Toasted CousCous and Wilted Kale

Happy National Kale Day!

I only thought it fit that given the name day that I do another kale recipe for you. I’ve been really into wilting fibrous greens into pastas or hot salads lately and I think it’s a great way to still enjoy the texture while not losing the green. This particular recipe is great served both cold and hot.

I know a lot of times if you braise kale or sauté it too long that it starts to turn dark on you. This also (in my opinion) allows for the bitterness to seep out and you really need to pay attention to the balance or it won’t taste light and fresh. The next few paragraphs explore how to use different varieties.

It’s also worth mentioning that there are quite a variety of kales out there and they all have a little something special about them. Familiarize yourself with what is available and start to explore!

I chose to use curly kale so I will explain why first. Your standard curly kale is going to be the toughest of your varieties and needs to be cooked or cut very thin to be able to eat it. It’s got very curly looking leaves (like curly parsley) and really has a fun texture when you wilt it down in this recipe. If you do wilt it down like we are here, I highly suggest ripping or cutting it into small pieces (half the size of a credit card) before wilting it. Keep in mind that the process of wilting will reduce the structure and size of the leaf so when you put it in doesn’t be alarmed if you suddenly think “I put way too much kale in this”. It will reduce down.

The next toughest would probably be the green or red Russian kale. I like using these in slaws or to make chips because they are pretty easy to cut compared to the curly. Furthermore, they still have a hearty texture so you can really let it marinade it a dressing for a few days and still have that great texture – but so much more flavor.

Lacinato kale is a lot more tender than the two previous varieties and can be cut large and thrown into salads. It’s a little sweeter and sometimes darker in color, which means higher nutrient content. It also strays away from the other varieties in its texture and shape. It’s got a very textured leaf, but it’s thinner and you can easily eat half of the stem raw. For this reason I like to use it in salads with fruits or some kind of sweet reduction dressing. I’d also suggest extra virgin olive oil or avocado seed oil because of their lightness.

Lastly we have Tuscan kale. Like Lacinato, it’s a lot thinner in its leaf spread and not as fibrous. I find that the local Tuscan kale to be very sweet for what I would usually classify as a “bitter-green.” This variety does not really hold up too well in a marinade, but great to toss into any quick sauté or sauce for a healthy addition. I’ve even put this on sandwiches/wraps and been quite pleased with the results.

Ok. Recipe time!

Toasted couscous and kale

Ingredients:

2 cups couscous

4 cups water or stock (unsalted preferred)

2 cups kale (ripped or cut)

1 medium onion (small dice) 

1 Poblano pepper (small dice)

1 garlic clove (sliced thin)

2 tsp smoked sweet paprika

½ tsp cinnamon

Juice and zest one lime

1/8 cup chopped parsley

1/8 cup chopped basil

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Sautee pan

Medium or large pot

Directions

1. Put both the pot and pan on the stove on medium heat
2. Once they start to heat up, put the couscous in the pan and allow to slowly toast (toss at least once a minute)
3. Then put some olive oil in the pan (enough to almost cover the bottom with a very thin coating) about 2 Tablespoons
4. Add your pepper, onion, and garlic. Cook until the onions are translucent. Stir occasionally.
5. Once onions are clear, add your spices and stir until incorporated.
6. By this time you should have been stirring/tossing the couscous and it should have some browning on the edges and some may even look slightly burnt. It’s ready now!
7. Put your couscous in the pot with the veggies and stir until incorporated and the couscous is coated in the oil. 
8. Once coated, add water and allow cooking until tender and all the water is gone (approx. 20-30 min). You may want to reduce to a med/low heat at this point if it is cooking too fast for you.  You can stir it here and there, but generally speaking: you should try and avoid it since it will disrupt the starch and you’ll wind up with a risotto style couscous.
9. Once cooked; add your lime zest and juice, ripped kale, and herbs.
10. Stir until kale wilts down to about half its size. You’ll tell it’s done because it will have a darker green color than before and be a lot smaller. Once it stops shrinking, that’s when it’s ready to be served!

