November Daring Cooks Challenge: Rise and Shine! Cheddar, Bacon and Scallion Souffle

Dave and Linda from Monkeyshines in the Kitchen chose Soufflés as our November 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge! Dave and Linda provided two of their own delicious recipes plus a sinfully decadent chocolate soufflé recipe adapted from Gordon Ramsay’s recipe found at the BBC Good Food website.

Our hosts were generous enough to let us go rogue and pick our own recipes as well as long as we made a real souffle and not some cheap knockoff.  I knew I wanted to do a savory souffle first (although the chocolate souffle sounded to die for), so I hunted around.  I also knew that I had one big souffle dish and not quite as many ramekins as most of the recipes called for.  So I went to Epicurious and Gourmet Magazine and tried the Cheddar, Bacon and Scallion Souffle.  It was as good as it sounds. 

I understand completely why souffles are a natural choice for a Daring Cooks challenge.  There is a lot of mystery around souffles.  It's mostly nonsense.  I'm not saying that souffles are easy.  They are certainly not. But they only involve the mastery of some basic skills that you should have in the kitchen anyway.  

First, carefully read the recipe before you begin.  The timing of a souffle is somewhat delicate, since you're dealing with heat and eggs and cheese.  This recipe lent itself perfectly to pretending you are a TV chef and filling up your little bowls of ingredients and getting your mise en place together before you do anything.  Then, proceed to master skill number two.

Almost final souffle batter ready for egg whites. Second, at least the first time through, follow the recipe exactly.  I think you can get spontaneous with a souffle once you understand the way it works.  A good abstract thinker might even be able to look at ten recipes and come up with one independently.  I'd recommend, however, taking a good basic recipe and working it through before playing with it.  There are souffle-sasters and following a recipe to the letter will help the first one be a confidence booster instead of a story to tell at the dinner party where you end up ordering pizza.

Mysterious stiff egg white peaks.The third and final skill that I think you need for a souffle is a little bit subtle since most recipes seem to assume this knowledge.  You must know how to very carefully separate eggs.  For any dish where you need to get your egg whites into stiff peaks (and since much of the drama of a souffle comes from that airy light rise), it is crucial that there are no yolks in your egg whites.  The separated yolks can have a bit of white in them if things get messy, but no yolks in the eggs at all. The contamination can ruin the whole adventure.

Fold, baby, fold. (Note: don't fold with a whisk!)I'm happy to say that, having already gotten wind of the egg white secret, I worked my patience and skills and ended up with a delicious savory souffle! I felt very American using what also amount to fantastic cornbread ingredients in a souffle, but it fit the ingredients we had available and sounded like something I could my husband excited about.  Now that he's had one, I have all kinds of other ideas and will get cracking on a sweet version as well.  

Souffles are also a great way to feature local and organic dairy products! I used New York Cheddar, Ronnybrook Farms Creamline whole milk, Vermont farm fresh eggs and Amish butter.    I had hoped to use the last of our garden scallions, but I couldn't get as much as I needed from our remaining harvest.  The dairy products were great, though, and made the dish! 

Cheddar, Bacon and Scallion Souffle (from Epicurious)

1/2 cup finely chopped scallion

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

6 slices of lean bacon, cooked, drained, reserving 2 tablespoons of the fat, and crumbled

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/3 cups milk

cayenne to taste

1 1/2 cups coarsely grated Cheddar (about 6 ounces)

4 large eggs, separated

1. In a small heavy saucepan cook the scallion in the butter and the reserved bacon fat over moderately low heat, stirring, until the scallion is softened, stir in the flour, and cook the roux stirring, for 3 minutes.
2. Add the milk in a stream, whisking, and boil the mixture, whisking, for 2 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the cayenne, the Cheddar, and salt and pepper to taste, whisking until the cheese is melted.
3. Add the egg yolks, 1 at a time, whisking well after each addition, and whisk in the bacon.
4. In a bowl with an electric mixer beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until they hold stiff peaks, whisk about one fourth of them into the cheese mixture, and fold in the remaining whites gently but thoroughly.
5. Pour the mixture into a buttered 1 1/2-quart soufflé dish and bake the soufflé in the middle of a preheated 375°F. oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until it is puffed and golden. Serve the soufflé immediately.

