Shrimp de Jonghe and Broccoli with Mustard Seeds and Horseradish

Anybody who has ever eaten or worked at a traditional New England restaurant will recognize Shrimp de Jonghe because it's a standard "baked, stuffed" seafood dish. But I am happy to say that this one has a few extra touches that make it stand out--namely, medium-dry sherry and toasted almonds. The sherry is worked into the breadcrumb butter mixture, and the almonds are sprinkled on top. Both flavors work beautifully with the shrimp.

If you go ahead with the recipe (and it's so easy, why not?) please note that it is damn near impossible to mix softened butter with sherry as the recipe directs. Just dump the breadcrumbs right in and it will come together in seconds. I don't know what they were thinking with that one.

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I have to confess that as an adult I'm kind of on the fence about broccoli. As a kid I loved it because my mom provided large bowls of what we called "broccoli sauce", made with Hellman's and lemon juice. Pretty sneaky lady, my mom. I would have eaten old sneakers if they had enough broccoli sauce on top.

But now that I'm grown up I wonder what it was about that sauce that perked broccoli up so much, and for sure it was the tart/creamy combo. Broccoli tossed with butter and vinegar will give you (kind of) the same kick, and of course hollandaise would do it if it's properly made. Cheese sauce or a gratin works for me--anything but plain steamed salted broccoli or raw on a crudite platter.

Broccoli with Mustard Seeds and Horseradish does it too, I'm happy to report. Epicurious does not have this recipe so I'll just fill you in--you saute mustard seeds in butter until they pop and then stir in lemon juice and horseradish--the prepared kind, not the sauce. A little salt and pepper, toss with previously steamed broccoli and you've got an unusual, extremely satisfying way to serve and eat broccoli. Dr. and Mrs. S., not usually big broccoli fans, really enjoyed this and I did too.

Key Lime Cheesecake with Mango Ribbons, and Crispy Oven-Fried Cod

Oh, this cheesecake. You are really going to love it, and here's why:

*it's relatively light
*and it tastes phenomenal

I only have one teensy weensy little complaint, and that is that mango is not so easy to slice, and when you're slicing this beauty up into pieces to serve, the mango gets dragged down with the knife. If you're really going for maximum wow, you might want to slice first, then decorate. Also, my mangoes were REALLY ripe and didn't curl up as pretty as that nice Epicurious photo up there--they were juicy and floppy and I had to drape them decoratively. It still looked beautiful, though.

And I am serious about it being relatively light. It only calls for two packages of cream cheese, and just a few eggs. I've seen some recipes that call for not only three packages, but a stick of butter too!! I'm not saying this is diet cheesecake, only that if you just eat a little bit it won't ruin your caloric day.

But can anybody ever stop at just a little bit? THAT is the question.

Oh, and believe it or not, I used lime juice from a plastic squeeze bottle. Nothing fancy. Loved it.

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I have to confess to feeling a minor sense of triumph with Crispy Oven-Fried Cod.

Every once in a while I get a phone call from my friend Pat, who is a dedicated recreational deep sea fisherman. He will tell me he's got a lot of cod/flounder/hake/or something, and do I want any? He has a super heavy duty cooler in the back of his truck and he keeps the fish on ice, and I always go and meet him someplace--the parking lot at his job, the parking lot after book group, the parking lot by his house--and bring a box of zip lock bags. He loads me up because he knows I freeze it. I LOVE this. Free fresh fish in a world where even in a major fishing port seafood is extraordinarily expensive.

And I go home and immediately sort out the fish, roll it up and bag it individually, and put it all in the freezer.

The last time I did this, for one reason or another, Don absolutely refused to eat it. He just didn't like the looks of it or something. So I've had this fish in my freezer for about half a year, trying to figure out when I can serve it--could I bring it to my book group, or make a fish stew for my writing group? Did I mention that I have a lot of it?

This past Thursday, when Don was at an evening class, I decided to try this recipe out with O'Malley. He was enthusiastic about the idea, and so I thawed out two cod fillets and went at it.

