Sunday, February 27, 2011

The Eggplant

Everyone has a signature dish.  Even folks who can't, won't, and hate to cook can make one thing really well.  My mother-in-law, for example, whose idea of a great meal is a well-set table, makes an incredible beef tenderloin paired with double-stuffed baked potatoes every Christmas Eve.  Three hundred and sixty-four days out of the year you'll get something she picked up from the prepared- food counter from a tony grocey store, nondescript frozen vegetables because they are "healthy," and a bottle of wine.  The wine is always outstanding.  But one glorious day every year she turns meat and pototoes into the 8th sacrament.  

My signature dish is is eggplant parmesan.   My husband has simply nick-named it "the eggplant.  He reserves the article "the" for things that he truly loves--like his drink:  a pint of the Guinness, or his children:  the IRA.  You get the idea.  The nice thing about eggplant parmesan is that two large eggplants will feed close to 40 people.  Two eggplants, two dozen eggs, a quart of olive oil, a small bag of flour, cheese and sauce.  That's it.  Cheap cheap.   The bad thing is that it takes the better part of two days to make it.  It is the quintessential labor of love.  

So.  Put on some comfy shoes--you'll be standing for hours.  Throw on some old clothes and don't bother with any make-up.  You'll soon be stained with tomato juice and splattered with olive oil, but come join me as we make "the Eggplant."

1.  Purchase two large bulbous bright purple eggplants.  They should be a deep shiny purple, almost blue, and firm to the touch, but neither hard nor squishy. Don't scrimp here; it's a cheap dish.  You can live a little.  Go to a shi-shi grocery store, buy organic, or hit a farmer's market.  You can't make eggplant parmesan with crappy eggplants.

2.  Peel off that gorgeous purple skin with a potato peeler and cut off the stem.  Get out your sharpest knife; there is serious slicing ahead.  Cut the eggplant lengthwise down the middle.  Cut each half lengthwise again.   Begin cutting each lengthwise quarter into the thinnest possible slices that you can and cut them lengthwise.  Think paper thin.  Lace like.  You should be able to see the steel of your blade through the translucence of each delicate slice.

3.  Place the eggplant slices in a colander, lightly salt, and then layer with paper towels.  Continue to layer eggplant, salt and paper towels until you're done or the colander is full. 

4.  Now it gets a little weird.  Go into your pantry and take out several heavy cans or jars and place them on top of your colandered eggplant pile.  This isn't some freakish cult-like ritual.  Eggplant juice is bitter and the salt and paper towels coupled with the weight of the cans will press out it out of your precious eggplant.  Set aside, refrigerated, for several hours--preferably overnight.

5.  Remove the cans and unlayer the towels and the eggplant.  The towels will be wet and brown and you can happily throw them away knowing that their  yuckiness will not sully your dish.

6.  Now starts the marathon.  Each dainty piece of juice-purged eggplant has to be dredged in flour, then dredged in egg, and hand-fried in olive oil.  It's going to take hours.  It helps to listen to Italian pop stars from the 50s.  There's simply nothing that happens in a kitchen that isn't made a little easier by Frank Sinatra belting out "My Way."  Chianti works too.

7.  Beat about 6 eggs in a pie dish, and add a heaping teaspoon of parsley flakes for a little color.  Lightly salt and pepper.  In a separate dish, measure out about a cup and a half of flour.  Lightly salt and pepper. 

8.  Generously coat a frying pan with olive oil--about a 1/4 inch depth and heat on medium to high heat until hot.  Coat a piece of eggplant with flour, then egg, and then fry until golden brown.  Place on a paper towel to absorb excess oil.  Did I mention that you'll go through a TON of paper towels? 

9.  Repeat steps 7 and 8 until you have fried every damn piece of eggplant.  You will likely curse both me and my mother--frequently in the same breath.

10.  You can also swat at the hands of the various family members who will idly attempt to steal a piece or two from your growing tower of fried eggplant. You will be secretly pleased that they are doing so.

11.  Once the fried eggplant has sufficiently cooled, layer it in a large pyrex rectangular pan as follows:  sauce, eggplant, shredded mozarella, sauce, eggplant, mozarella, etc.  Continue layering until the pan is full, finishing with sauce. 

