Anne Had Me At Kale Chips, But A Different Recipe Stood Out Plus Other Things To Consider Including One-Sided Fish Cooking

Secrets of a Restaurant Chef with Anne Burrell

Israeli Couscous with Celery, Scallions and Cranberries

Crispy Tuscan Kale

Seared Cod with Blood Orange Glaze

Blood Orange and Red Onion Salad

No excuses for being away, just enjoying things and I wanted to get these pictures right…Weren’t we talking about kale recently? I was so sure that this kale recipe of Anne’s was going to be the star of this show, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Seared cod does not sound that exciting, but Anne added a blood orange glaze, which completely livened it up.

Anne cuts the cod into 6 oz. portions and puts it on a baking tray. She says you can use haddock too, which is also “mild and delightful”. She covers the fish loosely and puts it back in the fridge to dry out. (That’s also a good idea for a whole chicken or chicken pieces with the skin. Season them, put them in whatever dish you’re cooking them in and then back in the fridge, uncovered, for about 4 hours. The skin will dry out and come out crisper after roasting. Folks do that with turkeys too. I don't want my raw turkey butting up against other stuff in the fridge, but a chicken is easier to control.)

Anne takes Tuscan kale out of the fridge and says it seems to be all the rage and she’s noticing it everywhere she goes. Me too! She cuts off the tough stems at the bottom and preheats the oven to 250°F. She coats the kale with olive oil, salt and chili peppers and places it in one layer on a baking tray. The kale gets baked for 30 to 35 minutes.

For the couscous salad, Anne cooks the couscous in super salty water and flavors it with a garlic clove and big slices of blood orange zest. One secret she gives us from the restaurant is to use everything around the kitchen to flavor things. A bay leaf goes in too with the smashed garlic clove. Anne cooks the couscous in a big pot of salted water and then she’ll drain it. That makes sense because couscous is actually a type of pasta, but I don't cook mine that way.

I just think that if I don't have to waste the time and energy bringing a big pot of water to the boil, why should I? Plus the directions on the container say to cook it in a smaller amount of water and not drain it, so I go with that. The only benefit I can think of for using more water is that the couscous comes out as more separate grains and is perhaps more suitable for a salad. But  Israeli (or pearled) couscous can be cooked either way.

Anne supremes blood oranges and grapefruits for the Blood Orange and Red Onion Salad during a break, which is simply to cut the sections of citrus fruits away from the pith and membranes.

She chops one really hot bird’s eye chili to add to the citrus with some red onions. She says the kale chips smell delicious.

Dried cranberries, sliced scallions, celery and garlic get marinated in white wine vinegar for the couscous dish.

Earlier, Anne talks about the celery almost being like a ceviche and getting “cooked” in vinegar. That’s so interesting. I’m totally in love with shallots in white wine vinegar, which become “pickled shallots”, so I guess this might be similar. I’m not as big a fan of celery as Anne is, though. I like the crunch, but I don’t love it when it’s bitter.

Now it’s “cod time”. Anne gets her oil smoking hot and she seasons the cod with Kosher salt. Incidentally, Anne lists her three favorite pieces of kitchen equipment. Guess what they are. I’ll give you a moment…

• Fish spatula
• Wooden spoon
• Food Mill

I love all those things, but they’re not my top three. Mine are:

• A Microplaner
• A Chef’s Knife
• Every single one of my Strainers and Colanders. (I have ten and I use each one for something different. It’s funny that a friend was recently talking about downsizing and I was thinking about how thrilled I was to be able to have a different strainer for each and every job. And I’m not even including my slotted and strainer spoons!)

Anne adds the cod to the oil and does not move it. She says it will unstick itself when it’s cooked.

Anne drains the couscous and takes out the bay leaves and orange zest and adds it to the celery mixture. She adds her “big fat finishing oil” to the couscous and to the citrus salad too.

Anne is moving a mile a minute now to get everything done. She takes out the kale chips and crunches down on one piece. Loverly.

I like that Anne kept the kale in big pieces, so they come out of the oven as these big bouquets of crispy greens on stems that you eat like cotton candy. The hard part is getting the flavoring (vinegar, salt) on. She makes a valiant attempt to season it before cooking by tossing them in a big bowl.

The problem with fresh kale is that the leaves are virtually waterproof. It’s like trying to season something wrapped in plastic. Dry stuff just bounces off and wet things run off. So Anne does the best she can, and presumably the kale holds on to enough of the ingredients to actually flavor it.

