Amuse Bouche

The Sweet Melissa Baking Book

By now, you all should realise that I am forever, and ever on the hunt for new recipes, good recipes, recipes that work.  Not every cookbook can be opened and the recipe executed perfectly.  There are some cookbook writers that I have come to inherently trust, Hi Ina(!), and others whose recipes must be tested before executing them with 30 or 40 unsuspecting pre-teens - yea, I'm looking at you Nigella, mistress of flung together recipes.

When Viking Studio offered to send me a copy of their latest, The Sweet Melissa Baking Book I jumped at the chance. 

A nicely designed and very nicely written cookbook with very easy to follow recipes, this new book contains recipes by Melissa Murphy the owner of Sweet Melissa Pâtisseries in Brooklyn. 

I flicked through all of the recipes and considered my limitations of number of burners, number of students, nut allergies, oven space, time, difficulty of execution, and chose her recipe for Chocolate Orange Macaroons.

I had one of our resident pastry chefs B test out the recipe and she gave it a hearty approval so we put it on the curriculum for this past week and I can assure you that it was a huge hit.

Rather than having the kids chopping the chocolate off of the Callebaut that we get in 11-pound blocks we used a high quality chocolate chip made by Callebaut that we get from our supplier, if I were to make these at home I would definitely choose a really good high quality chocolate.  A recipe with so few ingredients relies upon each of them being of high quality.  Also, don't try to sub out the dessicated coconut that you find in Whole Foods for the sweetened coconut called for here it will not work in this recipe.  You need the sticky, moist, sweetened coconut to make this work.  Macaroons by their very nature are a sweet cookie, I suppose you could cut back a bit on the sugar, but it is a sweet people, not a food to live on!  Also, take the ingredient of 'zest of 1 orange' with a grain of salt, one man's tangerine sized orange is another man's grapefruit sized one so zest wisely.  The household Brit gives these a big two thumbs up not to mention my peeps! 

Next week we're making Bear's Peach Cobbler, I shall report back.

Chocolate Orange Macaroons

Recipe from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book by Melissa Murphy

6 ounces best-quality solid semisweet (58%) chocolate
14 ounces sweetened coconut
zest of 1 orange
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large egg whites

1) Before you start Position the rack in the center of your oven.  Preheat the oven to 325F.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil.

2) Using a serrated bread knife, finely chop the chocolate and set aside.
3) In a large bowl, combine the coconut and zest, rub together with your hands. (This will break up the coconut and release the orange oils).

4) Stir in the sugar and chocolate to the coconut and mix to combine. 
5) Add the egg whites (we whisked them a bit to lighten them up).

6) Use your hands to mix until everything is coated and the egg whites are distributed evenly.

7) Using a 1-ounce cookie scoop, firmly pack the dough in the scoop and unmold, 2-inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheet.  Bake for 25 - 30 minutes or until the cookies are golden brown.  Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

One of the benefits of this dough is that you can make the cookie base up to 1 week ahead and keep it in an airtight container in the fridge and just the bake the cookies when desired.  They keep well in an airtight container at room temp for 3 days.  If you want to keep them longer, wrap in plastic and then aluminum foil and freeze them for up to 3 weeks.

Glorious Guinea Fowl

I've really never hidden my adoration for D'Artagnan products.  I've used their demi-glace and duck fat for years now, I've had the white and black truffle butters gracing the inside of my fridge door, sure they use a mixture of truffle oil (sure it's really 2,4-dithiapentane - I know - I know!) and shaved truffle slices (which are likely tuber aestivum and not likely to be tuber melanosporum) but I don't really care it tastes like heaven and more than a little earth on a slice of toasted Iggy's Francese for breakfast. 

I buy their duck breast and my freezer has a supply of their confit and a saucisson l'ail all ready for cassoulet season. I've made their wild boar before, but this week at John Dewar I noticed a few new items in the case.  I was torn between the pheasant, the rabbit and the guinea fowl and since I have tasted both rabbit and pheasant before I decided the guinea fowl would win. 

When I got home I started flicking through my cookbooks, Hugh Fearnley Whitingstall recommends a salmi preparation, Anne Willan braises hers with cabbage and bacon, Julia didn't seem to have any thoughts which surprised me, but I was looking up guinea fowl and not the French term for the bird which is pintade.  None of the preparations really knocked my socks off but husband and I were heading off to the Topsfield Fair for the day so I grabbed Anne Willan's new book Country Cooking of France and  D'Artagnan's Glorious Game Cookbook and put them in the truck.  As we headed home back down 128 in Friday traffic I had husband read me the recipes from both books.  In the end, we decided on the Guinea Hen Two ways from D'Artagnan.  Besides, I was halfway there already since I already had garlic confit in the fridge.

