RECIPE: Reinventing Game Day Chili

I love chili.  I like my chili beefy, spicy, with tender meat.  Before now, my chili was nothing to look forward to: dry, tough ground meat,  kidney beans and tomato sauce.  It tasted like I had combined beans, ground hamburger meat with a jar of spaghetti sauce.  I wanted to turn this recipe around and make a better homemade chili.

The first challenge was to solve the problem of dry, tough meat.  I decided to use an unconventional method of tenderizing the meat...I combined the meat with a panade.  A panade is (according to Epicurious.com) "a thick paste made by mixing bread crumbs, flour, rice, etc. with water, milk, stock, butter or sometimes egg yolks."  This is generally used to bing meatballs or fishcakes.  I remember reading an old issue of Cooks Illustrated, and they used this method to make a quick and tender bolognese.  Why not use it for chili?  I soaked a slice of white, crustless bread in about a half cup of whole milk.  Pulsed it in the food processor, then added my meats and pulsed together.  


The second challenge was trying to avoid using a tomato base, but still achieving the consistency of tomato sauce..something for the meat and beans to cling to.  I decided to brown tomato paste and then add a good quality beef stock.  It did the trick...no tomato sauce here in this recipe.


I also wanted big onion flavor but didn't want so many chunks of onions interfering with the chili texture.  I solved this by making a jalepeno, onion, garlic mixture (think...sofrito) in the food processor and additionally only chopping one onion.  This ensured there would be a nice onion flavor throughout as the "sofrito" melts into the dish and the one chopped onion adds some texture.


Enough of the chit chat!  Trust me..this is good:

Game Day Chili
Serves 6-8

1 pound ground veal/pork mixture
1 pound ground beef  ( I've been grinding my own meat lately, but, the supermarket meat works fine in this recipe.  See note below on how easy it is to grind your own meat)
1 slice of crustless, white bread
1/2 cup of whole milk
3 onions, chopped
3 jalapeños, chopped
3 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of tomato paste
2 cups of good quality beef stock
1 can of kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp cayenne powder
1 tsp cumin
1 bay leaf
salt, pepper

In a small bowl, soak the bread in milk.  Let stand, long enough for the bread to fully absorb the milk, minimum of 15 minutes.

In the food processor combine two of the onions, garlic, and jalapeños.  Pulse until the consistency is almost a paste...not quite a puree (think, sofrito).  Set aside.  Finely chop the remaining onion.  In an empty food processor add the panade.  Pulse into a thick paste.  To the panade add all of the meat.  Pulse in the food processor until everything is well combined.  Don't worry, this won't toughen the meat...the panade is in the to make sure it'll stay nice and tender.  Set aside.

Pre-heat a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat.  Add meat mixture.  Break up with the back of a wooden spoon.  The meat should easily break up.  Add the one chopped onion.  Cook until the meat is done.  Transfer the meat to a separate bowl. Sauté the sofrito in the Dutch oven until all of the veggies are soft.  Add the tomato paste.  Combine well with the sofrito mix, until it looses its bright red color.  Add beef.  Stir well and add spices.  Combine well and add stock and beans.  Stir and simmer for about 15 minutes...until desired consistency is achieved.  Add more stock if you want a soupier chili.   Since we doctored up the meat, believe it or not, it's ready to eat when the beans are cooked through.


Note:  If you have a food processor, it's a cinch to grind your own meat.  If I'm not sure the establishment where I'm purchasing the meat from grinds the meat in house, I prefer to grind my own.  You never know how many different cows are in your package!  Gross.  Just take the cut of your choice, roughly chop into 2 inch pieces, removing any undesired fat.  Pulse through the food processor.  What a cinch!  It's a little rough on the wallet as you may be paying 7 bucks a pound to maybe 2 bucks...but at least you know where it came from.  All of this STILL sound like a pain?  Find a butcher or store that grinds their meat in house.

RECIPE: CSA Roasted Acorn Squash Soup

Our CSA basket is starting to taste like fall...and I had two large acorn squash (es?) staring at me for an entire week on my kitchen counter.  Overcome by the guilt of giving away my last batch of squash, I decided to stop being lazy and cook the them.  I was inspired by a recent inquiry about the Asian kitchen an old friend had (blog post to come with an answer...Dave, I promise).  I took a standard squash soup and give it a Korean twist.  Acorn squash has a sweet potatoey taste that I thought would pair nicely with a spicy Korean condiment (I like to think of it as Korea's tomato paste), kochujang. This soup is surprisingly sweet, smoky (from our secret ingredient) and filling.  

