From my mom’s kitchen

In Irene in Danger and Finding Florence, the two most recent cozies in my Irene in Chicago Culinary Mysteries, narrator Henny James stars in her own TV show titled, “From My Mom’s Kitchen.” In contrast to Irene’s focus on French cuisine, Henny shares down-home recipes from her mom’s Texas kitchen. This morning I went searching for a specific recipe from my mom—a leg of lamb with plum preserves—to share with you. Never did find it but I sent myself on a nostalgia trip remembering some of the ordinary dishes Mom cooked.

Alice Peterman Peckham MacBain was of German descent, and her mother Granny Peterman, whom I barely remember, served traditional German meals. One result of that was Mom refused to touch or serve sauerkraut, and I never tasted it until I was grown and fixing my own meals. And as a child, I never had sauerbraten or schnitzel or rouladen, and there might have been cabbage but never sweet and sour. Still, married to an Anglophile who wanted roast beef and potatoes every night, Mom managed to cook some foods that I think she probably learned from her mother. Here are a few simple ones:

Sausage and apple skillet

1 lb. ground pork sausage

3-4 tart apples, cored and cut into slices but not peeled

Fry pork sausage until crumbled and done; drain off some of the grease and add two or three sliced apples—maybe McIntosh? a tart variety—and cook until apples are mushy. In those days we didn’t have choices between hot or mild or maple-flavored sausage. There was only what today would be labeled “regular” or “original.”

Mom sometimes served this for breakfast, but more often it was a light supper. We had a tradition of Sunday supper eaten on a rolling tea cart in front of the fireplace rather than at the formal dining table. This skillet dish was typical of those suppers; so were souffles and stratas (a layered casserole of bread and egg, usually with cheese.)

 

Wilted lettuce

Dad struggled to grow vegetables in the soot and smoke of Chicago, but when we had fresh leaf lettuce, Mom often wilted it. Christian was cautious when I mentioned wilted lettuce (it does conjure a negative image), but he now likes it.

2-3 slices bacon cooked crisp and crumbled – save 2 Tbsp. grease

Vinegar to taste (start with 1 tsp. and taste)

Fresh leaf lettuce

Mom would fry bacon, drain some of the grease off and add vinegar to the remaining, and crumble the bacon into it and reheat until just warm. (She did not measure, and my suggestions are approximate.) Then she poured the warm grease on the lettuce. You can only do this with fresh leaf lettuce.

 

Mom also used to fix beets and greens, which you almost never see these days. I don’t think people eat fresh beets much—or any other kind. She’d cook the beets, slice them, and return them to the pan with the washed and stemmed greens to simmer until the greens were soft. She poured vinegar over beets and greens, and one of my sons always ate them that way. I prefer them with butter and lemon. But a warning: it’s hard to find enough greens on fresh beets.

Beets and greens

1 bunch fresh beets with full, healthy greens still attached

Butter

Lemon and butter or vinegar to taste

Remove greens from beets; wash and set aside. Boil or roast beets until they can easily be pierced with a fork. Run under cold water until cool enough to handle and peel (the peel slips right off once cooked). Cut off the ends, slice, and return to drained saucepan. Trim stems off greens and add to pan with just a bit of moisture. Cook until beets are heated and greens are wilted and cooked.

 

I never ate southern dishes as a “northern” kid, but it occurs to me all these years later that Mom’s fried mush was typically southern. I think fried mush was one more thing from my Granny Peterman’s kitchen. Today, we’d call it hard polenta and serve it at supper. In Mom’s kitchen, it was breakfast.

Fried mush

Cornmeal

Oil

Butter

Syrup

Make cornmeal mush in a loaf pan, following directions on the cornmeal, and chill. Slice and fry in skillet with small amount of oil or maybe she used margarine (I’d use butter today) until lightly browned. Serve warm with butter and syrup. It’s delicious!

 

As for that sauerkraut Mom wouldn’t eat, try this:

Caramelized sauerkraut

Sauerkraut - about ½ cup per person (I do not like canned sauerkraut and always use a brand that comes in a glass jar or plastic pouch; drain well before frying)

Butter

Sugar

           Stir-fry sauerkraut in butter, constantly stirring and sprinkling with sugar, until it turns a lovely shade of light brown. It’s hard to get this right, and you may have to try a couple of times, but it’s so good. Mom didn’t know what she was missing!

