This used to be one of my signature dishes for the bar menu at The Olde Inn in Cape Cod many many moons ago and people used to order it in the main dining room because they had it prior at the bar and liked it. Just dug the recipe out when a friend asked me if I had any good chili/beer recipes so thought it might be fun to post.
Apologies for the stock photo, I know we took photos back in the day of all of our dishes but heaven help me if I can find where they are now going on 20+ years later.
14 each plum tomatoes diced, you can substitute canned if needed: 2 ea 12 oz diced canned and drained of liquid
1 medium Holland bell red bell pepper, small diced
1 medium Holland bell yellow bell pepper, small diced
1 lb ground beef, (ground pork or buffalo can also be used), chicken can be used but not everyone likes it’s paired with the Guinness
1 large jalapeno pepper, de-seeded, de-veined and fine chopped
6 cloves garlic, fine chopped
2 cups Guinness beer
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons smoked paprika
1 tablespoon hot pepper sauce, I prefer Tabasco Chipotle flavor
2 tablespoon fresh chopped cilantro
3 ea 14 oz. canned cooked black beans or about 7 cups fresh cooked black beans
Kosher salt to taste
1 tablespoon arrowroot or cornstarch
2 teaspoons cold water
Preparation:
In a cast iron skillet sauté bacon until cooked through, remove the bacon to drip dry on a paper towel, save the drippings in the pan.
Add the olive oil to the bacon drippings and then add the onion, tomatoes, peppers, and ground beef
Sauté on high for approximately 5 minutes (or until ingredients are cooked through) and then add the dry spices and hot sauce and sauté for an additional minute.
Remove vegetables and meat and deglaze the pan with the beer, do not reduce.
Add the meat and vegetable mix, the cilantro, the cooked bacon and the black beans into the beer and simmer for about 10 minutes or until the liquid is reduced by approximately a quarter.
In a small dish, blend the cold water and arrowroot or cornstarch to make a slurry, add the slurry into the simmering bean mixture and cook on low heat for about a minute until the mixture thickens.
For a thicker chili, you can add additional slurry to get to the consistency you want. Season with salt to taste if needed.
Garnish with Sour Cream or my favorite, Cabot Jalapeno Cheddar, and cilantro sprigs
*This can also be cooked in a crockpot as well if you prefer it slow cooked, it’s still best to cook all of the ingredients seperately first and add about a 1/2 cup more beer to the pot before cooking down a bit.
You can also substitute great northern beans for the black beans or do half and half.
We recommend cooking the beans seperately as they have very different cooking times.
This also freezes really well.
—-This recipes ALWAYS tastes better the second day!!
Winter means time for hearty soups and stews, a great accompaniment is this very easy focaccia which is one of our favorite quick and easy recipes to make and should be a staple in every house. Because it is a single step to mix this dough and no kneading is involved it makes a great easy baked item to snack on by itself, dip in flavored olive oil or dredge in a soup or stew of choice.
Makes 2 9 inch rounds
Ingredients: -3 teaspoons instant dry yeast -3 1/4 cup warm water -2 tablespoons kosher salt -3 tablespoons sugar -2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh rosemary -1/4 pure olive oil (not XV) -7 cups AP (All Purpose) flour -Kosher or Sea Salt for Sprinkling -Pure Olive Oil for coating dough
Method: -Mix all of the ingredients (except the flour) together in a mixing bowl (use the mixer bowl preferably so you don’t have to transfer). Let the yeast/water mix sit for about 10 minutes, the top of the mix will start to look puffy. -Add the flour in with a dough hook on slow speed just until ingredients are well incorporated. -Cover the mixing bowl with saran wrap and leave at room temperature for about two hours or until the mixture has more than doubled in size. -Remove from the bowl and split into two and form into two round loaves, coat with olive oil, and place in 2 well seasoned 9 in cast iron pans. -Let dough rise at room temperature for another ½ to 1 hour. the longer the second rise is the airier the loaf. -Sprinkle with Kosher or Sea Salt and additional Rosemary if you would like a stronger flavored loaf. -Preheat oven to 400 and bake loaves for about 30 minutes, loaves will sound hollow on the bottom when finished. -Let cool on a baking rack or serve warm. I brush with olive oil again while still warm for a softer crust.
This recipe freezes well both in dough form and baked form. The dough can be kept in the refrigerator for up to two weeks before baking. It can also be baked free form on a pizza stone or divided up into roll size for baking. For a softer crust, brush the exterior with additional olive oil immediately after it comes out of the oven.
Because this recipe is so versatile, there is a lot of variations you can use with it. Add 2 tablespoons of fresh chopped garlic and brush with garlic-infused olive oil before baking. Add 4 oz. fine chopped re-hydrated sun-dried tomatoes Substitute fresh sage, fresh thyme, or fresh tarragon for the rosemary, use slightly less fresh tarragon or the flavor will be overwhelming. Chopped or chopped olives are a wonderful addition, we particularly like them roasted and the olive oil used for roasting the olives used to coat the dough before baking. 4 oz of chopped olives is recommended, more can be used but results in a heavier finished product. Roasted garlic is also a great addition to the base dough but blend it well with olive oil and the warm water before adding the rest of the ingredients so the flavor is distributed equally. 1 tble is plenty to add for this recipe. This makes great panko breadcrumbs, toasted croutons or even great for pizza crust! For a bit of ethnic flair, adding 1 teaspoon cumin, 1 teaspoon turmeric, and 1 teaspoon curry adds a subtle lovely flavor to the dough. Use your imagination and experiment!
