Dec 7, 2015 | Dinners & Mains, Pot Lucky, Recipes, Savvy Kitchen Tips
Sawsuch sawsedge. That’s the way my Dad used to say it. Was he channeling his inner Brooklyn? Fuhgeddaboudit! He cracked himself up when he said it. But this tale isn’t really about sausage or sausage making, it’s about fun with friends. I must however make one quick sausage stop, a reverent moment to pay homage to the mother of all sausage experiences – the sausage bomb. I once had to work for the daughter of a famed crime boss. I would tell you who she was, but I’d have to kill you (read: they may kill me). You think I’m kidding, but when her brother died in a car/mini-bike accident, the car driver was “disappeared.” Have I said too much already? Anyway Princessa Mafiosa wrote a cookbook and Extra was filming a piece at her Lon G-Island mansion. I prepped what I could and took a car service to arrive a bit ahead of the appointed hour. They really hadn’t scheduled sufficient time for me to ready all the beauty food laid out in a magnificent “of course she did this herself” spread. When I knocked on the door of the palace, the circle drive strewn with obligatory black Escalades parked haphazardly Tony Soprano-style, my knock was greeted with a door slam and strict instructions to come back later. I had been doing this long enough to know how much work lay ahead and forceful enough to finesse my way inside, but I always wondered – at what cost?
The first recipe was a pasta dish that called for browning the sausage in 2 cups of olive oil, then adding 2 cups of cold water and a bouillon cube to the boiling oil. It was genius – take out the target without spilling any blood – sausage bomb ??? style. BOOM! I did have the good sense to retrieve my business card from the kitchen counter before leaving lest I find a horse head in my bed. Hopefully with a lovely Béarnaise sauce napping it just so.
But I digress – and still swear this really isn’t about sausage. It’s about hospitality. We’ve just survived the super bowl, the Oscars, and the New York marathon of all home entertaining events- Thanksgiving. It was no doubt stressful. Was the turkey too salty, too dry, too frozen? Did you really have to do it all by yourself? Time now to sit back and enlist the full team to make things happen, and have fun while doing it. I’m not just talking about a potluck people, I mean a real cooking party.
I recently had the good fortune of spending the afternoon at a sausage party. This crowd takes their game meat seriously so we had a variety of flavors, including a beef heart sausage. (Stop it – your face is gonna freeze like that). But the one here is rabbit with dried cherries and toasted hazelnuts. The great thing about making your own sausage is that you have ultimate control over the seasonings and fat/meat ratio, eliminating all preservatives, while having great fun. Win. Win. Win.
One of my all-time favorite meat books is a seriously old cookbook by Jack Ubaldi. Jack owned the legendary Florence Prime Meat Market in New York’s Greenwich Village. He was a butcher’s butcher. A master of meat. When I came on the food scene, he had just sold it and was teaching. I took both butchering and knife skills from him. He changed my life when I learned that a bread knife is not to be used in a back and forth sawing motion, but rather cut on the forward movement, only dragging the knife back – without action – merely to re-position, so you can cut again on the next forward motion. Who knew? Jack.
Jack’s sausage technique became the base for our afternoon of sausage revelry. I arrived just as the sausage mix was being processed in a meat grinder. My Mom and Grandmothers had manual grinders that C-clamped to their counters. Today you can buy attachments for a variety of machines; I have the grinder attachment
for my KitchenAid stand mixer. 
Here’s what we missed –
Fresh Rabbit Sausage with Dried Cherries and Toasted Hazelnuts:
- 2 pounds lamb, cut in chunks
- 2 pounds rabbit, cut in chunks
- 2 tablespoons kosher salt (if not kosher, at least coarse grain)
- 2 Tablespoons chopped garlic
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon chopped marjoram
- 1 teaspoon chopped sage
- ¼ cup chopped dried cherries
- ¼ cup chopped toasted hazelnuts
- Casings, soaked – available from your butcher
Makes about 4 pounds of sausage, or approximately 12 links.
