Open-Face Tamales, Corn with Broccoli

Tonight’s Stab at Variety: The intl. grocery was hawking free samples of frozen tamales the other day.  And, they were by far the best tamales I’ve ever had that didn’t come from a guy selling them from a cooler on the street.  So, I bought a pack.

The Challenge: They were plain (no meat inside) tamales.  The solution: just put the stuff on top of them.

Chicken, and Poblano Sauce:

• Wiped a skillet with tall sides with enough oil to inhibit sticking, then made it very very hot.
• Seared four chicken thighs, cooking enough to render off plenty of fat.
• Removed the chicken from the skillet.
• Poured in some chicken stock to deglaze.  Scraped up brown bits.
• Put the chicken back in.  In fact, you could leave it in.  I just took it out for a minute to make it easier to scrape the bottom of the skillet.
• Dumped in 3 diced poblano peppers.
• added the diced remnants of the only onion I had - about 1/4 of a big white onion?
• plus:
• 1 clove of minced garlic.
• salt.
• pepper.
• ground cumin.
• ground coriander.
• a little pinch of allspice.
• a hefty sprinkling of dried oregano.
• a dash of smoked paprika.
• a half handful of brown sugar.
• Then, I covered it and let it simmer until the chicken thighs were cooked well enough that they could easily be shredded.
• I put the seasoned veggies and juices into a blender until it became a very smooth green sauce.
• After the chicken had cooled, I pulled it apart into shreds with my fingers, removing any fat.
• To serve, I put a tamale on the plate, unwrapped the husk and left it under the tamale.  I spread a big handful of chicken across it then poured the green sauce on top of everything.

Corn and Broccoli:

• Cut the kernels off of two cobs.
• Cut one small head of broccoli into small pieces, including the stem.
• I was out of chicken stock, so I poured in a very small amount of the water to get things started.
• plus:
• salt.
• pepper.
• thyme.
• smoked paprika.
• lemon juice.
• red pepper flakes.
• Then, I cooked it, covered, until everything was tender and the juices were almost dried up.
• I scraped up the still soft beginnings of browned bits from the bottom of the pan to incorporate them into the veggies.

Good: Good?  It was fantastic.  The poblano sauce was complex, mildly spicy, and complemented the tamale well.  Chicken thighs also seem to be the one part of mass-farmed chicken that still has some flavor.  And, cooking them with the (pre-blended) sauce gave the sauce some rich flavor.  The corn and broccoli, with their smoked paprika and pan scrapings were smoky and fresh at the same time.

The unexpected: The tamales were much sweeter than the ones I used to buy on the street in my neighborhood when I lived in Chicago.  Most of the Central American people where I live now are Salvadoran, whereas in Chicago I bought tamales made by Mexicans.  So, I wonder if the sweetness is a regional difference or if it’s just the brand I bought.  I do know that the tamales at the Guatemalan bakery I used to live near were different from all of them.  In any case, the ones I bought were good and the sweetness wasn’t out of place in this dish, only just a little more than I would have done if I knew how to make my own tamales.

Spinach & Ricotta Faggotini - made from Homemade Pasta, with Sautéed Tomatoes, Basil, & Shiso

OK, OK, I know that if you search for “faggotini”, a link to the Urban Dictionary will come up that defines it as meaning “beyond gay”.  I don’t even know what “beyond gay” means, really.  Extremely Happy? In any case, I set out to make ravioli.  Looking for some variety, I decided that instead of making the little spinach filled, sealed-off pasta sandwiches we all know and love as ravioli, I’d just pinch up the corners of the pasta square around the filling and leave it like that.  I’m sure I’ve seen it somewhere else before.  Then, after some digging around on the internet this morning, I learned that what I made are called “faggotini”.  Now, maybe you’ve learned something too.

Here’s an image: pagehalffull.com/eatenup/2006/10/12/faggotini, on someone else’s blog (under the brownie header).

Homemade Pasta:

• A mound of fine semolina flour.
• just a little bit of salt.
• enough water to make it like Play-do for extra strong kids - much more resistant to kneading than bread flour, but soft enough that it can be rolled out later.
• knead only to achieve an even consistency.
• make a ball, wrap in plastic, put in the refrigerator for ½ hour.
• take out of fridge, allow to warm to room temperature, or, if you’re like me, until you’re tired of waiting.
• separate ball into manageable chunks.
• smash chunks enough to get them into your pasta rolling machine.
• roll, sprinkle with flour (regular flour, not more semolina), fold in half, then roll again, until you’ve made it through on you’re thinnest setting.
• If the dough keeps sticking, it’s too wet - add flour.
• if it doesn’t go through, keeps breaking, or breaks your machine, it’s too dry, sprinkle with water & knead and/or stop adding flour.
• If you don’t have a pasta rolling press/machine, rolling pins are great, you’ll be hardcore and elemental.  Just give yourself a bit more time to make the pasta, and get the dough as thin as you can - be wary of sticking to the board.
• Your pasta should be strong and elastic (and thin).
• Making pasta is very easy, and I think the simplest recipe (semolina, water, salt) is the best, although you can get more complicated if you want.  The only thing about it is that it takes some practice to get a sense of the right consistency.  Once you get that sense though, it’s not like baking - you don’t need to measure anything.