Guinea hen and Guinea fowl can be used interchangeably for either the male of the female of the species.  They have 50% less fat than chickens which is visibly noticeable when you look at the legs the skin layer is so thin that you can see through to the dark, almost blue, meat right through it.  They are a bird that likes to be left alone. The peck and poke for their own food, they don't take kindly to laying their eggs where you can find them, they prefer to sleep on the highest branches of the tree and they are a mighty, mighty loud alarm clock,screeching loudly when threatened or when they feel their territory has been invaded. They also aren't the most attractive of bird, certainly not as cute as this guy from the Topsfield Fair.

Okay, shall we make dinner?

Follow that link above and make yourself some garlic confit.

Slice 3 lemons, thinly, and place these in a non-reactive pot with 2 quarts of water and 2 TBS of salt, and add 20 or so peeled garlic cloves.  Set this on high and boil until the water evaporates stirring occasionally.  When it becomes just a sludge of disintegrated lemon essence and garlic, add 1 cup of cream, or more to taste depending on how tart your lemons are, and season with pepper, no salt will be necessary.  Keep it warm.

Salt and pepper your rinsed and dried guinea fowl inside, rub 1 TBS of duck fat on the outside and salt and pepper the outside.  Place it on its side in a roasting pan. Roast it in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes. While it roasts, dice a carrot and an onion.  After 20 minutes, flip the bird, add up to 1 TBS duck fat to the pan and toss in the onion and carrot.  Return the pan to the oven for a further 20 mins.

Remove the pan from the oven.  Cut off the legs and tent the breast with foil to keep warm.  Return the legs to the pan, now on the stove top, and cook over medium-high heat to crisp up and finish the legs.  Be careful to not burn your aromatics.  When the legs are ready, remove those from the pan, tent them with foil and keep them warm.  Now you will build your second sauce.

Deglaze your pan with 5 ounces of ruby port scraping up all the good sticky, shmooie bits as you go.  Add 1/4 cup of cream and bring it to a nice bubbling boil.  Tip all this carefully into a blender (works better than a food processor if you have a choice, the blender creates a nice vortex and will pulverize everything more efficiently), add your garlic confit (I must have had about 15 cloves), place the cover on the blender and loosen the center cap, just before I run the blender I tilt it to allow some air in so that the top doesn't blow off from the heat.  Puree this until smooth and then strain it through a chinois or a double mesh strainer.  Return it to a small clean pan and season to taste with salt and pepper.

I carved off the breast meat , sliced it thinly and arranged it over a small pool of the port sauce with a bit more on top. I placed the leg leaning on a pile of mashed potato with celeriac and sitting in a pool of the lemon sauce.  Yea folks, I know boring composition, no colour, but I wasn't going to make a green veg just to please the eye, this was all we wanted.  I drank a bottle of this with it, and yes, I did eventually wipe the dust off the bottle, I've had it awhile.

So in the end, how was it?  Unbelievably good.  The guinea fowl has amazing big flavor and because the fat layer under the skin is so thin the skin crisps up nicely.  It has a mild gamey taste and the two sauces play nicely off of that. Husband was making happy food noises as he was eating and we both declared that this dish is a repeat.  Now I know that you'll go look at the $21.00 price tag for a 3 - 4 pound guinea hen and scoff and decide it's too much money but this meal could have been served in any restaurant easily as a $36.00 entree per person and you certainly wouldn't call that too pricey.  Add that bottle of wine that I paid $28.00 for and you would be paying $75.00 - $80.00 for after the markup and I call this meal a bargain.  I even froze the rest of the lemon sauce, Chef Jan taught me to freeze everything, it can always be turned into something else later.  I assure you her mantra has been a lifesaver.

Seek it out, cook it and love it.

Morimoto, Willinger and Bourdain

*cough*

Hi.  Remember me?

I guess I am back if you call three weeks with a cough and a throat that feels like a baseball is lodged on the left where my tonsil should be.
During my time spent bonding with the couch and my slanket willing my taste buds to return I bonded with a couple of new books.

This one is one of THE most GORGEOUS books I have ever laid my eyes on.

Morimoto:The New Art of Japanese Cooking

If this were available in a print, it would be hanging on my wall. 

Not only is the book gorgeous, but the tutorials on slicing fish, cutting vegetables, making sushi rice are invaluable.

Morimoto doesn't just stick to Japanese food, he spins traditional food from other cultures with an Asian twist.

Faith Heller Willinger's Adventures of an Italian Food Lover mixes little vignettes of her friends in Italy with watercolours done by her sister Suzanne.

