Archive for September, 2011

Building Soups

Friday, September 30th, 2011

As fall settles in, the chill in the air makes me want to pull out my soup pot and put it to work. As food writer Laurie Colwin wrote, “To feel safe and warm on a cold, wet night, all you really need is soup.” The good news is that you can create a wonderful, nourishing soup with just what you have on hand in your refrigerator or pantry following this basic formula:

1. Sauté diced aromatic vegetables (onion, garlic, shallots, leeks, carrots, parsnips, or celery) in a little fat (duck fat, butter, olive or vegetables oil, or bacon fat) until they’re tender.

2. Add a stock that will complement your ingredients, and maybe a splash of wine, dense vegetables (or other ingredients that need a longer cooking time), dried herbs, and spices.

3. Simmer until all the ingredients are fully cooked and tender, usually 30-40 minutes. Add uncooked pasta after about 20 minutes of cooking time.

4. Toward the end of cooking time, add any pre-cooked ingredients such as beans or meat, delicate vegetables that don’t require much cooking time, and fresh herbs.

5. Season your soup with salt and pepper, and finish it with a splash of acid (wine, vinegar, citrus juice) and/or fat (butter, olive oil, duck fat, or cream).

Need a little inspiration? We’ve got a soup-pot-full of great soup recipes here at MTG. Some of my favorites are Apple-Butternut Squash Soup, Better Than Grandma’s Mushroom Barley Soup, Four Bean Soup, Roasted Cauliflower and Gorgonzola Bisque, and our incredibly simple Spinach Tortellini Soup. The only hard part is deciding which soup to make.

 

 

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Posted in Cooking with the Seasons, Tips and Techniques

About Demi-Glace . . .

Wednesday, September 21st, 2011

Demi-glace, a rich, meaty, concentrated, dark reddish brown sauce, can be swirled into sauces, stews, and soups to add a complex, nearly mysterious flavor. You can add a little port wine or some sautéed mushrooms to demi-glace and almost instantly have a deliciously nuanced sauce. French chef Jacques Pepin called demi-glace “the hidden and modest friend which enables a cook to produce a well-finished, long-simmered sauce in minutes.”

Demi-glace is a cornerstone of classic French sauce making. It is one of the five “mother sauces” of French cuisine, a core group of sauces from which the large family of French sauces is derived. “Demi-glace,” literally translated, means “half glaze.” It is a mixture of brown stock (usually roasted veal or veal and beef stock) and Espagnole Sauce, which is a brown sauce made with reduced brown stock, herbs, tomato, and caramelized aromatic vegetables and thickened with a browned roux. This mixture is slowly simmered over a long period of time until it is reduced by half, which is where demi-glace gets its name.

The resulting sauce is highly flavored, glossy, full-bodied, and deeply colored. However, making it from scratch can be something of a challenge for a home cook—the combination of the cost of the ingredients and the time required to make the brown stock, then the Espagnole Sauce, and then the demi-glace is something of a problem. Julia Child pointed out in Mastering the Art of French Cooking that demi-glace “may take several days to accomplish, and the result is splendid. But as we are concerned with less formal cooking, we shall discuss it no further.”

The answer, according to many chefs, including sauce authority James Peterson, is to cook with a high-quality, commercially prepared demi-glace like More Than Gourmet’s Demi-Glace Gold®, a classic French demi-glace. Having demi-glace on hand in your pantry opens up a world of sauce options, both classic and contemporary. Add Madeira wine to demi-glace to make classic Madeira Sauce; add red wine and beef marrow to make a classic Bordelaise Sauce; add black truffles to make Sauce Périgueux; add onions to make Sauce Lyonnaise; add white wine and herbs to make a Fines Herbes Sauce.

Demi-glace can also be the perfect addition to make a killer barbecue sauce or to deepen the flavor of an Italian meat sauce for pasta. At MTG, we’ve added demi-glace to mushroom soup, simmered veal meatballs in demi-glace, and even combined demi-glace with beer and chile sauce to make braising liquid for lamb shanks—and we’re still coming up with more ways to cook with it. The possibilities are many, and demi-glace is a great friend to have in the kitchen.

 

 

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Posted in Market to Table, Tips and Techniques

Going with the Grain

Friday, September 9th, 2011

Wild Rice with Walnuts, Barley and Corn Salad with Basil, Hearty Bulgur Pilaf, Quinoa and Avocado Salad, Five-Spice Brown Rice with Almonds: some of our favorite dishes at MTG are made with whole grains. They make terrific starters, side dishes, and entrées—and, in case you haven’t seen any headlines, they have their own holiday month, too. September is Whole Grains Month, as proclaimed by the Whole Grains Council.

