Happy Valentine's Day

Amelie's Kitchen

Speaking of Amélie, there is one more way the film influenced me.

Behold, Amélie's kitchen:


Behold, some of my kitchen things:







Behold the mighty power of suggestion.

Risotto-Stuffed Chicken

The film Amélie had a tremendous effect on me. I studied abroad in Paris, so the sparkling fairy-tale world of Paris was familiar yet magical. The way Amélie ameliorated the situation of those around her made me laugh.

And Mr. Bretodeau's love of a roast chicken has had me and J roasting chickens most weekends now for years.

On a recent Saturday morning, we had the following conversation:

Husband: I'd really like to make risotto today.
Me: We're roasting a chicken. [wheels turning in head "do not want to turn down lovely risotto by hubby; also, sort of want to try something new"] Maybe we could stuff the chicken with risotto!

Done and done. J made the zucchini and pea risotto from Everyday Food, but we waited on adding all the veggies so that we could stuff the chicken with plain risotto (I imagined the green veggies getting mighty soggy in the cavity of the chicken).

Over the course of half an hour, J fried onions in butter, added the arborio rice, and cooked it while stirring constantly with cups of chicken broth and 1/2 to 1 cup of white wine.

We left it al dente because I thought it would cook more in the oven with the chicken, but it came out just as al dente as it went in - so do cook the risotto all the way before stuffing the chicken.

I rinsed and patted the 5lb chicken, stuffed it with as much risotto as would fit (possibly two cups cooked), then poured 2 tbsp melted butter over the chicken and salted and peppered it.

Then we roasted it for an hour in a 400 degree oven.

It worked out quite nicely:


See the risotto peeking out at the upper right-hand corner of the pic? This is about the only pic where the risotto coming out the cavity looks as lovely as it was instead of...a bit off color.

The risotto stuffing developed a golden and crunchy crust on the outside, and absorbed a great deal of chicken flavor. I also noticed that the chicken was incredibly succulent and I wondered if that was one of the main points of stuffing. Maybe this is standard chicken-roasting knowledge for some, but it seems that stuffing the chicken means that fewer juices escape or evaporate.

J added the peas and zucchini to the remaining risotto and we tucked in. A delicious weekend lunch for two.

Coconut Milk

I recently made my favorite curry again (with chicken and sweet potato - this is my favorite iteration). The dish is so unbelievably scrumptious that I started to get suspicious. The coconut milk is the cornerstone of the recipe, and I said to my husband, "Coconut milk must be bad for you."

"Oh yes," he said. "Very bad."

Wait! I know that coconut milk is fatty. But does that mean it's unhealthy? After all, avocados are fatty (we know how I feel about those) and their fat is lauded.

Must I relegate my healthy, tasty, pseudo-vegetarian curry full of fruits and vegetables to the "only-make-it-occasionally" category of meals (along with my favorite cream- and cheese-based meals like pasta carbonara, alfredo, macaroni and cheese)?

I'm so comfortable now with making curries that it's a dish I can riff on. I love dishes I can make my own. I recently made white fish coconut curry, again applauding myself for healthy deliciousness, and was planning on incorporating coconut milk into my next Asian-inspired soup filled with spinach and tofu and sprouts.

But if adding a can of coconut milk is akin to dropping a stick of butter into my clear healthy soup, why bother?

Well.

This article about coconut oil is fascinating. Again, yes, it is a very very fatty food. It is full of saturated fats. But not all saturates are created equal. The article says the molecular structure of coconut fats renders them easily converted to energy instead of stored in the body.

In addition, there may be tremendous health benefits to coconut oil due to its high content of lauric acid, contributing to its antiviral, antimicrobial, etc. properties (being explored in the fight against AIDS).

Finally, and here's the rub, the reasons we fear coconut fats may be linked to the powers of the corn and soy lobbies (also cited in this article). I know it's all internet research and I must take it with a grain of salt, but the ubiquity of corn and corn-based products in our diets does speak to the power of the corn lobby.

And if there is truth to that point, then I can believe the whole article and coconut, therefore, is healthy!

What?

Okay. Suffice it to say I feel armed with enough (selective) evidence in favor of coconut oils and fats that I'm going to keep using it regularly in my cooking. It has been used in cooking for an awfully long time - much longer than, say, hydrogenated oils.

Carrot-Ginger Soup with Martha

Once I start talking about Martha Stewart's Cooking School, I'm not going to be able to stop. It's everything I had hoped it would be. Yes, it's teaching me things I've never known how to do (more to come on that in later posts), but more importantly, it's been helping me improve things I have been doing for years.