 

 

Winging it in the kitchen

 

No, Jacob didn't make pot pie at three

One of the culinary tenets the late Helen Corbitt repeated in classes, lectures, and columns was the cooking must be fun—well, at least enjoyable. I suspect too many home cooks are a bit awed by cooking, a bit afraid to step out of the box. Well, I’m here to tell you that sometimes you have to leap out of that cooking box, fly past the recipe. That’s just what happened the other night when I was making chicken pot pie for four. The ingredients I had on hand didn’t match the recipe closely at all, particularly in quantity, so I winged it.

The recipe called for two cups chicken. As I’ve confessed often, we used a rotisserie chicken for casseroles. Most days it seems to me those birds are shrinking, and when I need three cups of diced meat, I get barely two. So this night, I needed one cup and must have gotten three. I started there. The recipe called for one cup, mixed, of peas and corn. Jordan had gotten a bag of mixed vegetables—so I used the whole bag which was at least two cups. The sauce called for cream of chicken soup (1/2 can but by now I knew I had too much chicken and vegetables, so I used the entire can) and 4 oz. cream cheese. If I had 3 oz. left in the cheese drawer, I was lucky. I ended up with way too much filler for the sauce I had.

Oh, well. A little white wine always helps a casserole. I gave it a couple good splashes. I needed something like the soup, but another can of soup didn’t sound right. Mayonnaise doesn’t come to mind for casseroles, but it’s a good binding agent. So several glops of mayo went in. I stirred, added more mayo, and then remembered the recipe called for cheddar, so I grated that in. When I stirred, everything was coated by a nice amount of sauce. Salt and pepper and it went into the casserole dish to be topped with puff pastry. I have long done pot pies with crescent rolls, but I think the puff pastry makes a lighter crust. It does not hold up well as leftovers, however. Gets too soggy.

Everyone seemed to like it for supper. Christian, who doesn’t like peas, lima beans, or cooked carrots, even said it was good and apparently didn’t notice those vegetables buried in the sauce.

Here’s the recipe I was winging off, and it’s not very precise to begin with because it came from my own cookbook, Cooking My Way through Life with Kids and Books. The last time I remember fixing this, Jordan, Jacob, and I ate the whole thing. Jacob liked the sauce so much he used strawberries to scrape up the last little bit. But that was some time ago. The other night I had almost half left after Jordan, Christian, and I had supper.

Filling:

1 cup cooked chicken, diced, perhaps a bit more

½ cup frozen petite peas

½ cup corn kernels

½ cup cream of chicken soup

4 oz. cream cheese

½ cup cheddar cheese, grated

Mix all together and put in a greased 8x8 oven-proof dish.

Top with crescent rolls or puff pastry. If using crescent dough, pinch the perforations together to get a solid sheet. Either way, cut the dough to fix, so that it sort of floats on the topping. Brush with melted butter or egg wash for a browner top.

Bake at 375^o for 20 minutes.

And here’s my culinary tip for the day: next time you make a tuna salad sandwich, or chicken salad, top the salad with potato chips before adding the second piece of bread. Adds crunch and makes it so good!

Simplifying charcuterie

 

To me, this is overdone, too crowded.

Six years ago, when I first moved into the cottage, everybody wanted to come for happy hour so they could see my new digs. We had guests every night, and it was fun and, indeed, happy. Jordan and I put out a cutting board with a couple of meat or salami choices and two or three cheeses—a wonderful cheddar with blue cheese layered in or sometimes cheddar from the Cotswolds. We didn’t call it chaucuterie because, if my memory is correct, that term has only become popular since then.

Today, charcuterie boards are all the fashion. There are books about how to do them, and you can take classes in constructing them. Hostesses seem to be in fierce competition to see who can have the most elaborate, the most innovative board. Frankly, I think it’s gotten out of hand. For one thing, those elaborate, overflowing board may be beautiful, but they’re not practical. How do you pull out a piece of cheese or a pickle spear or whatever without touching all the food on the platter? I was raised to believe if you touched it, you ate it. I want a little space between items—and a pickle fork.

If you can shop at a store with a good deli counter, you’ll have a much wider range of choices. You really need three things on your board:

Meat – figure 2 to 3 ounces per person and try for variety of taste and texture. Cured meats are usually used, and pork is traditional, but you can include other meats. Salami is always a good choice—either soft or hard; I like mortadella—a fine, soft Italian meat (think bologna) with little pockets of pork fat; you can use prosciutto, bresaola, chorizo, ham, pepperoni. I love a good pate. Most people think pate is duck or chicken liver and those are most common, but pâté can be made of beef, game, fish, even vegetables. It is usually richly seasoned with herbs, spices, and either wine or brandy. Often, they are made in a loaf or terrine pan, chilled, and sliced. A pate is smooth enough to spread. Ingredients in a terrine are coarsely chopped.

