Bunny dinner

I eat a lot of things that are considered iffy or even downright questionable here on the west coast. I'm not particularly squeamish or sentimental about food or animals, although I prefer that any animals that are rasied for food are raised and killed under humane conditions. If you think that rabbits make better pets than dinner, you may want to skip this post.

I like French food. Thus, I am ever drawn to dishes than include things like foie gras, and happy to eat steak tartare (from a reputable source, of course), and my enthusiasm for duck is well documented. Another favourite has got to be rabbit. My usual preparation for rabbit is Lapin Dijon, which is baked in a sauce featuring white wine, shallots, and of course Dijon mustard. It is a dish that goes particularly well with freshly roasted asparagus, and to me is suggestive of spring, although I'm not ruling out some unhealthy connection with Easter running through my ragged little brain.


I am fortunate in that Palle shares my culinary partialities, because while I know some couples who have wildly divergent dietary preferences are able to overcome the hurdle and live happily ever after, I don't know that I could do the same thing. I certainly wouldn't want to have to. Not only is he interested in eating good food, however, he's also interested in cooking it.

Armed with a copy of Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook, he set about making Lapin aux olives, a dish where the olives are so plentiful as to count as a vegetable rather than a garnish. This recipe also marked a first-foray into the world of demi-glace - the using thereof, rather than the making - and the resulting dish is entirely his. My main contribution was to dig out the instructions that I had made for him on the way to cook a perfect pot of jasmine rice, and to ask him if the tiny green picholine olives had come pitted; they had not. Fortunately, there was enough lagtime in the simmering process to give him time to get to work with on the olives, but it was certainly time well spent.
The recipe called for the hind legs only, and served four. Therfore, two rabbits were called for, and the remaining rabbit pieces are currently sitting in the freezer while we dither over whether to try the luscious-looking recipe from Book A, or the simple elegance of the one from Book B. At the moment, the forerunners are my new book Bones by Jennifer McLagan, and the always- wonderful D'Artagnan's Glorious Game Cookbook. I'll keep you posted with the winner, as always.

Of Jerks and Yams

I should really let Palle write most of this entry, as it features his signature dish - a five star, five-alarm, tangy, fierce, and delicious jerk chicken. He makes the sauce from scratch - no pre-mixed seasonings or ready-pour fixings. It's just the man, the knife, and the blender and ingredients such as fresh limes, green onions, a boatload of allspice, and the all-important habanero peppers. He has been perfecting the dish for a while - trying it out on willing, yet oh-so-unsuspecting friends, tweaking the amounts of vinegar and ginger root, and coming to the understanding that the end product is irretrievably linked to the quality (and heat) of the peppers.

I know that there are other things that one can "jerk" in the kitchen. Pork is quite popular down in the islands, and I suspect that a pork tenderloin baked in jerk sauce would be a real winner. Goat and lamb are also obvious choices - lamb being a little bit easier to source in my neighbourhood. Somehow, to this point, we have only managed to jerk chicken. In its defence, it is an outstanding combination - very much a classic dish.

It is a funny thing - a twitch, if you will - where it is virtually impossible for me to throw out leftover sauces. I scrape them into little plastic containers and stack them in the fridge for future use. Way back when I checked out Food Ninja's Jamaican Beef Patties, the sauce that I bumped mine up with was leftover jerk sauce that had been carefully hoarded against such an eventual need. I've also used leftover jerk sauce variously to add kick to bean dishes and casseroles and, quite memorably, as a pasta sauce. The pasta sauce worked so well, in fact, with only a little cream added to mitigate the heat, that tonight's leftovers will likely meet the same fate later this week. This time, however, there is a little chicken left over, too, which will make for quite a splendid re-working. All I really need to do is pick a pasta shape.

I'm surprised that we haven't used pasta as a side dish for jerk before, actually. We tend to rely heavily on a rotation of side dishes that might include several of: rice, cuban-style black beans (or replace both of those with Jamaican Style Rice & Beans), cole slaw, ceviche, and yams.


I have never had a bad instinct, when it comes to yams - well, those yams which are actually orange-fleshed sweet-potatoes, that is. I've been happy to eat them prepared pretty much any way they are presented to me, but it is only recently that I have added them to my repertoire with any real frequency. They were predominantly a holiday item at our table, baked and served with brown sugar and black pepper, and I have always been happy to eat them.

