Ham Off The Table

 Ham is always the traditional Easter main course yet ir doesn't have to be. There are a variety of different main courses that can work just as well.  They can be poultry or seafood - just something different to change up the holiday.

Capon or turkey can easily work for a holiday dinner. Both go well with that Spring staple asparagus. Capon is slightly different than chicken.It's actually a castrated male that's been fed a diet usually of milk and porridge. The meat are full breasted and tender with a richer taste than either turkey or chicken. Treat it the same as  a turkey, with rubbing the skin with a mix of butter, sea salt and freshly ground pepper.You could also add garlic and lemon too for more flavor. Turkey is also good if you want a traditional meal , complete with stuffing. Keep in mind that this is not Thanksgiving so keep the sides light. Again, think about asparagus and green beans instead of yams and mashed potatoes. The gravy could be an au jus one  with being made with turkey necks and wings , onions carrots and celery,. Garlic flavors it but it can be omitted so you taste more  of the turkey . Cornstarch is added just to thicken it a little. If you want to cook something smaller consider Cornish hens. They are delicious and easy to make, having very tender meat. They can be rubbed with just olive oil and herbs for crisp skin and roasted in a 450 degree Farenheit oven for an hour.

Can you have seafood for your Easter dinner? Yes! If the weather is warm, then think about grilled shrimp over a fluffy pilaf. For something entirely different try a Brazilian moqueca that the New York Times featured in their Wednesday Food section. This is a fish stew rife with shrimp and cod. Tomatoes and bell peppers give it more color and flavor as does coconut milk and chili peppers like the ultra fiery Scotch Bonnet. This Brazilian gem does require dende oil which can be bought at any West African or Caribbean market. For a truly lush dish, think lobster tails. This is a great Spring dish , especially served with a  champagne vinaigrette salad full with grape tomatoes, artichoke hearts , cauliflower and broccoli. You could also serve lobster claws with them too,although they can be messy to eat. Salmon is another great choice for a light Easter dinner. Think of serving it with garlic butter to enhance its's delicate flavor. You can serve it with  crispy roasted potatoes and asparagus , flavored with more garlic butter sauce.

Ham doens;t have to be served every Easter. Mix it up this year with poultry or seafood.  It's a fun way to celebrate the holiday.

Those Smoking Hams

 One of the joys of any Easter dinner is a smoked ham. The flavor is a perfect blend of earthy and sweet, a great foil for asparagus. Surprisingly you can make it at home.

Steven Raichlen, grill master extrordinaire and host of the very popular PBS show Project Fire wrote this article and how to in yesterday's New York Times Food section. Keep in mind if you do want to do this, you have a short window of time because curing does take six days and Easter is only ten days away. You could do this for small family gathering later on in the season. The method is for a wet cure  not a dry cure one. Dry cured hams are rubbed with salts and left to dry for several months , resulting in a tight satiny texture and complex flavor associated with prosciutto and the Spanish jamon serrano, the last costing up to $1000. Wet cured ham, soaks in a mix of water,  salt, and sodium nitrate. The last you can buy on line from the Sausage Maker or Hoosier Hill Farm. Then there's the equipment,  Use either a stockpot , bucket or even a three gallon resealable plastic bag. There's also a marinade injector which gets all the meat cured and juicy. Then there's the actual smoking You can use a kettle style grill or charcoal burning one with a lid. The wood chips are what make the flavor. Chef Raichlen recommends using apple or hickory.

What about the cut used? A shoulder ham is recommended simply because it's small and can accommodate a smaller gathering of people. This is the easiest to smoke and cure in a week . You can also do this to a pork loin (which Chef Raichlen offers a recipe for , complete with a cognac orange glaze). As for the brine he adds a spice bundle of cloves, allspice berries,bay leaves, lemon zest strips and whole black peppercorns. The actual brine is made from water, Morton Kosher salt, honey , dark brown sugar and Prague powder #1 , the sodium nitrate needed. The brine is first made and then the spice bundle is added. As this is all boiling , the ham is prepared ,its' exterior scored with a sharp knife. The ham is placed with the brine in the roasting pot.It's also injected with it and then placed in the fridge for at least three days. The meat will take on a pinkish hue after three days of brining and being injected. It's now ready to be smoked. Set the grill temp at 250 degrees Farenheit, and put it on indirect heat. Put the ham on the grate fat side up and cook until it's handsomely brown and cooked through. It'll take seven hours. Keep adding wood chips to produce a steady stream of steam. evenly rotate the meat so it's nicely browned all over. drape it loosely with foil if it's browning too much.

Home cured ham for Easter is a real treat. Any ambitious home chef can cook this and have a memorable holiday meal. It's a delicious treat perfect for the season.