The general rule of thumb is 30% fat to 70% lean meat. If it’s too lean, it will be very dry; too fatty, the fat will render leaving a shriveled up sausage that is way too rich. This sausage was pretty lean, but lots of flavor. The meat went through the grinder with 3/8” plate, and the rest is stirred in by hand, first the seasonings, then the cherries and nuts. Knead by hand until the meat sticks together, about 5 minutes or so. The recipe and technique here are for a fresh sausage, meant to be cooked and enjoyed within a couple days. Drying sausage is a separate technique, which is no longer required for home cooks, now that we have fridges.
The casings you will find are generally hog. They are often sold packed in salt. If your butcher doesn’t carry them there are several online sources. About an hour before you start, you should soak the casings in warm water for about 30 minutes. After, run water through the casings, but do not squeeze. Then return them to a container, covered in tepid water. One pound of casings is about 50-60 feet long, and will pack 25 pounds of sausage, though it may be closer to 50 pounds. There is a fairly wide range in capacity because the diameter will vary. If you don’t use them all, wring out the excess water and pack again in salt and refrigerate in airtight container.
The real fun begins when the stuffing happens. My friends happen to own an antique stuffer, but in addition to the meat grinder attachment, my KitchenAid stand mixer has a Stuffing Attachment
. You can always use a funnel for stuffing by hand. Thread the casings onto a wet funnel or stuffing tube until an inch of casing remains. Tie off the end.
Add the meat to the hopper and push through. It helps here if you have octopus arms or a friend – one to man the sausage intake and one to manage the casing/stuffing output. Once you have filled a desired length, press gently to ease out any air, even the meat distribution, and make sure there is a little give – i.e. not too stuffed. Tie off this end. Continue filling additional lengths, until you have used all your meat mixture.
The next step is to make links: Pinch off a 4-5 inch section at each end and twirl like a jump rope to create an individual link. Generally all the links are kept attached to minimize the waste. At this point you can freeze, simmer, broil, or grill, but if you are like us, you will want them right away with a frosty beer. We threw them on the grill and cooked about 8-10 minutes per side.
There are infinite ways you can customize this concept – fresh sausage, dry sausage, fruit, nuts, organs, animals, fish, veggie, etc. But this story is about camaraderie and spending the day with friends. We cracked a new jar of last season’s habanero mustard – sorry but this recipe is also a mob secret – and served it up with Amy and Todd’s butternut squash soup, topped with crispy bacon, shallots, and apples, then chased it with my gentleman jack pumpkin ginger cheesecake. Fat and happy!!!!
The next cooking party on the docket is a soup party. Stay tuned!
Where are they now? ChloElla J update
Okay you know where they are!!! It’s only been ten days. However, this update is worth reporting.
I do believe they have outdone themselves – December’s Cupcakes for a Cause were edible snow globes. Could they be a bit cuter????
© Copyright: KatyKeck.com 2015. All rights reserved.
Hey, we want to hear from you!
Don’t forget to Comment below, Share & Subscribe to our blog.
Nov 21, 2015 | Holidays, Recipes, Savvy Kitchen Tips, Sides
I’m not quite sure how I ever made it through to dessert all those years that I mashed potatoes with a – uh, masher. Oh sure, there was always a brother who made a mean mash with just the right amount of chunks left it. But in my family, the men (technically, THE MAN) were supposed to do the carving. That or keep the mimosas cold. The real magic, I think, behind having a potato ricer is that kids of all ages want to get involved. It’s like a giant garlic press and the potatoes come out all wormy and stuff. What’s not to love? And kids actually volunteering for food prep is win-win. Thank you, Ali Price!
