Kotletiy (Picture)

Tonight's dinner: Kotleti.

You can see from the oil-soaked paper towel they are a bit of an indulgence. We don't have them all that often, but I like it when we do. With these we just had some chopped cucumber and tomato. We used a little spicy mustard with them as well.

You can find the recipe here.

Greek-Style Lemony Chicken and Potatoes

Tonight's dinner: tender chicken leg quarters marinated in a Greek-inspired mix of yogurt, lemon juice, garlic and herbs. This was roasted on top of potatoes and onions drizzled in olive oil. As you can see from the photo, it's way too much food for just the two of us, but I made enough for leftovers. I'm planning on topping a green salad with some of this roasted chicken for a nice lunch tomorrow; that is, unless my boyfriend beats me to it and eats it for breakfast!

We just got back from 2 weeks in the States, and I feel so heavy. We ate so much greasy food, especially during the last half of the trip, when we were at a conference. Being at my parent's home (the first week) we could eat reasonably, but during that conference it was difficult. So basically we consumed a large number of french fries and heavy sandwiches.

After that, we've both been craving lighter and more wholesome food. I've been eating almost nothing but green salad for the past few days, just because it's so good after all that grease! But today it was time for something substantial again, yet still nutritious and not too heavy. We had just bought some chicken leg quarters yesterday, so I decided to make this. Greek or Greek-inspired dishes are always so tasty, in my opinion!

Ingredients:
3 chicken leg quarters (or more if you like)
1 T olive oil

Marinade:
1 big clove of garlic for each quarter + 1 extra
1/4 c yogurt (plain)
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
About 1-2 T dried oregano (to taste, can use fresh of course)
1 sprig mint, chopped
Generous sprinkling coarsely ground black pepper
Salt
1 t olive oil

4 medium potatoes
1 large white onion
1 T olive oil
Salt

Method:
Can be done ahead of time: Crush and chop the garlic, and mix all ingredients for marinade in a shallow bowl. Make sure the chicken is clean and dry; salt it a bit. Place the chicken in the dish, coating well with marinade. Separate the skin from the meat to spoon some marinade inside each piece. Let the chicken sit in the remaining marinade, turning occasionally. I marinated for an hour, but you could even do it overnight. Just make sure you refrigerate the chicken.


Chicken in marinade; potatoes and onions in the pan, ready to cook.

When you're ready to cook: Wash (peel if desired) and cube the potatoes. Cut the onion into sort of thick chips or semi-rings. Place potatoes and onions in a roasting pan. Mix well with some salt and 1 Tbsp of olive oil. Remove the chicken from the marinade, laying the pieces on top of the potatoes, skin side down. You can spoon any remaining marinade over the chicken. Place in a 190 degree C (375 degree F) oven for about 30 minutes. After about 30 minutes, take the pan out of the oven and turn the chicken pieces over. The skin side should be facing up now. Drizzle the remaining 1 Tbsp olive oil over the skin of the chicken. Bake for about 40 minutes more, or until chicken is done and skin is crisp and golden brown.

Notes and Serving Suggestion: It was a really nice, mild tasting meal. Filling but not greasy, the sort of thing you feel good after eating. I really like lemon flavor on the potatoes, so next time I may squeeze a little extra lemon juice over them. We ate this with a simple Greek salad. The sauce from the chicken was very tasty soaked up with bread.

Kotletiy

These are Russian hamburger patties/meatballs. They are simple, fast and extremely delicious, especially with mashed potatoes.

Ingredients:
1 small onion
50 g bread, stale is ok
Milk enough to soak the bread (~1/3 c)
About 400 g ground beef
Salt and pepper to taste
Oil for frying onions (just a little) and patties (a lot, enough for shallow frying)
Flour for dredging

Method:
Let the bread soak up all the milk. It should be soft enough to just be mush, like oatmeal consistency. While it's soaking, fry the onion, diced. I let the onion get a little brown. Mix the bread, onion and beef very well. You should be able to form balls, but they will be a little sticky. Dredge the balls in flour, shaking off excess. Fry in the oil a few minutes each side, till just almost cooked all the way through. Let them drain on a paper towel on a plate, they will finish cooking with carry-over heat.

Notes: I love these! The salting is tricky, I'd rather undersalt than oversalt. We've had a batch both ways, and well, you can always add, but you can't take away.

Seriving Suggestion: The best with mashed potatoes, also good with bread. They are tasty cold but I prefer them warm and juicy. I even chopped up leftovers and put it on top of a plain frozen pizza; that was delicious.

Turkish Style Eggplant with Rice-Pasta Pilaf

Eggplant recipe just sort of made up with what I had around, especially some stuff from the freezer (one chopped eggplant, 2 whole tomatoes). Before we go on a trip, if there's any produce that we didn't finish I just pop it in the freezer. The eggplants I chopped, but tomatoes I freeze whole. When I want to use them, I run a tomato under hot water for a few seconds. The skin is really easy to peel off after doing that. The tomato is still rock-hard, it's really easy to chop up.

The pilaf is my attempt to recreate something I had at a Turkish co-worker's home.

Turkish Style Eggplant with Rice-Pasta Pilaf

Ingredients:
For the eggplant:
1 eggplant
2 tomatoes
1 small onion
4 cloves garlic
1 large or 2-3 small carrots
1 T olive oil
2 T chopped fresh parsley
2 lemon wedges
1/3 c of a tomato sauce (any kind you like)
1/3 c water
2 bay leaves
Salt to taste

For the pilaf:
1 small onion
1 T olive oil
1.5 c raw rice
.5 c small pasta (orzo, vermicilli, stars)
3.5 c water
Salt

Method:
Eggplant: Mine was frozen, so to remove the excess water I just had to thaw in the microwave and drain. If yours is fresh, chop it and put it in a bowl. Salt it a little and let it sit about 10 minutes, the salt will draw the liquid out. Drain. Warm the oil in a pan. Saute one onion, chopped. When soft, add the carrot(s), shredded and the minced garlic. When the carrot is soft, add the remaining ingredients: eggplant, chopped tomatoes, juice from the lemon wedges, tomato sauce, bay leaves, parsley, water, salt to taste. Let it simmer while you prepare the pilaf. You can let it cook just until the eggplant is soft, or keep it simmering as long as you want (may need to replenish liquid in that case).