12.  You will notice that I didn't provide you with a recipe for sauce.   Please don't consider this omission an opportunity to go grab--God forbid--a commercially processed jarred sauce.  Leaving out the sauce recipe is simply a cynical way to get you to read more of this blog.  Check out the entry labelled "Good Irish Food" and follow the recipe for meat sauce--just leave out all the meat--both the sausage and the ground beef.  The remaining parts of this recipe will result in a wonderful marinara sauce.  It'll take you another few hours, but you're in this for the long haul, remember?

13.  Bake the layered eggplant in an oven preheated to 375 degrees until the sides are boiling--about 30-45 minutes depending on the size of the pan.   

14.  Serve over pasta with a little extra sauce on top, and pour yourself more chianti.  That is, of course, if the bottle's not already empty.  If it is, go open another one; you've earned it.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

The Fiver

I love to cook.  I pride myself on my cooking.  My friends tell me that I'm a good cook, and my best friends tell me that I'm a great cook.  They're exaggerating, but let's face it, that's why they're my friends.   So it is a constant source of frustration--shame, even--that my children don't like my cooking.  They saunter into the kitchen, sniff disdainly at whatever is in the pot, and ask, "so what are the kids eating?"   A neighbor once shared with me that my oldest bragged about my cooking skills, and I dejectedly thought, "How the hell would she know?"   My kids don't eat my food.  Is there a 12-step program for this?

I succeed sometimes.  We are a family of five: me, one husband (an Irishman who will happily eat anything as long as it's accompanied by a potato), and three incredibly picky eaters.   A couple times a week I can get one child to eat what I've prepared--sometimes I manage two.  By default it has become a sort informal ranking system.  I'll rarely make a meal twice if it's merely a twofer--i.e. only my husband and I will eat it.  Threefers I go to now and again.  The fourster tends to be a staple, but really, how often can you eat meatloaf or pasta?  But there is one dish, one glorious dish that I can get everyone in the family to eat.  They may not go for all of the side dishes, but no matter.  When you're essentially running a restaurant, the one dish that will make all of your customers happy is a beautiful thing.   In most circles, it's called chicken cordon bleu, but to me, it is simply: "The FIVER." 

The FIVER:
5 chicken cutlets or chicken breasts pounded very thin.
5 slices swiss cheese
5 slices of ham
1 cup Italian bread crumbs, 1 tsp dried parsley, 2 Tbs parmesan cheese--mixed.
1/4 cup butter or 1/4 cup olive oil or 5 generous sprays of Pam
Toothpicks or kitchen string

Take each cutlet and lay one slice of cheese and one slice of ham on top of it.  Fold up the sides of the cutlet to make a little package.  Secure with toothpicks, or if you're "crafty" you can tie it up with kitchen string.  The toothpicks work just fine, and ultimately they are easier to find and pull out vs. the string, which always seems to manage to leave behind a fiber or two that if you are over 40 will absolutely, positively, get stuck in your back teeth. 

Depending on your current cholesterol level, roll the stuffed chicken package in either (a) butter (cholesterol levels good); (b) olive oil (cholesterol needs some work); or (c) spray Pam (keep the defibrillator handy).   Roll the chicken one more time in the bread crumb mixture.  Place in a slighty oiled or sprayed baking dish and bake at 375 degrees until the breading is golden brown--about 25--30 minutes. 

Serve to your ENTIRE family, and then bask in their glow.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

All Hail Caesar

I have had a 25-year long love affair with Caesar salad.  When I was in my twenties and poor (is that redundant?) my roommate and I scoured every Boston bistro and restaurant in pursuit of that perfect pairing of romaine and dressing.  It wasn't easy.  Getting Caesar salad just right is a tough balancing act.  The dressing should be creamy without cloying; tangy, but not tart.  It's like the perfect cocktail dress:  sexy enough to grab his attention, yet classy so that he knows to behave like a gentleman.  Suffice it to say that the venture was taking its toll on our budgets.  Our twice weekly habit of dining out, even if all we ordered was water and that glorious salad, could not be sustained.  We had to learn to make our own.

