Category Archives: Recipes

Mushy Peas, Please!

Mushy peas side dish in red earthenware saucepan
Mushy peas, a British standard, is overlooked here in the US.

Comforting and easy to make, the dish works well as a side to something crispy, like fish & chips (surprise!) or fried chicken.

While the authentic version is made from marrowfat peas — mature and field-dried — this one uses plain old frozen peas, offers savory oomph via chicken stock and white onion, and is easily altered to suit your liking.

You’ll be sorry if you use canned peas. While this dish is no misnomer, you’ll want some texture.

Mushy Peas
2 pounds frozen peas (not the little fancy ones)
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup roughly chopped white onion, rinsed (this removes some of the sharpness)
1 tablespoon sugar
Couple dashes white pepper
1 teaspoon sea salt (depending upon saltiness of stock)
5 young mint leaves — no stems!!!
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons heavy cream
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg (or a few fine gratings of whole nutmeg)

1). Simmer all except butter, cream, nutmeg and mint shreds over low heat, covered, until peas are soft.
2). Drain liquids into cup and drink later. Why waste?
3). Blend butter and cream into peas using an immersion blender, but leave peas reasonably chunky.
4). Heat through over low heat, if needed.
5). Check seasoning.
6). Serve topped with a few mint shreds.

Note: If you want to serve this as pea soup, leave the liquids in. You may need to add a little more stock to thin out the soup. See how it goes. RPWXM2H8ZUF7

Bye, Bye, Holidays — and a Crazy Stuffing Recipe for Next Year

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Marker drawing of retro White Castle burger stand

Marker drawing of a White Castle burger restaurant

The holidays are over. Although I have several marzipan pigs and some cranberry sparklers hanging around, everything else is a memory. The turkey. The New York strip roast. Many cheeses. The creamed spinach and Yorkshire pudding. God knows how many cookies. All gone.

My final holiday act will be to tell you about a twisted Thanksgiving recipe.

While perusing the coupon insert in my local newspaper ’round November, I caught the words “stuffing” and “White Castle” in the same glance. “No,” I thought. “It can’t be.” It was. A stuffing recipe calling for 10 broken up White Castle hamburgers.

The recipe includes celery, spices and chicken broth and is cooked in the cavity of the bird. It was the 1991 White Castle Cook-off winner.

You know about White Castle, right? If you grew up in the New York metropolitan area or another city the company set up shop, you know it isn’t just about boxes of frozen burgers at supermarkets. Or a Harold and Kumar movie.

White Castle was the first fast food burger chain in the US. It opened its inaugural stand in Wichita, Kansas in 1921. The company is still family-owned, according to its website, and continues to crank out small, malleable — they’re “steam-grilled” — and distinctively potent and addictive hamburgers. Lest you think the product is “less than,” know that these people served their billionth hamburger in 1961.

Nowadays the company calls its basic, cheeseless burger “The Original Slider.”

The frozen supermarket jobs didn’t come on the scene until 1987. Brilliant idea, really. A frozen White Castle burger is the one food in the universe that’s just about as good microwaved as served hot off the line.

Still, White Castle burger stuffing pushes the boundaries of product-driven recipe development to a place few may wish to venture.

Consider Philadelphia Cream Cheese cookbooks. While you can add Philadelphia Cream Cheese to just about any dish to its benefit or at least without causing harm, White Castle hamburgers are a whole other ball game.

The mere mention of this brand — synonymous in my house with “belly bomb” — tends to evoke strong feelings in the initiated. My parents used to go to the White Castle in Bayside, Queens, when they dated in the 1950s. They’d eat 25 oniony burgers between them — bringing to life the old White Castle slogan, “Buy ’em by the sack.”

As a kid in the 1960s and 1970s, they took me to the same White Castle — and it’s still there. Until 1972, when the company discontinued curbside service, we’d eat in the Cutlass Supreme, courtesy of the carhops.

It’s difficult to describe the White Castle hamburger experience. Because they’re small, you can eat quite a few. Because they’re savory, it’s hard to stop. When you’ve had one slider too many things start to unravel without warning. It’s like drinking tequila. One goes from partying hearty to collapsing on a pile of coats in a strange bedroom in seconds.

The stuffing, well, I may have to give it a try next year just for insanity of it.

Jazzed-up Matzo Brei for Breakfast

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Matzo brei with turkey ham and aged cheddar

At this point in time I’m starting to ponder the half-case of Passover matzos I’ll have hanging around after next week. We’ll have had a sea of smoked whitefish salad on them by then, and no one will want any.

If you’ve never heard of matzos, then you probably live in a place where there are no Jewish people. It’s cracker-like unleavened bread made of only flour and water–looks like a very large cracker, actually–that’s eaten during the Passover holiday instead of leavened bread, which is strictly forbidden.

Consider Deuteronomy 16:3:

Easy Chocolate-covered Strawberries for Valentine’s Day

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Chocolate-covered strawberries ready to be served

I always make chocolate-covered strawberries for my family on Valentine’s Day. My husband loves them, and they make my son feel better if he’s between girlfriends.

You can temper chocolate the traditional way, AKA the long way, but try the method described below. It’s much easier.

If you want to be a little fancy, get your hands on some long-stemmed strawberries. Trader Joe’s has them for $6.99 per pound. A little high, I know, but think of the occasion — it’s love, man!

You’ll need:

1# long-stemmed strawberries, gently washed and absolutely dry. Trim the very end of each stem at an angle, and trim off brown leaves, too.

Silicone baking mat laid out on a cutting board or flat counter.