I’ve had a really busy summer and fall so haven’t had much time to do much mucking around with new recipes unfortunately. Winter is coming which oddly enough I am looking forward to so I can spend more time in the kitchen again.
Several days ago, myalumcame out online withBalsamic Of Modena PGI Goat-Cheesecakeand it sounded good and stuck around in my subconsious. I’m a huge goat cheese fan so anything with goat cheese in it is a winner in my book. Add in balsamic, a close favorite second ingredient and I’m totally hooked.
The problem with most recipes is when my subconsious gets hold of them, it starts messing with them and that results in a 2:00 am brain cramp with how can I adulterate it.
My method is a bit different then the CIA recipe as are some of the ingredients, but I like to try to give credit where the origin came from.
Makes 6, 5 inch mini tarts
Ingredients:
Balsamic-Rosemary Simple Syrup 1/4 cup Fig Balsamic Vinegar (I used theSaratoga Olive Oil Fig Balsamicfor this, my fav!) 1/4 cup sugar 1 teaspoon fresh chopped rosemary
Graham Cracker Crust 1 lemon zested Juice from one large lemon 1 ½ cup graham cracker crumbs (about 8 ounces of crackers) 1 Tablespoon unsalted butter, melted (I prefer Kate’s butter) ¼ cup fig jam (this recipe would have been even better if I had some really nice quality fig jam but stuck with the local generic brand from the local supermarket, still was super).
Cheesecake 3/4 cup soft goat cheese (similar for the wish for better fig jam, a lovelyVermont Butter and Cheesegoat cheese orCoach Farm’sTriple Cream goat cheese would have been the absolutel bomb, sadly I was stuck with again what I could get at the local super.) V.B.C.’sClover Blossom Honey Goat Cheese would have gone splendidly in this. 1/2 cup Neufchatel cheese (the American version) 1/4 cup balsamic simple syrup 1 teaspoon fresh chopped rosemary Pinch kosher salt 1 Tablespoon sugar 1/2 cup heavy cream
Fig Glaze 1 ¼ cup fig jam ½ cup honey bourbon 1 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
Method:
For the crust, melt the butter, lemon juice and fig jam together until the fig jam is dissolved. Remove from heat and add the lemon zest. Pulse the graham crackers until finely ground. Mix the jam mixture and the cracker crumbs with your fingers until well blended and press into the tart shells and set aside.
For the balsamic-rosemary syrup: combine the balsamic, rosemary and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and let cool to room temperature.
With a mixer whip the goat cheese, Neufchatel, balsamic mix, salt and rosemary until well blended. I used a Kitchenaid with the paddle attachment. Set aside.
Using a cold mixing bowl, whip the heavy cream and the sugar with the whip attachment until you get medium peaks, a bit beyond soft whip but you don’t want to go to far and turn into butter.
Fold the whipped cream in thirds into the goat cheese mixture. Spoon into the tart shells and spread evenly.
Put tarts on a sheet pan and put them in the freezer for about an hour to set.
While the tarts are setting, melt the fig jam, honey bourbon and cracked pepper in a pot on low heat until jam is completely dissolved. Let cool to room temperature. Spoon the glaze over the top of the tarts and refrigerate for about 20 minutes. Cover with saran wrap. Unmold before serving.
This is my first time making these so I would my guess at shelf life would be 3-4 days in the fridge. I suspect they will freeze will (I am going to test). Even with generic ingredients (jam and goat cheese) this came out even better than I expected it to. The goat cheese mixture with the fig glaze sans crust served at room temp would also be a lovely spread on some toasted rosemary focaccia. *A note these are very rich and a whole tart maybe too much for one person, so smaller tart shells especially if serving with other prepared food would be an option.
11/2 cup unsalted butter (3 sticks), melted and at room temperature
2 teaspoons maple syrup
8 cups grated zucchini-about 3 lbs. (do not strain the liquid off for a moister product)
Method:
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Sift all of the dry ingredients together.
Whisk the eggs, melted butter and maple syrup together, add in the grated zucchini.
Stir in half of the sifted dry ingredients until incorporated, stir in the other half. The mixture will look extremely wet.
Grease pans with Crisco, or I prefer to use Vegalene cooking spray as it doesn’t have any water in the spray unlike most cooking/baking sprays. Split the batter evenly between the pans.
Bake at 350 F for about an hour or until a toothpick comes out clean. A little less time for loaves or if doing muffins.
Remove from the oven and cool completely before removing from the pans and cutting.
This is wonderful as a cake or as a quickbread. You can’t taste the zucchini at all. Serve as is or with some cream cheese frosting.
The best way to make delicious roasted peppers is actually not by roasting them but by grilling them. Who would have thought…….
The best peppers to use for this are Holland Bell Peppers or domestic bells; you want to look for firm, ripe, and as thick-skinned as possible.
How do you tell whether a pepper has a thick skin or not? You can tell by looking at a pepper as it looks plumper and rounder, and when you pick it up and squeeze it lightly, it will have a firmer feeling than a thinner skinner pepper.
You can also make roasted hot peppers, but you want to be aware of the hotter the pepper, the better you should make sure your grilling area is well ventilated!
I prefer to use red, yellow, and orange bell or Holland peppers; green peppers generally have thinner skins and not as much flavor when roasted/grilled. Green peppers are unripened colored peppers and tend to not have a lot of flavor to them anyway, and can also be bitter. Green peppers have not had the chance for the natural sugars to develop as the pepper ripens. You will never find a green pepper in my house; neither my husband nor myself like them, and I can’t recall in 20 years in business ever using them on any of my menus.
