Corduroy Orange

If the words “Cream of Mushroom Soup” conjure for you images of thick glop from a red can that you mix with milk to make chicken casserole, you haven’t had the real thing.  A freshly made batch of Cream of Mushroom is a delightful experience.

Cream Of Mushroom Soup

yield: about 6 cups of soup

• 12 ounces mushrooms, sliced (feel free to use whatever shrooms or mix of shrooms you like.  I like to mix crimini and button, and if I have them available, I’ll do a few oyster, shiitake, and /or wild harvested mushrooms [in season] if I have them available)
• 1 1/2 sticks of butter (I know, it sounds decadent… but the shrooms need to be browned in batches so as to allow them to saute and not to steam; and the flavor just can’t be replicated using oil.  And, you need a fair amount of fat in order to properly create the roux that is responsible for thickening the soup.  What else can I say?  Just don’t eat it every day.)
• About 1/4 to 1/3 cup of flour (This will be a flexible ratio that you’ll have to use your judgement on.  See the instructions when it comes time to make the roux around the mushrooms, in the main part of the recipe [below])
• 1/2 cup white wine
• About 5 cups of stock (Chicken or vegetable.  This obviously isn’t a vegan soup but it can quite easily be vegetarian.)
• About 1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream (No, you can’t use milk.  You can get away with light cream if you want),
• Pepper to taste (I used a mix of freshly ground black, white, and green peppercorns.)
• Salt to taste
• 1/3 cup Fresh rosemary, finely minced

In a big soup pot, melt 1/2 stick of butter.  Crack some pepper into it.  Add 1/3 of the mushrooms and salt to taste.  Saute, stirring constantly.  When mushrooms have browned, remove them from the pan with a slotted spoon and let sit to side while you repeat the process twice more.  When the last of the mushrooms have cooked, return all mushrooms to the pan.

Stir flour into the mushrooms until they are well coated and the flour has combined with the butter to the consistency of wet sand.  Don’t add all of the flour at once–add it gradually until it looks right.  Then, stir the mushrooms and flour together until the smell of popcorn wafts from the pan.  This smell is indication that your roux is ready.

Deglaze with the white wine.  Stir it in as it boils and gets absorbed.  When the pan is prtty much dry again, stir in the stock.  Make sure that you get all of the roux incorporated into the liquid–scrape the corners of the pan with your wooden spoon and make certain!  Otherwise non-incorporated roux can scorch on the bottom of the pan.

Let simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Then, stir cream into soup until the soup.  Finish by stirring in the fresh rosemary and turning off the heat.  Serve immediately.

I really enjoy a steaming mug of hot cocoa, especially when I’ve just come in from shoveling snow.  I’ve discovered a simple technique that makes preparing it on the stove top much easier, and have taken to seasoning my cocoa with a tasty blend of spices.

I used to make hot cocoa by whisking my dry ingredients into hot milk.  As much as I whisked, the cocoa powder would never seem to want to combine with the milk, opting instead to form a dust across the surface.  Then it occurred to me, if the dry ingredients won’t mix with the wet, why not mix the wet with the dry?  By putting the dry ingredients into the saucepan first and then whisking the milk into them, it makes the task of preparing the beverage much simpler.  Everything combines neatly and you get a better result (no more lumps!)

Jesse’s Hot Cocoa Mix:

• 1 cup cocoa powder
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon allspice
• 1 teaspoon ancho chile pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Combine ingredients thoroughly and store in an airtight container.

To prepare (1-2 servings, depending on the size of your mugs):

Put 1/4 cup of cocoa mix into a saucepan.  Set over medium heat and whisk two cups of milk into the mix.  Add the milk slowly at first, but as the dry ingredients moisten, you can add it at a faster rate.  Heat over medium heat, stirring frequently, until hot.  Top with marshmallows for a guaranteed smile.

As I stopped at the roadside fruit stand today, I decided that I liked the look of the grapefruit and the pineapple.  I got a couple starfruit for good measure because I like them and they’re actually regional here (read: inexpensive) as compared to being such a rare commodity back in the northeast USA.

I spent much of my day today comparison shopping the many small grocery stores in San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, Belize, and had come up with a couple pounds of fettucine and a pound of shrimp as the main attractions for dinner tonight.  As I pedaled my bike down the bumpy dirt path, a plan formed in my mind for a Carribean Shrimp Alfredo featuring regional fruits and their juices to create the sauce.

Carribean Shrimp Fettucine

• 1 pound 36/40 raw shrimp (36-40 per pound)
• 1/2 small onion, cut to very small dice (brunoise)
• 1/2 inch fresh ginger, minced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 fresh pineapple, cut into chunks
• 1/4 papaya, cut to 1/2-inch dice
• 2 grapefruits, segmented, and juice reserved
• 1/4 cup dark rum
• 2 pounds fettucine
• cinnamon
• pepper
• salt
• butter

Heat about 3 tablespoons butter in a large saute pan.  Add a half teaspoon or so cinnamon to the butter, and then put the shrimp into the pan—don’t crowd them, make sure they all fit!  (if not, do them in batches).  Sprinkle the shrimp with salt.  When the shrimp pinkify on their first side, flip them over and cook until they have pinkified on each side and curled into a ‘fetal position’.  Remove and hold.

