Party Favors: Turkey Pot Pie

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The day after Thanksgiving, I headed over to Stevie’s to make a big pot of stock from the turkey carcass, then a braised leek soup with the stock. Stevie’s idea was to do an American riff on the traditional French onion soup: roasting the leeks in the oven, then adding the stock and some leftover brussels sprout leaves, and topping it with toasted pumpernickel bread and blue cheese. This meal was deliciously filling, and the braising—which I decided to do with butter, olive oil, and sherry—inspired this recipe for turkey pot pie.

The pie filling.

In a 475-degree oven, I roasted leeks, parsnips, and kabocha squash in a little leftover white wine, sherry, and the reserved turkey drippings for about 45 minutes. Meanwhile, I made the flaky pie crust and set it to chill in the refrigerator. The vegetables came out of the oven, and once cooled, I added the leftover turkey and peas to the pan to toss them all together. The filling was enough for two pie pans, so I rolled out the thin, buttery crust to cover both. I covered the pies with an egg wash, then baked them in a 400-degree oven for about 30 minutes.
Delicious pie, right out of the oven.

For the dough:
  • 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 cup shortening
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold and diced
  • 1/8 – 1/4 cup ice water
  • 1 egg beaten, for egg wash
For the filling:
  • 4 leeks, quartered lengthwise
  • 1/2 medium kabocha squash, diced
  • 4 parsnips, peeled and diced
  • 1/4 cup white wine
  • 1/4 cup sherry
  • 4 tablespoons turkey drippings or cooking oil
  • 2 teaspoons fresh thyme
  • 1 cup frozen peas, thawed
  • 1 cup turkey, cooked and shredded
  • 2 teaspoons flour
  • Salt and pepper
Preheat the oven to 475-degrees. Place vegetables in a baking dish and cover with wine, sherry, and turkey drippings. Add fresh thyme, salt, and pepper for seasoning and place, uncovered, in over for 45 minutes. Stir occasionally. Remove from the oven and reduce heat to 400-degrees.
For the dough, combine the flour, salt, and baking powder. Add the shortening and butter, and combine with your fingers until the fat is the size of peas. Add a small amount of water at a time, just enough to work the dough into a ball. Place in refrigerator for a half hour to chill.
In a frying pan, add the vegetables in their cooking juices and slowly stir in a bit of flour to make a sort of roux. Then add the turkey and peas, toss together, and place filling in the bottom of a pie pan. Remove the dough from the refrigerator, roll it out to a 1/8-inch thickness, and place over the pie pan. Crimp around the edges if desired and pierce with a fork several times to allow the air to escape while cooking. Brush with the beaten egg and bake for a half hour.
Recipe inspired by Wai Hon Chu, Whole Foods Culinary Center Educator

Dinner Party: Thanksgiving in New York

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This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for great wine, delicious food, and wonderful friends, both new and old. A group of nine New York City “orphans” spent all day cooking, sipping, and noshing, in preparation for the big feast, which consisted of sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, collard greens, brussel sprouts, stuffing, Wondra bread rolls, and the pièce de la résistance, the beautifully-brined 20-lb. turkey that graced our table.

Along with the turkey (and more), Stevie and Josiah provided a fantastic celebratory Jeroboam: a 2009 Clos de la Roilette Cuvée Tardive, which we let evolve in the bottle and a decanter throughout the day. In addition to the Jeroboam, Bryan and Kelly provided the extensive wine selection for the day. Some of my favorites included the crisp N.V. François Pinon Vouvray Brut (2006), a delicious 2007 Weingut Hirsch Riesling Gaisberg (perfect with pumpkin bread), and a 1993 red from the Jura, an Overnoy Poulsard Arbois Pupillin.

We finished off the meal with three kinds of pumpkin pies, an apple tart, and some nutmeg ice cream. Alexxa provided a beautiful bourbon, as well as the photos of the day, featured below. A lovely day all around!

Snacks to start the day

 A roster of wine, including a Jeroboam of 2009 Clos de la Roilette Cuvée Tardive
The 20 lb. turkey, fresh out of the oven

Serving and carving.

 A toast.

Desserts to end the night.

Food Adventure: Cheesemaking in Upstate New York

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Lots of cooking coming up this week, but in the meantime, check out my post on SAVEUR.com on cheese-making in upstate New York! 

