Oscar Wilde once said, “I am not young enough to know everything.” As I age, I have learned to not rule out any possibilities. Kale is a perfect case in point. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will know that I used to be a kale hater. Turns out, I was wrong. I just didn’t understand kale. Much like some people, kale is tough and needs a bit of massaging to coax out her very best qualities.
I recently had a kale salad at Mudtown Flats, in Owen Sound that blew me away and changed my mind about kale salads. I came home and immediately set about trying to recreate it. I think I nailed it. I urge you to give it a try.
Seek out Tuscan Kale (also known as Lacinato Kale or Dinosaur Kale or Cavalo Nero/Black Kale). It is a bit more tender than the curly variety and the flavour, while still quite earthy, has an almost nutty sweetness. The first step is to remove the tough stems.
Next, I’m going to give you the opportunity to practice your knife skills and ask you to slice the leaves as thin as you can. Remember to tuck your fingers under and away from the knife.
Next, treat the kale to a good sprinkling of kosher salt and get your hands in there to gently massage the leaves. I learned this trick from Mark Bittman. Did you guys know he recently started an online food magazine called Heated? It’s illuminating, highly entertaining and very well written.
The salt, combined with the massaging action, helps to break down the cell walls of the kale and make it more tender. Rub the kale leaves together between your fingers, only until it starts to wilt. It will only take a minute or two. Let it sit while you get on with the rest of the salad.
As in choosing a life mate, what you choose to pair with the kale is an important decision. Squash is an excellent partner. The sweetness of squash is the perfect foil for kale’s slighly bitter edge.
Cut the squash into little cubes, give it a drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper and roast in a hot oven until the edges get all brown and crispy.
With every salad I compose, I aim for contrast in both flavour and texture. Kale and walnuts are slightly bitter. Squash and golden raisins will balance the bitterness perfectly.
Crunch comes from toasted pumpkin seeds and walnuts. Walnuts are another ingredient I used to hate. Again, I didn’t really understand how and when to use them. They must be very well toasted or they will taste very mealy and unpleasant.
I added some feta cheese for creaminess and salt. If you can find Bulgarian feta, give it a try. It has a creamier texture than Greek feta. Check out this post if you’re a cheese geek and keen to learn about the differences between all the different styles of feta.
Sumac, a dried middle-eastern spice, adds a liveliness and lemony kick to this vinaigrette. It’s becoming more widely available and you’ll find yourself using it in dry rubs or marinades for chicken lamb, fish and vegetables as well as a finishing spice for humus and other dips and spreads. This astringent and tangy spice is very versatile.
We’re not really a big game-playing family. The one and only time I ever played a board game with my husband was early on in our relationship. We were on the same team for a friendly game of Trivial Pursuit. The category was sports and leisure and it was a baseball question, the only sport I know anything about. I got so excited that I knew the answer, I shouted it out. Unfortunately, it was the other team’s question. My husband declared a moratorium on game playing with me after that.
But, on a visit to see us in December, my youngest son started a game of tag, and it’s still going on. Sadly, he was playing tag with a wicked cold. He caught it first, passed it on to my husband, and now I am “it”, sneezing and coughing my way through January. Normally, when I’m sick, I lose my appetite, so I sort of got excited about being sick at the beginning of January. I figured this would be the perfect way to lose my December cookie weight. But this cold left me feeling ravenous. I couldn’t seem to eat enough to make me feel satisfied. I was craving carbs.Soup seemed like the perfect remedy. Hot enough to soothe my sore throat and packed with lots of starchy things to make me feel full. This is my take on the classic Tuscan soup, Minestra di Faro Lucchese. (Farro soup in the style of Lucca). I used Mark Bittman’s New York Times recipe as my starting point and adapted slightly from there. I added a heaping tablespoon of tomato paste to the sauteed onions and celery, to really deepen the flavour of this soup. I also slipped in a big pinch of red pepper flakes. While spicy heat is not a typical addition to the classic recipe, my tastebuds were so dulled by my cold that I wanted the soup to really pack a punch of flavour. Plus, spicy food makes my nose run, so I figured that the soup would work to cleanse my sinuses. The final adaptation I made was the addition of a rind of Parmesan cheese to the simmering soup. I always save my rinds and keep them in the freezer in a zip-loc bag to add to soups and stews. This soup does not fall under the “fast food” category. You need to soak the beans the night before. You could use canned beans, but I think that the texture would not be the same. The original recipe called for adding the farro and beans at the same time. I found that the beans needed at least 90 minutes of simmering to get tender, so I added the farro during the last 30 minutes of cooking, so that it would still retain some chew, the way I like it. I also waited and added the carrots at the end of the cooking time, rather than at the beginning with the celery and onions, so that they would not be too mushy.
Serve with lots of chopped Italian parsley and fresh basil for a hit of verdant freshness. Don’t forget the Parmesan cheese.
