November 15, 2016 · 6:50 am

THREE-CHEESE ROASTED CAULIFLOWER

Cauliflower is a beautiful vegetable. The usual variety is snowy white and reminds me of the huge cumulus clouds that build over the New Mexico mountains during the summer and fall. Those clouds are very much a part of the art of Georgia O’Keeffe. Now there are cauliflower varieties of  electric green and purple. They are also gorgeous and beg to be eaten. A creative cook can find many ways to prepare cauliflower. You can use it raw as a crudité along with a dip, or heaven forbid, ranch dressing, or in a garden salad. You can roast it in thick slabs, and then it tastes almost like steak. The Indians use it for delicious pakoras. There are other ways to prepare it, but the fallback in most home kitchens is a steamed head of cauliflower smothered in cheese sauce. Actually, I love that combination, but in my hands the cauliflower gets soggy in the steamer and the cheese sauce slides off the cauliflower into a pool on the plate. This is my effort to correct those shortcomings by roasting the cauliflower and using a thick sauce that clings to the head  of cauliflower and  browns quickly in the oven.

Snowy head of cauliflower
Roasted cauliflower topped with Cheddar cheese sauce, Swiss cheese, Parmesan, and panko
Just out of the oven
Three-cheese roasted cauliflower ready to serve
Roasted cauliflower and steak

RECIPE

Three-Cheese Roasted Cauliflower

Ingredients

  • 1 large cauliflower, washed, trimmed of leaves and stem
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • ¾ cup milk
  • ¼ pound sharp Cheddar cheese, grated
  • ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • salt and pepper
  • ½ cup grated Swiss cheese
  • 3 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese
  • 3 tablespoons panko
  • melted unsalted butter

Method

  1. Place the cauliflower head in a well-buttered baking dish. Bake  in the middle of a pre-heated oven at 350°F for about 30 minutes or until the cauliflower is easily pierced with a kitchen fork. Remove from the oven and cover with aluminum foil until you are ready to add the sauce.
  2. While the cauliflower is roasting, prepare the cheese sauce. Melt the butter in a small saucepan. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute or two to remove the raw flavor of the flour. Add the milk, and stir until the mixture is thickened. Stir in the Cheddar cheese and nutmeg. Stir until the cheese is completely melted and the sauce is smooth. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.
  3. Spread the sauce over the roasted cauliflower, sprinkle with the Swiss cheese, Parmesan, and panko. Drizzle melted butter over the top.
  4. Return to the oven and increase the temperature to 400°F. Roast until the topping is lightly browned and bubbling, about 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve immediately while still warm. I served it with sliced New York strip steak, but it will go with just about any protein you might like.

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November 10, 2016 · 10:44 am

SALMON CAKES AND MUSHROOM SAUCE

The de-cluttering campaign has moved to the pantry. There are lots of opportunities there: several boxes of salt, two or three tins of sardines, and five – or is it six? – different varieties of vinegar. One item caught my eye, a can of salmon. Fortunately, canned salmon is one of those virtually indestructible items like Spam and Twinkies. It can sit on a shelf for years, just waiting for some culinary emergency. This can had sat on the shelf for longer than I wish to recount, so it seemed like the time had come to use it.

When I was growing up, my mother often used canned salmon. I think that may have reflected her growing up in a Dakota sod-buster family on the flat and isolated prairie. She used to tell of waiting for shipments of otherwise unavailable foods to arrive , preserved in one way or another, on the trains from Minneapolis. Salmon loaf was one of my mother’s  specialties,, and salmon salad sometimes showed up with the salmon straight out of the can. You were able to eat it that way because the canning process essentially cooked the salmon, bones and all. I was never a fan of the bones that you could find. The little vertebrae had a fascinating shape, and they crunched easily between your teeth. But when I found out what they were, those little bones finished off my enthusiasm for canned salmon. These days, we often have salmon, but it is grilled or roasted, and always a fresh steak or a beautiful filet. Canned salmon seemed like a distant memory but a good challenge. Salmon cakes were an obvious choice.

