Just in time for fall: Stew!

I've always loved soups and stews.  As long as I can remember I have had a soft spot of sorts for the stuff.  Hot, cold, room temp at times.  Made of vegetables, meats and a few cold fruit soups come to mind.

Not just any soup mind you, it has to be well constructed with balanced seasoning, textures and flavors.  There is a ton of soup out there that is nearly inedible, you know the type, over seasoned, confused or just plain wrong.

The good ones stick with you, as do the bad.

The best that I can think of that rush into mind when I think of what a soup or stew should be: the parsley soup with escargot and a "leaf" of peeled tomato from La Folie in San Francisco, the cream of cauliflower from Amelio's (also in SF), a cold cherry soup from a restaurant whose name escapes me that my family went to in Phoenix when I was a child and a cold peach soup that was made in my home by our friend Juliette from France.

Those are the really good ones.

The worst soup that I have ever had, I am sad to say was served in a restaurant that I managed, that is until I was called on the phone by one of my servers to alert me of its' existence.  It was a...sauerkraut and breakfast sausage soup with a watery milk broth that was overloaded with rosemary.

I don't know what the cook who made it was thinking but it was 86'd on the spot.  Ugh!  That soup was so far off the mark that it wasn't even worth trying to fix.

Today I will NOT be making that soup and I hope I never encounter anything like it again.

Today, as the weather starts to turn cold as summer slips away and autumn replaces it is a day for stew.

Here is my recipe for beef stew:

2 lbs beef stew meat

2 T all purpose flour

1 medium yellow onion

2 medium sized cloves of garlic

2 qts of chicken stock, beff stock or a combination of the two

2-3 medium carrots

1 large or two medium russet potatoes

Kosher salt

Black pepper

For the thickener, a classic roux:

1 T all purpose flour

1 T butter

Simple really.  I think that I often appreciate the more simple recipes as the individual ingredients which while combining their flavors together create the whole experience, each flavor can remain distinct as well.

Let's start.

Place the stew meat onto your cutting board and remove any sinew that is present.  

Cut the pieces into bite sized pieces.

Salt and pepper the beef.  

Place the first measure of flour into a bowl, add the meat and coat it with the flour.

In a 3 qt pot add some oil, enough to coat the bottom, and turn the heat on high.  When the oil looks more like water when you bump the pan, add the meat in small batches and sear it on all sides.  

Do this in batches for best results removing the seared meat to a plate or bowl lined with paper towels to absorb any excess oil.

As you cook your batches you will likely have to add additional oil to the pot to sear  the beef.  You will notice that small amounts of the beef and some of the flour will stick to the bottom of your pan.  

This is O.K., we will remove that later and your stew will be all the better for it!

As the meat is searing dice the onion into 1/4" - 1/2" pieces.

Once the beef is done, remove excess oils from the pan, reduce the heat to medium and add the onion.  Stir frequently so that it doesn't burn and turn bitter.

Mince the garlic and add it to the onions once they are translucent.  

Sauté until fragrant.

Return the meat to the pot and add your stock.

If you do not have stock available to you, use a low sodium commercially produced broth.  Please do not use bullion cubes as they contain so much salt that you will have lost much of your ability to season your stew properly.  Also, their flavor is hardly like the real thing!

Reduce the heat to just above a simmer.  The liquid should bubble gently, avoid a rolling boil.

At this time, scrape the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon to remove the meat and flour that is stuck to the bottom.  This will add color and a really nice flavor to your stew.

Most stew meat is made from the toughest parts of the animal.  These are usually from the most active muscles from the animal and have the most flavor but can be tough if cooked quickly.

These type of meat need to be cooked low and slow in liquid to break down the connective tissues so that they will be tender when you are done.  The bottom line is that you are braising them on the stove, so be patient.

While your stew is simmering on the stove, peel the potatoes, cut them into bite sized pieces similar to your stew meat and store them in cool water.