The Heart Of Puerto Rican Cooking

 Puerto Rican cooking is island cooking, It's a mix of European and indigenous ingredients, blended together to form a unique cuisine. Most of all it's home cooking - the comforting hug needed during hard times and hurricanes, holiday and happy times.

Von Diaz,food professor. author of several cookbooks and articles seen in Bon Appetit, Eater and Epicurious magazines wrote this interesting article along with recipes in today's New York Times Food section.  She is Puerto Rican herself, however being raised in the States, namely Atlanta Georgia, but her heart and cooking belong to this complex tropical island. Its' cooking is a blend of Taino, the original culture of the island along with African and Spanish. Even modern American cooking has lent a hand - thanks to the introduction of canned food. There is also a nouvelle cuisine vibe with pastellos de guyaba, a mix of cheese queso en hoja and guava paste.Of course the backbone of Puerto Rican cooking is sofrito, a cooked mix of garlic , onions and peppers and spiked with culantro - cilantro's cousin. This is in many dishes. such as arroz mamposteao, a rice dish also made with beans and veggie or chicken broth.  Sofrito is in other dishes too, like sancocho, a stew that combines, beef, pork and chicken with the indigenous roots  like white yautia and yucca.

Of course the highlight of any Puerto Rican holiday dinner is pernil.This is a pork shoulder marinated in garlic, citrus and herbs and then roasted for an hour in a 400 degree Farenheit oven . The marinade is a flavorful combo of sour orange juice, garlic cloves, and oregano. (Professor DIaz also offers a tip for cleaning the roast pan too because the skin will stick). Another delicious main course is pescado frito, fried snapper. Again, the marinade is the same as the pernil, except with the addition of sazon - a mix of coriander,garlic cumin and annatto - seeds from the achiote tree. This gives color and flavor to the fish which is cut in three places, better for the marinade to soak in. It's then fried, whole, head an tail in vegetable oil. The fried fish is served with lime. What can end all these dishes? Those pastillos de guyaba, easily made with puff pastry dough. Farmer's cheese can be used in place  of fresco en hoja.  They should be left to cool because the guava gets molten hot and will badly burn your mouth.) Once cool, sprinkle confectioner's sugar over them  and store in an airtight container. Stale ones can be refreshed in a 350 degree Fareneheit oven for five minutes before eating.

Puerto Rican cooking is rich and complex. It's a mix of all sorts of flavors , indigenous, Spanish and African.  This is a perfect blend of deliciousness, pride and history.

Mini D'Ouevres

 Making and serving hors d'ouevres may be a bit too much especially before a dinner or Sunday lunch. However shrink them down a few sizes and you have a fun change that everyone will like. Mini d'ouevres can be as simple or as complicated as you want.

Creating these little bites is easy, especially nowadays. I've recently discovered Keebler''s Club minis. These are fun little crackers with the original's big buttery taste. Imagine pairing them with any filling, from egg salad to cheese. I thought of Miyoko's Vegan Road House Spread a sharp vegan cheddar.

 

It's a fun way to intro soup or a chicken with any kind of veggies dinner. They're sooooo tiny!!!!! Yet they were a snap to make and fun to eat.

You can get creative with any kind of mini d'ouevres. Try making mini meatballs to be dipped into warmed tomato sauce. Another fun bite is Lilliputian pizzas made with slices of Italian bread topped with sauce and cheese. Both of these would be perfect before pasta aglia olio or cavatelli with broccoli. 

If you just want to only serve mini appetizers or apps, then think about cutting up Eggo waffles and putting half a chicken nugget on them. Serve with a drop of maple syrup. Another hearty one is stuffed baby bellas heaped with crumbled sausage bread crumbs and Parmesan. A more elegant bite is shrimp on polenta rounds or  smoked salmon on mini Triscuits.

Mini d'ouevres is a fun way to start a meal. Think tiny for a tasty bite. They may be little but they're packed with big punch of flavor.

Passover Sweets

 Passover starts this coming Saturday and with it special dishes and holiday restrictions. One of the highlights of the Seder table is dessert. It can be quite a challenge to home bakers because of the no flour or yeast rule. Yet there are some interesting sweets that are easy to whip up.

