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From Family Recipes: Olivie Salad
There are recipes. And then there are family recipes. What is the difference, you ask? Family recipes are more of a traditions. They don’t have to be secret recipes (well, let’s leave the secret recipes discussion for another time), but they are passed from a generation to generation virtually unchanged. They are treasured, and they have a lot of memories connected to them.
It just happened that for me and for my wife, as we were growing up in the same city (large one, mind you – with about 1.6M people living there), one and the same salad was a food icon. This salad, called Olivie, was probably the most popular and famous salad in Russia, or may be I’m simply biased. The origin of the salad is unclear. I was always under impression that this salad came to Russia from France – but according to many sources on Internet (well, they all might be copying from each other), the salad was created in 1860s by the Belgian Chef Lucien Olivier (hence the name of the salad), who was working in Moscow in the French-style restaurant called Hermitage. It seems that the list of ingredients supposedly in the original salad varies widely from the source to the source, and really has nothing to do with the Olivie salad as I know it. But, at this point, I think this is rather a matter of historical curiosity, and not overly important for what we are talking about here.
The salad essentially is very simple, and has only 7 ingredients – potatoes, carrots, meat, pickles, boiled eggs, sweet peas and mayo. Of course a number of variations exists, firstly evolving around the use of different kinds of meat (bologna, boiled/roasted chicken and boiled beef are all possible options), but then some of the other ingredients sometimes can be omitted or substituted. But – once the recipe is changed, it is not the family recipe anymore, it becomes “some other recipe”. In a nutshell, here are all the ingredients of the Olivie Salad:
Here is the same, but zooming in on all the individual ingredients:
The family recipe is often associated with the happy moments in life, as it would be typically invoked for the special moments, whatever they are. While now we can make this salad any day (it was not always the case growing up back in Russia – some of the ingredients, like sweat peas, for instance, were very hard to find), it is still typically associated with holidays or at least special dinners of some sort (like a visit of good friends). Also, it is almost a privilege to make this special recipe – 95% of the time my wife simply doesn’t let me to make this salad, exactly as my Dad was, as I don’t always cut all the ingredients uniformly, and this is a big issue in her eyes (and I can’t argue with perfection).
In general, when I cook, I take very relaxed approach to the substitution of the ingredients, use of specific brands etc. – I believe it is totally okay to perform substitutions as needed. Except when it comes to this Olivie salad. If you want to make Olivie salad according to the Levine family recipe, no substitutions or changes are allowed, outside of what I will mention below. Don’t get me wrong – you are free to do what you want, it just not going to be the Levine family Olivie salad.
Okay, time to get to it. Below is the list of the ingredients you will need, and the instructions (very simple, mostly in pictures!) are follow. One more important note – the recipe below will yield the amount good enough to feed a small army, but this is the only way we make it, so feel free to cut it down accordingly.
Levine family Olivie Salad:
4 Medium Potatoes, whole, unpeeled (Russet, White or Idaho – don’t use Yukon gold, it will not retain the shape after it is cut)
4 Large Carrots, unpeeled
1.25 lb good bologna, whole or sliced into quarter an inch rounds (don’t use supermarket deli Bologna, go to the German or Polish specialty deli)
8 medium size pickles, use only Vlasic Whole Kosher Dills, no substitutions!
8 medium hard boiled eggs
1 large can of sweet peas (any brand :))
About 1/2 cup Hellmann’s Real Mayonnaise – no substitutions!!!
Wash potatoes and carrots, don’t peel, and boil them for about 20 minutes (start timer after the water started to boil). You can check readiness with the knife – you should be able to poke through with very little resistance. You want to boil carrots and potatoes with the timer, as you don’t want them to overcook – if they do, they will lose shape once cut. Once potatoes and carrots are boiling, boil eggs for about 10 minutes. When potatoes and carrots are done, transfer them into the cold water to stop cooking process, also cool down the eggs. Get all the ingredients on the plate, and let them cool off so you will be able to handle them.
Next step – peel off and discard skin from potatoes and carrots. Peel off the shell from the eggs, then wash them and dry – you don’t want any pieces of shell in the salad. Okay, now all the prep work is finished, and all you have to do is to cut the ingredients (dice might be a better word).
Dice potatoes into about quarter of inch squares, same goes for carrots, eggs, bologna. Cut the pickles and put them in the strainer – you don’t need extra liquid in the salad. Open sweet peas, drain them completely (again, use strainer), and add them to the bowl.
At this point you need to mix everything together – tread lightly, as you don’t need a mush instead of a salad. Once you are done mixing, taste it – you looking for the balance of flavors. If you think you need more salt or acidity, add more pickles – in the end of the day, you just want to arrive to the tasty combination.
Now, the last step – you need to add mayo. This should really be done “by the taste”. Start from the small quantity, mix it, taste it, and add more if you think you need it. This salad must be served cold, so you have to put it in the fridge before you will serve it. The best thing to do is to let the salad chill, and then add more mayonnaise right before you will serve it – this way it will look and taste the freshest.
There are few possible modifications to this recipe. One is to replace bologna with chicken or beef. The trick is that to cook either one just enough that it will be ready, but not overlooked, because overlooked meat will just break down and it will not be Olivie salad anymore. You can bake or boil chicken breast (should be breast only, as you don’t need any extra fat). If you will use beef, you have to boil it – or if you will decide to roast, it will have to be well done, as you can’t have any blood in this salad.
Last modification you can make is to add a tiny amount finely finely diced white/yellow onion. My dad used to do this, and it adds a nice note to the salad in my opinion, but it is a big no-no in our house now.
There you have it – Levine family recipe Olivie salad. Feel free to comment, especially after you will try it. Cheers!
Having Fun With Crock Pot Cooking
Do you like French Onion soup? Okay, this is not necessarily the question I want to ask. It is not about the soup, the question is really about the small, typically glazed and bright brown in color crock pots in which the French onion soup is often served in the restaurant. I don’t know about you, but for me the sight alone of such a crock pot is heartwarming and homey, it has the words “comfort” and “relax” written all over it in the big bold letters.
