Cucina Povera

I've been getting to work really early lately.  Part of it is being super-busy, which I love, but part of it is that I love being in the office when it is so quiet.  This morning I can hear the rain pounding on the roof.

We're on a downhill slide into fall here in Anchorage.  I've been meaning to take pictures of the transformation, which include a flock of Canadian geese gathering on the mud flats near my house and the blooming of the fireweed.  Alaska legend is you can tell how long it will be until winter by when the fireweed finishing blooming and then goes to cotton.

For the first time in a couple of weeks, I was home to make dinner last night.  On Golden Pond is fully blocked and going well, but the nights we aren't in rehearsal I'm usually staying late at work or running the errands that I haven't had time to do. 

Last night I was determined to make something delicious, simple and packable to take to work for lunch.  I am fascinated by the Italian concept of cucina povera--literally, poverty kitchen--not because of the financial aspect of it (we are fortunate in that regard), but because it means you make a delicious dish from basically nothing. 

This dish is so simple that I kept wanting to do something more with it, like adding anchovies, chicken sausage or olives.  In the end, I left it proudly unadorned, the way it was meant to be.  It originated in Puglia, the single food region I most want to visit in Italy and haven't had the opportunity to--yet.

Rigatoni with Bread Crumbs and Parmesan

Adapted from Lidia's Italy by Lidia Bastianich

1 eight-inch piece of white country bread--baguette, French, ciabatta

1/3 cup olive oil

4 large cloves of garlic, sliced thinly

1 lb. dried rigatoni

1/4 cup Italian parsley, chopped

1/4 cup good-quality Parmesan, finely shredded, with more for garnish if desired

4 small dried peperoncino peppers, crumbled

Good-quality finishing olive oil

Sea salt and freshly-ground pepper

Trim the crust from the bread and then pull it into crumbs with your hands.  The crumbs should be various sizes.

Start a large pot of water to boil for the pasta, adding at least a tablespoon of salt.

In a large skillet, heat the olive oil.  When it is shimmering, add the bread crumbs and garlic.  Toss the crumbs to coat them with the oil, and toss occasionally when cooking so that they brown and crisp.

When the water is ready, add the pasta and cook for about nine or ten minutes, until the pasta is al dente.  Reserve half a cup of the pasta water and drain the pasta thoroughly.  Then add it back to the pot and cover it until ready to use.

The crumbs will be ready when they are lightly golden and crispy--make sure not to scorch the garlic.

Toss the pasta with a little of the cooking water to coat it.  Add the crumbs, parsley, peperoncini and Parm to the pasta and toss thoroughly.  Season with salt and pepper, then drizzle with good-quality finishing olive oil and toss again.

Serve with another grating of Parmesan.  Makes six appetizer pasta servings or four generous main course servings.  I served this with a side of fried zucchini and a bottle of dry, minerally Gruner Veltliner.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

This weekend was chock-full of the good, the bad and the ugly.

First, the good:  Love, Loss and What I Wore opened on Friday to a full house and was a benefit for our local chapter of the YWCA.  We were sold out again on Saturday and while we had a smaller house yesterday, the audiences have just eaten up the show. 

The bad:  stage fright.  I haven't acted in so long that I've forgotten what it was all about.  It didn't show in my performance, fortunately, but I was petrified going out there on opening night.  It really helped that my fellow actors were so amazing that I warmed up before too long.

The ugly:  the tiramisu cake I made yesterday for this month's Cake Slice pick.  You'll see what I mean on Friday. 

And a second entry for "the good":  last night's dinner.  How many of you were readers of the late, lamented Gourmet Magazine?  My guess is most of you.  It kills me that when I sold my house in 2008 to move in with my now-husband, I recycled almost a hundred issues of Gourmet because I didn't want to move them.  I figured that there were plenty more issues to come, right?  A year later Gourmet stopped publication. 

