Winter Squash Risotto (Orange Again!)

This is a recipe I stumbled on when looking for info on sodium (see below). And, yes, it's orange. What is it with us?

It was pretty easy, tasty, and had a lovely fragrance - which is nice, because our apartment is rather short on doors, and smells tend to waft about and hang around.

Served it with some asparagus that had been languishing in the fridge since the Pernod dish - actually a very good combination of flavors, highly recommended.

The Recipe: Winter Squash Risotto

Here's the link:
http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/winter_squash_risotto.html

I've been wondering whether I should after all be replicating the recipes here, to prevent broken link issues, etc. Any thoughts?

Thoughts/Tips/Mistakes

Well, actually, I did make quite a big mistake - just after step 2, I started to do a bit of tidying, and put away the packet of rice. And discovered the arborio rice was still sitting in the cupboard - I'd used jasmine rice instead! Aaaargh!

But, you know, it really didn't seem to matter. It cooked up fine, and didn't taste weird at all. I think the parmesan cheese covers a lot of sins.

Also, the butternut squash could have been a teeny bit softer, even though it was definitely done - but maybe that's a matter of taste. Perhaps could cook it a little longer before adding the other ingredients, or else steam/nuke/parboil it separately before starting.

Pix

After step 2













About the middle of step 3

On the plate, with some fresh grated Parm. on top

Techniques: Handling Chicken Safely (aka Chicken about Chicken)

OK, I live in terror of chicken (e.g. typical quote, from last night: “I hope I didn’t give us salmonella poisoning, because this is too good to throw up”). So was alarmed to come across this note on all the What’s Cooking America chicken recipes a few days ago:

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture, as well as food agencies in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, advises against washing poultry. Rinsing chicken will not remove or kill much bacteria, and the splashing of water around the sink can spread the bacteria found in raw chicken. Cooking poultry to 165 degrees Fahrenheit effectively destroys the most common culprits behind food-borne illness."

Crazy, right? But it sounded all too plausible.

However, when it got to last night and I was taking our very over-processed looking chicken breasts out of their individual packages (sigh) they were all slimy and covered in goop. So I washed them. And then freaked out, scrubbing the sink, the counters, the table, the cats, Jack...

Then today did some research and found out, sure enough, the What’s Cooking lady is right:
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/PDF/Washing_Food.pdf

So now we know! But in the goop scenario above, what would you do?

Wow: Mock Game

The last two dishes were nice, but didn’t knock our socks off. This one did. It’s another recipe from the Around Britain Dairy Cookbook (see Cottage Pie entry for details), and it’s a winner. It does take quite a bit of work, though, especially for a beginner, so we won’t be making it every night. Anyway, it’s called “Mock Game,” and makes chicken pretend to be pheasant by braising it in spices and red wine. And apparently it’s from Warwickshire, the area where my family lives.

They suggest serving it with toast spread with redcurrant jelly and chopped parsley, as a “lazy lunch.” A weird definition of lazy in my view. Their alternative, for a more substantial meal, was to do sautéed potatoes and cooked red cabbage, but that seemed totally overwhelming. So it was frozen peas and mashed potatoes for us: perfect. My trusty assistant took care of those, as I was up to my eyeballs in the sauce (a roux – eek!).

The Recipe: Mock Game

(Adapted from the Around Britain Dairy Cookbook)

• 4 skinless chicken breasts
• 8 strips of smoked bacon
• 2 oz. butter
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 8 fl. oz. red wine
• 10 fl. oz. chicken stock
• Thinly pared rind only of 1 lemon
• 3 tbsp redcurrant jelly
• Half tsp whole allspice
• Half tsp black peppercorns
• 2-3 cloves
• 2-3 bay leaves
• 1 oz. all-purpose flour
• Salt & freshly ground pepper

Serves 4

1) Using a meat mallet or rolling pin, beat each chicken breast thinly between two sheets of plastic wrap. Gently stretch out each piece of bacon to the same length as the chicken breasts.

2) Place the chicken breasts skinned side down on a board and season well. Place two bacon rashers on each one, and roll up neatly, starting at the wider end. Tie each parcel with clean string.

3) Heat half of the butter with the olive oil in a large lidded frying pan. Add the parcels and cook gently until lightly browned all over. Remove from pan and set aside.

4) Drain the fat (being careful to keep any residue). Pour the wine into the pan and bring to the boil, stirring and scraping the browned residue from the bottom, then boil gently until the wine is reduced by a third.

5) Add the chicken stock, lemon rind, redcurrant jelly, allspice, peppercorns, cloves, and bay leaves. Return the chicken to the pan and bring back to the boil. Reduce the heat and cover the surface closely with greaseproof paper. Cover with lid and cook gently for 25-30 minutes until the chicken is cooked. [I turned the parcels over half-way through. Also, you’ll need to get your mashed potatoes going now.]

6) When the chicken is done, remove the parcels onto a plate, remove string, cover, and keep warm. [Put your peas on now too.]

7) Strain the wine mixture into a measuring jug.

8) Make the sauce: Melt the remaining butter in a saucepan, then add the flour and blend together to make a paste. Gradually add the wine mixture, whisking all the time. Reduce the heat and simmer gently while preparing toast [or mashed potatoes and peas]. Pour the sauce over the parcels and serve. [They actually made a paste of the flour and butter, gradually added it into the sauce in the pan, whisking, then strained it afterwards. But we don't have a strainer, and I couldn't imagine that method working without one, so made a roux sauce the traditional way - learned via a fish pie recipe in January.]

Thoughts/Tips/Mistakes

Completely delicious, and fancy enough for a dinner party. But a bit stressful (whacking the chicken breasts, the sauce), and there was a ton of washing up.

