'Twas The Night Before Christmas...

Well, actually, this dinner was from the night OF Christmas. There were six of us and we started with this very easily made chowder:
 


Corn and Clam Chowder (serves 6)

2 tsps. unsalted butter
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, diced
2 cans chopped clams
clam juice, stock and/or milk or cream
1 medium Idaho potato, peeled and diced
1 cup corn, fresh, frozen or canned
optional: 6 sea scallops or 2 handfuls of bay scallops
Melt butter in medium or large saucepan. Add onion and carrots and cook until completely softened.
Drain juice from canned clams into measuring pitcher. Set clams aside. Add clam juice, stock, milk and/or cream to make 4 cups of liquid. (To the canned clam juice, I usually add one bottle of clam juice, about a cup of vegetable stock and then milk and bit of cream until it measures 4 cups.)

Stir in diced potato. Bring to the boil. Lower heat, cover and simmer 15 minutes. (You may make the soup up to this point a day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)

Add clams, corn and scallops, if using. Simmer for 4 to 5 minutes, just until scallops are cooked and soup is hot. Serve, making sure each serving has one sea scallop or 5 or 6 bay scallops.
For the main course, I used Chef Brad Steelman's (from The River Café) excellent risotto recipe as a stuffing for chicken breasts. I made the risotto the day before.


The next day I spooned it onto thin cut chicken breasts and rolled and tied them up.

Then I seared them and cooked them in a well preheated 400°F. oven for 20 minutes.

There's only one problem...they're so good that you have to make 2 to 3 rolls per person.
While they were in the oven, I deglazed the pan with white wine. I added stock and cream and bit of Dijon and made a nice little sauce. I served the chicken on top of the rest of the risotto, which I had reheated in the microwave.

I accompanied the chicken roulades (I gave them a fancy name) with broccoli rabe and raisins.


Broccoli Rabe And Raisins (serves 4-6)
2 lbs. broccoli rabe
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbls. extra-virgin olive oil 1/3 cup raisins
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Cut off about 1 inch of the long stems of broccoli rabe. Cut into 2 inch lengths. Cook, uncovered in a large pot of boiling salted water for 5 to 8 minutes. (I like to cook it for the longer time, but test it after 5 minutes to see what you think.)

Heat olive oil and garlic together in large sauté pan over medium heat for 1 minute. Add broccoli rabe and cook until hot, about 4 minutes. Stir in raisins for last minute. Taste for seasoning and serve at once.

Dessert was a Lemon Tart.

It was Maida Heatter's Rancho Santa Fe Lemon Tart from her book, Great American Desserts. Email me if you want the recipe. I also put out various baked things.


Oh, there was one other thing – I think I’ll save that for next time…

Chef Brad Steelman's Mushroom Risotto Plus How Fast Can YOU Type?

I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I’m posting Chef Brad Steelman’s recipe for mushroom risotto. It is phenomenal.

The bad news is that it took me so long to type the recipe from the copy we were given, that I decided to take a typing test to see how bad I really was. Apparently, I type 61 words per minute, but with an accuracy of 82% which brought it down to 50 words per minute. You can be sure, though, however s…l…o…w…l…y I typed the Chef’s recipe, it is (now) 100% accurate.

Note that this risotto is cooked in water. Chef Steelman said you can add a bit of stock at the end. BTW, 2 ounces is 4 tablespoons or ¼ cup. And don’t worry if you don’t have porcini oil. Just substitute truffle oil. Oh, you don’t have that either…use a really good extra virgin olive oil for finishing the risotto. And plain butter is better than no (truffle) butter at the end of the mushroom recipe.

Chef Brad Steelman's Mushroom Risotto
(posted with his permission)



2 oz. extra virgin olive oil
½ small white onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
Kosher salt and pepper
1 lb. Arborio rice
1 cup dry white wine
2 quarts boiling water
2 oz. butter
½ cup grated Parmigiana Reggiano cheese
½ cup mascarpone cheese
fresh ground black pepper
porcini oil for drizzling on at the end

Place the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat.
Add the onion and the garlic.
Season with salt and pepper.
Cook until the onion is translucent.
Add the rice and stir until each grain has been coated with the oil.
Add the wine and stir until it has been absorbed.
Begin adding the boiling water incrementally, one cup at a time, to the rice and stir until the liquid has been absorbed. (Do not over saturate the rice.)
Continue adding the water and seasoning to the rice as you stir. (The rice should become creamy.)
When the rice is almost “al Dente” (about 20-25 minutes), add the mushrooms and their cooking juices.
Add the two cheeses and adjust seasoning.
Drizzle with porcini oil.
Sprinkle with additional Parmigianino Reggiano.