Filling:

• In a pot with a super tiny amount of olive oil, I sautéed one clove of minced garlic.
• once the garlic browned, I added all of the spinach in my refrigerator.
• sprinkled with salt.
• poured in maybe a ¼ of chicken stock.
• cooked until spinach was soft, but not mushy and gross.
• strained out the liquid.
• put onto cutting board, chopped moderately finely.
• allowed to cool.
• put spinach into a bowl.
• stirred in a giant glob of ricotta cheese.
• salted.
• peppered.
• sprinkled in a pinch of red pepper flakes.
• grated in some (cheap) mozzarella - about ¼ the amount of the ricotta.
• stirred, tasted, declared it good.

Pasta Assembly:

• put blob of filling into the center of a cut pasta square.
• pinched to diagonally opposing corners together.
• pinched the remaining two corners together with the first two.
• pinched all of the seams together quite firmly.

Sauce:

• Yay! my tomatoes are finally coming in full-force.  And, only some of them have hard leathery brown spots on the bottom…
• I chopped up a bunch of the (freshly picked!) tomatoes, coarsely.
• I trimmed off all of the shiso that was covering the sage, a big handful worth.
• I cut down the basil plants that looked like they wanted to die.
• I sautéed two more cloves of minced garlic in a little olive oil, until just beginning to brown.
• I added the chopped tomatoes, sautéed, sizzled.
• salted & peppered.
• when the tomatoes had cooked enough to sweat out some juices, but not enough to lose their texture, I added the finely chopped basil & shiso, stirred and sautéed for about a minute, then turned off the heat.

That’s all.  I boiled the pasta, of course.  I put it on a plate, poured the tomatoes on top, then grated on some Parmesan cheese.

The Review: This was best the ravioli-like thing that I’ve had in a very long time.  It was better than the manicotti (it’s in the same category for me) that I paid $17 for the other night, by a long shot.  It may also have been the lightest cheese-filled dish I’ve ever had.  There’s something about ricotta and mozzarella that becomes fluffy and light inside of stuffed pasta.  I don’t know why, but I know it happens.  Fresh tomatoes (i.e. tomatoes that have flavor, any flavor…) helped a lot.  I also know I’ve commented before about how well basil and shiso work together.  And, here, even though I used a sizable amount, they weren’t overpowering.  They seemed to accentuate the spinach and cheese and lend to the overall lightness of a dish that’s really full of dairy and starch.

Cous Cous stuffed Acorn Squash

So, I went to the farmer’s market looking for some sweet peppers.  Into the booth that has some extraordinary variety of peppers I went.  And, then, right there, there were these little peppers that looked just like Thai(ish) eggplants. And, they were right next to all the eggplants…  But, they were orange and there was a sign in the middle of them saying they were a sweet pepper.  Hmm. So, I decided to buy them - for adventure…  A little inquiry and investigation, and it turns out they’re actually Turkish eggplants…  That explains why they didn’t look like peppers, doesn’t it

The Components:

Cous Cous:

• brought 1 cup of chicken stock with a pinch of salt to a rolling boil.
• stirred in 1 cup of cous cous.
• Let sit, off heat, for a while.
• fluffed with fork.

Seasoning:

• ground some cumin seed.
• minced (pre-sliced) raw almonds very very finely.
• put in some cinnamon.
• warmed it all in a frying pan until fragrant.
• dumped into a bowl with a bunch of brown sugar.
• added salt
• & pepper
• & a pinch of red pepper flakes

(Most of the) Veggies:

• chopped an:
• onion.
• celery.
• carrot.
• sautéed in a tiny amount of oil, with a lid on, stirring occasionally over medium heat, until tender.
• turned off heat
• dumped in the seasoning mix, stirred.
• dumped seasoned veggies into cous cous, stir/fluffed.

Eggplant:

• cut into thin half-round slices.
• tossed in olive oil and salt.
• arranged on the microwave/convection oven combo’s baking sheet.
• put in the combo oven on “grill” setting, without the riser that brings things close to the heating element.
• “grilled” for a little short of twenty minutes.
• tasted the slices, cursed, swore, wished I had peeled the eggplants first.
• tediously cut the skins off of all the cooked eggplants slices.
• dumped the de-skinned slices into the cous cous and stir/fluffed.

Acorn Squash:

• cut the squash in half.
• removed seeds (then cleaned them, baked them and ate them while I was cooking everything else).
• put the squash halves face down in about ½ an inch of water, in a baking pan.
• roasted in the oven at 350ºF for about 40 minutes, until soft.
• allowed to cool.
• scraped out the flesh with a spoon.

Pork:

• barely, just barely, thawed out a pork chop.
• removed the bone and fat.
• chopped the almost frozen pork chop into very very small cubes.
• tossed in olive oil with salt and pepper.
• by this time, it was finished thawing.
• put in the combo oven on “grill” setting, with the riser so that is was close to the heating element.
• “grilled” for 15 minutes, until it was a little tough, but not too tough…

Assembly:

• shoveled the cous cous, veggie, & squash mixture into the half shells of the acorn squash.
• sprinkled with dry parsley.
• topped with the diced pork.
• garnished with lemon zest.

