You be the Sommelier

If I may say, I've become rather adept at the frugal practice of making one whole chicken stretch for many tasty meals. I buy a very high quality chicken - these days I like the White Feather chickens from Bo Bo Farms. My idea is to roast the chicken, but jut the thighs, legs, and breast. The back, neck, feet (yes, you get the feet when you buy a Bo Bo chicken), and other parts go into the stock pot. I could roast the whole bird and then put everything but thighs, legs, and breast into the stock pot, but these days I prefer the taste of stock made from un-roasted bones and meat.

So I emerge with meal number 1 - roast chicken dinner. Last week my daughters and I ate this with fregola pasta with broccoli and turnips. But two small children and I will not finish two legs, two thighs and a whole breast. I tend to serve the dark meat at roast dinner, and save the breast for things when chicken isn't the star of the show, when it's just the protein delivery system.

Meal number 2 - daughter's lunch of shredded chicken breast, Chinese cabbage, and red pepper roll-ups. A drop of sesame oil and soy, and they gobble these up. The chicken is protein, the flavor and aroma comes from whatever else you add to the sandwich.

The point of this post is meal number 3 - soup. I make a simple stock using techniques from various conversations and cook books. I start with the aforementioned uncooked chicken parts, a whole onion in quarters, a carrot or two cut in half length-wise, a celery stick cut in thirds, and then, depending on what's in the kitchen, add things like a sliced knob of ginger, a bay leaf, a bunch of parsley or other herbs, a Parmesan rind, whole black peppercorns, and so on. Bring gently to a boil (Alice Waters, I think, said that stock should be made gently at all stages) and then simmer very gently for at least two hours, skimming the top at least once. I add salt after straining it and tasting, and not too much - anything I cook with the stock will also get salt.

My kids are very good eaters, but I haven't found too many soups that they'll eat with gusto. I want to change that - soup is a meal filled with potential. I can put all sorts of vegetables in soup, things that they might not eat if served as a side dish, soup is relatively easy to digest and is good for kids in that way as the evening meal, and soup tastes good and can be fun to eat. The version I made last week, on paper, seemed destined for failure. But ate it they did, and happily (alphabet pasta is my new secret soup weapon). Here's the recipe:

Chicken Soup with Bok Choy, Lentils, and Alphabet Pasta

Warm your stock in a separate pot while you cook 1 chopped medium onion in a small bit of oil over medium/low heat for a few minutes until the onion softens. Add chopped carrots and celery and cook some more, adding a little salt. Try to cook these aromatic vegetables as long as you can without burning them - they are the base of flavor and aroma for the soup. Add the chopped bok choy stems and greens and stir frequently. Add the washed lentils - I used only about a half cup for the whole pot here, because I wanted a soup that had lentils in it, not lentil soup. Stir some more, coat the lentils in the vegetables and their juices, add a little more salt.

Now add the warm stock and bring to a boil for about 1 minute and then reduce the heat to a simmer, cover the pot almost all of the way and let this simmer for 20 minutes, and then start checking to see if the lentils are done.

Meanwhile, take what remains of the chicken breast and shred it so that it will be nice in the soup, small shreds are easiest to eat. The alphabet pasta are tricky. Cooking them in water separately, for me, always results in soggy pasta (I need a brand for alphabet pasta that's better than Ronzoni, but have not yet found anther brand). I've started adding the dry pasta directly to the simmering soup about 8-10 minutes before I want to serve it.

So this is the finished soup, and let me tell you, it feels good to watch them devour something like this. I'm eating the soup too, mind you, and daddy wants a glass of wine with dinner. So please, you be the sommelier - what would you serve with chicken soup with bok choy, lentils, and alphabet pasta?

And by the way...if I can get away with not using all of the stock for the soup, I have meal 4, which lately has been turnips and their greens braised in stock - delicious! And meal 5 is leftover soup. Dare I strive for a meal number 6? Time will tell.

You be the Sommelier

I thought it would be fun to do one more of these before the year ends. The other night, after picking up my kids and bringing them home to begin their week with me, I made a simple and quick dinner that we could eat together before bed time. Hamburgers, mashed potatoes, a few vegetables.

