A Simon Hopkinson Thanksgiving

The fall season brings a limited variety of fresh fruits and vegetables.  We have been stockpiling winter squash for some time.  Our normal supplier of Brussels sprouts, though, "forgot to harvest them."  There is fennel, apples and pears, spinach, onions, chard, and potatoes.  Local fowl is limited to turkey and chicken, and the occasional duck.  So for Thanksgiving, we returned to d'Artagnan for a pair of squab, and to Schnucks for Brussels sprouts because Julia Child say they were a Thanksgiving tradition. Our cookbook research led us again and again to Simon Hopkinson's Roast Chicken and other Stories, volumes 1 and 2, and in the end, we decided on a Simon Hopkinson Thanksgiving.

For our first course, a delicate fennel soup, which consisted of a couple of fennel bulbs, two onions, garlic, and chicken stock.  The vegetables were simmered only in butter until they were very soft, then cooked in Pernod and wine for a brief simmer, and then with chicken stock.  Thereupon the directions say to puree in a blender until you're too tired to go on.  Our blender bit the small appliance dust a few months ago, and hasn't been replaced, so we tried the stick blender until we were too tired to go on.  And then, the whole mixture is put through a fine sieve, in our case, the chinoise.

Most of the solids -- however fibrous -- stayed in the sieve, and we were left with quite a thin soup.  At the end, it is garnished with "parmesan cream" (cream in which parmesan cheese has been dissolved) and croutons.  The flavor was definitely delicate, one might say anemic.

A similar method for making celery soup uses a potato for thickener -- might be a good idea for this one too.

For the main course, grilled squab.  One begins with spatchcocked squab.  Not having a local butcher to take care of this, per Simon's instructions, R did it himself.  Start with a plump California squab.

Then cut the backbone on both sides with scissors.

Next, with a sharp knife and handy fingers, remove the breastbone, trying not to tear too much flesh.  (In the end, the supremes came off and were sauteed separately with the livers.)

Once the breastbone is out, the ribs on either side remove easily; the wings were also removed, leaving a flat bird with a boneless breast, ready for marinating.

We marinated the birds for a couple of hours in sliced garlic and marsala wine.

Then we went about preparing the other parts of the meal:  a puff paste pastry crust for Hopkinsons's fine apple pie (from the freezer section of Whole Foods); cutting up the squash.

The Brussels sprouts were parboiled, an x cut in their stems (per Julia), and then stewed in butter in the oven.  The squash, cubed, roasted in the 375 degree oven for about 40 minutes.  And the Big Green Egg was fired up, aiming for a temperature of about 450-500 degrees.  A 300 degree oven was prepared indoors.
At the last moment, the squab was removed from its marinade, and grilled outside, 2 minutes skin side down, then turned skin side up for 1 minute.  Put back on a plate, each bird was sprinkled with chopped shallots, hazelnut oil, and sherry vinegar, and placed covered with another plate in the oven for 15 minutes to continue cooking and for the topping to melt into a warm vinaigrette.  Here is the bird served: succulant, crusty on top, and very tender.

The accompaniments were the squash mixed with pomegranate seeds

and the brussels sprouts in butter.

For dessert, we decided on Hopkins's tarte aux pommes fine, "because tarte Tatin is so so overused."  The secret of this one, he says, is to prepare it at the last minute, so the tarte is very fresh.  Start with two rounds of puff paste (for 2 tarts), rolled 8 inches square, and then cut into 7.5 inch disks.  The dough is pricked and chilled.  Next slice a couple of large apples into thin slices, toss with lemon juice.  Arrange the apples on the disks of puff paste, leaving a half-inch margin around the edges, and chill again.  When about ready to eat, brush the edges with melted butter, sprinkle granulated sugar on the apples, and put into a 425 degree oven for 20 minutes, or until the edges are puffed and the apples beginning to brown.  Top with creme chantilly, or a variation thereof - whipped cream mixed with powdered sugar blended with a piece of vanilla bean.

The only problem: no leftover tart!

But there remain two halves of grilled squab, which will be made into squab salad this evening.
Thank you, Simon, but work on that fennel soup recipe, please.

