March 2009 Archives

Chicken Marsala

First of all. . . I didn't think to take a photo of this when I made it. And it's too bad because the it's very rich looking with the red color in a Marsala sauce.  This recipe only uses sweet Marsala wine instead of other ingredients like chicken broth.  Next time I make this I will be sure to take a photo...

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 4-5 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 4 tablespoons of good quality extra-virgin olive oil
• 3 ounces pancetta, diced very small
• 8-10 ounces white button mushrooms (you can use crimini but I think the buttons are better for this recipe) - slice them very thin
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 teaspoon minced shallot
• 1 teaspoon of organic tomato paste
• 1 3/4 cup - good sweet Marsala wine (not dry!)
• 2 tablespoons - fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 3 tablespoons butter- cut into three equal pieces and keep chilled
• 3 tablespoons freshly minced Italian parsley

Heat the oven to 200 degrees and place the rack in center position.  Place flour in a square baking dish or pan, shake lightly to spread.

Rinse the chicken breast and pound lightly until the breast is an even thickness to ensure it cooks evenly.  Trim off all excess fat and edges.  Dry with a paper towel and season with sea salt and pepper.  Dredge breasts in flour to coat. Make sure all ridges are well covered.  Shake lightly to remove excess.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a 12-14 inch skillet over medium-high heat until the oil is just shimmering and lightly smoking.  Add the chicken and brown lightly.  This should take about 10 minutes.  When chicken is browned place it in a baking dish and place in the pre-heated oven to keep it warm.

Add 2 more tablespoons of oil and return to medium high heat.  Add the pancetta and mushrooms.  Cook until the pancetta is crispy and the mushrooms and lightly cooked and browned (about 10 minutes.)  Stir in the garlic and shallot cook for 1 minute until blended then add  tomato paste and cook for another  minute until paste browns lightly.  Add Marsala.  Scrape up any browned bits in the pan and simmer lightly until the Marsala has reduced and has a slightly sticky consistency like a syrup (about 8-10 minutes.)

Add the fresh lemon juice and any juices from the chicken that have accumulated in the baking pan in the oven.  Turn heat on very low and gently whisk in the 3 chilled tablespoons of butter one piece at a time until melted and well blended.

Turn off the heat... stir in the fresh Italian parsley and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Add chicken breast to sauce pan and dredge in the sauce and each side to cover.  Then place chicken over your pasta of choice (I use Fettuccine) and spoon the sauce including all mushrooms and pancetta.  Sprinkle with freshly micro-grated parmesan cheese.

Tropical Coconut Banana Bread

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter, melted and cooled

1/3 cup organic cane sugar

1/3 cup dark brown sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups white flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

5 very ripe bananas, coarsely mashed

6 oz. canned crushed pineapple, drain liquid

5 oz. canned cream of coconut (not coconut milk - however I have used coconut milk when I couldn't find cream of coconut and I added a 1/4 tsp of vanilla)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup of roughly chopped and toasted macadamia nuts

• Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a standard loaf pan
• Toast the nuts in the oven for about 10 minutes
• Cream butter, 2 of the mashed bananas and sugars in a large bowl.
• Mix in eggs.
• In a separate bowl, mix the remaining dry ingredients
• Mash remaining bananas thoroughly in another bowl (3rd) and fold in pineapple, cream of coconut, and vanilla.
• Fold both banana mixtures from other two bowls slowly into dry ingredients - don't over mix!
• Fold in the nuts.
• Pour batter into the pan
• Bake for about 55-60 minutes until a toothpick inserted into center of loaf comes out mostly clean, rotate pan a few times while baking (Cooking time may vary depending upon your oven... my oven is commercial grade and tends to cook faster than others... just keep an eye on it :-)
• Let the bread cool on a rack and turn out of the pan after about fifteen minutes. Let cool almost completely (approximately 45 minutes) before slicing. The bread will be very dense and moist.

• Lightly dust with confectioners sugar before serving.

Macadamia Nut Banana Bread

What is better than homemade banana bread?  The whole house smells fantastic as it's baking and it's one of the most simple things to make.  This recipe is very basic.  I just modified a little of this... and a little of that... and received rave reviews from my husband and 4 year old son, Wyatt.  To me macadamia nuts compliment the tropical origins of bananas more than walnuts.

