Menus for Mom

May 9th, 2012 by SauceGal

Pondering the best way to treat the mom in your family to a special meal this Sunday?  One of the best gifts you can give is a dinner at home, cooked with love by her nearest and dearest.  The only difficulty may be figuring out what to make.  Here are a few options for you from the kitchens of More Than Gourmet:

Option 1: If you need something simple (life tends to get incredibly busy for many families around the middle of May), or if you’re a novice cook, here are a couple of  delicious menus that are relatively quick and don’t demand the skills of Jacques Pepin to prepare.

Simple Green Salad
Chicken and Wild Mushrooms Supreme 
Quick Fudgy Brownies or Brownies from Mom’s favorite bakery
OR
Braised Shrimp with Pancetta 
Rice Pilaf with Onions and Fennel 
Steamed Green Beans with Butter
Vanilla Ice Cream with Sliced Strawberries

Option 2: If you want to impress Mom a bit, put in some time in the kitchen, and maybe draft some other family members to join in the fun of cooking, here are two menus that will allow you to show off a little.

Braised Salmon with Asparagus and Mushrooms 
Yukon Gold Garlic Smashed Potatoes 
Lemon Bars with Fresh Raspberries
OR 
Pork with Cherry and Port Wine Sauce
Rosemary Roasted Potatoes 
Julia’s Carrots 
Chocolate Hazelnut Tart (a delectable, simple recipe found in Gourmet magazine back in the day . . .)

Option 3: If you love to cook and want to spend a day in the kitchen creating a to-die-for family feast, turn on the jazz (or Beethoven), roll up the sleeves of your chef’s jacket, and try out one of these menus.

Toasted Almonds Tossed with Smoked Paprika
Arugula and Frisée Salad with Oranges, Red Onions, Black Olives and Red Wine Vinaigrette
Seafood and Chorizo Paella 
Flan (creamy caramel custard) 
OR
Antipasti Platter (marinated roasted veggies, olives, sliced cured meats and cheeses)
Veal Osso Buco 
Risotto Milanese 
Roasted Asparagus
Chocolate Polenta Pudding Cake with Coffee Gelato

Whatever you cook for Mom this Sunday, she’ll know she’s loved and appreciated when she sits down to the meal you’ve prepared for her.  Happy Mothers’ Day from our kitchen to yours.

 

 

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Posted in Cooking with the Seasons, The Holiday Kitchen

Cooking Up Some Mushrooms

April 26th, 2012 by SauceGal

Spring is wild mushroom season in many parts of the country.  It’s the time when mushroom hunters spirit away to their secret spots and come back, if they’re lucky, with a mother lode of these earthy delicacies.  The wild mushroom’s cousins, cultivated mushrooms, are available all year, but they seem new again this time of year, adding a savory note to the fresh flavors of spring.

Whether you hunt mushrooms in the wild or in the produce aisle, one of the best ways to enjoy them is simply sautéed.  Choose a skillet just large enough to hold the mushrooms in a single layer.  Heat the skillet over medium-high to high heat.  When it’s hot, add equal parts oil and butter to the pan.  Once the butter has just started to brown, add the mushrooms and cook, stirring constantly until they’re browned, usually about 2-3 minutes.  I like to sauté them until they’re even a little crisp around the edges.  The complex, intense flavor of the caramelized mushrooms is delicious.  All they need is a sprinkle of salt and pepper, and maybe some chopped fresh herbs like parsley, sage, or chives.   Sautéed mushrooms are great with pasta and rice, over nearly anything from the grill, as an addition to salads or sautéed greens, or in omelets.

Mushrooms also show up in the hearty soups, stews, and braises of fall and winter, but in the spring I especially like them in the light, brothy soups that come from Asian cuisines:  Miso Soup, Asian Vegetable Noodle Soup, Hot and Sour Soup with Shrimp, and Egg Drop Soup.  Mushrooms round out the delicate flavors of spring braises, too, in our Braised Salmon with Asparagus and Mushrooms  and Braised Spring Vegetables.