My recent carrot soup provides a perfect a case-in-point.

I have been making vegetable soup since college, when I bought a $10 enamel pot from the dollar store and a $10 hand-held blender from CVS. I would boil up vegetables, drop in the Knorr cubes, and whir the white wand in the veggies when they had lost all shape. The results were tasty enough to repeat again and again, but my soups were always very very thick, like baby food. With lumps. You could pile the soup into your bowl, and no amount of added water / broth made it any smoother.

For a while, I attributed the lumpiness of my soup to the handheld wand. But when I got a real counter top blender, my soups still ended up thick and lumpy even as I followed recipes to a tee. No more could I just throw together a pile of vegetables as I had to get to the bottom of this. I now measured leeks by the cupful, checked the weight of added potatoes or zucchini, added exactly the right amount of broth, and still the results were frustrating.

Then I opened up Martha. This is what leapt out at me: "Pass [pureed] soup through a fine sieve into a clean pot."

Why have I never read that anywhere before?? It's so obvious - that's when you know it is good advice - but it was also completely revelatory to me.

I had to try it immediately. Luckily, I had inspiration in the shape of a brand new home-made loaf of bread (thank you, J:):

I used Martha's general quantities - 1 onion, 1 inch ginger, 1 lb carrots, 4 cups of broth, and this is what I ended up with:

1. Fry 2 shallots and 1 inch of fresh ginger in 1 tablespoon of butter (I think this may be "sweating" them, but still not sure what that really means) until softened.

2. Add 1 pound of fresh washed chopped carrots and four cups of chicken broth.

3. Boil 15-20 minutes until carrots have softened, and then blend in batches.

4. Pass puree through sieve!


At this point, though, something was missing. Carrots can be very watery in flavor, ergo the soup was dull and watery-tasting. I added a pinch of cayenne which certainly added some excitement, but it didn't pull everything together.

I looked in my cupboard and saw the jar of molasses I had bought recently to make ginger cookies. I added 1 teaspoon, and the earthy heft of flavor and dash of sweetness were just the ticket!

I served with a dollop of sour cream, parsley, and some sumac sprinkled on top. But the cayenne and molasses were really the key here - definitely try this sometime.

The Joy of Avocados

I cannot get enough of avocados. I consider them the chocolate of the vegetable (oh! I mean fruit) world, not only because of the enjoyment I derive from both foods, but because their textures and flavors suggest each other. Apparently, I'm not the only one who sees a connection between chocolate and avocados, as I just found a recipe for a chocolate-avocado shake and avocado-chocolate truffles.

As I child, I disliked them immensely, but somewhere along the way, my taste buds changed, and I came to appreciate the subtlety of the flavor, and I adore the texture.

As previously documented, I enjoy them halved and pitted, filling the divot with lemon juice and olive oil and topping it off with a sprinkling of salt.

We now know that "green gold" is rife with health benefits.

I'm starting to witness some beauty benefits too.

I read an amusing anecdote a few months ago that dogs that live on avocado farms have bright and shiny coats. I am now finding that my hair, which is thin and used to break all the time even though I never ever styled it, now survives the most robust styling - blowdrying on hot followed by the flat iron - with nary a split end in sight. I'm starting to think it might be the four avocados I eat per week.

And they say that the fat in avocados contributes to elasticity of the skin.

Eating avocadoes as the fountain of youth? I'm all for it.

Scrumptious Banana Bread

The sight of overripe bananas is a joyous one for me. I don't like to eat them plain when they're overripe, so they have essentially transitioned from food item of virtue to food item of sin. For when they are brown, soft, and mottled, they are perfect for mashing up and putting into some sort of batter.

This recipe comes from a Neiman Marcus cookbook. As I write this, I wonder why I have never checked said cookbook for that notorious Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookie recipe.

When I asked my mum to send me the banana bread recipe contained therein, this is what she sent me:

3 overripe bananas

1 cup sugar

1 egg at room temp.

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 cup melted butter

1tsp. baking soda

1tsp. salt

Without directions.

It's rather liberating to face a list of ingredients without any of the fussing over what gets sifted when and how liquids must be combined before dry ingredients are added a little bit at a time.

So I added all of the ingredients together in the order they are listed.

And mixed.

I always like to add a large grain sugar to the top of cakey loaves and muffins for added crunch. My favorite is turbinado, as I've found that demerera and muscovado have a tendency to soften up during baking, becoming less crunchy.


Bake in a preheated 325-degree oven for 60-80 minutes until golden-brown and caramelized.



Check out those glorious sugar crystals. Enjoy.