I can’t tell you the exact date that I started my ricer love affair, but I remember the moment like it was yesterday. It was in the early years of New World Grill and I had a rare evening off and chose to dine at the James Beard house. I couldn’t tell you who was in the kitchen, but I remember clearly being seated with Nicole Routhier, author of beautiful books on Vietnamese food, and Florence Fabricant of the NY Times. There was breaking news and Florence arrived a bit late. As she settled in, Florence talked about an upcoming dinner that she and Frank Prial, NY Times’ wine writer, were hosting to benefit the NY Public Library. For a good number of years, the Times offered these magical dinners – which today would be auctioned online and raise a ton of money in minutes – for a flat ticket price, all proceeds to support NYPL. Florence and Frank always offered FOOD & WINE, Times style. There were other dinners, hosted by famous people, all over town at the exact same time. I was most intrigued by Calvin Trillin’s. He invited the guests into his home and served take-out – or to be more precise, the best Chinese take-out NY had to offer. He had stationed minions all over Chinatown, striking with military precision to bring each dish, the most iconic offering from each restaurant, one by one, on a carefully calculated timetable (“…..like the Entebbe raid”………according to the Times) to be served at the precise moment of each dish’s peak.
I asked who was cooking for Florence and Frank’s party and she said she was – of course. I offered to do the event-time cooking to finish off her prep, so she could be with the guests. To say she was skeptical would be an understatement. She did know who I was and had already written about New World Grill, but I was a newbie. Nicole insisted she take me up on the offer. I left knowing the date and time but little else. I doubt I even thought to panic until the week before. Then, total anxiety set in. Especially when I found out she was making Terence Brennan’s short ribs and mashed potatoes for the main, or more accurately she was making Terence Brennan’s short ribs and I was making mashed potatoes. Sure sure sure – it seems simple, but the simplest food is always an acid test of one’s cooking ability. Did you see The 100-Foot Journey? Helen Mirren had her acid test dish to confirm Chef’s talent – and it was seemingly simple. Same deal for Florence’s potatoes – under-season the water, turn the mash to glue, too wet, too dry, too bland – the stakes were incredibly high. To make matters worse – or as it turns out better – she had forgotten her ricer, “whatever that was”, I thought. She called her husband to bring it over and then handed it off to me. Luckily it didn’t come with –nor need – an owner’s manual. I had this. Salted water to cook, white pepper and a lot of butter to finish. Thankfully my performance was worthy of an invitation to greet the guests and a hug from Florence, neither of which were expected. Johnny Carson himself might as well have invited me to the couch. Thank you, ricer.
Incidentally, Florence also introduced me that night to Indiana’s goat cheese producer – Judy Schad of Capriole Farms. After the short rib course, there was a salad with fuyu persimmon and Wabash Cannonball cheese from Capriole Farms. Seriously – I need to get out more.
Perfect Mashed Potatoes
Mashed potatoes are an excellent blank slate for seasoning as you like. A few posts ago, I used the pistachio pesto recipe to flavor the riced potatoes. Today I am adding fresh goat cheese and thyme. But while using a ricer is simple and flawless, potatoes cooked like this are best mashed to order, so dedicating the burner and the last minute attention may be more than you can swing at a stove-intensive holiday like Thanksgiving.
Fear not – there is a great make-ahead mashed potato recipe in Rick Rodger’s Big Book of Sides
(I get credit for the recipe, but truth is I stole it from my sister-in-law.) Rick’s books (including The Turkey Cookbook: 138 New Ways to Cook America’s Favorite Bird
and Thanksgiving 101
) are right up there with ricers in the Thanksgiving must-haves.
Ingredients:
- 4 Russet potatoes, about 3 pounds, peeled, quartered, and covered in water
- ½ cup milk, half and half or cream, warmed (microwave is fine)
- 4 ounces fresh goat cheese, cut in chunks
- 3 Tablespoons butter, cut in chunks
- 3 Tablespoons fresh thyme leaves
- sea salt and freshly ground pepper
Put the potatoes in a large pot, season with 2 Tablespoons salt and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil and cook until the potatoes release easily when pricked with a fork, about 15-20 minutes. Drain well.
Press the potatoes through a Potato Ricer
into a bowl.
