Couscous

Jake Tilson's A Tale of 12 Kitchens is one of my absolute favorites. I know I've mentioned it before, but it's just really fun to read. This dinner was based on something of his: a simple vegetable stew over fluffy, buttery couscous served with grilled meat. Perfect for cold weather nights. My spices were a little different than what Mr. Tilson uses--I didn't have any saffron and was too lazy to go procure it, but you should use about 10 threads, soaked in water, if you want to do it up right. Above is my spice dump: 1 stick cinnamon, 4 cloves of garlic, smashed, 1 teaspoon fennel seeds, 1 teaspoon cloves, 2 tiny pieces of fresh ginger, peeled and smashed. Cut up 3 small zucchini, 3 small potatoes and 3 small carrots into more or less equal sizes. Also tie a bundle of parsley (so you can easily fish it out later). Not pictured: a similar looking bunch of cilantro, tied up in the same way. Chop two small onions and saute in olive oil over medium heat until they're soft. Add in 2 healthy teaspoons cumin to the hot oil because it brings out the flavor so well. Add in your spice dump and the carrots, saute for another 3 minutes or so. Then add 1 1/2 cups vegetable or chicken stock, plus about the same amount of tomato puree. And your parsley sprig! And, um, the cilantro too. Hopefully you won't forget it, like some people. Add one can of drained and rinsed chickpeas and the rest of your cut up veggies. Cover with water and allow to simmer for about 30-40 minutes. While that's happening, you can prepare your couscous. This is a traditional method that results in ultra-fluffy couscous and is really easy to do. Get 2 cups of couscous and place in a large bowl with a couple pinches of salt. Jake Tilson adds saffron threads here as well, but I think we've covered my negligence in that department already. Pour over boiling water until it just covers the couscous--little grains should barely break the surface. Let it sit for 20 minutes and don't stir it or touch it or talk to it or anything.
After 20 minutes, it will have absorbed all the water and it looks like a solid mass. One big couscous. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a big pan over medium-low heat... And use a fork to gently scrape the couscous, layer by layer, off into the butter pan. Separate the couscous and get it heated through by gently stirring it around with a flat spoon of some kind. It's completely meditative.Couscous is served with grilled meats of some kind--lamb, fish or sausages, usually. We had flank steak, but I think sausages sound pretty good for this too. Heap up your fluffy, warmed couscous in a big pile on a dish and encircle it with golden raisins--they add a lovely sweetness to each bite. I tossed them around first in the grill pan, after I'd removed the steak to get them warm and plumped up. Phil called it "instant chutney."
Your vegetable stew should be saucy and deliciously aromatic by now...
Serve the stew atop a pile of couscous, with yummy grilled tidbits on the side. And a nice bottle of red wine doesn't hurt either--especially if it's one that you thought had already been drunk and then, mysteriously, there it is somehow in your cabinet. Surprise!

Grilled summer vegetables

These are happening right now at the farmer's market: small patty pan squash, beautiful sweet peppers, and miniature zeppelins of eggplant.The squash look like UFOs.When you slice them crosswise they look more like stars--either way, we're in outer space.I marinated the veggies in olive oil, a pinch of sugar, salt and pepper, and a little balsamic vinegar. They grilled up beautifully. They went on a platter, surrounding perfect grilled flank steak. I love summer.

Grilled new potatoes

I got these fantastic little potatoes from the Morningside farmers market. I love the mixed bag of tiny new potatoes--purple potatoes, golden yellow ones...just all different colors and textures. I decided to make these adorable little guys on the grill alongside a new york strip steak and it was a really really good idea. I had just about 1 pound of these teeny potatoes: first pricked each one all over with a fork, then rolled them around in 2 tablespoons olive oil, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes and at least 1 tablespoon of chopped fresh rosemary.I slapped them on the cooler end of a hot grill, being careful not to lose any of the especially small ones between the grates. I guess you could thread them on a skewer if you steamed them a bit first, but I just threw them on there as they were.They got their head start and eventually were joined by the steak, which I placed on the hotter side of the grill.I do recommend getting a taller grill if possible. Otherwise you might attract some unwanted dog attention.Turn the potatoes over a few times to get them nicely browned on all sides. If some are bigger than others, you may need to cut them down to the same size so they all cook at the same rate. Pull them off when they are cooked through and soft with a nicely crisped exterior; the timing here is quite variable depending on size of potatoes and your grill heat, but it should probably take somewhere between 30-45 minutes. Taste them as you go to see if they are done to your liking. Then roll them back in the same pan of olive oil-rosemary mixture so they get another coating of delicious flavor.This and a steak...they belong together.