The great things about those little crock pots is that their versatility allows you to go well beyond just the french onion soup – this is a mini casserole dish, which is perfectly suitable for making any type of stew. Also, because of the small size and somewhat individual portioning, while you might be making mostly the same dish for the family, you can make adjustments to each small pot based on the individual preferences – no broccoli in this one, no mushrooms in that, and triple jalapeno for the last.
The dish which I want to talk about today is pretty much chicken and potatoes stew. My original idea was to use the chicken sausage, but – my daughter doesn’t like sausage, so this is where the small pot versatility comes to the play – I can easily make an adjustment for her and use just chicken instead of the sausage. And yes, of course, the same is true about all other ingredients. I’m sure you got my point.
Okay, here we go:
Crock Pot Chicken and Potatoes Stew (makes 4 crock pots)
Prep time: 40 minutes, cooking time: 1 hour
1 lb of chicken thighs (you can use sausages, chicken breast, anything), cut up in a small pieces about an inch in size
2 large onions, diced
1.5 lb carrots, sliced into small pieces (1/4″)
4 large potatoes, peeled and sliced
1 lb mushrooms, sliced
1/2 lb fresh peas
4 tbsp chicken broth (can be substituted with water, wine, any cooking liquid)
salt, pepper to taste
[olive] oil for frying
4 dry bay leaves
whole allspice (optional) – few berries per crock pot
Cut up chicken and/or sausages you will be using and start searing it in the pan using the olive oil (if you are using just the chicken, season with salt and pepper prior to searing). You don’t have to cook it completely, but you want to give it a nice sear, so it will take you about 10 minutes on the medium to high heat. Put aside.
Slice onions and start sauteing them on medium heat, for about 15 minutes, or until onion becomes soft and translucent. Dice up carrots (I was using tri-color carrots, just for fun) and slice mushrooms, then add to the pan with the onion once it is ready. Continue sauteing on the medium heat for another 10 minutes. Add peas and continue the process for another 5 minutes. Put aside. Peel and cut the potatoes into the small chunks, add salt, pepper and 1 tbsp olive oil and toss the potatoes well.
Preheat oven to the 350°F. Put the crock pots onto the large oven pan. Put the layer of potatoes on the bottom, then layer of chicken and top it of with the vegetable mix. Of course this is when you can make all those individual adjustments for the ingredients for your picky eaters. Add 1 tbsp of broth (or wine, beer, etc.), put in a bay leaf and 2-3 allspice berries (this is entirely optional). Cover and put into the oven for 1 hour.
And we are done!
Bon Appétit and cheers!
Russian Meat Soup – Solyanka
The polar vortex is back with us again, and we need the tools to fight it, right? Well, yeah, you can’t fight mother nature – but at least you can make her blows a bit more palatable.
This is a wine and food blog, of course, so we are not going to talk about space heaters and Amish miracle fireplaces. Right food is a perfect solution for many of the life’s situations, extreme cold being one of them. When the temperature is in the teens, and every breath makes you look more like a fire-throwing dragon, there are few of the heart-, body- and soul-warming dishes which come to the rescue. The hearty stew is one of them. And rich, concentrated, hot soup is probably what comes to mind first while you are out there shoveling the snow.
So it is the soup we will be talking about today. This soup, called Solyanka (if you can read or just care to see the same in the Russian alphabet, it is Солянка Мясная Сборная) is one of the old and traditional Russian soups. Many people know or at least heard of the Russian soup called Borsch, made out of the red beets (Borsch is also a perfect soup for the cold weather, but it is not a subject of today’s post). Much lesser number of people know of Solyanka, which used to be one of the very few soups traditionally served in the restaurants back in Russia starting from the hundreds of years ago.
I believe many home cooks purposefully avoid making the soup, as it often translates into a quite a bit of hassle. Great thing about Solyanka is that this soup requires very few ingredients and very easy to make!
As you could deduce from the title of this post, the main ingredient in Solyanka is … meat! Actually, any kind of meat is going – pork, beef, veal, chicken – whatever you got. It is important to note that we are not talking about raw meat – we are talking about meat products, such as smoked or cured sausages, baked chicken/turkey breast, ham, all sorts of bacon, bologna, hot dogs, any meat leftovers – anything which goes in the category of “cold cuts”.
In addition to meat there is another important ingredient here. The word “Solyanka” is a derivative of the Russian word for salt. But the second key ingredient is not the salt per se – it is pickled cucumbers. The cucumbers can be brined in salt or vinegar, it really doesn’t matter – but they are essential taste component in this soup.
Ready to see the recipe? Let’s proceed.
Solyanka – Russian Meat Soup
Prep time: about 30 minutes. Cooking time: about 30 minutes.
2 lb meat products (cold cuts style)
3 quarts of broth (any one goes – beef, chicken, vegetable).
6 large Dill Cucumbers, peeled and sliced
3 medium onions, chopped
2 tbsp tomato paste
4 tbsp capers
3 dry bay leaves
1 tbsp olive oil
To serve:
Black pitted olives from the can, quartered
Sliced lemon
Sour Cream
First step is to cut your meat products, whatever you are using. I typically use smoked sausages and some types of ham, but really there are no limitations. You have to slice the meat into the small pieces, make sure you will remove any kind of skin or casing if it is present, as those will not be good in the soup. I generally like to roast all that chopped meat in the pan on medium heat, for about 10-15 minutes, to concentrate the flavor.
While your meat is roasting, chop the onions. Take the large pot or casserole dish where you will be making the soup, add olive oil, put it on the medium heat. Add chopped onions and sauté them for about 10 minutes, or until translucent. Next add tomato paste, 3 tablespoons of broth and continue sautéing for another 20 minutes.
While onions and meat are on their way, prepare pickles – remove the skin, slice in half lengthwise, and then cut into the small pieces. Put aside.
Once the meat is ready, and the onions were sautéed for the total of about 30 minutes, add meat and pickles to the pot, add all of the remaining broth, put bay leaves, reduce the heat and let the soup to simmer for another 10-15 minutes. This is it! You are done.
This soup can be served as is, or with the optional sliced lemon, olives and sour cream – I personally like to add all three, but again, it is a matter of personal preference.