I like to use ground turkey when I make hamburgers, but ground turkey that has plenty of dark meat in it, meat that stays juicy and rich. The daughters' burgers were topped with cheddar, mine with Jasper Hills Bayley Hazen blue cheese, my favorite blue cheese. Mashed potatoes were made with russets, butter, cream, and salt - that's it. Orange bell peppers and Persian cucumbers marinated in a bit of Sherry vinegar finished everyone's plate. This is one of those dinners that makes everyone happy - kids and grownups alike.

What would you open with this meal? Leave your thoughts in the comments, and I'll leave a comment in a few days telling what I drank (and my younger daughter took a tiny sip of) with our dinner.

You be the Sommelier

On a summer Saturday morning last year I was browsing the vegetables at Bill Maxwell's amazing stand at the farmer's market. I came to a small bin of baby artichokes. So beautiful, I thought, but how on earth to use these things? My friend Albano, who owns a restaurant called Aliseo, came over and said hello. I asked him what he likes to do with baby artichokes.

"Oh it's easy," he said. "Peel off the outer leaves, trim the tops and the stems, slice them thin, and cook them in a pan with olive oil, rosemary, and mint. Put that on pasta - that's it."

Sounds reasonable. I've learned since then that you must either boil the artichokes before cooking them in the pan, or cook them for quite a while in the pan - no matter how much you trim them, they are woody. I don't mind this, in fact I like it, but if you're serving this to guests, it's something to consider.

Recently I made this dish for a few pals who came to dinner. I started with a bit of garlic, an anchovy fillet, and a little bit of dried red chili flakes. Into the pan went the sliced baby artichokes, salt, and I added some chopped rosemary as the artichokes were cooking. Must say, this didn't smell all that bad. Add some chopped mint and toss right before combining the artichokes with the pasta - I used straccetti pasta this time. Maybe a longer noodle like spaghetti would be better, actually.

So that's it, that's the dish, streccetti pasta with baby artichokes, herbs, and olive oil. You be the sommelier - what would you serve with this dish? Leave your thoughts in the comments and soon I'll tell you what we drank, and how it worked.

You be the Sommelier

I cannot make authentic ramen at home, but I like to make an approximation, a noodle soup with a couple of toppings. Here are the things that I've found to work best when making a ramen-style soup at home:

--Definitely, absolutely, definitely use home made stock.

--Start with miso ramen. It's easy to mix good miso paste into the hot stock and come up with a tasty version of miso-style ramen broth. I find it harder to get it right with shoyu (soy sauce flavor) stock. Shio (salt flavor)...fughedaboudit.

--Don't use canned toppings. Might sound obvious, but it's tempting in terms of bamboo shoots. Skip it - they taste like the can.

--There are exactly 47 ways to hard boil an egg. As a topping for this soup, you want the egg to be set but the yolk to be oozy. Therefore, you must use way #16 here. Put the eggs in the pot before you turn on the heat and let them rise in temperature with the water. When a low boil is reached, let them simmer for 4 minutes, then put the eggs in a bowl of cold water.

--Put the broth in the bowl first, then the noodles. Maybe that's obvious, but I always used to put the noodles in and then pour the soup over them. Doesn't work as well.

I made an approximation of miso ramen, except I used soba noodles. Used my own chicken stock as the base, a stock in which I used a lot of ginger. Toppings were chopped scallions, cooked spinach, shredded (leftover) chicken, and half of an oozy hard boiled egg (it's nice to salt the yolk).

So that's the dish - miso soba noodle soup with a few toppings. Please, you be the sommelier. What would you serve with this dish? Leave your ideas in the comments and in a few days I'll share what I drank and whether or not it was a good match.

You be the Sommelier

On my 18th birthday my parents gave me a hand hammered wok. All these years later I still use it constantly, and it's turned out to be one of the best gifts I've ever been given.

Fried rice is a quick and easy dish for which the wok is vital. About a year ago I discovered that I can "hide" things like spinach and cabbage in fried rice, and my kids will happily eat it. Fried rice is a great vehicle for leftovers, and seriously, what's not to like? There are authentic versions from all over Asia, and there are the versions that come from places like my house, in which the same basic techniques are used but the ingredients are whatever I have leftover from the day before.

