Nuts

Michael and I tend to take it easy on New Year's Eve. We used to blow it out big time by hitting  the road to celebrate in New York, Chicago, Washington, Louisville, Cincinnati, or Atlanta. Several years ago, we partied our brains out in New York until 4 o'clock in the morning before enjoying a one hour nap and braving the New Jersey Turnpike for the drive home.  Mistake. We lasted 25 miles down that dismal turnpike before checking into a hotel and passing out. Fun. One year, we celebrated the New Year under the glow of a red stoplight as we tried to make a last minute dash to a local gay bar before midnight. Didn't happen. After a brief bawdy rendition of Auld Lang Syne,  we made a u-turn and headed home.

Now, we happily stay home to celebrate New Year's Eve. We piddle around, snack on appetizers, and drink a lot before downing coffee drinks to watch the Times Square Chrystal Ball  slowly descend through the streaming confetti. After cheerful drunken tidings to everything we're grateful for, Michael and I quietly dance to Old Lang Syne  in our old Victorian living room. Bliss.

New Year's Eve snacks. This year, I'm leaning toward miniature welsh rarebits, steamed crab claws with drawn butter, stuffed mussels, shaved beef crostinis, and spiced nuts.

Spiced nuts?

Rewind.

Here's the deal. Our church has several reception teams that provide food and drinks for various occasions and post-service gatherings. Michael and I make up the auxiliary team.  The B team. The bench warmers. We're  the subs who are called in when other teams are sick, out of town, or have scheduling conflicts. This week, we've been tagged to host the much hyped and popular first Sunday after Christmas post service reception. Par-tay!

We love doing the receptions. We do. Really.  Although they're typically low key affairs, we enjoy bumping them up a bit. For our upcoming small-ish gathering,  I'm throwing together a simple cheese tray,  pear chips with cranberry dip, small bowl of spiced nuts. Sweet, savory, and simple.

I decided that while I was in the spiced nut business, I'd make a big batch and save a few for our late night New Year's Eve  armchair revelry.

I poured myself a large flute of leftover holiday champange
and played with my nuts.

Typically, most methods involve tossing mixed nuts with melted butter or beaten egg whites before adding  spices and baking them. I've prepared spiced nuts using  both methods with equal success...kind of.  I tend to  burn stuff.  I burn stuff a lot. Although I'm heroic at burning nuts and bread because distraction gets the best of me, I keep trying. I was well prepared for my usual baked nut stress until I stumbled across a stove-top method from Alton Brown. No oven. Happy nuts.

I used Alton Brown's  stove-top method with ingredients I had on hand.

Spice.
I mixed 1/4 sugar, 1 teaspoon kosher salt, 1/2 teaspoon ancho chili powder, 1/4 teaspoon allspice, 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper, 1 tablespoon paprika, and 1 teaspoon cinnamon. To add a hint of aromatic freshness, I dusted the snow off my rosemary bush, snipped a few stems, and tossed fresh rosemary leaves into the spice mix.





Nuts.
After cranking a large cast iron skillet over a medium flame, I dry toasted 2 pounds of mixed nuts. When they started to brown, I added 1/2 stick unsalted butter. As the butter foamed and gurgled up through the hot nuts, I added the spice mix, 1 tablespoon of pure maple syrup, and the juice of half an orange. I stirred the sticky mess until it thickened before pouring it out onto a non-stick sil pat. After separating the nuts, I sprinkled them with fresh rosemary and orange zest.

Packed with layers of flavor, the crunchy spiced nuts were salty and sweet. While the ancho chile powder poked slight chocolate smokiness through  the bright zest and piney rosemary, the cayenne pepper added subtle lip-numbing heat.

Perfect with champagne.



Cheers!