Pilaf: rinse the rice. In a pot, warm the oil. Saute the chopped onion till soft. Add the rice, and saute it for a few minutes. Don't let it brown, but the grains will become more translucent, and shiny. Add the water, pasta and salt. Cook as normal. I let it boil gently till the water is all gone, then I remove it from the heat and cover it, letting it steam for about 10 minutes. Fluff with a fork before serving.

Notes: My friend made her pilaf with orzo, which was really good. Mine was with vermicelli, which is what I had around. It was fine, but it was kind of like normal rice. Next time I will use orzo. The tomato sauce I used had peppers (not spicy ones) in it. You could use plain, or even just tomato paste. I think a spicy tomato sauce, like arrabiata, would be tasty in it. This meal was fast and easy to prepare.

Serving Suggestion: Very good served with yogurt. You could add the parsley at the end instead, if you want, sprinkling it over the dish just before serving

Orecchiette a la Funghi

Very simple and tasty meal. Again, made at a time we didn't have a lot of different ingredients around. I basically looked in the fridge and used what was there.

Ingredients:

Orecchiette--I had about 6-7 cups cooked
Quite a bit of butter (maybe 2 T?)
1 T olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
3-4 cloves of garlic, diced
Splash of white wine
1 cup frozen mushrooms*
1/4 c shredded Gruyere cheese
Small bunch of fresh basil** chopped

*Ours is a mix of chopped wild mushrooms--of course if you have fresh mushrooms, go for it!
**Actually mine was frozen, as this was again done right after a trip. I always freeze whatever fresh before I go away on a trip.

Method:
Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. When it comes to a rolling boil, you'll add the pasta. While the water is coming to a boil, start the sauce: in a saucepan, melt the butter with the oil. When heated, add the onion and saute until soft and translucent. Add the garlic, saute a minute or two more. Add the mushrooms and the wine, and about 1/2 c of the pasta cooking water. Allow to simmer on the lowest heat while waiting for the pasta to finish. Season with salt to taste. As soon as the pasta is finished, drain it, add to the saucepan. Add the basil and the Gruyere at this point as well. Toss everything together well, and serve!

Notes: I thought maybe some cream would be good, but we didn't have any. It was very nice with just the butter and the cheese, though, still tasted creamy. I think the key was A LOT of butter.

Serving Suggestion: White wine?

Orecchiette a la Vodka

Vodka really brings out the taste of tomato sauces. I especially like tomato-vodka sauces with peas. Traditionally, cream and bacon are also added. (Disclaimer: When I say "traditionally", I mean I've seen it done this way in many restaurants.) We just got back from a week-long conference and had almost no food around, especially no fresh food. This is what I made in that situation.

Ingredients:
Orecchiette pasta--I think I had about 6 or 7 cups cooked
2 small onions, diced
3-4 cloves of garlic, diced
3 canned roma tomatoes + a bit of the juice from the can
1 T tomato paste
A splash of vodka
1 t of sugar
1 c of frozen peas
About 2 T olive oil
A generous pat of butter*

*The butter is optional. Leave it out for a vegan meal. Maybe add a little more olive oil in that case.

Method:
Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. When it comes to a rolling boil, you'll add the pasta. While the water is coming to a boil, start the sauce: in a saucepan, melt the butter with the oil. When heated, add the onion and saute until soft and translucent. Add the garlic, saute a minute or two more. Add the tomatoes and juice, chopped, the tomato paste, the sugar and the vodka. Allow to simmer for a couple of minutes. The pasta's probably almost done (you don't want to over cook it). Add about 1/2 c of the pasta water to the sauce, and the peas. Let it simmer on the lowest heat while you wait for the pasta to finish. Season with salt to taste. As soon as the pasta is finished, drain it, add to the saucepan and toss well with the sauce. Serve!

Notes: The pasta water part really is important. It makes the sauce stick to the pasta. I saw it on an old-school Italian cooking show on PBS when I was about 16, and have always remembered it since then. Orecchiette is probably my favorite pasta. I've heard it's traditionally served with broccoli, but I like it with anything. My BF thought it wasn't the best for this dish, he thinks that orecchiette needs a creamier sauce. I think it would go nicely with many different types of pasta, for some reason I think that short ones would be better than long ones (linguine, spaghetti...).

Serving Suggestion: Maybe garnish with a little parsley? I thought it was a very tasty dinner. Since we visited Italy I've been inspired to try and do more interesting things with pasta lately.

Tasty (and very Swiss-French) White Pizza

This is my attempt at imitating a pizza I've seen on to go menus here. It's not anything like pizzas I've seen on American menus, but it's really good! The real Swiss-French version of course includes lardons, i.e. bacon. But I don't eat a lot of meat, and I especially try to avoid pork (paranoid about tapeworms).

Ingredients:
Ready made pizza dough or pizza shell
Creme fraiche or sour cream (about 1/4 c)
2 medium mushrooms, washed and sliced
1 medium potato, baked
3 cloves of garlic, diced
1 small onion, sliced thinly
1/2 c shredded Gruyere cheese

Method:
Preheat oven according to instructions for your dough/shell. You can certainly use home-made dough if you want. Place the dough on whatever you'll cook it on. Cover with the creme fraiche, leaving the amount of crust you prefer along the border. Sprinkle with the garlic. Sprinkle about 1/3 of the cheese on top. Arrange on the pizza: onion slices, mushroom slices and slices of the baked potato. Now sprinkle with the remaining Gruyere. Bake until crust is done, it will be enough time for the cheese to get melty and parts of the pizza to be golden brown.

