Respect and Recipes

Today is All Soul's Day, a day when Catholics commemorate their departed loved ones. One of the best ways is to follow the Mexican tradition and making their favorite recipes. it could be a sweet. It could be a savory. It could be a recipe that's over a century old or some out a magazine.

One of the best way to honor one's ancestors and close family members is to continue with their heirloom dishes. If you're lucky some great-great-great grandmother wrote down recipes that were adapted through the centuries for modern cooking.Most families, including mine, relied on the oral tradition of passing down dishes. Memory helps too. Did any of my generation write the recipes down. I did - but only for the posts. Luckily such dishes as my great -grandmother's and great aunt's pumpkin soup recipe were made often. They were also explained step by step, which helps in memorizing them.The family felt that i would make these centuries old Piedmontese dishes when I was ready. Of course there was a bit of nervousness - actually a lot of it , recreating such dishes as risotto and tomatoes provencale in front of the masters. Heaven forbid you mess up a step or accidentally forget a certain spice or herb. Don't ever think of tweaking the recipe.

When I cook these recipes, I think of relatives long gone. It's a connection that everyone should have. This is a gift to the younger generations, especially those who love to cook. Keep in mind that  all recipes should now be stored on the computer. Google Docs has a recipe template where you can plug in ingredients and directions. For those that haven't compiled family recipes this template allows you to do so. Another plus with Google Docs is that you can send the recipes to family members who also have it and they can tweak or edit the recipes. Every branch of a family has several recipes. Combine these to create a cookbook that can be given out at family picnics or to welcome a new spouse to the family.If you do this , make sure to include a few blank pages in the back for the newcomer to add his or her family dishes. A nice idea  - and to continue a loved one's memory is to make the heirloom dishes for the holidays and important events like engagements and baptisms. There's bound to be a flood of memories as well as great stories too.

Today we remember those we have lost. Another way is through honoring the recipes they left us. We will make favorite and family dishes to make sure they are never forgotten.

Celebrating Dia De Muertos

This is one of the days to celebrate DIa De Muertos, Day of The Dead.It is a huge holiday in Mexico and amongst the Mexican Americans here. Those that have left life are celebrated with their favorite foods and sugar skulls. It's also a perfect time to celebrate Mexican food as well.

This is how I spent the holiday. I made my Mom's classic chili which is celebrating her love of cooking. Hopefully she would have enjoyed my version of it, including the tweaks of turning it into crockpot chili and adding just a teaspoon of dark wildflower honey.

As you can see, not much was left.It was a lovely mix of kidney beans, Boca crumbles , tomato sauce and diced tomatoes. Instead of onion and garlic, I added onion and garlic powders for a milder taste, considering both can be overwhelming. Of course I added chili powder - a good two tablespoons along with two to three teaspoons of cumin. 

We only had crackers. I would have loved to have served it with harina de maiz - cornmeal. My Mom always served her chili with it - or as we knew it  - polenta. It would have been nice to have a pan di muertos, the sweet bread used to celebrate Dia de Angelinos, Day of the Angels, celebrating children and babies who have left this Earth too soon.It is a sugar crusted orange flavored bread also made to celebrate adults who have left us.

Dia di Muertos is not a day of tears. it is a day of celebrating the ones who we loved. Make their favorite dishes, cook their favorite recipes. Enjoy them now with fond memories and stories.

A Halloween Treat - Mayo

Is there a place for mayo in a sophisticated kitchen?  Surprisingly yes. At times, it's even better than some of the best butter. It's now being thought of as the go to ingredient from simple grilled cheeses to sous vide meats.

Melissa Clark wrote about one of the world's most versatile condiment in  yesterday's New York Times Food section. Her A Good Appetite was devoted to this French dressing originally used only for chicken. Now it's being used again , but smeared or slathered on raw chicken before cooking. The white cream is a hard sell. It has been maligned by decades of food snobs who associate it with folksy salads served at picnics. Then there's its' appearance. It's jiggly and white , bloppy when it get's smeared on tomatoes or sandwich meats. It's also completely fat, yet it's that fat that creates the Maillard effect on meats. It's a seasoned oil suspended in water emulsion. An emulsion is a homogeneous mixture of two or more liquids that typically don't mix together. Fat droplets have a tendency to coalesce or come together when suspended in that. To make mayonnaise the fat has to be broken up into droplets that are so fine , they will have trouble reuniting in that emulsion. This gives mayo its' classic viscous texture - perfect for brushing onto a meat's surface. Eggs are also part of this emulsion and that gives mayo its' creaminess.

