Oui, Chef

Smoky Tomato Soup

Peyton, home from school the other day, was banging around the kitchen at lunchtime looking for a way to enhance her standard lunch fare, a classic grilled cheese.  She was looking for something to elevate the dish to something more befitting the special occasion that is a SNOW DAY.  Her first inclination was to make a croque monsiuer (a brilliant idea for a future post), but as we didn't have any ham in the house, decided instead to whip up some tomato soup as an accompaniment.

The girl was in luck, not only did we have all the ingredients needed to make a delicious tomato soup from scratch, but I had recently stumbled across this recipe and was dying to give it a try.  In our studied opinion, there are few things more perfectly matched than a gooey grilled cheese sandwich and a creamy bowl of tomato soup.  I don't know about you, but the combo was one of my favorites as a kid, ranking right up there with a PB&J with potato chips!

Chocolate Tofu Pudding!

No...... your eyes are not deceiving you, the title of this post is "Chocolate Tofu Pudding".

Yes.....you are visiting "Oui, Chef", the VERY last place where you would expect to see tofu at all, let alone in a dessert!

For those of you who's jaws have dropped to the floor, we'll pause here a moment for you to pull yourself together.  

Feeling better now?  OK, let's proceed.

Chicken Paillards with Orange, Cilantro and Basil Salsa

This is a quick, down and dirty dish that Grid and I threw together the other night to rave reviews.  It is light, fresh, packed with flavor, and best of all, can be on the table in under 30 minutes.  The (slightly modified) recipe comes from Bon Appétit magazine’s December 2009 issue.

Grid, a senior in high school, is our oldest and busiest child.  Between after school Cross-Country training, college application work, and normal home-work, it's hard to negotiate more than 1/2 hour of his time for helping in the kitchen these days.  That said, I try to save quick dishes like this for when I have a chance to work with him.  He set off chopping and mixing the vibrant salsa, while I got all “Ramsey” smashing the chicken breasts with a mallet to a nice even thickness. 

Basil Infused Fresh Fruit Salad

 

Having returned from Paris a few pounds heavier than when I left (imagine that), I thought it might be wise to pick up some fresh fruit to keep on-hand to satisfy my daily pangs for something sweet.  Now that's not to say that I didn't eat any fruit while in France, because I did, its just that the fruit I ate there was almost always nestled in a big pillow of pastry cream, or resting comfortably in a butter-rich pâte sucré shell.....oh dear.

Thinking back to all the fabulous treats I ate while there, I can only think of one thing to say.....

VIVE LA FRANCE!

I can't think of any other place on Earth where I'd rather pack on a few pounds than in France, can you? Without exception, the pastries we ate there were so dangerously good they should have come with warning labels.  Though to be fair, the odds of our actually heeding their warnings would have been about NIL, but I'm just sayin'.

Jody Adams' Halibut Braised in Ginger-Lemongrass Broth

  

In celebration of Jody Adams' decisive first and second round victories in Bravo Network's latest "Top Chef Masters" competition, I thought we'd cook a dish today from her terrific cookbook (co-authored by her husband, Ken Rivard), In the Hands of A Chef: Cooking with Jody Adams of Rialto Restaurant.   This dish is a bit of a departure from Jody's typically mediterranean offerings, but as a nod to asian-fusion style cooking in the style of a "bourride" (a Provencal fish stew), it is a real winner.  I've taken a few liberties with the dish only to use up a few ingredients I had in my fridge that I thought would work well here, but the soul of this light and delicious dish is all Jody.

Bran Muffins Even Your Kids Will Like

A bold claim, I know. 

Just the mention of the word "bran" will have most kids turning tail and heading for the hills, but if you can get them to try these, I betcha they'll be hooked.....hey, have I ever lied to you?  This is a muffin that I make in double batches to freeze for a quick, healthy re-heatable breakfast or snack.  They get their  moist texture from pureed raisins, which along with a little brown sugar, make them perfectly sweet, but not overly so.  They are dense, rich, packed with flavor, and because they don't finish with a crown, but rather a flat-top, they are oh-so-fun to stack!