Read More http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Cheddar-Bacon-and-Scallion-Souffle-12789#ixzz15Gdnh7pr

October Daring Cooks Challenge: Stuffed Grape Leaves

Our October 2010 hostess, Lori of Lori’s Lipsmacking Goodness, has challenged The Daring Cooks to stuff grape leaves. Lori chose a recipe from Aromas of Aleppo and a recipe from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food.

The recipe generously let us switch wrapping leaves to those which we could get near or us or would sounded more tasty.  I can't cry difficulty since my section of Brooklyn has, among other great places, Sahadi's. I will admit, however, that I just don't know if I like grape leaves.  For some reason, the idea never appealed to me, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to go through a lot of effort for something I might be lukewarm on. 

Aside from getting me excited about a challenge, the switch option also gave me a chance to make these a local delicacy! I traded the grape leaves for the beautiful collard greens that I got at our farmers' market and used beef from Sweet Tree Farm in Dummerston, VT.  Most of the other ingredients were tough to source locally, but at least the two stars of the dish would be from relatively nearby. 

The next exciting thing about this challenge is how big the payoff is for the not-too-exhausting amount of work involved.  Blanching the fresh collard greens was a bit of a pain, but after figuring out the wrapping system, I got a whole Dutch oven full of stuffed collard greens in almost no time at all.  The predominant flavors were the tangy tamarind and lemon juice (I actually used lime, shh!) and the sweet dried apricots that dotted the pan.  

This recipe got rave reviews all around and was extremely portable for leftovers.  They also freeze very well, so I have a little stash of stuffed collard greens in the freezer waiting for me.  

Grape Leaves Stuffed with Ground Meat and Rice with Apricot Tamarind Sauce/ Yebra

(Adapted from Aromas of Aleppo by Poopa Dweck and Michael J. Cohen. Published by Harper Collins, 2007)

Yield: 6 to 8 servings

Ingredients for hashu/filling:

• 1 pound (455 gm) ground (minced) beef
• 1/3 cup (80 ml) (2 1/3 oz) (65 gm) short grain rice
• 1 teaspoon (5 ml) (6 gm) all spice
• 2 tablespoons (30 ml) vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon (5 ml) (6 gm) cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon (5 ml) (3 gm) kosher (coarse) salt **if using regular table salt only use ½ tsp.**
• ¼ teaspoon (1¼ ml) (1½ gm) white pepper
• 1 onion, chopped **optional**
• 1 cup (5½ oz) (150 gm) pine nuts **optional**

1. Soak rice in water, enough to cover, for 30 minutes. Combine meat, rice, allspice, vegetable oil, cinnamon, salt, white pepper, and if desired, onion and pine nuts, in a large mixing bowl. Mix well.

Ingredients for Apricot Tamarind Sauce:

• 1 tablespoon (15 ml) vegetable oil
• 6 dried apricots – or more if you desire
• 3 tablespoons (45 ml) tamarind concentrate
• ¼ cup (60 ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon (15 ml) (9 gm) kosher (coarse) salt **if using regular table salt only use 1.5 tsp.**

Ingredients for assembly:

• 1 pound (455 gm) hashu/filling (see recipe above)
• 36 preserved grape leaves, stems trimmed, drained, rinsed and patted dry or 1/2 to 1 bunch of collard greens depending on the size of your greens ( I got four wrappers out of each leaf I used)

Note: If using fresh leaves, plunge a few at a time in boiling water for a few seconds only, until they become limp, and lift them out.

1. Place a blanched leaf on a clean flat surface. 
2. Spoon about 2 tsp meat mixture onto leaf. 
3. Fold sides in.  Fold one side over and roll tightly.   Repeat with remaining filling. (You can freeze the stuffed leaves at this point.  Place on flat pan in freezer and then put in ziploc bag or container when frozen.)
4. Place dried apricots throughout your pan (see pictures above). 
5. In a large Dutch oven or thick-bottomed pan, place oil in the bottom. Nestle stuffed leaves in pan. 
6. Place apricots in between the stuffed leaves. Cover and cook over low heat for 5- 8 minutes or until the grape leaves begin to sweat.
7. Using all three tablespoons, place a little of the tamarind concentrate, if using, over the rolls.
8.  Combine lemon juice, salt, and water then add to pan, filling it ¾ full.
9.  Weigh down the grape leaves with a heat proof plate or board to prevent them from unraveling. Cover and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 40 minutes. Alternatively, place the saucepan in an oven preheated to moderate 350°F/180°C/gas mark 4 and cook for an hour.
10. Spoon cooking liquid over the grape leaves occasionally. You will know they are done, when the grape leaves are neither soupy nor dry.
11. Tilt pan sideways over serving platter, allowing the grape leaves to tumble out. Try not to handle them individually to reduce unraveling. Alternately you can try spooning them out very gently. (Spooning them out was fine in my experience). 