I also had to deal with mushrooms. The other day, Susan wanted to make her favorite Hungarian mushroom soup from the Moosewood cookbook. The recipe called for 2 pounds of fresh mushrooms. When I bought some at the grocery store, I carefully weighed out 2 pounds. It seemed like a lot. Clearly the scale at the store was not working because we wound up with enough mushrooms to make several batches of soup.  It occurred to me that mushroom sauce for the salmon would be a good way to use up at least some of the mushrooms. The sauce I made was thicker than you might like, but you can always thin it out with stock.

Canned salmon
Sautéed salmon cakes
Salmon cake topped with mushroom sauce

RECIPES

Salmon Cakes

Ingredients

  • 1 large, thick slice good-quality sourdough bread
  • ½ cup cream
  • 1 14 ounce  can salmon, drained
  • 2 eggs, room temperature
  • 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
  • 1 tablespoon dried dill weed
  • juice of ½ lemon
  • 1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
  • vegetable oil

Method

  1. Tear the bread into chunks and place in the beaker of a food processor. Pulse several times to form coarse crumbs.
  2. In a medium bowl, combine the bread crumbs and cream. Stir in the salmon with a fork, breaking up the fish into shreds about the size of the bread crumbs. (This should collapse any intact vertebrae)
  3. Stir in the mustard, dill weed, lemon, seasoning, salt and pepper until thoroughly combined. Shape into a ball, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
  4. When you are ready to make your salmon cakes, remove the salmon mixture from the refrigerator and divide into four equal balls. Between two pieces of waxed paper, form each ball into a patty about ½ inch thick.
  5. Heat just enough vegetable oil to coat the bottom of a large skillet. Over medium-high heat when the oil is shimmering, add the salmon cakes. Sauté until crisp and lightly browned on one side, about 5 minutes. Turn once and brown the other side. Serve while still warm.

Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients

  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • ½ pound Cremini mushrooms, sliced
  • 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 1½ cups vegetable stock + more if needed
  • salt and pepper

Method

  1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the mushrooms and sauté  until the mushrooms are cooked through and lightly browned
  2. Stir in the flour so that the mushrooms are completely coated. Cook another minute or two.
  3. Add the vegetable stock, stirring continuously until it is completely incorporated and the mixture has thickened. Add more stock as needed for your desired consistency. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.
  4. Serve over warm salmon cakes.

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November 5, 2016 · 3:42 pm

VOL-AU-VENT

We are continuing our decluttering project and have moved to the garage where we store most of our infrequently used kitchen gear. That was where we found our two croquembouche molds that have subsequently been given to our daughters. That is also where we keep our stove-top smoker (a useful item) and supplies and equipment for making sausage.

I was excited to discover in a large bin of items a set of vol-au-vent cutters. One is shaped like a fish, one is shaped like a flower, and one is shaped like a heart. The cutters are cleverly designed with a central cutter that is just very slightly shorter than the outside cutter so that it does not completely cut through the pastry. It is also designed so that if you want to make pastry shells with only one layer of pastry dough you can do so. But you can also stack layers to make a taller shell. Most cookbooks that have a recipe (not many!) recommend using three layers.img_0751

It is said that vol-au-vents were invented by the great French chef, Marie-Antoine Careme. He, by the way, is considered to be the first celebrity chef as well as the inventor of such kitchen essentials as the toque, the tall chef’s hat. His fame came from all of the elaborate dishes and food displays that he prepared for his patrons, including Talleyrand, Napoleon, Czar Alexander I, British King George IV, and one of the famous Rothschild family.

Vol-au-vents are not commonly seen on restaurant menus these days. The name translates to “flying with the wind”, presumably because of the lightness of the puff pastry casing used to contain a delicate sauced meat or poultry. The original dish was, to say the least, complicated. Here is the recipe for Careme’s version, drawn from the book, Cooking for Kings by Ian Kelly and reported on NPR by Melissa Block.

DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME!

Les Petits Vol-Au-Vents á la Nesle
Brighton Pavilion and Chateau Rothschild

20 vol-au-vent cases, the diameter of a glass
20 cocks-combs
20 cocks-stones (testes)
10 lambs sweetbreads (thymus and pancreatic glands, washed in water for five hours, until the liquid runs clear)
10 small truffles, pared, chopped, boiled in consommé
20 tiny mushrooms
20 lobster tails
4 fine whole lambs’ brains, boiled and chopped
1 French loaf
2 spoonfuls chicken jelly
2 spoonfuls velouté sauce
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
2 tablespoons chopped mushrooms
4 egg yolks
2 chickens, boned
2 calves’ udders
2 pints cream
sauce Allemande
salt, nutmeg

Forcemeat:

Crumb a whole French loaf. Add two spoonfuls of poultry jelly, one of velouté, one tablespoon of chopped parsley, two of mushrooms, chopped. Boil and stir as it thickens to a ball. Add two egg yolks. Pound the flesh of two boned chickens through a sieve. Boil two calves’ udders — once cold, pound and pass through a sieve.

Then, mix six ounces of the breadcrumbs panada to ten ounces of the chicken meat, and ten of the calves’ udders and combine and pound for 15 minutes. Add five drams of salt, some nutmeg and the yolks of two more eggs and a spoonful of cold velouté or béchamel. Pound for a further ten minutes. Test by poaching a ball in boiling water — it should form soft, smooth balls.

Make some balls of poultry forcemeat in small coffee spoons, dip them in jelly broth and after draining on a napkin, place them regularly in the vol-au-vent, already half filled with:

a good ragout of cocks-combs and stones (testicles)
lambs’ sweetbreads (thymus and pancreatic glands, washed in water for five hours, until the liquid runs clear)
truffles
mushrooms
lobster tails
four fine whole brains

Cover all with an extra thick sauce Allemande.

Here’s a simpler, more modern version which uses substantially fewer ingredients along with store-bought frozen puff pastry. You can fill the pastry shell with anything you like, sweet or savory. Ice cream and berries make a good sweet choice. For savory, I have used a scallop sauce adapted from Julia Child’s recipe for coquilles St. Jacques à la Parisienne, but creamed chicken would be another good choice.  Another tip: you don’t really need the specialized cutters. You can just use the rim of a jelly glass or biscuit cutters of two different sizes. Finally, although I thought my end result tasted good, it certainly did not win any awards for appearance. The puff pastry burned around the edges where it was not covered by sauce. The lesson is to watch for burning and remove from the broiler before that happens.

RECIPE

Vol-au-Vent with Scallops and Mushroom Sauce

For the Pastry

Ingredients

  • 1 package (2 sheets) packaged puff pastry, thawed according to instructions
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1 tablespoon water

Method

  1. Place the thawed sheet of puff pastry on a lightly floured work surface. Roll it gently to flatten the dough and remove creases.
  2. Using your vol-au-vent cutter or improvised cookie cutters, cut out your preferred shapes and sizes.
  3. transfer to a baking sheet lined with parchment
  4. Beat the egg yolk and water together. With a pastry brush, brush the egg mixture onto the pastry shapes, being careful not to let the egg mixture drip onto the parchment as that may prevent even rising.
  5. Bake according to package instructions. Mine called for 10 minutes in a 400°F oven. I baked them for a few minutes longer to make sure the insides were done.
  6. Cool in a rack, and remove the “lid”. Hollow out the center with a paring knife and teaspoon to form a little “bowl” for the filling.

