Japanese, ginger and garlic chicken with smashed cucumber

We made this Japanese Style Chicken but 
we were underwhelmed. We won't make it again. 

Japanese, ginger and garlic chicken with smashed cucumber

A Change of Appetite

Diana Henry

SERVES 4

FOR THE CHICKEN

3-1/2 tablespoons soy sauce

3       tablespoons sake or dry sherry

3       tablespoons packed dark brown sugar

½      tablespoons brown miso

2/3    cup peeled and finely grated ginger root

4       garlic cloves, finely grated

1       teaspoon togarashi seasoning, or 1/2 teaspoon chili                 powder

8       good-size skinless, bone-in chicken thighs, or other bone-in chicken pieces

FOR THE CUCUMBER

1-1/2  cucumbers

2       garlic cloves, coarsely chopped

2       teaspoons sea salt

2       tablespoons pink pickled ginger, finely shredded

small handful of shiso leaves, if available, or mint leaves, torn (optional)

This dish has a great interplay of temperatures. The chicken is hot and spicy, the cucumber like eating shards of ice (make sure you serve it direct from the refrigerator). The cucumber recipe is adapted from a recipe in a wonderful American book called Japanese Farm Food by Nancy Singleton Hachisu. You can also make the chicken with boneless thighs and grill them.

Mix everything for the chicken (except the chicken itself) to make a marinade. Pierce the chicken on the fleshy sides with a knife, put the pieces into a shallow dish, and pour the marinade over the meat. Massage it in well, turning the pieces over. Cover and put in the refrigerator for 30-60 minutes.

When you're ready to cook, preheat the oven to 350°F. Take the pieces out of the marinade and put them in a shallow ovenproof dish in which they can sit snugly in a single layer. Pour over half the marinade. Roast in the oven for 40 minutes, basting every so often with the juices and leftover marinade (don't add any leftover marinade after 20 minutes; it needs to cook properly because it had raw chicken in it). Check for doneness: The juices that run out of the chicken when you pierce the flesh with a knife should be clear and not at all pink.

When the chicken is halfway through cooking, peel and halve the cucumber and scoop out the seeds. Set on a board and bang the pieces gently with a pestle or rolling pin. This should break them up a little. Now break them into chunks with your hands.

Crush the garlic with a pinch of the salt and massage it—and the rest of the salt—into the cucumber. Put in a small plastic bag, squeeze out the air, and put in the refrigerator for 10 minutes. When you're ready to eat, transfer the cucumber to a strainer so the juices can drain away. Add the shredded ginger. You can add shiso leaves if you can find them (I can't, I have no Japanese store nearby). Nothing else really tastes like it, but I sometimes add mint. Serve the chicken with brown rice or rice vermicelli (the rice vermicelli is good served cold) and the cucumber.

Grilled Shrimp with Pancetta and Radicchio

We made Grilled Shrimp with Pancetta and Radicchio

from The Young Man and the Sea by David Pasternack. This is an excellent simple recipe. You can get the recipe from our blog of: April 7, 2014. Click the date to get the recipe.

Rici-e-Bici

We had shelled several pounds of fresh peas to make the Orecchiette Carbonara with English Peas. We kept all of the pea shells and made a pea stock that we could then use for making: Rici-e-Bici. The wonderful rice and pea dish that is halfway between a soup and risotto. This is a delicious dish. You can find the recipe in our blog of: March 31, 2014. Click the date to get the recipe.

Mushroom Risotto

One of the joys of Spring is Asparagus from the delta. Note to self: pray the delta won’t be to badly affected by our California Drought. There are so many ways to make an Asparagus Salad. This is one of our favorites: Blanched for 3 minutes, brown butter, burrata cheese and hazelnuts.

We made a Mushroom Risotto to go with the salad. We love the earthiness of this dish and have made it many times. You can get the recipe from our blog of April 21, 2009. Click the date to get the recipe. The sausages were from McCall’s Meat and Fish.