Roasted Acorn Squash Soup
Serves 4

2 acorn squash, halved and seeded
3 cups chicken (or veggie) stock, heated
1 onion, diced
1 sprig of thyme
salt and white pepper to taste
1 TB gochujang (Korean red bean paste)  You can find it at your local Korean food store
Freshly shredded Parmesan cheese (for garnish)
1 tsp grapseed oil

Preheat oven to 375.  Place acorn squash cut side up on a baking sheet.  Roast for 50 minutes or until the flesh is done (can be pierced easily with a fork).  Let cool and spoon flesh out of the rind.

In a preheated medium pot, sautee onions until translucent.  Add kochujang and stir frequently for 30 seconds.  Add roasted squash.  Stir in warmed stock and thyme.  Bring to a boil.  Remove thyme sprig.  With a stick blender, puree soup until desired texture.  Season with salt and white pepper to taste.  Serve immediately topped with Parmesan cheese.

Weighing in on CSAs

As mentioned before, Michael and I had joined a CSA this summer and went in on a half of a share.  What does this mean?  Every Thursday we had a box delivered to our door full with fresh, organic and local fruits and veggies.  We are now on month three of our deliveries and I thought it ample time to weigh in CSAs, before I convince you (or don't) to join in on your own.

CSA:  Virginia Green Grocer ( of Warrenton, VA)
Delivery days for Oakton/McLean/Vienna: Thursdays
Variety of food:  I was looking forward to cooking some crazy things, but surprisingly everything was really normal....basil, peppers, watermelon, salad greens, LOTS of tomatoes and eggplant.
Customer Service: Excellent. If you don't like something (I really can't stand bok choy) you can call and tell them to never give it to you again.  Or if you're out of town one week, they'll put extra stuff the following week. They are also on Facebook with weekly postings of what will be in the basket if you are a weekday meal planner.

Ok, if I learned anything in corporate America its that if you keep your desk covered with papers and books, people will likely leave you alone because they think you're busy.... and that tables are a great way to organize your thoughts:

I apologize for the grainy table image...I tried making on in the HTML editor.  Impossible.

CSA Shares...Pros and Cons

So my final thoughts?  Next year I would totally consider doing this again if I shared with another family (dropping the $700 or so fee to a more manageable $350) OR going to a farmer's market weekly to get only what I need/want.  There's a farmer's market almost every day in the area you can stop by in the morning or evening.  The delivery CSA seems ideal for the working professional, but you do have to take in account how much time you are willing to wash and prep.  Warn your taste buds too.  I tell you now this stuff tastes better, but to be honest, that big, beautiful stalk of celery from California is superior in taste to your puny stalk from Warrenton , VA...but just think about why.  A friend of mine and environmental consultant, Kristin Murphy wrote an interesting blog  post on "franken-foods" that you might find interesting.   I'll take a local tomato any day over one grown in Canada (I just peeled off a grown in Canada sticker from a tomato I bought from Harris Teeter's "Farmer's Market" brand. Watch out for that!  I was horrified.)  Happy shopping!

RECIPE: Jap Chae

I recently made a dinner for HYKC's contest winner, Amelia, and DC's finest last night.  On the menu was Jap Chae (Korean's version of stir fried noodles) and a "Ssam Bar" (assorted meats wrapped in lettuces).  It was my first time making Jap Chae, which in hindsight, was a risky choice for a dinner party dish.  But I've stuffed my face full of it so many times I was confident I could pull it off.  I at least knew what it was supposed to taste like. Which is always an advantage in the kitchen.  This is true for much of the Korean cuisine that has inspired me to cook.  I grew up with these flavors, I know them as well as you may know a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or meatloaf (which I didn't experience until I was like, 12 years old).  So it only makes sense that as of late I've been cooking a lot of it lately.  It is my comfort food.

Jap Chae

1 lb of Korean Starch Noodles (vermicelli).  Amelia says it looks like grey witch's hair. I concur.
1 bunch of spinach
1 red bell pepper, julienned
1 carrot, julienned
1 medium onion, sliced thinly
1 bunch of scallions, sliced thinly
1/2 cup of dried shitake mushrooms that have been soaked according to the package

1 box of white mushrooms, sliced

1/2 lb of thinly sliced beef (ribeye, round, whatever).  Optional.

