Nana Kate's Cassoulet

Cassoulet cuit (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Now granted, Cassoulet is no the most beautiful dish that you would ever put on the table. I usually serve mine by candlelight.  But it is the essence of comfort food. Rich, warm, delicious. And I have found it freezes very well, so making a batch without company is still well worth the effort.

I always start from scratch -  Nana Kate would call anything less "cheating." So no canned beans. To make this right, you'll have to start the night before with the soaking process - so all in all give yourself about 12 hours to get this done. Longer if you have to run by the store to pick up the ingredients - there are lots. BUT Cassoulet was peasant food - so use what you have, substitute, experiment, have fun, and don't sweat the results.

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb dried white beans (preferably Great Northern)

White beans (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

8 cups cold water

2 cups beef broth (I try to keep this in the freezer, but surely you could use packaged if you don't have any)

1 tablespoon tomato paste

2 cups chopped onion 

8 cloves of garlic

1 stalk celery, cut into thirds

4 fresh thyme sprigs

1 bay leaf

6 whole cloves

6 fresh flat-leaf parsley sprigs plus 1/2 cup chopped leaves

1/4 teaspoon whole black peppercorns

1 (14-oz) can crushed tomatoes

6 confit duck legs* (1 3/4 lb total)

1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil 

1 lb cooked garlic pork sausage cut 1/3-inch-thick slices

2 cups coarse fresh bread crumbs

2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

PREPARATION

1. Soak those beans! Put the beans in a pot and cover with 2" of water over night. In the morning rinse them off and drain in the colander.

2. Pour your bean into your pot with the water, broth, tomato paste, onion, and 1/2 the garlic. Now here's the oolala French-ie part: put the celery, bay, cloves, parsley, and peppercorn onto a cheese cloth and tie the ends together to make a bag and throw it in the liquids (It's called a "bouquet garnis.') Bring everything to a boil, then reduce to simmer (uncovered) until your beans are tender. This takes a little less than an hour.

3. During the simmer - cut the meat from your duck legs and put it in a bowl. Throw the bones in with your beans.

4.  Pour in your tomatoes and let simmer another 15 minutes.Cook your duck meat and

     sausage.

5. preheat your oven to 350 F 

6. Remove the bouquet garni and bones.

7. Stir in the meats salt and pepper and the rest of your  garlic

8. Ladle everything into a casserole dish.

9. Spread you breadcrumbs over the top and cook in the middle of your oven until it's bubbly - about an hour.

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

See? Not complicated - just... long. And delicious! Nana Kate made this every time it snowed. She sevred it with fresh baguette and a tossed salad. 

Nana Kate's Chicken Soup - It Will Cure What Ails You.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I vividly remember the day that Nana Kate taught me to make her famous Chicken Noodle Soup.  Give someone a bowl of soup, and they are fed for the day – teach them to soup and you feed them for a life time. She even gave me permission to post the recipe, such as it is, on my blog.

Such as it is? Yes. Nana Kate usually cooks by eye and handful. She cooks by feel. (It's me who tries to write it all down).

We started by taking a big fat chicken and removing the inards and pop-up plastic do-hickey. The chicken went into my very biggest soup pot and was covered with water. We ground black pepper until the surface of the water was covered with black flecks. We brought this to a boil, then covered the pot and put in on simmer until the chicken was fall off the bone tender. Periodically we skimmed any foam from the surface.

Image via Wikipedia

While the stock was being made, Nana Kate dumped flour into a large bowl. She said 2 cups – it looked more like 4. 2 eggs were cracked and added, and enough milk to pull the dough into a ball. It was the consistency of bread dough. Too moist? add flour. Too dry? Add milk. Sprinkle the surface of a large work space with flour and roll out the dough until about a 1/4 inch thick - uniformly. 

The dough is then cut with a sharp knife. The noodle ribbons should be about pencil wide and six inches of so long. Leave the noodles on the table to dry out. HUGE HINT – they won’t dry when it’s pouring down rain outside – so they will taste a little more dumpling-like but still oh, so good!

Image via WikipediaBack at the soup pot…

When the chicken is falling off the bone tender, take the chicken out to cool in a bowl.

To the stock pot add:

Nana Kate said, 2 T of salt, but I think it ended up being about 5 T. Start with a little and keep taste testing.

2 T Morton’s Nature Seasoning (though again this ended up being about 5T so keep tasting until you are happy.)

1 carton of chicken stock (or several cubes of bouillon)

a half a plastic bag of barley (1 ½ cups of dry barley).

Add about 2c of carrots cut into small bites (we just used a small bag of pre-scraped carrots and cut them into thirds).

5 stalks of celery cut into bite size pieces (green part only)

1 onion chopped

Cook until the vegetables are tender and the barley is chewy. Add chicken that you have deboned, de-skinned, and cut into bite size pieces.

To your simmering pot, add the strands of homemade pasta. It will take about ten minutes for the pasta to cook through. Your kitchen will smell FABULOUS. Your family will come running to the table. There will be no conversation as everyone settles into the comfort of their bowl of Nana Kate's Mystical Magical Cure Everything Soup….and they will remember it for years to come and feel loved.  