I have a handful, maybe ten, of random issues that survived the Great Recycling Binge of 2008, and I treasure them.  This recipe is a reminder of what made Gourmet so great.  I'll post the polenta recipe tomorrow.

Tuscan Chicken with Olives and Pancetta

Adapted from Gourmet Magazine, January 2009

Large chicken, backbone cut out and cut into 10 pieces*

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1.5 tbsp. rosemary, chopped

1.5 tbsp. thyme, chopped

1/2 tbsp. sea salt

4 peperoncini, crushed

5 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

2 slices pancetta, diced (optional)

1 cup dry white wine (I used Vermentino;  any white will work as long as it's bone dry)

1/2 cup of good-quality pitted olives (I used a mix of black and green)

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees and position a rack in the middle.

In a large bowl, combine the chicken, olive oil, rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper flakes, ensuring that the chicken is coated with the oil and spices.  Lay the chicken pieces skin-side up in a rimmed pan--we used our large paella pan and it worked perfectly.

Scatter the garlic over the chicken pieces, along with the pancetta.  Roast until the chicken skin browns, about 25 minutes.  Remove the pan from the oven and drizzle the wine over the chicken, along with scooping up pan juices and pouring them over the chicken so it remains moist.  Bake for another 8 minutes, then remove the pan from the oven again and add the olives.

Bake for another 15 to 20 minutes, until the chicken is golden and cooked through.  Remove from the oven and tent with foil.  Allow to sit for another 10 minutes or so before serving to let the flavors intensify.

If you are watching what you eat at this time of year, remove the skin from the chicken before eating.  The flavor is still fantastic, and the fat is significantly reduced.

Suggested Wine Pairing:  Italian wine, naturally.  I used a lovely crisp Vermentino to cook the chicken, and it was a great match for the final dish.  If you prefer reds, a fruit-forward red such as Negroamaro or even a good-quality Chianti would be a good match.

*The way we cut it, there are ten pieces:  two wings, two drumsticks, two thighs and each breast is cut in half.  The original recipe recommended cutting the chicken breasts into three pieces each, but I think that's overkill.

Extreme Grilling, Alaska Style

Between the last week of rehearsals for Love, Loss and What I Wore and traveling to Seattle for a deposition, it's been a busy last five days.  It's also been a very snowy last week, as snow storms have been buffeting Alaska.  Everything looks very white and clean, but Seattle's fifty degrees yesterday felt heavenly.  However, I made the mistake of wearing the same knee-length dress I'd worn for the deposition on the flight home.  I emerged into zero-degree weather and immediately regretted that choice.

David and I have a very basic Weber grill that sits out on our back porch.  It's not a very advanced grill and we're not very advanced grillers.  It might have occurred to us to pull it into our garage and have some sort of shelter over it when winter hit, but what can I say?  It didn't.  The result is that the snow is as high as the grill, and that's without the additional snow on Saturday night:

Before I headed out of town, I made another run at steak with a porcini mushroom slather.  I tried a wet rub last October containing the porcini mushroom powder I bought on a whim from the local spice store;  it mostly didn't work.  This time around I tried a dry rub and the result was a kick-ass steak.

Since it was just for David and I, I used a one-pound ribeye on the bone that we sliced and shared.  For more than two, you might want to consider boned, smaller ribeye steaks.

Porcini-Crusted Ribeye Steak
Inspired by Flavors from The Mozza Cookbook by Nancy Silverton

1 lb. bone-in ribeye steak

3 tb. porcini powder

1 tb. granulated sugar

2 peperoncini peppers

1/4 tsp. truffle or kosher salt

Pinch fresh-ground pepper and salt
Good-quality extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar for garnish

You can buy porcini powder ready-made;  here is one source.  Otherwise, grind dried porcini mushrooms to a fine powder in a mortar and pestle or a mini-prep food processor.

Combine the porcini powder, sugar and salt in a small bowl.  Crush the peperoncini peppers into fine bits and add them to the mixture;  stir to combine.

