Soup's on...

We had an amazing snow storm this weekend, a true blizzard. We got over 2 feet of snow here at my apartment, and the mall actually closed on Saturday. (You have to understand, the King of Prussia mall NEVER closes.) 

So, what do you do when you're stuck indoors during a blizzard? Well if you're like most of us, you post pictures on Facebook of the snow piling up outside your house, digging your car out of the snow, your dogs playing in the snow, and the food you've been cooking all day. I myself am guilty of the first two Facebook postings, I enjoyed all my friends' pictures of their dogs (my cat Lulu just watched the snow from the window), but I saved my food pictures for this blog posting.  *smile*

One of the benefits of my recent experiment with chicken stock is that I now have a freezer full of it. And Saturday was the perfect day for soup. Back before culinary school, when I was just starting to teach myself to cook things beyond my mom's cookies, I used to try and replicate recipes that I saw on television cooking shows or that I had tasted in restaurants. Living in the suburbs of Houston, many/most of the restaurants were large chains. This soup was inspired by a soup I ate regularly in one of those chain restaurants. (I'll leave it to you to guess which one.) I've since come to know that the dish is actually a fairly traditional soup from Italy, so I feel a bit better....

Sausage, Potato, and Kale Soup

The version of the recipe I'm presenting below is the original, but you can really have fun by using different types of sausage, potatoes, and greens. One of my favorite variations is to use Spanish chorizo and sweet potatoes.

Serves 6 to 8

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 to 1 ¼ pounds Italian sausage (I used sweet, but spicy is good, too)

2 medium onions, diced

4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped

8 cups chicken stock***, low or no sodium

1 bunch kale or 5 ounces baby kale

2 pounds red potatoes, sliced thinly on a mandolin

2 cups cream or half and half

Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

In a large soup pot or cast iron Dutch oven, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Remove the sausage from the casings and add to the pot, stirring and breaking up the sausage as it browns. When there is no longer any visible pink in the sausage, add the onions and cook, stirring until they have softened and started to turn translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and continue to cook, stirring, until the garlic is fragrant, about 1 minute more. Season with salt and pepper, add the chicken stock and bring the soup to a high simmer. 

While waiting for the soup to come to a simmer, prepare the kale by tearing the leaves away from the center vein/rib. Discard the vein/rib, and tear the kale leaves into bit sized pieces. If you are using the baby kale instead, there is no need to remove the center veins/ribs or to break down the leaves any more, they can go straight into the soup.

When the soup comes to a high simmer, add the kale and potatoes. Return to a simmer, cover the pot, and let the soup cook until the potatoes and kale are tender, about 15 minutes. Stir in the cream or half and half and season to taste with more salt and pepper. Serve.

***One last note--the stock that I used in this recipe was half chicken wing stock and half chicken feet stock. If you read my blog posting on stocks, you know that the stock made from wings had the best flavor, but the stock made from the feet had the most gelatin. The texture of the finished soup was incredible. The soup had a velvety, buttery mouthfeel, you could really tell the difference the chicken feet were making. There was so much gelatin in the soup that when I took the leftovers out of the refrigerator, it had firmed up to the consistency of soft jello. (I think this is so cool...forgive the moment of food geekery!)

Going bananas....

I have a love/hate relationship with bananas. I like fresh bananas, but only when they're just barely ripe, no brown spots, with a bit of green still in the peel. I don't particularly care for banana desserts--banana pudding, banana ice cream, bananas Foster.  Mehhh, they just don't do it for me. Banana "flavored" items, like candies or syrups, are just plain gross. But, I love banana bread.

Once a banana starts to get soft and develop brown spots, I throw them in the freezer. After I've accumulated 3 or 4, I pull out the stand mixer and turn on the oven. My recipe is pretty simple by comparison to a lot of them out there. There are no fancy flavorings, I don't add bourbon,or chopped chocolate, or any of the other variants you come across much of the time. But, this recipe lends itself well to those kinds of additions, so feel free to add your own mix-ins. My personal preference is chopped pecans.