Anne puts the cod on a rack over a baking pan and finishes the cooking in a low and slow oven. Here's something noteworthy - Anne only cooks one side of the fish in the sauté pan. She gets the bottom nice and browned and then places it, cooked side up (the side you'll see), on the rack.

When you're broiling or sautéing fish, you really only have to do one side. You're only cooking the fish to get it warm, perhaps brown it for its looks and change the texture. It doesn't really matter if both sides hit the heat. (Even with chicken, I concentrate on getting really good color on one side and then I may let things slide a bit on the second, as long as it's cooked through.)

She gets rid of the oil in the fish pan and adds some blood orange juice and chopped blood orange supremes.



She adds parsley to the couscous salad. I’m getting a little lost about which dish is which.

But, wait, I have a problem with her cutting up the blood orange supremes. Why would you go to all the trouble of cutting away their pith and peel to reveal their singular segmented shape only to chop them up and boil them away? No, add the juice to the sauce, but use the supremes as a garnish, where you can see AND taste their beauty.

Anne adds vinegar and sugar to the blood orange reduction. Oh, that’s in the wiped-out fish pan and that will go over the fish at the end. The fish comes out of the oven and Anne plates it with the couscous salad. The dried cranberries are “a lovely punctuation”. She likes the champagne vinegar in the salad. As Anne tastes everything, she says it’s all ”happy stuff”. I love the blood orange glaze. It makes her taste buds “want to dance”. Mine too.

This was an absolutely delightful fish dish and you can lighten it up even more by poaching the fish in some water and wine, instead of sautéing it. It’s all about the blood orange glaze. Don’t have any blood oranges? Use navels and ruby red grapefruit, either together or singly. Or use divine clementines, which make delicious juice and an even more delicious sauce.

I also liked the couscous salad - as a base for the fish...AND on its own.

What’s The Difference Between Pot Roast And Beef Stew AND When Is A Beef Stew A Boeuf Bourguignon?

Secrets of a Restaurant Chef with Anne Burrell

Secret to Pot Roast

Pot Roast

Parsnip Potato Purée

I was watching Anne rock out a pot roast last weekend and she got me thinking about those very important issues.

Let's answer the second question - When is a Beef Stew a Boeuf Bourguignon? - first. A Boeuf Bourguignon is a TYPE of beef stew, typically made with a bottle of red wine (and a few other standard elements - pearl onions and bacon lardons). But what does a pot roast have to do with that?

WELL, (I feel like rubbing my hands together with glee, there’s so much fun stuff to talk about) both dishes – pot roasts and beef stews – feature a long slow braising of the meat after it’s been seared. And that’s the meat of the matter.

Of course, with a pot roast, the meat is cooked in one piece, and with a stew, it’s cut into cubes. There are also infinite variations on whether you marinate or not marinate the meat, what you add in terms of flavorings and vegetables and how you thicken the sauce (if you even do).

Let’s see how Anne does her pot roast and how that method might apply to a beef stew. She shows her technical virtuosity in the first few minutes of Secrets of a Restaurant Chef as she wrastles with her pot roast in the kitchen of her restaurant.

Back in her “home” kitchen, Anne tells us to start with a chuck roast. She says it’s a tough piece of meat, because it’s from the front shoulder which gets a lot of use. Chuck is also great to use in a beef stew (but we’ll talk about stew in a minute.). Anne tells us to cook the pot roast “low and slow”. She ties up the meat to keep it “tight and firm” , which makes for better slicing later on. Hmmm. I have NEVER done that. Great idea.

Anne heats up oil ”because browned food tastes good”. She adds the well-seasoned meat to the pan with a big sizzle. (I love that she washes her hands A LOT). Then she talks about having a good mis en place. Celery, thyme and onions get readied to be added to the pan. She turns the meat over to brown the second side. Then she chops (A LOT) of garlic, but she doesn’t remove the center stem. >:-(

Anne adds a bit of new oil to the pan and adds the sliced celery and onions with a bit of salt. (Usually, you add salt to release moisture from the vegetables. You often want them soft before you start browning, so you get the maximum sweetness out of them. Here, however, we're not concerned with getting them completely soft before they start to brown.)

Next Anne adds garlic and her ”super-secret flavor weapons” - bay leaves, star anise, red wine vinegar (instead of wine) and tomato paste. She likes the brightness that the vinegar adds to the taste of the pot roast. Then she adds orange zest. Oh, don’t forget the thyme bundle.

She adds chicken stock and salt, which “makes everybody taste better”. Don’t you just love her Anne-isms? She brings the entire thing to the boil and then adds back in the meat. The whole thing goes into a 350°F. oven. After one hour, she’ll turn it over and will add more liquid if she has to.

