xmas cassoulet

when composing holiday meals the pull toward the picturesque and poetic is irresistible. Acknowledging i always feel their pull rather strongly. Yet nothing haute or too bizarre is wanted; homey, delicious, hearty something that fills the whole house with yummy fug* as it cooks. So the big red pan wanted a casserole. Saying it in French feels festive so a cassoulet.

be undaunted, Muffins! Cassoulet may be known as one of Julia Child’s most fearsome dishes (the NYT lists it among her 3 most elaborate recipes), but Monsieur Diat is more like – ain’t no big thing. He explains, “It is kind of bean stew. Garlic is essential…”

its countryside peasant roots promise it can be simple if you let it be and inclined toward adapting to whatever you have on hand. The stand-offish ingredient is confit of something, often duck (de canard). To confit is to salt cure a piece of meat then poach it in its own fat. Madame Child will march you through that process if you like along with her 22 ingredients for casserole, and butchers can hand over a block of the stuff. Although we went to an awesome butcher (see the facebook notes for a snapshot of Paisanos), we skipped the confit altogether, and instead went for a whole chicken cut up into pieces and chicken sausage with apples and congac. Sausage is signature, but chicken is unorthodox. Goose, duck, pork and lamb are the more likely candidates. I image, however, in some little French kitchen some lovely cook has assembled just such a chicken cassoulet. Also Mark Bittman says that with cassoulet, “liberties should not be viewed as inadequacies.”

some writers also cite the “many steps” as difficulty, but the process is quite simple: soak & cook beans, chop a bunch of veggies, sauté things in order, beginning with your meat, then throw it all in the oven to finish.

soak and cook white beans; in this instance, flagolet, though cannellini beans or the like are also charming. We cooked the wee things with fresh bay leaf, rosemary stalks and plenty of sea salt.

rub the chicken with butter that has been run through a food processor with herbes de provence and fresh rosemary needles, salt and pepper. Sauté the pieces in a giant hot pan with a bit of olive oil and branches of fresh rosemary and thyme. Set aside. Slice and sauté the sausage; set aside with the chicken.

heat the oven to 375°. Chop one onion, a few carrots, and a few stalks of celery. Peel and smash the cloves of a fist of garlic. Sauté the onion then add the celery then the carrot then the garlic. Toss in the cooked white beans, about 4 or 5 cups, and stir to mix. Scoop out a generous cup. Lay in the chicken pieces and sausage over the beans, surrounding with the reserved beans. Pour over some booze; we used champagne. White wine or vermouth will work.

blanket the lot with about a cup of breadcrumbs combined with ½ cup of crushed walnuts, a bit of herbes de provence, salt and pepper. Dot the top with butter and bake about 10 minutes or until the top browns. I finished it with about 3 minutes under the broiler.

satisfying to heave a heavy pan of delicousness out of the oven to serve to mom and thrifty wanderlust, who made the jam sandwiches for the trifle.

trifle is just assembly since we did not bake cake. Store bought panetone, a bready fruited Italian Christmas cake, served as our base. We cut thin slices and made sandwiches raspberry and kumquat jam then cut them into cubes. The cake is layered with fruit and fresh whipped cream topped with pistachios and glitter.

for the fruit, we broiled peach halves and pink orange segments coated in turbinado sugar and lemon and soaked bits of dried apricot in brandy.

*domestic fug: oven and stovetop steamy, domestic heaven scent

fryday friday

in the kitchen I am happiest when I am frying.  One reason is that frying takes the whole cooking process and condenses it into a continuously visible, uninterrupted sequence.  It resembles those nature documentaries where the camera shows us tiny buds developing into full blooms, compressing weeks of growth into seconds.  One is never out of touch with the food one is frying, even for a moment, and I find that very satisfying….

fried food must be eaten promptly, and cannot be reheated.  In Naples they have a phrase for saying that one thing follows immediately upon another. It is frienno magnanno, which means, literally, frying and eating. And that is how it should be done.

marcella hazan, more classic cooking (1978)

and that is what we did. although the night ended in a resonant and reverential reading of Marcella, it began with Paula Deen.

turns out, our stunning drag performer darling is also a sick fry cook. The night we met, in the back garden of Ginger’s bar at Brooklyn Pride, we talked Paula Deen and fell into the deep fryer of food love. Fry night has been pending ever since. Come to think of it—Paula’s how I baited the preacher eater too. Seems i owe Ms. Deen some gratitude.

our all you can fry event was an appropriate homage to the reigning queen of the deep fryer as well as a revelation to our visiting vegan friend from Sweden, the founding co-chair of the International High End Perverts Society (also the photographer, gratzi). Oreos, as it turns out, are vegan. And vanilla pancake batter, made with almond milk and egg replacer, fries up real nice.

