for soup! I added no stock, no cream -- and no shredded tripe.

The result was a heap of veggies, flavored with cayenne and agave nectar, speckled with browned turkey bacon, and topped with a "fillet" of fried tripe. My roommates didn't hide their relief when I assured them the tripe was optional -- though they were good sports and tried a bite, even two. Finally, a year in the making, we sat down to enjoy our very deconstructed Philadelphia Pepperpot Soup, a little taste of tripe-free freedom in every bite.

Philadelphia Pepperpot Succotash

Cooking spray
6 slices turkey bacon, cut to a ¼” dice
Kernels of 2 corncobs
½ cup onion, finely chopped (1 small onion)
½ cup celery, finely chopped
1 teaspoon paprika
½ teaspoon thyme
2 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon agave nectar
1 large sweet potato, cut into a 1/8” dice

For the tripe:
1 pound honeycomb tripe
¼ cup flour
1 teaspoons kosher salt
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons canola oil

1. To prepare the tripe, put it in a Ziploc bag and pound it for a minute with a heavy can. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil and boil the tripe for at least 1 hour, until it can be pierced with a fork. Remove and let the tripe cool enough to handle. Slice into about 4 pieces. Heat the canola oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Combine the flour, salt, cayenne pepper, and black pepper on a plate. Dredge the tripe peices in the flour so that they’re evenly coated. Working in two batches, fry the tripe until golden brown on each side, about 3 minutes each side. Let drain on paper towels.

2. While the tripe is cooking, prepare the succotash. Heat a skillet over low heat. Spray with the cooking spray. Add the turkey bacon and cook until it begins to crisp on the edges, about 5 minutes. Add the onion, celery, corn, paprika, thyme, parsley, salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper. Continue cooking until the vegetables are tender. Remove the vegetables from the skillet.

3. Melt the butter in the skillet. Add the sweet potatoes and sauté, stirring often, until tender, about 15 minutes. Add the vegetables and toss to combine. Serve warm or at room temperature. If you’re using the tripe, finely shred it or slice thin and serve on top of the succotash.

Makes 4 servings.

Primum Non Nocere

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 13:09:00 +0000

First, do no harm. That is to say: love the lobster. Treat it as you would your own mother, if you were a large marine crustacean with a cannibalistic streak. Do not mask its flavors with cream and butter and mayonnaise. Let it shine like the star of the sea it is!

This was my mantra last weekend as I took up the cause of a female lobster in the Cape Cod kitchen of dear friends. She was of speckled complexion and robust build, 1.25 pounds and about 10 inches long. There was one of her, and seven of us, but she, like those biblical fishes, would serve us all (no miracles involved).

Eliza Leslie, the author of Directions for Cookery (1837), did not abide by the code of nephropidae ethics to which I subscribe. Her approach to "Potted Lobster," a kind of shellfish terrine suitable for spreading on thin slices of bread, can only be described as buttery and violent: the lobster is parboiled, its meat picked out and beaten with a mortar, pressed "down hard" into a mold, slathered with butter, and baked for a half hour. The butter is then removed and clarified, the lobster meat is pressed into smaller molds, topped with the clarified butter, and, presumably, chilled until ready to serve.

What might potted lobster have tasted like? Well, there are a few spices in it -- nutmeg, mace, and cayenne -- as well as salt, but I suspect the dominant flavor would be butter. The lobster, cooked so long and treated so roughly, would retreat, its usually domineering flavor reduced to a vague pan-shellfish flavor rich in umami but not in lobster essence. Or perhaps not, but in any case, for a summer meal I craved something fresh and sea-breezy.

My approach to Eliza Leslie's lobster spread would celebrate the briny diva: lemon juice, green onions, parsley, salt, and pepper played chorus, and just a dollop of mayonnaise brought the ensemble together.

Like a true diva, she did not go without a fight. Lydia Hopkins, my hostess with the absolute mostest, has been spending summer on the Cape since she was a wee thing; she knows a thing or two about beach buggies and killing crustaceans. I've always boiled lobster but she suggested we steam it for the best flavor and texture. That meant preparing a shallow, simmering bath for the lobster in a saucepan large enough for her to sprawl in the bottom. And once she was in, it meant ignoring the sounds of her frantic scramblings. (I may have squealed with dismay, but all went silent within a few moments.)

Lydia's expertise came in handy again when it came time to remove the meat -- which was, as promised, perfectly cooked, not a bit rubbery, not even in the claw (as it can be when the execution method is a vat of boiling water). She made such quick work of the task, the lobster was reduced to an empty exoskeleton before I could properly note her technique. (So I shall have to return for another lesson, but in the meantime, these directions from a 19th century cookbook look good.)

You may be wondering why I keep reiterating that my lobster was a "she." I requested a female because I wanted her roe, both for its brininess and for its pretty color. Potted lobster layers white lobster meat with what Leslie called the "coral;" the roe in my dip gave my dip made it festively tricolor.

Served alfresco with dry white wine and toasted rye bread, the dip made an ideal appetizer for a meal of plump grilled sea scallops and vegetables. So you see, if you treat your crustaceans in death with the dignity that they lived, you will be richly rewarded. And you need not wait until the afterlife, either -- dinner will do.

Let-the-Lobster-Shine Dip

1.25 pound female lobster
2 tablespoons finely chopped green onions
1 packed tablespoon finely chopped parsley
1 heaping tablespoon mayonnaise
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

In a saucepan large enough to lie the lobster, bring about 2 inches of water to a gentle boil. Place the lobster in the bath, shut the lid, and close your ears to her scrambling. She'll quickly go quiet. Let steam for 15 minutes, remove from bath, and douse with plenty of cold water to speed up the cooling. When cool enough to handle, pick out the meat, including the roe.
Combine the lobster meat and roe with all other ingredients. Taste carefully and adjust seasonings as needed. Serve with thin slices of bread rubbed with a bit of olive oil and garlic and toasted in the oven.

Serves 6.

Cheater, Cheater, Corn-Muffin-Eater

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 18:32:00 +0000

Attentive readers may have noticed that I've lately taken bold liberties with the historical recipes on my source list, drawn from American Food Writing. I transformed traditional risotto into a chocalatey dessert; a basic slab of steak into a technicolor salad; and Chinese pancakes into Chinese tacos, to name a few.

You could call it cheating, but I prefer to think of it as winging it in style. As I noted in a response to a reader's comment, with 11 months of tackling challenging recipes under my belt, my cooking confidence is high, my urge to experiment is keen, and my desire to make foods that my friends actually want to eat overrides any concerns of inauthenticity. (It's remarkable what an otherwise innocuous bowl of bran jelly -- liquid cardboard, as it should be known -- and a heaping mound of inexplicable and nearly inedible potato pudding can do for your enthusiasm for following certain recipes to the letter.)

Which is to say that I don't feel a bit guilty for my latest improvisation, though this ranks among the most outrageous departures from the source recipe.

The only things that I took from Amelia Simmons' 1796 recipe for Johny/Hoe Cakes was inspiration and cornmeal (or "indian meal" as it was known at the time). Other than that, the muffins I made bare as much resemblance to the early cornbread recipe as a fresh berry-and-cream trifle does to a Pop Tart.

I had no interest in making ordinary corn bread. My friend the suburban gardener gave me a handful of fresh-picked sweet basil, I had some Pecorino cheese in the fridge, and I loved the way a smattering corn kernels spruced up thick pancakes: all these ingredients would play their part in my take on Johny cakes.

I noodled around Epicurious and found a recipe for Corn Muffins with Green Onions and Sour Cream, which became the foundation for my muffins. I replaced sour cream with cottage cheese because I love the stuff and would rather have it leftover than sour cream, and I skipped sugar because I didn't want anything masking the flavor of the herb. I roasted the corn, which dried the kernels out a bit. It might have been better to boil them, but then I wouldn't have gotten that lovely roasted flavor. My solution was to add 1/4 cup of olive oil.

The result was moist and overflowing with the flavors of a summer garden. I packed them away to take on a road trip to Cape Cod, following in the footsteps of their Johny cake forefathers, which were so named because travelers brought them on journeys.

A final note on cheating: attentive readers may be wondering just when I'm going to end this cooking project. The description at left says the grand finale was to happen on July 4, 2008, yet I have three more recipes to go: Thomas Jefferson's recipe for ice cream, Potted Lobster, and Philadelphia Pepperpot Soup. Well, I made an extremely loose interpretation of the lobster recipe on the Cape, but I still have the ice cream and soup to go. Think of this as extra helpings!

Corn and Basil Muffins

1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 cup cottage cheese (I used the low-fat, whipped variety)
2 large eggs
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted, cooled
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup of cooked corn kernels (from 2 cobs of corn, boiled or roasted, or 1 cup frozen kernels, thawed and drained), finely chopped
1/3 cup finely chopped basil, packed
1/2 cup Pecorino cheese, grated (or 1 cup, if you'd like to make a full batch of cheesy muffins), plus 2 (or 4) tablespoons for the topping

Preheat oven to 425°F. Line twelve 1/3-cup muffin cups with paper liners or grease a silicone muffin pan. Combine first 7 ingredients in large bowl. Whisk sour cream, eggs, melted butter, and olive oil in another bowl.
Add cottage cheese mixture to dry ingredients and stir just until moistened (do not overmix). Fold in corn kernels and basil. Divide the batter in half (or don't) and fold in 1/2 (or 1) cup cheese to one of the portions.
Divide batter equally among muffin cups. Sprinkle the cheesy muffins with the remaining cheese. Bake until golden and tester inserted into center of muffins comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Cool on rack.