I loved it, O'Malley didn't, and surprise of all surprises, when Don came home he loved it too. He kept saying that he didn't understand it because usually he didn't like cod. It is possible, of course, that anything tastes good when it's battered and fried (like Oreo cookies) but I'm not going to delve into the whys and wherefores. OK, I'm going to delve a little bit. I really pressed as much moisture as I could out of the fish, because it seemed like they had absorbed a lot. I'm beginning to conclude that cod doesn't actually freeze that well, or at least not the way I'm doing it. O'Malley's complaint was that the fish was dry, but I think that's why Don liked it.

If you, dear reader, would like to duplicate exactly what I have done here, I welcome you to my freezer--otherwise I think you'll find this a great way to prepare any kind of white-fleshed fish that you find at your market.

Hunan-Style Tea-Smoked Chicken and Dark Chocolate Shortbread

The whole time I was eating Hunan-Style Tea-Smoked Chicken I was thinking that I had missed something.

Smoking is an art, I thought to myself, and there are cooks in the south that dedicate their lives to it. What did I miss, what did I do wrong, what could I have done differently?

The reason why I was thinking those things is because to me, this chicken tasted like I had pulled it out of a house fire.

Now, the table was split on this one. My dad agreed with me. My mom and Don thought it was pretty good--actually Don thought it was more than pretty good. He pointed out that it's hard to do something different with chicken and this dish succeeds really well in doing that.

But to me it just tasted acrid. Was it the tea? Did I have the heat on too high, or leave it in too long? It makes me want to research smoking further. Maybe I just don't like smoked food, although I certainly can polish off a plate of lox and bagels without any trouble.

Technical criticism--the recipe says to steam your 3 lb. chicken for 20-25 minutes. I have never steamed a whole chicken and so was willing to suspend my belief, thinking that maybe steaming cooks chicken faster than in an oven but it doesn't. My chicken was slightly over 3 lbs and it took a good 45 minutes. The recipe also asks you to turn your chicken over while you're smoking it. It's hard to do this without marring the skin and breaking up the body. Another reviewer on Epicurious noted that you don't have to turn it--it comes out fine. Also, they all seemed to love this dish so maybe it is my taste buds after all.



This is not my chicken. It was smoked by people who obviously know what they're doing.

If you've never smoked anything before, you'll note that the recipe asks you to line the bottom of the pot and the lid with tin foil. Take heed and do the same (maybe line the whole pot), and I'll tell you why. Because smoke + chicken fat should be marketed as a permanent, indelible substance. Forget those wussy markers and labels. This stuff will never come off (of the inside of my pot).

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Dark Chocolate Shortbread is the perfect cookie for minimalists. Thin, crisp, buttery and elegant--that's what it's got goin' on.

However, if you're not a minimalist, you might find yourself wishing for something more--visually, or in the texture department.

It's hard to resist doing that--throwing in some nuts or candied ginger, or drizzling chocolate over that tempting dark chocolate disc. Restrain yourself and let it be what it is. There are enough cookies out there that contain everything but the kitchen sink.

Technical note: make sure you let these sit in the fridge for 30 minutes as the recipe asks (even longer if you can wait). Otherwise the dough will spread out into an unmanageable ultra-thin disc, edible by nobody but you as you dump the brittle shards in the trash can.

Rosemary Walnuts and Chocolate Souffle

Here's what I loved about Rosemary Walnuts: the combination of rosemary and walnut. Here's what I didn't love: that they were tossed in butter and baked.

Don't get me wrong; I love butter. But when it's coating something, and that something has cooled down to room temperature, that lovely glossy coat cools and congeals. You know what I'm talking about.

So if you're going to try this recipe (and why not, to expand your repertoire of hors d'oeurves?) toss the walnuts in olive oil.

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I wish, I wish, I wish I could tell you that this Chocolate Souffle tastes as good as it looks. Of course, sometimes chocolate in any form is better than no chocolate whatsoever. If you're in that kind of mood, bake away.

