Vive la Bretagne : ICE Revisited

As some of you may remember, I had the pleasure of taking my very first cooking class this past Fall. Ever since attending "Elegant Autumn Desserts" with Chef Vicki Wells at the Institute for Culinary Education in downtown Manhattan, I'd been aching to go back and try my hand on some other delicacies.

The Institute for Culinary Education is located on 23rd street between 5th and 6th avenue, and offers a full range of recreational cooking classes for those interested in cooking, baking, wine and bar-tending, and cheese.

This time around--motivated by the gift of two cooking classes of my choice for Christmas--I decided to opt for a cooking class as opposed to a baking class. People always ask me what I prefer--cooking or baking. I'd have to say that I prefer baking, because it just comes to me more naturally. There seems to me that there is less room for error, and who could say no to working with ingredients like cream, chocolate, and sugar? I do enjoy cooking though, even though it does not come as easily to me.

This time around, I chose Vive la Bretagne, a celebration of tradition Bréton cuisine. The class was taught by Chef Hervé Riou who is an ambassador of Breton cuisine in the United States, representing the Union Culinaire Bretonne. My motivations for taking this particular class were twofold: first, my family originates from Brittany, the northwestern peninsula of France that projects into the Atlantic Ocean, and, second, I was looking to acquire some tricksy cooking skills.

The class was limited to 20 people and was spread over four hours on a Monday morning. The price was reasonable, considering the time in the kitchen, the price of the materials, and the fact that you got to take bags of goodies home. (I have what must amount to three rabbits in my fridge.)

Within our four hours we made Salade de Roscoff (salad of warm seasonal vegetables in an herb vinaigrette), Timbale de saumon aux herbes et fenouil marinée (smoked salmon served with marinated fennel in lemon and creme fouette with shallots confit), Soupe de poisson cotriade (traditional fish soup), Medaillons de veau à la mode d'Iffiniac (sautéed veal medaillons with Muscadet, onion and grated cheese), Coquille St Jacques à la Concarnoise (pan-seared scallops served with a ragout of chanterelles or wild mushrooms and a vermouth reduction), Lapin sauté aux herbes de Bretagnes (rabbit braised with mushroom shallots parsley and a white wine-herb infusion), Flan de St Enogat (flan with marc of cider and apples or pears caramalized), and Traou Mad (traditional butter cake).

Each one was relatively simple to make, and came out looking and tasting divine. Each used tools and ingredients that are easily available and that shouldn't be too much of a drain on the budget.

Look for each recipe as I remake them in the confines of my home kitchen in the next few weeks!

Turkey Tips and Tricks

If your family is anything like mine, Thanksgiving dinner is the dinner that keeps on giving. Even though we only get a small bird (usually no more than 12 pounds for 3 people), it's almost certain that we will be eating turkey in various combinations for the next week.

If you've got a lot of leftover turkey in the fridge and are looking for ways to spice up your leftovers in the next few days, take a look at these terrific variations on Thanksgiving leftovers.

Hearty Turkey Stock

When you've finished picking the bones of your turkey clean, don't throw out the carcass! You can use the leftover bones from your turkey as the base of a flavorful stock that you can use for soups, stews, and sauces. This works best the day or two after the turkey has been cooked. 

5 pound turkey carcass, with a little bit of meat still attached to the bones

3 large onions, halved with the skin on

1/2 pound of carrots, peeled and cut into large pieces

2 large celery ribs, sliced

2 tsps dried thyme

1 tsp pepper

8 sprigs of parsley

First, break up the carcass into smaller pieces. If there are pieces of meat or fat left on the bones, make sure to add them to the stock for extra flavor. Once you have done this, combine all of your ingredients in a large stockpot. Add enough cold water to submerge the ingredients by about 3 inches. 

Bring the stock to a boil and then quickly reduce to a simmer, where bubbles barely break the surface. Make sure that the stock does not boil or come to a rapid simmer. Simmer until flavorful--about 2 or 3 hours--skimming the fat off the top as it cooks.