Notes On Camp

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:54:00 +0000

I've got an outdoorsy streak that never fails to surprise people. Sure, I adore mascara, the Internet, goose-down pillows, and electricity but some of the greatest times in my life were spent grubby, exhausted, a 50-pound pack on my back, blisters on my heels, and 500 feet yet to climb. The most important question was not will he call me? but where will we put this food so the bears don't get it? I may not look it, but I've gone three weeks without a shower, pitched a tent in snow at 9,000 feet, and maintained "lightning position" for an hour in a thunderstorm.

My mom says that when I returned from those weeks-long expeditions to the Rockies or the Boundary Waters, I was, for a brief period, a normal, pleasant human being. The teenager who snarled at the mere suggestion that the dishes needed putting away was temporarily replaced by an easy-going young woman with confidence in herself and gratitude for the little things (like a dishwasher to remove said dishes from).

When I saw "A Michigan Receipt for Making Shortcake in Camp" in American Food Writing, I knew there would be no cheating it: this recipe would be made over a fire. If in this year of cooking historically I did not go camping, then I was prepared to make shortcake over the grills in Prospect Park.

As it turns out, Liz, a girl I'm so loyal to I may as well be her mutt, wanted just one thing for her 26th birthday: a camping trip. Nothing overambitious -- some of our friends, though equally loyal, are not as tolerant of creepy-crawlies -- just a night in a state park close to a Metro North station.

So last Saturday, after a fortifying Blood Mary in a patio bar near the Cold Spring station, we ventured forth into the Wilderness. We spent the afternoon doggy-paddling lazily around a lake, grilling hot dogs, drinking beers and white wine with ice from the cooler, and debating the relative merits of this tent spot vs. that one (a quandary when your campsite resembles nothing so much as a rock quarry, as Liz's sister Becca aptly put it.)

That night, we sat around the fire, just as our Liz had pictured, eating hamburgers, corn grilled in the husk, s'mores, and baked apples sprinkled with cinnamon that were so mushy they were like pudding. Anne, Liz's teacher colleague and friend, made them by wrapping the fruits in aluminum foil, tossing them near the embers, and letting Mother Nature do the rest of the work.

One nearly-sleepless night later (see above: rock quarry), and it was time for the Michigan shortcake.

The recipe, published in 1876 in the National Cookery Book, is comically rustic: it involves an Indian guide, a sapling refashioned as a rolling pin, a hot stone standing in for a frying pan, and the inevitable salt pork (historical cooking always gets back to salt pork). I imagine that what I would make of the "receipt" would be a hit-or-miss griddle cake: it could be greasy and flat or lifeless and bland or cakey and dense.

I wasn't willing to take the risk when our breakfast depended on it, so I turned to a book that a frontier woman can depend on: The Joy of Cooking. I took the Basic Pancake recipe as my starting off point. I doubled the recipe, which meant that adding the liquid mixture to the dry without overmixing was very difficult. Bill, Liz's boyfriend and a formidable foodie, reminded me that I was forming irreparable gluten. And so I was. As Bill noted, it's a short distance between pancake and bread, and so much of it is in the agitation of the batter.

There was nothing to do but pretend that gluten was my intention all along. I kept adding milk until it was a batter I could work with -- I got a whole quart in there (the recipe calls for 2 cups) -- but the result, once I got the charcoals and skillet at the right medium-hot temperature, were thick, hearty pancakes that are exactly what you want when you spent the night spooning with a small boulder.

Speaking of spoons, I added spoonfuls of fresh blueberries to some pancakes, and leftover apple mush to others, and leftover cooked corn kernels to others. On the side: great, local Canadian bacon from the Co-op and hot coffee ... from a nearby gas station. Hey, we're urbanites (who didn't bring our French presses).

As the "Michigan receipt" notes, when the food is "all seasoned with good appetite, nothing can be more delicious." And it was.

A New York Receipt for Making Flapjacks In Camp

3 cups all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 quart milk
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
4 large eggs
1 pint blueberries
1-2 cups cooked corn kernels (from about 3 cobs)
1 cup cooked apple mush or applesauce

Preheat charcoal brickets. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Combine wet ingredients in another. Slowly add the liquid to the flour, whisking gently to combine. Stir just enough to combine.
When the charcoal brickets are hot, warm a nonstick frying pan. Brush with a bit of butter (I just rub it straight on the pan). Pour about 1/4 cup of batter onto the pan, letting spread to about 4 inches in diameter. Sprinkle with about 2 tablespoons of blueberries, corn, or apple mush/sauce.
Cook until bubbles begin to form and the sides of pancake pull away from the pan. The flip and continue cooking until the sides pull away. Check to be sure it doesn't burn! Cooking time will vary entirely on the fire, and is a constant struggle to get right (not gonna lie.)

Makes enough to feed about 10 people.

Under the Solstice Sun

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 02:55:00 +0000

Last weekend, we celebrated Katie's birthday and her new home in Stamford, Connecticut. (Can you believe I have friends who are already buying condos in the 'burbs and moving out there with their boyfriends??)

Katie and Chris (the boyfriend) ordered live crawfish from Louisiana and boiled it up under the sweltering sun -- felt just like NOLA! It was so hot the cheese melted on the plate, but I had my wide-brimmed hat and a pretty summer dress to keep me just cool enough to brave the barbecue. At about 5 p.m., when the oppressive solstice sun was mocking us with its sloooow descent into the West, we fired her up.

Luckily, there wasn't much to grill: just one great big flank steak and two corns on the cob, and I covered the grill and let the trio do their thing while I hightailed it to the single patch of shade.

How might so little feed so many? A salad, naturally Using strips of beef as an interloping ingredient among a riot of vegetables is a smarty-pants way to stretch one fantastic piece of ethically-raised, grass-fed bovine. And it also happens to be the way us omnivores should be eating, period.

I was (very, very loosely) inspired by a 1938 recipe for "Planked Porterhouse Steak," published by Rex Stout in Too Many Cooks -- an excellent title for a cookbook, don't you think? The steak gets its name because it is first grilled over a fire and then finished under the broiler, on a well-seasoned oak plank (instead of a baking pan), brushed with olive oil and surrounded with "a border of fluffy mashed potatoes." Just before serving, Stout brushed butter, sprinkled salt and pepper, and squeezed a bit of lime over the undoubtedly glorious-looking creation.

It's too hot to turn on the broiler, too hot to eat mashed potatoes, just too hot. But lime? Lime I can do. And grilling? That's practically my middle name (okay, not even close, but I can hold my own.)

A second inspiration was Marion Cabelle Tyree's "Meat Flavoring" from Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1878). The vinegar-based, highly-seasoned elixir is for the busy maid on the go: "As the housekeeper is sometimes hurried in preparing a dish, it will save time and trouble for her to keep on hand a bottle of meat-flavoring." Why, I couldn't agree more. And if you have found, as I have, that it's so hard to find good help these days -- the kind that flavors the meat on my plate -- then I suggest you print out the recipe below and pin it to her pinafore. The marinade I came up with (which is nothing like Miss Marion's) is a doozy.

On came together in a Latin-influenced salad of grilled corn, red peppers, avocado and mixed greens topped with strips of medium-rare steak marinated in lime and cilantro. It was, frankly, awesome. I just love it when a

And now, back to packing for a one-night camping trip for my friend Liz's birthday (we got her a tent but shh! It's a surprise.)

I'll be taking on "A Michigan Receipt for Making Shortcake in Camp," an 1876 recipe that calls for the aid of an Indian guide and a smooth sapling for a rolling pin. But this is Putnam County, NY, mere minutes from a Metro-North station -- not Lewis and Clark country. My Indian guide is bringing blueberries.

Solstice Steak Salad

1 1/2 to 2 pounds flank steak, preferably ethically-raised and grass-fed (you can taste the difference)

For the marinade:
3/4 cup lime juice
1/4 olive oil
1/2 cup cilantro, finely chopped
2 large cloves of garlic, finely minced
Big pinch of kosher salt
1 tablespoon Mexican seasoning blend
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon cayenne
A few good cranks of freshly ground black pepper

For the salad:
2 ears of corn, shucked
2 small-t0-medium red bell peppers, or 1 large, sliced into thin strips
1 avocado, sliced into thin strips
4 green onions, chopped
8 cups mixed greens

For the dressing:
1/4 cup freshly-squeezed lime juice
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup cilantro, finely chopped
Big pinch of kosher salt
A few good cranks of freshly ground black pepper

Combine the marinade ingredients. Place in a Ziploc bag with the steak (easy to bring it outside to the grill) and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
Preheat your grill. Get all your salad ingredients ready. Place the greens in a salad bowl or on a serving platter and arrange the other bits prettily on top (except the corn).
About ten minutes before grilling, toss the corn cobs into the steak marinade. Once the grill is hot, put the steak above the fire and the corn on the upper rack or in the corner, away from direct flame. Cover and grill for about 5-6 minutes, then turns the steaks and corn and grill another 5-6 minutes for medium-rare. Let the steak and corn cool completely, then slice the steak(across the grain) into strips about 1/2-inch thick. Cut the kernels off the corn.
Make the dressing by slowly adding the olive oil to the lime juice while whisking. Stir in the cilantro, salt, and pepper. Taste and correct the seasonings, if desired. Drizzle the dressing over the salad. Arrange the steak strips on top and sprinkle with the corn. Serve to the delight and amazement of your friends.

Makes enough for 12-16 people as a side dish or 8 people as a main course.

Duck, Duck ... Goose.

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 02:12:00 +0000

When I was twelve years old, some rare and fortuitous circumstance brought me to dinner at the St. Paul Grill, a steakhouse with dark wood, white linen tablecloths, and a carousel of Minnesota politicians rotating through the bar. I was buzzing with self-importance and the certainty that these scenes would feature prominently in my adult life.

In this refined setting, I ordered the chicken pot pie.

For a girl coming from a proto-Pollan, couscous kind of family, this was exotic fair.

