Oui, Chef - Part 52

Fabulous Roast Chicken

February 8, 2010 By Steve Dunn 16 Comments

Roast Chicken.

It’s hard to think of two other words that fit so perfectly together, isn’t it?

To my mind, a well cooked roast chicken is about as fine a meal as you can eat. There is just something about it….the tender juicy meat, the crispy, well seasoned skin, and please don’t get me started about the aroma that fills the house while it cooks……it is absolutely intoxicating.

Why is it then that so few people I know actually make roast chicken on a regular basis? I know plenty of people who cook chicken regularly, either by cooking “parts” on the grill, or by sautéing cutlets indoors. I know people that frequently make Buffalo Wings, Coq au Vin, or Chicken Fricasee, but never seem to get around to roasting a whole bird. Why is that?

Penne with Asparagus, Lemon and Proscuitto

February 4, 2010 By Steve Dunn 14 Comments

This dish is our interpretation of a recipe from the fabulous “Al Forno” restaurant in Providence, RI. Their original can be found in the terrific cookbook Cucina Simpatica: Robust Trattoria Cooking From Al Forno written by the restaurant’s owners, Johanne Killeen and George Germon.

The key to it’s success comes from baking it in a large enough pan to hold all the pasta in a very thin layer. This allows the pasta to cook to al dente, and the asparagus to just cook through in a short amount of time in a very hot oven. The flavors of the lemon, tarragon, proscuitto and asparagus marry perfectly….don’t expect any left-overs.

It is an easy dish to make on a weeknight, requiring just a few minutes to slice the asparagus and par boil the pasta before tossing it into a large baking dish (or roasting pan) and placing it into the oven. For those of you who have been with us a while, you may notice the breadcrumbs we use as a topping here are the same ones from our Macaroni and Cheese with Ham recipe. If you haven’t already, make yourself a batch of these and toss them in your freezer, you’ll reach for them frequently to top pasta, fish, salads, you name it.

There is plenty of slicing and grating to keep idle young hands busy while making this dish, so by all means, grab one of your kids by the ear and drag them along to help. This one became an instant classic in our household, I’m sure it will in yours as well. Cheers – S.

Penne with Asparagus, Prosciutto, and Lemon

by: Inspired by a dish from: Al Forno's "Cucina Simpatica"

yield:

Cooking Mode Print Recipe

Ingredients

1 pound Penne Rigate
3/4 cup freshly grated pecorino romano cheese
3/4 cup freshly grated fontina cheese
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 cup rich chicken stock (2 cups good quality low-sodium stock, reduced by half)
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
1 tablespoon finely minced fresh tarragon
1 bunch asparagus, washed, dried and root ends trimmed
3 tablespoons butter, melted
5 ounces thinly sliced imported prosciutto, roughly chopped
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt and a few grinds of white pepper
1/3 cup seasoned breadcrumbs

Instructions

Preheat oven to 500 ℉
Bring a large pot of salted water to boil for the pasta
For the breadcrumbs - in a saute pan heat 2 tablespoons EVOO over medium heat and toast 1 cup of panko breadcrumbs, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper until golden brown. Spread on a plate to cool. (Keep for 2 days in the fridge, or a long time in the freezer)
In a large bowl, combine the cream, reduced stock, lemon zest, cheeses, salt and pepper
Slice the asparagus on an extreme bias, about 1/8-1/4” thick and toss into a small bowl with the melted butter, mix to coat
Boil the pasta for 4 minutes, then drain and toss into the bowl with the cream and other ingredients, mix well
Pour the pasta into a large baking dish or roasting pan so that it fits comfortably in a thin layer no more than 1” deep. Sprinkle the sliced asparagus and chopped prosciutto on top and toss it into the oven for 10-12 minutes, until the sauce is bubbling, and the pasta is just starting to take on color.
Remove from the oven and serve, passing breadcrumbs and grated parmesan to sprinkle on top if desired.

Chicken with Fontina, Proscuitto and Sage

February 1, 2010 By Steve Dunn 11 Comments

This is my adaptation of a dish I saw Jamie Oliver prepare on Mark Bittman’s “Minimalist” web show. It is absolutely delicious, quick to throw together, and fun for the kids to help with.