the drag artist manned the fry pot in an old tourist’s souvenir “California” apron. the Texas fairy orchestrated a pile of golden okra nuggets that filled my great grandmothers punch bowl. reshma sprawled at the table—like Alice big from the Drink Me bottle in our kitchen too tiny for all her graceful limbs—dredging pickles with the enthusiasm only possible from a far-from-home Midwesterner with State Fairs in her heart.

fry me to the moon

This is what we fried:

vegan corn fritters

okra

breaded fresh mozzarella rounds

hallumi cubes tossed in flour & cornmeal

potato fritters with broccoli rabe and spinach

pickles

feta stuffed green olives

marinated artichokes

sprigs of flowering broccoli rabe

whole garlic cloves

morning star faux sausage

pineapple

oreos

mini-snickers bars

ring dings

fudge

in our orgiastic feasting, we surpassed ourselves before managing to fry up our marshmallows, cinnamon roll dough in a tube, and frozen butter slices. You can also fry beer, but we drank all ours.

vol au vent mushrooms

vol-au-vent: a large shell of light, flaky pastry for filling with vegetable, fish, or meat mixtures.
origin: 1820–30; < F: lit., flight on the wind

marcella hazan writes that mushrooms are nature’s own vol au vent.
begging to be filled and bedded and baked together.
these are not flaky bottoms, no, but succulent and earthy with notes of ancient witchiness.

for our most recent feast, i translated this nonna di cucina’s cappelle di funghi ripiene recipe for the radical muffin kitchen.  so I omitted the pancetta and anchovies, but I did add the egg, which I think binds the whole thing together and is hazan’s best advice.  i also left out the parsley, only because i forgot, and it wasn’t missed.

with just a dry towel, we wiped off about two dozen mushrooms, a mix of cremini and shitake, then chose those with the deepest, sturdiest hollows for stuffing.  Any casserole of an accommodating size will work, and we had a wonderful piece: a round shallow, terra cotta casserole with a glazed interior and raw exterior.  Sweep your casserole with olive oil and nestle the mushrooms in side by side, touching but not over lapping.  You won’t use so many mushrooms – i think a baker’s dozen fit in our pan- so save some for the filling and some for something else wonderful.  Unless, of course, you have a huge pan then double the recipe for the filling and have a grand fete…

mince half a red onion and begin sautéing it in a hot fry pan with melted butter, about 4 tablespoons.  Use 1/3 cup olive oil if you want less dairy fat.  Mince and add 4 or 5 mushroom heads and 3 or 4 cloves of garlic.  Salt a bit; pepper a bit.  Find your zen.  When the onions are translucent turn off the heat and add several stripped stems of thyme.

in a bowl, mix together ¼ cup each ricotta cheese, shredded parmesan and bread crumbs.  Add a beaten egg then the cooled onion/mushroom mixture along with several shredded leaves of basil.  Pack each of the mushroom heads generously with the cheese mixture.

in a smaller bowl, mix about ¼ each of bread crumbs, shredded parmesan, and chopped and whole pine nuts.  Sprinkle this over the stuffed shrooms.  Dash with paprika if you like.  Bake at 375° for half an hour or until the top is beautifully crusted and golden.  Partway through baking, it is lovely to splash a little moscato in the pan if you are drinking it anyway.  Turn the pan at least once for good measure.  Serve to friends just out of the oven or throughout dinner; they sit fairly well.

manga manga!

white beans italiana

dear maria,

sorry for the delay in sending the recipe, but I needed to experiment to see how I make white beans.  I made herbed white beans with roasted garlic, and I think it will work for you:

Dried beans generally double in size when you soak and cook them, so three cups dried will come out about 6 cups cooked and that is probably a good amount for a family dinner leaving some for the next day (hooray!).  I used and favor dried cannellini beans, white kidney beans, one of the beans common to Italian cooking, but this will work with any white bean, like navy beans, too.

Bring a big stockpot of water to a boil, turn off the heat and leave your dried beans for an hour to soak.  Drain the soaked beans and bring a fresh pot of water to a boil, about double the amount of water to beans.  Peel a few cloves of garlic and quarter a small onion; add these to the boiling water.  Add a few stalks of rosemary, thyme or both as well.  Add your beans, cover the pot and bring it back to a boil.  Salt and pepper the water and give it all a good stirring.  Simmer, stirring occasionally, for half an hour and check the beans for tenderness.  They may need to cook for up to half an hour more.

Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 400° and strip off the papery outermost layers of three heads of garlic.  Slice off the tough, root end.  Coat with olive oil and bundle in foil.  Stick them in the oven and roast, turning occasionally, for half an hour.  Let cool on top of the stove or out of the way until cool to handle.

Drain the cooked beans and dump into a big serving bowl, picking out the onion, garlic and herb stems.  Chop a few tablespoons of fresh thyme or rosemary or both and stir them in.  Pop the roasted garlic from their skins and stir them in.  Drizzle with rosemary, sprinkle with salt and pepper, stir.  Drizzle again with olive oil, sprinkle with paprika and serve with grated paramesean cheese.