So it should come as little as surprise that meatloaf made infrequent appearances in my childhood. It inspires zero nostalgia in me, unlike roast chicken, which made its glorious debut in my life when my dad and I moved in with Shelley, the woman who would become my adopted mother, or German apple pancake, spongy, eggy, and big enough to feed at least six, which my dad sometimes makes on wintry Sunday mornings.

It wasn't just the children of once-long-haired radicals who grew up without meatloaf on their plate. There's no equivalent in Latino, Indian, and Arabic cultures, to name but a few. But to my surprise, there is one in Chinese culture -- or, at least, Chinese-American culture. Ken Hom's Easy Family Recipes from a Chinese-American Childhood (1997) offers a recipe for Steamed Pork Loaf with Salted Duck Eggs.

"This dish is well known to many of my fellow Chinese-Americans," Hom writes, "It should become a favorite of all Americans, hyphenated or not."

I made a special trip to Manhattan expressly for salted duck eggs, which, Hom promised, would be hard, rich with briny flavor, and would "add much to the already zestful blend of robust pork and spices." In Chinatown, I asked a few Chinese people where I might find a suitable grocery store. They were very nice but had no idea what I was talking about. It was a pleasantly disorienting experience, speaking my native tongue in my native land and feeling so foreign. I was saved by an Anglo British man pushing a stroller with a beautiful child of indeterminate, mixed race, who overheard my query and said, "Just up the street. I used to live in Bejing and I miss those eggs."

I'd like to know what brand he misses so much, because the kind I purchased were the sort of thing that could cause nightmares, never nostalgia.

For all Hom's declarations of the meatloaf's "exciting seasonings," I thought the recipe looked a little bland (it is a meatloaf after all), so I mixed turkey with pork and really revved up the spices, adding garlic, ginger, and spicy sesame oil. I replaced canned water chestnuts with fresh, which filled me with immense guilt but saved a great deal of time.

When it came time to add the duck egg yolks to the top (the whites were discarded), I unwrapped one of the eggs from it's red candy-like wrapping and gave it a tentative crack against the counter. The white was that sallow gray shade common to hard-boiled chicken eggs that have been cooked too long. I gave it a sniff. Smelled fine, like nothing much. I gave it a nibble. Salty. Very salty.

I peeled away the white ... and there was the yolk. I felt queasy. It was mealy, moist, dark gray, and frankly, disgusting-looking. The package showed a preternaturally yellow yolks that shone like small suns. I was unnerved.

A quick Internet search assured me that so long as there was no foul smell, the eggs would be fine. I proceeded, slicing the gooey yolks in half and pressing them into the top of meatloaf.

I set up an impromptu steamer by bringing a couple inches of water to a simmer in my roaster pan on the stove, and gently floating the loaf pan in the bath (Hom uses a wok and a rack.) In less than half and hour, I fished out the loaf pan, turned the meatloaf onto a serving platter, and arranged stir-fried boy choy, celery, and asparagus around it.

The egg yolks were now an innocuous, pale Easter egg yellow. But my roommate, Jane, and I could not forget the undead look they had when they were straight out of the shell. We bravely, gingerly tried a bite while my friend Liz, who wasn't there for the preparations, innocently dug right in. Though she didn't share our vivid visuals and the accompanying negative predispositions, she didn't like them either. They were still mealy and had no flavor to add but intense salt. I scraped them off the whole loaf, so my guests wouldn't have to.

The meatloaf itself was wonderful. Well-seasoned, a lovely, dense texture, and even better the next day, cold and warmed-over.

And now I have three salted duck eggs staring at ominuously from the top shelf of the fridge. You've seen the photo. Admit it: you'd be scared, too.

Chinese-Style Meatloaf

1 pound ground pork
1 pound ground turkey
4 8-ounce cans water chestnuts (or 1 1/2 pound fresh water chestnuts, peeled and coarsely chopped)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
4 teaspoons Mirin (sweet rice cooking wine)
3 teaspoons Kosher salt
2 teaspoons sugar
4 teaspoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons Asian sesame oil
2 teaspoons spicy Asian sesame oil
2 large cloves of garlic, minced
1 tablespoons fresh minced ginger
1 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
3 salted duck eggs (optional)

In a food processor, mix the pork, turkey, and water chesnuts until they are nearly smooth. Scrape the mixture into a large stainless-steel bowl and add the scallions, then soy sauce and rice win. Add the salt, sugar, cornstarch, sesame oil, and pepper. With your hands, mix well, then turn the meat into a greased loaf pan. Crack open the duck eggs, discard the whites, and cut the yolks in half. Arrange the yolks on the top of the loaf, pressing the yolks into the meat mixture.

In a large roasting pan, preferably with a flat rack in the bottom, bring about 2 inches of water to the boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and carefully place the loaf pan on the rack or in the bottom of the pan. Cover the roasting pan and let it simmer and steam for 25 minutes, or until the loaf is done.

Serves 4.

La Dolce Vita

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 13:48:00 +0000

There is a surplus of savory recipes in this line-up, and far too few that feature chocolate. Sweets are my secret weapon to gain friends and influence people (now not so secret, but the technique will, I'm confident, lose none of its effectiveness) -- so I've been forced to improvise.

And so I did something to Marcella Hazan's 1973 recipe for Risotto alla Pamigiana (Risotto with Parmesan Cheese) that may be sacrilege to those who believe that oozing cheese is the mark of good risotto. But one bite of my Risotto al Cioccolato, slow-cooked Arborio rice blended with dark chocolate and layered with strawberries in their own syrup and liqueur-spiked whipped cream, and I'm sure they will find it in their hearts to forgive me.

It's best paired with a glass of fine prosecco, perhaps something from Carpené Malvolti, the original producer of sparkling Italian wine, which my guest had the good sense to bring.

Watch the video for the excellent, chocolaty adventure...

Risotto al Cioccolato from Nora Leah on Vimeo.

Risotto al Cioccolato
When the weather demands it, you might also serve this hot, perhaps with a crisp Italian cookie on the side instead of fresh strawberries.

6-7 cups of water
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 cup Arborio rice
6 ounces dark chocolate (60% cocoa and up)
1/4 cup granulated sugar plus 1 teaspoon (approximately)
1 pint cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons white chocolate liqueur, such as Godiva (optional)
1 pint strawberries, sliced very thin

In a saucepan over medium heat, bring the water to a steady simmer. Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the rice and stir to coat. Saute lightly and add 1/2 cup of simmering water. As the rice dries out, continue adding simmering water, 1/2 cup at a time. Stir frequently to make sure the rice doesn't stick. Continue until all the water is absorbed and the rice is quite soft and creamy. After you've added about half the water, stir in the sugar. (You may not need all 7 cups of water. As you get to the end, add just 1/4 cup of water at a time, to avoid drowning the risotto.)
While the risotto is cooking, prepare the strawberries. Sprinkle sliced strawberries with about 1 teaspoon sugar (or more, if the strawberries are tart) and about 2 tablespoons of water. Reserve in the refrigerator until ready to serve.
When the rice is finished cooking (it will take about 30 minutes), place chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave on high y until melted, 30 seconds at a time, stirring every 30 or 15 seconds. (It will take 60 to 80 seconds.) Add melted chocolate, vanilla extract, and 1/2 pint cream to rice and stir well. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.
When ready to serve, whip the remaining 1/2 pint cream with an electric mixer (add 2 tablespoons chocolate liqueur or 1 teaspoons sugar, if desired). Arrange risotto in martini or other glasses: a layer of risotto, followed by a layer of strawberries, another layer of risotto, and topped with plenty of whipped cream.

Serves 6.

(Another) Alternaburger

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 03:06:00 +0000

Please don't revoke my citizenship, but I'm not much of a hamburger person. Sure, I get their appeal. While no dietitian would agree, they are a remarkably balanced food, rolling all the things we crave into a packet easily maneuvered with just a hand and a mouth.

But as a kid, I preferred Chicken McNuggets (as I've mentioned), and these days, given the choice, I always go with a grilled something-or-other sandwich, or a salad full of crumbly goat cheese, interesting greens, and crunchy bits 'n bobs, or, when the opportunity presents itself, a hunk of barbecued meat, dripping with sauce.

But there are a exceptions. Take the beef out of it, add some flavah-flave, and I'm down with the burger. Case in point: the "working girl's tuna burger," inspired by the Union Square Cafe Cookbook. And now, a new one to add to my (admittedly very girly) burger repertoire, inspired by one of the first burgers every recorded, back when it was still know as the Hamburg Steak.

The recipe is by Sarah Tyson Rorer in Mrs. Rorer's New Cook Book (1902). Without saying so explicitly, she encourages the intrepid cook to disguise ground meat as steak. She forms the patties into steak shapes and serve it sans bun, as you might a T-bone: "dust with salt, put a little butter on top of each and send at once to the table; or they may have poured over them tomato sauce, or you may serve them with brown or pepper sauce."

I decided that I, too, would forgo the bun – in deference both to Mrs. Rorer and the modern dictum that limited white bread is not a bad thing. But if you're going to drop the carbs, you've got to add toppings that make you forget what you're missing. Instead of Mrs. Rorer's tomato sauce, I created a relish that would be a perfect foil for my favorite condiment, feta cheese, and would incorporate some incredibly fresh and fragrant mint grown in my friend’s suburban greenhouse. Feta and mint? I dare you not to think of Greece. I ran with the theme, adding kalamata olives, garlic, chopped tomatoes, and green onions, all quickly cooked in a bit of olive oil.

The result was a healthy, fast Wednesday meal for two that sang of the Mediterranean. The relish was really quite fantastic and would also be lovely on a bit of grilled fish or chicken, pasta, bruschetta – hell, even an all-beef patty between two buns.

Turkey Burgers with Olive and Mint Relish

With such flavorful toppings, I don't think this burger needs a bun. But add one if you'd like, or maybe serve atop a slice of country bread rubbed with garlic and olive oil and lightly toasted.

