New Cookbook

One of the best things about Christmas is getting new cookbooks: I received a check from Bob and with it I bought The Book of Latin American Cooking by the famous Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz.

Much of the book is taken up with Mexican cooking, about which I already know a lot--I was looking for Central and South American stuff. The Mexican things in this book, though, tend to be more exotic, very far away from Tucson-Sonoran and Tex-Mex.

Tonight I cooked a halibut steak which Russell and Brittany sent from Alaska for Christmas. I loved the simplicity and flavor of this dish. Here is the recipe.

Pescado con Cilantro

1 pound fresh fish fillets (snapper, flounder, etc)

Salt, pepper

Juice of 1 fresh lemon

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium onion, thinly sliced

1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

Canned jalapenos, chopped

Sprinkle fish with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

Heat olive oil and saute onions until tender and lightly browned.

Place the fish in a baking dish and cover with the onions. Top with chopped cilantro and jalapenos. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes, or until just cooked through.

Baked Cod with Saffron, Tomatoes, and Fennel

Over the weekend I relearned an important lesson about cooking, especially for people like you and me who use so many cookbooks: never, ever let what a cookbook says override your own judgment.

I remember you telling me about a family friend back in Hawaii who was perplexed that a recipe she'd made wasn't very good. The dish was something like tuna-and-lima bean casserole, but worse. And of course it wasn't good -- it didn't sound good. One has to learn to judge which dishes might be novel but good and which will be bad. There's a line between trying new things and trying everything.

So, I'm reviewing a cookbook/reference about sustainable seafood for Abode. It's called Fish Forever, by Paul Johnson, and is so far quite wonderful. And I got so excited about the recipe for Orange-Scented Olive Tapenade. The recipe was intended for albacore, but the book said a milder fish like flounder or halibut would work well, too, and I had some turbot, so I used that. And it wasn't right at all. The fish was delicate and mild and not good at all with that big serious topping. And I should have known that.

The tapenade was good left over on bread. But here's a more successful recipe from the book. He calls it Mediterranean Baked Cod, but that's not a very descriptive name, so I'm calling it Baked Cod with Saffron, Tomatoes, and Fennel and including a few important modifications. It is simple and wonderful.

Preheat oven to 400, and with it a casserole or Dutch oven, lid and all.

Pour in:

- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 to 4 saffron threads (really! that few! I promise)
- 1 or 2 leeks, or one very sweet onion, chopped (about 1/2 cup)
- 1 small bulb fennel, cored and thinly sliced or chopped

Toss, cover, and return to oven for 10 minutes or until sizzling and beginning to brown.

Remove casserole and add:

- 3/4 cup dry white wine (or, most successfully, champagne. SO GOOD.)
- juice of 1/2 lemon

Let cool for a minute. Place on top:

- 12 to 20 ounces of cod fillets

Toss in a bowl, then dump over top of fish:

- 3 medium tomatoes, chopped, or 1.5 containers cherry or grape tomatoes, some halved
- 2 more tablespoons olive oil
- salt
- pepper

Cover, return to oven, and bake about 10 mor eminutes, until fish is cooked through. Serve over couscous or something else that can soak up a bunch of saffrony tomato broth.

I can't wait to make this with fresh garden tomatoes.

More on the book later this month in Abode.

November Miscellany

Here are our first tangerines of the year (we had eight.) They are hard to peel and a little on the fibrous side, but have a delightful tangy and sweet flavor.

***

I am not reviewing this cookbook, just complaining about it. I bought a used copy of James McNair's Favorites (1999) at a library sale for $2.50. It is beautiful to look at and has some lovely recipes. However, it has the worst index I've ever come across: I finally found a spinach recipe under R for "Roman-Style Spinach" and eventually figured out that the vegetable recipes are more or less alphabetically arranged--okra, potatoes, spinach--but they are included in a long section titled "Accompaniments," which also includes salads and grains. I wouldn't be so disappointed if I didn't love McNair's Pizza book, which got me started down the path to years of wonderful pizzas.

***

On a less bitchy note, here is a wonderful salad that our neighbor Mary Ellen brought to the neighborhood picnic last weekend. It is just the perfect combination to sit around on the buffet table and still be delicious, whether chilled or at room temperature.

Greek Salad for Two

2 tomatoes, cubed

1/2 cucumber, sliced

12 Greek olives

1 slice red onion, chopped

1 16-ounce can garbanzos

Feta cheese

Make a dressing of oregano, garlic, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar (two parts vinegar to one part oil). Add salt and pepper to taste. Lettuce is optional.

Crab Cakes and Miscellany

I was so excited to get Molly O'Neill's American Food Writing: An Anthology with Classis Recipes from the library, and I did use one good recipe from it, but overall it was so disappointing. Where did she find 500+ pages of such boring writing about food? I am especially bummed out because I was thinking of sending it to you for your birthday, but it was a dud.

***

Once we were with Uncle George buying fried clams or something similar and I asked whether he wanted to get cocktail sauce. "Oh no!" He was firm. "That has to be homemade." Well, homemade cocktail sauce to George was ketchup, horseradish, Worcestershire sauce, and lemon juice. And very good it is, too. Last night I made some to go with our Crab Cakes.

Sections of King crab were on sale at our favorite store. The 4-inch lengths were so easy to deal with. A few minutes with kitchen shears and I had a big pile of crab meat (it cost about $7.50). I used the Joy of Cooking recipe which adds just a few seasonings, a little mayonnaise and bread crumbs; then you coat each cake in bread crumbs and chill. Fry about 4 minutes per side.

I served sweet potato fries (baked, really) and asparagus. We felt lucky.

Well, maybe Dad didn't feel all that lucky. I made a really big pile of dirty dishes in the process of making this meal!

Crowder Peas and A Poorly Composed Meal

We bought crowder peas at the farmer's market. I'd never even heard of them, as interested as I am in Southern vegetables, but Lawson told me his grandma used to grow them. They looked strange and beautiful:

They took me over an hour and a half to shell. And as there will be no more new Harry Potter books to read while I'm shelling crowder peas, I may never shell another crowder pea again. As you would expect, the drier purple pods had harder bean-like peas that fell right out, but the greener pods were spongy and delicate and so, so hard to pull apart to get at the pea inside. It was super-tedious.

Just last weekend I bought this book. I had high hopes: I've been reading reviews of it, and a quick glance showed me recipes for fig preserves and other such Southern foods. But the recipes aren't really Southern in cooking method -- they're more like things I would make out of Southern ingredients if I was feeling really fussy. I really want a solid Carolinian cookbook with Southern cooking methods. Sometimes I'm not a big fan of those methods, but I know there are traditional subtleties beyond just adding a ham hock to everything, as so many cooks do, and I want to know what they are.

Anyway, I used the Lee Brothers' crowder pea recipe, which involves a short boiling and a very basic vinagrette. This disappointed Lawson, who thought I should have tried the real Southern way after spending all that time shelling peas. The real way, you'll be unsurprised to learn, involves a ham hock.

The crowder peas in vinaigrette formed the base of this ill-composed meal :

Everything tasted fine, but nothing fitted; there were too many foods on the plate, cooked too much the same way. The pork chops were marinated in rosemary, sage, vermouth, wine vinegar, and olive oil and then grilled -- my favorite method and one of the first recipes I invented (though in this case the grill died and I finished them in a pan). But then the okra was broiled, as were the figs. The jalapenos were broiled, too, and it did nothing but make them unbearably spicy. Too many foods, too much heat, too many grill marks, too many hot juices running out of things. There were no contrasts. Sometimes meals that fall together out of Lawson's and my brains work out just fine, and sometimes they do not.

My mom is on a trip, in case you're wondering why she's not posting. She, my dad, my brother, and my brother's girlfriend will be here in South Carolina in a few days. There may be a lull in posting, but maybe we'll all throw together a post or two. Because my parents are traveling in a car, without their camper, they will be desperate for homemade food by the time they reach us.

Kale, White Bean, Bacon, and Potato Soup

This is a modified version of a Louis Osteen recipe. (By the way, we have two identical copies of this book if you would like one.) I served it with skillet cornbread.

My friend Mary has commented on how much you and I seem to use cookbooks. I suppose we do, but most of the time it's for ideas, not instruction. The night I made this soup, for instance, I was feeling uninspired and tired, not at all in a cooking mood, but I needed to use the kale I'd bought the week before, so I started poking around through some likely cookbooks. And when I found the Louis Osteen recipe for soup with mustard greens, country ham, and white beans, I got really excited. I ended up having a great time cooking that night.

Mary tends to get an idea for a dish first, then look up recipes online to get an idea of how to make it. Sometimes it works that way for me: yesterday I decided to make peanut blossoms for today's Valentine party at work. You used to make them when I was a kid and I loved them but hadn't had them since. And none of my cookbooks had a recipe, so I had to find several online and choose the most credible-looking recipe. But I hate not knowing a recipe's source well. I know I can trust Joy's cookie recipes and would rather bake something from there.

The cookies are a success. And the soup is even better left over than it was the first night.

Update 02-08-08: Now I've posted the soup recipe.

