Al Dente

Spicy Pecans for Serving, Snacking & Gifting

I just couldn't wait another day to start celebrating the holidays, so I pulled out my recipe for salty, sweet, and spicy pecans. It's one of my favorite recipes for nuts, with a flavor combination that is truly addictive.

I thought they'd be perfect to bring to a brunch we're invited to on Sunday and to serve to guests for dinner that same night. But who am I kidding? I really made them for me! Let's get this party started!

Spicy Pecans

Ingredients:
1/2 pound (2-1/2 cups) pecan halves
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 400 degrees F. In a medium bowl, combine pecan halves, sugar, vanilla, salt black pepper, and red pepper flakes. Toss together until pecans are well coated.

2. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and cook stirring occasionally, until sugar starts to caramelize and pecans are toasted, 8 minutes. Remove tray from oven, and continue stirring occasionally while nuts are cooling. Set aside.

Tracy's notes: It's best to check the pecans every few minutes. Don't step away from the oven when your pecans are cooking. I've burned a bunch that way. Otherwise, this recipe couldn't be easier.

Martha Stewart Living, November 1999

--Tracy Schneider

Bourbon, Brandy or Rum? How About All 3!

I was getting my holiday recipes in order when my husband suggested we do a practice run on his sister-in-law Nita's eggnog recipe. Funny, never thinks to do that for our other holiday dishes. I guess he's just getting into the spirit of the season!

Nita's Homemade Eggnog

Ingredients:
6 large eggs, separated
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups heavy whipping cream
2 cups whole milk
1-1/4 cups bourbon
1 cup brandy or cognac
3 tablespoons dark rum
Ground nutmeg, for dusting

Directions:
1. Beat the egg yolks in a large bowl with an electric mixer, gradually adding the sugar until the mixture is pale yellow. Set aside.

2. Place the cream in another bowl and beat until it holds soft peaks.

3. Stir the milk into reserved egg-yolk mixture. Then using a large rubber spatula, fold in the whipped cream.

4. Shortly before serving, GENTLY stir in the bourbon and brandy. Transfer to a punch bowl.

5. Beat the egg whites in a bowl with an electric mixer until they hold soft peaks; carefully fold into the eggnog.  Drizzle the top with the rum; sprinkle with the nutmeg. Serve immediately. 

Makes about 10 cups 

--Tracy Schneider

Rice Pasta Couscous (And Don't Forget Frogs)

After living in Barcelona for 12 years, Jeff Koehler is technically considered a resident. Luckily for us, the American food writer and photographer has retained the curious eye of the outsider, roaming his adopted home for recipes and stories.

We talked on the phone about his new book, Rice Pasta Couscous, a cross-cultural journey around the Mediterranean to see the similarities and differences of how people view these staples of family meals. Oh, and along the way, he shared the secrets for making perfect couscous without any special equipment. Here are some highlights from our talk: 

On how he wound up living in Barcelona: Her name was Eva. "We were in London. I was studying drama, and she was studying organic chemistry. We shared a kitchen...When she went back to Barcelona to do a PhD, I followed her." And that meant an introduction to her mother's weekly family gatherings over paella. "Everything goes through the paella. I met the family over the paella, and eventually we said we were going to get married over the paella. I saw this simple staple become this anchor of the whole family."

On how the book was born: Through those same weekly dinners, seen through other eyes. "My friends in Morocco, it's the same for them on Friday, after the mosque, to go to the mother's house for couscous...In Algeria, one of the guys told me, you can make other dishes, but couscous is obligatory, from birth to death, couscous is at every important milestone. My friends in Naples, the mother told me a meal isn't a meal without pasta." It became clear there was a story in the similarities and differences between these traditions.

On keeping it real: It's possible to find recipes in the book simple enough for a quick dinner, say, orzo with brown butter and cheese. But one of Koehler's chief goals was authenticity, "traveling around the nooks and crannies," and replicating what he found in kitchens from Lebanon to Catalonia. That means many more labor-intensive recipes, and some with unlikely ingredients, such as the traditional frog and eel stew he found in Croatia. ("How many frogs do you add?" I asked, taking notes on the recipe. "As many as you can catch.") 

