by Sam Tackeff | Jul 24, 2009 | Mexican, Pantry Staples, Soups
I’ve been working all week long in the bookstore (Omnivore Books on Food), while Celia, the owner is away in Paris (so jealous!), and find myself spending the entire day pouring through cookbooks and food memoirs, only to find myself hungry and a little exhausted by the time I get home for dinner.
While I don’t subscribe to the 30 minute meal mentality, I am enamored by recipes that take no more than 15 minutes to put together, and then cook on the stove for an hour or more with little to no fuss – enough time for really rich flavors to develop, and delicious aromas to perfume the house. I’ve been on a bit of a Mexican kick for the past few weeks, reading through our selection here in the shop, and came up with this Pozole – drawn from many sources and adapted for my own kitchen.
This is one of those great recipes where you need a big pot and a cutting board and really nothing else. It’s really a pantry recipe, and it’s basis is the hominy, which is made from maize but almost has the consistency of potato. Add the growers trinity (three sisters): beans, corn, and squash, and you have a delicious stew. They say what grows together goes together, and its certainly evident in this dish.
I get this started the moment I walk in the door, and then have a good amount of time to wind down, organize myself, read my email, and check in with my friends and family before dinner.
An Easy Pozole
serves 4
Ingredients
– 1 29 oz can white hominy
– 1 15 oz can white kidney beans (cannellini beans)
– A corn cob, kernels stripped, cob in the pot as well
– a 1/2 pound of green beans or romano beans, cut into 1 inch strips
– 4 or 5 pattypan squash, cubed
– Ham steak, cubed (the 1 inch thick prepackaged variety works fine)
– 1 onion, chopped
– 2 garlic cloves, smushed with your hand, or the flat of a heavy knife
– 1/2 teaspoon of dry marjoram (or a large sprig of fresh)
– 1/2 teaspoon dry oregano (or a large sprig of fresh)
– a teaspoon of chopped chile (or red pepper flakes)
– 3/4-1 Tbs. Cumin
– salt and pepper to season
Method
Add everything to a big pot, cover with water, to about an inch over everything, gently bring to a boil on medium high heat, and then turn heat down to medium low, cover loosely leaving the lid just a tiny bit ajar, and simmer an hour or more, stirring every once in a while, until you are too hungry to wait any longer. Take out the corn cob, and serve.
Serve with Lime and Cilantro, for garnish, and some warm tortillas for dipping.
Variations: Consider this a recipe that you can easily adjust based on what you have in the kitchen or on hand. I’d keep the onion and spices the same, but feel free to vary the amount of squash (any type of summer squash would do), and the types of beans, etc. You can pop in more vegetables if you’d like, such as chopped red pepper, tomato, or even leafy greens. You can also kick up the heat by adding more pepper – it’s really good hot!
by Sam Tackeff | Jul 1, 2009 | Soups
Last weekend we had lovely guests – Devon’s dad John and his wife Patti, who came not only with gifts of garlic from Gilroy (home of the garlic festival), but a copy of Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything – Vegetarian which I have been lusting after for the past several months and haven’t had the chance to acquire.
We took them to our favorite thai restaurant, Regent Thai, which happens to be a block from our house, and has blissfully delicious Tom Kha Gai, thai coconut chicken soup, and then on Sunday morning we went for breakfast burritos next door at Toast – which are enough to sustain you for the majority of the day. I’ve been working diligently to re-create the Tom Kha Gai soup at home – I’m still tinkering, but I’ll post it when I get it up to speed!
After going on a wandering adventure in the car over to the East Bay, our guests suggested that I make dinner (something that I concede I hadn’t even considered doing at the time of our market trip.)
And so it’s a very good thing that my new habit has been to go through cookbooks and magazines, and food shows and write down the recipes I think I will enjoy in my little moleskin, which ideally I will have in hand at the market if I have to shop for something at the last minute. This has proven to be very useful, because if my menu planning is left to the last minute, I end up fretting, ravenous, and very cranky – or – as in this case – heading to the market with guests a 4pm without a thought having been given to cooking.
We ended up at The Berkeley Bowl – my first time in this fabled food purveyor. The Berkeley bowl is a supermarket that has a produce section much more akin to a farmers market than the vegetables and fruits being relegated to the lackluster outer edges of your everyday super chain. I was excited to find some fresh shellbeans and oyster mushrooms – the perfect additions to Coq Au Riesling – a lovely chicken stew.
I must admit – I hadn’t actually tried this recipe before serving it to guests – but I trust Nigella, and indeed it turned out lovely. It’s definitely one I’ll keep on hand!
Coq Au Riesling
adapted from the lovely Nigella
serves about 4, with a smidge of leftover
Ingredients
a few tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, smushed
a leek, chopped (or an onion)
1/2 cup chopped bacon
8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
5 ounces (or more) oyster mushrooms
1 cup fresh shellbeans (I used cranberry)
3 Turkish Bay Leaves
1 entire bottle Riesling
– Cream (heavy or half and half) – optional, but tasty
– a few tablespoons chopped fresh dill
– Papardelle Egg Noodles (to serve)
Method
1. Heat the oil in a large french oven or soup pot, and fry the bacon until slightly crisp. Add the smushed garlic and chopped leek for a minute or so.
