Kale

No, don’t run away! Don’t click over to that other food blog you like so much! Stay here, I beg of you. This won’t hurt. I promise.

Kale is what’s for supper if you’re a vegetarian in January. It’s apparently the only thing that grows in the dead of winter, like the big dark green leafy weed it is. Well, it’s not a weed. It’s a member of the cabbage family that doesn’t grow a head. But, it’s also related to wild cabbage, which you could call a weed. If you go to the farmer’s market in January, pretty much all you will see are farmers selling kale, radishes, sweet potatoes and winter squash. It will be that way until April.

Since the Mayhew New Year’s Day menu required some sort of green, and because the green of choice was kale, we had a lot left over. You can’t just buy a couple leaves of kale. You have to buy a mess of it, as we say in the South. So here’s what you do and I promise you will actually seek out kale after you try this: just saute it. Don’t cook it until it’s mush as we Southerners love to do. Just give it a quick dip in some olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

One of the great magic tricks of the culinary world is cooking any kind of greens. You will start with a skillet full to overflowing and think you’ve got way too much in the pan. Within minutes, you’ll have enough for three servings, if that.

Sauteed Kale

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

1 pound kale, sliced into thin ribbons

2 garlic cloves thinly sliced

Salt and pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil over medium high heat in a skillet. Add the vinegar and the kale. Stir constantly to start wilting the kale. When it is reduced by half, add the garlic slices. Continue cooking until the kale is completely wilted but still a vibrant green. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Ginger-fried rice

I cannot pronounce Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s name. In the South we are used to Bubbas and Juniors. We are used to women who have two first names, like Clara Dean Finley and Mary Lyon Verlen. We are not used to French people with German-sounding last names. But I like his fried rice.

The first time I had his ginger-fried rice, I didn’t know it was his. It was at a chicken-cooking class in Maryland and the teacher’s wife made it. What is this? So exotic. So delicious! So simple, actually. White rice with ginger, garlic and leeks. Fried egg on top so the yolk runs into the rice and creates a luscious sauce. I made a mental note to ask for the recipe, but I forgot about it.

Until. Until! I was reading my beloved People magazine and there it was on Page 110. Hugh Jackman’s favorite fried rice. It was the same recipe. I made it. Mark did not go for the fried egg on top. His loss. It really makes the dish.

A word about leeks, which are a star in this recipe. If you’re not used to leeks, you might actually be a little scared of them. They look like giant green onions and are, in fact, part of the onion family. They are very dirty because they have lots of layers. The only part you use is the white and green stalk. And once you slice them, you would be wise to soak the slices in a bowl of water and let any remaining dirt fall to the bottom.

Ginger-fried rice

8 tablespoons vegetable oil

3 tablespoons minced garlic

3 tablespoons minced ginger

2 cups sliced leeks

4 cups day-old cooked white rice

1 tablespoon ancho chili powder

2 teaspoons sesame oil

2 teaspoons soy sauce

4 large eggs

Heat 4 tablespoons of vegetable oil in a small skillet. Add 1 tablespoon each of the garlic and ginger and fry until golden brown. Remove and drain on a paper towel.

Heat 3 tablespoons of oil over medium heat in a large skillet and add the remaining garlic and ginger. Saute for about 30 seconds and add the leeks. Continue cooking until the leeks soften. Add the rice, chili powder, sesame oil and soy sauce. Salt and pepper to taste.

Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil in a small skillet. Fry the eggs sunny-side up.

Place the rice on a platter, top with the eggs and sprinkle with the browned ginger and garlic.

Swiss chard

A few years ago I did not know what it was. What is chard and why is it Swiss? I could probably look this up but then I would look like the expert I am decidedly not.

I can tell you this. Swiss chard is in the greens family along with spinach, kale, mustard, collard and the like. I did not really come to fully appreciate it until last fall, when the noted Lebanese author Anissa Helou made a salad of young Swiss chard stems with a tahini dressing for a luncheon group gathered for the Southern Foodways Alliance’s Delta Divertissement. Dang, you know Southerners do not eat raw greens as a rule. We boil the tar out of them and add in some fatback. But these raw chard stems were undeniably good and suspiciously healthy.

