Ali's Kitchen: Swedish Holiday Treats

Happy Holidays!

I am ALL about my [admittedly meager] Swedish heritage this year. I may only be about 1/16, but I know the name of my most recent Swedish ancestor (Maria Pollan, née Larson), so that counts for something, I figure. My Nana, who has had a very tough year, always identified with her Swedish heritage, if not necessarily in the kitchen. It'll be a fun, and for me meaningful holiday exercise to attempt a few traditional Swedish recipes.

A word about Swedish holidays:

St. Lucia's Day
Lussekatter
On the feast day of St. Lucia, little Swedish girls (and Norwegian girls and Danish girls and Italian girls and a bunch of girls) dress up in white gowns with red sashes, wear wreaths with burning candles on their heads (yeah, really) and pass out the Christmas presents. You know this if you, like me, had the American Girl Doll Kirsten Larson, who was a plucky Swedish immigrant in 1854 (or something). Kirsten had a St. Lucia's Day outfit, and I think the outfit even came with a little plastic lussekatt, the saffron bun baked and eaten on St. Lucia's Day night. It all sounds terribly cute until you consider the fact that the wreath with candles is supposed to symbolize the *fire that wouldn't burn St. Lucy after she was sentenced to death*. Isn't that festive? I pulled the below recipe from a website to which I will NOT link, because they had all kinds of typos and it was just generally an "off" recipe, so I had to modify.

Jul/Midwinter
Glögg
The Yule is celebrated on December 24th in Sweden, though it's also tied to the old Germanic pagan festivals related to the Winter Solstice on December 21st. This is the day when Swedes tie one on and really enjoy their version of spiced mulled wine: glögg (pronounced something like "glug"). There are so many various recipes for glögg that you can feel free to assemble the main ingredients and use them in whatever proportions please you best.

Any Swedish Holiday At All
Köttbullar
Swedish. Meatballs. 'Nuff said. Always, always served with lingonberry preserves. Seriously, in Sweden if you try to eat köttbullar without lingonberries? They will arrest you and beat you. I've provided the classic preparation from Fresh Direct, but I'll outline my method, too.

LUSSEKATTER
(Saffron Buns)
INGREDIENTS
1/4 teaspoon saffron threads 1 cup milk 1 tablespoon yeast 1/2 cup sugar 4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter 5 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon salt 2 large eggs, beaten 1 beaten egg white for egg wash
PREPARATION
Pound saffron threads to break down strands. (Ali note: Or just tell the people reading your recipe to get saffron powder, jeez.)
In a small saucepan, heat milk to lukewarm.
Mix yeast with 1/4 cup milk and 1 tablespoon sugar. Set aside.
On low heat, melt butter in saucepan with milk. Add crushed saffron. Let cool.
In large bowl, mix together flour salt and remaining sugar.
Stir yeast into cooled milk mixture. Mix into dry ingredients, beating to mix well. Add beaten eggs.
Knead in bowl for 5 - 7 minutes. (Ali note: Kneading in the bowl is somewhat confining. After the eggs are mixed in well, feel free to jump right to your floured board, or counter, as the case may be.) Turn onto floured board and knead another 7 - 8 minutes. (Ali note: If it's sticking to your little fingers, try adding a bit more flour to your board or counter; that’ll mix in and firm up the consistency a little. Conversely, if it's too DRY to stick to your little fingers, sprinkle some water on as you knead 'til it's about the right texture - something like Play-Doh.) (Don't forget to wash your hands before you start this recipe, including under your filthy little fingernails, you scab.)
Put dough in lightly greased bowl, turn to coat all sides, cover and put in warm, draft-free place to rise for about 1 hour.
When dough has risen, knead lightly to push out air and divide into small pieces (about 10-12). (Ali note: Whoever wrote this recipe was high if they thought this amount of dough makes 10-12 of these things, the size of which would cook in 15 minutes. I ended up with closer to 18, and still needed a little longer in the oven.)
Using the hands, roll each small piece into a strip about 8 - 10 inches long. Shape each strip into an 'S' or a figure 8. (Ali note: For authentic look, place a raisin or currant in the dimples of each bun.)
Place on lightly buttered cookie sheets. Cover with clean cloth and let rise again, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
Preheat oven to 375°F.
When dough has risen, brush lightly with egg white.
Bake in preheated 375° F oven for 15 minutes, or until lightly browned (which was a bit longer than 15 minutes).
Let cool on wire rack.