2. Cut the chicken thighs into two or three pieces, and dump them into the pan with the bay leaves, torn up oyster mushrooms, and fresh shellbeans. Pour in the entire bottle of Riesling (unless you want to reserve a half cup or so for the chef….)
3. Season with salt and pepper, and bring to a boil, cover the pan, and turn down the heat to simmer gently for about 45 minutes – or until the shellbeans are cooked through and soft. If you’d like, finish with a quarter cup or so of cream for the last few minutes.
4. Serve over the Papardelle egg noodles, and be sure to sprinkle with fresh dill. It’s delicious.
Note: This tastes really good right when you make it, but even better the next day!
by Sam Tackeff | Jun 22, 2009 | Pantry Staples, Soups
I went to the gym today.
I’ve been trying to drag myself in there for weeks.
I strolled in and screamed I NEED INCENTIVE! And so I got a free personal training session on the weight circuit and gave every muscle a moment to shine. It doesn’t hurt to have a cute trainer to get you really sweating. Huzzah! I’m feeling great that I’ve finally done it, and as I walked out of there, a woman walked briskly across the room and told me I had beautiful hair (and that was post gym hair!). I’m still beaming!
When I got back to the house, I was determined to continue my positive streak, so I put together this soup in about five minutes from some leftovers of Jamie Oliver’s Sticky carrots* that I had sitting in my fridge. You could just as easily boil some carrots with a little salt, pepper, and garlic, and make the soup in about 20 minutes from start to finish.
Quick Carrot Soup: In a blender, put a few cups of leftover cooked carrots (mine had salt and pepper already on them, but if yours don’t just add some), a half cup of plain yogurt, a half teaspoon of cumin, and a half teaspoon of turmeric, and a dash of water (or chicken stock if you have it), and blend until smooth. Top with some snips of dill.
Serve with garlic toast: just lightly coat a few pieces of day old bread with some good olive oil, put under the broiler or in the toaster for a couple of minutes, and then just lightly sweep a clove of garlic over the warm toast.
*Jamie’s Sticky Carrots: Cut a couple of pounds of carrots into two inch lengths, and stick them straight up in a small saucepan fitting them together snugly. Add a couple of Turkish bay leaves, salt and pepper, and a small nob of butter (a tablespoon or two) on top. (I add in a few cloves of garlic here, although his recipe doesn’t have them). Add enough water so that the carrots are halfway submerged, and bring to a boil. Simmer, covered, until carrots are cooked, about twenty minutes, and then just take off the lid and continue to cook until the water cooks down almost away, and the carrots get stick and lovely – about half an hour more. Jamie has you turn them out so they are all beautiful on the plate (taking care not to burn yourself), and serve.
by Sam Tackeff | May 31, 2009 | Pantry Staples, Seafood, Soups
Can you see it there in the dark light? It’s some delicious Salsa Salmon with Brown Rice and a very quick Black Bean Soup, (I promise you). For some reason, the three (3) cameras in my home managed to fail last week all at once. I was cooking in the mid evening, and watching the sun slowly descend as I tried painstakingly to compose the shot and take some photos – oh, no battery – gah, wrong lens – wait! why won’t you take photo without flash – sometimes these are the things you have to deal with.
But let me tell you a bit about this stuff. It was goooood. Really, really, completely satisfyingly good. I might end up making it every week good. It’s something you can put together without much effort and most of it is hands off, if you have a little time to wait and let the flavors marinate.
The secret? Store bought salsa. About an hour before eating, I take my pieces of salmon out into a dish, and coat them with about a cup of salsa – I used Mrs. Renfro’s Habanero Mango Salsa- and shove it back into the refrigerator. This can sit here for an hour or more (more is better) and if you want, you can check it halfway or so and turn the fish over.
Then I get started on the brown rice. Brown rice is fickle. I’d give you an exact time of how long it takes to cook, but it seems to depend on a thousand variables that I can’t quite pin down. Usually I check Mark Bittman’s ‘How to Cook Everything’ to check up on grain cooking times. It usually takes me about an hour. When the brown rice is done, I turn off the heat, cover it with a cloth, put the lid back on, and get a start on the rest of the meal. I get the black bean soup started, and once it’s going, then take the salmon out and cook it- usually it takes about five minutes on each side on medium heat for how I like it (a little rare).
When everything is done, you can plate it, and serve it with the rest of the salsa from the jar.
Really Quick Black Bean Soup
serves 2 or 3 as a generous side
Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 heart of leek, chopped (or small onion)
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tablespoon cumin
1 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon chile powder
1 large heirloom tomato, chopped
1 can black beans, undrained
salt and pepper
Method:
1. In a medium saucepan, heat olive oil over medium heat, and add leek (or onion) and garlic, and cook for about five minutes, stirring so they don’t brown.
2. Add the spices, and give a stir. Then add in your tomato and your beans, and let cook for ten minutes or so on medium heat, and season to taste.