Here’s a teaser: When I was a little girl, I used to fancy that I was Laura Ingalls in Little House in the Big Woods, churning my own butter and frying crackling — despite not really knowing what crackling was. Last month, I visited Sprout Creek Farm, a working farm, creamery, and educational center in upstate New York, and watched a version of my dream come true. Read more at SAVEUR.com»

Food Adventure: Eat-fest 2010

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Whenever I am with my parents, we eat. It has established itself over the years as one of our favorite past times, and this weekend it took first place. Yes, the cultural excursion to see Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice was mind-numbingly good (emphasis on the mind-numbing part). Yes, the exploration of Court Street in south Brooklyn was interesting. But really, it was all about the food. I won’t go into the litany of every dish we tasted, but I will share a few highlights.

Le Comptoir

Since I came to New York for the first time at age 16, my mother and I have always gone to La Goulue for a meal when we are in the city together. Chef Sebastian Chamaret from the now-defunct Upper East Side restaurant has opened up a new spot in Williamsburg, so we had to try it together. Everything about this meal was divine, from the company to the cuisine. Alexxa and Stevie joined us for charcuterie, seared foie gras, duck “a la plancha,” the most succulent chicken breast I’ve ever tasted, served over a squash puree, and more. It’s still BYO for a few more weeks until they get their liquor license, so Stevie brought us the 2009 Baudry Chinon Blanc, a Chenin Blanc that was lovely and round, with a high level of acidity that proved to be a real crowd-pleaser, as well as a 2001 Burgundy from Hubert Lignier Morey-St.-Denis, a bright, beautiful Pinot Noir with a lot personality.

251 Grand St. between Driggs Ave. and Roebling St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718-486-3300

Diner

Another neighborhood adventure, we met for brunch at Diner, the refurbished yet rundown dining-car-cum-restaurant down the street from me. I thought my dad would get a kick out of the décor, which makes you feel as though the place has survived more than one earthquake, as well as the food. Although I enjoyed my grits, Mom her root vegetable hash, and Dad his sausage gravy, the real highlight was the Bloody Mary: tomato juice, thick with horseradish and rimmed with kosher salt.

85 Broadway, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718-486-3077

Buttermilk Channel

After an ordeal to get a cab and over an hour wait for a table, I thought this meal was bound to be a royal failure. However, once we finally sat down and got our food, the first words out of Dad’s mouth were: “This is a really good burger.” Phew! Both Mom and Dad had opted for the quarter pound of house-ground beef served on the “perfect” bun, which was neither too soft nor too stiff, and both were members of the Clean Clate Club (as the saying has gone in my family since my brother was unable to properly pronounce “plate” as a baby). Admittedly, I helped out with the extra crispy fries, but I was mostly busy digging into the Eggs Huntington, the restaurant’s own version of the Benedict. These eggs were perfectly poached, the whites and yellows both set, requiring two stabs of the fork to pierce the yolk and soak the deliciously dense buttermilk biscuit beneath. The only drawback of this meal was that my side of greens was bare.

524 Court St., Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn
718-852-8490

Momofuku Ssam Bar and Milk Bar

For our last meal, Dad requested something different, and my mind jumped to the East Village Momofuku restaurants. Chef David Chang is a Korean-American who doesn’t understand the word “vegetarian;” he is one of the chefs that has brought pork belly into the limelight in American cuisine, if that gives you any indication. I thought it might be a great fit: a killer combination of “ethnic” food and meat lovers, topped with some hefty spice. We started out on the right foot, ordering their famous pork belly buns, the fatty meat layered in soft, doughy steamed buns alongside thinly sliced cucumbers. A bit of the Sichuan spicy sauce made this an instant hit for my dad (Mom was less enthused). However, we made the mistake of ordering not one but two fish dishes, the pufferfish and the albacore tuna. The pufferfish tails were lightly fried and served with squid ink and squash, a unique blend but slightly difficult to eat. The tuna, on the other hand, was overcooked, and its barley accompaniments were as bland in color as they were in taste. Thank goodness for the final dish (all plates are meant to be shared), a spicy pork sausage ragu served with chewy rice dumplings. This one was so spicy the waitress took the Sichuan sauce away so we wouldn’t be tempted.