Cavolo Nero Chips

We are back in the full onslaught of fresh fruits and vegetables from our native Urbana Farmers' Market, our CSA from the Moore family farm, and when necessary, the Chicago Green City Market.  We have been rotating our purchases of leafy greens, which have been plentiful this spring and early summer:  turnip greens, beet greens, several types of kale, lettuces, and spinach.  Tonight, we faced the problem, what to do with our lacinato kale (aka cavolo nero, dinosaur kale) from Blue Moon Farms.
The answer: kale chips.
Take one bunch of lacinato kale, about 12 leaves or so.  Strip the leaves from the stems.  Preheat an oven to 250 degrees F.  Toss the leaves in 1 Tbsp olive oil and add salt and pepper.  Place the leaves in a single layer on two cookie sheets and bake in the oven for about 30 minutes.
The leaves will wilt, and amazingly, become crisp.
Take out, cool on a cooling rack, and then serve as a side dish or hors d'oeuvre. Crunchy, salty, peppery, kaley.

The picture does not do justice.  These leaves have definite crunch!

Ramps!

The spring open houses have begun at Prairie Fruits Farm, with a new vendor on Saturday morning, Cow Creek Farm, who have brought their spring ramps for sale.  The first day, we bought a pound and made a ramp and cheese quiche to take as a picnic before the opera.

Start with the ramps:

Chop them up, and sauté (with the bulbs) in some butter.
Make a quiche with a pate brisé using 1-1/2 cups flour, and a 9-inch pie pan or tart pan.  Pre-bake the quiche shell and cool slightly.
Mix 2 eggs, 3/4 cup cream, 100 g. grated cheddar cheese, and the ramps.  Pour into the shell and bake at a 350 oven as long as quiches are supposed to go.  When it's done, it's puffy and slighted browned, like this.

This week, we cycled to the Farm to stock up on vegetables, including ramps, goat cheese, and goat milk gelato (vanilla and mint this week).   Here is a more mature pound of ramps.

We figured that the garlicky green flavor would complement potatoes, cream, and cheese, so we prepared a gratin, based on a recipe for ramps and spinach but omitting the spinach.  Again, we sauteed the chopped up ramp bulbs for a bit, then added the chopped leaves until they were wilted.

We sliced a pound of Yukon gold potatoes, layered about half in a one-quart gratin dish (bigger would have been better), amply salted and peppered the layer, then spread the ramps on top. On top of the ramps, 50 grams or so of grated gruyere cheese.  Another layer of potatoes, and then poured over about a cup of warmed heavy cream that had been heated in the ramp pan with two cloves of chopped garlic.  Another handful of gruyere on top of this. More salt and pepper on the ramps and the top layer, and then into the 350 oven, covered with foil, for about 45 minutes, and then without the foil until it is brown and bubbly.  Goes well with ribs cooked on a Big Green Egg.

We've fallen behind in our posting, but stay tuned for Fish and the Big Green Egg.  Here is a down payment, from chilly February:

Sweet Potato Stew

Mark Bittman of the Times offered a selection of vegan dishes to ring in the new year this Sunday.  Having a cache of sweet potatoes, we made a version of his sweet potato stew, and it was delicious.
Take two medium size sweet potatoes (about 1 pound) and cut into 1/2 inch dice.  Cut up a large onion in fine dice.  Sauté the onion in some vegetable oil in a casserole until the onion is pretty soft, then add the sweet potatoes, a large knob of chopped ginger, a couple of sliced serrano peppers (leave the seeds in and it's very hot!), and a heaping teaspoon of curry powder.  Meanwhile, cut an apple into medium dice and reserve.
After the sweet potato and onions and the other ingredients have cooked together for a bit, add some coconut milk thinned with water or stock. (We used duck stock because it was on end -- end of vegan story).  Pour in the liquid so it comes either halfway (Bittman) or almost to cover (us) the sweet potato mixture, and simmer until the sweet potatoes are cooked and soft, stirring from time to time.  Mash up half of the potatoes with a masher, and add the apple.  Warm through.
The original recipe called for a garnish of cilantro and peanuts.  We didn't have peanuts, so stirred in a heaping tablespoon of peanut butter into the sauce, and topped with chopped cilantro.
Excellent!  But no pictures.

Tiny Birds for Thanksgiving 2011

We give thanks for the leisure to explore culinary experiments while taking care of necessary tasks like putting the garden and pond to bed for the winter.  We give thanks for small birds who provide tasty morsels of flavor.  This Thanksgiving dinner, our centerpiece was the mighty squab, the anti-turkey.