Whole grilled chicken

You all know how much I love to roast chickens. It's easy and delicious and it seems like I constantly am doing it, doesn't it? In the summer, it's fun to move from roasting a whole chicken indoors in the oven to grilling a whole spatchcocked chicken outside. Beyond the obvious advantages of not heating up your whole apartment and setting off your fire alarm (even if you do have your own personal medical professional to fan the smoke away), a whole chicken on the grill just tastes amazing--juicy, moist and full of smokey delicious flavor. Best of all it is so so easy and still manages to look impressive for dinner. The only even slightly tricky thing you have to do is to spatchcock the bird first. What does that mean? Well, I took a bunch of pictures so I could make the preparation process seem more clear.

Get your whole chicken and a pair of poultry shears. Lay your bird out with the backbone facing up and cut into the back, along both sides of the backbone and remove it. There! That's the hardest part and you'll find it is quite easy. When the backbone is removed, flatten the bird with your hand--it will squish flat quite easily.

Here's what I additionally do to make it easier to flip on the grill: on the other side of the chicken, cut a slit in the skin between the thigh and the chicken's ass And tuck the end of the drumstick in to keep it packed up. Do the same to the other side. Tuck the wings under so they won't burn. Now your chicken is spatchcocked! Drizzle it on both sides with a healthy 3 tablespoons or so of olive oil, and sprinkle all over with salt and pepper. Now put the chicken on the grill over medium-high coals and let it go for 45 minutes or so. Mostly cover it to keep all your smoke going, especially if you use aromatic hardwood charcoal, which I vastly prefer to the chemical-soaked briquettes. Keep a good eye on it and flip the bird every now and then to keep it evenly browning. If you want to, you can do what I did and brush on a simple glaze in the last 15 minutes of grilling. I mixed a few tablespoons of bottled BBQ sauce with the juice from 1/2 a lime, salt, pepper and a couple of splashes from the glass of chardonnay that I was drinking. If you don't have any BBQ sauce handy, you can use tomato paste or even ketchup. Try adding tamari and brown sugar for a variation (leave out the salt then). Brush the glaze over your chicken, let it grill for 5 minutes, then turn it over and brush the other side, then leave it for 5 minutes. Turn it over again and brush it lightly one more time and 5 minutes later, you are all done. With a glaze-shiny, perfectly juicy, spatchcocked chicken! And you barely did any work at all, hotshot.

Note: One chicken works great for 2 people, with a few leftovers. If you have a bunch of people coming over, just multiply it out with as many more chickens that you'll need and have room on your grill for. It is an easy and delicious grill option for a dinner party that also makes you look like you know how to cook.

Grilled vegetable salad

The keywords for this salad are things like "bounty" and "variety" and "creativity." Go to your farmers market and peruse the vegetables--I found early summer squash, baby zucchini and sweet Vidalia onions. There were also beautiful lettuces of all varieties and gorgeous English cucumbers. Non-farmer's market salad additions included grape tomatoes (although there are some locally grown hot house tomatoes available already), pine nuts, goat cheese and big cremini mushrooms. Assemble whatever your beautiful farmer's market veggies might be, slice them up and grill them after a bath in a simple marinade. Lay out over dressed greens, sprinkle with whatever accoutrements catch your fancy, and enjoy! Here's my version of this improvisational salad...

