Blending holidays

I’ve had some cooking adventures lately, exploring dishes that ordinarily I would never make, and I credit the pandemic with helping me stretch my skills. After I posted about a chicken loaf, a friend sent me the recipe for a tuna loaf—loved it, even if I did substitute scallions for the green olives which I cannot abide. And I made a stir-fry with ground pork and asparagus—whole family loved it. My takeaway was that it’s really hard to mince fresh ginger!

But my greatest culinary coup of the week was something I didn’t cook but provided directions for. When my daughter asked what we should cook for Easter dinner in isolation, I suggested what I consider the stand-bys—a ham or a leg of lamb. She doesn’t like ham, and Christian didn’t like the idea of lamb. I settled on a brisket, which to me is a Passover dish. I joked about a Passover brisket for Easter, but it seemed pretty ecumenical to me. And  rather than a new dish, it was one that brought back long-ago memories.

Years ago, in what seems like another life, I was married to a Jewish man whose mother made a delicious brisket. I thought I remembered how she did it, but checked with my brother-in-law, with whom I am still close. He complained he only eats it; his wife cooks it. So I consulted with her, and she confirmed I was remembering it correctly.

Next problem: I do not have a stove or oven. Grandma Bernice did this in my big old electric skillet—I think we have it still, but I’m not sure where it is. One of the wonderful, heavy ones before they were all lined with Teflon. But I can’t cook two things at once in the cottage without tripping a circuit breaker. So we decided Christian would cook the brisket, and I’d do the scalloped potatoes.

1 brisket, 3.5 - 5 lbs. (partly depends on size of your skillet)

3-4 cloves garlic

Salt, pepper, and paprika

1 good-sized onion, sliced into rings

Beef bouillon

Flour and water

The night before slice garlic cloves into small slivers; make random cuts all over brisket and insert garlic slivers. Rub the meat generously with salt, pepper, and paprika on both sides. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Next morning, slice onion and sauté in vegetable oil (use the skillet you will use for the meat). When onion is soft and translucent, remove to a plate. Using the same oil, sear the meat on both sides. When done, pile the onions on top and add enough bouillon to come almost to the top of the meat.

Cover and cook in a 225 oven for eight hours or simmer in a covered electric skillet. (Christian browned it in his cast iron skillet and then put the whole thing in the oven.).

Let the meat rest while you make gravy. There will be a lot of broth, so you may want to set some aside for another use—like soup. I make gravy the way my mom taught me: take a pint jar with a tight-fitting lid and fill halfway with cold water. Dump in a good amount of flour (you can see how precise this is) and shake like mad till you have a smooth mixture.

Gradually stir flour mixture into broth; bring to a gentle boil and let it thicken, adding more flour and water as needed until you have the consistency you want.

Slice the meat across the grain. Serve gravy alongside.

And the scalloped potatoes? I went back in time for that too, consulting Betty Crocker. I omitted the onions, because Jacob doesn’t like them, and substituted 2 cups cream for part of the 3.5  cups of milk needed. And just before it was done, I spread some grated Parmesan on the top. So good.

Lots of brisket left over. We’ve had it heated with gravy twice, and I’ve had a sandwich of cold roast on rye (good Jewish rye from the deli, of course) with mayonnaise. We’ll do this again soon.

Back to comfort food

Whether you toasted the new year in with champagne and caviar or beer and brats, the holidays are now behind us, and we’re back to ho-hum, the daily grind, everyday living. Many of us are ready to put the huge and extravagant meals of the holidays behind us and turn to some good, old-fashioned dishes like Mom used to fix. Maybe even some retro foods.

I have just gotten a shipment of the albacore tuna I order from a mom-and-pop operation in Oregon. The Pisces Fishing vessel does not use nets, so dolphins swim along beside their boats. Their catch—tuna and some salmon—is humanely harvested, field dressed, and quickly iced at sea. The fish are filleted fresh and hand-packed with only a bit of salt at a small, family-owned cannery (I am more convinced daily that we get our purest food from such small operators and not the big commercial processing plants, especially since the relaxation of regulations). Finally the fish is only cooked once, after canning—most commercially canned fish is cooked once before canning and once after. Take it from a lifetime tuna aficionado, the difference in taste and texture is remarkable.

So here I am with half a case of 7 oz. cans of tuna—the other half went to a son who love it as much as I do. I can only make so much tuna salad—but there’s always tuna casserole. Some people scoff at that dish as a retro food, “so sixties!” I love it.