Peel the carrots.  Cut them lengthwise, cut into similar sized pieces and store for later.

Every 15 minutes or so, pull a pice of meat from the pot and give it a taste to se if it is tender.

Once the meat is tender add the carrots and simmer.

Place the butter (clarified if you have it, but not necessary.  See this post for instructions:  ) into a sauté pan.  If you are not using whole butter instead of clarified butter, wait for it to melt and for the bubbles to subside.

Add the flour and stir with a wire whip until combined.  Continue to cook until the flour begins to brown and has a slightly nutty smell.

Slowly add some of the stew liquid into the roux and incorporate it with the whip.  Continue to add liquid until the roux is no longer firm but a slightly loose liquid.

Add the roux to the stew and stir.

Add the potatoes to the stew and season with salt and pepper until you have reached the flavor that you wish.  Simmer until the potatoes are just tender.

Turn off the heat and hold for dinner.

This can be done a day ahead and is probably better made the day before to allow the flavors to reach their potential.

When the stew is re-heated for service, check the seasoning and adjust if necessary.

Fresh Corn Salsa with Grilled Snapper

I was recently going through some of my stuff in a storage box in a room of our house that we call "Mike's messy place".  The room is exactly what its' name suggests, the room where I don't have to clean up after myself.  It is always in some state of chaos, sometimes more, sometimes less.

While going through the box I came across two or three of those red hard-bound diaries and a stack of paper, folded in half with dates on each fold with an appetizer, soup and entree special hand-written on each one.  Basically about 2 1/2 years worth of specials from when I was a chef at Nasturtium, the restaurant that my wife and I owned in San Francisco.

A flood of memories came rushing in from good to bad.  Busy days where we were as busy as we could handle to slower days to the decision to close the restaurant.

As I read through the descriptions, no recipes really, just descriptions of what I had come up with to serve each day.

When I got to work each day, I would have no idea what my special would be that evening save for the fish and meat that would be the centerpiece of each dish.

I could picture almost all of them in my mind and knew that I could make nearly all of them again just as I had when I had come up with them.

That was one of the great emotions and great memories that came to me that day.  I remembered walking into the cooler each morning and looking around to see what was available that day for the evenings' specials.

That is the way we did it each day.  See what was there and come up with three new recipes to serve that night.

Today I knew that I had some red snapper to cook for dinner tonight and a few ears of corn that were left over, untouched, from the gluten free fried chicken and mashers that my wife had made for last nights' supper. 

Looking through the refrigerator I found The fish, the corn, half an orange bell pepper, a shallot, a purple Cherokee heirloom tomato, some other tomatoes, some limes and parsley.

I had it.  Now how to cook the fish.  Grilled or seared?  Grilled was the thing that rang out more loudly in my head.

Here is what I made:  Grilled Red Snapper with a Slightly Spicy Corn Salsa.

Recipe:

3 ears corn

1/2 orange bell pepper

1 purple Cherokee tomato (diced)

1 vine-ripe tomato (diced)

1/2 shallot (minced)

1/2 lime

2 tsp apple cider vinegar

2 tsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp mild chile powder (New Mexico)

kosher salt

black pepper

Lets' get started!

I start by cutting the kernels off the cobs by standing them each upright and cutting down next to the cob.  Here is a video showing how to do this:

You can use fresh corn, which in all honesty is the best way as long as it is very sweet which is more often the case late in the season.  In this case I was working with some very sweet cooked corn.  Another variation is to grill the corn to give the salsa a smokey characteristic that is delightful.

Place the corn Kernels into a bowl.

All of the knife cuts I use in this recipe can be seen in my knife skills 101 post so check there if you need more direction: http://tastelikechicken-whatsmikecooking.blogspot.com/2012/02/knife-skills-101.html

The next ingredient to prep is the diced bell pepper.  It is important to make the pieces the same size as the corn kernels.  First remove the ribs of the pepper, slice it lengthwise and then across all the slices to make little cubes.

