Innholdsfortegnelse for April - May 2016 i Cook's Country

HOMETOWN RECIPE WHEN OUR EXECUTIVE food editor returned from a recent trip to California, he pulled me aside to show me pictures of some fried chicken that he had eaten in Bakersfield (see “On the Road”). “What’s that all over the chicken?” I asked. “Butter and garlic. Lots of garlic. And it was amazing.” He described moist and tender chicken, permeated with mild garlic flavor, under a crispy coating that was doused with a potent garlic-parsley butter. I’m a huge fan of fried chicken, any fried chicken. But wouldn’t garlic butter sog out the coating? Or mask the flavor of the chicken? But my editor insisted. “You have to figure out how to make this,” he said. “You’re going to love it.” I searched our test kitchen library to find…

HOMETOWN RECIPE AMONG LEGENDARY SOUTHERN dishes (fried chicken, collard greens, grits—you know the list), beaten biscuits occupy a place of pride. Dating from before baking powder and baking soda were commercially available (see “Leaveners Through the Ages”)—that’s right, they are actually modern inventions—these biscuits required the cook to beat the dough as a way of leavening it. By hitting it with a mallet, a rolling pin, or the back of an axe, cooks were trapping air pockets in the tough dough. They were also developing gluten, a protein that trapped the air as the biscuits rose in the oven. The end result was a cross between a biscuit and a cracker, crunchy and firm on the exterior with a flaky, semisoft interior. The bakers who continue to make beaten biscuits—which,…

MASHED POTATO CAKES—DISKS of soft, fluffy mashed potato coated in bread crumbs and fried up crunchy—are equally welcome at suppertime next to a piece of meat or at breakfast under a poached egg. Thrifty home cooks have long considered them an excellent endgame for leftover mashers. But after testing a handful of existing recipes for this many-textured treat, I found a process riddled with potholes. Several recipes I tested gave me cakes that were mushy and wet and difficult to form into disks. They refused to hold their shape in the pan. Why? Most of the recipes started with leftover mashed potatoes, so there was quite a lot of dairy (cream and butter) already in the mix, which made it tricky to shape and cook the cakes. But one promising…

IT’S LATE, IT’S cold out, and you’ve just returned home from, say, a long day of work, or perhaps a long night out with friends. All you want is a warm, comforting dish of something. Enter savory, simple Dublin coddle, proof positive that the Irish, both at home and abroad, know their way around rich, restorative meals. Similar to Irish stew, that famous dish based on lamb and cabbage, coddle instead combines pork sausage, bacon, onions, potatoes, and stock— and rather than stew it all together, it’s layered and cooked (or coddled) into a finished dish that’s much more than the sum of its parts. Or at least it should be; in my initial research into this dish, I found recipes that boiled the ingredients for hours on end, resulting…

Choose the Right Oil Our top choice for deep frying is neutralflavored peanut oil. Its high smoke point means it can withstand prolonged heating without breaking down. If you don’t have peanut oil, use vegetable oil. Use a Spider With its long handle and shallow mesh basket, a wire skimmer, or spider, is the best tool for safely lifting food from oil. Monitor the Temperature Maintaining the proper oil temperature is the key to good results: Oil that’s too hot will scorch food; oil that’s too cool will yield pale, greasy food. Use a clip-on deep-fry thermometer, and keep in mind that adding food to the pot will cause the temperature to drop. Finally, if the oil starts lightly smoking, remove the pot from the heat and let it cool…

HOMETOWN RECIPE BACK WHEN I lived in San Francisco, the foundation of my daily lunch was a Dutch crunch roll. A soft, slightly sweet submarine-size roll with a distinctive mottled, crunchy top, it was the basis for nearly every sandwich I ate during those years. Since it was readily available everywhere in the city, I actually had no idea it was a regional specialty until I moved back to the East Coast and suddenly found myself unable to locate it. I realized that I was going to have to create my own recipe. There are two parts to these sandwich rolls: the dough and the signature craggy topping. I tackled the dough first. While I wanted a soft, chewy crumb inside, the flavor of the bread needed to be unobtrusive,…

WHEN I FIRST encountered beef Lombardi—a layered casserole of ground beef, diced tomatoes, and canned chopped green chiles atop a base of egg noodles combined with sour cream, scallions, and lots and lots of cheese—I assumed that the dish came straight out of the midcentury American cookbook. But it turns out this Southern favorite is much younger than that: An enterprising caterer in Cleveland, Mississippi, developed the first recipe in the 1990s. The name? It refers to nothing in particular; she just liked the sound of it. When I baked up a published version of beef Lombardi in the test kitchen, my tasters thought the recipe showed promise as a one-dish comfort meal, “like Stroganoff meets Tex-Mex,” that “reminds me of my childhood.” That said, there were a handful of…