Several years ago friends gathered on my front porch for a retro  pot-luck dinner—onion soup/sour with Ruffes. The entree was tuna casserole, with a side of that orange Jell-O dish with grated carrots and pineapple chunks. The onion soup dip was a hit, especially with one guy who asked his wife seriously if she could get the recipe. She smiled like a sphinx and said she thought she could. There was some hesitation about the tuna casserole, and one friend later confessed that she wondered to herself if she could really eat it. She did—and complimented it lavishly. Wish I could remember what the dessert was.

Back to tuna casserole. I make it after a recipe I found in a women’s magazine more years ago than I like to confess to. By now I make it from memory and have no idea where the original recipe is. The measurements here are sort of guesses on my par but this should feed four with some leftovers.

Ingredients

1 cup white wine

Assorted herbs

1 7-oz. can albacore tuna, flaked

3 green onions, trimmed and sliced thin

1 can mushroom soup, undiluted

½ cup frozen petite peas

6 oz. uncooked pasta (cut spaghetti, etc, but probably not tubes) or rice—your choice

French’s French-fried onion rings

            Separately cook pasta or rice and set aside.

Bring wine to a boil in a saucepan; throw in a handful of mixed herbs—thyme, oregano, basil, whatever (I’d avoid Mexican spices like cumin and chile powder unless you wanted a definitive Mexican tuna casserole). Add some black pepper and scant salt. Boil hard for three minutes or more until all the herbs turn black. Remove pan from heat, and gradually add remaining ingredients except onion rings. Taste for salt and pepper.

Spoon into a greased casserole or individual ramekins and top with onion rings. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes—watch color of onion rings as a guide. They should brown but not burn. Casserole just has to get hot. Serve immediately.

PS You don’t have to do that orange Jell-O thing; a tossed salad is nice with this.

All about cranberries

Did you have cranberries with your Thanksgiving feast? About twenty percent of all cranberries sold annually are purchased over the Thanksgiving holiday. That bright red berry is what the food industry calls a “special occasion food.”

This year, visiting my son, there was a fresh, homemade cranberry relish, brought by a friend, on the table—a bit tart but good. There was also canned, sliced, jellied cranberry sauce—both my daughters-in-law love it. Those two dishes spoke of what I see as two different food philosophies!

For me, cranberry relish at the holidays should be the way my mom fixed it—well, really it was my dad who made it. Making cranberry relish was a ritual in our household before the days of food processors. Dad hauled out the old hand grinder, fastened it to a short worn stepladder—I can see that chipped green paint in my mind yet—and began to grind, a chore he did because, he said, it took too much strength for Mom to do it. I think they both enjoyed the shared work.

Thanks to his effort, a bag of cranberries, washed and sorted, an orange, peel and all, a sweet apple like a Red Delicious, also unpeeled, went into a bowl. Mom added sugar sparingly, getting it just right because we didn’t want it too tart or too sweet. You can find precise recipesfor raw cranberry relish should you need them on the internet, I’d suggest you use less sugar than recommended and then taste, sweetening to your personal palate.

Some people use honey instead of sugar. Others add a small can of crushed pineapple or some chopped pecans. It’s a flexible dish, that cranberry relish.[

The thing about cranberries is that they are an overlooked health food, as good for you as blueberries. They are naturally low in sugar, though they require sweetening to be palatable; they are rich in antioxidants which promote cardiovascular health. Cranberry juice is often recommended for treatment of urinary tract infections.

When you think of cranberries at the holidays, you probably think of fresh berries—they only seem to appear in markets in November and December. Truth is only five percent of cranberries are sold fresh—most are processed into juice, that abominable canned relish, or craisins—those delightful substitutes for raisins which are great in everything from salads to oatmeal.

Thanks to a neighbor, I discovered a new cranberry recipe this past Thanksgiving. Easy and quick, it’s officially called crustless cranberry pie. To me, it’s like cake and great for dessert—but shh! Don’t tell. I’ve been eating cake for breakfast.

Crustless cranberry pie

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup white sugar

¼ tsp. salt

2 cups cranberries

½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans (I’m not always a fan of nuts, and I left them out)

½ cup butter, melted

2 eggs, beaten

1 tsp. almond extract

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 350^o. Grease 9-inch pie pan.

Combine flour, sugar, and salt. Stir in cranberries and nuts; toss to coat. Stir in butter, beaten eggs, and almond extract. Spread batter into prepared pan.

Bake at 350^o for 40 minutes or until wooden pick inserted near center comes out clean. Serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream.