Matters of Taste

Cool, Cool, Very Cool --- Cauliflower!

What’s with all the cauliflower??

All of a sudden, this sturdy, white-on-white hunk is the darling of the dining scene.

Last week I wrote here about the simple but sensational cauliflower dish at NOBU
in San Diego’s Hard Rock Hotel. Roasted in a brick oven and lightly misted with a “sauce” of pureed fresh jalapenos, Japanese vinegar and grapeseed oil, it was a marvel of taste and texture.

On Saturday night, I discovered chef David McIntyre’s stunning presentation of sauteed divers scallops in a pureed cauliflower sauce that was plumped up with a little cream. The talented chef/owner of Crescent Heights in downtown San Diego set the bronzed scallops alongside a colorful confetti of weensy cauliflower rosettes in purple, green and white, golden raisins and roasted shallots.  Another pale sauce -- of white wine, preserved lemon and butter --  accented the dish (pictured here).

McIntyre stresses that the cauliflower comes from Chino Farm in Rancho Santa Fe, which means it has the fresh, pronounced flavor necessary to make an interesting sauce.  Cooked al dente, these dainty florets held their shape and color perfectly, and their flavor heralded the new spring season.

For years it seems that cauliflower was waiting in the wings, while trendier veggies like fiddlehead ferns and white asparagus, ramps and pea tendrils stole the show.

But now, it’s stage center. At Tilth in Seattle (whose chef Maria Hines won the James Beard Award last week for Best Chef Pacific Northwest),  a truffled cauliflower flan is set off with Meyer lemon zest and bits of crunchy fried capers.  At Gotham Bar & Grill in New York City, chef Alfred Portale does a braised cauliflower salad with golden raisins, capers, pine nuts,  goat cheese and a white verjus (juice of unripe grapes) vinaigrette.

And last week’s New York Times featured a review of the new restaurant Fishtail By David Burke
and proclaimed cauliflower the standout dish at the pricey Upper East Side eatery. According to critic Frank Bruni, “Its given one of those treatments popular with chefs of a super-indulgent bent, who see no reason why vegetables should be any less rich than desserts…Fishtail’s cauliflower gets so much cream it’s nearly a custard, so much cheese it could impersonate a quiche.”

For my money though, the simpler the preparation, the better. I recently taught a cooking class at Great News! in Pacific Beach that featured five of the best restaurant recipes I discovered while eating my way around the world. One of them was a delicious pasta dish from Masseria Il Frantoio, a magical country inn in Puglia, Italy. The mingling of orecchiette (ear-shaped) noodles, cauliflower florets, almonds and garlicky toasted breadcrumbs is easy to make, hard to forget.

But perhaps the most luscious performance by a head of cauliflower that I’ve encountered was the soup created by chef Trey Foshee and his team at George’s California Modern in La Jolla. 

A satiny mix of pureed veggie, heavy cream, chicken stock and a whisper of white truffle oil, the potage is topped with a delicate “salad” of Dungeness crab, lemon zest and chopped Marcona almonds.

Here’s the recipe.

CREAM OF CAULIFLOWER SOUP
DUNGENESS CRAB & MARCONA ALMOND SALAD

8 servings

From George's California Modern

Soup
1 ea.    Yellow onion, peeled and minced
5 ea.    Garlic cloves, slices
¼ #    Butter
2 hds.    Chino white cauliflower, chopped
4 C    Chicken stock
1 C    Heavy Cream
1 T    White truffle oil

Crab Salad
4 oz.    Fresh Dungeness crab
Zest of 2  Meyer lemons
3 T    Marcona almonds, chopped

For the soup:
In a medium sauce pot sweat the onions and garlic in the butter until soft but not browned. Add the cauliflower and cook 5 minutes and add the stock. Bring to a simmer and cook until everything is soft, about 15 minutes. Add the cream and bring to a simmer, blend well and strain and finish with salt, white pepper and the truffle oil.

For the crab salad:
Combine everything in a bowl and mix.

Hip Hip Pipérade!

Learn something new every day.

At least I do. Especially when I’m cooking.