Orecchiette Carbonara with English Peas and Pea Shoots

I purchased several pounds of fresh spring peas. Spring Peas are wonderfully sweet and easy to peel. We made a favorite: Orecchiette Carbonara with English Peas and Pea Shoots. This is a delicious pasta. You can find the recipe on our blog of: April 28, 2009. Click the date to get the recipe.

We had so many peas we made a Pea Puree as a first course. You can get the recipe from our blog of: April 3, 2006. Click the date to get the recipe.

Moroccan Short Rib Tagine

We made a Beef Tagine with Sweet Potatoes from The Food of Morocco.  I loved this recipe. It was a combination of tastes of both Moroccan Spices and the sweetness of the Potatoes. You can find the recipe in our blog of: Oct. 2, 2009. Click the date to get the recipe. We of course made Cous-Cous to go with it. We purchased the beautiful short-ribs at McCall's Meat and Fish.

Pasta alla Genovese

We saw a recipe for Pasta alla Genovese by Mark Bittman in the New York Times.

We made it a really liked it. My father wouldn't have liked it, it has no tomatoes! That makes it perfect for winter time. The 4-½ pounds of Red Onions makes the sauce a little sweet. It is a winner. This is a recipe we will make again. Try it!

INGREDIENTS

4 ¼ pounds red onions

⅓ cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped

1 celery rib, trimmed and roughly chopped

¼ pound bacon or pancetta, chopped

2 ¼ pounds beef chuck, cut into 2-inch cubes

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

¼ cup dry white wine, plus more if desired

1 pound dried pasta, like ziti, tortiglioni or rigatoni

Finely grated Parmesan cheese

PREPARATION

1.   Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Place the onions in the boiling water, and cook, covered, 15 minutes. Drain the onions, and let cool a bit, then slice very thinly.

2.   Heat half the oil in a large heavy pot over medium-high heat; stir in the carrots, celery and bacon, and cook for 4 minutes. Add the beef, then cover with the onions. Pour the remaining oil over the onions, then sprinkle with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and 3/4 teaspoon pepper. Cover, bring to a simmer and cook gently until the beef is tender, about 2 hours; the onions will release a good deal of liquid.

3.   Uncover the pot and bring to a boil. Cook, stirring more frequently as the liquid reduces and lowering the heat as necessary to prevent scorching, until the meat has fallen apart and the sauce is creamy, about 45 minutes. Stir in the wine and taste, adding more wine if desired. Reduce the heat to low, and continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the sauce is glossy and quite thick, about 15 minutes more.

4.   Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until al dente, then drain and toss with the sauce. Stir in Parmesan to taste, then serve.

Polpettone with Spinach and Provolone

Arrange the Mortadella over the combined meats

Cover the Mortadella with Spinach

Add Provolone Cheese

Add Hardboiled Egg

Roll into a log and seal ends and seam

Top with bread crumbs and Bake

Slice and serve with mashed potatoes

We saw a recipe in the New York Times for Polpettone with Spinach and Provolone and we had to make it. We were proud of our end result. The log held together and there was a treat inside when you sliced the Polpettone. It reheated well, and I made sandwiches over the next few days.

We served mashed potatoes with it. We used the recipe for Garlic Mashed Potato recipe in TheBalthazar Cookbook by McNally, Nasr, Hanson. This is a fantastic recipe - it is super-rich! You can find the recipe on our blog of: November 12, 2012. Click the date to get the recipe.

By the way, we learned a super trick from ChiSpacca about reheating mashed potatoes. Put them in a pan on the top of the stove. Add a lot of cream and stir constantly until hot. The mashed potatoes will reconstitute to perfection. I never knew reheated mashed potatoes could be as good (or better) than fresh mashed potatoes. They are!

