Flavored Butters for Vegetables

August 14th, 2009

Flavored butters have been a not-so-well-kept secret of cooks since the “compound butters” of classic French cuisine.  I’ve used them for years to jazz up grilled meats and fish, but just recently discovered how wonderfully they flavor vegetables.

My favorite is the Chili-Lime Butter I use on corn.  It’s easy to make, keeps well in the freezer or fridge and a tablespoon or so provides a zesty note to fresh corn in the summer and frozen corn in the winter.

Julia Child, from whom I first learned about compound butters, advised using an electric mixer.  That’s still a good method if you have the time and don’t mind dirtying your bowl and beater.  But it is possible to make an acceptable blend using a plate and fork.

The trick is allowing the butter to come to just the point where it is no longer cool to the touch, but not so warm it’s losing it’s shape.  Depending on the temperature in your room, this could take 15 minutes (like it does here in Hawaii) or 45 (like it did when I was living in Connecticut!).

Here’s How: Unwrap a quarter-pound stick of butter and set it on a large dinner plate.  Place the paper aside to use for re-wrapping.  (I’ve tried all kinds of other papers and the original butter paper works best.)  Cut the stick into 16 equal chunks.  Finely mince 1 small red chili and 1 small green chili, seeds and membranes removed.  Set aside.  Allow the butter to stand at room temperature until no longer cool to the touch.  Mash with a fork.  Drizzle the juice of half a lime over the surface.  Sprinkle on the minced chilies.  Mash and fold with a fork until all the liquid is incorporated.  Sprinkle with a pinch of salt.  Add the juice of the other half of the lime and keep mashing and folding in the liquid.  The butter may not accept it all, but that’s okay.  Stop when you’ve worked in as much as the butter will take.  Transfer the butter to the paper in such a way as to form a long, roughly shaped log.  (It doesn’t have to be neat!)  Rolling the paper around the butter, smooth the mixture into a log the length of the paper.  Refrigerate until firm.  To use, slice off what you need.  Place the rest in a plastic bag, label and freeze.

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you how I use Mustard-Lemon butter on Pan Roasted Broccoli.  See you then!

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Playing with Corn, Part 2

August 12th, 2009

Okay, so oven roasting corn wrapped in aluminum foil should more aptly be described as “steamed.”  I think I knew that when I began this experiment yesterday.  It didn’t develop any roasted or grilled flavor, but here’s the good news … it came out beautifully cooked, with an overwhelmingly fresh-picked flavor.  And since nothing had been lost in a boiling process, the taste of corn was at its most intense.  Absolutely delicious!

I did smear the surfaces prior to cooking with chili-lime butter, but plain softened butter would work as well.  And I love being able to serve corn on the cob already buttered.  Everyone opens their own packet, like a little present, and there it is … buttered corn on the cob waiting for salt and pepper and that’s all.  No knives digging into a communal bar of butter.  It makes the serving of corn on the cob a much neater process, which counts big time if you’re serving a family of young children!

Here’s how if you want to try:  Husk the corn and rinse under cool, running water, removing all traces of the silk.  Set on a plate with the water that clings to it.  Have slightly softened butter at hand.  Tear off one piece of foil for each ear.  It should be about 7 inches wide.  Using your fingertips (or a pastry brush) smear about a tablespoon of softened butter over the entire surface of each ear.  Bring up the foil and fold together at the top of the ear, folding the ends tightly closed.  Place, seam side up,  in a 375 degree oven directly on the rack.  Place a drip pan on the rack below to catch any melted butter that might sneak through.  Cook for 40 minutes, or until the kernels are tender when pierced with your fingernail.

The best part is that corn cooked this way is so easy.  You can put it in the oven and go about cooking the rest of your meal.  We had small beef filets and cole slaw, and by the time the steak was ready, so was the corn.  No muss, no fuss.

The chili-lime butter is a subject for another day.  See you tomorrow.

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Playing with Corn

August 11th, 2009

Corn has always been one of my favorite vegetables, and here we are in August … one of the best months for fresh corn.  This morning I bought 6 ears at 3 for a dollar.  Not a bad price, and the kernels look small and bursting with moisture.  Now the next step is to decide how to cook it.

I long ago gave up boiling corn in a huge pot of water.  Not only does it heat up the kitchen, but it seems an unconscionable use of all that water.  Not to mention that I don’t want to deal with all that fuss just before serving a meal.  Some years ago, I started cooking ears of corn in the microwave and we’ve been very happy with the results.  The kitchen is cool and the corn is full flavored with a nice crunch to each bite.

Of course, grilling corn is my favorite preparation, but living on the 28th floor doesn’t lend itself to frequent outdoor grilling.  Consequently, I’m always on the lookout for other ways to at least approximate that grilled flavor, whether I’m cooking meat or vegetables.  So far, a grill pan has done a pretty good job, but I don’t see myself grilling ears of corn on a grill pan.

