Old World Cabbage and Peppers

People ask me why I don't cook more food from my own ethnicity.  I'm Eastern European Jewish.  After growing up with borscht from a can and gefilte fish from a jar, I've become a little adverse to European Jewish food.  But, my wife and others have convinced me that I'm being silly.  I only remember the outrageously bad food, not the good stuff.  It'd be like my kids only remembering the spicy food I make and not the muffins, pancakes, cookies, waffles, mac&cheese or shrimp scampi.  I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say I'm being unfair to the memory of my grandmother, but perhaps I can take another look.

Someone remind me to post my recipe for "100 garlic chicken".

Cabbage with Green Peppers and Chicken Sausage
I chose to add chicken to this recipe, but it can be easily done as a vegetarian dish by simply leaving out the chicken.  Of course, true Jewish style would be to use schmaltz (rendered chicken fat) instead of olive oil.  But, hey, we've all got to die of something!  Apparently, we all die of heart disease.

Ingredients

• 1.5 lbs ground chicken
• 4 green peppers
• 1 head of white cabbage
• 1 large onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 tbs + 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp fennel seed
• 1tsp hot pepper flakes
• 1 tbs+1tsp caraway
• salt and pepper

Sausage Preparation
In a spice or coffee grinder toss in 1 tsp caraway, the fennel seed and the hot pepper flakes.  Grind to a powder.
Combine this, 1 tsp paprika, 1 tsp black pepper and 1 tsp garlic powder with the chicken
Using your hands, mix thoroughly
Clean your hands!

Directions
Heat some olive oil in a pan and add the chicken when hot
Brown, then remove, leaving some nice crunchy bits at the bottom
If there is not enough oil left, add some more
Slice the onions and peppers, mince the garlic and add these the skillet with some olive oil. 
Scrape the veggies against the bottom to loosen the crunchy bits.  If there's not enough liquid, deglaze the pan with some chicken broth or water.
Salt and pepper the veggies and cook until soft
Add in the remainder of the paprika and caraway and toss
Add the cabbage.  There will be a lot and it won't all fit.  That's okay, it will reduce in size.
Add enough water to the pan to cover the bottom with about 1/4 inch of water and increase the heat to high
Using tongs, if you have them, toss the cabbage with the onions and pepper.  This will help the cabbage cook and reduce
If you have cabbage that didn't fit in, add it as the cabbage in the pan reduces
Once all the cabbage is in the pan and softened, add the chicken sausage.  Make sure you get all the juice that have collected in the pan.
Adjust seasoning and serve over wide noodles.

Bourbon Chicken

When I have bell peppers to cook, one of my go-to recipes is this Bourbon Chicken.  It's healthy, filling and tastes amazing.  I love making it around my kids, because you can set the bourbon on fire and put on a good show!  Plus, it's easy and fast and only dirties one pan.

Bourbon Chicken
Ingredients

• 4 boneless chicken thighs, legs or breasts
• 3 bell peppers diced.  I use green because they're cheaper.
• 1 jalepeno or fresno pepper minced
• 1 onion diced
• 3 stalks celery diced
• 1/4 cup decent bourbon.  I like Bulliet and Knob Hill.
• 1 tbs corn starch
• 1 tbs flour
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tbs paprika
• 1 tbs thyme
• 1 tsp rubbed or ground sage
• 2 tbs brown sugar
• salt and pepper
• vegetable oil

Directions
Combine the paprika, thyme, sage
Pour about half onto a plate, with the flour and 1 tsp salt, and reserve the other half
Dredge the chicken in the spice/flour mix
Heat 1 tbs veggie oil in a medium-hot pan and brown the chicken, both sides
Remove the chicken onto the plate

Add the peppers, onion, celery and another tsp of salt to the pan
Cook until soft
Add water and deglaze the pan.  You can use chicken broth here for extra flavor.

Chop the chicken into bite-sized pieces and add to the pan
Add the bay leaf and 1/2 cup water and mix thoroughly
Turn on the stove's fan, reduce the flame to medium-low and  add the bourbon.
If you have kids to impress and a good fire extinguisher, you can set it on fire.
If it gets out of hand, dump some flour on it and call for pizza delivery


To make the sauce, combine the corn starch and sugar with 1/4 cup water
Mix thoroughly.  Work out all clumps.
Add it to the pan and return the heat to medium-high
Stir constantly until the sauce thickens.  If it thickens too much, add water.  Be careful not to burn it.  The sugar and the corn starch burn easily.

