GIVE THE HOLIDAYS a salty kick this season with this twist on traditional dressing. That turkey — and possibly your taste buds — won't know what hit it when you stuff this inside.
Ingredients:
» 4 quarts cubed at least day-old bread or cornbread (a mix is fine)
» 1/2 cup sweet onion, finely diced
» 1/2 cup celery, finely diced
» 2 cloves garlic, minced
» 3 sprigs each sage and thyme, leaves only, finely chopped
» 1/2 bunch flat leaf Italian parsley, leaves only, finely chopped
» 1/4 lb unsalted butter
» 1/2 lb smoked sausage
» 1 pint shucked fresh oysters, liquor drained and reserved
» 2 to 3 cups chicken stock
» Salt and pepper to taste
Continue Reading "Recipe File: Oyster and Sausage Dressing" »
MANY RECIPES FOR savory tarts, such as quiches, or for dessert tarts or pies with very sweet fillings call for unsweetened pastry. And if the filling is rich you may want to use a minimum amount of butter in your crust. Traditional recipes for this basic pastry, called pate brisee in French, call for half as much butter by weight as flour. The pastry dough is moistened with water and includes no sugar. In this recipe, you have a choice of liquids, because water activates gluten and using eggs or a bit of heavy cream instead helps to keep the pastry from becoming tough. Water makes dough crispy and light, while cream and eggs make it softer and richer. A sweetened version, what professionals call pete brisee sucree, is included as a variation below.
Take care not to overwork the pastry dough; keep it cold and resist the temptation to make the finished pastry dough perfectly smooth and homogeneous — when you roll it out it should look a little ragged, with pieces of butter suspended throughout.
This recipe gives full instructions for a variety of mixing methods — by hand, in a stand mixer, and with a food processor. The stages look similar whether you mix by hand in a bowl or on a surface, or use a stand mixer or food processor.
Continue Reading "Recipe File: Basic Pie and Tart Pastry Dough (Pate Brisee)" »
FOR MANY DESSERT DEVOTEES, the idiom "pie in the sky" is nothing short of gospel. Synonymous with heaven, perfect pie is no cakewalk for amateur pastry chefs. (Easy as pie? Not so much.)
But before trading your apron for a Costco card, take it from flour-splattered pros: You, too, can achieve flaky goodness — no Sara Leegene required.
"Everybody's mom or grandma made pies. It's wholesome," says Rodney Henry, who brings Dangerously Delicious Pies, the pie shop he founded a decade ago in Baltimore, to D.C. this month (1339 H St. NE; 202-398-7437).
But pie goes back much further than your childhood kitchen. "It's a holdover from Anglo-Saxon cooking," says James Peterson, author of "Baking," ($40, Ten Speed Press). "It's a very old French technique to wrap things in pastry then stick them on the hearth to cook." In the olden days, bakers didn't stress about crust, since the dough wasn't eaten but functioned simply as an archaic ancestor of Pyrex.
Continue Reading "It's a Wonderful Slice: Dangerously Delicious Pies" »
Ingredients:
» 2 recipes for pie crust (see below)
»5 cups Bing or sour cherries, pitted; or frozen pitted cherries, thawed
» 1/2 cup sugar if using Bing cherries, 3/4 cup if using sour cherries
» 3 Tbsp cornstarch
Makes one 9- to 10-inch pie
THE SLENDER, TENDER French haricots verts that have emerged in upscale food markets in recent years bear no resemblance to the leathery-skinned, stout green beans our parents grew when we were kids, the kind that seemed suited only to long simmering in a pot with a chunk of really good bacon. In this recipe, we "skillet-toast" those fat beans, which adds a charred, smoky dimension to them, transforming even the toughest beans — which, truth be told, is the kind we find most often in the precincts of the U.S. we inhabit — into something as addictively delicious as salted popcorn.
Serves four. Time: 10 minutes preparation, 10 minutes cooking.
Serve these beans with Pimento-Cheese Potato Gratin and Skirt Steak With Parsley Sauce, and you have a well-rounded, knockout menu that takes only an hour to prepare.
Continue Reading "Recipe File: Skillet Green Beans with Orange" »
NEW ORLEANS CHEF John Besh says: "This garlic butter is best when prepared ahead. I like to use it on just about everything, from pasta to sauteed shrimp."