First prep all your vegetables. I used 1 small zucchini and 2 small yellow crookneck squash. Slice the zucchini in half through the middle and then slice the pieces into half-moon chunks and then into long batons. Or you can just cut them into rounds if you want. Slice the yellow squash into diagonal slices of about 1/2" width each. Place the zucchini and squash slices aside in a large bowl. Get your big sweet onion and slice into thick rounds, then place in the bowl as well. Find some big cremini mushrooms and slice them in half. If they aren't so big, just leave them whole. Put the mushrooms into the large bowl with the other veggies and cover everything with a simple marinade. I used 5 tablespoons olive oil mixed with 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, and a pinch of red pepper flakes. Mix the veggies up well and let them marinate for at least 30 minutes to an hour. Get your grill revved up and lay out your vegetables over medium heat, turning them often and moving them around so they don't burn up. The mushrooms will get all shrively and delicious and the squash/zucchini should get yummy looking grill marks all over. As each vegetable finishes cooking (this is pretty much an eyeballing thing--mine took about 15-20 minutes all together), remove it to a plate and set aside. Meanwhile, in a big salad bowl, mix up your greens with a sliced cucumber, halved grape tomatoes and a simple vinegrette. I made mine with the juice from one lemon shaken together with 3 tablespoons olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. That's it! After all your vegetables are grilled up, toss them very lightly with the dressed green salad and top with crumbled goat cheese and toasted pine nuts. Oh, you will be one happy camper.

Tomato tarts and grilled vegetables

I haven't had a chance to post on the cooking I've been doing lately...Angelica and Marc had a baby so I am here in Rhode Island, enjoying my new baby nephew. Let me tell you--he is one ridiculously cute baby. But there were a few interesting things that have been made recently, so I'll try to write them out.

I first made these tomato tarts back at home last week but I made them again yesterday for a big family meal. They are based on a recipe I read in the New York Times. Marc's parents and younger sister were here, as were my parents and Francesca. Oh, and of course little baby William, but he didn't eat any of these on account of the fact that he's only a few days old. You need to get puff pastry to make these--it should be in the freezer section at the grocery store. Usually it is next to the frozen pie crusts in a box. Defrost it to a point where you can unfold the sheets of puff pastry (usually a package will contain 2 sheets of pastry). Unfold them and cut out circles of about 4 inches diameter. Place the circles on a baking sheet that is covered with a sheet of parchment paper. Take one or two very good tomatoes--hopefully you can find some good heirloom varieties at your farmer's market--and slice them into thin rounds (less than 1/2") that will fit inside the circles of puff pastry with room all around to pull the edges up. Don't worry about making them perfectly tidy--you can cut them to fit inside if you need to. Spread about 1 or 2 tablespoons of marscapone cheese onto each circle of pastry, then sprinkle about 1 teaspoon chopped fresh basil over the cheese. Put a slice of tomato over the basil, salt and pepper on top, then pull up the pastry round and pinch the edges to make a sealed tart with the tomato slice showing out of the top, but the edges all around sealed up. Do this for all the tarts, then sticke them in an oven at 425 for 15 minutes. A good variation would be to add pine nuts sprinkled inside. Also maybe instead of tomato you could make this with slices of roasted eggplant and some mint instead of the basil. Or a sweet variation would involve thin slices of plum with slivered almonds and a drizzle of honey on top. Lots of fun.

For the big family dinner we grilled out flank steaks and I made a compound butter for on top. Minced up 1 small clove of garlic, 1 tablespoon capers and 1 tablespoon parsley. Mixed these all up with half a stick or so of very soft butter until it was well incorporated, shaped it into a little mound, then stuck it into the fridge to solidify. When the flank steak was done grilling, sliced it thinly against the grain then put the flavored butter out for people to put on top. We also had grilled red peppers and small portobello mushroom caps. These are really easy and I know I've written about simple grilled vegetables before but Marc would like to know how to do it so I'll write it out again for him, in simple language that even a professor of of international conflict and territorial disputes can understand: Slice well-washed red peppers in half the long way and remove the very top with the seeds and stem. Take your pepper halves and rinse them well to remove any more seeds that might be hanging around. If the halves seem large to you, slice them in half again, but you probably shouldn't cut them any smaller or they will fall through the grill. Put your pepper slices in a large bowl; and cover them with a liberal amount of olive oil, at least a couple tablespoons. Add salt and pepper and red pepper flakes for a little bit of heat. Toss the peppers around they are well coated, then stick them on a hot grill and turn them continually, keeping a good eye on them. They will get very soft and the skins will blacken a little bit. They shouldn't take more than 10 minutes or so to cook. You can use red, yellow or orange peppers with success; however, green peppers are a fool's errand and should be avoided at all costs. They are not really mature vegtables, did you know that? They are unripe peppers that have not yet reached the delicious status of a full grown red pepper. They are gross. For grilled portobello mushroom caps you just take the stems out of the cleaned mushrooms then cover them with olive oil, a little balsamic vinegar, 1 small minced clove of garlic, salt and pepper. Mix them up well in this marinade, let them sit for about 20-30 minutes, then toss them on the grill. Turn them frequently and let them stay over the heat until they are very soft and getting a little browned. They take about 10-15 minutes, but don't let them burn.