He knows many people won't be able to cook the more unusual recipes, but some will.

"I definitely didn't want to avoid stuffed pigeon with liver, it's one of the great Egyptian dishes...Some people, they can find it. There are a couple people out there who will be very happy to do it." Even with pastas, he does include well-loved standards, but "there are so many great pasta traditions that have nothing to do with the classic Italian style of boiling and saucing."

On what "the Mediterannean" really is: A lot bigger than most people realize, and more than Tuscany and Provence. "Tunisia is 87 miles from southern Italy...You can have, in Tunisia, cuttlefish or squid sauteed with garlic, the same as in Italy, but with cumin, a completely different taste."

On researching: "You can say to somebody, I really want to talk about rice. They say, I don't know the history of rice. I don't want (to know) that. I want to know, how do you use it in your life? How does your mother make it? Then you get a four-hour answer."

On his next project, Country Cooking of Spain: A highlight will be how no food that can be used or preserved is thrown away. He'll include vinegars and oils and preserved savory foods and more. "There's a big chapter on innards and extremities."

On what to do if you don't own a couscoussiere: Don't worry about it. Real diehards will say it's the only way to make couscous, and there are recipes where "the couscous is being steamed in the vapor of the stew, and  so it does take, to an extent, some of the flavor"--but, Koehler said, using it all the time "for me is not reality, even though I have one and can get the real stuff and we make it." 

Using the boxed instant stuff is fine, he said, so long as you ignore the directions. Instead, he does it this way: Dissolve a teaspoon of salt in 2.5 cups warm (not boiling) water. Pour 1 lb couscous into a very wide, shallow dish and dribble the salty water over it. Mix with a fork. Let it sit for 10 minutes to absorb the water. Drizzle in 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil. Toss with both hands, lifting the grains and letting them fall through your fingers. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, transfer the couscous to an ovenproof baking dish, and bake, turning the grains from time to time, until steamy warm, 10 to 15 minutes. If you like, add a tablespoon of butter or smen (clarified and preserved butter). Fluff with a fork.

-- Rebekah Denn

My Mother's Vegetable Soup

I am sitting here with my mother's hand-written recipe card for vegetable soup. It is yellowed and stained. My mother died of breast cancer when I was 19, but when I cook her recipes, she comes back to me.

Men may still edge out women in big professional kitchens around the world, but go into any home kitchen, and there you will find women, mothers and daughters, grandmothers, aunts and sisters.

Look into a kitchen before any holiday meal, and there they will be--chopping, mixing, stirring, laughing. And if you look really hard, you'll also see the ghosts of great grandmothers and long-passed aunts, dancing to the rhythm of the kitchen.

My Mother's Vegetable Soup

Bring meat and bones to a boil, covered.

Add diced:
1 onion
3 carrots
2 celery
2 parsnips
1 can tomatoes
1/2 cup beans
1/4 cup barley
1 tablespoon salt
5 peppercorns

Tracy's notes: I bring 1-2 pounds of short ribs and about a pound of marrow bones to a boil in a large pot filled with 12-14 cups of water. Once the pot has come to a boil, I lower the heat to a simmer and cook the meat and bones for 1-1/2 hours, covered. I'll uncover the pot every so often to skim the foam off the top. Then I'll add the other ingredients and let the soup cook for another 2 hours or so.

Parsnips are sweet and I often leave them out. I use cannellini beans that have soaked in water the night before. I love barley, so I usually use 1/2 cup. If I can get fresh cherry tomatoes, I use them, 12-16 ounces, cut in half, instead of the canned tomatoes. I add them the last half hour. Then I season the soup to my own taste, adding salt and pepper as necessary.

I cool the soup and leave in the refrigerator overnight. This step is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY! In the morning I skim the fat off the soup. Marrow bones produce a huge amount of fat. If I want to eat the soup the same day I cook it, I omit the marrow bones.

I like to serve the soup as a first course, and the short ribs as a second course. Or I'll serve one short rib in each bowl of soup. I serve the marrow bones with fresh rye bread. I'll spread the marrow of one bone over the rye bread, sprinkle with salt, and I'm in heaven.

Serves 4-6

--Tracy Schneider

A Saucy Mama Gibson Cocktail Makes Winter Wonderful

Well, maybe a good Gibson isn’t the only thing that makes winter wonderful (I mean, there’s also hot spiked cider and mistletoe), but having a well-made one definitely makes your party more interesting than serving solely Martinis. Though the Gibson is so close to a regular Martini that you’d call them siblings instead of cousins, it doesn’t get near the face time (of course, it doesn’t have the indignity of being made with vodka a lot, either). This is a shame, because the seemingly slight difference between them, the inclusion of a cocktail onion instead of a twist or olive, really does add a lot: a slight saltiness and savory-ness that makes a more rakish drink, one that’s still refined but a touch more dangerous, more Humphrey Bogart and less Cary Grant. The key, naturally, is getting a good cocktail onion. I’m always on the lookout for ideal cocktail onions, and I think I’ve recently found a new favorite: Saucy Mama cocktail onions. They have good flavor, retain their crunch when bathing in gin and vermouth, and look lovely in a cocktail glass. Whip up the below recipe from Good Spirits using two Saucy Mama cocktail onions (they’re that good) and Washington's own Voyager gin (which is made with all organic botanicals and has a complex delicious flavor) at your next holiday gathering, or after a long day of holiday shopping, or anytime at all, and make your winter even more wonderful.

The Gibson

Ingredients:
Ice cubes
2-1/2 ounces gin
1/2 ounce dry vermouth
1 or 2 cocktail onions for garnish

Directions:
1. Fill a cocktail shaker or mixing glass halfway full with ice cubes. Add the gin and dry vermouth. Stir well.

2. Add one or two cocktail onions to a cocktail glass. Strain the mix over the onions.

A Note: This delivers a classically-sized 3-ounce cocktail, the perfect amount for you to drink it, as the saying goes, “while it’s laughing at you.”

--A.J. Rathbun

Sick in Bed: Best Meals for Sharing

My daughter told me this afternoon that there were seven kids home sick from her class today. Mild flu-like symptoms are taking Seattle schools by storm, and like so many kids, our neighbors were hit with low-grade fevers, sore throats, earaches and the like.

In addition to supplying sick friends with a big box of tissues, assorted throat lozenges and a stack of magazines, I can't think of a better cure for the aches and pains of a cold or flu than a good meal.

So when I heard about our neighbors, I decided to fix a hearty meal we could both enjoy, though not at a communal table. My friend Clark's pot roast came to mind--meat and vegetables braised in a tantalizing liquid and cooked in a single pot. Clark's recipe is not traditional. His mother got it from a Chinese-American friend she met while living in Malaysia, and the unusual mix of ingredients, when cooked for hours, becomes a magical elixir. It is an antidote for what ails you.

Clark's Pot Roast

Ingredients:
3-5 pound brisket of beef
5 cups hot water
1 teaspoon celery salt
1/2 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1/2 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
2 tablespoon dark Chinese soy sauce
A few peppercorns
3-4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
Cooking oil
Baby carrots
2 tablespoons potato starch

Directions:
1. Allow meat to warm to room temperature for 1 hour. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

2. Mix flavoring ingredients in hot water.

3. Salt and pepper the roast and brown it on all sides in some oil. Add garlic at end and brown briefly. Don't let it burn. Add water mixture. Bring to simmer. Cover tightly with foil and and lid. Place in oven. Cook for 4 hours.

3. Remove meat, cover and keep warm. Cook carrots in liquid; keep covered on low heat.  Remove carrots and degrease liquid.

4. Mix 2 tablespoons potato starch in 2 tablespoons cooled liquid; whisk into stock to thicken. Adjust season. Serve with mashed potatoes.

Serves 6-8

--Tracy Schneider

Zwieback AWOL. Still Looking for the Cheesecake of My Dreams...

I'm looking for the cheesecake of my youth, dense, not creamy, and with absolutely no graham crackers!  Al Dente reader Marcy and I both had high hopes for a circa 1961 Craig Claiborne's Cheesecake recipe that she found the New York Times that she found. It calls for cottage cheese instead of cream cheese and uses zwieback for its razor-thin crust instead of graham crackers.

I had planned to try this recipe, or rather have my husband, the cheesecake enthusiast, try it last week, but finding zwieback, a crisp, twice-baked biscuit, proved impossible. With zwieback AWOL, I needed a substitute, and I spent all last week looking for it. My first thought was biscotti, the twice-baked Italian biscuit, but all the biscotti I came across had strong nutty flavor, which I thought would be overpowering in the cheesecake. I scanned the cookie aisle and finally settled on some crispy Italian ladyfingers. Not the perfect substitute, but I didn't want to wait any longer to try this recipe.

In the end, the results were disappointing. The cheesecake was watery, perhaps the cottage cheese should have been drained. The lemon juice and rind was overpowering. I'm still looking for my ideal recipe. Any suggestions for the cheesecake of my dreams?

Cottage Cheese Cheesecake

Ingredients:
1 6-ounce package zwieback
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, melted
1-1/2 pounds cottage cheese
1/4 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 eggs, separated
1 cup sour cream
Rind and juice of one lemon
Strawberry glaze (see below)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven 325 degrees F. Roll zwieback into fine crumbs. Grease a nine inch spring form pan and dust the sides with zwieback crumbs. Mix the remaining crumbs with the one quarter cup of sugar and the butter and press onto bottom of the pan. Bake five minutes. Cool.

2. Press the cottage cheese through a fine sieve. Add half the remaining sugar, the flour, salt, egg yolks, sour cream, lemon rind and juice. Whip until thoroughly blended.

3. Beat egg whites until stiff, adding the remaining sugar gradually. Fold into cheese mixture.
Turn the mixture into prepared pan, bake at 325 degrees F about 1-1/2 hours. Cool in pan and glaze as directed.

Strawberry Glaze

Ingredients:
1 quart strawberries
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon butter

Directions:
1. Wash and hull berries. Crush enough berries to make one half cup.

2. Boil the crushed berries, sugar, water, and cornstarch two minutes, stirring. Add the butter, strain and cool.

3. Arrange the whole berries over the top of the cheesecake and pour the glaze over the berries. Chill.

--Tracy Schneider

Not All Amaretti Are Created Equal!

My friend Terry doesn't like the crisp amaretti you find in boxes and tins at specialty food stores, so when her neighbor in Spilamberto, Italy, Elisa, offered her some homemade amaretti, she was surprised at how delicious--and chewy--they were. She even asked for the recipe.

Turns out Terry liked Elisa's amaretti for more than just their texture. Elisa's recipe includes no almond paste nor almond extract, which Terry finds overpowering, just freshly ground almonds. I like Elisa's recipe because it has only four ingredients, and they're all kitchen staples.

Elisa's Amaretti

Ingredients:
100 grams sugar
1 egg white
100 grams almonds, preferably blanched
Salt

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Grind the almonds in a food processor, but be careful not to grind them too finely. Combine with sugar.

3. In another bowl, using an electric mixer, whisk the egg white with a pinch of salt until stiff peaks form. With a wooden spoon, thoroughly fold in almond mixture.

4. Using a teaspoon drop small balls of the mixture on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle a pinch of sugar on each and put immediately into the oven.

5. Bake for 15-20 minutes, less time if you'd like them soft and chewy, more time for crisper cookies.

Makes 15-20 cookies.

--Tracy Schneider

Make-at-Home Merguez

When I heard about the merguez sausages my friends Zachary and Clark cooked for dinner the other night, I asked them to send on over the recipe. In addition to the recipe, from the October issue of Saveur, they sent me their tips and a great photo of their dinner. I wish I had been invited over that night!