Sugar And Spice

An intensely tart sweet gastrique can add fantastic zing to both sweet and savory dishes. Basically, a gastrique is a highly concentrated sweet and sour sauce.  Classically, it's prepared by deglazing caramelized sugar with vinegar before adding flavorings.  While it can be used to infuse sweet acidic depth to tomato sauces, it's typically flavored with fruit and used to cut through the richness of cooked meat, seafood, and poultry. Almost anything can be used to prepare a gastrique. Tropical fruits, seasonal summer berries,  and winter citrus are a few examples of the endless possibilities. Right now, it's cranberry season. The inherent  natural tartness of a cranberry gastrique during the holiday season  would pair beautifully with robust salty ham, fatty pork, succulent duck, long roasted turkey, or braised chicken. I used it as a bright counter punch for bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin.

Bacon-Wrapped Pork Tenderloin with Cranberry Gastrique and Spinach Timbales.

Holiday Gastrique.
So, here's the deal.  I'm all about the classics and doing what I'm supposed to do. Although the classic method for making  a gastrique is quite simple, the notion of pouring vinegar into a gurgling vat of molten hot caramelized sugar seemed horrifying. Nope. Not after a few glasses of wine, thank you very much. I used a calmer technique that produced the same result.

I combined equal parts (1 cup each) sugar and rice wine vinegar in a heavy cast iron skillet over a medium flame to melt the sugar into the vinegar.  When the liquid started to boil, I tumbled 2 cups of fresh cranberries into the mix, let it rip until the cranberries exploded, and simmered the crimson bath until it reduced by half.  After straining the gastrique through a fine mesh sieve, I set it aside to cool.

Pork.
Pig wrapped in pig. I shingled 10 slices of thick-cut smoked bacon on a large cutting board. After brushing the tenderloin with tangy Maille dijon mustard, I showered it with cracked pepper, tossed a few fresh rosemary leaves over the bacon, rolled the tenderloin  into a tightly bound bacon cylinder, placed it (seam side down) into a large skillet, and slid it into a 350 oven to roast for 45 minutes, turning it occasionally in the rendered bacon fat. Yep.

Spinach Timbales.
Frozen spinach would have worked wonderfully for the timbales, but I had several rooted bunches of  gorgeous Shelby County baby curly leaf spinach. I rinsed the spinach, finely chopped it while it was still wet (about 2 cups), and used the residual water  to steam the spinach (covered in plastic wrap) in  the microwave  for 2 minutes before letting it cool and wringing out the moisture in a kitchen towel. After buttering two 4 ounce ramekins, I mixed the chopped spinach with 1 beaten egg, 3/4 cup heavy cream, 2 heaping tablespoons of pecorino romano cheese, fresh nutmeg, salt, and pepper. I poured the creamed spinach into the ramekins, placed them in a water bath, and slid them into the oven to bake alongside the sizzling spitting pork.

When the pork tenderloin  reached 145 degrees, (about 45 minutes)  I pulled it from the oven to rest and let the spinach timbales bake an additional 5 minutes until they were firm.

Using the crisp bronzed bacon shingles as a guide, I sliced the pork into medallions, basted them with the pan drippings, and plated them with the inverted spinach timbales to the side, puddling the cranberry gastrique between the two.

The cranberry gastrique bridged the earthy spinach and sultry pork with sharp sweet acidity. While the tangy dijon mustard seeped  through the fatty bacon and flavored the pan drippings, flecks of rosemary added subtle piney undertones. Unlike most somber sweet and sour sauces, the vibrant gastrique popped. With an intense cranberry essence, it was bright, crisp, and clean.

Sugar and spice.
Jacked up.

Beeting The Odds

The Lexington Indoor Farmers' Market opened last weekend in the atrium of Victorian Square. Tucked around garland-draped railings, Christmas lights, and a towering Christmas tree, the vendors offered a variety of late season produce. Baskets of turnips, beets, baby acorn squash, delicata squash, kohlrabi, turnip greens, kale, and potatoes were peppered with bins of baby curly spinach, hardy Beaujolais spinach, radishes, baked breads, meats, cheeses, scones, and canned goods. It was festive and fantastic.