Completely coat the ribeye in porcini powder and cover with plastic wrap.  Refrigerate the steak for at least half an hour.

When the grill is started, pull the steak out of the refrigerator and allow it to come to room temperature.  Pat any remaining porcini mixture onto it.

Season with a bit of additional salt and pepper just before the steak goes on the grill.  Cook for approximately eight minutes on each side, or until a meat thermometer reaches 125 degrees.  This will make for a rare steak;  cook longer for the desired degree of doneness.

Drizzle the plate with good-quality olive oil and then splash the steak with good balsamic vinegar.

I served this with roasted, cubed potatoes and roasted zucchini.  Delicious with an earthy red wine such as an Oregon pinot noir or a Chataneuf-du-Pape.

The CSA Box: It's What's for Dinner

Does anyone remember those old "Beef:  It's What's for Dinner" commercials set to music from Aaron Copeland's ballet "Rodeo"?  That music has been going through my head over the last couple of days as I've been thinking about this blog entry.

This past Wednesday brought the latest CSA box, chock-full of apples and pears, along with buttercup (not sure how it differs from butternut) squash, purple-top turnips and a few other veggies.  When the box first arrives, I really do my best to cook to those ingredients and minimize the number of things coming from the store.  Some boxes lend themselves to this more than others.

Wednesday was a long day at work, with an ugly case settling practically at the door of the hearing room.  That was cause for celebration, but more importantly it meant that I didn't have a lot of energy for dinner.

David arrived home even later than I did, saw the carton of  eggs sitting on the counter and groaned.  We eat a lot of omelets in our household, and he was unexcited about eating another one.  Fortunately, I had secret ingredients.  Exhibit One:

Or, as I like to call it, the leek that ate Anchorage.  This sucker was enormous.  Exhibit Two:

Shallots (pictured here with the chopped leek).  Why doesn't everyone use them?  They have a flavor that combines onion and garlic with, as Garrison Keillor says, "special mellowing agents."  Delicious.

Exhibit Three:

When it doubt, a good bottle of wine never hurts.  This  is from Maysara, a small producer in Oregon's Willamette Valley.  It's gorgeously colored and fruity, but perfectly dry.  It tastes like summer in a bottle. 

Eggs love rosé.  I could get all wine-geeky and explain why I think that is, but I'm going to spare you.

Exhibit Four:

I forgot to take a photo, but truffle sea salt, also from the Willamette Valley, gives killer flavor and aroma to any savory dish.  It can be ordered here:

https://www.oregonmushrooms.com/p-157-truffle-sea-salt.aspx

Taken together, these things take an average omelet (including one that fell apart a bit when turned over) from blah to a great weeknight dinner.  It's not original--for that I've got the next CSA box entry--but it is satisfying.

CSA Box Omelet

1 medium shallot, chopped

1 regular leek (or a portion of the above leek), white and pale green parts only, chopped

5 eggs

Generous pinches of truffle or good-quality sea salt and fresh-ground black pepper

1 tbsp. 2% milk

2 tbsp. olive oil

2 tbsp. blue cheese crumbles

Whisk together the eggs, milk, salt and pepper.

Preheat a medium-sized skillet over medium heat.  Add a tablespoon of olive oil and then sauté the leek and shallot until light brown.  Remove the pan from the heat and scrape the leek-shallot mixture into a small bowl.

Reheat the pan over medium heat and add the other tablespoon of olive oil.  When it is warmed, swirl the oil to thoroughly coat the pan.  Add the eggs and cook, running a spatula and lifting it along the side of the skillet to loosen the omelet and swirling so that the runny egg is incorporated.  When it begins to look cooked, loosen the omelet again and flip it over with a spatula.

Spread the leek-shallot mixture over one half of the omelet, and the blue cheese crumbles on the other half.  Cook briefly and then fold the omelet over. 

Remove from heat and cut into slices.  Serves two with a side of veggies and a bottle of wine.