Add about half the milk, as well as the goat cheese and butter. Stir until mixed, adding more milk, as needed to desired texture.
Add the fresh thyme and season with salt and pepper.
Garnish with pats of butter and sprigs of thyme.
Serves 4-6 – depending on how serious (About Mashed Potatoes!!) you are.
© Copyright: KatyKeck.com 2015. All rights reserved.
Hey, we want to hear from you!
Don’t forget to Comment below, Share & Subscribe to our blog.
Nov 16, 2015 | Desserts & Sweets, Recipes, Savvy Kitchen Tips
So before the pumpkin cheesecake, I have a little story – we’ve had a teency tech glitch (I was no where near that) that apparently has kept about half of you from receiving these posts for the last month or so. No wonder you’re freaking. (Wink. Smile.) However, I have a not-so-secret vault where you can find all the fabulous fabrications you’ve missed – it’s safe and sound, right where I left them on my website – katykeck.com/blog. Whew! And thank you for sticking with me, even though I appear to be the laziest blogger EVER, seemingly not posting for weeks. And now back to the pumpkin patch…………
A recent trip “up north”, as the Michiganders call it, involved some massive pumpkin finds. A couple were the size of Volvos and claimed to weigh more than 1400 pounds. Is there a scale for that? My sister said they looked like Jabba the Hutt – I think she’s right. That extreme brush with fall produce reminded me of this Pumpkin Ginger Cheesecake that I hadn’t made in years. It’s a carefully (not really) guarded secret recipe from the early days of New World Grill. When we first opened, with a kitchen only slightly larger than the one I had shared in Paris, there were way too many kinks to work out in the work flow to do desserts. So they were primarily outsourced. In house, we had a signature grilled fruit (genius – so far ahead of its time that the Zagat guide said “some things shouldn’t be grilled”. Duh. Really?), but the rest came from elsewhere. There was no reason on earth not to buy Ciao Bella gelato – they had every flavor imaginable and they custom produced whatever you needed. The chocolate ganache cake, while not the stuff of legends, was very good and had the shiniest sheen on top. A weency bit too shiny?? Perhaps. Because Eric Asamov, CSI-slash-Restaurant Critic at the NY Times, received a slice with a thumb print on it. Total oops, but did he have to include that in his otherwise glowing review? I did what I had to – made a million copies of the review (the NY Times, people!!!!) and got busy with an ink pad, covering every press kit with inky thumbprints.
Our first fall at New World, the good folks at Jack Daniels offered the James Beard Foundation a $10,000 gift if 200 chefs featured their product on our menus throughout November. I created this recipe using Gentleman Jack Rare Tennessee Whiskey, a twice-filtered premium bottling. The Gentleman Jack Pumpkin Cheesecake was such a hit and so clearly made in-house that we were no longer able to get away with any commercially produced desserts (other than Ciao Bella). I got to add pastry chef to my ever-growing job description. While I feel a special loyalty to the Gentleman, you can also try Jack Daniels or play around with bourbons (pecans in the crust) or dark rum (ginger in the filling), if the mood strikes. Dark rum would be a nice Island Twist with the ginger.
Now that I was officially a pastry chef (in between being a hostess, plumber, and expediter), I learned an awful lot about making cheesecake. We were a boutique (read: frickin small) venue, but I still cranked out 500 or more cheesecakes a year. I developed about a dozen different flavors which for me was the easy part. The part that took me a while to master was the equipment and techniques. Cracks and sinkholes were Public Enemy Number One. If you want to be serious about this you need a heavy duty, coated springform pan. Flimsy ones leak. Springs break. And aluminum might react with your filling flavor. Any good cooking supply store will carry them – and they are closer to $20 than $6, but they should last a very long time, especially if you don’t make 500 cheesecakes a year. Analon, Calphalon, and Kaiser make sturdy pans. The highest priority of a springform is being leak-proof.
