Seeing 2020 out in style

New Year's Eve dinner

We had a great New Year’s Eve dinner tonight, but there’s a story behind it. We had roast beef. For weeks now, I’ve been campaigning for an oven roast. Christian makes roast frequently, but they are what I grew up knowing as pot roast. I was longing for one of my mom’s oven roasts. All I could remember about Mom’s roasts though was that she cut slits in the meat and stuck in garlic cloves. I had no idea what cut of meat she used. A lot of internet research didn’t leave me much smarter—there are, I decided, twenty names for any one cut of beef roast.

A week or so ago Jordan and I settled on a roast that looked doable. It called for an English roast. Nowhere else on the internet could I find any reference to an English roast. We chose a rump roast, which I know is not the most tender, but the selection at Central Market was either outrageously expensive tenderloin or a lesser cut.

The recipe specified to let the meat set at room temperature for at least half an hour, rub seasoning into all sides, sear on all sides in a hot skillet, and put under the broiler (5 inches under) with the oven door cracked for fifteen minutes for rare. Then let it sit and collect itself while you make the sauce of butter, red wine, and skillet drippings. Jordan protested it looked too complicated, and Christian would not be home with time or inclination to do it. I assured her I would do the prep, but she would have to take it inside to roast—the toaster oven was not going to do it.

As New Year’s Eve came closer there was more protestation. She finally decided though that all prep should be done in her kitchen, but I would have to be on hand for advice. As it turns out, both Christian and I were there, and she decided once she got into it, it wasn’t as complicated as she thought. A few tense moments when it appeared to be cooking too rapidly—you “roasted” it under the broiler, but five inches from the heating element and with the door left ajar. Meantime she was juggling boiled small Yukon Gold potatoes and asparagus. But all went smoothly. The roast rested, as it must to keep the juices, and she used red wine and butter to scrape up the browned bits out of the skillet and make a sauce.

The result was a roast that was, yes, a bit chewy but with absolutely marvelous flavor. The potatoes and asparagus were perfect, and it was a fit recipe for kicking out 2020 and looking forward to 2021.

Oven Roast

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil

2-3 lb. boneless English roast

1 Tbsp. Kosher salt

1 tsp, ground black pepper

1tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp, onion powder

1 tsp dried thyme leaves

2 Tbsp. butter divided

¼ cup red wine

About an hour before you plan to cook it, set the meat out of the refrigerator and allow it to come to room temperature.

When you’re ready to cook, preheat the broiler. Move the oven rack to a place where the meat will be at least five inches or maybe more from the heating element.

Press the seasonings into all sides of the roast. In a cast-iron skillet, heat the vegetable oil to high heat and sear the meat on all sides, about four minutes per side.  Place the meat, still in the skillet, in the oven and leave the door ajar. Roast for 15 minutes for rare, 25 minutes for medium rare. Use a meat thermometer, which should come to 135^o for rare and 155^o for medium rare.

Remove the roast from the oven, set on a cutting board or similar safe place to rest, top with at least one Tbsp. of butter, and tent with foil. Meanwhile, add remaining butter to skillet along with red wine, and, over medium heat, scrape any browned bits off the bottom of the pan.

Slice the meat thinly across the grain and pass the pan drippings with the meat. A treat for the tongue, though you may find a more suitable cut of meat than we did. Still it was a wonderful meal.

Sure, I know it’s still 2020 until midnight, but I seriously thought of this as a great way to toast out 2020, for all its pains and its few joys. To one and all, Happy New Year and may 2021 bring you peace, health, safety, joy, and lots of good food.

 

“Little Jack Horner sat in the corner,
Eating a Christmas pie.
He put in his thumb, and pulled out a plum,
And said, 'What a good boy am I?'”
Little Jack Horner, A nursery rhyme.

May your Christmas pie be full of plums!

Merry Christmas and Happy Cooking

from the Gourmet on a Hot Plate!

Eat your greens!

 

I live in a “greens-deprived” household—no one else eats cooked greens, while I can happily eat spinach out of the can, though I prefer it heated with a little butter and salt. It was a childhood favorite and remains in that category, yet I know grown adults who shudder, literally, if you mentioned cooked greens. Spinach salad, they say is okay, but not cooked.

My friend Heather Hogan Holt, a chef by training and occupation, posted a recipe on Facebook’s New York Times Cooking Community page for cooked greens, and I quickly copied it, although I have to disagree with Heather on one point: she suggests using greens of your choice. My choice is spinach. I am not a fan of kale: in fact, I belong to the school that says if you put a little coconut oil in the skillet when sauteing kale, it makes it easier to throw it in the garbage. I also think kale Caesar salad, offered in a home-cooked to-go establishment near me, is a travesty. And I grew up as a northerner, so turnip greens are not familiar fare. I think I remember my mom cooking collards, but I don’t remember the part about liking them. So spinach it is. You take your choice.

This is one of those recipes is that is not a recipe, so here goes: Heather recommends rendering some diced bacon, though you can use olive oil or butter as the fat (I find increasingly I don’t want to add the strong bacon flavor to everything; on the other hand, I can’t get enough butter). Sauté some diced sweet onion in the butter or bacon grease or olive oil until it gets a little golden, and then add garlic—as much as you want. Sauté quickly, no more than a minute, and then add greens by handfuls and let them cook down.