Good: Light, low fat, a handful of different veggies, seasonings I don’t eat very often.  And, mmm does cumin & cinamon remind me of tasty Moroccan food.

Otherwise: There are probably a handful of things I could have done to get some more flavor into this.  Whatever they are, I should have done one of them…  Maybe I should have put in slightly more seasoning mix.  I think though, that it was the squash that was lacking.  If I had cut up the squash into little cubes, spiced, oiled, and roasted it like that, I could have brought a lot better flavor out of it.  Trouble is, of course, if I had done that, I wouldn’t be able to use the emptied out shells to serve it in.

Salmon Saag, Mushroom Stuffed Endive, Broccoli, Basmati Rice

Tonight’s Treat: I walked down to the little central/south Asian grocery near my apartment and bought a bag of basmati rice, even though it’s sort of pricey (although 2-3 times cheaper than the little bags of basmati rice in the “ethnic” aisle at the regular supermarket). I did it because I’ve just endured one too many textural failures trying to get short(er) grain Japanese rice to make fluffy pilafs and such.  Then, I picked up a can of prepared saag on an impulse buy.

Salmon Saag:

• I had a package of salmon bones (the spines removed from fillet cuts that still have meat on them) and scrap cuts, which are delicious and cheap, althought not pretty.
• So, I seasoned them with salt and pepper then cooked them in a frying pan with oil just barely sufficient to keep them from sticking too much.
• Once finished, put them on a plate and allowed them to cool.
• Once cool enough to handle then, I removed the meat from the bones, skin, and fat.
• (I made soup stock from the bones, skin, and fat - to be used another night.)
• I, um, opened the can of saag. (Saag is cooked spinach and mustard greens with some spices.  It must be simple to make.  But, I bought a can…)
• I heated the sag in a big pan.
• I stirred in the chunks of salmon meat.
• That’s all.  I put it in a big bowl.

Stuffed Endive:

• First, I sautéed some vegetables, adding in this order:
• chopped celery and onion.
• minced garlic.
• salt & pepper.
• chopped mushrooms.
• finely chopped mixed olives.
• When they were all relatively tender, I squeezed in a little bit of lemon juice.
• Removed from heat.
• Stirred in maybe half a tablespoon full of corn starch.
• Then, I disassembled a Belgian endive, laying all of the leaves out on a baking tray.
• Once the sautéed veggies were relatively cool, I grated in some mozzarella and  Parmesan cheese, about 3 parts mozarella to 1 part Parmesan, and not so much that it overpowered the veggies.
• I laid out the veggie/cheese mixture into the endive leaves.
• Then, I put them into the microwave/convection oven combo on “grill” setting - which is more or less a mini broiler - until the cheese was melted and just barely almost started to brown.

Broccoli:

• Cut broccoli into fork-managable pieces.
• put a little bit of chicken stock into a pot.
• added one smashed clove of garlic.
• put in the broccoli.
• salted.
• turned over with tongs.
• turned on heat.
• stopped cooking when broccoli had turned bright green.
• Sprinkled with red pepper flakes and served.

Served with: Basmati rice.

Review: It was all just better than fine.  I’m glad I went out and got the basmati rice.  It’s delicious and a nice break from the Japanese rice that sets the norm around here.  Next time though, I think I’ll make my own saag.  The canned stuff was OK, and easy.  But, it does taste like it’s from a can.  This might be my favorite simple preparation of broccoli.

Tomato Juice Can Chicken, Baked Potato w/ Lemon & Chive Yogurt, Chinese Eggplant, Yu Choy

Ahh, roasting whole animals.  There’s something so elemental about it.

Tomato Juice Can Chicken:

Seasoning Rub for Chicken:

• black pepper corns
• mustard seeds
• coriander seed
• dried rosemary
• dried ancho chile
• onion powder
• a big clove of garlic
• - grind in coffee grinder -
  
• stir in with:
  
• salt
• a whole lot of brown sugar
• a couple tbsps. of olive oil
• a little white wine vinegar
• rub all over the inside and outside of the chicken

Roasting the Chicken: After the the rub had a couple of hours to try to soak into the chicken in the refrigerator, I put it out on the counter to warm up for a half hour or so.  Then I thought, “You know, what I want to do is a beer can chicken - in a regular oven.”  But, alas a dark moment has arrived and I don’t have any beer.  I don’t buy soda  - because it’s disgusting - and that eliminates most cans.  I also figured, really, that a can of water would do just as well as a can of anything.  And, if I’d had beer, substituting water for it would mean I’d get to drink the beer for myself… What I did have, however, was a can of tomato juice I picked up as a free sample, because it was free.  Not only that, but the small tomato juice can is a lot easier to get into the chicken’s butt than 12 oz. of beer.