1 tablespoon of toasted sesame seeds
2 tablespoons of sugar
Grapeseed oil
A few good glugs of sesame oil and soy sauce
Plenty of cracked black pepper

Cook noodles according to package in a large pot...probably 10 minutes or so.  Transfer to a large mixing bowl, reserving the boiling hot water in the pot.  Toss the noodles generously with sesame oil and soy sauce.  Cut the noodles in half with kitchen shears as the noodle strands come as one and need to be cut in half to be separated.   Keep the pot and reserved liquid with the heat on the stove.  Place the spinach inside and cover.  Remove the spinach when it's wilted down and cooked through.  Drain well and wring out excess water with a clean, dry kitchen towel.  Chop into one inch pieces and throw into the noodle bowl.

In a large skillet, heat up a small amount of grapeseed oil or any other neutral tasting oil.  Sauté each of the ingredients separately, removing each group as they finish and putting it into the bowl with the noodles: onion, scallions, red pepper, carrots, white mushrooms, shitake mushrooms, beef.  This is to ensure the lighter colored veggies to no have any discoloration.

Toss all of the sauteed veggies with the noodles, sesame seeds and add the sugar.  Mix in the cracked black pepper...a few good grinds should do you good.  Add sesame oil and soy sauce to taste.  I ended up using about 3-4 tablespoons of sesame oil and about a fourth a cup of soy sauce (yeah, salty, but so good).  Drink plenty of water and have a low salt day tomorrow...that's how I justify it. Enjoy!

RECIPE: Korean Taco..takes 1 and 2 with Sriracha Sour Cream

What the DMV (DC, Maryland Va...I know, I hate that term too, but it's so tempting) area needs is a Korean Taco Truck.  I might not be starting one anytime soon, but that doesn't mean I can't experiment in my own kitchen.  Going beyond the kimchee quesadilla,  I decided to give the Korean Taco a try.  Without a recipe in hand and no trip to the Asian food market (I believe anything is possible after a shopping trip there) I improvised with what I had on hand.  Therefore, I believe this recipe has huge room for improvement.  I have two versions below: one on a traditional warmed corn tortilla, and the other on a sesame leaf (from my neighbor's garden!).  The beef is a riff on the traditional Kalbi (Korean BBQ) but this will work for now.  Stay tuned for Take 3.

PHOTO BY VIRGINIA LEE

PHOTO BY VIRGINIA LEE

RECIPE: Korean Taco (takes 1 and 2) with Sriracha Sour Cream
Serves 4

Beef:  (See Note below)
1 lb of top round thin sliced, then sliced again into bite sized one inch pieces (sirloin, ribeye, or tenderloin can be subbed)
1/2 medium onion, sliced thinly
1-2TB of toasted sesame oil
1 TB low sodium tamari soy sauce
1 TB brown sugar
1/2 TB sesame seeds
Lots of cracked black pepper

Sriracha Sour Cream:
2 TB Light Sour Cream
1 tsp (or more if you dare) Sriracha

Wrap it up:
1 cup Kimchee, diced
Few sprigs of cilantro
Corn tortillas (warm according to directions)
OR
Sesame leaves (can be found in Asian food markets)

The Beef
Preheat a grill pan on medium high.  Whisk together onions, soy sauce, sesame oil, pepper and sugar.  Toss together with beef pieces.  Sear on the hot grill pan, about five minutes should do the trick.  Since it's thin sliced, the beef will cook quickly.

The Sour Cream
Mix sour cream and sriracha.  That was easy. Not my most creative moment, but it works.

Assemble and enjoy!

Note:  In the beef marinade try adding sliced scallions and pureed Asian pear.  Decrease the sugar by half and marinate over night.  I didn't have time to get to the Asian food market so this part of the recipe was omitted.  My mother used pureed Asian pear in her Kalbi...it helps tenderize tougher cuts of meat.  Also add a 1/4 cup of cooking wine to the marinate.

PHOTO BY VIRGINIA LEE

RECIPE: CSA "Take Out" Thai Chicken Noodles

My favorite recipes are the ones that create food that fool you into thinking they are horrible for you.  Honestly, I'll take a plate of pork belly with salted shrimp and cabbage  (a Korean fave) over a bowl of oatmeal any day.  But there's a serious misconception that good food HAS to be bad for you.  I'm not going to promise you a healthy donut or fat free pork belly (are you listening God, it's me, Virginia)...but a healthy stir fry recipe can always deter me from stuffing my face with greasy take out (sometimes).