I made this yesterday.  You should make it soon.

But the cookbook I was all over when my taste buds returned? This one.

Made this last night.  I feel much, much better now.  Pork it cures everything.

Like a teary eyed mother

For the past year I have been a teaching assistant at Cambridge School of Culinary Arts working with a group of Professional chef students as they wend their way through the 37 week curriculum. We started together back at the beginning in egg class and wound our way through baking and basics, Italian and French, Asian and American and ended a few weeks ago in a fusion cuisine class.
I hugged everyone as I left and ended up as I always do with goodbye as a teary eyed mess.  It's a good thing I don't wear mascara on a daily basis.

One of the benefits of teaching as a profession that I didn't expect as I entered my new career was how proud I would be at seeing the accomplishments of the students I work with at the end of their training.  Sure I have taught 6 and 7 week classes where I see the same faces weekly.  I get to know their personalities, their strengths, what they like and dislike, I hear about their families and their dirty little culinary secrets that they wouldn't normally tell a polite audience.

This group was different.  We were together every week for 9 months.  I watched them all come in on day one, very much like I was, lost in the kitchen, kit still all complete and tidy, not knowing where anything was, amazed that you could actually stand in the fridge (walk in), uniform still sparkling and white, hats donned and shoes new and clean, Ralph and Ted leading them around the kitchens and stores, telling them the rules and regulations. 

They were all a bit deer in the headlights.

Little by little though they gained confidence. They made it through one chef and on to the next learning each ones style,they learned how to work as team and not just as an individual, they learned that food is art as much as it is taste and that what you put on the plate needs to appeal to your eyes as much as it does to your nose and stomach. In those 9 months I watched Ana move from a terrified girl in the kitchen to a confident take charge woman, no more asking before she did every single task.  Eventually we all figured out Marina's accent and we could understand what she was talking about and we were all blown away by her mean knife skills, that girl could seriously brunoise wood. Will worked his way through school in the kitchens of Rialto and came in with newer and better tricks up his sleeve each week. Amber, Kerry and Sally all worked so hard and developed their own styles and sorry Amber, I was always leaning in your just sanitized and cleaned space.  Sandra came in the middle and joined us until the end, she was the Mom of the group, not sure what she was going to do with her education but enjoying the ride for all it was worth. And I always take one bird under my wing, the one I see has potential but just needs to be gently nudged in a direction, Patrick was my project this term.  Someone has to show a nice polite Southern boy that there is more to the world than Barbecue.  He caught on quick, just don't ask him to make a Genoise please. Come to think of it, don't ask me to make one either.

Saturday my peeps graduated.  I came home from that last fusion class to a message from them that they bought me a ticket to their graduation, they wanted me to come and see them finish.

Husband and I polished ourselves up and went to the very same place I was just 18 months ago.  I couldn't have been more proud to watch them all get their awards, meet their families, and have them all tell husband how much they enjoyed having me with them all year.
They all pitched in and bought me a gorgeous copy of The Best of Art Culinaire that I had long coveted, I was flabbergasted and quite humbled.

But the proudest moments?  Amber,Tzu-i, Kerry and Marina all picked up academic and lab awards.  Patrick received the blossom award and Will was awarded the Young Professional award from the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, he received a medal and a stipend.  I think I clapped so hard that day my hands still hurt.

Now they all head out to new places, Amber to the West Coast to try and open her own place, Will to the Carolina's for some new restaurant, Tzu-i to Hong Kong for two years as the wife of a diplomat - and hopefully to learn how to make hand pulled noodles and work in a kitchen in the city.  The others will find their niche one day I am sure and I look forward to hearing back from them one day.

I am sure I will go on to teach many more classes and see many more students come and go, but like your first bike ride without training wheels or your first raw oyster you will always remember the first one as the sweetest.

Chicken pot pie - fast

If you have ever had the pleasure of knowing an English person, you shall soon realise that as far as dining goes, anything encased between two sheet of pastry is good eats.  One of husbands first large shocks upon his arrival on this shore was that you couldn't simply nip into any shop and pick up a pie.
I admit one of the larger reasons for going to culinary school in the first place was to finally learn how to make pastry well.  An expensive lesson sure, but learn it I did.  The only problem?  I hate pie crust.

Seriously I do not like it flaky, I do not like it tender, I do not like pie crust at all Sam I Am.

