Last week, M’hijito had me over for a delightful meal at his house. The guy can really cook. I think I mentioned the amazing potato pie he made. At the outset, he’d said we’d scallop some potatoes. This was the upshot:
It was one of the tastiest potato anythings that I have ever enjoyed. He didn’t follow a recipe; he just made it up as he went. Here, approximately, is how it came together:
You need:
• 2 Idaho potatoes, thinly sliced • a small red onion, thinly sliced • a handful of chives • 1 or 2 cloves of garlic, chopped • leaves from a sprig of rosemary • butter • heavy cream • a pastry brush • an oven-proof pan
Melt a fair amount of butter—probably half a cube or more. Slice the potatoes an onions thin—a mandoline helps with this.
Arrange a layer of potato slices in the bottom of the pan. Brush a generous amount of melted butter over the top. Sprinkle on some chopped garlic, and arrange some of the sliced onion over the potatoes. Add another layer of potato slices. Brush butter over these. Add remaining onion, and place a handful of whole fresh chive leaves (no need to cut them up) over the top of this layer. Now top the dish with another layer of sliced potatoes. Add cream, but don’t smother the top layer in cream. Sprinkle rosemary leaves over the top.
Bake in a 375-degree oven about 45 minutes or an hour, until scrumptiously brown and crisp on top.
Along with the potato pie, he served grilled Costco steaks and sea scallops, wrapped in bacon. With a bottle of wine, it made an awesome dinner.
When I lived in Saudi Arabia back in the Dark Ages, Indian, Goanese, and Pakistani workers would get workers’ visas so they could come on as domestics for American and British oil company employees. Pedro was a Pakistani man who worked as a cook for our friends the Dakers.
Pedro was a past master of concocting curry dishes for American and English tastes. It was a challenge, because many fresh products were unavailable, and so he had to make do with a lot of canned and dried goods. I’d like to share with you two dishes he used to make for his employers: Pedro’s curry and Pedro’s curry puffs.
Curry Puffs
As a little girl, no snack food thrilled me more than Pedro’s amazingly delicious and tongue-singeing curry puffs. He used to make real puff pastry, layer after layer after layer of folded-together butter and dough that took at least a full day to create. Unless you love to stand in the kitchen, substitute the sheets of puff pastry you can get in the grocery store freezer, or sheets of phyllo dough, also available in most supermarkets.
Given his choice, he likely would have used lamb. He was probably Moslem, and if so he wouldn’t have used pork, nor do I ever recall him adding it. He used ground beef. I’ve combined ground beef and lamb in this recipe, to good effect. Try to get the best quality curry powder you can find, or make your own.
You need:
• puff pastry dough or phyllo dough • hamburger, ground lamb, ground pork, or some combination thereof • an onion, chopped • one or two cloves of garlic, minced (Pedro used garlic powder) • a little olive oil • salt and pepper to taste
• a lot of curry powder
Sauté the onion in enough olive oil to cover the bottom of a skillet. Lift the onion out of the pan and brown the ground meat in the onion-flavored oil. Add the minced garlic. If a lot of water cooks out of the meat into the pan, drain the liquid by dumping the meat into a sieve or colander and then put the meat back into the pan. Mix the onions back in to the meat. Season with salt and pepper, and then stir in enough curry powder to raise the hair on your head. Just keep adding and tasting until it’s good and zingy. When the meat is cooked through and the spice combined well, remove from the heat.
Preheat the oven to about 375 degrees.
Roll out the pastry dough on a floured board (if using phyllo, work with a small amount at a time, keeping the remainder moist under a dampened clean kitchen towel). Cut it into pieces about 4 inches wide by about 8 inches long. Place a dollop of the curried meat in the middle of a piece of dough. Fold the short ends inward over the meat, and then fold the longwise ends over those. Pinch to seal. Place on a baking pan.
When the pan is full (leave some space between each packet), cook the curry puffs in a fast oven until nicely puffed and brown. Allow them to cool before eating—the filling can get very hot.
Serve as an hors d’oeuvre, or to small scavenging children who hang around your kitchen.
Pedro’s Curry
This is a stew-like affair, from what I’m told unlike anything real Asians eat. Apparently it was designed for Anglo-Saxon diners.