The recipe is Nancy Silverton's, perhaps you've heard of her?  She is thought by many to be the preeminent pastry chef in the States, and her famed La Bea Bakery in L.A. enjoys world-wide acclaim.  I bought her cookbook "Nancy Silverton's Pastries from the La Brea Bakery" some time ago, but it wasn't until I read a recent blog post by David Lebovitz raving about these muffins, did I decide to give them a try.  I am so glad I did.

Soup au Pistou

This is a dish that may not be a home-run with very young kids because its absolutely packed with veggies (YUK, what are you trying to do, poison me?), but its easy, flavorful, and can provide plenty of room for creativity for your budding teenage cooks.  Soup au Pistou is a traditional Provencal dish that is made in as many different ways as there are cooks who make it.  Loosely speaking, it is a summer vegetable soup served with a blast of fresh pesto, and many serve it, as I do, with a pesto topped crouton floating on top as well.

This is a great soup to make on your local Farmer's Market day.  If you can, bring the kids with you to meet the farmers who grow your local veggies, and let them choose some of the bounty that will find its way into the soup.  There are no hard and fast rules as to what to include, and in fact, every time I make it, I end up with a distinctly different soup in the end.  As long as you buy the freshest veggies you can get your hands on, and work to include a variety of color and texture in your choices, you'll have a beautiful, fresh and satisfying soup in the end.  If you use a store bought chicken stock, make sure it is a low sodium brand, and if you have the time, allow an hour at the start to infuse it with some aromatics to add a little more interest and depth to your soup.

Peyton missed the trip to the Farmer's market this time around, but was fully up to the task of practicing her knife skills (which are really coming along) by prepping our mise of chopped, sliced, and diced veggies.  While she was busy doing her ginsu thing, I crafted a little sachet that included, white peppercorns, anise seed, fresh thyme, and fresh rosemary, and set it steeping in our barely simmering store bought stock.  The finished soup is delicious hot or cold, with a crusty bread as accompaniment. 

Recipe:

Soup au Pistou

By: Steve Dunn

(Print Friendly Version)

Ingredients:

1 16 ounce can of cannelini beans, drained and rinsed

1 medium onion, finely diced

1 large carrot, cut into 1/4 inch dice

1 small zucchini, cut into 1/2 inch dice

1/4 pound green beans, cut into 1 inch lengths

10 leaves of swiss chard or kale, sliced into 1/2" thick ribbons

1/2 cup of shelled peas

2 cups of tomatoes, peeled, seeded and diced

2 ears of corn, kernels cut from the cob

2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced into rounds (on a  Kyocera Adjustable Mandoline Slicer, Red , if you have one)

4 cups low sodium chicken broth

2 cups water

EVOO

Salt and Pepper

Basil Pesto

aromatics - 1 stem fresh rosemary, 3 stems fresh thyme, 1 teaspoon peppercorns, 1 teaspoon anise seeds

Method:

Place chicken stock and water in a sauce pan over low-medium heat.  Add the aromatics tied in a cheese cloth bundle, and simmer for 1 hour.  Remove the bundle and reserve the stock.

Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in a heavy bottomed soup pot over low-medium heat.  Add the onion and carrot and saute 15 minutes to soften.  Raise the heat to medium, and add the green beans, zucchini, cannelini beans, tomatoes, and chicken stock to the pan, and cook 10-15 minutes.  You want the soup at a simmer, not a rolling boil.  Add the corn, peas, and swiss chard and cook for another 5 minutes.  Check seasoning, adding salt and pepper to taste.  Ladle into warm bowls and top with a spoonful of fresh pesto.  You can also make a crouton by taking a slice of baguette, topping it with some gruyere cheese, and toasting it under the broiler.  Spoon some pesto onto the crouton and float it on top of your soup.  Oh, la, la.

Serves 6

Provencal Wheat Berry Salad

I was alone this weekend.

Totally alone. 

No wife, no kids, no pets (except for Monty, Boris’ Ball Python).

So this post will be a little different from the rest.  On Saturday I was not cooking to teach, or to satisfy a crowd, I was cooking for me.  So....what was on the menu you ask?  Let’s see....I had some fresh herbs and arugula from the garden, and some impossibly sweet corn, fresh garlic, and cherry tomatoes from the farmer’s market.  I had some wheat berries in the pantry that I was itchin’ to put to use, and a lovely, locally raised skirt steak for the grill.  All the makings of my favorite kind of meal.  Fresh, healthy and locally produced.

