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Some interesting tidbits

January 8, 2012 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

Some interesting tidbits compiled by Molly Oldfield & John Mitchinson

Bad cooks – and the utter lack of reason in the kitchen – have delayed human development longest and impaired it most
Friedrich Nietzsche

Brain food

Cooking is good for the brain. It’s now thought that our ancestor, Homo erectus, first used fire to soften meat 1.8 million years ago. Because the nutrients in cooked food are more easily absorbed, the British primatologist Richard Wrangham has argued that this allowed the human digestive tract to gradually shrink, enabling us to stand more easily.

Cooking also encouraged us to socialize, which expanded our neural pathways and made our brains grow larger. Mouths, once used mostly for ripping and grinding flesh, were able to spend more time talking and singing.

Last sunset of 2011

December 31, 2011 by Mary Frances 5 Comments

For tonight!

December 31, 2011 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

Before you start drinking, try this!

New Years Eve – the one evening that gives everyone permission to over drink and party hardy. Our family precaution, stemming from my father, was to drink a glass of milk and have a banana before starting your reveling. Does it work? He used to say it would coat your stomach and give you something solid in your belly. He also used to say, “Everything in moderation!”

Whatever, the milk and banana are good for you. Give it a go and let me know what you think.

Happy New Year!!!

Beef tenderloin dinner

December 30, 2011 by Mary Frances 8 Comments

I want to tell you about our Christmas Day dinner. It was so good and some of you may want to replicate parts or all of it for your New Years Day dinner. I adapted Melissa Clark’s recent recipe in The New York Times and it was delicious. Everyone raved about the meat!!

And here’s a funny story about buying the meat. I had heard a radio ad for Stew Leonard’s whole beef fillets. He was advertising them for $7.98 a pound! I thought, wow, that’s worth a drive to Yonkers. So my husband gets up at 7 am on Saturday to get this. He tried to do it on Friday morning but found our car dead in the garage. We drive a Prius and the engine is so quiet, the garage guys often forget to turn it off. This has happened twice before so we made a sign to tell them to remember to turn it off. But, the last time we drove the car, we forgot to leave the sign in the front seat!

So off he goes on Saturday morning. I tell him to ask the butcher for enough beef for 7 people plus a few leftovers. Well he comes back with this gigantic piece of meat – 6.6 pounds!! Like enough for 13 – 14 people. But then, look at the majority of people who shop at Stew’s – they’re fat! Our country is getting so obese it’s ridiculous. And he paid $11.98 a pound. The $7.98 per pound price was untrimmed with a 30 – 40% loss factor. Talk about a scam to get you in there.

But, this meat was good, so there’s a little redemption.

Here’s my menu.

Appetizers:
Pate de campagne
Truffle duck mousse pate
Cornichons, picholine olives, lightly salted cashews
Artichoke dip – my recipe in an earlier blog post
Assorted brown rice chips, whole wheat pita and sliced French baguette

Dinner:
Pancetta and asparagus soup with black pepper – from Judy Rodgers and the Zuni Café cookbook, served with homemade Polish bread
Beef tenderloin with horseradish sauce– adapted from Melissa Clark and The New York Times
Mashed potatoes with cauliflower and roasted garlic – Lee Bailey – Long Weekends cookbook
Haricot Vert with walnut oil, sea salt and toasted walnuts
Oven roasted plum tomato halves with oregano (they were so good the night before and made the plate look Christmas-y next to the Haricot Vert)

Dessert:
Ethiopian coffee
Christmas cookies, of course
Peppermint chocolates

Here is the tenderloin recipe that I have altered for our taste.

GARLICKY BEEF TENDERLOIN WITH HORSERADISH SAUCE – adapted from Melissa Clark and The New York Times
– serves 12 – 14

1 (6.6 lbs.) beef tenderloin, trimmed and tied
1 1/2 tbs. kosher salt, more to taste
1 1/2 tsp. black pepper, more to taste
1 heaping tbs. chopped fresh rosemary
6 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbs. extra virgin olive oil
1.5 cups crème fraîche
1/4 cup white horseradish
Several dashes of Tabasco

Season the tenderloin all over with the salt, pepper, rosemary and garlic. Cover the meat and refrigerate overnight. Let it come to room temperature for 2 hours before roasting.

Heat oven to 450 degrees. Wipe off as much garlic and seasonings as possible with a paper towel. It tends to burn and the flavors have penetrated the meat overnight.

In a large roasting pan over two burners and high heat, heat the oil. Add the meat and thoroughly brown all over, 4 minutes per side. Brown all 4 sides.

Place the roasting pan on the middle rack of the oven and roast until an instant-read thermometer shows 120 degrees (for rare), 10 to 20 minutes. Let the meat rest for 10 minutes before carving.

In a small bowl, whisk the crème fraîche and horseradish plus a few dashes of Tabasco. Serve alongside the tenderloin.

