Girl In The Kitchen

I have watched Top Chef since the beginning and only once has the chef I wanted to win actually won the competition. Stephanie Izard was that winner. I have been looking forward to her cookbook and Girl in the Kitchen doesn't disappoint. The book captures Izard's sunny and bright personality. She is a girl in the kitchen, so one is never in danger of hearing shouting and cursing in the background. Nothing gets slammed or bammed or yelled at. That is not to say that the recipes are not "chefy." The Pan-roasted New York Steak with Sautéed Cucumbers and Salted Goat Milk Caramel will require 3 days, quited a bit of organizing and sourcing of ingredients. (And convincing anyone there should be caramel on a strip steak...)

Most recipes, however, have a "tip" for getting things done and many have drink ideas in case you don't know what to drink with Fried Cheese with Spring Veggies and Strawberry reduction. (That one stumps me every time. Bourbon? No, rosé.) If you watched Top Chef with Izard as a contestant (or should I say cheftestant? No! No one should ever say "cheftestant."), you will be familiar with her style of slightly Asian inspired Mediterranean cooking. Even the steak's goat's milk caramel has a bit of fish sauce thrown in.

Our one big problem with book is the four column list of ingredients. Surely there was a lot of "design" thought put into this format, but it is distracting.

We don"t mean to obsess on the weird, so here is a rather straight forward and yummy clam dish for you to try.

Clams Steamed with Corn, Bacon, and Fingerlings

12 ounces fingerling potatoes
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
3 slices bacon, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
1 small onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 ears of corn, kernels cut off the cob
24 fresh littleneck clams, scrubbed
1/4 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoon crème fraiche
1 tablespoon butter
Several sprigs fresh mint leaves, chopped for garnishing

1. Preheat the oven to 400° F.

2. Toss the potatoes with a few teaspoons olive oil on a rimmed baking sheet or casserole dish and season with salt and pepper. Roast potatoes until they are slightly tender, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Let cool, then slice into 1/2-inch rounds.

3. Heat a large Dutch oven or stockpot over medium heat. Add the bacon and cook it until the fat is rendered and the bacon is just browned, about 7 minutes. Add the onions and garlic and sweat by cooking them until they are tender but not browned, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the sliced potatoes, corn, and clams and season with salt and pepper. Pour in the wine and cover the pot and steam the clams for about 10 minutes. When the clams are completely open, use a slotted spoon to transfer them to the vegetables and bacon to serving bowls or plates, leaving the liquid in the pot. (Discard any clams that do not open.)

4. Stir in the crème fraiche and butter into the pot and simmer over medium-low heat until just thickened, 3 to 5 minutes. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper and spoon the sauce over the clams and veggies. Garnish with mint and serve.

On this cold day, I can think of nothing better.

Morgan Freeman & Friends Caribbean Cooking For A Cause

Well, this may not exactly be a “celebrity” cookbook in the sense that Freeman is not actually the cook. Freeman is more of an “eater” than a cook and he is an avid sailor. He spends a great deal of time sailing the Caribbean and visiting many wonderful restaurants. When Grenada was devastated by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, Freeman gathered his friends to help with the Grenada Relief Fund.

As more and more areas were hit by hurricanes, including our own devastating Katrina, the Grenada Relief Fund expanded and changed its name to, Plan!t Now. Plan!t Now provides people in high-risk areas the knowledge and information as well as advocating for the power of preparedness.


SO Freeman gathered his Hollywood friends, like Kevin Bacon and Michael Douglas who cajoled the chefs at their favorite resort locations to offer up recipes for this fundraising endeavor, Morgan Freeman & Friends Caribbean Cooking For A Cause. The book is filled with lovely publicity picture of celebrities frolicking on the beach, or staring dramatically into the camera


or sidled up to an occasional chef.



There are so many ways this could be really bad, and yet it is quite nice. The chefs provided really lovely island dishes. The book is arranged by island, so you will find dessert and drinks surrounded by stews and okra, so if you are looking for a menu, you are on your own.