Enjoy!

Banana Bread

Makes 2 standard bread loaves

While this bread is excellent on its own, try toasting the slices and topping them with a little butter. Delicious!

¾ cup unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
¹/₃ cup light brown sugar
4 eggs
2 cups mashed banana (about 4 bananas)
3 ½ cups all purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon Kosher salt
1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter and flour two standard 8 or 9 inch bread loaf pans.

Place the butter and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. With the mixer on medium speed, cream the butter and sugars together until they have reached a light and fluffy texture and a pale color. Scrape down the bottom and sides of the bowl. Add the eggs and mix through.

Add the mashed banana. I like to leave a few chunks in the puree. Depending on how firm the bananas are when you mash them up, you will sometimes even see them in the finished loaf. 

Once the banana is thoroughly mixed into the egg and sugar mixture, scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl.

In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the mixer bowl and mix to blend. Stir in the chopped pecans.

Divide the batter between the two prepared loaf pans and bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.  Allow the loaves to cool in their pan for about 30 minutes, then remove from the pans and place on a wire rack to cool completely.

The loaves will freeze well, just wrap them well in plastic wrap, the foil, and place them into a ziptop bag in the freezer.

Taking stock....

We go through a lot of stock at work, especially this time of year. With so many soups, stews, braises, pan sauces, etc., on the menus, we can go through gallons a week. Most of the stock we use is chicken stock, and we pride ourselves on using only house-made. We save chicken carcasses and bones, and the onions, celery and carrots from our knife skills classes in bags in the freezer. When our supply starts to get low, out come the large stock pots and we start a new batch.

There's nothing like the aroma of a pot of simmering chicken stock. You should see the customers in the store...people will come in from the mall, their heads tilted slightly back, their noses in the air, inhaling deeply. They eventually find their way back to the teaching kitchen where they immediately ask what we're cooking that smells so good. When I tell them that we're making chicken stock, quite often they ask if it's for sale. I think we've had more than a few students sign up for their first cooking class because they happened to be in the store on stock-making day.

One of the advantages of making your own stock is that you have complete control over the salt content. Most of the dishes that you'll cook using stock will require reducing the liquid in the dish. Reducing means allowing the pot of sauce/sauce/stew/soup to simmer without a lid, allowing the water to evaporate away. This concentrates the flavors, including the salt. Most store-bought stocks are very heavily salted. Just read the nutritional information printed on the side panel, many of them have 30% or more of the daily recommended sodium for just a single serving. Even the ones that are "low sodium" or "no salt added" can be 15 - 20%. By making it yourself, you can leave salt out completely.

So, what exactly is stock and how does it differ from broth? The simplest way to describe the difference is that stock is made from bones and broth is made from meat. Broth uses whole parts, like legs and thighs, even the whole chicken. It is usually only cooked for 1 to 1 ½ hours, and the meat is then picked from the bones and used. A lot of old-school chicken noodle soups are made this way, with the meat going right back into the broth to make the soup. Stock is usually simmered for 3 to 4 hours then strained, and only the liquid is retained. The longer simmering time allows the natural gelatin in the bones and joints to dissolve into the stock, and when stock is cooled to room temperature, it will have the texture of soft Jello. 

When we make stock at work, we usually supplement the bones and carcasses in the freezer with chicken wings. Wings make a really nice stock. But, when I'm shopping at the local asian and latin american markets, I often see packages of other types of chicken parts--backs, necks, and feet. Yes, chicken feet. I've heard for years that feet make the best stock. They're all tendons, bones and connective tissue, very little meat, so a very gelatinous stock. A gelatinous stock is especially good for making sauces, it helps to thicken the sauce without need to reduce it as much.

I've had this idea for a while to make stock with different parts to see if I can see a discernable difference in the final product. When I was at the local latin market last week, I picked up packages of wings, necks, and feet, and I've had three pots of stock simmering away on my stove all afternoon.