"Saveur magazine recently ran a cover story on lamb, which inspired us to do some lamb tasting. Our neighborhood butcher usually has fresh local lamb on hand, but they also get in lovely New Zealand lamb. (Can anyone tell the difference?)

The first recipe we tried, 'Merguez,' looked like the most complicated of the bunch, but it turned out to be quite easy--a perfect mid-week supper.

We used ground lamb from our butcher, instead of grinding lamb shoulder in the food-processor, and the recipe worked perfectly. We served the accompaniments suggested: chopped tomatoes (cherry or grape are best this time of year), red onion, and cucumbers. Instead of serving pita bread, we served hot buttered naan, which we prefer in both flavor and texture to pita.

We're adding merguez to our list of recipes that fall into the hard-to-find category of 'fun-and-different' weeknight meals that are both easy and yummy."

Once you try it yourself, I bet you will too.

Merguez (Spiced Lamb Sausages)

Ingredients:
1 pound trimmed lam shoulder, cut into 1" cubes or 1 pound ground lamb
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon harissa
1 tablespoon minced flat-leaf parsley
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground fennel seed
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup yogurt
8 leaves basil, roughly chopped
Chopped tomatoes, red onions, and cucumbers, for serving
Flat bread, for serving

Directions:
1. Put lamb into a bowl of a food processor fitted with the chopping blade and transfer to freezer to let chill for 30 minutes. Add 2 cloves garlic, harissa, parsley, paprika, coriander, cumin, fennel, salt, and pepper to the bowl; process until lamb is coarsely chopped and mixed with spices, about 15 seconds. (If using ground lamb, just mix lamb with other ingredients in a large bowl.) Divide lamb mixture into 8 portions and form the portions into 3"-wide patties. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a 12" cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Add lamb patties and cook, turning once until browned and still slightly pink, about 6-8 minutes. Transfer merguez to paper towels, set aside.

2. Meanwhile, stir together remaining garlic and oil, yogurt, and basil in a small bowl to make a sauce; season with salt and pepper. Serve merguez on a platter with sauce, chopped vegetables, and flat bread.

Serves 4

Saveur, No. 123, October 2009

--Tracy Schneider

Stalking the Tastiest Brussels Sprouts

If you're lucky enough to spot some Brussels sprouts stalks at your farmers market, grocery store or specialty shop, grab them! I found some beautiful stalks a few years ago at my local co-op and used two of them as centerpieces for a night before I turned them into supper the next day. Not only are they artistic in their own right, I'm guessing that in general, the sprouts on the stalk are fresher than those that have been cut and bagged. Does anyone know for sure if that's true?

Brussels sprouts stalks are still not a common sight in the grocery store, though I found some today at Trader Joe's. I'm not a celebrity, but I create a bit of a scene when I have a Brussels sprouts stalk in my grocery cart. "What is that?" everyone wants to know. Maybe we don't know as much about growing Brussels sprouts as we do, say, potatoes, because Brussels sprouts are at at the bottom of the list of "favorite" vegetables.

If you don't like Brussels sprouts, I'm guessing it's because you've only eaten them boiled or steamed, two methods that I myself don't think produce very appetizing results. I learned about roasting Brussels sprouts from Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, and with her recipe I've turned some of the most staunch sprouts opponents into diehard fans. When my teenage niece Lauren tasted my roasted Brussels sprouts, she told me they were even better than French fries. Now that's quite a coup!

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Ingredients:
1-1/2 pounds Brussels sprouts
3 tablespoons good olive oil
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

2. Cut of the ends of the Brussels sprouts and pull off any yellow outer leaves. Mix them in a bow with the olive oil, salt, and pepper. Turn them out on a baking sheet and roast for 35 40 minutes, until crisp outside and tender inside. Shake the pan from time to time, to brown the Brussels sprouts evenly. Sprinkle with more kosher salt and serve.

Serves 6

The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, Ina Garten, Clarkson Potter, 1999

--Tracy Schneider