For dessert, I wanted my parents to try something in keeping with the eclectic theme of the night. Momofuku Ssam Bar is connected to the Momofuku Milk Bar via a passageway (also accessible from the street), and we headed over to try their various desserts. Pastry chef Christina Tosi has taken her love of youthful treats — from milk and cookies, chips, and cereal — and created one of the most interesting pastry shops in town. The cereal milk soft serve and compost cookie (literally made of chips, pretzels, chocolate chips, and more) are certainly not for everyone, but we had fun tasting through the sampler of ice creams and a few of the cookies.

Ssam Bar: 207 Second Ave, East Village, New York
212-254-3500

*Milk Bar located around the corner on 13th St.

Food Memories: First Chesnuts of the Season!

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Chestnuts, more than many other things, make me happily nostalgic for the time I spent living in Italy. Although I knew the refrain well from Christmas carols, I’d never actually eaten a chestnut until my Italian mamma Maria Teresa made them for me. At the time, I was studying in Florence and coming down to Rome on the weekends for a visit. At one point, she stated that it was chestnut season, noting that Tuscan chestnuts were sweeter and thus preferable to those grown in Lazio. I proceeded to bring her several kilos every weekend for the rest of chestnut season.

The first time I brought them to her, she excitedly put them in a frying pan on the stove, after slicing the dark brown part against the grain. She covered the pan and let them heat up, and when we started to hear a popping sound, she removed them from the heat and put them on a plate. After admonishing us to wait until they cooled to dig in, she finally proffered one to me — and I promptly put the entire thing in my mouth. Every Italian around started either to laugh or lunge in horror as I began the spit it back out…ma lo devi sbuciare prima! You must take the shell off first! What did I know? I’d never had one before. Choking and laughing aside, I finally dug into the surprisingly sweet meat of the nut. Then, I finished off the plate.

Chesnuts roasting on an open fire…as in my gas stove…
Such good memories. I love fall!

Party Favors: Smoked Trout Hash

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In addition to the venison and cheese, I also brought home about three pounds of house-smoked trout from the Telluride event. Of all the left over ingredients, the fish had me the most worried — smoking would have preserved it for the first go-round, but after it had been opened and dressed with onions and oil, how long would fish last in a Tupperware container? Fortunately, I found a recipe for smoked trout hash that would be easy to execute, using things I already had in my pantry: eggs, cream, scallions, onions, and potatoes. I whipped up a big batch for a potluck dinner that I am heading to in a few hours, leaving a bit for brunch. Served with raw mache lettuce (Toni’s favorite, I have now discovered, since he devoured it raw during post-event clean-up), it was the perfect Sunday morning meal.

Smoked trout hash with mache lettuce

Smoked Trout Hash

  • 5 russet potatoes, peeled and diced
  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 3 lbs. smoked trout, skinned and shredded
  • 2 egg, lightly beaten
  • 4 tbsp. heavy cream
  • 1⁄4 cup chopped scallions
  • 1 tbsp. butter

1. Sauté potatoes and onions in a frying pan for a few minutes until slightly browned, then cover with salted water, allowing to simmer over medium heat for about ten minutes. Cook until potatoes are just tender when pierced with a knife, then drain.

2. Gently mix cooked potatoes and onions, smoked trout, egg, heavy cream, and scallions in a large mixing bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste.

3. Melt butter in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add potato-trout mixture and fry, turning occasionally, until the hash begins to get a golden brown color and crisp texture. You may need to increase heat to get a good sear.

4. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve with a side of undressed mache lettuce.

Recipe adapted from SAVEUR.

Party Favors: ColoRouge Cheese Biscuits

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Also on Chef Roth’s menu was a ColoRouge Grilled Cheese, little baguette rounds filled with homemade pesto, arugula, and slices of a stinky Camembert-style cheese from MouCo Cheese Company in Colorado. The cheesy bites were delicious, but with several blocks of the young cow’s milk cheese left over, the fridge at work was already beginning to smell. I decided to take few blocks home to see what I could do with them.

