Apricot Glazed Hen with Plum and Juniper Stuffing

I love Dave Lieberman. His recipes are beautiful, simple, and interesting. In that spirit I found a recipe of his for Apricot Glazed Chicken, and wanted to try it out. I even tracked down dried plums - almost impossible to find in my area, for some reason - at a roadside stand in southern California. But, as my food plans often go, ingredients changed and processes shifted; I saw Cornish hens on sale at the grocery store, then I found juniper berries for an insanely cheap price. What I ended up with is this, an homage to one of my favorite chefs.

First, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. The stuffing is a mixture of chopped dried plums, juniper berries (eight or ten per hen is all you'll need, crushed under a knife) and chopped fresh sage. Add salt and pepper to taste, then a teaspoon or so of good olive oil to bring it all together. You'll need about a cup of the mixture for each bird you're cooking. Stuff the hens, tie the legs together with cooking twine, and place them in a baking dish.


Meanwhile, in a small saucepan combine a cup of apricot preserves with a few roughly chopped dried plums, five or so crushed juniper berries and a few sage leaves. Heat this mixture over medium heat until liquid. At this point you can add a tablespoon or so of Grand Marnier, an orange liqueur, then remove from the heat and let cool slightly. The glaze will be chunky and rustic - spoon it on the hens, then put them in the oven. Bake the hens for one hour, basting every ten or fifteen minutes. Hens are done when skin is crisp, dark brown and juices run clear when thigh is pierced.


Served simply over quickly blanched asparagus or haricots vert, the rustic juniper and sage flavors combine with the sweet plums and apricot preserves for an unforgettable gastronomic experience. I hope Dave is proud!

Asparagus and Beef over Fettuccine

There is an old Roman adage that says the more you spend, the worse you eat, and I believe it wholeheartedly. The most delicious, hearty, soul-satisfying meals can be made with a few simple, humble ingredients. Italians call it cucina povera, and it's the type of food you might find in farmhouses and tiny trattorias rather than in touristy restaurants.

It employs simple cooking methods, seasonal ingredients and a small range of ingredients at a time so that even the most novice cook can turn out delicious results. This recipe is in the spirit of cucina povera - four ingredients, a pot and a pan, that's all you'll need.

The first ingredient, and the star in my opinion, is asparagus. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. After snapping the woody ends off the asparagus, cut them into two inch sections and blanch them in the water for two minutes. Time it. Then immediately remove them with a slotted spoon (reserve the water in the pot) and rinse in cold water. This stops the cooking process and locks in the green color.

The next ingredient is the pasta. Bring the water in the pot back to a rolling boil and add your pasta. In the spirit of cucuna povera it should be whatever you have on hand, fettuccine in my case.

The next note in this chord is the beef. I used a steak, top sirloin if memory serves, because I got it on the cheap from the grocer. Any cut will work, however. Lightly salt and pepper the steak on both sides then sear over high heat in a large saute pan with a bit of olive oil, a few minutes on each side or until a lovely deep golden brown color. Remove the steak from the heat and let cool slightly before cutting into strips.

Turn the pan to medium, and it's time to bring it all together. Drop the asparagus into the pan along with the last ingredient, the zest and juice from one lemon. I added a bit of chopped garlic at this point, as well - an optional seasoning in this dish, more than an ingredient in its own right. Let it heat through, then add the steak back in. By now the pasta should be just shy of al dente; strain and add to the pan as well. Stir and let the pasta finish cooking for a few minutes, then plate and serve.

There it is, four simple, fresh ingredients combine to create a delicious and satisfying meal. Enjoy!

Chicken with a Mustard Mascarpone Marsala Sauce

This recipe is from Giada di Laurentiis. I followed it more or less accurately, omitting the mushrooms - forgot to put them in my basket at the store, hehe. The next time I make it I'll probably use less mustard and more mascarpone.

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts, each breast cut crosswise into 3 pieces
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
5 tablespoons butter, divided
3/4 cup chopped onion
1 pound cremini mushrooms, sliced
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 cup dry Marsala wine
1 cup (8 ounces) mascarpone cheese
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves, plus whole sprigs, for garnish
12 ounces dried fettuccine

Directions

Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a heavy large skillet over high heat. Add the chicken and cook just until brown, about 4 minutes per side. Transfer the chicken to a plate and cool slightly.

