Homemade Hollandaise

Homemade Hollandaise sauce is better than sex.  OK.  It's not, but it's awfully damn close. Don't be distracted by the little packets of powder in the spice aisle to which you "just add water."  That may work for Jello, but a real hollandaise is slowly simmered egg yolks into which you force feed a stick and a half of butter.  It takes your basic asparagus and turns her into a porn star.  You can lightly steam and salt asparagus spears any day of the week, but every once in awhile dab on some real hollandaise and watch her morph into a centerfold.  Oh baby.  It's a decadence you can taste.  Every mouthful is succulent and smooth, and it will leave you weak with desire--hungry for more of that velvet cream.  Whoever thought that gluttony and lust could be so inextricably linked?   It is pure evil, but if you're going to sin, you might as well make your priest blush when you confess. 

There is no safe sex here.  See you doctor before you partake to make sure your cholesterol levels and blood pressure are in check.  If not, keep the lipitor handy, but don't wholly deprive yourself.  Once you realize what a pain in the butt hollandaise is to make, you won't want to do it often anyway.

Hollandaise--copied (almost) whole cloth from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking:

1.  3 eggs yolks, which means you have to separate the yolk from the white. It is actually very easy.  Crack an egg and without spilling the yolk, let the white drain into a bowl by using each half of the egg as a little cup into which you keep transferring the yolk.

2. Beat the eggs together until sticky, and then add about 1 Tb each of water and lemon juice and a big pinch of salt.

3. Melt about 1 and a half sticks of butter.  Yep.  Butter.

4. Now it gets tricky.  Add a pat of unmelted butter into the egg mixture, and place on low heat, all the while stirring the egg yolks.  If the heat is too high, the eggs will scramble, and even though Julia asserts that you can quickly plunge the pan into cold water to stop the cooking, I remain skeptical.  I mean, really, how do you unscramble eggs? 

5.  Once the eggs just start to thicken and form a light cream, add another pat of butter.  Turn off the heat.

6.  Get out a wire whisk and constantly stirring with one hand, slowly pour the melted butter in a few drops to a teaspoon at a time.  It takes forever.  At some point, however, the concoction will start to meld into a thick cream.  It will look like almost like cake frosting.  STOP HERE.

7.  If you get greedy and try to add more butter, the concoction will start to separate, and then you have something that looks like bits of fat floating in a pool of grease.  Definitely not a porn star--more like an aged Hollywood starlet with multiple face lifts that still thinks she's a porn star.  Not pretty.

8.  If this happens, Julia has a whole section of the recipe that should be simply labelled "Hollandaise 9-1-1."  Although I won't recreate it here in its entirety, if the sauce separates, take a glass bowl and heat it by rinsing it with hot water.  Add a tad of lemon juice and about a tablespoon of the separated sauce.  Beat the hell out of it until it thickens.  Add more separated sauce and do the same thing.  Keep adding the separated sauce into the bowl until you've managed to reconstitute it.  Once you've gone through this drill one time, you'll curse that you ever thought to add more butter during the initial step.  If it doesn't work, do it again.  I once went through this technique 3 times, but ultimately prevailed and brought back my Hollandaise as if from the dead.

9.  Julia claims that you can freeze the sauce or stick it in a refrigerator for a day or two.  I've never tried to do this.  Actually, by this point I'm typically so frazzled that I've managed to pull it off that I just want to get the damn sauce on the asparagus and be done with it.  But just like sex, don't rush it.  Take the sauce, still in the pan, and set it in a bowl of warm water.  This should keep it warm and fluid. 

10.  Pour some wine.  Make yourself a medium rare steak.  Cook your asparagus--get them crisp and bright green.  Slather with hollandaise.   Life is to be lived, so every once in awhile you are allowed to treat yourself.  When the meal is done and you are flush and sated, go ahead--have a cigarette.

Roasted Vegetables

If you are like most Americans, you are carrying a few extra pounds.  You are either on a diet or need to be on one.  I've been struggling with my weight since I was 12, so I know few things about diets, and it all boils down the three words that are every mother's mantra:  Eat your veggies.  There are corollaries, of course--like exercise, lean meats, take vitamins, and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.  Eat vegetables.  At every meal and sometimes, OMG, as a meal. 

