Pistachio Beets a la Purple Pig

I recently went to The Purple Pig, in downtown Chicago to try their selection of wines and cheeses.  Their specialties are cheeses, wines, and pork dishes, though I found their side items to be absolutely fantastic.  I had a fava bean dish with hard boiled eggs and bacon that I really enjoyed.  However, what topped the cake at this meal was the Salt-Roasted Beets with Whipped Goat Cheese & Pistachio Vinaigrette.  

It was rich and flavorful and had just the right amounts of sweetness and tartness.  Full of B vitamins, potassium, fiber and cheesy goodness, this makes an excellent dish for a pot-luck meal or even something to snack on all week.

 Colorful and bright

Spring food is so exciting,

Rich and nutritious!

Ingredients

• 5 beets
• salt
• water
• 8 oz goat cheese
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 1/2 cups chopped pistachios
• 1/4 cup sherry vinegar
• olive oil
• black pepper

1.  Preheat the oven to 375F.  Peel and quarter the beets.  Place in a baking dish with 1/2 an inch of water and sprinkle with your favorite salt (not too flavorful - a smoky salt will ruin the taste of the pistachio vinaigrette).
2. Cover with foil and bake for about 30 minutes, or until beets are soft when pricked with a fork.
3. While the beets are baking, combine goat cheese and milk in a bowl and whip together until light and dollopable (word?  my mac editor says no.).  You may need to add more milk depending on the consistency of the goat cheese you use.
4. Combine pistachios, vinegar, olive oil, and black pepper and set aside.
5. When the beets are ready, let them cool a little bit so the cheese doesn't melt, and serve with a dollop of whipped cheese and drizzled with the pistacchio vinaigrette.

Serves 6.  Or just 1, for six days.

The Original

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Asparagus Cheese Souffle

Back to French Cooking.  Back to using recipes.  Back to spending an hour and a half at least on creating a beautiful meal that makes the evening feel special.  Tonight I made an asparagus souffle (asparagus season - yay!).

Light and fluffy, a souffle is satisfying, delicious, and makes the house smell wonderful.

Souffles are the best

To show off your kitchen skills

With a special dish

Ingredients

• oil
• 1 1/4 cups of milk
• 3 Tbsp unsalted butter
• 3 Tbsp unbleached all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp dry mustard
• 6 large eggs, separated and at room temperature
• 3/4 tsp salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• cayenne pepper
• 1 1/2 cups (packed) grated mild cheddar
• 1 1/2 cups asparagus tips
• 1/2 tsp dried tarragon
• 3 Tbsp fresh minced dill

1.  Chop the asparagus and start steaming.
2. Heat the milk in a saucepan or in the microwave to very hot but not yet boiling.  Remove it from the heat and set aside.
3. Melt the butter in a medium-sized saucepan over medium-low heat.  Sprinkle in the flour and mustard, whisking constantly.  Turn the heat down to low, and continue to cook the resulting roux (a foundation sauce of fat and flour) for about a minute or two longer, stirring often.
4. Slowly drizzle in the hot milk, whisking steadily.  Cook over low heat for 5 minutes, stirring frequently with a whisk and then a wooden spoon as it thickens.  Remove from the heat, and transfer to a large bowl.
5. Beat the egg yolks with a fork just until they lose their shape and become runny, then drizzle them into the hot sauce, beating vigorously.  Add the salt, some black pepper, and cayenne to taste.
6. Beat the egg whites until they form peaks that don't fall over when the whisk or beaters are lifted, and just a little liquid is left in the bottom of the bowl.
7. Fold (or dump) the beaten whites into the sauce, sprinkling in the grated cheese as you fold, until the eggg whites are mostly incorporated.  Add the asparagus, tarragon and dill.  The mixture will not be uniform - there will be little puffs of "cloud" here and there (puffs of cloud may = clumps).  
8. Transfer the mixture to the prepared dish.
9. Bake in the center of the oven for 45 minutes, or until golden brown all over the puffy top surface.  Bring to the table and serve immediately.