The omelet-flipping didn't go so well that night, though I did manage to patch it back together and tried to hide its ugliness by slicing it into wedges.



Slouching Toward Winter

It has been a long week here, I'm telling you.

It began with not feeling great and hit an apex midweek when one of the actors in my play called me at 10:30 at night to say that he hadn't realized the show performed on Saturday nights and he had another gig on Saturdays.  Really?  Really?  I don't think it takes being a theatre person to know that in theatres all around the country--nay, all around the world--shows perform on Saturday nights.  But okay.

It didn't help that this was the most difficult role to recast.

Then, as I was leaving my office for a meeting on Thursday afternoon, my car wouldn't start and it had to be towed off to the shop when it became clear that it was not just a dead battery.

I'm pleased to say that things started looking up yesterday.  I'm feeling better, we found a new actor and it turns out that my car battery was cracked and needed to be replaced--sure, not great, but better than the dead alternator that all the lawyers in my office predicted it was.  (As an aside, a clump of lawyers standing in a parking lot in the middle of the afternoon prognosticating on what is wrong with a car while said car is being towed makes for great comedy.)

I even had last night off and practically didn't know what to do with myself.  Who am I kidding?  I was going to cook.

It is, amazingly enough, still fall in Alaska.  Parts of Anchorage in the upper elevations have had a dusting of snow, as has one of the suburbs.  At my house, there's been a hard frost in the morning for a couple of weeks now, but no actual snow. 

I'm calling this recipe "Yearning for Summer" pasta because it has the flavors of summer but doesn't rely on ingredients only available in summer.  If you still have access to fresh corn, knock yourself out and use that.

Yearning for Summer Pasta with Herbs and Ricotta

Adapted from Bon Appetit Magazine, June 2008

1 large head of garlic, with the top 1/2 inch removed

4 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

1 10 oz. bag of frozen corn, thawed

4 tsp. grated lemon or lime zest

6 tbsp. fresh lemon or lime juice

12 oz. dried capellini (angel hair) pasta

1 large leek, white and pale green parts only, chopped

4 cups mixed greens (arugula, radicchio, baby spinach)

1 cup fresh part-skim ricotta cheese

1/2 cup grated parmesan

1 cup finely chopped mixed herbs (basil, chives, parsley--use whatever is in your refrigerator)

Kosher salt and freshly-ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Take a large piece of aluminum foil and place the garlic in the middle.  Drizzle with two tablespoons of the olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Wrap the bulb in the foil and place in the center of the oven.

While the garlic is cooking, spread the frozen corn on a baking sheet that has been sprayed with a nonstick spray.  Set a large pot of salted water on to boil.

After the garlic has been cooking for fifteen minutes, place the baking sheet with the corn in the oven.  Bake for another fifteen minutes, then sprinkle the leeks over the corn and return to the oven for another ten minutes.



Even frozen corn tastes so much better after it's been roasted.

Remove the baking sheet from the oven.  The garlic should be soft at this point, and the corn and leeks should be lightly roasted.  Carefully (it will be hot!) squeeze the garlic out of its husks and add to a medium bowl.  Mash the garlic a bit, then add the remaining two tablespoons of olive oil, plus the zest and juice.  Stir the mixture--it will be thick.



This is so good that you might need to have a bite or two before adding it to the pasta. 
Just to test it, you know.

Cook the pasta until al dente and drain, reserving a cup of the cooking water in case it's needed to thin the sauce.  Return the pasta to the pot it was cooked in and add the greens, parmesan and garlic sauce.  Toss to coat the pasta, adding a little of the pasta cooking water if necessary to thin the mixture.

Transfer the pasta to a warmed serving bowl, season with salt and pepper and serve with additional parmesan if desired.

Serves four as a main course;  six as a pasta course.

Food/wine pairing:  Serve with a wine that will pick up the flavors of the citrus--American or South American Sauvignon Blanc or Vinho Verde.