For the filling

Ingredients

  • 1 cup white wine
  • bay leaf
  • 2 scallions, including green tops, minced
  • 1 pound scallops, rinsed and patted dry
  • ½pound Crimini mushrooms, sliced
  • water
  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter + 1 tablespoon for top
  • 4 tablespoons flour
  • ¾ cup milk
  • 2 egg yolks
  • ½ cup cream
  • few drops of lemon juice
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 4 tablespoons Swiss cheese

Method

  1. In a small saucepan, combine the wine, bay leaf, and scallions. Bring to the simmer. Add the scallops and mushrooms with enough water to cover them. Return to the boil and then simmer until the scallops are cooked through, about 5 minutes.
  2. Remove the scallops and mushrooms to a plate. Bring the liquid back to the boil and continue to boil until it has been reduced about half to 1 cup.
  3. In another saucepan over medium heat, stir the flour and butter together and cook for a few minutes to remove the raw taste of the flour.
  4. Off the heat, stir in the hot liquid from cooking the scallops along with the milk. Return to the heat and boil for 1 minute.
  5. Blend the egg yolks and cream in a small bowl. Gradually drizzle the sauce mixture into the egg/cream mixture, stirring constantly to prevent the egg yolks from scrambling.
  6. Return the sauce to the pan and boil for one minute. Adjust the seasoning with salt, pepper, and lemon juice. If the sauce is too thick, add more cream as needed.
  7. Combine 2/3 of the sauce with the reserved scallops and mushrooms. Spoon into four prepared puff pastry shells. Top with the remaining sauce,  sprinkle with grated Swiss cheese, and dot with butter.
  8. Place the filled shells under a hot broiler just long enough to melt and lightly brown the Swiss cheese. Serve immediately
    Cutting the puff pastry
    On the parchment ready for baking
    Cooling
    The finished dish, burned fish tails and all

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October 25, 2016 · 10:02 am

HIDDEN OLIVES

This is another offering I took to the poetry reading. The recipe found its way into the family cookbook many years ago when my sister-in-law sent it to Susan from California.  She had made hidden olives for a cocktail party, and they got rave reviews. Now the reason that the recipe made it into the cookbook is not because it is delicious – even though it is – but rather because of the laughs that go along with it. The first time she tried the recipe, Susan used jumbo-size olives and the individual pieces turned out also to be JUMBO. At the time, Bernadette Peters was making us all laugh with her advertisement for a medication for indigestion. “What a big dumpling,” her on-screen husband say. “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing!” We, Susan included, thought that the hidden olives were our equivalent of the television big dumpling. If you decide to try the recipe, there are two things to remember about the olives: (1) use small olives, and (2) use olives that have had the seed removed.

For this version, I added butter to make the dough come together. It worked, but it probably also enhanced spreading in the oven. Try the recipe without butter; you can always add some if you need to. Note that with that addition, the recipe is nearly identical with the Southern classic, cheese straws.

Extra sharp Cheddar cheese
Ball of dough ready to be divided
Small pimiento-stuffed olives
Olives
Dough shaped into 32 pieces
Baked
A hidden olive revealed

RECIPE

Hidden Olives

Ingredients

  • 1 pound sharp or extra sharp Cheddar cheese
  • 1 cup flour
  • 4 tablespoons (½ stick) butter, cut in ½ inch cubes
  • 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 32 small pimiento-stuffed olives (a 5 ounce jar should contain more than enough)

Method

  1. Grate the cheese and let stand at room temperature until soft.
  2. Place the grated cheese, flour, butter, cayenne, garlic powder, and Worcestershire sauce in the bowl of a food processor. Process until the ingredients come together as a smooth, soft dough.
  3. On a work surface, shape the dough into a round ball. Cut in half. Shape each half into a ball and again cut in half. Repeat three more times. You should have 32 equal-sized pieces of dough.
  4. One by one, press an olive into the center of one of the pieces of dough, covering the olive completely and rolling between your palms to form a ball.
  5. Arrange the olive-filled balls on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a Silpat, leaving at least 1½ inches between the balls. They will spread during baking.
  6. Bake in the middle of an oven preheated to 400°F for 12 minutes. Remove from the oven and transfer to a cooling rack.
  7. Reheat for a few minutes to serve warm, if possible, though they’re still good at room temperature.