Cheesecakes are best baked in a water bath, or bain marie. French for Mary’s Bath, the bain marie’s original namesake is likely an ancient alchemist named Mary, though some sources credit the Virgin Mary who was also extremely well-known for her cheesecakes. (Never.) Cheesecakes, like alchemy, benefit from gradual temperature changes. Try to rush this recipe and you will definitely get cracks. While the prep time is minimal, it takes about 5 hours of planning and tempering the ingredients and cake. Your best results will come with room-temperature cream cheese and then slowly heating the cake in the oven in a water bath, followed by slow cooling – first in the bath in the turned off oven, then out of the bath on the counter. Because I was doing this professionally, I rued cracks in the cake, but fear not – I have topped this with a sour cream layer which will cover all cracks. You’re welcome.
Another culprit of cheesecake deformity – which in case you have forgotten DOES NOT AFFECT HOW DELICIOUS THIS IS – is sinking. The evildoer behind the dreaded sink is air – first a pretty little puff, then a giant cave in. My tip for avoiding sinking middles is to incorporate as little air as possible – hence the use of a food processor, not a standmixer. And you will note that I only pulse in the eggs at the very end with just a few pulses. (Eggs are another culprit that might fluff up the cake – don’t let them.) And lastly, there is the pan tapping at the end – getting rid of any excess air.
The recipe below is sure to boost your hostess cred and – bonus – you now have a template for cheesecake production. I will share more flavors in the months to come. But for now…….
Gobble Gobble.
Gentleman Jack Pumpkin Ginger Cheesecake
Crust:
- 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
- 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
- 1/4 cup melted butter
Filling:
- 15 ounce can pumpkin puree
- 24 oz cream cheese, room temperature
- 5 ounces Gentleman Jack Rare Tennessee Whiskey
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 1/2 Tablespoons vanilla extract
- 1 Tablespoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground clove
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 6 eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
Topping:
- 1 cup sour cream
- 2 Tablespoons Gentleman Jack Rare Tennessee Whiskey
- 2 Tablespoons powdered sugar
- Preheat oven to 350° F. Combine flour, brown sugar, pecans, and melted butter and mix until crumbs adhere. Press into a 9 or 10″ sturdy nonstick springform pan
and bake for 10 – 12 minutes. Remove and cool. Wrap pan in heavy duty foil. Reduce oven temperature to 300°F.
- In food processor, puree pumpkin until smooth. Add cream cheese and puree until smooth. Add Gentleman Jack, sugar, vanilla, ginger, cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg and pulse until mixed. Add eggs and pulse 2 – 3 times only until just combined. Do not overprocess.
- Pour filling into cooled crust and tap pan lightly. Place in a roasting pan and fill with hot water, halfway up the side of the springform. Bake for 1 1/4 – 1 1/2 hours or until set. It may still be a bit wobbly in the center but it will firm up as it cools.
- Turn oven off and leave cheesecake in water bath in oven for 30 minutes more. Remove roasting pan from oven, and carefully remove springform from water. Remove foil and cool on wire rack until room temperature. Refrigerate until fully chilled.
- Combine sour cream, Gentleman Jack, and powdered sugar and spread on top of cheesecake. Refrigerate until set.
- Gently run a knife or thin metal spatula around inside edge of pan. When cheesecake has released, open outer pan ring and remove.
Serves 12.
© Copyright: KatyKeck.com 2015. All rights reserved.
Hey, we want to hear from you!
Don’t forget to Comment below, Share & Subscribe to our blog.