I Love My New Toys

I finally turned my back on decades of Cuisinart food processing and asked for a KitchenAid for my birthday this year. Ain’t it handsome? My main problem with the Cuisinart was that the bowl wasn’t as durable as the early models, and after a couple years of use the switch/latch assembly would degrade, and finally get to the point where I had to hold down the lid with one hand and operate the buttons with the other. This KitchenAid bowl is thick and heavy, and the switch is simpler. It also has a mini-bowl that stores inside, for small jobs. I usually do those small jobs with a knife, but this is cute. I used the big bowl to make chorizo this week and it mixed powerfully and evenly, without my having to stop and scrape the sides. I’m delighted with it.

I also received four cookbooks for Christmas and my birthday this year. They are all spread out on the countertop along with my shopping-and-menu notebook, and every meal I cook I’m becoming more intimate with them. This has been a wonderful couple of weeks to experiment with new recipes, partly because of the cool weather, but also because of the lull between the holidays and the piano teaching season (spring competitions, festivals, etc.)

The Olive and the Caper: Adventures in Greek Cooking by Susanna Hoffman
This book is fun to read because the pages are filled with sidebars and inset boxes about Greek history, customs, and ingredients. I wondered if the recipes would be secondary, but they are indeed delicious and well-written. Last night we had Chicken Kapama--chicken browned and braised in an intensely dark red sauce containing coffee, tomato, red wine, brandy, honey, and herbs—kind of like a Greek barbeque sauce. With it I served a bulgur and vegetable pilaf, and tzatziki (thick Greek yogurt, Persian cucumbers, lots of garlic chopped with salt, and fresh mint and dill). I put fava beans in the pilaf. Did you know that after you shell the fava beans, you then have to blanch them and remove a tough outer membrane from each bean?

The New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden
I am most fascinated by the fish recipes in this book. By far the best fish I have made this month is her Pan-Cooked Fish with Preserved Lemon, Green Olives, and Capers. Many of the fish recipes are made in a single skillet. The salad and cold vegetable chapter is intriguing. I hope to try the lentil salad next, because we bought beautiful red lentils at the Caravan Market. I am thinking of starting a movement: Promoting World Peace through Eating the Foods of Other Cultures. This movement badly needs an acronym before it can catch on.

Vegetables Every Day by Jack Bishop
Sautéed Fennel with Raisins, Pine Nuts, and Garlic! What more can I say? Tonight I am making his grilled eggplant which is first marinated in garlic, oregano, and lemon. I have consulted this book for information every time I’ve cooked a vegetable lately. I am looking forward to Zucchini, Corn, and Red Pepper Sauté—cream and cilantro are added at the end, doesn’t that sound delicious?

La Cocina de la Frontera by James W. Peyton
To read this cookbook is to dwell in the world of sunshine and chiles. If I ever had to move to Siberia or Seattle, I would take this cookbook to bed with me every night. I love the simplicity of the recipes: green chile enchilada sauce made with just the addition of garlic, onion, and tomato, for instance; and the wonderful Border Town Margarita. Peyton offers both traditional and modern versions of many of his recipes, as well as information on how popular dishes vary from Arizona to New Mexico to Texas. At present I think this is the most satisfying Mexican cookbook I own. I think I told you that your copy came from the Panther Junction gift shop at Big Bend National Park. Everyone should head down there and pick one up. (Or order it on the Internet.)

If there’s anyone out there that would like to give me a job reviewing cookbooks, please call.

Chicken Tagine with Chickpeas and Almonds

I’m not sure about tagines. I tried a lamb one from my Paula Wolfert cookbook a few months ago, and it was grey. The problem with traditional Moroccan tagine recipes I have read is that (a) they don’t have any garlic in them! and (b) the meat isn’t browned first. I have a hard time getting past those two prejudices, but as I write I am simmering a chicken/almond/chickpea tagine from my new Roden cookbook and it smells wonderful.

Later...

I had to blanch the almonds for the tagine. I had a general idea about boiling water, etc., but I couldn’t find the information in my cookbooks. So I looked it up on the Internet and indeed, I had to pour boiling water over them, wait one minute, drain and rinse in cold water, and then rub the skins off. Ha! About one third of them succumbed the first time around. The remaining ones needed the microwave treatment before giving up their skins. The tagine recipe indicated that they would get quite soft in and hour and a half of stewing, but it didn’t really happen. The chicken was tender, though, and the sauce “unctuous” as promised. Because of the rich blandness of the tagine I accompanied it with yogurt-cucumber-garlic sauce and homemade pear chutney. I served it with couscous and a favorite zucchini dish.

Favorite Zucchini Dish

Slice two smallish zucchini lengthwise into thin slabs. Lay in a baking dish and turn to coat with 1 teaspoon olive oil.