Curried Butternut and Acorn Squash Soup with Apples and Potatoes

Fall is officially here! I don’t know if you can tell… but I’m super excited for fall/winter squashes, as well as the massive variety of apples that are on hand. Fall is also a great time to sit outside on the porch in a sweatshirt and enjoy a hearty soup that warms you from the inside out. So, I’ll explore a semi-spicy curry soup that’s sweetened with apples and fortified with potatoes.

I’ve been really into curries as of late, and this squash soup pretty much sums up why I like curry powders. Now I know some of you curry fanatics will inform me that this is not true curry – I know this! However, this recipe is probably one of the best I’ve come up with so far. It’s so exciting to make something this good on the first try!

The idea behind the multiple cooking methods is that the squash will break up slightly (as will the potato) and create a natural chowder consistency. This stew is vegan, so obviously there is no dairy. However, I think it replicates the consistency quite well and is really a great treat to have your soup thickened naturally with roasted squash.

This recipe is a bit more complicated than my previous ones. I chose to do this to really hit on some fundamentals of soup making. I’ll probably be go over some real basic stuff to help you build flavor in your soup so you can great soup from scratch all the time. I make soup to utilize little bits and things hanging around in the pantry or fridge. So, understanding these principles and how great you can make something is important. Pay attention!

Please take note as well that you will be making your own stock here. Stock/broth at the store adds up in cost and contains a lot of salt/preservatives – even when you get the organic low-salt variety. I should say that the stock should be on the fire for about 4 hours to really benefit from the flavor. Otherwise you’re just going to get a whole bunch of lame stock.

I also chose to cut the vegetables with a very small dice. If you want to save time cutting, simply toss it in a food processor or grate it on a box grater on the side with the largest holes. But, given the amount of time you will have with the stock, I suggest pouring yourself a drink and refining your cuts.

If done correctly, this soup should have the following experience: You taste savory with a hint of building spice. Once you think the spice is going to heat up your palette, it drops off completely (cut by the sweetness) and leaves you on the edge of your seat for a moment. Then, a slow heat starts to reside on the tip of your tongue that slowly builds as you eat more. It’s truly a fantastical roller coaster that will dazzle all your friends. 

Ingredients:

1 acorn squash (peeled, seeded, and diced medium)

1 butternut squash (peeled, seeded, and diced medium)

1 apple (any one with a sweet and crisp taste profile)

3 stalks of celery (small dice)

2 medium sized carrots (small dice)

1 large sweet onion (small dice)

2 garlic cloves (sliced thin)

1 orange

10 medium Yukon gold potatoes (skin on, diced medium)

1 tsp thyme or 3 sprigs of fresh time

2 bay leaves

¼ cup cilantro (chiffonade or chopped fine only once)

2 tsp of your favorite curry powder

½ tsp cinnamon

1 Tablespoon champagne vinegar

1 ½ tsp smoked paprika

2 tsp mustard (whole grain preferably)

1 Tablespoon hot sauce (your favorite variety will work here)

Olive oil

Salt

Pepper

Directions:

1.       Preparation

a.       Peel the squashes and place scraps into a stock pot.

b.      Keep the seeds separate in a container filled with water.

                                                               i.      Seeds will be easier to separate once wet.

                                                             ii.      Set seeds aside on a sheet pan, spread out evenly.

                                                            iii.      Allow seeds to dry while you prep.

                                                           iv.      Toast seeds with olive oil, salt, pepper in the oven at 300° F until super crunchy (about 1 hour).

c.       Remove bottom and tops of celery stalks and add to stock pot.

d.      Remove outer layer of skin on onions (learn how here) and add to stock pot.

e.      Peel carrots and cut off ends. Add scraps to stock pot.

f.        Remove outer skin of garlic and add to stock pot.

g.       Fill stock pot up with water – enough so that the scraps float up an inch.

h.      Add thyme and bay leaf.

i.         Put the pot on the stove and bring to a full boil.

                                                               i.      Reduce the heat to low and allow to barely simmer.

                                                             ii.      Keep on the stove for 4 hours.

2.       Roast the squash

a.       Acorn squash

                                                               i.      Medium dice the acorn squash. and transfer to a mixing bowl.

                                                             ii.      Add oil to the mixing bowl and toss the squash in it. You’re looking to just coat the squash.