Grab a youngster that has a little anger to vent, hand them a heavy pan or meat mallet, and let ’em go to town smacking down the split chicken breasts to a nice, thin paillard (cutlet). We used fontina, sage and proscuitto as toppings for these lovelies because that’s what we had in our fridge, but by all means, substitute different herbs, cheeses, or cured hams as you wish. Have a little iberico, or jambon de bayonne hanging around….they’ll be perfect. Shave some parmesan, romano, or grate some cheddar or gruyere, as long as your cheese melts well, it will work. For the herbs, thyme, rosemary, marjoram….you name it, have some fun with this dish.

Homemade Marshmallows

January 29, 2010 By Steve Dunn 21 Comments

I first learned how to make marshmallows when at Le Cordon Bleu, and I have a few fond memories of the experience. The first, was that I couldn’t believe how easy they were to make. I mean, I thought there had to be some sort of magic involved in making such delicate little confections. I had heard for years of the challenges of making soufflés (all lies I tell you, they are really easy), and I guess I thought that making similarly light and airy “candy” would prove equally difficult. Nope.

The second thing I remember about making them in France was how funny it sounded to hear the chef talk about them. The French term for marshmallow is Guimauve, which itself is nothing to laugh at, in fact, I find it a rather sexy word to say.

Go ahead, try it yourself….Guimauve….see what I mean?

Asian Meatloaf

January 26, 2010 By Steve Dunn 13 Comments

Let me start this post with a sad confession, and that is this. It is REALLY hard to make meatloaf look good in a photograph. Sorry.

I mean I tried…..I really did. I tried to make this meatloaf look as good as it tastes, and give you all a shot that would leave you saying….”OMG, that looks awesome, I can’t wait to try this recipe!” Sadly, that was not to be, and I am here to tell you that this meatloaf and my camera have a hate-hate relationship.

So….If you are here looking for a GREAT meatloaf recipe, then by all means, please hang in with me and read on. If on the other hand you are here for a little taste of food porn, you are best advised to avert your eyes and run away.

Chocolate Bouchons

January 23, 2010 By Steve Dunn 29 Comments

Santa was good to me this year, I must have been a very good boy. My brother and his wife were good to me too. For Christmas, they bought me Bouchon Bakery’s snappy new “chocolate bouchon” kit from Williams-Sonoma. For those of you uninitiated to the joys of the chocolate bouchon to which I am referring, they are yet another brainchild of Thomas Keller, and are famously sold at both his bakeries and restaurants that bear their name. Think of the ultimate 2-bite brownie and you pretty much have the idea of the thing. Named, and shaped after the French word for “cork”, they are nothing short of magnificent little chocolate bombs, especially good when still slightly warm from the oven. The kit includes enough mix to make about 18 of the suckers, and a silicone mold in which to cook them. Joy to the World…..

Nobu’s Spicy Shrimp Tempura

January 20, 2010 By Steve Dunn 20 Comments

One of my favorite features of Bon Appetit magazine has always been the r.s.v.p. section. This is where readers write to ask the Bon Appetit staff to chase down chefs in order to discover the recipes of their favorite restaurant meals. I’ve never written in myself, but have loved reading about people’s special food memories, and their quest to uncover the secrets to making a beloved “restaurant” dish at home.

That said, the boys and I came across a dish this past Spring, that had I not already had the recipe in a cookbook I owned (how lucky was that?), I almost certainly would have been begging Bon Appetit to get it for me. My desperation not only driven by how perfectly tasty the dish is, but also by Grid relentlessly hounding me to figure out how to make Nobu’s “Tempura Shrimp with Creamy Spicy Sauce”….man, you’d think I never feed the kid.

The dish is so addictive that when we ordered it as a shared appetizer, I started to really fear that someone was going to get hurt, as the four of us stabbed our chopsticks into the serving bowl to fight for our share. It got UGLY in a hurry!