Back to School

I like school, other than the fact that I have nightmares about it.

That's not totally true.

I like learning, particularly about things that help me out not at all in the real world.  Offer me a class about cooking, wine, theatre or literature and I'd be there.  I'm convinced that I'm going back to school to either become a chef or a sommelier later in my life.

It's just math classes and not remembering my locker combination that feature in my nightmares.  A psychologist could almost certainly have a field day with this, but occasionally I have nightmares about being unable to remember my locker combination, failing a math test or forgetting to drop a class until the end of a term.  Hmm.

But I do love learning, and with this in mind I went to check out a new-ish cooking school on Tuesday night and dragged David (quite a good cook in his own right) with me.  I wasn't sure what to expect, other than the class was Italian Food.

The problem was that it was cooking for beginners, which was great for most of the people there.  The instructor was friendly and boiled things down to the basics, but once I caught that there wasn't much to be learned I played around with making the perfect puttanesca sauce.  I make sauces all the time that are almost puttanesca, but this time I was going to follow the recipe to the letter.  Except, you know, for adding an extra anchovy, which I totally recommend.

Fun fact:  puttanesca means "like a whore" and is named for the dish that (ahem) prostitutes would make between clients.

The photos show sauce for one, but I've quadrupled it for a standard size recipe.

Too-Easy-For-Words Puttanesca Sauce

Adapted from Let's Cook Alaska and epicurious.com

4 cloves garlic, chopped

8 anchovies packed in oil, rinsed and chopped

4 cups good-quality crushed tomatoes

1/2 cup chopped black olives

2 tbsp. capers, drained

2 tbsp. fresh oregano, chopped or 1 tbsp. dried

1/2 tsp. hot red pepper flakes

1/4 cup olive oil

12 oz. dried spaghetti

Kosher salt and fresh-ground pepper

Start a large pot of water boiling for the pasta;  when it reaches a boil, salt it well and add the pasta.

Add the olive oil to a large saucepan over medium heat.  After a minute, add the garlic, anchovies, red pepper and a pinch of salt.  Sauté for up to two minutes, until the garlic is just golden.  Be careful not to overcook.

Add the crushed tomatoes, breaking up the chunks with a wooden spoon, along with the olives and capers.  Turn the heat to low, add the oregano and cook, stirring occasionally, while the pasta cooks.

When the pasta is done to your taste (I prefer mine al dente, which usually means less than 10 minutes boiling time), drain well and add to the saucepan.  Toss with tongs and add salt and fresh-ground pepper to taste.



Sorry for the blurry quality of the photo;  the light was not good in the dining room.  The chopped salad was terrific--I'll post that recipe soon, too.

Serves 4 people, or 2 with plenty of leftovers.

Variations:  For a strictly vegetarian dish, omit the anchovies.  If you are a cheese lover, you could grate fresh parmesan over the pasta.

Food/wine pairing:  Chianti, baby.

A Meal Worth Coming Home To

It's been an eventful five days since I last wrote on this blog.

On Sunday, I did the Portland Marathon with my friend Paul.  It wasn't our best time, but it was a good race and I will take any excuse to travel to Portland.  I tried three new restaurants, made two pilgrimages to my favorite bookstore and decided--again--that I was going to retire from doing marathons.  I'll still do half-marathons, but the training for a full marathon takes up valuable cooking, reading and writing time.  We'll see if I stick to it.

As much as I love eating in restaurants--and I love going to new restaurants--it was nice to cook again last night.  Which is a good thing, since today the new appliances arrived and it looks like some sort of war (what would a kitchen war be called, I wonder?  Discuss.) broke out in my kitchen.

This dish could easily be doubled, and don't skimp on the marinating time for the prawns--you can work on something else during that half an hour.  If you're feeling adventurous and it's more than 40 degrees outside at night, you could cook the shrimp on an outdoor grill.

