restaurant trendiness

it's been a long time since I last wrote, pretty much because it's been so darn hot that turning on the stove and/or oven just isn't an option. however, the past couple of days have been quite favorable towards cooking, so I got back into swing pretty fast. wednesday, v and i made carrie's smothered chicken, stir-fried cauliflower, and lemon granita; last night nora and i made a bolognese sauce to go with our pipette pasta, roasted carrots, and indian pudding. not the most adventurous of outings, but pretty solid on new experiences.

carrie's smothered chicken is well-traveled territory, ever since I got the recipe from her. it was intended for my sister, firsthand, but then i had the recipe myself, naturally. since then, i've made it twice. sorry to those who want the recipe; I don't think it's up to me to give it out, but here is a basic description, since "smothered" can mean so many different things, food-wise. chicken thighs (I still haven't figured out if it would be better to skin them; do NOT use boneless anything) get browned, then baked in a mixture of barley, peppers, onions, spices, chicken stock, and, with my variation, sliced mushrooms. there is always leftover barley mixture that gets cooked on the stove (probably because of the added volume of mushrooms), and it always surprises me that the leftover barley tastes so different from the chicken barley. who would have thought that some chicken bones would make such a difference?

the stir-fried cauliflower is, well, stir-fried cauliflower.

the lemon granita, which I rushed home to make (it takes 3 hours to freeze), turned out fairly well. it was one of those things where you didn't get the flavor quite right, but you'd like to try the method again. granitas are quite easy: make a sugar syrup, add the flavoring, and freeze, breaking up lumps every now and then. the recipe I used was apparently an authentic sicilian recipe (from epicurious.com), and involved zesting lemons by peeling off the yellow part with a vegetable peeler. I suppose that vegetable peeler should be a sharp one, because the granita, while the lemon taste was great, and the texture was wonderful, had a bitter aftertaste from the lemon pith, presumably. I would also recommend trying a bouquet garni of lemon zest, zested the old-fashioned way. incidentally, the best way to juice a lemon without a juicer is to cut them in half, and just dig your fingers into a half to squeeze out all of the juice. messier, but juicers in general are messy. regular sugar, instead of confectioners sugar, is also a must - the taste from regular sugar is more intense and purer, because it has no cornstarch as an additive (it prevents clumping).

thursday dinner was quite late, as we started cooking on the later side; we sat down to eat at about 9:30. i don't know why this bolognese sauce was called "weeknight" bolognese, because it sure takes a while to prepare. after you've made it once, you can cut the time down to about 40 minutes, but that seems like a while for spaghetti sauce.

both gourmet and cook's illustrated are always complaining about the authenticity of bolognese sauces (apparently the stuff at bertucci's isn't authentic. who woulda thought?). as far as I can tell, the ingredient that authentic sauces are always missing is carrots. after having made the sauce, i have absolutely no idea what the carrots do for the sauce, but at least there's the nutritional benefit. the basic method for this sauce is as follows: saute some diced bacon, then add the onions, carrots, and mushrooms (reconstituted dried ones); then add the ground meatloaf mix, following it shortly with milk, which tenderizes the meat. simmer that off (it's quite brown at this point) and add the tomatoes and tomato paste (finally it turns red). some fancy aspects of this recipe include the reconstituted mushrooms; we couldn't find porcini mushrooms, so we used polish cepes. pungent is an understatement. the other fancy, and as far as i can tell, useless, addition was a sweet white wine, reduced. it added some depth of taste that i am unable to detect. however, the sauce was great, once we made some adjustments: we added a little more tomato paste and some sugar, which made it taste more tomato-y.

the thing I liked most about the bolognese is the combination of milk and meat. for reasons unknown to me, the milk actually does a great job of rendering the meat tender, instead of the scary, tough tendrils of grayish-brown matter that cooked ground beef so often resembles. i would nix the mushrooms next time, because i think they somewhat overpowered the sauce (this is also partly due to the type of mushrooms we used) - and the carrots. however, in support of the sauce, it goes really well with pipette pasta, eaten out of a bowl with a spoon.

you might think that the selection of indian pudding as dessert was random, and I suppose it was - I saw a photo in a Globe article, and my curiosity was piqued. first of all, the ingredient list is short and simple: milk, cornmeal, molasses, and ground ginger. surprisingly, it tastes like its ingredients; whether this is a good thing or not is an issue for discussion. after two hours in the oven, it had developed a crust that, unsurprisingly, was mika's favorite part. :) because of the molasses and ground ginger, it was very reminiscent of pumpkin pie, and was accordingly quite good with vanilla ice cream and maple syrup. indian pudding seems to be very much a comfort food, rather than the overdone, prettified stuff that restaurants turn out en masse. i would say that it's vulnerable to restaurant syndrome, though - that process where restaurants take something that's good, and simple, and "reinvent" into all sorts of disgusting things. it becomes chic and trendy, and suddenly it's everywhere. it's as if you had always worn blue sunglasses, but then they became trendy and everyone had them: your staple fashion statement has been stolen from you, and now you're not chic any more, just a poser trying to be chic, because you don't have the date you started wearing the sunglasses tattooed on your forehead. sometimes good things can come of this reinvention business, but more frequently it turns out like madonna (or rather, esther).

lemon granita
2-3 lemons
1 cup filtered or bottled water
1/2c sugar

[1] zest the lemons and tie into a bouquet garni, or peel off the yellow part with a sharp vegetable peeler. squeeze the juice out of the lemons (you'll want 1/2c of juice).

[2] heat the water and sugar together and stir occasionally, until all of the sugar has dissolved.

[3] remove from heat and stir in zest.

[4] cool the syrup, leaving zest in, then stir in lemon juice.

[5] freeze in a 9x13 metal pan, stirring and breaking up lumps every 30 minutes, until the mixture is slushy but not too liquidy, about 3 hours.

[serves 4]

bolognese sauce
2 carrots, grated
1/2 small onion, diced
3 oz bacon or pancetta, diced
1 can (28 oz) whole tomatoes with juice, chopped
1 can (14.5) oz diced tomatoes with juice
1 1/2T unsalted butter
1 small clove garlic, minced
1t sugar
1 1/4 lbs meatloaf mix
1 1/2c whole milk
3T tomato paste
salt and pepper to taste

[1] heat the butter in a 12" skillet until foaming, over medium-high heat. add the bacon/pancetta and saute until browned. add the onion, garlic, and carrots and saute until soft, about 4 minutes.

[2] add the meatloaf mix and break up into 1" pieces. cook the meat for 1 minute, then add the milk and break up the meat further. when the milk has almost all cooked off, add all the tomatoes with their juice, and the tomato paste. simmer 20-30 minutes, until thickened.

[3] add sugar, and season with salt and pepper.

[makes about 6 cups]

indian pudding
1 quart whole milk
1/2c yellow cornmeal
1/2c molasses
1t ground ginger

[1] scald the milk: heat until little bubbles appear at the edges (don't stir).

[2] mix the cornmeal into the milk and heat in a double boiler for 20 minutes, until thickened to the consistency of...oatmeal? porridge? just stick to the 20 minutes.

[3] stir in molasses and ground ginger.

[4] pour into a buttered 2-quart baking dish and bake for 2 hours at 300F. Serve with vanilla ice cream, drizzled with maple syrup.

[serves 4]