Recipe

Every other Friday, Erik and I make bouillabaisse. Though we are not Catholic, it is a nice food tradition and, so it seems, we often have the appropriate ingredients.

Tomorrow, I will post about how to make bouillabaisse. But everything good starts with a fine stock.

The key to good stock is to save everything. If you peel shrimp before you cook them, save the shells and tails. If you eat crab, save the shells. Save the tops of celery, the ends of onions, the tips of carrots, etc.,. There is a satisfaction and flexibility in having a freezer bag of potential stock.

Shells from two cooked Dungeness Crab (we have yet to try other crabs out)
Shells from 2# raw Shrimp.
One Chopped Onion
Celery Stalk chopped
Tomato paste 2 Tbsp.
Brandy 2 oz.
White Wine 2 oz.
Parsley Stems 8 each
Bay Leaves 2 each
Peppercorns (less than a dozen more than 5)
Paprika 1 tsp.
Cold Water

Heat oil in hot stock pot and sear shells until the shrimp shells are pink. Add tomato paste and cook a few minutes.

Deglaze pot with brandy and wine.

Add vegetables and seasonings.

Add cold Water to top of pile o’ stuff.

Simmer gently.

You’ll need 3-4 hours before you season and Drain.

Tomorrow: bouillabaisse

This is a great snack based on the traditional Cauliflower Pickle. It is not, however, the beautiful and delightful Indian Cauliflower Pickle.

Two warnings about this recipe:
It is addictive as a snack.
Cauliflower, when pickling, smells gassy.

Why you want these in your home:
They are dang, dang, dang good.

Recipe:
One head of cauliflower cut into florets.

Vegetable oil –6 Tbsp.
Tumeric Powder – 1/2 tsp.
Cayenne –1/2 tsp.
Yellow Curry – 1 Tbsp.

Coriander Seeds – 1 tsp.
Mustard seeds – 2 tsp.
Toast the mustard, coriander in a pan over high heat for a minute. Grind in a coffee grinder or with a mortar and pestle.

Salt to taste, at least 1 ½ Tbsp.
Garlic 2 cloves mashed into a paste (traditionally, I think you have to triple the quantity of garlic. That said, this will be used as a cocktail appetizer in a future entry…. Check back next week)
Lime juice – ¾ cup.

Your cauliflower should be washed and set on the counter to dry on the counter. The goal is for the cauliflower to be as thirsty for liquid as possible without making the cellular structure weak and dehydrated. Depending on where you live, they can sit on the counter for five hours in a humid climate or two in an arid one.

After the cauliflower is dry, add the ingredients (in the sequence they are listed above) and mix well.

Place in a bowl and set in the refrigerator for two days. If you can, place the stuff outside for a day to let the gasses blow off away from the kitchen. If you let the cauliflower sit outside, it will be ready within a day.

Erik, the CIA trained chef, whose recipes have been featured in the NY Times, Bon Appetit and Gourmet Magazine and I, who hasn’t, have two different ideas about roasted chicken.

Erik’s chicken is trained, skilled and served to suit a starred restaurant.

If you get drunk and need to eat a roasted chicken with your hands, give me a call.

This is to say, I don’t intrinsically agree with the cooking time of this recipe. I do see its merit. If you like your chicken meat tender and juicy and pink, follow these cooking instructions. It is, after all, the epicurean way of eating meat.

Preheat the oven to 375°
Slice the backbone out of a chicken and flatten the sucker out onto the cutting board.

Use your hand to separate the skin from the flesh (enter from where the neck used to be, make sure your hands are not too warm- you’ll tear the skin- and work with slightly curled finger tips toward the skin) and slather butter under the skin.

On a roasting rack place two to four halves of lemon.

Place chicken on the lemons, on the roasting rack, breast up.

Slather with olive oil, salt, paprika, pepper, thyme and lemon slices.

Cook for an hour and fifteen minutes.

Let sit for five minutes and serve. King Oyster mushrooms work well.

Ah the Pleurotus eryngii, what a wonderful, springy, meaty fungus. It’s all white stem with a kicky little cap.

The King Oyster doesn’t have a hint of its own agenda. It’s amiable and takes on whatever character you want to give it. Like a wide-set-eyed starlet, it won’t win a gold statue; it isn’t gravy material and sometimes that’s what you want.

We did this:

Olive oil and butter
Clove of minced garlic
Mushrooms
White wine, salt, pepper and lemon juice
Sauté

Serve along side a roasted chicken.

They're are easy to make and they are easy to eat.

It’s a slightly sweet appetizer that works well with beer. They pair fine with white burgundy, white that has a little angsty depth works better than say, a cheerful thing from Alsace . Fried wontons are bar food and sometimes a beer and fried wontons are exactly what the day requires.

You need 1 lb. of roasted sweet potato for 40 wontons.
Three Tbsp of glutenous rice flour.
One scallion, minced
A tbsp of Tabasco
A dash of cinnamon
Salt

Mix together with ardent conviction (you want the glutens to feel alive) and let sit for a day.

Place mixture in a piping bag and pipe two teaspoons of sweet potato into the center of each wonton skin.

Seal (use a beaten egg or water) and pinch tight.

Deep fry and serve with a Red Chili sauce.