Luckily there are other flours other than wheat or chametz to use. Almond flour is perfectly acceptable as is matzoh meal. You can easily make a flourless chocolate cake using almond flour. It produces a dense , packed crumb, perfect for the other ingredients which are chocolate , butter,eggs yolks and sugar to shine. Orange zest and egg whites are added later, the whites to give the cake some lift. It's baked for thirty to forty minutes in a 350 degree Farenheit  oven. It can be served with candied orange zest or whipped cream if you'd like. Almond flour can also go into making blondies, a fun treat for the kids. This again is ground almonds (which you can make yourself using a food processor),l sugar, vegetable oil and eggs. Chocolate chips can be added for more flavor. The batter is poured into a parchment lined pan and baked at 350 degrees Farenheit for half an hour. Keep in mind you can also use the almond flour for cookies. These are almost like a macaroon  in that they use only egg whites and not the yolks along with a cup of sugar. Of course if you want totally vegan you can sub in the egg white with aqua faba, the brine from chickpeas. These make for excellent meringues and macaroons, the last more in the French style.

Matzoh meal can also be used to make an array of delicious Passover cakes. Remember that you may have to buy matzoh meal because the homemade kind is a lot crumbier and grainier than the finely processed store bought one.,Yet, you can use the first if you have a very strong, almost industrial strength food processor. There are a number of different sweets you can bake. Try an apple cake that's more like a fruit filled coffee cake with a walnut streusel topping. The topping has a refreshing blend of cinnamon, ginger,  mace and nutmeg. to keep the cake interesting. You could also make just a simple vanilla cake and top it with frosting made from heavy cream and confectioner's sugar. Matzoh meal can also be used to make cookie dough too. whip up a couple of batches of chocolate chip cookies using it for the week ahead. This is the basic chocolate chip cookie recipe  that has the usual brown sugar, butter, eggs, and chocolate chips for that classic flavor. Yet instead of wheat flour , there's matzoh meal and honey to sweeten it. You could also bake chocolate cookies too with it, using melted bittersweet chocolate and chocolate chips along with egg whites for  a more meringue like texture.

The seder meal and the week following can end with delicious cakes and cookies. Use either almond flour or matzoh meal for the recipes. They'll give you an array of tasty  sweets , perfect for the holiday and beyond.

Kilwin's -An Old Fashioned Candy Store

 Easter is coming up and that means all things candy. Yet where to get good old fashioned chocolate bunnies and treats. Look no further than Kilwin's a national chain with a small town candy shop vibe.

I recently discovered the store on a trip to Westfield ,New Jersey, a picturesque town in Middlesex County (it's also known for its' most celebrated resident Charles Addams, creator of the Addams Family cartoons for The New Yorker Magazine). Kilwin's sells everything from ice cream to all sorts of old fashioned bonbons. It's a franchise originating from the Midwest. Couple  Don and Katy Kilwins started the company in 1947 with the freshest ingredients. from cacao to fruits and nuts. Ice cream was added in 1985 and the company is also known for its' ice cream cakes too.They also sell a variety of caramel apples and homemade fudge.,Right now they're big on Easter candy.

I couldn't resist these small white chocolate bunny ears. They were only $5.50 for three ounces . They have larger sizes in dark and milk chocolate for $32.00 for twenty-four ounces. Kilwins also is selling chocolate crosses and bunnies as well as  cream and peanut butter eggs.kids will love their chocolate Easter bunny pops, along with the traditional foil eggs. Of course there are jelly beans along with sour chicks and bunnies. For a different spin of Easter candy there's bunny tails along with an Easter decorated  chocolate dipped Rice Krispie treat on a stick.

Check out the Kilwins nearest you for freshly made Easter candy. They have excellent choices for making the holiday special. All make for a sweet holiday.

My Allium Garden

 Spring is here and with it gardening. It's going to be exciting for me because I'm planning on planting an allium garden. These are leeks, garlic and onions, the ingredients I use the most, especially garlic.

Here are the leeks that I cut from the leeks I used from my celery soup and leeks on toast.

As you can see , there are little shoots coming up. In another week there should be about an inch of leek coming up.

The other one is really thriving. as you can see from the pale green sprout coming up. 

This is the garden I want along with tomatoes. I want to plant what I need the most. Leeks are wonderful and just great with butter and Parmesan cheese on toast. Onions and garlic are ingredients I frequently use and love . I can try out variations of French onion soup with just picked from the garden ones. I can slice, batter and air fry them  creating my version of the Blooming Onion. Garlic is my number one flavoring and I cook a lot with it. Young or green garlic can be made into so many different dishes. One recipe on my radar is Alice Waters'  green garlic and pasta recipe, a take on pasta aglia e olio. There's also a green garlic soup with the tender green stems or scapes that sounds delicious.It also has vinegar for zing and heavy cream which can be switched out with silken tofu and soy milk for a vegan version. As for the tomatoes, , I will be growing some form, whether beefsteak or cherry which will be highlighted with the garlic. I'm not one for making sauces, preferring the fresher salsa crudo for summertime spaghetti.

It is planting season. I am planting what I know I'll need the most - alliums. They're going to be a fun and exciting addition to my kitchen this late Spring and summer!!!