The one way I can get away with crust for husband and a taste that I like is using puff pastry for the crust instead of pate brisee.  Of course one of the other benefits of culinary school was learning how to make a mean full or quick puff pastry dough.  I can paton and detrempe with the best of them when required, but on a weeknight are you gonna roll and turn, roll and turn, wrap and chill 4 or 6 times?  Uh...no.  Pillsbury makes a decent puff pastry but the fat of choice is margarine and me and margarine we just don't get along.  Just the word instantly flashes me back here.  *shudder*

Rather amusing that we finally realize just how true that ad campaign was.  If you are looking for puff pastry made naturally with all butter, look to the freezer case of your local Whole Foods for Dufour Puff pastry. Heaven in a package that stuff is.

The recipe I used to make the filling is based on an Alton Brown show I saw once. he makes his own curry powder mix with cumin seed, cardamom seeds, coriander turmeric, dry mustard and some cayenne.
You roast a frozen mixed veg mix in a hot oven with a little canola oil, sweat some aromatics like celery and onion in a pan and make a roux (just flour and a fat), add some chicken stock and milk and some of the curry mixture add the roasted veg and some poached chicken pieces (I poached them in the chicken broth I was going to use for the roux) and bung it all in a baking dish top it with circles of puff pastry and then bake it in the oven until the circles of puff are cooked and nicely browned and everything else is nice and bubbly.

Now I know that curry powder in your chicken pot pie may not appeal to you, but if you happen to be a child raised in the 70's and you remember having Lipton Giggle Noodle Soup as kid you will remember the taste of chicken and curry seasonings.  Okay, maybe that wasn't a great example for some of you, but I can assure you this is one delicious and FAST chicken pot pie.  You can have this on the table in about 30 - 40 minutes and that my friends is some good eats.

Live Blogging: The Five Hour Roast Duck

Ladies and Gentlemen welcome, today we are live blogging a cooking event.
Since I am working tomorrow morning, I consider today to be my Sunday and in honour of the Sunday roast tradition I will be live blogging cooking my Five Hour Roast Duck.

The recipe idea came from The 150 Best Recipes which is a book I can HIGHLY recommend.  It is put together by Fran McCullough & Molly Stevens (of All About Braising fame, another book I can recommend highly as well - Hey if it can win a James Beard cookbook award it can cook its little pages off) as a compilation of what they consider to be the best recipes of the past decade culled from cookbooks, magazine, newspapers, fliers, the Internet, top chefs and unknown cooks.  I can get right behind that credo since I can tell you that just because someone wrote a cookbook, famous chef or not, doesn't mean the recipes will work, nor does it mean that you will like them.
Already from this book I have culled about 20 must make recipes for either my classes or for us at home.  This one was on my list.

And since it is my Sunday, the laundry done, the dog washed, a fire about to be lit in the fireplace, even though it is 50 degrees out, I thought I would live blog my cooking event.
Sit back, hit the refresh button, we're making some kick butt duck.

I picked up my duck at Whole Foods yesterday and unpacked it from the packaging and placed it on a plate in the fridge overnight to better dry the skin. This morning I cut off any major flaps of fat and emptied the giblets and neck pieces.

I've had my lovely sous chef, aka husband, assist with salting and peppering the inside of the cavity.

I have already decided to make the Chinese alternative method for my duck so I chopped 8 cloves of garlic, 1 bunch of scallions and peeled and chopped two good knobs of ginger to stuff inside.

I decided to leave the wing tips attached as they were tucked nicely underneath and carefully I cut dozens of holes in the duck skin on an angle so as not to pierce the meat underneath.

Into the oven it went, breast side up.  Up to the bar fridge I went.  Now I am going to imbibe this lovely Cassis Lambic in my favourite glass while the timer ticks down the first hour.

I hope to use my giant measuring jug to figure out just how much fat will render out of this duck in the five hours.  Shall we take bets now?

**Update: Hour One

The timer.....

This is the colour after an hour of roasting time.

I pour off the fat, not too much for the first hour, after all this is low heat at 300.

Again I pierce the skin several more times and flip it over so that the breast is now on the bottom.

The smell has a faint hint of Chinese restaurant.  Back in the oven it went and the timer is set for another hour.  I'm back to buy more music off iTunes and finish my beer.

***Update Hour Two

The duck is taking on a nice amber hue, but I am sure the final hour will really bring it home.

Again I remove it from the oven and pour off the fat, still not quite 2 cups.

I prick it full of holes again and flip it back on to it's back, breast side up while the Beagle hopes and prays that I slip and drop the sucker right on the floor.

Quietly I slide the tray back into the oven, the smells are beginning to get more intense.  The beer finished, I'm off to have a nice soak in the tub with a LUSH bath bomb for the next 55 minutes until it's flipping time again.

****Update: Hour Three

Ah, nicely showered, hair brushed out (no easy feat) and the timer has beckonned yet again.
Out comes the duck.  As you can see the skin is beginning to blister now, most of the fat has rendered with only the occasional pocket here or there still to drain.  I poke and prod at these the most with the knife.