Recently I was trying to come up with a menu to serve to 14 friends at a dinner party. I wanted something that could be totally done ahead of time so that I could hang out with my guests instead of slicing, sautéing and sweating in the kitchen. I stumbled upon a recipe for Chicken Pipérade in “Bistro Cooking at Home”  by Gordon Hamersley. The book is available at Amazon.com.

Pipérade is a classic dish from the Basque region that straddles the mountainous border of France and Spain. The dish is characterized by lots of onion, peppers and tomatoes sauteed in olive oil along with a pepper called the espelette. The colorful mixture pairs especially well with fried or poached eggs, smoked ham, and chicken, as Hamersley’s recipe illustrates.

I’ve always been a fan of Hamersley, who was a leader in revitalizing Boston’s restaurant scene in the ‘80s. (His Hamersley’s Bistro continues to be one of the best and most popular eateries in the city.) And I’ve cooked so many dishes from his book that the pages are splattered and stained.

But somehow I had overlooked Chicken Pipérade.

I whipped it up for the dinner party. Loved it so much that I’ve cooked it three times since then. And, best of all, learned two new techniques that make me a better cook.

Lesson One: The magical properties of Sherry vinegar. I’ve always known that it makes a lovely vinaigrette and adds tang to gazpacho. But Hamersley’s recipe calls for pouring a couple tablespoons of the stuff onto a dinner plate and marinating chicken breast in the vinegar, at room temperature, for 15 minutes. I was amazed at how much flavor and aroma the chicken absorbed. The recipe also calls for adding a couple tablespoons of the vinegar at the end of the cooking process.  This added a markedly bright, lively flavor to the sauce and filled the kitchen with an intoxicating fragrance. Columela brand is the best I've tasted. It's available in many upscale markets and on Amazon.com.

Lesson Two:  Hamersley suggests serving the stew with soft polenta.  His instructions for polenta call for an additional step that I’ve never heard of. After bringing half the required water to a bowl in a large saucepan, I poured the measured polenta into a bowl with the other half of the required water and let the cornmeal absorb the water for a few minutes. I then added the polenta-water slurry to the boiling water. I ended up with with the softest, creamiest polenta I’ve ever tasted. (Hamersley also calls for more water than most recipes.)

Live and learn. And eat better, too.

Here’s the recipe from “Bistro Cooking at Home.”

CHICKEN PIPÉRADE
Serves 4

4 tablespoons sherry vinegar
About 1 ½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut crosswise into 1-inch strips
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 ½ red bell peppers, stemmed, seeded and cut into thin strips.
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
8 cherry tomatoes, stemmed and cut in half
3 ounces smoked ham or Canadian bacon, thinly sliced
5 ounces watercress, leaves and 1 inch of stems, washed and dried well, roughly chopped (about ½ cup)

Put 2 tablespoons of the sherry vinegar on a rimmed plate. Put the chicken on top of the vinegar, turning it to coat, and allow the chicken to marinate for about 15 minutes at room temperature.
Heat the oil and butter in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat until very hot. Pat the chicken dry and season it well with salt and pepper. Brown the chicken well on both sides. Remove the chicken from the pan and reserve it on a rimmed plate. Add the onion to the pan and lower the heat to medium-low. Allow the onion to cook slowly for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the red bell peppers, garlic and cayenne. Cover the pan and lower the heat to low. Cook until the peppers are very tender, another 15 to 20 minutes.
Add the chicken pieces, tomatoes, ham and remaining sherry vinegar to the pan. Cover the pan and continue to cook until the chicken is cooked through, about 5 to 7 minutes. There should be a very flavorful juice in the pan. Add the chopped watercress to the pan and let it melt into the sauce. Give everything a stir and serve the chicken with the sauce.

BASIC POLENTA
Serves 8

2 quarts water
1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt, or more to taste
2 cups medium-ground cornmeal
5 tablespoons softened, unsalted butter
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese

Bring 1 quart of water and the salt to a boil in a large saucepan. In a bowl, combine the cornmeal and the remaining 1 quart water and stir to combine. Let the cornmeal absorb some of the water for about 2 minutes.
Gradually whisk the polenta and water from the bowl into the boiling water. Continue to whisk until the polenta begins to thicken, about 5 minutes. Lower the heat to low and cook the polenta, stirring every few minutes, until the polenta begins to pull away from the sides of the pan and has a soft, creamy texture, about 45 minutes.
(If the polenta sputters and makes a mess partially cover the pan.)
Add the butter and cheese and stir well to combine. If the polenta becomes thicker than you like, add a little more water or some milk and stir to combine.