For the burgers:
1/2 pound ground turkey meat
2 tablespoons minced white onion
Big pinch of Kosher salt
A couple good cranks of freshly ground black pepper

For the relish:
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Roma tomato, finely diced
2 large green onions, finely diced
1 tablespoon minced fresh mint
1/4 cup pitted Kalamata olives, finely chopped
Big pinch of Kosher salt
A couple good cranks of freshly ground black pepper

1/4 - 1/3 cup crumbled feta

Preheat the broiler and arrange a broiler pan about 2 inches from the heat. Combine all the turkey burger ingredients, mix well, and form into two patties about 3 inches across. Spray the broiler pan with cooking spray. Place the patties on the pan and cook for about 4 minutes on each side.
While the burgers cook, make the relish. In a skillet, over medium-low heat, warm the olive oil. Add the garlic and saute until just beginning to color. Add all other relish ingredients. Saute until the burgers are fully cooked.
Place the burgers on servings plates. Top each with half the relish and half the feta and put back under the broiler. Cook until the feta just begins to brown. Carefully remove and serve.

Serves two.

Unbaked Beans

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Tue, 27 May 2008 01:34:00 +0000

It's the end of a three-day weekend, when Americans have laid wreaths, vegged out by lakes and lawns, and finally, finally worn white again -- but I worked all day today and I worked all day Saturday and I didn't even notice what I put on either day. Don't cry for me, though. I spent a lovely Sunday blowin' around Soho and the Lower East Side, capped off with a nighttime walk across the Brooklyn Bridge lit with undulating colored lights in honor of its 125th birthday, a view so magical that it reduced me to childlike skipping, wonder, and glee.

And sure, the weather was postcard-perfect while I was chained to my laptop, but really, it's not so bad: while I worked today, I did a little cooking in honor of the holiday. Leaving aside a World War retrospective, what's more Memorial Day than a big pot of baked beans? We didn't have the barbecued meat to go with it but we did have something even better: my roommate Andrea just came back from a weekend at the Cape (you know, the Cod one) lugging a bag of live mussels. She prepared them to her mother's recipe, with white wine, butter, celery, carrots, and herbs, and you know we mopped the fragrant broth up with buckets of toasted bread.

The baked beans recipe I was working with -- published in 1963 in John Gould's Monstrous Depravity -- called for night-long soaking and day-long baking. Not wanting to turn on my oven for so long on such a warm day (and not having planned ahead for dried beans), I grabbed 4 cans of black-eyed peas and cooked them in the Crock-Pot.

Gould recommends a number of what are now considered heritage beans: yellow eyes, Jacob's Cattle, Soldier (or Johnson), as well as the common kidney bean. I found none of them except the latter, so decided to go with black-eyed peas because they, not surprisingly, resemble yellow eyes, and because they're lucky, and despite what I've said before, I feel like I could use some good fortune right now.

Mussels and baked beans: an odd combination, perhaps, but both honor New England (Gould was from Rockland, Maine), so why not? I more or less followed his recipe, though I upped the fresh ginger -- and if I were doing it again, I think I'd add even more. But then, I'm a known ginger lover.

May you enjoy them all summer long ... but not with white pants.

Slow-Cooker "Baked" Black-Eyed Peas

2-3 slices thick-cut bacon
1/2 cup white onion, diced
4 (15 & 1/2 ounce) cans of black-eyed peas
1/4 cup dark molasses
1/8 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1-2 teaspoons fresh ginger, minced

Fry the bacon slices to just-crisp in a skillet over medium-low heat. Remove bacon and allow to cool slightly. Add onion and saute in bacon fat for 5 minutes. Slice the bacon into thin strips.
Empty the canned peas, including liquid, into the bowl of a slow-cooker. Add bacon, onion, bacon fat, and all other ingredients. Cover but leave a crack for steam to escape. Cook on medium for 5-6 hours, until liquid is reduced to a thick gravy.

Go East, Young Taco

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Mon, 12 May 2008 23:38:00 +0000

Faced with a 1945 recipe for Fried Scallion Cake, I thought, Fun! Easy! Let's up the ante. Make the cakes into tortilla-like wrappers for Chinese tacos.

Turns out the tacos were a very good idea. But I was wrong about the Fun! and Easy! part. The recipe, published by Buwei Yang Chao in How to Cook and Eat in Chinese, should have been a dead giveaway, particularly the bit where it instructs you to

roll up each cake (as you would roll a carpet) and then twist into a standing spiral, like a fattened water-heater. With the rolling pin, flatten the spiral from the top down...

Huh? Well, it made for an adventure. Take a look...

The moral? DO surprise your friends and family with a Chinese taco night ... but DON'T use Chao's recipe! Unless you know how to roll a sticky gob of dough into the shape of a fattened water-heater.

These Scallion Cilantro Pancakes look tasty and much thinner than the naan-like cakes I was able to make -- the better to roll up all the yummy fillings. The cilantro would be a welcome addition to the happy hodgepodge of filling flavors.

And speaking of those fillings, I suggest five-spice pork (or turkey? or firm, crumbled tofu?), Chinese pico de gallo, Napa cabbage with a light dressing (or plain), bottled black bean sauce (I heated mine just before serving) or hoisin sauce. You could also toss in some very thinly sliced red peppers, chopped sugar snap peas, or crushed, toasted almonds.

Now, doesn't it feel good to know you've got your menus set for Chinese New Year and Cinco de Mayo?

食飯 and ¡Buen provecho!

Five-Spice Pork

1 pound lean ground pork
2 heaping tablespoons five-spice powder
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger (optional)
A little bit of oil for cooking
1/2 cup scallions, chopped

About 2 hours before serving, combine the pork, five-spice powder, soy sauce, and fresh ginger. Chill until ready to cook. Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Swirl just a teensy bit of oil in there. Add pork and scallions and cook, stirring often, until pork is cooked through and not a speck of pink remains, about 10 minutes.

Chinese Pico de Gallo

1/2 cup finely chopped boy choy
1/4 cup finely chopped crunchy bean spouts
2 tablespoons minced scallions
1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
2 tablespoons hot sesame oil, or to taste

About 2 hours before serving, combine all ingredients. Taste and add more hot sesame oil if desired. Chill until 20 minutes before serving.

Napa Cabbage with a Light Mirin Dressing

3 cups shredded Napa cabbage
1 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Mirin (rice cooking wine)
1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds (optional)

Just before serving, combine all ingredients and toss.

Strangechicken

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Fri, 09 May 2008 02:07:00 +0000

Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Chartreuse

We're getting to the point in this project where the remaining "to do" recipes are those that, for whatever reason, still ... remain.

There's Philadelphia Pepperpot Soup. Starring role: tripe. For those of you not well versed in bovine anatomy, that's stomach. It's not that I'm faint of heart. It's just that one can find any number of reasons not to make cow tum-tum soup. And I have. But now that it's nearly summer, I'm regretting having avoided it all these months. Here's hoping for one more chilly Sunday.

And then there's Potted Lobster: essentially, lobster terrine. Sounds delicious, yes? And it's an economical way of stretching one lobster to feed many. But the thought of picking apart a lobster and not getting to immediately dunk that sweet flesh in a pool of melted butter -- heartbreaking. I'll have to make that sacrifice soon, just not yet.

Fortunately, the results of a dish I once feared -- Chicken Chartreuse -- are encouraging. The recipe, published by Mary Lincoln in her 1884 work, Mrs. Lincoln's Boston Cookbook, put me off, if only for the cooking method. We are to "put [the mold] on a trivet in a kettle and steam for three hours" (or one hour if the sausage and chicken is pre-cooked.) I mean, kettle? Trivet?

But with two months to go 'til I complete my year of cooking historically, I had to do like the Puritans and carpe diem -- with or without kettles and trivets.

I made Chicken Chartreuse for an informal drinks party with my New York posse. Also on the menu: my most-requested feta dip and a big ol' pot full of sangria.

**Hot food blogger tip: if you fear disaster, serve plenty of drink!**

But I needn't have worried. The Chartreuse had a texture that calls to mind a slightly looser paté, with flavors that are as familiar as matzo ball soup. On crackers, it made light and satisfying party fare. The concept -- bits of tasty stuff mushed together and steamed -- accommodates interpretations and improvisations galore. Just be mindful of maintaining the proportion of wet-to-dry ingredients.

I'm providing both the chartreuse and sangria recipes -- but you could definitely get away with serving just the former. No booze required! Now that Pepperpot Soup may be another story....

Chicken Chartreuse

I used truffle-flecked sausage links, but perhaps a rosemary or a red pepper flavor would suit you? Also consider substituting other types of cooked meat, and vinegar instead of lemon juice.

You can set up an impromptu kettle-and-trivet steaming combination with a deep baking dish and a couple inches of water.

9 ounces (1 heaping cup) of cold cooked chicken, minced
2 chicken sausage links, minced
3 tablespoons bread crumbs
1 tablespoon chopped capers
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
Pinch of cayenne
2 eggs, beaten
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine all the ingredients and mix well. Butter a two-cup mold. Press the chicken mixture into the mold and cover. Fill a baking dish with about 2 inches of water. Place the mold in the water and bake for 1 hour. Allow to cool completely in the mold. To remove the chartreuse from the mold, dip the mold briefly in hot water,and slip a thin, sharp knife around the edge of the chicken to loosen. Serve chilled with crackers.

Serves 4-6 as an appetizer.

Saving-Face Sangria

1 bottle of red wine (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Rioja, Zinfandel, Shiraz)
1 lemon cut into thin slices
1 lime cut into thin slices
1 orange, peeled and cut into wedges
1 & 1/2 cups rum
2 cups grapefruit juice

Combine all ingredients, chill, and serve.