Post-Marathon Prawns and Saffron Orzo

Adapted from Bon Appetit Magazine, June 2011

For the prawns:

1 lb. prawns or large shrimp, in their shells

3 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 small peperoncino dried pepper, or 1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

1.5 tbsp. low-sodium chicken broth

1 large fennel bulb, thinly sliced and with fronds reserved

Sea salt and fresh-ground black pepper

1 small head radicchio

2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

For the orzo:

1 pinch saffron

2 cups low-sodium chicken broth

1 cup orzo pasta

Sea salt and fresh-ground pepper

Put the pinch of saffron in a small bowl with 2 tablespoons hot water and set aside to steep.

Heat one tablespoon of the olive oil in a small sauté pan over medium heat;  add garlic and red pepper and cook for about 30 seconds or until the garlic is light brown.  Keep an eye on this, because the garlic can scorch very quickly. 

Cut the fennel fronds from the stems, and chop enough to equal 1 tablespoon.  Pour oil mixture into a medium bowl, add the fronds and chicken broth.  Stir in salt and pepper to taste.

Cut a slit in the back of the prawns and devein if desired.  Add the prawns to the oil mixture and toss.  Marinate at room temperature for half an hour.

Remove the outer leaves of the radicchio and slice thinly.  Toss the fennel bulb and radicchio and set aside.

For the orzo, put the chicken broth on to boil and add the saffron with its steeping water.  When the water has boiled, add the orzo and cook for up to 12 minutes.  It will need a minute or two less if you'd prefer it al dente.

Heat an indoor grill or panini pan to high.  While it is heating, drizzle lemon juice and last tablespoon of oil to the fennel/radicchio mixture.  Add a little salt and pepper and set the salad aside.

Grill the prawns for two minutes on each side, brushing with the marinade.  The shells should take on a caramel color and the prawn meat will turn bright pink.  Don't overcook--prawns are too good to be tough.

Plate the salad greens and arrange the prawns over them.  Serve with a side of orzo.

Makes enough for two people with leftovers.

Food/wine pairing:  Serve with a lively, bright white wine such as Sauvignon Blanc, Vinho Verde or Viognier.

Cooking with Beer, Part Two: Mussels in White Beer-Mustard Sauce

Is there an unexplored market out there for people wanting to cook with beer?  The last cooking with beer post had an overwhelming response.  I kept thinking of a line from that 10,000 Maniacs song "Candy Everybody Wants":  "give 'em what they want."

Seriously, I'd forgotten what a good song it was.  Check it out.

But I digress.  It's been that kind of day.  I leave tomorrow for Portland to do the marathon on Sunday and I'm running around in circles. 

Hence, the need for a simple but satisfying fall dinner.  This recipe is adapted from a Bon Appetit recipe that called for five fresh herbs and about fifteen other ingredients.  I've streamlined it to use what I had in my fridge, but you could substitute whatever fresh herbs you had around:  the others in the original recipe were chives, tarragon and chervil.  Don't go crazy buying herbs for this, because whatever you've got will be just fine.  It's that kind of meal.

The recipe calls for Belgian white beer, but I went local again with another beer from Midnight Sun Brewery. 


Once again, who names these things?  Check out the Lady Godiva-esque figure.  Riding a caribou, no less. 

This goes together in less than half an hour, assuming you don't get all fancy about it.  I recommend against it.

Mussels Steamed in Beer with Parmesan Croutons
Adapted from Bon Appetit Magazine, May 2010

3 slices hearty white or sourdough bread, cut into 3/4 inch cubes

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, shredded

1 tbsp. olive oil

3/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

2/3 cup 2% milk

2 tbsp. Dijon mustard

1/2 tbsp. grainy mustard

1 tbsp. unsalted butter

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 tbsp. fresh thyme, chopped

2 lb. mussels, scrubbed

1/2 cup green onions (white and pale green parts only), chopped

1 12-ounce bottle white beer, local if possible

Fresh-ground black pepper and salt, to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Toss the bread cubes, cheese and oil in a small bowl until the cubes are coated;  add extra oil if necessary.  Spread the cubes on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

While the croutons are baking, whisk together the milk and mustards in a small bowl and set aside. 

