Guava Cookies

Since starting this blog I've been bugging my mother to teach me some Puerto Rican recipes and every once in a while she does. Yesterday mom came over and we made guava cookies. They're basically the same shortbread and jam cookies that everyone else makes, except using guava jam instead of the typical raspberry jam.

It's a very simple recipe. You need 2 1/4c. AP-flour, 3/4c. sugar, 3/4 tsp. baking powder, one stick of butter (softened), one egg, 1 tsp. vanilla, and one jar of jam.

Start by pre-heating the oven to 350 and greasing a 9x13 baking pan.

Mix together the flour, sugar, and baking powder in a large bowl. Mix in the softened butter until everything is nice and crumbly. Then add in the egg and vanilla. You'll have a very crumbly dough, but it will stick together when pressed.

Spread half of the dough into the bottom of the pan. Press it down into one fairly firm layer. Then spread on a thin layer of jam. If your jam doesn't spread well you can always heat it over a double boiler until it's thin enough to spread. Then top the jam with the remaining dough in an even layer.

Bake in the oven for 30 minutes. The edges will be golden brown and the center will be blond. These are fantastic with tea.

Easy Roast Chicken with Root Vegetables

A few weeks ago I went down to Portland, Or to visit with some friends and had several delightful meals. One of those meals was a roasted chicken with root vegetables. It was so delicious that I had to make it once I got home.

I started out by brining the chicken. I made a solution of 7 3/4c. of water, 1/4c. of apple cider vinegar, and a 1/2c. of table salt (near double this if using kosher salt). I stirred this until all the sale dissolved and then set in the defrosted chicken, breasts down. I put a plate on top of the chicken to keep it from floating and set it in the fridge for an hour.

Just before taking the chicken out of the fridge I pre-heated the oven at 375. I always like to let me oven pre-heat for at least five minutes after the oven thinks it's reached temperature - that way the pizza stone that lives at the bottom of my oven can heat through. I then got out a nice big casserole dish (about a 9x13).

I collected a bunch of root vegetables that I had gotten at the farmer's market the day before. I peeled and chopped into roughly 1/4-1/2inch chunks: four medium potatoes, three beets, one rutabaga, four small carrots, and one medium onion. You could also include parsnips, sweet potatoes, turnips, brussel sprouts - whatever's in season. I laid these out evenly in the casserole dish and sprinkled them with a little salt, a little pepper, and some herbs de provence.

I took the chicken out of the fridge, removed it from the brine, and patted it dry. I placed the chicken wing-side up (basically laying on its side) in the middle of the casserole dish - right on top of the veggies. I dotted the chicken with some butter and put it in the oven. I roasted it for 15 minutes on this side, then turned it so that the other wing side was up, dotted it with a little butter again, and roasted it for another 15 minutes. Then I turned it breast up, redotted it butter and stuck a probe thermometer into the thickest part of the breast (careful not to bump up against the bone lest it give a false reading). Then I turned the oven up to 450 degrees. I set the thermometer to go off at 155 degrees (the breast is done at 160 and the thighs at 170). I checked on the bird after about 20 minutes and turned it so that it would cook more evenly.

When the thermometer read 155 I took the dish out and placed it on the counter. I covered the bird with foil and let it rest for ten minutes. During this time the bird came up to proper temperature. I ended up with a juicy, perfectly cooked chicken and some amazingly tender and flavorful vegetables - they soaked up a lot of the chicken's juices. The liquid that the vegetables cooked in could easily have been reduced into a sauce, but I think it was fine as it was.

The whole cooking process took a little under an hour and a half. It was easy and delicious, and it was relatively cheap because I'd got the chicken on sale and the veggies were all from the farmer's market. I love autumnal food.

Cranberry Sauce

Yes folks it's that time of the year again, the time when all the culinary minds in each family begin to truly freak out. It's almost thanksgiving.

Last year my grandmother, she who makes The Turkey, was ill and didn't have the strength to make The turkey. Now as my mother is the oldest of four sisters one might think that this would be no problem. Surely one of the Figueroa sisters knows how to make a turkey... Um, no. In fact, the only person in the family who would be attending thanksgiving that actually knew how to cook a turkey was me. I had to make a turkey at my house and drive it twenty miles to my family. It was a harrowing but largely successful experience.

This year my Nanny is feeling better and the burden of preparing The Turkey has been reserved for the matriarch. So what am I making this year? Cranberry sauce. I actually like cranberry sauce quite a bit. I like it thick and sour-sweet and made from freakin' berries. None of this cylinder of jello whumped out of a can. That is NOT my idea of food.

I decided to make my cranberry sauce nice and early so I could can it and let the flavors meld for the next week. Hopefully this will maximize the deliciousness.