Photo courtesy of MouCo Cheese Company.
I decided I wanted to make some sort of cheese biscuit to go with the venison pie but worried about making a traditional cheddar-style biscuit since this was a soft cheese, rather than a hard one. Inspired by a recipe from the Home on the Range blog, I froze the cheese so that I could grate it into the dry ingredients.
Grating the peeled cheese into the dry ingredients.
Using my fingers, I gently combined the flakes of frozen cheese and butter into the flour, baking powder, and baking soda mixture, added a cup of milk to create a dough, and then dropped them on a baking pan lined with parchment paper. The biscuits were ready to eat 12-15 minutes later — hot, steamy, and a hint of delicious cheesiness, ready to sop up the dregs of the pie.
ColoRouge Cheese Biscuits
ColoRouge  Cheese Biscuits
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. baking soda
  • 1 tsp fine salt
  • 1/4 cup unsalted butter, frozen solid
  • 1/2 wheel of ColorRouge cheese, frozen solid
  • 1 cup milk
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Mix all dry ingredients together into a chilled bowl. Using a cheese grater, grate the butter and cheese through the large holes. Gently mix the shaved butter and cheese into the dry ingredients with your fingers until loose and crumbly. 
Add 2/3 cup of the milk to the bowl, stirring together. Add a little more at a time as needed to incorporate all the dry ingredients, but do not exceed one cup. The mixture should come together in a loose, slightly sticky dough.
Knead together a few times in the bowl. Place a large spoonful of dough onto a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet, evenly spaced. Bake 12-15 minutes at 425 degrees til golden brown. Serve immediately.
*Any soft cheese, such as a brie or Camembert, could be used instead, although I think the stinkier the better; the flavor mellows as baked.

Party Favors: Venison Hunter’s Pie

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The SAVEUR team had a big event with Telluride Ski Resort on Thursday night in the SAVEUR kitchen, featuring the cooking talents of the Telluride Executive Chef Stephen Roth.

Photo courtesy of Courtney Henley-Anderson

One of the featured dishes was a rack of venison with spiced huckleberry Port sauce. It was delicious, but a little tough to eat at a cocktail party without knife and fork…so there was plenty leftover, and I went home with about 25 pieces of venison. However, unlike last time when I brought home the lamb, the meat was already cooked; I needed to figure out how to incorporate it into other dishes that I could eat or freeze to make sure the meat didn’t go to waste.

 
Photo courtesy of Courtney Henley-Anderson 

For the first attempt, I decided I wanted to riff off of the traditional Shepherd’s Pie — a hearty dish of lamb, vegetables, and mashed potatoes — by making a sort of “Hunter’s Pie” with venison as the base meat. I began by cutting the meat off of the bones, throwing the latter into a pot of salted water with other vegetable remnants to make stock. Meanwhile, I cut the venison into cubes and quickly browned them; after removing the meat from the heat, I added finely chopped carrots and leeks to the pan juices to soften them. 
 
Primary ingredients coming together on the stovetop. 

I added the meat back to the pan, along with the stock, some Worcestershire sauce, flour, and some herbs, then let everything simmer in the pan for about an hour and a half. In another pan, I covered some russet potatoes with salted water and brought it to a boil. Twenty minutes later, once strained, I added a splash of cream, a tablespoon of butter, and some salt & pepper, then set the mashed potatoes aside. When everything was ready, I assembled the crust-less “pie,” topping the meat with the mashed potatoes.

“Hunter’s Pie” fresh from the oven. 

Once the potatoes turned a light golden brown number and the venison roux began to bubble, I removed the pie from the oven and let it cool briefly. Digging into the meal, we discovered that the nutmeg in the spice blend complemented the gaminess of the meat — and I even think I preferred this dish with venison rather than lamb. I served it with a side of spinach and a cheese biscuit to sop up the jus, and we sipped on the Clos de la Roilette 2009 Beaujolais from Fleurie, the same wine that had been paired with chef Roth’s rack of venison. Its complexity, with a bit of earthiness as well as bright fruit, was a refreshing contrast to the weight of the meal.

First round of leftovers = success!