Ingredients:
» 1 lb butter, at room temperature
» 1 clove garlic, minced
» 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
» 1 tsp chopped fresh chives
» Leaves from 1 sprig fresh thyme
» 1 tsp fresh lemon juice
» 2 dozen oysters, shucked and left on the half shell
Makes two dozen
Continue Reading "Recipe File: Grilled Oysters with Spicy Garlic Butter" »
EATING IN
Kale With Raisins and Toasted Pine Nuts
INGREDIENTS
» 1/4 c toasted pine nuts
» 3/4 lb kale (about 6 cups)
» 2 c water
» 2 TBSP olive oil
» 2 garlic cloves, minced
» 1/3 c raisins
» salt, to taste
PREPARATION
» 1. Wash and strip kale. Bring water to a boil in a 10- to 12-inch skillet that has a tight-fitting lid. Add the kale and cook, covered, over high heat, stirring occasionally until tender, approximately five minutes. Remove and drain.
» 2. After patting skillet dry, heat olive oil and sautee garlic for 15 seconds. Add raisins and sautee for 30 seconds to
one minute, stirring constantly to prevent browning or burning. Raisins should be glossy and slightly puffed.
» 3. Add greens and stir to combine. Season with salt to taste and cover for a minute until greens are heated through. Garnish with pine nuts.
(Adapted from "Greens Glorious Greens" by Johnna Albi and Catherine Walthers)
TENPENH MAY HAVE a smoky pumpkin, but now you can re-create Dino's Fizz.
SPICED CHIANTI FIZZ
Ingredients:
» 1.5 oz. Chianti good enough to drink on its own
» 1/2 oz. citrus- & ginger-infused grappa or Cointreau (Cointreau adds orange tones to the drink without being overly sweet like Triple Sec or Grand Marnier.)
» 1/4 oz. spice-infused simple syrup (Use any combination of spices — cardamom, cloves, white pepper, star anise, bay leaves — to infuse equal parts water and granulated white sugar. Heat 2 cups each sugar and water in a saucepan until sugar dissolves, stir in spices and let steep. Shake all ingredients with ice in a shaker. Strain into highball glass filled with fresh ice. Top with bitter lemon soda and garnish with a fresh orange slice.)
» Dash Fee Brothers' orange bitters (Fee Brothers' bitters are available locally at Pearson's and Ace Beverage; there are also several online sources.)
» Bitter lemon soda (Dino's Scott Palmer likes the Fever Tree brand) (Fever Tree Bitter Lemon soda is available at several locations including Connecticut Ave. Wine & Spirits. Commercial brands like Schweppes or Canada Dry will work in a pinch.)
Ingredients for the mofongo:
» 6 plantains
» 4 cloves of garlic
» Vegetable oil for frying
» 8 strips of bacon, cooked and crumbled
» 1 tsp. onion powder
» 1 tsp. garlic powder
» Salt & pepper
» 4-5 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
Preparation:
Peel plantains. Cut them into inch-thick slices and fry in oil over medium-high heat, until golden brown in color (remember to turn over the slices). Using a mortar and pestle, mash the garlic, bacon, onion powder and garlic powder together, adding salt and pepper to taste. Add the garlic mixture to the cooked plantains; mash until well combined.
Ingredients:
» 1 cup lentils
» 2 stalks celery, chopped
» 2 bay leaves
» 6 tsp olive oil
» 2 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
» 1 cup chopped onion
» 1/4 tsp peperoncino flakes
» 2 cups canned tomatoes, crushed
» 2 tsp salt
» 12 slices bread
Preparation:
Rinse lentils, then put in a saucepan with celery, bay leaves and 3 cups cold water. Bring to a boil, cover pan and adjust heat to a simmer. Cook about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, pour 4 tbsp oil into the skillet; set over medium. Stir in garlic and onion: cook for five minutes. Drop peperoncino in pan and toast for a minute, then stir in tomatoes and 1 tsp salt; bring to simmer. Let it bubble until thicker. When lentils are slightly under-cooked, pour into their pan the tomato sauce from the skillet and stir. Return sauce to simmer. Cook, covered, about 10 minutes. Remove cover, stir in 1 tsp salt; let lentils cook slowly, stirring, until thick. Remove from heat; stir in 2 tbsp oil. Serve on bread slices.
Recipe courtesy "Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy" ($35, Knopf)
Photo courtesy Knopf
Addison Road