Cheese – again, 2 to 3 ounces per person. Use a soft cheese, like brie, goat cheese (chevre) or camembert – if the cheese will be messy on the board, place it on a small plate or coaster or piece of parchment; add a semi-soft or hard cheese – cheddar, gouda, manchego; to add interest to your board, choose an unusual cheese—like blue or gorgonzola. Slice the cheese before arranging the board—if people have to slice their own pieces, your board will soon be a mess.

Bread – you can hardly go wrong here with anything from lavash to Ritz crackers. Try cocktail rye or baguette slices. Sometimes we use sesame rice crackers but be aware they break easily. Try Melba toast or water wafers. Most groceries have a wide selection of crackers.

Some hosts consider a meat and cheese board ample enough; others like to add fruit and what I call garnishes:

Fruit – grapes are the standby and easiest, but you can do chunks of melon in season, strawberries (halve them if large), figs. Avoid soft fruits, like bananas and raspberries, and blueberries which roll around. You can also offer a tiny pot of jam or chutney. In winter, dried fruits may be your best choice.

Garnishes – again, let your imagination rule. Add anything from cornichons and olives or tapenade to nuts or dips; smoked shellfish or mild white anchovies are nice but put them in a small dish so they don’t touch the non-fishy items. How about tiny cherry tomatoes or pickled onions. Bits of fresh herbs tucked here and there add great eye appeal.

Note: you can do vegan and gluten-free boards if you or a guest have special needs.

Covid really changed our attitude toward charcuterie because we were all so conscious of sanitation. Boards faded from our happy hour about that time, at least in my cottage. You may still be leery of the communal aspect of charcuterie, but there are options: Cone charcuterie is layered in pre-made cones (no, I don’t know where to get them). Some hostesses layer ingredients in small Mason jars, preferably wide-mouth, and call it jarcuterie. Or you can do charcuterie kebabs. With these alternative forms, it might be good to provide small plates and a fork to each guest—or a lot of toothpicks.

The good thing about these boards is that you can tailor them to your taste and the specific situation. Let your imagination run and have fun with it. And take pictures.

 

 

Beyond the bagel

 

not my picture
unfortunately

Let’s begin with a basic fact: lox and smoked salmon are not the same. Lox is salt cured; if it’s called Nova lox, it simply means it’s sourced from Nova Scotia. Smoked salmon can be either hot smoked or cold smoked. Hot smoked, as the name implies, is cooked usually over a smoke fire (the best I ever had was in Oregon where it was smoked over coals on a tipi-shaped frame, the way indigenous people did it for centuries). It has a firmer texture, like roast or grilled salmon, and a stronger flavor.

Before it is smoked, cold smoked salmon is either brined, as you would brine a chicken or even a pickle, or dry cured, covered with a mixture of spices, typically heavy on sugar and salt. Then the salmon is exposed to smoke, but at with much less intensity than hot smoked. Cold smoked is typically served in paper thin slices and has a delicate flavor.

Confession: My palate is not sophisticated enough to distinguish good Nova lox and cold smoked salmon, unless the latter is really oaky. But it’s cold smoked salmon I want to talk about today. Another confession: it’s a luxury I routinely keep in my refrigerator. I buy it pre-packaged at Central Market, but it is available at many groceries. You can try several labels until you settle on the one you like. I used to ask the deli staff to slice it from their big piece of salmon until one of them told me the packaged was fresher. Sometimes you’ll see packages labeled gravlax—that’s Scandinavian salmon cured in sugar, salt, and dill. You can do that at home (I’ve done it to prove a point, but it’s easier to buy it). Central Market also sometimes offers cold smoked trout, which is quite good.

So what beyond the bagel do you do with smoked salmon? I’ve got a couple of favorites for you:

Smoked salmon toasts with sweet onion

Sourdough or baguette slices

1 garlic clove, skinned and cut in half

Softened butter

Tomato—you can use a large tomato or a Roma, thinly sliced or halved cherry tomatoes, though the halves might tend to fall of the bread

Smoked salmon – at least 2 oz. per person

Slices of small, sweet onion

Olive oil

Lemon juice to taste—not too much!

Salt and pepper

Decorative greens such as watercress or basil for garnish

If you want this to be an entrée, use thick slices of artisan bread; I usually serve it as an appetizer, and I use baguette slices. I count on three baguette slices per person.