Anne also is going to add butternut squash and Jerusalem artichokes AND dried figs. (I have certainly added prunes, but never figs OR Jerusalem artichokes) Oh, Anne just said you can add prunes instead of the figs.

To go with the pot roast, Anne boils up Yukon gold potatoes (unpeeled) with peeled and chopped parsnips in “super salty water”.

After the pot roast has been cooking for 2 hours, Anne takes it out of the liquid for second and does some “QC” or quality control and tastes the liquid for seasoning. She loves it. She stirs in the squash, Jerusalem artichokes and figs, adds a bit more liquid and puts the meat back on top. It goes back in for 45 minutes more – 30 with the lid on, 15 with the lid off.

She drains the potatoes and parsnips and tests them with a FORK, not a paring knife, she reminds us. (I had never heard that before she mentioned it another time.)

Anne loves the creamy texture of the Yukon gold’s and because she’s putting them through a food mill, it was fine to leave the skins on. Smart. She singsongs, “We say thank YOU for coming” to all the fibers and skin left in the food mill. She stirs heavy cream into the puréed vegetables with cold butter. She keeps them warm in a pot in a 200°F. oven.

Anne pours herself some Pinot Noir after she pulls the pot roast out of the oven. She lets the pot roast rest and unties it. She says we don’t want to floss at the same time as we eat.

Now THIS is instructional. Anne tells us why putting a bed of puréed potatoes on the bottom of the plate is so smart. It acts as a glue that keeps the pot roast in place AND it warms up the plate and keeps everything hot. She adds a few pieces of pot roast on top with some of the braising liquid that has the vegetables in it. She tastes it and she’s VERY impressed with herself. She’s a “happy, happy” girl.

You can use Anne’s recipe as a guide for making any kind of braised beef pot roast, stew or Bourguignon. Or you could use lamb, for that matter.

Let’s talk stew. I learned how to make it as Ragoût De Boeuf, which is a general term for beef stew. The steps are almost the same as Anne’s recipe with one exception. A classic beef stew is thickened with flour or a beurre manié.

This is a classic, basic Ragoût De Boeuf recipe:

Start with a chuck roast and cut the meat into 1½ to 2 inch squares. I’m often tempted to cut them smaller to get more pieces, but don’t do that. They’ll fall apart.

Season the meat and, in a Dutch oven, fry in hot oil until browned on both sides. Remove meat to a plate. Turn down heat, add 4 carrots and 2 big onions, medium chopped, with a bit more salt, stirring to pick up the color from the bottom of the pan. (They don’t have to sweat until soft. Just get them started cooking for about 3 minutes.)

If there’s tons of fat in the pan, pour off all but about a good tablespoonful. Off the heat, stir in one tablespoon of flour. Cook over low heat for 2 minutes, stirring all the time. (The vegetables will get clumpy and lumpy from the flour.) Add 2 cups of stock (vegetable, chicken or beef) SLOWLY, stirring to get the lumps out. Add a crushed garlic clove, a tablespoon of tomato paste and a bay leaf. Bring to the boil, taste for seasoning and add the meat back in. Simmer, covered for 1½ to 2 hours in a 350°F. oven or on top of the stove. Serve over mashed potatoes.

Variations:

9 times out of time, I skip the flour AND I add more stock and a cup of red wine. The sauce is thinner than the classic ragout, but the liquid is sooo flavorful and delicious, I always want more. Also the stew thickens on standing, so the next day, it’s always thicker anyway. You can certainly make this a day ahead and just reheat before serving.

As far as Boeuf Bourguignon, even Julia says there is more than one way to make one. But her recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking is a great start (if a bit lengthy). You’ll also need her mushroom recipe and the onion recipe. (I’ll see you in 2 weeks when you’re done. But it will have been worth EVERY second.)

I don’t know who this Jess-person is over at Knopf, but here’s her attempt at Julia’s recipe. Looks good to me. Note that she says the stew really should only cook for 2 hours and not the 2½ or 3 that Julia says. Maybe that’s because our ovens are more powerful, Jess is told.

I like one variation on Boeuf Bourguignon. Instead of adding a bottle of wine to the stew as it cooks, you marinate the meat in it. That way, the chunks of beef are stained a deep burgundy before you even start browning it. Then you add the marinade to the the stew with whatever stock you were going to cook it in. (Marinating liquid is fine to cook with or make a sauce out of, as long as it’s boiled for a good three minutes. Of course, in this dish, it’s cooked for 2 hours, at least.)

