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Super Bowl Champions and Peanut Butter Cookies

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I’m not sure if you are all aware of this, but the New York Football Giants won the Super Bowl a week ago today.  Victor Cruz celebrated with a salsa dance, the city of New York celebrated with an awesome ticker tape parade,  and Ava Frances Manning celebrated by being especially adorable.

I was a nervous wreck in the time leading up to the game. I come from a family of long-time Eli-lovers. Over the years, we’ve had to listen to our fair share of Manning-bashing. Some of these criticisms were justified (he did, perhaps throw one too many interceptions during the 2010 season), and some were absurd (complaints about Eli’s body language, which have suddenly morphed into praise for the quarterback’s icy calm in the wake of two super bowl victories). My confidence in Eli is unshakable. I think he is every bit as good of a quarterback as his brother is, and I believe the New York Giants have built a solid foundation over the last five years that allows Eli to shine.

Still. Any game when Eli gets sacked enough to make his jersey this dirty puts me on the edge of my seat. To have to face one of the great all-time quarterbacks two weeks later is enough to make even this true believer just the tiniest bit nervous for Eli.

And so, I cooked. I went over to a friend’s house for the super bowl, and was determined to make myself useful by cooking. At least, that’s what I told myself at first. As I spent Saturday morning in the kitchen, another reason for my dedicated preparation of chicken wings, potato salad and cookies occurred to me. Perhaps, I was trying to bribe the football gods into granting us a win?

Well, all I can tell you is that these peanut butter chocolate chip cookies are damn delicious, and the Giants won the Super Bowl. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions . . .

These cookies are based both on this recipe for peanut butter cookies, and on my memory of the incredibly delicious cookies of the Chocolate Room in Brooklyn, NY.

 

Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients: (Makes about two dozen cookies)

1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon fine salt

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

3/4 cup smooth peanut butter (natural/unsweetened)

1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

1  large egg, at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup milk chocolate chips

Sea Salt, for sprinkling

1. Preheat the oven to 350 and cut out parchment paper to fit two cookie sheets.

2. Whisk together the dry ingredients, with the exception of the chocolate chips and sea salt (whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and fine salt).

3. Cream the butter, sugar, peanut butter and egg until combined and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and mix to combine. You can use either a hand mixer or a stand mixer for this step—just make sure that the butter is soft before you begin.

4. Pour the dry ingredients into the peanut butter/sugar mixture, and stir with a  wooden spoon to combine. Add the chocolate chips, and stir to mix in.

5. Scoop out 1 tablespoon of batter per cookie, and lay on to the baking sheet at least one and a half inches from surrounding cookies. Flatten the cookies using the back of a fork, and sprinkle each cookie with coarse sea salt.

6. Bake for ten minutes, rotating the cookie sheets after five minutes. Let cool on the tray until firm enough to move to a cooling rack. Continue making in batches until all of the dough is used.

Total Carbs: 300

Carbs per Serving: 12

Cast-Iron Chicken and How Mrs. George Would Read a Recipe

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It’s the start of a new semester on campus and (as every magazine’s January issue makes clear) time to realize the promises you made yourself on New Year’s Eve. I’m trying to be less of a sourpuss in general, and smile more like Victoria Grayson in particular (the key is drawing it out—taking three times as long to smile as seems absolutely necessary). I’m also dedicated to putting my Christmas presents to good use, particularly my lovely new cast-iron skillet and the Edible Brooklyn Cookbook. This week’s recipe, Cast-Iron Chicken with Bacon and Sauerkraut, manages to accomplish both goals with aplomb.

Aside from giving everyone an opportunity to admire my new kitchenware, the main point of this post is to talk about how to read a recipe. Growing up with a cook for a mother, I internalized some pieces of kitchen wisdom at a young age. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know how to cut an onion or peel a garlic clove. Assuming knowledge on the part of others, however, can be a dumb choice. There are very few ruder things a hostess can do than accept the offer of help from some friendly guest, only to whirl around in horror upon discovering just how said guest goes about making a salad (as my sister can tell you, the “Lettuce: To Cut or Tear” debate will long live in infamy). So, in the spirit of friendly host/guest relations everywhere, here is how I go about reading a recipe. Reading a recipe sounds so simple, but it actually is an acquired skill. My way of recipe-reading is certainly not the only valid one out there. Like the Pirate’s Code, it’s more of a set of guidelines.