Beets.
I've had such crappy luck with beets this year that I was determined to avoid any and all beets at the market. That's me, Mr. determined. Steadfast. Strong. Yep.  Nope.  I succumbed to a few dirty bunches of gnarly golden beets topped with gorgeous yellow-veined greens from Elmwood Stock Farm.  Aside from my notion that golden beets tend to be milder and mellower than their fiercely assertive red counterparts, their perky pretty greens totally sold me. 

For my umpteenth beet battle, I kept it very simple.

After slicing the lovely tops from the beets (reserved for a quick saute or long simmer), I rubbed the beets with olive oil, seasoned them with salt, wrapped them in aluminum foil, and tossed them into a 350 degree oven to roast for 50 minutes.

When they were fork tender, I pulled the beets from the oven to cool before peeling away their skins with my finger tips. After chilling them for an hour, I sliced the golden beet bulbs into thin discs and overlapped them in a circular pattern on a large serving plate.

Because I didn't want to muck up their tender mellow sweetness, I dressed the beets very lightly with a splash of fresh squeezed orange juice, a splash of apple cider vinegar, and a drizzle of fruity extra virgin olive oil.  I dusted them with coarse kosher salt and finished the beet salad with tiny arugula micro greens from Long View Organics.

Napped with a slight hint of acidity from the vinaigrette, the fragile golden beet slivers were earthy, sweet, and bright. While the delicate arugula micro leaves added specks of freshness, their tiny tubular stems provided  popping wet crunch. Crazy.

Simple. Fresh. Fabulous.
Across the board.

The Upper Crust

My dad was my hero.  When our family moved back to the United States after living overseas, we left behind our nannies, caretakers,  and housekeepers. Without Frau Olga or Ababa cooking for our vagabond traveling troupe, my dad had to fend for himself. For us. Apart from his occasional batches of fantastic sticky, savory, and sweet Boston Baked Beans, he had an arsenal of meals  loaded from top to bottom in our drab pea-green overhead  freezer. My dad totally embraced the notion of Banquet and Sawnson TV dinners. They were easy and quick to prepare. He was a single father who worked a lot and had to feed two growing boys. As a military officer (and in pure military fashion),  he kept our frozen stash of TV dinners filed like books. Left to right, by title.  Frozen edible books.

Stacks of small frozen beef and turkey pot pies anchored his arctic library. The variety of frozen stuff seemed endless and I adored it all. I grew accustomed to mashed potatoes sweetened with cherry pie filling, salisbury steak glazed with chocolate pudding, and  buttered sweet corn spiked with apple sauce.  Glistening on top of compartmental aluminum foil trays, those frozen treats were fun, flawed, and adventurous.  Life was good.

Michael and I love to wrap our lips around pot pies, but I rarely make them because I suck when it comes to making pastry and pie dough. We both have issues with restaurant versions because they're never pies. They typically consist of pretty bowls loaded with savory fillings topped with flaky flavored biscuits, cornbread, or beautifully browned  puff pastry poofs. Toppers. Tops without bottoms.  Pot pies should have both.

I gambled and took a chance.

The Crust.

I had phyllo pastry dough. Paper thin flaky phyllo dough. Yep.  Think about it.The filling didn't really matter. I could have used any filling. Beef stew, creamed chicken, stewed eggplant, lobster bisque, or vegetable succatash would have worked beautifully. I imagined that a lightly spiced lamb and eggplant Greek Moussaka topped with eggy bechamel would have been splendid.  I used  turkey because,...well, I had a lot of leftover turkey.

It wasn't about the filling, it was all about the crust.

After bagging up and freezing the pretty slices of leftover turkey, I chopped the remaining scraps into bite sized  pieces and made a basic roux by cooking  2 tablespoons of butter with 2 tablespoons of flour. When the flour cooked out a bit, I added 1 cup of warmed cream and 1 cup of  warmed chicken stock. As the sauce thickened, I tumbled a handful of sliced snow peas, green peas, halved black olives. pimentos, and the reserved turkey into the creamy mix. I seasoned the pot pie filling with salt, cracked black pepper, and grated nutmeg before pulling it from the heat to cool.