In some of my favorite spring dishes, mushrooms move from a supporting role to center stage.  Wild Mushroom Risotto has layers of tasty mushroom flavor from fresh wild mushrooms and MTG’s Mushroom Essence. Morel Sauce is a decadent combination of fresh (or dried) morels, our White Wine Sauce, and silky cream—it’s terrific over fat spears of roasted asparagus.  When I’m in the mood for something really rich and indulgent, there’s Penne with Morels, pasta tossed with a morel cream sauce accented with our Mushroom Essence, bacon, shallots, and sherry.

Perhaps the best way to enjoy spring mushrooms, wild or cultivated, is with this simple pasta dish:

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.  In a skillet, sauté some fresh mushrooms until they’re browned and almost crisp.  Remove the mushrooms from the pan and set them aside.  Add 4 cups of our diluted Mushroom Essence to the skillet and bring it to a low simmer over low heat, stirring to scrape up the browned bits.  Leave the mushroom stock at a simmer and cook some simple cheese ravioli in the boiling water.  When the pasta is almost done, use a slotted spoon to transfer it to the simmering mushroom stock.  Cook it for a few minutes in the stock, then transfer it to warmed shallow bowls. Ladle some of the mushroom stock over the ravioli and top it with the sautéed mushrooms, a generous grind of pepper, some grated Parmesan, and chopped fresh mint or chives.

It’s spring in a bowl—and the perfect use for your mother lode, whether from the forest or the grocery store.

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Posted in Cooking with the Seasons, Market to Table, Tips and Techniques

Liquid Gold

April 19th, 2012 by SauceGal

According to one culinary trendspotter, “Duck fat is this year’s bacon.”  We’re glad to know that our MTG Graisse de Canard Gold rendered duck fat is at the forefront of the newest trends in food, but, truth be told, duck fat has long been a staple of French cooking.  For duck confit, one of the most revered classic French dishes, duck is salted, slowly cooked in duck fat until it is fall-apart tender, then packed into a crock and sealed with more duck fat to preserve it.  Duck fat is also a key ingredient in cassoulet, a traditional, hearty, rustic French stew made with beans and meat or game.

Today’s cooks love duck fat for some of the same reasons yesterday’s cooks did: its high flash point, its silky, rich mouth feel, and the deep, savory flavor it imparts to food.  Today’s cooks also love duck fat because it’s a minimally processed, single ingredient food, and it contains 66% unsaturated fat and significantly less saturated fat than butter and other animal fats, making duck fat a healthier choice.

Duck fat is wonderful for making French fries, roasting potatoes, and sautéing vegetables and greens. Brown some wild mushrooms in duck fat with garlic, or braise red cabbage with onions in duck fat and red wine.  Rub duck fat on the outside of a chicken or duck before roasting to achieve a rich, golden brown finish. Substitute duck fat for part of the butter in mashed potatoes to add an entirely new dimension to the dish.  At MTG, we use duck fat to make croutons, and to make a favorite snack we discovered in Italy: lightly battered fresh sage leaves fried in duck fat.

The chef at the 21 Club in New York City makes his famous burgers with premium ground beef blended with seasonings and a couple of tablespoons of duck fat.  At Lush Wine Bar in Chicago, they pop their bar popcorn in duck fat.  There’s even a popular restaurant in Portland, Maine called Duck Fat, where the signature dish is classic Belgian fries made with local potatoes fried in (guess what!) duck fat and served with your choice of several gourmet dipping sauces.  On their dessert menu are Duck Fat Beignets, duck-fat-fried doughnut holes topped with powdered sugar, cinnamon sugar, or chocolate sauce.

And, speaking of dessert, duck fat also makes a very tasty pastry when substituted for some of the butter or shortening in the recipe, great for pecan pie.  No wonder duck fat’s star is on the rise again.  It’s incredibly versatile, with uses in myriad dishes from fries to pie.  It’s relatively healthy.  And it’s absolutely delicious.  As food writer Garrett McCord said, “Duck fat is the real liquid gold . . . [it] simply makes food sing.”