 

How To Read A Recipe (or, to quote my forth grade teacher, “If there’s a dot on that page, read it”)

1. Read the list of ingredients. Think about if you have those ingredients. Then, go and check your pantry anyway. This is how you keep yourself from winding up with four (yes, you heard that right, four) bottles of Worcestershire Sauce. Write down anything you don’t have.

2. Read the rest of the recipe, carefully. Pay special attention to parts that say things like “let chill overnight” or “let simmer for three hours.” Circle these parts. You will be happy you did, and far less likely to miss mock trial meetings on account of wildly underestimating cooking time. Also pay attention to any special equipment you might need. If the recipe calls for a 9 by 8 cake pan and you don’t have one, you’re not going to get very far.

3. Go buy whatever ingredients you need. Make a shopping list, including quantities, beforehand.

4. On the great day of cooking, after you have set aside enough time to complete the recipe in full, including letting that dough chill in the fridge for two hours, read the ingredients again. Assemble them all on your countertop.

5. Complete your mise. This means: render all of your ingredients into the state the recipe demands that they be in. Roughly chop that onion, mince that garlic, julienne those carrots. This practice has apparently fallen out of favor in certain circles. Ignore those circles. Those cooking show hosts have everything pre-chopped and measured for a reason.

6. Read the recipe through once more from start to finish, to get your head in the game.

7. Commence cooking, starting with step one and continuing on through till the end.

 

And now, Cast Iron Chicken with Bacon and Sauerkraut, from the Edible Brooklyn Cookbook (Totally worth a buy, even if just for the inside dust jacket map of Brooklyn!)

Ingredients—Serves 4 (READ THESE FIRST)

1/2 a pound good-quality bacon (I rarely buy cheap bacon. Why skimp on one of life’s great affordable pleasures?)

1 chicken, 3-4 pounds

2 onions, chopped

2 sprigs thyme

1 bay leaf

1 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 pound sauerkraut, rinsed and drained

1/2 cu. chicken stock

*Note: When I made this recipe, I had to use two skillets to fit in the chicken and sauerkraut. My nine-inch skillet comfortably fit in three pieces of chicken, but would not tolerate a fourth.

1. Preaheat your oven to 350 degrees.

2. Quarter your chicken. To do this, you will need to cut the chicken open using good kitchen shears. Open the chicken so that its ribs are exposed. Here’s a pretty good video demonstration.

3. Heat a cast-iron skillet over medium high heat, and cook the bacon until its fat is rendered. Transfer the bacon to a paper-towel lined plate using a slotted spoon.

4. Season the chicken quarters on all sides with salt and pepper. Brown in the bacon fat on all sides. Remove the chicken to another plate.

5. Brown the onions in the bacon fat, adding some extra oil if needed. Add the thyme, bay leaf, red pepper flakes and paprika and stir together. After about two minutes, add the bacon back in, stirring to mix.

6. Add the sauerkraut to the skillet, stirring to combine with the other ingredients. Arrange the browned and quartered chicken on top of the sauerkraut and pour the stock over.

7. Transfer the chicken to the oven and roast. The original recipe gives a cooking time of forty minutes, although it took more like fifty when I made it. The chicken is done when you stick a knife in it and the juice that runs out is clear.

8. Serve one chicken quarter per person, with plenty of sauerkraut.

I served this with boiled red skin potatoes , liberally buttered, and a salad.

Carbs per person (with two small potatoes per person): 54

Score of the Giants/Packers Game: 37-20 (story here and here).

Ringing in the New Year

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2012 is off to a tragic start. This has nothing to do with many important factors like: Hoya Basketball (we beat Providence, 49-40), the state of Derek Jeter and Minka Kelly’s relationship (rumor has it they’re back together!), or my New Year’s Eve (lobster, oysters, and a damn fine grechetto chardonnay blend). All of these factors, would, in fact, point to a wonderful 2012. I spent last night toasting in the New Year with a flask of whiskey (Irish) and beautiful fireworks. I was feeling so good about 2012.

