Weekly Dish

Alright, so the first three Paper Chef ingredients this month were not so exciting for me. Carrots are cute and sweet, but in my opinion, the best thing about them is their color (I love orange) and their nutritional benefits. Rice is flexible at least, and offers the possibility for many adaptations. Anchovies, though?? I am no anchovy fan. Tiny fishes packed in oil: with the exception of a Puttanesca sauce I made once, anchovies have not had a place in my pantry. The last ingredient, however, I found intriguing: “Something from the other side of the world that helps make this dish a celebration for you.” Hmmm…the other side of the world…celebration…maybe I can find a way to make this work.

So, here are the things I’m celebrating through my entry: 1. This holiday season. I love this time of year, and I love to throw a good party. This one will be my warm-up. 2. The sheer cultural variety of food traditions in the world, represented visibly by the lovely montage of culinary prowess I find in the international food blogging community. 3. People who contribute to this cultural variety in my personal life. 4. The opportunity to clean out my fridge and pantry. 5. The end of my first semester as a Ph.D. student, without the stress of which I’m sure I would not have enough pent-up creative energy to pull this off!!

How do I plan to celebrate these things, you ask? Why, through a Clean-Out-My-Fridge Holiday Cocktail Party, using the Paper Chef ingredients plus whatever I have on hand, including foods from around the world that remind me of people and cultural traditions I cherish, of course!

Actually, I had both rice and carrots already, so I picked up a tin of anchovies from the market and set about examining the culinary contents of my kitchen. Although it is possible to pinpoint the exact location of “around the world” from you, as my husband cleverly discovered, I chose to think of the term more broadly. The three places from around the world I wanted to make sure I represented are: India, as my lovely office-mate has recently arrived in the U.S. from Calcutta, and brings with her many of the country’s delicious culinary traditions (which she has been kind enough to share!); Italy, where my husband and I first learned to love food and wine together (a long time ago!); and Australia, home of this month’s distinguished Paper Chef judge, who always manages to produce some of the most unusual and creative food I’ve ever seen.

India would be easy: I usually keep basmati rice, Indian curry paste, and spices on hand. In fact, I recently bought some whole cardamom pods that were on sale at my grocer…maybe they could be of use.

Italy shouldn’t be too hard either. I cook Italian food quite a bit, and I found just the thing: half a container of mascarpone cheese left from a sauce I made last week!

Australia: Hmmm. This would be trickier. After searching my pantry high and low and researching traditional Australian ingredients, I was pretty certain I’d have to go back to the store and forsake my self-made rules. Rats.

But wait! On the wine rack there…isn’t that chardonnay made in…yes, Australia! Hooray–Yellow Tail to the rescue!

With the ingredients all in place and my party hat on, here is the menu I created:

Drunken Australian Rice Cakes with Carrot Coulis

Cardamom-Spiced Basmati Rice Pudding with Anchovy Butter

Wontons with Poblano-Mascarpone Filling

Orange Coconut Sticky Rice Brulèe

(more…)

A few weeks ago, my baby sister came to visit for the weekend. We had a great time while she was here, and for her send-off brunch on Sunday after church, I made fried chicken and biscuits. Fried chicken is really not hard to make; it just takes the willingness to get grease all over you and your kitchen. But I love it nonetheless, and I particularly like to make it for people I love.

When David and I visited his brother and wife in LA this summer, we had a southern-themed party for their friends. Among many other things, I made this chicken with Comeback Sauce, and it was a big hit. You can make the chicken without the spices in the flour, but I really like the way they pair with the flavors in the dressing. According to Mississippi chef and cookbook author Robert St. John (famous around these parts for what must be one of the best-named cookbooks ever), Comeback Sauce is an original Mississippi creation. Maybe that’s why my native Mississippi family makes it so well.

This recipe belongs to my Aunt Prissy. My family uses it for a number of things–to dip fried chicken, to spread on Saltine crackers, to dress our salad. According to legend, the sauce is so-named because it will keep you coming back for more. I don’t know if that’s true, but it sounds right to me.