• I laid out a round pizza pan for the base.
• Very unceremoniously shoved an open can of tomato juice into the chicken’s, um, bottom hole.
• Stood the newly violated chicken up on the pizza pan, with the can serving as a stand.
• Then, I covered the standing chicken with my largest pot, as sort of a makeshift dutch oven.
• Put into a preheated 350ºF oven for a while (I lost track of time, as usual)
• When I checked the internal temperature of the chicken and it looked as if it wouldn’t be done in time, I turned up the heat to 400ºF.
• After about 20 more minutes, the temperature inside the dear bird had shot way up to 170ºF.  Whoa.  (I was shooting for 160ºF.) So, I took it out and let it rest.  (It was still juicy.)

Baked Potato with Lemon & Chive Yogurt:

• I put the potatoes into the oven along with the chicken until I could stick a fork into them with ease.
• I used the Zen timing method.  That is, if you’re aware of your one-ness with the process, everything will be fine.  If you’re not, you’re going to burn your dinner.  Good luck.
• Sauce:
• Finely chopped a small handful of chives (which appear to be almost done for the summer).
• Grated off about three passes with a microfile worth of lemon zest.
• Stirred them into about a ½ cup of yogurt.
• Sprinkled in a dash of salt.

Yu Choy:

• I washed it…
• Heated a tiny amount of oil in a pan with tall sides.
• Threw in two cloves of minced garlic.
• Sautéed for about 45 seconds.
• Added in all the yu choy.
• Sprinkled with salt.
• Put a lid on it.
• Occasionally wandered over and turned over the yu choy with tongs to prevent the bottom veggies from burning, although if some slight char enters the picture, that’s good.
• Stopped cooking them when the stems were tender

Chinese Eggplant: I don’t know why exactly, but I always screw up eggplant.  I just keep trying.  This time was just OK.  I found a recipe here: allrecipes.com/Recipe/Hot-and-Sour-Chinese-Eggplant/.  My version accommodated the ingredients I have.

• I cut the Chinese eggplant into rounds, then soaked them in water for a while.
• made sauce:
• a couple of tbsps. soy sauce
• 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp sugar
• a big glob of chili sauce
• 1 tsp cornstarch
• a few drips of sesame oil
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• then…
• heated a tiny bit of oil in a pan
• sautéed the eggplant until it seemed tender
• poured in the sauce and stirred around until it became a glaze

Good: The chicken was very juicy despite having been cooked to too high a temperature.  The can of liquid inside of it with the makeshift dutch oven/steam trapping chamber did wonders.  I’m also glad I had a small-size tomato juice can to use.  Because, fitting a whole 12 oz. can inside of a chicken takes a bit of butchering and indelicate force.  Then, the lemon & chive yogurt was a real crowd pleaser.  I mean, sure, yogurt is obviously a substitute for sour cream.  But, I think it’s just as good and certainly lower in fat.

Bad: The eggplant was a bit salty.  And, I tried to cook too much in the pan - so that the eggplant ended up being cooked unevenly.  Also, the truth of the matter is that regular American supermarket chicken doesn’t taste like anything.  It just doesn’t.  It’s sad, although cheap.  If you can afford it (and I can’t really), you should buy some farmer’s market or upscale shop free range, etc. chicken.  And, if you’ve never eaten a chicken that lived a semi-normal bird’s life, you should spend the extra money just once so that at least you know what you’re missing.  And, on a final note, I had intended to remove the pot-turned-dutch-oven for the last bit of roasting to help crispen the skin.  It was fine without it, but it would have been better had I done it.

Soul Food with an Asian Twist (Catfish with Ginger Sauce, Collard Green Cornbread, Okra, Broccoli)

So, while I was at the international grocery store the other day, I saw some frozen basa fish.  I’d never heard of it before.  But, it was a nice, very light pink color and looked likely to be delicate and flaky, so I thought I’d try it.  I came home, and after 20 seconds on Wikipedia, I learned that basa is catfish.  It’s a type from SE Asia and is sometimes sold in the U.S. labeled as just plain catfish, sometimes as basa, and sometimes as something else.  Furthermore, although the Monterrey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch List rates basa as a “good alternative”, it also mentions some concerns about the way it is farmed.

Challenge for the Night: Figure out what to do with a bunch of leftover collard greens that weren’t very good the first time around.

Collard Green Low-fat Corn Bread: The primary purpose of this corn bread was to find a use for some of the very unblogworthy collard greens I made the other night.   I’m also always looking for a way to cut down on cholesterol.  And so, when searching for recipe ideas, I came across this: allrecipes.com/Recipe/Low-Fat-Corn-Bread, and used it as a base.  I did:

• 1 cup of bread flour (it’s the only kind of flour I own).
• 1 cup of corn meal.
• ½ tsp. of salt.
• 2 tbsp. sugar.
• 2 tsp. baking powder.
• - mix dry ingredients in a bowl all by themselves.
• Then…
• 1 cup (2%) milk.
• 2 egg whites.
• 1 heaping spoonful of honey.
• - mix wet ingredients in another bowl, all by themselves.
• to the wet ingredients, I added:
• 1 small jalepeño, finely chopped, deseeded and with the white membranes removed.
• a couple of handfuls of leftover cooked collard greens, finely chopped.
• After a cursory stirring of the veggies into the wet ingredients, I poured it all into the dry ingredients then folded it all together until it was incorporated.
• I left this batter a little bit thicker than some of the cornbread I’ve made in the past, just because I figured the collard greens would release some liquid while they were cooking.
• I put it in a preheated 400ºF oven for 15-20 minutes, until it had a nice color and passed the toothpick test.

