recipes

Recipes and cooking tips

Pasta a la Jeffrica

Serves 4-6 as a main dish, serves 8-12 as a small side. Preparation time: about 40 mins. Estimated cost: $10

1 large white onion, chopped fine

6-8 large cloves fresh garlic, peeled and crushed

2-3 celery stalks, strings removed*, sliced fine

*(cut celery stalks below any branch points, and use a sharp knife and your thumb to grab strings and pull them all the way down the stalk)

1 zucchini (about 8-10 inches long), sliced

1/2 head fresh parsley, chopped fine, about 1 cup compressed

1 small can tomato sauce (15 oz.)

1 very small can tomato paste (4 oz.?)

6 Tbsp unsalted sweet cream butter (may substitute a very sweet green extra virgin olive oil, like Colavita or Tassos)

1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 Tbsp red wine vinegar

1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

1 Tbsp salt

1 tsp fresh ground black pepper

2-3 Tbsp sugar

1 lb box of pasta (with nooks and crannies to hold sauce: shells, bowties, elbows, etc.)

Sautee vegetables in 3 Tbsp butter, except for parsley. When soft, put in a blender, add parsley and all other non-pasta ingredients, and blend into a smooth sauce. When pasta is drained but still hot, melt remaining 3 Tbsp butter to coat. Stir in sauce. Serve hot, room temperature, or chilled.

Garnishes: Sprinkle a pinch of finely chopped parsley and a few grinds of fresh pepper and kosher salt. Or, grate some Parmesan or Romano cheese onto it, especially if it's served hot.

Variations: Add 1/4 to 1 cup of heavy cream to the blender, depending on your taste, and your guests' ability to digest milk products.

Chicken-Guinness stew (braised chicken thighs)

Serves 6. Estimated preparation time: 1-3 hours baking, about 15-20 minutes kitchen prep. Estimated cost: $15

2 lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs

or

3 lbs chicken thighs, bone and skin on (more flavor, more work to eat or de-bone, more fat)

2-3 lbs vegetables, for example:

green bell peppers

peeled new potatoes

sliced zucchini

carrots

celery

a whole head of garlic cloves, peeled

pearl onions

pitted kalamata olives

and so on...

2-3 bay leaves (optional)

Blend:

4 Tbsp red wine vinegar

1 pub draft can of Guinness stout

2 Tbsp Dijon mustard (optional)

2 Tbsp tomato paste (optional)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp fresh black pepper

1 Tbsp sugar

2 Tbsp flour (optional, as a thickener)

Put all solid items in a large covered baking dish. Pour blended beer broth over these until it fills all the gaps. Bake at 350 F for 1-3 hours. Serve as a soup, or take out a few ladles of liquid and vegetables and blend, then stir back into dish to make a thick sauce. Serving options might include over rice or noodles, or with toasted french bread.

This recipe is like coq au vin, except the liquid is not red wine. You could try white wine, or other kinds of beer, or mix in some chicken stock as well. Slow-cooking the meat in liquid makes it very tender and juicy.

Asian garlic-ginger cod

Serves 4. Preparation time: about 50 mins. Estimated cost: $10

1 lb. Cod fish fillets (may substitute another white fish, like Tilapia or Red Snapper)

1 cup milk

6 large cloves fresh garlic, peeled and crushed

3 oz. fresh ginger (one very fat thumb of ginger root), peeled and finely minced into a paste

4 Tbsp brown sugar

2 Tbsp soy sauce (I like the low sodium kind)

1 Tbsp dark toasted sesame oil

1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper

1 tsp rice wine vinegar

1 tsp mustard (your choice...I like the hot kind)

Soak cod fillets in milk for 30 mins or more (this removes the strong fishy smell), while preheating an oven to 375 F. Process the ginger and garlic, and mix in all other sauces and seasonings to make a thick and juicy paste (smell it, it's so good). Rinse off cod fillets and pat with a paper towel to remove moisture. Lay fillets close together on a cookie sheet or baking dish, and thickly coat with sauce mixture. Bake for 15 mins or so, then broil on 'high' to get a nice caramel crust on the surface.