If your bananas don't seem ripe enough... place in the oven on 350 for 15 minutes prior to mixing the ingredients.  This will simulate the sun and allow all of the sugars to be released.  This is what makes banana bread great.... truly ripe bananas with black peels.  This trick does not work with green bananas... they must be very yellow or very ripe but not fully black on the peel.

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar (I use organic cane sugar)

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

5 very ripe bananas - mashed well

1 stick unsalted butter - melted and cooled

2 large eggs

1/2 cup whole organic yogurt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 cups macadamia nuts, toasted and chopped

Confectioner's sugar - light dusting before serving.

1. Adjust the oven rack to the lower middle position and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Grease with butter an 8.5 by 4.5 inch loaf pan

3. Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and cinnamon together in a large bowl.

4.  In a mixer using the wire attachment whip 2 mashed bananas, melted butter, eggs, yogurt and vanilla.  Mix well.. you want a fluffy and creamy banana mixture.

5.  In a separate small bowl, mash the remaining 3 bananas so they still have some chunky texture.  Then blend together with banana mixture in blender.

1. Slowly fold the whole banana mixture in with the flour until it is combined.. but don't over mix.  Fold in the macadamia nuts.

7.  Using a rubber spatula, pour the batter into the buttered loaf pan and smooth the edges and top.

8.  Bake until golden brown - approximately 55 minutes.  Rotate every 15 minutes to ensure all sides are baked evenly.  When you do this be delicate so you don't upset the rising bread

9.  Remove and let cool in the pan for 10 minutes.  Then place on rack and cool with a cloth towel over the bread for another 30 minutes before serving.

10.  To serve, cut into slices and lightly dust with confectioner's sugar - serve!

Spiced Pear Banana Bread

The pears add a really nice flavor to this spiced banana bread recipe. For best results use soft pears!

PREP TIME: 20 Min

COOK TIME: 1 Hr 20 Min

READY IN: 1 Hr 40 Min

SERVINGS: 12

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups plain flour

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

• 1/2 teaspoon ginger

• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

• 2 mashed bananas

• 2 mashed pears (peeled or use canned pears)

• 1/2 cup white sugar

• 1/2 cup brown sugar

• 1/2 cup butter or margarine

• 1/4 cup plain or vanilla yogurt

• 2 eggs

• 1 teaspoon vanilla

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease a loaf pan and coat with flour to prevent sticking.

2. In a medium mixing bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg.

3. In another mixing bowl, cream together the white sugar, brown sugar and butter.

4. Mash the pears and bananas together really well in another bowl.

5. Stir the pear and banana into the sugar and butter mixture and add in the eggs and vanilla, stirring well. Then stir in the yoghurt, again mixing well.

6. Slowly pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture, stirring constantly. Mix really throughly until everything is perfectly blended together.

7. Spoon the mixture into your prepared loaf pan. You can place a few slices of banana on top and sprinkle with a little brown sugar for decoration if you like.

8. Place the loaf pan in the center of preheated oven and bake on 350F for 1 hour 20 minutes. Cooking times may vary, especially in fan assisted ovens, so check the loaf is done by inserting a toothpick or knife into the middle of the loaf. If it comes out clean the loaf is ready.

9. Allow the banana bread to cool in the loaf pan for about 10-20 minutes. The cooling is important because the loaf will solidify fully as it cools.

Mushroom Barley Soup

Reprinted with Permission: By Caron Golden (www.sandiegofoodstuff.com)

(In her own words from her blog www.sandiegofoodstuff.com)

I've been making this soup for years, just grabbing items in the refrigerator as they inspired me. It was only when I made a batch for a friend who had just had a baby and then she requested the recipe that I finally wrote something up. It's still subject to what I may have on hand but that's the beauty of soup, isn't it. Usually, I use a combination of fresh shitake and crimini mushrooms as well as Swiss chard or kale. Today, I had several shitakes but I also decided to use a package each of the brown and white beech mushrooms and the maitake.

The beech mushrooms, known in Japan as Buna shimeji (brown) and Bunapi™ (white), are stunningly beautiful. They have little fragrance and pose elegantly from the large base they cluster on.

The brown beech are widely considered the most "gourmet" of the oyster-style mushrooms. Both beech varieties (in the wild they grow on wood, often beech trees -- hence the name) are a little sweet, a little nutty and perfect for soups, sauces and stir frying.

