Beef Kebabs

How is it that two people can remember things so differently? If you ask my mother she'll say she's only made beef kebabs a couple times in her life. If you ask me, one of my favorite childhood memories is my mother's kebabs, cooked over the little cast iron hibachi grill my parents had on the back porch. My most vivid memory of them was the time I was recovering from pneumonia, hadn't eaten anything for 3 weeks, and was allowed for the first time to sip some broth. And sip I did while the rest of the family ate beautiful, smoky, meaty, hearty, beefy kebabs. It. Was. So. Unfair. I can still smell them now. There was nothing I wanted more in the world at that moment than those kebabs. Sigh.

Funny, the emotional ties we can have with food, isn't it?
I love, really truly love beef kebabs. Why? They're fun, they're on a stick. You can make your own, just they way you want them (lots of mushrooms please). If you've marinated the meat properly (several hours or preferably overnight), they're the most juicy wonderful morsels you could possibly eat.
A few tips that will help ensure your kebabs turn out well. Marinate the meat, the longer the better. Use double skewers to make them easier to turn. Use bamboo or wooden skewers so that the inside of the steak pieces stay nice and pink. Keep a little space between the items (more space than shown in the photo above, I sort of forgot that part when I did the batch pictured), so that the food grills versus steams. And most important, keep an eye on them! Do a finger test for doneness, or if the grill is too hot, tap the meat with the end of your tongs to see how much its giving. The meat and veggies will continue to cook a little once you've taken them off the grill and they are resting, so keep that in mind.

Beef Kebabs Recipe

• Prep time: 45 minutes
• Cook time: 15 minutes

Using bamboo or wooden skewers instead of metal will help keep the steak from getting overcooked on the inside. Metal transfers heat, so is useful to use for chicken, or a meat that you want to cook all the way through, but not so useful for steak that you want done rare or medium rare.

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Ingredients

Marinade Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 3 Tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 Tbsp minced fresh ginger
• Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Kebab Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 lbs top sirloin steak, cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes
• 1 large bell pepper
• 1-2 medium red onions
• 1/2 to a pound button mushrooms

• About 20 bamboo or wooden skewers

Method

1 Mix the marinade ingredients together in a bowl and add the meat. Cover and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, preferably several hours or even overnight. (Heck, I've kept the meat marinating for a couple days, still great.)
2 Soak the skewers in water for at least 30 minutes before grilling. This will help prevent them from completely burning up on the grill.
3 Cut the vegetables into chunks roughly the width of the beef pieces. Taking care not to poke yourself, thread the meat and vegetables onto double bamboo skewers. One way to do this safely is to put the piece that you are trying to pierce on a cutting board, and then push the skewers through the piece to the board. Using double skewers will help you turn the kebabs on the grill. If you keep a little space between the pieces, they will grill more evenly. Paint the kebabs with some of the remaining marinade.
3 Prepare your grill for high, direct heat. Grill for 8 to 10 minutes, depending on how hot your grill is, and how done you would like your meat, turning occasionally. Let rest for 5 minutes before serving.


Yield: Serves 4 to 6.

Buttermilk Fried Chicken

Recently at dinner my father instructed me, "tell your website readers that your dad says this is a good one." Done, dad. This chicken was good - perfectly tender, well flavored, crunchy - just what one wants in fried chicken.
Searching around for a buttermilk fried chicken recipe, I adapted this recipe from various sources. Many recipes I found seemed to be rather dated as they called for frying the chicken in vegetable shortening. Most shortenings on the market have transfats in them, which we now know are very bad for us. We do our frying, of anything, in grape seed oil, which as the name implies, comes from the seeds of grapes. It is a high smoke-point oil, which means that you can get it pretty hot before it begins to burn, making it perfect for deep frying. It also has many known health benefits (see the Wikipedia citation). The recipes also called for frying the chicken in a cast iron frying pan. We love our cast iron pans, but they tend to be quite heavy, and retain heat so well, that if you have a problem and have to lower the heat rapidly, you won't be able to do it. Anodized aluminum can also take the heat without warping, but will be more responsive for heating and cooling. (I've started a kitchen fire with peanut oil in a cast iron skillet - not fun - if it ever happens to you, remove the pan from the heat element, and cover it quickly with a lid.)