So at the Franklin Farmer’s Market last Saturday, I spied some really beautiful young Swiss chard and, armed with my now fledgling Lebanese foodways knowledge, I snatched it up and brought it home. I did make some tahini dipping sauce, after scouring the Publix for the one can of tahini in the entire place (it is a sesame paste and you will be tempted to eat it out of the can). To make the dip you just add lemon juice, garlic, salt and a little water to thin it out. I used whole chard leaves as a dipping conveyance and felt very happy about the result.

I cut the rest of the chard into ribbons (you cannot buy just a few leaves of this stuff – it comes in giant bunches that will barely fit in your politically correct reusable shopping bag) and sauteed it briefly with  lemon juice, olive oil and garlic. The boys – and this is the best clue that you’re on to something – both said, “What is that? I love it.”

So Swiss chard. It’s in the farmer’s markets now. Dip it, saute it or use the leaves as a fan since the temperatures are heating up. It’s all good.

Chimichurri

Doesn’t that name just scream fun? Even if you don’t know what it is?

I will have to digress for a moment before I actually get to the recipe. I have had occasion over the years in several of my jobs to meet various famous people. And I have come to this conclusion. If you are nice before you become famous, you will be nice after you become famous. And if you’re not, you won’t.

Michelle Bernstein was raised up right because she’s really nice. Michelle is what they’re calling these days a “star chef.” She’s won the James Beard Award and she also beat the stuffing out of Bobby Flay on Iron Chef. I met her last fall at the Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium, where I am quite certain she was bitterly regretting agreeing to make lunch for 500 extremely knowledgeable and food-obsessed writers, chefs, industry professionals and hangers-on like me. The reason I came to this conclusion is that I watched her direct a team of other chefs in an outdoor assembly line and I will tell you the girl looked like she was about to have a heart attack. At the end of the meal, she just stood there hugging her husband for a very long time and I know her next stop had to have been the nearest bar. The food was fantastic. And in the middle of all that, in the heat of battle, she sweetly agreed to let me take her photo. And at a meet-and-greet later on that day, she was just delightful and Southern people put a pretty high premium on delightful.

I am telling you all of this to say that last fall I did not understand that Michelle Bernstein would change my life with her chimichurri recipe from Cuisine a Latina, her cookbook. I had heard of chimichurri for years, but I’m not the biggest parsley fan on the planet and chimichurri is mostly parsley. But I was so wrong about this sauce. Traditionally,  it’s served with grilled meat in Argentina. It’s like their national catsup.

So after a particularly parsley-heavy funeral food marathon, I had some left over. I made the sauce. I grilled a hangar steak. And I tried the meat and sauce together. Something happens when that vibrant garlicky, slightly spicy sauce hits that charred medium rare meat that is unexplainable. It is unbelievably good and ya’ll have just got to try it. It makes me want to be Argentinian, which would also make me a lot more interesting.

Michelle Bernstein’s Chimichurri

1 cup finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley leave

2 tablespoons fresh oregano

2 tablespoons minced garlic

2 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Note: Traditional Chimichurri must be made at least an hour before serving.

Put parsley, oregano, garlic, red pepper flakes, and vinegar into a blender or food processor and process until it becomes a coarse paste. Use a rubber spatula to scrape mixture into a bowl or other container. Stir in olive oil; add salt and pepper. Let sit for at least one hour before serving.

Texas chili

As I sat down to write a post about Texas chili, I realized I had no funny or memorable stories about chili. Except have you ever noticed that there is no other dish that inspires so many contests among amateur cooks? When I was a cub reporter at The Tampa Tribune, we had a chili contest among the reporters in the Brandon Bureau. A clerk won with a version that had cinnamon in it. He claimed to have never made chili before. At the City Paper, we had a chili contest every year. The winner, also, usually claimed to have never made it before. There was a big stink one year when Dom Bonvissuto won after his mother talked him through her chili recipe. The sore losers thought that was cheating. I personally think it was inspired.