A culinary epiphany on Christmas day a few years ago led me to the creation of a holiday yam dish that was quite fresh and different from those that I had eaten before: I baked the peeled, cubed yams in mixed-citrus juice with whole spices - cinnamon, star anise, cloves, and allspice. They were tasty, and a pleasant change from the more sugary ones I was accustomed too. They became a Christmas tradition for us.

Over the last few years, I have ventured out more and more as I seek to find ways to make my meals not only healthier, but more delicious than ever before. I started adding yams to soups and curries, and was quite pleased with the results. I started sprinkling baked yam halves with ground cumin, salt and black pepper instead of sugar or butter, and this became a low-fuss favourite. Last year began my fascination with oven-baked yam fries, which has intensified now that I'm eating less white potatoes than I used to. It is amazing, what a little cumin seed and chili powder can do for a simple baked yam.

Today, I had another aberrant thought. Last week, while attending a gala dinner at a museum, I was served a tasty little tapas dish of fig-stuffed pork tenderloin over maple yam puree. As a still somewhat new yam enthusiast, I was delighted at the idea. The pork was tender and juicy, and nicely accented by the figs. The yam puree, however, was not up to snuff. It was grainy and fibrous, and leaked water into the bottom of the plate. The strong maple flavour sharpened the sweetness of a vegetable that does not need help in the sweetness department. It was, all in all, a disappointment.

So, since Palle was making jerk chicken for dinner, and since some sort of yam is a favourite accompaniment to jerk chicken, I set about re-inventing the yam puree. Nothing sweet was to be added, I told myself, and something has to be done about the texture.

I peeled and diced the yams and set them to steam and become soft enough to mash. A little chopped garlic sauteed in a tiny amount of butter was prepared on the side and topped liberally with ground cumin and left to infuse while the roots finished cooking - which didn't take long. I drained the tender cubes of yam and scraped the garlicky, cuminy butter into them, and set about vigorously mashing. Despite having chopped up the yam in its raw state, there were still disconcerting fibers. I finished the flavouring with a couple of tablespoons of coconut cream powder, and added just a little water to the pot. Still a bit grainy, still leaking a bit of water. I stared at the immersion blender for a moment, shrugged off the possibility that it would completely destroy the dish by rupturing too many starch molecues, and put it in motion. Immediately, the graininess disappeared and the liquid integrated into a smooth, velvety, luscious puree. I had found the answer. I only wish I had made more. Guess what we're having next time there's a jerk in our kitchen?

The Things You've Been Missing

While I was unable to post during the Great Computer Crash of '06, I was certainly still cooking. I'm dedicating my next few posts to catching up on some of the things that simmer, baked, stewed, and burbled out of my kitchen during the latter half of January/early February.

Chicken and Dumplings is one of those peculiarly regional dishes that varies so much from location to location that it sometimes seems that the only constant is the chicken - and even then, it can have almost infinite variations of cut, bone, and procedure. As for the dumplings - my goodness, there are an aweful lot of things out there going by the name "dumpling." I've seen everything from dumplings that incorporate some of the chicken inside them, to matzo balls, to something thin, slick, and almost noodle like. I, myself, have been known to substitute a good biscuit, rising tall and turning golden and firm in the oven, but I think of that as a separate dish.

My own dumplings are the same as my mother's. Simple, minimal ingredients of flour, salt, baking powder, a little fat and a little milk - some fresh green herbs, if I can get them (even if only parsley). They are dolloped in small spoonfuls over a gently simmering stew - in this case a stew of boneless chicken, shiitake mushrooms, a few root vegetables and some celery and onions - and covered tightly for the 15 minutes it takes for them to puff up into perfect little balls of bread-y goodness.

The fat that I am most likely to use for dumplings is rendered chicken fat. I keep a mug of it in the door of the freezer (alongside, I confess, similar mugs of bacon fat, duck fat, and goose fat), simply pouring the fat away from roast chickens from time to time so that I can use it when a little fat is called for and the chicken flavour will be an asset. These dumplings are the perfect use for it. A mere tablespoon of chicken fat in a cup of flour yields light and fluffy dumplings with just a hint of savoury chicken accent. A little hit of comfort in the long nights of winter.

My freezer full of mugs of fat is probably a separate story all by itself - a stash borne of the habit of frugality and the sure knowledge that these frozen treasures add a depth of flavour and character to my dishes that is simply impossible to find using good ol' canola or olive oil.

