ROASTED VEGETABLES AND CHICKEN POT PIE

Of all the one dish meals I make this one is hands done my absolute favorite.   It is this recipe for ROASTED VEGETABLE AND CHICKEN POT PIE I go to when I really want to wow family and friends.  It tells them how important they are to me.

The secret is the way the vegetables are prepared.    They  are roasted deeply golden and take on a sweet caramelized flavour.  They colour and flavour the glorious, rich  sauce .  The sauce seductively cloaks the succulent chicken.  Then the buttery, crisp puff pastry sublimely tops everything .

You can assemble the pie (except for the crust) ahead of time.  This makes it the perfect entertaining dish.  For large groups the recipe is easily doubled and baked in two dishes.  This is a stellar one dish wonder.  It takes chicken pot pie to delicious new heights.     The puff pastry is courtesy the frozen food counter so how deliciously easy is that.  Comfort food at its finest.  Pop over to MRS BUTTERFINGERS kitchen for   ROAST CHICKEN AND VEGETABLE POT PIE

CASSOULET … celebrates Bastille Day

I will never forget the first time I dined on cassoulet.    It influenced forever my passion for this sophisticated and humble French peasant dish that is a glorious version of pork and beans. 

The  handwritten invitation arrived in the mail.   The back of the envelop sealed with  red wax incised with the fleur- de- lys.     An invitation to dinner at the home of friends,  Dunc and June, to celebrate  the storming of the Bastille.   In the lower left hand corner the words “dress beautifully”.

In that magic time between dusk and twilight the “beautifully” dressed guests arrived.  The women wearing filmy, barely there summer dresses and shimmering  jewellery.   The men at once both elegantly and magnificently attired.  Dress military  uniforms had been resurrected from storage closets.   White dinner jackets dazzled.  One gentleman wore a fez and a richly embroidered caftan.      Another a romantic  poet’s shirt of finest white linen.

On a large round table  forty white pillar candles chased away the dark evening.  Champagne glasses sparkled.   Edith Piaf sang of love.   From the kitchen came the  enticing, earthy aroma of our very French meal – cassoulet  . .  my introduction to this glorious, rich slowly cooked dish of meat, pork and white beans.

There are as many versions of cassoulet as there are regions in France.    My adapted  recipe takes full advantage of our garden raised dried Heirloom French Tarbais white beans and our own milk fed pork.   Substituting  dried white  beans and having an understanding butcher you can easily create your version of this classic dish.

This is not a difficult dish to prepare but it is time-consuming.  This is not a recipe for “slow-cooker” aficionados.    The final two hours of cooking demand you stay close to your oven.  The recipe can be prepared over three days  and is then put together a   few hours before you plan to serve it.

The recipe for CASSOULET awaits you in my kitchen – MRS.BUTTERFINGERS.  Bon appetit!

 

 

POLENTA WITH BRAISED PORK AND TOMATO SAUCE … and my favorite cooking pan. !

I have a favorite cooking pan.  It is the one I reach for when I am sauteing or braising meat.   It is a very large pan –  13 inches across.  You can brown a lot of meat at a time.

It is a very deep pan – 6  inches deep. The contents can sizzle and spit and everything stays IN the pan.

It is a very heavy pan – 10 pounds. But two handles make it easy to handle.   The bottom of the pan is very flat.  It cooks so evenly there are no hot spots to burn its contents.

It cleans beautifully – shiny as a new silver coin.  Amazing when you realize this same pan had been used several thousand times in our little French restaurant, Roxy’s Bistro.  I have great affection for this pan.

I use this perfect pan to make  Southern Italy dish PORK RAGÙ with polenta.  Pieces of boneless pork shoulder (Boston butt)  browned in olive oil are slowly simmered in a robust rich wine tomato sauce fragrant with fresh thyme and rosemary.  Then it’s served over the creamiest, most luxurious polenta you have ever tasted.

I also use my perfect pan to make polenta.  Think of polenta  rich with whole milk, unsalted butter seasoned with a little brown sugar and fine sea salt.  Grate a little Parmigiano-Reggiano over it.  Sprinkle the polenta with chopped fresh parsley and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil and you have polenta that is the stuff dreams are made of.   Polenta that compliments superbly your lovingly prepared Pork Ragù.

There is a secret to this type of cooking.  The Pork Ragù tastes even BETTER after it dreams away in the refrigerator for a couple of days.   This makes it the perfect dish for entertaining.  You simply carefully reheat the Pork Ragù  and  whip up the polenta.  Even the polenta benefits from a tiny rest before being plated.  If you have any left over Pork Ragù it makes a gorgeous sauce over pasta.  It also freezes beautifully.

Have an Italian for dinner – cook PORK RAGU.

 

 

 

 

TARBAIS BEANS AND CASSOULET LANGUEDOC

 

There is food I dream about.  And the classic French cassoulet is the top of my list.  This dense, rich, earthy casserole of beans, sausages and meats gently simmering – filling my kitchen with its mouth-watering aroma is indeed the stuff that dreams are made of.