On this day I had some leftover steak. Some chopped onion, carrot, and an egg - that's plenty to make a nice fried rice. It would have been better if I had a scallion or some ginger, but those are the breaks. Here's one thing I can tell you about wok cooking: heat the wok without any oil in it, for longer than seems reasonable. We cannot achieve restaurant heat using our domestic stoves, so highest flame for a few minutes must suffice. Then a bit of oil, a swirl, and more heat. Use canola, safflower, corn, or something that won't smoke under high heat.

The onions first, and then things like ginger, if you're using it. The carrots next, especially if you want them to be cooked enough so that your two-year old can chew them easily. Then the leftover cooked rice, and really toss it well to separate the grains. Then the meat and the egg, tossing constantly. I seasoned here with a bit of Chinkiang vinegar and soy sauce, et voila.

So that's the dish - fried rice with beef and egg. Please, you be the sommelier. What would you serve with this dish? Leave your ideas in the comments and in a few days I'll share what I drank and whether or not it was a good match.

You be the Sommelier

One of my favorite cuts of beef is the hanger steak. The hanger steak, or hanging tender, along with the skirt steak are the muscles that make up the diaphragm of a cow. Both steaks are blood-rich and marbled with fat, and also containing connective tissue and other membranes that can be somewhat chewy if not removed. I love skirt steak too, but I prefer the hanger steak. It is thicker and beefier, and to me is the most satisfying cut in an atavistic sort of way.

The other day while browsing the meat section of my food coop I saw a Slope Farms hanger steak sitting there and pounced - as far as I know, there is only one hanger steak per animal. And since Slope Farms does not sell cuts of meat, only the whole animal, there aren't many Slope Farms hanger steaks to go around. When I had the steak in my hand I noticed that it felt kind of light, and that it was red, not the deep purple, almost blue that I am used to. It was veal - I had a veal hanger steak in my hands!

I share the same concerns about veal that you do, but as with chicken and pork and fish and everything else, there are good ways to raise animals for food, and bad ways. Slope Farms does things the good way.

Anyway...I watched a skilled butcher prepare a hanger steak once, using a long thin knife to slice both lobes of meat off of the tough central membrane. I tried this at home and failed miserably, losing about a third of my dinner in the process. Now I just accept the membrane as part of the meal. A chewy part of the meal, but I'm fine with that.

I like to keep things very simple with meat of this quality. Salt, pepper, a hot pan, that's it. But I had some good parsley lying around too.

So I made a kind of cross between salsa verde and Chimichurri, chopping parsley and mixing it with garlic that I pounded in the mortar and pestle, the zest of a whole lemon, a bit of dried red chili flakes, good olive oil, and salt.

Some roast broccoli on the side, the last 10 minutes in the oven with some thinly sliced garlic, and dressed simply with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper.

I let the steak rest for about 10 minutes so the meat would re-absorb the juices.Sliced and topped with my hybrid of a parsley sauce. So that's the dish - veal hanger steak with parsley, lemon zest, garlic and olive oil, and some roast broccoli on the side. Please, you be the sommelier. What would you serve with this dish? Leave your ideas in the comments and in a few days I'll share what I drank and whether or not it was a good match.

You be the Sommelier

I found myself alone in the house on a recent evening, and starving. There wasn't a whole lot in the fridge though, just a hodgepodge of leftovers. Carrots and rutabaga that I roasted with a chicken earlier in the week and forgot to eat, a slice or two of brisket and a bit of the braising liquid, some rather dry leftover white rice, and other random items.

The plan took shape - leftovers soup. The braising liquid could be the broth, and if I added the juice from a can of San Marzano tomatoes, it might be only reasonably beefy, as opposed to tremendously beefy. Sauté a bit of onion with a sprinkle of pimentón, add the rice and some salt and toss well, add the carrots and rutabaga. I pushed the combined braising liquid and tomato juice through a sieve and added it to the pot, brought that almost to a boil, added the chopped brisket pieces, simmered for a minute, and that's it. A soup of leftovers, and deeply satisfying too.

So that's the dish - beef soup with rice and vegetables. Please, you be the sommelier. What would you serve with this dish? Leave your ideas in the comments and in a few days I'll share what I drank and whether or not it was a good match.

You be the Sommelier

My food coop sells veal cheeks now. I am not sure who to thank for this, so I will simply thank everyone. Seriously - a few years ago, before the farm-to table and the nose-to-tail movements were still picking up steam, there is no way that cheeks would be part of the offerings in the meat department at most grocery stores.

What to do with veal cheeks? I was thinking braise, shred, and then use as stuffing for ravioli. But I don't have a pasta maker, nor any experience making pasta, so I decided on a braise with some root vegetables. It's gotten very cold here in NYC and it seemed like a comforting thing to eat.

It's a good idea to remove the white connective tissue from the cheeks before cooking. It's not so easy, but it's on only one side of the meat. I did the best I could, but you can see in the photo above that I decided to live with some connective tissue instead of shredding the meat in an attempt to remove it. These are things that professionally trained chefs can do rather easily, I am sure.

I didn't want to use anything in the braise that might obscure the tender veal's flavor. I decided on white wine and a bit of chicken stock for my braising liquid, and nothing more than onion, a whole un-crushed garlic clove, a few black peppercorns, and a bay leaf as seasonings.

I browned the meat very well, poured out most of the fat, and then cooked the finely chopped onion until golden, sprinkling with some salt. Deglazed the pot with some white wine and scraped up all of the browned bits. Added more white wine and less chicken stock, put the veal back in the pot, and brought to a simmer. Then the garlic clove, peppercorns, and bay leaf. Covered with moist parchment paper and the pot lid, into the oven at 300 degrees for an hour. Then I added some parsnip chunks and some red potato halves (red all the way through, not just red skin). Lid and parchment paper back on, another 45 minutes or so in the oven.

You can serve this immediately, but I like braises better on the next day. I removed the veal and the vegetables from the pot, strained the liquid and reduced it, and served it the next evening.

So that's the dish - braised veal cheeks with root vegetables and lemon thyme gremolata. Please, you be the sommelier. What would you serve with this dish? Leave your ideas in the comments and in a few days I'll tell you what we drank and how that worked out.

You be the Sommelier

BrooklynLady makes a mean lasagna. The two that she most often makes are spinach lasagna and sausage lasagna, and both are gobbled up very quickly in our house. Recently she made a new lasagna using fall ingredients, something that none of us had eaten before.

Pumpkin, goat cheese, and sage lasagna..delicious! She combined the pumpkin with fresh soft goat cheese and chopped sage and alternated layers with Béchamel. This is an extremely savory lasagna, rich with sweet pumpkin, slightly tangy from the goat cheese, and perfumed with sage. A large pan of this lasted all of two days, as the kids loved it too.

That's the dish. Please, you be the sommelier. What would you serve with this pumpkin, goat cheese, and sage lasagna?

And by the way, happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

You be the Sommelier

Pretty soon it's going to be all root vegetables and winter squash at the farmer's market. There are still greens, however, even if they are of the sturdy and bitter variety. One of my favorites is escarole. Escarole is a bitter green, technically a kind of endive, and in the chicory family.

I've eaten escarole many times, but always passively, if served to me at a restaurant, for example. My favorite local farmer Bill Maxwell started growing escarole last year and I discovered that it's great in soups. He had escarole on Saturday, for the first time this fall, and I pounced.

I wanted to do something simple with this specimen, as it is so lovely. So I finely minced a third of a garlic clove, cooked it in a little neutral oil, added a few drops of fish sauce (we're all out of anchovies), some salt, and then the escarole, which I chopped into large pieces. Add a small glug of stock, stir, stir, taste, a little more salt, and that's it. Perfect with some bread or rice as a light dinner, or as a side dish. I ate this as the main course, and then had some cheese afterward.

So that's it, that's the dish. Please, you be the sommelier. What would you drink with this quickly braised escarole? Share your pairing ideas in the comments and I'll tell you what I drank and how it worked out soon after.

You be the Sommelier

Summer is officially over, and although I love autumn, I do feel gloomy about it. I love summer, just love it. I love how long the days are, all of the great things to eat at the market, the feeling of sitting on the deck at 9pm bathed in 72 degree warmth.

The thing is, summer is actually about to begin again. Think of it this way - it's almost Halloween and then before you know it, it's Thanksgiving. And then it's the end of the year holidays. Okay, there's tough stretch in January-March but then it's spring, and we all know how quickly spring flies by. Then it's summer again. So actually, it's almost next fall.