Serves 4.

The Great Compromise

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:49:00 +0000

For nine months, I've met every challenge that the cooks of yore have thrown at me (or so I like to think). But there are times when this historical food blogger is stumped.

Take a gander at this recipe, published in The "Settlement" Cook Book (1903), by Mrs. Simon Kander:

Matzos Pudding

3 matzos (soaked, pressed and stirred until smooth)
10 eggs beaten separately
2 large apples (peeled and grated)
1 cup goose fat
1/2 cup white wine
Grated rind of a lemon
Sugar to sweeten
1/2 teaspoon salt

Stir one-half hour and lastly fold in the beaten whites. Grease form well, bake in a moderate oven one-half hour and serve with wine sauce, six eggs, one cup of weak wine, sugar to taste. Stir constantly until it thickens as it is apt to curdle.

I mean, what is this? It starts with a porridge of unleavened cracker crumbs ... morphs into imitation bread pudding ... and ends with an egg-and-wine sauce for good measure? Is it even a dessert? And what's with the goose fat?

Since starting this project, I've often studied this recipe, intrigued by the unusual use of traditional Passover crackers but baffled by the directions and uninspired by the ingredients. And after my disappointment with that utterly pointless Irish potato concoction, I'm wary of strange puddings.

The official title of The "Settlement" Cook Book was "The Way to a Man's Heart." Molly O'Neill writes that the title "was quite in earnest, since poor cooking was often a source of marital strife."

They say the key to a good marriage is compromise, so I decided to negotiate with Mrs. Kander. I'd take her suggestion for Matzos Pudding, but I'd be making a few changes.

To begin with, goose fat was out: a custard of milk, cream, and eggs suits the modern palate, and brings us back into comfortable bread pudding territory. To give the dish more substance, crushed matzos made room for leftover whole wheat bread. Lemon peel? That could stay. But I added some Eastern spices (vanilla, cardamom, and star anise), inspired by a recipe for Lemon-spice Bread Pudding with Sauteed Peaches by Tasha Garcia and Julie Taras.

And in the produce section of Whole Foods, gazing at perfect, speckled globes of Asian pears, I found more inspiration. Two apples in the pudding became four pears in the sauce. I chose a variety, all at the peak of ripeness: two Comice, one Bosc, one Asian. I riffed on the classic dish of pears poached in wine: pears stewed briefly in lemon juice, butter, and red wine. A perfect compromise between Garcia and Tara's sauteed peaches and Kander's very rich wine sauce.

For the pudding, I followed Garcia and Tara's recipe fairly closely, but substituted half-and-half for their combination of whole milk and cream because it meant one less purchase at the store. And I added matzos, of course, broken into pieces. I mixed most of the matzos into the bread-and-custard mixture 20 minutes before baking, so that the matzos would soak up some of the cream and flavor, but reserved a handful to sprinkle on top just before sticking it in the oven.

The result was heavenly and wholly original. Matzos added a welcome crunch to the mundane (but wonderful!) mushiness of bread pudding. Lemon and spices and pears and wine make for an all-encompassing experience, like a goose down comforter on a cold winter's day (you see? We got some goose in there after all). The recipe below was a group effort -- Garcia, Tara, and Kander all contributed their part -- and I'm immensely proud of it.

Matzo-Bread Pudding with Pears in Wine Sauce

The subtle flavors of whole seasonings -- a vanilla bean, a few cardamom pods, and a pair of star anise -- add a great deal to the dish, but if they are unavailable, you may substitute vanilla extract and ground cardamom and star anise.

For the pudding:
5 cups 1-inch bread cubes from day old bread with crusts
4 matzo crackers, broken up into small pieces
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise (or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract)
3 cups half-and-half
4 cardamom pods, crushed (or a pinch of ground cardamom)
2 whole star anise (or a pinch of ground anise)
1 1/2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
3 large eggs
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt

For the sauce:
4 large pears, preferably different varieties, cut into 1/2-inch thick slices
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup dry red wine
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter

To make the pudding, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Toss the bread and melted butter on a large rimmed baking sheet. Place bread in oven and toast until golden, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes. Set aside.
Meanwhile, scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into a medium saucepan; add bean. Add half and half, cardamom, star anise, and lemon peel to pan and bring to a simmer. Remove from heat, cover, and let steep for 30 minutes. Strain.
Whisk eggs, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Gradually whisk half and half mixture into egg mixture. Add bread and toss gently to combine. Cover and let stand at room temperature, stirring occasionally, at least 1 hour and up to 2 hours. Twenty minutes before baking, add all but about 3 tablespoons of the matzo pieces to the bread mixture and stir gently to combine.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 11 x 7 x 2-inch glass baking dish. Transfer bread mixture to prepared dish and sprinkle with remaining matzo pieces. Bake until just set, about 55 minutes. Cool pudding at least 10 minutes.
To make the sauce, combine the pears, lemon juice, sugar, and wine in a bowl and toss. Melt the butter in a heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the pears; cook until juices thicken slightly, stirring gently, about 4-5 minutes. Serve the pudding warm or at room temperature with the pears.

WWJD?

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:31:00 +0000

My debut as a Washington hostess was not the cool-headed, pearl-strung affair I imagined as a little girl with big political dreams (and by little girl I mean a 26-year-old, last week).

It was a gorgeous day, demanding icy margaritas on a cherry blossom’d patio, not a less-than-happy hour or three spent near a hot stove. The only cherry blossoms in sight were the red splotches emanating from my over-warm cheeks.

There are times in life and in the kitchen when nothing seems to go your way. This was one of those times. The pork tenderloin was disappointingly fatty and oddly shaped and I was so generally frustrated that in attempting to tenderize it, I managed to tear it into pieces with a wooden cutting board. FYI: pork is not a punching bag.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that if Jackie Kennedy ever cooked – which let’s face it, is highly unlikely – she would never be reduced to a furrow-browed, damp-necked, expletive-spewing mess.

But despite its manic inception, the meal actually turned out quite wonderfully, including the ragged tenderloin, prepared according to Mark Bittman's genius and defiantly simple recipe (I adapted for a crowd and did the first browning in the oven).

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that if Jackie ever ate – which, let’s face it, is also highly unlikely – I believe she would have offered gracious endorsement of our delicate first course: cool vichyssoise soup.

My guide was a 1965 recipe from the notable 20^th century gourmand Michael Field, who edited the insanely popular and influential TIME-LIFE cookbook series. He explained that the decidedly Francophilian (not a word, but should be) leek and potato concoction we know as vichyssoise actually originated in the U. S.

Mr. Field instructs that “a cold soup tends to be pallid and should be pampered with a bit with good stock and thick cream if it is to make any impression on the palate at all.” Well, I don’t know about you, but there’s nothing I detest like a pallid soup. I gave that vichyssoise all the TLC my poor tenderloin was missing.

The result was refreshing (no small feat considering how much butter and cream went into it), and, I believe, well seasoned (taking a cue from Michael Ruhlman in The Elements of Cooking, I seasoned with salt all the way through, from cooking the leeks to the final taste test.) My soup needed a bit of extra salt because I used vegetable broth instead of chicken broth to accommodate a vegetarian guest.

Mr. Field cannot underestimate the importance of a good stock – a point on which he and the well-bred, horse-loving Jackie would agree on – but I don't believe much was lost in translation to canned vegetable broth. The spirit of Franco-American diplomacy, of cool buttery sips and saucy cocktail chatter, reigned supreme. Jackie would have not only approved but maybe – just maybe – asked for a second helping.

Vegetarian Vichyssoise

Adapted from Michael Field, Michael Field's Cooking School, 1965.

4 cups vegetable broth
4 tbsp. butter
2-3 medium to large leeks, white and light green parts, finely chopped (about 1 ½ cups)
1 small onion, finely chopped (about 1/3 cup)
2 pints potatoes, sliced about ¼-inch thick
Several big pinches of sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper (or white pepper, if a perfectly white soup is important to you)
1 cup heavy cream
4 tbsp. finely cut chives

Melt the butter over low heat in a large, heavy skillet. Add the onion, leeks, and a big pinch of salt and cook slowly for about 20 minutes, stirring every now and then and adjusting the heat so the vegetables barely color.
When the vegetables are soft and translucent, transfer them to a 3- or 4-quart saucepan. Add the stock, potatoes, another big pinch of salt, and bring it all to a boil. Reduce the heat at once, partially cover the pan, and simmer until the potatoes are soft and crumble easily with a fork. Remove from the heat and allow to cool enough to handle safely in a food processor.
Working in batches, pulse the soup in a food processor a few times – it shouldn’t be perfectly smooth, so resist the temptation to over-blend it. Taste for seasoning, add salt if necessary and a few cranks of black pepper.
Cover the bowl and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled. Serve in chilled cups with a sprinkle of chives on top of each portion.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Controlling Your Peanut Butter

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:29:00 +0000

George Washington Carver was an agricultural inventor, distinguished Tuskegee professor, and trailblazing American who rose from slavery to the heights of scientific achievement.

And so I mean no disrespect when I say that what may be his most lasting achievement is that thing we slather between two pieces of bread for what is one of the world’s best sandwiches. That thing that transforms an unassuming stalk of celery into a deliciously insect-laden log. That thing that so comically gets stuck on the roof of a doggie’s mouth.

Oh yes, the quintessential American schmear: peanut butter (with apologies to cream cheese.)

In 1916, Mr. Carver published what is likely the first recipe for peanut butter, just one of more than 100 peanut recipes included in How To Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing It for Human Consumption. The recipe, titled "Puree of Peanuts Number Two (Extra Fine)," was part of Carver's efforts to "expand the market for the legume," as Molly O'Neill writes in American Food Writing. And did he ever.