And let me present to you the weapon against the polar vortex – a bowl of Solyanka:
Your ultimate vortex weapon – a bowl of Solyanka
To be entirely honest, you really don’t have to wait for the sub-zero temperatures to make this soup. Yes, it is filling and warming from the inside, but overall it has quite a bit of acidity which makes it very refreshing.
So, when are you making it? Looking forward to your thoughts and comments. Cheers!
[Not So] Simple Recipe: Stuffed Chicken Roll
I do like simplicity in making of the food – easy to make, reasonable prep time, limited number of ingredients – definitely all my preferences when it comes to cooking. But the interesting thing is that in any craft, cooking included, once you master a skill, it becomes simple (you can argue if you feel like it). Of course it becomes your personal simplicity – for the people who don’t practice the same art, your personal simplicity looks quite complicated.
The recipe I would like to share today falls in this exact category – it is essentially very simple – once you master the first step. I call this dish Chicken Roll – and roll it is, made from the whole chicken. The difficult first step is deboning of the chicken. I will not inundate you with the whole procedure of deboning – there are plenty of videos on internet where you will see all the step by step instructions. The key to make it simple? Practice, of course. Do it a few times, and the idea of deboning of the chicken becomes much less intimidating. And you can do quite a few different dishes once you will master that skill.
I’m not sure how this technique is taught in the culinary school – and if any professional is reading this blog (that is a scary thought!), feel free to ridicule my approach. The way I learned to debone the chicken (or any bird for that matter) is by putting the bird breast side down and first making the cut along the spine, so it looks like this:
Deboning of the chicken – first step
Once you made that first cut, you start slowly cut along the bones, using boning knife, separating the meat and pulling it back, so it looks something like this:
Cut and pull back
The reason I suggest doing it slowly is that you want to avoid cutting through the skin. There will be few challenging moments, where you will need to get through the joints, the one by the leg and the one by the wing – you just need to cut around them and then you will be able to cut through. Also, I suggest simply cutting off first two parts of the wings – there is not enough meat inside to try to debone those. In the end (takes me about 15-20 minutes to complete the process), you will end up with deboned chicken, which will look like this:
Deboned Chicken
From this moment on, your cooking becomes very simple! You need to decide on your stuffing – anything goes! You can use other meat as a stuffing, whether raw or cooked. You can use mushrooms. You can use broccoli. You can use couscous. You can use rice. You can use quinoa. You can use any combination of the ingredients. The keys is to use a limited amount, as you still need to make the dish into a roll. You season the chicken inside, put your stuffing in, roll is lengthwise, tie it up with the butcher’s string and … voilà! Roast and enjoy! See, I told you it is simple : )
For this particular chicken roll I used carrots and chicken sausages. Here is the recipe:
Chicken Roll, stuffed with carrots and chicken sausages
Prep time: 30 minutes. Cooking time: about 1 hour (20 minutes per pound)
1 large whole chicken, deboned
3 large carrots
1 lb chicken sausages or chicken sausage meat
Salt, pepper
Seasoning herbs
1 tbsp olive oil
cotton Butcher’s string
Serve: cold or warm, both should taste good.
Debone the chicken using the suggestions above and internet video as a guidance. Slice carrots lengthwise:
Carrots
Season the chicken inside using salt, pepper and any seasoning herbs your heart desires. I also used truffle salt, which imparts a bit of a mushroom flavor (it smells mostly by itself, you get very little aroma in the food):
salt, pepper, herbs
Ahh, most important part – have a glass of wine – cooking is a lot more enjoyable when the wine is involved!
Hooker Chardonnay
I had some leftovers of Hooker Chardonnay form the previous day – it was delicious – just a touch of butter, vanilla, nice acidity – a perfect complement for any cooking.
You can now preheat the oven for 375F. Place carrots inside of the deboned chicken, then take chicken sausages, take them out of the casings and place on top of carrots. Yes, sausage meat would be easier to use in this case, but we have only one store in the town which sells sausage meat, and I didn’t feel like going.
The only steps left are to make a roll – lengthwise!, as you don’t want any skin inside – tie it up with butcher’s string, rub with olive oil, add salt, pepper and herbs on top and roast! Roast in the oven at 375F, uncovered, for about an hour ( estimate a 20 minutes per pound of meat without bones).
The result should look like this:
Roasted Chicken Roll
And this is how the roll looks inside:
Chicken Roll cut
That’s all I have for you for today. Let me know what do you think about this recipe. Would you make something like this? Have fun and cheers!
Recreating Classic Recipes: Beef Bourguignon
I know, I know – this is the wine blog, and I’m sure you are surprised with the number of food posts lately. I guess this is all because of the holidays? Well, but then this blog is all about “wine, food and life”, so I guess talking about the food is quite appropriate. Anyway, we will be talking about food today – but this food is made with wine, so we will technically cover both subjects.
When it comes to the French cooking, there are a few dishes which squarely belong to the so called “classic category”. Beef Bourguignon is definitely one of them, fighting for supremacy with Coq au Vin. Today we will be talking about Beef Bourguignon, a.k.a. Boeuf Bourguignon, a.k.a. Beef Burgundy, a stew-like dish, generally attributed to the Burgundy area in France. I personally like all of the stew style dishes, as they generally are easy to make and very rustic and comforting as food, which to me is a very important characteristic.
Main components of Beef Bourguignon are beef, wine, few of the vegetables and aromatic herbs. For a while, I had being making Beef Bourguignon using the recipe from the book called “France: A Culinary Journey”, which is quite simple. In a nutshell, you quickly fry beef, onion carrots and celery together on the high heat, then add the wine and aromatic herbs, close the cover, and let the magic happen over the next few hours. Then I came across some recipes on internet which were a lot more complex, with marinating the meat, boiling the wine before cooking, adding bacon and mushrooms, and so on. After reading through probably 5 or 6 different recipes, all claiming originality and “classicism”, I decided that I have to come up with my own, as none of the recipes really spoke to me. Before I will talk about the recipe itself, let me give you couple of the points I find important.