Notes: I can't tell you how tasty this was! Of course you can add more garlic or mushrooms. That's never a bad thing. I also think it would be tasty with wild mushrooms, but I just used champignons de paris (standard button type).

Serving Suggestion: This was eaten for dinner, but I want to try it for a dinner party as an appetizer, cut into small squares.

Palao

I wanted to make Massur Palao, which is an Indian dish with rice, ground meat, and massur lentils. Sometimes potatoes can be added. It is similar to Biriyani, which more people have heard of, except Biriyani is made usually with chunks of meat and saffron is added. My grandmother was fantastic at making Massur Palao, and she used to make it every week for my sister. Seriously, it was for my sister, the rest of us were told, "You can't eat any ... well, maybe just a little, but only if she says you can!" My sister was her favorite and my grandmother was an interesting woman. :-)

It was never my favorite dish, but we had some ground beef and suddenly I wanted to make it. But alas, no lentils. So, here you have a Massur Palao-Biriyani hybrid. But I forgot to add potatoes (sad).

Equipment:
Big, heavy bottomed pot (I think mine was like 5 quart size) with lid
Wooden spoon
Knife
Cutting board

Ingredients:
1/2 c oil
2 small onions, chopped
1 large carrot, grated
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 bird's eye chilis (or whatever small hot chilis you have), minced
2 T minced ginger (fresh)
3 T gharam masala
375 g ground beef
3 c raw basmati rice
2 pods black cardamom
2 bay leaves
5 cups water
pinch of saffron
Salt

Method:

First, wash the rice very well, and then leave it in fresh water to soak for 30 minutes.

Warm the oil in the pot. When it's hot (shimmery) add the onion, let it saute until soft, then add the carrot, sautee a couple of minutes. Now, add the chilis, garlic and ginger, let them sautee a couple minutes till nice and fragrant. Push all this stuff to one side, pooling the oil on the other side of the pot. Dump the gharam masala into the oil and make sure it is all touching the oil. Let it fry for a minute, but you don't want it to burn. I have my electric stove on "7" (out of 9) during this process, if that helps. Stir everything together, and add the ground meat, stirring well, making sure that no large lumps form and making sure that no spices are burning. Add some salt. You may need to add a cup of water (deduct it from your 5 cups) to facilitate non-burning.

When meat is reasonably browned (so it is out of the "danger zone" as far as clumping goes) Add the rice and 4 cups of water (3 cups, if you have already added one cup). Salt. Don't stir. You want the meat to stay on the bottom, rice on the top. Once the liquid starts to bubble slightly (NOT a rolling boil), put the lid on and turn the stove as low as it will go. The remaining cup of water should be a warm one. The warmest that comes out of your tap is fine. Put this cup of water in a glass, or your cup measurer, and place the saffron in it. It will start to slowly color the water yellow.

Go do something else for like 10 minutes.

Check to see how the rice is doing. Poke your spoon in along the side of the pot, not disturbing the layers, but enough to check if the liquid is just about all gone. If it isn't, replace the lid and wait a bit longer. If it is, add the saffron water but again, don't stir.

Go do something else for like 10 minutes.

Again, check the rice. If the liquid has all been absorbed, remove the pot from the heat, leaving the lid on, and let it sit that way for you guessed it, 10 minutes. If the liquid HASN'T been absorbed, then let it stay on the heat until that happens, but keep an eye on it. A little moisture is ok, but it should NOT be liquidy.

Now it's done. The top rice should be light and fluffy, the rice that's touching the meat is more moist. Scoop it onto a plate and eat it, adding salt to your taste. You can eat it with yogurt (especially good on the meat part).

Notes and Serving Suggestions: You could add some dried fruit (raisins, sour cherries) when you add the rice, or some chopped herbs of your choice. I think that whole cumin seeds (add them when you fry the gharam masala) would also be good.

About the gharam masala: traditionally, this is not fried. That's because traditionally it contains things like cardamom, black pepper, cinnamon, clove need to be "warmed" (hence the name), but that aren't oil soluble so they don't need to be fried. However, most commercially prepared gharam masala contains cumin and coriander, which DOES need to be fried. My homemade gharam masala also contains cumin and coriander because I'm lazy and so that's two less jars I have to fish around for in the cupboard. The point is, for most people, fry it. But, if you have a gharam masala that doesn't contain cumin and coriander, then: instead of frying 3 T gharam masala, fry 1 T ground cumin, 1 T ground coriander. When you add the liquid, add 1 T gharam masala.

This is REALLY UNHEALTHY. It's fat and carb city. 1/4 of the pot, which you can easily eat, believe me, has like 1/2 a day's calories. The whole recipe is 3687 calories.

Stuffed Tomatoes and Mushrooms

I made these last night for dinner. We needed to eat, and so I just sort of made this up on the spot. It turned out well, though I undersalted the filling (I always end up undersalting things).

Stuffed Tomatoes and Mushrooms

Ingredients:

3 medium round tomatoes
3 large mushrooms
325 g ground beef
1/2 small onion chopped
1 clove garlic minced
1 T dried parsley
1 T dried basil
1 T dried oregano
salt
pepper
1 egg
1 c tomato juice (something tasty enough you'd drink it)
60 g fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced/shredded

Method:

Wash the mushrooms and the tomatoes. Slice their tops off and remove the insides of the tomatoes (a grapefruit spoon is awesome for this) and reserve for some other application (soup, salads, whatever). Remove the mushroom stems, chop them (just the stems) and place the pieces in a bowl. Arrange the tomatoes and mushrooms in a shallow baking pan or dish. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper. In the bowl with the mushroom pieces, prepare the filling. Add to the mushrooms the ground beef, garlic, onion, egg (beaten), herbs and generous amounts of salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly. Stuff an equal amount of the mixture into each tomato and mushroom cap. You can stuff them with less and make more mushrooms/tomatoes if you want. Pour the tomato juice over everything. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Cover each tomato/mushroom with cheese (you can use a different kind if you like) and bake for an additional 5-10 minutes.