To quote the Skippy website, "nobody consumes as much peanut butter as Americans." Damn straight, and no one puts us in a corner either. Seventy-five percent of our households bought a jar last year. On average, we each eat 3 pounds per annum. Not to give you sticky brown nightmares, but that's 8,000 calories and 685 grams of fat.

I feel like I ate half my quota since I made peanut butter last week. It's been all PB, all the time. It's one of the reasons why I've been AWOL -- apologies for not posting in more than two weeks. You see, I can barely reach past my PBB (peanut butter belly) to type this. Once again, Bill Watterson, creator of "Calvin and Hobbes," has totally nailed it: "If you can't control you peanut butter," he said, "you can't control your life."

Mr. Carver's recipe is way more complicated than it needs to be these days: he roasts then shells then grinds then adds salt/sugar/boiling water then boils over very low heat for 8 to 10 hours. His end-product is much denser than the sort of thing we're used to: it's chilled and sliced, eaten hot or cold, and sometimes "rolled in bread crumbs or cracker dust and fried a chicken brown" -- an "excellent substitute for meat." (Not unlike nutloaf, a contemporary recipe.)

I just don't have the time to contend with that particular recipe, not when making peanut butter is as easy as:

Dump roasted, shelled peanuts in a food processor
Press "Go"

But I did want to make myself suffer a bit in honor of Mr. Carver, so I ordered raw peanuts from Virginia (which I wrote about for a new food site I'm contributing to, Ffffood -- check it out!). I roasted and shelled them myself (with help from Jane), a pointless endeavor that took much longer than I expected. First they must be shelled, then roasted very briefly to loosen their skins, then their papery jackets must be removed. Some of those buggers just won't budge. It's not as bad as removing your own skin, but it's close.

I adapted this modern PB recipe, which is "for kids." Indeed, organizing a peanut-butter-making activity for kids is probably the only reason to make it. You don't save yourself any money and you certainly don't save any time. But it is a lot of fun -- so long as you say a silent thank you to Mr. Carver while you purchase pre-roasted, pre-shelled peanuts and blithely press "go" on your food processor.

Crunchy Peanut Butter

2 pounds raw peanuts, in the shell (or make it easy on yourself: buy them roasted, possibly even shelled – in which case, you’ll need 4 cups!)
2 ½ tablespoons peanut oil

Shell the peanuts. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Arrange peanuts in a single layer on a baking sheet and roast for 3 to 5 minutes. Let cool for a few moments and then rub off the skins with your fingers. For those peanuts that won’t easily give off their skins, roast for another 3 to 5 minutes and try again.
Arrange shelled and skinned peanuts on the baking sheet and roast for about 10 minutes, until golden brown. Toss and redistribute peanuts twice so they’ll cook evenly.
Let the peanuts cool. Reserve about ¾ cup of peanuts. Combine the rest of the peanuts and the peanut oil in the bowl of a food processor and process on high for 2 – 3 minutes, until smooth. Add the reserved peanuts and pulse 6 – 10 times, until the peanut chunks are evenly distributed. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Yield: About 3 cups.

Eight Decades, One Meal

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 00:51:00 +0000

Last weekend, 29 people came from Santa Barbara, San Francisco, San Jose, Palo Alto, Vancouver, Boise, Denver, Dallas (Pennsylvania), St. Paul, and Brooklyn to Sarasota, Florida, with one purpose: to celebrate.

And there was a lot to celebrate: the 80th birthday of my grandma Sulochana (Sue or Sulo for short), the 75th birthday of my great-uncle Mert, the 70th birthday of my great-aunt Mira, and Mert and Mira's 40th wedding anniversary.

There was sun to bathe in and ocean to splash in, there were sand castles to make and spectacular sunsets to admire. There were even a couple of sharks to be scrupulously avoided. But most importantly, to me (and, dear reader, to you), there was food.

One evening, my uncle Roger and cousin Anthony prepared a smorgasbord of curried chicken and saag and cauliflower and naan, a delicious expression of Sulochana's dual heritage: Indian and Swedish. Twelve-year-old Elia ended the meal on a sweet note with perfectly fried Gulab Jamun in rosewater syrup, inspired in part by this post.

On another night, when we were all too tired from the grand birthdays/anniversary celebration to do any real cooking, my dad made quesadillas with the party platter cheese leftovers. The requests for one more quesadilla kept coming, and he was reduced to using the dubious remains of a nut-covered cheese ball. (Not recommended.)

And then there was the grand finale: a meal that celebrated every decade of Sue, Mert, and Mira's lives, from 1928 to 2008.

The menu (in chronological order):

1920s: Uncle Mark's Piña Colada
1930s: Key Lime Pie, a more or less joint effort by my dad, Mark, and Aunt Cathy*
1940s: Great-Grandma Olga's Meatloaf (made by Great-Aunt Mira)*
1950s: Green Bean Casserole by Aunt Tami, and Elia and I made a Pineapple Pie from American Food Writing.
1960s: Grandma Sulo's Sour Cream Coffeecake (made by Aunt Diane) -- published on a new food site where I am now a contributor!
1970s: Grandma Izzy's Sweet Potato, Marshmallow, and Pineapple Casserole (by my cousin, Anthony)* and BBQ chicken with Stubbs sauce, grilled by my dad
1980s: Great-aunt Patricia's Spicy Wraps, Three-ways
1990s: Uncle Mark's Marinated and Grilled Veggies
2000s: My mom, Shelley, made a salad loosely based on Heidi's Citrus Parmesan Farro Salad (with couscous instead of farro).

* Recipes to come soon!

It was quite a spread. I was not completely happy with my contribution -- Pineapple Pie from Fruits of Hawaii (1955) -- but I'm pretty confident of how it could be improved.

We did a few things right: we added a bit of minced, fresh ginger. A lovely touch. We also reduced the sugar and replaced half of it with with brown sugar for a greater depth of flavor. Two cups of finely chopped fresh pineapple was too little, and too mushy. My dad mused that pineapples may have been less juicy 50 years ago. Whatever was going on there, I would cut the pineapples into just-smaller-than-bite-size chunks, and go all out with about 3 cups total.

Pineapple-Ginger Pie

1 9-inch unbaked pie crust, with top
1/3 - 1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 tablespoon fresh-squeezed lemon juice
3 cups chopped fresh pineapple (sliced just smaller than you would for a fruit salad)
1/2 - 1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
2 tablespoons butter

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. In a mixing bowl, combine flour, both sugars, and salt. Beat eggs slightly and add to the flour mixture. Stir in the lemon juice, pineapple, and ginger. Pour into the pie shell, dot with butter, and moisten edge with water. Cover with the top crust. Bake for 10 minutes at 450 degrees F; reduce heat to 350 F and bake 35 minutes longer.

It's All Good Friday Gumbo

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:58:00 +0000

I am indirectly responsible for a terrible sin. The kind of sin even this heathen child can understand. A sin against family, against tradition, against the dignity of the departed.

A sin against gumbo.

Years ago, I worked for a publication that misprinted a fine woman's gumbo. She was reduced nearly to tears.

"Tomatoes in gumbo?! My gramma would kill me for such a thing."

My family's not gumbo folk, but I have an idea of what a mistake like this could mean. I wouldn't be surprised if a few of her cousins never spoke to her again, even after we printed a correction. You don't mess with gramma's gumbo.

My first experience with gumbo was on a chilly day in St. Paul, MN. It was made by Walter McFarland and I dare say it changed my life (I'm not exaggerating: it may have influenced by move to New Orleans for college). He's one of my dad's best friends, a charismatic bear of a man who's known in his family as Peewee. Three or four years running, on autumn days, he channeled his Louisiana-born grandma to make gumbo for 70 people or more. The pot was large enough to bathe a golden retriever. He stirred it with a paddle.

Sometimes it seems like everything in my parents' lives is a fund-raiser, and the gumbo parties were no exception. One year they collected checks for the late Senator Paul Wellstone, one of the few heroes of American politics. But it wasn't about the cause. It was about the gumbo, the communion of warm bowl in one hand, a spoon in the other, your mouth completing the circuit; an echo not only of the father, son, and holy ghost, but of that holy trinity of Creole cooking: green pepper, onion, and celery.

On Good Friday, I tried to recreate that mood. My roommates and I threw a gumbo party for a confirmed guest list that seemed to jump from twelve to thirtysomething overnight. The three-gallon pot that I borrowed from a friend was not going to be big enough (part of the sacred mystery of the gumbo pot is that it seems bottomless). A turkey roasting pan stood in as our second pot.

And since I was making two pots, I decided (on Friday morning, mind you) that the only thing to do was make two gumbos, one with a roux cooked to a nut brown color and the other thickened just with okra. (Both, by the way, would have just enough tomatoes to give the gumbo some color. I cut my teeth on Louisiana-style gumbo, and so, with apologies to that woman we wronged and every ancestor in her family tree, tomatoes in gumbo are right by me.)

The roux-based gumbo can best be described as a "kitchen sink" Creole gumbo. It's from Howard Mitcham's Creole Gumbo and All That Jazz (1997) and has shrimp, oysters (which I would omit to save money), crab (ok, imitation crab), chicken, stewing beef, country ham (or, in my case, turkey ham -- for no particular reason), and a hambone for flavor. The other was based on Eugene Walter's Chicken Gumbo, published in Gourmet in 1962. Instead of 1 link of chorizo, I put in about 3 of Andouille and declared it Chicken and Andouille Gumbo.

I cooked my butt off. I put on my custom NOLA mix -- the Meters, Rebirth Brass Band, Kermit Ruffins, Dr. John, Fredy Omar, and all those obscure gems on the "Big Ol' Box of New Orleans" -- and got into the zone. I communed.

And then I started to panic, when the clock struck noon and I'd only just finished shelling 5 pounds of shrimp (and making shrimp broth from the scraps) and realized I hadn't even begun the chopping. Oh, the chopping. The thing about gumbo is, there's a helluva lot of chopping.