Basa (catfish) with Ginger Sauce:

• As for the fish, I had two large skinless fillets.  I thawed them out up to room temperature.
• Then, I just cooked them in a hot skillet with barely enough oil to keep them from sticking, for a few minutes on each side, until the meat was flaky.
• For the sauce, I found this page: find-a-seafood-recipe.com/basa-fish-recipes.html, and more or less followed the Directions:
• chopped ¼ of a large onion very finely.
• pulverized and minced a ¾ piece of fresh ginger.
• heated a couple of tablespoons of peanut oil in a small pot.  Then, I sautéed the onion and ginger in the oil with a little salt, until they were soft.
• then I removed the onion and ginger from the pot.
• Next, I poured about ¾ cup of milk into the pot and brought it to a light, light simmer.
• I made a little slurry from 1 tbsp. of corn starch and a little cold water.  I turned off the heat, then added it to the milk.
• Then, I returned the onion and ginger to the pot.
• I also added:
• a big glob of chili sauce.
• about three large pinches of sugar.
• I guess about a tbsp of soy sauce.
• Stir…
• To serve, I put a little bit of the sauce on the plate, put the fish on top, then poured a little more sauce on top of that.

Okra with Cumin & Ginger: My recipe was based this: allrecipes.com/Recipe/Easy-Indian-Style-Okra, adjusted to the spices I currently have and without the seemingly crazy twenty minutes of cooking without any liquid…

• I cut the okra into little discs.
• diced ½ and onion.
• finely chopped one small stem of celery.
• I put a tiny amount of olive oil into a pan and sautéed them for about two minutes.
• I added the okra and continued sautéing.
• To that I added:
• a pinch of salt.
• ground cumin.
• minced and pulverized ginger.
• a few grinds of black pepper.
• ground mustard seed.
• some vegetable stock, to help cooking and prevent burning.
• the okra is done when it seems soft.

Broccoli: I didn’t have enough okra to cover the veggie section.

• cut the broccoli into pieces of the desired bite size.
• put about ½ an inch of vegetable stock into a pot.
• smashed, but didn’t chop, 1 large clove of garlic and put it into the stock.
• put in the broccoli.
• salted.
• turned the heat on high and boiled until the broccoli was a beautiful bright green.

What I liked: Southern food, Asian flavors.  The basa was pretty light and clean.  I liked the light ginger flavor on it, and it was certainly healthier than deep fried catfish )which also tastes great…).  I also thought this was a pretty good preparation of okra.  I haven’t had those flavors in okra, but okra is a pretty international veggie, so I’m guessing there are a lot of options out there for it.  And, I think filling up corn bread with leftover veggies is the best idea I’ve come up with in a while.  Sure, I couldn’t possibly be the first person to do it.  But, I’d never considered it before.  And, man was it good.  The thing is that I don’t really like collard greens.  I prefer mustard greens, turnip greens, kale, you name it.  But, nonetheless, once or twice a year I buy collard greens anyway just to see if I can do a better job with them.  I never do.  I thought the leftovers would rot in the fridge forever.  But, alas, stick ‘em in some corn bread, add some jalapeño…

Reality: The first time I made the sauce, I accidentally grabbed the box of baking soda right next to the corn starch despite the fact that they’re different sizes and colors.  Whoa. It was like a 3rd grade science fair in there.  “Look teacher, I made Krakatoa!”   I guess I could have just skimmed off the foam and tried to go all molecular gastronomy with it, but, um…

Clam & Shiso Pizza

Pizza Dough: This is something I’m still working out.  Sometime, someday, I’m going to be able to make a perfect (thin) pizza crust each and every time I make a pizza.  Then, after that, I’m going to start working out the exponentially more difficult Chicago style pizza dough, because Chicago pizzas really are the better…  Here is where I’m at so far with thin style pizza:

• Mix: 3½ cups flour and 1 tsp salt on a large board or countertop.
• Drizzle 1 tbsp olive oil into the flour and work it in with your hands until there aren’t any notable clumps.
• Stir 1 tbsp honey into ¾ cup warm water
• Stir 1 tbsp dry yeast into the honey water until it dissolves, then let it proof.
  
• Arrange the dry ingredients into a doughnut shape - i.e. a circular dam - then slowly pour the yeast water into the center, deftly and carefully incorporating wet & dry without letting a flood of yeast water escape and make a really nasty mess.  This takes a some finesse, sure, but I still prefer it to starting in a bowl.
• Once those things are worked together enough that all parts of the almost-dough are approximately the same consistency, add ¼ cup of milk and work it in.
• Knead the dough for several minutes, adding water or flour as needed in order to get a dough that is dry enough to provide a bit of resistance to kneading, but wet enough to be workable and rollable.
• Allow the dough to rise for 30 minutes or so.
• When you’re ready, use a rolling pin to make the dough into a big flat shape that is a little more than a ¼ inch thick.

