Tag: Cook’s Complicated

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I have achieved French fries!!!!

This has only taken me 12 years of trying, 17 years off my life, thousands of recipes and countless YouTubes to accomplish. Just a few days ago I made them after watching some doofus roast them in the oven with too much olive oil. I’d watched Cook’s Complicated make them in the oven by coating them with a corn starch slurry which was just an ugly mess despite their efforts to make them sound all crunchy and delicious. I’ve been burned all too often by their cockamamie recipes to try it. Plus it didn’t look at all like something I’d either want to do or eat.

So this time I used a french fryer but tried the pre-boiled potato method. I have, in the past, used the double oil fry method but for my money a quick boil (5 minute) works perfectly. The short ribs were fabulous. Plus there were bbq beans, home-made bread and butter. (Making a small batch of butter is really easy, it turns out.)



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Pastistio

My aunt Florence got on a pastitsio kick at some point in her life…probably right about when she was the age I am now, so, about 42. I always liked it and like Greek food in general. It’s like a greek lasagna. The most recent Cook’s Complicated, uh, Illustrated had a superlatively complicated recipe for it. But you know, complications are a way of life around here and I just had to make it. How often does a recipe call for cooking the pasta in sauce rather than in water. I like to do that and loved that they suggested it. The meat sauce though, called for baking soda which made the sauce more like paste than meat sauce. I like it chunkier. I had to run all over hell and back to find the damn cheese, kasseri, but I think it was worth it. 

In the end it was really fabulous even if it was more work than making bread. 




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Off my meds

I’m gonna goddam make a loaf of French bread that tastes like it was made in France if it kills me…or until I am forcibly committed whichever comes first. And you probably won’t have to force me I’ll go willingly, I’ll freaking skip into the asylum (but in a masculine way).

These are 2 different attempts using 2 different methods. One is Paul Hollywood’s method, the other Cook’s Complicated, er, Illustrated, well, America’s Test Kitchen anyway, same diff. Neither require a lot of kneading. One rises in a couche, the other on a French loaf pan. One uses a 6 to 24 hour proofed yeast, the other just yeast. One used “strong flour” the other just plain ol,’ They rest for different amounts of time but basically they are very similar. Both require steam in the oven.

And yet, they were pretty much the same and neither one is like a French baguette. They were good but no crispy, crunchy crust with a light and airy crumb, as it were. They both had a chewy crust and a dense crumb.

Get used to it. I’m on a mission.



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Arroz con pollo

Cook’s Complicated, er, Country, or America’s Test Kitchen or some one of those Christopher Kimball-related shows had a complicated recipe for Rice with Chicken. And you can watch the video here.

I made the recipe exactly as instructed (Karen please take note). But the roasting time of 20 minutes was 20 minutes too short. After 40 minutes in a 350 degree oven and 20 minutes of resting. It was perfect. And it was. Just exquisite. I would soooo make this again. And now that I know what I am doing I can do it without the anxiety. Just kidding. There’s always anxiety.



Gratuitous salad shot

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Arroz con pollo recipe

Six chicken thighs, salted and peppered on both sides 

and then browned on both sides in a dutch oven.

While that is happening, 7-9 mins per side,

process a cup of cilantro

1/2 cup onion

1 cup green pepper

5 garlic cloves

1TB cumin

to a paste

Remove chicken from pan, pour of most of the fat (or not)

add 1/2 cup of chopped onion to the pot and

1TB Sazon

this is a Mexican seasoning mix. 

I used Culantro [yes, culantro is a thing, it’s not cilantro]

 and Achiote flavor (as they did in the show, Karen)

Then add 2 cups medium grain rice and sauté with onions and Sazon

Add 2.5 cups chicken stock

1 tsp salt

Bring to simmer, add the cilantro paste 

1/2 cup sliced green olives and 2 TB capers (rinsed if salted capers)

Remove the skin from the thighs and nestle them 

into the dutch oven cover and bake at 350 for 20-40 mins

Rest 15 minutes add 1/2 cup peas, fluff rice.

Good luck….buena suerte


It’s delicious but Jesus what a rigmarole.

Notes: Thats a holy hella lot of rice. 

I think 1.5 cups of rice and 2 cups of stock would be plenty.

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Sour orange pie

I watched Cook’s Complicated make something called sour orange pie. The crust is animal crackers (whatever) and the filling is orange juice concentrate and lemon juice. Basically it’s a key lime pie but for a few ingredient adjustments. I thought it would taste like creamsicles. But it did not.

Everyone raved about it but then later said, oh, uh, the key lime is better.

I didn’t mind, I’d thought that myself.


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Turkey thighs

I found turkey thighs at Kettle Range Meat a butcher shop on State street essentially in Saz’s parking lot. Turkey thighs are hard to come by, partiuclarly ones with the skin on. Even more particularly organic, local, free range, so I stocked up. Kettle Range specializes in meat that is all that, local, organic and pasture raised, etc.

Green chile chicken thighs are a favorite of mine and I made them with roasted cauliflower. After the thighs were roasted I peel off the skin and spread out on a plate and roast it separately so the skin gets super crispy and crunchy after which I chop it up and sprinkle it on top like cracklin’s (I saw this on Cook’s Complicated, er, Illustrated, though they did it with pork). In theory this should be totally delicious but earlier in the day the RIMFCP expressed a level of disgust at dark meat, particularly the skin…I am highly suggestable it seems. I knew what he was talking about. I know that smell. 