Nov 7, 2015 | Recipes, Salads, Sides
This homely little vegetable belies its knobby, unsightly exterior, showing up instead packing a flavor punch and chocked full of crunch. It became one of my favorites during my year in France. While interning in Michelin starred restaurants, I had this crazy schedule, leaving at 7am for work about an hour away, and returning home well after midnight on the last metro of the day. There were a few others in this tiny studio apartment, but I got the “walk in” (if you could call it that) closet which I used as my salon – having a glass of wine, checking my mail and unwinding from the day. I was always the last one in and first one out each day. My personal time in the apartment came on Saturday when everyone else was either at work or away for the weekend. I spent that day off each week combing the specialty food shops in my neighborhood, doing laundry and plotting for dinner. Being on a budget meant a lot of chicken, but it also meant trying new things with cheap root vegetables. Céleri Rémoulade (grated celery root with mayonnaise) and Salade de Carottes Râpées (grated carrots, lightly dressed) became two staples of my weekend dining. The French don’t favor raw vegetables, but they make exception for these two which are damn near national treasures. The Céleri Rémoulade mayonnaise dressing bore faint resemblance to its American cousin. It was rich and creamy and somewhat tangy.
I don’t think about those dinners all that often, but this time of year when I see celery root, technically celeriac, with the remaining farmers braving brisk market mornings, I am immediately back there in that tiny kitchenette. It reminds me how hard I worked to make it taste the same each time, something that a professional takes pride in. These days, I like to make it different each time. Sneak in a new ingredient, change the dressing. The recipe below masquerades grated apple and white cheddar. They both look about the same as grated celery root, but what a delight to find that the intense celery flavor is elevated with sweet/tart apple and rich cheddar lurking within.
Here in the US, celery root is not so well known. When the farm stands are gone, invariably I’m forced to buy it at the supermarket. Without fail, I get one of the befuddled cashiers giving me a “Whaaaaaat?” look. I am so smitten with the flavor – think celery and parsley – and versatility that I have been known to sneak celery root into a mystery basket for auditioning chefs. On one particular project, the first three candidates failed to use it (a strict mystery basket no-no) and when the fourth got a last minute chance to audition, he asked if he could use the abundance of celery root he had seen in the walk-in. Guess who still has the job? Unlike the others, he was well aware that celery root can not only be served grated and raw, but also steamed, boiled, and roasted to include in soups, stews, bisques, gratins and mashes, the very way he chose to serve it.
When shopping, look for small, firm celeriac that seem overly heavy for their size. Bulbs with bruises, soft spots or a lot of shoots or rootlets are past their prime. Not only will they have lost their intense flavor, they tend to be a bit pithy inside and that is no good for a raw salad. To prepare for grating, trim the ends to create a flat surface, then use a sharp knife to cut off the woody exterior. Cut in wedges that will fit into your processor, fitted with the large grating disc. The exposed flesh will start to turn brown eventually, so have your dressing ready and dress as you go.
Celery Root, Apple and Cheddar Slaw
Dressing:
- ¾ cup combined lemon juice and EVOO, 50-50 ratio
- 1 Tablespoon white miso, available at health food stores or Asian markets
- 1 Tablespoon Dijon or spicy/pepper mustard
Put all ingredients into a blender and combine until well blended.
Slaw:
- 1 pound celery root, trimmed and grated
- 1 pound crisp-tart apples such as Braeburn, peeled and grated
- ¼ pound sharp white cheddar, such as Barber
Grate each ingredient using the large grating disc on your food processor.
Transfer to a serving bowl and drizzle with dressing, tossing and dressing to desired coating.
Keep refrigerated in an airtight container.
Serves 6-8.
This time of year just feels like spicy brats and sausages, and while I reached for a cabbage slaw variant all summer, this celery root, apple, cheddar slaw is the perfect accompaniment for fall outings.
Hey, we want to hear from you!
Don’t forget to Comment below, Share & Subscribe to our blog.
Oct 2, 2015 | Dressings & Sauces, Recipes, Seasonings & Spices
Oh for crying out loud. I’m a grown-ass woman. You would think I could get over the end of the farmer’s market and the demise of my herb bed without this drama. But…….have you met me?
Deep breath in. Deep breath out. In. Out. Focus! You know what to do. Pretty much any time between now and Thanksgiving (a bit earlier if you are in the northern reaches and will have extended hard freezes before), you can cut back all your perennial herbs and hang them upside down to dry. I tend to focus on Thanksgiving because it’s one last chance to harvest the herbs you will need for stuffing et al. Besides, cutting back your herb beds and throwing down some mulch has the added benefit of getting them ready for spring – which really can’t be that far away when you think of it.