You need:
A wide variety of condiments:
• grated or flaked coconut •papadums or thin, crunchy crackers such as Wheat Thins • chutney, preferably mango chutney • high-quality plain yogurt (an afterthought; we didn’t have it in Arabia) • toasted almonds or pine nuts • rice cooked with raisins
Ingredients for the curry:
• stew beef (lamb is also good) cut in two-inch chunks • 1 large can of tomatoes • plenty of curry • 1 onion, chopped • 1 or 2 cloves garlic, minced, or 1/8 to 1/4 tsp garlic powder • a little olive or cooking oil (we had no olive oil; Pedro used Crisco) • beef or chicken stock (I have added red wine, but of course we didn’t have it out there) • various canned, frozen, or fresh vegetables: peas, carrots, corn, string beans, etc. • optional: a potato, cubed
In a stock pot or good-sized Dutch oven, brown the onions in the oil. Remove the onions and set aside. Add the meat to the hot oil, a few pieces at a time, and brown on all sides. Put the onions back into the pot. Lower the heat and add three to six tablespoons of curry powder. Stir well; then turn off the heat. Allow the meat to stand for an hour or two, soaking in the flavors of the curry.
Return to the stove and add the can of tomatoes and about three or four cups of broth. If you wish (assuming you’re not living in the Middle East), add a dollop or two of red wine. Simmer for an hour or two to cook the meat well and blend flavors.
If you’re using fresh vegetables such as carrots or potatoes, add them far enough ahead of serving time to cook them through. Add each vegetable with serving time in mind. I like to use frozen veggies, because they’re fresher-tasting than the canned vegetables we had overseas but are parboiled and so needed simmer as long in the pot.
While the curry is simmering, cook up some rice: one cup dry rice will serve three or four diners. Bring 2 1/2 cups water to the boil for every one cup of dry rice you plan to use. When the water reaches a boil, add the rice and turn the heat to medium-low. Add a quarter cup of raisins for each cup of dry rice. Cover and simmer. Length of cooking time depends on the kind of rice you use. I prefer converted rice (sold under the Uncle Ben’s label in supermarkets); it takes about 20 to 25 minutes to cook.
While the rice is cooking, turn the oven to 400 degrees and toast some almonds or pine nuts–again, about a quarter-cup per cup of rice. Lay them flat on a cookie sheet and place in the hot oven; watch carefully, because they’ll brown quickly.
If you’re serving papadums, fry them in hot oil while the rice is cooking.
To serve, place the cooked rice and curry in separate serving dishes to take to the table. Pass the condiments in small serving bowls.
Guests serve themselves rice, spoon the curry over it, and then top the dish with condiments. Waldorf salad makes a very good accompaniment to curry.
She wants some ideas for recipes. Go there and share yours.
Blogger isn’t speaking to me again this morning, so below is my offering, which I hope will reach Chance one of these days:
SDXB likes to poach trout in white wine. I believe he dilutes the wine with a fair amount of water. Adding some herbs gives it a little panache. Simply place the fish in simmering water & wine and cook gently until it’s done through.
When he first proposed to do this on a camping trip, I thought he’d lost his mind, because my ONLY way to prepare fresh-caught white fish was sautéed in butter. He was having nothing of it, though. He insisted on poaching…and I was amazed at how delicious the result was.
I’m not sure this would work with trout, but here’s something I learned from the proprietor of a Greek restaurant: Preheat the oven to around 375 degrees. Chop some ripe fresh tomatoes. Add some minced garlic, some parsley, and some other chopped fresh herbs such as marjoram, thyme, basil, chives—whatever you have. Add some crumbled feta. Toss together. Place a fish steak (I’ve used salmon, halibut, cod, and mahi-mahi) in an open pan. Pile the tomato mixture on top of the fish. Drizzle a little olive oil over it. Then bake until the fish is done to perfection—don’t overcook. To die for.
As the weather hotted up, I pulled out the last of the garden beets. There weren’t many, since a few had already gone to seed, turning their red tubers fibrous and woody. I wanted to use them in a particularly delicious salad from Julia Child. The basic recipe goes like this:
You need:
• 2 cups cooked rice • 2 cups diced cooked or canned beets • 4 Tbsp finely chopped green onion • 3/4 cup vinaigrette (recipe below; you can use a good bottled vinegar & oil-style salad dressing) • 1 1/2 or 2 cups mayonnaise (bottled or home-made; recipe below) • fresh or dried herbs, such as tarragon, marjoram, basil, thyme, summer savory, etc. • salt and pepper to taste • 1 cup of cooked vegetables, such as peas, green beans, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, asparagus; you also can add such things as diced raw apple, grated raw carrots, cut-up cooked beef, pork, poultry, or fish, canned tuna or salmon. I defrosted some mixed frozen veggies for my version. • garnish such as olives, anchovies, sliced hard-boiled egs, watercress, or parsley
In a good-sized bowl, toss the cooked beets, onions, and rice together with the vinaigrette. Allow this combination to marinate for awhile in the refrigerator. Meanwhile, make mayonnaise and add a handful of chopped fresh herbs or a tablespoon or so of dried herbs. If you’re using bottle mayo, add the herbs to the mayo in the course of the next step.