While phyllo can be fussy and finicky to work with, it's very forgiving.  If a sheet tears, who cares?  Butter it and slap it into place.

I thawed a sleeve of frozen phyllo dough overnight in the refrigerator and unfolded the delicate sheets, covering them with a damp towel to prevent them from drying out. Layers were key. 10 layers for both the top and bottom of the pot pie. I melted 1/2 cup butter and swirled it into 1/2 cup olive oil. After buttering 10 individual sheets of phyllo, I layered them into a 10 inch fluted Bybee Pottery dish, tucking the extra dough in, around, and under the edges of the dish before spooning the creamed turkey onto the bottom crust and covering it with 1 cup of grated pecorino romano cheese.

I repeated the 10 layer process for the top crust and placed the sticky slab on top of the cheesy  turkey filling. I initially intended to bake the top crust flat, but decided to poke the dough into the edges to seal the pie. I buttered one last sheet of phyllo and draped it over the top like a wind blown tissue. That was it.

I slid the enormous pot pie into a 350 degree oven and let it rip for 45 minutes until it was gorgeously browned and crisped.


After smashing the crust open with a large spoon, the feathery phyllo sheets shattered like broken glass, creating a crackingly creamy fabulous mess.

It was wonderfully ridiculous.

From top to bottom.

Spent?

Discard the vegetables.

In lieu of my fancy  nonstick v-shaped roasting rack, I typically roast whole chickens or turkeys on top of chopped carrots, celery, and onions. While they suspend the meat just above the heated pan to allow browning on the underside, the low-lying vegetables also allow the meat to melt into the pan juices, creating the  fabulous sticky caramelized skin candy that clings to the bottom of the pan.

With a relatively short cooking time, chicken roasted over vegetables is a no brainer. With  tender meat, crisp skin, and caramelized vegetables bathed in savory pan juices, it usually results in a great one pot meal. Turkey is a different beast. The long cooking time of roasted turkey transforms the underlying vegetables into saturated soft melted  jewels. Most people might consider long  braised vegetables useless.  Spent. Done. Toast. Kaput. Flavorless. Discard  the vegetables and strain the pan juices. Blah. Blah. Blah. I guess I'm a rule breaker and a heretic because I don't discard the vegetables.

Sometimes, I've mashed them into pulp before swirling them back into the pan juices as a natural thickener. Occasionally, I've served them to the side  with a dollops of sour cream and  grated fresh horseradish. Most of the time, I've eaten them straight from the pan as savory sweet treats.

 Last weekend, I repurposed them.

After roasting a 15 pound turkey for hours, I heaved the bird from the pan to rest and scooped the braised vegetables onto a  small platter before storing them in the refrigerator.

Shenanigans.

Pureed Carrot Soup with Goat Cheese Croutons.

I pulled the carrots, celery, and onions from the refrigerator. To perk up their long sleepy braise, I sauteed sliced shallots and minced garlic in olive oil. When the shallots started to caramelize, I deglazed the pan with 1/2 cup white wine along with 1 1/2 cups chicken stock. I brought the stock to a boil, reduced it to a simmer, and tumbled the reserved vegetables into the pan. For zing, I showered the vegetables with a heaping tablespoon of citrusy sumac before covering the pan to warm everything through.

When the stock reduced by half, I carefully blended the vegetables and stock into a velvety puree. After returning the puree to the pot, I added a 1/2 cup chicken stock and a splash of heavy cream.

Goat Cheese Croutons.

Pureed soups need crunch. I jacked up the crunch factor with the crisp  tang of deep fried goat cheese.
I divided 4 ounces of fresh chevre into quarters, rolled them into small sticky balls, and shaped them into four small cheese discs.  After rolling the discs through flour, egg wash, dried bread crumbs, and fresh minced parsley,  I slid them into the freezer for an hour to harden.