Glass, heat-resistant, 2-cup measuring cup, like Pyrex, with 1 cup good dark chocolate fèves (like coins) or pearls.

I use Valrhona Manjari (64% cacao), which I buy in a large bag at Spun Sugar in Berkeley. If you don’t want to buy fèves or pearls, get block chocolate and cut it yourself.

Another 1/4 cup chocolate. You are looking for 1/4 the quantity of your original 1 cup to seed, or add to, your melted chocolate to bring the temperature down.

For this method, whatever quantity you start with, you’ll need another 1/4 of that to seed.

White nonpareils. If you bake for the holidays, those shaker decoration sets often have them, especially Hanukkah versions.

A microwave.

A small wooden spoon.

A candy thermometer would be nice so you can check the temperature of the tempered chocolate, but you should be OK as long as you do not overheat your chocolate at the start.

The process:

1). Melt chocolate at 20 second intervals at full power, stirring after each interval, until it is melted and shiny. Do not, whatever you do, overcook it!!!

2). Mix in your seeding chocolate little by little, stirring fairly vigorously. This pulls down the temperature of your melted chocolate and allows the final product to set firmly and have a nice, shiny look. Your tempered chocolate should be at a working temperature of about 89 deg. F.

3). Dip each strawberry into the chocolate, largest first, and coat to about the 2/3 point and transfer to the silicone mat. You should realize now why I told you to use a measuring cup. It gives you height and you need less chocolate to do the job. The thick glass also holds the heat nicely. You may need to swirl the last few to coat, but that’s OK. Work quickly so your chocolate does not set before you’re done.

4). Sprinkle the top of the chocolate coating with a few nonpareils. Just a few, and be careful, ‘cuz they travel and your wife/husband/partner won’t want to be picking them up for the next week.

5). Allow to set about 45 minutes and then carefully peel the silicone away from under each strawberry (slowly — and don’t pull them up by their stems!) and move them to a nice serving dish.

6). Eat soon, and do not put in fridge unless you must. Chocolate does not like the fridge — you have been warned.

Terrible photo of set-up for chocolate-covered strawberries

Strawberries coated with chocolate and nonpareils on silicone mat

Make a cheese souffle at home

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Cheese souffle just out of the oven

Cheese souffle is the kind of thing many home cooks are afraid to make because they think it’s difficult. It’s really not. You need to practice once or twice in terms of technique, which is the part you need to pay attention to since there are not all that many ingredients in a basic cheese souffle — the one I suggest, since it’s wonderful and doesn’t need to be loaded up with all manner of nonsense.

This will serve 4 with some bread and maybe sliced heirloom tomatoes, though my family could probably polish two of these off in nothing flat.

Use good cheese and organic whole milk and eggs. This recipe is simple and relies on quality ingredients. If you use crappy, mass-produced cheese product you won’t wind up with a deeply-flavored, rich, complex souffle.

This is a good dish if you want to show off, though I stopped doing that about 20 years ago. I wound up bombing when I tried to show off and, since I’m no longer trying to lure a boyfriend into my web, there’s no real need. I figure my family and friends know the deal with me and it’s all good, fallen souffles, broken oyster stews and all.

Cheese Souffle
Serves 4

6-cup souffle dish, or other casserole, with high, smooth interior
Whisk
High-heat spatula
Stand mixer or balloon whisk and large, copper-lined mixing bowl

2-1/2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons AP flour
1 cup whole milk
Pinch nutmeg
Pinch white pepper
Pinch salt
4 egg yolks
5 egg whites
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup shredded cheese (Gruyere, Cheddar, a mix, whatever you like)

For prepping souffle dish:
1 tablespoon soft butter
1/2 cup panko (course breadcrumbs)

1). Prep souffle dish by buttering the inside, being careful to catch the whole surface.
2). Toss in panko, and turn dish this way and that, so the panko sticks to the butter and there is panko on the entire surface. This will allow the souffle to climb up the side of the dish. Set aside.
3). Make a thick bechamel sauce, like so: microwave the milk for 1 minute and set aside; melt the butter in a saute pan and add the flour; combine with spatula and stir over low heat for a minute — stirring constantly. You don’t want any color, which should result in a roux blanc, or white roux. Whisk in all of the milk quickly; add the seasoning pinches; cook over low heat, stirring constantly, for a minute or so. When you have a thick white sauce, which is what a bechamel is, take it off the heat. Note: if you use cold milk you’ll get lumps. You have been warned.
4). Separate the egg whites from the yolks by hand, so you don’t lose half the whites — which you will if you use the shells. Make sure you have absolutely no yolk in your whites! You should have one little bowl of 5 whites and one with 4 intact yolks. Wrap up the extra yolk for some other use.
5). Place the whites and the salt into your mixing bowl and whip at high speed until you have serious peaks. At this point you should pre-heat your oven to 400 deg. F.
6). Whisk the egg yolks into your white sauce.
7). With your spatula, cut out a nice chunk of the egg whites and gently whisk it into your now-yellow sauce to lighten it up.
8). Fold the cheese into the sauce with your spatula.
9). Fold the rest of the egg white into your sauce — carefully. It’s OK to transfer the sauce to the mixing bowl with the whites, assuming you used a small saucepan for the white sauce.
10). Place batter into prepped souffle dish using spatula, but don’t disturb the sides.
11). Place on center rack of oven and turn it down to 375 deg. F.
12). Cook for 30 minutes and then test with a skewer, which should come out relatively clean. You need to work quickly. If too soft for your taste, put back in the oven for 5 minutes.
13). Separate the top with a fork and spoon and serve ASAP, as it will deflate in only a few moments!