Insomniac Food Blogging

It's Easter Sunday -- sort of. After a wonderful day at the farmer's market (open Sunday mornings on Guilford Ave. in Baltimore under the Jones Falls Expressway) we did a little bit of shopping and attended a wonderful dinner reception hosted by some friends in Fells Point. The food was delicious -- particularly the salmon caviar and selection of smoked fish. My contribution was a German-style potato salad that resembles my Roasted Potato Salad, but uses steamed potatoes and a mustardy dressing. I omitted the bacon in a nod to Passover, during which I am more conscious of my diet.

After a few glasses of Sangria, it was time to go home and take a nap. That nap lasted a few more hours than it should have, so here I sit, 3:20 in the morning, wide awake.

I'm distracting myself with some food reading. I thought it may interest some readers to know some of the food blogs, websites, and other resources I regularly enjoy...

• I'm a regular viewer and reader of Cook's Country and America's Test Kitchen.
• http://www.americastestkitchen.com / http://www.cookscountrytv.com/
• Despite its deeply flawed personality-based celebri-chef culture, I sometimes use the Food Network.
• http://www.foodnetwork.com
• A much better sister network to the Food Network, which still airs classic episodes of Julia Child's shows daily is The Cooking Channel.
• http://www.cookingchanneltv.com
• To catch up with the local food scene in Baltimore, I'm a regular reader of the Baltimore Sun's Dining at Large.
• http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/dining/reviews/blog/
• I'd be remiss not to offer a nod to Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa, it's a just OK website, but there are some winners in the recipe section.
• http://www.barefootcontessa.com
• You'll find some excellent recipes and high quality equipment to make them at Williams Sonoma.
• http://www.williams-sonoma.com
• There's always the mother of all food blogs, Serious Eats...
• http://www.seriouseats.com/
• I love Epicurious, including the iPhone app, which has proven itself quite useful.
• http://www.epicurious.com
• Finally, here is a list of the food magazines I read with links to their sites:
• Food and Wine 
• Cooking Light
• Saveur
• Bon Appetit
• Food Network Magazine
• Taste of Home

What sorts of sites / blogs / cookbooks / magazines do you recommend for your humble author and your fellow insomniac food fans?

An update to braised pork shoulder...

Find it here!

Simple Lunch Salad

A few weeks ago, I came home to walk the dogs during lunch and found myself without much to eat in the house. I could have picked up a sandwich from Subway or another quick restaurant on the way back and forth to my office, but I accepted the challenge to have a quick lunch at home with some enthusiasm. Opening the refrigerator, I found a big bag of baby carrots and a tiny sack of whole radishes. Tomatoes are not in season yet, but I tend to keep a carton of cherry tomatoes on the counter year-round. Here's what I came up with...
Fresh Early Spring Salad
Serves 1
Prep Time: 5 min.
Cook Time: None

• 8 cherry tomatoes, halved
• 10 baby carrots, julienned (cut into matchsticks)
• 4 radishes, julienned (cut into matchsticks)
• 1/4 cup excellent quality extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tbsp white wine vinegar or lemon juice
• salt and pepper to taste

Prepare the ingredients as described and toss together. Enjoy on its own or as a prelude to a sandwich of leftovers from your dinner party the night before! 

Grilled Steak and Sides

Grilled steak is nothing original. I have my own go-to recipe here. Experimenting, though, with the grill and the skillet, I have developed an interesting approach to a couple of sides I think you'll love.
First, Broccoli Steaks are unusual, but delicious. Using the heat of your grill -- I have a charcoal grill that cannot justify only cooking a simple steak -- grill large hunks of broccoli until tender and smoky. Cut the stem off a head of broccoli and slice the head into large "steaks" of even thickness. Drizzle generously with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. The addition of fresh or dried herbs makes for a more complex flavor.
Grill similarly to your technique for steak. I like using direct heat for 4 minutes per side and then finishing with indirect heat for another 10 minutes or so.
The other side, which is hard to make out in the photo, is red wine braised mushrooms and onions.
Coarsely chop a pint of cremini mushrooms and a large onion. Saute in olive oil for 10 minutes until just starting to brown and add a half cup of red wine (I used a shiraz that had been opened a week earlier and had passed its prime). Season with salt and pepper and reduce until the wine is syrupy. Serve as a sauce or side to grilled steak and broccoli and you can hardly go wrong.

Easy Puff Pastry Tart

This tart is based on the free-form French pie technique known as "galette." Normally a galette is made with pate brisee, which is a standard pie crust. I use a sheet of store-bought puff pastry rolled out to the size of a baking sheet. It's incredibly easy to do and creates an impressive presentation that will wow your guests -- and you! I am sharing the recipe for an apple-blueberry tart flavored with cinnamon sugar. The opposite flavor profile, but equally delicious, would include dijon mustard, sliced turkey or ham, and a sprinkling of excellent gruyere cheese. Any and everything in between would be delicious.