GLÖGG
(Um... Glögg)
As noted above, you can make glögg in nearly any way you choose. This is my favorite amalgamation:
INGREDIENTS
1 bottle dry red, such as Cabernet Sauvignon
1 cup brandy
3-4 cinnamon sticks
6-8 cloves
1-2 teaspoons ground cardamom (ideally you use 3-4 whole caramom pods, cracked, but good luck finding those in most grocery stores)
1 tablespoon dried orange peel (or the peel of 1 whole orange)
1/3 cup sugar (ideally brown, but if you're scrimping and just have white, go for it!)
Currants or raisings
Almond slivers
PREPARATION
Simple: Heat. On the stove. For at least 45 minutes. Don't let it reach 170 or so (that means keep it just at steaming and below simmering), unless you want nonalcoholic glögg. A clean meat thermometer is handy for this purpose.
Put a small handful of currants (or raisins) and almond slivers at the bottom of each glass.
Pour the glögg into your glasses through a sieve to strain out the cloves and such, and enjoy.

Skål!

KÖTTBULLAR
(Swedish Meatballs)
I made this with 2 lbs. ground beef (you can also use veal with the beef, about 1/3 to 1/2 the total amount of meat; that's how the restaurants usually do it) instead of 1 1/3 lbs., which is what the original recipe called for. Watching *me*, the literature nerd, try to figure out that sort of conversion? Must have been priceless. I had to appeal to my civil engineer father for guidance. This is what he came up with:
INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup plain breadcrumbs
1/2 cup milk
1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
1 egg plus 1 egg white
2 lbs. pounds lean ground beef (But for goodness sake, not too lean.)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper (Most recipes call for white pepper, but this one doesn’t differentiate; I used white)
1/2 tsp allspice
1 tbs butter
1 tbs extra-virgin olive oil

PREPARATION (The "real" way)
Soak breadcrumbs in milk for 5 to 10 minutes until the liquid is absorbed.
To a bowl add onion, egg, ground beef, soaked bread crumbs, all spice, salt and pepper.
Mix all the ingredients together with your hands and shape the meat mixture into small balls, less than an inch in diameter. If the mixture starts to sticks to your hands, wet them with cold water.
Heat a skillet with butter and extra virgin olive oil.
Sauté the meatballs in 3 or 4 batches, turning them frequently to keep the meatballs from sticking. Drain them on paper towels.
Drain the excess olive oil and scrape off and discard any browned bits of meat that may be sticking to pan after the meatballs are done.
To the same pan add butter and flour and stir until it browns.
Quickly add a can of beef stock and bring to a boil, stirring constantly until gravy thickens.
Remove from the heat and serve immediately with the meatballs.

PREPARATION (The weenie way)
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
After you've formed the meatballs as described above, place in a lightly greased, uncovered Pyrex dish.
Cook for about 10-20 minutes, depending on the size of the meatballs; eyeball it and do a touch-test to test for doneness. Rotate halfway through so the entire sphere gets browned as it would have in a frying pan.
Remove from pan, and drain on paper towels; keep warm after draining.
Use pan scrapings to make gravy as described above, adding extra beef broth or stock to increase volume as necessary.

(Sorry for the freaky lighting. Still getting the hang of this new camera!)

Enjoy your Swedish feast, you crazy Vikings! } :- )

(That's clearly a Viking helmet, BTW.)