Strain the stock through a fine sieve and discard the vegetables. To store your stock, refrigerate for up to one week or freeze for up to six months. 

Turkey BLTs

It's like the traditional favorite, except made with turkey instead of beef. A lighter alternative that will keep the lunchtime hunger at bay.

Your favorite sliced bread

Bacon

Mayonnaise

Tomato

Lettuce

Slices of turkey breast

Cook the bacon until it is the desired crispiness and dab off the excess oil on a paper towel. Meanwhile, toast your bread and chop your tomatoes. When the bread is done, add mayonnaise to each side and layer on the tomatoes, lettuce, turkey, and bacon. 

Turkey Salad Wraps

This is one of my favorite wraps that I order at the sandwich shop. The light honey-mustard and vinegar sauce is a nice kick to the turkey, and the arugula adds a bit of crunch. 

Serves 2

1 turkey breast, cooked, and diced

3 tbsps mayonnaise 

1.5 tbsps honey mustard

3/4 tsp white-wine vinegar
A few handfuls of arugula

Salt and pepper

2 wraps, preferably spinach

Take your diced turkey and put it in a medium bowl. Add the mayonnaise, mustard, vinegar, and spices, seasoning to taste, and making sure to coat the turkey thoroughly. Take the arugula and place a little in the center of each wrap, then spoon turkey salad down the center of the wrap. Fold the wrap up and serve with a side salad.

Rustic Turkey Sandwich

This take on a New England classic is sure to please. The rustic turkey sandwich, inspired by times in Vermont, combines Vermont cheddar with slices of apple for a real treat.

2 slices of toasted wheat bread

2 tsps mayonnaise

1 cup turkey meat

Half an apple, sliced

4 slices of extra-sharp cheddar cheese

Lettuce

Mustard

Bacon

Spread mayonnaise and butter on your bread. Lay down the lettuce, then the cheese and apple slices. Add the turkey and bacon and serve.

Curried Turkey Salad

Turkey can be a little on the bland side, especially after you've been eating it for days on end. What better way to spice up your turkey than to make a curry salad? This combines traditional curry salad ingredients such as celery, apple, and mayonnaise, but replaces raisins with dried cranberries, instead. An exotic take on your Thanksgiving leftovers!

2 cups of chopped and cooked turkey meat

1 apple, cored peeled, and chopped

1/4 cup dried cranberries (for an extra hint of Thanksgiving)

1 rib chopped celery

3/4 tbsp curry powder

1/2 tbsp honey

1/4 cup plain yogurt

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1/4 tsp ground ginger

Salt and pepper

In a small pan, heat your curry just enough so that it releases it's aroma. Promptly remove from heat, to avoid toasting and burning. Then, in a large bowl, combine the curry and spices with the yogurt, honey, and mayonnaise before adding the apple, celery, cranberries, and turkey. Stir to coat the turkey thoroughly and adjust spices to taste. Serve either as a side to a salad or as a sandwich.

Squash and Spinach Gratin

For my mom's birthday, I decided to surprise her by cooking dinner and baking her a cake (see the previous post). I decided to make use of seasonal vegetables and make a butternut squash and spinach gratin, based on the recipe from epicurious.com. This dish combines the mellow taste of spinach with butter and onions and pairs it with butternut squash, topped with cream and parmigiano-reggiano. The result is an easy-to-make and hearty vegetable lasagna which is perfectly paired with a light or sparkling white wine.

The Recipe:

15 oz frozen leaf spinach, thawed
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 small finely chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Rounded 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 pounds butternut squash (1 large), peeled, quartered, and seeded

First, cook your spinach according to the package instructions. Once cooked, drain it of all water and set aside in a bowl. Meanwhile, melt 3 tablespoons butter in an 8-inch heavy skillet over moderately low heat, then add the onion and garlic, stirring, until softened, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the butter, onion, and garlic to the spinach along with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and cream and stir to combine.

Put oven rack in upper third of oven and preheat oven to 400°F. Butter a 3-quart shallow baking dish (13 by 9 inches--not glass). Cut the squash to separate bulb section from solid neck section, then cut pieces lengthwise into 1/8-inch-thick slices. (This is the hardest and most time consuming step, I promise).