So, I’ve decided to try roasting it in the oven.  I know many people like to grill corn with each ear wrapped in aluminum foil.  I prefer to grill it in the husk, if I’m outside, but I think for tonight’s dinner I’m going to try oven roasting the ears, brushed with chili-lime butter and wrapped in foil.  I haven’t seen any recipes for this anywhere, so I’m on my own here.  I’ll let you know how I make out.

In the meantime, if you’d like to try microwaving corn on the cob, here’s how: Remove the husks and silk from each ear, rinsing the last bits of silk away under cool, running water.  Leave whatever water clings to the ears.  Place in a single layer in a microwave safe baking dish.  Add only enough water to scantly cover the bottom of the dish.  Cover with plastic wrap, but fold the long sides up so there is about an inch of open space on each long side.  Figure about 3 minutes for each ear, but this is not exact.  The best way to tell when the corn is done is when you can begin to smell it.  Remove from the oven and test by pressing on a kernel with your fingernail.  It should burst, but with some resistance.

I’m back.  I had gone to the kitchen to mix up the chili-lime butter, which needs to be done when the butter is at exactly the perfect point … not too hard, not too soft.  I’ll tell you more about that tomorrow when I report on the success (or not) of my oven roasting experiment.

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A Cucumber Memory

August 10th, 2009

When “Julie and Julia” opened last Friday, I was standing in line with Freddy waiting to buy a ticket.  I couldn’t wait to see how Meryl Streep portrayed my cooking idol.

Streep was wonderful, as she always is.  The food was beautiful and the story was sweet.  You couldn’t help but wish that you, too, could spend a few years in a gorgeous apartment in Paris.  And oh, by the way, learn to cook French cuisine, while you’re at it.

In one of the scenes, a guest at Julia Child’s dinner party comments on the “braised cucumbers.”  It took me right back to my early cooking years, when I was working my way through “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.”  We were giving a dinner party for 12, and I was preparing Roast Saddle of Veal Orloff.  On page 355 of MTA , it’s described as a “delicious creation,”  perfect for a party because it can be prepared in the morning and reheated later in the day.  Child describes it by saying “the veal is cooked and sliced, re-formed with a spreading of onions and mushrooms between each slice, and covered with a light cheese sauce.  It is reheated and browned before serving.” 

Veal Orloff is perfect for a party.  However,  it seems to have fallen completely out of favor.  I never see it written or talked about anymore.  And that’s a shame.  Maybe it will make a comeback along with some of Julia’s other classic recipes like Beef Bourguignon, which I’ve seen mentioned several times recently in the food media.

But the memory the film induced was about the braised cucumbers I served in tartlet pastry shells alongside the slices of veal.  Cooked cucumbers were completely unknown to most of us living in New England in the early 1960s and the reaction to my experiment was very spontaneous.  One guest said, “What a terrible thing to do to a cucumber!”  Can you imagine how I felt?  I had gone to all that trouble to prepare a sophisticated meal and that was the thanks I got.

I’m going to make those braised cucumbers again.  If you’d like to try them along with me, here’s a condensed version of the recipe.

Creamed Cucumbers (for 4):  Peel 4 cucumbers and cut in half lengthwise.  Scoop out the seeds with a spoon.  Cut each half in half again.  Slice into thin strips.  Toss with 4 teaspoons wine vinegar, 1 teaspoon salt, and a pinch of sugar.  Let stand for 30 minutes.  Drain and pat dry.  Transfer to a baking dish with 2 tablespoons melted butter and toss to coat.  Bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour or until tender, but still crisp.  Meanwhile, boil 1 cup cream with 1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon until thickened slightly. Season with salt and pepper.  Add to the cooked cucumbers and stir to coat.  Serve hot.

Let me know how you like them!

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Potato Love, Or Not

June 19th, 2009

In a recent blog article on www.cookinganystyle.com, Patricia wrote about potatoes, their nutritional value, and how to prepare them.  And at one point she said, “We all eat potatoes … “  This started me thinking about my love/hate relationship with this vegetable we take so much for granted.

During my growing-up years, my mother put potatoes on the table every night.  Oh there was the occasional spaghetti dinner, but that didn’t happen very often because my father insisted on having his potato.  Mashed potato, boiled potato, baked potato.  Straight up.  No casseroles or cheesy cream sauce.  Potato salad was not considered serious potato.  Neither were French fries.

I don’t ever remember liking potato, in fact, I hated it, which was probably the result of having to eat it 365 days a year.  So imagine my surprise when in recent years I decided that I had actually begun to enjoy potato.  In fact, now I love it.  Wouldn’t you know.  Now that I want to eat potato,  I’m at that stage of life where my body latchs onto every carbohydrate in sight and turns it to fat around my middle.

