Christmas Cook Books

A selection of some of the top notch cookbooks I got over Christmas. The sous vide one from Thomas Keller is going to be a dense one - it's seriously in depth and precise. The kind of book that makes you go out and buy a digital kitchen scales. The Terrine book came with a set of matching terrines from Mr. Lieu to put word into action. Looking forward to many wonderful meals in 2009. All best wishes for the New Year.

An Italian Christmas Feast

The most amazing duck liver Armagnac paté courtesy of Karen's friend Danielle


Cooking up the sauce for the pasta [ olive oil, black pepper, garlic, lemon zest, thinly sliced lemon ]


Linguine with lemon, pecorino and parmesan


The snappers were marinated in a mix of oil, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, ground coriander, garlic, oregano, and pepper and then roasted. Served with butternut squash


Tomato basil sorbet


The Christmas goose

Deboned, stuffed with a deboned chicken and an Italian stuffing [ pancetta, pork shoulder, prunes, chestnuts, sage, rosemary, eggs, breadcrumbs, parmesan ]

While the camera was broken we also had a bitter salad with chicory and garlic, and tiramisu


Quoc's macarons [ pear, cherry, chocolate and hazelnut, chocolate Grand Marnier, chocolate peanut-butter] and to the right a selection of German Christmas cookies from my cousin Roisin in Frankfurt.


Home made tea cakes from Emily's Mom.

Christmas Eve Fish Soup

[ onion, garlic, carrot, celery, chorizo, tomatoes, thyme, white wine, broth, cannellini beans, scallops, prawns ]

New Spanish tortilla

Inspired by the classic tortilla de patatas, this tortilla was made with caramelised onions, potato, celeriac, and parsnip with a sprinkling of grated nutmeg. When cooking for lots of people I do this in an oiled baking tray. Just cook the sliced vegetables first separately, a mix with the cooled onions and eggs and bake at 350F until the egg is cooked through. Brown it under the broler if you need to.

Flatbread

[200 g organic white flour+1 tsp salt] + [1/3 tsp dried yeast+170ml tepid water]
knead to a smooth elastic dough that is a little bit on the sticky side
prove for 45 minutes
roll to 3-5 mm thick and dust with zaatar
bake for 5-8 mins on an oiled baking sheet in a 450F oven until the edges are slightly golden brown.

Beet salad

[ steamed beets, parsley, olive oil, lemon juice, nigella, salt, pepper ]
with garlic yoghurt [ greek yoghurt, salt crushed garlic ]

Macarons

Quoc spent today learning how to make the classic French macaron. Fillings to follow include chocolate cherry, Italian cream green tea, pistachio.

Here's some with a nutella ganache.

A Moroccan Feast

Harissa - the classic Moroccan hot sauce. This one was made with a mix of fresh green chilis (I couldn't find fresh red ones) and dried red chili, caraway, cumin, garlic, roasted red pepper, tomato paste, red wine vinegar, olive oil, sweet smoked paprika.


Home made flatbread with sumac.


A Moroccan meal often starts with a selection of cooked and raw salads served with bread. Roasted pepper salad. [ roasted red, yellow and orange peppers, lemon juice, olive oil, cilantro ]


Sweet roasted tomatoes [ peeled and seeded tomatoes, salt, sugar, olive oil, orange blossom water, cinnamon sticks. 45 mins at 300 covered in foil ]


A Moroccan style herb salad. A lot of greens are wilted and chopped to a paste. [ mint, parsley, cilantro, arugula, spinach, garlic, preserved lemon rind ]


Fava bean puree. [ fava beans, garlic, cumin ] sauteed then pureed with lemon juice, fresh cilantro, olive oil.


Fish tagine. This one turned out way better than the test run from a few days ago. The trick here was to pre-boil the sliced potatoes and to roast and peel the peppers first.

For the chermoula [ parsley, cilantro, garlic, red win vinegar, paprika, lemon juice, olive oil ]
For the pepper mix [ roasted green peppers, cherry tomatoes, garlic, tomato paste ]
The fish - in this case tilapia - is marinated for a few hours in chermoula, then the tagine is layered. Potatoes, fish and chermoula, pepper/tomato mix, a little water. Preserved lemons and olives acan be added at the end. This is one top notch fish tagine.


Couscous. [ Lebanese couscous, caramelised onions, chick peas, cumin, coriander, paprika, cinnamon, pine nuts, golden raisins, roasted butternut squash, mint ]

Burrito night

A popular but broken record on the East coast is the lament for a good California burrito. It was basically all I ate when I lived in SF for six years, well, that and Tu Lan, the Vietnamese pearl of 6th and Market.

So last night we had a bash at some home made burritos. The black beans are apparently Oaxacan in style. They're simmered from their dried state for about 2 hours with garlic, onion and avocado leaves. The salsa verde was made from these smaller tomatillos that I got at the lovely Mexican store on Grand at Humbolt. I can't remember what they are called...but the woman who runs the shop tells me they are less tart that the bigger tomatillos. I didn't cook them, just threw about a pound of them in the food processor with a clove of garlic, 2 spring onions, 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp vinegar, 1 bunch cilantro, 2 jalapeños. We then cooked off some fresh chorizo and chopped it, so the full burrito had the beans, rice, salsa, chorizo, avocado, cheese. Not quite SF, but still great.