                                                            iii.      Continue to toss and pour into the mixing bowl 2 tsp curry powder and juice of a quarter of the orange.

                                                           iv.      Add a generous amount of salt and pepper.

1.       I’d say it’s probably going to be around 2 tsp worth of salt and 1 tsp of pepper. But use your judgment and season to taste.

2.       Seasoning while roasting allows for quicker moister evaporation and a quicker caramelization process on the plant matter.

                                                             v.      Place in oven at 400° F until edges of squash begin to brown.

b.      Butternut squash

                                                               i.      Medium dice the butternut squash and apple.

                                                             ii.      Transfer to a mixing bowl.

                                                            iii.      Coat with oil as mention previously with acorn squash.

                                                           iv.      Add the cinnamon, paprika, and champagne vinegar.

                                                             v.      Season to taste.

                                                           vi.      Roast in the oven at 400° F with the acorn squash until it begins to brown.

3.       Cut your veggies

a.       While all this is going on cut veggies (carrot, celery, onion, garlic)

b.      They will break down throughout the cooking process, but it’s important to have them small. You don’t have to be super precise with your cuts here.

4.       Making the soup

a.       Wait until the squash is done roasting and the stock is about 3 and a half hours in or so.

b.      Put a large pot on the stove over a medium heat.

c.       Put some oil in the pot, enough to lightly coat the bottom

d.      Add in your raw onion, celery, carrot, and garlic.

                                                               i.      Keep this on a medium/medium-low heat.

                                                             ii.      I add a little salt at this point to add to the dynamic of the flavor. Salt aids in extracting the flavor from the product (which is the goal of sweating). I don’t do this when I am sautéing. I always season that at the end.

                                                            iii.      Stir occasionally until onions become translucent.

e.      Add both squashes to the stock pot, straight from the roasting pan.

                                                               i.      Any juices or remaining oil is a plus!

                                                             ii.      Make sure you soak roasting pans after the transfer so they aren’t hard to clean

f.        Allow ingredients to incorporate and heat up.

g.       Add mustard and hot sauce.

h.      Continue to cook ingredients until you start to see a little browning on the bottom of the pan.

i.         At this point, strain the stock into the soup pot.

j.        Allow to come up to a simmer

                                                               i.      While this is happening, start cutting your potatoes

                                                             ii.      It doesn’t matter if you add them all at once or simply as you finish cutting them. You want some to break down.

k.       Add potatoes into the simmering soup.

l.         Reduce heat to low (a light simmer)

m.    Cook until potatoes are fork tender.

5.       Finishing the soup

a.       Once the potatoes are ready, add remaining juice of the orange and cilantro.

b.      Season to taste.

                                                               i.      You shouldn’t really have to season much at this point. The flavor complexity should be showing through by this point.

                                                             ii.      Since you seasoned all the ingredients and you have a really great, flavorful stock – you shouldn’t need the extra few grams of salt.

6.       Serving the soup

a.       Serve with bread, crostini’s, or naan to dip with. I’d also recommend ethnic Indian crackers to eat with the soup. You could also get a little weird with it and use ginger snap cookies.

b.      Match with a fizzy or acidic drink.

                                                               i.      The heat may be too much for you to handle. However, you can make it spicier by adding dried peppers to the stock or when you roast the squash.

                                                             ii.      The bubbles in beer will help lift the heat off and cool your palate.

                                                            iii.      I would match this as well with either some kind of vodka and ginger beer cocktail. The ginger would both cool and accent the complex flavors here.

                                                           iv.      Steer away from gin in this application, it will have too much of an aromatic competition.

                                                             v.      White wine is a lot cleaner than red, so I think that the light fruit/acidity that it has to offer would complement this nice.  However, that’s not to say that if you have a lighter tasting red wine that it wouldn’t work.

                                                           vi.      Non-alcoholics will enjoy matching this with ginger beer/ale or a citrus based drink. Think orangeade/limeade base. 

Corn and Peach Salsa with Pickled Jalapenos and Onions

Doing a lot of grilling this summer? Totally, me too! So I’ve found that after making a meal, I usually have some grilled corn left over. I’ve been throwing it omelets or just eating it cold. Needless to say, I’ve gotten bored with it quite quickly.