Here is a pair of recipes from Mustique. They come from Alfre Woodard’s chef. The drink and fritters will make a nifty appetizer course. The sorrel drink features hibiscus which is found in the Caribbean during December, which makes it a hard ingredient to find, however, Red Zinger tea features hibiscus so it provides a fine substitution.

Sorrel

10 cups cold water
1 tablespoon rice
5 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon whole cloves 12 whole allspice berries
2 pounds fresh sorrel, washed
2 cups sugar
2 ounces Jamaican white rum or red wine

In a large pot, combine the water, rice, ginger, cloves and allspice. Bring to a boil and add the sorrel. Remove from the heat, cover and let stand for 24 hours. Strain off the liquid and add the sugar and rum, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Pour into bottles and refrigerate.

If you use the Red Zinger, you can leave out the rice and steep for less than 24 hours. I would leave the tea bags in for about 20 minutes and then let the rest ride overnight.

Festival Bread

Canola oil, for frying
1 cup ground yellow corn meal
3/4 cup All-Purpose flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 – 1 cup cold water

In a large deep pot, heat 1” of oil to 350 F.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine the cornmeal, flour, brown sugar, salt, and baking powder. Add 3/4 cup water and mix to form a dough, adding more water if necessary. Divide the dough into pieces, 1/2 teaspoon each, and roll into ovals. Slip into the oil and fry for 3 to 5 minutes, or until golden.

Festival Bread is a kind of sweet hush-puppies, eaten in much the same way as savory one, with fish.

So maybe Morgan Freeman didn’t actually cook anything, but he is working for a good cause.

The Wonderful Food of Provence

In 1953 La Veritable Cuisine Provençale et Niçoise by Jean-Noël Escudier was published. The French press was ecstatic encouraging husbands to rush out and buy a copy for their wives. La Veritable Cuisine Provençale et Niçoise was the first time that an authentic collection of Provençale recipes had been gathered for the home cook. It would not be the last time.

The book shown as bright Mediterranean sun on the cuisine of southern France. It was (and is) a cuisine influenced thousands of years earlier by the Greeks and Romans. Like the cuisine of the Italians, Provençale food was filled with olive oil and wine. In Provence, however, the cuisine was refined by the wealth of ingredients. In addition to the olive oil and wine, there are aromatics including the ever present garlic. La Veritable Cuisine Provençale et Niçoise has the first recipe for chicken cooked with 40 cloves of garlic though, in the English translation, it is suggested that American cooks to use only 10 cloves. There is a wealth of seafood, with much of the fish used in Provençale cooking, indigenous to the area. There can be no true bouillabaisse without rasccase or saint-pierre.

And the French, well they will eat anything, a trait they share with Southerners! Here is a Southern and a Provençale specialty.

Frogs’ Legs Provençale (Grenouilles Provençale)

Unless the frogs’ legs are unusually large, allow 3 pairs per person. They can (and should be) bought already skinned. Soak them in cold water for 3 hours, changing the water twice. Drain, and thoroughly dry. Roll them in flour seasoned with salt, pepper, and finely minced garlic. Fry them in olive oil over medium heat, turning to brown thoroughly. Drain on adsorbent paper and serve with a small amount (about 2 tablespoons per serving) of Tomato Sauce.

It is such a simple preparation, yet it is a show-stopper on the plate and well worth searching out some nice frogs’ legs.

Cook Until Done

George Bradshaw was a rather famous short story writer back in the day when short stories were prized by readers and more importantly by magazines who actually paid for them. He began writing about food for Vogue and the Saturday Evening Post. His “consultant” on the recipes was Ruth Norman. Not the Ruth Norman who believed that UFO's were going to land and take her away, but the Ruth Norman who was one of the first people to ever demonstrate “cooking” on television with her cooking-school on CBS. She later partnered with James Beard to form his cooking school.