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Monday - Jadda's Tzatziki



Polski: Tzatziki, tzadziki lub tsatsiki - najpopularniejsza przystawka w kuchni greckiej English: Tzatziki, tzadziki, or tsatsiki - Greek meze or appetizer, also used as a sauce (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

            Outside of Jadda’s  sliding glass door was the not-so-Secret Garden for our apartment building. While its existence irritated the manager to no end, it delighted us neighbors. The bright fruits and vegetables overwhelmed Jadda’s ability to cook and consume, and so she generously offered them around.

             I know that several of the single moms, like, Mrs. Agnew, the lady for whom I babysat, depended on this generosity to feed their kids nutritiously.  My mother swore that the herbs that Jadda made into medicinal concoctions did more for her than the pharmacopeia that lay beside her bed.

            Jadda loved making people happy with her abundant produce. She even planted cucumbers for Mrs. Drinkwater’s afternoon tea sandwiches and for her husband’s tzatziki, though she wouldn’t touch it  -  cucumbers made her burp.

Tzatziki is a creamy sauce made from Greek yoghurt and grated cucumbers.

I love tzatziki. I love it not just as a dipping sauce to cool the heat from the kebabs but for some unconventional things too. For example, I like to slather it on a piece of pumpernickel and slice a radish over the top with a sprinkle of salt and a twist of freshly ground pepper. I will dollop it on slices of eggplant or zucchini that I have crisped on the grill (or dredged in egg then flour and fried). I serve this as before dinner snack. Sometimes I will skip the draining step so the tzatziki is more liquid-y, and I can use it as a salad dressing (over a salad of Jadda’s veggies).

It’s easy-peezy to make.

Polski: Tzatziki, tzadziki lub tsatsiki - najpopularniejsza przystawka w kuchni greckiej (składniki) English: Tzatziki, tzadziki, or tsatsiki - Greek meze or appetizer, also used as a sauce (components) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ingredients:

2 cups of Greek yoghurt (plain)

1 English cucumber

4 cloves of garlic

1/3 c. extra virgin olive oil

1T red wine vinegar

4T minced fresh dill

Salt and fresh pepper to taste.

Slice an English cucumber and put it in a colander in the sink. Sprinkle with salt to pull out the excess liquid. Take another colander and line it with a cheesecloth (or piece of fabric) and put the Greek yoghurt in to drain. After about a half-hour rinse the cucumber and squeeze. From this point, you can grate or chop the cucumber into tiny pieces.

In a plastic storage bowl, add all of your ingredients EXCEPT the salt and pepper. Cover and place in the fridge. Let it mature for at least a half-hour. Before serving give it a stir and now add your salt and pepper. PLEASE do this addition in small quantities because it is such a delicate flavor that it can quickly become over powered. It looks pretty with a sprig of dill on top.








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Thursdays I spent with Nona Sophia, Panzanella

Italian salad: Panzanella (bread, salad, tomatoes) with extra fried haloumi. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)Abbondanza!

On Thursday, I would go to Nona Sophia’s apartment. Nona Sophia was beautiful. Even as she aged, she looked like she should be a model for an oil painting. Her eyes were maternal. I felt her affection when she looked at me and gave me her soft Mona Lisa smile. To Nona Sophia, the best way to show love was to cook delicious foods to tempt the appetites of her large family.

While the pots were bubbling and steaming, Nona would take out her art books, and we would sit at the kitchen table to talk about the paintings and the artists. Nona cherished art from all over the world, and all different time periods. But, the art of her beloved Tuscany brought tears to her eyes.

Nona Sophia could speak adequate English, but she preferred to talk to me in Italian. With hands that gesticulated broadly, and a round hip that kept me ever moving in the right direction, I soon learned passable kitchen Italian from Nona Sophia - and from her sons, I learned how to cuss an Italian blue streak, with appropriate hand gestures. Now, wouldn’t that make Snow Bird proud?

Nona Sophia’s table always had three elements no matter what we were eating for dinner: a bottle of red wine, a bottle of emerald green olive oil sent from Nona's cousin’s olive grove near Sienna, and a basket of freshly baked bread. If the basket had leftovers (rare) then Panzanella was on the menu the next day if it was summer and Papa al Pomodora, tomato and bread soup, if it was winter.


Panzanella


Cherry tomato on vine. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
2 large ripe tomatoes, cut into bite-size pieces (or 4 roma)
1 small cucumber, peeled and diced (I cut my cucumber length ways and use a spoon to
   scoop out the seeds. It takes a second and makes a much prettier and less gloppy salad.
1 bunch scallions, thinly sliced
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1 cup fresh basil leaves, roll these up together then cut into thin ribbons
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 cup drained roasted red pepper (optional)
¼ c pitted kalamata olives
8 slices thick stale country style Italian bread, torn into bite-size pieces
Prepare the vegetables then drizzle with the olive oil and vinegar, season with salt and pepper and toss well. Taste! That's my favorite part.
Place half of the bread in a wide, salad bowl. Spoon half of the vegetables over the bread. Layer the remaining bread on top and then the remaining vegetables. Make sure to pour off all of the luscious juices. (If your bread was really stale you can sprinkle it with water and let it set then squeeze it out and use it as described above) Cover and refrigerate. This needs time to chill and let the flavors develop, so at least an hour. Before serving, toss and taste. It might need more salt or pepper. If the bread still seems a little dry add a little olive oil and vinegar.


To make this into a one bowl quick meal, add a protein at the last minute. Feta, mozzarrella, diced deli meats all work well.

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