Assuming your meat is a good quality cut, you will LOVE this!

Now if you want any of these other recipes, do let me know.

Delicious crab cakes

December 29, 2011 by Mary Frances Leave a Comment

A traditional Polish Christmas Eve dinner is comprised of numerous courses of fish. It was a sin, way back, to eat meat on Christmas Eve and many folks fasted all day too.

However, my brother David was born on Christmas Eve so things got all catawampus at our house. David is the second oldest, was born with no name in mind. The story goes that after attending midnight mass, my father went back to the hospital and said he had to be named David, as that was the most mentioned name in the entire service.

Then I moved to New York and every Jewish person I met was totally surprised that our Catholic family had a son named David! Oy vey!

Well David and his brood (7 kids and 10 grandchildren with 2 more on the way) still live in St. Louis. So all of us on the East coast could go back to a more traditional meal, rather than his birthday request.

Here is what I served for this year.

Appetizers:
Taramusalata with red pepper and celery sticks
Greek cheese & aged Gouda with Breton crackers
Beautiful bunch of grapes

Dinner:
Crab cakes on a bed of Boston lettuce with chipotle mayonnaise and 1/2 slice of warm homemade Polish bread just out of the oven.
Steamed whole striped bass with ginger and lemon
Fennel salad
Coarse bulgar with olive oil and parsley
Oven roasted plum tomatoes with oregano

Dessert:
Christmas cookies, of course!

David’s wife, Pat, requested the crab cake recipe. This is from Preston Clark at Food and Wine magazine and it is the best crab cake recipe I have found so far. Now my husband is from Baltimore, so this is a big deal. Baltimoreans know their crab and they serve up the BEST jumbo lump crab cakes. A fine restaurant there will never use a lot or maybe any breading, but then I could never figure out how they got them to hold together because every time I would try to replicate their recipes, they would taste good, but look terrible as they always fell apart.

This recipe uses another fish as a binding – it’s genius! Fresh and full of flavor with the jalapeños and scallions, and crispy on the outside, you will love these. And they hold together nicely.

Crab cake on a Boston lettuce leaf with organic watercress and chipotle mayo

Here you go!

CRISP CRAB CAKES WITH CHIPOTLE MAYONNAISE – ADAPTED FROM PRESTON CLARK
-serves 8 as a first course or 4 as a main

Crab Cakes
1/4 – 1/2 lb. skinless flounder fillet, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
5 scallions, thinly sliced
3 jalapeños, seeded and minced
3 tbs. fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 tbs. chopped parsley
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
3/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 lb. lump or jumbo lump crabmeat, picked over for shells, lay out on a paper towel and pat dry on top
1 1/4 cups panko bread crumbs
Pure olive oil, for frying (I think I might try canola or peanut next time to get it at a higher temperature.)

Chipotle Mayonnaise
This makes a lot and all is not necessary for the crab cakes, but you can use leftovers for other meat sandwiches, especially turkey would be good
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1 chipotle chile in adobo, seeded and minced (or leave the seeds in if you like it spicey – I did)
1 tbs. fresh lemon juice
1 tsp. Old Bay Seasoning
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
Salt and freshly ground pepper

To make the cakes:
In a mini food processor, puree the fish. A small fillet is about 8 oz and my fishmonger wouldn’t sell any less so I used the whole 1/2 lb. and pureed it in two batches. Transfer the pureed fish to a large bowl and add the scallions, jalapeños, lemon juice, parsley, cayenne, salt, pepper and mayonnaise and mix thoroughly. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the crabmeat. Form the mixture into 8 cakes. Place the panko in a pie plate and gently coat the cakes with the panko and refrigerate for 30 minutes. It is important to refrigerate them for at least 30 minutes, so you can handle them and they hold their shape when frying.

To make the mayonnaise:
In a small bowl, combine the mayonnaise, chipotle, lemon juice, Old Bay and mustard and season with salt and black pepper. Cover and refrigerate.

To fry the cakes:
In a large nonstick skillet, heat 1/4 inch of oil until shimmering. Add the crab cakes and cook over moderate heat until browned and heated through, about 3 minutes per side. Use 2 skillets or do 2 batches as 4 at a time is enough.

To serve:
I served the crab cakes on a bed of one Boston lettuce leaf topped with watercress with a dab of the chipotle mayonnaise. Squeeze a tiny bit of fresh lemon juice on the outside rim of the lettuce, before placing on the crab cake, then put on your dab of mayonnaise.

So pretty. So fresh. So good!!

Covered bread

Homemade Polish bread on a white napkin.

Homemade Polish bread – the slight sweetness of this bread offset the spiciness of the crab cake with chipotle mayo – yummy!

You gotta love this!

December 13, 2011 by Mary Frances 4 Comments

A sign in Chinatown here in NYC