Braised Chicken with Cannellini Beans

I've been thinking about making braised rabbit and white beans for some time, but I figured I would try it with chicken first. Rabbit tends to be a bit pricy to experiment with. One might classify this as a poor mans cassoulet. I would call it gourmet peasant food. This is my own recipe, but conceptually it is based on the building blocks of soups and stews. I'm not sure these photos quite do it justice, but I am so pleased with the outcome that I have to share this recipe. I just wish I had made fresh bread to go along with this dish. I will definitely be making this recipe again, but substituting rabbit for the chicken.

(Braised Chicken with Cannellini Beans Recipe Follows)

Pollo al Vin Cotto (Chicken in Cooked Wine)

I found this recipe in one of my favorite cookbooks, "Molto Italiano: 327 Simple Italian Recipes to Cook at Home" by Mario Batali. If you've ever heard me talk about food you probably know that I idolize Mario. Seriously, the guy knows his food and facts. He used to have a cooking show on the Food Network called Molto Mario. Every episode of the show was a cooking lesson and a history lesson from an epicurean perspective. I wholeheartedly subscribe to his philosophy on food and cooking. Buy local, buy organic, buy fresh, and buy/use/substitute seasonal ingredients whenever possible. I think one of the shows principals was to modestly introduce a whole culture of dishes to the American table that the typical American might otherwise shy away from. Once I realized that Italian food could be so much more than Pizza, Pasta, and Spumoni Ice Cream I became really interested in exploring foods not so customary to the American table. There is a romanticism in the way the dishes of Italy are composed, named, and presented. Mario does a good job of preserving the traditional aspects of Italian Cuisine and making it accessible to fervent home cooks, like me. I will credit Mario as at least part of the reason I got interested in cooking. I will go so far as to say that I think Mario Batali is to Italian Cuisine in America as Julia Child was to French Cuisine in America.

Pollo al Vin Cotto is Italian for "chicken in cooked wine". Cooked wine, because the wine is reduced to a sauce and then a glaze. The dish isn't one I would expect to find in the typical American home, but the flavors are not so far fetched as come off as peculiar. This is NOT a week night dinner, I made the mistake of thinking it could be. There is quite a bit of time involved in making this recipe. The original recipe from the book states that reducing the wine should take about 20 minutes. I knew that was way too short. I figured on 45 minutes, but it took about 80 minutes. I could have speed that up by using a wider saute pan instead of a sauce pan, and next time I will. I served this recipe with braised cabbage because as you may remember from my last post I have a wealth of cabbage left over from the Rebollita. I think the pairing was good, but I should have made polenta or orzo to go with it. None the less the chicken was incredible.

Recipes for Pollo al Vin Cotto and Braised Cabbage follow

Healthy Option 2: Ribollita

I'm back from the farmers market. There are some really beautiful greens growing here in the Bay Area right now. I kinda wish I'd bought some of the little young fennel too, but oh well next week and another post. I came home with a 3 1/2 pound cabbage. It looked amazing, but oh my god this thing is a monster. It is bigger than my own head (before adjusting for inflation). I found this interesting looking traditional Italian soup recipe here called Ribollita. The recipe looked like it would make good use of what I had on hand and my farmers market hoard.

Ribollita literally means "reboiled" in Italian. After eating this soup for a second dinner I can attest that it is even better when reboiled. You can easily make this soup vegetarian by substituting vegetable stock or water for the chicken stock. The soup is traditionally a peasant food that makes use of the left over soup, often minestrone.

(Recipe for Zuppa Ribollita follows)

Healthy Option: Kabocha Squash and Lentil Soup

The Holidays are almost over and it is time to eat some healthier foods. I can't believe the abundance of candy and cookies around the holidays. I'm weak, so when they are around I eat them. I didn't make a single dessert this Christmas, but I probably ate more sweets during the last two weeks than I did during the previous four months. For my next few posts I am going to try to post some healthy meals that don't sacrifice flavor.

This recipe is based on a recipe I found on one of my favorite food blogs. The original recipe can be found here. I forgot to get a fennel bulb when I went to the market, so I improvised using what I had on hand. I plan to try this recipe again using the fennel bulb, but I am quite pleased with the outcome. This soup features the Kabocha Squash which is an excelent roasting squash, but any smooth textured squash would suffice. The addition of the kale worked very well and the garlic croutons puts this soup over the top.

(Kabocha Squash and Lentil Soup recipe follows)

Moroccan Tagine?

If you know me well, then you know I have a bit of an obsession with cookware. Recently I acquired a new pot like no other pot in my kitchen; it's a stove top and oven safe ceramic pot by Emil Henry. You read the title, but it's not a tagine. It's a 5.5 quart stewpot. I've wanted something like this for a long time. I have some very nice Le Creuset which are wonderful enameled cast iron pots, but this pot is like having a crock pot for the stove or oven with the advantage of being able to brown ingredients over higher heat. The vessel is the perfect size for soups and stews (I guess that's why they call it a stewpot.) It doesn't heat quite as evenly as cast iron, but the heat retention is considerably better than cast iron. I actually think this makes for better stews. This pot is a terrific alternative to the Moroccan Tagine. While I think the Tagine is a beautiful and very unique piece of cookware its utility is fairly limited. My new ceramic pot serves the same purpose as the tagine with more versatility. It is inevitable that I will someday acquire a tagine (maybe when I build my wood fired pizza oven), but for now I can't think of a disadvantage to this pot.