Do It Yourself -- Great Restaurant Recipes at Home

What’s your favorite dish?

If you were to be shot at dawn, what would you want for your last dinner?

What’s your favorite restaurant in Rome?

Food writers and restaurant critics get hit with these questions all the time, at cocktail parties and chance encounters in the produce aisle alike. On Monday night I answered some of them for a sell-out cooking class of 52 hungry foodies at Great News! Discount Cookware & Cooking School in Pacific Beach.

The class featured my favorite restaurant dishes,  gathered during 30 years of eating my way around the globe and writing about it for The San Diego Union-Tribune, Cooking Light magazine, and this blog.

There was an oxtail ragout with mashed potatoes in Paris; perfect Wienerschnitzel in the Tyrolian Alps; pan-fried lobster at Jasper White’s Summer Shack in Boston; and an eight-course truffle extravaganza in Piobesi d’Alba, Italy that started with a bubbly fonduta of melted fontina cheese, eggs and butter, buried under a blanket of shaved white truffles. All these treats, and more, made it into my Union-Tribune article on the 25 best things I ate in 25 years on the job.

In the Great News!  class I shared the recipes --- and samples --- of five memorable dishes from that list , including the Fried Green Tomatoes that I’m holding in the above photo. These golden brown beauties, crisp on the outside, moist and tangy within, stole the show during a fabulous dinner at Keswick Hall in Charlottesville, Virginia. Craig Hartman, chef of Fossett’s Restaurant at this stately resort (pictured here) in the rolling Virginia countryside, batters fat, juicy slices of tomato, pats them with fluffy panko (Japanese breadcrumbs), and fries them. He then treats each slice to a dollop of roasted garlic-fresh herb mayonnaise and a drizzle of “bacon vinaigrette” made with apple cider and maple syrup.

Chef Charlie Palmer’s Salmon Tartar with Citrus Cream is another upscale restaurant creation that can be duplicated in a home kitchen. Who would have thought of marinating tiny cubes of fresh salmon in German Riesling wine and a blizzard of minced herbs?  Palmer, that’s who. And he does a splendid job with the concept at his Aureole Las Vegas restaurant in the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino.

The bright, fragrant herb mixture includes cilantro, chives and mint. Chopped capers and shallots add both texture and zing. And the light, fruity Riesling brings out the best in the silken fish.

Palmer's presentation is elegant and easy. Choose a pretty martini glass, spoon in a bit of the salmon tartar. Float a bit of cold Riesling on top. Garnish with the Citrus Cream and microgreens. If you're feeling ambitious, you can create the dramatic and cracklingly delicious Citrus Tuile shown here, too.

Even with the Citrus Cream and the Micro Cilantro Salad (you can substitute another microgreen if cilantro isn’t available), we’re looking at just 15 or 20 minutes to create a dish that shows up nightly in one of the country’s most acclaimed restaurants.

Here’s the recipe:

SALMON TARTAR WITH CITRUS CREAM

From Aureole Las Vegas
Serves 6-8 as appetizer

RIESLING MARINATED SALMON TARTAR
8 – 10 ounces  fresh  salmon fillet, cut into small dice
1 tbsp  fresh cilantro, chopped
1 tbsp  fresh chives, chopped
½ tbsp fresh mint, chopped
1  shallot, finely diced
1 tsp capers, chopped fine
Riesling wine, preferably German,  to cover salmon, about 1 cup
Zest of one lime
Zest of one lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large mixing bowl combine salmon, cilantro, chives, mint, shallots and capers. Mix thoroughly.  Add the zest of one lemon and one lime. Season the salmon tartar mixture with salt and pepper.