Buttermilk Fried Chicken Recipe

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Ingredients

• 1 (3 pound) fryer (see Wikipedia on the difference between broilers, fryers, and roasting birds), cut into pieces
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 1/4 cup chopped mixed fresh herbs (parsley, tarragon, thyme) or a teaspoon each of the dried herbs.
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1/2 teaspoon onion salt
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• Salt and pepper
• 2 cups grapeseed oil, or other high smoke-point oil such as canola oil, or peanut oil

Method

1 Soak chicken overnight (at least 8 hours and up to two days) in buttermilk with onions, herbs, paprika, and cayenne pepper. (Regarding the use of buttermilk, my mother has had good results from soaking chicken in plain yogurt instead of buttermilk.)
2 Drain in colander, leaving some herbs on chicken. In a large paper or plastic (sturdy) bag, mix flour with seasonings. Meanwhile, heat 2 cups oil in a large, heavy-bottomed skillet (cast iron, stainless steel, or anodized aluminum - something that can take the heat) on medium high heat until a pinch of flour starts to sizzle when dropped in the hot oil (but not so hot that the pan is smoking). Remember when working with hot oil, always have a pan lid close by.


3 Place chicken pieces in bag with flour and shake until thoroughly coated. Add chicken to hot pan and fry on 1 side for 12-15 minutes, until golden brown, and then use tongs to turn the pieces over and fry for another 10-12 minutes, again until golden brown.
Be careful to keep the oil hot enough to fry the chicken, but not so high as it burns the chicken. To do this on our electric stove we have to alternate the settings between high to medium high several times while we are cooking.

4 Use tongs to remove chicken from pan. Place on a rack over a cookie sheet or broiling pan for the excess oil to drain. Add more salt and pepper to taste.

Yield: Serves 4.

Civil War Macaroni and Cheese

Today, as I write this, marks the 150th anniversary of the beginning of America's Civil War, with the bombardment of Fort Sumter . I recently took my 13-year old nephew to visit our nation's capitol, including visiting Robert E. Lee's house at Arlington National Cemetery, and a day wandering the battlefield at Gettysburg. The National Military Park Museum at Gettysburg is not to be missed, by the way. Not only does it give you a clear and thorough understanding of the 3-day battle that took place there, but the photos and relics on display give us a fascinating glimpse into what life must have been like back then. And it wasn't really that long ago. My grandmother was born in 1899. The last Civil War veterans died in the 1950s. My grandmother would have encountered many a Civil War veteran in her younger days.

So, what did they eat in the 1860s? How did they eat? Most people lived on farms or in rural areas, so they grew, shot, foraged, or fished their own food. Most people didn't have stoves. They cooked their meals over an open fire in a fireplace or hearth. Which is all the more reason why I was so surprised to find a recipe for "Maccaroni Cheese" in a collection of Civil War recipes (Civil War Recipes: Receipts from the Pages of Godey's Lady's Book) along with recipes for okra soup, indian pudding, gumbo and brown bread. Mac-n-cheese in the 1860s, really? Really! Turns out that our founding father Thomas Jefferson helped popularize "maccaroni" in our country, "maccaroni" being a general term he used for pasta. And according to Wikipedia, versions of macaroni pasta with cheese and butter were published in cookbooks as early as the 14th century.
According to the Civil War Recipes book, the following "maccaroni cheese" recipe first appeared in Godey's Lady's Book magazine in 1861 (circulation 150,000). It's only one sentence long, and as you will see, is wildly open for interpretation:

Boil the maccaroni in milk; put in the stewpan butter, cheese, and seasoning; when melted, pour into the maccaroni, putting breadcrums over, which brown before the fire all together.

How much milk? What kind of cheese? How much cheese? What seasoning? Well, if recipes are guidelines, then this recipe isn't much more than just that, a guideline. For our interpretation, we use 2 cups of milk for every cup of elbow macaroni pasta. We use equal amounts of pasta and cheese, and use cheddar for the cheese. The seasonings we use are nutmeg, pepper, and cayenne. Mace would have been commonly available in the 1860s, nutmeg is more often used now. Pepper and cayenne would have been widely available too. The result? A triumph! Actually, it's kind of hard to go wrong with mac and cheese, but we had never cooked the macaroni directly in milk before, so didn't quite know how it would work, or if the proportions were right. For us 2 cups of milk for every 1/4 pound of pasta worked fine.