A note from the chef: It's best to guard against overcooking the fish, as it might turn out dry and chewy. If your fish is reasonably fresh, you won't have to worry about it being a little rare. You could pull it out and test both the thick and thin ends of the fillets during cooking to see if they're cooked enough for your taste.

Simple greens with garlic

Serves 2. Approximate cooking time: 5 minutes. Estimated cost: $2

2 quarts fresh greens, thickest stems removed (pick your favorite...collard, kale, beet, etc.)

1-2 cloves fresh garlic

2 Tbsp olive oil

2 Tbsp water

Heat oil in a large non-stick pan. Crush garlic into hot oil, let sizzle until it barely starts to get sticky, and top with greens. Add water, toss a bit, and cover. Let steam until greens become very soft. Toss to distribute garlic flavor and serve hot.

Easy awesome bread

Serves 4-6. Estimated preparation time: 18+ hours fermentation, about 10 minutes of actual work. Estimated cost: $1

3 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour, sifted (or not)

1 1/4 tsp salt (I like kosher salt, but do yo thang)

1/4 tsp dry activated yeast (yes that's right, just a tiny amount)

1 5/8 cups warm water (yes that's right, a lot of water)

Mix everything well with a spoon, scraping the bottom of the bowl to get everything together. It should have a very stringy, runny, liquidy consistency. Put it in a sealed container at 70 degrees F (21 degrees C) for at least 12 hours, hopefully 18. It will be bubbly. Open it, mix it again with a spoon or fork, and let it sit sealed for another 30 minutes to 2 hours. It will be bubbly again, but less this time.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Put the baking dish (Corning ware, dutch oven, Pyrex, or whatever heavy, thick-walled, non-stick device with a lid that you have at hand) into the oven to get hot during the pre-heat. When the oven is at full temperature, pull out the dish, spray the inner surface with oil and dump the gooey dough in. Spray more oil on the dough's surface to get a crisp crust. Cover and bake for 30 mins. Then, uncover for 15-30 mins, watching the bread for a honey-like golden color. Take out and cool, on a drying rack if you have one.

Serve hot with butter.

Notes:

The 'crumb' of this bread is very dense, spongy, moist, and springy. The crust is crackling, almost fried in its crisp crunchiness. If you want a bread shaped more like a Focaccia, more flat in other words, use a large-bottomed baking dish (for this recipe's proportions, no more than 8"x11" interior). If you want something more like a boule, more spherical, use a narrower, taller dish (8" interior diameter, for example), or double the recipe for your larger dish. The former will give you more crust, the latter will give you more moist and spongy insides.

Try sprinkling seeds on top prior to baking. Pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds... Try throwing in some plumped raisins or smashed grapes, or chopped dates or dried apricots, or rosemary or plumped sun-dried tomatoes, prior to fermentation. Just not too much, you don't want to ruin the chemistry.

This bread is at its best, by far, about 10 minutes out of the oven, and up to 4 hours later if wrapped in a kitchen towel in the meantime. If you want to eat it after that, I'd recommend sealing it in an airtight container (aluminum foil, Rubbermaid, Ziploc, etc.) with a generous sprinkle of water, and re-heating it by putting it in the oven at high heat for about 2-4 minutes. This overall treatment will keep the bread moist inside, but then re-crisp the outside crust.

[This recipe was adapted from a New York Times recipe, which itself was adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery.]

Mastery of pie crust technology

So, good friends, you want to make a pie. A bad pie is a sad and sorry thing indeed...please do R&D in your kitchen, in private, until you get it right. A good pie is something to tell your mom about, something with which to seduce human beings through their gastronomical senses, something to ooh and ahh about, a real foodgasm. It is perhaps the closest that food comes to being a direct experience of love.