MICRO CILANTRO SALAD (Garnish)
8 oz    fresh micro cilantro
Zest of one lemon
Extra virgin olive oil to bind
Salt and pepper to taste
In a small mixing bowl, combine micro cilantro and lemon zest. Season with salt and pepper.  Toss lightly with a small amount of olive oil.

CITRUS CREAM
6 oz   crème fraiche
Zest of one lemon and one lime
1/2 tbsp  yuzu  juice
Measure the Crème Fraiche and place in a small mixing bowl.  Add lemon and lime zest and mix thoroughly.  Add Yuzu Juice and whisk until crème fraiche is smooth and fluffy. (Yuzu is a sour Japanese citrus fruit. The juice can usually be found in Asian markets. A bit of lemon juice  can be substituted.)

TO SERVE:
Place the salmon tartar in the bottom of a martini glass. Pour enough Riesling over the tartar to almost cover it. Place one tablespoon of citrus cream on top of tartar. Garnish the citrus cream with the micro cilantro salad. If desired, stick one elegant wedge of Palmer's Citrus Tuile into the tartar.

CITRUS TUILE
1  sheet of phyllo dough (store bought)
 Zest of one lime and one lemon
1 tbsp  sugar
 1-2 egg whites, lightly beaten

Cut one sheet of store bought phyllo dough in half.  With a pastry brush, spread egg white over surface of dough.  Combine sugar, lemon and lime zest in a small bowl. Sprinkle phyllo dough with half of the sugar and lime zest mixture.  Place other half of phyllo sheet on top. Brush the top layer with egg whites and sprinkle with the remaining sugar and lime zest mixture.  Using one large ( 8” ) metal round circle cutter as a template, cut the dough into a perfect circle. If you do not have a metal cutter, invert a soup bowl on to the phyllo dough and use it as a template to cut the phyllo into a perfect circle.  Place phyllo dough circle onto a silpat mat lined cookie sheet.  Bake in 400 degree Fahrenheit oven until crispy and brown. Cut citrus tuile into pie shape pieces.

Re-thinking Coffee Cake: Anyone for Dessert?

A few weeks ago I wrote about eating warm and comfie breakfast foods as dessert. There were chocolate-oatmeal cupcakes with browned-butter butter cream frosting, bacon fat and maple syrup; tiny vanilla donuts with fromage blanc sorbet and Oregon rhubarb compote; and, most creatively, an orange-oatmeal crème brulee served in emptied eggshells.

But last weekend I came upon one of these trendy desserts that I could actually attempt to make at home.  It’s a simple-looking little streusel coffee cake. But Chef William Bradley’s take on eating 7 AM food at 7 PM is ridiculously delicious.

Bradley, who’s chef at the opulent Addison restaurant in the Grand Del Mar hotel, manages to make a  coffee cake that is richer, denser, butterier than any I’ve ever tasted. To make matters even better, he serves it with light, voluminous coffee ice cream (he says he makes it in a special machine that incorporates more air) and a sexy Amaretto syrup standing in for the staid maple variety.

“I look for desserts that make you feel warm and happy, desserts that people are familiar with,” he says. “This coffee cake isn’t necessarily innovative but it tastes really good.”  The “innovation,” it turns out, comes with the finishing touches – the homemade ice cream and a gastrique of Amaretto that’s reduced with a bit of sugar and anise until thick and shiny.

Bradley’s homey dessert is on the opposite end of the spectrum from the rest of the Addison menu which offers elegant turbot from France and lamb cloaked in minced parsley and served with a savory cherry tart. The menu is prix fixe – either $80 or $120. Not exactly neighborhood coffee shop prices; yet the amazing coffee cake fits in perfectly with the upscale fare.

Here’s Chef William’s recipe. It’s deceptively simple. I’m guessing that when he says “sugar” Bradley is using a good, slightly coarse organic sugar and when he says butter, we’re talking Plugra.

ADDISON COFFEE CAKE

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon plus 1/8 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup melted butter
2/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Butter a 9-by-13-inch baking pan.
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together into a medium bowl.
In another medium bowl, add the eggs and sugar and beat by hand until they are a pale hue. Then add the melted butter, milk and vanilla extract to the beaten eggs and sugar.
Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and whisk together until thoroughly mixed.
Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan and bake in the center of the oven for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
Before cooling on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes, drizzle the streusel topping atop the cake so that it melts into the cake.