The Great Lobster Massacre of 2011

But it turns out this new year had me fooled. This morning, I checked the website of Fleisher’s Organic and Grass Fed Meats to see their holiday hours, and my entire winter break fell to pieces.  Fleisher’s is closed until January 10th for training and renovations. I can understand that training and renovations are important in running a business. Still, I don’t think the ladies and gentlemen of Fleisher’s properly considered the implications of closing for a full nine days on my winter holiday. Until discovering this upsetting news, I had been planning a wonderful meat-filled last-week of winter break. Sausages, meatloaf, pork belly, lamb. Bone marrow, bacon, rotisserie chicken drumsticks you can gnaw on while walking down the street. Handsome gentlemen butchers. A beautiful old-fashioned storefront. If you like meat, Fleisher’s is a little piece of heaven.

As I think that last paragraph makes clear, I am really really really not a vegetarian. For all of my interest in fine food, I truly believe that there is no better meal than a gin martini followed by a fine steak. Nonetheless, I recognize that there is something seriously wrong with our country’s food production system—and in particular with our meat-production system. There are many reasons for this, but (as I will happily lecture anyone on when I am in my cups, as my mother’s grandmother would have said) one of the most important reasons is that our cattle are fed on corn. Corn-fed cattle are less healthy and less happy than grass-fed cattle, and this may have serious implications for the people who eat corn-fed cattle. Fleisher’s sells grass-fed meats from local farmers using snout to tail butchering practices. The meat is slightly more expensive, but that extra two dollars a meal goes towards supporting craftsmanship butchery and sustainable farming practices.

This week’s recipe is inspired by the lovely staff of Fleisher’s, who pointed me towards their pork cutlets (a cut of meat they don’t always have) on Wednesday and suggested pork roulade for dinner. Also, the food blog kitchenista. Man oh man, was it delicious.

Ingredients—Serves 3

3 pork cutlets, about 1/4 inch thick

1/2 bunch parsley, chopped

1 head of garlic, roasted

1/2 tablespoon red pepper flakes

Juice of 1/2 lemons

Olive oil

1/4 cup white wine

6 ounces of angel hair pasta

1. Salt pasta water and bring to a boil over high heat. Once it comes to a boil, turn the heat down and let it simmer until you’re ready for it.

2. Roast your garlic. If you are lucky enough to have an adorable small pot the perfect size for a head of garlic, place the garlic in the pot and drizzle with olive oil. Cover, and roast in the oven at 350 degrees for about an hour. The garlic is done when it is soft and beginning to brown. If you don’t have an adorable little pot, just wrap it up in aluminum foil. While the garlic is roasting, go read the fantastic new blog Securing Rights.

3. When your garlic is roasted and you are better informed about foreign policy, take the pot out of the oven and let it cool down. In the mean time, chop your parsley and combine with the lemon juice, pepper flakes, and a tablespoon or two of olive oil in a small bowl. When the garlic is cool enough to handle, pop the cloves out of the papery shell and mash them together with the parsley/lemon juice mixture.

4. Lay out a cutlet and brush one side lightly with olive oil. Spread one third of the parsley/garlic mixture over the cutlet. Grate some fresh pepper over that. Begin to role the cutlet up. If your cutlet is a rectangle (which it is), you want to roll from one of the short sides up to the other short side.

5. Take butcher’s string and loop it vertically around the pork. Then loop the string around the roll-up horizontally. Start a new horizontal loop every inch and half. This is a wee bit difficult for me to explain here, but I think the picture does a decent job of demonstrating what I mean. Tie the string at the end securely.

6. Repeat the roll-up process with the other two cutlets. Re-heat your oven to 350 degrees.

7. Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a cast-iron skillet over medium high heat. Brown the rollups, about three minutes per side, until golden brown on all sides, and remove from heat.

8. Pour the wine (or a mixture of wine and chicken broth) into the skillet, and place the skillet in the pre-heated oven. Set a timer for nine minutes.

9. Cook angel-hair according to package instructions.

10. Remove skillet from oven after the allotted time, and serve one cutlet and two ounces of pasta per person. Top the pasta with the wine/pork sauce that will be left in the pan. Make sure to take that butcher’s string off the pork! Serve with an arugula and red onion salad.

Carbs: 114 grams

Carbs per serving: 38 grams