The headnotes in The Gourmet Cookbook (but not on Epicurious, though it is of course the same recipe) say that the quality of chocolate makes all the difference here. They suggest Valrhona. I used Nestle Chocolatier 65%, since The Fruitful Basket is closed on Sunday and that's where I get my Valrhona, and sometimes I'm just too stubborn to actually believe what people tell me and have to see for myself.

This recipe IS significantly lower in fat than some other souffle recipes out there--no butter appears in this dessert (I've seen some souffle recipes that call for two sticks) and half the egg yolks are discarded. So dieters, take note!

The overall effect the next day, when it's compressed, is kind of like a lite brownie.

Technical criticism. The recipe asks you to lighten the chocolate by folding some whipped egg whites in, and then folding the lightened chocolate into the remaining egg whites. This is impossible--the chocolate is still far too heavy to fold. You will just have to fold in the egg whites bit by bit--otherwise you'll get clumps of chocolate in your egg whites that will never break up.

The next time I get my hands on some Valrhona I might try this again, because I to dismiss recipes like this, especially in a cookbook that has been so amazingly reliable. So stay tuned.

Asparagus Soup with Parmesan Custards

Dear readers, I have so very much to tell you about...tea-smoked chicken, dark chocolate shortbread, rosemary walnuts...but all of that will have to wait because I must tell you, today, about Asparagus Soup with Parmesan Custards. M. said yesterday that she thought it was the best thing she'd ever had in her life and I think I have to agree with her. It is, at the very least, in my top ten.

Here's a photo by Miki Duisterhof:



Mine looked a little more haphazardly garnished and without all the fancy table linen, but the idea is the same--a silky, salty, nutty hot custard in the middle of a creamy smooth soup with perfectly steamed asparagus tips here and there.

If you'll allow me to digress a little bit into why this is such a brilliant dish, I think it's because you get three distinct textures and flavors--salt, sweet and neutral for flavor and custard, liquid, and soft crunch for texture.

But you know how it feels in your stomach when something hot and soothing has just gotten down there and you feel like you have a little pocket warmer right under your ribcage? It's a great feeling on a cold fall day.

Anyway, you must try this dish. I insist. Use a blender for your soup (be careful) and let it run for a long time to get the best, smoothest texture. And don't bother fishing the asparagus out of the pot and cutting off the tips--just cut them off ahead of time and microwave them for three minutes--they'll be perfect.

If you want to be truly organized, do what I did and make the milk/egg mixture the day before--you can even prepare the ramekins. Then just pop them into the oven in a hot water bath and let them cook while you make the soup.

And please use real parm-reg!! No plastic supermarket parmesan--it's not the same, and the five bucks you save isn't worth it.

I'm already thinking of other soup-custard combos---maybe a cream of mushroom soup with seared mushrooms as a garnish? Or maybe that French Pea Soup with a few lightly steamed peas... Or, if you wanted to go with an Asian flavor profile, you could add some shrimp or scallop to the custard, go with a miso broth and fresh scallions with a dark sesame oil drizzle...

Writer, Heed Thyself

Here's the other thing not to do when you've got sugar on the stove: wander around on the computer using my latest favorite time waster, StumbleUpon. Yes I, your faithful correspondent, only an hour after giving you a little mini-lecture on how not to make caramel, found myself gazing enraptured at this:



...which was part of an article entitled The Most Curious Canned Good Found Online from Wired Magazine. By the way, those are canned silkworm pupae.

Seconds later, every smoke alarm in the house was going off (and we have three floors of them), Don was rushing down the stairs to make sure I hadn't set myself on fire, and I was gazing into a pot of smoking molten black sugar.

What was I making? The sugar syrup for Babas au Rhum, Don's requested birthday dessert.

And can you believe I'm typing this while the next batch of syrup is boiling away on the stove? Yes, well THIS TIME I put a timer on it.

But stay tuned, because I've decided to make Hunan-Style Tea-Smoked Chicken for dinner. Maybe I can get the smoke alarms to go off again, just to make life exciting.