Wine: The source of this recipe is Burgundy, so stick with the classics on this – Pinot Noir is your ideal case, but I also have done it a few times with Gamay wines (Beaujolais), and it worked quite well. In the wine, you are looking for acidity and light fruity profile. In general, avoid high alcohol, aggressively fruity wines – they will impart an unpleasant flavor. The wine doesn’t have to be expensive, but general rule is very simple – cook with the wine you want to drink.
Marinating the meat: based on my reading and conversations, marinating the meat in the wine is an essential step. It seems to be highly recommended for both Beef Bourguignon and Coq au Vin, so I’m going with this. I usually marinate the meat in the wine for the kabobs, which tenderizes the meat and makes it to absorb the flavor, so this definitely makes sense to use the same approach here.
Bacon: My general notion is that bacon makes everything better. However, in the case of Beef Bourguignon, the recipes usually call for making of the lardons (fried square pieces of bacon), which are then added to the meat during the last 15 minutes of cooking. As you are not cooking with an actual pork fat, I see such an addition only as textural, and I don’t believe it adds anything to the dish which is already quite rich, so here I’m saying no to bacon.
Okay, enough of the introductions, let’s proceed with the recipe.
Beef Bourguignon:
Prep time: about 1 hour. Cooking time: About 3 hours.
6 lb beef for stew – use stew-cut meat from the good store, or take chuck or roast cuts and cut them into 1″ – 1.5″ cubes)
1 bottle of red wine – Pinot Noir or Beaujolais
5 large onions (one for marinade, 4 for cooking)
10 sticks of celery (2 for marinade, 8 for cooking)
4 large carrots (I really mean large, thick carrots – if they are thin, double the amount)
1.5 lb of whole mushrooms
1/2 cup of all-purpose flour
4 cups beef broth
2 sprigs of thyme
6 fresh bay leaves
1 tsp allspice
1 tbsp peppercorn
Olive oil for frying
Salt and pepper
Serve with: boiled potatoes (classic!), egg noodles, pasta
As a first step, you need to marinate the meat, preferably overnight, so you should start cooking in the evening of the day before. Take two stalks of celery, cut in half. Peel one onion, cat in four pieces. If you are using the whole piece of meat, cut it up into 1″ – 1.5″ chunks. Put celery and onion into the large bowl, put all the chunks of meat on top, pour in a bottle of wine. The wine should fully cover the meat – if it is not – sorry, get another bottle. Take cheese cloth, put in 3 bay leaves, a sprig of thyme and allspice. Tie cheesecloth together and put it into the same bowl with meat. Cover, and put in the fridge overnight.
In the morning, get the bowl out of the fridge, strain and reserve all the liquid (you will use it for cooking). Discard celery, onion and herbs, let the meat to drain completely and warm up to the room temperature.
Meat after marinating
Now, you can start with vegetables. Dice all of the the onions and start sauteing it in the skillet with the small amount of oil – use medium heat. Meanwhile, prepare the rest of the vegetables. Dice the celery, put aside. Cut up the carrots in the big chunks – round slices of about 3/4″ in size. If the carrot is too thick, you can first cut it in half lengthwise. Put aside together with celery.
Carrots and Celery
Wash and cut up mushrooms into the half or quarters, depending on the size of mushrooms. Start sauteing the mushrooms in the separate pan with small amount of olive oil and medium to high heat.
Sauteing the mushrooms
Cover the pan initially, as you want mushrooms to release the water, stir a few times. After 3-4 minutes, remover the cover and let the liquid to evaporate. Continue cooking for another 5-6 minutes, or until the liquid will completely evaporated and the mushrooms are lightly fried. Add celery and carrots to the same pan, mix and continue sauteing for about another 10 minutes, stirring periodically.Turn off the heat, put aside.
Roasting all vegetables together
After about 10 -15 minutes of sauteing the onions (they should gain color and become translucent at this point), turn off the heat and set aside.
Time to start working with the meat. First, we need to sear it. Put the cast iron casserole on the high heat (definition of the high heat depends on your stove – mine is electric, and if I use the highest dial setting of 10, everything burns before it sears, so my high heat setting for the cast iron vessel is 8). Add couple of tablespoons of the olive oil, and let it heat up. Put the flour on the plate, add salt and pepper, and drench the first batch of meat in the flour.
Beef in flour, ready to be seared
Once casserole is heated up sufficiently, put the meat inside in the single layer, and don’t touch it for about 3 minutes. Turn around, and let it sear for another 3 minutes – you want to get a nice color on the meat.
Prepare the next batch of meat (drench in the flour). Remote the seared meat to another plate, and repeat the process until all the meat is seared. Once the last batch is seared enough, splash some of the reserved wine into the casserole and use your spatula to deglaze it. Reduce heat to medium-low, put back all the meat, add sauteed mushrooms and vegetables. Pour back the rest of the reserved wine, add four cups or beef broth. Prepare the bouquet garni: take cheese cloth, put in thyme sprig, 3 bay leaves and peppercorns. Tie together and put in the casserole (immerse in liquid). Give the content of the casserole a good steer. Cover with the lid, pour yourself a glass of wine and relax, your work is mostly done.
Check the casserole periodically and give the content a good stir every time. Make sure the liquid is slowly simmering and not rapidly boiling – reduce heat further if it is. Also, check the sauce for salt – adjust the amount to your liking. The cooking process should take about 3 hours from the moment you combined all the ingredients – check the meat periodically to see if it is done to your liking. Tougher cuts of meat might take a little longer.
When done, remove the bouquet garni. Prepare your favorite starch and … voilà! You are ready to serve Beef Bourguignon and accept complements from your guests. Of yes, and I hope you didn’t use all the wine – you might enjoy some with your dinner.
Beef Bourguignon
So, what do you think? Do you have your own twist for Beef Bourguignon? What do you think of this recipe? Cheers!
Simple Recipe: A 20 Minute Pastry Appetizer
This simple appetizer became one of our favorites as of late – it is simple, easy to make – and it is very versatile. I’m not sure how this should be called in the cooking terms – let’s call it a pastry appetizer for the lack of the better word.
The simplicity of this recipe starts from the fact that you don’t need to make the dough – you can use the dough which is ready to go. So far our favorite was Pillsbury Buttermilk Biscuits, but I’m sure you can use the other brands.