Headlines, or not, it seems like a month worth celebrating. The health benefits of eating whole grains are well known: reducing the risk of chronic diseases like heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, and obesity. The other good, and not-so-well-known news is how delicious whole grains are. The have a full, nutty flavor and a hearty, chewy texture, and they come in a rainbow of shapes and colors, from spiky, brown-black wild rice to tiny golden orbs of amaranth.

I cook with whole grains frequently, and I hear about them all the time (their health benefits have made them a top food-advertising buzz word—just take a look at your breakfast cereal box), but I wasn’t sure I could actually tell you exactly what whole grains are. Turns out the Whole Grains Council can. According to their very informative web site, “Whole grains or foods made from them contain all the essential parts and naturally-occurring nutrients of the entire grain seed”—so no processing to get rid of the good, nutritious, and tasty parts.

Included on the list of whole grains are amaranth, barley, buckwheat, corn (including corn meal and popcorn), millet, oats, quinoa, brown and colored rices, wheat, and wild rice, among others. They’re easy to prepare—just put the dry grain in a pan with water or stock, bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until the grains are tender and the liquid is absorbed. Stock, usually veggie or chicken, is always my cooking liquid of choice because it enhances the natural flavor of the grain and adds another dimension of flavor to your dish very simply.

To have whole grains on hand anytime you want, so you can toss some into a soup or salad, or add a handful to a batch of sautéed veggies for a side dish, you can cook them in a large batch. Cooked whole grains keep well for several days in a covered container in the refrigerator, and you can also freeze them in portion-size quantities and pull them out as you need them.

Need some other delicious ideas for adding whole grains to your menu?  Use the search box at our web site and enter the name of the grain you’re interested in. You’ll find Turkey and Wild Rice Soup, Herbed Quinoa Pilaf with Vegetables, Brown Rice Salad with Tomatoes and Green Beans, and more—and celebrate Whole Grains Month in style!

 

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Posted in Market to Table, Tips and Techniques, What's News Now

Ribs Again

Thursday, September 1st, 2011

With summer’s last holiday weekend coming up, I have ribs on the brain—barbecued babyback ribs, that is.  Smoky, fall-off-the bone tender meat dripping with thick, savory-sweet-spicy sauce.  It seems like I make barbecued ribs for every summer holiday I can, even Flag Day or the ever popular Shark Awareness day in July or Elvis Presley Remembrance Day in August.   I think ribs are appropriate for all occasions, except maybe when you’re in a situation where you can’t lick your fingers, but I try to avoid those.

The best ribs start with a good rub—mine is a combination of herbs and spices including lemon pepper, dry mustard, and healthy doses of paprika and chile powder—applied in generous amounts at least 24 hours ahead.  Giving the ribs some time with the rub allows the flavors from the rub to permeate the meat.  (For any rib newbies out there: be sure to remove the thin sheath of cartilage from the back of the ribs before applying the rub.  Nick it with a knife to get a hold on it, then pull it off using a paper towel to give you a firm grip.)

Next comes the most important part: the smoking.  I smoke my ribs in a charcoal grill over indirect heat (mound the charcoal on one side and place ribs on the rack over the other side) with big chunks of soaked hickory wood nestled in among the coals.  I put a foil pan filled with water under the ribs (beneath the rack) to catch drippings and provide a little moisturizing steam heat.  You can get the job done with a gas grill, too.  After preheating for bit, just turn off the burners on half the grill; place your hickory chunks on a piece of heavy foil and set it on top of the steel grate protecting the burner that is still on; find an empty corner somewhere to set your foil pan of water.

After the ribs have smoked low and slow—between 250 and 300 degrees for about an hour and a half—I check to make sure they’re done. The bone ends will be exposed, the meat will be starting to pull away from the bones, and the surface of the meat will be reddish brown.  The meatiest section of the slabs should have an internal temperature of 165 to 175 degrees. Once they pass the doneness test, I wrap them in foil and then in a thick layer of newspaper, where they rest for 30-40 minutes so the juices can stabilize in the meat, insuring a tender result.

Finally, the finishing touch: sauce.  While the ribs are resting, I gently heat my barbecue sauce in a little pan.  My favorite sauce is Best Barbecue Sauce, although I sometimes use Jamaican Jerk Sauce or Maple-Chipotle Sauce to change things up a little. Just before serving, I brush the ribs generously with sauce and cut the slabs into sections.  I serve them heaped on a huge platter, with a bowl of extra sauce and a big stack of napkins, and invite everyone to dig in.

Can’t wait for the next holiday.  I think Elephant Appreciation Day in September might be the perfect occasion for another batch of ribs.

 

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Posted in Cooking with the Seasons, Tips and Techniques