Spice-Rubbed Quail and Turtle Brownies

Yes, quail again! Not everybody comes across quail when they're rummaging in the freezer, but I had an extra package from Pan-Fried Quail Night. I wanted to make something fun for J. on his last night so this was it.

If you are longing to make these quail dishes but don't have a shotgun or the extra folding money to order from D'Artagnan, try Middle Eastern or Asian markets--I read online that you can find quail there for a very reasonable price.

Anyway, here it is: Spice-Rubbed Quail:



If I could make a small suggestion--this spice rub calls for 1/2 tsp. of cayenne, so if you have sensitive mouths/digestive systems at your table you might want to ease back on that. I added just a pinch. I think the allspice adds great flavor, but really the star of this show is the molasses/lime sauce. People who will never ever search out quail might want to try this preparation with chicken--it's easy and a nice change of pace.

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Turtle Brownies are a perfect trifecta of chewy chocolate, gooey caramel, and crunchy pecan. You really cannot ask for much more than that when it comes to a sugar hit.

Like so many recipes in this book, this one calls for homemade caramel and this, my friends, is where common sense and a watchful eye take precedent over following directions. When you make caramel you watch the sugar boil itself into an amber gold and then you take it off the stove--you cannot fret over whether or not 14 minutes has elapsed. Too light and you just have syrup--too dark and you either have hard candy or a burned mass of sugar. Every stove is different so just stand by your pot and keep an eye on it--don't go move the laundry from the washer to the dryer or decide to water the houseplants thinking that the timer will call you back when it's just right.

I personally took my sugar off a little bit too early this time so my caramel is a bit runny, but really that just adds to the finger-lickin' fun, right?

Raspberry Jam Tart with Almond Crumble, and Snow Eggs with Pistachio Cream and Chocolate Drizzle

Now what, you may be rightly asking, are "snow eggs"?

Before I came to this job I would have been asking the exact same question. But during my job interview I happened to ask Dr. and Mrs. S. what some of their favorite foods were, and Dr. S. wistfully noted that he loved snow pudding but hadn't had it in years.

Of course I got busy with the research right away.

If anybody ever tells YOU that they love snow pudding, I'll tell you that basically it's lemon Jell-O folded into whipped egg whites, set in a mold. This is later unmolded into a plate of custard--your basic creme anglaise. And yes of course I made it and he loved it and it's been mutual admiration ever since.

So I was not surprised to see that Snow Eggs with Pistachio Cream and Chocolate Drizzle is a sophisticated version of snow pudding. The French have a name for it (oeufs a la niege), the Italians have a name for it (scuimmette)but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that neither of their versions involve jello.

Anyway, this dessert is fun to make--a real adventure--and pastry chefs take note! All of these components can be produced separately during the day to be assembled by your wildly competent non-English speaking guest-working dessert station person during the dinner service.

What was new for me about this dish was poaching the meringue "eggs" in sweet milk. Wow, they were so cute! And they puffed up, bumping against each other in the pan. The custard is a gorgeous green thanks to the ground pistachios, and the chocolate makes for dramatic visual contrast.

Here's what it looks like. This photo is from Epicurious but mine looked exactly the same:



Oh, and it tasted fabulous. J. remarked that it was surprisingly filling for something that has such a light mouth-feel. (don't forget that J. is also a chef and that's one of the reasons I made this dish--fun stuff to talk about!)

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I wish I could be as wildly enthusiastic about the Raspberry Jam Tart with Almond Crumble.



Pretty, isn't it? But essentially what you've got is a big sugar cookie with a thin layer of jam. OK, if you like that sort of thing, but I found it to be cloyingly sweet. The Gourmet Cookbook notes that it's a fun recipe to make with kids, and I suspect that they're the only ones who will go for this whole-heartedly--well maybe also the demographic that goes in for sugary cocktails. If you want my opinion don't waste your time.

Cheese Fondue and Fresh Orange Slices with Candied Zest and Pistachios

Now, when was the last time you had Cheese Fondue?