Picnic

I went along on a ride to a picnic that was held by Atlanta’s InTown Touring Club. Byron had promised that he would schedule it for a time when I could actually make it (it seems like I haven’t been able to get to any of the club rides so far but I would have been pissed if I’d missed the picnic). We all met up at Grant Park where Katie, Brian and I had selected a good spot—lots of shady trees and plenty of room to play whiffle ball. Two grills were trucked in on bicycle as well as a ton of other stuff. They were like pack animals lugging all this food and cooking supplies to our picnic site. People brought some really yummy snack type foods and delicious sides. We grilled all kinds of stuff—sausages, fancy hot dogs, veggie burgers and teriyaki chicken. I also grilled up red peppers and eggplant, as I usually do: cut into strips or rounds, marinate in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, dash of worcestershire, salt, red pepper flakes. But the most interesting thing was the corn, here’s how it worked:

Cut 6 ears of shucked corn into 3 pieces each—actually, one or two were too small so they only got cut into 2 pieces. The idea is to make mini corns. Put them around the perimeter of a hot grill and flip them frequently, keeping a good eye on so they do not burn. They turn a nice, deep golden color pretty fast, but if they start charring, pull them off and wait until the grill cools somewhat. You want some browned parts but not charcoal corn. Move them around the grill as necessary; pull them off when the kernels are soft when you poke them—probably about 10-12 minutes. Ahead of time, not at the picnic but in my own kitchen, I melted 4 tablespoons of butter and tossed in 1 teaspoon of paprika, ½ teaspoon chili powder and 1 teaspoon of cayenne when the butter was hot. Poured this into a little container to combine with the juice and zest of one lime. Added salt and pepper to the mixture and covered the container to take with me to the picnic. When the corn was finished grilling and still hot, I tossed the corn pieces with the chili-lime-butter mixture. People seemed to like it a lot.

Greek salad and mixed grill

I don't know how authentically greek this actually is, but it is at least greek-esque, what with all the feta and olives. My friend Krista made this salad at her house a couple weeks ago and it was so delicious that I tried to duplicate it at home. She didn't put any chickpeas in hers but I thought it would be an acceptable deviation. Your best bet is just to get her to make it for you, but this one I made last night worked out pretty well.

I got a bag of mixed baby greens from the DeKalb Market and dumped them in a big salad bowl. I sliced grape tomatoes in half, using about 1/2 of a pint container. Cut half a hothouse cucumber into quarters lengthwise and then sliced the quarters into 1/2" chunks. Sliced in half a small red onion, then cut paper thin slices from the halves. Crumbled up about 1/2 a block of feta cheese--I'm not sure how much it actually was. Couldn't have been more than 1/3 cup. Pitted and sliced 10 Kalamata olives. Drained and rinsed very well a can of chickpeas and set aside about 3/4 of the can to use on the salad. I guess you could just use all of it if you really liked chickpeas. Put all these vegetables and other ingredients on top of the greens in the salad bowl, not bothering to toss yet, just letting them chill there until it was time to eat. Juiced one lemon and poured it into a glass jar with a lid. Added about 4 tablespoons good olive oil and a liberal grinding of pepper and salt. Closed the lid tightly and shook it up in the jar until it was emulsified. I waited to dress the salad until the rest of our dinner was ready, then right before we ate I poured the dressing over everything and tossed it all up until it all ingredients were mixed up and the dressing covered everything.