Peppers are also high in Vitamin C, with even the humble green pepper having twice as much as an orange. Yellow and orange peppers more than 6 times as much Vitamin C as an actual orange.
There are also purple peppers, white, striped, black heirloom, mini sweet, cubanelle, banana, cherry (or pimento), and many varieties of hot peppers from all over the world.
All are fantastic for roasting (grilling) and stuffing for appetizers, an example like roasted jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese, cheddar, garlic, and dill. Banana peppers and other larger peppers can be stuffed with rice, vegetables, and meat, poultry, or fish. Larger peppers don’t generally hold up to roasting/grilling first and then stuffing unless they are placed in some sort of large ramekin or individual baking dish to hold it up as the skin tends to get a bit on the floppy side.
Method: Wash your peppers and pat dry. You don’t want to cut the peppers out or remove the seeds in advance, this will be done after cooking.
Heat up your outdoor grill: charcoal or gas. You can also grill them indoors if you have a gas stove using a grate on top of the burners but be warned, it can cause some floating black debris in the air.
For a little extra added flavor add some wood chips, smokiness gives the peppers a little bit more depth of flavor.
Place the peppers directly on the grill and let the skin blacken until almost the entire surface is black, there can be pockets of color, don’t let it get to the point where you are seeing ash grey on the skin (you have cooked them too much by then if you see this).
Turn the peppers until the entire exterior is well singed. (ie blackened but not totally black). The perfect peppers are ones that you stand and watch and baby the peppers, frequently turning so they don’t get overdone. The perfect balance is seeing when the skin starts to pucker and pull away from the flesh underneath it.
Remove the peppers and let cool until they are easy to pick up comfortably. (Do not cover the peppers). I’ve seen it suggested to do this but I’ve found when you cover the peppers can get overcooked and get quite mushy.
Using a rubbing motion with your thumbs, gently remove the skin for the peppers, it will come away very easily. And rub off any seeds as the pieces start to gently come apart. The stem is also easily pulled off at this point.
If you are using this for hot peppers, WEAR GLOVES! The natural capsaicin in hot peppers is very painful if you get in your eyes by accident or you touch other tender parts of your anatomy. Even heavy hand washing does not remove all the natural oils from this. Trust me on this, I could tell you some stories of line cooks being warned about this and ignoring the warning. I’ll leave that up to your imagination, but I think you probably catch my drift.
Don’t wash your peppers after removing the blackened skin as this will remove the natural flavors and oils that have come out.
Refrigerate the peppers and cover only when completely cool; within several hours the peppers will exude a natural juice. Don’t strain the juices off because marinating in these juices is the best way to keep them AND enhance the flavor.
Peppers prepared this way will store up to a week refrigerated. They taste even better on day two, after they have had a chance to sit in their natural juices and marinate.
When I have roasted pepper juice leftover, it makes a great base for a vinaigrette, or I add it into soups, stocks and sauces. It freezes well as well. If you make roasted pepper salad dressing whether it’s a vinaigrette or dairy or a mayo/egg-based dressing, go ahead and add that juice right in as well, it’s condensed roasted pepper flavor,
Roasted peppers do get a bit mushy if frozen, but if using them for soups or sautéed dishes, they work fine. The best way to freeze for sautéing is toss them in a little bit of pure olive oil before freezing and wrap well. They do pick up freezer odors. If using for soups, you may want to not use the olive oil depending on the end usage, but again may sure you wrap well.
A few variations on the basic roasted peppers is marinating in some olive oil, I prefer pure vs EV, but that’s a matter of taste preference. Garlic and fresh herbs are also a nice addition. My personal favorites are fresh thyme and/or rosemary. Roasted garlic is also a nice addition, but I wouldn’t marinate the peppers in it for more than a day, or all you will taste is roasted garlic and not roasted pepper. A recent addition that is fantastic on roasted peppers that we have fallen in love with is black garlic salt. It’s pricey but worth it with a lovely subtle sweet garlic flavor.
I admit it; I used to be a sucker for Thomas’ Corn Toasties/Toast-R-Cakes. I bought some recently and was not as in love as I used to be; either they changed the recipe or it had just been a while (decades…..), similar to remembering old movies from the 80’s you thought were hilarious and then watching them again and saying, geez that was kind of dumb.
In any case, I love cornbread, and so began the quest for the perfect cornbread that tasted like what I think was the illusion of yumminess that Corn Toasties used to have for me.
When the pandemic first hit, we had some shortages at our local grocery store (the great toilet paper hoarding notwithstanding) and small containers of milk became non-existent in the dairy aisle. So it was a gallon of milk or bust. Now neither my husband nor myself drink milk; we eat plenty of dairy and have 1/2 and 1/2 and heavy cream on hand all the time. AAAANNNNND I know I can dilute both to make milk for baking, but honestly, I love my heavy cream, and using up the 1/2 and 1/2 meant for coffee and tea (plus it’s pricier) isn’t an option.
Off I went to research what was the best powdered dry milk. I found Peak dried whole milk (from Holland) in a huge can and promptly fell in love with it for baking. Add a little more powder than called for and get a creamier product. Plus it’s shelf-stable and no more tossing milk, which was more than enough waste after the first few times.