Heather says if you choose spinach, use frozen, thawed and drained. She also avoids pre-cut greens, like kale in bags, because they usually include tough stems. Allow three-fourths of a bunch of greens per person—I did a whole box of frozen spinach just for me. Toss the greens to mix in the onions and garlic, and then pour stock—meat or vegetable (I used chicken)—until it’s about halfway up the greens. Simmer for thirty minutes. If the stock cooks down too much, add some more (Better than Bouillon or similar condensed stocks are great here).

Add eight ounces softened cream cheese for every four people—I added half a block just for me. Let it melt and cook until the dish thickens. Check for salt and pepper. If you used bacon, throw the cooked, diced bits back in. The onion, garlic, and cream cheese are the most important ingredients. Don’t skimp on the cheese! Add fresh or dried herbs if you wish, though I liked it just fine as a straightforward dish without other flavorings.

Pair this with a nice, broiled fish or chicken, and you’ve got a good supper. Healthy too. Well, depends on whether or not you used bacon.

Much to do about chicken

 

Grandma's Chicken

We eat a lot of chicken casseroles at our house. The resident grandchild is not all that fond of beef, although his father is. I’ve discovered there are almost as many theories on how to cook chicken for use in a casserole as there are chicken casserole recipes. Since I’ve been in the cottage without an oven or a microwave, I’ve been poaching chicken and been unhappy about it—the meat was tough.

On the internet I discovered that perhaps I was letting the chicken boil too hard. I found directions that called for bringing the water just to a soft boil, turning off the heat and covering the pan and leaving the chicken for I think it was three minutes. Result? Underdone chicken.

So we went to rotisserie chicken. Jordan would bring it warm from the store, and I’d stick it in the fridge. Eventually, when forced to it, I’d de-bone it, struggling to get the as much meat as possible in usable chunks. Well, that was the second thing I’d done wrong. Jordan told me the meat slides right off the bone of you do it when it’s still hot. So from now on, she debones the chickens. Still, the rotisserie meat has a flavor and texture all its own—it isn’t like freshly cooked chicken.

But recently my friend Ann Kane suggested she has found a way better than poaching. It sort of resembles what I used to do when I had an oven—I put chicken breasts in a roasting pan, covered them liberally with salt and pepper, and laid a few onion rings over them. Covered the pan with foil and baked the meat for about half an hour.

Ann’s method is to skin the breasts and lay them in the pan. Then make a mixture of 1 Tbsp. lemon juice and ½ tsp. salt. Brush this on the meat, cover with foil, and bake 30 minutes at 400^o. I have not tried this yet—we had rotisserie chicken in the freezer, but it sounds good to me. When I told Christian about it, he asked if the cooked meat would taste of lemon, pointing out you might not want lemon-flavored chicken in every recipe. Somehow, I’m sure that’s not a problem. To me, lemon is good on almost anything.

Here’s a recipe we had the other night. Absolutely delicious—I ate two helpings, thank you very much.

Grandma’s Chicken

3 c. cooked chicken, cubed

2 cans cream of mushroom soup

2 c. shredded sharp cheddar cheese

3 c. finely crushed Ritz crackers

           Preheat over to 350^o

           Lightly grease a 9x13 pan. Arrange chicken in the bottom. Spoon soup evenly over the chicken and top with shredded cheese. Sprinkle cracker crumbs evenly over the cheese.

Bake 20-30 minutes until mixture is bubbly and cracker crumbs are lightly browned.

Leftovers are a problem. If you store them in an icebox dish, the crumbs get mixed in and become soggy. If stored in the original pan and baked again in the oven so crumbs would crisp up again, it might make good leftovers.

It would be easy to halve this in a smaller baking dish.

               

 

Holiday Cheeseball

Cheeseball

This is a requirement for Christmas in my family, and it dates back to my childhood. Every Christmas Eve, my family would travel from Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood to a neighborhood much farther south, called Beverly Hills. At the time Beverly Hills, to me, meant wealth and big, splendid houses. We went to a party hosted by a couple who were among my parents’ closest friends.

Two dishes stick out in my memory: the cheese ball and my mom’s pickled shrimp. These days I can’t have the shrimp—I developed an allergy, probably from overdosing on shrimp when I was young. But you can find the cheeseball in my home every Christmas. My kids demand it. It truly is the best cheeseball I’ve ever tasted.

I think I’ve posted this recipe before, but it bears repeating if you lost it or missed it. A couple of shopping notes: it calls for horseradish. I’ve had trouble finding prepared horseradish lately. Stores seem to have plenty of something called creamy horseradish sauce but not the plain prepared. Kraft apparently offers prepared horseradish; other brands you might look for are Inglehofer or Zatarains. Just try to avoid anything called sauce.

The original recipe called for a roll of Old English cheese. There has not been such a product on the market for years. A small loaf of Velveeta makes a fine substitute. I’m not a big fan of Velveeta, but in some recipes it is irreplaceable. This is one of them.

Holiday Cheeseball

½ lb. Roquefort or blue cheese

1 8 oz. pkg. Velveeta

l 8-oz. pkg. cream cheese

½ lb. pecans, chopped fine

1 bunch parsley, chopped fine

1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 small onion, chopped fine         

½ tsp. horseradish

Let the cheeses soften to room temperature and mix thoroughly. Add Worcestershire, onion, horseradish and half of the parsley and pecans. Mix thoroughly and shape into a ball. Do NOT do this in the food processor, as it will become too runny. Even a mixer makes it too smooth and creamy—wash your hands thoroughly and dig in, so the finished cheese ball has some texture and credibility. Roll the ball in the remaining parsley and pecans. Chill. Serve with crackers. Leftovers will keep a month in the freezer.