chicken broth ambrosia

it seems that the only thing that has been going right these days is cooking. i can always count on it to cheer me up and be wonderful the way it always is. cooking is never beyond my control - it is what i want it to be, and what i do that matters.

anyway, our oven has finally been cleansed of its gunk and grime. after the fire alarm debacle in which we set off the fire alarm in our building not once, not twice, but three times, we had no wish to anger the fire department or our neighbors, and opened the windows to let the frigid winter air come in. the air took the acrid smell of the oven on its self-cleaning cycle out the window with it, so we just had to deal with a kitchen and living room that resembled a refrigerator for four and a half hours. however, four and half hours later we had both chicken soup and banana bread baking in the oven. we made the broth from the two chickens that josh had roasted and brought over. surprisingly the broth wasn't that strong - you would think, with two chickens, it would be great - so we let it boil down.

in the past, i haven't let the broth boil down that much, preferring to boost it with caramelized onions and carrots. but we let it go with this broth, and though it only made a few cups of broth, it made a few cups of really spectacular broth. i might have to let my broths boil down more, because this one had an amazing silky, velvet texture to it - it was a soup with substance. usually my chicken soups are a nice, traditional broth with stuff in it to build it up, but i would have eaten the broth we made yesterday on its own - this from the person who generally doesn't like chicken soup. it was a beautiful color, too - golden brown and luscious-looking. the broth was so full-bodied that all i had to do to it was add a little bit of salt. that's the stuff that people were talking about when they said that chicken soup is good for you when you're sick.

the banana bread was good, despite sitting on the counter for three hours before being baked. i brushed the bundt pan with butter and cocoa before i put the batter in, so it has a really great smoky chocolate crust to it. it's a bit less banana-y and more cake-y than normal, which makes it more attractive to carrien, and i have to admit, to me as well.

ode to pork (a celebration in four parts)

the kitchen is finally spotless (ok, ignore the stovetop), approximately 19 hours after we sat down to consume pork II. but first, pork I. (if you're fuzzy on the origins of porks I-IV, see my january 26th post.)

we bade pork I a fond farewell last week, to the tune of maple-roasted pork with parmesan mashed sweet potatoes, roasted carrots and asparagus, and rice with onions. pork I was wholly satisfying and simply cooked - the maple component of the roast was just a glaze brushed on throughout the cooking time. in fact, everything in this dinner was pretty standard, but combined it was excellent. we used up some of our myriads of sweet potatoes, much to our relief (we then emailed boston organics to nix lettuce from future deliveries). we didn't have any stock or onions, but i made a sauce anyway, from a roux with port wine, madeira, mustard, and the pan juices. i have become a tyrant over the 15 minutes following the departure of the pork from the oven, so i can let the meat rest, then cut it up, and use the released meat juices in the gravy. even though you let the meat rest to avoid releasing those juices, i find that even after it has rested and you slice the roast, it still ends up shedding juices galore. and in my little cooking world, that gesture is the pork roast crying out to me to add more meat juices to the sauce. i guess the sauce turned out a little bit odd with respect to color - it was a pale pinkish color from the port wine - but it sure did taste good.

however, we one-upped pork I with pork II. i had just opened the new issue of gourmet, which i had left in my mailbox for almost a week, when i spotted what looked like a pork loin. upon closer inspection (because gourmet's photography has been suffering for the past several months and the photograph was sadly dark), it was not only a pork loin, but a bacon-wrapped pork loin. carrien and i had just thawed pork II a few days ago, so seeing this photograph was clearly meant to be. the roast consists of a maple syrup/peppercorn/bay leaf/sage/garlic brine, a maple syrup/garlic/sage rub, a coat of bacon, and a glaze at the end of cider vinegar/maple syrup. to go with the pork, we roasted some vegetables, and josh made brussels sprouts. this time around, it was still too cold to go outside, and we had no butter, so we made another sauce out of "nothing" - i sauteed some sage and garlic, added port wine and madeira, reduced it to a syrupy consistency, and added some mustard. i considered sauteing the sage in rendered pork fat or adding maple syrup to the mixture, but i thought that might be overkill. when the roast came out of the oven, it thankfully had exuded plentiful juices, both before and after being sliced. we ended up with a pretty good sauce, which wasn't pale pink this time, but a dark purple-brown color. the roast itself was also excellent - the bacon does a great job of keeping the pork moist, and i could definitely tell that it had been brined, which is a first. the meat's texture was slightly different - you could see the strands of muscle more easily - and it was a little bit too endlessly juicy for me. i think i prefer my roasts unbrined. the bacon, however, was delightfully crisp-but-not-too-crisp, and much of the fat had been rendered during the cooking time. it also turns a beautiful dark bacon-red.

