the SIMMER blog

chicken scarpariello

Time for some more healthy cooking experiments!

So as fairly devout watchers of "Best Thing I Ever Ate", we here Chez Simmer were excited to see a new crop of episodes start appearing on the DVR back in June. And on one hand, you can sort of see how they're starting to stretch themselves thin, but on the other hand, there really are always new places out there, and the nicest thing about being a home cook is that you don't even necessarily have to travel to be inspired by the show. You can take inspiration from what they're doing, and bring it into your own kitchen.

So is this the chicken scarpariello that Anne Burrell raved about having at Rao's in Vegas? Not really. But is there now a chicken scarpariello we rave about having here at home? There sure is.

 
Seriously, I've made it about four times now, and unfortunately I didn't document every little step, so you're left with these pictures of one of the iterations, which was not the absolute final version we loved.

 
But it gives you the basic idea. Now, if you want the official Rao's version, you can find the recipe here, which involves bone-in chicken and a pretty large batch size.

What we ended up with in the final supertasty iteration:

• surprisingly, boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into cubes instead of larger skin-on bone-in chicken pieces. Yes, the bone imparts some flavor, but it means a longer cooking time, less flavor penetration into the meat, and a much messier eating experience. Plus that whole health thing. And as long as the liquid isn't allowed to boil too vehemently, the white meat stayed decently tender.
• regular sweet red peppers were $6.99 a pound at the store. Cubanelle peppers (mild, pale green) were $2.99. I bought cubanelles. They rocked.
• cut up the cherry peppers instead of leaving them whole.
• keep the liquid minimal, and go heavy on the brine.
• actually, add extra brine at the end.
• and then let it sit in the fridge an extra day. Seriously.

The sour tang of the cherry pepper brine really gives this a neat flavor profile, especially when it has that extra day to soak in. As you can tell, I thought serving it with quinoa and green beans was a fine idea, although it was also good served in a deep bowl as more of a stew.

Best thing I ever ate? Maybe not. Best chicken scarpariello I ever ate? Darn tootin'. 

easy tapas: piquillo confit

Okay, so, don't even worry about that "confit" in the title. That makes it sound all fancy. Maybe when you serve this, if you're trying to impress people, you trot out the fancy word. But if you're cooking it, it's more like "you take some peppers out of a jar and you cook them a long time without even touching them and something MAGICAL happens."

 
Thank you, Jose Andres.

So the only thing you need to worry about with this recipe is finding the piquillo peppers. Regular sweet red peppers just aren't the same. I usually track down my piquillos at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods, and keep a couple jars on hand. And even though I absolutely love to make tapas (mainly because I love to eat them, and because I continue to be profoundly, persistently bad at estimating quantities) I had never turned to this recipe in Jose Andres' "Tapas" cookbook before, simply because I also like to stuff piquillos with goat cheese as a make-ahead appetizer-type tapa, and serving two different preparations of the same pepper didn't really seem like the right way to go.

But now, having made these? I will be making them again every single time the opportunity presents itself.

First, you just lay down a layer of peppers in an ovenproof dish.

 

Then you puree a couple more peppers with some water.

 
Chop up a few cloves of garlic, and spread half the puree over the layer of peppers, and scatter half the garlic over that.

 
Then you repeat: another layer of peppers, another layer of puree and garlic.

Oh, and then you pour olive oil all over it.

italian chicken meatballs

So, about that new leaf thing.

It's going well. And with a few iterations, a few experiments, it's amazing how quickly a just-okay dish becomes a real victory. Plus, with a few practice runs, I get faster and faster, so my weeknight repertoire expands to embrace things I might have previously considered too time-consuming or fussy.

Like, let's say, meatballs.

I love meatballs. The tiny little lamb meatballs I make as tapas, especially. And the more traditional kind, beef with breadcrumbs, that cook for hours in a Sunday gravy. But for health reasons and speed reasons, ground chicken is on hand more often than not, so that's what I've been experimenting with. And I've gotten it down to a science.