I want to warn you. Most commercial pre-made crusts are probably not very good. Any old ingredients won't do either, for a homemade crust. You need to get it right. I'm going to make some recommendations to you with extreme prejudice.

1. Use real pastry flour. Don't use all-purpose flour. Pastry flour has a protein content somewhere between all-purpose flour (12-13%) and cake flour (5-8%), actually in the range of 8-9% protein. This affects the physical chemistry during dough formation and baking. My favorite pastry flour is available at most Whole Foods, manufactured by Arrowhead Mills (by the way, they also make what might be the best peanut butter on the planet). If you can't get real pastry flour, try mixing all-purpose flour and cake flour, and see how it goes. Part of why I like the Arrowhead Mills product is that there are coarse, nutty bits of hard stuff in it, which makes for a lovely pie-crust texture. Snap, crackle, pop. Mmmm.

2. Use good fat. You can use any mixture of lard and butter that you like. I was inspired to start my pie crust adventures with lard, but lately I've used butter and like it much better. If you use any butter, please use unsalted sweet cream butter. Salted butter is almost always of lower quality because you can't taste the difference with the 'naked tongue' due to the sense-dulling effects of the added salt. But you can tell after baking. You can always add your own salt (duh). I recommend kosher salt. Connoisseurs (that is, professional pastry chefs) may source their lard straight from the farm. I've been told that it can make a world of difference. Sadly, I've never trod that road, but I might, someday.

UPDATE: This week, I tried using Crisco for the first time in my life, so that I could make meat pies for a kosher audience (Crisco is neither meat nor milk, and in kashrut you can't mix them). The resulting pie crust was not only hard to work with, because it kept splitting when I tried to roll or shape it, but it also wouldn't wash off my fingers with soap, and the resulting pie crust had a horrible taste and texture. Also, I had that funny taste in my mouth all day, despite two tooth-brushing episodes. Icky. I can't recommend that stuff to anyone, for making pie crust at least. The Jews will have to go without a meat pie this week, apparently. Sorry, my good friends.

3. Don't forget enough water. A lot of online recipes suggest a very small amount of 'ice water' or 'cold water' to add to a pie crust dough mixture. I've usually had to double up on these suggested amounts to get a good, solid crust that works well while rolling, shaping, baking, and eating.

4. Invest $4 in a pastry blender. This is a handy little hand-tool with several large U-shaped chrome wire tines, joined at the top by a handle. You grind it into the mixture of flour and fat, and you will probably have to scrape off accumulated stuff with a butter-knife every so often. This 'cuts' the fat into the flour, eventually creating pea-sized nodules of fat coated heavily in flour. Some recipes call for using two butter-knives to do this work...it will take for-ever. Buy a pastry blender. If you have a food processor that can handle this work, more power to yo' self...I never tried that, so I can't advise you there.

Enough, already, how do you make the thing!?

Mamma Jeffrica's famous pie crust

Makes two 9-inch crusts with extra material for perimeter crust build-up (two single-crust pies, or one top-and-bottom crust for a fruit pie). Estimated preparation time: 2 hours. Estimated cost: $4

2 3/4 cups Arrowhead Mills organic pastry flour, sifted into a mixing bowl

1 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp white sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) *chilled* unsalted sweet cream butter (lard may be substituted for part or all of this amount), cut into slices or cubes, or small pieces

10-12 Tbsp very cold water

Toss everything in the mixing bowl, then get to blending with your pastry blender (or food processor). Don't blend too much; you want pea-sized nodules of cold fat to be evenly distributed amongst the flour, so that the crust will become flaky during baking. These micro-reservoirs of fat are what create the flakiness in the crust. You don't want a homogeneous mixture at all!