Back in the Saddle Again

I'm back, baby! The main Always in the Kitchen site has finally been updated. Check out the essay for Winter Weather, or the recipe for Creamy Pink Pasta - pictured above with an optional crumbled bacon topping. Excellent in mini-portions as an appetiser for your favourite Italian dish, or as a main course.

I hope to get back to the fortnightly updates - my publishing schedule will return to Wednesday nights, which means that the next update should be on March 1. This blog, of course, I will continue to update on my usual irregular basis.

Love is all you need - but a little spice never hurts

This post was written for From My Rasoi - Cooking for Love, where Meena knows that "A way to one's heart is through their tummy."

Okay, I'm - dare I say? - cheating (just a little) with this one, but only in that I'm not actually cooking Indian food for Valentine's Day dinner. If I were, though, this is what I would make. This is a simplified Chicken Korma that can be easily put together by even the most distracted cook, and yields a creamy, mildly spicy dish that warms your heart on its way to your stomach.
The boneless chicken cooks in the richly scented gravy to a silky tenderness, and the occasional burst of flavour from one of the few whole cloves or cardamom pods makes each bite take on a slightly different but equally delicious character.

I have adapted this from Quick and Easy Indian Cooking by the inimitable Madhur Jaffrey. In the picture, the chicken pieces are perhaps a little larger than ideal, but a bit too large is preferable to chopped too small. Pieces the size of a walnut in its shell are good.

Quick Chicken Korma

1 1/2" fresh ginger, peeled & roughly chopped
6 cloves garlic
4 tablespoons canola oil
3 bay leaves
2" cinnamon stick
8 cardamom pods (green)
4 whole cloves
1/4 teaspoon whole cumin seed
1 small onion (about the size of a lime) chopped finely
1 tablespoon ground coriander seed
1 tablespoon ground cumin seed
2/3 cup canned diced tomatoes
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, raw, diced slightly large
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3 tablespoons cream

Grind the peeled garlic and ginger into a smooth paste in a blender or mini-prep, adding a little water if necessary.

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add bay leaves, cinnamon stick, cardamom pods, cloves, and whole cumin seed. Stir until it starts to pop, then add the finely chopped onion. Stir well, and cook until the onion gets a little translucent, with browned edges. Add the coriander and ground cumin, and stir and fry for about 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes, and stir and fry for 30 seconds, then add the diced chicken, the cayenne, the salt, and the water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and allow to simmer, uncovered for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add cream, and cook for another 8 - 10 minutes, stirring as needed until sauce becomes thick.

Serve with basmati rice, or flatbread.

Serves either 4 for dinner or 2 for dinner, with enough leftovers for 2 lunches the next day. I had to defend my leftovers with threatening fork-movements and a wild look in my eye.

Lovely Lemon Loaf

I'm very fond of citrus, and lemons are constantly jockeying for position with limes as to who reigns supreme. I was rattling around the kitchen, wanting to make something different for lunchboxes, when I noticed that there were a couple of lemons begging to be used. I put aside all notions of buttermilk coffeecakes and chocolate snack cakes, and even shrugged off the faint thought of gingerbread in favour of something that I actually have not made in a very long time.

I don't know what I was thinking. It's a fabulous treat, and it is quite low fat and easy to make. It's only a small loaf, so it will disappear in no time flat, but if you're wanting to prolong it's shelf life, it freezes beautifully, too. Cut into slices and wrap well with plastic wrap, and tuck into the freezer. If you do this enough times with enough different little bits of baking, you'll have quite a selection to choose from when it's time to throw lunch in a sac and run to work. Completely defrosted and fresh as a daisy (more or less, your opinion of daisies may vary) by coffee break.

Lemon Loaf
Adapted from Anne Lindsay's "Lighthearted Everyday Cooking"

1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup soft margarine
1 egg
2 tablespoons low-fat vanilla or lemon yogurt
1/2 cup milk(1%)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
zest of a lemon
1 teaspoon real lemon extract
pinch of salt

Glaze:
juice of a lemon
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Spritz a small (8x4") loaf pan well with canola oil and set aside. Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a large bowl, cream the margarine and sugar together. Add the egg and yogurt, and beat well until very pale and light-textured. Beat in the lemon zest. Add the milk and blend until thoroughly incorporated.