A thin layer of mayo can give any meat a good browning. This helps in minimizing the amount of time any cut spends in a pan or on the grill. Meats such as skirt and flank steak as well as thinner cut pork chops typically have problems browning, before they wind up with overcooked centers.Mayo helps fast cooking meats such as chicken cutlets brown all over. A plus about having a mayo marinade is that it blends easily with a wide range of sauces and condiments. Pesto and chimichurri work well with it along with Thai red curry paste. Barbecue and  teriyaki sauce benefit from it. These sauces have a tendency to burn, thanks to the sugars in them. Mayo solves this by diluting and coating the sugars with an egg protein. The end result is meat that doesn't wind up charred and a sauce flavor that really sticks to the meat.Mayo coated meats can just be cooked as is in a non-stick pan. The mayo has enough fat for cooking. Ms. Clark has tried the recipe out with both store bought and homemade mayo. The last has plenty of recipes on the web to try. It would be interesting to see if this works with vegan mayonnaise.

Don't be a snob about mayo. Try it as a marinade on any kind of meat. You'll be surprised by how sppoky good it is.

A Kitchen Empty

It is sheer agony to lose anyone, even worse when the person was the love of your life. The grief affects everything, including cooking and eating, How does one survive? Can he or she get through and go back to creating and eating favorite recipes?

That was the question raised today in Amelia Nierenberg's article in today's New York Times Food section.Ms. Nierenberg often writes about the intersections about food and culture. How does eating and mourning pair up? she has found answers from grief counselors and groups who help widows and widowers cope with the loss of not just a spouse but a cooking and restaurant partner. New York grief counselor, Jill Cohen says that  cooking alone could be considered the sixth stage of grief, a take on Elisabeth Kubler-Ross disputed theory The Five Stages of Grief. Bereavement counselors said that it's only been in the last decade that academics and professionals have been directly addressing the relationship between grieving and food. Many widows (which now is a gender neutral term) found not only eating a chore but also cooking. It is the men who have to learn or relearn how to boil  and roast along with shopping properly for themselves. They went  directly from their mothers' kitchens to their wives.

Yet it is the loneliness that can be devastating. Gone are the conversations, and the companionship that every meal once had. Some just don't eat, their sorrow is that overpowering. Some had trouble swallowing, their throats constricting forcing them to eat almost nothing. Weight losses of up to seventy-one pounds have been reported. Deborah Stephens of Irmo, South Carolina lived on just a cup of coffee in the morning and a cheese stick in the afternoon. Another could only stand the tastes of popcorn and chocolate. Thankfully there are cooking groups that help alleviate the loneliness.  The Chicago suburbs has Culinary Grief Therapy which grew out of a study following a widow's difficulties eating, shopping and cooking. From there, the lead author of the study, Heather Nickrand created a spin off entitled Culinary Grief Therapy which uses demonstrations and group discussions over meals on how to shop, cook and eat for one. The recipes are simple with roasted veggies in olive oil and a simple roast chicken. It's a good way to connect with others and develop new friendships.

It is tough to lose someone. It is even tougher to continue, yet there are ways to cope. They involve grief  therapy where  new ways and even better new friendships are cultivated.

If someone close to you is grieving, please check in on them. Go food shopping with them, take them out to dinner every now and then, but most of all make sure they're eating - and eating properly.

A Gourmet's Halloween Party

The usual Halloween party consists consists of cocktail wienies with dough wrapped around them and some drink died vampire blood red. Yet you can still have a themed party with good and fun to eat food. It's just getting creative with top notch ingredients.

Popcorn is a party must and it can be upgraded to scary good. First pop it in olive oil. This is easy to do if you have a Colonel Popper type of microwave popper. The olive oil gives the corn a rich flavor. After popping add sea salt and rosemary for more flavor. Cheese is another must serve and you can cut out the words BOO or create little ghosts from the delightfully smoky Gouda cheese. You can also cut them in jagged tooth shapes and rename them "vampire fangs" or "monster molars". Bruschetta get'a a cool but frightening renaming, Make the tasty tomato mix as more of a dip and rename it Deadly Nightshade Dip. The plant along with its' cousin , eggplant are from the deadly nightshade family. You can also combine the two along with onions into a "Risky Ratatouille". Serve with slices of crispy, warm baguettes , with the ends cut to resemble the ends of bones. Keep in mind that both the bruschetta and ratatouille can also top both pizzas and flat breads.