In this time of year, I like to make use of things that we won't be eating for a while. On Saturday I got what might be our last corn of the season, and made a simple corn pudding:

Beat 2 eggs, and whisk them with 2 cups of some combination of milk and or cream. I used a cup of each, and it was almost too rich. Whisk in some salt, a bit of sugar (which you can omit), 3/4 cup of flour, and corn. I used the scraped kernels from 5 cobs. You can use less or more depending on how corny you want your pudding to be. I like a lot of corn in there. Here you can add chopped basil, grated cheddar, whatever else you like. I kept it plain with the little daughters in mind, and added only a half stick of melted butter, spread the mixture in a pan and bake at 350 for an hour and a half or until the top is golden brown.

That's it, that's the dish. There are many things that would be great to drink with this. Please, you be the sommelier. What would you open with this corn pudding?

You be the Sommelier

I recently did some of my best cooking of the year. It's tomato season here. I started with a few Maxwell's Farm heirloom tomatoes.

Beginning at 12 o'clock and moving clockwise, that's a Brandywine, a Purple Cherokee, and a Green Cherokee. The Brandywine is the sweetest of the three, the Purple Cherokee the most deeply tomato-ey, and the Green Cherokee the brightest and most acidic, and my personal favorite.

This is a recipe that you definitely can do yourself - do not be intimidated by what you're about to see. It's a lot of work, but the end result is worth it.

1) Select ripe but not mushy tomatoes that appeal to your eye.
2) Store them on the counter - never in the refrigerator.
3) Slice the tomatoes and if you wish, sprinkle them with salt.
4) Using a knife and fork, and perhaps a piece of bread, eat the tomatoes.

The problem, I think, is figuring out what to drink with this lovely summer treat. I have arrived at only one pairing that really makes me happy - I need more options. So please, you be the sommelier - what would you open with a plate of heirloom tomatoes?

You be the Sommelier

Spanish mackerel are in season and the Blue Moon fish people are bringing them to market. Spanish mackerel are not as pungently "fishy" as other mackerel, but they are certainly of that type. Their flesh is more of a cream color than the oily gray of Boston mackerel, for example, and they have beautiful silvery skin that is flecked with distinctive yellow dots.

This is a fish that children will eat, assuming it is very fresh and simply prepared. Last weekend at the market I saw Spanish mackerel for the first time this summer. Bill Maxwell, the farmer whose produce is far and away the best at the market (he has no website so this will have to do), had corn for the first time too. A simple summer meal came into focus, things that we love to eat, and that we hoped our little daughters would enjoy too.

Broiled Spanish mackerel - nothing but a slight brushing with good quality soy sauce, a sprinkle of salt after it comes out of the oven. You can blend mirin with the soy too, perhaps some grated ginger, and so on.

Boiled corn - I read somewhere that the best way to boil corn is to drop the corn in the boiling water and turn off the heat immediately, cover, and let the corn sit for a couple minutes, that's it. Based on these results, I'm a fan.

Kirby cucumbers with a bit of vinegar - thin slices, toss with a little salt, a small glug of white or rice vinegar, a little thinly sliced red onion. Toss again and let sit for at least a half hour.

That's the dish - an early summer dinner of broiled Spanish mackerel with corn and vinegary cucumbers. You be the sommelier - what wine would you serve with this meal? I'll let you know what we drank and how it worked out at the end of the comments.

Oh, by the way - the little daughters devoured their fish, and the vegetables too. And I hadn't even starved them for two days prior, or anything like that.

You be the Sommelier

The market is really getting good now. Peas are in full swing, and yellow and zucchini squash are here too. The other night I made a quick, easy, healthy, and delicious pasta dish. The idea was to take fresh sweet shell peas, toss with finely chopped mint, enrich with a bit of ricotta, and turn this into a "sauce" for rigatoni. And since the yellow squash looked so enticing, I added it too.


Okay, that's the dish, rigatoni with peas, yellow squash, ricotta, and mint. You be the sommelier - what wine would you serve with this? C'mon, don't be shy. Doesn't matter if you're a professional sommelier or a home cook like me. This dish hits the table and you can open anything you like - what would it be?

I'll tell you what I came up with and whether or not it worked well at the end of the comments.