Streusel Topping
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup butter (room temperature)
2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Mix all ingredients together until the mixture is the consistency of dry
sand.

Beets for Barack -- Culinary Advice for Our New President

“The tart looked like a sheet of hot-pink satin overlaid with off-white lace, and it was blush-inducingly delicious. It brought together the dark, earthy flavor of beets—sweet and rich, with a welcome bitter edge—and the salty tang of feta, binding them in a smooth, eggy custard.”

Who could possibly resist a savory tart that looks so good and sounds so delicious?

Well, apparently, our commander-in-chief is going to take a pass.  “I always avoid eating them (beets),” Obama has been quoted in the press as saying, thereby relegating beets to the joke mill occupied until now by George H.W. Bush’s uneaten broccoli crowns.

Today on FoodieView, the comprehensive recipe search engine and restaurant guide, I’ve posted a Recipe Roundup of some of the yummiest beet dishes in the blogsphere -- creations sure to make Obama re-consider his position on the matter. The dazzling tart pictured here comes from Orangette.com where blogger Molly Wizenberg writes that she discovered the dish at a “loosely aphrodisiac-themed dinner party.”

Other recipes include a classic beet risotto, a salad with beets, goat cheese and honeyed walnuts, and a “Beet Mash Chocolate Cake with Beet Frosting and Dark Chocolate Beet Ganache” that will turn any old night into another Valentine’s Day.

Check out FoodieView for beet recipes and lots more. Check out my earlier post – “Next on the National Agenda: Beets” for beet recipes from my favorite restaurants.

Peanut Butter.....Beating a Bad Rap

 Pretty much everybody who doesn’t live under a rock knows that we're in the midst of a massive recall of food products containing peanuts processed by a Blakely, Georgia plant run by the Peanut Corporation of America.

But most of us don’t know all the details… It seems sufficient to know that the problem exists in processed products (such as frozen pad Thai, trail mix and nut-topped ice cream novelties) and that privately branded peanut butters (ie. Jif and Skippy) and regular peanuts in a jar/can/package are totally safe.

 But I did find some other savory tidbits of info in Kim Severson’s article in this morning’s New York Times. *** Peanut butter got its start in the late 1800s when “a St. Louis doctor crushed peanuts into a paste so patients with bad teeth could get some protein…”

***George Washington Carver “created 105 peanut recipes and hundreds of ways to use peanuts to help poor farmers move away from cotton.”

*** Peanut butter became popular when it was touted at the 1904 fair in St. Louis, along with other new-fangled goodies like iced tea, cotton candy and the ice cream cone.

*** And my own personal favorite bit of lore…..Reese’s Peanut Butter cups were developed in the 1920s by Harry Burnett Reese, “an inventor and onetime shipping foreman for Milton Hershey.”

The NYT article includes a recipe fro Peanut Butter Cookies, form Chris Kimball of Cook’s Illustrated. However, all this talk about goobers has got me craving one of my favorite manifestations of the peanut’s greatness, Chile Peanut Tartar Sauce from grilling guru Steven Raichlen’s cookbook “Raichlen’s Indoor Grilling.”

(The tantalizing photo above is from Allrecipes.com, which features a good recipe that would go well with Raichlen’s “tartar sauce.”)

I’ve adapted the recipe to include a bit of peanut butter as well as chopped peanuts. It’s fabulous on Thai tuna burgers (also in the cookbook); it also does wonders for a plain grilled chicken breast.

CHILE PEANUT TARTAR SAUCE
Makes about 1 cup

1 cup mayonnaise
1-2 tablespoons chunky peanut butter
1 or 2 Thai chiles or serrano peppers, seeded and minced
2 tablespoons finely chopped dry-roasted peanuts
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro
2 teaspoons finely grated peeled fresh ginger
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice, or more to taste
1 tablespoon soy sauce
Freshly ground black pepper

Place the mayonnaise and peanut butter is a nonreactive bowl and stir to mix. Add chiles, peanuts, cilantro, ginger, lemon zest, lemon juice and soy sauce and whisk to mix.  Taste for seasoning, adding more lemon juice as necessary and pepper to taste. Any leftover sauce will keep, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Sunshine on a Plate: Lemon Tart at Crescent Heights

Many restaurants across the country feature lemon tart on their dessert menus these days. Few do it as well as Crescent Heights pastry chef Regan Briggs.