Instructions for preparing the mushrooms –
2 lbs. cleaned seasonal mushrooms
2 oz. olive oil
1 shallot, minced
2 sprigs fresh thyme
½ cup chicken stock
2 oz. truffle butter (optional)

Select mushrooms from the market that are firm and free from defects. (Clean the mushrooms carefully.)
Pour the olive oil into a large sauté pan over high heat.
Add the mushrooms, evenly spreading them out across the bottom of the entire pan.
Do not stir until the mushrooms reach a rich brown color on one side
Add the shallot and thyme then stir.
When the mushrooms become evenly brown, reduce the heat and add the stock.
Allow the stock to reduce slightly, then swirl in the truffle butter, allowing it to emulsify into the liquid.
Season with salt and pepper.

It's All The Buzz

Electrolux sponsored a Foodbuzz event at the Maison des Relais & Châteaux in Manhattan on Tuesday night. The living room-like space was very attractive and comfortable with a gorgeous Electrolux-supplied kitchen. Brad Steelman, chef of Brooklyn’s The River Café, demonstrated some wonderful recipes.

He was using a drop dead gorgeous convection oven with “luxury design“ lighting, which doesn’t just go on and off, it gradually illuminates the oven and slowly dims to off.

Brad roasted a beautiful brined turkey using the “Perfect Turkey” button. The oven does everything...except wash the dishes and they have a machine for that too.

Here's the chef carving the turkey:

He also showed us their induction cooktop. I’ve actually used an induction cooktop and everything Brad told us is true.

BECAUSE all the heat stays in the pot, it’s fantastic if you’re living in a small space where the burners heat up not just your kitchen, but your bedroom and bathroom too. (Of course, if you’re living in a tiny place, you probably can’t afford an induction cooktop.)

It’s also the fastest way to heat a pan to high AND it keeps a simmer magnificently OR a barely bubbling heat. All of these things I can personally attest to.

Here's a good look at induction cooking. The heat gets transferred directly to the pot, so that’s the only thing that heats up - resulting in this striking image.

BUT…there’s a big but, you must only use pans that are magnetic on the bottom, i.e. cast iron frying pans, or Lodge-type cast iron pots; Le Creuset and their ilk; or Chantal pots are ones that come to mind, so all your beautiful stainless steel is useless.

How can you tell which pots to use? If a magnet sticks to the bottom of the pot or pan, you’re good to go. However, Electrolux thought of this too, when they came out with a “Hybrid Stovetop” – 2 induction burners and 2 (or 3) sealed electric burners. As Chef Steelman explained it, you still can use your old pots and it’s convenient when you can have someone not familiar with induction cooking using the stove.

The chef whipped us up some fabulous things – goat cheese disks on melba toast with tapenade and chicken salad in tiny puff pastry rings.

This was followed by an excellent risotto.

He said I could share the recipe with you. (I'll post it tomorrow. It's long...) It may just become your go-to risotto.

During the cooking of the risotto, he reinforced an excellent mushroom cooking point. They should go in a hot pan with a bit of fat and NO SALT initially. I would have said that was because the salt will draw out the liquid and give a more steamed mushroom. Sort of, but not exactly.

Listen to this: The salt will draw out the moisture in the mushrooms and COOL DOWN THE PAN. Of course, it will! That makes such excellent sense, Chef. And, of course, a cooled down pan will begin to steam the mushrooms and take away from the browning and caramelizing on the outside of the mushroom. I just love an interesting chef. (It didn’t hurt that he was kinda cute too.)

And then he made not-at-all miniature roast turkey sliders with stuffing, cranberries and a bit of golden brown gravy.

On a different topic, I asked Brad about his well-known concern about sustainable fishing. He is committed to serving fish that come from sustainable fishing practices.

I try to avoid farm-raised fish and he agreed that was a good way to go. But that doesn’t cover all the bases. He suggested the Seafood Choices Alliance as a resource to learn more about the topic and look into which fish may be overharvested.

Okay, so I liked Brad’s boyish good looks and easy manner, but even better was his crème brûlée, served in tiny cooked pumpkins. What a fantastic dessert for pumpkin season.

His crème brûlée was so exceptional, though, that I would be nervous to have it compete with my Thanksgiving pies…It deserves to be served all on its own. Actually it was served with THESE, which couldn't have been shortbread cookies, because I don't like shortbread and I sure liked THESE!

I met (and re-met) some awfully nice bloggers. Michelle has a lovely new blog Taste As You Go. Grace from Grace [is] full was there too and Mike from NYC Donut Report!! is really great to talk to about doughnuts (and China). Yvo from The Feisty Foodie said hi; Yolanda from Kosher Soul Food is fun, fun, fun; and those Cupcake gals, Nichelle, Allison and Rachel are always entertaining.

Yolanda, Chef Steelman, Michelle and Grace