I am not a chili snob. I will eat almost anyone’s chili and enjoy it. I like the chili at Krystal’s and am very partial to the chili five-way at Steak ‘n Shake. I like chili with cornbread or corn sticks and I like it with just soda crackers crumbled on top.

But the chili I like best, the one that towers over all other chili versions, in my opinion, is Nancy O’Hara’s Texas chili. Nancy is a friend of our next door neighbors. One night we were invited for supper and Nancy brought her Texas chili. It is not made with ground beef and it has no beans. It is made with a boneless chuck roast and just a few other ingredients. Really, at the end of the day, I think it’s more of a stew and I serve it over rice or mashed potatoes. But it would be killer over spaghetti with some chopped raw onion and shredded cheese.

Nancy O’Hara’s Texas Chili

¼ pound bacon, chopped

3 medium onions, sliced

8 cloves garlic, sliced

½ cup chili powder

1 tablespoon ground cumin

2 teaspoons oregano

2 teaspoons salt

4 pounds boneless chuck roast, cut into 1-inch cubes

5 cups water

1 tablespoon cornmeal

In a large Dutch oven, cook bacon over medium heat until crisp. Add onion and cook until soft. Add garlic, chili powder, cumin, oregano and salt. Cook for 30 seconds. Add beef and enough water to cover it. Simmer, uncovered, adding more water as necessary for 2 ½ to 3 hours or until beef is tender. Thicken the sauce with cornmeal.

Giada’s Italian-style grilled steak

So I am thumbing through my People magazine yesterday. I am devoted to People magazine, although it is starting to lose some of its luster because there are now way too many stories about ordinary people losing weight. I don’t want to read about ordinary folks in People magazine, especially if they are on a diet. I want to read about deranged celebrities trashing hotel rooms and the preparations for Prince William’s wedding.

However, I turn to page 103 and see right there a recipe from Giada de Laurentiis for rib-eye steaks with smoky arrabiata sauce. And it says that the recipe is one of the reasons Giada’s husband asked her to marry him. Really? Steak with what amounts to spaghetti sauce? Is that even a good idea?

But I trust Giada de Laurentiis. I have two of her cookbooks and she has never steered me wrong. In fact, a few of her recipes are now a regular part of my repertoire. I cannot live without her lemon spaghetti and her marinara sauce is the basis for my award-winning (at least in my house) spaghetti sauce.

It’s been cold and drizzly here and all of us in Middle Tennessee are slightly more than a  little depressed so I decided to splurge and get some steak and just see how well this recipe works out.

Oh, my God. I rarely invoke the Almighty’s name when it comes to food, but this steak and arrabiata sauce is unbelievably delicious! I mean we barely got some on a plate because we were so busy just dipping the slices of steak into the sauce pot. I just don’t know what else to say. It was that good.

The sauce recipe makes more sauce than you’ll need for the steak, unless you are tempted to just drink it (as we were). But the leftover sauce would be just dandy with some pasta or on a homemade pizza. Or chilled as a cocktail with a little vodka. OK. Maybe not the last one.

 

Giada’s Rib-Eye Steaks with Smoky Arrabiata Sauce

1 3-inch serrano pepper

1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes

1 small onion, coarsely chopped

2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

1 tablespoon capers, drained, rinsed and coarsely chopped

1 tablespoon sugar

2 ½ teaspoons smoked paprika

1 tablespoon kosher salt, plus extra for seasoning

2 one-pound ribeye steaks, each about 1-inch thick

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 ½ teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Remove stem and half the seeds from pepper; coarsely chop. Pulse pepper and next 7 ingredients in a food processor until mixture is chunky. Bring tomato mixture to a boil over medium heat; reduce heat and simmer 25 minutes or until thickened. Salt to taste. Cover and keep warm.

Heat grill pan or skillet over medium-high heat or preheat grill to 350-400 degrees. Drizzle each side of steak with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Grill 5-6 minutes on each side for medium-rare. Cover steaks and let stand 5 minutes. Slice steaks across the grain into ¼-inch slices and serve with sauce.

Korean-style pork

This is so fabulous. We’re having a snow day. Tennesseans, at least the ones in Middle Tennessee, don’t do snow well. Actually, come to think of it, we do snow very well. We stay inside. We eat a lot. Maybe have a few cocktails. That’s much better than mucking about outside, freezing and slipping all over the place. Much better.

So because we are “stuck” in our houses and cannot do anything remotely productive, we noodle around. This morning I have written my Christmas letter (I always do this after Christmas so I don’t get stressed about it), accompanied by a cup of coffee laced with Bushmill’s. I have taken several snow pictures from the comfort of my own home. I have checked out the traffic cameras from various Southern states that also got snow to see how pathetic the rest of my brethren are doing. I have not had the slightest notion to get out of my jammies yet.

I know. I know. When is she getting to the Korean-style pork, you are all wondering. One of my greatest achievements as a cook is figuring out what to do with the knobby end of a pork tenderloin.  You know that part. If you don’t cut it off before you cook the tenderloin, it’s the piece nobody wants. It’s just ugly. However, if you cut it off and freeze it, at some point you will accumulate enough knobby ends to make Korean-style pork.

What you want to do is let the pork thaw about halfway until you can thinly slice it. Then you marinate it in a yummy sauce and fry it at a high temperature with a little oil in the skillet. It’s super easy and super good served over rice with some roasted broccoli.  And the reason I decided to write about Korean-style pork on a snow day is that I happened to have everything on hand to make it.

You can, of course make this with regular pork tenderloin.

O.K., time for a Bloody Mary.

Korean-style pork

1/2 pound pork tenderloin scraps

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon Thai red curry paste

1 teaspoon dark sesame oil

1 large garlic clove, sliced

Cut tenderloin into thin sliced. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a bowl and add the pork. Marinate in the refrigerator for one hour. Heat a little oil in a skillet over medium high heat. Add the pork, with the garlic, and sauté until the pork is nicely browned.

 

 

 

Pasta and prosciutto

Do you ever get tired of making the same dish? That was a topic on Chowhound recently and it got me to thinking about my tendency to go back to my five or six favorite recipes over and over. I mean not back-to-back nights, but when I’m stuck for a recipe idea I can always pull out one of the standards and it does the trick.

A few years ago, I actually made up one of my favorite go-to recipes when I ended up with some odd ingredients in the fridge: cream and prosciutto. Somewhere in the dim recesses of my mind I remembered some chef saying that you never cook prosciutto. Something about compromising the integrity of the product. Well, I threw that notion right out the window.

The cream and prosciutto joined some pasta, peas, mushrooms and Parmesan cheese to produce an extremely tasty dish. I usually use bowtie pasta but any kind will do. This recipe calls for Madeira and you will be tempted to leave it out. DO NOT. Madeira is dirt cheap and a bottle will last for 17 years. Any time you’re making a pan sauce, if you add a little Madeira and reduce it by half in the pan it will add a deep dimension to the sauce.

Which reminds me of my favorite refrigerator magnet: “I cook with wine and sometimes I even add it to the food.” Truer words.

Pasta and Prosciutto

1 pound bowtie pasta

2 tablespoons butter

1 small onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

4 ounces prosciutto, cut into thin strips

8 ounces sliced mushrooms

2 tablespoons Madeira

1 cup frozen peas

Salt

Pepper

2 cups cream

¼ cup Parmesan cheese

Boil pasta in salty water until it is al dente.

Heat butter  in a large sauté pan over medium high heat. Add onions. Sauté until onions are translucent. Add garlic and continue cooking for another minute. Add prosciutto and mushrooms. Continue cooking until mushrooms are browned and their juice has evaporated. Add Madeira and peas. Continue cooking until Madeira has reduced by half. Salt and pepper to taste.

Add cream and continue cooking until cream thickens. Add the Parmesan cheese and combine thoroughly. Add the pasta.