(Shaddup.)

Ali's Kitchen: "Local" Steak Dinner

or, "Buy Local-Grown."


Tonight's recipe comes about for two reasons. Ça:


Farmer's market tomato all the way from Georgia.

Not "local," per se, but it was certainly local when my parents picked it up south of Atlanta and shipped it (with two of its compatriots who, sadly, gave their lives so that this tomato might make it). The motivation behind this request wasn't ecological or environmental: It was that NORTHERN TOMATOES SUCK, as I have mentioned previously. People here will try to make you think that our neighbor across the river, New Jersey, has the "best" tomatoes, but as far as I can tell, they're either senile or lying. If it's not an heirloom tomato, it had better come from Georgia, IMO.

Et ça:



My grocery store has FINALLY started carrying local-grown food (which in Manhattan means New Jersey, Long Island, the Hudson Valley or the Fingerlakes Region). I don't know which farm this came from. Until I sliced into it, I didn't even know what IT was. When the cashier looked at it, she was at a complete loss. I guessed romaine? Red leaf lettuce? All I knew was, ZOMG, local-grown fad! As it turned out? It's some kind of endive, which is terribly exciting, since we have some feta which will blend nicely with all this fabulous produce. Toss that all together and throw in some pine nuts or something if you've got 'em. Salad: Done.

The last... um... "local" compontent of tonight's meal is our starch: chive mashed potatoes, which I made last week (they're not gross yet - I swear).


They're from my fridge, hence, local.
(Am so funny. Can hardly stand it.) They involved exactly what it sounds like. Potatoes. And chives. And some butter and milk, all eyeballed to get the right proportions. The end. Steam potatoes (keep skin on for mucho vitamins/nutrients). Mash or whip. Melt in butter, and stir in milk and chives. Reheating will probably necessitate some extra butter so they're not too dry. Damn. Reheat in the microwave, stirring in extra butter as you go. Potatoes: Done.

I have no idea where little steaks are from, but it's not local, because... way too inexpensive. I don't really know what cut they are (some kind of sirloin "tenderloin"), but they look kind of like filet mignon, and they were On Sale, which is The Most Important Part.

I had already salted (to taste), peppered (to taste, i.e., a lot) and garlic-powdered the steaks, when THIS happened:


Garlic powder: Empty. Ali: Flipping out.
So it called for some more flavor. Or it could have just called for "real" garlic, but no way. I'm being lazy tonight, so let's stick with that M.O. After I had added MORE pepper (yikes), K came up with the brilliant idea to order some cabernet. DING! IDEA LIGHT. Marinade! We're using this one, but I'm sure any semi-heavy red would do:


Not local. From California. Where Courtney is moving. From whence Courtney had better send wine.

Now, I didn't bother to look up a "real" marinade. Just like I don't bother using "real" garlic unless I can't help it. I just sloshed some wine on the steaks (looked like about 1/2 c. for a little over 1 lb. steak) (we're big meat-eaters here) and threw some rosemary in. Then pop 'em in a big Ziploc for easy turning and cleanup and put them in the fridge for a couple of hours.

The "rules" I've read about marinade usually reference very specific timing for different meats and , often 4. We're looking at about 2-3 hours here, but... I mean, I kind of feel like I used too much wine anyway, so we'll see... How can wine + steak + (salt + rosemary + garlic powder + [pepper x 2]) = bad? Are the brackets and parentheses supposed to be reversed there? Which kind of math is that anyway? What's the meaning of life? Who knew vinegar was such a great cleaning agent? Could gerbera daisies possibly look friendlier? These are the important questions.

No, we could not.

As always, remember to pre-heat your broiler for 20 minutes or so. I am jealous of anyone whose oven has an automatic thermometer, by the way. And, as always, remember to let your meat get to room temperature. Then, just flip, flop, pop it in your broiler and cook on each side. Depending on the thickness of the steak, this can range from 2 (very thin) to 5 (thicker and bigger steaks) minutes for a first try at rare-to-medium-rare. We new and less-confident cooks feel the need to double check everything for over- or under-cooking.