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Posted in Market to Table, Tips and Techniques

Soups for Spring

April 12th, 2012 by SauceGal

From sunny days and warm breezes to snow blowing down from grim clouds on a chilly wind, spring weather is often all over the map.  On those suddenly cold and gray days of spring, soup seems like the perfect comfort food.  Spring also brings a fresh crop of sweet, crisp vegetables perfect for soups: asparagus, peas, carrots, spinach, artichokes, spring onions, and wild mushrooms.

Simple soups made with spring vegetables don’t need much dressing up, just enough to enhance the vegetables’ delicate flavors without overwhelming them–maybe some fresh herbs, a little ginger, or a squeeze of lemon juice.  A few of our favorite spring vegetable soups at MTG are Pea Soup with Mint, Velvet Carrot and Ginger Soup, and simple Asparagus Soup.  We also love Lemon Asparagus Barley Soup, a version of Greek avgolemono soup with crisp asparagus and chewy barley.

Tender noodles are an ideal companion for spring vegetables in soups.  Float some cooked pasta in a flavorful broth and add a handful of fresh veggies, and you have a terrific soup.  We like Spinach Tortellini Soup for a quick meal, as well as Chef Mick’s Old-Fashioned Chicken Noodle Soup and hearty Mushroom and Orzo Soup.

The lively, diverse flavors of Asian cuisine are a natural in spring soups, too.  Try our Thai Chicken Soup with Rice, scented with lemon grass, ginger, and cilantro, or our Pan-Pacific Noodle Soup with chilies, lime, and scallions.  Pork Won Ton Soup, Asian Vegetable Noodle Soup, and Spicy Shrimp with Rice Noodles are other light, delicious soups filled with great Asian flavors.

Not matter what approach you take to making it, there’s no better way to celebrate–and weather–the ups and downs of spring than a steaming bowl of fragrant soup studded with bright spring veggies.

 

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Posted in Cooking with the Seasons, Tips and Techniques

Sauces for Your Easter Table

April 5th, 2012 by SauceGal

At MTG, one of our favorite sayings is “It’s all about the sauce.”  More often than not, all you need is a good sauce to take a meal from ordinary to festive.  For a holiday meal like Easter, when we may be juggling the many aspects of putting together a holiday feast for family and friends, sauce is our not-so-secret strategy for adding flavor, texture, and just the right touch to a basic meat-and-potatoes (or fish-and-potatoes) meal.

Easter is also a time to enjoy the fresh, bright flavors of spring or indulge a bit to celebrate.  Lamb is one of our favorite centerpieces for an Easter feast, as is a succulent ham.  When we want to go with something a little lighter, salmon is a great choice.  Here are a few terrific sauce recipes from our kitchens for all three:

For Lamb: Whether you choose to use the herb crust or not, the basic red wine pan sauce from our Herb-Crusted Leg of Lamb is a beautiful complement to lamb, as is our simple Mustard Sauce.

For Ham: The flavors in these pan sauces marry well with savory baked ham–Fresh Citrus Pan Sauce, Maple Mustard Pan Sauce, Normandy Style Pan Sauce.

For Lamb and Ham: Sauces with a little sweetness, or a sweet-and-sour flavor often work nicely with both lamb and ham.  Here are a few we like: Black Grape and Balsamic Sauce, Madeira Sauce, and Quick Port Wine Sauce.

For Salmon: Because salmon is so versatile,  you can go with lighter fresh or tangy flavors in Pea Sauce with Chives, Quick Spinach Velouté, Mustard and White Wine Sauce, or Quick Ravigote Sauce–or you can go with a richer or heartier sauce like our Mushroom Ragout or Tarragon Cream Sauce.

For other great sauce ideas, take a look at our sauce recipe collection and find  just the right sauce for your Easter table.