I got 4c. of fresh cranberries, 1 seedless orange (I contemplated using two satsumas but ate them before I could cook with them), 3c. of sugar, and a handful of crushed pecans.

First you need to zest the orange with a microplane - if you don't have a microplane and have a very steady hand you can attempt to shave off just the orange, but not pith, of the peel with a paring knife, best of luck with that. Then remove the pith (the white part of the peel) and discard it - it's bitter and kinda useless. Cut up the flesh of the orange as finely as you can. Then put the zest and the fruit into a large saucepan with about 3c. of water. Bring it to a boil and then reduce to a simmer for five minutes.

Now add all the cranberries and the sugar. Stir to dissolve the sugar, then bring the whole thing to a roiling boil for 10-15 minutes - basically until it's reached the right consistency. If you like cranberry sauce the consistency of jam you'll cook it a little longer than if you like it a bit more liquidy. Then stir in the pecans (you could use any nut you like as long as it was crushed into very small bits). At this point your house should smell like the holidays.

This will make 4 half-pints of cranberry sauce. You can either use it immediately, put it into the fridge for a few days, or can it (boil for 15minutes) and keep it for whenever you feel like adding something special to a roast bird (it's really good on chicken).

Chicken Green Chile Soup

The other day I made chili, but I bought too many poblano peppers and had two extra. I also had two big baking potatoes that really needed to be eaten. Now, I always have lots of homemade chicken stock in my freezer, the kind that is a great foundation for any soup. I decided to combine these ingredients to make something yummy.

I started by roasting the poblanos on my gas range. You just put the peppers right on the flame until the skin starts to bubble and turn black. Turn the peppers as they cook to make sure they get evenly roasted. Then stick them in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap - this basically steam cooks them the rest of the way.

Then I thawed about 5c. of chicken stock in a big pot - stick the cube of frozen stock in the pot on medium heat until it melts. While the stock thawed I peeled the peppers - just run them under a little cold water and rub of the blackened skin. Then I diced the flesh of the peppers and threw then in the pot.

Then I peeled the two big baking potatoes and diced them into 1/4inch pieces. Normally I like bigger chunks of potato, but I planned on blending this soup and the small pieces are easier on my immersion blender. I then added 3 cloves of garlic, minced and one chicken breast. I used a boneless-skinless breast because my stock has enough gelatin in it already. If you're using store bough stock, like Kitchen Basics, then I'd use a bone-in breast to enhance the stock.

Bring the soup to a boil on high, then reduce to low and cover. Let simmer for an hour of two - until the potatoes are soft and the chicken is cooked. Then remove the chicken breast and shred it. Before you put the chicken back in, take a stick blender to the soup until you've got a smooth, velvety texture. Add the chicken back in and add 1/4-1/2c. of frozen corn (or fresh if you've got it). At this point I like to add about 1 tsp of adobo for extra flavor (you can use cumin and mexican oregano if you can't get adobo). Let simmer for another 15-20 minutes, add salt (about 1-3tsp) and pepper to taste.

Eat with a slice of crusty bread and a dollop of sour cream.

Cheap Lunch - Fillet of Sole

Yesterday I spent some time perusing the fish counter down at Central Market. I came upon some dover sole. Sole is a plain white fish but it caught my eye because it was cheap ($7.99 lb) and because it was incredibly thin. I've been experimenting with breading and frying fish, but I've had trouble getting it cooked properly.

My last attempt was with catfish. Catfish is a fairly thin fillet (about 1/2 - 3/4 inch at the thickest), with a tougher texture. I had some spectacularly delicious fried catfish when I was down in New Orleans, so I had high hopes. It turned out edible, but it wasn't great. The breading turned golden brown, but the inside of the fish just wasn't cooked. I ended up finishing it in the oven to make sure it was cooked, but this affected the texture of the breading. I think my problem was not having the oil at a high enough temperature when the fish went into the pan.

The sole I got was thin - probably a 1/4 inch thick or less. It was so thin that I figured panko breadcrumbs would completely overwhelm the fish. Instead I decided to just dredge the fillets in seasoned flour. I put maybe a cup of AP flour on a plate and sprinkled it with a generous amount of salt, about a full teaspoon. Then I added a fair dusting of black pepper, and a dash of old bay. I mixed this with a fork until blended.

All the while I had a thin coating of oil heating up in a cast iron skillet. I let the oil heat up to the point where a drop of water would spit and sizzle when dropped in the oil. Then I dredged the fillets in the flour, shook off any excess, and laid them in the pan - being careful not to let them touch or overlap. I cooked them for a minute or two per side. I flipped them when I saw that the outer edges of the fish became opaque. I cooked them until the fish was lightly browned and just starting to crumble when flipped.