I’ve tried dozens of cornbread recipes and many dozens more of the faux corn toastie recipes, and I think I’ve finally ended up with the perfect blend of sweetness and moistness for at least my taste buds. My husband is not a cornbread fan, and I know I have a winner; when I cajole him into trying a little, he takes a small slice out and then eats a crumb but then eats the full slice and says, “it’s good”. For me, that’s a win-win.
*A note, as soon as this is cool, make sure you wrap promptly; it does dry out quickly.
2 cups medium grind yellow cornmeal (I like the Great River Organic cornmeal, which has not removed the germ and bran, so it’s a tad healthier, plus it has a nice flavor and consistency)
1 1/2 cups AP flour
1 1/4 cup sugar
6 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon kosher salt
Method:
Sift all the dry ingredients together.
Blend milk (or milk powder and water), eggs, honey, and room temperature melted Crisco.
Stir in the dry ingredients and mix until fairly smooth.
Pour into a greased (I use Vegelene Spray) 10 X 13 half pan (commercial) or a 9 X 13 baking square (retail); this can also be done in deep sheet pans or muffin tins depending on usage.
Bake for approximately 40 minutes (less for muffins and sheet pan) until a toothpick inserted comes out dry. The top will be golden brown.
Serve warm.
This would be very nice with the addition of some grilled corn mixed with the batter, some nice double-smoked chopped bacon, or a nice, tart, slightly spicy, corn and peppadew salsa on top to balance out the sweetness if you wanted more of a sweet and savory blend.
Makes 2 loaves or 1 ea. 10 Inch Springform Pan, a Bundt pan can be used as well
Ingredients:
2 cups AP flour
1 tea ground cinnamon
1 tea ground nutmeg
1 tea ground allspice
½ tea Kosher salt
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 tea baking soda
1 table warm water
1 tea maple syrup
3 apples – peeled and small diced
½ cup dried cherries
½ cup chopped toasted pecans
¼ cup confectioners’ sugar for dusting
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Butter a 10 inch Bundt pan or 2 loaf pans.
Whisk together flour, spices, and salt. Set aside.
Cream together butter and sugar.
Add in eggs and maple syrup.
In a separate bowl, stir together baking soda and 1 tablespoon warm water, and add into the sugar mixture.
Stir in the flour mixture, apples, dried cherries and chopped pecans until well blended.
Pour batter into the prepared pan.
Bake for approximately 1 hour, or until a knife tip or toothpick comes out clean.
Dust with confectioners’ sugar and toasted pecans when cool
A nice accompaniment to this is a nice cherry or apple flavored whipped cream or vanilla ice cream
Flavored whipped cream: 1 cup Heavy Cream 1/4 cup powdered sugar 1/4 cup flavored liquor of choice Pinch of Kosher salt
With a stand or hand mixer, combine all ingredients in a chilled bowl, it helps if the heavy cream and liquor is as cold as possible prior to mixing. I put my mixing bowl in the fridge for about half and hour prior. You do want to make sure your bowl is as free of other moisture as possible. Whip on high until stiff peaks form. Adulterate with additional booze to taste. If you don’t want to use alchol in the recipe there are non-alcoholic alternatives or you can use extracts, keep in mind most extracts do have alcohol bases (at least the good quality ones do).
I’m not sure where the original of this recipe came from, it’s one I’ve used for years in restaurants I’ve worked at and the base recipe is a typical quick bread/quick cake that you can pretty much add any fruit or nut additions to.
This recipe freezes well and keeps well in the refrigerator for about 5-6 days.
Rosemary, Basil and Black Garlic Salted Butter rolled in Cracked Black Pepper
Yesterday I did a short online food session for the Nebraska Bed and Breakfast Association; a good portion of the topic was on Compound Butters. Last year I had written a blog post on Compound Butter Tips and Ideas for Innkeepers. I wanted to elaborate a bit more on some of the questions we had yesterday on some accompaniments and uses for compound butter for hospitality people and any home cooks who want to up their game a tad in the kitchen.
I’ll start with the butter itself. I had in the past post mentioned Kate’s Homemade Butter (still a favorite!). It was introduced to me quite a few years ago by an innkeeper friend. When you are ready to make compound butter, you want the butter soft enough to push a finger into but not melting. I prefer to use a whip rather than a paddle as I find it makes the butter much airier.
Whip butter on high for about twenty minutes, I use a Kitchen Aid mixer, but a hand mixer will also work; just be prepared for your hands to get tired holding the mixer up. 🙂 You want the butter to be light and easily spreadable, and it will change color to a much lighter shade.
What pairs with compound butters? My flat answer for that one is well, everything, what can you mix with butter to make compound butters? My flat answer is well, pretty much anything edible (within reason). But that flippant answer doesn’t generally help anyone. If you do not have a trained palate and it’s become easy to just “know” that this ingredient will go well with another ingredient, that’s great, but I realize it’s not so easy.
Honey Matcha Butter rolled in Toasted Sesame Seeds
In terms of what goes well with what. Think ground level, any sweeter compound butters, like a few listed on the afore mention compound butter blog; like Toasted Pecan and Maple Butter, Orange Honey Butter, Ginger and Grapefruit Butter, etc. will pair well with any sweets, especially breakfast sweet dishes like waffles, pancakes, french toast, muffins and quick breads.
Can you use sweet butters on savory dishes? Yes, but I’d limit them to some vegetable dishes (to balance out any acidity or tartness in the dish) fish, or poultry. It’s not a hard and fast rule of thumb, because a nice maple ginger compound butter is fantastic on a grilled steak, but it’s also a matter of personal taste and preference.