Serve over rice

Veggie Stew

I work for an organic produce delivery service.  Every week, our customers, of which I am one, get a box full of organic fruits and vegetables. Our boxes are very varied, and as a perk of working there I often to take home extra veggies.  At the end of the week I often have left-over vegetables. 

It's winter, and to me winter means stews.  Warm, filling but not heavy so you can eat it all night long while watching TV or curled up with a book.  I want warm, complex flavors and a thick broth.  I love making my soups!  Soups are one of the reasons I look forward to winter.

Pretty much all soups of mine start with a mire poix, which is celery, onions and carrots.  Plus,  I always use garlic.  Aside from the mire poix+garlic, the ingredients are all about what you have on hand.  Here's what I made last night.

Veggie Stew
Ingredients

• Mire Poix + Garlic
• 1 large onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• 3 medium carrots
• 3 stalks celery
• 2 small zucchini
• 4 small russet potatos
• 1 medium sweet potato
• The top half of a butternut squash
• 6 roman tomatoes
• 1 jalapeño pepper, diced
• Rubbed sage
• 3 bay leaves
• Salt and Pepper
• Olive Oil

Preparation
I like rustic winter stews, so I cut the mire poix very roughly for this soup.
I don't like seeds floating around in my soup.  So, I removed the seeds from the zucchini, jalapeño pepper and tomatoes.  I also remove most of the pith of the pepper, because I don't want the soup to be too spicy.  I skinned the potatoes and squash and chopped into bite-sized pieces. 

Directions

• Soften the mire poix in a large pan with olive oil over high heat.  Try to get a little browning, but it's not important.  Salt and pepper liberally.
• Toss in the tomatoes and cook until tomatoes are soft and lose the raw, sour flavor.
• Add the sage and bay leaves and stir.
  
• Add the zucchini and toss until slightly softened.
• Add the potatoes and squash and stir.
• Cover with water.  You can use veggie broth, but I don't think it adds anything.
• Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.
• Cook for 20 minutes or until potatoes and squash are soft. 

If the soup is too watery, you can thicken by adding a handful of left-over rice.  Or, you can add a cornstarch slurry (dissolve 1 tbs cornstarch in cold water) and mash a few of the potatoes.

If you don't have fresh tomatoes, canned tomato paste works excellently.  Add it after the mire poix is softened and cook it until the bottom of the pan is crusting up.  The longer you cook, the more it browns, the better it tastes.  Be careful not to burn it. 

If you want a smooth, thick soup, take a stick blender to it.  I can't find the one I have, but this one will work fine:  http://www.amazon.com/Proctor-Silex-59735-Immersion-Blender/dp/B00023XDJ0/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1294010028&sr=8-4 .  Or, you can carefully pour it into a blender.  It's hot, don't let the liquid spew out when you turn it on!  Remember to remove the bay leaves first.

I added some smoked chicken from Wheat Ridge Poultry & Meat (29th and Depew in the Denver Highlands district).  I love their chicken!  It comes vacuum-sealed, so it stays well in the fridge.  And it makes the fridge smell awesome.

Waffles ala Liam

One of the things I love about the holidays is having time to spend at home with my kids and being able to cook with them in the morning.  It's a core belief of mine that every child should know how to cook at least breakfast and dinner by the time they enter high school.  The benefits are numerous.

• You spend good time with the kids
• They will tend to be more healthy because they know how to cook good food
• They will know how to feed themselves on a budget, thus will become less risk-adverse because they know the bottom isn't that bad.  You might as well start a company, because if you fail and have to eat on $10/week, you can still eat well. 
• They will always have a built-in stress relieving hobby.

I'm sure there are other advantages.

So, I cook waffles with my son, Liam.  While I cook, I babble on about how to make the waffles.  Sometimes he'll lose attention and wander off, and that's fine.

Cooking with Liam is kind of tough.  His hands aren't skilled enough to measure properly.  He's not strong enough to mash bananas or mix thick doughs.  Cooking breakfast with Liam is what drove me to perfect the "not-a-recipe pancakes" from last episode.  Waffles are basically the same recipe as pancakes, except waffles can stand more gluten, so I can let Liam mix it and still get a good product.