If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been hitting the pickling scene pretty hard lately. So, for this post I decided to take two previous pickled items and combine them into an easily assembled salsa. You can also use (lemon vin) to make it a salad, or heat ingredients in sauce pot with some butter to make it a hot dish. Either way, the spicy-sweet-salty combo is a killer side dish, substitute for sauce, dip for chips… or serve it shooter-style like the picture below.

Make it Mexican: Add 2 tsp cumin, substitute lemon with lime, substitute chive with cilantro, add more jalapenos or other hot peppers (I would suggest Anaheim).

Corn and Peach Salsa with Pickled Jalapenos and Onions

Ingredients:

6 ears of grilled corn (cut off the cob)

3 ripe peaches (diced around the same size as the kernels of corn for a salsa, larger for a salad)

½ cup Pickled Red Onion

¼ cup Sweet-Pickled Jalapenos (chopped)

2 Tablespoons Chives (chopped)

Juice and zest 1 lemon

1 Tablespoon olive (or corn) oil

“Makes Everything Awesome” seasoning to taste

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients into mixing bowl. Mix until incorporated.
2. Season to taste with salt and pepper, or “makes everything awesome” seasoning.
3. Serve hot, chilled, or room temp. 

Sweet-Pickled Jalapenos

One of my favorite flavor combinations is sweet and hot; so what better thing to do than sweet-pickle some hot peppers? I chose to use Jalapeno peppers here because I know a lot of people grow them and around this time they are super abundant.

If you’re into jarring/canning things, this is something I would suggest highly. They also make great gifts when transferred to mason jars. Keep in mind though that the shelf life probably won’t be more than a few months – if that.

I haven’t really experimenting into how long these pickles last before they spoil. I can tell you from the restaurant industry that refrigerated pickled vegetables can last up to four or five months if kept properly. The key is to keep the pickled whatever under the liquid so it doesn’t get a chance to grow mold on it.

One industry tip for doing this is putting a plate on top of the product to keep it submerged. However, the normal person doesn’t have a large enough container for something like that. So, fill a plastic Ziploc bag with dried beans or salt to create a weight. Important: remove as much air from the bag as possible by submerging it in water while holding the top of the bag. Once you get as much air out of there as possible, seal the bag. Do this once more, creating a double bag (so you can use it again). This creates the closest you’re going to get to a vacuum seal without a vacuum sealer. Anyway, place the bag on top of your pickled veg so the product is forced down and cover the container your pickle is in with the appropriate lid.

That being said, pickling peppers does take some of the heat out of them, so they aren’t as spicy as when they are raw. If you want to remove even more heat (like if you were pickling a habanero), remove the pith and seeds before you pickle it. This will result in the full pepper taste, but dial the heat down quite a bit. You can also add more sweetness to the liquid, or add fruit into your combination.

Sweet-pickled jalapenos

Ingredients:

8 Jalapenos (sliced)

3 cups apple cider vinegar

4 Tablespoons pickling spice

2 Tablespoons salt

4 Tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons honey

Sauce pot (medium sized)

Mandolin or knife

Container large enough to hold four cups (a quart)

Directions: 

1. Sanitize your peppers 
2. In a sauce pot over medium heat, slowly toast the pickling spice until you begin to smell it (you may hear some popping too)
3. Add your vinegar, salt, sugar, and honey; and bring to a boil
4. While you are waiting on this, slice down your peppers and place into container
5. Once boiled, either strain the spice mixture out or leave it in
6. Pour into container with peppers
7. Let sit uncovered until it begins to cool down a bit
8. Place your weighted bag on top of the peppers and make sure they are submerged fully
9. Cover the container and store in the refrigerator for 48 hours before transferring 

Tomato and Herb Sauce: How-to

Anyone up to their ears in tomatoes? Well, first off – share some with me! Secondly, don’t let those delicious fruits get the best of you and wind up rotting away. These gorgeous colorful gobfuls of flavor are just waiting for you to use them.

One of the easiest and tastiest ways to preserve a tomato is with a sauce. Now, see, I don’t really like tomatoes all that much unless something is done to them. It’s embarrassing, but such is life. So, I’m always taking them and morphing the tomato into something spectacular.