Savory butters like Roasted Cerignola Olive and Rosemary Butter, Chipotle and Smoked Paprika Butter and Jalapeno, Lime and Cilantro butter for example, will go very well on pretty much any savory dish, vegetable, meat, poultry, or fish.
Crossover butters or ones where there is a fine line between sweet and savory are more weighted towards using them just for savory dishes, but some like Chocolate Balsamic Butter, Honey Sriracha Butter and Macha Tea and Ginger Butter, go very well on muffins, sweetbreads, and pancakes or waffles. Especially if you are doing a pancake or waffle recipe like a sweet potato pancake. Honey Sriracha Butter is awesome on Sweet Potato Pancakes. Why? Because of the base ingredients. Honey and Sweet Potato pair well. Sriracha and Sweet Potato pair well.
When thinking about what ingredients will work well with others, if you don’t know, do some experimenting. Taste the base ingredients by themselves and see if the flavors meld. And I mean don’t make a recipe with the ingredients. Try a small taste of a fresh tarragon leaf for example, and then try a vegetable or a small taste of another spice. Much of cooking is a matter of preference.
I love Anise but loathe Tarragon (which has a slight anise flavor), so it’s never and will never be in my pantry. But that’s a personal taste preference. I do know what it pairs with though because I’ve explored that in depth. The same with doing compound butters and pairing them with dishes.
Do a little experimentation. With the exception of herbs like cilantro, which to some people it tastes like soap, if something tastes good to you, there’s a pretty darn good chance it will taste good to someone else.
Herb Compound Butter Slices
When you are making compound butter, don’t be afraid to make it in larger batches, whether rolled into a small tube in parchment paper and chilled and then sliced and frozen, it is a great added taste (and texture) addition to a lot of dishes.
For a little more variety, don’t just add ingredients “to” the butter; what else compliments it? This weekend I made several compound butters. The rosemary, basil and black garlic butter I rolled in some fresh cracked black pepper.
This butter will be a lovely accompaniment to some nice tuna steaks we had in the freezer. The matcha and honey butter rolled in toasted sesame seeds is being reserved (frozen) for the next time I make spicy Asian stir-fried shrimp. And last but not least, the maple lime butter I rolled in Hoosier Hill Farm granulated honey (Yummy!) and had it on fresh biscuits this morning.
Short butter roll/long butter roll (above) rolled in parchment paper
What about those ends of the butter logs, what to do with? I freeze them until I have enough to make a pie dough with. Most home cooks won’t care what the ends of butter rolls look like, but for me, it’s a force of habit to save them. The chocolate Grand Marnier logs I had made and had bits and pieces and ends of will go into a nice chocolate and toasted pecan pie crust soon.
What about amounts? Use your taste buds on this one. I don’t do set in stone amounts with compound butters unless the ingredient is one that does not vary in flavor. One chopped teaspoon of fresh garlic to 1 cup butter may be great midsummer, or if you have a particularly pungent bit of garlic, but what about midwinter, when it takes almost twice as much garlic to get that garlic flavor you are looking for?
Even brands can change the taste significantly amount wise. We have a fondness for Kikkoman Lime Ponzu and Chili Ponzu, and I’ve tried other brands, they are not as citrusy or as tasty to use in my opinion, so the amount would vary. Plus in those cases if I was making a ponzu flavored butter I might be adding more citrus zest if having to use an alternative brand.
Just like experimenting with flavor paring, taste your butter. Does it taste good? What else does it need if anything. If you don’t taste the added ingredient and you just taste butter, add more.
Last but not least, salted or unsalted butter for compound butters? If you are not adding salt to the rest of the ingredients for a compound butter (like a sea salt or other flavored salt), use salted butter. Use unsalted only if adding salt flavor to it, like Kosher, sea, flavored or an ingredient that might already be slightly salty, ie, some types of olives, soy sauce etc.
But but but, what if it’s for a sweet dish? Salt enhances the flavor of pretty much any sweet dessert, even nonbaked ones. When I make my chocolate mousse, I add a pinch of salt. When used in moderation, it does what it is supposed to, enhances the flavors already there.
Actually one more thing (sorry I lied :), when using spices, not dried herbs but spices, toasting spice mixes lightly in a cast iron pan can add some lovely additional flavor to your compound butter mixes. Just make sure your kitchen has good ventilation, especially if toasting any hot spices.
Demi-Glace. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it’s Stock!
Stock sweet stock, liquid gold, a good stock is something you can drink “as is”. Forget about adding it to a soup or sauce. It’s good on its own with the slight addition of a touch of salt and pepper.
While I can cook pretty much any cuisine under the sun and have mentored under French, Austrian, Italian, and I’ll call them “Modern American cuisine” chefs for lack of a better term; Plus I’ve had several Asian friends who taught me a considerable amount about Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Indian and Moroccan cooking; among others, my strengths and love is as a saucier. I love to make soups, stews, sauces, and…..you guessed it, stocks.
My pinnacle of perfection in a sauce (just like a lovely stock) is taking a spoonful of it to taste for any adjustments, and just wanting to drink the sauce down by itself.
Forget the seared tuna, the pork medallions, the chicken scallopini; just give me the sauce. Yummers!
The key to most good sauces, specifically for meat and poultry, is a damn good meat stock. Brown sauce (made with a meat stock) is one of the traditional Mother sauces; I’m not going to quibble about is there 4, 5, 6 or even I recently saw a classification for 7 Mother Sauces (also called Grand Sauces) because that’s not the topic at hand here, stock is.