 
No binders, no breadcrumbs, no egg, no nothing. Just ground chicken mixed with a very generous helping of seasonings -- a mix of dried Italian herbs like basil and oregano, plus sriracha, garlic powder, black pepper, Worchestershire sauce, and red pepper flakes. And I mix it by hand right in the container it came in (take that padded lining thingy out first) and then pinch and roll the meatballs and drop them directly into the hot pan, working quickly enough that by the time the last meatball is in, it's time to turn over the first one.

a delicious new leaf

Periodically, I have to face the fact that a lot of cooking means a lot of eating, and if things go too far, a lot of eating means fit issues with a lot of pants. And then there's a simple choice: buy new pants, or take a look at the type of cooking I'm doing. And I kind of like the pants I already have.

So I'm working on healthier approaches to weekday meals, as well as a few tweaks here and there to dinner party menus.

Never fear. This doesn't mean the whole blog is suddenly going low-carb, no-fat, reduced-sugar, anti-calorie, flavor-free. (After all, I still haven't told you about that cinnamon cake with chile-chocolate buttercream I made for my birthday.)

But it's a good thing, from time to time, to challenge ourselves in the kitchen. To figure out how to make healthier food as delicious, fresh, filling, and intriguing as the fat-laden stuff.

So a couple of days ago, here's what I did. I rubbed a piece of skin-on salmon with Northwoods seasoning from Penzeys (fellow Penzeys fans will realize that I picked this up for free thanks to a recent coupon) and lightly seared it in a nonstick pan with just a dab of canola oil. Didn't butter-baste, didn't wrap it in pancetta, didn't cover it with cream sauce. Just seasoned, and sauteed.

 
Then for the side, I sauteed a mix of mushrooms and some garlic scapes in as little oil as I thought I could get away with, set them aside, then cooked matchsticks of zucchini on high high heat and mixed them in with the mushrooms and scapes. Then to add a little roundness, I drizzled walnut oil over the top. So good. Total winner.

 

How much did we like it? The next day I made the whole meal over again, this time with monkfish.

 
(The salmon was a little better, and definitely faster.)

secret ingredient: smoked paprika

There are a few things I don't put smoked paprika in. Spaghetti sauce, for example. Yogurt. Green beans. Chocolate cake. (I use powered ancho for that, ha.)

 

But seriously, I put it in nearly everything else, so much so that around here it's only worth remarking on what I DON'T put it in. (Me: "So for the chicken meatballs, I used oregano, basil, garlic, capers, and NO smoked paprika.")

Why?

Depth.

Some things I want to taste overtly smoky. Like chili, of course. Or chickpeas and spinach in tomato sauce. In this case, I put in a lot. Two or three tablespoons. My chili recipe is always changing, but the base is generally one part actual powdered chiles, one part cumin, and one part smoked paprika. The smokiness goes so nicely with the beans, and really takes it to the next level.

But more often, it's not about making it taste like smoke. It's about offsetting something else, giving the food a can't-put-my-finger-on-it complexity. Like in a romesco sauce, which is otherwise sweet and peppery. Or lentil soup, thick and rich. Or my favorite feta-and-pepper dip. Or I add just a touch, a teaspoon or less, to a steak rub, or a coffee-maple coating for a pork tenderloin.

Secret ingredient? Secret weapon.

itty bitty lobster rolls

One of the things I really enjoy is making humble ingredients taste amazing. But, as I am a Gemini and full of contradictions, I also really enjoy going nuts with the luxury ingredients from time to time. Which is how this happened:

 

Super-fresh lobster. Dispatched (eek!), cooked and cleaned by yours truly.

 
(Yes, it's a lot of work, and it's messy, but from time to time, you just gotta go for it.)

So I took the meat from the tails, claws, knuckles, and legs (Thomas Keller has a great trick for this in the Ad Hoc cookbook -- it involves a rolling pin and works like a charm) and cut it in pieces, not too small.

Then I sliced up a brioche loaf from Bouchon Bakery (also pretty luxe) and toasted in butter. On both sides. Because that's how we roll... when people are coming over. (When we are by ourselves, sometimes we just saute a chicken breast and call it good. Gotta have balance.)