After heating  the soup to a plopping spitting simmer, I ladled it into small soup bowls and  pan seared the croutons in buttered olive oil until they were gooey and  golden brown. Moments before the croutons  collapsed into a fried cheesy mess, I carefully dropped them into each bowl with a sprinkling fresh thyme leaves.

With deep roasted layers of flavor, the silken puree was light, rich, and complex. While the sumac brightened the sleepy puree with brash citrus undertones, the oozing goat cheese added creamy tang and crunch.

Spent vegetables?
Nope.
Simply repurposed.

You Say Potato...

What's in a name?
Gratin Dauphinois, Pommes Anna, Au Gratin Potatoes, Scalloped Potatoes Au Gratin, and Scalloped Potatoes are all  variations of basically the same thing; they're names of preparations for sliced potatoes baked in butter or cream, with or without cheese, garlic, herbs, and/or breadcrumbs. Although there are classic methods for each variation, the possibilities and combinations are endless.

I'm not much of a rule follower.

 A couple of years ago, we took a gruyere laden yukon gold and red-skinned sweet potato gratin to my family holiday potluck.  Flecked with specks of fresh rosemary and layered with oozing gruyere cheese, the gratin was encased in a double rolled cheese-filled pastry crust. It might have been a little over the top,  but my family loved the curious gratin. Michael and I didn't taste a single crumb.  As the line formed around the food, we slipped out onto the chilly screened-in side deck and chugged  boxed white wine from paper Dixie Cups. By the time we finished our wine, the impressive monstrosity was completely gone.

For a recent  laid-back weeknight supper, I took a much simpler approach.

Sweet potatoes are...well...naturally sweet.  While I adore the marshmallow-topped brown sugared sweet potato casseroles that dot our holiday tables, I tend to lean toward a more savory bent when preparing them at home. Balance.

Scalloped Sweet Potatoes, with a twist.

Using my mandolin, I sliced a combination of four Madison County white-skinned and red-skinned sweet potatoes into 1/8 inch rounds. I buttered the bottom and edges of a spring form pan, dusted the butter with dried breadcrumbs, and layered the potatoes by color in a circular pattern with overlapping edges (Pommes Anna style), dotting each layer with butter, salt, and white pepper. Midway through the potato stack, I tumbled a cup of dried sour cherries onto one layer before finishing the layers with a topping of additional butter, salt, pepper, grated parmigiano reggiano, and fresh parsley.

After drizzling a cup of heavy cream over the potatoes, I tapped the pan to evenly distribute  the cream, covered it with foil, and slid it into a 350 oven to bake for 1 1/2 hours.

While the scalloped potatoes bubbled away, I soaked 1/3 cup of the dried sour cherries in equal portions of brandy and apple cider vinegar.

After an hour, I uncovered the potatoes for the remaining 30 minutes to brown the top. I drained the plumped sour cherries and used 3 tablespoons of the infused brandied vinegar to make a very basic vinaigrette ( 3 tablespoons vinegar, 1/4 cup olive oil, salt, and pepper).  

I pulled the gurgling scalloped potatoes from the oven to rest and tossed baby arugula in the sour cherry brandied vinaigrette with orange zest, slivered tomatoes, and the re-hydrated cherries.

When the sweet potatoes were cool enough to slice, I nestled  delicate wedges over the arugula and served them  alongside rolled slices of leftover roast beef with  pan gravy.

Soft and creamy, the potato layers seemed to melt and  fuse together in the buttery cream. While the bronzed parmigiano cheese crust provided slight salty nuttiness, the hidden cherries cut through the richness, adding tangy tart bites with contrasting textures.

Sweet potato pie with attitude.

Savory.
Sweet.
Simple.