And the method, in order to push our technological limits, sous-vide, based on some suggestions from Thomas Keller.
First, the breast was separated from the body of the squab.

The remainder of the squab (back, wings, etc.) went into the stockpot for stock and then sauce.

First the pieces were browned, then vegetables added, and they all simmered with water.

Meanwhile, the legs were placed in a sealable bag with some olive oil, and then sealed in the vacuum sealer.

Then they were placed in the pot of simmering water, with an ideal constant temperature of 69 degrees Celsius, and there they floated for two hours.

The ingenious temperature monitoring system uses an instant-read thermometer stuck through a plastic cork, floated on a Gladware plastic top.

Meanwhile, we prepared the acorn squash velouté, recipe courtesy of Hannah and Joshua, acorn squash courtesy of the Moore Family Farms, moldering in the wine cellar.  Time to use it up.  There must be a better way to peel acorn squash, and in any event, all the typos here are due to my slicing off a bit of my middle finger trying to peel them.

Once peeled, they are cubed, and added to some sauteed onion along with minced ginger.  Saute and then simmer them in chicken stock for about 30 minutes.

 and then blend with the immersion blender from last Christmas.

Add some tomato paste, salt, and cayenne, and work on the rest of the dinner.

For the squab breast, we decided to flavor it (in the absence of truffles, foie gras, and other requirements of the Keller recipe) with olive oil infused with star anise, coriander pods, and peppercorns.  The reserved olive oil was added to the breast piece in its packet, and then vacuum sealed.

(This is an action shot. Imagine you can hear the machine sucking all the air out of the bag.)
Meanwhile, the legs, having been in their 68-69 degree C. bath for two hours, are removed and placed in ice water.

The breast goes in for 40 minutes (Keller said 30, we left it a little longer, maybe 5 minutes too long?) Remove from the water bath and go on to the next steps.

At the end, the legs and the breast will be briefly sauteed in the flavored olive oil, and topped with sauce.
For the sauce, we cooked up the squab livers, and sieved them.

We also sautéed some chanterelles that we had bought at the Lincoln Park Whole Foods on Wednesday morning.

For the rest of the vegetables and side dishes, we made roasted sweet potatoes (Cary's Garden) with fried sage (a recipe from a 2008 Gourmet: cut the potatoes into 1/2 inch rounds, marinate in garlic-infused olive oil, roast in a single layer at 450 degrees F. for 20-30 minutes, and top with the sage - the last of the year from our herb garden); buttered Brussels sprouts (Blue Moon); and puree of parsnips (Whole Foods) (recipe from Simon Hopkinson: cook the parsnips in milk, pass through a food mill, and whisk in the milk, butter, and some mustard).  Here is another action shot of the whisking:

Our Thanksgiving meal is just about ready.  First, the soup, with its garnish of sauteed cumin seed and mustard seed.  We served it with a South African chenin blanc.

Then the main course:  the squab sliced and sauced with the chanterelle-liver sauce:

The trio of vegetables:

We served this with a 2005 Steltzner (Stag's Leap, Napa) cabernet sauvignon.  Not sure what is the big deal with these fancy and pricey Napa wines.

Instead of the usual Thanksgiving post-prandial walk, we opted instead for an anti-capitalist movie at the Art Theater, Margin Call, by a new director, J.C. Chandor, with Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, and Demi Moore.

Then back home for dessert, persimmon pudding (recipe from Chez Panisse fruit; persimmons from Cary's Garden).

R. made this while I was away conventioneering in DC.  Here is the pulp that goes into the pudding:

And the final presentation, in all its gooey glory, with Prairie Fruits goat milk gelato on the side.

A sweet and fitting end to a day spent partly outdoors, filling the bird feeders, and fertilizing the lawn for spring; and partly indoors in the kitchen with all the enticing smells.  Here we are on the sunny day after Thankgiving. Let it snow, if it must!

Return of the Giant Puffball

Last year about this time, when taking some compost to the pile in the back corner of our lot, I noticed what looked like a 16-inch softball thrown over the fence.  On closer inspection, though, it was a mycological growth of some sort.  Some research on the internet and looking through our mushroom hunter's handbook, we were pretty sure it was a Giant Puffball.  We peeled it, cut it up into pieces, and sauteed it, and it was pretty tasty!
So naturally, this year we have been keeping our eye out for the return of the puffball, with no luck until yesterday, when R found this beauty in the back, beneath the maple trees and the burning bush.  A week ago, there had been NOTHING there.