The Toppings:

• First, I rubbed a thin coat of olive oil over the top of the rolled out dough.
• Then, I sprinkled it with a little tiny amount of salt.
• Seasoned with pepper.
• I arranged coarsely chopped shiso leaves over the dough so that all of them laid flat and covered almost all of the dough.
• I threw on a few pinches of red pepper flakes
• The day before, I bought some incredibly sweet and delicious orange colored cherry tomatoes at a farmers market that is apparently in the parking lot of Blockbuster on the weekends (who knew?).  So, I cut quite a few cherry tomatoes into quarters and arranged them over the shiso leaves.
• Next, I put on a fair amount of thawed out, previously frozen clams (littlenecks, perhaps?).
• Finally, I covered it with (cheap, block variety) grated mozzarella cheese.  (I’m not a big fan of the pre-grated stuff, and the real stuff is a little pricey for a regular night’s dinner.)

Cooking the Pizza: This is another thing I’m trying to work out - getting a great crust in a normal old landlord-provided oven without having a pizza stone, celebrity chef style wood-fired brick construction, or any usable tool for sliding a big floppy pizza dough covered with wet toppings into an oven.  The first thing is that I put my double-burner style cast iron grill/skillet on the bottom rack of the oven.  It acts as a heat sink that slows down the heating/cooling cycle of the oven.  This time, I preheated the oven to 400ºF (For a while I was cooking at 425º, to get crispness.  But, things can also burn fast.)  Then, after past experiences of not being able to slide my pizza into the oven onto the cast iron skillet-turned-pizza-(um)-stone; and other bad experiences watching fresh pizza dough droop between the bars of an oven rack to make the pizza really hard to remove, this time I covered an entire pizza rack with aluminum foil.  I put the rolled out pizza dough on the foil rack (which allows for a very large pizza) then arranged the toppings on the in place pizza.  My theory was that the foil would heat through faster than a pizza pan would, producing a crispier crust.  I took the entire rack out of the oven along with the pizza when the cheese was the exact level of melted-just-barely-starting-to-brown that I like.

What I liked: One of the things I really enjoy about late summer and early autumn is that every year I remember just how delicious fruits and vegetables are when they’re in season as if it’s a surprise.  And, my flower pot herb garden is in full swing.  It all means that cooking doesn’t require much effort.  This pizza was sweet, light and full of mild seafoody goodness.  (Un)frozen clams do well on a pizza, and come out pretty soft.  Then, perfectly ripe, quality cherry tomatoes are just so sweet that they more than make up for the relative unsweetness of frozen clams as compared to their fresh (or raw) clam brothers.  And, now that my shiso plants are veritable shiso bushes, I’ve found that shiso goes with just about everything.  I’m guessing now that it could stand in as a twist on either basil or fresh parsely in a lot of dishes.

Other Stuff: Well, covering an oven rack with aluminum foil and using it as a pizza pan turned out to be the same as, well, a really big pizza pan.  The pizza was more cooked on the edges than in the center (just a little).  I think I’ll go back to making mini pizzas that I can managably slide from a large cutting board onto the cast iron grill/skillet (skillet side of course) that is acting as a pre-heated pizza stone.

Spaghetti Marinara with any Seafood I Could Find in the Freezer

Last Night’s Challenge: Make a dinner for two plus leftovers to be had for lunch from a smallish portion of frozen salmon remnant from the huge fillet I bought last week and a half dozen small frozen squid.

Last Night’s Anser: Pasta!  Fill the plate out with starch, that’s the way.  So, spaghetti with marinara sauce, salmon, squid.

The Marinara Sauce:

• Sautéed half a diced onion in olive oil.
• Sprinkled in some salt and ground ancho chile.
• After a couple of minutes, added two cloves of minced garlic.  Continued sautéing for a couple more minutes.
• Stirred in a big lump of tomato paste.  I finally went out and got some tomato paste with real flavor, and it does make a difference, who knew?  And, it’s in a jar - i.e. with a resealable lid, which is so much more awesome than those damned little cans.
• Continued cooking and stirring, until the aroma seemed to indicate that the tomato paste was cooking but not turning acrid.
• Poured in the liquid from a large (double size) can of whole tomatoes that were canned “with thick sauce”.  Stirred more.
• As that was simmering, I chopped up all the canned tomatoes into small pieces and added them in workable cutting batches.
• Salted a little more.
• Poured in some of the pork stock that I made the other day.  It was a fairly gelatinous stock, which is nice for keeping things thick.  I added enough to get the right consistency for a marinara sauce.
  
• Added ground thyme and smoked paprika.
  
• Pressed to get some more flavor in, I hacked down what will probably be the second to last contribution from my dill plant.  I chopped it up and stirred it in.  And, well, one way to say it is to say that cooking will soften the dill flavor.  Another way to say it is that by adding it early on, I wasted half the flavor I put in.
• Still not quite right, I added some ground coriander seed and black pepper.
• I simmered everything more or less until the sauce was the right thickness, and not a moment longer.

