Friday Dinner: the Amazing Macaroni and Cheese, Oven Ribs and Creamy Coleslaw

I don't make mac and cheese or any pasta at home, nor do I order it in restaurants. Why? Because the angel on my shoulder reminding me that, "It's not as much about what you eat, it's about portion size." gets smacked into oblivion by "want". However, Friday dinners cooked with my amica in cucina, Lynn are the exception and boy-oh-boy this mac and cheese was fun, easy and delicious.

We compare notes on cooking shows we've watched, or recipes found and this one (Maccheroni al Formaggio) came from Lidia Bastianich and Tanya Bastianich Manuali's cookbook, "Lidia's Italy in America". I don't post recipes if they are not original, unless we've made significant changes in ingredients, preparation or sometimes both. With the exception of the cheeses and our choice of pasta (shells over the recipe's called-for "pipette"), we made this exactly as written, cutting the amounts in half.

Generally, when we find a new recipe, we do some research but we've never been steered wrong by Lidia - "In Lidia We Trust".

Why did we get so excited about this recipe? There is no Mornay sauce (a béchamel or "white sauce" to which grated cheese is added). The sauce is cheese, milk and two sage leaves. I've seen references to this type of sauce, but hadn't seen any recipes. Another big plus is the topping. Day-old Italian (we used a baguette) bread is hand-grated using the large holes of a box grater, lightly toasted in butter, cooled completely and the crumbs are combined with Grana Padano or Parmigiano-Reggiano (we used Romano) cheese. The variation in the crumb size really contributes to the topping's crunchiness.

Oven Ribs and Creamy Coleslaw - oh yeah, we did have a couple of other dishes and they were delicious, too. Lynn made a rub with brown sugar, paprika, onion, garlic, salt and thyme, rubbed down the ribs (1 rack of pork spareribs), wrapped them and refrigerated them for 24 hours and then we cooked them, covered in foil with a little white wine in the bottom of the baking sheet for 3 hours at 250 F, then broiled them for a total of 5 minutes right before serving. We made Al Bergez' sauce to accompany the ribs.

My creamy coleslaw dressing wasn't too creamy or sweet (I never add sugar to my coleslaw dressing) and one important thing to remember - unless you like too much dressing - is to under-dress the coleslaw and let it rest in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. The moisture released from the coleslaw as it breaks down a little will add to the dressing and the salad remains crunchy without a soupy mess of dressing in the bottom of the bowl.

RECIPES: MACARONI and CHEESE and CREAMY COLESLAW

Friday Dinner: Grilled Steak, Potatoes and Salad with Corn, Tomatoes and Avocadoes

Nothing new or difficult here (except that I added the final butter to the sauce too soon so it was a little 'broken' by the time we served), but just want to memorialize a fun dinner where everything tasted delicious from appetizers through the salad course.

APPETIZER:
Acme baguette slices spread with Heidi Swanson's, "Parmesan Cheese Spread" (left side of the plate) or misozuke tofu (right side of the plate) and garnished with sun dried tomato, quick preserved lemon, roasted red pepper, confit garlic and caper relish - this recipe is at the bottom of the post. It is delicious and could top anything from a baguette to fish or chicken.

 MAIN COURSE: 

Grilled steak with Marchand du Vin sauce, No-Name Potatoes garnished with creme fraiche. However you cook your steak, take it out of the refrigerator at least 30 (I prefer 60) minutes before  cooking. After patting them dry, we generously season with salt shortly before they go onto the grill or into a smoking hot pan on the stove top. Lynn reigns as the steak grilling chef supreme - she has the mojo.

SALAD

Baby greens with grilled corn, cherry tomatoes, avocado and red onion, dressed in a red-wine vinaigrette.

RECIPE: SUN DRIED TOMATO, QUICK PRESERVED LEMON, ROASTED RED PEPPER, CONFIT GARLIC AND CAPER SPREAD

 + Quick 'Preserved' Lemons
 + Confit Garlic

Friday Dinner: Coq Au Vin - Chicken Stew, to You

In the days of Yore (you know "Yore", it was before your parents' parents were born), when your rooster was too old to chase the hens, you cooked it. Old roosters make for a difficult chew so roasting was out of the question. Tough meat = braise, so maybe you dumped the dregs of your wine barrel (depending on where you lived, the wine might be white or red), some onions and mushrooms (or celeraic or carrots) cooked in the rendered lard of a hunk of salt pork into the pot and cooked Monsieur le Rooster (a 'coq') having been separated into his component parts, until the meat was edible and, "mon Dieu!", you have a sauce. Serve some chicken with a ladle of sauce on top, break off a hunk of bread to sop up the sauce and you have a tasty, filling meal.

One of the first published recipes for coq au vin was in Edmond Richardin's, "La Cuisine Française: L'art du Bien Manger" where he calls for mushrooms AND truffles, in 1906. I'd wager that as long as there has been wine, folks have used it to cook a hearty meat stew, using whatever vegetables were handy to extend the dish as well as for flavor. The preparation for coq au vin is similar to boeuf bourguignon. To thicken a stew, if flour wasn't in your pantry, you used blood from the former Monsieur le Rooster, at the end of cooking.