Polpettone with Spinach and Provolone

New York Times

INGREDIENTS

1 cup cubed day-old bread, crusts removed

1 cup heavy cream

1 pound ground beef

1 pound ground pork

1 pound ground veal or turkey

1 tablespoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper

Pinch of cayenne

¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg

1 teaspoon chopped rosemary

1 teaspoon chopped thyme

2 teaspoons chopped sage

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

3 ounces grated Parmesan, about 1/2 cup

2 eggs, lightly beaten, plus 3 (8-minute) hard-boiled eggs, peeled, for filling

¼ pound thinly sliced mortadella or prosciutto

1 pound spinach, briefly blanched, roughly chopped and squeezed dry

3 ounces provolone or caciocavallo, sliced 1/8-inch thick

1 cup fine dry bread crumbs, preferably homemade

PREPARATION

1.   Put bread cubes in a small bowl, cover with cream and set aside to soak until softened, about 10 minutes.

2.   Put beef, pork and veal in a mixing bowl. Season with salt, pepper, cayenne, nutmeg, rosemary, thyme, sage and parsley. Add Parmesan and, using hands, knead seasoning into meat. Combine soaked bread (and any remaining cream) with beaten eggs, then pour mixture over seasoned meat and knead until well combined.

3.   Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12-by-18-inch baking sheet with parchment or foil. Press ground meat mixture evenly over parchment to make a flat rectangle slightly smaller than the baking sheet. Top with slices of mortadella. Scatter cooked spinach evenly over mortadella. Break provolone slices into rough pieces and distribute over surface. Finish with hard-cooked egg chopped into chunks.

4.   Using parchment to help, roll the meat into a long cylinder with filling on the inside. With the long side facing you, first lift parchment and use it to roll meat to the center, pressing down to keep it in place. Then lift parchment on the opposite long side, bringing meat just past the center to overlap itself slightly. Pinch the “seam” of the meat together to keep filling in place. Sprinkle with half the dry crumbs. You will now have a cylinder approximately 15 inches long. Twist ends of parchment to firm the mixture, then transfer to a deep-sided baking dish or roasting pan, and place it seam-side down. Carefully remove and discard parchment. With hands, press firmly to form cylinder into a long loaf with rounded ends. Dust top and sides with remaining bread crumbs. (The polpettone may be prepared to this point several hours, or up to 24 hours, in advance; keep refrigerated and bring to room temperature before baking.)

5.   Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until internal temperature is 140 degrees. Let rest for 10 minutes and cut into 1-inch-thick slices and serve. (Alternatively, cool to room temperature and refrigerate for up to 3 days. If serving cold, cut thinner slices.)

Baked Ziti With Vegetable Sauce

A delicious vegetarian pasta is Baked Ziti With Vegetable Sauce. The recipe is from America Masala by Suvir Saran. We love this dish and it gives lots of leftovers. You can get the recipe on our blog of: Oct. 21, 2014. Click the date to get the recipe. It is Yummy!

Rotisserie Pork

Scott and Tom joined us for Rotisserie Pork. We love this dish. We started with Bucatini All’amatriciana pasta as a small appetizer plate. It made for a great appetizer. You can get the recipe on our blog of: Sept. 6, 2012. Click the date to get the recipe. We served Polenta under the pork. Bea, Robert and Jamie stopped by for a drink. We invited them to join us but they were just coming from dinner. Tom and Scott brought an outrageous dessert. 

Rotisserie Chicken

We love cooking on our rotisserie. It is so forgiving, just watch it spin till the skin is crispy! The Potatoes are placed under the chicken to catch the drippings while cooking. 

Cathy stuffed the two chickens using the recipe for Roast Chicken for Two and from The Balthhazar Cookbook by Keith McNally, Riad Nasr & Lee Hansen. This is a great recipe that keeps the chicken very moist. You can find the recipe on our blog of: June 23, 2012. Click the date to get the recipe.

Bucatini All’amatriciana

Shu joined us for Bucatini All’amatriciana, it is one of our favorite pastas. We use the recipe from the Babo Cookbook by Mario Batali. You can get the recipe on our blog of: November 24, 2014. Click the date to get the recipe. We wanted to make this recipe because we had purchased Benton's Bacon and we thought it would work well in the recipe. It was great - bacon is my favorite seasoning! This is a delicious spicy pasta. Try it!

We started with a Caesar Salad. We use the recipe from The Zuni Cookbook, modified by a trick we learned at Mozza. We put all of the ingredients for the dressing in a blender and let it blend the sauce. It works perfectly. You can get the recipe for the salad on our blog of: July 25, 2009. Click the date to get the recipe.