In the dark days before the internet, this was, in itself, a hassle.  It meant either going to the library (remember those?) or perusing multiple cookbooks at Barnes and Noble.  Nonsense.  We were young and impulsive--how hard could it be to throw it together?   It's just some oil, cheese and an egg . . . although we did like the one at the Westin that had the anchovies.  Should we make it with anchovies? And was it romano or parmesan cheese?   Whether to include vinegar spawned a real debate--was it simply an inferior substitute for lemon juice?  As we were having these almost Talmudic like discussions in the check out line at our local Stop-n-Shop, we were interrupted by a middle-aged woman who had overheard us.  Like an angel sent from on high, she shared with us her Caesar salad recipe.  Of course we were skeptical.  We were Caesar connoisseurs, and the thought that our quest had ended on a grocery store's linoleum under flourescent lights was beyond all reason and belief. Scribbled, however, on the back of a receipt, it has never failed me.

I rarely order Caesar salad at restaurants anymore because usually this one  is simply better.  It's become a staple at family gatherings, and is what I almost always bring to calm my nerves when I have to bring a dish to share with a group of strangers.  I've watched dinner conversation stop midstream as my guests are caught off guard by the utter pleasure of what's happening in their mouths.  This Caesar is my culinary go-to gal.  Everytime I make it, I'm reminded that sometimes what you're looking for can be found in the most unlikely of places.  Life is not only full of surprises, but it's made better and richer when you open yourself up to a gift from a stranger. 
 
Caesar Salad:

Blend the following in a blender:  1/4 cup white vinegar, 3/4 cup olive oil, one large clove of garlic, 1 container of anchovies packed in oil (flat, no capers), 1/4 cup parmesan cheese (Bonus: you can even use the cheap stuff in the green can), 1 raw egg, and 1 tsp dijon mustard.

Season with salt and pepper.  Pour and toss over bite-sized romaine lettuce, sliced white mushrooms, and croutons.  Top with fresh shredded parmesan-reggiano cheese (gotta use the good stuff here).  Close your eyes and enjoy.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Good Irish Food

There is no such thing.  I discovered this fact on my honeymoon in Ireland 15 years ago.  Don't get me wrong. I had a delightful honeymoon filled with many pleasurable memories; food, unfortunately, was not among them.  For almost a week my diet was exclusively brown:  potatoes, fried fish, Guinness, and ugh,  the vegetables.  I craved fresh and green.  One night in a "nice" restaurant, at least according to the locals, I ordered a salad.  I was greeted by dingy iceberg lettuce and an anemic pink tomato, each of them struggling to survive in the flood of vegetable oil disguised as a dressing.  Sigh.

By the time we hit Dublin, I was anxious for anything with flavor.  I wanted a meal that would draw me in and keep me there.  I wanted aromas of garlic and and warm bread.  I wanted the food that had sustained my ancestors; I wanted Italian.  Cue the mandolins.  We found an adorable spot complete with checkered table cloths.  Right there in Dublin.  I ordered spaghetti bolognese.  To this day I have no idea if it was any good or not, but to me, at that time, it was simply divine.  That's the beauty of Irish food:  it sets the culinary bar so low that by comparison just about anything is haute cuisine.  I know this first hand because all of my in-laws are Irish.  They love me because in their little world of leathery meat and slithery vegetables, I'm a good cook.   So in honor of St. Patrick's Day, drink all the green beer that you want, but do yourself a favor, make some spaghetti sauce.

SPAGHETTI SAUCE

1.   If you are Irish, go through your pantry and throw out anything labeled "Ragu,"  "Prego," or "Chef-Boy-R-Dee".   If you aren't Irish, throw them out anyway.  They're bad karma for the sauce.

2.  Saute one large diced onion in olive oil.  You want to get it soft and translucent.  This requires medium to low heat and time.  Too much heat and you will either burn the oil or char the onions.

3.  Brown two pounds of ground beef.  If you don't buy extra lean, you'll need to strain off the fat, unless you'd prefer to die young.