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Posted in Cooking with the Seasons, The Holiday Kitchen

An Asparagus Almanac

March 27th, 2012 by SauceGal

Nothing says spring like the abundance of bright green asparagus showing up in markets and grocery stores. A member of the lily family, asparagus is actually the tender shoot of a fern-like plant that grows four feet tall and bears red berries. Its harvest season is from February to June, depending on where it’s grown, and the height of asparagus season is usually April and May—so the best is yet to come for all of us who enjoy asparagus.

Most asparagus you’ll find is green, but you may also see some gorgeous purple asparagus, and occasionally white asparagus, grown with soil mounded over it to prevent it from coloring, which is common in Europe. Asparagus spears can be pencil thin, or as big around as your thumb. Thin spears come from younger plants and are more tender, while the thicker spears come from older plants and have a sturdier texture and a more robust flavor. Which is better? I like both—the thin ones raw or blanched, the thick ones roasted or grilled.

Buy asparagus with bright color, firm texture, and tightly closed tips. This vegetable has a high water content, so avoid shriveled spears, which indicate that it’s not fresh. The best way to store asparagus is to cut about ½ inch off the stalks, stand them in a container in an inch or two of water, cover the tops with plastic wrap, and keep them in the refrigerator for no more than 3 days. As with corn, it’s best to cook asparagus as soon as possible because it contains sugars that start converting to starches as soon as it’s harvested. The sooner it’s eaten, the more sweet, tender, and flavorful it will be.

To prepare asparagus for cooking, clean it and then remove the tough ends of the stalks. The thinner ones will break naturally where the stalks begin to get tough. For thicker asparagus, use a knife to cut off the bottoms of the stalks just where they begin to change color. Some cooks swear by peeling asparagus, I don’t usually bother with it. If the asparagus is trimmed properly, it’s tender when cooked.

One of the great things about asparagus is that it can be cooked in so many different ways: steamed, boiled, sautéed, roasted, or grilled. Roasted asparagus has become a favorite at our house—just coat it with a little olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and roast it in a 400-degree oven for 12-20 minutes (thicker spears need longer cooking time). Roasting concentrates the flavors and sugars in asparagus and reduces the water content so it accepts sauces and dressings more readily.

Asparagus loves butter, olive oil, cheeses (especially goat cheese and Parmesan), herbs (like dill, parsley, and tarragon), leeks and sweet onions, mustard, mushrooms, other spring vegetables (like baby carrots, peas, artichokes, and snap peas), eggs, and lemon (especially when they’re combined in Hollandaise sauce). Spears of the tender green asparagus are terrific raw in salads or as a crudité. Cooked asparagus can be added to omelets and pasta.

Here are a few favorite asparagus dishes to celebrate spring:

Asparagus Risotto

Braised Spring Vegetables

Asparagus Soup

Braised Salmon with Asparagus and Mushrooms

Spring Vegetables with Orzo

Lemon Asparagus Barley Soup

Morel Sauce for Asparagus

 

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Posted in Cooking with the Seasons, Market to Table, Tips and Techniques

Season to Taste

March 23rd, 2012 by SauceGal

I love the “aha moment” in cooking: when I’ve been tasting and seasoning a soup and finally it’s just right, when I bite into a perfectly ripe pear that doesn’t need another thing, when a drizzle of sauce on roasted meat brings out its deep, savory taste.  Something just clicks.  The flavor is just what I want.  That’s what makes good cooking: adding flavor, enhancing flavor, or just bringing out the naturally great flavor of good food.  And it’s not that hard to do.  A simple step or two can take a dish from OK to amazing.

I sometimes say that the most important thing I learned in cooking school was how to season food.  It’s a small thing with big results: the difference between a bland, unsatisfying dish that you eat out of necessity and a delicious, wonderfully nuanced experience is often just salt and pepper. Seasoning is a key way to build flavor.  Whether you’re making chicken soup, mashed potatoes, a roasted beef tenderloin, or sautéed snap peas, seasoning with salt and pepper early in the cooking process, and then again near the end (if necessary) will make the flavors dance in your mouth.