The duck still hasn't rendered two cups of fat yet, but i bet it will be there by the end.

I flip it yet again and put it back in the oven for hour number 4.  These are the ingredients for the glaze that will be brushed on for hour five.  Right now it is equal parts Hoisin sauce, Soy sauce, Sesame oil and honey, but I will taste it in an hour and decide if it needs a bit more soy for saltiness.

And I turn my attention to the carrots that will accompany the duck.  Ina Garten had an interesting idea in her new Barefoot Contessa At Home for glazed carrots with ginger, honey and orange.  Since this mimics a few of the flavours of the duck I am going to try these.  Now husband is a purist when it comes to his carrots, he generally will only eat them mashed with a bit of butter and pepper.  I am hoping for the best at the moment.  I will also take this moment to add that Ina's recipes are always, ALWAYS faultless.  Trust in Ina is my mantra.

Now it's cocktail hour.  I'm off to make my version of a Manhattan.

*****Update: Hour Four

The smell in the house is now overwhelming and my stomach is letting me know that it wants some of that duck.  Now.

I've pulled it yet again and flipped it for the last time.  I glazed it with the mixture I mentioned after I added a bit more soy sauce.  I even sprinkled the top of the duck with a bit of salt.  Back into the oven it goes for its final hour.  I may pull it halfway through and give it another lacquer coat of glaze.

The carrots have been started, butter, minced ginger and water in a saute pan to the boil, add carrots, cover and simmer 5 - 8 minutes.

Back to that Manhattan

See you in an hour.

*****Update: Hour Five - The End

Oh the duck...oh my..the duck.  Here is the gorgeous lacquered goodness as it exits the oven and rests on the board.

As you can see by this first slice, this is no dry duck.  Five hours and it is gorgeous.  It falls apart and my Mom who adores Moo Shi, because it is finger food, would just love this duck with a few pancakes and some plum sauce. The skin is a crispy skin lovers dream.  Not, of course, that I know ANYONE who would eat duck skin.

Here are the carrots in their mid stage in the pan.  They cooked covered five minutes and then uncovered for about 10 until the liquid evaporated.  In went half a cup of orange juice, 1 teaspoon of orange zest and some more salt and lots of pepper.  I am happy to report that husband loved these.  In fact, he said that it is what made the duck for him. They had many of the same flavours and just enough sweetness to counteract the salty soy and hoisin.   My husband is also like Jack Spratt, he cannot eat fat and can dissect a Filet mignon like no ones business to extract every iota of fat, he loved this duck.  Everything in the end was rendered away.  Two cups total.  A pint is a pound the world around they say.

I can highly suggest this treatment if you have a long afternoon and a hankering for duck.  the payoff is worth it.

The beagle is now on official cleanup patrol.

Duck Out.

Currently persuing

I am currently sprawled across the couch, on this lovely 9 degree Monday nursing bronchitis and perusing the following lovely tomes in pursuit of the 42 recipes ideas I need for the next 7 weeks of classes. 

In fact, I did a little math today and I realised that I must come up with 510 new recipes a year.

Five Hundred and Ten.

No repeats are allowed. 

All recipes must be executable by kids ranging in age from 9 - 13 and pleasing to the parents who generally eat it when it goes home with them after class.
I need a range of things since I have vegetarians, kosher eaters and food allergies, not to mention kid allergies to anything new and different.
I must plan these recipes to fit in to a prescribed amount of time varying from 2 - 3 hours.
I have 6 burners, 3 ovens and up to 10 kids in each class.
Downtime is not an option. Ever seen a group of bored kids?
Sometimes I must stick to a theme: World travel, American cities, Food fads, etc.

I can assure you that would exhaust even the best chef to come up with that many new ideas so I live with my nose buried in a cookbook or a cooking magazine.
I will search the Internet, but I won't rely on recipes from sites like Allrecipes.com or Cooksrecipes.com since I really don't trust many of their recipes. Anything made with a can or packet is rejected.  Everything must be made with fresh ingredients or things I can get from our suppliers.

When I do get things off of the internet I tend to stick to sources I know will have recipes that are relatively faultless like epicurious.com, because I can't always test a recipe before I use it.

In fact I have become amazingly adept, if I do say so myself, at glancing at a list of ingredients and deciding if a recipe will work or not.  Call it self preservation.  I also do not need a gorgeous picture to tell me whether or not to make a recipe, but of course it does help to inspire ideas.
Of course I also look to places in the food blogging world for inspiration like Elise at Simply Recipes or The Traveler's Lunchbox, Naughty Curry and Gluten-free Girl and all the other lovely places in my blogroll down over there on the right.