The main reasons to hang and to hang upside down are to stiffen the stems and provide enough airflow to keep from molding. Once dry, you can pick them off the stems, crumble and keep in an airtight tin. If you have hangups about the whole hanging scene, you can also pack the stemless leaves between layers of a good quality coarse salt and make, for example, your own rosemary salt. A little herb goes a long way. And then of course you could always gently heat olive oil and infuse it with some sprigs of herb. Discard the herbs in a few days or a week when you get the desired flavor.
But what to do with the annual herbs? Basil, Parsley, Arugula, Cilantro?? These are definitely a goner after the first frost. I favor pastes for these which I keep in the freezer for a quick addition to other dishes, a theme you may be picking up on from You’ll Thank Me in the Winter Oven-Dried Tomatoes. Pureed with some oil and whatever else you want, these pastes make great flavor boosts for those bleak winter months. Some people like to leave the cheese (Romano or Parmesan, or other hard grating cheese) out, if freezing the pesto. I think if there is enough oil to coat the cheese, there is no reason why it can’t be incorporated up front. Play around with the combos and see what tastes good to you. When making a basil pesto, I often add some spinach or arugula or even parsley – all depends how much basil taste I want to show up later. And if the basil has already started to go to seed, it can be a bit bitter, so adding some other herbs can round out the flavor and boost the color.
Basil Pesto is something that really does have to be made to taste. (I’m not making this up because I’m too lazy to give you a proper recipe). Am I sensing a little anxiety that there will be no real recipe again?? Come one folks, you can do it! The key components for traditional pesto are basil, garlic, olive oil/EVOO, pine nuts and cheese, generally Parmesan. I’m probably going out on a limb here, but I don’t get pine nuts, pretty much at all but definitely in this dish. They are super expensive, very delicate both in flavor and handling (sold rancid way too often), and provide no texture contrast to the paste. But what DO you like, you ask? Good question! Many use walnuts, but I love toasted pistachios. You can almost always find them shelled at a health food store. I spread them on a sheet pan and roast all naked (uh……….the pistachios, not me) for about 10 minutes at 400°F. You can definitely smell them getting to the right point. After cooling completely, I pulse in a food processor, keeping them a bit chunky. From there, I set them aside and stir in at the end by hand.
I also like to add lemon zest – which works best if you are freezing. If you are trying to keep it fresh in the fridge for more than a few days, the acid will start to kill the green in the basil. Something about the roasted nuts and fresh lemon zest though that really elevate the flavor profile.
So here you go – make it your way.
Pistachio Lemon Pesto
4 cloves (or more if you love it) garlic, pulsed in the food processor til minced
4 packed cups fresh basil (mixed with spinach, arugula, parsley or whatever you want/have), pulsed til coarsely chopped
¾ cup grated Parmesan or Romano cheese (you got it – your choice), pulsed a couple times
About 1 cup extra virgin olive oil, drizzled in while motor is running. Don’t let it get too runny if you are planning to freeze without an ice cube tray, but you do want the ingredients well coated.
Then, transfer to a bowl, and stir in:
¾ cup roasted, chopped pistachios
Zest of one lemon
Taste, and adjust seasonings (salt and pepper).
Press plastic wrap onto the surface of the pesto and refrigerate until it firms up a bit. Some like to use ice cube trays to freeze this. (I don’t have any). I usually just spoon out a 2 Tablespoon dollop onto a sheet pan, then once frozen place the pesto blobs into a Ziplock. You could use an ice cream scoop I’m guessing if you want to get fancy. If it seems a bit thin for scooping, you can thicken with a bit more cheese. More cheese is always good, I’m pretty sure.
There are so many ways to use this – add to a soup or stew, jazz up your mashed potatoes, spread on pizza dough before adding the toppings, slather it on bruschetta or toss into a pasta dish. What would you do if you had a freezer-full (again, you’ll thank me) come January? Sharing is caring, so let us know.