We don’t need to worry about the dough, so the next step is the filling. What I really like about these pastries is that you are only limited by your imagination when it comes to what you want to put inside. Of course your filling shouldn’t be anything raw – the cooking time for the pastries is under 20 minutes. But other than that, everything goes – vegetables, chicken, salmon, pork, anything you can think of. The best is to make your filling into the salad-like consistency, fill the pastries, sprinkle some cheese on top, put in the oven and … voila!
For the pastries we made last week, we used roasted chicken breast, mixed with sauteed mushrooms and onions, a little bit of mayo, fresh dill and shredded cheese. Here is the recipe:
Baked Pastry Appetizer
Prep Time: 20 minutes (depending on what you are using, can be much faster), Cooking time: about 18 minutes.
5 tubes of small Pillsbury Buttermilk Biscuits, to make 48 pastries.
2 medium size roasted chicken breasts (can be replaced with any other meat), cut up in the small cubes
1 lb mushrooms, sliced
3 medium onions
1 tbsp mayo
1 cup shredded cheese
1/4 cup fresh dill, finely chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
oil spray
Preheat oven to 450F, or 425F if using the non-stick pan (follow instructions on your pastry can). Saute mushrooms and onions with olive oil over medium heat for about 15 minutes, until soft (onion should be translucent). Once ready, mix mushrooms and onions with chicken, mayo, dill and half a cup of cheese.
Take the muffin pan (we use the non-stick pan with 24 holes). Grease all the holes with oil spray. Open the package of dough. Place the dough pieces in the holes, slightly covering the edges. Put in the mixed filling. Finish filling of all the pastries, then use the remaining half a cup of cheese to sprinkle on top of the pastries (adjust the amount of cheese on top to your liking).
Put in the oven for 18 minutes. Of course your cooking time might vary, so you really need to watch for the pastries to reach right color.
Get the pan out of the oven, let the pastries cool off and … enjoy! Have fun and get creative with your filling! Cheers!
Simple Recipes: Beer Braised Beef Stew
What defines the simplicity of the recipe? For me, it is the limited number of ingredients, and ease of the cooking process. For instance, I would never designate my beloved traditional cassoulet as a simple recipe – it takes about 24 hours to make and the list of ingredients is a page long.
The recipe I would like to share today fit the simplicity bill quite well. It has only 3 ingredients (or four, if you would consider garlic as a separate ingredient), and the cooking process is quite simple (but you do spend a bit of the time prepping). As this is a beef stew, you can even reduce the list of ingredients down to two – the beef stew for me must have beef (huh, really?) and onions – everything else is a bonus.
Today’s dish is a beer braised beef stew, which includes onions, garlic and Sicilian eggplant. There is no any particular reason whatsoever to include the Sicilian eggplant into this dish, except that I was in the store, the eggplant looked very good and wanted to buy it, and then I had to actually do something with it.
Below is the recipe, and then I will give you step by step guide with pictures – for no other reason that I like to take food pictures. Here we go.
Beer Braised Beef Stew Recipe
Total time – about 3 hours. Prep time: 40-50 minutes, Cooking time: 2 hours
5 lb of beef – you can use any cut. If you will use a very lean cut, you might have to increase the cooking time until meat is tender
4 medium onions
half a cup of garlic (adjust to your liking)
1 Sicilian eggplant (replace with any other eggplant or skip altogether)
1 can/bottle of beer, 330 oz – you can use any beer, but I would suggest that it should have some intensity to it – lager is good, porter is good too.
Olive oil (any oil you use for frying)
1 teaspoon of Smoked Paprika
Salt, Pepper to taste
1 teaspoon of the Kosher Salt or any other large grain salt
You initial step includes a bit of slicing and dicing. You will need to peel and slice the onions:
Yep, crying is part of it:
While you are at it, you can also slice the Sicilian eggplant:
Slice it into the small cubes, put into a bowl, add the kosher salt, mix together and let it stand for 15-20 minutes. The salt will make the eggplant to lose some of the water, so it will be a bit faster at cooking.
Prepare the garlic – you can use the whole cloves, only break them slightly with the knife:
Add olive oil to the pan, put it up at the medium heat, and start sauteing the onions with garlic, turning them periodically, for about 15-20 minutes, or until the onion gains color and becomes soft and translucent:
In parallel, you should start searing the meat. I’m using here a beef stew cut from the store – of course you can cut the piece of beef on your own. We need to sear the meat to get rid of all the unnecessary liquid and to gain the nice color. From here on, I’m using my favorite cooking vessel, the enameled cast iron casserole. To sear the meat, you will need to add oil and then put on the high heat – how high the heat should be depends on your stove. I have an electric stove, and if I will heat up the cast iron on the highest setting, the food will burn before it will sear, so I have to adjust it accordingly – but you do need high heat for searing.
You can add salt, pepper and smoked paprika, and continue searing for about 15-20 minutes, turning once:
And now, it is the beer time! Well, you can take a sip, if you want, but remember, you need this beer for cooking:
At this point ( we are at about 20 minutes into our cooking process), the onions should be ready the meat is seared, so you can first pour the beer into the casserole dish, and use it as a deglazing agent. Add onions to the meat, reduce heat to medium, cover casserole with the lid and let it be.
Add olive oil to the pan which is now freed up, put the eggplant and saute for about 15-20 minutes, or until it softens up and gains color:
Add the eggplant to the casserole, replace the lid and let it cook for about two hours or until the beef is tender, stirring periodically.
And you are done! Your dish should look similar to this:
Beef stew works well with lots of starch options. Serve over (or with) boiled potatoes, mashed potatoes, rice, pasta, buckwheat – anything your heart desires.
That concludes our picture presentation of the recipe. I hope you will find this dish easy enough to make, and if you will end up making it or have done something similar before – let me know. Until the next time – cheers!
Simple Recipes: Roasted Chicken Breast
I’m sure that a concept of a “simple” recipe is largely individual. For me, it means that you have a few ingredients, and the actual prep time is rather short. Actual cooking can be short, long or very long, like the beef brisket I shared with you a while ago – but the actual cooking time doesn’t affect the difficulty level of making the dish.