While the chicken cools, melt 2 tablespoons of butter to the same skillet over medium-high heat, then add the onion and saute until tender, about 2 minutes. Add the mushrooms and garlic and saute until the mushrooms are tender and the juices evaporate, about 12 minutes. Add the wine and simmer until it is reduced by half, about 4 minutes. Stir in the mascarpone and mustard. Cut the chicken breasts crosswise into 1/3-inch-thick slices. Return the chicken and any accumulated juices to the skillet. Simmer, uncovered, over medium-low heat until the chicken is just cooked through and the sauce thickens slightly, about 2 minutes. Stir in the chopped parsley. Season the sauce, to taste, with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the fettuccine and cook until al dente, stirring occasionally, about 8 minutes. Drain. Toss the fettuccine with 3 tablespoons of butter and season, to taste, with salt and pepper. Swirl the fettuccine onto serving plates. Spoon the chicken mixture over top. Garnish with parsley sprigs and serve.

The Best Turkey Meatballs

Truth be told, this was my very first experience cooking with ground turkey. The sickly pink color, the oh-so-perfect squiggles of formed poultry, and one achingly grotesque experience with two pounds of the ground bird and a half dozen taco seasoning packets had left me completely content with never letting it in my kitchen.

I had gone to the grocer for a couple chicken breasts for a recipe, but was uninspired. Sausage would have been too heavy... beef too strong... pork too light...

Then I saw it, glistening beneath it's vacuum-formed packaging, beckoning. The only sensible thing to do with ground meat is to make meatballs, so my plans developed on the fly and I decided to try ground turkey for myself.

In a mixing bowl, combine 1lb ground turkey, 1/4c breadcrumbs, 1/4c finely grated pecorino cheese, one egg, and a touch of salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly, with your fingers of course. It was at this stage that I realized an interesting tidbit about my chosen protein: it's sticky. Very sticky, more so than ground beef or pork. Perhaps Alton Brown's suggestion of latex gloves would have been appropriate.

Once all is mixed well, form into balls at or slightly smaller than the size of a golf ball. The stickiness was again a factor here - I had to rinse my hands off twice in order to form all ten meatballs. Heat a bit of olive oil in a heavy large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the meatballs and saute until browned on all sides, about 5 minutes. Turn off heat. Transfer the meatballs to a plate, and contemplate what type of sauce you are going to make. A nice marinara would go perfectly fine, or toss them with pesto and penne. Or, do what I did and use the pan bits as the base for creamy lemon rotini with arugula and broccoli, shown to the left.

Creamy Lemon Rotini with Arugula and Broccoli

I vaguely remember the bones of this recipe from a midnight viewing with the Barefoot Contessa herself, Ina Garten. I was curled up in bed with a hot toddy and a smile; Ina was flitting around her gorgeous home in the Hamptons whipping up the sort of food that makes cucumber sandwiches look like saltines. It was magical.

This dish, with its tangy yet smooth and lemony sauce, would be perfect on it's own or as a side, and it holds up remarkably well as a cold leftovers.

Cut a small head of broccoli into florets and discard the stems. Boil in salted water for about five minutes, or until broccoli is tender but firm. Remove them from the pot and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking. Set aside.

In a hot pan, combine two minced garlic cloves with a half a cup of white wine and reduce by half. Pour in a half a cup of heavy cream and the juice and zest from one large lemon. Bring to a boil and then reduce to medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the saice begins to thicken, 15 to 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook a half a box of rotini according to the instructions, just shy of al dente. Drain the pasta and add to the sauce, along with the broccoli and a healthy handful of baby arugula (don't worry, it will cook way down). You can also add a few slices of whole lemon at this point; they serve no actual purpose, but make the dish look spiffy and professional. Mix to coat everything, and continue cooking another five minutes or so. This dish feeds two comfortably.

To serve, top with crumbled feta and finely diced tomatoes. You can also add grilled chicken or even steak strips to this recipe, but my suggestion would be the best turkey meatballs.

Chicken Vindaloo with Curried Yogurt

While most of what I cook is Italian in nature, I enjoy eating foods from all corners of the globe, especially the corners that appreciate a nice, hot pepper. India is one of those places, and vindaloo is the father of all spicy curries.

I first made this dish a while back after the proprieter of an Indian grocery store started rattling off spices while I furiously scribbled them down on a napkin. Of course, you can adjust the spices to your own taste - I am definitely heavy on the chili powder. For the vindaloo, roast the following spices briefly in a dry pan: cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, chili powder, fenugreek, coriander, cumin, fresh ginger and black peppercorns. Put them in a blender with salt, minced garlic, mustard powder and turmeric, then blend in vinegar and a little dry white wine until there is enough sauce to marinate three chicken breasts in. They should marinate overnight.

The next day, coarsely chop a couple onions and fry them in ghee with a little garlic and cumin until they are soft, then remove them from the pan and cook the chicken through. Add the onions and the vindaloo sauce back in and simmer for about a half hour. You can eat it immediately, but the longer it sits the better it tastes. Eight hours is what the verbose Indian man recommended.