and now i'm hungry again...

for the love of tiny pasta (and pork)

it always begins like this - i had bought something at star because it was on sale (raspberries at 2 pints/$5), with no actual plans to make anything in particular. as i had bought them a significant number of days ago, carrien and i went ahead and made something with them. probably not a good idea considering that i'd left the office to get a respite from model-making for my hands, which are feeling kind of arthritic, but i couldn't resist. cooking seems to be the only thing i really want to do nowadays.

based on the ingredients we had on hand, we combined a bunch of different recipes to create the above tart. the crust is made out of chocolate graham crackers and cocoa. we needed butter to hold it all together but only had 3ish tablespoons, so in desperation and an unwillingness to go to the supermarket, we added a few tablespoons of sour cream and an egg yolk. hey, it worked - it's a tad crumbly when you cut the tart, but it holds together surprisingly well.

carrien made the filling, which was a basic frangipane dealio. we put strawberry preserves (that my sister made last summer) on the crust before adding the frangipane, then baked it. we thought about baking the crust before adding the frangipane, but instead we baked it all together to give the crust the best chance of holding together. after the tart cooled, we added whipped cream and the raspberries.

the tart not only cut well, but tasted pretty good too. it would have been better with more frangipane, but we only had half of the almond paste left from the batch that jessica made us. it was good that we didn't sweeten the whipped cream very much, because the jam was very sweet, the frangipane was just right, and the crust was not very sweet (because of the cocoa, probably), so altogether it had just the right balance of sweetness. in the future, i think i might add an entire layer of pastry cream on top of the frangipane, to add more body; that would hopefully better showcase the raspberries.


in addition to having random raspberries around, i realized while making space in the fridge for our boston organics delivery that i had pork spareribs that i'd bought on sale as well. they were an exceptionally good deal - i forget how much it was exactly, but i think it was about 3 lbs for less than $3. i didn't want to go to the supermarket, so instead i rooted around in the fridge and cupboard and combined some recipes i found on epicurious. the end result is braised pork spareribs with onions, carrots, peas, and acini de pepe (little balls of pasta that are the size of peppercorns - "acini de pepe" means "peppercorn" in italian). i took a braised pork recipe and combined it with some of the seasonings from a chinese barbecued spareribs recipe. the braised pork recipe called for chicken broth as the braising liquid, but we used ours up when we made soup on sunday night, so instead i used water and figured i'd make do. i was pleasantly surprised to find that the pork gave more than enough flavor to the sauce - i don't know if it's this particular cut of meat, combined with the fact that it was bone-in, or what. this would have been fine without the carrots and peas, but i had them around so i added them anyway. the carrots are actually baby carrots cut with a technique i can't remember the name of - you cut diagonally, then rotate the carrot 20 degrees, cut again diagonally, and repeat. the peas got a bit freezerburned, i think, or perhaps they got thawed then frozen again, because they looked a little bit less than green when i popped them into the sauce. all in all, though, this was a great success - greater than the tart, i would say. i don't think anything can quite beat meat that's bone-in. and of course, i wouldn't make this with any other pasta than acini de pepe, because it's exactly the right size to go with the sizes of the other ingredients. you can then eat this with a spoon, out of a bowl. i would have left the meat on the bone, but i thought i might want to take it with me for lunch tomorrow, in which case i wanted to go for ease of eating.