Toast the bread. While it is still warm, rub with the cut side of the garlic. Butter the bread generously (the butter acts as a barrier to keep the toast from getting soggy when you add the tomato). Add tomato slices, slices of salmon, and onion. Drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice. You may want to pepper the tomato lightly, but I’d advise against salt because the salmon is salty. Garnish and serve immediately.

Optional: sprinkle a few capers over the toasts

A variation: this is also delicious if you use sardines instead of salmon. In that case, a bit of salt is warranted.

Smoked salmon with caviar

This recipe called for making pizza dough for the base, but I’m not a pizza fan and making dough from scratch was not on my agenda. I used flour tortillas, but if you can find individual small, prepared pizzas (Boboli or some other brand), you can use that. You might also try a round of puff pastry. I served one tortilla each as an entrée to a friend who shares my taste for smoked salmon.

One large flour tortilla or small pizza circle per person

Olive oil

3 oz. crème fraiche per person

2 oz. smoked salmon per person

1 ox. Black caviar per person (cheap is fine)

           Brush the pastry (whatever you use) with olive oil and toast lightly. Let is cool a bit, then cover with crème fraiche. Top that with smoked salmon, arranged as decoratively as you can, and spoon a bit of caviar into the center. For easier consumption, you might halve the individual servings. Garnish with a bit of basil or watercress or flat leaf parsley.

I had one more recipe in mind, but that’s enough for one day. Let me know if you want more about smoked salmon. I have in mind potato salad with smoked salmon or directions for at-home gravlax (it’s not as intimidating as it sounds).

 

 

 

          

Variations on a recipe

 

Once school starts, everyone seems busier, time is somehow compressed. Maybe it’s something subliminal, like the days are getting shorter or an impending sense that the holidays, busiest time of the year, are not far off. Maybe it’s just that the lazy days of summer are over, and there’s less time for everything—including fixing supper.

I like to keep a rotisserie chicken or two on hand for just such evenings when we’re rushed. Jordan has convinced me that they are easier to bone if you do it right away when you get home from the store, when the chicken is still warm. Not only is it easier to bone, but it takes up a lot less room in the freezer. You can pull it out, cut into chunks, have a casserole in the oven in no time aat all. One problem is that recipes usually call for three or four cups chicken, and I find we don’t always get that much off one bird.

The other night with Jordan out of town I used a rotisserie chicken to fix a simple chicken casserole Christian and Jacob. I thought was delicious.

Chicken Casserole

4 cups chopped, cooked chicken

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 cup sour cream

½ sleeve Ritz crackers

½ stick butter, melted

Lightly spray a casserole dish. Distribute chicken evenly in the dish. Mix sour cream and mushroom soup and pour over chicken. Crush the Ritz crackers—I love the taste of Ritz and they crumble so much more easily than saltines. Just put them in a baggie and whack at them a bit with your rolling pin. You do have a rolling pin, don’t you? Never hurts to ask in this day of baking mixes.

Spread crumbs evenly over casserole and drizzle with butter. Bake at 350 for 20 or 30 minutes.

I have a lazy habit of eating cold leftovers for lunch—lazy because I don’t want to stop what I’m doing and fix something. But I must admit this wasn’t as good the next day. Probably I should have reheated it.

Since I fixed that, I’ve come across variations. Here’s another version:

Diced chicken

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 can cream of celery soup

Pepperidge Farm stuffing

1 c. butter

1-1/2 cups chicken broth

           Bake at 425 for 20 minutes.

Yet another, this with the name, “Grandma’s Chicken Casserole.”

3 cups cooked chicken

2 cans cream of mushroom soup

2 cups grated cheddar cheese

3 cups crushed Ritz crackers

Bake at 350.

And, finally, one with more variation, called “No Peek Chicken”

1 box Uncle Ben’s Long Grain Wild Rice (original recipe—good luck if you can find that--all I find is the instant version)

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 can cream of celery soup

1 can water

Chicken breast or tenders.

Now here’s a bit of speculation on my part. The recipe calls for raw chicken and specifies cooking it for two and a half hours at 350, tightly covered with foil. Take the name seriously, and do NOT peek. If you use rotisserie chicken, you could cut the time down and take advantage of the “instant” feature of the rice. I haven’t tried it, so all I can advise is playing with the time. Maybe an hour?

And the next time someone belittles the 1950s trick of cooking with canned soup just smile and walk away. You know better!