Open  just a couple months, Crescent Heights, in downtown San Diego,  is already making big waves with the imaginative, well-executed dishes of chef/owner David McIntyre; a simple, sophisticated décor; and the limited but lovely selection of desserts by Briggs.

This Lemon Ricotta Tart captures the very essence of a San Diego day -- bright, breezy, radiant. The richness of ricotta and eggs is well balanced by the acidic jolt of fresh lemons in both custard and curd. It’s the rare dessert that actually perks up the palate rather than KOing it.

Here’s Briggs’ recipe. If you’re short on time or energy, you can skip the compote. The beauty of this creation lies in the luminous filling.

Any by the way….if you choose to skip the baking experience altogether, and go to Crescent Heights to taste the Lemon Ricotta Tart instead, be sure to also try Chef McIntyre’s superlative Sauteed Diver Scallops, anointed with brown butter and set atop some of the most perfect renditions of risotto I’ve had in years; and his salad of Chino Farms beets and first-rate burrata cheese moistened with 25-year-old balsamic vinegar.

CRESCENT HEIGHTS LEMON RICOTTA TART

Yield – 1 8”-9” tart

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

SWEET DOUGH
5 oz butter, soft
2.5 oz sugar
1 egg, lightly whisked
7.5 oz pastry flour

FILLING
4 oz sugar
¼ oz all purpose flour
4 oz ricotta
½ each vanilla bean (or 1 tsp vanilla extract)
2  eggs
4  egg yolks
¼ c. lemon juice
1 lemon zested
1.5 oz cream

CURD
4 oz lemon juice
3 oz sugar
2 eggs
1.5 egg yolks
3 oz butter, cut into cubes

COMPOTE
4 oz red wine
4oz port
1 oz sugar
8 oz huckleberries

FOR THE CRUST
-    In a stand mixer using a paddle attachment, mix butter & sugar together
-    Alternately add your dry & wet ingredients starting with the flour
-    Mix until the dough comes together & no streaks remain
-    Wrap tightly in saran wrap and chill for at least 1 hour.
-    Roll chilled dough to ¼” thickness. Lay rolled dough on into 9” fluted tart shell. Press the dough firmly to the pan removing any air bubbles. Cut off any excess dough from edges.
-    Poke holes using fork on bottom of shell. Bake for 5 min. turn shell for even baking and bake for another 5 min. Let cool.

FOR THE FILLING
-    Using whisk attachment in a stand mixer, mix sugar, flour, ricotta & vanilla bean until combined.
-    Continue by adding eggs & yolks. Scraping the bowl well after each edition.
-    Add the lemon juice & lemon zest mix & scrape.
-    Add the cream & mix on speed for 30 seconds
-    Use immediately or store for 3 days
-    Line a baking sheet w/ parchment paper & place prebaked (cooled) tart onto sheet.
-    Pour filling 1/4” inch below top of shell.
-    Bake for 10 min, turn the tart in the oven and continue to bake until set, approximately 8 to 10 minutes.

FOR THE CURD
-    Over a double boiler on medium to low heat, whisk together lemon juice, sugar, eggs & yolks
-    Continue whisking until the thin mixture becomes pudding like in texture (approximately 12 min.)
-    Remove thickened curd from heat & place on heat safe surface.  Gently whisk in butter
-    Store in airtight container with plastic wrap directly on the surface of the curd.  Chill for 1 hour before serving.

FOR THE COMPOTE
-    In a sauté pan, combine port, red wine & sugar
-    Over a med – high heat reduce the mixture to a quarter of its original volume
-    Add in huckleberries & remove from heat.  Stir the huckleberries just until combined.  Cool the compote. Store until ready to plate. (***Note – if huckleberries aren’t available  use a combination blueberries & raspberries)

ASSEMBLY
- Cut a slice of the lemon ricotta tart & place atop a spoonful of lemon curd. Drizzle some of the huckleberry compote onto the plate around the tart.