Once you get to this point, add 4-5 Tbsp cold water, and blend again until incorporated. Then, add 4-5 more Tbsp cold water, and blend again. The whole thing should start acting more like dough. Do not think of this like bread dough, or cake dough, which want to be fully blended. This pie-crust dough will be clumpy with sheaves and globules and bits of fat. This is not only okay, it is imperative. Knead just enough to form the whole thing into one coherent ball (don't let there be a lot of loose flour hanging around unclaimed). Once in a ball, cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. This allows the water to cross-link the gluten in the wheat, which will make it behave like a coherent dough.

Cut in half, and use some extra flour to roll each half out into a circle. The edges will split and fray. Roll tangentially around the circumference, sometimes using your fingers to heal broken parts. This will re-form an even circle with no breaks. Once or twice, use a sharp, long, metal spatula to go under the crust, to separate it from the countertop or cutting board. When the crust is large enough and thin enough, fold it in half, bring the pie pan next to the folded edge, and lift it into half of the pan. Unfold it, press it into the pan with fingers, and shape the outside of the crust to your design. I like to use the excess to build up a nice thick outer ridge that will be crispy and delicious. Refrigerate until you're ready to fill it and bake it. No need to grease the pan; in fact, this may cause your pie crust to sag down into the pan and ruin everything. There's plenty of fat in the crust to lubricate it on its way out of the pan.

Fill it, and bake it, and enjoy your new skill at making others' mouths water.

Sweet potato pie

1 lb sweet potato (two large or three small)

1/2 cup butter (1 stick), softened or melted

1/2 cup milk (regular or soy)

2 large eggs

1 cup white or brown sugar

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup chopped pecans or almonds

Preheat oven to 375 F. Peel, chop, and boil the sweet potato until soft. Drain. Mix in the butter, milk, and sugar, and allow it to cool a bit. Put the mixture in a blender with all other ingredients (except chopped nuts) and puree until smooth. Pour into a cold pie crust, top with chopped nuts, and bake until pie crust turns golden brown (30-40 mins). Allow it to cool for about 20 mins or more (if you don't, the pie will be mushy or even liquid), then slice and serve.

When you taste it, you'll know that your Momma Jeffrica loves you.

Fruit-custard tart

Serves 6. Approximate cooking time: 2 hours, including crust preparation. Estimated cost: $6

1 jar highest quality fruit preserves or jam (cherry, pineapple, other)

2 large eggs

1/3 cup milk (cow or soy)

1/4 cup sugar

1 fresh 9" pie crust (see recipe above)

Preheat oven to 375 F. Put crust into a 9" non-stick tart pan with a removable bottom. Gently push sides into flutes of tart pan. Use a rolling pin to go around the edge to cut it off evenly. Refrigerate while you prepare filling.

Blend eggs, milk, and sugar. Stir in jam evenly with a spoon. Pour into tart pan. Bake until filling rises and then begins to fall, and exposed crust is browned. Let cool on rack, in the pan, for 20 mins or so. Remove pan and serve at room temperature (if you serve it while warm, it may be too gooey in the center and not stay together).

Pecan pie

Serves 6. Approximate cooking time: 1.5 hours, including crust preparation. Estimated cost: $5

1 cup Karo brown sugar corn syrup (or 1/2 cup dark and 1/2 cup light syrup)

1/4 cup white sugar

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 Tbsp all-purpose flour

1 cup pecans, halves or chopped

1 fresh 9" pie crust (see recipe above), chilled in a pie pan

Preheat oven to 375 F. In a blender, combine everything but pecans. Start with eggs and end with flour, to prevent sticky ingredients getting stuck in the cracks at the bottom of the blender. Pour pecans into the pie crust, then pour mixture over everything. Bake until exposed crust is nicely browned, and pie center does not wobble. Allow to cool thoroughly before serving.