Puff Pastry Tart
Serves 6
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes

• 1 sheet store bought puff pastry, rolled roughly to the size of a baking sheet
• 2 granny smith apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup fresh blueberries, raspberries, or blackberries
• 2 tbsp. white sugar
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

Pre-heat your oven to 425 degrees. Roll your puff pastry to roughly the size of your baking pan on a large sheet of parchment paper. Leaving a 1-inch border, arrange the apples neatly on the dough. Sprinkle over the berries. Dust with the cinnamon sugar.
Bake for 20 minutes or until the pastry is risen and the apples are soft. Allow to rest for 10 minutes, slice, and serve.

Tiny Cream Biscuits

There is a traditional recipe for cream biscuits, but I find that a whole biscuit is too much for a guest as a side bread at supper. Here, you can use a shot glass as your biscuit cutter and serve these small puffs of fatty pastry with accoutrements to your heart's content.

Tiny Cream Biscuits
Yield: About 20 biscuits
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes

• 1/2 stick unsalted butter, chilled and cubed
• 2 tbsp. chilled vegetable shortening (recommended: Crisco baking sticks)
• 1 tsp. sugar
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup very cold heavy cream or half and half (please, use heavy cream...)

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. In the bowl of a food processor, pulse the flour, sugar, salt, and fat about 10 times... until the texture is that of a coarse meal. Gradually pulse in the cream until a ball of dough forms. Turn out on to a floured surface.

Roll the dough into a 1-inch thick layer and cut into small biscuits with a shot glass or roughly with a paring knife.

Lay in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes until golden brown. Cool for 10 minutes and serve warm.

Spring Weekend Menu

In Baltimore, Spring has certainly sprung. The degree of her springing varies by the day, but I decided to capitalize on warm weather last weekend and throw a dinner party that would celebrate the new season. I decided to make fried chicken, which I thought I posted here early on, but did not, so that is included below. I made a few cold sides, as well.

Fried Chicken
Serves 10
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Inactive Prep Time: 8 hours
Cook Time: 1 hour (or so, depending on frying vessel)

• 2 fryer chickens, cut up into pieces (drumsticks, thighs, wings, and breasts), breasts halves cut into halves or thirds, depending on size -- reserve the neck and back for stock.
• You could use pre-cut chicken, but there is a risk that the pieces will be large and uneven. Give some thought to breaking down your own bird. It's a skill worth having and easily  learned via a quick Google search.
• 3 tbsp. salt (divided into 2 tbsp. for the chicken / 1 tbsp. to season the flour)
• 2 tbsp. black pepper (divided)
• 2 tbsp. garlic powder (divided)
• 2 tsp. cayenne pepper (divided)
• 1 quart buttermilk
• 1/4 cup siracha chili sauce (or other hot sauce of your choosing)
•  4 cups all purpose flour, for breading (seasoned, see the divided spices above)
• Oil for frying (quantity depends on frying vessel used)

There is not an absolutely right or wrong way to go about this process, but regardless of your frying vessel, the procedure starts the same. Dust the chicken pieces with the salt, pepper, garlic, and cayenne -- generously, the quantities above are merely advisory. Toss to coat and place in a large mixing bowl. Meanwhile, mix the hot sauce and buttermilk. Pour over the chicken, taking care not to wash the seasoning off the meat.

This is the fruit of your labor!

Store in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours, but 8-24 hours is just fine. The acidic buttermilk will tenderize the chicken and help the seasoning penetrate the meat.

When ready to fry, pre-heat your oven to 300 degrees and leave it be for a moment. Meanwhile, bread the chicken. I prefer using a large tupperware storage container filled with seasoned flour (described in the ingredients) and shake the chicken in batches. Sometimes you need more or less flour depending on how wet your chicken is. When shaken, the chicken should be coated completely with dry flour.

Here is where things get sticky. If you use an electric deep fryer, pre-heat it to 370 degrees and fry the chicken until golden brown. Start with the dark meat and move on to the white meat. Drain on a baker's cooling rack and keep in a warm oven until the rest of the chicken is cooked, repeating the process in batches. If you're using a dutch oven or cast iron frying pan, heat the oil to 370 and use the same process, but you'll likely need to turn the chicken. Only ever fill the pan less than half full with oil to avoid overflowing.

When the chicken is all cooked, serve from the warm oven.

Mediterranean Pasta Salad

I made small cream biscuits on the side with whipped butter and cucumber salad, Mediterranean pasta salad, and a fresh, vinegar-based coleslaw.

The cucumber salad could not have been simpler.

•  1 large English cucumber
• 1/2 red onion, very thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp. white wine vinegar
• 2 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper

Cucumber Salad

You simply take one large English cucumber (the large variety, typically sold wrapped in plastic in the supermarket). Cut it in half lengthwise and spoon out the seeds, if desired. Slice the cucumber thinly. Slice a red onion very thinly. Toss with the oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper. Allow to rest in the refrigerator for 4-6 hours. Serve chilled.

The coleslaw is very similar. You simply take a head of savoy cabbage, remove the core, and shred thinly with a sharp knife. Toss with a half cup if white wine vinegar, a few tablespoons of excellent quality extra virgin olive oil, thinly sliced red onion, 4 grated carrots, salt, and coarsely ground pepper to taste. Chill for 24 hours. It couldn't be easier -- and is almost entirely calorie-free. 

That's how I chose to spend a Saturday evening! I hope that you'll find these ideas useful as you contemplate your Spring entertaining.