Last night I decided to make some mushroom pasta. I threw it together as an afterthought because I was baking a casserole I wasn't too sure about. We started with the mushrooms and no one touched the casserole- not because there was anything wrong with it, but because the mushroom pasta was so good. The kids loved this one, and they had it again for breakfast by request. (!!?) I started with a big bag of mixed mushrooms from Monterey Market. Any mix is fine, or even just a big Costco container of brown mushrooms would be great, but the mix made it a little more exciting. The exact amount probably doesn't matter much either, just remember that mushrooms really cook down. Ingredients: 1 pound bow tie pasta 12 cups of mushrooms, (or a big bag, or whatever you have) thinly sliced 6 cloves garlic smashed and sliced a generous pinch of dried thyme reserved bacon fat or olive oil 1/2-3/4 cup wine 1/2 cup cream salt to taste 1/2-1 cup grated parmesan Directions:
Put a big pot of water on to boil. Have all of the ingredients for the mushroom sauce prepped before you add any pasta to the water. Add salt until it tastes pleasantly salty. When it starts to boil, add the dried pasta. While that is boiling, heat up the bacon fat or olive oil in a really big pan. Add the garlic and the thyme and sauté briefly. Add the mushrooms and a sprinkling of salt. Mushrooms always seem to absorb every drop of fat or oil, so when this happens or when the mushrooms have started to shrink a little, add the wine. It has to be enough that the mushrooms won't burn. (Of course you could lower the heat, but dinner time is usually a huge rush around here.) Once the wine has mostly boiled off, add the cream. When the pasta is just slightly underdone, drain it and add it immediately to the mushroom sauce. It will finish cooking and absorb the flavors of the sauce. When it all looks done (your enormous pile of mushrooms should have cooked down considerably and nothing tastes raw), stir in as much parmesan as you like. If you are short on that, add more salt.
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It's simmering on the stove and it smells amazing. Must be the lard. This was a very simple recipe. It simmers for nearly three hours, so it's better made ahead of time, but it doesn't take much effort once the vegetables are all cut up. You don't even have to brown the meat. I know next to nothing about sausage, so I bought Andouille, the only sausage that was smoked at Trader Joe's. It was pretty fiery but it tasted great- though I wish I could have tried the recipe with a more authentic sausage, whatever that would have been. I used the meat that I had, which was just over 2 pounds of a cut I think was called rib steak. It was tough with lots of connective tissue, but after the long simmer it was completely tender. Another winner from the Countess. Ingredients: 2 pounds of beef cut into 1 inch cubes 1 or 2 smoked sausages, sliced 3 medium onions sliced thinly 2 diced tomatoes 2 red or green bell peppers, peeled if you like and thinly sliced 2 or 3 potatoes, peeled and quartered 2 tablespoons paprika 6 cups boiling water 3 tablespoons lard, olive oil, or butter salt Directions:
Heat up the lard, olive oil, or butter in a large pan. Fry the onion in it until it is light golden. Add the cubed beef, the tomatoes, the chopped bell peppers, the paprika, and some salt. Simmer it very gently for 45 minutes. The salt will draw out moisture from the vegetables and it will create enough juice to simmer in. Slowly add the 6 cups of hot water, cover the pan, and let it continue to simmer for another 2 hours. Half an hour before serving add the potatoes, and 10 minutes before serving add the sausage. Recipes of All Nations by Countess Morphy is one of my most treasured possessions. Published in 1935, it was written for the "modern housewife" in America to show her how middle class women from other countries cook with economy, and to lighten the burden of figuring out what to eat every day. Most surprising to me is the variety of recipes she (Mrs. Morphy? the Countess?) was able to procure. In addition to most of the European countries, there are recipes from Russia, India, China, Japan, Arabia and Persia, Turkey and the Balkans, Greece, Africa, the French West Indies, and South America. There is even a recipe for Pho. She explains that nuoc-man is made from "a kind of brine exuding from decaying fish". Accurate, if not appetizing. There is so much to try, but last night I began with the section on Hungary. The recipes all seem to hold certain key ingredients in common- paprika, lard, cabbage, sauerkraut, sour cream, potatoes, bell peppers (pimientos), and meats like pork, chicken, and beef. So I bought all those things and tried my first recipe last night. It was very easy, and everyone liked it. No exceptions. My husband looked up at me with sad eyes, and said, "Will I ever see this again?" Yes. This deserves a spot in the rotation. It wasn't much to look at, however. Sorry the picture is so uninspired, but it would have taken an army to make it look even half as good as it tasted, and I still had dishes to do. I know Hungarian food doesn't have a reputation for being particularly healthy, and it certainly isn't light, but there are a few features of this meal I feel worth pointing out. Not only was it gluten-free, but the sauerkraut and sour cream are both cultured products if you make them yourself, and sauerkraut is loaded with vitamin C. So no, it's not raw juiced kale, but I promise it tastes better. I served it with boiled buttered potatoes. Directions:
Fry the onion in the butter or olive oil. When it has browned, sprinkle in some paprika and the cubed pork. Add just enough water to cover the meat and simmer it until the water has evaporated. Add water repeatedly until the meat is tender it you need to, but I didn't. The point seems to be to make the meat tender without turning this into a soup. Once the meat is tender and most of the water has evaporated, stir in the sauerkraut and sour cream. Season with salt and pepper to taste. I added in more paprika just to make the color richer. I think up to a tablespoon would be fine. This is the perfect fall soup. A lot of butternut squash soups are disturbingly sweet, but this one manages to stay firmly entrenched in the savory world where it belongs. I tried this originally as part of a collection of Palestinian recipes from Saveur Magazine last year and I've made it many times since then. The original recipe used carrots and celery, but the bell pepper and tomato tasted just as good and I honestly couldn't taste a big difference. So use whatever you have. Ingredients:
2-3 Tablespoons olive oil 1 onion, minced 4 cloves garlic 2-3 cups of mixed vegetables like carrot, celery, bell pepper, tomato, or zucchini cut into dice 1 teaspoon ground cumin 1/4-1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes 1/2 butternut squash peeled and cubed 1 cup red lentils 6 cups chicken stock salt and pepper lemon slices paprika and parsley to garnish Directions: In a soup pot over a medium high flame, heat a few tablespoons of oil and use it to sauté the onion and garlic. When the onion looks soft, add in the other mixed vegetables and a little bit of salt. Continue to fry until the vegetables look soft. Add in the cumin and red pepper flakes and stir. Now pour in the lentils and the chicken stock. Bring it to a boil and then simmer until the squash and lentils are completely soft, maybe 20 minutes or so. Season it to taste with salt and pepper, and when the soup has cooled off blend it either in a processor or with an immersion blender. Garnish it if you like with a drizzle of olive oil, a sprinkle of paprika, and some chopped parsley. Serve it with the lemon wedges on the side. This is cheap and healthy, and in spite of the dizzying array of vegetables included, somehow my kids still like it. Today this cost me $6 to make and it served four people with leftovers. Every time I make this I think I am going be smart and just throw together a huge batch of sauce to use next time (though I never do). You don't have to peel the bell peppers, but it makes it much easier to digest. Ingredients: 2-3 tablespoons bacon fat or light olive oil 1/2 pound of thinly sliced pork 1/2-1 onion, cut in half and then sliced thinly 1 red bell pepper, peeled and then sliced thinly 1 small zucchini cut into matchsticks 1 pound of yaki-soba noodles 1/4 cup thinly sliced basil For the sauce: 3 tablespoons soy sauce 1 teaspoon mirin 1/2 teaspoon of sesame oil or just a big squirt 2 tablespoons sake a few grinds of pepper 1/2 teaspoon of curry powder Directions:
Heat the bacon fat or oil in a wok. When it heats up, add the pork and fry it. When it's almost cooked through, add all the vegetables. I typically overcrowd my pan as you can see in the picture above, so it might take a while to cook the vegetables down. Make sure that the onion really cooks through so you don't end up with big horrible mouthfuls of sharp crunchy raw onion and zucchini. When the vegetables are soft, add in the noodles and pour the sauce over them. Use a pair of chopsticks to wiggle apart the noodles while the steam softens them and they become more pliable, stirring and mixing them into the vegetables. Taste a few noodles to make sure there's enough salt in the dish and make any adjustments you need to. Take it off the heat and mix the basil in. At the farmer's market I am frequently seduced by the beauty of vegetables that I'm not quite sure what to do with. Last time it was long beans and Chinese eggplant. This is what I did with them. This tastes exotic but is really easy to make as long as you have lemongrass and coconut cream on hand. I bought a big bundle of lemongrass and froze it; coconut cream is sold at Trader Joe's now. Ingredients: 1 small yellow onion 4" piece of lemongrass 1 mild fresh green chili, seeded (but you can adjust this or just take it out if you have small children) 3/4" fresh ginger 3 garlic cloves 1 cup of coconut cream 1-1/2 teaspoons sugar 1 teaspoon salt 4-5 cups of mixed vegetables or a mix of vegetables and meat 1/2 Tablespoon fish sauce 1/3-1/2 cup chunky peanut butter Directions:
If you are using meat, brown the meat first and set it aside. I've made this with ground beef and stew beef. If you use stew beef, be sure to cut it into much smaller cubes or it will be tough since it doesn't simmer for long. To make the sauce, put the onion, lemongrass, chili, ginger, and garlic in a food processor or blender. Process them a little before adding half the coconut cream. Process it again until it's mostly ground up, and then add the rest of the coconut cream, salt, and sugar and blend it until you have a smooth paste. Simmer the coconut sauce for 10 minutes. Add about 3/4 cup of water and then add the vegetables and meat. Simmer them until they are tender, then add the fish sauce and peanut butter. Cook it until the peanut butter is thoroughly amalgamated. Add more fish sauce if it isn't salty enough. This soup is better than the sum of its parts. It shouldn't be good. It takes almost no effort and few ingredients and still makes a great light meal. We ate it for lunch a few days ago and for breakfast today. I serve it with rice if I want to make it thicker, but you could add egg too. You could garnish this with chopped cilantro to make it prettier if you like, but I am posting this in its simplest form because I love that all you need are meaty pork bones and some cabbage or spinach for this. The other benefit to this is that you can make it in a couple hours or over a couple days. Ingredients: meaty pork bones 10-spice powder 1/2-1 napa cabbage, sliced thinly salt and pepper to taste Directions:
1. Put the bones in a pot and just barely cover them with filtered water. If you use too much water your soup won't taste like much. Bring it to a boil and skim off the scum that forms on top. Turn the heat down now and simmer it for an hour or two. If you don't need it right away, you can make this another way. Instead of simmering it right away, you can cover the pot, turn it off and forget about it. Bring it to a boil once every twelve hours three times. So if you start cooking this at night, let it sit with the lid on overnight. Bring it to a boil again the next morning, and then again when you get home that evening. It will be ready to use the next morning. Then you can either refrigerate it for a few days or use it right away. 2. Once the water has cooled enough, take out the bones, remove the meat from them, chop the meat up, and return it to the broth. Add the napa cabbage (or spinach, or bok choy), some salt and pepper, and sprinkle in a little 10-Spice Powder. Bring it to a boil one last time to wilt the cabbage, and once it cools a little, taste it for salt and pepper. This recipe serves four not very hungry people, but you can easily double it. Tonight we were saving room for a popcorn and movie night.
Ingredients: 4 chicken drumsticks 1/4 cup soy sauce 1/4 cup mirin (sweet rice wine) 1 lemon, sliced 1 potato, sliced butter salt and pepper parmesan Directions: Marinate the chicken in equal parts soy sauce and mirin for one hour or a few days. Put it into a small baking dish with the marinade, the potato and the lemon. Dot with butter and sprinkle the potatoes with salt and pepper. Put in a 350 degree oven and bake until the chicken skin is nice and browned. You can cut a drumstick to be sure it has cooked to the bone. (I hate dry, overcooked chicken, but I have fed large groups of people slightly undercooked chicken enough times to check now. People FREAK out.) Remove the the chicken to a plate. Submerge the potatoes in the juices, cover the dish with aluminum foil, and return to the oven. Turn it up to 400 degrees to finish cooking. When the potatoes are done, serve them with the chicken and a sprinkle of parmesan. I served this with cucumbers seasoned with salt, sugar, and rice vinegar.
I prepare the meat the night before, and set up the rice cooker on a timer earlier in the day so that when dinner time rolls around this comes together quickly. Here is how I do it. Marinade Ingredients: chopped garlic chopped ginger soy sauce sake or wine arrowroot powder or cornstarch toasted sesame oil 10-spice powder (see my post on 10-spice Tilapia for the recipe) Stir it up, cover it, and refrigerate it overnight. I'm not including amounts because this is not something you measure, just a dump-and-guess kind of procedure. The 10-spice powder is optional. If you are comfortable stir-frying then read no further, but if you aren't sure about the rest or you're curious about how someone else does it, keep reading.
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AuthorI love trying new foods, cooking, and gardening. I hope to share these experiences on this site. Thanks for taking a look! Categories
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