The lobster meat I mixed with just a little mayo, lemon juice, tarragon and/or parsley if you've got it, and pepper. Not too much of any one. Let the lobsterness be the main thing.

For serving, just pile the meat on the toasts. They're best if the toasts are warm and the meat is chilled, but even if everything's room temp, I don't think your guests are going to pass them by. Ours disappeared in a wink.

 
I also tried a mix with celery leaves instead of herbs, and I think I like that even better. But really, the specifics are up to you. Just use a light hand, taste as you go, and you can't go wrong.

 
Lovely and luxurious.

secret ingredient: porcini dust

So I'm thinking of starting up a new feature on the blog called "Secret Ingredient." There are so many things that I have around my kitchen that I throw into a recipe to tweak it -- my love of smoked paprika is legendary -- and I think it might be fun to share them with you, one at a time.

So today, let's talk about porcini dust.

This is a relatively new discovery for me, and if you go into a shop asking for porcini dust, you won't find it. Fresh porcini are hard to come by; most porcini are sold dried.

 

These porcini are sitting in my spice grinder, waiting to be pulverized. A few pulses of the grinder, and poof, they become dust.

What can you use porcini dust for? I'm betting it would be a delicious addition to sauces, stews, or anything else liquid-y where a little oomph is needed. Few or no calories, and a delicious earthy umami flavor. I might even try using them to coat a steak before searing it, though that's an untested idea, and in general you'll want something that hydrates them. Otherwise, dust is just dust, no matter how tasty.

But why I made porcini dust in the first place, and how delicious it was, was this:

 
That's pasta flour (middle) and porcini dust (down the sides -- why did I do that?) before adding eggs and oil to make fresh homemade pasta for something I call pappardelle rolls or lasagna rolls. I'll give you the whole rundown on that meal soon. In the meantime, an up-close-and-personal preview:

 

Porcini dust-ed perfection.

lovely leftovers

As you might have guessed, being busy these days (radio interviews! conference prep!) means there's less time for cooking. But I figured I could at least repeat my microwave lightbox trick with these absolutely gorgeous leftovers. Spaghettini with spicy budding chives and lobster, from Babbo:

 
I didn't make them, but I sure enjoyed them, so that's worth telling you about. Even after all these years it is nearly impossible to get a weekend Babbo reservation at anything but 5 or 10, so my husband and I sat at the bar for our celebratory meal. And what a meal it was. The mint love letters, in particular, are not to be missed. And there are SO many things on the menu I want to go back for, which I consider the sign of a pretty strong restaurant. Several courses of pasta and prosecco: not a bad way to celebrate.

the more things change...

So back in some of the earliest days of this blog, I was touting the benefits of enchiladas, and here I am again, in a busy situation, saying: seriously, when in doubt, enchiladas are the way to go. Simple, low-cost, and flexible.

A little more complex but still not expensive: making your own enchilada sauce. (This recipe from Rancho Gordo will do the trick.)

 
This was for book club a couple weeks back, and it did the trick exactly. Large batch, make-ahead, with leftovers I wouldn't be sorry to be eating for days. (As it turned out, actually, there weren't that many left over.)

For the filling, I sauteed a few odds and ends from the fridge: jalapenos, piquillos, and onion, plus some ancho chili powder:

ad hoc monkfish

I hardly ever make fish at home, even though it's really good for me, for a couple of reasons: you really should buy it and make it the same day, and also, I kinda don't really like the taste of fish.

But not all fish are created equal. And while I still can't make myself make a habit of strongly flavored fish like salmon, mackerel, or swordfish, I do enjoy the occasional firm-fleshed swimmer like monkfish.

So of course when I was looking for a fish recipe to try out, I went to the Ad Hoc cookbook first.

 
You basically heat up a whole lot of butter in a pan on the stovetop, throw some rosemary and garlic in it to flavor it, and do that awesome restaurant trick where you tip the pan and ladle the melted butter over the fish continuously, basting it, while it cooks. Makes me feel all cheffy.

Okay, it's not the healthiest way to prepare fish, no matter what kind it is.

But it's very good with polenta and snowpeas.

 
Oh yes. And wine, of course.