Notes and Serving Suggestions: I cooked mine for 10 minutes more than is listed here, and they were just the tiniest bit dry. I think that the times I've written here are better. We ate this with a big green salad (romaine, olives stuffed with garlic, onion, apple cider vinegar dressing) and spaghetti. You could use bell peppers, too, or some other vegetable. If you want to use less meat, add some rice to the mixture. For a vegetarian stuffing, I'd use rice, mushrooms, onion and maybe some kidney beans.

I know that tomatoes with spaghetti sounds very Italian, but I've never seen Italian stuffed tomatoes. I have seen them in Russian and Balkan cuisine, and in French, too. However, I have seen Italian stuffed mushrooms. I dunno. I'm putting them in the "Russian", "Italian", and "French" categories.

Pelmeni

Pelmeni are basically Russian tortellini. But different. Does that make sense? The shape is essentially the same, and they are basically pasta, but the filling is different and they are served differently.

The standard pelmeni filling is ground meat (it can be a mix of beef, pork, lamb, my BF's mom even puts ground chicken in sometimes), onion, salt and pepper. I've never seen a different filling, and my BF looked at me like I was from another planet when I innocently asked, "Does anyone ever make pelmeni with minced fish inside?"

We made a bunch of them last night, it was a really satisfying meal.

Pelmeni

Ingredients:

2.5 glasses* of flour
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
water as needed (approximately 1/2 a glass)

1/4 medium onion
325 g ground meat (I used beef, 20% fat)
salt and pepper

*A "glass" is a measurement used in many Russian recipes. I believe it comes from the time when most household items were very standardized; everyone had glasses of pretty much the same size and design. The glass I used was a cup in volume, and it's very close to the size of the magic glass referred to in Russian recipes.

Method:

First prepare the dough. Place the flour and salt in a bowl, or if you're very awesome (which I'm not), on a clean dry surface, like a big wooden cutting board. Make a well in the center and add the egg. Start to mix, and add the water slowly, mixing as you go. You need to add enough such that you have a smooth, soft dough, but not too much or it will be sticky. If it gets a little too sticky, you can add extra flour, a little bit at a time. Knead the dough for a bit so it's supple and smooth.

Now prepare the filling. Mix the ground meat with chopped onion, add plenty of salt and pepper.

Roll out the dough very thinly on a floured large surface. Cut it into squares that are about 1.5" on each side. You can just use a "grid" method to do this, it's fast and efficient: make lines 1.5" apart going one direction, and then make them again in the direction 90 degrees away. Any pieces that are too small can be mixed together and re-rolled out.

Place a thimbleful of filling (about a teaspoon) on each square in the center. Now comes the tricky part, if you haven't done it before; the folding.

A___________B
|...................|
|....*******....|
|....********...|
|....*******....|
C____________D

Above is my incredibly nerdy rendition of an unfolded pelmen. To fold one, first make a triangular pocket, bringing point D to point A, and pinching well to seal sides A/DB and A/DC.

A/D
/.......\
/..........\
/.............\
C__________B

Once you have a triangular pocket (poorly rendered above), bring points C and B together. You now have a finished pelmen. Repeat for the probably close to 100 squares you have!

This site has non-keyboard-generated pictures of the finished product, and of the preparation steps. They cut the dough into circles, which is also an option.

To cook them, bring lightly salted water or broth to a boil, and place them in the boiling water. Once they float, you can check the filling of one to see if it's ready. But I just let them all cook for a couple more minutes after they start to float, and then serve them.

Notes and Serving Suggestion: It's tedious. That's why this is usually a family activity, and I strongly encourage you to enlist help where you can. You can serve them in the water/broth they were cooked in, kind of as a soup. Otherwise, they can be eaten with butter, sour cream, vinegar, soy sauce, chopped greens on top, ketchup, whatever you want! My favorite is to put sour cream and chopped dill and parsely on them, eat them with the broth, or to eat them with soy sauce and apple cider vinegar.

Oven Dies at Inopportune Moment, or Tomatoes Stuffed with Eggs

Actually, "Gas runs out at inopportune moment" is more correct. So no oven or stove. And we don't have a microwave. All we have is an electric teapot and a toaster. AND it happens as we have two things in the oven: My Boyfriend's Roasted Chicken, and a new recipe I'm trying, Tomatoes Stuffed with Eggs (Russian site). We noticed just shortly after putting them in, so no food-safety issues, simply disappointing. We put the things in the fridge to prepare tomorrow. We were going to ask our colleague/friend/neighbor upstairs if we could use her oven, but she was out rock climbing. She lives a more exciting life than we do. :-D

I'll post the recipe for the tomatoes here, for any who don't speak Russian. I made a couple of small additions, but unfortunately I can't yet tell you how this recipe tastes! I'll update it tomorrow, after we buy a new gas bottle from the store. Of course, as of 7:45, every place selling these things was closed. That's France for you.

Tomatoes Stuffed with Eggs
original recipe at: http://gotovim-doma.ru/view.php?r=571-recept-IAichnitsa-v-pomidorakh

Ingredients:
X medium-large tomatoes (where X is the number of tomatoes you want to make)
X smallish eggs (I buy large eggs, so I just picked the smallest ones from the carton)
X tablespoons ricotta cheese
X tablespoons chopped onion
X raw eggs in their shells
Salt and pepper

It's the first ingredient list that looks like a high-school algebra lesson! Yay! As for the tomatoes, you don't need like beefsteak tomato large ones, just a normal round tomato will do quite nicely.

Method:
Wash tomatoes and slice a thin slice off the top. Take out the seeds and inner flesh of each tomato. Using a grapefruit spoon works great. Don't discard the insides, use them in soup, a salad, eat them, whatever. Place tomatoes in a shallow baking dish, sprinkle all over with salt and pepper. Place the chopped onion and ricotta cheese at the bottom of each tomato, then crack a whole egg into each tomato. You can salt and pepper again, and then pop into the oven for 20 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius (350 Fahrenheit). From the picture on the site, the yolks will be runny and the whites set.