Civil War Macaroni and Cheese Recipe

• Prep time: 5 minutes
• Cook time: 45 minutes

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Ingredients

• 4 cups whole milk
• 1/2 pound elbow macaroni pasta (2 to 2 1/2 cups)
• 4 Tbsp butter
• 2 cups, packed, grated cheddar cheese (about 1/2 pound)
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Nutmeg
• 1/4 to 1/3 cup bread crumbs
• Cayenne (optional)

Method

1 Heat the milk in a large saucepan until steamy. Stir in the dry macaroni pasta. Let come to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer. Pay attention while the macaroni is cooking in the milk as the milk may foam up and boil over if the milk gets too hot. Cook the macaroni for 15 minutes or until done. The macaroni should absorb almost all of the milk.
2 Preheat oven to 400°F. As soon as the macaroni is close to being done, melt the butter in a separate saucepan, stir in the grated cheese, black pepper to taste and a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg. Once the cheese has melted, pour the sauce into the macaroni and milk mixture and stir to combine. Taste and add salt if needed.
3 Place macaroni and cheese mixture into a baking dish. Sprinkle the top with breadcrumbs. Sprinkle lightly with cayenne (if using). Bake in a 400°F oven for 20 minutes or until the top is lightly browned.
Yield: Serves 4.

Broccoli Cheese Casserole

Oh la la. This is not your grandma's broccoli cheese casserole. Ever since Christopher Kimball challenged people to Google broccoli casserole, insisting they would be disappointed with what they found, I've been meaning to post a killer broccoli casserole. And dear readers, this is it. The ingredients? Broccoli of course, then bacon, flour, milk, cream, eggs, cheddar cheese, a little Dijon, salt, and lots of freshly cracked black pepper. The tricks are to pre-cook the broccoli florets a bit so they cook up tender in the casserole, use bacon because bacon makes everything taste better, and spice it up with black pepper. Just simple freshly cracked black pepper. Use as much as you can stand; it will make your broccoli casserole sing.

Many thanks to the new love of my culinary life, Dorie Greenspan, who provided the inspiration and basic structure for this recipe with a fabulous cauliflower gratin in her cookbook Around My French Table (hint, buy this book for yourself and all your friends, it's stunning.)

Broccoli Cheese Casserole Recipe

• Cook time: 55 minutes

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Ingredients

• 2 pounds broccoli, stems removed (can use vegetable peeler to peel, then slice and eat like celery), large florets cut, yielding about 8 cups of broccoli florets
• Salt for blanching water
• 2 strips of thick-cut bacon (about 2 ounces), cut crosswise into 1/4-inch wide strips
• 1/3 cup all purpose flour
• 5 eggs, beaten
• 1/2 cup cream
• 1 cup whole milk
• 2 to 3 teaspoons of freshly cracked black pepper (1 to 2 teaspoons if using fine ground black pepper)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
• 8 ounces cheddar cheese, grated

Method

1 Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil (1 Tbsp salt for 2 quarts of water). Add the broccoli florets and boil for 3-5 minutes or until just tender enough so that a fork can easily pierce the floret, but still firm. Strain and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking.
2 While the water in step one is coming to a boil, cook the bacon pieces on medium heat in a frying pan until lightly browned, but not crisp. Remove to a plate lined with paper towels to absorb the excess fat. Set aside.
3 Preheat oven to 425°F. Butter a 2 1/2 quart casserole dish. In a bowl, whisk the eggs into the flour, then whisk in the cream and milk. Add the black pepper (more or less to taste), salt, and mustard. Mix in about a third of the cheese.
4 Place the parboiled broccoli florets in the casserole dish, sprinkling about a third of the cheese over the broccoli florets as you lay them down. Sprinkle the bacon pieces over the broccoli. Pour the egg, cream, milk, cheese mixture over the broccoli, moving the broccoli pieces a bit so that the mixture gets into all the nooks and crannies. Sprinkle the casserole with the remaining cheese.
5 Bake for 25-40 minutes, or until set. Once the top has browned, you may want to tent with aluminum foil to keep from burning.
Yield: Serves 5 as a main course, 10 as a side.