The thighs were good enough even though now I am suspicious of them, I didn’t eat the skin. The cauliflower, mmm, not so much. And I still have half the roasted cauliflower so I’m thinking I’ll make “mac” and cheese out of it. I watched them make it on Cook’s Complicated, er, Illustrated yesterday. Real macaroni and cheese. I’m substituting cauliflower for pasta, what could go wrong? I’m certainly not going to talk to the Sergeant Major about it.




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Bolognese on the fly

Someone left a platter of Italian meats at my house. While that sort of thing is great while you’re quaffing wine and eating cheese with friends, this isn’t something I’d be eating on my own. I’m not such a fan of prosciutto anyway, but there was also dried beef which has a distinctly perfumey taste (ditto on the fan thing) and some sausages of unknown variety but pretty salami-like. I decided to chop it all up and make spaghetti. While I don’t like prosciutto so much like it is, cooked I am fine with it.

So I went with Bolognese. I usually use porchetta when I make it (Cook’s Complicated, er, Illustrated, says mortadella and pancetta but I think porchetta is much better) and frankly, once this version of sauce was done I really couldn’t taste a difference at all. I gave some to my friend Karen and she was very enthusiastic about it without knowing I had compromised the recipe. 

The thing is, what really makes this different and delicious, warm and comforting, is the use of sage rather than oregano and thyme, and the mystical chicken liver which transforms the sauce from pedestrian to sublime. No one would ever know it’s there but would miss it if it weren’t.

OK, OK. I know. There were mushrooms in it and, yes, that is so not bolognese. Jeez.




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Bolognese on the fly

Someone left a platter of Italian meats at my house. While that sort of thing is great while you’re quaffing wine and eating cheese with friends, this isn’t something I’d be eating on my own. I’m not such a fan of prosciutto anyway, but there was also dried beef which has a distinctly perfumey taste (ditto on the fan thing) and some sausages of unknown variety but pretty salami-like. I decided to chop it all up and make spaghetti. While I don’t like prosciutto so much like it is, cooked I am fine with it.

So I went with Bolognese. I usually use porchetta when I make it (Cook’s Complicated, er, Illustrated, says mortadella and pancetta but I think porchetta is much better) and frankly, once this version of sauce was done I really couldn’t taste a difference at all. I gave some to my friend Karen and she was very enthusiastic about it without knowing I had compromised the recipe. 

The thing is, what really makes this different and delicious, warm and comforting, is the use of sage rather than oregano and thyme, and the mystical chicken liver which transforms the sauce from pedestrian to sublime. No one would ever know it’s there but would miss it if it weren’t.

OK, OK. I know. There were mushrooms in it and, yes, that is so not bolognese. Jeez.




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Rethinking food decoration

Jacques Pepin is forever putting mint on desserts, sprigs of sage on platters of duck, lemon wedges on god knows what, and it always makes the dish look so much nicer. Martha does this, as does that menace to society, Lidia Bastianich, tucking wads of basil into piles of chicken, and so do many of the other celebrity chefs (hate the idea) that I watch in my spare time instead of, say, cleaning the house. But on Cook’s Complicated, er, Country and America’s Test Kitchen this seems to rarely happen. And as I am more of a Cook’s Complicated kind of guy I don’t do this all that much. Not that I don’t think about it. It’s just that usually when I am about to serve a meal my mind is on other things, not the chopped almonds I have in my mis en place. Only to find it as I am cleaning up and toss it.

The other night my friends Judy and Susan came over for dinner and I made that berry pie, yet again, and I had leftover strawberries and extra time on my my hands (not to mention fresh mint on my balcony). I sliced up a strawberry and put it and a fruity sprig of mint on top. 

The thing is that the strawberry is lovely. But the cooked berries look pretty lifeless. It tasted good so that’s all I care about and it more or less relieves me of the burden of garnishing food in the future. Not that I won’t still find a small bowl of chopped chives or a chiffonade of shiso leaves as I am cleaning after dinner from time to time.


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Pork for a party

My birthday rolled around and I had a party. Having just watched an episode of Cooked in which Michael Pollan describes the joys of eating a farm raised pig, I decided to go all out and buy some from my local butcher Bavette although I knew it was going to be pretty costly. But A.) I wanted good pork. B.) Organic. C.) Farm raised happy pigs. As Michael Pollan says, the pig that has a great life with just one bad day. I can be OK with that.

So I got 20 pounds of boneless, trimmed pork shoulder. I marinated it for 24 hours as Cook’s Complicated, er, Illustrated, suggests you do for pork pernil, a Puerto Rican specialty dish that features onions, garlic, cumin, oregano and chopped cilantro. Only I wasn’t making pork pernil. I was making something, oh, let’s say, Mexicanish.

After the meat marinated for 24 hours, I charred it on the grill and then slow roasted uncovered at 200 degrees for I don’t really know how long. The meat gave up it’s liquid that then evaporated in the pan leaving a caramelized delicious thick pan sauce. While the meat cooled I de-fatted the juice and then made a gravy that I poured over the meat which I had sliced when it was cold. And then I slow roasted it again at 200 degrees for another, I am not sure how long, maybe 2 hours.

It was fabulous. I don’t know if it was the pork or the method but I didn’t taste any garlic, onions, oregano, and certainly not cilantro. It was delicious but it was roast pork delicious not pork pernil delicious. Served with tortillas and some sides…I’ll get to that.