Now, in the manner of making a lasagna, layer squash and spinach mixture in baking dish. For each layer, use about one fifth of squash and one fourth of spinach, beginning and ending with squash. Sprinkle top layer of squash evenly with parmesan cheese and cover with parchment paper. Bake until squash is tender and filling is bubbling, 25 to 30 minutes. Remove the paper and bake gratin until browned in spots, 10 to 15 minutes.

That's it!

Read More http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Butternut-Squash-and-Creamed-Spinach-Gratin-236374#ixzz1d9v2ESHQ

Quick, Easy, and (Decently) Healthy Lasagna

My mom has been away on business and my dad can't cook. That means that, if I'm planning on not being home for dinner, I have to cook him something ahead of time so that he doesn't go to bed crying after realizing that there are no more cold cuts.

Yesterday, upon realizing that I was going to be gone all day--from 8 am until 11 pm--I knew that I needed to cook that night. Now, the last thing you want to so after preparing, cooking, and eating one dinner is to start making another, but that's just what I did. After finishing up my potato and leek soup, I set to making the next day's dinner for when my father got the grumbles and my mom stumbled off the plane.

This lasagna is an adaptation from the one of the back of the Barilla box of noodles (super classy, I know), which I made a little healthier. Instead of using marinara sauce, I used Newman's Own garlic and pepper sauce for more flavour, and replaced the ground beef or sausage with ground turkey. In 30 minutes (as I finished the dishes from dinner #1), my lasagna was ready and could go to sleep knowing my father wouldn't starve.

The Recipe:

1 package Barilla lasagna noodles

2 jars Marinara--or whatever suits your fancy--sauce

1 pound meat (turkey, beef, or sausage)

16 oz shredded mozzarella cheese (divided into 10 and 6 oz)

1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese

15 oz ricotta cheese

2 eggs

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Cook the noodles as directed on the package in a big pot. Meanwhile, brown and cook the meat. Once cooked, add one can of pasta sauce and let cook gently.

In a large bowl, mix together the eggs (lightly beaten) and cheeses (only 10 oz of mozzarella) so that they are coated.

Line a 13"x9" lasagna or baking pan with tin foil and put a thin layer of sauce on the bottom. On top of the sauce layer, lay down the noodles so that they are slightly overlapping. If they do not reach the entire length of the pan, put a noodle width-wise to cover the gap.

Smooth down half of the cheese mixture and cover that layer with the meat sauce. Then, place down another layer of noodles. Repeat these layers until you run out of ingredients. Finish with a layer of noodles topped with sauce and sprinkled with mozzarella cheese.

Bake in the oven at 375 degrees F for half an hour. Let set for a little while, and either serve, refrigerate, or freeze.

Prepared...at Home: Ricotta

I was gearing up for a homemade butternut squash gnocchi recipe that called for some ricotta cheese, and was inspired to try and make my own.

Now, I didn't just think of this. That's not a thought that pops into my head. I don't saunter down the cheese aisle and say, "Hey, it would be a great idea to make my own [insert cheese name here]."

I was watching a short program on the Channel 4 NYC Foodie show, and watched a clip by the "Working Class Foodies," instructing how to make delicious and inexpensive ricotta cheese from scratch for use in zucchini and lemon zest pancakes.

"Not too shabby," I thought.

The next day, I bought something I never buy--whole milk--and headed home with my ricotta and my gnocchi on my mind.

I tried to make my own cheese yesterday, and all I can say is that it was an epic failure for reasons that still do not understand.

The recipe called for 1 quart of 2% or Whole milk, and 2 tbsps of lemon juice.

You're supposed to bring the milk to a boil, stirring and whisking all the while, and then add the lemon juice to curdle it--which separates the curds from the whey.

You then strain the mixture through a strainer or cheesecloth to drain out the whey. What is left is your ricotta which you season with lemon zest, salt, and pepper.

I had whole milk. I had lemon juice. I did the steps.