Gemelli with Rapini, Sausage and Raisins

January 16, 2010 By Steve Dunn 8 Comments

This is absolutely one of my favorite pasta dishes, and one that is an excellent vehicle for introducing rapini (or broccoli rabe) to your kids. Rapini is a delicious bitter green, that served on its own, is a tough one for kids to love, the flavor being just a little too sharp and funky for your average ankle biter. In this dish, the sweetness of the raisins, and the luxurious mouth-feel afforded by the fat in the sausage, keep the bitterness of the rapini in check, much to the delight of the youngsters. It is a quick meal to toss together, and so easy that it can be prepped top to bottom by anyone old enough to use a knife, just be sure to save the act of slipping the sausage meat from their casings for your least squeamish child. Serve it with a simple green salad and a crust of country bread

Gemelli with Rapini, Sausage and Raisins

by: Steve Dunn

yield:

Cooking Mode Print Recipe

Ingredients

1 pound Gemelli or other small shell-shaped pasta
1 pound (about 4 links) sweet Italian sausage
1 bunch broccoli rabe, stem bottoms trimmed, washed well
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth, reduced in half
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup golden (or dark) raisins
1/4 cup pine nuts, lightly toasted
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
Fresh ribbons of parmesan cheese, peeled with a vegetable peeler

Instructions

Set a large pot of salted water on to boil for the pasta. Place low-sodium chicken stock in a pan and reduce by half to 1 cup, add dry white wine and reserve. Lightly toast pine nuts in a dry skillet, reserve.
Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When shimmering, squeeze sausages from their casings, dropping bite-sized pieces in the hot skillet to saute, stirring occasionally, until nicely browned. Using a slotted spoon, remove the sausages to a bowl, leaving behind the drippings in the skillet. Cook the pasta to producers instructions for al dente.
Trim the ends, wash, dry, and cut the brocolli rabe into 1-1/2” pieces. Add to the drippings in the skillet and saute over medium-high heat until wilted and just starting to take color. Add the sliced garlic and pepper flakes and cook 1-2 minutes, add the reduced chicken broth, wine, and raisins and cook another 3-4 minutes, until the broccoli rabe is just starting to soften, but still has a nice bite to it. Drain the pasta and add to the skillet, chuck in a few large knobs of butter and the pine nuts, and toss to combine. Check seasoning for salt and pepper, and serve topped with ribbons of freshly peeled parmesan.

Local Organic Steak with Kalamata Chimichurri Sauce

January 12, 2010 By Steve Dunn 5 Comments

I love my grill. I love the act of cooking just about anything on my outdoor grill, from the freshest swordfish, to thick, fat-marbled, beef rib-eye steaks. Every man I know is the same, even guys that avoid cooking in their kitchens at all costs. Put them next to a screaming hot grill and they have an almost instant primal reaction to the thing…..it’s like we’re all back living in a cave and trying to tame fire for the first time.

Sadly, as a resident of the Northeast, my opportunities to grill outdoors in the winter are fairly limited. We’ve had such a bad spell of weather as of late, that I haven’t even bothered to dig a path through the snow to my grill, you know, just in case we have a day that creeps above 40℉ and tempts me to fire up the beast.

That said, we have found ourselves doing more braising, making pastas and soups, and generally taking a break from grilled meats. It’s been all good, and natural, and seasonal, and in keeping with the proper rhythm of life in New England.

That was, until the other day when Peyton said she was “really…really…REALLY hankerin’ for a steak, and questioned if there was there anyway…PLEEEEASE that we could cook one indoors, because she really missed the sizzling, juicy, charred goodness of beef flesh done on the grill!” Clearly, she has been working on connecting with her inner cave woman.

Happily for her (and for all of us, really) there is a perfectly excellent way to cook steaks indoors, one that imparts many of the flavors that open-flame grilling does when cooking on an outdoor grill. There are two keys to crafting a “grilled” steak meal indoors to satisfy your inner caveman (or woman as it were), the first is to start with a nice thick steak (at least 1 -1/2″ – 2″ thick), cut from organically and humanely raised cattle. Second, you need BIG heat. For me, that translates into a fully pre-heated cast iron grill pan over a high flame to start cooking your steak, and a pre-heated 425℉ oven in which to finish the cooking. Oh….and you might want to be sure you have a good kitchen exhaust fan too.

I’m a proponent of adding complexity to the flavor of a good steak. For a filet, that may come in the form of a nice sauce bernaise, or perhaps a dollop of compound butter on top, for a sirloin or well marbled rib-eye, it is hard to beat a great chimichurri sauce. I was first introduced to chimichurri when I used to travel to Houston frequently for work. There was a great Argentinian restaurant there called Churrascos, that served fabulous steaks with the best chimichurri. The freshness of the parsley, the acidity of the vinegar, and the bite of the garlic are all perfect foils for the melting fat and earthy chew of the beef. It is so quick to throw one together, that once you’ve tried it, you’ll be making it a lot, I promise.