Maitaki mushrooms are much more "fungus-y." They look like something right out of a deep dark chilly forest.

And, in fact, in nature they're found on dead or dying deciduous trees in northern temperate forests. These mushrooms have the robust, earthy smell and flavor you'd expect from a fleshy brown fungus. Stir-fry them, saute them, bake them or use them for tempura. I'll play around with them some more later, but they seemed like a good addition to the soup today.

Now, many people like to use the dried shitakes found in Asian markets. I always have a bag on hand, but I love using them fresh. These were so plump and large, they called out to me at Mitsuwa. Here are the last of the bunch, along with pearl barley and a head of garlic also being used in today's soup.

Now to the soup.  I like to add beef, in the form of boneless short ribs, to it, which means I also use beef stock as the base. But the beef is, of course, optional. You could add chicken or turkey or just keep it vegetarian, adding a soup stock most appropriate to what you're doing. There's no real need to add the greens, but I like to. Certainly other root vegetables would work here as well. My basics are carrots and onions but parsnips and/or turnips would add a nice sweetness to the soup. And, note, with these mushrooms, I sliced the shitakes but the others I simply separated from one another.

Mushroom Barley Soup

Ingredients

• 2 cups of mushrooms, sliced
• 2 large carrots, grated
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 cloves of minced garlic
• 3/4 cup of pearl barley
• 3 cups or so of Swiss chard or kale
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1 quart of beef stock (if using meat, otherwise you can use chicken or vegetable stock)
• A couple of splashes of good dry sherry or cognac
• Optional: one pound of boneless beef short ribs, cut into cubes

Okay, get out a large stock pot. If you're using the beef, heat the pot, add enough oil to cover the bottom, let that heat for a minute till it shimmers and then add the beef. Let the pieces brown on all sides and then remove them and drain the fat from the pot.

Add a splash more olive oil and then add the onions and garlic. Sauté on low heat until the onions turn translucent and then just a little golden.

Then start adding everything else: the mushrooms, carrots and Swiss chard first, then the beef, then the pearl barley. Then add the stock. If one quart isn't enough to cover the contents, I add water, then a couple of splashes of sherry or cognac. Finally, add some salt and pepper to taste.

Stir it to mix it well. Then bring it to a boil and skim the fat. Turn down the heat to simmer and cover the pot. I let it cook a couple of hours and then adjust the salt and pepper.

It freezes really well, too.

That's it. Adjust the amounts if it doesn't look right to you. Add other ingredients you might like.

Serves 6

Moules Fromage Bleu

Growing up on the Mendocino Coast, we would pick mussels off of the rocks and steam them in wine on the beach.  Our recipes were not very inventive, but the mussels were always delicious.  Last night, I was watching Bobby Flay's TV show Throwdown on the Food Network and was inspired to make the featured dish - Moules Fromage Blue (Mussels with Bleu Cheese).  It looked amazing and it was no surprise that local chef, Teddy Folkman beat Bobby Flay's own mussel recipe.  I found this recipe online and wanted to upload it to my blog for future reference.  Next time I am in Washington DC, I intend to visit Teddy Folkman's restaurant Dr. Granville Moore's http://www.granvillemoores.com/

Teddy Folkman's Moules Fromage Bleu

Serves one as a meal; two to four as an appetizer

1 1/4 pound rope-grown P.E.I. mussels

4 tablespoons blended oil (40 percent extra-virgin olive oil, 60 percent canola oil)

1/3 cup diced applewood-smoked bacon

1/3 cup thinly sliced shallots

1/4 cup Hook's Blue Cheese, or a similar mild, creamy blue

1/3 cup white wine, preferably a dry Chardonnay

Juice of 1 lemon

1/3 cup baby spinach, cleaned and destemmed

Sea salt, as needed

Black pepper, as needed

Heat the oil in a pan over high heat. Cook the bacon until the fat is rendered and it is slightly browned.  Do not overcook or brown the bacon!  Add the shallots and mussels and toss together. Add the white wine and lemon juice and toss together.

When the mussels start to open, add half of blue cheese, melting it into the broth. As soon as all mussels are open, toss in the spinach. Season to taste with sea salt and black pepper.

Plate the mussels and top them with the remainder of the blue cheese. Serve with a French baguette and frites.