Nigel Slater wrote, "I once worked in a restaurant that, at the time, was considered to be the best in the land. At least several of the guides thought so. The chef patron had learned to make this dish in France, he understood its roots. We made coq au vin every week (believe me when I say that this is one of those dishes that improves, rather than deteriorates, after a few days in the fridge). I have never made it better than I did under his beady eye, but then we made it with the dregs of the glasses and bottles from the customers' tables. So whether it was the quality of the local birds, the excellent wines or that soupçon of saliva from each glass that made the difference I will never know."

Modern recipes can be tortured and time consuming. We have made it previously, using Julia Child's recipe - actually two recipes: one a "master" recipe for a ragout of chicken and onions in red wine, and the recipe for coq au vin. Not too long ago, we tried the version from America's Test Kitchen, "Modern Coq au Vin" and it was delicious.  The ATK recipe takes less time, but for us, it provided all of the flavor components from a traditional rendition and suits another Nigel Slater quote, "The sort of good-natured food that will fit in with us rather than us having to plan our day around it; the sort to eat off plain white plates on a paper tablecloth. The sort whose juices you mop up with bread and a plain, garlic-scented salad. In other words, a sound recipe that makes all the right noises." Mr. Slater's Coq au Vin recipe can be found here and if I ever run across an old rooster, that's the one I'll use.

We served our coq au vin with a spinach salad with raisin bread croutons, egg, toasted pecans, red onion and avocado and a red wine vinaigrette. Oh yeah, and bacon.

 RECIPES: MODERN (AND QUICKER) COQ au VIN

Roasted and Stuffed Prosciutto-Wrapped Pork Loin, No-Name Potatoes and Citrus Salad

I swear that this is (probably nearly) the last post for things made in 2011, but it's a great dish that we made for our 2011 New Year's Eve dinner. We'd been planning to make this pork loin roast since October 2011 when Lynn saw it in Bon Appetit. None of the components are difficult for the pork loin but there was a serious error in the original recipe when it came to cooking temperature and time - which I address in the recipe's head notes after the jump. 

Fortunately, others had gone before and there was very good information in the reviews. Ours looked like the roast in the magazine's picture and tasted like something you'd gladly open your wallet to pay for in a restaurant. It was all kinds of awesome.

A pork loin is butterflied, a layer of pre-wilted kale is spread on top, and on top of that a mixture of pork sausage, reconstituted dried mushrooms and apples, thyme and rosemary. The loin is then rolled and wrapped in a layer of prosciutto, tied and garnished with rosemary, browned briefly and roasted.

I was at Sur La Table looking to buy some kitchen twine because Lynn was out. All they had were ridiculously expensive (and small) packages of kitchen twine and these re-usable silicone bands for about the same price.  I have poo-pooed these in the past because tying your own roast or other cut of meat when called for is something you should know how to do.  However... the bands work beautifully, are easy to remove and easy to clean. These bands wouldn't work for every application, but they were perfect for this roast. Yay, technology!

Hello luv-ah!

I can't figure out what to name the potatoes. The closest I've come is "French-Fried Potato Columns" (not entirely accurate and kind of uninteresting), or maybe, "Potatoes Cooked Three-Ways". Ugh. My sister Chris served these a couple of years ago for our family's Christmas Eve dinner and I've been periodically obsessing over them since then.They taste  like french fries on the outside (but are not deep fried) and inside, but are approximately 2" high by 2 to 3" diameter "columns" and so there is a lot of fluffy potato in the middle. I don't eat potatoes very often and when I finally got around to asking her how she made them she didn't remember, didn't know where she'd found the recipe or even if there was a recipe. My research proved fruitless - I couldn't find anything exactly like what I remembered.

The potato "columns" drying after being boiled. After they've dried, the tops and bottoms are sauteed until they're a deep golden brown and then they're popped in the oven for about 15 minutes..

When we were out picking up the roast at Tacoma Boys (on 6th Ave. - great store) and other ingedients for the 2011 Christmas Eve dinner, I cornered her in the cracker aisle and wouldn't let her leave until she'd remembered how she made them. Which she did. I made a test batch for my sister Sara's family and got a unanimous thumbs up.

.The citrus salad was all Lynn's idea: a variety of greens, grapefruit supremes, toasted pecans and avocado in a grapefruit and Sherry vinegar vinaigrette. It was a perfect balance to the rich pork.

It was truly a wonderful way to mark the end of 2011.

RECIPES (after the jump):
- Roasted and Stuffed Prosciutto-Wrapped Pork Loin
- No-Name Potatoes
- Salad with Grapefruit, Toasted Pecans, Avocado and a Grapefruit Vinaigrette

Friday Dinner: Crispy Taco Shell U - starring Carnitas SUPER STAR!

This is a salute to my non-bio sister Lynn's Mexican food that I've been eating happily for years. It's always delicious and I've learned a great deal from her as well. We won't be talking about the chile verde in this post... but we'll get to that on a later date.