Kosher salt is popular with chefs because it dissolves quickly, and sea salt works, well, too.  Always go for freshly ground pepper (from whole peppercorns ground in a pepper grinder, not pre-ground pepper from a jar or tin) for maximum flavor. There are many specialty and flavored salts and exotic peppers available now–it’s fun to experiment with them, but always taste them before using them to season a dish.

In addition to salt and pepper, traditional French cooking includes grated or ground nutmeg and cayenne on the list of standard seasonings. The nutmeg and cayenne are added in very small quantities, and they give a subtle, tasty complexity to soups, sauces, and vegetable and meat dishes. (Ground allspice is substituted for the nutmeg with beef and lamb.) Try adding a little nutmeg and cayenne to your next soup, sauce, or batch of mashed potatoes and see what you think.

The seasoning in your cooking should always be according to your taste, meaning you taste the food and season it until it tastes right–really delicious–to you.  Once you get to that point, stop: your food should taste seasoned, not salty or peppery.  Finally, it doesn’t matter how much salt and pepper your recipe says to add.  No cookbook author or celebrity chef or food blogger knows how your food should taste.  You do.  You’re in charge of your kitchen, so season to your own taste.

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Posted in Tips and Techniques

Savoring Ireland

March 13th, 2012 by SauceGal

Forget about green milkshakes, green beer, and plastic shamrocks—St. Patrick’s day is a great reason to explore and enjoy fine Irish food and drink:  artisan cheeses, from vintage Cheddar to Cashel Blue; rich, creamy butters; salmon from the rivers and scallops, oysters, and mackerel from the coast; venison, beef, and lamb transformed into stews and pies with flaky, golden crusts; dark soda bread studded with sweet raisins; earthy carrots, parsnips, turnips, and cabbage.

And then there is the Irish potato: grated and formed into cakes, it’s boxty; mashed and combined with spring onions and topped with melted butter, it’s champ; mashed and melded with savory cooked cabbage or kale, it’s colcannon.  What to drink?  Silky black dry Irish stout, sweet and toasty Irish red ale, or crisp, light-bodied Irish lager.  For dessert?  Often a humble cake, pie or pudding made with apples, or perhaps with chocolate with a whisper of fine Irish whiskey (and the whiskey is very nice by itself, too).

So much great inspiration comes from Irish cooks, brewers, distillers, and food artisans, it’s hard to narrow it down enough to choose what to eat come March 17.  At our house, I think it will be lamb stew, or maybe corned beef and cabbage, or maybe shepherd’s pie.  Maybe we should just celebrate a St. Patrick’s week instead—so we can get it all in.

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Posted in Cooking with the Seasons

Go Fish

March 7th, 2012 by SauceGal

From Salmon Filets Poached in Tomato and Olive Sauce to Seafood and Chorizo Paella, to Thai Scallops and Spinach over Rice, what’s not to love about seafood? It’s flavorful, versatile, good for us, and can be prepared quickly—and we now have more good fish and shellfish choices available in markets and grocery stores than ever before. At MTG we love cooking with seafood and have learned some things about it over the years. Here are a few of our favorite tips:

–Take your fish out of the refrigerator for 20 minutes or so before cooking. Letting it warm a bit allows it to cook more evenly.

–A wide, slotted spatula is a seafood cook’s best friend. It’s perfect for lifting a filet out of a pan or moving chunks of seafood around without causing them to fall apart.

–Fish cools rapidly after cooking, so warm your plates or serving platter ahead of time.

–There are many cooking methods for seafood (frying, baking/roasting, poaching, steaming), but only one primary pitfall to avoid: overcooking. We have always relied on the Canadian Department of Fisheries rule of thumb for cooking fish: 10 minutes of cooking time per inch of thickness, measured at the thickest point. Fish does continue to cook after it’s removed from the heat, however, so we usually start checking at about 8 minutes per inch and stop cooking just before the fish is done. If the fish is wrapped in foil, we add another 3-5 minutes per inch.