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October 22, 2016 · 4:27 pm

DIANE’S MARINATED MUSHROOMS

Tonight I’m going to a reading of a writers’ group I have belonged to for a number of years. The reading is an occasional thing where everyone brings something they have written to read to the group, something to drink, and something to eat. It’s really a pot luck poetry reading.

For food, I decided to make a batch of Diane’s marinated mushrooms. The recipe came from the wife of the first colleague I recruited to my department in Shreveport over 40 years ago. The dish was so popular with the family – except, of course, those who don’t like mushrooms – that it received a spot in our family cookbook.  Marinated mushrooms are very easy to make and perfect for a cocktail hour or for a buffet. The two  things that require special attention are to start early enough to get the mushrooms well-marinated and to buy the smallest whole mushrooms you can find.

Pound and a half of white button mushrooms
Mushrooms marinating
Ready to serve

RECIPE

Diane’s Marinated Mushrooms

Ingredients

  • 1 cup wine vinegar
  • ½ cup olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon salt
  • 1½ teaspoons sugar
  • 1 bay leaf
  • ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 2 teaspoons minced chives
  • 2 teaspoons minced parsley
  • several whole peppercorns
  • 1 tablespoon pickling spice
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 quarts water
  • juice of one lemon
  • 1½ pounds button mushrooms

Method

  1. Prepare the marinade by combining in a quart jar the vinegar, olive oil, salt, sugar, bay leaf, pepper, chives, parsley peppercorns, pickling spice, and garlic. Set aside.
  2. In a large pot, bring the water to the boil. Add lemon juice, and then the mushrooms. Return to the boil, and boil for 3 minutes. Drain and cool the mushrooms.
  3. In a non-reactive container, combine the mushrooms and marinade. Marinate for 24 to 48 hours, stirring occasionally. The mushrooms will shrink in size.
  4. When you are ready to serve, drain and remove the bay leaf and, if desired, peppercorns and bits of pickling spices. Serve with toothpicks. If you can’t find button mushrooms, you can halve or quarter larger mushrooms.

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October 18, 2016 · 9:19 am

LAZY MAN’S COTTAGE PIE

Shepherd’s pie (if it’s made with lamb) or cottage pie (if it’s made with beef) are pub favorites in Britain. They’re favorites in our house, too. The ingredients are straightforward, and the recipes are pretty simple. But they do take a lot of time and effort, especially with the mashed potatoes. You scrub, peel, cube, boil, and rice the potatoes. Then you mix them with butter and milk or cream. Finally you layer them over the meat mixture and bake.

It occurred to me that maybe there was a simpler way to deal with the potatoes. Another family favorite is smashed garlic potatoes where you boil russet potatoes in their skins and then mash them coarsely with butter and garlic so they still have lots of lumps, the bane of any self-respecting silky mashed potato. A little egg to bind them together and they might make a tasty – and easy – topping for cottage or shepherd’s pie. I thought I would give it a try. Here’s the result.

Still bubbling, straight out of the oven
Resting
Lazy man’s cottage pie
Lazy man’s cottage pie

RECIPE

Lazy Man’s Cottage Pie

Ingredients

  • 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 1 pound ground beef
  • 6 snacking peppers, seeded and sliced into thin rings
  • 6 crimini mushrooms, coarsely chopped
  • 4 tablespoons flour
  • 1 cup beef stock + more as needed
  • ½ teaspoon ground thyme
  • ¼ teaspoon ground bay leaves
  • ½ teaspoon garlic powder
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 2 medium russet potatoes
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • ½ cup half-and-half
  • 2 eggs, lightly beaten
  • ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • salt and pepper
  • melted butter for top