This requires a waffle maker.  I have this one. http://www.amazon.com/Cuisinart-WMR-CA-Round-Classic-Waffle/dp/B00006JKZN/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1293993974&sr=8-3 GoodWill usually has at least one, making this a great breakfast for someone on a tight budget. 

Waffles ala Liam
Ingredients

• 1 cup all purpose white flour
• 2 over-ripe bananas (optional)
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)
• 1/4 cup coarse-grind whole grain corn meal
• 1 tbs baking powder
• 2 cups milk, spit into 1 and 1 cup
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tbs cinammon
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• Salt

Preparation
Prepare the corn meal like in the last post.  1/4 cup corn meal to 1 cup milk, in a microwave-safe container.  Microwave at high for 3 minutes, stir and microwave for another minute.  Add some milk at the end to cool and loosen.

Heat the waffle iron.  I set mine on 4, your mileage may vary.

Directions
Stir the wet and dry ingredients separately.
In the big bowl, add the flour, baking powder and cinnamon.  Add chocolate chips after everything else is combined.  In the medium-sized bowl, add the eggs, oil, sugar, salt, vanilla, bananas and milk.
Slowly beat in the corn meal.  Go real slow so you don't cook the eggs.
Pour the wet onto the dry and mix.  Try not to mix too much, but it's okay to be more vigorous than with muffins or pancakes.  Actually, a little gluten makes for a crisper waffle, so put a little muscle in it.
Dollop out onto the waffle iron.  It'll take some experimenting to get the right amount, but this should be enough batter to allow for some throw-aways.
Cook until the light turns green!

Theory behind Pancakes

My last post was a really bad recipe.  If you tried to make pancakes from it, you'd probably come out with something really terrible.  In this post, I'm going to write about my theory behind good pancakes, and let the reader figure out his or her own method.

Gluten
Pancakes need the right amount of structure.  Too little and they crumble and fall apart.  Too little gives you rubbery, chewy frisbees.  The right amount of eggs is crucial to keeping the pancakes from falling apart, but that's pretty easy.  Use 1 egg for a small batch, 2 for a large...there's not much to mess up.  Gluten production is another story.

You want to limit the production of gluten as much as possible.  This means no mixing!  Well, okay, you have to integrate the ingredients together.  But, you need to limit the mixing between the flour and the wet ingredients.

The most obvious trick is one that's used in any muffin-style food.  Mix the dry and wet ingredients separately, then only combined as the last step.  Thus, you can beat the eggs, combine the flours, mix in spices, etc, without creating gluten.  Learning this trick is key to so many flour-based dishes.

The other trick I love is to use cornmeal.  Cornmeal is heavier than white wheat flour.  But, if you cook it first, and then mix it completely into the wet ingredients, it'll actually combine with the wheat flour to reduce the amount of gluten produced when mixed.  It sort of sits between the flour granules and prevents gluten production.  Plus, it's a whole grain, it has a nice crunchiness to it, and it has a warm flavor.

Cooking Cornmeal
The purpose of cooking cornmeal is to soften the grains and to release the starch.  Doing this is easy.  Simply combine one part of corn meal to two parts of liquid, usually 1/2 cup cornmeal and 1 cup milk.  Mix well and microwave for 2 minutes.  Remove, stir again, then microwave another 1 minute.  Continue this until you have something like very plain grits.  Then, stir very well and add some more milk to cool down.  Slowly add this glop to your wet ingredients, making sure to stir vigorously so that you don't cook the eggs.

Additions
Plain white pancakes are great, but who doesn't love adding some additional flavor?  My kids' favorite is, predictably, chocolate chips.  But, they also like the other classics; blueberries, bananas and strawberries. Oh, they hate one classic which I love, walnuts.  The key is mixing these ingredients in correctly.  I split them into

• Dry Whole - walnuts and chocolate chips
• Wet Whole - blueberries, strawberries
• Dry Integrated - Chocolate powder, cinnamon, ginger
• Wet Integrated - Bananas, almond extract

Dry whole ingredients need to be dusted with flour before being mixed into the batter.  This is to make it easier for them to bind to the batter, so they don't sit on the top or fall to the bottom, where they will burn.  Simply tossing them with the dry ingredients before mixing the wet and dry will accomplish this.  Since the ingredients are dry, you don't have to worry about being gentle with them, or causing more gluten production.