If you want to go ultra gourmet think lobster or even shrimp fra diavolo , done in the style of the devil monk (now that's a hair raising thought). The sauce is crushed red pepper cooked in a classic tomato sauce. Add some cayenne for eye watering heat. Another main dish idea is vampire fighting chicken cooked with forty (!) cloves of garlic. This classic French dish combines chicken with butter, chicken broth and white wine with those forty (!) cloves into a tasty main meal, perfect with sliced baguettes. Serve with graveyard moss - spinach with mushrooms. A sinfully sweet dessert is the perfect end to any of these dishes. Candy apples are always a Halloween must but grow it up a bit with a candy coating of brandy, apple cider and red hot cinnamon drops  cooked with the usual sugar. Put the apples on sturdy rwigs instead of tongue depressors. Cookies and cupcakes are nice endings too. Think dark chocolate skeleton cookies made with 90 per cent dark chocolate bars and cupcakes done in the Mexican hot cocoa style  baked with fiery spices.

Halloween can be a time for gourmet fun. Bring out the lobster and rich chocolate. This a tasty trick or treat for the sophisticated palate.

A Taste Of Old Bay

Every kitchen should have Old Bay Seasoning in its' spice rack. This is a truly versatile blend of peppers and salts and it can go on anything. It's not just for crab legs and shrimp but for meats , poultry and even veggies.

I recently used this the other week on Gardein's fish fillets. The flavor enhanced the seafood and left a light delicate flavor. Being impressed I looked into the blend's history as well as recipe and discovered its' interesting history as well as some equally interesting recipes.Most associate Old Bay with Maryland and the crab industry and they would be right. Yet it was created only as recently as 1939 , thanks to a German immigrant, Gustav Brunn, fleeing the Nazis in late 1930's . He ironically came from the landlocked city of Bastheim, near Frankfurt. with only a spice grinder. Herr Brunn settled in Baltimore and started the Baltimore Spice Company and soon after the most famous offering was created. It was and still is just a simple blend of celery salt, black pepper, crushed red pepper flakes and paprika, The name came from The Old Bay Line,  a passenger ship line that sailed on the Chesapeake Bay, from Baltimore to Norfolk , Virginia in the early 1900's. Primarily it was used just on crab legs, mainly to season the water in which the crabs were boiled.

Now Old Bay can be used on anything and everything. You can still use it on seafood and may home chefs use it in both crab salad and crab cakes. Two teaspoons can thoroughly season a pound of lump crab meat. Additional Old Bay can be sprinkled on for a dash of more flavor and color. Bake the crab legs brushed with melted butter and a generous sprinkle of the seasoning. Lobster can also be spiked with it for taste and color. giving the meat a lovely coral color. If you're not into seafood then try Old Bay with eggs. Sprinkle over eggs sunnyside up or on top of  Eggs Benedict. Remember to add it to the accompanying Bloody Mary on the last. Old Bay can also be part of a tangy barbecue sauce for chicken. Mix it into ketchup, cider vinegar, dark honey or brown sugar. Before grilling oil the chicken and brush on a layer of the spices then, add the barbecue sauce. reserve some for dipping. This would also make a great sauce for chicken nuggets and tenders too. Grilled veggies can also benefit from a dusting of Old Bay. Mix a tablespoon of it  with either olive or vegetable oil in a bowl, add cut up eggplant, squash and bell peppers to it, Grill in a basket or thread on skewers and grill.

Old Bay Seasoning is the must have in every kitchen. Have a container of it for not just seafood but for other meats and veggies. It's not just for crab , shrimp and lobster.It's for everything!!!!

A Divine Dish For Diwali

  Since it's Diwali, the Indian festival of light, I decided to celebrate with a tasty cholay I first made for the blog on August 4, 2018, (check it out for the full recipe.) It's a mix of cooked potatoes, chickpeas and diced tomatoes sauteed in a mix of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter and veggie oil.

 I made double the amount and shortened some steps, like subbing in onion powder for chopped onions. The recipe was doubled and since I didn't have curry , I used turmeric and curry powder instead along with a good dose of garlic salt.

This is the end result - a tasty tribute to the holiday of lights.