Which brings me to Patricia’s statement that we all eat potato.  I’m not sure we do.  Certainly not in the way that we all used to 30 years ago when it was always the third item on the dinner plate, the starch beside the meat and vegetable.   Unfortunately, now I know a lot of people who don’t eat potato, and it’s mostly due to the fact that we’re trying to cut back on carbs, particularly the white ones.

Personally, I miss potato.  I long for a heap of mashed potato with a valley in the middle, yellow with melted butter.  And how can you eat roast pork without mashed potato to sop up all that delicious gravy?  What’s a roast chicken without pan roasted potato?  And then there’s all those wonderful side dishes like potatoes au gratin that so perfectly compliment any meal.  We just don’t do that in our house very much any more.

Is anybody else missing potato?

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Lobster Creamed Corn

June 12th, 2009

My husband and I recently took a trip to San Antonio, Texas, where we searched for authentic Mexican food.  Not the Tex-Mex variety, but the real South-of-the-Border stuff.  It’s not easy to find in San Antonio, but we did locate several small places that fulfilled our desire for mole verde, among other things.

Uncharacteristically for us, we took a brief detour from this quest and visited a steak house.  Bohanan’s to be exact.  And this is where I tasted the best creamed corn of my life.  Of course, it had been tarted up with lobster, as is the trend these days with macaroni and cheese and anything else vaguely “creamy”  that chef’s can’t seem to let stand on its own merit.

Now I’ll admit it was delicious, but good creamed corn doesn’t really need lobster, anymore than good macaroni and cheese does.

This got me to thinking and experimenting with creamed corn.  We have excellent fresh corn here in Hawaii and it’s available right now, so I spent some time trying to find the secret of making this old-fashioned vegetable side dish.  Made from fresh corn, this preparation tastes nothing like that which you’ve tasted from a can (probably in some school cafeteria some where).

I found that the best way to achieve that “creamy” quality is to actually grate a portion of the corn on a box grater.  This releases all the corn’s natural milkiness and creates an overall creamy texture.  Here’s how, with directions per person so you can increase however you like.

Plan on 2 ears of corn for each person.  Remove the husk and silk.  Cut the kernels from half the number of ears (or 1 for each person).  Grate the remaining ears on a box grater set inside a bowl.  Then, using a spoon, firmly scrape down the length of each cob, releasing the milk into the bowl.

Melt 1/2 tablespoon of butter per person in a saucepan.  Stir in the corn kernels,  1/4 cup of heavy cream and 1 tablespoon water per person, a generous pinch of salt and some freshly ground black pepper.  Then blend in the scraped corn.  I also like to add a sprinkling of cayenne.  Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the corn kernels are tender and the mixture had thickened to a creamed corn consistency … about 15 minutes. 

Add lobster, if you feel you must.

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Leftover Ham Makes Splendid Pea Soup

April 13th, 2009

There was no such thing as leftovers in our house when I was growing up.  Every bit of the roast had its part to play in the week’s menu.  And it was almost always the same, so we came to expect certain variations on the ham theme.

Easter Sunday was of course the day of the whole roast ham.  Glazed slices, laid gracefully across the plate, nudged aside asparagus spears and buttered new potatoes sprinkled with fresh chopped parsley.  Beautiful as that was, it was in the days after that, that things got really interesting. 

I loved ham sandwiches and as long as the ham remained sliceable, we took them with us for lunch; dinner was potatoes au gratin interleaved with slices of ham.  When the ham no longer produced neat slices, it was cut into chunks.  These chunks were the basis for ham and cheese frittata, or macaroni and cheese with ham folded in.  Then came the ground ham, which created ham and pickle sandwich spread and ham timbales or ham loaf. 

And finally, we were down to the bone.  By now, it would be the Saturday after Easter and we had seen more than enough ham for a while.  But the bone was a highly anticipated part of this family routine.  It meant pea soup.  And since the days after Easter are still cold and damp In New England, pea soup on a Saturday night was most welcome.

This is a very easy soup to put together.  It uses dried peas for a hearty flavor and texture, but they don’t need to be soaked so you don’t have to plan ahead for that.  (If you don’t feel like making this soup right now, freeze the bone for a later date.)

Hearty Pea and Ham Soup: Rinse 1 pound of dried split peas and place them in a large soup pot.  Add 8 cups of water.  Drop in the ham bone.  Add 3 onions cut into quarters.  Stir in 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, 3/4 teaspoon salt and a generous amount of ground black pepper.  Cover and cook gently for 1 hour, stirring occasionally to prevent the peas from sticking to the pan as they soften.  Add 2 small potatoes, cubed and 2 carrots sliced.  Continue cooking, partially covered, until the peas are thoroughly softened and have formed a thickened soup.  This takes about 2 and 1/2 hours.  Serve with dark bread warmed in the oven.