My recipe for stock is more of a formula:

1 part mirepoix*, by weight
3 to 4 parts chicken parts/bones, by weight
1 to 2 quarts of water per pound of chicken parts/bones
a few stems of parsley and thyme, a bay leaf or two, and a sprinkling of black peppercorns

*Mirepoix is a classic mix of aromatic vegetables used in French cuisine---2 parts onion, 1 part carrot and 1 part celery. 

Start by placing the chicken parts in a large stock pot and add the water. I had 2 ½ to 3 pounds of each of the different chicken parts, so I added about 4 to 6 quarts of water to each of the pots.

Bring the pot up to a full boil. You'll start to see foam forming on the top of the water. The foam is the result of the blood and other impurities in the chicken parts. Using a spoon or ladle, skim off this foam and discard.

Reduce the heat to a simmer and let the stock simmer for about 2 hours. At this point, add in the mirepoix, herbs and peppercorns. No need to peel the carrots or the onions, it can all just go right into the pot. The onions skins will even give a little golden color to the finished stock.

Continue to simmer the stock for another 2 hours or so. By now, the chicken parts will start to fall apart, and the vegetables will be very soft. Remove the stock from the heat and pass it through a fine mesh sieve set over a large bowl. Discard the chicken parts, vegetables,and other bits.

It's important at this point to cool off the stock relatively quickly in order to minimize bacterial contamination. Try to get the stock down to room temperature in about an hour, then place it in the refrigerator. Don't put the stock into the refrigerator while it is still hot--the refrigerator really won't cool it down that fast and you instead risk heating up the interior of the fridge too much. At work, we place the stock in a large container set into our prep sink filled with ice water to chill. At home, I split the stock into small, quart sized storage containers. The stock will cool more quickly once broken up into smaller portions.  

After filtering the three stocks, I tried to see if I could determine any immediate difference between them. The wing stock was slightly darker in color, the feet stock was the lightest, and the neck stock was somewhere in between.

I tasted each of the stocks. Without salt, none of them taste like chicken soup, but the all had a slightly different flavor and mouthfeel. The wings stock had the best chicken flavor and the thinnest texture. The feet stock definitely had a thicker mouthfeel, but the flavor was a little less pronounced. As you might expect, the neck stock was somewhere in between. 

All three of the stocks had a certain amount of fat. The best way to remove the fat is to chill the stock. The fat will rise to the top and solidify at which point it can be scraped off with a spoon. 

After chilling the three stocks, I tasted them again. Once cooled, you can really tell the difference in the gelatin. The stock made with feet is thick, really noticeably so when you stir it with a spoon. The neck and wing stock also thickened up, the neck stock a bit more than the wing. Pretty much the results you would expect.

Now I have a freezer full of chicken stock...time to make soup! But that's for another blog posting....

Taco Tuesday....

The holidays are over and winter is finally making an appearance in the Philly area. Christmas day it was so warm that I actually turned on the air conditioner, but last night when I drove home, the temperature display on my car dashboard read 13°F.

I remember growing up in Houston, I never understood why folks wanted to take tropical vacations in the winter. Of course, running the AC on Christmas day is pretty normal in Houston. I could understand taking a trip to the mountains to ski, but warm and tropical just didn't compute.  

Then I moved to the northeast. Now I understand.

While the winter this year hasn't been very cold, at least up until now, tropical vacations are still in the works for a lot of my friends and neighbors. Winter is also our busiest time of the year at work--cooking classes make great holiday gifts, and our classes are selling out fast. It's actually a vacation blackout time for the chefs, through the end of February. So, a tropical vacation is just not in the cards right now.