Bradshaw compared Norman to the great actress Laurette Taylor. He said of her, “with a few casual and apparently unrelated gestures she arranges a masterpiece. While you are still wondering where you put the butter, she has made the hollandaise.

In 1962, their articles were collected into a cookbook entitled Cook Until Done.

"Cook until done", is a famous instruction in many a Southern kitchen -- mix it, put it in a pan, cook 'till done. The thought is if you can cook you will know when ”it” is done. If you can’t cook then why are you in the kitchen?

Bradshaw begins the book with an anecdote about his first culinary success. A girl he knew sent him a large steak from Kansas City. Being unmarried he was unaware of what to do with his kitchen, but undaunted he invited friends over. He made martini’s, put the stove on and around eight he decided to begin cooking the steak.

“So. I opened the door of the broiler and the steak under the gas. I then went into the living room and had a cigarette, or part of one. This would take I should think, about three minutes. I then went back to the kitchen. The entire place was in flames.
Now here is where my recipe becomes a little inexact. I do not know precisely how long that the kitchen was on fire. I did not look at my watch.
But I do know that when things had quieted down enough for me to get the broiler door open, the steak was perfectly done. Charred black on the outside, red rare on the inside, I had never tasted a better.
I suppose the fact that the painters had to be called in the next day to fix up the kitchen does not properly belong in a recipe, but it is something to consider if you are contemplating broiling a steak.”

If burning the kitchen is out of the question, give this a try.

Scallops with Lemon

For four people, get two and a half pounds of sea scallops. This is a surprise, you don’t need bays.
Spread them out on some sort of baking dish – a big Pyrex one is sensible –squeeze over them the juice of two lemons, dot them with butter or a few squirts of olive oil, and grind over them plenty of black pepper. Then let them sit for a couple of hours. This is very necessary.
To cook, put them under the broiler for twelve or fifteen minutes. When they are browned they are done. Poke them or turn them once as they cook. You will be pleased at how good they are.

And if extraterrestrials arrive for dinner, tell them they have the wrong Ruth Norman!

The Potato Book

The Hampton Day School in Bridgehampton, New York decided to produce a book as a fund-raiser. Not a terribly unusual thing to do. Bridgehampton was once covered in potato fields, so the idea was to do a potato cookbook filled with recipes and fun potato facts and Myrna David stepped up. The Potato Book was born.

For any other community, such a fundraiser might go unnoticed, but Bridgehampton is a hotbed of writers, artists, restaurants and even Craig Claiborne. And while he didn’t have any children in the Hampton Day School, Truman Capote wrote the introduction. With all this talent, the book was snapped up by a publisher, primarily for the introduction. Capote wrote:

“I live in Sagaponack by the sea. The house, which I love, sits smack in the middle of potato fields. In Fall, when the harvesting is done and the tractors are gone from the fields, I amble out through the empty rows collecting small, sweet, leftover potatoes for my larder.

Imagine a cold October morning, I fill my basket with found potatoes in the field and race to the kitchen to create my one and only most delicious ever potato lunch. The Russian vodka—it must be 80 proof – goes into the icebox to chill. The potatoes into the oven to bake. My breathless friend arrives to share the feast. Out comes the icy vodka. Out comes a bowl of sour cream. Likewise the potatoes, piping hot.

We sit down to sip our drinks. We split open steaming potatoes and put on some sour cream. Now I whisk out the big tin of caviar, which I have forgotten to tell you is the only way I can bear to eat a potato."

Well this is hardly a rousing endorsement of the potato, but then Capote grew up in Alabama so I just love hear him (and when I read this I “hear” his unique voice) using words like “larder’ and “icebox” and I am drawn to his writing.

If you are out in the Hamptons for the summer, you may find the need to cook for a large gathering. Here’s what you need.