Mix together the flour, salt, and baking powder. Beat carefully into the wet mixture until just barely blended - you don't want to overmix it and get tunnels. Scrape the batter into your prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake for 1 hour, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let the cake stand in the pan for 3 minutes, while you make up the glaze.

Mix together the lemon juice and sugar very thoroughly. After the three minutes of the cake "resting" are up, pour the glaze evenly over the entire cake. In a few minutes, the cake will soak up all of the sweetened lemon juice. Let stand another ten minutes, and remove cake from pan. Allow the cake to cool completely, uncovered. Once cool, store in a cake-safe and use as needed.

This actually makes a lovely dessert, if treated like a pound cake - berries and freshly whipped cream, or a little ice cream - even a raspberry sorbet would be lovely.

Attention Subscribers!

Just in case I'm not able to successfully extract my mailing list from the crashed computer, please note:

If you were (or would like to be) a subscriber to the email mailing list notifying you of updates to the main Always in the Kitchen site, and you would like to continue to receive updates, please email me and let me know, so that I can add your email back into the list.

My apologies for the technological screw-uppedness.

Thanks!

Hummus / Hommus / Hoummos

I never really know quite how to spell it. Certainly, some of the variety of spelling comes from whether you are translating from Greek, Arabic, Armenian, Hebrew, or any of the languages from throughout the regions where the dish is consumed. I tend toward the most popular spelling, hummus, but I'm happy to eat it in any language.

Hummus is fantastically cheap and easy to make, and a little goes a long way. It is a favourite snack, alongside vegetables or pita bread for dipping, or smeared across a tortilla in a callous disregard for each cuisine's autonomy - or, fusion, as we like to say here on the west coast. I even have it on toast, for breakfast now and then. It packs easily for lunches, makes a terrific afterschool/work snack, and if you don't use an enormous amount of olive oil, it's a fairly healthy way to sneak a little non-meat protein into your life, your kids, your household. Plus, with raw garlic in there, I'm convinced that I'm getting some great health benefits, too.

There are an awful lot of different recipes out there, too. I've tried a lot of variations: with tahini, with nut-butter, with green herbs, with a miscellany of spices. I've made it fat-free, low fat, high fat, and with yoghurt. I tried Orangette's White Bean Hummus to my great delight, and I am quite likely to make a batch of hummus starting from dried chickpeas that I cook myself. However, I like to keep a can or two of the beans in my pantry, so that I can whip this most simple one up at almost literally a moment's notice. It's a lot leaner than the varieties that you get in Greek restaurants, but that's my intention. I'm happy to eat the rich stuff when I go out; at home, I want a dependable, tasty workhorse-recipe that doesn't go straight for the thighs.

Hummus from the Pantry

1 19 oz. can of chickpeas/garbanzo beans, drained - liquid reserved
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 lemon - juice only
1 tablespoon the best-tasting extra virgin olive oil you can afford (optional)
pinch ground cumin
pinch ground cayenne

In the belly of your food-processor, blender, or Multi-Quick chopper container (guess what I got for Christmas?), place the drained chickpeas, peeled garlic, lemon juice, spices, and olive oil. Pulse, chop, or blend on a low setting until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add about 1/3 cup of reserved liquid from the chickpeas, and process again. Stop, scrape the edges of the bowl, and continue to process until the mixture is smooth and creamy. If the mixture is very, very thick, add a little more of either the reserved liquid or fresh water, and continue to process.

If you are not using the olive oil, you will need to add a little extra water/liquid, as the dip will firm up considerably in the fridge. The goal is for a creamy consistency about the thickness of a sour cream-based chip dip, or a loose mayonnaise.

Taste, adjust for seasoning if necessary (I seldom add salt if I am using canned chickpeas) and remove to a lidded container to store in the fridge until needed. This makes about two cups.

Serve in a bowl with a sprinkle of cayenne or paprika, and, if you're feeling fancy, a little anointing of olive oil. Provide flatbreads or vegetables to scoop it up.

If you are using a blender, you will probably have to stop and scrape a little more than if you are using one of the other tools, but you will get a very fine texture, which is to be prized.

Jamaican Chicken Stew

Still not able to post new photos (soon, I hope!) but I did manage to find an unposted photo that I had stored elsewhere than my computer. This is a dish that I make quite often - it's quick, it depends on staple ingredients from my pantry, and it is delicious. It's also extraordinarily healthy, being both very low-fat and chock-full of antioxidant black beans.