Hunter‘s Pie
  • 8 venison chops, cut into ½-inch cubes
  • 2 leeks, white parts only, finely chopped 
  • 2 medium carrots, chopped
  • 2 tbsp. flour
  • 1 1⁄2 cups venison stock 
  • 1 tbsp. Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tbsp. finely chopped rosemary leaves
  • 1 tbsp. finely chopped thyme leaves
  • 1⁄8 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 3 medium russet potatoes, peeled and quartered
  • Splash of Organic Valley half-and-half
1. Melt 2 tbsp. of the butter in a large pot over high heat. Add one-third of the venison and brown on all sides, then transfer to a plate, leaving fat in pot. Repeat process 2 more times, using 2 tbsp. of the butter and one-third of the venison for each batch. Add leeks and carrots to pot, reduce heat to medium, and cook until softened, scraping up any browned bits. Return venison and its juices to pot along with flour and cook, stirring frequently, for 1 minute. Whisk in stock, Worcestershire, rosemary, thyme, nutmeg, and salt and pepper to taste. Increase heat to medium-high; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, until venison is tender, about 40 minutes. Uncover pot and simmer, stirring often, until thickened, 35–40 minutes more. Remove from heat and set aside.
2. Meanwhile, put potatoes into a large pot and cover with salted water; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until tender, 20–25 minutes. Drain and transfer potatoes to a bowl. Add 1 tbsp. of the butter, half-and-half, and salt and pepper to taste; mash until smooth.
3. Preheat oven to 375°. Transfer venison to a pie dish. Top evenly with mashed potatoes, and top with small cubes of butter, scattered over potatoes. Bake until golden brown and bubbling, about 20 minutes.
Recipe adapted from SAVEUR.

Down South: Chicken-Fried Steak, Collard Greens, & Cornbread

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Where did September go? This whole month flew by in a whirl of busyness, work activities, and birthdays. I feel like I hardly cooked anything exciting at all! To make up for this, I threw a little dinner party last night, Southern-style, for my friend Dado who will soon be returning to China. After an ingredient fiasco (I wanted to make fried catfish… turns out, the guest-of-honor is allergic), I decided to make an easy but delicious meal of chicken-fried steak, collards, and cornbread.

I went down to Marlow & Daughters to pick up some top round after work, but since they were out, I went with the cheapest alternative: ground beef. Chicken-fried steak is essentially cucina povera anyway. I whisked an egg and add the meat and some salt and pepper to the same bowl, patting it into flat disks of meat. I then coated each with egg and dredged in flour, then placed each piece into a hot pan full of butter. Each side cooked for about a minute and a half, then I removed them to make the roux, adding a bit of flour, more butter, and water to create a sauce.

I served each person with their fried meat and buttery sauce alongside slow-cooked collard greens, which had stewed for a half hour in salted water and apple cider vinegar, and buttermilk cornbread. Dado had brought a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc from Oyster Bay, which paired surprisingly well with the food due to its more robust fruit. The sharp, bracing acidity also cut through the rather fatty meal, refreshing our palettes as we ate through it all.

To finish off the meal, I had prepared a roasted banana gelato with a nutella swirl — as decadent and down-home good as everything else we’d eaten. Bon Voyage, Dado!

Dinner ideas adapted from Virginia Willis’ Bon Appétit, Y’all, David Leibovitz’s The Perfect Scoop, and my mother.

Homecoming: Coconut Gelato for Toni

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Toni went to Italy and Croatia to visit his family for two long weeks. Over the course of these last six months, I’ve never known him to be so happy as he was while there, surrounded by his family and friends, in the place he considers home. I wanted to do something for him so that coming back to New York would be less bitter and more sweet. When I asked him what that might be, he said quite simply that he wanted gelato al cocco, coconut gelato. It doesn’t get much sweeter than that.

Coconut Gelato for Toni

  • 1 cup unsweetened coconut
  • 4 egg yolks
  • 2 cups milk (I used 1 1/2 cup whole milk, 1/2 cup skim milk, and a splash of heavy cream)
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 vanilla bean

In a bowl, combine sugar and yolks, stirring until incorporated. Heat milk and vanilla bean over medium heat, then add a ladle of the heated milk to the sugar and egg mixture to temper it. Add the sugar and egg mixture to the pot, stirring constantly. Add the coconut.

When mixture is thick and coats the back of a wooden spoon, remove from heat and cool. Keep, covered, in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours or preferably overnight. Don’t forget to put the body of your ice cream maker in the freezer to chill.

When you are ready to freeze the gelato, remove the vanilla bean and discard. Pour into the ice cream maker and let it churn for about 20 minutes, scraping down the sides every now and then. Put into a container and freeze until ready to eat.

Recipe adapted from Nicole Lang.