Here’s the recipe for the chicken and Comeback Sauce; you can find the biscuit recipe here.

But first, here is my lovely sister, with whom I hope to share many, many good meals in the future. Come back soon Elizabeth! A recipe for the apple pie she made for dessert is soon to follow…!

PAPRIKA-SPICED FRIED CHICKEN

6 boneless chicken breasts

Buttermilk, to cover

Salt and pepper

1 c. flour

1/2 c. yellow cornmeal

1 T. paprika

1 t. seasoning salt

1 t. cumin

1 t. chili powder

Cut chicken into bite-sized pieces, salt and pepper, and soak in buttermilk for at least an hour (or overnight). To fry, heat about 1 cup of safflower or canola oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Dip chicken pieces in flour mixture and fry in batches until golden brown, about 10-15 minutes per batch. Be careful not to let chicken brown too quickly; remove from skillet to paper towels to drain when golden brown and crispy.

MISSISSIPPI COMEBACK SAUCE

2-3 cloves garlic

Half a sweet yellow onion 

1 c. mayonnaise

1/4 c. ketchup

1/4 c. chili sauce

2 T. Worcestershire sauce

1 t. yellow mustard

Kosher salt

Ground black pepper

Tabasco (a couple of dashes)

In a blender or food processor, chop the garlic and onion until finely minced. Add remaining ingredients; blend until well-combined.

This is what my Aunt Prissy had to say about this week’s theme of comfort food: “Cooking is definitely more than just an activity we do to satisfy the need of hunger. It is saying I love you, I’m sorry, Congratulations, you’ll do better next time, I understand.” I couldn’t agree more.

Chicken Pot Pie is a dish I have made often to say exactly those kinds of things; it’s place in the comfort food category has as much to do with the comfort I am giving away by making it as with the comfort I receive from doing so. Whether for a friend who has a new baby, a church pot-luck dinner, new neighbors, or the loss of a loved one, Chicken Pot Pie has been a reliable staple. It’s a safe-enough dish to satisfy even the pickiest of eaters, and kids usually like it too (especially if you cut the carrots into small enough pieces). Also, it goes a long way if you use a whole chicken, and most people I know have only had the frozen kind, so a homemade one is a real treat (sad, I know, but true!).

Different takes on the basic idea of chicken pie abound–Sara Foster and Ina Garten both make a version topped with biscuits, some people use puff pastry, other people use celery or green peas or potatoes or heavy cream. My way is pretty unfussy. When I make it for just us, for dinner, I make this recipe in a black cast-iron skillet, which dirties only one dish if the chicken is cooked already (the dishwasher around here really likes this recipe for that reason alone!) To take somewhere, I double the recipe, cook the filling in my biggest saucepan, and then dump it all in a big casserole. The key to its tasting really, truly homemade, I think, is in the stock, which imparts a richer chicken flavor than plain canned broth (but that works in a pinch too).

I’m going to give you the steps, from stock to finished pie, but I would never do this all in the same day. Usually, when I roast a chicken, I make stock from the carcass and reserve any leftover meat. This pie makes perfect use of both. If you don’t have leftovers from a whole chicken, you can always cook breast meat in water with lemons, garlic, onions, and a carrot, and make a stock that way. However you make your chicken pie, I hope you will serve it to someone who could use a plateful of comfort. In my experience, this does just the trick.

Chicken Skillet Pie

To make stock:

In a roasting pan (I use the same one the chicken was originally roasted in), roast the bones and leftover drippings at 400 degrees for about an hour, until the bones are a deep, dark brown. Scrape everything from the roasting pan into a large stockpot; cover with water. Add a lemon, quartered, an onion, quartered, and a few cloves of garlic. Salt and pepper well. Bring to a boil, and then simmer for a long time (I never time it; I just let it sit all afternoon). Strain the solids and skim off any visible fat. You can keep it refrigerated if you plan to use it soon, or freeze.