Once done I took them out of the pan and laid them on a paper towel lined plate to drain. I then seasoned them with a little lemon juice and scarfed them down. They were delicious. I got two small fillets for $2.38 and it took maybe ten minutes to cook. Quick, easy, cheap. This could also easily be adapted to a larger meal by making more fish and adding a side or two, like boiled new potatoes and green beans. Yum.

Pressure Canning

As you know, I've been making small forays into the world of canning. I've learned that high-acid foods, like fruit, are canned by the water bath method. This is the method I always thought of when I though of canning - putting things in jars and boiling the heck out of them. Apparently that just won't do for low acid foods like soup and vegetables, those have to be pressure canned.

I use a lot of chicken stock in my normal cooking, so I make my own. Normally I freeze it and try to use it all within a few months. But there are a few drawbacks to frozen stock. First and foremost, I freeze stock in soup batch sized containers. Lately I've been making a lot of recipes that call for just a cup of stock, so it seems silly to thaw out a quart of stock for a recipe. Also, defrosting takes time and lets face it, I'm impatient. The other big thing is that if the power were to go out for more than a few days, I'd lose all my stock. I live in earthquake territory, so I try to be fairly prepared for emergencies. So, I decided that I needed to start canning my stock. I ordered a pressure canner from amazon and got to it.

I decided to start off with a small batch of beef stock because I don't use beef stock as often, so having it in a container that will keep for a year is handy. I found the whole process much easier than I expected. I made my stock the normal way. I got 4-5lbs of bones, roasted them for an hour in the oven, then threw them in a pot with some onion, carrot, celery, some herbs, and covered it all with water. I let it simmer for about 7 hours and then added some salt to taste. I strained out all the solids and put the whole batch in the fridge until the fat solidified and could be easily removed. Then I put it back on heat until boiling, put it in sterilized jars and put them in the canner.

All of the books I've read say that you need to follow the directions that come with your pressure canner religiously, so I did. I put 3 quarts of boiling water in the canner, then put in the jars, and sealed it. I let it vent steam, fairly vigorously, for ten minutes. Then I put the regulator on and let it come up to just between 10-11 lbs of pressure. Then I fiddled with the heat to maintain that pressure and let it go for twenty minutes. Then I turned off the heat and left it alone until the pressure went down to zero. Then I took off the lid and ever so slightly scalded myself - I wasn't expecting the gout of steam, I will be more careful in the future. I let the jars sit in the canner for another 5 minutes with the lid off, then put them on a cutting board to cool. The lids popped just like they always do and now I have stock.

I also made a batch of tomato sauce yesterday. The recipe I was following was for a typical water bath canner, however I ran out of lemon juice in the middle of making it. The lemon juice was the essential acid that would allow the sauce to be canned safely at the lower temperature of the water bath. Instead of freaking out and running to the store, I decided to just pressure can the whole thing. I figured that would make up for the lack of acidity - the higher heat would kill any possible bacteria that might survive the lower acid environment.

I followed the same basic procedure as for the stock, but following my pressure canner's directions, cooked it for 15 minutes instead of the 20 for the stock (my canner came with a fairly thorough recipe book that included low acid tomato sauce). All in all it was a very satisfying day.

Salmon in Green Pipian

Last night I sat looking through my cookbooks, trying to find a new way to cook salmon fillet. My local market has beautiful wild silver salmon on sale right now, which means I've gotten quite a bit of it. Much as I love salmon simply grilled with salt, pepper, and a little lemon, it does get old after a while.

In my search I vaugely remembered seeing an interesting salmon recipe in Mexican Everyday. It was salmon in green pipian. It looked easy enough so I decided to try it. The recipe calls for 2c. of tomatillo salsa. It does have a recipe for making it yourself, but I knew that my local market had Frontera salsa - a company owned by Rick Bayless, the cookbook author. I figured I'd save myself 15 minutes and just buy a jar of their Green Tomatillo Salsa with Chipotles - yummy stuff.

You puree the salsa in a blender until smooth and pour it into a wide sauce pan and boil it down until it's the consistency of tomato paste. Then you add a cup of chicken stock and 3 tbs of tahini. Mix this together and let it simmer for 10 minutes. Then add about 1/2 tsp of salt and 1/3 tsp of sugar. Put 2-4 single serving salmon filets in the sauce, put a lid on it and cook on med-low. I cooked about a pound of salmon, 6 minutes on one side, six minutes on the other, until it was cooked through. Plate the salmon with a generous amount of sauce, sprinkle liberally with peas and serve.

I served this with tortilla chips and guacamole that we had leftover from Saturday's Halloween party. It was quick, easy, and muy delicioso. I'll definetly make this again.