The Seafood:

• Once everything was thawed and the squid was cut into rings an it’s guts and backbone-things were removed, this is what I did:
• Pulverized a small garlic clove by mincing it then scraping it across my cutting board with coarse salt.
• Rubbed the garlic & salt mixture over both sides of the skinless salmon fillet.
• Cooked the salmon in smoking hot oil for a couple of minutes on each side, flipping as soon as the fish browns enough to unstick from the pan - not a moment sooner or later.
• Removed the salmon from the pan and let it sit, sliced it before serving it on top of the pasta.
• Added the very lightly salted squid to the same pan, still hot and still on the burner.
• Stirred the squid around for a second while the juices coming out of the squid deglazed the brown bits from the salmon and contributed their flavorful goodness.
• Took the squid off after two or three minutes.

Served With:  Arugula and Tomato Salad

I’m still working my way through the bag of Arugula I bought the day before yesterday while it’s still fresh. So, last night’s version of an arugula salad was:

• Tossed the arugula with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
• Tossed in some cranberry cheese I found on sale at a tourist boutique a while back.  It’s a crumbly, lightly flavored cheese similar to ricotta salata, but slightly softer and not salty, that must have had dried cranberries stirred in while the cheese was still soft enough to do that.
• Spread that out on a plate.
• Sliced a (flavorless, cheap) tomato and arranged the rounds on top of the arugula.
• Lightly salted the tomato in hopes of making it taste like something.
• Cut super thin slices of Parmesan cheese and sprinkled them on top of everything.

What I liked: I’m a growing fan of thyme and smoked paprika in marinara sauce.  It’s a flavor combination that, especially together with saffron, reminds me of Spanish cooking.  It’s like a hint of paella Valenciana in a bowl of spaghetti.  Um, sort of…

Actually, part of my rush to finish off the dill plant (other than that it’s already flowered) is to free up some space to put in some thyme plants that will do well on an inside window sill once winter comes around.  Boy will the thyme fly then…

The reality of dinner at home vs. cooking on the teevee: This was a precise combination of exactly what was in my freezer and the drawer & shelf that suffice for my cupboard.  It’s akin to something that a nice restaurant would serve with some clams, mussels, and a few shrimp.  And, although those things are relatively cheap here on the east coast, I’m just not making a trip to the store for Wednesday night dinner unless not doing so means not eating.

Tuna with Spicy Mayo, Shiso & Basil Mushrooms, Arugula & Dried Tomato Salad

The Sauce for the Tuna:

• I made what was more or less a spicy mayonnaise.  In it was:
• mayo…
• a tablespoon or so of hot sauce.  I use Co-op Image hot sauce. It’s rich and smoky, and even comes in nut and nut free varieties.  It’s made by kids in arts and job-training programs.  And, if you order some, the proceeds benefit that non-profit.
• I also put in about a table spoon of SE Asian chili garlic paste.  It’s called Sambal Olek, and is probably the second most common asian hot sauce in international stores and restaurants, after Siracha.
• a little splash of sesame oil.
• about a teaspoon of honey.
• salt.
• about two tablespoons of rice vinegar.
• I whisked it all together until it was smooth, thin enough to be a sauce and not a paste, but thick enough to stick to things.

The Tuna:

• I had two small, vacumm-packed, frozen steak cuts of Yellow Fin tuna.
• Once they were thawed out, I spread the sauce all over them, and let them sit out until I was ready.
• When the time had come, I put the tuna into a blazing hot skillet with a tiny amount of oil.
• The idea is to get some crust on both sides while leaving the center red and juicy.  That only takes a minute and a half or two on each side.  But, if you like your tuna all well done and dry, and I know some people do, then you know, cook it longer.
• When it was done, I let it rest on the cutting board for a few minutes, because that’s what all the cooking shows do…  Once my patience had expired, I cut the tuna into strips so that it could be eaten with chopsticks.
• Then, I spread some sauce on a plate.  I put the cut tuna on top and poured a little more sauce on top of that.

Mushrooms:

• For some reason, the last time I was at the store, baby portabella mushrooms were cheaper than the regular white ones, so I had some baby portabellas.
• I also had a few white mushrooms from the last pack I bought that needed to be used soon.
• So, I chopped up a mix of white mushrooms and baby portabellas.
• I also finely chopped about four shiso leaves and eight or nine small basil leaves.  For whatever reason, now my basil plants are only producing small leaves.  I think it’s because they’re getting old and want to flower and die quietly, if only I’d let them.
• I sauteed the mushrooms in a very small amount of oil for two or three minutes, seasoned with a little salt.
• Then, I added the shiso and basil and sauteed for about another minute.
• That’s all.

Arugula Salad:

• Unfortunately, I ate all of the arugula I was growing some time ago.  It’s not too late to plant a second round.  But, I don’t have any more pots to grow things in out on my balcony.
• I did, however, find a bag in the salad greens section of the store that was all 100% arugula.
• I did this:
• finely chopped a bunch of the tiny cloves of garlic that grow at the center of the bulb, because that time had come again.
• diced up a half a handful of sun dried tomatoes that were preserved in oil.
• I sauteed the garlic for a moment, then added the tomatoes to a little pool of olive oil in my smallest pot.
• then, I poured the hot oil & garlic & tomatoes over the arugula and tossed it all together.
• Then, um, I put it in a bowl.