 

Edible Encores

One of my favorite meals of the year is the turkey sandwich I make the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Today I’ll pile sliced whole wheat bread with the delicious, freshly sliced meat,  avocado, Boston lettuce, sliced tomato, plenty of Anglesey salt and pepper and tons of mayonnaise. If I’m feeling ambitious I’ll also tuck in a bit of the baked cranberry sauce I make for the two traditional feasts.

The big bird appears in Act III tonight. That production number – by the popular demand of my family --is a pot pie adapted from Diane Phillips’ user-friendly cookbook, “Pot Pies: Comfort Food Under Cover.” 

Here’s the recipe (and a photo from CleanFoodConnection.com, purveyor of  all-natural, organic food products to tantalize your tastebuds).

OLD-FASHIONED TURKEY POT PIE (adapted from Phillips’ “Old-Fashioned Chicken Pot Pie with Chive Mashed Potato Crust”)

Serves 4 to 6

4 tablespoons butter
¾ cup finely chopped onion
5 tablespoons flour
3 cups chicken broth
1 cup carrots, cut roughly into ¼ inch dice
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon chopped fresh sage or ½ teaspoon dried
1 cup milk
1 1/2 cup frozen and defrosted petite peas
½ - 1 cup other leftover vegetables, diced (optional)
2 cups cooked turkey

Preheat over to 375 degrees.
In a 4-quart saucepan, melt the butter and sauté the onion for a few minutes, until it begins to soften. Add the flour and whisk until it bubbles. Gradually whisk in the broth, stirring until the sauce is thick and smooth, about 3-5 minutes.
Add the carrots, salt, pepper and sage, stirring until the sauce begins to simmer. Simmer for 5 minutes. Add the milk, peas, any other vegetables (bits of cooked turnips, rutabagas or winter squash are delicious) and turkey, simmering for another 3 minutes.

From here you can pour the mixture into one round gratin dish (about 9” diameter,  2” deep), and top with a piece of refrigerated pie crust (I like the rolled Pillsbury crusts available in most supermarkets).  Trim the edges, crimp the crust, make a few slashes on the top dough, and bake until the crust is golden brown, about 25 minutes.

Or you can line a large gratin dish or 4 to 6 small, individual aluminum foil pie tins with refrigerated pie crust, prick with a fork and bake for five minutes.  Then add the turkey mixture to each dish, top with pie crust, trim edges, crimp, and make a few slashes on the top to release steam. (Some cooks skip the pre-baking of the bottom crust…I feel that step ensures a flakier bottom crust in the final product.)

Bake the pie/pies at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes, or until crust is golden brown.

Dishes To Be Thankful For

Ask any newspaper Food Editor which deadline of the year they most dread and the chances are good they’ll say “Thanksgiving.”  I mean, really, how many new takes on this turkey-and-overeating holiday can a journalist come up with?

There’s the basic how-to, with day-by-day, hour-by-hour directives.

There’s brining vs. non-brining.

Fresh vs. frozen.

Scintillating sidedishes.

Leftovers.

After that, we food writers start scratching our heads and wondering how a Wine Country Thanksgiving or a Southwestern Thanksgiving might play.

In 25 years of re-inventing the Thanksgiving feast for San Diego Union-Tribune readers, I discovered a bunch of fabulous recipes that have become regulars on our holiday table.

Here are three of the best:
(And here's a photo, from one of my favorite blogs Matt Bites, to whet your appetite.