EGGS BENEDICT WITH FOOLPROOF HOLLANDAISE Serves 4 An instant-read thermometer is essential to this recipe. For an accurate measurement of boiling water, bring a full kettle of water to a boil and then measure out the desired amount. Our favorite English muffins are Bays English Muffins. HOLLANDAISE 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces and softened 4 large egg yolks ⅓ cup boiling water 2 teaspoons lemon juice Salt Pinch cayenne pepper EGGS BENEDICT 4 English muffins, split 8 slices Canadian bacon 2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar 1 teaspoon salt 8 large eggs 1. FOR THE HOLLANDAISE: Place butter and egg yolks in large heatresistant glass or ceramic bowl. Bring ½ inch water to simmer in medium saucepan. Place bowl over simmering water, making sure that water does not…

THE SLOW COOKER is great for things like soups and stews, but when you’re trying to replicate a classic outdoor recipe, like Memphis-style ribs, the moist environment of the appliance can be your biggest enemy. I wanted outdoor flavor, but I wanted it from my countertop slow cooker. Unfortunately, after I experimented with a few existing recipes, I had soggy, washed-out meat that was more stew than ’cue: still delicious, but not what I wanted. Had I finally taken on a challenge too big? Most of the recipes I found called for seasoning the ribs—either with a barbecue rub or by slathering bottled barbecue sauce all over them—and then layering them in the slow cooker and covering them with more barbecue sauce. As the ribs cooked, all the moisture and…

THE AXIOM “KNOWLEDGE is power” holds especially true in the kitchen—the more you know about what’s going on inside your food as it cooks, the more you can control the result. That’s why we’re so gung ho about using an instant-read thermometer in the kitchen, as more control means less stress and better results. In fact, the test kitchen might be described as fanatical when it comes to thermometers. Over the years we’ve learned that it pays to monitor the temperature not only of meat but also of pies, cakes, breads, poaching water, butter, tea, coffee, caramel, custards, and even baked potatoes. And if you’re going to use a thermometer, it should be a digital instant-read model (old dial thermometers are slow and inaccurate in comparison). Our go-to is the…

Place your bets on this lightly boozy Derby-day treat. To make this cake, you will need: ½ cup bourbon 3 tablespoons minced fresh mint, plus 10 to 12 leaves for garnish 1 large egg white 2 tablespoons granulated sugar ¼ cup packed (1¾ ounces) light brown sugar 2 tablespoons water 1 recipe Classic Yellow Bundt Cake* batter 1 cup (4 ounces) confectioners’ sugar 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted and still warm 2 drops green food coloring FOR THE INFUSED BOURBON AND SYRUP: Combine bourbon and minced mint in bowl and let sit for 15 minutes. Using brush, paint both sides of remaining mint leaves with thin coat of egg white. Gently press both sides of each leaf into granulated sugar. Shake off excess sugar and place leaves on paper towel–lined…

Reusing Parchment Parchment paper is expensive. Can I reuse sheets for multiple batches of cookies? –Annette Buck, Beacon, N.Y. Parchment paper can run upwards of $7 per roll, so we were intrigued by the idea of reusing it to save some money. To test your question, we made five batches of our Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies and five batches of sugar cookies, baking each batch on the same sheet of parchment (but using cooled baking sheets for each batch). Even after five rounds in the oven, the parchment held up and the cookies didn’t have any sticking or spreading issues. A little common sense goes a long way: Don’t reuse parchment that is overly messy (from decorating cookies or anything else), as the mess might burn in the oven, imparting…

HOMETOWN RECIPE AS I DROVE into Cranston, Rhode Island, the lines in the center of the road changed from yellow to green, white, and red—an homage to the Italian flag. I suspected that following a road literally paved with Italian American pride would lead to excellent food. What I didn’t know was that I’d find culinary treasure in a VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) dining hall. Mike Lepizzera has run Mike’s Kitchen out of the Tabor-Franchi VFW Post for more than three decades. The restaurant is open for lunch and dinner, except during VFW meetings. There are 125 seats scattered around Formica tables, and the place is so popular that a line of eager diners wraps around the building at peak hours. A large chalkboard posted on the wood-paneled wall…

HOMETOWN RECIPE PECAN-CRUSTED FISH IS a commonplace item across the American South, where pecans are plentiful and fish like catfish, whiting, and trout are both economical and easy to find. In restaurants, you’re likely to encounter a deep-fried version, but to make this easy, multitextured dish at home, I grabbed a nonstick skillet and got ready to pan-fry. I combed through recipes to find a coating that combined great nut flavor with the perfect crunch. I quickly eliminated those that included only chopped pecans as the crust. Not only did the nuts adhere poorly to the fish, but the coating had a pebbly texture that was unappealing. More promising versions included panko, which added interesting texture and provided better cohesion. My tasters agreed, however, that the higher the ratio of…