This recipe explores a tomato and herb sauce. It’s pretty basic and comes straight from the garden (or farmers stand) so it’s not very labor intensive at all.

In the culinary industry, we are taught to concasse the tomato to make a sauce. This involves taking the stem out, making a few incisions, blanching them, cooling them, peeling them. I think it’s silly and it takes too long. 

However, my process still has the same principles in mind. Luckily there is more than one way to get things done in the kitchen!

Before I get into the recipe with you, I would like to bring up a few variations on the sauce:

1.       Romesco – add some peppers to the roasting process (seeded of course). Finish with lemon, basil, and oregano.

2.       Make the sauce more red – before transferring ingredients to pot, put about ½ tsp of tomato paste in the hot pot and stir until it starts to brown up and caramelize. This will make the sauce a little heavier in flavor and you may have to offset it with a little acid (white balsamic, lemon, champagne vinegar)

3.       “Fire roasted” style – keep the tomatoes in the oven longer until the skin starts to roast and gets black in some areas. Don’t peel the skin off! Simply add to the pot and puree it up after it reduces. This is also another way to add additional color to the sauce.

4.       Tomato soup – simply add carrot, celery, and onion to a hot pot on medium heat. Stir and cook until onions are translucent. Add 2-3 tablespoons of oil/butter and allow to melt/heat up. Sprinkle in some flour (enough to coat the vegetables) then add a large amount of tomato sauce (I figure 1 quart of sauce per 2 cups of additional veggies) slowly, while stirring. Cook that down for about two hours, blend and enjoy!

5.       Colored sauce – with the ever popular heirloom tomatoes, the color variation is superb. Follow the same recipe, but use yellow, brown, or purple tomatoes. I would suggest blanching tomatoes if they are green though – it preserves the color better.

So, as you can see by taking this very simple sauce, you can go much further. The best thing I’ve found to do is to do batches in different styles, then portion them off into pint containers /freezer bags and then freeze it for a later use. There’s nothing like having an amazing go-to tomato sauce right at your fingertips in the dead of winter.

Enough jibber-jabber; on to the recipe!

Tomato and Herb Sauce 

Ingredients:

10 ripe tomatoes (the big guys are usually the ones used here)

1 sweet onion (large dice)

2 cloves garlic

Olive oil

2 stems worth of basil leaves (or as much as you like)

3 stems worth of thyme leaves

(optional) “makes everything awesome spice” to taste

Mixing bowl

Oven

Large/medium pot

Stirring spoon

Sheet tray/cookie sheet

Blender

Strainer (optional)

Directions:

1.       Take all ingredients, except herbs, and toss in olive oil, salt and pepper.

2.       Place in oven at 400°F on a sheet tray.

3.       Once cracks in the skin form on all the tomatoes, pull them out and shut off the oven.

4.       When tomatoes cool, peel off the skins and toss them out

5.       In a pot on medium heat, place all contents of the sheet tray

6.       Once the tomato concoction comes to a light boil, turn heat down low and cover the pot

7.       Stir occasionally every fifteen minutes or so.

8.       After an hour and a half you should have been able to cook down the tomatoes pretty well.

9.       Blend contents in a blender, or use a little stick blender right in the pot if you have one.

10.   Transfer back to the pot

11.   Leave  the pot uncovered and add your herbs.

12.   Cook down for at least another half hour, or until color desire has been achieved, or you are satisfied with the flavor.

13.   Season to taste with salt and pepper or “makeseverything awesome spice”

Rotini and Kale Salad

Given my last post on pasta, I thought it only appropriate to make some kind of pasta dish. 

However, I ate it! 

So, I did what any good cook does and utilized a ton of leftover product; and made this delicious concoction I am dubbing “Pasta Salad with Kale.” I try and sneak in and experiment with dark leafy greens in dishes as much as possible.

This application makes a marinade/dressing for the pasta and really works well with kale to provide a great texture differential. You also get some of the bitterness from the kale which contrasts nicely with the other ingredients.