To make pie:

1/2 T. butter

1/2 T. olive oil

1 large yellow onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, sliced very thinly

1 cup sliced mushrooms

1 cup diced carrot

1 T. butter

1 T. flour

1 1/2 - 2 cups stock

1 1/2 cups cooked chicken meat, chopped

1 refrigerated pie crust

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. In a large skillet, heat the oil and butter over medium-low. Add the onions and garlic, and cook until they begin to soften, about 4 minutes. Add the mushrooms and carrots and cook, stirring, until all the vegetables are very, very tender, about 20 minutes. Salt and pepper. Scrape the vegetables to the sides of the skillet, leaving the middle of the skillet open. Add the butter and flour, and mash together quickly to form a paste. Once they have combined, then stir into the vegetables to coat. Add the stock a little at a time to thicken, stirring constantly. You don’t want it to be too thick because it will lose some of its liquid in the oven, but you don’t want a runny pie either. The liquid should begin to coat your spoon. Stir in the chicken and remove from the heat. Cut the pie crust into long strips, laying them on top of the pie in a lattice pattern. (Of course, this is optional; I just think it looks pretty!) Bake for about 35-40 minutes, or until the crust is brown and the filling is bubbly. These quantities can easily be adjusted depending on how much chicken you have and how many people you plan to feed. This recipe easily serves 4.

I love to eat risotto. It is creamy and hearty, perfectly satisfying on a cold night. What I love even more, though, is to cook risotto. In some recipes, the method is its own reward, and for me, the methodical stirring-and-adding process of making risotto is thoroughly rewarding. I think it’s because I spend so much of my time researching, writing and reading that my mind is happy for the opportunity to unwind with the motion of my wooden spoon. And that’s exactly what happens–when I have less than an hour to make dinner, this method is one I often turn to because the very act of making it relaxes me, a pretty challenging feat at this point in the semester. Nothing has to be done in a hurry, it’s versatile enough to accommodate a wide variety of flavor combinations, and I’ve never had it turn out badly. It does take concentrated time (you can’t mix everything up and stick it in the oven), and if you don’t like to stir, this isn’t the dish for you. But, in my opinion, the results are well worth the effort.

You can add any number of vegetable combinations to your risotto; for this one, I used an assortment of mushrooms and the arugula growing in my backyard. My method is based on Sara Foster’s Risotto for All Seasons, in Fresh Everyday.

Mushroom-Arugula Risotto

4 cups chicken broth

Olive oil

Butter

2 portabello mushrooms, cut into chunks

1 cup assorted other mushrooms (I used shitake and oyster)

1 cup torn arugula leaves

1 yellow onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 cups Arborio rice

1/2 cup white wine

2 ounces Fontina cheese

Salt and cracked pepper

Usually, risotto recipes call for the chicken broth to be warm (Foster says to bring it to a simmer in a saucepan), but I forgot to do that last time I made it and it turned out just fine. Omitting this step gets one less dish dirty, and my husband always appreciates that, so I’m cutting out that step (but I feel the need to tell you about it, in case you are a strictly-follow-the-recipe kind of cook). In a very large saucepan or skillet, melt the butter (about a tablespoon) and olive oil (about 2 tablespoons) together over medium heat. Add the mushrooms and cook until tender. Remove the mushrooms with a slotted spoon. Add the onion and garlic to the skillet and cook until translucent and tender, about 5 minutes. Add the rice, and stir constantly until the grains move easily around the skillet and shimmer a little, about 2 minutes. Now you start the stirring-and-adding process. Start with the wine: add it to the rice and stir (slowly and methodically, to maximize the therapeutic aspects!) until most of the liquid is absorbed (the rice will begin to sizzle a little in the pan, signaling that it’s time to add more liquid). Salt and pepper between liquid additions. Next, add the chicken broth, about 1/2 cup at a time, following the same procedure. When you are nearing the end of the chicken stock, the risotto should be creamy and the rice pieces should be tender (not terribly hard to the bite). Stir in the mushrooms and half of the arugula at this point, adding more broth if you need to. You can also put a lid on it and steam it for a few minutes if the rice still doesn’t taste done. Mine always takes right around 20 minutes total (from when I add the first liquid to the last). Last, stir in the cheese. Serve with the remaining arugula on top.