So we’ve seen in Anne’s version of pot roast that she adds different vegetables after the meat has been cooking for awhile. There’s no reason that you couldn’t make her recipe as a stew. AND there’s no reason why you couldn’t use a single chuck roast in my ragout recipe and call it pot roast.

That’s when cooking becomes really fun. You learn how to handle the basic ingredients and you can move in lots of different directions. You could make a Greek stew with lamb and lots of oregano, bay leaves and lemon in the sauce. Or you could brown and braise a brisket, just like Anne does with her chuck roast and add carrots, sweet potatoes and prunes and call it Tzimmes. A pot roast cut up (before it’s cooked) is called a stew. A stew cooked in a bottle red wine with bacon and pearl onions is Boeuf Bourguignon.

Whatever you call it and however you make it, browned and braised meat is a wonderful foundation for hearty and delicious dishes in all their infinite variations.

A Veal Throwdown – Who Will Take It? Anne Or Ina? Plus The Intricacies Of Flour, Egg And Crumbing - Part One

Secrets of a Restaurant Chef with Anne Burrell

Secret to Schnitzel

Veal Chop Holstein Schnitzel

German Potato Salad

I didn’t even know that people still COOKED veal, much less ordered it in restaurants, but Ina and Anne duked it out this weekend over the best veal dish. Actually, the smackdown was in my own head, but since they were both doing veal dishes, I decided to pay close attention so I could judge who would become the veal champ.

A short preface, though…I wish they’d been cooking something other than veal, which is particularly difficult to justify eating. There’s really no great way to keep the meat super-tender without restricting the movement of the baby calf. Even if one avoids veal, non-meat eaters have a much easier time explaining the rationale of their diets, of course, than those who eat meat. This whole veal (and meat-eating) thing is a huge subject and I could go on for pages and pages, but for today, let’s just say that I don’t ever buy veal or order it.

But I am interested is seeing Anne and Ina’s different approaches to their dishes, and I have no problem seeing what I can learn and transferring it to something besides veal. (It’s a shame they’re not both doing beet salads, but this is what I have to work with today…)

Anne is up first and she’s making Holstein schnitzel. What does that mean? Veal from a Holstein cow? Nope, it means schnitzel with a fried egg on top. Really?!! I’ll eat a fried egg on top of anything, except maybe a chocolate soufflé.

We see Anne serving the schnitzel with fried egg in her restaurant as “schnitzel with a smile”. She’s also making an amazing sounding German Potato Salad.

For the schnitzel, Anne starts with boneless veal chops, which she butterflies and then pounds out between sheets of plastic wrap.

I’ll be watching to make sure she has a dedicated cutting board for the veal, which I’m sure she will. Oh, yup, she is working on a plastic cutting board placed on top of her wooden cutting board. Good.

Anne flattens the meat in an interesting way. She brings her metal mallet down on the meat and then uses a sweeping motion to carry the mallet forward.

It's good that she actually describes to us what she’s doing. She calls it “Hit and drag”. This is so interesting. She brings the mallet down into the middle of veal chop and then drags it to the outside edge. She turns the chop just a scooch and repeats the same motion all around the veal.

What this does is to flatten out the center and thin out the edges. Anne says she’s trying to get the widest surface area possible. She ends up with a wid-ish rectangle with oval edges.

Anne moves on to breading. Don’t tell me! Flour, egg and crumb. I could do that with one hand tied behind my back. And I mean I LITERALLY do that with one hand behind my back.

I use only my right hand as I’m dipping, egging and crumbing, so if there’s a need to open the fridge, kill an ant or sip a cocktail, I have a free hand.

My other self-discipline in coating protocol is to get my hand ooky only up to my second knuckle. There’s no reason your entire hand should ever be involved. (I also put a spoon in the crumbs, so if I miss a place, I can easily toss some extra crumbs over.)

Back to Anne...I wonder, if because she’s on television, she will be handling the meat with tongs. That would mean no dirty-hand issues. But I do find I get a more even coating by hand.

Oh, and don’t forget (no matter what your recipe says) to add a tablespoon of water to every egg. It makes it less gloppy. I love Anne! She just said that.

I am a bit surprised that she’s using commercial bread crumbs. Isn’t that what leftover heels of bread are for?

Anne explains that the flour makes the egg stick, and the egg makes the bread crumbs stick. And she likes to coat the veal (or anything, I suppose) the day before. It’s okay if you don’t, she says, but do let the veal to hang out in the fridge for at least an hour before frying.