July Daring Cooks Challenge: Cooking with Nut Butters

The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.

You really can't go wrong with nut butters and I've definitely wanted to explore a bit beyond my usual peanut butter, so this challenge was very exciting.  Exciting until I remembered that my food processor isn't being cooperative.  Luckily, our fearless hosts allowed some flexibility and so I got to play with peanut butter and will definitely make the rest of the recipes offered up in this challenge in coming months to try them all out. 

The upside to being a little less adventurous with this challenge is that I found a recipe that actually was really easy to prep the night before and will make an interesting, tasty and fairly healthy lunch for work.  I don't usually get that out of these challenges. 

The recipe I went with was the Asian Noodles with Cashew Dressing.  I hoped upon hope that Trader Joe's would have cashew butter for me to test out, but as they didn't, I went for peanut butter with flax seeds.  Still a bit of an experiment, if not a challenge. 

Food processing the old fashioned way!I made the dressing the night before with peanut butter, soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar, garlic and ginger (and, of course, sriracha for heat).  The recipe calls for 3 tablespoons of sugar and while I decided to go with 2 instead, I completely forgot about substituting with another sweetener - definitely go for it. Of course the recipe also called for a food processor here, but I used some elbow grease and a whisk since bits of garlic and ginger never worried anyone around here. 

Next, I sliced up some cucumbers, carrots and fresh green beans and mixed them together with cashew pieces and chopped Thai basil (from the garden!) and let that hang out in the fridge.  Then...I rested. 

Before work I quickly cooked up some rice noodles to finish off the salad and assembled in the morning.  Success! A light, crunchy, nutty salad that is easy to assemble in the morning and bring on the road - think work, picnics, car travel...

Stay tuned for further installments of my nut butter adventures wherein I actually make my own and play with things like cashews and pecans. 

Asian Noodle Salad with Cashew (or Peanut) Dressing (adapted from Daring Cooks Challenge)
Yield: 4 servings

Recipe notes: Customize the salad by adding or substituting your favorite vegetables. Shredded cabbage, bean sprouts, and slivered carrots would make nice additions. Obviously, you can omit the shrimp, or substitute chicken or tofu or the protein of your choice. The dressing is equally as good with peanut butter rather than cashew butter. We tested the dressing with nut butters made from salted cashews & peanuts with good results.

Ingredients:

Cashew Butter:
1 cup (240 ml) cashews*

Cashew Dressing:
½ inch (1 cm) slice of fresh ginger, chopped
8 cloves garlic, more or less to taste, chopped
½ cup (120 ml) cashew butter
¼ cup (60 ml) soy sauce
3 Tablespoons (45 ml) sugar
3 Tablespoons (45 ml) vinegar
3 Tablespoons (45 ml) toasted sesame oil
¼ cup plus 1 Tablespoon (75 ml) water
Hot sauce to taste (optional)

Noodle Salad:
1/2 pound (225 g) linguine or thin rice noodles
1 tablespoon (15 ml) olive oil
1/2 pound (225 g) small or medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 large red bell pepper, cored and seeded, cut into thin strips
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, sliced
1/4 cup (60 ml) sliced green onions
1/4 cup (60 ml) chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon (15 ml) chopped cashews (optional garnish)
Lime wedges (optional)

Directions:

1. Make cashew butter: Grind cashews in food processor for about 2 minutes until smooth. (*Or start with ½ cup (120 ml) prepared cashew butter.)
2. Prepare cashew dressing: Combine ginger, garlic, cashew butter, soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, sesame oil, and water in food processor or blender. Process/blend until smooth. Be sure to process long enough to puree the ginger and garlic. The dressing should be pourable, about the same thickness as cream. Adjust consistency – thinner or thicker -- to your liking by adding more water or cashew butter. Taste and add your favorite hot sauce if desired. (If the cashew butter was unsalted, you may want to add salt to taste.) Makes about 1 ½ cups (360 ml) dressing. Store any leftover dressing in the refrigerator.
3. Prepare noodles according to package instructions in salted water. Rinse and drain noodles. Set aside.
4. Heat oil in large non-stick pan over medium heat. Add shrimp to the pan and sauté for about 3 to 4 minutes or until opaque throughout. Alternately, cook shrimp in boiling water for about 2 to 3 minutes or until done.
5. Slice basil into thin ribbons. Combine noodles, bell pepper, cucumber, onions, and basil in a large bowl. Add about ½ cup (120 ml) cashew dressing; toss gently to coat. Add more cashew dressing as desired, using as much or as little as you’d like. Scatter shrimp on top. Squeeze fresh lime juice over salad or serve with lime wedges. Sprinkle with chopped cashews if desired.