Add this to the bowl with the corn.

On to the tomatoes.  These should be roughly the same size as the corn and bells.  The method is the same but with one extra step.  Slice the tomato.

Stack the slices and cut them into strips

Turn them 90 degrees and cut again.  Voila!  Little cubes.

Add them to the bowl.

Remove the leaves from the parsley stems.  You don't want the stems, just the leaves.

Mince the parsley leaves and add them to the bowl.

The shallot comes next.  Peel the shallot, cut it in half.  Reserve one half for another day and mince the shallot by cutting parallel slices about 80-90 percent of the way to the root end, rotate 90 degrees and slice very thinly.

Add the shallot to the bowl.

Squeeze the lime.  Add the apple cider vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, kosher salt and pepper.

Mix the salsa and taste it to see what you've got.  Adjust the seasoning to your taste.

Light the grill.  When the coals are coated in a thin layer of ash, you are ready to cook the snapper.

Add kosher salt and pepper to the snapper and some oil.  I use a 25% canola/ 75% olive oil blend that I make myself for this step.  There is no need, or really any reason to use extra virgin olive oil in this step as you will lose all of the flavor that you paid for with the extra virgin when the oil heats on the grill.

Make sure that you flip each piece of fish on the plate so that each has a thin layer of oil on it to stop it from sticking to the grill.

Once the metal of the grill is hot (it should be a little shiny if it is a grill you've used a few times).  You'll learn the look of your grill when it is ready the more you use it.  Mine is about ten years old so it is a familiar sight to me.

If your grill turns white from the heat, wait ten minutes or so as it is too hot.

Place the fish on the grill "presentation" side down, skin side up.  The skin side is easy to recognize as it has the blood line on it.  Just look for the deep red lines on the flesh, that is the skin side.

Grill the snapper until the edges begin to turn white.

Turn them over and finish the grilling.  If your grill was hot enough, you should have beautiful grill mark on the presentation side.

When the flesh is firm to the touch but not hard, they are done.  Remove from the grill.

Place one filet on each plate and garnish with your salsa.

Delish!

Meyer Lemon Hollandaise and How to Skin a Salmon

I have been living in a hotel a state away from my home for the past seven weeks with access to just a small kitchenette.  I have a microwave, a two burner electric stove and little else with which to cook save for a few kitchen tools that brought from home.

I haven't been starving by any means, but hot food in my room is rare.

My dinners have been very good, but I haven't cooked much in the room.  How can people live with electric stoves?

The burners take too long to heat, and once hot take forever to adjust.  I used to have electric stoves in apartments that I rented in San Francisco and swore at one time to never rent again a property that had one.

About twenty years ago I was one of a group of three renting an apartment in the Richmond District of SF and we were splitting up.  On of the women with whom I lived was getting a studio, I was going with the other and as I was working two jobs and she was a student and working about 15 hours a week, she took on the lions share of apartment hunting.

She knew of my desire that I don't return to an electric only existence.  It really was just about all that I cared about except that I didn't want to live in an unsafe neighborhood.  She wanted a safe place too, but was more flexible about the kitchen as I think she didn't cook at all.  So the electric thing was not her priority.  In fact, now that I think of it, I don't really remember her cooking at all.

One day I came home after working a lunch shift and she told me that she had found a perfect place.  She was so excited.  We were close to the end of our notice on the current place and time was getting tight.

She started to tell me about the apartment: "It's got two bedrooms (great), it was in our price range (although at the upper limit, still good), a big living room that would easily hold my three aquariums (fantastic), a little back yard like space that we could use for the my Weber grill and to just hang out (awesome, I thought), and the best thing about it is that it had floor to ceiling windows in the living room with views of downtown, the Castro and the bay (WOW!).

We were to see it in an hour.

I looked at her.  "The kitchen is electric isn't it?" I asked.

Very sheepishly she looked at the ground and said it was.  I said if it is that great, maybe I can overlook my kitchen demand.