Anne has a slightly different version of my one-hand rule. She uses one hand for the dry stuff – the flour and bread crumbs – and the other hand for the wet stuff – the egg. That’s smart, but I still like my one hand method, because I’m so persnickety about not touching anything, when I’ve had my hands in contact with raw flesh.

This is funny. Anne most assuredly DOES use her entire hand in the process. She pats the bread crumbs on with the palm of her hand. I must say the veal looks perfectly coated.

To cook the veal, Anne adds peanut oil (for its high smoking temperature) and butter (for its flavor and the fact that it colors the food beautifully) to a sauté pan.

She takes the schnitzel from the fridge and, ooh, there is a small contamination issue that’s making me uneasy and it is so unnecessary. After she coated it, Anne laid the breaded veal on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. BUT instead of covering it with a separate piece of parchment paper, she made the first piece double-sized and just folded it over the top to cover the food while it sat in the fridge.

THEN she uncovered it and unfolded the top back under the bottom of the baking sheet and placed it on an unused burner. What that means is that the parchment paper that touched the top of the RAW VEAL is now touching the stovetop.

While that’s less serious than if it were on a cutting board that you were using for lettuce, it still gives me the heebie-jeebies. (Is this a gift or a curse that I have for seeing potential contamination in EVERYTHING?!! If you could see the inside of my house, you’d know I’m nowhere near as painful as I sound, BUT I do take food safety seriously.)

Anyhoo, Anne continues by telling us that you never want to crowd the pan, because soggy schnitzel would be so sad after all that work.

One note about the German potato salad. Anne is quite forthright in her opinion on how to test a potato for doneness and whether you should use a fork or a paring knife. She says to definitely use a fork, which gives you a much more accurate result. Uh-oh, I usually use a skewer, which would be even worse. Does it count that it’s from Dehillerin?

Anne tells us that anytime she fries, she gets her “drying situation” all set up. (I love her.) She gets paper towels on a baking sheet ready. WAIT, I have a better idea! I use ONE paper towel on top of newspaper.

Anne says (rightly) that frying food properly is not easy. You want it crispy, without being greasy. You know your pan is at the right temperature when you add the food and there is just a little sizzle – “not too crazy”.

She fries up her first two schnitzel, then she changes the oil and butter for her second batch, so the breadcrumbs in the pan don’t get all burned. When it’s browned on both sides, she puts it on the paper towel and sprinkles over a little salt on both sides. She keeps them warm on a rack in a 200°F oven.

Anne moves on to a little sauce for the schnitzel and fried egg. She smashes a few garlic cloves and cooks them in oil. She adds a few anchovy fillets and tells us she uses that trick in the restaurant a lot to add a rich flavor to dishes. When people ask what that wonderful flavor is she tells them and they say, “Ick, anchovies!” I admit I’m guilty of sneaking in anchovies too. Only vegetarians are free from my sneaking. Anne also adds chopped capers to her sauce. (Interesting. I’ve NEVER chopped a caper.)

When we come back, Anne is frying 4 eggs in one pan. She’s brave. She’s cooking them very gently and will be serving them sunny side up. I admit I always over-easy my eggs, because of egg white-mucus concerns.

Anne adds a bit of butter to the anchovy sauce. She tastes it for seasoning. It doesn’t need salt, of course.

She serves up her German potato salad, adds a schnitzel to her plate. Then she manages to scrap out a perfect egg from that crowded pan and place it on top of the veal. (That REALLY is all about the perfect utensil. She uses a FLAT, thin, flexible spatula that can bend and get under the egg without breaking it.)

Anne tops the egg with just a bit of her caper anchovy sauce. (She also added a bit of chopped parsley at the end.)

“Warm and crispy,” she proclaims, as she takes a big taste after breaking the yolk. Anne practically snorts with delight. Her Grüner Veltliner makes her even happier. Can Ina beat this dish? Let’s see…in Part Two.

Hurrah For Harissa

This weekend, I saw Anne marinating chicken in harissa. I LOVE harissa - that super spicy condiment that is an essential go-along with couscous. Anne made her own harissa. It looked awesome. Lately, I’ve been using this handy harissa from a tube. It’s mighty hot and slightly smoky, which is just what I need from my harissa.

It got me to thinking about one of my favorite recipes - Moroccan Chicken Couscous.

This is basically a well-spiced AND spicy stew, which can be made vegetarian…or not. The couscous in the name of the recipe comes from what the stew is served over – freshly made couscous.

Moroccan Chicken Couscous (serves 6)

Printable recipe here

Don’t be fazed by the long list of ingredients. You’ll probably have most of these spices in your cupboard.