I ended up... um... not really timing this. I also completely forgot to take a picture of the finished product. Needless to say, it took a little longer than I thought it might to cook the steak BUT ONLY because I have always overshot the cooking times of steak until recently, so now I UNDERshoot. Which is better, I think. ALSO needless to say, it was good. Verrrry good. I think improvising a red wine marinade may just be the best way to do it.

Yum yum.


*Because "Local-Grown" is to Now what "Organic" is to Two Years Ago. I'm as excited about jumping on a new bandwagon as the next person...

Cooking with Sheila: Easy Banh Mi!

hello there readers!! this is my first post to the esteemed yumyum cooking club, so i should introduce myself. i am sheila, chef hopeful and one day culinary school attendee. for now, i am just a girl who loves cooking and HATES her kitchen. my posts will most likely tend to have an undercurrent of frustration from dealing with the constraints of my little kitchen. my last house had a dishwasher, garbage disposal, and loads of counter space and cabinets. my new house has no dishwasher, no counter space, and no room for fucking ANYTHING!!! can you blame me for being a little grumpy?? i am all about bringing a little fancy into everyday life, making some basic recipes with a twist, working with what i have in my house, being cheap, and all that.

anyway, onto the food! so essentially, banh mi is an amazing vietnamese sandwich on a baguette. it mixes crunchy and mushy, sweet and savory. just general deliciousness, on toasted bread. it features red chili paste, pork, cucumbers, basil, cilantro, and other wonderful flavors. however, it's more of a project. last night i came home ravenously hungry and needing a relatively quick fix. so here's what i did.

1) throw some olive oil in the pan, toss in a diced onion and 2 cloves of garlic. let the onion get nice and soft for a few minutes.2) put in your protein- whether that is ground turkey, ground beef, pork, chicken, etc. i used ground beef. brown it.
3) add some soy sauce, maybe 2 tbsps, some salt for flavor , and some sugar (probably a teaspoon or two).4)another of my gripes is produce. everytime i buy some produce, it almost always goes bad because i have ambitious ideas and a lazy hand. this especially applies to fresh herbs. so instead, i used some dried basil and dried cilantro. 1 tsp of each.
4)add 2-3 tbsps of hoisin sauce and mix it all up. taste it and make sure there is enough flavor on hur.5)spread red chili paste (which is at any grocery store in the asian aisle, same goes for the hoisin sauce) on a whole wheat tortilla- or basically whatever you have on hand. if you have a baguette, go wild. if you have some bread, do it. this stuff is spicy, so if you have a sensitive stomach beware. or just use sparingly.6)put some of the beef mixture in the center of your tortilla. i picked up some mixed greens in a bag and put some of those on.7)roll it up and you are done!!

i strongly recommend you make a "real" banh mi sandwich someday, but this is great in a pinch. xoxo

Ali's Kitchen: Broiled Lamb Chops and Basmati Rice With Sweet Onions and Summer Herbs

Well, hey there, my culinary swashbucklers! Welcome to the kitchen at Chez Ali and Ken. Let's start out with the number one thing to know about our little restaurant. The Executive Chef (me) loves herbs and spices. See?

So much so, in fact, that tonight we're using: Freshly ground black pepper, sea salt, freshly ground porcini mushroom powder, ground coriander, sea salt, and fresh dill, tarragon and chervil.

The main course this evening: Broiled lamp chops! Accompanied by Epicurious.com's Basmati Rice With Sweet Onions and Summer Herbs. Lastly, we'll be having microwave-steamed asparagus (steamed in a big Gladware container, at that, because I don't care if the leaching plastic might give me cancer when I'm 85; it's just easier than pot steaming).