Quahog Chowder For 100

1 bushel chowder (Quahog) clams, opened and minced
15 pounds dressed-weight striped bass filets, chunked
1 3/4 gallons clam broth, reserved from steaming open clams (plus one quart)
18 medium-sized onions, minced fine and squeezed
2 pounds salt pork, diced
1/2 pound butter
10 pounds potatoes, pared and diced
3 quarts milk
1 cup Almaden white wine
Thyme, one bunch minced
1 cup chopped fresh parsley

Try out pork, add onions and cook until just slightly brown. Add butter if necessary. Add clam broth. Bring to a boil. Add potatoes; cook until tender. Add fish; cook until half or three-quarters done. Add clams, simmer briefly. Add thyme and parsley. Add milk and wine. Simmer all a while.

In keeping with our transcription of recipes from the book they are in, we left “Try” out the pork. I’m sure this is supposed to be “Fry”. As you can tell, this is a fund-raising cookbook, so there was no trained dietitian or even a trained cook to test the recipes. I am not sure how to tell if bass is “three-quarters done.” Nor am I sure how long, “a while” is. But you get the idea.

An Illustrated History of French Cuisine

An Illustrated History of French Cuisine by Christian Guy is one of those bargain bin finds. I bought it because is was about French cooking and was $2. It seemed like a good idea. It was. This is no classic cookbook, but more of chatty culinary history ranging from Charlemagne to Charles De Gaulle. A bit of a weird layout, but quite tasty stories about food and the people who ate it. Like this tidbit about Dumas.

This recipe comes from Alexander Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers. After writing nearly three hundred volumes, he decided his last would be a cookbook. “It will be my last work, the one I shall outline the moment I catch a glimpse of Death on the horizon.” So one day Dumas looked up and noticed the Grim Reaper headed his way. He spent 6 months working on Grand Dictionnaire de cuisine. He finished the book, but did not survive to see it published.

Homard a la Portos

1. Brown in butter two onions and three carrots finely chopped, some thyme and parsley.

2. Cut a live lobster in pieces: cook it with spices, a bottle of extra-dry champagne, 1/8 pound of butter and some red pepper. Cook half an hour and serve hot.

Contemporary Table Settings

Patricia Kroh was a flower show judge and an award winning flower arranger. Her book, Contemporary Table Settings, features theories and practical advice on setting tables.


She offers advice for every type of hostess.

The Artistic Hostess: Features beautiful table settings with tips on flower arranging and color theory.

The Practical Hostess: Features the bride, the career girl getting tips on buying flatware or table covers.

The Ambitious Hostess: Features advice to those girls who know “how much fun and excitement flower exhibiting can be.”

The Considerate Hostess: Features food.

As I said before, Miss Kroh is a flower judge, so cooking is not her strong suite. For instance, her recipes for soup begin with the ingredients -- 2 cans of soup. It is 1966, so the Modern Hostess has many modern conveniences at her disposal, giving her ample time to spend setting that table instead of worrying about the food, that quite simply obscures the lovely plates.




But if you must cook...

Barbecued Shrimpbobs

2 pounds cooked, deveined shrimp
1//2 pound fresh mushroom caps
2 cans pineapple chunks
1 cup barbecue sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Alternate shrimp, mushroom caps, and pineapple chunks on six skewers. Paint with barbecue sauce. Wrap in aluminum foil and place on top of grill (Charcoals should be gray when ready.) Bake for 10 minutes. Open foil; add salt and pepper. Serve on skewers.

By all means, please be a Considerate hostess and serve food, even if it is just a can of soup.

Nathalie Dupree's Shrimp and Grits

Grits are my favorite food. I know about 10,000 ways to make grits. Everyday grits can be new an interesting so it seems odd to me that there are just a few cookbooks featuring grits. I wrote about Bill Neal’s book, Good Old Grits.

The iconic recipe for grits is of course, shrimp and grits. The basic recipe: make grits; top with shrimp. The more complicated recipes, are simple and complicated and delicious. If you want to find a cookbook that offers a multitude of recipes for shrimp and grits, look no farther than Nathalie Dupree's Shrimp and Grits.