Jeremy and Melanie brought up chicken and delicious spicy chicken sausages so we marinated the chicken in teriyaki and boiled up the sausages like brats before slapping them on the grill. I sliced one small eggplant into rounds and marinated them in salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. I cut 4 very small, yellow crookneck squash in half lengthwise (they were so tiny! little baby squash--no longer than 5 or 6 inches, adorable!), and 2 red peppers into strips. These I marinated separately from the eggplant in olive oil, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, minced garlic, 1 teaspoon dried thyme and a little bit of minced red onion left over from preparing the salad. First up I grilled the chicken breasts, then the eggplant, then peppers and squash (grill cut side down on the squash to get attractive char marks), then sausages. As always, checking with instant, digital meat thermometer for safe temperatures. Please tell me you have one of these. They are wonderful things and have many applications, only one of which is grilling. You can also use them to annoy your spouse, by jabbing the pointy end into their stomachs and saying "I'll take your temperature!" I'm not saying any of us were doing that but if anyone was, it was Jeremy.

Also, we had boiled peanuts before dinner. I made them like I usually do, which is to cover fresh, green peanuts with water, add about 3 tablespoons pickling spices, 2 crumbled bay leaves, 2 tablespoons red pepper flakes and an assload of kosher salt, probably about 4 tablespoons, depending on how many peanuts and how much water. You want it to be briny. Boil them until they get soft, drain and drizzle olive oil over them and sprinkle with a little vinegar. They are better with chile oil, but I didn't have any on hand.

Grilled red potatoes

Yesterday was really nice. I got out of work at least an hour earlier than usual. Brian is in his "no work, no school" temporary state, so he was hanging around, and both Jeremy and Melanie were home early for some reason too. This is why we could all be found drinking beers on the porch by 5 pm on a Monday. We got very loungey and nibbled on edamame and pretzels as our cocktail hour stretched on, but eventually figured we'd eat something that could be considered real dinner. Of course once you've been drinking on a sunny porch while the rest of the city battles rush hour, the last thing you want to do is go anywhere to get specific dinner supplies...no, you'd much rather just grill whatever happens to be lying around the house. Melanie had a bag of small red potatoes languishing in her apartment and so we thought we'd try grilling them, and it worked really well:

Took most of a 3 pound sack of small red potatoes and scrubbed them well. Sliced them in half, except that we left one whole as an experiment. Jeremy took them down to their apartment to microwave (we have limited technology in our house), which I believe took 3 minutes. They have a very powerful microwave though, so maybe on a conventional one it would be more like 5 minutes. Anyway, the goal was to cook them a bit so they would not be too long on the grill. They offered just a little resistance when I jabbed one with a knife. Covered them with a 1/3 cup mixture of olive oil and canola oil, then added 1 tablespoon each vindaloo powder and chile powder, and 2 teaspoons each of paprika, red pepper flakes and salt. Mixed it all up really well with the potatoes and let them sit until the grill was hot. Realized I had an orange pepper hanging around in the fridge, so I sliced that into 8 thick pieces and stuck that in with the potatoes as well.

When the grill was hot we tossed on veggie burgers and a bit of flank steak that had been marinating in teriyaki sauce (by the way? the Soy Vey brand called "veri veri teriyaki" is sort of awesomely delicious). When those were done, I hauled them off and put all the potatoes on, lying them cut-side down, along with the pepper strips. The pepper strips were done much faster, so I just pulled them off as they got browned and soft. The potatoes grilled very well--they don't burn easily but get lovely char marks on the skin parts. I think they took about 10 minutes of grilling, with frequent turning and moving around to make sure they got evenly done. And the flavor of grilled potatoes is excellent--a little bit smoky and spicy from all the marinade ingredients. I usually find potaotes insipid, so this was a nice surprise.

Grilled flank steak & vegetables

Again with the winter grilling! It was pouring rain but very warm out so we grilled on our porch. It's on the second floor, covered & screened in so it's an ideal all-seasons grilling perch. The only trick is to not burn down the apartment building...