Shortly before serving, add the rest of the ingredients to the beets and rice, and then fold in the mayonnaise. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Garnish as desired with one or more of the suggested condiments.
I didn’t have enough beets, and so I decided to add a can of cannellini beans to the rice-and-beet mixture. The result worked wonderfully: beans absorb vinaigrette with every bit as much enthusiasm as rice does.
Here’s how to make enough vinaigrette for this recipe:
You need:
• a measuring cup, at least 1 cup capacity • 1/4 cup lemon juice or wine vinegar • enough olive oil to fill the measuring cup to the 3/4 cup line • a clove of garlic, minced • salt and pepper to taste • maybe a dash of dried herbs—fines herbes or herbes de Provence work nicely
Combine the ingredients and whip with a fork to mix thoroughly. Pour this over the warm rice and beet mixture and fold together well.
And here’s how to make mayo in a blender…lo! Mayonnaise that actually tastes like REAL MAYO!
You need:
• an egg • 1 tsp Dijon-style mustard • 1/2 tsp salt • 2 Tbsp lemon juice or vinegar • 1 cup olive oil, or 1/2 cup olive oil and 1/2 cup mild salad oil
If you’re using two kinds of oil, combine them in your measuring cup. Notice that real mayonnaise doesn’t contain sugar. I don’t think bottled mayo did, either, when I was a kid. I never could stand that sicky-sweet Miracle Whip gunk, but now even Best Foods (Hellman’s in the East) is full of sugar. I guess they must have been forced to add it to compete with Miracle Whip, what with America’s sweet tooth so carefully cultivated by the foodoid industry.
Break the whole egg into the blender jar. Add the salt and lemon juice. Cover the blender jar with thelid (!!) and puree the ingredients at full blast for about 30 seconds. The egg mixture should be thick and foamy. Now, with the blender buzzing away, uncover the jar (most lids have a capped opening that you can undo for this purpose) and dribble in the oil in a thin stream of droplets.
The mayo will get thicker and thicker. If it gets too thick to absorb all the oil, add a few drops of lemon juice or vinegar.
For this recipe, you want to add lots of green herbs to the mayo. I add them just before the sauce is finished, before it gets very thick, just to keep things relatively simple. For the salade, I used a handful or so of fresh garden herbs…out in the backyard, I found thyme, marjoram, basil, and tarragon.
Because so few beets were available, this week’s version was not as colorful as a real salade à la d’Argenson is supposed to be. If you follow Julia’s recipe, the result is a brilliant purple-red. I find it very appealing, and it is delicious. But you should be aware that some people either don’t care for beets or think the Day-Glo magenta comes from food coloring, and they won’t touch it. I’ve taken this salad to first to a church social and later to a potluck gathering of people whose tastes I thought would be more urbane, only to come home with a whole bowl of uneaten salad…so, don’t try to feed it to strangers! 😉
The middle of last week, I noticed I had several ends of bread loafs languishing (but not yet moldy) in the back of the fridge, and on the countertop a bunch of overheated tomatoes threatening to spoil. What to do with this stuff to avoid (gasp!) throwing out food? Simple: panzanella.
La mise en place
Panzanella is a kind of savory bread pudding or salad, a peasant dish whose nutritional value depends on what you put in it, just as pasta dishes do. The result is not as pretty as spaghetti or some elegantly turned out pasta shape, but it sure tastes good. And it’s an easy way to use up food that might otherwise go to waste.
The basic principle: take stale Italian-style (or any other style…) bread, tear it up, toss it with chopped tomatoes, herbs, onion, and garlic, add a little vinaigrette dressing, and enjoy. If you think of the bread as sort of like pasta, you realize you can add just about anything you please. Here’s how I made this week’s version:
You need:
• stale bread (keep leftovers and heels in the fridge until you have about a loaf’s worth) • ripe tomatoes • herbs (ideally fresh), such as parsley, thyme, tarragon, summer savory, basil, rosemary • water • wine vinegar or lemon juice • garlic • onion (red onion or little green onions) • olive oil • salt & pepper to taste • a nice bowl to fit all this stuff
Run the bread under the kitchen tap to wet it pretty well. Let it sit for a few minutes, and then squeeze out the water over the kitchen sink. Cut the dampened bread into cubes and place in a bowl.