Serving Suggestion and Notes: To serve, plate and sprinkle over with chopped green herbs of your choice. I'm going to do dill and parsley, but basil, green onion, maybe coriander and mint, would all work beautifully. About egg size: assuming you use normally sized tomatoes, if you make a lot of these it may be worth it to buy a carton of small/medium eggs. I used large, and there was a little spillage over the edge, but since I only made 4 and since it was the first time trying it, I didn't buy any special eggs. I think this would be a good addition to a dinner (main course, with pasta, rice, or a big salad in the summer) or a nice little appetizer. Or even a breakfast.

The Original Recipe: What a great site! I look forward to trying many more from there. I spent a good hour and a half today just reading recipes on that site. I counted it as "practicing Russian" and not "shamelessly ogling tasty food." The recipe is for two tomatoes, but I don't think cooking time will change much. It also notes that you can add the greens before baking, to make them softer, and that you can add things other than eggs (as I did). It suggests ham, sausage or fried mushrooms (yummy!).

CbG: Whole Chickens

Have I mentioned before that my boyfriend can cook? I have? Well, I'll say it again: he knows his way around a kitchen, and there are some things he does better than I do. Not saying that I should be inherently better at it or anything, but I do get a LOT more practice.

Anyway, we are now adding "roasted chicken" to the list of things that BF is responsible for cooking. We've been buying a whole chicken for the past couple of weekends, and I've been using them to make a simple but delicious chicken broth. But this weekend, he wanted to take charge of the bird's lower half, while I made the broth with the breast as usual. The result was soooo good!

My Boyfriend's Roasted Chicken

Ingredients:

Lower portion of a chicken (the back, thighs and legs), reserve the upper (breast, wings) for soup
About 1/4 c mayonnaise
1 t garlic salt
1 t crushed black peppercorns
1 T dried parsley, or 1/4 c chopped fresh parsley

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Sprinkle the seasonings all over the chicken, separating the skin from the flesh. Make sure that you get both the skin and the flesh. Now, spread the mayo all over, especially between skin and flesh. Roast, loosely covered with foil, until juices run clear.

Serving Suggestion and Notes: This was so good. When it finished, we had already eaten something else for dinner (this was intended to be for the next day). It smelled so great when it came out of the oven, that I told myself, "I'll just take a taste." A taste turned into half a chicken!

Simple Chicken Broth

Ingredients:

1 bunch of fresh dill
1 handful of fresh parsley
4 peppercorns
1 bay leaf
3 cloves of garlic
1 small onion
1 medium carrot
1/4 t celery salt
Upper portion of 1 chicken
Water to cover
Salt to taste

Method:

Peel and halve the carrot. Halve the onion and garlic cloves. Wash the fresh herbs, and I like to use a long sprig of dill to tie them into a bunch, to keep them all in one place. Sprinkle the celery salt over the chicken. Place all the ingredients in a large pot, cover with water. Allow it to come to a boil, and simmer for 2 hours, skimming any foamy stuff off the surface. Remove chicken and vegetables. Salt to taste.

Serving Suggestion and Notes: My favorite way to eat homemade chicken broth is simple. Place chopped fresh dill, parsley and onion in a serving bowl, and add steaming hot broth. Cooked rice and some of the chopped chicken is another nice addition.

Cheap but Good: Explore your pantry, freezer and fridge

I don't know about you, but I somehow always end up with half used quantities of food in my freezer and fridge. Usually this happens when I buy a food item, planning to use it to make a certain dish, and I don't end up using all of it. It also happens that sometimes I stock my pantry too well, and forget just what canned or dried foods I have in there. I got to thinking about this, and came to the conclusion that I would probably save a lot of money if I tried more often to cook from what I already have in my kitchen. To test how well this could work out, I examined my pantry, freezer and fridge with the goal of creating something delicious without making a trip to the store for anything.

Here's what happened:

Today I had a few mushrooms and 200 g of ground beef left from pirozhki making. I definitely wanted to use the beef, because there wasn't room in the (tiny French) freezer to freeze it. And I'm always a fan of mushrooms, so I decided to use those too. Besides, if I didn't they'd get mushy soon. So I put the beef and the mushrooms on my kitchen table. Looked around some more, but it seemed that everything else would keep pretty well (random cheese, cabbage, pickles) or was already assigned to be eaten for lunch (lettuce, green onions). Ok, moving on to the freezer.

There I found a bag of chopped frozen spinach left from making palaak paneer. It had started out as a 1 kilo bag and there was only 250 g left or so. The lump of spinach was taking up precious freezer space, especially due to the awkward shape. I put it on the table to use. Things were interesting in the freezer. That's because my BF is a total carnivore and buys random meat when there's a good deal. Or when he thinks it just looks tasty. Which brings me to the 500 g of Italian sausage that was sitting in there. I took it out, placed it on the table, and examined my ingredients.

Beef, sausage, mushrooms, spinach. I thought I'd go with something Italian due to the sausage, which I planned on taking out of it's casing and mixing with the beef. Ok, if we're going Italian, let's look in the pantry and see what's available in the way of pasta.

The pantry expedition was the deciding factor in what I'd make. There I spotted, shoved towards the back, a box of never-opened no-pre-cooking-needed lasagna noodles. Interesting. I didn't remember buying them. I asked BF, "Did you buy these?" It turns out he did ... before we even started dating (we're going on two years). :-D But I checked the expiration date, and it was fine. Besides, they'd never been opened.

Fine, it looked like I was gonna make lasagna. Beef, sausage, mushrooms, spinach, noodles. Well, can't really have a lasagna without cheese (or tofu), so I went back to the fridge to see what was available. There was an unopened tub of ricotta. Aw, I had wanted to eat that with canned peaches (I love ricotta with fruit)! But, now I was kind of set on lasagna, so I put it on the table too. But what about mozzarella to go on top? We didn't have any. But I did spot nearly 250 g of chaource cheese. I thought to myself, "If they can put reblachon on pizza, I can use that to top a lasagna." I also grabbed an egg to mix with the ricotta, 2 cloves of garlic and got a 800 g can of peeled Roma tomatoes from the pantry (we always have a few cans of those around).