The dish I’m talking about today perfectly fits the bill – very few ingredients, very simple to make. Why am I talking here about something as banal as roasted chicken breast? I love the ultimate flexibility of this dish. Without changing the complexity for a bit, you are limited only by your imagination in the way the dish will taste, and also in the ways you can use it.
It just happened to be that I’m mostly responsible for making the school lunch for my daughter (sometimes she would make it herself, but I was unable to solidify that tendency). One of the easiest and most convenient items to make is a wrap. And we were making the wraps for the long time with Costco’s pre-sliced roasted turkey breast. The Costco product tastes fine, but I always wondered, how much preservatives do you need to make something like pre-sliced turkey breast to last for at least two weeks after it is opened (try that with regular deli meat – but please don’t share the experience). At some point, we decided that we have to try something different. Almost a revelation, but we recalled that a few times we roasted chicken breast, and it would perfectly fit the purpose of the “sandwich meat”. From that moment on, this simple roasted chicken breast proven its versatility many times. Now, let me give you recipe first and then we can talk about a few possible uses.
Roasted Chicken Breast:
- Prep time – 5 minutes, cooking time – about 50 minutes
- 3 lb chicken breast (about 3 large pieces)
- Dry herbs or any rub spices
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- salt, pepper – according to the individual taste
- cooking time – about 50 minutes ( assume 15 minutes per pound) at 375F
Cooking instructions: Take chicken breast, put it the bowl, add herbs, spices, salt, pepper and olive oil. Mix together, cover with plastic, refrigerate for few hours if desired. Pre-heat oven at 375F. Arrange chicken breast on the roasting pan, put in the oven and cook uncovered for about 15 minutes per pound. When done – take out, let it cool down. Voila – your roasted chicken breast is ready to be used for many possible applications. Here is the same recipe in the form of pictures:
Chicken breast, ready to be prepared
Herbes de Provence, salt, pepper, olive oil – simple
Spices applied – you can marinate, or cook right away
Ready to roast
And we are done!
Again, my real point here is to give you an idea of the dish, which can be taken in many possible directions:
- you can substitute the spices with anything your heart desires – BBQ rub, chipotle, spicy paprika, cajun – anything you can think of
- instead of using dry spices and oil, you can use marinades – mayo with mustard, wine, yogurt and garlic, anything you like.
Once the chicken breast is cooked, you are looking at multiple uses as well:
- as cold cuts – we usually make a few flavors for the parties
- in sandwiches and wraps
- top the salad
- chop it into the tiny pieces and make filling/topping for tartlets, pies, etc.
The last (and almost unbeatable) important factor for me – where I live, it is still possible to buy boneless chicken breast for $1.99/lb – compare that with the price of deli meats…
Anyway, I’m done here. I wonder what you think about this simple dish, and if you have your “staple of simplicity” in your home cooking – comment away. And be assured (or scared) – I have more simple recipes to share with you. Until that time – cheers!
Simplicity, Brisket and Wine
I recently came across the post by The Food and Wine Hedonist, where he was talking about the fundraiser party he cooked for. One of the dishes he made was beef brisket sandwiches (I think the name “pulled beef brisket” should be the most suitable). In the comment to that post, I mentioned that beef brisket is one of my favorite dishes to make, and promised to share the recipe in the near future.
Beef brisket is one of the traditional dishes on the menu for Rosh Hashanah, Jewish New Year which we celebrated a few days ago, hence I took the opportunity to take a few pictures and share the recipe.
One of my favorite things about cooking beef brisket is simplicity (this is why “simplicity” is a part of the title). The simplicity is associated with the cooking of beef brisket in many ways – it is both simple to prepare and simple to cook, with virtually no possibility of ruining it.
The recipe I’m talking about here is a dry rub based (there are many ways of cooking the beef brisket, of course). Basically, the cooking consist of a few simple steps – rub the brisket with spices ( anything goes!), wrap in foil, refrigerate overnight, take it out, put it in the oven for 6-7 hours at a low temperature, get it out and enjoy. That’s it. If you want a bit more details, here it is
- Prep time – 10 minutes, cooking time – 3 – 6 hours
- Beef brisket, trimmed of excess fat, any size – size will only be essential for the cooking time
- Dry rub spices – anything your heart desires – garlic powder, chipotle, chili powder, paprika, salt, pepper, etc – again, the amount should be proportional to the size of brisket
- Dry fruit – dried apricots, figs, prunes
- optional – baby carrots,
- 1/2 to the whole bottle of red wine (can be replaced with broth or just water) – amount depends on how much brisket you are cooking.
- cooking time – 45 min per pound, 300F
Cooking instructions: Take brisket, trim excessive fat. Rub with any spices or spice mixes you desire (see picture below – yes, I know, I went a little too far), wrap in the foil, refrigerate overnight. Take the brisket out of the fridge about 2 hours before cooking, just to let it warm up. Preheat oven to 300F. Take a cooking pan, put dried fruits and carrots (if using) on the bottom. Unwrap the brisket and put into the pan, fat side up. Add wine ( or any liquid you are using) – you need it to prevent brisket from drying up during the long cooking time. Cover baking dish with foil and put into the oven. Cook for about 45 minutes per pound. Take out of the oven periodically and braise the brisket with cooking liquid. When done, let it rest for 10 minutes. Cut brisket across the grain with the sharp knife. Serve with boiled potatoes or any other starch of your choice. Additionally, if you made too much brisket, you can use leftovers to make pulled brisket sliders – break it apart using fork or fingers, add BBQ sauce and put it on the buns.
Now, below are the same cooking instructions in the form of pictures:
Beef brisket, excessive fat trimmed
Spices for dry rub – anything you have in your pantry
Brisket in the foil, covered with rub
wrap completely in foil and refrigerate overnight
prepare the pan with dried fruit on the bottom
Put in brisket, add dried fruit on top. Add wine
6 hours later …done! Brisket is ready for your enjoyment
I don’t know what you think, but this is a really simple recipe as far as I see it.
And of course there was wine:
Recanati and Vitkin
Twice a year, my wine selection conundrum ( what to open, what to open) is resolved with ease – for Passover and Rosh Hashanah, the choice is simple – it should be an Israeli wine. This year I opened two bottles, from two well-known producers – Recanati and Vitkin.