I've never made a stew in this style, so I wasn't sure my first attempt would end up worthy of an Oakland Skillet post. I should have had more faith in my skills and intuition. I based my recipe on two recipes I found on the internet. The first recipe is by Jamie Oliver and the second was published in Cooking Light. Neither of these recipes were exactly what I was looking for. The second recipe from Cooking Light suggests this can be done in 45 minutes which is preposterous. If you make this in 45 minutes, as the recipe suggests, the meat will be way too tough and chewy. Long cooking time at a low heat is the only way to make these inexpensive cuts of meat tender. Jamie's technique is of course right on, but I didn't have some of the ingredients his recipe called for and I wanted something a little richer. My recipe uses more spices and a richer stock. My first attempt at a Moroccan style dish could not have turned out better.

(Recipe for Moroccan Style Lamb of Beef Tagine with Butternut Squash Follows)

Black Bean and Calabrese Sausage Soup

The Calabrese or Salsiccia Calabrese is a pork sausage made traditionally in the region of Calabria, Italy. It is most similar to what most Americans know as the spicy Italian sausage. Calabrese is made with fennel seed, dried ground hot peppers like the cayanne, and a sweet paprika sometimes called pepe rosso which gives the sausage its deep red color. If you have never had a Calabrese and live in the Bay Area may I recommend: Top Dog. This spicy sausage is entirely underrated.

If there is one culinary custom I inherited from my mother it's soups. Growing up my mom would make a pot of soup nearly every week in the evening and we probably ate that soup for 4 meals that week. For a while I might have said I was fed up with soup. But soups are so essential to my culinary roots I could never get by without them. And, lets face it, as much as I love to cook I can't cook every day. I make a pot of soup on Monday and I'll have lunch and dinner for two or three more days.

This soup is my own recipe and I will admit it is a culture clash, but please don't call it fusion-food. The Calabrese is there as a flavor component and not the bulk of the soup. I think you'll find the bright heat from the New Mexico chili powder and the manzano pepper along with the moderately smokey flavor from the bacon and roasted pepper topped off with garlicky bitter greens a perfect combination. This soup will warm your insides as the winter continues to blow in. I promise you will love it.

(recipe follows)

My Bread and Butter

My Whole Wheat Bread

It seems the My Bread post was quite popular. I have been baking a lot of bread since that first loaf. It still blows me away that I can make an artisan bread at home in my 55 year old oven. I have tried a few different breads besides the standard Italian loaf from the original recipe. I've experimented with Olive Bread, Cheese Bread, Olive & Cheese Bread, and even a Pumpkin Yeast Bread. All of those are very good, but the recipe I have perfected is for a whole wheat bread. I started with the wheat bread recipe that was published in Jim Lahey's book "My Bread." However, I felt like his wheat bread recipe wasn't as wheatie as I like. I experimented with several ratios of bread flour and whole wheat flour until I got close to what I was looking for. Then, I could taste what was missing. In my recipe there is a small amount of rye flour. The rye gives the bread just a little bit of that tangy rye flavor. I really think it makes a wonderful whole wheat bread.

Homemade Butter Ball

When it comes to the standard Italian bread I like the bread by it self or with a really nice high quality olive oil. However, with wheat I tend to go for butter. Last night I was baking a loaf of my whole wheat bread for a potluck at work. I was thinking about going to the store to get my favorite brand of butter. I couldn't tell you what the brand name is, all I know is it is imported from Italy and it comes wrapped in wax paper with blue lettering and is riveted closed on both ends with brass rivets. The butter is quite different from your every day butter found in most grocery stores. This butter is slightly sweet and has a flavor closer to fresh cream than what I usually think of as butter. The trouble is I only know one place to get it and I didn't have time to go before the potluck today. My solution was to make my own.

I had never made butter before, but I can tell you it is quite simple and not very much work if you have some kind of machine to agitate the cream for you. I've been told that butter making is a great activity for kids. You give them a jar with cream inside and have them shake until it becomes butter. I can't wait to have kids some day. This should keep them occupied before meals. Anyways, I made my butter in my stand mixer, but you could also use a food processor or blender.

I think the key to making good butter since there isn't any real technique involved is to start with good cream. I used the best cream I could find at Trader Joe's since TJ's is only a short walk from my home, but I know that isn't the best cream available. The organic heavy whipping cream at TJ's is fine and it made a pretty good butter, but it is ultra pasteurized, something you should avoid if possible. Around the Bay Area and certainly in the East Bay we have a remarkable dairy, the Straus Family Creamery. The Straus Family Creamery's products are available in most better grocery stores. If it is convenient then by all means use their products, especially if you are going to go through the trouble of making your own butter. I will next time. Heavy whipping cream is all you are likely to find in the stores, but the best cream to make butter with would be manufacturing cream. Manufacturing cream has a butterfat content of 40% or more where heavy whipping cream is between 35% and 40%. It is really difficult to find manufacturing cream in the stores since the restaurants buy it all. If you find manufacturing cream please, please, please let me know where you got it!

Whole Wheat Bread and Home Made Butter Recipes follow