While you check out the book titles I am flicking through right now, why don't you leave me a note with the places, chefs and books that inspire you to cook.  I am always looking for some new inspiration.

Kylie Kwong: Simple Chinese Cooking

In light of all this talk about what crap Food TV has become, I'd like to draw your attention to other channels for watching good food programmes.  BBC America has had a great series called Master Chef.  Husband and I were addicted (The pressure is immense!!) but the series seems to have gone on hiatus since the summer and I can't see it listed anywhere on the website as coming up in the future.  Gordon Ramsay's the F Word cracks me up.  Each week a new set of amateur victims hits the kitchen.  The usual chaos ensues.

Travel channel has had a few of the new Jamie Oliver series of his tour of Italy to accompany the book that was finally released here in the states in the fall.  Say what you will about Jamie, but I do love him.  He wants people to fall in love with fresh ingredients and he marries that with some quick preparations.  I think he is attracting a lot of people who wouldn't otherwise enter the kitchen to experiment. Again, I can't find anything on the site listing the shows.

Another of my favourites show was with Kylie Kwong. Sadly it is the same story here.  Chefs who want to show you real food, no cans, no prepackaged, fresh ingredients, heritage Breed animals.  Chefs who want to give you some food history and intrigue the real foodies (I know..I know...the word foodie sort of irks, but really what other word fits so well? Gourmand is just PRETENTIOUS, cook not accurate enough) with intelligent banter are being relegated to the slag heap to be replaced by what the Food TV execs 'think' we want.  Obviously they must think we want more Rachael's, more Sandra Lee, more Reality TV, (My verdict is till out on Dinner Impossible, I kind of like it and I really want to hear him swear his *ss of one of these shows) perhaps an online rebellion of letter writing needs to take place.  I know those shows aren't what I want to see.

I've written about Kylie Kwong before and husband finally managed to get me a copy of Heart and Soul for my birthday last year.  I soaked up every delicious and gorgeous page.  If you have never had a chance to catch Kylie's show before there is an episode of Simply Magic on Discovery Home Channel tonight at 9:30.  This episode is Kylie taking you around to her favourite spots to eat in Hong Kong, and if my memory serves me correct, she and her Mom cook a few dishes together as well.

The show is gorgeously filmed and her other series that accompanies Heart and Soul is great as well if you can find it somewhere.  Since she is primarily an Australian chef, the forth generation of the largest Chinese family in Australia, and is head chef at her restaurant billy kwong, and I'm afraid she just hasn't caught on as much over here as I would like. Her knife skills are BRILLIANT.  The ingredients are all fresh and beautiful.  She'll have you wanting to hit the kitchen as soon as the show ends.  Of course for an accent junkie like me the Australian accent doesn't hurt.

I didn't know there was a new book in the works, but an email I received from Penguin Books had me race over to my local book haunt to pick up a copy.  Simply Chinese Cooking is even more gorgeous than Heart and Soul.  Every single recipe has a full page photo to accompany it.  I know many of you won't choose a recipe unless the photo is there to tempt you. These tempt, in fact they practically beckon.

Penguin books has given me permission to reproduce one of the recipes here for you.
I'm going to be all over this book in the coming weeks.  Why not join me?

Mum's Stir-Fried Chicken Fillets

Serve as a meal for 4 with steamed rice or as part of a banquet for 4-6

Another one of Mum's great no-nonsense dishes! If you have no chicken stock on hand, or no time to make it, water is absolutely fine as a substitute.

800 g (1 lb 10 oz) chicken thigh fillets, cut into 2 cm (1 in) slices

¼ cup vegetable oil

1 medium-sized white onion, sliced

3 spring onions (scallions), trimmed and cut into 10 cm (4 in) lengths

2 tablespoons shao hsing wine or dry sherry

¼ cup Light Chinese Chicken Stock (page 21)

¼ cup spring onion (scallion) julienne

1 large red chilli, cut in half lengthways, seeds removed and finely sliced

Marinade

2 tablespoons shao hsing wine or dry sherry

2 tablespoons light soy sauce

1 tablespoon white sugar

2 teaspoons oyster sauce

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 teaspoon finely grated ginger

Combine chicken with marinade ingredients in a large bowl, cover, and leave to marinate in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a hot wok until surface seems to shimmer slightly. Add half the marinated chicken and stir-fry for 1 minute. Remove from wok with a slotted spoon and set aside. Add remaining chicken and stir-fry for 1 minute then remove from wok and set aside.