The ideal gumbo, Walter taught me, must have a couple pieces of "something" in every spoonful: a shrimp, a meaty disc of Andouille sausage, a moist chunk of chicken. The only way you're gonna get all those pieces is by chopping them.

Mitcham's recipe actually calls for "assistant cooks." I was overwhelmed. I ran out for a six-pack of Abita Strawberry Harvest. If I was making 5 gallons of gumbo alone, I'd do it pleasantly buzzed.

And then, as if the lord Jesus himself sent them home to me, my roommates appeared. We cruised through the chopping in an hour or so, got everything going, and by 3 pm, both gumbos were doing their thing on the stove.

Guests started arriving early. By 7 pm, the appointed start time of the party, we already had a half a dozen people at our door with six-packs of Abita and bags of Zap's chips. This is the kind of thing that happens when gumbo is in the offing.

The party was so good, so full of bonhomie, spicy, steaming bowls, and cold bottles of beer, that I was already nostalgic for when it had only just begun. A perfect mix of people: new friends and old, and everyone, including my roommates and I, was strangers to at least a quarter of the other folks in the room.

The genius of gumbo is that it needs nothing more than rice, cornbread (as buttery as you dare), and my light brownies (not because you're watching your weight -- oh lawd no, this is a gumbo party -- but because they are that damn delicious.) And by the time your friends start knocking, all the hairy cooking is but a distant memory, and you're ready to let loose.

By midnight, it was, in my mind at least, official: the Good Friday Gumbo is a tradition, or it will be, when I hold the next one on April 10th, 2009. Save the date.

It's All Good Friday Creole Gumbo
Based on a recipe from Howard Mitcham, Creole Gumbo and All That Jazz.

4-5 pounds frozen shrimp
3-4 pounds artificial crab flakes (or frozen real crab meat)
2 pounds chicken pieces
1 pound stewing beef, diced small
1-2 meaty hambones
1 pound ham, diced
4 strips bacon
3 large onions, chopped
2 green peppers, chopped
6 scallions with their green leaves, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup chopped celery
1/4 cup chopped parsley
3 pounds fresh okra, sliced
32-ounce diced tomatoes, drained (or 4 large Creole tomatoes, peeled and diced)
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon thyme
2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons salt (or more)
6 quarts stock
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour
3-4 cups uncooked rice for steaming

The assistants should begin by cooking the chicken and shrimp. Place the chicken pieces in a pot, cover with water, and add a tsp. of salt. Boil for 30-40 minutes, until chicken is tender. Remove the chicken and reserve the cooking water for the big gumbo pot. Meanwhile, wash the shrimp and cover them with water in a pot, adding a tsp. of salt. Bring to a boil and cook for 5-7 minutes, until the shrimp are pink. When cool, peel the shrimp and set them aside. Take the shells and heads (if available), crush them thoroughly. Pour the shells into the shrimp water pot and boil vigorously for 15 minutes. Strain the liquid and reserve the shrimp broth for the big pot.

The head cook should make the roux: melt the butter in a very large soup pot, add the flour, and, with the heat low, stir until it turns dark brown. (This will take about 10 minutes). Add the onions, green pepper. scallions, garlic, and celery and stir well. Adding more butter as necessary, cook the vegetables until they're limp and transparent, but don't brown them. Add the okra and keep cooking until the okra loses its gummy consistency (another 10 minutes or so.)

Add the chicken cooking water and shrimp broth to the big pot. Add the imitation crab meat, the tomatoes, parsley, hambone, and all the flavoring elements except salt (if you’re using real crab meat, hold off until the end of cooking). The liquid should cover everything in the pot by about 2 inches, so add more liquid if necessary: any type of stock will do (or combination – it’s all good!). Bring the pot just to a boil, then lower the heat to medium-low, and cook for at least 1 ½ - 2 hours, being very careful not to let it scorch on the bottom. You can’t overcook it.

About 30 minutes before you’d like to serve, start cooking your rice. If you’re using real crab meat, add it to the pot about 10 minutes before you’re serving. Taste the gumbo and add salt – it’ll need it. As Mitcham says, “A good gumbo must have plenty of salt in it if it’s to be savory as it should be. Keep adding the salt to the pot and stirring until it achieves this deep, rich savor. Don’t be timid! A bland gumbo is a disaster.) Serve the gumbo in large (possibly preheated) bowls: about ½ cup of rice and 1 cup of gumbo.

It's All Good Friday Chicken and Andouille Gumbo

Based on a recipe from Eugene Walter, published in Gourmet.

3-4 pounds of chicken, cut into serving pieces
2 tbsp. bacon fat or Canola oil
4 links of Andouille sausage, sliced
1/2 cup chopped ham
2 bunches of celery, chopped
2 onions, diced
1 green pepper, diced
1 pound fresh okra, sliced
2 cups cooked tomatoes
1 meaty hambone
2 bay leaves
Zest of 1 lemon
1/2 cup chopped parsley
A few good cranks of freshly ground black pepper
Dashes of Tabasco
Pinch of cayenne
Big pinch of salt
2 1/2 quarts chicken stock

Brown the chicken pieces in the bacon fat or oil. Add Andouille sausage and ham. Add enough additional fat to cover the bottom of the pan. Add celery, onion, green pepper, and okra. Cook, stirring, until all the ingredients are nicely browned. Add cooked tomatoes, hambone, bay leaves, and lemon zest.
Cover the pot and simmer the gumbo slowly for 30 minutes, without letting it boil. Add parsley, black pepper, Tabasco, cayenne, and salt. Taste and add more of any of the spices if desired.
Add chicken stock, cover, and simmer for at least 1 1/2 hours, or as much as 4 (you can't really overcook gumbo, so long as you watch that the bottom of the pot doesn't scorch.) Correct the seasoning and serve with about ½ cup rice in every bowl.

Saturday's Child

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:46:00 +0000

Sure, there’s no book deal in the works, but blogging has gotten me far, and fast: a killer job, a purpose in life, a newfound respect for ketchup, an entrance into an awesome online community complete with new (real world) friends – and even a hot date this Thursday!

There’s been some luck involved, but, to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, the harder you work the luckier you are. And ~~lord~~ my roommates know I’ve put in the hours.

If I had to put a number on it, I’d say my good fortune is the result of about 90% blood/sweat/tears/long hours at the computer. That remaining 10% percent? Call it the luck of the honorary Irish (below: proof that it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive – on the Devil's Causeway in Northern Ireland in 2005.)

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, this lucky girl enjoyed a table-heaving spread prepared by her lovely roommate, Jane: corned beef with boiled cabbage, carrots, and potatoes; precious slices of nutty soda bread (stowed in the freezer since my trip to Dublin); and, of course, a good-for-you glass of Guinness. Dessert was from American Food Writing: Irish potato pudding.

Confusingly enough, the pudding is a Jewish food, "one that will do for Passover" because it is an unleavened substitute for bready treats. The recipe, published by Esther Levy in 1871, calls for grated, boiled potatoes lightened with separated eggs, sweetened with sugar, and flavored with ground almonds and lemon.

My day was hectic, so sweet Jane offered to make the pudding (I told ya I’m lucky!). Unfortunately, I had already gotten us started on the wrong foot when I forgot to boil the potatoes a day ahead. They are supposed to cool overnight, which would have made them much less mealy. As it was, they were quite mushy and heavy. The whipped egg whites were powerless against them. Jane spread the concoction in a dish, dotted the peaks with butter, and baked it for 1 hour at 350 degrees F, until prettily golden brown on top. (By the way, we halved the recipe, and thanks bejeesus we did!)

The pudding looked tasty (that's it in the glass casserole dish) … but we could take no more than about three bites apiece. The flavors of the lemon and almond were a confusing pairing with the starchy, mealy texture. Overall, it was a food with an identity crisis: it needed to be either savory (with classic potato herb pairings such as rosemary or parsley) or quite sweet (in which case it needed about twice the sugar and a swig of cream).

There are better versions out there: an 1878 recipe adds milk and suggests baking the pudding in a pie crust (creating a dish similar to sweet potato pie). And an 1855 recipe does it one better, adding heavy cream and brown sugar.

As it was, the only circumstances I could imagine eating this pudding are if you were bound to do so by religious convention or nearly starving in a famine and were down to your last 3 potatoes (in which case, unlucky you, for what a waste!).

But of course I didn’t toss the pudding! My ancestors, though not Irish, must have gone hungry somewhere along the line – my thighs can attest to that – and their blood in my veins means I will never willingly waste food.

The Roman philosopher Seneca said, "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." Well, I'm so lucky that my lack of preparation has presented me with an opportunity. My mission: do something with our mealy mush to make it not only palatable but exciting. I will debut the second reincarnation of the pudding at a shindig I’m having this Friday: a gumbo party (for this project of course)! Stay tuned, y’all!

One Hot Dish

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 21:04:00 +0000

I hope you've studied your American Century Cookbook and did your Internet research because it's time for a POP QUIZ on presidential food preferences!

1.) Which American president’s favorite food is broiled swordfish with lemon butter?

A. William Howard Taft
B. Richard Nixon
C. Jimmy Carter
D. Ronald Reagan

2.) What is George W. Bush’s favorite food?

A. Cheeseburger Pizza
B. Chicken enchiladas
C. Peanut butter and honey sandwiches
D. Hamburgers

3.) Match the Roosevelt with the favorite food:

1. Franklin D.
2. Theodore

A. Roast suckling pig
B. Boiled salmon with egg sauce

4.) Which president’s favorite food is that mid-century American classic, Beef Stroganoff?

A. Harry Truman
B. Dwight Eisenhower
C. John F. Kennedy
D. Lyndon B. Johnson

5.) Bonus Question: What's the favorite food of the 44th President of the United States?