2 tbls. olive oil

8 pieces of chicken – thighs, legs or breast, skinned if desired

3 onions, thinly sliced

2 cloves garlic, crushed

½ tsp. turmeric

½ tsp. ground ginger

2 tsps. cumin

Dash of cayenne pepper

Freshly ground black pepper

2 cups tomato purée

4 cups vegetable or chicken stock OR water

2 tsps. sugar

½ tsp. saffron threads

2 cups pumpkin or butternut squash pieces, peeled and cut into ¾ inch pieces

6 carrots, peeled and cut into ¾ inch piece

3 Idaho potatoes, peeled and cut into ¾ inch pieces

2 zucchini, halved lengthwise and cut into ¾ inch slices

1 15 oz. can chickpeas, drained and rinsed well

½ cup raisins

1 cup prunes, snipped into quarters

1 box of couscous, made according to package instructions - see note below

Heat oil over medium high heat in large heavy-bottomed sauté pan, Dutch oven or stock pot. Cook chicken until browned on both sides. Remove chicken from pan and set aside.

Turn heat down to medium and add onions. Cook until soft and translucent. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Turn heat to low. Stir in turmeric, ground ginger, cumin, cayenne and black pepper and cook for two minutes.

Add tomato purée, stock or water, sugar and saffron. Bring to boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Add the chicken back into the pot with the pumpkin, carrots and potatoes and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes.

Stir in zucchini, chickpeas, raisins and prunes. Cover and simmer for 25 more minutes or until potatoes are cooked. Serve over cooked couscous with harissa.

For a vegetarian version, simply leave out the chicken and start the recipe by softening the onions in the olive oil.

Note: Use vegetable or chicken stock when making the couscous to serve with this. Also I often add a ladleful of the juicy stew itself to the liquid for the couscous, before I stir in the uncooked couscous. It adds a lot of extra flavor.

Anne Rubs Her Belly

Or should that be Anne Rubs Her PORK Belly? (That doesn’t sound that nice, though.)

Secrets of a Restaurant Chef with Anne Burrell

The Secret to Braised Pork Belly

Crispy Mustard Braised Pork Belly

Sautéed Mustard Greens

Plum Cornbread

Anne is cooking pork belly and she tells us that it’s just bacon that hasn't been smoked and cured. She’s going to give it a dry rub and cook it low and slow with sweated onions.

She’s also making a dessert of plums baked on top of cornbread, which looks inspired.

Anne takes out the raw pork belly, and, to make the point again, she says that if it were salted, cured and smoked it would be bacon. OR if it were just cured, without smoking, it would be pancetta.

That’s never a bad thing to be reminded of. You want to be prepared when someone asks, “What’s the difference between pancetta and bacon?” Now you’ll be ready.

Anne makes a dry rub with 2 tablespoons each of dried mustard powder, mustard seeds and salt. She adds a pinch of crushed red pepper some grated lemon zest.

Anne reminds us that pork belly is a very fatty cut of meat and there are other choices if you want something leaner. “Head for a pork chop,” she advises.

She adds a couple of garlic cloves into the rub and a tablespoon or so of sugar and a little chopped rosemary too. She rubs that all on both sides of the pork belly. She really gets it on there. After washing her hands, Anne covers the pork with plastic wrap. She tells us she will leave it in the fridge for 24 hours and then cook it for hours.

Anne is going to “rock out” some plums to go on top of cornbread. Will this be dessert or a side dish with the pork, I wonder? She slices up the plums and adds a little sugar. The correct term for what she’s doing is macerating, she says.

Oh good, she uses the same cornmeal as I do. Anne mixes together one cup of cornmeal, ¾ cup of flour, 2 teaspoons of baking powder and a pinch of salt. (The Indian guy says to use the same amount of cornmeal and flour.)

She cracks two eggs (good, NOT on the counter) and mixes them with milk. 3 tablespoons of honey (from a bear - ugh) go in with a little vanilla and she whisks that all together. Interesting. She must be making a dessert, she’s making the mixture so dessert-y.

Anne makes a well in the dry ingredients and adds the wet stuff and, quickly and gently, whisks it in.

Actually, she gives a few more powerful stirs than I would, but probably her gentlest stirs pack more punch than my most forthright ones.

The melted butter goes in right at the end, so it doesn’t harden up again, she says. Hmm, I have NEVER done it that way, but I will from now on.