Served With:

• a bowl of rice
• miso soup
• a half of a corn cob per person.

What I liked:

The mayo-based sauce did well to moisten and perk up some cuts of tuna that turned out to be a bit light on flavor, and, well, overcooked…  The vinegar is important to it.  Think sushi rice level of vinegar and sweet (with spiciness), not sprinkle on your “chips” fish & chips vinegar.  On top of that, everything here required fairly little effort.

Pot Pies

Sometimes when I remember that British people call pot pies “pasties”, I think of the difference between  a sturdy Midwestern grandma cooking up rib-sticking goodness and a 22 year old girl twirling tassles from her breasts and I chuckle.

To that let me also mention the chasm of difference between pot pies and pot brownies…

The pie crusts:

The recipe I use, more or less, is here: ehow.com/how_2023378_pasty-dough.html.  I not much of a baker, and I’d be remiss to offer my own recipe here.  I’ll just say that, to that recipe, I add about a tablespoon of rice vinegar (I can’t remember why, but I remember that it’s supposed to be good for something).  And, of course, the most important thing is to never let the butter melt until after everything’s the oven.  The water should be the absolute minimum to hold everything together.  Kneading, and thus forming gluten, should also be avoided.  Because I don’t own a pastry cutter, I use a scraper and a meat cleaver to mix and chop and fold and corral the flour/dough on a very large cutting board.  I give it a little panache and it might even look like I know what I’m doing, but probably doesn’t.

The filling:

• First, I defrosted all of the pork in my freezer - a mixed assortment of cuts and chops - then removed all of the removable chunks of fat as well as the bones.
• In a large sauce pan, I sauteed the fat and bones, to render off as much as would render off in a few minutes.
• After I removed the solid fat and bones, I added a dab of butter to the liquid fat fill it out (because there wasn’t enough).

Then, I boiled all the fat and bones to make stock, although I didn’t use it in this recipe.

• To the rendered fat and browned bits, I added:
• chopped carrots.
• chopped celery.
• diced onion.
• a couple of cloves of minced garlic.
• I put in some salt and stirred occasionally until the veggies were beginning to become tender.
• Then, I added a fair amount of flour and stirred occasionally until the flour was cooked too.
• Next, I poured in beef stock (the pork stock wasn’t ready yet and beef stock is what I had.  I would have used any kind).
• To that, I added chopped fresh marjoram and dill.  I also added:
• sweet corn, freshly sliced off the cob.
• the remaining leftover lentils from the other night (less than 1/2 cup).  Because, what are pot pies for but using up scraps?
• about a double handful of broccoli.
• With some more salt, black pepper, red pepper, ground thyme, and a dash of smoked paprika, I simmered it all until the sauce was thick and everything was cooked.
• I cut the pork (from which I’d already removed the fat) into small cubes and browned them up in a separate skillet.  Once they were all nice and well colored, I added them to the vegetable stew in the other pot, turned off the heat, and let it all sit until dinner time was approaching.  In any case, it sat long enough to cool down to lukewarm.

Assembly:

• After the dough for the crust had rested about half as long as it should have (about 15 minutes), I decided to roll out the crusts.
• One section at a time, I pulled enough from the big ball of dough to make a mini pie crust and rolled it out into a circle, about 1/8 inch thick.  I made four of them.
• I fit each bottom crust into a small cazuela, molding it into the corners and over the edges of the side, cutting off any excess.  As I finished each one, I put it into the refrigerator to rest.
• I made the tops after I made the bottoms, making 1/8 thick circles slightly larger than the size of the cazuelas.  I pre-cut slits in the tops before sticking them into the refrigerator to rest along with the bottoms.
• When the time came and the oven had been preheated, I ladled the filling into the bottoms, covered them with the tops, then used a fork to crimp the edges of the top and bottom together.
• I baked them at 400ºF.
• Then, my wife called.  She’d gotten on the wrong bus and ended up a half mile from here at the mall.  Yeah, really.  So, I turned the oven down to 300ºF to slow things down and went to pick her up.
• When I got home, they were done.   They probably cooked for about 35 minutes.

What I liked: Making pot pies makes me feel all homey and maternal, even though I’m a guy.  It uses up all the little bits of food that are too small to serve on their own.  I also generally like marjoram with pork.  It all tasted good and I’d make it again.  I also liked the individual mini pie servings, rather than slicing out portions from a bigger pie, as I’ve done in the past.  But, this recipe wouldn’t win a reality TV show or anything.

Room for improvement: I really don’t know how to make a perfect pie crust.  This one was good enough by most home cooking standards.  But, super flaky deliciousness has thus far eluded me.  I usually only make one sweet pie a year - a pumpkin pie that I make right after all of the pumpkins go on sale after Halloween.  (That’s its own ongoing culinary saga.) Then, I usually make some sort of savory meal-sort-of-pie about twice a year.  At that level of engagement, it might be a while before I master the art of the crust.