The recipe below for me, was a two-fer.  I not only recreated one of my favorite Thai takeout meals BUT used several CSA ingredients from our weekly share (fresh, local, organic: green beans, basil, cilantro, cucumber, carrots).  I subbed out veggie oil for grape seed oil. Grape seed oil is a great alternative to olive oil.  Nutritionally, they are basically twins (though if you are in need of some Omega 3, look into adding flax or just stick to the olive oil), but their personalities are quite different.  Grape seed oil, though has a slight grapey aroma, lacks the strong olive taste of extra virgin olive oil.  It also has a higher smoking point, which makes grape seed oil more preferable for frying, and in this case, sauté-ing at a high heat.

PHOTO BY VIRGINIA LEE

Thai Chicken Noodles

Serves 4

Around 1/2 lb of whole wheat spaghetti, enough to make about 2-3 cups cooked  (2 cups of brown rice can also be substituted)

1 TB grape seed oil

2 chicken breast halves, sliced thin

2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped

2 carrots, peeled and julienned

1 red bell pepper, julienned

1/2 medium onion, chopped

Handful of fresh green beans, trimmed

1 small cucumber, peeled, seeded, and chopped

1 small tomato, seeded and chopped

Handful of fresh basil, julienned

1 TB of fresh cilantro, chopped

1 TB fresh mint, chopped (optional)

1 lime, juiced

1/2 TB red pepper flakes

2-3 tsp fish sauce (don't be scared!)

1 TB low sodium soy sauce

Fresh ground black pepper

Boil water in a large pot.  Add pasta.  In a large, deep skillet or wok, heat oil on medium, about 1 minute.  Add red pepper flakes, raise heat to medium high, about another minute.  Brown sliced chicken until cooked.  Throw in onions and garlic.  Stir until onions slightly soften.  Add carrots, bell pepper, and green onion.  Continuously stir to prevent burning and sticking.  When green beans have softened a little, add al dente pasta.  Reserve about 1/2 cup of pasta water in case you like a saucier dish..I find the moisture from the pasta is just fine, especially of you take the pasta right form the pot instead of draining it first.  Combine all ingredients well.  Add tomatoes, fish sauce, soy sauce, basil, cilantro, mint and lime.  Mix well, taste and adjust by adding more fish sauce or soy sauce.  Garnish with cold cucumbers.

Notes: Want to make chicken slicing less slimy and easier to prep?  Pop the chicken into the freezer about 1/2 hour before you plan on prepping it.  Freezing the chicken just a touch firms it up so it's easier to slice.

RECIPE: Asian Kohlrabi Slaw

What in the world is Kohlrabi you ask?  Good question.  It is week three of our CSA basket, and as a food nerd, the most exciting.  The last two weeks have been delicious, but rather boring: kale, swiss chard, more bok choy than I ever want to see in my lifetime.  So, I was pleased to find kohlrabi in this week's share...and saw it as my first official CSA challenge.  I didn't even know what it was until I looked at the content list of the share and used the powers of deduction (I could safely say these alien heads did not look like cucumber, cilantro, spring onion or bok choy).

I had to take a picture:

Stop me now if you've seen this strange vegetable and think it's common.  I had no idea what it was until about 3 hours ago.

I went into the challenge blind.  My first thought was to turn to the internet for advice.  How do I cook this thing?  Should it be peeled?  Should it be sliced and cooked like a turnip?   I wanted to make this a true challenge, I chose not to consult the internet.

I would prepare a dish of kohlrabi using just my culinary instincts.

Feeling the rough outer skin, it had the waxy texture of cabbage.  It wasn't until I cut it open when I realized that the skin should be peeled.  That, and the creepy roots sticking out of the bulb did not look appetizing.  I cut off the bottom root, placed it flat on the cutting board and carved away starting from the top to bottom to remove the skin.  The kohlrabi has a texture similar to a radish, or turnip.  I removed a small piece to sample.  It had a peppery bite to it that was reminiscent of a cross between cabbage and a radish.  The consistency was radishy...a nice crunch.  I knew I had to do some sort of slaw at that point.  But not any slaw, but something with a Korean influence.

I cut up the rest of the kohlrabi into coins, then small matchsticks.  I then added from our share diced cucumber, chopped cilantro, and chopped spring onion.  Then, right on top of the slaw I threw in about 2 tablespoons of rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of kochugaroo (Korean red pepper flakes), 1 teaspoon of sesame seeds, and a dash of sugar to round it out.  I mixed well with my impeccably clean hands.  First CSA challenge, done.

PHOTO BY VIRGINIA LEE

(Serving suggestion: Top a fish taco with the slaw for an Asian influenced taco.  Don't be scared.  Serve with a side of veggie fried rice)