Turn It Up

Mental food juggling. This is the time of year when my mind usually drifts away and fills with carnal thoughts of  holiday gluttony. Cerebral food orgies. This year, while thoughts of juicy turkey meat, moist dressing, lusty gravy, and rich side dishes dance through my head, I  have an event at work 4 days before Thanksgiving that has me focused on Puerto Rican  stewed pork (Carne de Cerdo Guisada) and fried pork skins (chiccarrones).
Juggling.

Interruptus.
Distracted.
One day at a time.

Lately, I've had a wistful hankering for turnips. Ever year, one of my aunts prepares a small bowl of fabulous whipped turnips as a side dish for our family Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings. Nestled among the gray-ish  turkey, rum-infused ham, giblet gravy, dressing, casseroles, jellied salads, cookies, cakes, and pies, her buttery whipped turnips always glisten under the overhead kitchen fluorescent lights.  One tiny bowl of turnips for 30 people. I've never snagged more than a single spoonful.

She says they're simple to prepare. Peel, boil, and mash. Her magic. While I've done everything with turnips except marry one, I haven't attempted her hallowed  method for delicate, light, and airy turnips. I patiently anticipate my yearly holiday rations.

Juggling.

With turnips on my brain, plans for Puerto Rican empanadas, shrimp mofungo, and ceviche were  immediately pushed to the back burner when I bagged 2 hefty purple-skinned Casey County turnips from the farmers market on a cold Tuesday morning.

Whipped turnips? Nope.

Turnip Souffle.
Souffles have a reputation for being finicky, but I think they're worth the small effort. Yes, they deflate. A lot of things in life deflate without tasting like an utterly  fantastic collapsed souffle. Who cares? Go with the flow. Even when they fall, their flavors and textures remain intact.

Before starting the process, I brought 5 large organic eggs to room temperature and separated them into 4 beaten yolks and 5  whites.

After peeling and dicing 2 large turnips (2 1/2 pounds), I plunged them into salted water and boiled them for 45 minutes.  When the turnips were fork tender, I drained them in a colander before pureeing them in a food processor and allowing them to cool.

I used a basic souffle base for a 6 cup souffle dish.  After melting 3 tablespoons of butter in a skillet over a medium flame, I added 3 tablespoons of flour to the butter and combined them to form a light roux (no color). When the roux pulled away from the skillet, I added 1 cup of warmed whole milk and whisked it to break up any lumps until it thickened, about 5 minutes. When the bechamel sauce napped the back of a spoon, I tempered the egg yolks  before incorporating them into the sauce along with 1 cup extra sharp aged white cheddar cheese, 1/2 cup pecorino romano cheese, 1 cup of the turnip puree, fresh picked thyme, salt, and white pepper.

Turn it up.

I tossed the egg whites into a squeaky clean mixing bowl, added a pinch of cream of tarter, and beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until they formed very stiff glossy peaks. To lighten the souffle base, I added 1/2 cup of the beaten egg whites before carefully folding (without over mixing) the remaining whites into the base.

After buttering  a 6 cup souffle dish, I dusted it with fine bread crumbs before filling it with the eggy turnip mix. I cranked the oven to 400 degrees, slid the souffle into hot oven, turned the temperature down to 375 degrees, and let it rip....without peeking. Hard.

While the souffle did its thing in the oven, I pan seared a thick ham steak in melted butter over medium high heat until the edges started to curl. When the ham caramelized,  I deglazed the pan with 1 cup of strong coffee spiked with 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and a splash of pure maple syrup. After turning the heat to low, I sliced the ham steak in half and let the two pieces gurgle in the sweetened red eye gravy/glaze.

Wine. No peeking.
After 40 minutes, I pulled the turnip souffle from the oven. As it quietly deflated, I double-swiped the ham steaks through the red eye glaze and topped them with slivered fresh Casey County red bell peppers before rolling large spoonfuls of puffed turnips to the side.

Clouds.
With sharp nutty undertones from the combined cheeses calming the slight earthy tang of the pureed turnips, the souffle was ridiculously light.

Like eating flavored air.