Add remaining oil to the hot wok, add onion and spring onions and stir-fry for 1 minute. Toss in reserved chicken and stir-fry for 30 seconds. Pour in wine or sherry and stir-fry for a further 30 seconds. Lastly, pour in stock and stir-fry for 30 seconds.

Arrange chicken on a platter and garnish with spring onion julienne and chilli.

Is it cold out? Then it must be a stew

Last week in Kitchen Basics I was working with my 11-13 year old crowd on moist heat cooking.  I already mentioned the Leek and Potato braise we made.  The other recipe was one that I adapted from the new Cook's Illustrated The Best 30-minute Recipes, Corn Maque Choux with Chicken and Kielbasa.  There are a few sources I always turn to when planning my classes for create a cook and Cook's Illustrated is one of them.  Why?  I never, never, never have to test the recipe first.  It always works first time out.

The kids all loved it and as I was tasting their dishes for seasonings i realized that with a few changes his majesty, the husband, might like it as well.
This dish can literally be on your table in about 30 minutes, depending of course on how quick you can prep everything.

Maque Choux (pronounced mock shoe) is a Cajun combination of corn, bell peppers, tomato and onion.  A little twist on the holy trinity (onions, celery and bell pepper) and a slight jiggle of New England Succotash (Corn, Lima beans and Tomato).  Both of these dishes owe a debt to the Native Americans introduction of corn into the cooking arena.  One thing I can't figure out is why many recipes call it Corn Maque Choux when it contains corn by default. 

When husband finally finished his plate, he deemed it better than Chicken and Chorizo and has requested this to be put in the rotation of dishes.  I can't disagree with him, it really was very good.

You'll need some boneless, skinless chicken breasts, some chorizo (Portuguese wet is okay for this, but Spanish dry would be good as well) cut into 1/2-inch half moons and some frozen corn, 1 pound of each. One onion and one red bell pepper(or green or yellow or orange), diced in 1/4 inch dice. 4 (or 6) cloves of garlic minced up fine together with some kosher salt and 2 - 3 tsps thyme leaves. 2 cups of decent chicken stock, of course homemade would be best, but use whatever stand by you stick by.

A heavy Dutch oven, some olive oil, medium-high heat.  Salt and pepper the chicken breasts and add them.  Brown them on both sides and remove to a bowl or plate.  You will be cooking them more later so colour is all you want here.  Once they have been removed, assess the level of oil in the pan and add more if required.  Toss in the onion, chorizo and bell pepper and saute until the onion gets soft and translucent.  While this is sauteing, puree in a blender the chicken stock and half the corn.  When the onion is ready, add the garlic-thyme mixture and stir it around until it is fragrant.  Now pour in the corn-stock mixture form the blender and stir.  Add back your chicken and any juices.
Stir well, pop the lid on and cook over low heat at a nice simmer for 10 - 15 minutes depending on the thickness of your chicken.  Once the chicken is cooked, pull it out and either shred it using two forks or just roughly chop it up, add it back to the Dutch Oven, add the rest of the corn, stir and taste for seasonings.  Add salt and pepper as desired and cook until the corn is heated through.

Serve it with some nice biscuits or maybe over brown rice.

Potato and Leek braise

Last night in my Kitchen basics class at create a cook we were working on moist heat cooking.
We made a Cajun Maque Choux stew with chicken and sausage and a steamed Sticky Toffee pudding for dessert but the surprise hit of the night was a vegetable dish I'd adapted from the wonderful book All About Braising by Molly Stevens.  Parents wandered in to pick up their kids and they were stunned to find them scarfing down a vegetable dish rather than the sweet brown sugar coated dessert in front of them.

This really is a very simple dish to make, a few minutes prep and then bung it into the oven for an hour and a half. It also incorporates one of my favourite vegetables, the leek.  I think many people ignore using leeks because they really aren't sure what to do with them.  One of my favourite methods to treat leeks is over here, but I am sure this recipe is going to soon become a favourite in this house as well.

Heat your oven to 325.
Heat up some chicken stock until just before it boils.
Cut the leek where the pale green meets the dark green tops.  Discard the tops or save them for stock. Run your knife gently down the length of the leek through 1 layer and peel and discard that outer layer.  Slice the leek into 3 inch lengths.  Take each 3 inch piece and slice through it lengthwise.  Lay each half down and cut half moons about a half of an inch wide.

Scatter all of these pieces in a bowl filled with cold water and slosh them around.  Lift out the pieces of leek leaving any sand or grit behind in the bottom of the bowl. 

Toss the leeks into a baking dish.

Peel a potato, Yukon gold preferred, but not required.  Cut the potato into half inch chunks.  Toss these in with with the leeks.

Grab a few thyme sprigs and holding them over the potato and leeks, strip off the tiny leaves by running your thumb and forefinger up the sprig against the leaves.  Don't worry if you get a few bits of stem in there as long as they are then tender tops of the sprig and not the tough woody bottoms.  Make sure you have at least 2 teaspoons of thyme leaves scattered about.

Season everything generously with kosher salt and back pepper.

Dot the top with 1 - 2 TBS of butter, unsalted preferred, but again not required.

Now depending on how much volume you have of potato and leeks, add about 5 ounces of chicken stock per 3/4 pound potato.  You just want some liquid in the baking dish, the vegetables will not be covered just gently swimming in a little puddle.

Cover your baking dish tightly with foil and toss it in the oven.

After an hour and a half, take off the foil and add a splash of cream to the baking dish, if the dish looks very dry, add a tiny bit more chicken stock.  Put it back in the oven, uncovered for another 30 minutes.  After 30 minutes, check that the potato can be gently pierced with a knife.  If the potato are done, take it out, give it a little stir and serve.

Food Fads

I am sitting here at my kitchen table sifting through Fashionable Food - Seven Decades of Food Fads by Sylvia Lovegren trying to find some theme for next weeks 9 - 11 year old Food Fad class.

I just could not believe some of the delightful combinations of things that home cooks (or more often food manufacturers) came up with to try and shake it up a bit in the fifties.

How would you like some Barbecued Bologna for Men A la Crisco?

You just mix some Crisco and Kitchen Bouquet together and spread it over 3 pounds of whole bologna sausage and then grill it until the bologna is 'browned and hot through'. Mmmmmmm - Shall I slice you a piece?

Perhaps you are looking for a nice recipe to bring to the family function next holiday.  I've got the perfect thing for you!
Fruit Cocktail-Spam Buffet Party Loaf
So simple!
Drain a can of Del Monte fruit cocktail - save that syrup!
Make gelatin with the syrup and some vinegar, clove and cinnamon and pour half of that over your fruit cocktail.  Place it in the fridge to begin setting the gelatin. 
Take 2 cans of Spam and chop it fine, mix it with some chopped celery and green olives. (remember when green olives were the only olives?).  Now mix up some Miracle Whip and whisk in some mustard and salt and then add the rest of that gelatin mixture, mix in the spam and spread this over the set fruit cocktail.  Chill it until firm.  Now cut some lemons and scoop out the flesh, fill them with Miracle Whip and serve them with the party loaf.

Oh my, I can see the lines forming now to get a scoop of that jiggly goodness, can't you?

Recent acquisitions

A recent trip to Essex, MA yielded a few delightful surprises to add to my collections.

It was a whopping $3.00 at The White Elephant in town.

Along with this for a mere $5.00

The biggest surprise is this treasure

This original script from the 1938 WEEI radio show called Food Magician.  I can't seem to find any info on this show, however I have a sneaking suspicion that it really could be from John MacPherson aka 'The Mystery Chef' who had a huge radio show which first went on the air in the 1930's in Boston.  He changed his name to Mystery Chef because his mother was embarrassed by his profession! If anyone has any info on Mystery Chef or The Food Magician to pass along, please contact me.  I'd love to learn more.

A few miles away at Russell Orchards (formerly Goodale orchards)I found some gorgeous dark honey.

And better still..

Do you know how hard it s to find unpasteurized cider??  It was heavenly.

I also picked up these, but I haven't had a chance to try them yet.

I also picked up a few copies of my favourite periodical.  One of the few where I read every word from cover to cover.  I really need to get a subscription to it.

Time to head off to work.  Teaching six 11-13 year olds some Jamie Oliver recipes tonight.  It's the Celebrity Chef series. 

Kylie Kwong

About two months ago I was surfing through the channels and caught the tail end of a show featuring a woman chef. She was Australian and the show was filmed there. The style of the show is rather quick cut single camera a bit like Nigella Lawson but souped up a bit. I loved her style, her throw a bit of this and a bit of that in a pan with great background info on each dish and how it would be done traditionally versus the modifications she was making. A few weeks later, I caught her again but still hadn't figured out her name. Finally last month's Olive magazine gave me the answer.

Her name is Kylie Kwong and she has a new cookbook out called Heart and Soul. A quote from the blurb;

'Australian-Chinese chef Kwong is well known in Australia, where this book was published to accompany her popular TV series. Authentic Chinese recipes are mixed with European and North African; some are easy, others more complex using a wide range of ingredients.'

I'm hoping to find her cookbook over at NE Mobile Bookfair and road test some recipes and I really hope Food TV finds her and runs the series. It would make a nice change form the bland rotation they have on lately.