Nathalie Dupree is the grande dame of Southern cooking. We shared a plane once. I had watched her make grits with yogurt in them. I told her I wasn’t sure I wanted yogurt in my grits. I was very young! She told me that in order for Southern cuisine to mature, it had to be willing to change a bit with the times. So I went home and added yogurt to my grits, and over the next few years, quit a few new things. She was right, grits are still as Southern as ever, but they are as versatile as any starch out there.

According to Dupree, the earliest mention for shrimp and grits was in the 1930 edition of Two Hundred Years of Charleston Cooking. Originally called “Shrimps and Hominy” by the 1976 edition it had been changes to “Breakfast Shrimp and Grits.” In Charleston they like to call their grits “hominy.” Here is the original recipe.

The Original Breakfast Shrimp & Grits

1 cup uncooked grits
2-3 cups milk
2 cups water
1/2 cup butter
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 pound raw shrimp, shelled

Add the grits to the simmering milk and water in a heavy saucepan, preferably nonstick, and cook as package directs, stirring constantly. Do not let the grits “burp” loudly, and watch the evaporation of liquid. Add more if necessary. When fully cooked to the texture you desire, remove from heat and add 2 tablespoons of butter and season with salt and pepper. Meanwhile, heat 4 tablespoons of butter in a frying pan and sauté the shrimp in the butter until the shrimp turns pink. Add the rest of the butter to the pan and melt. Top the grits with the shrimp and pour the butter on top.

Add a Bloody Mary and you have the “Breakfast of Champions” or Belles everywhere. Head over to Lucindaville for my “Scallop and Grits” recipe.

For more from Nathalie Dupree check out her blog.

Patés, Terrines and Potted Meats

Speaking of lark's paté, I do love terrines. Aside from the slightly flamboyant name, "terrines", they are basically tarted up meatloaves. Simone Seeker’s, Pates, Terrines and Potted Meats was published in 1978 in England. It follows in the wonderful English tradition of offering ingredients with no specific amount and simply throwing all the ingredients together and expecting you to figure it all out.

This recipe for potted shrimp is old fashioned and a bit out of favor. It is a simple recipe and can therefore be mucked up with wreckless abandon, which is perhaps why it has fallen out of favor. Often people confuse “simple” with “sloppy” and a lovely little appetizer becomes the butt of jokes. Face it. The recipe is shrimp drowned in butter. Shrimp and butter! Make a lovely potted shrimp for you next party, and see what a success it can be.

Potted Shrimp

1lb peeled shrimp
Powdered mace
Freshly ground pepper
4 oz butter
Cayenne pepper
Pinch of salt

Melt the butter slowly, then put in the shrimp and spices. Let them get thoroughly hot, without letting them boil, as this toughens them. Stir them as they heat. Put them into small pots and chill. Seal with a good 1/2 inch clarified butter.

Now, here is some explanation. In England where potted shrimp was all the rage, they use tiny brown shrimp from the English seaside. While commercially fished here in the States, they can be a bit hard to come by as everyone loves those big, plump, pink shrimp. Chose the smallest shrimp you can find 70-80 count per pound. If you have larger shrimp, slice them in 1/2 inch slices. Heat the butter in your pan till it is nicely melted and add 1/4 teaspoon grated mace or the actual nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, two or three good grinds of pepper and a pinch of salt. Add the shrimp to the hot butter just until the shrimp pink up. Pour into small ramekins, leaving about 1/2 inch of space and place in the fridge for about 30 to 40 minutes. After the shrimp has set up, fill to the top with clarified butter. In the end, you have a container that looks very much like a dish of butter, but what a surprise when you dig in and find those succulent shrimp to spread on crusty bread. Here's a recipe for clarified butter.

Clarified Butter

Heat butter in a taller than deep pan till it divides into three parts:

1. A scummy foam
2. The clarified butter
3. The watery residue in the bottom of the pan

Skim the foam, then spoon off the layer of clarified butter, leaving behind the residue in the bottom of the pan.