Last Friday as we were cooking, I told her that years ago the first time I saw her making crispy taco shells I was blown away: in a room full of people, she was holding down a conversation, grooving to music, drinking a glass of wine and smoking (she no longer smokes) all the while turning out beautifully formed U-shaped shells while seemingly paying no attention to the process.

We talked about that, and she told me that a couple of decades-ish ago a house mate's chef girlfriend taught her to fry tortillas with two forks and she never looked back.

What We Ate

Ha! I had to hide the beans and rice with a
Chimichanga because I'd
already shoved a bunch in my face

Last Friday we ate crispy tacos, NFNG rellenos (see: below), Chimichangas (Mike's favorite), rice and beans and salsa. Sadly, our avocado was sub-standard and we had no guacamole (I KNOW - so sad!). I gave one of the leftover rellenos to my housemate who, when she had eaten one for dinner a couple of nights later, texted me, "That was an AMAZING relleno!!!!" Yeah, they were that good and my housemate knows her stuff.  The starring roll in this was pork carnitas. I was in charge of the first half of the carnitas, and Lynn took over the shredding, final seasoning and making them crispy - the recipe/method we used is after the jump.

Crispy Taco Shell U
Lynn cooked up the first one with commentary while I observed and I was responsible for the rest - a taco shell refresher course (I had already passed the entry level class a year or so ago but I don't do this very often).  She is a very good teacher. Oh - if you're using tongs with channels make sure the business end remains below the the level of the hinge end so that hot oil never cascades out of the hinge end onto your hand. On my eighth shell, I learned that lesson the hard way. The two little spots of burned skin on my palm say, "Holla!" to that.

Swish and Flick - Okay, Don't Flick, Just Swish and How to Avoid the V

Lynn's about to slug me after I made her move
around the kitchen about a million times
to find decent light to photograph a black pan.

Someday I'm going to film it because I'm pretty sure my description won't do it justice, but the basics are an inch of oil (something neutral with a high smoke point - we used canola) in a pan, a pair of tongs, newspaper or a deconstructed paper bag to drain them on, and a stack of corn tortillas. Having a pan - the one in the picture is a mini-paella pan - with rounded sides helps but isn't a requirement.The oil should be at/around 365F. If your heat's too low, they'll be leathery and not crisp and bubbly. The other big secrets are to keep them moving, keep the part you are cooking submerged, keep the open end open, learn to recognize (by sound) when the oil has stopped bubbling and finally, try to keep the open end facing you.

Slide the tortilla in the oil and swish it around (gently). Pick up one end with tongs so that about 60% is out of the oil and is at (about) a 90% angle. Swish back and forth gently for a seconds until the 40% in the oil kind of holds its shape.

Switch your tongs to the other side and do the same.  It's all abut the U shape.  If the open end starts to close - and, like a clam, it WANTS to close - keep the open end open with your tongs. Once it has a U shape, swish it (slowly and gently on all sides, keeping the part you're frying submerged.  When it is bubbly, and a pale golden brown, remove it and set it on the aforementioned newspaper or flattened paper shopping bag open end down to drain.

Oh - if you end up with a V shape on a couple, as long as the top is open, it's not a bad day. We reused the oil for the Chimichangas which are not deep fried but pan fried. (Mmm... fried!)

The Truth About Roasting Chiles and NFNG Rellenos

Lynn is also the the one who suggested the "No Fry, No Guilt Relleno". Don't get me wrong, fried things are a wonder but the NFNG Relleno has all the benefits and none of the guilt and you don't have buckets of oil to deal with afterwards. She taught me how to roast chiles.  If you have a gas range, you don't need to do them in the oven, broiler or put them in paper bags to steam.  Just roast those babies over the fire until the skin is completely - I mean completely - black and let them sit a few minutes.  Pick them up at the wide end and scrape them with a dinner knife until all of the skin comes off easy as pie. Oh - do not rinse them.  Do. Not. What? Do you want to rinse off all of that beautiful smoky flavor? Just make sure you scrape off all of the burned skin, take out as many of the seeds as you can manage, and you will have a delicious roasted chile

Do Not Wear Poblano Chiles as Gloves

A couple of years ago, I had the bright (read: stupid) idea to drape the poblanos over my fingers while I was scraping off the skins. Poblanos are generally mild, like any chile, there can be a range of heat.  In this case, they had more than a little heat and by the time we sat down to eat, the top side of the first three fingers of my right hand looked like a cooked lobster and felt like I was holding them over a lit match. Multiple applications of aloe and the miraculous but sadly discontinued Johnson & Johnson First Aid Cream helped but to this day the tops of those three fingers are still very heat sensitive.  Oh - now I leave the tops on and make a long slit in one side of the chile and take out the seeds - much better for stuffing.

We stuffed the poblanos with a mixture (I just eyeballed the amounts) of pork, rice and cheese and I topped them with some salsa and more cheese.  We cooked them just to warm them up and melt the cheese - 350F for about 25 minutes, +/- a few.

Ingredients for the braise.

RECIPE: CARNITAS SUPER STAR!