What's Cooking (Take Three!)

You mean you have to take out the paper bag with organ meats? I thought I was cooking them en papillote.

The chicken came out great. I neglected to mention that I had it thawing for 2 days in the fridge, but it was still partially frozen a few hours before I was going to roast it. So I did the water immersion trick and got it pretty much thawed.

But to make sure I wasn't going to undercook it in the center, I used one of my trusty Space Age Cooking Pins, a fluid heat transfer pipe invented by a Sandia Labs scientist. I bought a couple back in the 70s. You can find vintage examples online. They work well, and I like mine. Stainless steel, no moving parts--what's not to like?

Re the pin... Very cool. Never seen one before but have now Googled it up. Kinda like the Mr. Science version of sticking a few forks in it.

I’m going to document them and save seeds and see if they come true nExt season,

As I understand, there two types of toms regarding propagation: those that produce fruits like their parent and those that don't. The first sort are the old fashioned - or descendants from long time kitchen gardens - given names like heritage or heirloom. The second are the commercial sort produced from a cross of two varieties known only to the seed merchant, and the only way to get a identical crop each year is to keep buying the seed. The excellent variety 'Sungold' is one such.

However, the first generation of seeds from the varieties will, in my experience, be so close to the original as to be indistinguishable. I have grown Sungold from seed I've saved and the fruits were just as good.

I also grow seeds taken from commercial growers toms. One from a beef type tomato I bought in Avignon in 2015 while on a Viking Rhone River cruise, the other is 'Angelle' a grape sized plum tomato from our local supermarket that Jo is fond of.

What's interesting about Angelle is it had large trusses, each truss whose tomatoes all ripen around the same time; ideal harvesting for a commercial grower.

I took photos of my original 'Avignon' tomato hoping to find which variety it was but without success. The main difference seems yo be that the original had yellow streaks from the stalk, its offspring don't. Last year was particularly successful with many large toms. One year I got only two, another year I lost some when the weight of the toms broke its supporting truss.

I agree with Peter. If you have heirloom (non-hybridized) tomatoes, they will grow true as you collect the seeds from successive generations.

But if you have hybridized tomatoes and collect seeds from successive generations the phenotype starts drifting after the second generation (the tomatoes seeds start resembling their crossed parents). To get around that problem, at least temporarily, collect as many seeds as you can from the first generation and use them until you run out.

Some years ago, I let some hybridized marigolds reseed themselves. After a few generations, they looked nothing like marigolds and were downright ugly looking weeds.

[Jenise]

With you there, Jeff!

Speaking of chicken, tonight I'm making dorowat. Chicken thighs braised in berbere to be eaten by hand with Trader Joe's most excellent flour tortillas (worth a special trip, regular supermarket tortillas don't even come close) with a crunchy cold pickle of kohlrabi batonets, radishes and onion seed.)

Had a simple, but delish breakfast this morning: Thick-cut bacon and eggs and slabs of fried mush with maple syrup. Luckily I thought what the menu was going to be late the previous night so I could prepare the mush.

[Jenise]

Love hearing it called mush, grew up with my grammy's calling it that. I haven't made it in years, which is completely opposite proportionally to my high esteem for it. Gonna make some tonight myself, doggone it!

I come from Pennsylvania Dutch country. Over the years, I've enjoyed inviting people for a breakfast of eggs, scrapple, and fried mush just to see the look on their faces. Of course, if I called it eggs, loose pork sausage, and sauteed polenta the reaction would have different. FWIW, I make my own scrapple.

BTW, I used 1:1 regular cornmeal and whole grain coarser cornmeal.

I made polenta tonight, too! Added oyster mushrooms and some stinky Scharfer Max cheese. It was hardly mush, though, because it seized up pretty firm as soon as it cooled off even a little.

Kohlrabi? Really? An alien vegetable if I ever saw one. (Although, responsible for some shock and awe at Miele: I once visited a German wine geek's house for dinner and he was showing me his Miele microwave... it had not one, not two, not three, but four pre-sets for cooking kohlrabi. That's German (over-)engineering!)

[Jenise]

Larry, I blend them too, I love the heightened texture.

Jeff, that's NUTS. I usually don't see it here except in summer, but oddly the strange little Asian market I went to had a box of kohlrabi's, so I bought one. Not sure what happens to them in Asian cooking. In fact, wondering that caused me to save the kohlrabi and use cucumbers instead. My Hungarian stepmother used to cream them, and season them with ground coriander--they were very good.

Jeff, by time my cornmeal mush is cooked about 15 minutes, it's very thick and will keep its shape. I scoop it into a bread pan and refrigerate it overnight so I can slice it into slabs to fry in oil and butter. I have about half a pan left for another time.

This morning we went out for breakfast at my favorite restaurant for huevos rancheros w/red sauce, hash browns, whole beans, and a sopapilla with real honey and a side of chips with both homemade green and red salsas (and not touristy mild--yay!). Better half had a huge breakfast burrito with green chile (1/2 left over for her dinner tonight). I'll be having the leftover Marcella lemon roast chicken.