Last year's model had not yet split its top, and was more spherical.  This baby weighs about 1 pound and 4 ounces.  We decided to turn half of it into mushroom soup and the other half into breaded puffball slices.  Our own hundred-yard found dinner.
For the preparation, it is necessary first to peel the puffball.  This is pretty easy where the skin is thick, toward to bottom of the ball, and it peels away by hand.

At this point, a paring knife can finish the job. (The little black knobby thing on its left is the point of attachment to the earth.)
Once peeled, you can cut it up any old way.  It has the texture and feel of styrofoam, which is pretty weird.  (Maybe that's where the chemists got their idea.)
First we sliced the ends, which would go into the soup.

Our soup would be Julia Child's cream of mushroom soup, from Mastering, volume 1.  We know it well and it's delicious, so using the puffball in this way would provide a controlled experiment.  We sautéed some minced onion in butter, then added flour (equal amount to the flour), and cooked the roux for a couple of minutes, then added boiling chicken stock, and once smooth, added the mushroom pieces, some thyme, bay leaf, and parsley, to simmer for about 20 minutes.

They do float, just like chunks of styrofoam (or tofu?).  Meanwhile, we sliced the rest of the reserved pieces into thin slices, as we would the mushroom caps in the original recipe.  These we sauteed, covered, in some butter.  Puffballs, it seems, are more like eggplants - they really absorb the butter and we needed to add quite a lot more.

Eventually, they cooked down. We strained the stock, added the mushroom pieces, made a mixture of cream and egg yolk, and poured some of the stock into that, then the whole thing back in the pot and simmered a little more.

Then we served in soup plates.

The flavor is definitely and delicately mushroom; the texture of the mushroom pieces not as dense as with champignons.  But very delicious indeed.

For our main course, we decided to take 3/4-inch slices of puffball, and bread them using egg and panko.

Now the slices look like some bad industrial cheese as well as styrofoam.  In order to fit them better into our big sauté pan, we decided to cut them into half moons.  Here they are, breaded, and ready for the pan.  The yellow, of course, comes from those free-range eggs from the Moore Family Farm, with their colorful diet of insects.

We sautéed them in a mixture of peanut oil and butter, and kept adding more butter.  As they cook, the puffball inside gets softer and sags a little.  Because of the breading, you can't cook it too fast or too long, so our last year's effort produced more tender cooked mushrooms.  This method adds the crunch of the breading.  They looked and cooked a little like French toast.

Inside the cooked cutlet, you can still see the styrofoam effect:

Or does it look like chicken fillet?

We served our puffball cutlets with beet greens braised with sautéed pancetta, garlic, and diced red onion. We had gotten two bunches of beets from Bracken's Farm at our farmer's market:  the greens were especially fresh and gorgeous looking.  In the morning, we roasted the beetroot, and reserved the greens for dinner.  Here we followed a method from the Chez Panisse vegetable cookbook (who use dried currants instead of pancetta), separating the leaves from the stems, chopping the stems into 1-inch pieces, and the leaves into a chiffonade.  We added the greens to the sauteed pancetta, and cooked covered until tender.  We finished with a little balsamic vinegar.  I would say that I preferred last year's method for the puffball, with parsley and garlic.  You might add some new potatoes, too.  But the cutlets went well with the delicious greens.

During the earlier part of the day, we made another batch of tomato sauce.  The plum tomatoes from Blue Moon Farm have been fabulous this year:  deep red and meaty.  We've been buying 4-8 pounds a week and making various sauces:  mostly Marcella Hazan's Tomato Sauce I from her first cookbook, but also Patricia Wells's rustic roasted tomato sauce from her Vegetables book (tomatoes, oregano, salt - nothing more - roasted until soft and then pureed in the food processor).  This week we tried the roasted tomato sauce from the Chez Panisse Vegetable cookbook, which is about half tomatoes, and half sliced onions, leeks, carrots, and garlic, along with some olive oil.

Here is our freezer ready for winter!

(That's last Christmas's squash soup on the top right in the big container next to two containers of yellow tomato sauce [Hazan I], brandade on the middle left, and swiss chard risotto on the bottom right on top of the Russkii Standart vodka bottle.  The rest is pretty much tomatoes and nothing but.)