Last weekend was one of those rare ones when Canada and the U.S. get their act together and both have a long weekend at the same time. Here in Ontario, Monday was “Family Day”, and in the U.S. where my daughter goes to school, it was President’s Day. Family Day, in case you are interested is one of those made-up holidays, created by the Liberal Party of Ontario, in an effort to suck up to voters. Truthfully, we all need a day off mid-February. With apologies to T.S. Eliot, February is the cruellest month.
So, last weekend the whole family was together under the same roof again, if only for a few days. I feel so content when we are all together. Granted the contentment wears a bit thin when the two oldest make their younger brother laugh so hard he almost chokes to death.
Tuesday morning my fridge was empty and my countertops were covered in a fine layer in flour, butter and chocolate and I wasn’t even pissed off! Since my daughter lives in a college residence, when she comes home, she likes to bake. And it fills me with great joy to see her creating.
Sorry, got a bit sidetracked by all that chocolate.
While all the family was home, I did a bit of cooking myself. I had never considered making French Onion Soup before. I knew that the foundation for a really great French Onion Soup was homemade beef stock. Since we have a vegetarian in the family, I make most of my soups with vegetable stock. And I never imagined that vegetable stock would have the oomph and body necessary for French Onion Soup. And then I discovered the roasted vegetable stock created by Mark Bittman. That man is pure genius! It has almost all the depth and richness of a beef stock. The secret is roasted vegetables (including mushrooms) and soy sauce!
The other key to an authentic French Onion Soup is cooking heaps of onions, low and slow. A mandoline does a great job slicing the onions nice and thin.
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Two pounds of sliced onions are cooked over a low heat for almost 45 minutes, until they shrink down to a caramelized pile of sweet oniony goodness. Be patient. Do not turn up the heat in order to finish sooner. You will have bitter blackened onions.
Make sure you use a good sturdy bread and toast it well before topping it with cheese. I used a combination of Gruyère and Cheddar.
When you break through the top layer of gooey cheese and crusty bread, your patience in taking the time to caramelize the onions slowly, is rewarded with a sweet and mellow broth.
I wish you were here with me right now in my kitchen. Because I am about to tell you about some of the most amazing green beans I have ever eaten. And I’m not sure my writing and photography skills will be sufficient to convince you. If you were here beside me to smell them and taste them, I could make a believer out of you.
Now you may be wondering why I am raving about green beans. I can almost hear you now, in that disbelieving tone, “Come on, really? Green beans? Is she that hard up for healthy January recipes?”
This recipe came to me in a quiet e-mail from my sister Faith. It was actually a forwarded e-mail from her friend Kerry. Subject line read: Green Beans. The message was a simple one liner, “You’ll love these” and then on the next line was the link to the recipe.
I happen to love green beans. I think they are the Rodney Dangerfield of vegetables. They simply do not get the respect they deserve. They are the perfect canvas for carrying any flavour profile. They are healthy and I think they’re quite pretty to look at. I eat them at least twice a week and I’m always on the look-out for new ways to dress them up. So my sister had my attention.
When I clicked on the link I knew right away this recipe was a winner. When it comes to the plethora of on-line recipes floating around out there, you must always consider the source. And this time the source was Mark Bittman. Or Bitty as I like to call him ever since I heard Gwyneth Paltrow call him that on their PBS series “Spain – On the Road Again.”
Mark Bittman, New York Times Food columnist and author of several cookbooks, including the culinary bibles “How to Cook Everything” and “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian”, has yet to steer me wrong. As I went down the ingredient list of this recipe, I started to get excited. Almonds, garlic, dried hot chiles, olive oil, shallots, honey and soy sauce. How could it be anything but spectacular?
The green beans are cooked in boiling salted water for about 2 minutes. Please try salting your vegetable water if you have never done this before. It really makes a difference. Your vegetables will not taste salty, just well seasoned and way more flavourful than if you salt them after cooking. Once the beans are cooked to crisp tender, about 2-3 minutes, shock them in ice water to stop the cooking. Costco has been carrying the nicest Kenyan green beans lately (those skinny green beans sometimes referred to as called haricots vert) so I used those.
I used whole, unblanched almonds. I toasted them first, as I believe you get the best flavour from toasted nuts. I think untoasted nuts are a crime! (Sorry, just a little pet peeve of mine) Toasted almonds, garlic, dried red chiles and a bit of olive oil get turned into a paste in the Cuisinart. The recipe calls for 1 or 2 dried hot red chiles. I didn’t have whole dried chiles, just red pepper flakes, so I used about a teaspoon of the flakes. I like spicy but not painful hot, so a teaspoon was perfect for me.
Chopped shallots are sautéed in a bit of olive oil and then the almond-garlic-chile paste gets added to the pan. Honey and soy sauce follow and then the green beans are bathed in this heavenly paste. I couldn’t stop eating them right out of the pan. They possess the perfect balance of flavour and texture. Crunchy from the green beans and almonds, a bit f heat from the red pepper, salt from the soy sauce and sweet from the honey. This recipe is pure genius. Really! And eating more vegetables and less meat will make Bitty really happy!