Pix

Parcels cooking

The finished item, not very artfully arranged

Cross-section of parcel

Techniques: Knife Skills

There's nothing like slicing about a thousand carrots (see below) to make you realize that you have absolutely no knife skills at all, and that the whole thing would have been so much quicker and easier if you knew what you were doing.

So today I've been watching a few videos. Here are the best ones I found:

http://www.chefsusa.com/chefsusa_knife_skills.htm - classic, will come back to this (and you learn to make a scallion palm tree!)
http://www.reluctantgourmet.com/chef_knife_skills_video.htm - a bit more detailed, with great explanations, but he's scarily comfortable with a paring knife, so watching it is a bit squirmy
http://simplycook.wordpress.com/2008/02/04/how-to-chop-like-a-top-chef/ - a nice, friendly bloke from Men's Health

P.S. Of course, they all say you need an 8/10/12 inch chef's knife, and we don't have one of those. So some of the above stuff may turn out to be a struggle. The New Cook has a helpful guide to buying knives (http://thenewcook.com/2008/03/chef-knives-overview/), something we'll need to tackle.

Baked Salmon with Pernod

Not orange, and very easy (though I did almost burn the rice). The recipe is from a little book that my sister gave me for Christmas (from the UK, called the Hamlyn All Color Cookbook: 200 Make-Ahead Dishes).

This was my second new recipe of the day, and the first to use our brand new oven, which gave off a weird smell (making me very nervous), but otherwise seems to work OK.

The verdict? Well... again, it was nice, but not spectacular. The Pernod flavor was extremely subtle and seemed mainly to be detectable in the veggies, rather than the fish. And the veggies were overdone by the time the fish was cooked. For first problem, wondering if it would have been a good idea to do the parcels in advance, and let them marinate in the fridge for a while (I'd thought this was something you could do, not something you should do). Not sure what to do about the second problem. Hmmm... But it was nice enough that we'd try it again.

The Recipe: Baked Salmon with Pernod

1. 2 oz. butter
2. 7 oz. bok choy
3. 7 oz. fine asparagus
4. 4 salmon fillets, about 5 oz. each
5. 1.5 inch piece of fresh root ginger, peeled and finely chopped
6. 10 tbsp Pernod or Ricard
7. Salt and pepper
8. Cooked plain rice to serve [I did jasmine rice]

Serves 4

1) Butter 4 large pieces of foil. Separate the bok choy leaves and thickly slice the larger ones. Trim the asparagus and cut each stem into 2 or 3 pieces, depending on length. Divide the vegetables between the pieces of foil and place a salmon fillet on top of each one.

2) Divide the remaining butter between the salmon fillets, sprinkle with the ginger and a little seasoning, then drizzle with the Pernod. Bring the foil up and over the salmon and seal well. Chill the parcels until required [i.e. you can prepare the meal up until this point, then pick it up again later - but see comment above].

3) Cook the parcels on a baking sheet in a preheated oven (350F), for 25 minutes. Unwrap one of the parcels and pierce the center of the salmon. If it flakes easily and the flakes are all one color they are ready. If not, cook for a few more minutes and then retest. When done, serve over rice.

Thoughts/Tips/Mistakes

You probably need to start the rice and parcels at same time. The salmon took about 15 mins longer to cook (maybe our oven? hard to tell) so the rice, which I'd forgotten about, had time to catch up.

We couldn’t find a little bottle of Pernod, so had to invest in a big one, which was a little annoying. Other Pernod recipes, anyone?

Pix

Forgot to take pix of the parcels before cooking, but here’s the end result. The veggies really do look as though they were overcooked by about 75%.

More Orange Food: Pureed Carrot Soup (aka Potage de Crecy)

I’ve noticed that most of the food so far has been orange, sorry about that. And now here’s a carrot soup, again from the NY Times Recipes for Health section. We were a tiny bit hung over today, and this seemed like a detoxifying kind of lunch. Yes, lunch. I’m doing penance for my lapse last week, so made not one but two new recipes today.

P.S.:
The wisdom of the internet provides this quote from the Twelve Months of Monastery Soups (by Brother Victor-Antoine d'Avila-Latourrette):

"In France, the carrots grown in the vicinity of Crecy have the reputation as best and the tastiest in the whole country -- hence the name given to the soup. From France, the soup crossed the Channel into England, where it has become part of the national folklore. According to an old tradition dating back the the 14th century, loyal Britons should eat carrot soup or "potage de Crecy" on the anniversary (August 26, 1346) of the battle of Crecy, a legendary victory of the English over the French in the the Hundred Years' War."

Well, I've never eaten carrot soup on August 26, or heard of anyone doing so. But I run with a very disloyal crowd.

The Recipe: Pureed Carrot Soup

Here’s the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/health/nutrition/22recipehealth.html?em

Thoughts/Tips/Mistakes

Well, I went a bit overboard in my concern re salt (see below) and ended up with a soup that was OK, but… I made it with one quarter chicken stock, three quarters water, which according to the recipe could have been OK, but have to assume it lost some flavor as a result. Not sure what I could have done to it, apart from using more salt and sugar; one could add other things like curry powder, etc., but the whole point of the soup is that it's just carroty. Any suggestions?

But it looked pretty, and tasted nice enough.

We stirred about a teaspoon of crème fraiche into each bowl.

Pix


A lot of carrots.














The soup.

The Thing About Salt

We're not health nuts at all, but someone we know has been put on a low sodium diet, so we've just been doing some reading on the topic.

Take a look at this, and ask yourself if you shouldn't be doing more to reduce your salt intake:
http://www.eatingwell.com/health/health_diet_centers/salt_health.html

Here are some easy ways to do it:
http://www.eatingwell.com/health/health_diet_centers/easy_ways_to_cut_sodium.html