I used a french herb blend that had a bit of tarragon in it instead of the straight tarragon.  It was fantastic.
Instead of the 3 Tbsp of fresh dill, if you must, you can use 1 Tbsp of dried minced dill.
I used Bob's Red Mill All-Purpose gluten-free flour.  It worked perfectly.
An electric blender makes souffle preparation quick and easy.  I've done it with a whisk.  It was just barely worth it.

Recipe from Mollie Katzen's Sunlight Cafe. 

Barbeque Pork Kimchee Tacos

Remember the Kimchee Shepherd's Pie?  Oh - this is even better. 

The trick to this, is to find really good farm fresh organic free range pork and get some good Kimchee.  Eventually I'll come up with my own recipe for kimchee and link it here.  But for tonight, I used kimchee made by my student, Criss Chang, which is a little sweeter than your average kimchee, but worked perfectly in this recipe.  Many restaurants will sell their kimchee to you as well.

Sweet, tangy, salty

This dish has got everything

Good leftover too!

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs 1 inch cubed pork, marbled,  from a reliable source
• 1 cup kimchee
• chopped lettuce
• 2/3 cup barbeque sauce (your favorite)
• cheddar cheese
• corn tortillas (store bought, or homemade)

1. In a large skillet or wok, cook the pork, approx 10 minutes over medium-high heat, stirring.  Add the barbeque sauce, stir, and cover.  Cook 10 minutes more.
2. Uncover, keep cooking.  The sauce and pork should create a nice crust on the bottom of the pan.  Scrape this crust into the sauce and keep turning the pork over.
3. In a small skillet, heat a corn tortilla on both sides.  Remove to serving plate and top with chopped lettuce, kimchee, barbeque sauteed pork, and grated cheese.
4. Serve warm.  Great with a pinot noir.

Sake Beef Stew

You'd think that beef stew wouldn't be appropriate for the month of May, but we have average temperatures much lower than any that have been seen in the past 27 years in Chicago, so looking forward to a pot of beef stew is JUST RIGHT.

I'm no stranger to cooking with wine, so I thought I'd branch out a bit and give the hearty beef and onions a slightly sweeter taste by cooking them in sake.

Sake in Beef Stew

Traditional with a flair

ANY time of year!

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs grass-fed chuck-eye roast cubed for stew
• 1 large onion
• 5 large carrots, cut into 1 inch pieces
• 8 medium red potatoes
• Vegetable broth
• 8 oz frozen peas
• Water
• black pepper
• salt
• 1/2 cup sake
• 5 Tbsp flour or other thickener

1. Brown half of the onion (coarsely chopped) and beef in a skillet.  Drain the juices into a crockpot or stockpot.  Whisk flour into this juice and set aside.  Continue cooking and draining, until the beef and onion have created a crispy crust-like coating on the pan.  Dump the onion and beef in the pot and add a bit of water to the skillet to deglaze.  Scrape crust-like coating and water into the stockpot.  Add sake.
2. Cube the onion and potatoes.  Add potatoes, onion and carrots to the pot.  Cook, uncovered until juices are at the bottom of the pot.  Add vegetable broth and water to cover and cook, covered, on medium for 90 minutes.  If in a crockpot, cook on high.
3. 15 minutes before serving, add the frozen peas, salt, and pepper to taste.

Enjoy with bread and butter or over mashed potatoes or rice.

This dish can be made gluten-free by using a thickener besides wheat flour. 

Chochoyota a la Biznaga

This was a soup that I had at La Biznaga, in Oaxaca my first night in Mexico.  It isn't exotic, but it was delicious and I plan on experimenting with it as a base for many future meals.


Ingredients:

• 15 oz chicken broth, plus water
• 1/4 cup masa, plus water (approx 3 Tbsp)
• 1 bunch watercress
• 1/4 tsp salt
• dash of coriander
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1.  Heat chicken broth over medium heat.  
2. While broth is cooking, combine masa and water and form into tiny balls.
3. Add balls to the broth and let boil 5 minutes.
4. Add salt and coriander.
5. Wash and chop watercress and add to the broth.
6. Cook another five minutes.
7. Add freshly ground black pepper upon serving.