Sweetened Flaked Coconut DESSERT MAKER To make this light, fluffy, sweet product, coconut meat is boiled, grated, and then partially dried before being soaked in a liquid sugar solution and dried again. The soft, chewy texture helps give coconut macaroons their signature texture; we also use it to adorn our Raspberry Coconut Cloud Cake (CooksCountry.com/coconutcloudcake). Dried Shredded Coconut NAKED FLAVOR Also known as desiccated coconut, unsweetened shredded coconut is raw coconut meat that has been boiled, grated, and dried. We preferred dried coconut to sweetened coconut in our French Coconut Pie (CooksCountry.com/frenchcoconutpie) so we could pack in extra coconut flavor without going into sugar shock. Our favorite is Now Real Food Organic Unsweetened Coconut. Coconut Flakes GRANOLA GO-TO Coconut flakes (or flaked coconut) are a larger version of dried shredded…

SWING A CAT in the city of your choice and you’re likely to hit a restaurant that serves flourless chocolate cake. Rich, smooth, and dense, with deep chocolate flavor, this once-uncommon dessert is now ubiquitous. Ubiquitous, that is, except in most home kitchens, where recipes employing complicated techniques keep nonprofessionals away. I set out to create an easy and approachable recipe for flourless chocolate cake that used only straightforward techniques and basic equipment. I tried making versions using six existing recipes of varying levels of difficulty (one especially easy one was named “Chocolate Idiot Cake”), including our celebrated company recipe from 1998. Some were dense like a brownie, while others reminded us of thick chocolate soup. Since flour was out of contention, some recipes called for ground nuts for structure,…

SCALOPPINI, WHICH TRANSLATES from Italian as “thin cutlet,” consists of just that—thinly pounded chicken breasts that are lightly dredged in flour and quickly sauteed. Served in a vibrant white wine pan sauce enlivened with mushrooms, red bell pepper, garlic, and capers, the cutlets become a dish that’s long been a crowd-pleasing favorite in Italian American restaurants. We recently developed a home version that made use of a few timesaving adaptations. I wanted to see whether I could make it even easier, turning it into a good weeknight option for just two people without losing any of its sunny Mediterranean appeal. I started by slimming the chicken down to just two small boneless breasts, about 6 ounces each. Then, since I needed the breasts to be thin enough to cook quickly…

BRAISING USUALLY INVOLVES a large— and often tough—cut of meat that cooks very slowly in a moist environment like a Dutch oven or slow cooker. The technique is ideal for breaking down the fat and connective tissue in large, tough cuts. What’s more, the long cooking time—say, most of a Sunday afternoon— allows deep flavors to develop. But braising can happen quickly, too, as with the rich, flavorful dark meat of chicken thighs. The rub, however, is that for a quicker braise, you need bold, powerful ingredients to replace the deep, savory flavor that would otherwise come from slow cooking. I looked to the Mediterranean for inspiration; there, vibrant lemon and briny olives are frequently used to add complexity. Fennel, with its lively, licorice-like flavor, is another ingredient I knew…

IT’S HARD TO imagine a better side dish for garlic fried chicken than the Basque-style green beans served at the Pyrenees Cafe (see “On the Road”). The dish is built on green beans, of course, but finding the perfect texture for them was easier said than done. I wanted fully cooked beans but not mushy beans. I wanted fresh-looking beans but not raw (or even al dente) beans. Twelve minutes with a little liquid in a covered pot over medium heat was the answer. A few tests showed me that water was better than too-savory chicken stock, and ¼ cup of water was the perfect amount to cook the green beans and leave behind just enough moisture for the right level of sauciness. The add-ins were easy to settle on:…

PITY THE POOR bottom round roast. Over the years, many cooks (including some of us in the test kitchen) have decried the cut, sometimes called rump roast, as unfit to serve as a special centerpiece— too tough, too liver-y, nothing at all like a tender, melty rib roast or eye round. But I wanted to find a way to serve this less-expensive cut from the usually tough rear leg as the main event—and not to have to apologize for it. Several years ago, the test kitchen developed a recipe for Slow-Roasted Beef that produced tender meat. To get it, we salted an eye round and set it aside for 18 to 24 hours before searing it in a skillet to jump-start a brown crust. We then slid it into a…