May Daring Cooks Challenge: Stacked Green Chile & Grilled Chicken Enchiladas

Our hosts this month, Barbara of Barbara Bakes and Bunnee of Anna+Foodhave chosen a delicious Stacked Green Chile & Grilled Chicken Enchilada recipe in celebration of Cinco de Mayo! The recipe, featuring a homemade enchilada sauce was found on www.finecooking.com and written by Robb Walsh.

The idea was to work them into Cinco de Mayo or some other festive occasion, and I can see why.  The recipe is great and  will definitely go on my showstopper recipe list, but it takes some effort, although not so much time. 

The first step was to roast the Anaheim chiles to develop flavor for the green chile sauce.  The roasting and even the peeling were fairly simple, but I found I had a rough time getting rid of those seeds.  Everywhere I turned, there were more of them! I meant to do a little research to see if the seeds add heat as with hotter chiles or if they would have a negative effect on the sauce.....but alas, I just fought the battle trying to remove every last one. 

After preparing the Anaheim chiles, I turned to the tomatillos.  These were much easier to prepare since I just had to boil and peel off those papery skins.  My one lesson learned here - boiled tomatillos are HOT.  Even once you give them a chance to cool down.  I removed the core by hand which may not have been my best move. 

It was at this point, with all my green items prepared, that I departed from the recipe instructions, though not by much.  Not wanting to drag out my blender (and my food processor has a bit of an injury from creative storage), I attacked the tomatillos with my immersion blender.  It took a little bit of effort to really get the tomatillos pureed, but it did the trick with less mess (except the bit of splatter that got on me). 

Once the sauce was put together to simmer on the stove, I got to work on the chicken and the tortillas (there really is a constant flow of work in this recipe).  I will definitely take the effort to warm my corn tortillas in oil for future recipes.  It added a nice texture and flavor. 

With everything ready, I began to stack.  My additional recommendation here is to go with as much cheese as you can handle! I used about 8 ounces for the four stacks, rather than 6 ounces and while the inside stacks had a good amount of cheese, I could have stood a little more on the tops.  

While the stacks baked, I decided to give my immersion blender another trip through the extra sauce (I had a LOT of extra sauce for some reason).  The chopped Anaheims pureed nicely and I really liked the smooth sauce better than the chunkier one.  Full disclosure - I'm like that with salsa and marinara too, so consider more pureeing if you're like me.  I also decided it needed a lot more heat to be successful in our house, so I added a good amount of hot sauce.  We poured this over the top once the stacks were done - a nice touch to kick up the heat. 

A note on leftovers - we ate two fresh out of the oven (yum!) and the remaining stacks two nights later.  I reheated the stacks in the toaster oven at 350F for about 15 minutes, maybe a bit less.  The tortillas were a bit soft, but the chicken was great and the flavor was still there.  Two nights of dinner definitely made the work worth it! 

And a final note on wine - what to serve with green chile enchiladas? I thought about getting a recommendation from my new favorite wine store, but I trusted my gut and went with a Gruner Veltliner.  An Austrian white wine that is crisp and bright and a little effervescent at times held up nicely with the flavors.  I tried the 2008 Windspiel Gruner Veltliner and found it a very pleasant pairing.  Enjoy!

March Daring Cooks Challenge: Sage and Lemon Risotto with Spicy Sausage

The 2010 March Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Eleanor of MelbournefoodGeek and Jess of Jessthebaker. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make risotto. The various components of their challenge recipe are based on input from the Australian Masterchef cookbook and the cookbook Moorish by Greg Malouf.

This challenge excited me greatly as I absolutely love risotto and would like to make my own stock more often.  Check and check! I do tend to stick to my regular Red Wine Risotto with slight variations and so I took this as a sign from the universe to try something new.  I certainly couldn't post twice on the same recipe, not for a challenge!