For those of us raised on canned vegetables this is no easy feat.  I still get that queezy feeling in the back of my throat thinking about the flaccid greenish stuff that would ooze it's way out of that can and onto my plate.  Canned vegetables are like the the pimply-faced kid with the sweaty hands and wispy blond hair in highschool that always asked me to dance right as the DJ started playing Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven.  And with a daily dose of canned vegetables, instead of merely suffering through what has to be longest song of the 1970's, I'm faced with the shocking reality that I don't just have to dance with this guy, I have to marry him.   Fortunately, however, the 70's are over, and my bony dance partner has grown up.  He's right there in the produce aisle of the grocery store looking all sexy, buff, and fit.  The pimples are gone and he recently founded a technology company that was just listed on the NASDAQ.  In other words, life's not so bad when the veggies are fresh.  It's really simple--if the veggies are in a can, a box, or a bag--don't eat them.  For just a little extra effort, you can have something that isn't just edible, but actually tastes good.  I'll start you off with a medley of roasted vegetables.  I promise you that even if they don't spark a lifetime love affair, they're at least a memorable one night stand. 

1.   Get thee to a good grocery store or farmer's market.  I'm not an organic Nazi, but you aren't going to fine fresh vegetables at 7-11, Walmart, or Target.  Even the major grocery chains like Giant, Safeway, or Shopper's can be spotty. 

2.  Check the produce over carefully.  Unless you're buying potatoes, it shouldn't be brown and bruises or soft spots mean that it's starting to rot.  I'm not so concerned about the uniformity of its shape or if it has perfect color.  Shiny can often mean that it's just been artificially waxed and if it is perfectly shaped it's probably been genetically engineered to look that way.  Your vegetables should, however, be firm to the touch with just a little tenderness so that you know they're ripe (also works if you happen to be looking for a lover).  Obviously, this rule varies for different types of vegetables, but I find that it works pretty well for the vegetables in this recipe:



 Eggplant, yellow squash, green squash or zucchini, and bell peppers--multiple colors.  Also get one small-to-medium red onion. 

The Color Purple

and green, yellow, red, and orange

3.  Coursely chop each into shapes about the size of a half-dollar. No need to peel anything, except the red onion.

4.  Place in a large roasting pan or pyrex dish.  Lightly toss with olive or canola oil--about 3 Tbs.

5.  Generously salt and pepper.

6.  Place in an oven preheated to 375 degrees for about 1 hour.  Turn or re-toss about every 10--15 minutes. 

7.  The vegetables are done when they are tender, but not mushy.  If you want, you can finish them off by placing the pan about 3 inches from the broiling unit, and then broiling on high heat for about 3 minutes.  This step, although optional, will lightly toast and crisp the vegetables giving them an almost grill-like effect. 

8.  You can eat them now, but I prefer to let them cool for about an hour, drizzle with just a little (about 3 tsps) of a high-end balsamic vinegar, and THEN eat them.  They work great as a side dish, a topping for burgers, or rolled up in a pita.  Stairway to Heaven never sounded so good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcL---4xQYA  [Click here for a full multi-media experience]  :)

Ruminations on a Rice Cooker

I think rice cookers are stupid.  Perhaps this statement is too edgy for a simple cooking blog, but I'm going to get crazy here and stir up a little controversy.  It's good to go out on a limb every once in awhile.

I fully expect the hate mail to come rolling in.  Well, actually,  I only have 14 (wonderful) followers, so maybe that hate mail will be a trickle.  In any event, I know a lot of people with rice cookers and they are desperately--rabidly--loyal to the devices.  It's almost as if their rice cookers dispense parenting advice and pain killers.   They simply can't live without them, and I don't get it.  They take up too much space in the kitchen, and at the end of the day all they make is RICE.  I grant you that a rice cooker will make perfect rice everytime, but do you know how EASY that is to do anyway?  It's like a having a machine that can  pour milk on a bowl of cereal.  It's just dumb.

I can make perfect rice everytime too, and with nothing more than a cheap Farberware saucepan.  Here's how:

1.  Combine two parts water to one part uncooked white rice.  (That is 2 cups water, one cup rice; or 4 cups water, 2 cups rice).

2.  Cover the pot.

3. Place on medium high heat.

4.  Come back in 15 minutes and check on it.  This is apparently the step that stumps the rice cooker brigade.

5.  Once the water is gone, your rice is ready.  You can tell that the water is gone because holes or tunnels of rice will develop throughout the pot, which will leave a clear view to the bottom of the pan.  If there isn't any water there--you're done.  You can also take the blade of a butter knife and gently move aside the rice to peak at the bottom of the pan.  Again, when the water is gone,  it's been absorbed by the rice, and you're good.



