Oui, Chef

My friends at Cooking Light Magazine, and the super talented food writer David Joachim, have just come out with a new cookbook entitled Cooking Light Global Kitchen: The World's Most Delicious Food Made Easy.  In a word, the book is AWESOME!  In it, Joachim travels the world and offers up his interpretations of signature dishes from each of the six world "regions" he visits.

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I first "met" Ina Garten while living in Paris, and while I've bumped into her a few other times over the years at various food events, it is the memory of that first encounter that really sticks with me.  I had popped into our neighborhood florist to pick up some fresh flowers to bring home, only to find the place swarming with Ina's advance team, setting up lighting and cameras, and getting the place looking "just so".

Apparently she was in-town to film an episode of her "Barefoot Contessa" show that was all about her favorite places to shop in Paris (hey, someone's got to do it), and this little jewel of a flower shop on Rue Oudinot was on her hit-list.  It took me a while to figure out what all the fuss was about because quite frankly, I hadn't a clue who Ina Garten was back then.  I heard the word contessa being murmured by some of the staff, so claimed a spot in the corner of the shop from which to catch a glimpse of whatever royal figure was approaching from down the street.

A few moments later cameras starting rolling and in walked Ina with the force of a hurricane, handlers in-tow and dressed in her trademark blue (jammies looking) pant suit.  To be honest, not knowing who she was, my first thought was that someone needed to tell this poor woman that it's not OK to be seen in public in THIS city in your pajamas……this was Paris after all.  When she started speaking and I realized that she wasn't French royalty but rather an American, I really started to get anxious.  "OMG, they are going to eat this poor woman alive….someone has to tell her to go back to her hotel and put on some real clothes!"

My anxiety over her wardrobe choice was short-lived because within seconds of her arrival not just the staff of the shop, but many of the clientele were fawning all over her, posing for photos and asking for her autograph.  

I was gobsmacked.  

In a city where it was de rigueur to dress for a night on the town just to drag your trash to the curb on collection day, how could it be that these locals were falling all over themselves for a moment with this American diva traipsing around Paris in her PAJAMAS?  

Being a TV celebrity has its perks I guess, and trolling around Paris in your PJs looked to be one of them.

Garten has made a lovely career out of teaching people how to entertain with ease.  Her cookbooks like this one, Barefoot Contessa at Home  and her Food Network cooking shows, are all about flower arranging, table setting, and cooking to please a crowd.  Her recipes showcase fresh ingredients, fairly simple preparation, and are chosen for their ability to be prepped (and sometimes cooked) before guests arrive, and require a minimal amount of attention and fuss to finalize and get on the table.  I've cooked many of her dishes over the years all to rave reviews, but this one has to be one of my favorites.  Both the fish and vegetables can be prepped in advance of guests arriving, then popped in the oven to cook (largely unchecked) while you all mingle and enjoy a pre-dinner cocktail or three.  Check out the video below to watch Ina creating this dish and see for yourself how very simple it is to make.

The prosciutto protects the cod (or halibut or bass) from the extreme heat of the oven, rendering it perfectly moist and flaky, and enhances it's ocean-brine saltiness.  In contrast, the roasted root vegetables caramelize beautifully and offer a nice sweet counter-point to the slightly salty surf and turf combo of the cod and prosciutto.  Any root vegetables will do here, use whatever you have laying about.  I had some sweet potato, white potato, carrots, and parsnips, and they made for a deliciously colorful bed on which to serve the fish.  A last minute drizzle of browned butter – rosemary – lemon sauce brings it all together with a certain je ne sais quoi.

Cook in your pajamas if you want….I'll never tell.

Cheers – Steve

Here is yet another fantabulous dish from Molly Stevens' cookbook All About Braising: The Art of Uncomplicated Cooking , and is one I was happy to whip up this week as the thermometer ditched back into the single digits here in the Northeast.

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I'm especially excited to share this recipe with you today because it comes from one of my Le Cordon Blue – Paris classmates, Aida Mollenkamp.  You may recognize her name as she's gone on to craft a pretty interesting career in the food biz, but back when I knew her she was fresh out of college and following her passion for food and entertaining by working toward her "Grande Diplome" at LCB.