So let’s begin, shall we?

Kalamata Olive Chimichurri

by: Bon Appetit Magazine - February 2009

yield:

Cooking Mode Print Recipe

Ingredients

4 tablespoons fruity olive oil, divided
4 garlic cloves, finely minced
1/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
1 bay leaf, broken in half
1/3 cup finely chopped shallots
1/3 cup finely chopped fresh Italian parsley
4 tablespoons roughly chopped, pitted Kalamata olives
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

Instructions

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in heavy medium skillet over medium heat. Add shallots, red pepper, and bay leaf. Stir until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add garlic and sauté, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in parsley, olives, and vinegar. Season chimichurri with salt and pepper, and add a little water by teaspoonfuls to thin as needed. Let sit at room temperature while you cook your steaks, remove the bay leaf before serving.

For the Steaks

Preheat oven to 425°F. Season steaks on both sides with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper. Brush heavy, large oven-proof grill skillet (preferably cast-iron) with vegetable oil. Heat over high heat until just smoking. Add steaks. Cook until nicely browned, about 4-5 minutes. Turn steaks and transfer skillet to oven. Roast until instant-read thermometer inserted horizontally into steaks registers 125°F to 130°F for medium-rare, about 10 minutes.
Let steaks rest at least 5 minutes. Thinly slice crosswise, and spoon chimichurri over.

Butternut Squash, Browned Butter and Sage Couscous

January 7, 2010 By Steve Dunn 7 Comments

For those of you pulling your hair out over the complexity and time required to pull together the recipes of some of our recent posts, like Bouchon’s Quiche Lorraine or my Chicken Pot Pie, here is a delicious and simple side dish that you can put on the table tonight in about 20 minutes.

I have always been enchanted by the promise of couscous, a fine grained pasta that only takes about 5 minutes to cook, but to be honest, I’ve often found the recipes I’ve tried to be bland, dry and altogether forgettable. Couscous really well done can be a delight, when it is not, it can be like eating a bowl of sand. I don’t know about you, but my kids stopped eating sand a couple of years ago, and I’ve no interest in getting them hooked all over again, it was a hard habit for them to break.

My wife inspired the creation of this recipe by asking that I deconstruct a squash and sage ravioli dish that she had recently enjoyed. The resulting course is a deliciously simple, yet richly flavored dish that would be equally at home served with a braised lamb shank, or a simply prepared fish filet. I made the dish with a small grained couscous, but I’m sure it would work as well with the larger, “Israeli” variety.

I hope you enjoy it.

Butternut Squash, Browned Butter and Sage Couscous

by: Steve Dunn

yield:

Cooking Mode Print Recipe

Ingredients

8 Tablespoons unsalted butter
15 medium sized, fresh sage leaves, thickly sliced
1/2 cup low sodium chicken stock
Freshly grated nutmeg
1 cup couscous, cooked to the producers instructions, and kept covered and warm.
1/3 cup roughly chopped walnuts, lightly toasted in a skillet.
2 cups 1/2” x 1/2” cubes of butternut squash.
Fresh parmesan cheese for grating.

Instructions

Peel, seed, and cube the squash, steam for 8-10 minutes, until just cooked through, remove from heat and reserve.
Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed skillet over medium heat until the milk solids turn a lovely golden brown (see the brown flecks on the couscous in the photo above? That's what your looking for, and it is key to the success of this dish). When that happens, and with the butter still on the heat, add the chicken stock, sliced sage, and the freshly grated nutmeg (I used about an 1/8 teaspoon, use more or less as you wish). Cook the sauce, stirring frequently, until slightly thickened and reduced to about 1/3 cup, remove from the heat, season with salt and pepper, cover and keep warm.
To serve, fluff the cooked couscous with a fork, and toss it into the pan with the sauce. Add the cubed squash and chopped walnuts, stir to incorporate and reheat gently if required. Make a final check for seasoning and serve with a light dusting of freshly gated parmesan.