A traditional brown sauce (or Espagnole sauce) is a rich, dark colored sauce made from stock thickened with roux (generally fat and flour and cooked a bit), pureed tomatoes, and mirepoix (usually carrots, onions and celery), and then strained with various additions to it to make various sub sauces or daughter sauces.
There are a million and one recipes on the internet and in cookbooks for how to make brown sauce, and all pretty much the same, so am not going to waste your time with a recipe, when your buddy Google is easily at hand.
What I do want to talk about, is the base for a damn good brown sauce is an excellent stock. And I’ll preface this by saying I am NOT trying to pick on my Alumni school here because it is the premier Culinary school in the world (call me bias), but I do have to add that I learned more about traditional French cooking working for Chef Yves Labbe at Le Cheval D’or in Jeffersonville, VT then I learned at the Culinary Institute of America.
Yves took pretty much everything I was taught at school and chucked it out the window. His cooking was traditional country French culinary, meaning cream, butter, and salt in large amounts in pretty much everything.
Yes, we used all of those ingredients in the E Room, also known as the Escoffier restaurant, now renamed the Bocuse Restaurant, at CIA, but there were many differences.
The #1 difference and not just in the French restaurant in school but also taught in the basic skills classes you have when you first start the culinary program where they teach you basic stock making and mother sauce making. The difference is in the stock.
When I was first hired as Yves’ Chef de cuisine, he ran me through some of the basics of what he had on hand all the time. On my prep list, the first day was to make a large pot of stock for use in many of the sauces on the menus.
I browned the bones, prepped my vegetables, all was going well until…………………..I started skimming the stock.
Imagine in your head, if you will, a short red-faced Chef with a very heavy French accent yell quite loudly “What are you doing???????”. Me:“Well, Chef, I’m skimming the stock.” Queue the heavy French accent again. Chef: “NO, NO, NO! Do NOT skim! Fat is FLAVOR!” A phrase to be repeated numerous times in the course of working there but usually used in a loving way about things like butter, cream, and anything bad for you in general.
It was, I think, the only time he ever raised his voice to me, but he did adore yelling at my Sous Chef on a daily basis, “Jayyyysoooonn (Jason) what the ell (Hell) do you think you are doing??“.
A brief discussion ensued where I stated I was doing it the way the CIA had taught me, skim the impurities off, including the fat, etc.
To make this brief, Yves wanted to prove a point and had me make the stock the way school taught me, using lean ingredients, etc.. He made a batch the way he traditionally made it, lots of fatty meat, table scraps, pan drippings, and pretty much any vegetable lying around that would add flavor including peelings. He did take the fat off the stock but AFTER it was chilled off and solidified on top.
I do have to say, my first taste of his stock vs. the “traditional” way taught me was “Hot damn, that’s incredibly good!” Yes, his stock was muddy looking and not clear vs. how CIA wanted a clear and beautifully clarified one. His take on it was this was how it was done in France and when you added additional elements to a brown sauce, roux, herbs, cream, butter, liquor, or wine, the finished product was enhanced more by the flavor, and the clarity itself was kind of moot at that point anyway.
We did make consommé at the restaurant, and his was crystal clear. But Fat IS Flavor.
I also worked for an Austrian chef, his nickname behind his back was not a very nice term honestly, people might remember the Soup “fiend” from Seinfeld; this was the Food “fiend” The character reminded me of a conglomeration of several chefs I worked for over the years. His “No soup for you” reminded me of a Thanksgiving Day at Trapp Family Lodge (where I did my externship from CIA) and Chef Michel Martinet’s “Nobody faint in my kitchen” rant, also a topic for a future blog post.
In this kitchen (the kitchen of the Food “fiend”), the first few months, every new cook had a bucket next to their work station. At the end of every service period, the chef would spread a tarp out on the floor and everything that could have been utilized in some way, in a stock for example, ends of bell pepper that could have been used for garnish, etc. if it was found in the bucket, he docked your pay. Don’t worry he didn’t use the scraps after the fact 🙂
I learned more about food scrap utilization from him, and as a result, had a very low food cost in the restaurants where I was in charge of the kitchen. He was so anal retentive that when we chopped parsley for garnish (this was the early 90’s and parsley plate garnish was still a “thing”), he made us use a pastry brush and get every little speck of chopped parsley off the cutting board to use.
You might say whether you are a home cook or a professional chef, parsley is cheap, but in a restaurant that would go through 8-10 bunches of chopped parsley a night, a couple of cents adds up every day. I don’t remember the exact amount that I costed out years ago, but I estimated that if he had not made us do this, he would have by the end of the year thrown out about 400 dollars of product just from that little bit left on every cutting board.
He put pretty much anything in stock, and his favorite stock was called the “everything” stock, and it was on low every day and every night. Things got added to it continuously, meat and vegetable scraps, and it got strained down when the big pot was too full and started anew.
You might think there was no consistent flavor because there was such a mélange of beef, pork, chicken, duck, and other meat and vegetables, but it always consistently tasted wonderful. When I helped open Harvest Market in Stowe, VT. this was always a hot seller, I’d make big batches of vegetable and “everything” meat stock and we would sell it by the quart out of the freezer section at $7.00 a quart, not too shabby for scrap utilization, but it tasted wonderful!
This chef was a close friend of both Yves and Chef Michel Martinet. I just found out Michel passed last year and was very saddened to find that out. He was a mentor of mine, and I had gone back to work at Trapp Lodge after I graduated from the culinary before being lured away to another job.
I still have the recommendation letter he wrote for me in 1991 when I went back to school to finish and graduate.