First, let's talk about the Basmati rice. If you're like me, you don't like rice. I KNOW. Weird. Whatever. I'm not a huge rice fan, but this particular recipe sounded interesting enough (I love Vidalias, and dill? With rice? Enough to reel me in...) that I wanted to see if it could make me actively want to eat rice. Since I don't love rice, it's of course in the back corner on the highest shelf of our tiny pantry/cabinet. While searching for the brown Basmati, I discovered the following:

1) More Bacos than I thought existed on the entire planet. Really.
2) Flower food, which I'm pretty sure is toxic to people... so... maybe don't keep it around food? Maybe?
3) Mint julep cups. Um... what? Ooooh, don't mint juleps go with lamb? Because mint and lamb??? Damn it, no brandy. Or mint. Next time, my pretty....

So, that's what we discovered setting up the kitchen for the lamb and rice dinner. Moving on. A very important thing to keep in mind: Karma is a bitch. What does this have to do with cooking lamb, you ask? Well, my friends, lamb is a Cute Cuddly Animal (CCA). If you're like me, not only are you not crazy about rice, but you also have issues with eating CCA's because you're sure it's somehow Just Wrong. To balance out this karmic risk, it's a good idea to pay homage to another, different species of CCA while you're cooking. To wit:


Otters definitely count as CCA's of the highest caliber.

Now that you've hopefully got a CCA image somewhere on your person, let's make with the cooking. First of all, you've got to consult with your sous-chef and make sure that he or she understands his/her responsibilities. Here I am explaining to my sous-chef that his responsibilities include not reaching up for a pat so that my pants are clawed down while I have raw lamb juice on my hands.

I don't know if he fully grasped the concept, but fortunately, I was wearing jeans.

Now that your sous-chef is fully informed, let's get to work. Tackle the rice dish first, since the lamb needed to come to room temperature anyway. It's a small piece of meat, so it achieves lukewarmness very quickly, but I must insist that you do this with red meat! Other things, you can get away with throwing it on the heat while still chilled. NOT RED MEAT! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GET YOUR RED MEAT TO ROOM TEMP! Anyway. Right. The rice.

I halved the recipe so that instead of 2 cups of sweet onion I needed less than 1. This works out nicely to half a large Vidalia. The other half of the onion is currently in the deli drawer, either destined for a salad later this week, or to grow the next great mold-based antibiotic. I'll let you know. You're meant to chop the onion, not dice, which may look a bit large, but the flavor still releases with a nice, coarse chop. This is my definition of what that looks like:


Note that I was chopping with my Little Knife, because the onion was a little spongy, and I didn't want to Decapitate My Fingers. Whatever. If it gets the job done...

Once the onion's chopped, go ahead and heat the saucepan. The recipe calls for "large," but I'm using a 2-quart, because that's all I have! It works fine. I also use "fake" butter (Smart Balance, which is better for cooking than most other non-margarine butter substitutes). Saute the onion over medium-high heat, or if your stove's like mine, medium, until it's translucent. (The onion. Not the stove.) At that point, add the rice, water and salt, in that order. I'm using less than half the salt called for (even factoring in my smaller-than-half of the recipe) and it will be more than enough. Bring the rice mixture to a boil, then cover and reduce the heat to low. If you're using white rice, cooking supposedly takes 15 more minutes. Using brown (which we are here) adds another 1/4 cup of water, and another 10 minutes (for 30 or so total from the onion).

During this time you can: Set the table; check on your husband who is sleeping and will not be eating with you because he caught your Super Cold in the middle of May; and bring the lamb to room temperature if you haven't already taken it out of the fridge. Don't worry; the rice isn't going anywhere if it finishes before the lamb is de-chilled. Honestly, I never heard of rice that can't sit on a warm stove for 20 or so minutes and not taste just the same. Especially brown rice.