On a side note, I realize there were other ingredients in my pasta salad that aren't displayed in this picture and will make a better effort next time I do a pasta salad or something to have them in the picture. It really doesn't help when you do a photo shoot and you’re hungry…

Anyway, this is a great way to utilize pasta from the previous day and kind of clean out the fridge of random stuff. Please don’t feel limited to this ingredient list at all. Pasta salads are super unique in that they can be an entire grab-and-go meal depending on what you put in it. So, for instance you could increase the veggies and add a protein. I tend to view my unlisted ingredients as flavor builders and not as main stars of the dish – in this case it’s pasta and kale.

It is also super easy to just use (lemon vin) or any style dressing you have chilling out in the fridge. 

I used rotini pasta , but the goal is really to have something that is medium in size and in a shape that is more willing to include the other ingredients with it. Curled pasta works best here, don’t use string-style pastas or delicate pastas such as those wheel shaped ones (they break apart and don’t look good).

Ingredients:

1 lb pasta

1 tomato diced small

1 red pepper diced small

1 suntan pepper diced small

1 medium red onion (julienne)

2 cups (packed) red leaf or Tuscan kale (ripped or cut small)

¼ cup olive oil

Zest and juice 1 lemon

Sprig fresh dill chopped

Sprig fresh basil sliced thin

Salt

Pepper

Directions:

1.       Cook your pasta (learn the proper way here) or pull it out of the fridge

2.       While you’re cooking up your pasta, cut your veggies and remaining ingredients set aside.

3.       Combine ingredients with cooled pasta in mixing bowl or in original pot pasta was cooked in

4.       Season to taste

5.       Let sit/cool for at least an hour and a half before service

6.       Serve cold or room temp

Cooking Pasta: The truth about salting water and using oil.

Does anyone salt their pasta water and then put oil on top?

I’ve been working in restaurants for almost seven years now and the idea behind these two items has been expressed very insistently that this is the best way to do it. “Adding salt to the water makes it boil faster and the oil lightly coats the pasta when it’s done cooking so it doesn’t stick together.” When I heard this, I was curious if this was actually true so I decided to do some research, combine it with my (probably millions of pounds of pasta) experience, and provide you with the information.

So, let’s address this oil in the boiling water issue first. I’m sure we’ve all had times where you cook pasta and it sticks together in one huge clump. It’s horrible and disappointing to say the least (imagine having a chef chew you out for those clumps!) I haven’t found that putting oil on the top really helps on a small scale – which I’m sure most of you are only feeding a few people on average. You can also toss the pasta in oil after you transfer it out of the water so it doesn’t stick.

The real secret to cooking pasta that doesn’t clump at home is having your sauce hot and ready to go. I would suggest having it on the stove at a light simmer next to your pot of boiling pasta. Here is where you may need to go and invest in a strainer with a handle (called a spider in culinary terms). Once your pasta is done cooking, pull it out with the strainer and give it a shake to let it drain. Then, put it straight in the sauce, cover the pot/pan and let simmer for a few minutes and then serve. No need to empty the whole thing out in a colander over the sink and then bring it back to the stove. In the time it takes the pasta to drain, it won’t clump. Plus allowing the pasta to cook further in the sauce allows it to absorb the flavor of the sauce therefore making those glutenous little gobbles burst with flavor.

Right, on to salting the water! Let me make something clear straight off the bat: adding salt to water increases its boiling point. This means water will be boiling above 212° F and therefore take longer to reach that temperature. Anyway… when salted, you will have a higher cooking temperature and therefore theoretically cook it faster. However, in reality, you would need roughly ½ a pound of salt (that’s right, half a pound!) per quarter gallon of water, just to raise the temperature 3.6° F. So, I think it’s safe to say that salting the water really isn’t going to benefit you as far as the boiling point and cooking time are concerned.

This means the flavor is the remaining issue to address. Chefs in the industry describe the water you use to cook pasta as “salty as the sea” and the idea is that the salted water solution will absorb into the pasta and therefore give it more “flavor.” I’m a bit of a salty skeptic (pun intended), and have always disagreed with this concept. Yes, it will taste better if you add salt to it. I think it’s unnecessary if you already have a flavorful sauce and furthermore if you are cooking the pasta in the sauce for a few moments.

But why increase your sodium intake when you don’t have to? Every single ingredient does not need to be seasoned if you are seasoning the entire dish. I don’t see the point really, it’s rather redundant.