Moroccan Fish Tagine

It's definitely a bit of a trip to Al Maghreb here on Sharon street this week. I'm trying to recreate an Essaouira style fish tagine like the ones Nicky and I had when we were there for a week in February. For those of you who haven't been there, it's a beautiful town hanging on the side of the Atlantic, battered by winds all year round, and of course a great place to get good seafood.

For this I used tilapia that was marinated for about 2 hours in Chermoula [ 1 bunch each parsley and cilantro, juice of 1 lemon, 4 garlic cloves, 1 tsp ground cumin, paprika, and cinnamon, olive oil, salt, pepper ]. Then in a heavy bottomed casserole (or a tagine if you have one) layer sliced potatoes, the fish, a lemon sliced thinly, and a sliced red and green pepper, plus all the leftover chermoula mixed with water to cover the fish. Pop on the lid, bring to a simmer, and let it bubble away for about 30 minutes on a low heat. Add two tomatoes sliced thinly and cover and simmer for another 20 minutes or so. You can add the clasic preserved lemons and olives at the end too.

This one was fresh, very citrusy with the lemon, and the tilapia held up well to that long cooking time. Next time I'd add a little less lemon and more cumin and paprika and probably some tomato paste. The next one I want to try I'll roast the peppers first and try for a more concentrated drier tagine.

Moroccan Kefta with Watercress salad

Usually made with lamb, we make these with turkey here on Sharon street. In this batch I mixed ground turkey with chopped pistachios, a little ras-el-hanout, and some Moroccan spice mix I got in a spice souk. Any kind of spice mix is good, ground cumin, coriander, paprika. The patties are just fried in a little olive oil and served with good bread and hot sauce.
The salad is a super simple mix of watercress, pomegranate seeds, sherry vinegar, olive oil and salt. Apparantly fresh watercress now has been discovered to have magic qualities in fighting cancer, including lung cancer, so a dirty ex-smoker like me is now to figure out 1001 ways to eat fresh watercress.

Moroccan Bread

This is my first stab at making the delicious Moroccan bread you see piled up in shops and served at every meal in Morocco. This recipe comes from Paula Wolfert's great book 'Couscous', but it's not exactly what I was after. She used a mix of unbleached and whole wheat flour, which doesn't seem right to me. I'm going to keep experimenting to get it right.

Noodle improv

I'm usually a bit wary of making noodles when Quoc's around. The Irish making Chinese food isn't always met with the delight you'd hope for. When we first met I once made him a 'Chinese' dish with cumin in it. Not so good.

Anyway here's an improvised Singapore Chow Mai Fan. Came out well and got the nod of approval from the Chinese team.

[ laahp cheung Chinese sweet sausage, chicken, ginger, garlic, carrot, Chinese greens, curry powder, chili, green onion, noodles, broth ]

Keeping it local

Quoc had an open studio for his jewelry last weekend and we prepared some snacks for the guests. Being a bit pushed for time we fell back on some of the great local shops near us for treats. In particular Emily's Pork store on Graham Avenue and the Napoli Bakery on Metropolitan avenue. We also rustled up a tortilla de patatas but baked it on a baking tray which was a bit of an experiment but actually worked out great.




From Emily's: Taralli ( a Neapolitan bread snack - olive, garlic, fennel, hot pepper, black pepper were some of the flavours). And slices of their spicy house sausage.


The classic foccacia from Napoli.



La Tortilla - in the oven.





Olives, dips and more taralli from Emily's

Poulet M'qualli

This is a real Moroccan classic - and there seems to be as many ways to make it as there are for any other classic recipe. The basics are chicken, green olives, preserved lemons (see below for how to make them at home easily). I usually prepare this dish in a tagine, although any heavy bottomed pot with a tight fitting lid will do the job. I slice an onion or two thinly and pop it in the tagine with a little olive oil, and the chicken pieces. I buy whole chicken and cut it up so there's a bit of the whole bird for everyone. Some take the chicken skin off, some rub spices under the skin and keep it on. Up to you. You can also brown the chicken first if you like to. Then I'll add some sliced fresh ginger, saffron threads and a little water. Not much, maybe a half cup even. Pop the lid on, bring to a simmer, and then reduce and keep bubbling away with the lid on until the chicken just falls of the bone. This usually takes an hour or more. Keep an eye on it if you're using a tagine, as sometimes too much liquid is produced and it'll need to be skimmed off. Once the chicken is done throw in a handful of green or red olives, and a preserved lemon cut into strips. Simmer for another 5 or 10 minues.
You can serve it soupy with lots of sauce, or let the sauce boil off (especially if you don't put a lot of water in) so the chicken gets caramelised.


Finito. With a grain salad here. Also great with a fruit and nut couscous.


Mixed grains with chopped watercress and a tahini-garlic-lemon dressing

More wintery stews

[ onion, chorizo, carrots, garlic, kale, tomatoes, chickpeas, thyme ]