Chick-Pea Soup and a Cheese Soufflé

We decided to make a winter meal of Soup and a Cheese Soufflé. We tried a new soup for us: Pureed Chick-Pea Soup with Mushrooms from Bugialli’s Italy by Giuliano Bugialli. It is an older cookbook that we have used for years. The soup is quite thick and the Porcini Mushrooms give it loads of depth. Cathy added fresh mushrooms to make it even more earthy.

We made a Cheese Soufflé as a second course. I love the way it puffs up and has such a crisp brown top. This was a Parmesan Cheese flavored soufflé and turned out perfect. It is always anxiety creating when you bake the soufflé you know you exactly followed the recipe but none the less you aren’t sure until you bring it out of the oven that it will puff up. This one did! You can get the recipe from our blog of: Feb. 15. 2013. Click the date to get the recipe.

CREMA  DI   CECI AI  FUNGHI

Pureed Chick-Pea Soup with Mushrooms

Bugialli’s Italy

Giuliano Bugialli

Makes  8   servings

From Umbria we have a crema of chick peas. The term ciema is used for pureed soups and really does not imply the inclusion of heavy cream as an ingredient. A significant difference between French and Italian cooking is that Italians almost never add small amounts of cream to a dish in which it is not featured as one of the primary ingredients, as is true of French cooking. One could almost say that in Italian cooking olive oil takes the place that heavy cream has in French cuisine. Dried porcini mushrooms, soaked, provide the dominant flavor here and it is intensified by adding some of the mushroom soaking water to the soup. Dried porcini have a much more intense flavor than fresh ones, and they are an important ingredient in their own right. And fortunately they are plentiful, especially under the chestnut trees that grow in Tuscany and elsewhere.

2     cups dried chick peas, picked over

3     quarts cold water

1     large carrot, scraped and cut into large pieces

1  medium-size red onion, cleaned and quartered

1     large clove garlic, plus 1 small clove garlic, both peeled

1     bay leaf

¼    cup extra virgin olive oil

2     ounces pancetta or prosciutto, in one piece

Coarse-grained salt

1  ounce dried porcini mushrooms

15  sprigs fresh Italian parsley, leaves only

1  cup strained mushroom soaking water

1  tablespoon tomato paste-(optional), preferably imported Italian, dissolved in the strained mushroom water

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

TO   SERVE:

Fresh Italian parsley leaves

Extra virgin olive oil to drizzle all over

Soak the chick peas in a large bowl of cold water overnight. The next morning, drain and rinse the peas and place them in a medium-size stockpot. Add the cold water, carrot, onion, large garlic clove, and bay leaf, then 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and the pancetta or prosciutto. Set the pot over medium heat and boil the chick peas for at least 50 minutes or until soft. Add coarse salt to taste and cook for another 5 minutes. Discard the bay leaf and pancetta and pass the contents of the pot through a food mill fitted with the disk with the smallest holes into a clean medium-size stock-pot. Set over medium heat and reduce for 10 minutes.

Soak the mushrooms in a bowl of lukewarm water for half an hour. Finely chop the parsley and small garlic clove together on a cutting board. Clean the soaked mushrooms very well, removing all the sand attached to the stems, and coarsely chop them. Remove the sand from the soaking water by pouring it through paper towels or a coffee filter several times. Save 1 cup of this water for this recipe and freeze the remaining water to be used when you prepare a meat sauce and want to enhance its taste.

Place the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil in a small nonreactive saucepan set over low heat. When the oil is warm, add the garlic mixture and very lightly saute for 2 minutes. Add the mush­rooms and saute for another 2 minutes. Add the cup of mushroom soaking water containing the dissolved tomato paste if desired, season with salt and pepper, and simmer for 15 minutes. Pour the contents of the saucepan into the stockpot, mix very well, and let simmer over low heat for at least IS minutes, stirring every so often with a wooden spoon to prevent the crema from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Serve hot or at room temperature, sprinkling the parsley leaves and olive oil over each serv­ing. This soup may be prepared up to a day before and reheated at the last moment before serving.