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A Tomato Paste Rant

April 2nd, 2009

Since vegetablegoddess.com is about all things vegetable, I thought I’d share with you my recent misadventures with tomato paste.  I hope it keeps you from making the same mistake.

One night last week, I was making beef stew local style (which is to say “Hawaiian”) because it’s one of my  husband’s favorite things.  It requires a 6-ounce can of tomato paste, which I knew I had on the shelf.  No problem.

Eeeyou!  When I opened the can, I found that in my haste to complete a shopping trip I had been careless.  The color was dark, the aroma was peculiar and the taste was other worldly.  Something was wrong with this can of tomato paste.  I looked closely.  There in fine print, below the line on the label that says “Tomato Paste,” is a small qualifier … “with tomato pesto.”   Why would I want tomato pesto in my tomato paste?  An examination of the ingredients list disclosed that it contained (besides tomato puree) basil, olive oil, garlic powder, grated romano cheese and various spices.  None of which I wanted in my beef stew.

Fortunately, I had another can of tomato paste on the shelf, which turned out to be not only pure, but delicious.  I found myself licking it off the spoon it was so good.   Bright red in color, vibrant in taste, it was Safeway’s “O” brand, which is the label on their organic products.  It contains nothing but tomatoes and a bit of citric acid and I was glad I had sprung for the extra cost organic products usually demand.

Here’s the cautionary tale: be careful when you buy tomato paste, look for the small print.  I’ve discovered there are at least 4 different variations and maybe even more.  You just might end up with something other than what you expect.

Do you have any warnings for us about products you’ve been disappointed in?  Post a comment and let us know.

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Alice Waters “Shudders”

March 17th, 2009

When Lesley Stahl of CBS News interviewed Alice Waters a few days ago, she said that when Waters hears the word “frozen,” she shudders.

Waters, as I’m sure you know, is a renowned chef and the owner of Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, California.   She has become the leading advocate for eating foods only in their season, so obviously this doesn’t include any frozen vegetables.  And she has been very vocal about disparaging something most people have come to rely on for nourishment.

However, we don’t all have access to a garden, or a farmer’s stand, or even an open market.  Sure, fresh vegetables, grown locally and eaten in their season are wonderfully delicious.  But we don’t all live in warm climates, either.  And limiting our menus to seasonal, locally grown produce would make for pretty boring fare.  It would  put many of us back in the time when we ate only vegetables that could be stored in the root cellar, namely carrots, turnips, cabbage and potatoes.  Can you begin to imagine what that would be like for 6 to 8 months of the year?

I think we should give a nod of gratitude to Clarence Birdseye, who put the first package of frozen peas on sale back in 1930. They were quite expensive and not very good, but people were delighted to have a taste of spring in the middle of the winter.  And the quality of frozen vegetables has improved tremendously since then.

That’s not to say that all frozen vegetables are great.  Frozen asparagus, for example, should cease to exist.  You have to pick and choose for quality, but frozen peas, especially the petite variety, and tiny white or yellow corn, and young thin green beans are among the best you can get this side of a farmer’s stand.  Furthermore, they are often more flavorful than the fresh peas, corn and green beans sold in the supermarket because they are picked at the peak of ripeness and frozen immediately while the supermarket veggies are days old by the time they reach the consumer. 

It’s an admirable goal to think that we could all cook some day with vegetables grown only minutes and a few miles away, and we need someone of vision, like Ms. Waters, to keep leading us toward this goal, but meanwhile let’s admit that, in certain circumstances, there IS a time and place for frozen vegetables.

What are your thoughts on frozen vegetables?  Do you serve them?  Add your comments below.

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Quick Roasted Carrots

March 12th, 2009

One of the complaints I hear about preparing fresh vegetables is the length of time it takes. And this is especially true of roasted veggies. People love the taste, but are discouraged by what seems to be a long, slow process. I guess the word “roasted” conjures up visions of long, slow cooking. 

But that’s not necessarily so.  Last night I was baking a meat loaf, so I decided that since the oven was running anyway, I’d roast the carrots in a separate baking dish along side.  It’s a simple and easy process, and the flavor is delicious.

Rinse, peel and pat the carrots dry. (Two per person is about right.)  Slice on the diagonal into pieces about the width of your thumb … you’ll get about 5 or 6 per carrot.  Place in a glass baking dish that has a cover.  Pour on enough olive oil to coat the pieces generously.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper and a pinch of sugar.  Cover and bake at 350 degrees F. for 20 minutes.  Uncover and stir to promote even browning.  Continue to cook, uncovered, for another 30 minutes or until they reach the color and consistency you like.  These are roasted carrots that go with anything … from meatloaf to fish. … and they’re done in under an hour.

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