The apartment was great.  We moved in.

The day after moving in I made eggs benedict for breakfast on the electric stove.  It turned out well, but for most of the year that we lived there, I did little cooking in the apartment.  For once in my life, the kitchen was not my favorite room in the apartment.

It is difficult to make hollandaise on an electric stove and I learned a great deal about how to make a good sauce that morning.

A few weeks ago I had the good fortune to return to San Francisco for a long weekend and was to stay with my friend, Leslie, who has a fabulous kitchen.  I was very excited to cook on her beautiful stove, a Viking I think.

For dinner on Saturday night I made Seared Salmon on Broccolini with a Meyer Lemon Hollandaise.

Here is how it went.

Leslie went to one of my favorite fish markets while I was at a baseball game and bought the most beautiful sides of king salmon that I have seen in many years.  She asked me if it should be scaled and I said no.  It is easier to remove the skin if the scales are intact.

First I needed to remove the skin of the salmon.

I removed the pin bones by grabbing them with a pair of needle nose pliers at about a 30 degree angle toward the head end and pulling gently.  If the filet is very fresh they give up a bit of a fight.  If they come out very easily, your filet is not as fresh.  This filet was very fresh.

The removal of the pin bones is not necessary, but makes for a more enjoyable final product as there will be no bones.

The next step to skinning a salmon is that you need to make a little cut through the meat of the filet but be careful not to cut through the skin.  This will be your "handle".

Now grip the filet by the handle you just created and hold your sharp chef knife at a 20 degree angle and pull on the skin while moving the "handle" in a back and forth fashion until you have removed the skin.  Check out the video below:

Cut the fish into the portions that you want and set aside.

Here is the recipe for my hollandaise:

1/2 pound butter

juice of one Meyer lemon

1 egg yolk

Kosher salt

a pinch of paprika

a couple Tablespoons of hot water

In order to make Hollandaise you will need clarified butter.  This is also called "drawn butter".  Think about the butter you are served when you order lobster.  That's the stuff.

Place the butter in a very small sauce pan and melt very slowly.  Be careful that the butter does not boil.

when the butter is melted, there will be three parts, the foam at the top (these are the solids in the butter), the fat (this is what you want), and water at the bottom.

Remove the foam from the top with a spoon.

With a small batch like this, you don't need to remove the water at the bottom.  If you are to clarify a larger batch, say two pounds or more, pull the fat from the pot with a ladle.

Place a medium sized sauce pan on the stove with water in it and bring it to a boil.

In a glass or metal bowl that will nestle into the sauce pan, place an egg yolk and a little but of the lemon juice.  Whip the yolk and juice with a wire whip.

Reduce the heat to a simmer and place the bowl onto the sauce pan while continuing to whip vigorously.

Slowly add the butter while continuing to whip the sauce.  It is important that this sauce does not get too hot (140F is too much).  If it gets too hot, you'll have greasy scrambled eggs and all is lost.

Here is what I learned about making this sauce on that electric stove:  remove the bowl from the pot from time to time to regulate the temp.  I do this on gas stoves now as it gives me even greater control.

Whipping the emulsion continuously even when off the heat.  

This sauce is a hot emulsion, for cold emulsions see my post on Caesar salad: 

http://tastelikechicken-whatsmikecooking.blogspot.com/2012/03/best-caesar-dressing-in-my-opinion.html

When the sauce begins to get too thick add some more of the Meyer lemon juice or hot water from the simmering pot.  It only takes an ounce or so each time you do this.

Once all of the fat has been incorporated, taste the sauce and season with paprika and kosher salt to taste.

Remove the pot from the burner and rest the bowl on it to hold it hot.  Remember to check it from time to time to regulate the temp.

Set up your plate with the sautéed veggies and seared salmon and spoon the sauce onto you meal.

As Julia would have said, "Bon appetite".

Soon I will return home and have all of my cooking stuff available to me.  I never thought I would miss my kitchen as much as I do now.