Chop the tomatoes and add to the bread. Toss these around. If you’re using a sweet red onion, chop about half of it fairly finely—it doesn’t have to be minced, but unless you’re crazy about onion probably should be cut into pretty small pieces. Mince the garlic. Chop up whatever fresh herbs you have on hand, or use some dried herbs (a teaspoon to a tablespoon each, less for stronger flavored herbs). Mix all these with the bread and tomatoes.
Now toss in a little vinaigrette. Add to the bread-veggie-herb mixture a tablespoon of wine vinegar or lemon juice and three tablespoons of olive oil. If you have a lot of bread & veggies, increase the dressing proportionately: remember, three parts oil to one part tart stuff.
Toss the whole thing well. Season to taste with salt and pepper. If you’re hungry, start eating. Otherwise, you can let it rest in the fridge for a while: the bread seems to like soaking up the juices and flavors.
You can add all sorts of other goodies, as desired: various veggies (chopped cauliflower? broccoli? carrots? radishes? celery? finely sliced spinach or chard?), a little anchovy, some cooked shrimp, a sprinkling of cheese. Just think of it as homely pasta and proceed accordingly.
Now that we’re back in business here, I’d like to share a dish I invented a few days ago.
Backstory: as much as I enjoy scalloped potatoes, they seem a little watery with all that milk and stuff squishing around. It occurred to me that you ought to be able to cook potatoes much the same way you make macaroni and cheese: layered with white sauce and cheese.
The possible trap is that macaroni is already cooked, and so traditional macaroni-&-cheese bakes only about 20 minutes. Being at heart incorrigibly lazy, I didn’t want to have to precook the taters. So I decided to use a mandoline to slice them very thin, which I hoped would allow the oven to heat them more efficiently. This trick results in a lot of potato slices! To accommodate them, I used the largest flat baking pan in the house, preparing it with a liberal coat of butter.
Because of the amount of potatoes involved, I prepared a double recipe of white sauce, which I flavored up with a little New Mexico chili, nutmeg, and parsley. I pulverized about 12 or 16 ounces of cheddar cheese in the food processor, and then did two layers of potatoes, white sauce, and cheese, ending with the cheese. Didn’t have any bread in the house, so to make crumbs I crunched up some rice crackers. Actual bread crumbs would have been better, but the cracker idea worked adequately.
The result is pretty darn tasty, and it made enough high-protein food to fill half the freezer:
Last night I had some for dinner, with a couple of breakfast sausages and a salad. Couldn’t be easier!
Here are the specifics:
You need:
-about 4 cups milk
-about 5 or 6 Tbsp butter (plus enough to butter the pan)
-about 5 or 6 Tbsp flour
-salt and pepper to taste
-dash of nutmeg
-a few tablespoons of fresh chopped parsley
-something for zing, such as ground pepper, paprika, or Tabasco sauce, to taste
-about 8 or 10 thinly sliced small cooking potatoes, or more, depending on what’s in the fridge
-about a pound (more or less) of tasty cheese, shredded
-bread crumbs
Make the white sauce:
Heat the milk in the microwave or on the stovetop, as desired. It should be almost simmering. Heating the milk isn’t really necessary, but it speeds things along.
Melt butter in a pan large enough to accommodate the amount of milk you’re using. Add the flour and stir over medium heat until the butter foams. Don’t allow it to brown. Now stir in the milk. Heat, stirring, over medium or medium-high heat until the sauce thickens. While stirring, add nutmeg, salt, pepper, parsley, and any other flavoring you’ve selected.
Assemble the dish:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
In a buttered baking dish, lay down a layer of thin-sliced potatoes, using about half of them. Spread about half the white sauce over these, and then sprinkle on about half the shredded cheese. Layer the rest of the potatoes over this, and repeat the layering of sauce and cheese. Sprinkle some bread crumbs over the top.
Cook:
Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes. Test by poking the potatoes with a thin knife to assess whether they’re cooked to your taste. If not, let them bake a few minutes longer. Remember that if you take the pan out and allow it to set for ten minutes, the food will continue to cook from its retained heat. So, use your judgment in deciding when the potatoes are “done.”
