Amuse Bouche

Maitake - Hen of the Woods (Sauteed Maitake and Chanterelle over Creamy Polenta)

Sunday I am pattering around the kitchen working on my 5-hour roast duck.  I'm just stuffing the cavity with ginger and scallions and getting it in the oven when I see Dad pull up.  I pull open the door and he wanders straight over to the kitchen table and digs his hand in a bag and starts extracting the most gorgeous giant mushrooms.

Maitake! Hen of the Woods!  But, Where, How?

Rutebega inserted for size comparison not to masquerade as a maitake

Someone with a '59 Pontiac who comes by the museum sometimes to hang around and check out the cars brought them over for him.  Every year he goes to a certain location and picks them and being a mushroom forager myself I don't press further. Never will a mushroomer divulge their locations!  This year in Maine was horrible for mushrooms, at least in my neck of the woods.  Nary a chanterelle or a lobster mushroom was had and I was rather bereft at not having any delicious wild mushrooms.  There is nothing I love more than being the beneficiary of foraged mushrooms.

There are a whole host of medicinal claims associated with the maitake from helping with insulin levels for type II diabetes to shrinking cancer cells. Are they true? Are they just the usual hype? I don't know, but they certainly taste good so any added benefits are just the icing on the cake.

I spent some time Sunday afternoon removing the dirty base, filling the sink with water and a little salt and floating them upside down and swishing them around.  Rinse, repeat.  Please, don't believe the mushroom is a sponge blather.  A quick weigh before and after showed negligible water gain, but I witnessed maximum creature, worm and dirt demise.  I'd rather be clean and a little waterlogged thanks.  Good luck trying to just 'gently brush' the interstices of a Maitake or a hedgehog.

On Monday I brought some into work and sauteed them with a bit of salt, butter, thyme, pepper, madeira and cream and had them over a few slices of toasted Iggy's Francese. maitake or King mushroom have a nice texture, a chew, that you don't get with other mushrooms.  Wild mushrooms also have a more pronounced earthy taste that I love. It would be very easy to treat these like meat in a braise or a hearty dish they are that substantial.

That afternoon Heather had an 11+ class and somewhere around 6:00 she came strolling into the office with a sample bowl of this crack that she had made from Barbara Lynch's book Stir.  She knows my affection for polenta or as I put it "Oh polenta. Peasant food of many countries in various guises under various names. How I love your cheap comfort food happiness".  I obsessed about those few spoonfulls all night long and by tuesday I knew what I had to have for dinner.

I hit Russo's on the way into work for a few chanterelle which are plentiful lately at around $12.99/lb vs the usual $25/lb, a tub of mascarpone, a few shallot and a piece of tartufo cheese for grating and I headed into work.

Dinner on Tuesday was the following bowl of heaven. 

Shrooms:

Cleaned and torn pieces of maitake, chanterelle or fabulous wild mushroom of your choice

Butter and olive oil

Shallot, peeled and diced fine

1 - 2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 - 4 sprigs of thyme stripped of leaves

Splash of Madeira

2 - 3 TBS cream

s&p

Heat a saute pan to medium heat and add a bit of butter and olive oil.  Once the butter melts, add the shallot, turn the heat down a bit and cook 1 - 2 minutes stirring until it is soft.  Don't let it get brown. Add the garlic and stir, cook 30 seconds or so.  Add the mushrooms, a sprinkle of kosher salt over the top and turn the heat back up to medium.  Cook, stirring occasionally until the mushrooms exude their juice. Add the thyme leaves and continue to cook until the pan is almost dry and the mushrooms begin to brown.  Add the Madeira and cook until it has been absorbed.  Add the cream, continue to cook until the cream begins to brown a bit and then thicken.  Taste and adjust seasonings.  Keep warm.

For the polenta:

3 cups milk
3/4 cup cornmeal
5 tablespoon unsalted butter
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
½ cup mascarpone

In a large saucepan, bring the milk to a gentle high simmer. Pour the cornmeal slowly into the milk whisking all the while to prevent clumping. Reduce the heat to a simmer, add 3 tablespoons of the butter, season with 2 teaspoons salt and a few good grinds of pepper, and let the polenta cook gently, stirring occasionally, until it’s thick and the cornmeal is tender, about 20-30 minutes depending on how course your polenta is, finer grind will cook quicker.

Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and then the mascarpone and cook an additional 5 - 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season to taste with more salt and pepper.

Place the polenta in a bowl and top with the sauteed mushrooms.  I grate over some truffle pecorino or other truffle based cheese.