Chop the parsley and set aside.

Melt the butter in a large pot that has a lid.  Add the garlic and chopped thyme, stir for a minute until the garlic starts to brown.  Add the mussels, green onions and beer.

Add the mustard mixture and some pepper, then cover with the lid and allow to steam for 3 minutes. 

Add 2/3 of the parsley and cover the pot again.  Allow to cook for another 5 minutes.

Take off the lid and get rid of any mussels that are cracked and unopened.

Serve the mussels in a bowl with the broth poured over them;  garnish with the croutons and remaining parsley.

Makes up to 6 appetizer servings;  serves 4 as a main course.

Food/wine pairing:  David drank the leftover beer and I managed to try it--I think if you like beer, it's a great match.  Otherwise, pair with a high-acid Spanish wine such as Albariño.

In Praise of Oktober: Cooking with Beer

Yes, you read that title right.  Friday was the start of Anchorage's Oktoberfest, which obviously doesn't have a patch on the German version but is a much-loved event.  Polka bands, dancing, beer songs, and of course lots and lots of different kinds of beer.

I'm not a beer drinker.  With that said, I like the flavor of beer in food.  It gives a rich, malty quality to chili, tastes good in mussel dishes and--most especially-- is the essential flavor in beef carbonnade.

I first learned about this dish when David and I went to Brussels last year.  Although I picked a great hotel near the subway line, it wasn't particularly close to any interesting restaurants.  We wandered around and around our first night there and finally went into a undistinguished-looking little café.  The menu wasn't huge or varied, but there was the expected large beer list and the best dish I ate in Brussels:  beef carbonnade.

This is essentially a beef stew flavored with dark beer, either Belgian or Belgian-style.  The Midnight Sun Brewery in Anchorage makes a dark Belgian-style ale called Monk's Mistress, and I appreciate the local connection.  Sure, you could always use Chimay, but it might be fun to try a local beer.



Seriously, who gets the job of naming these things? 

This is Oktoberfest food:  full-flavored and hearty, tasting of fall. 

Beef Carbonnade (Belgian Beef Stew with Dark Beer)
Adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything and Bon Appetit Magazine

2 lbs. beef top round, trimmed of fat and tendon and cubed
All-purpose flour
4 tbsp. olive oil
2 large yellow onions, sliced into thick rounds
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
3 tbsp. brown sugar
6 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
4  bay leaves
20 oz. dark Belgian or Belgian-style beer
2 cups beef broth, plus more to thin stew if needed
1/2 tsp. fresh thyme leaves
3 tbsp. red wine vinegar
1/4 chopped fresh parsley
Salt and fresh-ground pepper to taste

Dredge the beef cubes in flour.  Heat three tablespoons of oil in a large Dutch oven until shimmering.  Add the beef to the hot oil in batches--making sure not to overcrowd the cubes.  You don't want to overload the pan, otherwise the meat will steam rather than brown.  Brown each batch of cubes thoroughly, then drain on paper towels.

When the beef cubes are done, add the butter and last tablespoon of oil to the pan and stir to release the brown bits on the bottom.  Add the onions, sugar, the last tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of red wine vinegar.  Sauté the onions until caramelized and soft, approximately 20 minutes.

When the onions are done, add the beef, beer, stock, garlic, bay leaves and thyme to the pot.  Cover the pot and simmer on the lowest heat for at least 1 hour and 45 minutes, until the beef is very tender.  Stir occasonally and add the last two tablespoons of red wine vinegar about half an hour from the end of the cooking time. 



The steam keeps it from being totally clear, but the stew thickens beautifully.  If you need to thin it, add extra stock.  If you like it thicker, use a flour-water slurry.

Add salt and freshly-ground pepper to taste.  Serve over hot egg noodles and sprinkle with parsley. 