For me, it was one of those palate-defining moments. I was 13, and on a youth group skiing trip to Switzerland. We were in a lodge with long wooden tables and benches, and starving from a long day of trying to ski on the springtime ice fields of the Alps. The cheese fondue--gooey dripping cheese, chunky crusty bread-- seemed like a miracle, and even more amazing was that we were all given a small glass of white wine "so the cheese wouldn't make a big lump" in our stomachs. I haven't had it since (cheese fondue that is, not wine), but I have never forgotten it.

So last Christmas, when grandson J. roamed around the house, poking into cupboards, looking forlornly for a fondue pot, it started me off on a mission. OK, so it took 10 months to come to fruition, but at least I'm persistent in my goals. Really what I was looking for was the proper alignment of events, weather, people and equipment. You need colder weather for cheese fondue. Nobody wants to eat gooey hot cheese and bread when it's 90 degrees outside. You need enough people to make it merry but not too many. Last night I had seven adults and one four year old, perfect because there are eight fondue forks. You need to be able to sit them at a round table (there is only one, and it's in the kitchen), so it needs to be somewhat informal, and it needs to have been a day when it's all right to have a "light" meal for dinner. Yesterday there was a big birthday celebration for Dr. S. (89 years!) at the Essex Club and the lunch there was rather heavy.

Perfect.

Perfect, that is, until math came into the equation. Can I just have a little rant here about our measuring and weighing system? Why on earth do our cookbooks call for ounces when markets weigh things out in tenths of a pound? So say for example you need 8 oz. each of Gruyere and Emmenthaler. At the market they are in little bricks of 0.4 lbs. each. So you buy two of each. Now say you are cooking and you decided to not double the recipe, but one and a half it. So you need 12 oz. of each. So 0.4 of a pound is 6 oz., right? Because if you split 8 oz. by five units, 4 oz. would be .25 lb. and 6 oz. would be roughly 0.4 lbs, or a little less. So theoretically two 0.4 lb. blocks of should give you exactly what you're looking for.

Oh, and if you're one and a halfing 1 1/2 cups of wine, you add an additional 3/4 cup. Right?

Can I just tell you right now that I had to drop accounting in college because I was getting a D and I didn't want to screw up my GPA? I should have stuck with it.

Anyway, the result of all of this mental strain is that I was terribly anxious while I was watching that cheese melt in what seemed like a LOT of wine. It seemed like too much liquid to the cheese, and I didn't remember it having that consistency (from all those decades ago). I added the cornstarch/kirsch slurry with high hopes, only to have it clump on the bottom of the pot, and so I had to take a whisk and beat the bejeezus out of it. Then I started to doubt my math and rummaged around in the cheese drawer for more cheese to add. I ripped up four slices of deli swiss and was ready to start grating some cheddar in there when it finally simmered itself into a consistency that I was happy enough with.

Friends, this dinner was a success. There was much laughing and general merriment at the table, and I think my favorite moment was when I heard Dr. S. say, "I feel absolutely, perfectly contented right now."

Now, after the fact I have looked on Epicurious to give you the link (and a nice photo) and I see some suggestions that I wish I had seen ahead of time. One is to toss the cheese with the cornstarch, another is to increase the amount of cornstarch. A third is to provide other dipping options: apples and pears, boiled potatoes, etc.

Food for thought for next time, because there will definitely be a next time!



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Here's a mental exercise for you, as if you needed another one. Say you're serving cheese fondue for dinner on a night that has followed at least three nights of heavy eating (including desserts)? You need a dessert. There's nothing leftover to appropriate, except a little angelfood cake with ganache frosting. There's no ice cream worth mentioning. You don't want to go shopping, and you don't want to make anything heavy to follow all that cheese. Hmmm.....

Fruit of some kind seemed like an obvious choice to me, but not just any old fruit. The Gourmet Cookbook to the rescue once again--this book seems to have a solution for just about any cooking quandry I have. I had all the ingredients for Fresh Orange Slices with Candied Zest and Pistachios
and embarked upon it with much faith and enthusiasm. Really, it is quite amazing how much faith I have in these recipes because I make them for the first time on the job almost every day. That's some testimony right there.