I bought a little more than 2 pounds of flank steak at the venerable DeKalb market. I sawed off a piece to use in stir-fry later in the week (undoubtedly, the next post will cover that adventure) and covered the rest of it in a marinade of salt, pepper, minced garlic cloves, red pepper flakes, olive oil, worcestershire and a little red wine. It hung out in the fridge until about a half hour before grill time, during which I let it rest at room temperature. Sliced 2 red peppers and covered with olive oil, salt and pepper. Cut 2 sweet potatoes into 1/2" slices and steamed them for about 7 minutes, until a little more than halfway cooked through, then added to the red peppers, with a little more olive oil, tossed gently. Brian started the grill for me, which was kind of him, and it burned very hot. Melanie kept me company on the porch as first the flank steak went on, flipped about every 3 minutes or so, then red pepper, then sweet potato, as room became available. The flank steak probably took about 10-15 minutes total, but the veggies just got pulled off as they developed nice char marks. Put the sweet potatoes in their own bowl, tossed with the juice of half a Meyer lemon, and surrounded the flank steak with the red peppers.

I accidentally also made what Jeremy kept calling "croutons" and he said he liked them, even though he doesn't normally enjoy crunchy bread (?). Melted a lot of butter and a little olive oil in a pan with 4-5 cloves minced garlic. Added small rounds of a baguette (sidenote! the DeKalb market appears to have stopped making my usual double ficelle loaves and in the place that I used to find those, there are now bags of misshapen, long, squishy things marked "country baguettes." they still come 2 to a package, so I guess they are the new hotness. They are actually pretty good and I have no qualms, I just think it's weird that I can't find the bread I used to get there), and tossed them in the butter-oil-garlic mixture until well-coated. Spread them on a baking sheet, made sure the garlic was well distributed, sprinkled a little parmesan on top, put them in the oven at 350 degrees...and promptly forgot about them while grilling. Brian eventually pulled them out of the oven and they were a very crunchy, tasty counterpart to our grilled foods.

We had this insane peachy pound cake with a caramel-bourbon sauce for dessert. It was leftover from a party that Melanie went to earlier where all the girls were on some no-pound cake diet, so we destroyed the ample leftovers. It was incredible. Also for dessert: my new Lava Lite that Brian got me for Christmas. It warmed up and started looking pretty groovy by the end of the evening.

Cream of tomato soup

I should call this something more exciting because it sounds sort of canned and sad when you just say "cream of tomato soup," but it's really sometimes fun and delicious to make comfort food like this from scratch so we'll just go with it.

Heated a lot of butter (maybe 3 tablespoons?) with 1 tablespoon olive oil and sautéed in that one diced yellow onion until very soft and fragrant but not at all browned. Added 4 minced garlic cloves and continued to sauté about 2 more minutes. Sprinkled 2 tablespoons flour over the buttery onion/garlic mixture and mixed well, making sure there were no lumps and not letting it burn up. Added about 44 ounces of whole, peeled plum tomatoes (I say 44 ounces because it was a 28 ounce can and then maybe another half a can of the same size, but I'm not really sure) and mashed them up pretty well. Added 3 cups of chicken stock and brought everything to a boil, then turned to simmer and covered, stirring every once in a while. Added 2 tablespoons minced parsley at some point during a stir. Let simmer for about 25-20 minutes, then added salt and pepper to taste and a couple pinches of vindaloo (you could use ground clove or curry or something else if you liked, but I had vindaloo around so vindaloo it was). Took off the heat and passed the entire soup through the finest disk of my food mill into a clean container (it took 2 batches). Returned the soup to the pot with very low heat and added about 1/2 cup of half and half. Corrected to salt and pepper and made sure it got heated throughout without boiling.

I didn't really expect it, but we got a surprise Wisconsin boost to our meal. We passed Jeremy on his front porch on our way into the apartment and he had a bag of charcoal in his hand so we knew at once they were grilling. Sadly we had nothing to toss on...or so we thought! Discovered 4 Wisconsin brats hanging out in the freezer, boiled them in a dark mystery beer that had been malingering in our fridge and brought them downstairs to take advantage of the fire Jeremy had built. Delicious and totally spontaneous, although probably not what you'd call a natural accompaniment to cream of tomato soup.