4.  Boil 6 big spicy pork sausage links in water until cooked through.   The spicy Italian sausage from Costco is what I typically buy.  Don't buy breakfast sausage.  Ever.

5.  Open four 27 oz cans of tomatoe puree and pour them into a large pot.  Add cooked onion, pork, and ground beef.   You can go crazy here; we're in suburbia, afterall.  Whole tomotoes run through your blender work too.  Diced tomatoes work if you want your sauce a little chunkier here.  I've even toyed around with fresh tomatoes, but they're a bit of a hassle because you really should peel them first, and Julia Child's blanching technique notwithstanding, it's just a pain. 

6.  Add about 2 heaping tablespoons of dried parsley and 2 heaping tablespoons of dried basil.  You can also use fresh parsley and fresh basil too, I just don't know how much.  I'm not being facetious; fresh herbs all have a different pungency.  You need to taste them, and then figure out how much to use.

7.  Peel 6 large cloves of garlic and pop them in.  And just so you know, it's right about here that my mother, if she's reading this, will roll her eyes, shake her headin contempt, and say in that special tone that always IRKS me "Oh, Cynthia.  That's just too much garlic."  So, in deference to my mother, who only puts one measley clove of garlic in her sauce--you do what you want.  I'm sticking with six.

8.  Add one bay leaf.  I have no idea why.

9.  Simmer on low low low heat for about 1.5--2 hours.  DON'T BRING TO A BOIL; you'll burn the sauce.  Have your husband stir every 15-30 minutes; it makes him feel useful.

10.  Add, most probably, some tomato paste.  This part is tricky, and simply takes some experience.  Check the sauce after about 2 hours; if it looks like soup, add  tomato paste, a 6 oz can for starters.  It should be thick enough so that you can stick a wooden spoon into it and the spoon will stand up straight.

If it's already fairly thick, you might even be able to skip the paste.  Frequently if you start with just a puree that might just be the case.  Conversely, if you start with just tomatoes, 2 or even 3 cans might be required.  There are no rules here.  Believe it or not, tomatoes are like snowflakes: no two are alike--particularly when it comes to their water content.   What you want to avoid at all cost is a sauce that creates a watery pool on the edge of the plate when it is served.  There's only one word for this--yuck.

11.  Taste.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Add a pinch or two of sugar if it tastes bitter.

12.  Serve on your favorite al dente pasta.  Freeze the leftovers.

Slainte! (i.e. Irish for "Bon Apetit"!)

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Getting Started in the Kitchen

Almost every cookbook I own has a whole chapter on "Getting Started."   They all have long lists about the gadgets and doo-dads that the well-equipped kitchen should have.  I once saw a list of all the things you need to survive on a 280-mile trip down the river in the Grand Canyon, and I swear to God it was shorter than the standard list things in a well stocked kitchen.  I don't care what they tell you.   You don't need a cherry pit remover or lemon zester to start cooking.  You don't need copper, titanium, or galvanized plutonium pots.  There's really only one thing you need to cook:  a good knife.

Go out and spend $75--$100 and get yourself a quality chef's knife.  I got mine from Cutco.  Cutco sells door-to-door and has a brilliant marketing strategy: they peddle their cutlery by sending smart, handsome college guys into the homes of middle-aged women.  I mean, come on--in walks this tall doe-eyed man-child who is probably just trying to earn enough money to buy books for his 19th century English poetry class.   In between cutting demonstrations (where, I might add, you watch his young muscles pulsate in his forearms) he's commenting about world peace and the girlfriend that just broke his heart.  I wound up buying the whole $800 set.  But they are good knives.  Really.  And I promise this isn't some cheap plug for Cutco--there are lots of good knives out there.  Go get one.

If you can't afford a good knife, and/or are afraid with an evening with a Cutco God might harm your marriage, then buy a cheap knife, but get a good whetstone, which is simply a piece of granite upon which you sharpen a knife.   Get it really sharp--razor like.  This takes more time with a cheap knife, but it can be done.  You just draw the blade across the whetstone repeatedly until you are holding an instrument that would make Hannibal Lecter wince.  Cooking means cutting, so however you do it, get yourself a sharp knife.  And a couple of band-aids.