Wet whole ingredients tend to burst and bleed their color into the rest of the pancake.  Blueberries are the perfect example.  As long as they stay whole, they are beautiful in the pancake.  As soon as they burst, the color oxidizes and causes nasty green splotches.  They key here is to add them after you put the batter on the griddle.  Yes, they'll sort of sit on top, but after you flip the batter will engulf them.  There's a little danger of burning, but since they tend to be lower-fat it's not as bad.  And, the wetness tends to reduce burning.  Walnuts and chocolate taste nasty when burnt, but blueberries kind of sizzle and brown, not burn.

Dry integrated ingredients can be treated as a normal dry ingredient.  Simply mix with the flour before adding the wet.

Wet integrated ingredients can be treated as normal wet ingredients, but extra attention should be paid to integrating them fully.  Bananas particularly will burn and leave weird lumps if you don't mash them and really beat them in.  Extracts and flavors are easier to deal with, but it still makes sense to give an extra effort to mix them well.

Leavening
Pancakes are supposed to be fluffy.  They are never fluffy enough.  The ideal is to be like a cloud, each bite delivering a soft sponge of flavor.  You accomplish this through reducing gluten and increasing leavening.

Baking powder requires a ph-neutral mixture.  You can get decent leavening by using only ingredients of PH-7 and a bunch of baking powder.  But, you'll get a lot of extra lift from using an acid with baking soda.  Baking soda is basic, so combining it with an acid produces bubbles.  Any grade school kid has combined baking soda with vinegar to make an eruption of bubbles.  It's those bubbles you want.  Baking soda will make far more bubbles than baking powder, because it's a fresh preparation.

This is why my recipe calls for an acidified milk solution.  This is also why buttermilk pancakes are so awesome.  Buttermilk is a cultured milk, similar to a loose yogurt.  In fact, you can substitute milk+yogurt instead of buttermilk.  The culture will digest some of the milk sugars and convert them into acids, similar to the way cultures digest grape sugars to make vinegar.

The thickness of a cultured milk has another benefit.  Since it's thick, you require less white wheat flour to make a thick batter.  Less wheat flour = less gluten = a fluffier pancake.

You can make a very decent substitute by thickening with an acid, like vinegar or lemon juice.  But, for the acid to thicken the milk, the milk has to be slightly warm.  So, microwave your milk until it's warm, but not hot, then add a teaspoon or so of lemon juice or vinegar.  The taste of the acid won't be noticeable in the end, but maybe stay away from flavored vinegars like balsamic and rice. 

The amount of baking soda should be in rough proportion to the amount of acid.  Generally, a tablespoon of lemon juice should get matched to a 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda.  That's roughly equivalent to a cup of buttermilk, or a 1/4 cup of yogurt.

Fat
We all want to reduce the amount of fat we eat.  It's high in calories and the wrong kinds of fat are bad for you.  But, it's kind of necessary here.

Fat will coat the flour granules, making it more difficult for them to absorb water.  This reduces the amount of gluten produced when mixed.  As well, it aids in browning, keeps the pancake from sticking, and tastes good.  Use a good vegetable oil.  People are afraid to use canola oil because it becomes carcinogenic at high temps, but it's fine here because the pancake will never get all that hot.

I think that's it!
Dave

Pancakes

Well...not pancakes, griddle cakes.  Why?  Because a pan is a terrible tool for making pancakes.  Electric griddles make the best pancakes.  They're also awesome for fish, steaks, burgers, eggs, firm polenta and burning yourself horribly.

http://www.amazon.com/Presto-07030-20-Inch-Electric-Griddle/dp/B001078UCC/ref=lh_ni_t_

$20 is a bargain.

I make pancakes for my kids on average of about once a week.  I always make them from scratch and I never measure.  They always come out well, but sometimes better than others.

You can use a whole grain with this.  I like cornmeal or whole wheat.  With cornmeal, you have to cook it first.  Put 1/2 cup cornmeal in a microwave safe container, cover with milk and nuke for 3 minutes or so.  Take out, stir and nuke for another minute.  Add the cornmeal to the wet ingredients, but the wheat flour to the dry.