2008 Recanati Red Wine – I don’t read Hebrew, and this wine came directly from Israel, so there is not a thing I can tell you about the grape composition of this wine. Red fruit on the nose, a touch of warm spices on the palate, some blackberries and plums, tannins are barely noticeable, medium finish. Okay wine, but really nothing special. Drinkability: 7
2006 Vitkin Cabernet Franc (14% ABV, 86% Cabernet Franc, 14% Petite Verdot, aged 14 months in small oak barrels) – outstanding. You know, some wines you define as “a lot going on”. And some wines demonstrate singular perfection. This Cabernet Franc wine had this singular perfection – Cassis all the way. A perfect bouquet of Cassis on the nose. Same on the palate – luscious, soft and rolling mouthfeel (this wine is unfiltered), pronounced Cassis notes with an addition of dark chocolate, supple tannins, firm structure and cutting acidity in the back, perfectly balanced, with the long finish. Definitely belongs to the “dangerous wines” category. Drinkability: 8+
And we are done here! While the wines might be difficult to find in the US (but Vitkin is definitely worth asking for by name), I hope that at least you can put a brisket recipe to good use. If you will decide to make it, drop me a note – I will be really curious to know what do you think. And until the next time – cheers!
Perfect Winter Fare – Shiraz and Cassoulet
You can call it “play it for Australia” (with a little bit of France). Or you can just call it Shiraz tasting. Whatever the name is, but a few months ago (actually, right after the hurricane Sandy – it was a miracle that we didn’t lose an electricity) we got together for a Shiraz blind tasting and the dinner.
For the blind tasting, we had two limitations imposed. First, the bottle was supposed to say “Shiraz” on it. Yes, of course Shiraz and Syrah are the same grapes, but – this was a limitation number one. Limitation number two (a soft one) – preferably, the Shiraz shouldn’t be coming from Barossa region. You wonder why? Easy. I had a couple of bottles in mind, all from Barossa, so I wanted others to do the hard work. Ahh, yes – and no blends were allowed – only 100% Shiraz.
Before we started the tasting, I threw in a monkey wrench. Doesn’t sound right talking about wine, does it? So the role of this allegorical wrench was played by Frank Cornelissen Contadino 8 wine. Frank Cornelissen makes very interesting wines in Sicily – natural, low intervention wines from the grapes growing on volcanic soils of Etna. His aspiration is to let people actually to taste the soil, the actual stones in his wines, and he is probably succeeding with that (here is the link which explains the wine making philosophy – I think it is worth reading). This wine literally represents a very distinct experience – outside of acidity and minerality, there is very little else which you can taste – nevertheless, it is an interesting wine to try (well, I’m not sure we got too many votes of approval for this wine from the group, but still). Okay, let’s get back to the Shiraz.
The tasting was blind. Of course all the wines were Shiraz, but the blind tasting format allows you to focus only on the wine in your glass – no matter who producer is, how cute the animal is on the label (no, I didn’t expect anyone to pull off the Yellow Tail stunt, but thinking about it now, it could’ve been interesting), did someone tasted the wine before or who brought the bottle.
We had 6 wines in the tasting. As the tasting is blind, the person who brings the bottle, gets to open it and puts it in the brown bag. Then we ask kids to stick the numbers on the bags, completely at random. The wines are poured in the numbered glasses, and the fun begins.
Shiraz is usually quite a playful wine when it comes to the fruit expressions, so this time we decided to add an interesting touch to our tasting – put the fruits on the table. We had raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and couple of different plums in the glasses, slightly smashed to release the flavor. The intent was to use those fruits as a reference while smelling and tasting the wine and to be able to identify what we were tasting. Not sure if it was a successful experiment, but as the very least it was fun.
Now everybody are at the table and we start the tasting – sniff, swirl, sniff, more swirling, taste – talking and taking notes at the same time – no, there is no requirement to participate in conversation, but it is part of fun! And the notes are helpful at the end, when we take a popular vote to identify the most favorite wine of the group. Each person can vote for two wines, and the wine which will score the highest, will win. I case of a draw, we take an additional vote to select only one favorite between the two, so we still will have a winner – this all is necessary to have then a culmination point of unwrapping the winner and listening to the collective “ahh?” as pretty much in all of our blind tastings the winning wine was a complete surprise to everyone, including the person who brought the wine.
Once we have a winner, all the wines get unwrapped and admired, and everybody count their surprises for a few minutes. Here is our line up from this tasting:
And here are the notes:
1. 2006 Domaine Terlato & Chapoutier lieu dit Malakoff Shiraz Pyrenees (13.5% ABV) – little smoke, blueberries, a bit tart, very restrained. Not a typical Australian Shiraz.
2. 2005 Oliverhill “Jimmy Section” Shiraz McLaren Vale (96RP, no ABV as my label was badly damaged) – a little dust, tart cherries on the nose, blueberries, very sweet on the palate, jammy, a little short on the finish, overall pleasant.
3. 2004 d’Arenberg The Footbolt Shiraz McLaren Vale (14.5% ABV) – interesting blackberries, very tart, not balanced.
4. 2010 Molly Dooker Blue Eyed Boy Shiraz Australia (16.5% ABV) – very nice, dark chocolate, jammy, blackberries, dusty nose, overall very balanced.
5. 2010 Jim Barry the lodge hill Shiraz Clare Valley (14.5% ABV) – very round, balanced, plums on the nose.
6. 2010 Eden Road The Long Road Shiraz Canberra District Australia (13.5% ABV) – Smells very young, but with the tannins in the back. Good dark fruit.
Can you guess the winning wine? I will give you a few moments.
And the winning wine was…
And the winning wine was…
And the winning wine was …
2010 Molly Dooker Blue Eyed Boy Shiraz Australia – the wine got 8 popular votes out of 10. In the second place with 5 votes out of 10 was 2005 Oliverhill “Jimmy Section” Shiraz McLaren Vale – interestingly enough, this wine has a very high rating of Robert Parker ( 96), and expected maturity in 2011 – 2018 – I guess we opened it prematurely… Oh well.