pork sparerib stew
3 lbs pork spareribs, bone-in (preferably country-style)
1/4c sherry

2 large onions, halved and sliced thinly
1 1/2T olive oil
1/4t crushed red pepper
1 1/2t cumin
2t paprika
2 large bay leaves
1/2c red wine vinegar
~2c water
2T soy sauce
1/4c honey

1c baby carrots (or regular carrots), cut on the bias
salt & pepper
1/2c frozen peas

1/3 box acini de pepe, cooked (this takes about 20 minutes for the water to boil, then boil the pasta, in case you want to make the pasta while cooking other things)

1. in a 12" skillet (preferably not non-stick), brown the spareribs on each side, then remove to a plate. if the spareribs are large, do them in two batches to avoid overcrowding your skillet.

2. add the sherry and a little water (about 1/4c) and scrape the fond on the pan with a wooden spoon to deglaze it. let the liquid evaporate almost completely, then add the onions and the olive oil.

3. after the onions have cooked for a few minutes, add the crushed red pepper, cumin, and paprika. let cook until the onions are translucent, about 5-7 minutes longer. add the bay leaves and red wine vinegar and let simmer for 5 minutes.

4. add the soy sauce and honey, stir to combine, and return the spareribs to the pan. add enough water to either cover the spareribs or come almost to the top of the skillet (whichever comes first) and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. reduce heat to medium and let simmer until the liquid has reduced by 2/3 to 3/4 (it should have a gravy-like consistency), about an hour to an hour and a half. while the spareribs are cooking, cook the carrots until soft; add a few tablespoons of sugar if you wish to caramelize them.

5. remove the spareribs to a plate and let the sauce reduce a little more. add the carrots and peas and cook until the peas are cooked through.

6. pull the meat off the bones and shred it into small pieces; put the pieces in a large bowl. add the sauce with the carrots and the peas. add the pasta and stir to combine.

[serves 3-4]

"samosas"

yesterday carrien and i (mostly carrien, really) made "samosas" - basically a samosa crossed with spanikopita. the filling is red onions, yellow onions, cumin, spinach, garlic, roasted fennel, and red potatoes; the wrapper is phyllo dough. we were attempting to use our spinach and lettuce from boston organics, but succeeded only in using the spinach. still, the "samosas" were fantastic, if a little prone to shattering because the phyllo was fragile after having been thawed, then refrozen. to add to our eclectic mix, we had some fried chicken from the supermarket, gouda and brie with red grapes, and chocolate chip-craisin peanut butter cookies that i found on epicurious. i totally forgot to add the honey in the recipe to the dough, and that explains why it was on the slightly dry side. but the cookies were totally fine - not dry after they'd baked. probably they'd have been a bit better with more liquid of some kind, but the omission of the honey meant that the peanut flavor was underlined more.

this photo attempts to achieve two goals: (1), to show that the samosas are actually triangular and (2), to shamelessly flaunt the fact that we have a vase that goes perfectly with a bouquet of daffodils. this is the first week of school so carrien and i have been cooking more than we usually do - thus our boston organics stash is mostly gone after almost a week and a half.
oh! i got my new all-clad pan in the mail today. i took it out of the box - it's a 12" MC2 fry pan - and it's beautiful. i would like, at some point, to also own a saucepan, because those are also incredibly beautiful. but the fry pan is beyond beautiful. so well-constructed, so stainless-steel, so pristine, so...i could gush all day but i probably shouldn't. i went to work today to work on my model of the c. walsh theatre, but i couldn't find my ruler so instead i went home. on the way, i heard the siren call of bowl and board, and succumbed to the temptation to go in. luckily i escaped without too much of an expenditure - a pretty ridged glass salad bowl, but more exciting, a sharp paring knife. and how much was it, you ask? two dollars. i am always enthused by good knives that only cost two dollars. since it was bowl and board, two dollars means that it cost them some paltry amount of pennies, but i'm happy anyway.

lmf has a wiki!

i really thought that milly said "wookie" in her email, but in fact she said "wiki." you can see lmf's wiki recipes by clicking on this link.