Add a couple tablespoons more butter to the pan and another good dose of cinnamon.  Then, the diced onion and minced garlic & ginger, all at the same time, followed closely by a sprinkling of salt.  Keep ‘em moving in the pan–don’t give them a chance to burn!  As they toast up and caramelize, put in the pineapple.  This will, in effect, deglaze the pan by cooling it down and adding enough liquid so as to incorporate any fond that may have developed on the side of the pan and give the onions/garlic/ginger enough liquid to simmer rather than brown.

Toss the pineapple to coat it with the oil, spices, and aromatics.  Keep a close eye on it, stirring frequently.  As it starts to take on a bit of a cooked appearance, add the papaya to the pan, and toss to mix thoroughly with the pan’s other contents.

Start the fettucine cooking in a large pot of boiling, salted water.  Stir well as you add it into the pot and during the cooking process to prevent the fettucine from clumping together.

After the papaya has had a chance to cook for 3-4 minutes, add the grapefruit segments into the pan.  These are what is going to make this mess of fruit into a sauce.  Watch as the heat tears those suckers into shreds.  They’re going to lose all body and pretty much disintegrate into a pulpy liquid .  Pour in the rum and give it a chance to boil off.

Drain the pasta.

Add the grapefruit juice into the pan of fruit sauce.

Return the (drained) fettucine to the (empty) pot you cooked it in and stir a couple tablespoons of butter into it to help keep it from clumping.  Add the sauce to the fettucine and stir everything together to mix it.

Return the saute pan to the burner and put the reserved shrimp into the pan to reheat them.

Portion the pasta into six plates and top each with six shrimp.  Garnish further with three slices of fresh starfruit, if you so desire.

Photo credit: Eric Thompson

It’s the end of my first full day in Belize.  I swam in the Carribean and scoped out some tropical fish.  I made tentative plans to go on a fishing charter later this week (so I can prepare and enjoy the freshest seafood possible).  And, most importantly, I went shopping for local ingredients and used them to create some Belizean cuisine.

OK, so I don’t knows for a fact that a Belizean food scholar would deem this creation to be traditional Belizean cuisine…but having created it from local ingredients, I think it qualifies.

Jesse’s Belizean Papaya Saute

• one onion, cut to small dice
• one mirliton, cut to small dice
• one inch of ginger, minced
• 1/4 inch strip of habanero pepper, meat only (no pith!), minced
• 1/2 papaya, cut to julienne
• Juice of 1/2 large lime
• juice of 3 tangerines
• 3/4 cup - 1 cup local yogurt
• 3-4 tablespoons of butter
• salt to taste

Melt the butter in a saute pan.  Add the onion with a pinch of salt and saute, briefly, until it starts to soften.  Add ginger and habanero, and cook until the onion has started to caramelize and the ginger is starting to crisp up just a bit.  Add the mirliton and another pinch of salt.  Saute until the mirliton has softened and is starting to release its faintly tart aroma.  Add the papaya to the pan and toss briefly so that the papaya heats up–but don’t let it cook too long, especially if the papaya is good and ripe–you don’t want it to get mushy!

Once the papaya has had a chance to heat, deglaze with the mixed citrus juices; let it reduce for about 45 seconds, then stir in the yogurt.  Toss so that the yogurt combines with remaining citrus juices to form a sauce, then serve in fashionable bowls to appreciative diners.  Garnish with a slice of lime, if desired.

Photo Credit: Julia Luscher Thompson

Mr. Orange–

We made about four times as much Caesar Salad dressing as we should have last week.  It’s been in the fridge ever since.  Do you think it’s still safe to eat?

If you followed the traditional Caesar Salad dressing recipe calling for raw egg yolks, then, no, you shouldn’t eat it unless you’re looking to make friends with Sal Monella.

Next time you make Caesar dressing, try substituting hard boiled egg yolks for the raw yolks.  Even cooked, the egg yolks maintain their emulsificating abilities, and will yield a silky-smooth dressing that is safe to store and use over a several day period, thereby eliminating the need to make your homemade Caesar dressing to order.  Simply mash the yolks into a paste with some olive oil, and follow the standard Caesar recipe from there.  For a tasty treat, crumble the egg whites on top of your salad.

Hey Corduroy–

I really like fresh salsa but fresh tomatoes suck in winter.  Any suggestions for a wintertime fresh salsa?

You can make a salsa with all kinds of stuff (think mango/pineapple; black bean and corn, etc.), but this time of year, around here, apples are probably your best bet.

This apple salsa goes great on a cheddar quesadilla.  It might also be good with some bacon, grilled chicken, and/or black beans in a ‘dilla or a wrap if you wanted to make it more of a dinner instead of a lunch.  As presented, it’s about a 0.5 (or less) on a scale of 10 in terms of heat, which I think is about right: but if you wanted it spicer, it’s easy to add more jalapeno or use a different kind of chili pepper.