While you can choose to study savory cuisine or pastry at LCB, the "Le Grande Diplome" program requires that you study both over the course of three trimesters, Basic – Intermediate – Superior.  Our days there started with a demonstration lecture and ended with hands-on "practical" sessions where we retired to the school's kitchens to cook the meal we had watched our chef cook that morning.  While each student had his/her own stove in the kitchen we all shared work space on long stainless prep tables.  As luck would have it, Aida and I set up as neighbors right from the start, and while most of our work in the kitchen was individual, much as you would in choosing a lab partner in science class, you discover pretty quickly the value of sharing space with someone who knows what they're doing and works smartly, efficiently, and cleanly.  Lucky for me, Aida was one of those people.

We pretty quickly developed a good working relationship, cheering each other on when things were going well, watching each other's backs and pitching in to help when they weren't.  We came to trust each other as critics before we presented our dishes to the chef at the end of each class, offering each other tastes of what we were preparing and asking for an honest opinion.  "what's missing"….."is there enough salt"….."how the hell are you plating this dish"?  At the end of our time together in Paris we parted good friends and I've enjoyed watching her build her impressive culinary career from a distance.

These days I keep on top of what she's up to by checking out her website and catching her two shows that air on both the Cooking Channel and the Food Network, "Ask Aida" and "Food Crafters".  Given that she's a California girl and I'm an east coast guy we haven't had the opportunity to connect in many years, but I'm confident that one day our paths will cross again.  Until then, I "visit" her when I need a fix by watching some of her on-line videos, flipping through her great cookbook Aida Mollenkamp's Keys to the Kitchen , or cooking some of her terrific food.  Check out the video below to meet Aida for yourself, and to get the skinny on this healthy, simple and delicious chicken and artichoke dish.

Cheers – Steve

It had been months since I’d had lamb, so the other day at the market when I saw that they had boneless leg of lamb on sale I picked one up. I didn’t have a particular recipe in mind when I bought the meat, I just figured I’d coat it in some sort of fresh herb rub, tie it up and roast it to a delicious medium-rare. That was the loose plan until, when flipping through TV channels the next evening, I came across the show “The Best Thing I Ever Made” on the Food Network and watched the episode in which Anne Burrell was cooking up this lovely meat “pie”.

Not to be confused with it’s close relative the Cottage Pie which is made with beef, this lamb based wonder is nothing at all like the bland, insipid versions you may recall having eaten as a youngster, served up by the well-meaning lunch ladies at your grade school (no offense to the army of hard-working lunch ladies out there, I’m just sayin’). Don’t let your memories of those gelatinous, mystery meat filled “pies” of your school lunchroom days keep you from making this rich, hearty version….it would be such a shame.

There’s nothing fancy about this meal either in ingredients or technique required, but as Anne explains in the video below, time is required to build flavors here and if you try to rush it you will end up disappointed. Most important is the browning of the meat at the very beginning, and for this reason she calls for cubed lamb shoulder (or leg), and not ground which is what many people use. It is much harder to properly brown ground meat, and without the beautiful mahogany crust on the meat and the resulting “fond” in the bottom of the pan, the flavor of this dish just won’t turn out as robust as it should. The ultimate success of this dish is all about capturing as much of that caramelized goodness from the browning of the meat and veggies as you can before de-glazing with the wine and stock, so pour yourself a glass before you get started and take your time here.

Check out Anne’s video below to get more of her great cooking tips, to score the full recipe, and to watch her actually craft this dish. I just love her style, don’t you?

If you don’t want to do the full monty you can always serve up the lamb stew and mashed potatoes separately, but it’s oh-so-much more special (and hardly any more work) to dress up your stew with the spuds and pop the “pie” under the broiler for a few minutes. If you like to practice advanced meal planning (and who doesn’t?) might I suggest even making a double batch of the stew and freeze half of it. Then, somewhere down the road you are only a fresh batch of mashed potatoes and a few minutes in the oven from a second shepherd’s pie.

I’m always looking out for you folks, yes?

This time around I took inspiration from my talented friend Lynda over at Tastefood who is always impressing me by crafting meals and desserts served up in individual ramekins, pots and goblets, and I decided to make single-person servings of this meal by spooning the stew into ramekins and then piping the mashed potatoes on top. They turned out pretty elegant for a dish of rather humble origins, don’t you think?

Cheers – Steve

 This is a recipe that I adapted from one I found in a Jaime Oliver magazine a while back.  I remember loving the picture that accompanied the dish, and while I no longer have the recipe on-hand I did remember enough about the elements to pretty successfully recreate it here (I think).

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