Although I can't go to the tropics, I can at least take the tropics for culinary inspiration. One of my favorite Mexican dishes is Cochinita Pibil. "Cochinita" is the Spanish word for a baby or suckling pig, and a "pibil" is a traditional cooking fire pit in the Yucatan. The cochinita is marinated in a mixture of garlic, bitter orange juice, ground achiote seeds, and other spices. The pibil is dug into the ground and a fire is built and allowed to burn down to the coals. The pibil is then lined with banana leaves, the cochinita is placed on top of and wrapped with the leaves, and the pibil is then covered over to hold in the heat. The cochinita slowly roasts, getting flavor not only from the marinade, but the banana leaves and smoky coals. After the cochinita has been removed from the pibil, the meat is shredded and served with pickled onions and corn tortillas.

Digging a pit in the backyard isn't an option for most of us, and neither is cooking a whole suckling pig. A cast iron Dutch oven and pork shoulder will definitely fit the bill instead, but banana leaves are a must to get the flavor of the pork right. Banana leaves can be found in Asian or Latin markets, either fresh or frozen. You might find the ground achiote seeds (also called annatto) and bitter orange juice (also called Seville orange juice) in larger grocery stores, but I recommend going to a Latin market for these ingredients as well. 

I hope you enjoy!

Cochinita Pibil (Yucatan Braised Pork)

Serves 8 to 10

For the marinade:

1 tablespoon Kosher salt

1 tablespoon ground annatto seeds

½ teaspoon ground cumin

¼ teaspoon dried oregano

¼ teaspoon ground allspice

¹/₈ teaspoon cayenne pepper

5 cloves garlic, passed through a garlic press

¼ cup bitter (Seville) orange juice, or fresh sour orange juice

For the pork

4 to 5 lb     pork shoulder roast (bone-in or boneless)

1 cup bitter (Seville) orange juice, or fresh sour orange juice

1 or 2 banana leaves (thawed if frozen)

Pickled onions, pico de gallo salsa, sour cream, and corn tortillas to serve

                 

To make the marinade, mix the salt, spices, garlic, and ¼ cup orange juice together in a large bowl. Cut the pork roast into 3 or 4 large chunks of approximately equal size. (If you buy your pork at a Latin market, you can often find the bone-in shoulder already cut into 1 to 2 inch thick slices, which is what I usually use for this recipe.) Sprinkle each piece liberally with salt and ground black pepper. Place the pork pieces into the bowl with the spice paste and coat completely with the paste.

Using either a gas stove burner, a propane grill, or a creme brulee torch, pass the banana leaves over an open flame.  

This will soften the leaves as well as to burn off the green odor and flavor in the leaves. This is a very important step, if the leaves aren't torched, they will give too much of their flavor to the pork.

Place the leaves in a single layer at the bottom of a large oven safe stew pot or Dutch oven. Place the pork pieces and all of the marinade on the leaves, then wrap the leaves over and around the pork. Place a lid on the pot and marinate in the refrigerator for 20 to 24 hours.

Preheat the oven to 300°F.  Partially unwrap the top layer of banana leaves and pour in 1 cup bitter orange juice. Rewrap the leaves, and bake the pork, covered, for 3 to 4 hours.

Carefully unwrap the leaves and remove them from the pot, leaving the pork and cooking liquid in the pot.  

Using two forks, shred the pork, removing and discarding any bones and large pieces of fat or skin. Mix the shredded pork into the cooking liquid. 

Serve with pickled onions, pico de gallo salsa, sour cream, and corn tortillas.

Pico de Gallo

Makes 7 cups

1 large sweet onion, such as Maui or Vidalia (about 14 to 16 oz), diced

9 Roma tomatoes (about 2 lbs), diced

2 jalapeño peppers, seeded and diced

1 cup firmly packed cilantro, leaves and tender stems, chopped

1 teaspoon Kosher salt

2 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl. Serve with corn tortilla chips.

Pickled Red Onions

½ cup sugar

½ cup red wine vinegar

1 cinnamon stick

2 star anise

1 red onion, sliced VERY thinly

Bring sugar, spices, and vinegar to a boil in a small sauce pan. Place the onions in a heat proof bowl and pour the hot vinegar mixture over the onions. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let cool to room temperature. Remove the cinnamon stick and star anise and chill the onion vinegar mixture in the refrigerator.