Method

  1. In a large skillet, heat the oil over a medium flame. Add the onions and stir, cooking until they are translucent but not browned. Add the ground beef, breaking up any large pieces. Stir frequently until the beef is lightly browned and all pink is gone. Stir in the peppers and mushrooms and cook for another few minutes until the peppers are wilted and the mushrooms are lightly browned and cooked through.
  2. Stir in the flour to cover all the other ingredients and cook for another few minutes until the oil is absorbed and the flour is cooked through. Add the beef stock and stir to make a gravy. Add stock until the gravy is the consistency that suits you.
  3. Add the thyme, bay leaf, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Adjust the seasoning and cook a few more minutes. Then transfer to a well-buttered oven-proof dish (a large soufflé dish is perfect) and set aside until you are ready to add the potatoes.
  4. While you are preparing the meat filling, place the unpeeled potatoes in a large pot of well-salted water and bring to the boil. Boil the potatoes until they are easily pierced with a kitchen fork with no resistance. This may take as long as 50-60 minutes.
  5. Remove the boiled potatoes from the heat and drain. Cool enough that you can handle them easily. Mash the potatoes coarsely with a large fork or a potato masher, Leave large chunks. Stir in the butter, half-and-half, and eggs. Cool the potatoes enough that the eggs don’t scramble.
  6. Cover the meat mixture with the potatoes, brush the top with melted butter, and bake in the middle of an oven preheated to 400° for about 45 minutes or until the top is lightly browned and bubbling.
  7. Remove to a cooling rack for 5-10 minutes. Serve while still warm. Should serve 4 persons.

 

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October 14, 2016 · 11:44 pm

SHRIMP AND RIGATONI

As we continue our efforts to downsize and declutter, I am working on clearing out the freezer. I found a pound of shrimp that needed to be used, but I was at a loss for a recipe. With shrimp, I often make some of our Louisiana favorites like shrimp creole or seafood gumbo. Barbecued shrimp in the style of the famous New Orleans restaurant, Pascal’s Manale, also sounded like an option, but that recipe calls for really large and really fresh shrimp – and a bit more trouble than I wanted. Shrimp and pasta was another choice, but to tell the truth I am a bit tired of tomato sauces, and somehow the combination didn’t seem quite right. I thought of paella, one of my favorites, but maybe substituting pasta for rice would make a good alternative. All of those ruminations made me think of this combination of shrimp and rigatoni without tomatoes and without saffron. My other goal was to make it a truly one-dish meal. For that, I boiled the pasta in fish sauce in the same cast iron pan where the rest of the ingredients would be added. No pasta-boiling pot to clean up. I topped the finished dish with Parmesan – I know, I know, shellfish and cheese are not supposed to go together. Just try it.

So here’s the recipe.

Rigatoni
Rigatoni cooking in fish stock
Peppers and scallions added
Peas
Finished dish

RECIPE

Shrimp and Rigatoni

Ingredients

  • 2 cups fish stock
  • 2 cups dry rigatoni
  • water
  • 4 scallions, sliced diagonally
  • 6 snacking peppers, seeded and sliced into rings
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
  • ½ teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • ½ cup frozen peas
  • 1 pound large shrimp, cleaned and peeled
  • ¼ cup chopped parsley
  • Parmesan cheese, grated

Method

  1. In a large sauté pan, bring the fish stock to a boil. Add the rigatoni and just enough water to cover the pasta. Boil for about 10 minutes until the pasta is al dente, adding more water as needed.
  2. Stir in the scallions, peppers, paprika and seasonings and cook at a simmer for about 5 minutes until the peppers are soft. Add the frozen peas.
  3. Stir in the shrimp and cook until the shrimp have become pink and have lost their translucency. Adjust the seasoning, stir in the chopped parsley,  top with grated Parmesan, and serve immediately in bowls.

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October 6, 2016 · 8:45 am

FRITO PIE AND THE FIVE AND DIME

Some folks claim that Frito pie was invented at the Woolworth’s dime store on the Plaza in Santa Fe. The claim is disputed by other pretenders to the throne, and there is no reliable provenance that establishes the claims of anyone. The Woolworth’s store is long shuttered; it has been supplanted by the Five and Dime that tries hard to be a realistic facsimile. The important thing to know is that the Five and Dime continues to sell Frito pie, and the tourists love it.