Serves 4-6 as a main course.

Food/wine pairing:  Actually, beer might be the better choice here.  Drink a lighter-style Belgian ale, a German wheat beer or a stout.  If you prefer wine, try a Cabernet/Syrah blend such as Charles and Charles from Washington State.

Comfort Me with Apples

My kitchen is imploding.

All right, not really, but we're starting a long-delayed minor kitchen renovation.  Although I've now grown to (mostly) love my kitchen, we almost didn't buy the house two years ago when I saw it.  First there was what I like to call the Backsplash from Hell, which started at one end of the kitchen, looped around the refrigerator and went aaalll the way around to the other side.  I like the gray-green Corian for the countertop.  For the entire decor, not so much. 

I mean, really?  It's just odd.

there were the 1980s vanilla-colored appliances, especially the less-than-standard size refrigerator (also known as the Vegetable Killer, see more on that here).

And the lack of a good vent.  I could go on.

The renovation is going to happen in pieces, as our contractor is available, but it could make cooking interesting for a while. 

Well, in all reality it's been interesting since David karate-chopped the 1980s vanilla oven closed during his birthday party, damaging one of the door hinges and resulting in the door not closing all the way.  I wish I could say that when this happened, I ran in slow motion toward the oven and flung myself on top of it screaming "NOOOO!" at the top of my lungs, but that didn't happen.  I was on the other side of the room serving up smoked gouda and caramelized onion quesadillas when I heard the squeak-thud of the unhappy oven.

I wanted to make a good dinner before the kitchen became even partially unusable.  Yesterday I started looking for recipes for Rosh Hoshanah, which is next week.  It is the start of the Jewish high holidays and has several traditional foods, including apples and honey, to signify wishes for a sweet new year. 

This recipe incorporates apples into a main course, and has several virtues:  It's healthy!  It's hearty!  It takes a total of an hour and forty minutes, of which less than twenty are active time!  Joan Nathan, you doyenne of Jewish cooking, you know how to get a frazzled cook's heart a-flutter.

If you have the advantage of more time, I would recommend salting the chicken, covering it with plastic wrap and leaving it in the refrigerator overnight.  This draws out moisture from the skin and makes for a crispier chicken.

Rosh Hoshanah Chicken with Apples and Onions

Adapted from Quiches, Kugels and Couscous by Joan Nathan

1 3.5-4 lb. chicken
1 yellow onion, peeled
3 Fuji apples, cored and cut into 6-8 pieces each
1 cup chicken stock
1 1/3 cups dry white wine
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tbsp. granulated sugar
Kosher salt
Fresh-ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Pat the chicken dry and season it lightly with kosher salt, fresh-ground pepper and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon.  Place it in a large baking pan--I put mine breast side down, so the white meat would stay in the marinade and not dry out during the long cooking process.

Cut the onion into large slivers and scatter it around the bottom of the pan.  Pour the chicken stock and wine on the onions and bake for 45 minutes.

While the chicken is cooking, toss the apples (I prefer leaving the skin on, but you can peel them if you wish) with the tablespoon of sugar and remaining cinnamon.

At the 45-minute mark, remove the chicken from the oven and add the apples to the pan, spooning the broth-wine mixture over them.  If the apples still look a little dry, add another bit of broth.

Cook for another 45 minutes, or until done.  The thickest part of the breast should register 165 degrees on an oven thermometer.

Allow to sit, tented with foil, for a few minutes.  The pan juices are delicious, but you could turn them into a thicker gravy if desired.

Serves 4-6 as a main course.  Spoon the pan juices over the sliced meat and serve with a side of the apples and onions.

Food/wine pairing:  You're going to be tempted to pick a sweeter wine because of the apples.  Don't do it.  This dish hails from my mother's ancestral region of Alsace-Lorraine in France.  Either a bone-dry German riesling or a French or German Pinot Blanc would be perfect.