BUTTERNUT SQUASH GRATIN

From Chef Bradley Ogden
Serves 6 to 8

3 cups butternut squash, peeled, seeded and sliced ¼-inch thick
1 medium onion, quartered and sliced 3/8-inch thick
2 tablespoons unsalted butter 
1 teaspoon fresh garlic, minced
2 bay leaves
3 sprigs fresh thyme
1/8 teaspoon ground mace (or nutmeg)
1 ½ cups heavy cream
½ cup half-and-half
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
2 teaspoons kosher salt
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Place a heavy-bottom skillet over medium heat and add the butter; heat until sizzling. Add the onions and caramelize, cooking for approximately 10 minutes and stirring often.
Season to taste with salt and pepper, then add the garlic at the end. Remove from heat.
Spread the cooked onions evenly in a 4-by-6-inch baking dish.
Place the squash in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and cover with the cream, half-and-half, bay leaves, thyme, mace, salt and pepper. Simmer until the squash is tender and has absorbed most of the cream. Remove from heat and discard the herb stems and bay leaves. Taste for seasoning.
Layer the squash in the baking dish on top of the onions. Top with Parmesan and dot with butter.
Brown lightly in a 425-degree oven for approximately 15 minutes. Serve immediately.

YAM-PEAR PUREE
From “Good Food” magazine
Serves 8

4 pounds yams (or sweet potatoes)
½ lemon
4 firm, ripe medium pears, pared, halved and cored
4 medium tangerines (about 1 pound), juiced
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
½ cup (packed) light brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground ginger
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest for garnish

Cook potatoes in a large pot of boiling water until tender when pierced with a fork, about 45 minutes. Drain well.
Squeeze juice from lemon half into a medium saucepan of water. Add pears and cooked over medium-high heat until tender, about 15 minutes. Drain well.
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Process half the potatoes, pears, tangerine juice, butter, sugar and ginger in a food processor or blender until smooth. Transfer puree to 9-by-15-inch baking dish and repeat with remaining ingredients. Stir purees to blend, season with salt and pepper to taste, and smooth top with spatula.
Bake until heated through, about 25 minutes. Garnish with lemon zest and serve hot.

WORLD’S BEST CRANBERRY RELISH
About 2 cups

1 bag (12 ounces) fresh cranberries
½ cup water
1 cup sugar
1 cup toasted walnuts, crushed slightly
¾ cup orange marmalade
Juice of 1 lemon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Rinse cranberries, picking out any spoiled ones. Place cranberries in deep 2-quart baking dish with lid. Add water and sugar. Cover with foil and place lid firmly on top.
Bake for one hour, stirring lightly after 30 minutes.
Remove from oven. Add marmalade, lemon juice and walnuts.
Cool and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Rest of the Best

I never said math was my long suit.

Last week, a reader took me to task for providing two of the best recipes I discovered in 25-plus years as Food Editor/Columnist, when I said I'd be sharing three. Man, you can't get away with anything in this blogging business.

Here are two more of the recipes I prepared during my class at Great News! Cooking School.

ROASTED CAULIFLOWER WITH CAPERS AND GARLIC

1 large head cauliflower, broken apart into rosettes
1 to 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper to taste
2 tablespoons capers, drained
1 tablespoon minced garlic

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Place cauliflower rosettes in baking pan. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with kosher salt and stir with wooden spoon. Roast for about 40 minutes, or until rosettes are tender and have well-charred edges.

Remove oven from pan and immediately add minced garlic and capers. Stir to combine. Serve immediately. Serves 3 to 4.

PEAR GRATIN

4 ripe pears, whatever type smells the best at the market
¾ cup apricot preserves, pushed through a strainer
½ cup white wine, dry or slightly sweet
1 to 1 ½ cups almond macaroons (I buy the canned ones that are in the Kosher food section of the supermarket. You can also use amaretti.)
1 tablespoon unsalted butter for buttering pan
1 ½ tablespoons butter for cooking

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Place macaroons in plastic zip-lock bag and crush with rolling pin until no large pieces remain. There should be about 1 cup of crushed cookies.
In a large bowl, beat the preserves and white wine together until smooth.
Peel, core and slice pears thinly.
Butter a ceramic baking dish large enough to hold all the pears. Arrange pears in slightly overlapping concentric circles.
Pour apricot-wine mixture over pears. Sprinkle with crushed macaroons. Dot top with the 1 ½ tablespoons butter broken into small pieces.
Bake until bubbling and slightly browned, about 25 minutes. Gratin will be very juicy. Serve warm in shallow bowls with whipped cream, or spoon over softened vanilla ice cream.