Tunnels of Rice, sans Rice Cooker

 6.  Turn off the heat.  Cover the pot.  The rice will stay hot for a good 30 minutes. 

It's now ready for anything.  Salt it, butter it, sauce it, or stir fry it.  It's just RICE, and for God's sake, it doesn't need it's own appliance.

Penance

Anna Elmore's' Recipe

It's so deceptively easy. 

1.    Mix together 3 three cups of flour, 1/2 cup sugar, 4 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 cup of raisins (and all this time I thought it was currants). 

2.  Beat together 1 egg, one and a half cups of milk (not skim), and 3 Tbs Crisco.

3.  Combine Nos. 1 and 2.  Pour into a meatloaf pan and bake for 45-60 minutes at 350 degrees.  

There it is.  Richard's grandmother's Irish Soda Bread recipe.  It mocks me.


Step one was easy, but step two gives me pause.  Crisco.  Really?  Crisco scares me.  There's a warning on the package which reads "will catch fire if overheated," which looks suspiciously similar to the warning label on lighter fluid.  This doesn't bode well; I am putting it into a 350 degree oven afterall.  The label states further that "Damage or serious burns may result."  Is this before or after I ingest it?  Given that it apparently can be "left opened in the cupboard for up to a year after opening", I'm not so sure.

I also don't have a meatloaf pan.  I have a clay banana bread pan that I got from Pampered Chef four years ago and have never used.  I don't see any reason why that won't work, but I'll know after 30 minutes when I pull it out of the oven to check on it or when the Crisco spontaneously ignites and turns that clay pan into some kind of improvised explosive device.

The baking part of baking is the worst.  For me it's like what a skydiver must feel like after he jumps and is simply free falling until hopefully his parachute opens.  It is all simply out of my control and there's nothing to do but wait.  It's either going to rise and turn golden brown, or the parachute won't open and it's just a big splat of mess.  Same thing.  Sort of.  Except the skydiver knows his fate after about 3 minutes; I have to wait 60.  It's interminable. 

It's finally over.  And I didn't have to wait 60 minutes.  After 50 minutes it was tall and golden brown enough not to get greedy.  I stuck a bamoo skewer it in, and praise be, it came out clean--without any remnant or trace of gooey putty.  Was it possible?  Had I succeeded?  Look at those bad boys:



Best test yet.  All four pans are empty.  Devoured by the most exacting of food critics--my children.  Perhaps like the Red Sox beating the Yankees after being down by 3 games in the 2004 ALCS, I have broken the curse.  Redemption is a wonderful thing.

Confession

One of the downsides of writing a blog in which you disparage Irish food is that your Irish in-laws are sure to read it.  I should have known better.  My in-laws are pretty committed to their Irish roots.  This is the clan, afterall, that wouldn't go see The King's Speech because of what the English have done to the Irish.  Suffice it to say that Oscar night was no picnic around here.  

Bashing Irish cuisine was not meant to be unkind, and I meant no ill-will.  Even if they can't cook, the Irish, and my in-laws in particular, are my kind of people:  they drink well and often.  Still, it seems like my recent rantings regarding Irish food were not well received, and I need to make amends.  Given that Lent is basically here I'll offer up both a confession and my penance.  First, my confession:  I can't bake for squat.

Candidly, I don't know what the big hoopla is about baking.  I think it's more like chemistry than cooking.  I simply have no patience for the precision of it and much prefer the tasting, testing, and tinkering of real cooking.  I am more than happy to leave all that "level teaspoon" nonsense to the nice people at Betty Crocker, add my 2 eggs and a cup of water and move on with it.  But among my husband's family, my inability to bake is a fact that will forever diminish my value as a cook.  For 15 years I've been regaled with tales of Richard's grandmother and how she never let a day go by without making something that involved flour, butter, and sugar.  Her kitchen was a vertitable factory that every day turned out cakes, pastries, pies, and my personal nemesis, Irish Soda Bread.   I wear this woman's wedding ring, and I named my youngest daughter after her, so really--there's no bad blood between us.  Except, damn it, for that soda bread. 

My loaf always comes out of the oven full of promise--a golden crust studded with raisins.  The first cut yeilds a delightfully crumbly texture, right up until the center.  At that point, my knife always gets stuck in the putty that comprises the uncooked core.  And with baking, just keeping it in the oven a little longer or turning up the heat never works.  It just dries it out or burns the top.  I typically salvage the mess by cutting away the interior and then do what I can to coax my family into eating what's left, which by that point looks something like a mutant bundt cake.  Irish soda bread is my culinary comeuppance.