This is also a fun time for a Pop Quiz. Based on Ali's Anecdotal Evidence from working in three total restaurants in her entire life, what percentage of restaurant cooks and chefs would you assume washes their hands after using the bathroom (number 1)? (And, yes, it's "washes," not "wash," because the verb is corresponding with "percentage," not "cooks and chefs," and "percentage," like "family," or any other compound noun, is still, technically singular, so bugger off.) The answer is...

About 25. Yep. About 25%. That percentage is markedly higher for servers, bussers, bartenders, managers and hostesses. The percentage is generally better for line cooks than for sous-chefs, chefs de cuisine and executive chefs. My best guess is that the non-hand-washers just think they're too important to waste the time with soap and water if they've only... you know... gone number 1. Just thought you should know. According to Ali's Anecdotal Evidence, it's true.

All right. Now that we've all passed the Pop Quiz, let's go back to the rice. Now, with rice, there are two major schools of thought: To Stir or Not To Stir. My mother always told me, "DON'T STIR IT! YOU'VE GOT TO KEEP THE LID ON! IT'S COOKING IN ITS STEAM!" The first time I cooked rice in front of K, he wanted to know, "WHY AREN'T YOU STIRRING IT? YOU'VE GOT TO STIR IT!" Now, given the fact that I've burned about 75% of the rice I've ever cooked, this time, let's go with K's mom's (because it certainly wasn't his) idea. Upon adding the previously mentioned 1/4 cup of water, stir it around to lift it off the bottom of the pan. When THAT water is gone, we stir in the fresh herbs:


The smell should be positively nutty - thank you, tarragon and dill! Chervil, you aren't really doing your part; I don't even know why you're here. You're like contestant number 5 on American Idol, and should just give up. At this point, take the rice off the heat source and keep it covered; it will be fine.

By now, the broiler should be heated (you should have lit it when the rice began to boil) and you can pop the lamb in. Keep in mind, with lamb chops, that the actual portion of meat is only as big as the red part in the middle here, under the "butter" pat:


That's about the width of... let's see... a pansy blossom. Yeah. So, bear that in mind when buying. It's not the most cost-effective meat, or even cut of lamb, and I bet this recipe would work equally well with a pork chop or veal chop. Anyway, on the lamb chop above, sprinkle sea salt (ideal for those of us who are sensitive to salt, but still want that salty kick), freshly ground black pepper, porcini powder (dried porcini from a grinder, that is) and ground coriander. Eschew the apparently canonical advice of broiling 4 1/2 to 5 minutes a side, because I like my meat not quite mooing or bleating, but at least still bleeding, and I just. don't. buy. that lamb chops need that long.

Upon popping the lamb in the broiler, zap the asparagus in the microwave for 4 minutes, which also works as a great timer. Remember to check on your sous-chef. Just as I suspected, mine's asleep:

When the asparagus dings, go flip the lamb over. Cook the asparagus for another 4 minutes, and your lamb chops will be done! (I put mine in for an extra tragic minute, and they were just a bit too done; don't go over 4 per side... maybe even 3 and 3.) Now, for Heaven's sake, let the meat sit when you take it out. Do NOT, like Kenny those who shall remain nameless, dive at the meat the second it's out of the oven or broiler, EVER. It has to set. Or something... Anyway, LEAVE IT ALONE!

Now, if you've followed these instructions, your finished product looks something like this:


Mmmmm, lamb chops. I wasn't sure about the mushroom powder on lamb when we started, but it adds a great gaminess to this very mild red meat. Likewise, I'm happy to report that the rice tastes wonderful! I may just add dill and tarragon to 85% of all the rice I cook from here on out. And with the rich, involved flavors of the main dish and the rice, the simple, steamed asparagus (fresh in Spring) is a good balance. I actually had this with white wine, instead of red, which I also enjoyed.

Wait a second... I think I hear...

Ah, yes. There's my sous-chef:


Someone seems to their eyes on the prize...