Lasagna

Ingredients:

500 g Italian sausage, removed from casing
200 g ground beef
1 800 g can peeled Roma tomatoes
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
250 g frozen chopped spinach
3 medium white mushrooms, chopped
1 egg
1 250 g tub of ricotta cheese
20 no-cooking-needed lasagna noodles
Salt to taste
1 T dried parsley
1 T dried oregano
1 T dried basil
About 250 g chaource cheese

Method:

Mix the beef and the sausage. Brown, then mix in the tomatoes (chopped), with their juice. Reserve a bit of the juice (about 1/2 cup). Salt the mixture to taste. In a saucepan, warm the spinach and the mushrooms until the spinach is completely thawed. Cool slightly, and mix with ricotta cheese and chopped garlic. Salt to taste, then mix with beaten egg. Spread the bottom of a large baking dish with the reserved tomato juice. Place a layer of 4 noodles over this. Cover noodles with 1/3 meat mixture. Layer 4 noodles again. Cover noodles with 1/2 spinach mixture. Repeat: noodles, meat, noodles, spinach, noodles, meat. Sprinkle top meat layer with the dried herbs. Cut chaource into 8 even wedges; reserve for later. Place lasagna into oven preheated to 350 degrees F (gas mark 6 in France). Bake for 20 minutes, then remove and top with chaource wedges arranged in a 2x4 matrix. Put lasagna back into oven and bake for another 15 minutes. Remove and allow to cool slightly before slicing.

Notes: Placing sauce/juice before the first layer of noodles is important if you don't want the lasagna to stick. When you remove it from the oven, there will be a lot of liquid around the lasagna. If you let it rest, that won't be a problem. This will form sort of a sauce (just the right amount). For vegetarian lasagna, make a marinara sauce and cut zucchini or eggplant into slices. Instead of the meat layer, put a little sauce, then arrange the veg slices, then top with some more sauce.

Serving Suggestion: Technically I'm going to say that this makes 8 servings, although they are large servings. I think that 1/16 of the lasagna with a nice green salad would be enough for me on most days!

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UPDATE: I just did a calorie calculation for this dish, and it is NOT a light-weight. One eighth of it has 575 calories. Yikes!
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Palaak Paneer and Looking to the Weekend (Paneer, Pirozhki)

Tonight I made some tasty Palaak Paneer. This is Indian style creamed spinach, with cheese cubes. There were a few minor things I'll do different next time, but overall it was good. Traditionally, saag is greens (of any kind) cooked in cream. Usually mustard greens are used, or a mix of mustard greens and spinach. When just spinach is used, it is palaak. I prefer the version with a mix of mustard greens and spinach, so if you can get mustard greens, use them!

Palaak Paneer

Ingredients:

2 T oil
1 small onion
1 large clove garlic
1 T minced ginger
1 T gharam masala*
1 t tumeric
1 pod black cardamom
1 pod green cardamom
2 whole peppercorns
2 cloves
salt to taste
Squeeze of lemon
1 T cream
About 750 grams frozen, chopped spinach
Paneer cheese cubes-as many as you want

*Gharam masala is a spice mix. Usually, it has spices like cardamom, cinnamon, maybe clove, some black pepper. It's not 100% authentic to put cumin and coriander in, but most store mixes do it. I make my own, and I also put cumin and coriander in, because I happen to like them! I also put in a tiny bit of chili powder, some ground black pepper, some ground cardamom, and some ground fenugreek. You can basically experiment and find a mix you like. It's what I did. Once I found it, I made a big batch and put it in a spice jar.

Method:

Warm the oil in a pot. Chop the onion, mince the garlic and ginger. When the oil is shimmery, add them to the pot. Sautee till soft, but not brown. Push the mix to one side of the pot, and pool the oil in the other side. Fry the gharam masala and the tumeric in the oil for about 30 seconds, then stir everything together. Add the spinach and remaining spices. Allow to cook until spinach has thawed, heated through, and excess water has evaporated. At this point, salt to taste, stir in paneer, allow to warm through. Stir in cream, lemon juice and serve.

Notes: Make sure your ginger is minced! My ginger got frozen (dumb malfunctioning fridge--long story) and thawed. It was really tough to cut (but very easy to peel!), and I ended up with a couple of big lumps of ginger. I think I may add a little more spice next time. Maybe a split dried chili pod. We didn't have paneer. I've *tried* to use cubes of other white cheeses before and it fails. You see, paneer is special. It doesn't melt. That's why it can be cut into cubes and put into curries. We had in the fridge a block of fresh white pressed farmer's cheese from a recent trip to Holland. I thought, "Well, maybe, what the hell," since that's basically what paneer is--pressed farmer's cheese. It wasn't a failure. The cubes got mushier than paneer would've, but not really melty like with previous efforts.

Serving Suggestion: This is best with lemon juice, rice and roti. You can eat with yogurt too (it's important to have something a little acidic with it), but I prefer lots of lemon!

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Speaking of paneer, that brings me to the second half of this post, "Looking to the Weekend." This weekend I want to try something ambitious, cooking wise. I'm going to try to make paneer, which is similar to the Russian cheese tvorog. I also want to try and make something with yeast. I've been making Indian flat breads recently, and baking a little more (brownies, cookies, sharlotka). This is slowly but surely breaking my fear of bread and baked goods (even though I DID burn 3 cookies tonight).

So I want to try something more complicated than flat breads. I want to try ... something with YEAST.

I was thinking of trying to make Russian pirozhki. They look so good! Look at that mushroom filling! I love mushrooms so much. This site has a recipe that seems like it'll do. I've used (with a little tweaking) recipes from that site with favorable results. But I'm going to spend some time searching for THE ONE. I mean, it'll be my first time with yeast. It should be special!