Apple Salsa

• 1/2 red onion, cut to small dice
• 1/2 red bell pepper, cut to small dice
• 4 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
• 1 jalapeno pepper (meat of pepper only, no seeds or pith), minced
• 2 apples cut to a small dice
• juice of 1.5 limes (about 3 tablespoons
• Salt, pepper, cinnamon, allspice: to taste

Saute onions, bell pepper, garlic, and jalapeno in a small amount of oil, with salt and spices.

When vegetables are soft and the onions have started to turn a bit brown at the edges, remove to a mixing bowl and combine with apples and lime juice.  Stir together to mix thouroughly.  Taste, and adjust seasonings as necessary.  Serve immediately or within about 3 days (kept refrigerated).

I don’t like The Family Circus.  Most of the time, I’m content to mutter under my breath about its stupidity or to mock it in the comfort of my own home.  Most of the time, though, its vapidity doesn’t deal with culinary matters.

Today, for anyone who is clever enough to skip over its single pane of vacuousness, Billy is returning his lunchbox to the counter as he tells his mother that nobody at school traded lunches because EVERYBODY (sic) had turkey sandwiches.  I suppose in Bill (and Jeff) Keane-Land, every turkey sandwich is the same: made with only breast meat, on Wonder Bread, with mayonnaise and iceberg lettuce. But, then again, in their world, Eisenhower is still the president.

In the real world, though, there are myriad options for how that turkey sandwich can stand out from the crowd.

Bread choice plays a key role.  Leftover dinner rolls make a great base for a post-Thanksgiving sandwich.  Or, if those are all gone, I like to go for a nice, hearty multi-grain bread that can stand up to the many fillings that might go inside.  Next choice: to toast or not to toast.  I tend to toast.

Condiments?  Yes, please.  Mayo and mustard are okay, and will make a serviceable sandwich… but for a truly remarkable sandwich, I have taken to spreading the bread with cold gravy and cranberry jelly.

Who needs to limit a sammich to breast meat?  Go ahead and use some thigh meat in there.  It’s moister and more flavorful.

But where the opportunity for sandwich creativity really presents itself is in what else goes on it with the turkey.  A variety of lettuces makes a nice touch, of course; but why stop there?  I have been known to put mashed potatoes (irish or sweet); olives; stuffing; cheese; shredded Brussels sprouts; roasted broccoli and cauliflower; and more on my turkey sandwiches.

Of course, once I go through that sort of effort, you can be sure I wouldn’t trade it to some punk kid like Billy Keane.

What sorts of delicacies do you add between your bread to make your turkey sandwiches stand out from the crowd?

I have a competition BBQ team and would like to come up with a really good smoked turkey recipe. I am going to brine my fresh natural turkey for about 12-16 hours with basic brine (no flavoring, just salt and sugar). I found your garlic hot sauce injection recipe which is similar to what I pull off with my Frank’s Hot Sauce Garlic Chicken.  Do you think if I use Frank’s for the sauce in your garlic injection recipe it will be good? 

 Lance

I imagine Frank’s will do fine—I’ve used a variety of hot sauces for this recipe through the years, and I think Frank’s may have been in the rotation at some point in time.  my personal preference for hot sauces seems to be a cayenne pepper sauce, which, if I’m not mistaken, Frank’s is. 

Just be sure to strain the garlic out of the sauce after you’ve simmered its flavor into the Franks if you’ll be injecting it into the poultry—I remember one time when I was doing a fried turkey on-site for a private party and I’d forgotten to strain the sauce.  The garlic clogged the injection needle and nothing would go through.  I wasn’t in a  well-equipped kitchen, and I didn’t have my strainer with me.  I couldn’t even find any aluminum foil.  Eventually, I discovered an unopened jar of coffee that had a foil seal on it.  I poked holes in that foil and fitted it into a styrofoam cup that I tore the bottom out of, used that as a makeshift strainer, and got the garlic out of the garlic-flavored sauce. The fried turkey was saved and they lived happily ever after.

Best of luck with your competition, and please let me know how the smoked turkey turns out.

I was reading about the most recent ground beef recall, and the article made mention of an industry practice I hadn’t realized existed:

“Companies subject to such recalls are allowed to cook tainted meat to kill the bacteria and then use it in other products, a common practice in the food industry.”

Basically, the beef that shows up in the news for having killed people or caused kidney failure or whatever else can be cooked and re-packaged as your salisbury steak or swedish meatballs or any other pre-cooked beef product that might jump into your grocery cart.

Appetizing, huh?

I love brunch.  It’s one of my favorite meals not only to eat, but also to cook.  That’s why I’m pleased to announce that Hough’s Bar and Grill, 563 Greenfield Avenue, is starting to serve brunch on Sundays from 10 am - 2 pm, and that I am helping them to originate the menu.  For the next four weeks, I will be in the kitchen cooking and training their cooks to prepare many of the brunch items I love: homemade pork sausage (mild or hot), home fries, pancakes, breakfast burritos, frico envelopes, specialty sandwiches, New Orleans-style dirty rice, and more!

So, please, come out to Hough’s from 10 am- 2 pm this Sunday, November 8, and every Sunday thereafter to enjoy a leisurely and scrumptious mid-day meal.  Mention Corduroy Orange and get a free coffee with the purchase of your meal.