Santa Fe Plaza
The Five and Dime General Store on the corner of the Santa Fe Plaza
Home of the famous Five and Dime Frito pie

Not everyone thinks it is good stuff. Anthony Bourdain visited Santa Fe a couple of years ago to tape a segment for his television show. He made hurtful comments including the assertion that the chili came from a can. That offended the owners of the store who insisted that the chili was made fresh every day. They wrote to the editors of the local newspaper demanding that Bourdain make a public apology. To my knowledge, Anthony Bourdain never responded. Probably not a big deal. The dish remains as popular as ever with tourists wandering the Plaza.

The original (??) recipe for this delicacy is quite simple: Tear open a bag of Fritos. Ladle in some chili. Be careful not to overflow the bag as it can get messy. Top with cheese and onions. Stick a plastic spoon in the opening of the bag and serve with a good supply of napkins. Delicious. Just be sure to have a roll of Tums at the ready.

RECIPE

Frito Pie

Ingredients

  • bag(s) Fritos (original style preferred)
  • hot chili (see previous post)
  • grated Cheddar cheese
  • scallions, chopped (use regular onion if you prefer)
  • cilantro leaves, chopped (optional)

Method

  1. Open the bag. You may chose to tear off or cut off the top of the bag. Alternatively, cut or tear an X-shaped hole in the side of the bag, folding back the flaps to make an impromptu bowl.
  2. Ladle in enough chili to cover the corn chips. Sprinkle on generous amounts of cheese, scallions, and optional cilantro.
  3. Eat while still hot.

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October 3, 2016 · 11:27 am

OPEN-A-CAN STYLE THREE-BEAN CHILI

This is my sixth post about chili, although three of those have been about chili competitions. Why, you are probably asking. am I writing another?

First, it is the beginning of chili season. Around our house, the groves of aspen are beginning to color the mountainsides with great patches of golden-yellow. Closer to home, the chamisas (aka rabbit brush) are a matching golden-yellow, and the shrubs fill the country side. Unfortunately, they also elicit a characteristic allergy season. Purple asters fill in the bare spots between the chamisas while spikes of purple gay feather brag in clumps around the yard and the trailsides. Purple and gold are a beautiful combination of color that makes autumn around here so spectacular, never mind the reds and bronzes of the sumacs and the deciduous trees.

Maximillian daisy
Chamisa bushes
Chamisa
Asters
Gay feather
Sumac
Autumn foliage

Second, the Terlingua chili competitions are only a month or so away. I’m sure my friend, Reggie, has been cooking in contests all summer long so that he has enough points to enter the competition. I hope that he plans to go because he has so many friends and fellow chili cooks who go to the big celebration

Third, there must be an infinite number of chili recipes, and I believe that the home cook can never have too many chili recipes. This, of course, excludes the entire mystique of Cincinnati two-way, three-way, four-way and the ultimate five-way chili. This recipe is particularly simple. Except for the meat and the onions, it is simply a matter of opening cans and dumping them all together. I admit that I made things a little more complicated by buying the best grade of stew meat I could find and cutting it into ¼ inch pieces. That’s what competition cooks did many years ago until someone using ground beef won the Terlingua contest. Since that tectonic event they have almost all switched to ground beef. You can do that, too, and then the recipe becomes even easier. I have used three different beans (definitely NOT a component of competition chili) to make the visual effect of the finished product more interesting. The seasonings are only a guide. In particular, use as much chili powder – 2 or even 5 tablespoons – to suit your taste and your tongue.