Pasta with Sausage, Tomatoes and Roasted Peppers

One of the great things about having a food blog is that it gives me an excellent excuse to ask people about what they like to cook. The discussion of food is a natural conversation starter, with old friends I haven't seen for a while, or even with complete strangers. "What are your favorite foods?" will always get a response, and from there, I can usually figure out if the person likes to cook as well. Then the next question is, "what's your favorite recipe?"
Take my friend Bruce. Bruce loves to cook, has for as long as I've known him, over 20 years. He even contributed this winner to the site last year - the green salsa chicken bake. When he was visiting the other day, our chatter naturally turned to recipes. This is the one he shared with me that he makes with regularity: a bowl of pasta, simply tossed with Italian sausage, fresh chopped tomato, and basil. Sometimes he swaps out the sausage for shrimp. He'll use any long pasta, though prefers fettucini. So good! And it comes together so quickly. Perfect for a midweek meal.

Pasta with Sausage, Tomatoes and Roasted Peppers Recipe

• Prep time: 15 minutes
• Cook time: 15 minutes

The beauty of this recipe is that you can easily play around with it. Don't have sausage? Use shrimp instead. Have lots of basil? Add more. Don't have capers? Just leave them out. Have Parmesan? Sprinkle some on at the end if you like.

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Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 3/4 pound Italian sausage, sweet or hot
• 2-3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 cup roasted red bell peppers, chopped
• 1 Tbsp capers
• 1/2 cup pitted black olives, halved
• 3-4 large fresh tomatoes, seeded and chopped
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
• 1 pound linguine or other pasta

Method

1 Heat a large pot of salted water (1 Tbsp salt per quart of water) to a boil.
2 While the water is heating, prepare the sausage and peppers. Heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan on medium heat. Add the sausage, breaking it up into bits with your fingers as you add it to the pan or with a wooden spoon once it's in the pan. When the sausage starts to brown, add the garlic and cook for another minute. Mix in the roasted red peppers, capers and olives. If the pasta water isn't boiling yet, remove the sauté pan from the heat.
3 Once the pasta water is boiling, add the pasta to the pot. When the pasta is almost done, increase the heat to high on the sauté pan and when the sausage mixture starts to sizzle, add the chopped tomatoes and basil. Toss to combine and lower the heat to medium-low.
4 Drain the pasta and put it in a large bowl. Add the sausage mix to the bowl and toss to combine.
Yield: Serves 4-6.

Grilled crispy salmon tagliatelle

Ingredients

Ingredients

• 450 g tagliatelle
• 4 x 200 g fresh salmon
• salt, and pepper
• olive oil
• 100 g rocket
• 1 handfuls blanched almonds
• 1 tbsp garlic, crushed
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 50 g freshly grated parmesan
• extra olive oil, if required
• salt, and pepper
• 125 ml Greek yogurt
• 1/2 tbsp white pepper
• 1/2 tbsp szechuan pepper, cracked
• 1/2 tbsp cracked black pepper

Method

1. Cook pasta as per packet directions. Take salmon and score the skin diagonally. Season fish and coat with a little olive oil and set aside.

2. For the pesto: Place the rocket, blanched almonds, garlic and olive oil in a food processor. Process the ingredients until a paste consistency is formed. Add parmesan and enough olive oil to keep the paste consistency. Check seasoning, adjust if required and set aside.

3. For the yoghurt: Place yoghurt into a bowl and add all three peppers and mix well. Set aside.

4. Heat a large frying pan on medium to high heat. Place fish skin side down and cook for 5minutes or until skin is crispy, turn fish over and cook for a further 2 to 3 minutes.

5. Strain pasta and mix pesto through then coat the pasta. To serve shape a nest of the pasta on the plate, and then place the fish, skin side up on the top and finish with a dollop of the peppered yoghurt.