There are a lot of recipes kicking around the web for Jamaican Chicken Stew and I suppose that mine isn't radically different from the others out there, but I do prefer it with my own little adjustments. I originally took the recipe from the first Cooking Light Soups & Stews collection, and added/changed/tweaked as necessary to come up with this - a household favourite that gets made at least once per month (and has been made with turkey thighs, chicken thighs, or chicken breast to good effect).

(Note: expired link removed - instead, please see recipe in the comments, below)

I make this often enough that I should probably just mix up a big batch of the spice mixture that gets tossed with the cut-up chicken. I almost always have some black beans and a can of diced tomatoes lurking around, and capers certainly keep well in the fridge. I keep a giant bottle of vermouth on the kitchen counter to use in risottos and to deglaze anything that seems to need it, which is much more pantry-friendly than the red wine listed in the original recipe. As written, the recipe takes a paltry 1/2 hour to make, from strolling into the kitchen to dishing up the finished dish. Use of a non-stick pan makes clean-up decidedly easy, and if there are any leftovers (I always plan for leftovers) they reheat splendidly for dinner or lunches the next day.

Really, this is a dish that gets five stars: one for being delicious, two for being quick, three for being healthy, four for easy clean-up, and five for terrific leftovers.

Now I know what to do with that package of chicken breasts I found on sale at the supermarket this week: I'm adding this in to my menu plan!

Common Cold

I know what it looks like. No, I'm not actually trying to wedge as many Hawksley Workman song references into my writing as possible. It just looks like it. Really. Ahem. Onward:

Sailu tagged me for a different sort of meme: Natural Home Remedies for the Common Cold. Since colds are viral in nature, it will always take time for the body to fight off and kill the virus. Most remedies are about easing symptoms and shoring up your body's strength so that your immune system can do its job with maximum efficiency.

Preventive, natural, and cabinet-medicine has long been a pet interest of mine, so I'm pleased to contribute my family's time-honoured curative: Switchel.

Switchel is a vinegar-based drink that is served hot or cold, depending on the usage. I've most recently heard its origin ascribed to the West Indies, but most often I hear of it as a replenishing beverage served by Mennonite farmers to their field workers during the long harvest days. An early Gatorade, if you will, designed to quench thirst and restore electrolytes to folks labouring in the hot sun. It's entirely probable, I think, that if it does originate in the Islands it must have originally contained rum - a sort of hot-toddy sort of deal. Many of the original recipes contain molasses, although that fell by the wayside in our family.

The onset of a winter cold is often heralded by an itchy or tender throat, and at the first signs of one my mother would whip out the apple cider vinegar. Her recipe was fairly plain, consisting of water, apple cider vinegar, honey, and a pinch of ground gingerroot. I ditched the dried ginger for a few slices of fresh ginger, making it a sort of augmented ginger tea, I suppose, more than anything else. A couple of years ago I tried adding molasses back in, but found the results quite unpalatable. There are other variations, including cayenne pepper and a host of other herbal tweaks. I like to keep it simple enough that I don't have to measure much or fuss when I'm already feeling under-the-weather - in fact, I often measure this more in freehand "dollops" than anything else.

Switchel

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
1 - 3 slices of fresh ginger root, to taste (peel may be left on)
1 cup boiling water

Mix together and allow to stand (and cool!) for about five minutes. Sip until throat is soothed. Also pretty good chilled, particularly after physical exertion. This is fairly strong, as it is intended as medicine, but if you want to go cautiously, reduce the amounts of honey and vinegar to a teaspoon each. Because vinegar is fairly pungent, the vapours may affect othes adversely. I try not to inflict this on Palle, because he doesn't enjoy being in the same room with the smell of hot vinegar. He doesn't like hot lemon, either. I, however, find it comforting, so it's a good thing that we have a big house...

The honey is soothing, of course, and the vinegar helps clear the sinuses and cuts through the sensation of phlegminess that goes along with a head cold.

Now that I think about it, I'm a little surprised that she didn't feed us garlic tea, as garlic was her very favourite cure-all. She was quite pleased about the time that she had lost her sense of taste due to a head cold, and fixed a peanut butter (for protein) and crushed garlic (for medicine) sandwich for lunch. I don't think she ever had the chance to repeat it, but she is convinced that it spurred her back to health.