Jeff, by time my cornmeal mush is cooked about 15 minutes, it's very thick and will keep its shape. I scoop it into a bread pan and refrigerate it overnight so I can slice it into slabs to fry in oil and butter.

Ooh, now yer talkin'! So... just cornmeal and water, boil for 15 minutes, slabify, then sautee till golden?

Regarding dorowat, I'll have to try the Trader Joe's flour tortillas as an injeera substitute. I've been using steamed lavash.

Tonight I'm making Paul Prudhomme's chicken and andouille gumbo.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Tonight I'm doing pasta with a white bean/onion/garlic/fresh herb sauce and seared scallops.

Tortilla soup with chicken, tossed salad and various leftovers.

Jeff, by time my cornmeal mush is cooked about 15 minutes, it's very thick and will keep its shape. I scoop it into a bread pan and refrigerate it overnight so I can slice it into slabs to fry in oil and butter.

Ooh, now yer talkin'! So... just cornmeal and water, boil for 15 minutes, slabify, then sautee till golden?

And I just read a recipe today that used a heavy cornmeal mush as the basis for pizza: make a really dense polenta, cook for 15 minutes, spread on a baking sheet, refrigerate, then bake off till golden (and top it).

I think I have to make fried slices of undercooked polenta.

[Jenise]

Dinner tonight: fresh corn soup with seared shitakes and scallions, salad of green tomato slices with fresh black olive-raisin vinaigrette, walnuts and watercress.

For Jeff: Here's a recipe I've used for 50 years.

Fried cornmeal mush

Bring to boil 2-3/4 cups water. Combine 1 cup cornmeal, 1 cup cold water, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar; gradually add to boiling water, stirring constantly. Cook till thick, stirring frequently. Cover, cook over LOW heat 10-15 min. Pour into 7x3x2 loaf pan. (I spray it w/oil first (opt.)) Cool several hrs or overnight in fridge.
Turn out; cut into 1/2" slices. Fry slowly in hot fat, turning once. When browned, serve w/ butter, syrup.

Simple, but yummy.

Peter and Larry, thanks for your feedback re my tomato project, not sure how long I will remain motivated but I’ll try to follow up the more interesting ones that show up.

Went to the local community lunch yesterday so last night’s dinner was simple, grilled bread spread with roasted garlic and topped with fresh sliced tomato from the garden, salt and pepper and a drizzle of EVOO. On a bit of a garlic jag after along table lunch last weekend associated with the local garlic festival.

For Jeff: Here's a recipe I've used for 50 years.

Thank you! I like the idea of butter and syrup but I could see going a savory direction with this, too. I bet it's fine as a trencher for chili or sloppy joe. Add a handful of chopped scallion or chive or fennel seed. Maybe bury two hard-boiled eggs in the loaf pan, should slice up interestingly! I guess if I can put an egg in it then I can put bacon in it, too. Cheese, of course. Pimiento.

[Jenise]

Oh yes, it's great thing for savory. Fried mush tastes like a fresh Frito. Add herbs and place the mush under slices of roast lamb or pork, for instance. You can even brown them off in a skillet and then reheat a large quantity on a cookie sheet for a dinner party. I don't add sugar like Larry does, but I use 25% milk instead of all water for enhanced browning in the skillet.

[Jenise]

Dinner last night was outstanding.

Both courses were new (to me) recipes from an old book, Barbara Lynch's Stir. Barbara is a well-known chef in the Boston area. Our first course involved her recipe for black olive vinaigrette, where an equal quantity of oil-cured black olives (aka Nicoise) and golden raisins are lightly chopped with shallot and bonded with lemon juice, sherry vinegar and a neutral oil. I thought the combination sounded weird (I don't like raisins much), but therein lies the attraction: if a chef like Barbara Lynch says it rocks, it probably will, and the more surprising the better. And it did: it was gorgeous spooned over thick slices of heirloom tomatoes and topped with a bit of shaved radicchio and finished with a few pine nuts. I served a very restrained, claret-style Gary Farrell zin with dinner and the match with the chunk sweet/salty extremes in the dressing was an unexpected success. The fresh corn soup (also a Barbara Lynch recipe) that followed topped with garlicky shitake mushroom garnish took the old concept of corn chowder to an elegant place I've not experienced before. Continuing the initial concept of sweet/earthy staked out by the salad, it was a logical progression and also a fine match with the wine.

Tonight I'm doing a simple old favorite in a new way. I have a penchant, a very VERY strong penchant, for meat+rice dishes wherein meat, ground or in chunks, cooks along with the rice to create a complete dish. I use a little extra liquid for a slushy, almost risotto-like texture. Tonight I'm going to slip ground veal into a very Italian tomato/basil rice for pairing with a Chianti I want to try.

[Jenise]

Probably going out for breakfast today, so dinner will be salad.

Entree last night was a marinated flat iron steak cooked to perfection. Yum. It was because I found a $15 flat iron marked down to $4.75 earlier in the day. Gonna the leftover portion tonight.