Welsh Rabbit "rarebit" Souffle

Sometime dinner has to be on the very simple side.  We generally don't get home until 8:00 most nights and after the dog has been walked and the mail sorted, the cocktail poured and the jammies donned I get dinner to the table.  I cook at least 6 out of 7 nights a week.  It's my therapy, my way to relax and since I began running the school I really don't get to cook much on a daily basis at work, so on nights and weekends I flex my culinary muscles.  Generally on Saturday or Sunday I make a list of what dinner will be for the week. I thaw and marinate and make lists and on the way into work each morning I pop into Whole Foods when it is vewy vewy quiet (shhhh I'm hunting wabbits) and pick up the produce I need. Along with the stuff I make and put up in the freezer we may only get take out once every few months.  Sometimes I just need pad thai or duck choo chee made just for me.

I had no plans for dinner on Wednesday night so on my drive into work I tried to decide what I would need at the store.  I hopped out of the truck, grabbed my bags and phone and headed in.  I started plucking ingredients and I realised that when I was reading an old Saveur over tea that morning I had seen a picture of a Welsh rabbit and it must have stuck in my head or maybe it was just the freezing cold pouring rain and gray sky that made me want it. My favourite version to make is the one from the Two Fat Ladies.  Unlike many recipes it does not have any beer in it, but it does have the usual Worcestershire sauce.

Their method separates the yolks into the cheese and then whips up the whites seperately effectively making a light soufflé instead of the traditional cheese sauce poured over the toast and browned under the broiler. Once you break though the dark crust it's a very light soft soufflé inside. Heaven.  A nice green salad and a glass of wine and your world is a much happier place.

Welsh Rabbit

• 4 eggs
• 2 cups cheese: cheddar, gruyere, emmenthal, Lancashire tasty, whatever you have to hand
• worcestershire sauce, hot sauce and Coleman's dry mustard
• A few slices of hearty bread
• salt and pepper

Take a gratin dish and slice some hearty, rustic bread and toast it.  Lay this on the bottom of the dish. I like the crusts cut off for this.

Separate 4 eggs.  Into 3 of the yolks, discard the 4th, add some dry mustard powder - about 1 tsp. Coleman's is my preferred mustard powder, now add a dash or two of hot sauce, my poison is Frank's red hot and a splash or two or three or Worcestershire sauce. 

Mix this up and add some grated cheese, about 2 cups.  Good sharp cheddar is traditional, but I added a bit of gruyere that I had kicking around, I think raclette might be nice as well.  Mix this up and add some salt and pepper.

Whip the crap out of those egg whites until you get a nice stiff peak.  Hold that whisk up and if your peak stays up like Mt Fuji your good to go.

Take a bit of those whites and dump them in your cheese mixture, stir it up to lighten the mixture and then as gently as you can, fold in the rest of the whites. 

Tip this out on top of your bread and bake for 10 minutes or so in a 450F oven. 

Asparagus and Artichoke Heart Pasta

When I agreed to take on managing create a cook on a full time basis I knew something was going to have to give and I decided that that culling the recipes for the kids classes was that task.  I know that there is a spate of anti-cookbook rhetoric slamming around the wires lately and I agree that there are shelves and shelves of useless tomes out there, but I also know that if you hunt well, know your authors and have the skill to really read a recipe, not just look at the glossy photos, there is a treasury of recipes to be found. 

You may decide to riff off a recipe and put your own spin on it, or you might just decide it is perfectly fine as it is and cook it so many times that it becomes a part of your repertoire.  Since weekly we have to come up with 10 new recipes for the kids classes, vacation camps are an additional 14 recipes per week and summer camp is about 35 recipes per week that clocks in at around 812 recipes per year, no repeats. Parents have come to expect new dishes from us and the kids, some of whom hav ebeen with us for 3 years or more, remember everything!  I don't think anyone has that kind of repertoire in their back pocket.  When I knew we would need some help we decided to ask Christine when she decided to go back to the west coast if she would take on the challenge and she has done a great job.  Sometimes we cold east coasters have to remind her that despite her San Francisco moderate weather, fruit and veg filled farmer's market lifestyle we out here on the 'other' coast still only have squash and some cabbage fresh, but she really does a great job.

A few weeks ago for the 3-5 year old Hungry Traveler class an Alice Waters recipe from Chez Panisse Pizza Pasta and Calzone piqued my interest.  Mustard with pasta?  Never in my days had I thought of dijon and pasta in the same sentence, but trust me on this one. This dish is the very essence of spring, and if I had a few fresh fava (broad) beans I would toss them in as well. You might have to tweak this one a little, I ended up adding a bit more mustard and because I just can't have pasta with out a wee bit of cheese I grated on some pecorino with truffle.  Make this soon and wish the cold weather away.

Asparagus & Artichoke Heart Pasta
Adapted from Chez Panisse Pizza Pasta and Calzone

1 bunch asparagus
2 large artichokes (yes, you can substitute canned, frozne or jarred, but really the whole point of this dish is to taste the fresh spring vegetables)
Juice of ½ lemon if using fresh artichokes
2 shallots, sliced
4 basil leaves, sliced
1 Tablespoon unsalted butter
¾ cup chicken stock
½ cup heavy cream
½ Tablespoon Dijon mustard (or more to taste)
Kosher salt and pepper
½ pound tagliatelle, papardelle or fetuccine (I used Capone brand from Somerville MA)

Cut the tips from the asparagus stalks and wash them well to remove any sand or grit.  If they are large, cut into halves or quarters lengthwise.  Save the stalks to make soup or puree, or for some other use.
Remove all the outer leaves of the artichokes and pare down to the heart. 
Trim away the green leaf ends, the choke, and the stem. 
Cut the heart into 8 wedges, and leave them in water with the lemon juice until ready to cook.  Steam the artichokes for 5 - 8 minutes or until tender.  
Start a pot for the pasta and when it is ready drop in the asparagus tips.
Blanch the asparagus for 2 -5 minutes depending on how large the tips are.
Remove with a slotted strainer and drop in cold water to stop the cooking.
Meamwhile in a separate skillet, cook the shallots in butter until soft.
Add chicken stock, gently reduce to about a cup, then add the cream.
Add the artichokes, asparagus tips, mustard and basil and taste for salt and pepper. 
If the sauce is too thin, reduce it a little more.
Cook the pasta in the blanching pot until just done with a little bite left and pull it out with a stainerand toss it right in the pan with the sauce and toss carefully.  Grate on a little fresh black pepper and if desired, add cheese.



.

Zucchini (sumer squash) Gratin

Did you know that Friday(Aug 8th) is the official "Sneak some zucchini onto your neighbor's porch day"? 

I thought my zucchini were never going to make it after the hailstorm in July, but I cut off the shredded leaves, left one or two on for photosyntheses and like the never say die plants they are it has managed to rally and produce at least three gorgeous striped ones so far.  Since I only have one plant (plus one that only produces male flowers) I don't think I'll need to sneak around under the cover of darkness depositing the spare ones on my neighbor's porches, but when all those tomato plants decide to come in at once baskets may start appearing.  Funny how no one ever minds spare tomatoes.

Now if you have to share some zucchini love this recipe is the the one to use.  Who doesn't love a gratin? Anything under a nice crust sounds good to me.  You can knock this gratin up in the cool of the morning and serve it later at room temperature with a nice side salad. I love how in Mediterranean countries the cooking is done in the coolest part of the day and dishes are eaten later at room temperature.  I think it makes the flavours come out more that trying to eat it while it is still hot.  This dish also packs well for travel, and can serve as a nice vegetarian dish to bring to the family barbecue.

This recipe comes from Mediterranean Harvest by Martha Rose Shulman.  We made it at create a cook back in Summer Harvest week in late June and I have been waiting for a chance to make it at home.  A walk through the vegetable bed on Saturday yielded a lovely green striped zucchini and the fat yellow one came from the Waltham farmer's market along with the purple pepper and the two heirloom tomatoes.

Click below for recipe.

A Cool Summer Noodle Dish - Otsu

This week at create a cook the theme is vegetarian.  I spent a long time searching for recipes to use as i didn't want to fall into a rut of the usual suspects and I wanted to introduce the kids to some potential new foods.  We made a Camargue Rice Salad with Arugula and Feta, a Bulgur Salad with Chickpeas Roasted Red Pepper and a Spicy Cumin Dressing, Spinach Pasties, Asparagus and Gruyere Feuilletes and in honour of the new movie that opens today that I cannot wait to see, a Ratatouille.  All dishes went over very well with the Camargue Rice Salad receiving particularly good reviews but the dish that I think they liked the most was Otsu.

The recipe for Otsu comes from Heidi Swanson's (of 101 Coobooks.com) new book Super Natural Cooking.
I had seen the Amateur Gourmet had made it one sweltering evening to rave reviews and I had also seen it mentioned before on Heidi's blog as a recipe she made based on a dish she had in a local restaurant.  I chose to make it because I adore cold sesame peanut noodles, but so many kids today have peanut and tree nut allergies I decided to make this dish instead to see if it would satisfy my cold noodle craving just the same and satisfy it did. We all loved this dish!  In fact I liked it so much I made it again for dinner last night.  I didn't happen to have plain buckwheat soba noodles on hand so I used mugwort sobu and it was just as yummy and since I don't love plain tofu and I an indeed a carnivore I had mine with some Spanish tuna on top.  The dressing uses shoyu but you can sub out tamari or even soy if you can't find shoyu. 

This dish has everything you could want for summer.  It's quick to put together, the only stove involved is boiling water for the noodles.  It's loaded with ginger, lemon and sesame oil with a kick of cayenne so the palate gets a nice punch of flavours.  If you want the full recipe, go visit Adam over at Amateur Gourmet as Heidi let him reprint it with her permission.  As for me, I'm going to buy her book on the way to work today, I bet she has a lot more dishes up her sleeve for me to try.