Here's what I hesitate to call a "recipe".

Papa's Griddlecakes
Preparation
Clean griddle, even if you think it's clean already
Plug it in and start it heating at about 350degrees
If your griddle is old or heavily used like mine, you may need to hit it with some spray-oil.
You'll need 2 mixing bowls for this, one large and one medium

Ingredients

• Some all purpose white flour, maybe 1 to 1.5 cups
• 1/4 cup-ish whole-grain cornmeal or 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
• An egg, maybe two
• A couple tablespoons of sugar
• 1 tbs-ish baking powder
• 1/2 tsp-ish baking soda
• 1 cup buttermilk or 1/4cup plain yogurt and 1 cup milk.  Or, you can warm milk in a microwave and add some lemon juice.  Just make a slightly acidic, slightly thickened milk-like substance.
• Cinnamon
• Ground ginger, if you like
• 1/4-ish of veggie oil
• Salt
• Some vanilla
• Optionally blueberries, chocolate chips, bananas or nuts

Directions
The Dry:
In the large mixing bowl, add in the all purpose and whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger and salt.  Mix completely.  If you want, you can sift them together to get a fluffier pancake.
If you are using chocolate chips, add them to now, and stir in completely.  You want the chips to be coated with flour, which will make them suspend in the pancake instead of sinking to the bottom and burning on the griddle.

The Wet:

In the medium bowl, beat together the eggs, oil, vanilla and sugar.
If using bananas, smoosh them up them add them and beat until smooth enough
Mix in the acidified milk.
Wait until the griddle is heated
Pour the wet on top of the dry
Stir carefully to combine, stirring only as little as you need to.  The more you stir, the more gluten you will create, which makes for a chewy, flat pancake, which is never good.

Cooking:
I use a 1/2 cup measuring cup to spoon out the mixture onto the griddle.
If you're using blueberries, add them to the mixture only after it's been spooned out to the griddle.
You can tell that the side is done when the edges firm up and it begins to smell like breakfast.
Flip and cook until done

I  normally will cook one small one at first, then adjust salt, cinnamon, vanilla and sugar if needed.

Flayrah

Winter is time for stews and braises.  There's nothing better than a thick sauce on top of fork-tender meat.  Well, okay, there's lots of things better than that.  Chocolate, smoky scotch and a large yearly bonus.  But, stews are good, too.

I cooked rabbit last night.  The fine folks at Wheat Ridge Poultry & Meat (29th and Depew in the Denver Highlands district) hooked me up!  I also got fresh eggs, a smoked chicken and a fresh chicken.  The fresh chicken was too young, and I haven't opened the smoked chicken's packaging yet.  But, the eggs and rabbit were great!


Rabbit is really tough.  There really is no quick method of cooking rabbit.  But, its mild taste and white flesh makes it suitable for almost all slow, wet cooking methods.  I chose a standard braise.


I happened to have some really nice sweet potatoes on hand, plus some organic celery and carrots.  The bottle of red wine had been open a few days, so I no longer trusted it, so I went with chicken broth instead.  Honestly, with the long cooking time, I think the wine would have been overpowering, so I'm glad I made that choice.

Braised Bunny
Ingredients

• One rabbit, skinned and cleaned
• 2 cups of potato (russet, yukon or sweet), cubed
• 2 carrots
• 3 stalks celery
• 1 onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1.5 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons rubbed sage
• vegetable oil (or goose fat, if you're into that)
• salt and pepper
• water

Preparation
Butcher the rabbit, but keep the inedible parts (neck, breast)
Salt and pepper the rabbit pieces
Prepare the carrots, celery and onions as a standard mire poix
Dice garlic
Combined flour and sage on a plate

Directions
Dredge the rabbit pieces in the flour/sage mixture.  Make sure to knock off as much excess flour as possible.
Heat the oil in the pan
Fry the bunny, on both sides, until nicely browned
Remove the bunny to a plate
Add the mire poix to the pan, salt and cook until soft
Deglaze the pan with chicken broth
Add the potatoes and toss to combine
Put the rabbit back in the pan, with any juices on the plate
Add 1/2 chicken broth, 1/2 water until the liquid covers about 1/2 the rabbit
Cover and cook for 90 minutes
Remove the cover and let it cook down until thick

Serve with noodles