Cheap but Good: Getting Experimental with Pasta Sauces

Even though it definitely falls under the category of "cheap but good," I don't cook a lot of pasta, and not a lot of pasta sauce either. Not because I can't whip up something tasty, but because it's my boyfriend's "job." We have this sort of unspoken understanding that there are certain things that he cooks. Here's the list: fried eggs, mashed potatoes, pasta and associated sauces, pork. There are things that are "mine", too: soups, anything else done with eggs, beef, Indian food. Often I branch out and try to cook things that aren't on my list, but he knows what he is good at and sticks to it. I can honestly say that he does everything on his list much, much better than I do, even though I have more cooking experience.

Part of why his pasta sauces end up better than mine comes from his willingness to throw in everything but the kitchen sink. I tend to take a more cautious approach, selecting a few ingredients that I know will go well together. My result is always good, but strangely enough his is too. I keep waiting for one of his random sauces to fail and it hasn't happened yet.

His approach to making pasta sauce leads to a highly economical and tasty dinner, because what he does is take various odds and ends from the fridge--that may not have otherwise been used--and incorporates them into our meal. A few artichoke hearts left in a jar, likewise for some lonely green olives, the last splash of wine from the bottle on the table, the last tablespoon of cream in the tub, mixed with parsley that's just starting to wilt and that bacon that'll go bad if we don't use it the next couple of days. He usually throws in a dash of a couple spices too; sometimes unusual things, like cumin or coriander.

All these odds and ends combined with a can of diced tomatoes (or when we have them, a chopped fresh one) make a huge panful of sauce that we eat with whatever dried pasta we have on hand. All it needs is a tiny sprinkling of grated parmesan cheese to be perfect.

Sour Cherry Rice

Tonight I made this rice in an attempt to duplicate one of my favorites from a Persian restaurant in Dallas. It came out really tasty, but it just needed a little more lemon juice and some chopped fresh dill added in at the end. But I'm posting what I did:

Sour Cherry Rice

Main Ingredients:

1/2 glass of uncooked white basmati rice (about 1/4 c)
1 glass water (important ratio is 2 parts water to 1 part rice)
about 1/4 c (a small handful) of dried sour cherries (I get mine at Whole Foods in the bulk foods aisle)
one VERY small onion (or about 1/2 of a regularly small one)
1 clove of garlic
Salt to taste
1 T oil (I used sunflower seed oil)
Squeeze of lemon

Spices:

1 black cardamom pod
2 small green cardamom pods
2 whole peppercorns
1 "petal" of a star anise
1 small bay leaf
2 whole gloves
1 tsp. of cumin seeds

Method:

Wash the rice well, then set it aside. Have the water ready to pour into your saucepan. In the saucepan, warm the oil. When it shimmers, add the onion, chopped, fry till golden brown (careful not to burn!) and stir in the garlic, minced. Push the onion-garlic mix to one edge of the pot, and let the oil pool on the other side. Add the spices (except bay leaf) into the oil. The oil should be hot enough that you can hear a quiet sizzle. Once you can smell the fragrance of the spices (about 30 seconds), stir everything in the pot together, add the rice, let the whole thing lightly fry for another 30 seconds or so, and then add the water, cherries and bay leaf, salt and a squeeze of lemon. Let the rice gently boil until it's just almost dry, then remove from heat and let sit covered for about 10 minutes. Uncover and fluff with a fork. If your rice is still a little too wet, you can pop it in the microwave for a few minutes, or gently cook it on the stove, stirring, until it's drier.

Serving Suggestion and Notes: I thought this was really tasty, and a good approximation of the rice at the restaurant. Theirs is a little drier and fluffier than mine came out, and also less pink (from the cherries). Probably they add the cherries in just at the end, and they get kind of plumped from the steaming rice, but aren't cooking with it. Chopped fresh dill would've been great, but I didn't have any.

Stuffed Trout

Whole trout was on sale last week, and so I made this tasty dish. My boyfriend loved the rice stuffing.

Stuffed Trout

Ingredients:

2 whole trout prepared for cooking (scales off, insides out)
1 lemon
1/2 c chopped herbs (I used a mix of parsley, dill and tarragon)
olive oil (enough to drizzle)
1 T butter unsalted
6 medium white mushrooms
2 c cooked white rice
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic
salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. On the stovetop, prepare the stuffing. Melt the butter in a pan, and when it is melted add the onion, chopped. Sautee until it's soft, then add diced garlic and chopped mushrooms. Sprinkle with salt and sautee gently; there's nothing worse than burnt garlic. While the veggies cook, place the fish in a shallow baking dish. Sprinkle salt and pepper on the inside and outside of the fish. When the mushrooms are soft, add the rice and 3/4 of the herbs to your pan of stuffing. Mix thoroughly, the herbs will start to wilt. Remove from the heat. Fill the fish with the rice stuffing and lemon slices (about 4 slices each fish). You can put extra stuffing in the baking dish surrounding the fish, or you can just save it to serve at a different meal. Drizzle olive oil over the fish and rice, sprinkle the remaining herbs over the fish and top each one with two more lemon slices. Put the pan in the oven on a middle rack. The time will depend on how big/small your fish are. Mine took about 18 minutes (I was cooking 4, I don't know if that affects the time). The best strategy is to check frequently; take it out when it looks not very done and then let it rest for five minutes. I said there's nothing worse than burnt garlic, but I think that's not really true: there's nothing worse than dry, overcooked fish.

Serving Suggestion and Notes: I didn't think I could eat one whole fish by myself, but I was wrong! Trout aren't very big, so I would assume 1 per person. There's about 1/2 c of stuffing in each one. I think that 1 stuffed trout is a pretty complete meal. The extra stuffing in the pan gets all the juices from the fish, the oil, and the lemon, so it's really tasty. This meal was also fast; the fish took about 20 minutes to cook including some rest time, and the stuffing didn't take even 10 minutes.