Barbeque chicken pie

Serves 6. Approximate cooking time: 3 hours, including crust preparation (~30 minutes labor). Approximate cost: $12

1.5 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs

1 small potato (Yukon gold holds its shape), peeled and diced to 1 cm

1 small sweet potato, peeled and diced to 1 cm

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup finely chopped pecans

3 Tbsp vinegar

1 Tbsp sugar

1 Tbsp salt

1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper

4 Tbsp flour

8-12 oz high-quality barbeque sauce (Stubbs hickory bourbon is very good...choose a sweet and tangy one)

Two 9" pie crusts, chilled, one in a pie pan (see recipe above)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Slow-cook chicken thighs with vinegar, salt, sugar, and pepper for 1-2 hours in a covered baking dish. After cooking, remove thighs from liquid. Place diced potato, sweet potato, and raisins in liquid. Chop chicken into small bite sized chunks and layer over other ingredients in baking dish. Add barbeque sauce (do not stir!), and cook for another 40+ minutes until potatoes begin to soften, and liquid cooks down. Remove from heat, sprinkle in flour and pecans, and stir. There should be no more runny liquid, but only a very thick filling for a pie.

Add filling to pie crust, then top with second crust, making sure to carefully join top and bottom crusts at the margins. Use a knife to cut air holes around the center of the pie. Gently push crust down to eliminate air pockets. Bake until crust is golden brown, approximately 30-40 minutes. Allow to cool, then serve.

Alternate ideas: Use the pie crust dough to make 'beggars purses', by placing some filling in the center of a small round of crust and pinching upward to close the 'purse'. Use the pie crust dough to make empanadas, by placing some filling (not too much!) on one side of a round of crust and folding in half, pinching the edge with fingers or a fork. Use ramekins to make 'personal pies' with top and bottom crust. Or, double the filling recipe to make a deep-dish pie (if you have a deep-dish pie pan).

Warning: Done right, this is really, really delicious. It might make you fat. Don't say I didn't warn you. Try eating salad once in a while to save yourself from turning into...well, a barbeque chicken pie. You are what you eat.

Seductive chocolate raspberry cake

Serves 4-6. Estimated preparation time: 40 minutes. Estimated cost: $5

1 jar highest quality raspberry jam or preserves

6 ounces semisweet baking chocolate or chocolate chips

3 ounces soy milk or heavy cream

1/2 cup cocoa

1 cup white sugar

1 cup hot water

1 cup highest quality mayonnaise (Hellmans, or Whole Foods 365 brand canola oil mayo)

2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted

1 tsp baking soda

1-2 Tbsp vanilla extract

1 tsp cinnamon (optional)

1/2 tsp nutmeg (optional)

1/4-1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)

1 cup pecans, chopped fine

Cake: Mix sugar and cocoa well. Add hot water and mix thoroughly. Mix in mayonnaise, flour, baking soda, vanilla, and spices, and beat until very smooth and thick. Grease and completely flour a cake pan, knock off all excess flour. Fill half full with cake batter. Bake at 350 F for 30 minutes. Cake is done when toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool for at least 20 minutes. The 'muffin top' is crusty and delicious, but its irregular shape might not fit your cosmetic goals for your cake. If not, use a long bread or cake knife to cut it off, using the cake pan lip as a guide, leaving a very flat surface that will be the bottom of your cake. You might want to use a tall spring-form cake pan, to make life generally easier.

Ganache: While baking, melt chocolate and soy milk in a small saucepan on low heat. Stir occasionally to distribute heat. Mix in pecans and set aside.

Slice cake horizontally. Fill gap with raspberry jam, not more than 1 cm thick. Put cake back together. Use a soft spatula to coat outside of cake with ganache. As it cools to room temperature, it will become firm but not completely hard, rather like the inside of a chocolate truffle.

Option: Slice the cake horizontally not just once, but twice, three times, or even more. This will make more layers, and more jam will make your cake more moist and sweet. My advice would be to slice and fill the layers one at a time, from the bottom upward, so you minimize the handling of fragile layers of cake.