Since we now raise our own pork I was even more determined this dish should be perfection itself.  I now have lean fresh pork fat,  fresh pork rinds and spare ribs.  All organic, all from milk fed pork.  What I did not have was Tarbais beans.   It is the these fat, white, meltingly smooth French beans that are the essential ingredients for authentic cassoulet.    The skin of the Tarbais beans is unusually thin and delicate.  The bean is low in starch and of remarkable tenderness.

I poured over my seed catalog and found the Heirloom Tarbais seeds.  We were a little late planting our garden this year but seven days ago we lovingly and tenderly patted the soil over the beans.  Almost like Jack’s magic beans they popped out of the ground four days later.  This summer promises to be incredibly hot.  Perfect weather for beans.   They will grow through the summer climbing up to six feet on supports and finally in the  fall we will pick, shell and store away our Tarbais beans.

Come the rainy, gray winter months Tarbais beans will find their way into a slow cooked cassoulet of incredible richness and flavour.  Over two days the ingredients will be off the stove and in and out of the oven several times.  Then when the breadcrumbs on the top of the cassoulet become a mahogany brown I will give it a  quick stir and return it to the oven one last time.   It will be the perfect dish to serve for Friday night supper with friends and family.  There will be lots of crusty home-made bread to sop up the juices.  I’ll provide extra large napkins to tuck under chins and we’ll  sit around the kitchen table and nibble and talk into the night.

(recipe to follow sometime in the winter months to come)

 

SPINACH PIE … a vegetarian dish that will make your reputation as a splendid cook

SPINACH PIE  in all its glory

This dish looks  professional and complicated.  In reality it is easy to make.  Don’t be concerned about using phyllo pastry dough.   In this recipe perfection isn’t necessary.    If a sheet tears just keep going.  The results are truly spectacular and impressive.  This is one of several vegetarian dishes I make on a regular basis.  Make it part of your repertoire.

SPINACH PIE  serves 6

3 cups finely chopped yellow onions

2 tbsp good extra olive oil

2 tsp kosher salt

1 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

3 (1o-ounce ) packages frozen chopped spinach, defrosted.  This is one of those times frozen is actually better than fresh

6 extra-large eggs, beaten

2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg (don’t even think of using powdered nutmeg)

1/2  cup freshly grated  parmigiano-reggiano

3 tbsp panko  or ( plain dry bread crumbs)

1/2 pound good feta, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

1/2 cup pine nuts (optional)

1/4 pound butter (salted or unsalted) melted

6 sheets of phyllo dough, defrosted

Reheat oven to 375 degrees F.

In a medium saute pan on medium heat, sauté the onions,( sprinkled with salt)  with olive oil until translucent and ever so slightly browned, 10 to 15 minutes.  Sprinkle with the freshly ground black pepper and allow to cool slightly.

Squeeze out and discard as much of the liquid from the spinach as possible.  Put the spinach into a large bowl, and then gently mix in the onions, eggs, nutmeg,  parmigiano-reggiano, bread crumbs or panko, feta and pine nuts.

Butter a ovenproof casserole and line it with  sheets of phyllo dough.    To do this take one sheet from your stacked pile of phyllo dough, lay it on the counter and brush with butter.  Then  lay each sheet around the edges of casserole allowing about half the phyllo  to hang over the edge of the dish.  Pour the spinach mixture onto the phyllo and spread evenly.  Neatly fold the edges up and over the top of the spinach to seal in the filling.  Brush the top well with melted butter.

Bake for l hour, until the top is golden brown and the filling is set.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.  Serve at room temperature.

 

for an easy to copy recipe just click on SPINACH PIE

SICILIAN BRAISED CHICKEN … (Pollo Agrodolce)

There as many ways of making Pollo Agrodolce as there are good Sicilian cooks.  What makes this dish so delicious is the ying and the yang of sweet and sour flavours.  You  can add almonds or pine nuts, some basil or mint instead of parsley.  You can make it with red wine and red-wine vinegar.  Some recipes for this dish  are spiked with saffron or anchovy, and some contain hints of orange-flower water.  The constant through all of them is the cooking down of vinegar and sugar until they infuse the meat and vegetables with their combined sweet but slightly sharp flavor.  With all these tantalizing options this recipe for SICILIAN BRAISED CHICKEN should be tucked in your apron pocket.

SMOKING TWO MEAT CHILI

I don’t always go to the market with a specific menu in mind.  I look around to see what looks good.  What’s new on the shelves.  I spotted these jalapeno peppers.   They were a generous size, and so very fresh.  They whispered, with their hot, little breath – chili, make chili.  I picked the fattest, greenest peppers.  I added the biggest red pepper to the basket.  Smoking Two Meat Chili was going on the plate tonight.  My chili recipe has a long history that dates back more than fifty years.  The recipe has evolved through the years.  I seldom make it the exact way twice, and that’s what you should do too. The recipe is on my food blog.

BOSTON BAKED BEANS … FOR GROWN-UPS (a new, revised recipe)

We all grew up on baked beans, but this is baked beans with a difference.  It’s baked beans for grown-ups.  Bring it to the table in an old-fashioned bean pot.  It becomes pure theatre.  Serve with crusty bread and salad.

This is a wonderful Friday Night Dinner in the Kitchen recipe.  The kind of dish you can make ahead  and be a guest at your own dinner.  You’ll find the recipe on our new food blog  MRS BUTTERFINGERS