And I wasn't disappointed, at least not with the recipe. The only thing that stressed me out about this dish was the oranges--I wasn't using navels as the recipe asks, I was using Florida oranges, which are great for juice but have seeds and are kind of membrane-y. So getting the seeds out was a little time consuming and also scraping the pith off the rind. Helpful hint: it's easier to get off AFTER you boil the rinds for 10 minutes--scrapes right off with a spoon. Then cut the rind into matchsticks. I also had the foresight to try a little sample plate and realized that the membrane holding it all together was a little tough and would make for difficulties if the slices were left in perfect circles so I cut them all in half (this was after they were all plated, mind you).

And then my final worry (do you think I worry too much?) was that the Grand Marnier in this dish would just be too much booze after the wine and the kirsch of the fondue.

I can't tell you how this dish was received, because by the time it was being eaten I was at home watching the Red Sox kick some Colorado butt. OK, slow butt-kicking, but who cares? Go Sox!!

Congee and Panfried Quail with Creamed Corn and Bacon

When I'm cooking at home, there are a few factors I have to consider. The first is whether or not I think O'Malley will eat it. He can be vexingly finicky. The second is if it will fit into Don's diet. He is trying to maintain an Atkins/South Beach style eating plan that involves no carbs. It also has to fit in with MY eating plan, which is not too much fat (although I am the weakest link in this bunch, I'll readily admit).

But yesterday, I had some kind of low-level bug--achy, nauseous, exhausted--and here my needs trumped everybody else's.

I wanted to cook, and I wanted to cook something that would make me feel better. And Congee is what I came up with. Congee (also known as jook) is the Chinese version of homemade chicken noodle soup. I am a big believer in the curative powers of fresh chicken stock, so I trotted off to the IGA and got a little chicken to put in the pot.

This recipe couldn't be simpler. You cook a chicken for two or three hours with scallions and ginger. Save out the breast meat (fish it out before it overcooks), make the liquid equal eight cups, add a cup of long grain white rice, and let it cook for another hour or so until you've got porridge. Garnish with shredded breast meat, chopped scallions, minced fresh ginger (good for nausea, btw) and dark sesame oil and you've got comfort in a bowl.

The bonus was that O'Malley was extremely enthusiastic about eating this dish. Why? Because one of his favorite characters on his favorite tv show (Iroh on Avatar: The Last Airbender) cooks it for his nephew when he's sick.



I don't question these things, I take them as moments of grace. Anyway, he loved it. And Don did too. I went to bed at 7:30 and now I feel much, much better.

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If you are a regular reader you know that I like to have fun (culinarily speaking) when the family comes to visit Dr. and Mrs. S. I particularly enjoy cooking for K. and L. So when I was flipping through, looking for a nice recipe to cook, I was intrigued by Panfried Quail with Creamed Corn and Bacon. Seasonal, suitably exotic, and it has a flavor profile that everybody loves. The one thing of course is where the heck do you get quail? I'm not much of a hunter, and it's hardly an item that Shaw's stocks.

The Fruitful Basket to the rescue! Bobby can get me practically anything I want with enough advance notice, and he happened to be placing a D'Artagnan order that very day. Now, I've never worked with quail and so I was kind of surprised to see their plucked and packaged little selves. Some wizard cut out their backbones without cutting the skin, and the bodies were on a v-shaped metal rack kind of thing. The recipe asks you to cut the quail into quarters, but I thought that would make them far too tiny so I cut the birds in half and ended up with something kind of the size of a chicken drumstick.

This is really a standard fried chicken recipe--dip in milk, roll in seasoned flour, fry. The creamed corn with bacon is nothing new either. What was new to me was the suggestion to squeeze lemon over the fried quail, and friend, that was tasty. The whole thing was tasty. Mrs. S. loved it (Dr. S., alas, was prepping for a procedure and was eating jello). What did K. and L. think? They arrived late and had covered plates so I won't know until Sunday.