She pours the cornbread mixture into a square buttered baking dish. The macerated plums go on top and it bakes for 25 to 30 minutes at 350°F. I like that Anne nudges us to check it part way through and maybe give it a little rotation. In fact, she says to check ANYTHING part way through and not just to forget about it.

Anne now wants us to think about our flavor base. Today, that’s comprised of garlic, celery, fennel and onion. She slices the fennel in half and cuts out the core. She juliennes it and cuts the onion in the same size.

She sweats all the vegetables and then adds garlic, salt and some white wine and bay leaves. She reduces the wine by half as she keeps talking about her belly. Oh, Anne, only you! She adds 2 cups of “gorgeous rich brown chicken stock”.

Do you know how she got that stock so brown? There are two tricks - one is easy and one is not. The harder way is to brown the bones; the easy-peasy way is to add onion skins to the stock. I NEVER skip that step. I ALWAYS add onion skins when I’m making stock. And, frankly, I have never browned bones for chicken stock, only for beef.

(HERE is an absolutely fantastic rundown on how to make stocks of any stripe.)

Anne brings the liquid to a simmer. She nestles the pork belly into the braising liquid, always washing her hands between steps. She covers the baking dish and cooks it low and slow at 325°F for SIX hours. Meanwhile, her cornbread comes out. It looks really gorgeous.

Anne is serving the pork belly with mustard greens…to give a nod to all the mustard in the rub. She removes the bottom stems of the greens and washes them and cuts them into 2 inch lengths. They go into a pan with olive oil, garlic and crushed red pepper.

After the pork belly is cooked, she puts it under the broiler for the last few minutes to get it brown and crispy. Another way to deal with that is to sear the pork after it’s been cooked and portioned out. I like Anne’s way.

Anne greets her pork belly warmly as she takes it out of the oven. I like chefs who are civil to their food. Remember on Top Chef Just Desserts when Dannielle (the judge) said she could almost taste the resentment in Heather C's cookie?

Anne gives the mustard greens a stir and covers them again. She cuts the pork belly into 6 portions, although the recipe does say it serves 6 to 8…more like 10 to 12, but who’s counting?

Anne adds some vinegar to the greens right at the end. Then she plates them and places the pork belly on top. She spoons over the vegetables from the bottom of the braising pan. She tastes it. It’s “hugely flavored,” she proclaims.

She loves it with the greens which are tangy from the vinegar. That one bite looks like the correct sized portion. Then Anne cuts a piece of plummy cornbread and tops it with vanilla ice cream. It’s a sweet, delicious, perfect finish to her pork belly dinner.

Anne definitely makes me want to cook this rich and hearty meal, but I think I would skip the cornbread dessert and have a brisk (5 mile) walk afterwards. Oh, who am I kidding? I’d walk briskly all right, directly into the kitchen to get a piece of that plum cornbread.

Anne Exclaims Over Her (Duck) Breasts; Tyler’s Pears Kiss The Baking Sheet And I’m Convinced That (Part Of) Garlic Is Evil

The Food Network’s ratings really only started taking off when they introduced competition shows into primetime; "stand-and-stir" demonstrations were sidelined in favor of competition shows. I prefer to watch chefs cook, but it's okay, because I’m happy not to have Must-See Food TV on weeknight evenings.

And as much as I complain about the Food Network, there is still some very credible teaching that goes on. I saved a couple of not-so-recent shows of Tyler’s and Anne’s on cooking duck breasts. I wanted to see if there really was more than one way to sear a duck breast.

Anne Burrell's Duck Breast with Clementines and Tuscan Kale

Tyler Florence's Duck Breasts with Roasted Pears and Cold Sesame Noodles

I started with Anne. I loved it when she said (repeatedly), as she was scoring the fat, “We go down TO the flesh, but not THROUGH the flesh.”

That’s a great way to remember that you have to cut through ALL the fat, but stop when you get to the meat – TO the flesh, but not THROUGH the flesh.

Anne SHOULD watch what she says, though. She exclaimed, “I have HUGE breasts here.” And that wasn’t her only reference to breasts that sounded as if she were bragging.

Now this is interesting. Anne starts the duck breasts in a COLD pan and cooks them LOW AND SLOW. That way she renders all the fat without an explosion of fat globules covering the stove, chef and floor. I love that!

I adore duck breasts, but I usually have to gear myself up for the clean up, so cooking them without a lot of high-heat spattering appeals to me. Anne isn’t kidding when she says LOW and SLOW. Her method has the duck on the stove for 30(!) minutes and THEN in the oven for about 8.

Anne makes sure the fat side is browned after the low and slow part. Then she turns it over and quickly browns the flesh side before it goes into the oven.