My milk would not curdle. It refused. I added more lemon. Still nothing. I whisked and whisked and boiled and boiled until I realized that something was wrong.

I was really excited to make this, and perhaps I will try again, but all I can say is that this was not as I had hoped, and I will very well have to get some storebought ricotta for my darling gnocchi.

Scandanavian Smoked Fish Quiche

With a removable-bottom quiche pan comes great enthusiasm.

Last Monday, my mom and I made a pilgrimage to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to purchase some additions to our meager collection of cooking supplies at home. Two hours and a great deal of excitement later, we came home with 3 non-slip mixing bowls, a block of knives, and a removable-bottom quiche pan.

Over the summer, I had spent a great deal of time in Boston where Alex was living and working for the summer. On the days when I was there and he had to work, I amused myself by exploring the Boston and Cambridge areas. One of my favourite places to visit was a shop in Harvard Square (also with a location on Beacon Street) called Black Ink. The shop is a treasure trove for all kinds of kooky, fun, clever, and generally unnecessary things that you just have to have. The two things that I purchased there over the summer were both unnecessary, but at least practical--a Not for Tourists Guide to New York City, and a Nordic Bakery Cookbook filled with scrumptious recipes for novel foods. A book with a passage that reads, "This recipe is traditionally made with reindeer meat, but as reindeer meat is not widely available, we have replaced it with bacon" (LMAO).

There are at least six recipes in the book that required this fabled quiche pan, and I wanted to make them. All of them.

The first one I am attempting is a Smoked Fish Tart with leeks and cheese.



The Recipe:

13 tbsps unsalted butter

3 1/2 tbsps sour cream

1 cup flour (the recipe calls for all-purpose, but I made it with whole wheat)

1 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

***

1 tbsp canola oil

2 leeks, trimmed, cleaned, and thinly sliced

3 eggs

2/3 cup milk

1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese

small handfull of dill

7 oz smoked / cooked fish of any kind (I used cod)

sea salt and pepper

***
For the crust:

Cream the butter and sour cream in a mixing bowl. In another bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Add to the butter mixture and mix until a dough forms. Roll the dough into a ball, and then flatten into a disk. Wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours (overnight is better!).

For the quiche:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. If you are using fresh fish instead of smoked, cook it at 450 degrees (8 minutes per 1/2 inch of thickness).

Start to prepare the filling. Heat a skillet with the oil and add your leeks. Cook them on medium-low for about five minutes or until they become slightly soft.

If you are a first-time-leek-cooker like me, here is how to prepare a leek:

Feel the outside skin of the leek and cut off the leaves where they start to feel tough. If the portion attached to the white part feels tough cut it until you have the white part and a bit of the light green part left. Cut off the roots and cut the leek lengthwise. Then slice into thin slices. Rinsing leeks is important, but is also a pain. Put your leek slices in a collander, and rinse them thoroughly to get the dirt and sand out from between the thin layers.

While your leeks are cooking, prepare the other filling. Combine the eggs, milk, dill, and cheese and stir well. Season with salt and pepper.

Here comes the slightly tricky part: you will need to roll out the dough and then place it into the tart pan. My dough was very hard to handle because it became soft very quickly after being taken out of the fridge, which made it impossible to roll and move. Take the dough out of the fridge and roll it immediately even if it seems stiff. If you worry about making it into the pan, take the removable bottom of the pan and roll on top of it, before popping it into the rim of the pan. Do this step quickly to avoid a mess / having to re-chill the dough.

Once it is in the pan, press it to the sides and bottom and remove excess dough from the top.

Put the leeks in the crust, as well as the fish. Then pour in the wet mixture. Make sure everything is evenly distributed.

Place in the oven (preferably on a cookie sheet to avoid mess) and cook for 25-30 minutes, or until the pastry is brown.

Serve wam or cold.

***

Check out Black Ink at their website: http://blackinkboston.squarespace.com/

Buy the book at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Nordic-Bakery-Cookbook-Miisa-Mink/dp/1849750963/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1316533222&sr=1-1