In Vermont’s Green Mountain area, specifically the Stowe and surrounding towns, there was a network of chefs from the old country, and their word (and knowledge) was worth their weight in gold.
In years going forward, when I ran my kitchens, I saved every scrap that was usable for stock and, when I had room froze it if needed until I had enough for a big batch of stock. Homemade stock beats commercial stock base every single time, plus it’s cheaper.
How does this apply to a home cook? If you have a little spare freezer space, start saving those carrot ends, garlic peelings, celery tips, herb stems (after the leaves are removed for use), chicken bits, sparerib bones, roasted chicken carcasses, etc.
If you are a big fish lover, same thing, shrimp shells, crab shells, fish bones, and lobster shells for fish stock. No, I don’t mix them with a meat stock, but you can mix fish stock with chicken bones for an enhanced flavor.
When you have enough product for a gallon or so, add it all to a big pot, cover with water and simmer for a few hours, and strain.
Chill down responsibly, ie, please don’t just stick several quarts of hot stock in your refrigerator as you don’t want to poison your whole family.
Putting a pan in a water bath with ice cubes or chilling it down with a chill stick is so much safer from a food safety perspective. Retail refrigeration is just not made to keep up with a lot of hot steam added to the mix. It’s never anything I would recommend in a professional kitchen either but it’s a thousand times worse in a home kitchen.
When your stock is chilled overnight, the fat will rise to the surface and form a solid layer, and it makes it that much easier to remove it at that point rather than trying to skim off any fat prior.
Stock freezes very well, or you can reduce even further to make demi-glace, which is a much-reduced stock.
What NOT to put in “everything” stock
Too much onion or garlic peelings (unless you like a heavily garlic or oniony flavored stock How much is too much? The peels from a dozen onions is too much per gallon of stock, peels from 10 cloves of garlic the same.
Anything in the brassica family; cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy, rutabaga, kohlrabi, rutabaga, collards, turnip, brussels sprouts etc.
No potato peelings of any kind, this includes white potatoes (all varieties), sweet potatoes/yams
I would also stay away from adding things like taro root and cassava as well, while they won’t make your stock sour, similar to squash and squash peelings they can give a starchy mouthfeel to a stock.
Both members of the brassica family and potatoes will make your stock sour, but pretty much any other kind of vegetable is fair game. Any leafy greens can also be added but use sparingly and add towards the end of the cooking time.
Just making vegetable stock is also fantastic, just exclude any meat products. For only vegetable stock there are some additional notes you may want to consider as vegetables if used in larger amounts can overwhelm the delicate flavor of a vegetable stock. If the vegetable base calls for something predominately, like making a vegetable Jambalaya, Okra is fine, but it will also impart a strong background flavor.
Use sparingly:
Okra
Asparagus
Beets are ok, but no beet skins, greens can also be used but added later in the stock cooking stage.
Chards
Cilantro and larger amounts of any strong herb, rosemary, and marjoram fall into that category.
Hot peppers
Lettuces (remember no cabbages)
Spinach
Stock cubes prior to freezing
Demi or Demi-Glace (photo at top) is made by reducing a stock down significantly, while traditional recipes say that demi is reduced stock plus brown sauce (or Espagnole sauce), all of the commercial kitchens I’ve ever worked in, it is only very reduced stock. Traditionally reduced by half, I reduce it to about 1/4 of the original liquid. You will not get the gelatinization that you will with a vegetable stock or fish like you will with a meat stock when it’s as greatly reduced.
I typically will take a batch of demi (like the one above), cube it up into 2 inch pieces (after it’s been chilled and solidifies) and freeze the cubes slightly separated on a well wrapped sheet pan to keep out freezer odors. When frozen, I’ll put into a ziplock bag and can take cubes out as needed for sauces or soups/stews. Go forth and happy stocking!
Like most of the baking recipes I have been doing during quarantine baking, they are either adapted fromEpicurious or Bon Appetit, mostly because if I do end up doing the original given recipes to test whether we like them or not, they usually turn out exactly as promised (unlike many of the other baking recipes floated around online) that have not been tested in actual test kitchens, i.e. to make them reasonably foolproof.
I don’t know how many times a friend has called me up and said, “Oh, I just tried this recipe, it looked soooo good, and I must have done something wrong….” and then sends me the recipe. It’s usually something that’s author error, either not scribing the recipe down correctly or adapting someone else’s and not testing or just making it up as they go along. Apologies if that sounds a bit skeptical, but considering how often friends reach out to me for culinary advice and how many times I’ve looked at a recipe and went, “it’s not you, trust me, it’s not you.” You can’t expect non-professionally trained people to recognize there is not enough (or too much) of a spice, or it’s missing a step, or an ingredient or five is not entirely correct or not even there, i.e. missing it completely.
The first time I made this, I added in some diced apples, we had been getting some wonderful local apples this past fall, and when they start to turn a little or get spotted, i.e., my husband won’t eat them, I dice them up and freeze them to use for baking or cooking. The first time I made this, I doubled the recipe, got distracted, and added half the amount of sugar called for. I compensated by drenching it in orange Grand Gala liqueur, orange juice concentrate and powdered sugar, about four times the amount called for in the Epicurious recipe (with the addition of the Grand Gala and minus the pecans with some altered spice mix as well) for the first time I messed with this.
A few additional differences between the original and this recipe as I altered to taste some of the amounts and ingredients. Salted vs. unsalted butter in the streusel mix, their Savory to Sweet mix is different, mine because I like espresso vs. regular coffee in recipes, and being out of at the time: pecans, orange peel, cardamom, and fennel. I have all of those now (except for the bee pollen) but like the flavor better with the original mix I made.