It is best served with naan (garlic was my choice, but plain works as well). I topped the vindaloo with a mixture of yogurt and green curry paste; I mix in about a teaspoon of the paste with a quart of yogurt and keep it in the fridge for just such recipes.

Beef and Vegetable Soup

After an hour of searching for a way to cook up the second half of the chuck roast from last night's Braised Beef with Lentils, I came across a recipe for a lentil sausage soup from one of my favorite high-class cooking mavens, Ina Garten. Recipes aren't instructions for me, as I rarely follow what they say. Instead I use them as inspiration. I scan the ingredients, check the cooking technique and then put the recipe away. In this way I can modify it to my own personal tastes and the ingredients I have on hand. Also, not using specific amounts also means I can cook for less than a gaggle and not have to do any math!


The main difference between Ina's recipe and my own is the protein. Since she used a precooked sausage she could just toss it in at the end and let it come to temperature just before serving. My chuck roast, however, needs to cook long and slow. So, I cut it into inch-sized cubes (not sure of the weight as it was leftover, but I got about twenty cubes or so) and browned it in a bit of olive oil, then into a crock pot it went.


Also in the crock went a roughly chopped mirepoix (for me, it worked out to be three small celery stalks, three small carrots and half a small onion), two roma tomatoes chopped about the same size, a tablespoon of my go-to mixture herbes de Provence, a small can of reduced-sodium chicken stock, and a teaspoon or so of crushed pepper. I find it best to not add salt at this point; even reduced sodium stock imparts a salty flavor, and it's easier to add salt to take it out.


Last comes the final ingredient. In the pan that the beef was browned in, I added a half cup of whatever random white wine I had in the fridge and a few cloves of minced garlic and let it deglaze and reduce, then poured that into the crock as well. Add water to cover the mixture and set on low.


Five or six hours later when the meat is fork tender and your house smells like heaven, turn the crock to high, add a quarter cup of lentils and continue cooking till soft, about twenty minutes. I had originally planned on eating this as a stew, but the blender was calling my name. Carefully remove all of the pieces of meat and blend the mixture in batches until smooth. Place meat back into the soup. Garnish with a little creme fraiche and parsley.


The soup was so delicious I completely forgot to photograph it prior to eating. Oh well, there's plenty left for lunch tomorrow.

Braised Chuck Roast with Lentils

A few weeks ago I bought a four dollar bottle of wine that changed my life. Dark, dry and full of tannins, it was a wine that worked perfectly for me - a wine strong enough to compete with lamb and beef, but drinkable enough to enjoy on its own.

Recoleta is a Malbec/Bonarda blend. The bottle describes it as "a full-bodied smooth red, full of blackberry and raspberry flavors with a hint of spice." I call it amazing. The first time I took a sip, I was convinced: this is not just a great red for drinking. No, this wine aspires to more. This wine was born to braise.

And so, after a long arduous day of shopping I was in the mood for some braised lamb. Turns out Fresh & Easy was all out of my preferred quadruped, so I reached for a beef chuck roast, mainly because it was the cheapest cut they had. Actually, including the bottle of wine, it cost me a grand total of $17.34 for the ingredients, of which I only used half. We'll see what I come up with for the rest tomorrow.

Anyway, on to the beef. Braising is a simple process. Brown the roast on both sides in a very hot pan with a little olive oil. I placed halved roma tomatoes cut side down in the pan when I turned the beef over and let them cook a bit as well. The tomatoes add a great acidity to the dish and are served along side the beef. If you have an aversion to tomatoes, please stop reading and immediately seek therapy. Then, try substituting a bit of balsamic vinegar for the tomatoes.


When the meat is browned remove it from the pan and set aside. I added a half a red onion, sliced, and a couple cloves of minced garlic. Cook until the onions are soft, just short of caramelized. Place the beef and the tomatoes back into the pan and pour in the wine till it comes about halfway up the side of the beef. Any higher than that and this would be called 'Stewed Chuck Roast with Lentils.'


Speaking of lentils, now is a good time to get those started. Lentils are traditional Italian fare for the new year so I thought it was fitting. The cooking process is even simpler than the braising: just add two cups of water to one cup of lentils and cook until the liquid has been absorbed. At the end the lentils will pop open and soften. Resist the tempation to add salt while cooking, as it makes the lentils tough. You can season after.


After about fifteen minutes of braising the beef should be done. Remove it and the tomatoes and set aside. Strain the braising liquid to remove any onions and garlic, then turn the heat up to high and reduce the liquid to a sauce. Assemble thusly: roast, tomatoes and lentils go on the plate first, some of the neat purple onions over the lot, then the amazing wine sauce on top. It tastes more difficult to make than it is.


And of course, try the Recoleta, it's the best four bucks you'll ever spend.