RECIPE

Open-a-Can Style Three-Bean Chili

Ingredients

  • 1 pound beef stew meat
  • vegetable oil
  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 can (15 ounces) tomato sauce
  • 1 can (15 ounces) beef stock + more if needed
  • 1 can (15 ounces) black beans, drained and rinsed
  • 1 can (15 ounces) pinto beans, drained and rinsed
  • 1 can (15 ounces) white chili beans, drained and rinsed
  • 1 tablespoon chili powder (not ground chiles)
  • 1 tablespoon Mexican oregano, crushed
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • salt and pepper to taste

Method

  1. Cut the stew neat into ¼ inch cubes. Sauté in the oil in a large, heavy bottomed soup pot over high heat, cooking until released water is boiled off and the meat is browned. Remove the meat to a plate and return the pot to the stove over medium heat.
  2. Sweat the onions in the heated oil, covered, until the onions are translucent but not browned. Return the browned meat to the pot.  Add the garlic and cook for another minute or two.
  3. Stir in the tomato sauce, beef stock, beans, chili powder, oregano, and cumin.  Bring the mixture to the boil and then reduce heat to the simmer. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. Add more beef stock if the chili becomes too dry.
  4. Simmer for 1 hour. Serve while still hot.

 

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September 27, 2016 · 2:01 pm

SHRIMP-STUFFED MUSHROOMS

We’ve had our son and his two daughters visiting us the last few days. He was in town for a meeting, and the children flew in by themselves for the weekend. During their visit they took a couple of hikes and spent an afternoon at the swimming pool at the Community Recreation Center. The pool is a favorite place for all of our grandchildren because of the giant water slide.

The fist day, they visited Tent Rocks National Monument. The tent rocks are columns of volcanic tuff as high as 80 feet and topped with more durable cap rocks. The site has a slot canyon that you have to squeeze through to get to the top of the mesa. There are also petroglyphs if you look carefully.

Tent rocks
A parade of tent rocks
Slot canyon at Tent Rocks
Petroglyph of snake

The second day they visited Tsankawi Ruins, part of Bandelier National Monument. The trail leads to the top of a mesa where the ruined ancient village is littered with decorated pottery shards. Much of the trail winds through the volcanic tuff layer. It has winding, deep grooves, probably worn by countless foot steps, but possibly also carved out so that potential invaders had to come up the steep hillside in single file.

View from Tsankawi Ruins
Stone wall on the mesa top at Tsankawi Ruins
Path to Tsankawi Ruins carved through the tuff layer

On our son’s arrival, we had refreshments on the patio. Something more substantive than salted nuts but less than a full meal seemed in order. Stuffed mushrooms sounded like the perfect alternative. Shrimp was a perfect stuffing. As you’ll see in the recipe, there is a lot of chopping. You could use a food processor instead. Just be careful not to turn everything to mush. I prefer hand-chopped ingredients to give contrasting textures and bursts of different flavors.

Crimini mushrooms with and without stems
Boiled shrimp with and without tails
Ready for the oven
Ready to eat

RECIPE

Shrimp-Stuffed Mushrooms

Ingredients

  • 12 3-inch crimini mushrooms
  • olive oil
  • ½ pound boiled shrimp, cleaned and tails removed
  • 1 scallion
  • 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
  • ¼ cup panko
  • ¼ cup pine nuts, lightly toasted in a small dry saucepan
  • ½ teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
  • salt and pepper to taste

Method

  1. Remove the stems from the mushrooms and set aside.
  2. In a large sauté pan over medium heat, sauté the mushroom caps on both sides in about 1 – 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Transfer to a small baking sheet, hollow side up.
  3. Chop the mushroom stems and sauté in the same pan using more olive oil as needed. Transfer to a small bowl and set aside.
  4. Chop the shrimp finely. Chop the scallion finely, including the green top.
  5. In a bowl, combine the chopped shrimp and scallion, reserved chopped mushroom stems, mayonnaise, panko, and pine nuts. Stir in Old Bay seasoning, and add salt and pepper to taste.
  6. Fill each mushroom cap with the shrimp mixture. Bake in the middle of an oven preheated to 350°F for 20-30 minutes. Remove from the oven, transfer to a plate, and serve while still warm.

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