Top with the following mixture:
½ cup bread crumbs
¼ cup parmesan
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt, pepper
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 or 2 cloves minced garlic
Juice of ½ lemon

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 or 30 minutes, or until tender and browned on top.

Of course things take longer to get done just right when you’re in a hurry, have you noticed that?

Interesting Cookbook Note: I looked in the new white 1997 Joy of Cooking for how to blanch almonds—no joy. Later I found the information in the old blue 1964 one.

Bad Cookbooks

There are some bad cookbooks out there. Grilling cookbooks are probably the worst overall, but tonight I finally made dinner from a Filipino cookbook (whose author shall remain nameless) that I got for Christmas a few years ago. Now, I’ve had excellent Filipino food in Hawaii--especially lumpia, those wonderful little fried taco things served with vinegar and chile sauce—but these recipes were surely written by a non-cook. I suspected it, and I should have trusted my instincts. The pictures were beautiful.

First, there was Fish Adobo, basically poached in garlic, vinegar, and bay leaf. This combination managed to make a mild Mexican snapper taste really fishy. Then a noodle dish very similar to Pad Thai, but inexpertly explained: the snow peas went in the skillet long before the carrots, so they were pretty slimy by the time everything else was done. The only seasonings were salt, pepper, and soy sauce.

Dad liked the meal well enough (that’s the kind of audience a cook needs—ultra-appreciative but not ultra-critical), but I was mad at myself for trusting the cookbook.

On a much happier note, I made Sonoran Enchiladas last night. We had tried them at two Mexican restaurants, and it made me curious. Instead of a corn tortilla, you make a plump masa cake and bake it on a griddle, and then cover with good red chile sauce, cheese, and green onion, and put it in the oven just long enough to melt the cheese. Mmmm.

It dropped below seventy degrees by the cocktail hour tonight, so we fired up our new chiminea.

Fish Course: Cat v. Human

That border foods cookbook sounds amazing. What's it called?

My best bread cookbook is The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart. He has a book called Brother Juniper's Bread Book: Slow Rise as Method and Metaphor that's supposed to be excellent and covers more whole grain breads than the one I have.

The new vet says Ronnie is starting to gain a bit too much weight (though she still weighs 9 pounds...the lightest cat I've ever lived with!). The vet is a big proponent of all-wet, low-carbohydrate cat foods, so he gave me some reading material and suggested I get her off the Iams hard food and half-pouches of Whiskas. I've done a bunch more research, and he's probably right. Veterinary opinion these days is that dry food is worse for cats' teeth, not better, and that commercial cat food with all its grains and fillers is responsible for the cat obesity epidemic. Anyway, in the course of my research I found this recipe for cat food. It's funny: cooking for humans is wonderful, but cooking for my cat doesn't appeal to me in the least...I suppose because I wouldn't want to sample the Whole Bone-In Rabbit & Organ Meats Tartare.

So today I went to the natural foods store to buy Ronnie some fancy cat food: a can of Petguard Savory Seafood, and a can of Fish, Chicken, & Liver. And there I bought two whole trout for me and Lawson. That store always has relatively cheap whole fish for some reason -- it's where I bought the sardines we had a few weeks back.

For dinner tonight I'm making grilled, bacon-wrapped whole trout with a rosemary twig and some lemons stuffed inside them -- I decided to give the Gourmet cookbook another chance after the mushroom sauce success. I'm also baking acorn squash -- you inspired me -- and making a salad with plain old vinaigrette. It should be a good start to the week.

I Love Cookbooks

Ah, cookbooks! I bought a new Mexican cookbook about border foods, namely Tex-Mex, Arizonan, Californian, and New Mexican recipes and their derivations. The real margarita, the authentic sauce for enchiladas specific to each state, the historically accurate way to make chile verde and posole along with excellent modern recipes for each. I’m vibrating with chile thoughts. We had chicken enchiladas with green chile sauce last night. The sauce was so simple, just simmered chiles, onions, garlic, and tomatoes. And the tortillas were softened in oil, with no attempt to cut calories. I’m still smiling.

Tonight I’m in a Portuguese frame of mind, and we had bacalhau (salt cod) the traditional Azorean way with fried potatoes and onions. For tomorrow evening I’ve been marinating pork chops for “carne de vinha e alhos.” They are soaked in white wine, cider vinegar, bay leaves, and garlic for a couple of days, then boiled, and browned just before serving. It’s the same marinade that I use for Portuguese turkey. Jean Anderson’s “The Food of Portugal” is excellent. I notice that she has written a couple of books about preserving.

What is your best bread cookbook? I am looking for better methods and recipes for whole grain breads.