Winner winner chicken dinner – with pistachio lemon pesto mashed potatoes.
Hey, we want to hear from you! Don’t forget to Comment below, Share & Subscribe to our blog.
Sep 25, 2015 | Recipes, Savvy Kitchen Tips, Seasonings & Spices
If you think I am in a bit of a panic over the eminent disappearance of vine-ripened ANYthing, you are correct, sir! But after years of veg-therapy, I have a few coping techniques to preserve the last taste of summer and keep me from jonesing til the sun sits high in the sky again. Of course, canning is always an option; but that is a real commitment, and I personally like the pop of flavor that oven-dried tomatoes deliver. I’m not a big fan of freezing either. (They say the freezer is the last stop before the trash, so it’s not an ideal way in which to honor a loved one.) Some produce, like tomatoes, have too much water in them for quality freezing results. Once frozen, the water in tomatoes expands and destroys the structure. Unless you are aiming for a puree or sauce, OR adding to a soup or stew, that kind of behavior is considered, in many circles, a criminal offense.
Oven-dried tomatoes, while ultimately stored in the freezer, have already dehydrated sufficient water to make them super freezer-worthy. Because they don’t freeze as a solid block, it’s easy to grab a few and toss into a salad, a pasta, a frittata, or pop into a Panini or quesadilla. I also like the texture – not as leathery as commercially-produced sundried tomatoes, and they are not immersed in low-quality oil. These tomatoes will be super-charged with flavor and soft with a bit of chewiness – luscious!
Thanks to the surge in varieties of heirloom tomatoes, there are many options for choosing colors and shapes and sizes and flavors. I usually try to buy an assortment of colors and shapes, but keep the sizes about the same. If I am working with some larger tomatoes, I will keep them in a separate section since their cooking time will be longer. Choose from ripe yet firm cherry, pear, and grape – black pearl, green envy, Italian ice, and zebra. There is a virtual rainbow of possibilities. And while it takes a lot to fill even a quart Ziploc, a little bit from that Zip will go a very long way.
You’ll Thank Me in the Winter Oven-Dried Tomatoes
Plan to do this when you are home for the afternoon, cleaning out the closet or putting your herbs to bed for the winter (more on that next time). While this is a very fast prep and low ongoing involvement process, it is impossible to guess how long the whole shebang will take. If you have a convection oven, you can speed up the process a bit. And if you have a dehydrator, your watchful eye is less necessary. I usually figure 2 ½ to 3 ½ hours if I have an oven-full.
Preheat the oven to 225°F.
I like to line my sheet pans with foil to prevent pan-pitting as the tomato acid is released. (And let’s be real, it makes clean-up a snap). Halve the tomatoes and arrange in rows by variety/size on the pan, cut side up.
Sprinkle the tomatoes with a coarse sea or kosher salt.
My oven is wide enough for a full sheet pan and I can put in three at a time. However the air flow is significantly reduced, and so I have to keep an eye and rotate the pans, top to bottom and front to back. The better the airflow, the faster they will dehydrate.
Nothing will happen for an hour or hour and a half. But keep an eye on them after that – every 20 minutes or so. If you have used a wide variety of tomatoes, they will likely finish at slightly different rates.
Once they dry to your desired doneness, remove and cool completely, before bagging in a Ziploc. Press out excess air and keep in the very front of your freezer for easy access.
Don’t forget about that salt when you go to use them later – you may not need additional salt in your recipe.
Bottom Line It, will ya?
There are no proportions or timing here. But, if you insist: 6 quarts of cherry tomatoes, will fill 3 full sheet pans when halved and need about 3 hours in a 225°F oven, resulting in about 1 quart of You’ll Thank Me in the Winter Oven-Dried Tomatoes for your freezer.
Hey, we want to hear from you! Don’t forget to Comment below, Share & Subscribe to our blog.