A. Shrimp and grits
B. Boca Burgers
C. Pizza with pepperoni and onions
D. Fried squirrel

ANSWERS:

1.) He wore a cowboy hat well, but is it really any wonder that the golden boy from Hollywood would love chichi food? That’s right, President Reagan adored grilled swordfish and other California cuisine (his second favorite dish was roasted vegetable pizza). Lobster Newberg (surely you remember it?) turned Taft on, while Richard Nixon favored Beef Wellington, a dish that pretty much defines the discreet charms of the bourgeoisie. Jimmy Carter liked himself some real down-home cookin’: buttermilk biscuits and Brunswick stew, a Southeastern specialty with lima beans, okra, corn, and, traditionally, squirrel and rabbit meat.

2.) This was a trick question (not unlike the Bush presidency itself). Dubya favors both PB and honey sandwiches and Cheeseburger Pizza, an artery-clogging whopper that was invented by reality show contestants as a marketing scheme. (N0t unlike the way that certain activities of the Bush presidency have felt). The other two foods -- chicken enchiladas and hamburgers -- are Big Boy Billy Clinton's favorites.

3.) He might have been born a millionaire, but Franklin Delano enjoyed the simple pleasures: boiled salmon with egg sauce (would it have hurt his cooks to at least poach the fish?!). Theodore, on the other hand, ate like the wealthy man he was. Only a young pig roasted to crispy-skinned perfection could satisfy his palate.

4.) Truman was a true salt-of-the-earth type who favored meat loaf and tuna noodle casserole, while Eisenhower was known to crack his creepy smile for quail hash. As faithful readers know, dirty-mouthed Lyndon B. was like a pig in shit when Lady Bird cooked him up a pot of Pedernales Chili. That leaves JFK as the lover of one hot 20th century dish, Beef Stroganoff -- that is, when he wasn't "loving" the hot blond dish of the moment. More on Beef Stroganoff in a moment, but first, the answer to the bonus question...

5.) Senator Obama makes a mean chili and he likes fried chicken, but his favorite food is shrimp and grits. Senator Clinton's favorite snack is Boca Burgers (though this Wesleyan girl also likes lamb). Senator McCain could polish off a whole pepperoni and onion pizza pie by himself, with a plate of shrimp on the side. And only Governor Huckabee could have fried squirrel meat in a popcorn maker in his college dorm room.

So the answer is ... ?

************************************************

Beef Stroganoff, thin strips of lean beef served in a sour cream sauce with, traditionally, mushroom and onion, was a pervasive force in American cuisine from the 1930s to the 1980s. (I remember eating it -- or scheming ways to NOT eat it -- at my grandma's house for Sunday suppers).

The roots of the dish are in 19th century tsarist Russia but it took post-WWII American economic boom time to elevate it to iconic status. James Beard, that late, great bear of a gastronomical god, laid out his recipe in The James Beard Cookbook, 1959.

Mr. Beard's Beef Stroganoff is certainly a crowd pleaser, but if you ate enough of it you'd end up looking like, well, Mr. Beard. When I took the recipe on this past Monday, I decided to try to reduce the fat, but I had doubts that it would work. (Comfort foods are fattening for a reason).

I replaced steak with lean turkey cutlets, used low-fat sour cream, and reduced the butter by one third. And I am happy to report that it turned out so deLIGHTfully well, I think even JFK would approve. (Of course, for him I'd change out of my Monday sweats, which are good enough for my roomies but not Mr. President, and into my lipstick-red polka dot dress and high, high heels.)

I served the dish with rice pilaf (from a box) and a very American salad of butterleaf lettuce, button mushrooms, baby carrots, toasted pepitas, and a light coating of Ranch dressing. The meal recalled meals gone by without being weighed down with nostalgia.

Low(er)-fat Turkey Stroganoff

1.5 lbs turkey cutlets or breast meat
4 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon olive oil
3-4 tablespoons chopped green onions
1/4 cup white wine
2 dashes Worcestershire Sauce
4 drops of hot sauce
1 1/2 cup low fat sour cream
Salt and pepper, to taste
A few sprigs of parsley

Slice turkey into strips, as thin as possible. (About 2 inches by 1/2-inch and 1/4-inch thick).
Melt 3 tablespoons of the butter and the olive oil in a deep-sided skillet over high heat. (The oil will help prevent the butter from browning.) When good and hot, add the turkey strips and fry until cooked through, about 4 minutes. Fish out the turkey strips and keep them warm.
Add the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter and green onions and cook 1 minute. Then add the white wine, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, sour cream, and a good shake of salt. Stir well and heat through, but don't boil or the sour cream will curdle. Just before serving, give it a few good cranks of freshly ground black pepper and garnish with parsley. Pour the sauce over the turkey strips and serve immediately with rice, rice pilaf, or egg noodles.

Babes in Ireland

noreply@blogger.com (Nora Leah Sherman) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 14:48:00 +0000

Oh it feels good to be home!

I am one of the very lucky people who has homes scattered across the globe. Not actual homes, of course, but the sense of home – the people who want me back, the streets my feet know how to walk. Call it a place where I feel like myself. St. Paul, New Orleans, New York, and Dublin: they each represent a different part of me, and if I had my dithers I wouldn’t go a year without spending time in each one.

Dublin is where I feel heady, invincible, and sexy. It’s where I first wore black leggings and tucked my jeans into boots, nine months before the American girls caught on. It’s where I can tease the grooviest magazine editor in town about his plastic surgery. It’s where my friends are creative, mad troubadours of the night. To put it tongue in cheek: it’s where I’m on the list.

Clearly, I just about howled at the chance to come back for a whirlwind visit in honor of the wedding of two bright Dublin stars.

The night before the wedding, I whipped up a Moroccan meal: chicken cooked in butter and water with ginger, saffron, and turmeric, chickpeas with raisins, couscous, and a salad of my own invention (more on that below).

Djej Bil Hamus (Chicken Tagine with Chickpeas) is a 1973 dish that the inimitable Molly O’Neill deigned to include in The Anthology (as I’ve come to think of American Food Writing). And, unfortunately, I can say little more about it, not even who published it and in what book. I had a photocopy of the recipe but I think I left it in the produce aisle of a supermarket. I had already typed up the recipe, thank goodness, but I didn’t include any citations. So I will fill in the blanks when I get home.

For now, suffice to say that it came to American shores in the disco, dance-dance years, was probably served at dinner parties filled with madcap young things, and seemed the perfect dish to take The Great American Cooking Project abroad.

It all came off quite well, except I had zero success cooking the sauce down to the consistency of “thick gravy.” After munching through a sultan’s spread of chili-oil olives, tapenade, and excellent lemony hummus from my new favorite shop, Fallon & Byrne (modeled by Grace at right), my girls were getting hungry for the main event. After about 30 minutes of cooking down the sauce, I gave up on getting to gravy and just went with something more like an Indian curry, perfect for ladling over couscous. The combination of turmeric and saffron made a fantastic vibrant yellow color.

The salad was inspired by a zany head of frisée lettuce spotted in Fallon & Byrne. I mean, how could I pass up something so delightfully Muppet-esque? I whipped up a lemon, Dijon mustard, and olive oil dressing (light on the mustard), added toasted almonds and insanely good feta cheese (again from Fallon & Byrne – the only place worth dropping my meager dollars-for-euros), and the segments of two Clementines.
Not Moroccan per se, but it hit the right notes, with a hint of a warm climate (citrus), the Mediterranean (feta, olive oil), and the fertile crescent (almonds).

NOTE: I'm back in Brooklyn and it's time to fill in those blanks. The recipe is from Paula Wolfert's Couscous and Other Foods of Morocco. Writes Molly O'Neill: "A cook's cook, Paula Wolfert has proven herself willing to travel anywhere to find the best recipe." Not unlike myself! But once again this is the case of being born at least a generation too late ... don't you ever get the feeling like you missed out on the best times? Man, do I.

Chicken Tagine with Chickpeas (Djej Bil Hamus)

6 bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts
1 pound dried chickpeas
5 cloves garlic, peeled
Salt
1 teaspoon ground ginger
Plenty of freshly ground pepper (about 1 teaspoon)
Pinch of pulverized saffron
1 teaspoon turmeric
¼ cup finely chopped parsley
1 cinnamon stick
½ cup chopped scallions, white part only
5 tablespoons butter
1 Spanish onion, sliced very thin
½ cup black raisins

1. The day before, soak the chickpeas in plenty of water. Wash the chicken in salted water and drain. Pound 4 cloves of garlic and 2 tablespoons salt into a paste. Rub the paste into the cavity and flesh, at the same time removing any excess fat from the poultry. Rinse the poultry well until it no longer smells of garlic. Drain well.

2. To prepare the flavor rub, blend 1 teaspoon salt, the ginger, pepper, and the remaining clove of garlic, crushed, with 2 tablespoons water and rub into the flesh of the chicken pieces. Place in a large bowl and refrigerate overnight.

3. The next day, drain chickpeas and boil in salted water until tender, about 1 hour. Transfer the chicken and any juices in the bowl to a large casserole. Add a pinch of saffron, turmeric, parsley, cinnamon stick, scallions, and butter. Pour in 5 cups of water and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for 1 hour, turning the chicken pieces frequently in the sauce. When the chicken pieces are very tender, remove and keep warm.

4. Add the finely sliced onions and raisins to the sauce and cook until the onions are very soft and the sauce has reduced to a thick gravy. This will take at least 45 minutes. After about 20 minutes, add the chickpeas. When done cooking, add the chicken pieces to the sauce and reheat. Taste the sauce for salt and add a good pinch of saffron for a lovely yellow color.

5. To serve, place chicken pieces in a deep serving dish, forming them into a mound. Spoon over the sauce. Serve with Moroccan bread or pita.

Serves 6.