Cheese Fondue

I absolutely love cheese fondue! I like meat fondue too, but something about the taste and the smell of the cheese combined with the alcohol drives me crazy. It's traditional to the Rhone-Alps (and some other) regions of France and to Switzerland.

Cheese Fondue

Ingredients:

1/2 Gruyere, shredded
3 c Emmental/Swiss, shredded
1/2 Comte
1 shot cognac
1/2 c white wine
2 cloves garlic
2 T flour or cornstarch
2 t lemon juice

Method:

Peel the garlic and chop it very finely. Warm the garlic and wine together in a pot you'll use for the fondue (non-stick is best). In a small bowl, mix the flour well with the lemon juice and a bit of the warmed wine until it's smooth. When the wine starts to boil, turn the heat to medium/low and add the shredded cheeses, stirring. When the cheese becomes melty, stir in the flour/starch mixture and continue to stir. It'll help make the mixture smooth. When the mixture is smooth, stir in the cognac. It's ready to serve now.

Serving Suggestion and Notes: You have to keep this warm. If you have some way of suspending your pot over a tea light or two, that works. Traditionally you dip slightly stale cubes of bread or pieces of baked potato into the cheese and eat a piece at a time. Dipping vegetables and apple chunks is also really tasty. You could also pour this as a sauce over asparagus, steamed broccoli, or baked potatoes. In Switzerland, the folk wisdom says that it's bad to drink water with fondue. This is because it supposedly makes the cheese harden in your stomach, leading to a stomach ache. So, you're supposed to drink wine, or hot tea. I've had room temperature water with it without any stomach ache, though.

Golubtsy (Cabbage Rolls)

Cabbage is a staple food in Russian cuisine. These cabbage rolls are really delicious! Use a high fat content ground beef; it makes the rolls more juicy. You can also use a mixture of ground meats or substitute cooked chopped mushrooms for a vegetarian and vegan option. I use canned whole tomatoes in this dish and chop them up. I prefer to save fresh tomatoes for non-cooked applications, since they're expensive.

Golubtsy

Ingredients:

1 medium head of green cabbage

3 cups cooked white rice
600 grams ground beef
1 large or 2 medium/small carrots
2 small or 1 large onions
3 plum/roma tomatoes or 1 medium/large tomato
salt and pepper (lots)

caraway seeds (optional, but they keep you from farting all night)

water

Method:

Place the cabbage in a large pot and cover with water. Add some salt and the caraway. Bring to a boil, and then let simmer. It's going to need to simmer for about 20 minutes on each side (put it in core side down, then flip it over. Or the other way around.), so use this time to make the filling. Mix the cooked rice with the raw ground beef, grated carrot, onion and tomato chopped small. Add tons of salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly; use hands! When the cabbage has cooked for about 40 minutes, drain the water (you can save it for soup). Rinsing under cold water makes it easier to handle but isn't required. Carefully peel leaves off the cabbage. You'll need about 20 leaves. The remaining cabbage can be used for something else. Leaves: there will be a very tough, thick stem at the bottom. You can mash this a bit with the bell of a spoon to make it bendable, or you can cut it out and eat it like I do. Your call. Basically, you'll have a little cabbage cup in your hand. Place about 2 T of filling (about the size of a hard-boiled egg) in the center, more towards the bottom. Fold the sides in together first, then roll the lump of filling from top to bottom. You should have a neat little roll. Place it in the now empty pot you were cooking cabbage in. Continue making rolls and putting them in the pot; when a whole layer is formed on the bottom of the pot, start a new one. Stacking doesn't hurt. When you're done, add water to the pot, enough to cover at least 2/3 of the rolls, more if you like. You can also add more caraway. It's tasty! Bring to a low boil and then simmer until cabbage is translucent and soft; about 2 hours.

Serving Suggestion: Serve these warm/hot with sour cream, chopped dill and parsley. The cooking water is also delicious; it tastes like soup. You can serve the rolls in deep plates or shallow bowls and add a little of the broth. People can cut open their roll and add some broth to make it juicier.

Eggplant Dhal

Dhal is a staple food in India. It is made with many kinds of lentils. I usually use red dhal, because it cooks quickly and doesn't need soaking, or chana dhal (garbanzo beans), because I can buy it canned and I like them. This recipe uses red lentils (dhal). The original recipe, my Mom's, is an adaptation from the book A Spicy Touch. Both those use yellow lentils.

Rozmin's Red Dhal With Eggplant

Ingredients:

1 tsp. fresh ginger
1 tsp. fresh garlic
2 Tbsp oil

½ tsp mustard seeds
½ tsp cumin seeds
2 – 4 whole cloves
1 – 2 whole hot peppers, split in half
1 small tomato, chopped
¾ tsp. cumin powder
¾ tsp. tumeric
¾ tsp crushed red pepper

about 500 g red lentils
water
1 eggplant

1 Tbsp. cilantro leaves
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
salt to taste

Method:

Sautee garlic and ginger in the oil. Cut the eggplant into cubes (you can leave the skin on). When the ginger and garlic is soft, push them to the side of the pot and let the oil pool on the opposite side. Fry the spices in the oil for about 30 seconds. Set heat to a low simmer. Mix the contents of the pot together, adding the tomato. Let cook for about 30 seconds. Add the eggplant and stir well, coating all the eggplant with the mixture. Add the lentils and immeadiately add water to cover everything (probably about 4 or 5 cups). Keep an eye on the dhal, stirring from time to time, and adding 1-2 cups of water when it becomes too thick to stir; this means all the moisture has been absorbed into the lentils and it'll burn if you don't add more. You can cover it if you want to lose less moisture to evaporation. Make sure the heat is on low so the bottom doesn't burn. It's ready when the lentils and eggplant are completely soft; when red lentils are cooked they turn mushy and yellow. Salt it to taste.

Serving Suggestion: Serve garnished with lemon juice and cilantro. It's also very tasty with plain yogurt.