It’s almost as easy as opening a red can of pre-made Goya black bean soup mix, except you know, it’s better for you.
by Sam Tackeff | Mar 9, 2009 | Pantry Staples, Salads, Soups
I’m a big fan of cooking a batch of basic grains at the beginning of week to have on hand for quick meals or sides. With some simple additions, these staples allow you easily prepare something tasty at all times without having to spend forty minutes cooking every meal. I try to mix up which I cook each week: sometimes it’s a pot of brown rice, other times bulgur wheat, or farro, or a combination mixture with beans.
This week I cooked bulgur wheat and chickpeas and used it as the basis for a few different dishes. (I made one batch: in a small saucepan, cover a cup of dry bulgur (I use a larger coarse grain bulgur) with two cups of boiling water and a tablespoon of olive oil. Bring back to a boil, add a can of chickpeas, turn down and simmer covered for thirty minutes or so until tender, seasoned with salt and pepper to taste.)
Not Quite Tabbouleh Salad. (pictured above) Take a cup of the cold bulgur and chickpea mix, add a few tablespoons of fresh parsley, some chopped cherry tomatoes, a few teaspoons of sweet onion if you have it (I didn’t), a hint of cumin, and a few teaspoons of lemon juice to taste. Season with salt and pepper, and enjoy!
Middle Eastern Yogurt Soup: Heat a clove of minced garlic in some chili oil, or (olive oil with a bit of chili powder), add a cup and a half of yogurt, and stir until hot. Add this to a half a cup of warm bulgur and chickpeas. If desired serve with some mini meatballs. (I used Ikea swedish meatballs and it tasted just delicious.)
Just plain, thanks: served simply with a side of grilled lemon chicken and some garlicky sauteed broccolini.
Take a trip around the world: I try to come up with my permutations for these grains by picking a flavor “destination”. If I want Moroccan, I’d add some cumin, cinnamon, smoked paprika and maybe some chopped dried apricots. For France, I might add some Herbes de Provence, and some roasted fennel, and top with a lemon vinaigrette. For Greek, I might do the “not quite tabbouleh” and add some feta cheese, and cucumber. For Italian, I might add some toasted pine nuts, sage, and cubed butternut squash. I find the possibilities doing this endless, and it’s a great way to mix things up without getting bored!
The bottom line… Having these grains on hand make meals simple, make economic sense, provide a healthy alternative when hungry for a snack, and are tasty and delicious. Just make a pot!
by Sam Tackeff | Mar 4, 2009 | Quick and Easy, Soups
I like warm, comforting, delicious stews. I think they are particularly perfect for when it is raining and cold (apparently most of the time here in San Francisco) and you just want something really easy and hearty to tuck into. I’m always looking for good recipes, and so when I saw Nigella Lawson make this chicken cacciatore for her children on ‘Nigella Express’, I went directly to the store to purchase the ingredients to start cooking. Nigella is truly one of my favorite chefs, and cooks really beautiful, easy and well.. sexy food. Her book “How to be a Domestic Goddess” is one I frequently cook from, with much success, and I just can’t get enough of her. She also has a very pretty product line with really cute stuff that I would love to fill my kitchen with.
Bay leaves: These ones that I used for the stew were part of my reserve collection that I smuggled back from Istanbul, where they grow copiously on trees on the island of Büyükada. One afternoon, my mom and I picked about a hundred of them and laid them out all over a table to dry so we could take them home with us. They are an invaluable part of my spice collection! Bay leaves can be expensive, but they are wonderfully fragrant, and shouldn’t be left out of dishes that call for them. I used three for this stew, and it was well worth it.
The smells from this stew are really heavenly, and is the perfect dish to cook for guests, yet not so finicky that you couldn’t just cook it for yourself to eat while watching the television with a beer. It took me a little less than half an hour from start to finish, and would have tasted equally good the next day for lunch (although we definitely didn’t have any left, so that is just an assumption on my part).
A Hearty Chicken Cacciatore
Adapted from Nigella Lawson
serves 2-3
Ingredients
– 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
– 1 whole clove of garlic
– 1/2 white onion
– 1 teaspoon fresh rosemary (or 1/4 teaspoon dried)
– 2 thick strips of smoked applewood bacon
– 1 pound of boneless, skinless, chicken thighs, cut into small pieces
– 1/2 teaspoon celery salt
– 1/2 cup white wine
– 1 (14 ounce) can of chopped tomatoes
– 3 bay leaves
– 1/2 teaspoon sugar
– 1 (14 ounce) can cannellini beans
Method
1. Pour some olive oil in a large saute pan on low heat, add a whole clove of garlic, the onion, and the rosemary and stir until the onion is slightly translucent, but not browned, about ten minutes.
2. Add the thick cut bacon, and fry for a few minutes. Increase the heat to medium, add the chicken and celery salt and stir for a couple of minutes, until the outside of the chicken is white.
3. Pour in the white wine, and cook for a few minutes until just simmering, then add tomatoes, bay leaves and sugar. When it comes to a bubble, properly, turn it down slightly, simmer for 20 minutes, and then turn in a can of canellini beans, until they warm up, and it’s done!
Serve with a nice hunk of bread, and a little green salad. Delicious!