After reading the title of this post you may have either one of two reactions. If you are a fellow bread freak you may be saying to yourself, “What?? Who is she kidding? That is so last decade. Mark Bittman wrote about Jim Layhey’s revolutionary no-knead bread in 2006! Every food blogger worth her salt has reported on this bread.” If you are not a bread freak, you may be saying, “What?? No knead bread. She’s been inhaling too much bleached bread flour. How could that be possible?” So, to the bread freaks reading this, I apologize for reporting on something you have already heard about ad nauseam. To the rest of you, I say, yes, this is possible and it’s spectacular. (sorry, couldn’t resist that link!)
Although I first heard about this no-knead bread over two years ago, I only just tried it for the first time last week. I then made it a second time, 4 days later because I just couldn’t get over how simple it was to produce such amazing bread. There are 2 major factors at play here that help create this wonderful bread. The first is mixing up a very wet dough and letting it sit, at room temperature for 18 hours. Food scientist, Harold McGee, explained it like this, to Bittman,
“It makes sense. The long, slow rise does over hours what intensive kneading does in minutes: it brings the gluten molecules into side-by-side alignment to maximize their opportunity to bind to each other and produce a strong, elastic network. The wetness of the dough is an important piece of this because the gluten molecules are more mobile in a high proportion of water, and so can move into alignment easier and faster than if the dough were stiff.”
The second major factor involved in making this bread is where Jim Lahey’s real genius comes into play. He discovered that by baking the bread in a covered preheated cast iron or enamel pot (like a Le Creuset), you mimic the steam ovens that professional bakers use to develop that crisp crackling crust so desirable on artisan breads. During my 18 month journey through the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge, I tried all sorts of methods to produce steam in my home oven. I put a pan of hot water at the bottom of the oven, I sprayed the sides of my oven wall with a plant mister during baking, I added ice cubes to the oven during the baking process and I even tried adding lava rocks to the pan of hot water, to mimic a sauna. I never did achieve that holy grail of crackling crust.
I discovered a version of the original recipe with some wheat bran added to the dough. (Chatelaine Magazine Feb. 2011 issue) I really loved the addition of the wheat bran. Truly, the only thing difficult about making this bread is remembering to start the night before you want to serve it. It had been awhile since I last baked bread so I was excited to get back to it again.
Over the past two years I have accumulated quite a bit bread making paraphernalia, so it was great to use some of it again. In Jim Lahey’s video he says to just use your hands to mix up the dough but I was excited to use my special King Arthur bread whisk again. If you plan to make lots of bread, get one of these. If not, your hands work just fine.
Once mixed, the dough will appear quite shaggy and rough-looking. That’s ok, it’s supposed to look that way. Just cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave it on the counter for 18 hours. It is a big leap of faith to take, I know, but trust me, it works. After 18 hours, it will have all smoothed out and the surface will have fine bubbles on it.
In the original recipe, Jim says to just form a ball and place it on a cotton towel, cover it and let rise. Since I had a special bread rising basket in my cupboard (a banneton) I decided to use that. A banneton is woven bread mold, usually made of made of cane and is used to form and shape artisan loaves during the proofing/raising stage. The basket imprints its shape and ribbed design on the finished loaf. They can be ordered online from Brotform (U.S.) or Goldas Kitchen (Canada). You can also just line a colander with a clean cotton towel, although you won’t get the cool design on your bread.
I found it best to lightly flour the counter and then wet my hands to scrape the dough out of the bowl. I did not want to add too much more flour as the high hydration level of the dough is what gives you the big open crumb structure (ie: big holes) of the finished bread. Bread freaks aim for big holes in their finished bread. If you are at all interested in reading more about this subject and finding our why big holes are desirable, visit The Fresh Loaf’s website. A very animated discussion on this very topic has been raging for the past week. Yes, bread freaks are a strange and wonderful breed!
Once the dough is dumped out onto the counter, just fold it over itself, sort of like a business letter. Then, cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 15 minutes.
Then you want to shape the dough into a ball.
After dough is shaped you can just place it on a floured towel and cover it with a second towel, or you can put it in a basket or colander to let it rise for about 2 hours. I heavily floured my banneton with rice flour and then dumped out the excess, and set my dough in there to rise. You will notice I put the dough in seam side up. That is because after it has risen, I will dump it into the hot pot for baking and the top (with the pinched seam) will hit the pot first and become the bottom and then my pretty ribbed design, from the basket, will become the top.
A few words about the pot to cook the dough in. Just about any covered 6-8 quart covered pot will work here. Cast iron or enameled cast iron (like Le Creuset) work very well for this job. I have also read that ceramic and Pyrex would work also, but have not tried them. These are the kind of pots I am talking about.
The pot with lid must be preheated in a 450º F oven for at least 30 minutes before baking the bread. It is a bit scary dumping the bread into the hot pot, but just wear oven mitts and dump quickly. If it goes in a bit uneven, just wiggle the pot back and forth a bit to straighten it out. It will all turn out fine.
Resist all temptation to slice the bread as soon as it comes out of the oven. It continues to cook a bit more as it cools. It will be gummy in the centre if you slice right away.