Her duck came out beautifully rare, so she obviously wasn’t kidding about the LOW part. And it had a beautiful color. “Brown food tastes good,” she chirps. More about her sauce later.

On to Tyler’s duck searing…First, he’s getting little seckel pears ready to roast as an accompaniment. He rubs the pears around in sesame oil and salt and pepper and puts them cut side down to cook. He says they’ll get great color from “KISSING” the baking sheet. Don’t talk like that, Tyler. It gets me distracted, although this IS a show about what to cook on a first date.

Then he moves on to a sesame sauce for noodles, which will be served with the duck. Talking about the ginger, Tyler says you don’t have to cut it super-sexy, because it’s going to be puréed anyway. BTW, he peels his ginger with a teaspoon. Excellent trick.

For the sauce, Tyler smashes and peels the garlic cloves and they go into oil.

I’m sorry, but I would have to do my garlic thingie of removing the center, often-green stem from the garlic clove. I just can’t help myself. I’m convinced that center stem is evil and has to be removed to ensure there are no ill effects from garlic. It IS a pain, I know, but I never skip this step anymore.

This next step in the duck preparation is important, although Tyler doesn’t make a big deal of it. Tyler scores the skin in one direction. (His scoring is much more delicate than Anne’s.) THEN instead of making the second row of scoring at a 90 degree angle, he does it at a 45 degree angle. This makes diamond shapes instead of little squares. SO much more attractive.

I also use that rule for any kind of lattice, whether I’m piping a whipped cream lattice or weaving a pastry lattice on top of a pie. The first line goes on straight across. The second one goes on at a 45 degree angle. This is even nice when you’re slicing brownies.

Before Tyler even takes the duck breasts out of the fridge, he turns his pan on to medium low. (Anne’s pan was cold, remember.) He looks at the yellowish fat on the breasts and tells us that this indicates that they’ve had a good grain diet.

Tyler also says to cook them “low and slow”, but his “low and slow” duck will only be in the pan for half the time of Anne’s “low and slow” - about 15 minutes.

Here's another good point from Tyler. He pours out the oil that’s building up in the pan, because he doesn’t want the duck to boil and he wants it to have really good contact with the pan.

Take my advice that BEFORE you pour out the fat, take out the duck first or you may have splashing duck breasts skidding across your stove (or floor). Just dedicate a dinner plate to setting the duck breasts on while you pour out the fat.

I’m leaving Tyler now, because although his sesame sauce sounds good, I’m going back to Anne’s Clementine Sauce recipe, because I have a boatload of clementines.

Three more points:

1. Clementines make the most awesome juice. Really, really terrific. Squeeze extra to have as a treat. SO GOOD.
2. I didn't have the patience to do Anne’s 30 minute “low and slow” cooking, but I didn’t cook them as quite as fast as Tyler did. I took the middle road.
3. I skipped Tyler’s noodles. It looks like a great recipe, but I HAVE to have Forbidden Rice when I cook duck breasts. To me, it’s a match made in heaven. To go with the rice, I like to make much more sauce than Anne does. Anne’s sauce is more of an accent to the dish than something to be served separately.

Seared Duck With Clementine Sauce (serves 4)
Printable recipe here

(With a shoutout to Anne Burrell because I love her idea of using clementines and to Tyler Florence, because he’s so cute and cooks duck so well)

4 duck breasts

1 cup fresh clementine juice

4 clementines, sectioned and each section cut into half

2 cups stock

1 tsp. dried thyme

2 tbls. cream

For garnish:

2 clementines, peeled with a knive and sectioned without pith

Score the duck breasts. Place them in a cold sauté pan. Turn heat to low. After 5 minutes, turn up to medium low and continue cooking for another 5 minutes. Whenever the fat builds up in the pan, remove the duck to a plate and pour out the fat. Return duck to pan.

Raise heat to medium and cook until fat side is nice and browned, maybe another 4 minutes. Turn over and cook on medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes until browned. Remove from pan and cover with foil. Let rest for 5 to 10 minutes.

Deglaze pan over high heat with clementine juice. Boil for a minute, then add clementines, stock and thyme. Bring to boil and simmer gently for 4 minutes. Add cream, if using. Bring to boil and taste for seasoning. If not adding cream, boil a bit more to thicken slightly. Taste clementine sauce for seasoning.

Slice duck. Spoon over a bit of the sauce. Garnish with clementine sections. Serve with Forbidden Rice and remaining clementine sauce.

Note: Here’s another duck recipe that I love with (ah!) fresh cherries.