The steak got about 4 hours in a South American style marinade before it spent a scant 4 minutes ( 2 min. each side) on the searing hot grill.  It was served with a chimichurri sauce made from my garden herbs and freshly chopped garlic.  The corn stayed on the cob, simply steamed and served with plenty of butter, salt and pepper.  The wheat berry salad I threw together turned out really well, so I thought I’d share the recipe with you all.

Food Musings Part 1 - Cooking with Fats

As you have no-doubt surmised from my pizza and cookie posts, "Oui, Chef" is not a site with a focus on low fat, or no-fat cooking.  I am decidedly an (almost) everything in moderation kind of guy, and believe that a well balanced diet, and a reasonably active lifestyle, should allow most of us to not stress so much about every calorie or fat gram we consume.  As such, you will not hear me preach about how you should eliminate a long list of “unhealthy” foods from your diet, but rather how you should include as much of your rich, local bounty as possible in your cooking, while still working to achieve a healthy nutritional balance in what you eat.  For me the most important thing in my cooking, and in what I am trying to teach my kids, is that we cook and eat “whole”, or real foods, not foods that are imitation, highly processed, or pre-prepared.  When we can buy these goods from local and sustainable sources, we do.  We eat more fish and poultry than red meat, lots of vegetables and fruits, and include as many whoIe grains in our diet as we can. 

The fats I use in cooking are natural, not concocted in a lab somewhere.  They are used judiciously, but not exactly sparingly, and I would encourage you to do the same.  I am an absolute believer in the old maxim, fat = flavor, and find most fat free dishes almost unpalatable. Fat is an important contributor to the mouth feel and texture of food, and is why eating a well marbled piece of Kobe beef from Japan can be a transcendent experience, while eating a boneless, skinless chicken breast is more akin to kissing your sister (not that I have, mind you, I’m just sayin’).  Fat is also a conveyor of a food’s flavors, transporting them to each corner of your mouth and helping them to linger there.  This is a good thing.  I mean, if you’ve gone to the trouble of cooking a nice meal, don’t you want to be able to savor it for a while?

Vanilla - Spice Granola

6:30 AM.....Grunt, groan, sigh....the fridge door opens, a cursory glance at the contents apparently yields nothing interesting.  The ritual is repeated next at the freezer, and then at the breadbox before the inevitable question is tossed my way. 

"Hey dad, what's for breakfast?" 

I'm not even sure why I bother to answer, because regardless of what I say, the only response I ever get in return is; "Is that all?"  "We never have anything good for breakfast anymore!"  Repeat this dialogue (if you want to call it that) four more times, once for each of my kids stumbling into the kitchen, and you have a pretty accurate depiction of my morning routine lately.  I suspect that the deterioration in the morning 'tude is just part of their end-of-the-school-year restlessness, but it seems an opportune time to add a new player to the breakfast rotation in any event.  Something that is nutritious, easy to make, can do double duty as an afternoon snack, and most importantly, will get my kids off my @#$  about not having anything good to eat for breakfast.  The choice is simple, delicious and obvious.

Granola.

Slip this word into a chat you are having with anyone over the age of 30, and the image in their mind’s eye is liable to be this; granola, the breakfast of choice for birkenstock and tie-dye wearing tree-hugger hippies weaving hemp plant-hangers while listening to The Grateful Dead.  You know, munchy fodder for “crunchy-granola” types.

Mention granola to a group of kids sitting around the breakfast table, and you’re likely to illicit a sea of sour faces and the following dialogue; “keep that nasty bowl of tree bark and weeds far away from me, just the smell of it is making my eyes itch....I must be allergic."

Such a bad rap for what CAN be a delicious and nutritious staple of healthy eating.  Of course, the poor rep is not entirely undeserved.  Most pre-made granola on the market today falls into two broad categories, it either does taste like a bowl of bark mulch and pebbles, or it has been so highly processed and “sugared” in order to appeal to the bulk of our mass market cereal eaters, that it should not even be considered a cousin, eight times removed, of real granola.

There are some terrific artisanal granolas on the market these days, but at a cost of $10-15 for a 16 oz. bag, even our hemp-weaving hippie friends (who have been known to spend great sums for weedy things sold in bags) choke at the cost.