 

 

 

Shrimp and grits

Have you ever noticed that when disaster strikes somehow food is involved at some point? At least it is in the South. A friend told me that where ever he is in the world when he dies he wants to be buried in the South. I told him that would be because he would be assured that the funeral food at the reception would be good.

So disaster struck at the Community Resource Center Sunday night. We are having a little flooding problem in Middle Tennessee. You’d never know it watching the national news. I don’t know why but no one seems interested in major landmarks under water, tens of thousands of people losing their homes and all their possessions and a rising death toll. Can you tell I am quite perplexed at this? At any rate, our building is the white one with the red roof. There are five feet of oily, chemically laden water lapping at the front door. We are dealing with it. Without the glare of national publicity.

But I digress. Food. In this case shrimp and grits. There is nothing more comforting than a bowl of creamy grits topped with spicy shrimp when you are feeling just slightly overwhelmed by the task ahead.

Here’s the thing with grits and this may be the most important piece of advice I’ve given in awhile. Whether they are quick-cooking grits or regular (never, ever as long as you live use instant grits), you must cook them until creamy. Which means don’t pay any attention to the package directions, except for the measurements. And you need to use milk, not water. Adding butter is also a good thing. You have to whisk and whisk and whisk. Not frenetically. Just constantly. And then taste, taste, taste. If they taste “gritty”, they are not done. Whisk some more. I’d say if you spend a good 20 minutes you’ll have good results. A bowl of really well cooked creamy grits will change your life.

Shrimp and grits don’t normally have any vegetable matter in them, but I add some peppers because I foolishly believe it makes the dish healthy. Don’t tell me otherwise. I’m fragile right now.

Shrimp and grits

Regular or quick-cooking grits (not instant!)

6 strips bacon

1 red pepper, sliced into strips

1 yellow pepper, sliced into strips

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 ½ pounds shrimp, peeled and deveined

BBQ rub

Juice of one lemon

Prepare grits according to package directions, using milk instead of water so that they are exceptionally creamy.

Fry the bacon until crisp. Set bacon aside but reserve bacon fat.

In another skillet, sauté the peppers in about 2 tablespoons butter over medium heat until browned. Add garlic and sauté for 30 seconds. Remove from heat and reserve.

Sprinkle shrimp liberally with your favorite BBQ rub. Add shrimp to the bacon fat and sauté for one minute on each side or until shrimp have just turned pink.

Crumble bacon.

To serve: Put a couple of ladles of grits in a bowl. Top with shrimp and peppers. Sprinkle with crumbled bacon.

You know, it just occurred to me that I never give portion sizes. That’s just up to you. You’ll have leftovers, so who cares?

Kofta Kabobs

What? How did Kofta Kabobs get on a blog about Southern food? Southern Lebanese, perhaps? Someone in Lebanon must speak with a drawl. Actually, in Middle Tennessee there is a Lebanon, only it’s pronounced “Leb‘non”.

But I am already digressing. I adore lamb. I found it repugnant as a child. On the rare occasion when we had it, my mother always overcooked it and then served it with noxious mint jelly. I do not even know why mint jelly exists.

The other night I just got a craving for Kofta, ground lamb with Middle Eastern spices such as cumin, coriander and cinnamon, that are shaped into cylinders and wrapped around a skewer for grilling. Except that it was cold and pouring down rain so I skipped the skewer part and just fried them.

I have to pass along a quick story about why I love the Publix. Another time when I was about to have a complete breakdown if I didn’t get ground lamb burgers I went to the Publix and they didn’t have any ground lamb. But. BUT. The man behind the meat counter asked if I could wait a few minutes and he would grind a lamb shoulder just for me. Do you think they would do that at the Kroger? No, they would not.

You are now wondering what the white gunk on top of the Kofta is. It is not gunk. It is Tzatziki, a sauce made from plain yogurt, cucumber, olive oil, garlic and lemon. You will be tempted to skip this part of the recipe, but do not do that. It’s really good.

The Food Network has a better recipe than I’ll ever come up with so I’m going to share it with you. If lamb’s not your thing (try it once, please!), you can make this with ground beef.