May be garnished with avocado, rice, crushed red pepper, or with added shredded chicken.
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Salsa and Quesadillas

C'mon.  Who needs a recipe for salsa or quesadillas?  I know, I know.  But both turned out FABULOUSLY.  So, why not?

Ingredients:

• 3 large tomatoes, on the vine, from your yard, or heirloom.  Flavorful.
• 4 cloves garlic
• salt
• 1/4 tsp cumin
• corn tortillas
• fresh mozarella
• crushed red pepper or reconstituted ancho chilis
• greek-style yogurt
• 1 avocado
• olive, canola, or sunflower oil

For the salsa:

1. Cut three large tomatoes in half and place on a foil-lined cookie sheet.  Put in the oven at 375F for 20 - 25 minutes.
2. In a blender or food processor, combine tomatoes, 4 cloves of garlic, a pinch or two of salt, and a dash of cumin.
3. Blend.  
4. Heat a frying pan.  Add 1 Tbsp oil and heat 30 seconds.  Add 1 corn tortilla.  Top with cheese and red pepper and another corn tortilla.  Press lightly and fry 2 minutes.
5. Flip, and fry 3 minutes more.
6. Flip one more time to get your very own personal favorite crispiness. 
7. Remove to a plate and top with yogurt, salsa, and avocado.

Corn Tortillas

In an effort to make a meal from scratch/hot off the griddle/as fresh as can be like I had every day in Mexico, I decided to attempt to make my own corn tortillas.  The ones you can buy at the store here just never taste quite as good (though I WAS on vacation when I enjoyed those heavenly tortillas in Mexico - I don't know if that had anything to do with it). 

So, armed with a bag of masa, some wax paper and a rolling pin, I decided to get started.  [I did have a package of store-bought tortillas on hand so my meal wouldn't be ruined if my tortilla skills fell below par.]

The package directions said to mix 2 cups of masa with 1 1/4 cups of water.  No good.  Too dry.  Just keep adding water.  You need to do the mixing with your hands to get the right consistency too.  Once you've got it though, make 16 balls ready for pressing.

Placing the first ball on a sheet of wax paper, I covered it with another sheet of wax paper and applied my midwestern pie-crust rolling-pin skills to the ball.  No good.  It wasn't round; it wasn't uniform.  In the cooking class I took in Mexico, we used a tortilla press, so I got out a frying pan and tried that.  Finally, by tortilla #12, I had perfected the frying pan/rolling pin method of pressing tortillas.  It goes as follows:

1.  Place to-be-tortilla ball in the center of a sheet of wax paper.

2.  Cover with another similar sized piece of wax paper.

3.  Quickly and evenly, press down on the top piece of wax paper with a heavy frying pan.

4.  Rock back and forth and to each side while pressing into the frying pan with all your might.

5.  Use the rolling pin four strokes to 2 and 8 o'clock followed by four strokes to 10 and 4 o'clock.  Be careful to keep the pressure in the center of the tortilla so the sides do not end up too thin.

6.  Do this a few times, and apply the frying pan one more time.  Heat a dry griddle, heavy frying pan, or comal on the stovetop to medium - high.

7.  Lift the wax paper with the flattened tortilla nestled inside and flip over.  Remove the top (previously bottom) layer of wax paper.  Flip the tortilla into your hand and place on heated griddle, thick frying pan, or comal (though if you have a comal, you probably have a tortilla press and have no need of this post).

8.  After 10 seconds, flip the tortilla.  After 2 minutes, flip it again.  It might (if you're lucky) start to puff up.  After another 20 seconds or so remove it from the griddle/heavy bottomed frying pan/comal to a dishtowel, or tortilla warmer.

9.  Tah dah!

These tortillas are a little thicker than the ones you're used to (unless you're really strong, in which case you can come over here and help me out), but they are excellent for open-faced tacos, quesadillas and dipping.

 If you want to be more authentic about it, it looks like this.

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