Good hot or room temperature or reheated, so this is a fine dish for making in advance and sitting for a long time at the table.

fried mashed potatoes

put a large pot of water on to boil.  scrub 6 small potatoes; I like the red ones.  Quarter them and plop them into the water at a rolling boil.  Cook for 8-10 minutes or until soft.  Drain and return to the pot if your pot can stand the up-coming beating or dump into a heavy bowl.

add three tablespoons of butter to the potatoes.  Sprinkle liberally with sea salt and pepper and herbs; pick about 2 tablespoons of fresh thyme if you have it, but this round I just used dried thyme and basil, about a teaspoon each.  Drizzle with about a ¼ cup of heavy cream.  Using one of the most fabulous inventions of all time—the hand potato masher—mash mash mash.  Save a few lumps for texture, having left the skins on helps some bits hold together (plus – pretty!).

shred about ½ a cup of hard cheese like parmesan or gruyere would be nice; we had some schmany delectable cheese I cannot remember the name of now.  Beat an egg or, to be really decadent, an egg plus one yolk.  Stir in half the egg and most of the cheese, just saving some for decorative pre-table topping, into the potatoes with a wooden spoon.  Set aside the egg in a shallow bowl and whisk in a little cream.  In another shallow bowl, spread panko flakes or bread crumbs.

heat a cast iron skillet or your heaviest, if you are not blessed with cast iron, which should acquire as soon as possible.  Add a bit of olive oil or butter or a nice half’n’half mix of the two.

form the potato mash into patties, dredge quickly in the egg/cream, press a few sage leaves into it – or one big dramatic one- then press the patty in the breading, flip and press the other side.  Fry.  A few minutes on each side, going for golden brown.  Transfer to a toweled plate to rest and drain excess oil.

you can fry two or three potato patties at a time, just be sure not to crowd the skillet.  Dredge out any escaped bits of breading before they burn and taint your oil.  This does not have to be a deep fry job; using just enough oil for things not to stick creates plenty of golden fried goodness to satisfy.

these are freaking amazing.  I cannot imagine what they would not be good with, but here are some ideas: oniony, garlicky sautéd greens like kale or collards; veggie sausage (which I like to pepper a lot and eat with maple syrup) and a fried egg; red lentils with plain yoghurt and hot pepper sauce; fried apples’n’onions…oh, yes- with sour cream.  I love fall.

quick curried peanut sauce for many veggies

chop one medium yellow sweet onion, and smash, peel, and mince a few cloves of garlic. Peel and mince a half inch of fresh ginger.

sauté the onions and garlic in olive oil until the onions are translucent. Stir in the ginger along with a teaspoon of curry powder and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Stir in about three teaspoons of sesame oil and three tablespoons of Braggs or tamari sauce.

glop in a cup of peanut butter, and whisk in boiling hot water in a thin stream to bring the mixture to a saucey consistency.

prepare the veggies of your choice: fairy tale eggplant sliced in half and roasted; purple potatoes halved, par boiled and fried; steamed baby artichokes; bell pepper and broccoli sauté; string beans. What’s in season?

doctored-up tomato soup (for jay)

ingredients

tomato soup – either one box (typically 32 fluid ounces or 1 quart), which does not need water added, or one can of condensed soup (15 fluid ounces), which will need a can of water stirred into it

½ an onion – red or yellow; save the other half for something else

2 cloves of garlic – a bulb is the whole little head you buy; the cloves are the fingers of the garlic fist

paprika – spice

olive oil

Peel and chop the onion. To do this, slice off the scraggly top and the bottom. Sit your onion on one of these flat ends on the cutting board and slice it down the center so you have two halves. Peel off the papery outer layer. Lay each half flat on the cutting board and slice the onion into ribbons then turn the onion half and cut across your slices to make cubes. If you cut the slices very thin, you can just use those and not cut again. That makes for a pretty soup.

Peel and mince the garlic. To do this, rub the outermost papery layer off your garlic bulb. Pull off two cloves (more if you want it really garlicky). Smash the garlic still in its skin under the flat side of your knife. The skin will rumple and be easy to peel right off. Cut off the dry stem end and then chop the garlic finely.

On the stove top, heat a little olive oil (about 2 teaspoons) in a pot over a medium flame. Add about 2 teaspoons of paprika, the garlic and the onion. Stirring every few minutes, cook until the onions are translucent about 10 minutes. Careful about how high the heat is – you don’t want the garlic to brown.

Add the soup, the box or the can & water. Stir, heat and eat!

Of course, this recipe is just an idea. You don’t have to have paprika, right? Leave it out or try other spices or herbs like dried oregano. There are lots of good ways to make simple soup more exciting and use it as a vehicle for more veggies! Try adding spinach, a can of chick peas, or left over broccoli from another dinner.