And now – dinner time!
Did you notice the title of this post? Yep, the cassoulet was involved. No, it was probably not cold enough yet, and cassoulet is a dish from south of France, so Cote du Rhone wines would be typically more appropriate – but, cassoulet is one of my all time favorite dishes to make (and to eat too), so you got to do what you want to do, right?
I fell in love with cassoulet during one of my trips to Geneva a while ago. White beans, pork, duck, lamb, sausage – all so succulent and so “together”, a perfectly heart, soul and body warming dish. I tried to find it in the restaurants in US, but never succeeded. Then at some point I came across an article about Cassoulet in Wall Street Journal, which also contained Alain Ducasse recipe – this was a turning moment when I started making it myself. I don’t know what any other cassoulet aficionados would think, but to me it tastes the closest to those I admired in Geneva.
I would like to share the recipe with you – which is mostly Alain Ducasse recipe (here is a link to the article and recipe on WSJ site) – I made certain adaptations which don’t sacrifice the taste, in my opinion, but make it easier to prepare.
Here is list of ingredients – as copied from the original recipe – with my comments.
For the beans:
1.5 lb Tarbais beans or white kidney beans (I’m talking about beans below)
3 carrots
1 celery stalk
1 onion
2 heads of garlic
1 tomato? ( well, in the original recipe there is a mention of tomato being diced – but then it is not used for anything – therefore, I just don’t use it)
Salt
For the meat:
4 sweet Italian sausages
1 lb pork ribs
½ lb garlic sausage
1 lb lamb shoulder
1 lb pork belly
4 duck legs confit
4 qt. chicken stock
3 carrots
1 celery stalk
1 onion
1 head of garlic (I just use garlic cloves here)
1 tomato
2 Tbsp tomato paste
2 sprigs thyme
1 Bay leaf
Salt
12 whole black peppercorns
Cassoulet starts with beans. The subject of proper beans for the cassoulet can almost reach the level of religious war. The original recipe of Alain Ducasse calls for so called Tarbais beans. Good luck finding them here. May be you can order them in advance, but this is a bit too much preparedness for me. So we need a substitute. What’s important is to find beans which will sustain very long cooking time, but will not become a mush – you are looking to see and taste actual beans and not some kind of paste. I successfully used so called Great Northern beans, which can be found in supermarkets, and I believe so called Navy beans will work too, but I don’t remember trying them.
The process starts from soaking the beans overnight in a cold water. The actual cooking starts next day – but you still can do a few things in advance.
The recipe calls for duck leg confit. If you look into the recipes for duck confit, cooking it is a very lengthy process on its own. Buying duck confit is possible, but it is hard to find a supermarket which carries it. I successfully replaced duck confit with just fresh duck legs. Sometimes, finding the duck legs can be a problem too. This was my case this time. Well, when you want a cassoulet, you have to do whatever it takes… Duck flavor profile (gamey, nutty, etc. – you know how the duck tastes) is essential – replacing duck with chicken is not really an option. My solution – using the whole duck. I got the whole duck, cut it up into pieces, leaving the skin on legs and wings, but otherwise removing it together with the fat – there is way too much fat in the duck. I fried the duck in the evening, preserving all of rendered fat together with all the meat, so it was ready to go the next day.
Before we talk about the whole process, let me give you an idea about the sizing. I used 2 pounds of beans, cut up meat from the whole average size duck, about a pound of pork country style ribs, pound of Italian sausage (usually 5 pieces), about a pound of chicken garlic sausage, about a pound of lamb chops (4 large pieces). Instead of pork belly, I used one package of “bacon ends” from Trader Joe’s which were fried the day before. All together, this was enough to feed well 10 or so hungry adults, with some leftovers. Now, lets get back to the cooking.
In the morning, step one was to cook beans. Drain the water from overnight, put beans in the pot together with celery, carrots, garlic and the onion, season, cover with cold water and simmer for about 1.5 hours or until beans are tender but not falling apart. Discard carrots, celery and onion. Technically, you are supposed to discard garlic too, but I just couldn’t do it – so I reused it for the next step.
While beans are cooking, you can start working on the meat. First you will need to roast all the meat separately. I use the cast iron pot (you can also use a heavy skillet), and sear all the meat in batches – you will need to season it with salt and pepper. You really want meat to achieve a nice sear, so note that this operation will take time (usually it takes me about 1.5 hours using the amounts mentioned above). Once all the meat is seared by itself, add duck (whether you are using duck confit or the whole duck prepared the day before), add bacon ( unless you will use the pork belly), add diced vegetables and let it roast for another 10 minutes. Then I put together herbs, bay leaf and peppercorns into a cheese cloth, tie it up and use it as Bouquet garni – i.e., put it inside (this way you can remove it all together so nobody need to chase down that peppercorn out of the dish). Now, add broth, cover and let it simmer for about 1.5 hours.
Once done, strain cooking liquid into the beans and put all the meat on the cutting board and let it rest for about 20 minutes or so. Remove and discard all the bones, and cut up meat into large pieces.
We are ready for the last step. Preheat oven for 250F. Take the cast iron pot. Put all the cut up meat on the bottom. Gently put beans with liquid on the top (again, you want to preserve beans as they are, so you will need to handle them with love). Overall, you want to to have enough liquid in the pot, but without making the whole dish looking like soup. Put a good layer of bread crumbs on top of the dish (no skimping on the bread crumbs – having a nice crust on top is one of the important elements of cassoulet). Put uncovered pot in the oven for about 45 minutes. Take the pot out. When serving, make sure to go all the way to the bottom so you will get the meat together with beans. Now, most importantly – enjoy!
Also I have to mention that we had an outstanding “single plantation” chocolate as part of our dessert – can anything pair better with Shiraz than a spicy dark chocolate?
Never heard of “single plantation” chocolate before? Don’t worry, me too – but it appears that Akesson’s has a a substantial collection of single plantation chocolates, and the one we had was absolutely incredible.
Apologies for the post gone too long, but I think I’m finally done by now. I don’t know if I convinced you to make cassoulet, open a bottle of Shiraz or find that chocolate – but if you are still here and reading this – I’m happy. Until the next time – cheers!
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