The karma is not lost on me.  Mock Irish cuisine and you will be forever destined to make a crappy soda bread.  But.  Lent is almost here.  I've made my confession.  Now for the penance: I am going to make Irish soda bread and keep making it until I get it right.  If there is a kind, loving, and forgiving God, I can bake my penance and be redeemed.  Three Hail Mary's probably won't hurt either.

Brother Bob's Breakfast Burritos

Through some quirk of genetics, I am a Liberal and the rest of my family are all Conservatives.   They aren't simply politely right-of-center to my civil left-of-center.  Our politics are whole hog, opposite ends of the spectrum, full bipolar family dysfunction.  My mother still believes that my genetics and blood line are pure, and that I simply contracted my liberalism like some bad disease from my days of living in Boston.  True to her conservative roots, deep in her heart, she blames Ted Kennedy.  Not that I ever interacted with Ted, or any of the Kennedys for that matter, but in my family, the Kennedys are pretty much the epicenter of liberal waywardness and I was apparently sucked into the vortex while I lived in Boston.  She's never quite gotten over it.

For most families this kind of political disparity would be no big deal, but mine is a family where politics is the lifeblood of our discourse.  In other words, if we aren't talking politics, we aren't talking.  Of course, as soon as we start talking politics--well, we stop talking.  Actually, first we quit listening, then we start shouting, someone will storm out of the room, and THEN we stop talking.  Everyone in my family knows that the best way to attack your opponent's position is to simly become more righteously entrenched in your own.  It's kind of a problem.  

And so it is that I come to family events with a sort of trepidation.  Or so it was--at least with respect to my brother, Bob.  Don't get me wrong.  We've had our share of knock-down drag out fights.   One in which he defended the intelligence of Sarah Palin comes to mind, but I promised I wouldn't go there again.   We're never going to agree on politics, and the odds are better than even that we're still going to try and change each other's minds--likely with predictable and disastrous consequences.  Somewhere, however, between the stand-offs and cold stares we discovered in our love for each other a shared love of making good food to share with good people.  He loves my Caesar salad, and big surprise given this title, I love his breakfast burritos.   And no surprise, we both know that even though I'm an empty-headed commie pinko and he's a right-wing nut job, we are both very good people.

Brother Bob's Breakfast Burritos

1.    Turn off NPR. Turn off Fox News.  Detente is a wonderful thing, but it is fragile.  You can definitely put on the Beatles.  It's pretty hard to get jazzed up over politics with John Lennon crooning  "All you need is love" in the background.   

2.  Peel 3 large baking potatoes; dice into small 1/4' inch cubes. 

3.  Similarly dice one medium-sized onion.  Fry the potatoes and onions in a large cast iron skillet, well oiled, and at medium heat.  We're going for a hash-brown like filling here, but it takes time.  Every 3--4 minutes turn, actually scrape, the mixture from the bottom of the pan with a heavy-duty metal spatula, and press the newly turned/scraped potatoes down into the pan with the back-side of the spatula.  You may have to sporadically add a little extra oil as you go.  Don't use one of those plastic namby-pamby socialist spatulas made for environmentally sensitive non-stick pans.   These are potatoes made by a Republican.  You want a spatula that George Patton would be proud of:

5.  Season as you go with salt and pepper, particularly the pepper--they should have a little kick.

6.  In a separate pan, saute on medium-low heat sliced onion and sliced bell peppers.  At the risk of letting my liberalism sneak in, the peppers can be any color. 

7.  Don't forget to keep turning those potatoes.  Eventually the onion will carmelize and the potatoes will be soft throughout with a hardened brown crust on the outside.

8.  Assemble the following each in separate serving bowls:  shredded cheddar cheese, sour cream, and salsa.

9.  Beat a dozen eggs in a large mixing bowl.   Scramble the eggs by heating in a large non-stick pan or well-oiled skillet.  Wait until the eggs are just set, and stir frequently until cooked throughout. 

9.  Heat in another skillet, or microwave, several tortillas shells.  I question whether anyone from south of the border would really microwave a tortilla, but this is America, gosh darn it, and they should learn to do things OUR way.

10.  Take one heated tortilla shell and stuff it with eggs, potatoes, onions, peppers, cheese sour cream, and salsa.   Roll it up and enjoy.  And just like the planks in either national party's platform, you are free to skip or ignore any of these filling options.

So there you have it.  Amazing how something as simple as a breakfast burrito could forge a bond and build a bridge over political impass. Mr. Speaker?  Mr. President?  Can I get you a burrito?