But I am getting ahead of myself.  First, risotto requires stock.  And I've seen and heard many a time that the better the stock, the better the risotto.  Essentially, I hadn't seen anything yet! I made two attempts to collect a chicken for my stock.  The first stop was an NYC-based gourmet grocery shop that was on my way home from a yoga class.  I was shocked and astounded to see that a 3 lb. organic whole chicken cost well over 16 dollars.  Since organic, all-natural, well-treated chicken is the main way I'll eat it these days, I headed over to my local Trader Joe's.  There, I found a 4 lb. organic all-natural whole chicken for just over 11 dollars.  Much better.

I used the challenge recipe for the stock because I haven't yet settled on a way that I like to do it and I was intrigued by the use of lemon in the seasoning.  I was short on lemon peel at the time, but I did have some dried lemon zest and so that was the one substitution I made.  In went the rest of the seasoning (see recipe below) and off it bubbled for what seemed like forever.  The smells were very enticing. I removed the chicken which pretty much fell apart and used the meat in another dish coming later this week. 

Next came the risotto.  The use of lemon in the stock got my recipe improv mojo going since I've seen several lemon risottos over time that I wanted to try.  I do have the preserved lemons from the last Daring Cooks challenge, but I also wanted to use the brave little sage leaves that have lasted on our window sill winter.  By this time, I'd managed to procure actual lemons and so, sage and lemon risotto!

I used the recipe base recommended for the challenge, and tweaked it based on another that I found online. We didn't have quite as much happy sage on our plant as I'd hoped, so I think you could do with a lot more.  This is also a very subtle soothing risotto.  I knew I'd need to add a little pop to make it a hit in my house, so I sauteed some local hot italian sausage from Bradley's Farm that I picked up at the Grand Army Plaza Farmers' Market and sprinkled it on top of the risotto.  This gave the dish some extra spice that didn't overwhelm the sage and lemon favors.  I don't recommend adding it any earlier as it may have competed with the risotto. 

Chicken Stock

• 1 large chicken 3-4 pounds
• chicken bones 2-3 pounds (I didn't use, but this will make the flavor richer)
• 2 onions, roughly diced
• 1 medium leek - white part only, roughly diced
• 2 sticks celery, roughly diced
• 2 cloves garlic, smashed
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 tsp. peppercorns
• 2 bay leaves (fresh or dried, it doesn't matter.)
• peel of 1/2 lemon or good dash of dried lemon zest
• 1/4 tsp. allspice

1. Wash the chicken and bones and places in a large stock pot.  Cover completely with water and bring to a boil.  Skim away any scum as it comes to the surface.
2. Add the vegetables and bring back to a boil.
3. Add the rest remaining ingredients and simmer very gently, uncovered for 1 1/2 hours.
4. Carefully lift out the chicken, set aside. The chicken meat can be removed from the chicken, shredded off and used for other things like soup or enchiladas!
5. Simmer the stock gently for another hour. At the end you should have around 2 Liters.
6. Carefully ladle the liquid into a fine sieve, the less the bones and vegetables are disturbed in this process the clearer the stock will be. 
The stock is now ready for use. Freeze what you don't need for later use.

Sage and Lemon Risotto with Spicy Sausage

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 bunch sage, roughly chopped
• peel of 1/2 lemon
• 12 oz Arborio rice (about two cups)
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 5 cups chicken or vegetable stock
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1/4 cup freshly grated Pecorino Romano
• 1/3 pound fresh hot italian sausage, casings removed

1. Heat oil in a pan and add onion. Fry for a few minutes until soft and fragrant.  Add sage and lemon peel. 
2. Add the rice and stir for a few minutes to coat each grain of rice with oil and toast slightly.
3. Add the wine and let it bubble away until evaporated.
4. Add enough stock to cover the rice by about an inch.
5. Cook on medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon from time to time, until most of the stock has been absorbed.
6. Repeat Step 5 until rice is slightly al dente and cooked through.  In the meantime, saute the sausage in a small pan, breaking into small crumbles.  Set aside.
7. Add lemon juice and pecorino to finished risotto.  Mix well.  Top with sausage.  (Remove lemon peel in the event there will be confusion. I left it in because it was pretty and continued to impart lemon flavor to the dish).