Mushroom Farro and Indian Delights

Sunset Over Silverlake

Cross Cultural Dinner

New Year’s Eve Mushroom Farro

Bouche De Noel

For a long time Cathy had kept a recipe from the New York Times called: New Year’s Eve Mushroom Farro. We finally decided to make it. The porcini mushrooms are very fragrant with a hearty earthen flavor. The liquid that they are reconstituted in is added to the faro making the dish even more assertive. The dish is cooked like a risotto with the farro replacing the rice. It is chewier and more nutty. I definitely liked the texture and taste.

Shumon called us and said he would like to join us. He offered to bring Paratha from his favorite Bengali restaurant. He surprised us with fresh Chicken Tikka. It was delicious.

For dessert we had a Bouche de Noel from McCall’s Meat and Fish.

New Year’s Eve Mushroom Farro

New York Times

4 cups chicken stock

1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms

10 ounces pancetta, diced

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 large shallots, minced

1 pound faro

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 1/2 cups white wine

2 tablespoons butter

8 ounces button mushrooms, quartered

1 1/2 to 2 cups grated Parmesan.

1. In a medium pot, heat the chicken stock and keep warm. Place the dried mushrooms in a small bowl. Bring about 2 cups of water to a boil and pour just enough over the mushrooms to cover. Let sit for 15 minutes. Drain the mushrooms, reserving the liquid, and roughly chop.

2. In a large, heavy pot, cook the pancetta in 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium-high heat until lightly browned. Reduce the heat to medium, add the shallots and cook until soft. Add the farro and cook for a few minutes to coat. Season with salt and pepper. Increase the heat to medium-high and add the wine, stirring until the liquid evaporates.

3. Meanwhile, in a medium pan, heat the butter and remaining tablespoon oil. Add the button mushrooms and sauté until soft. Toss in the porcini mushrooms and season to taste with salt and pepper.

4. Add the mushroom liquid to the farro, stirring until the liquid evaporates. Stir in the mushrooms. Add the stock, 1 cup at a time, stirring until the farro is al dente, 25 to 30 minutes. Do not overcook; the farro will continue to soften. Stir in the Parmesan, season as needed and serve immediately. Serves 4 to 6.

Adapted from Osteria del Matto in Spoleto, Italy.

Oh the Excess!

Fois Gras on Toast Points with Jam

Kobe Beef # 6

Kobe on the Grill

Kobe with Garlic Mash Potatoes with Truffles

Chocolate Carmel Tart from McCall's

I was brought up to believe “if you are going down, go down big!”. Boy did we on this dinner. Obviously New Year’s diet resolutions have not yet kicked in. We started with the remaining Fois Gras from New Year’s Eve. I was happy to learn yesterday that the ban on the sale of Fois Gras in California has been overturned. We had to order the Fois Gras from D'Artagnan. Now I guess it will be available in stores, not that we eat it that often. This particular Fois was extremely tasty!

When we were at McCall’s Meat and Fish they had some Japanese Kobe Beef. It is extremely marbled, tender, juicy, flavorful and expensive. They Japanese have a grading system for Kobe and this was # 6, I immediately asked is there a #7, I was assured, no, this is as good as it gets. How could we pass up the opportunity? We couldn’t, of course. We asked how best to cook it and they suggested grilling 2 minutes per side, using no oil, the meat is laden with fat it will cook fine without sticking. They were correct. This is definitely a meat eater’s ultimate experience.

We served Garlic Mashed Potatoes with the Kobe Beef. We shaved Fresh Black Truffles on top of the potatoes. The Garlic Mashed Potato recipe is the best mashed potato recipe we have ever made. You can find the recipe on our blog of: November 12, 2012. Click the date to get the recipe.

We topped the dinner off with a Chocolate Carmel Tart from McCall's. Joy and Brenda had given me a delicious bottle of Chateau Boswell wine from Napa that was the perfect accompniment to this very rich and excessive meal!