–To check if fish is done, insert the tines of a fork or the tip of a sharp knife into the fish and twist it slightly. The fish should have turned from translucent to opaque, the top should just begin to flake, and there should be some resistance closer to the center. Some people like fattier fish, like tuna and salmon, a little less done—opaque on the outside, but still translucent in the center.

–Baked or roasted fish needs a little help to stay moist. Add some insulation by covering the pan, or coat the fish with buttered crumbs, sliced or julienned vegetables, or a tasty sauce.

–When broiling or grilling fish, place it 3 to 6 inches from the heat source. The larger the piece of fish, the further away from the heat it should be. If a fish filet is very thin, it may not need to be turned over.

–To keep fish from sticking to the pan when you’re frying or sautéing, heat the pan first, then add the oil. When you see the first faint wisps of smoke from the oil, add the fish to the pan and turn the heat down a bit.

–A delicious sauce can make good seafood even better. Here are a few we like: Basil Sauce de Mer, Curry Sauce, Mediterranean Mushroom-Olive Sauce, Pea Sauce with Chives, Sauce Bercy, Mustard and White Wine Sauce, Tarragon Cream Sauce, Roasted Red Pepper Sauce, and Corn Cream Sauce.

–To learn more about choosing seafood that is good for you and good for the planet take a look at the Seafood Watch web site sponsored by the Monterey Bay Aquarium: www.montereybayaquarium.org/seafoodwatch. Lots of great info there.

 

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Posted in Cooking with the Seasons, Tips and Techniques

Pot Pie

March 1st, 2012 by SauceGal

It’s a blustery day, just about right for the first day of March, and just about perfect for making a quintessential comfort food—chicken pot pie.  Something about tender chunks of chicken and vegetables swathed in a savory sauce and blanketed with buttery, golden pastry makes the gray skies and damp, chilly winds seem not quite so gray and chilly.  I remember burning my mouth nearly every time we had pot pie when I was growing up.  I’d be so eager to dig in that I couldn’t wait for the thing to cool first.

Pot pies are a little homely and old-fashioned, perfect for hungry kids or hungry grownups, but they’ve attained a sort of retro glamour lately.  You see pot pie proudly featured next to the gourmet mac and cheese on many restaurant menus now.  And guess what Wolfgang Puck included in the feast he prepared for the Governors’ Ball at this year’s Oscars?  Yes, chicken pot pie, with shaved black truffles, of course.

What I like best about pot pies is how simple and versatile they are.   There are just two basic components, the filling and the crust, and both can be easily varied, depending on what you have on hand.  For the basic chicken pot pie filling, you sauté some vegetables, sprinkle them with flour, stir in some stock, and cook for a few minutes.  Then you stir in a little cream if you like, along with chunks of cooked chicken and a handful of peas.  The filling goes into a pie dish, you top it with pie crust, and into the oven it goes.

The ingredients in the filling could be almost anything—leftover roast beef and mushrooms make a delicious pot pie, as do turkey, roasted vegetables and seafood.  As far as the crust goes, if you’re not a baker, you can buy commercially prepared pie crust dough or puff pastry.  If you want to change things up a bit, try making the crust with buttered layers of filo dough.  You can also substitute a layer of mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, or butternut squash for the pastry and voilá, you have an equally delicious dish, a shepherd’s pie.  One of my favorite pot pie variations is a Tex-Mex style one with a cornmeal and Cheddar crust.

The pot-pie possibilities are probably endless, but I can tell you one thing.  No matter how much the howling winds of March make you want to go for some instant gratification when your pot pie emerges golden and great-smelling from the oven, do your best to give it time to cool a bit before you devour it.

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Posted in Cooking with the Seasons, Tips and Techniques

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