Baking time is different from the original recipes as I use springform pans. No parchment liner instead of loaf pans with liner, decrease the amount of sugar slightly. When I did the recipe again with the appropriate amount of sugar (see note last paragraph), it was too sweet, especially with the orange glaze (no liquor). Plus, I added some passion fruit flakes for this batch, which added some slight tartness.
I’ve been using maple syrup as a sub for pure vanilla for ages. It is cheaper for one, and I’ve baked with both side by side, and honestly unless the vanilla is for something specifically vanilla flavored, you can’t tell the difference in a baked product, custard yes, baked no.
I also cream the butter and sugar, add the rest of the wet ingredients, and then slowly incorporate the dry ingredients. A lot of these recipes online make you do five steps for things that you can get the same results with two stages, and I had been doing those 2 or 3 steps for years cooking professionally, so I kind of roll my eyes when I see some things.
Many of these online recipes make me crack up because it takes twice as long to do something that doesn’t have to be done the way suggested. There is also a huge difference between when you have a couple of hours free to make a cake at home vs. you’ve got about 10 minutes or less to whip something together in a restaurant kitchen.
For the middle streusel mix:
¾ cup light brown sugar
¼ cup AP flour
2 teaspoons Kosher salt
½ cup melted salted butter, I prefer Kate’s Homemade Butter (localish out of Maine)
¼ cup espresso powder or very finely ground regular espresso (a little less if using the straight coffee as the flavor is stronger)
2 Tablespoons ground cinnamon
2 Tablespoons ground ginger
Dry Ingredients:
4 cups AP flour
1 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons Kosher salt
½ teaspoons baking soda
Wet Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups sugar
1 ½ cups salted or unsalted butter, room temp
6 eggs, room temp
1 cup sour cream
2 Tablespoons maple syrup
½ oz. Suncore passion fruit flakes
Add to batter:
16 oz. mango chunks (I used Wymans frozen mango chunks and cut them up a little bit more as the chunks were kind of large, let them defrost prior to mixing into the batter), do not strain any liquid.
16 oz diced apples (skin on) of your choice. (For this recipe, we had some frozen diced Macoun apples from our local orchard that were going soft so had diced them up and frozen to use for baking at a later date.)
Cake Glaze:
½ cup powdered sugar
2 Tablespoons orange juice concentrate, room temp
5 Tablespoons Grand Gala Orange liquor (you can skip adding the sugar and orange juice but definitely recommend dousing with the orange liquor)
Method:
In a stand mixer with a paddle, cream butter and sugar together, incorporate in slowly all of the eggs, than add the sour cream and maple syrup. Add in the dragonfruit flakes and mix on slow.
Sift the dry ingredients together and slowly incorporate into the sugar/butter/egg mix. Scrape batter into a large bowl and incorporate the apples and mangos.
Spray the pans with non-stick cooking spray, I prefer Vegalene (available in restaurant supply places or Amazon) as it’s what we always used in professional kitchens and in my opinion it’s much better than retail cooking sprays like Pam.
Mix the spice mix together including the melted butter, it will look a bit granulated.
Spoon half the batter into the pans and spread evenly, split the spice mix between the two pans and swirl around evenly on top of the batter, spoon the rest of the batter over the top and settle it. I pick the pans up about 2 inches off the counter top and tap a couple of times onto the counter to help settle the batter.
Bake for 1 hour 45 minutes or until a tester comes out clean
Remove from the oven and place on a baking rack and let cool in the Springform pans for about 15 minutes before loosening the springform clips.
Remove the outer ring of the springform pan, leaving the cakes on the bottom forms. You may want to move the rack on top of a baking sheet at this point as the next step can make a little bit of a mess.
Combine the orange juice concentrate, Grand Gala and powdered sugar and stir until the sugar dissolves, spoon the mix over the top and sides of the still warm cakes.(or just the liquor if you choose)
Serve warm or let cool completely before refrigerating. Good hot, cold or toasted. Wrap well as the cake can pick up refrigerator odors. This recipe freezes well.
This is a pretty dense cake, it gets denser when refrigerated, more like a traditional pound cake than airy cake.
I made several mini cakes with this as well mixing in Suncore red dragon fruit powder (red coloring), the cook time was about an hour and 15 minutes for these, I have been playing around quite a bit with Suncore foods color powders off and on. I fell in love with their food color powders a few years ago but don’t buy often as they are a bit on the pricey side, but well worth it for the results especially for cookies, meringues, macarons and custards.
It’s on my to do list to mess with them with some fresh pasta which I will do at some point soon. I’ve made black pasta with squid ink in a few of my restaurants before but have not experimented (yet) with their ebony carrot powder which I’m looking forward to. When I was at CIA and we had a module called Experimental Kitchen in our first year, my partner for the week and I were experimenting with colored pastas and dessert pastas, considering this was in the very early 90s probably a little before it’s time but we had a lot of fun with them. I do remember we tried some pretty wacky flavors, but the pasta with dried blueberries and blueberry extract was absolutely beautiful in it’s pre-cooked state, sadly a bit washed out when cooked but delicious when we paired it as a chilled dessert dish with some Creme Anglaise and white chocolate shavings.
The mini cakes added a nice light pink color to the top of the cakes but I didn’t add enough to significantly color the interior but it did add a nice little extra tangy flavor to the mini cakes.