GRILLED OR ROASTED asparagus, perfectly tender and browned, is definitely hard to beat. But raw asparagus is equally delicious, mildly sweet and nutty, with a delicate crunch and none of the sulfurous flavors that cooked asparagus sometimes has. Many recipes call for cut-up lengths of asparagus, but even when I painstakingly peeled the spears, I found these too fibrous. After experimenting, I found that as long as I chose the right spears (bright green, firm, and crisp, with tightly closed tips) and sliced them very thinly on the bias, I could avoid woodiness but still keep things crunchy. This technique worked best with thicker spears, a welcome discovery because they’re available year-round. To complement the fresh asparagus, I wanted an herby dressing. A basil-based vinaigrette reminded me too much of…

WHEN I VISIT a Mexican restaurant, I rarely order chiles rellenos (cheese-stuffed chiles). Too many times I’ve been burned by an overloaded plate of soggy poblanos drowning in canned sauce and gloppy cheese. This saddens me; for as much work as this dish requires (roasting, peeling, seeding, stuffing, battering, and frying chiles, for starters), shouldn’t the resulting dish be beautiful and satisfying rather than gloppy and overwrought? I set out to rescue chiles rellenos with a home version that featured a delicate and crispy coating, a complex sauce, and comforting cheesiness. My first stop was our cookbook library, where I uncovered a handful of existing recipes. But 6 hours and five recipes later, I had little to show for my work other than a sink full of dishes and a…

HOMETOWN RECIPE ICONIC AMERICAN DISHES come from every corner of the map, but no city’s food has more flourish than that of New Orleans. Take Bananas Foster, which chef Paul Blange of Brennan’s restaurant conceived in 1951 for Richard Foster, a regular customer who also happened to be chairman of the New Orleans Crime Commission. This dessert of bananas sauteed in butter, sugar, cinnamon, banana liqueur, and rum was prepared tableside and then, for a bit of dining room theater, set aflame to mute its boozy edges. Served over vanilla ice cream, it quickly became, and remains, a mainstay at many New Orleans restaurants. But oh, the crimes it has been subjected to since. In my experiments with existing recipes, I found mushy bananas, harsh alcohol flavors, and greasy, sicklysweet…

HOMETOWN RECIPE A SOUTHERN HOG ROAST can be shocking for a first-timer. I learned this at age six as I stood, terrified, staring into the exposed ribs of a whole pig over the fire. I was fresh off Charlotte’s Web, and the tears gushed. To distract me, my mother turned my attention to the cauldron at the other end of the yard, where a kindly man stood stirring Brunswick stew. Brunswick stew is a fixture at many Southern barbecues; it’s common to find a pot of the rich, tomato-based stew full of assorted (and sometimes unidentifiable) meats and vegetables simmering near the smoking pits. Because there is no definitive Brunswick stew, many cooks and restaurants use it as a kitchen sink dump-all. As writer Roy Blount, Jr., famously said, “Brunswick…

THE WHOLE POINT of a smoothie is ease (and maybe a little healthfulness). You want to toss a bunch of ingredients—usually fruit, sometimes a vegetable, a bit of liquid, and a nice creamy thickener like yogurt—into a blender, hit “puree,” and call it good. And the process is, in fact, more or less that simple. But oh, the things that can go wrong. One sip is sweet, and the next is sour. Chunks of unincorporated fruit. A too-liquid texture. Chunks of ice. A too-thick cup of concrete that won’t budge until you tip it just . . . far . . . enough to slide out and splat on your face. I set out to change all this with a simple smoothie formula that would work with a range of…

COFFEE MAY GET all the buzz, but tea is hot: Americans consumed 3.6 billion gallons in 2014, 84 percent of which was black tea, according to the Tea Association of the United States. Sales of bagged and loose tea have increased by 17 percent in the past five years. But which affordable, everyday black tea is best? We surveyed the market and chose seven of the most popular and widely available black teas from each of the top-selling national brands, priced from $0.05 to $0.25 per tea bag. Among these teas were English breakfast, British blends, English teatime teas, and black teas. Why the mix? Our tea experts told us that while the names on the packaging might differ, it’s mostly just marketing. Unless otherwise noted, supermarket black teas are…

We’re looking for recipes that you treasure—the ones that have been handed down in your family for a generation or more; that always come out for the holidays; that have earned a place at your table and in your heart, through many years of meals. Send us the recipes that spell home to you. Visit CooksCountry.com/recipe_submission (or write to Heirloom Recipes, Cook’s Country, P.O. Box 470739, Brookline, MA 02447); click on Heirloom Recipes and tell us a little about the recipe. Include your name and mailing address. If we print your recipe, you’ll receive a free one-year subscription to Cook’s Country. HOT CHICKEN SALAD Serves 6 to 8 On the first day in our new home, the couple next door brought this casserole over as a welcoming gesture. I knew…