Green chile stew hearkens to warm summer days

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Perhaps the most fitting meal for winter is the spicy stew. Bubbling in a pot on the stove for hours on end, it’s a filling meal that warms the body, warms the soul and warms the taste buds.

I have my own take on classic green chile stew, which assumes that there are no leftover roasted chiles from the roasting season and that you know how much heat you can tolerate.

This stew gets its classic smoky flavor both from the use of vegetables roasted in the oven – chiles, onions and tomatillos – and from bacon.

When I first started working on this recipe, I used two to three pounds of chiles. To me, that was not nearly enough, and future iterations were made with four to five pounds.

I also have a taste for the acidic. I love a hot and sour soup, which gets its sour from vinegar. In this case, I like to add some lemon and lime juice to the stew to give it a little more of an acidic kick than might be in the usual green chile stew recipe. More importantly, the little addition of acidity really made the flavors pop, just like a tiny bit of salt when the stew is being served that unlocks the flavor of a dish.

The recipe is broken into a few different parts. The first is the roasting of the vegetables. Recipes follow into two camps: a Dutch oven or on baking sheets. If you go with a baking sheet, use parchment paper instead of aluminum foil because all the liquid the vegetables release will make them stick to the metal. Also, make sure they are far enough apart that they aren’t steaming each other.

I included potatoes in my recipe to add a starch, but they are by no means required. Rice is another option.

The beef or chicken stock will add plenty of salt to the stew, but if more is desired, add additional salt — and pepper — at the very end of the cooking process, or even make sure a salt shaker is available when serving. I find that each person usually has a different level of ideal saltiness, which is better served by slightly under salting than over salting a dish.

 

This green chile stew may not be green as chile verde, but it is just as delicious.

 

Ingredients

  • 4-5 pounds chile peppers
  • 4-5 tomatillos
  • 2 medium onions
  • 2-3 pound beef or pork roast
  • 5 cloves of garlic, chopped
  • 1 pound bacon (optional)
  • 5 red potatoes, cut in quarters (optional)
  • 5 cups chicken or beef stock
  • 1 tablespoon cumin
  • Vegetable or canola oil
  • Lemon and lime juice
  • Salt and pepper
  • Water as required

 

Directions

  • Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
  • Wash all the peppers and tomatillos
  • Cut all of the peppers in half, take off the stems, deseed if desired and cut the onion into quarters
  • Either place the peppers, onion and tomatillos into a Dutch oven or place them, skin-side up, onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Sprinkle vegetable or canola oil over the vegetables.
  • Roast for 40 minutes to 1 1/2 hours, until very fragrant.
  • While the peppers are roasting, cut the pork or beef roast into 1-inch cubes.
  • In a medium pan, fry the bacon. Remove the bacon to a side dish.
  • In the same pan, begin browning the pork cubes in small batches on high heat. Do not crowd the cubes. If not using bacon, brown with oil.
  • Remove the pork cubes to a separate dish.
  • When the vegetables are done roasting, put them into a food processor or blender along with the chopped garlic. Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup lemon juice. Blend until pureed.
  • Add the chicken or beef stock to a large pot, along with the vegetable puree, pork/beef, bacon if being used, cumin, bones (if a bone-in roast was used) and potatoes.
  • On medium heat, bring to a simmer. Reduce to low heat, and stirring occasionally, simmer for 2 to 5 hours.
  • If the liquid level gets too low, add water or stock.
  • When done, remove the bone to a dish. Remove any remaining meat from the bone and add the meat back to the stew. Throw away the bone.
  • Salt and pepper to taste.
  • Add 1/4 cup lemon juice and 1/4 cup lime juice to the stew and stir in. Add more juice as desired or to taste.
  • Serve or cool and serve the following day.

French onion soup to warm the soul on cold winter nights

Cooler winter days cry out for a change in menu, for something that stays hot during the whole meal, that feels like the enveloping warmth of a dinner lit by a fireplace and candles.

Now is the perfect time to break out the cognac, slice some French bread (or sourdough), get out the little tureens and impress family, friends, or a date, with perhaps the most romantic soup: the French onion.

Like so many French recipes, this will involve bread and cheese, butter and onions, cognac and time. Some of the time will be spent attentively watching onions as they slowly brown in butter, but the majority of the time can be spent away from the stove as the soup simmers, and simmers, and then simmers some more.

French onion soup starts not with onions, or French bread, or nice cheese, but with stock, which builds the base everything else is built on. There are many strongly held beliefs on the stock that should form the base of the French onion soup.

Some call for making your own veal stock, with pounds of veal neck bones, or veal shanks, roasted in the oven, then boiled for at least two hours. Others call for making your own beef broth, with beef neck bones.

Still others say store bought beef broth will do, even the low sodium kinds, or even chicken broth, although if you have a turkey carcass still being covered, consider turning it into stock. Still some say skip the animals and go straight to vegetable broth.

Bon Appétit’s Chris Morocco goes so far, in his “French-ish Onion Soup” to get rid of stock altogether, instead letting the namesake of French onion soup to do all the work.

This recipe is a bit of a hybrid. I’ve pulled from a few different sources, including Morocco, Julia Child and Petit Trois, the French bistro in Los Angeles and Sherman Oaks. (They’re the ones who call for six pounds of veal neck bones.)

This recipe comes in a few parts. You can serve the soup with toasted French bread (or sourdough) on the bottom, on the top or float it on the top, cover it in cheese and bake it in the oven. You take it up a notch with an egg yolk, Worcestershire sauce and some extra cognac for a deluxe soup.

This recipe can easily be vegan, by omitting the cheese, using vegetable broth and using olive oil instead of butter, or just vegetarian, with the use of vegetable broth.

One final note: French onion soup takes time. There are no shortcuts and there is no cheating. You can’t increase the heat on the stove to make the onions brown faster.

French onion soup takes time is well worth the wait. Photo by sousvideguy/Flickr.

 

Ingredients

 

For the soup

2-3 pounds thinly sliced yellow onions

4 tablespoons butter or olive oil

1 tsp salt

¼ tsp sugar

3 tbsp flour

8 cups of stock — beef, chicken or vegetable

½ cup dry white wine or dry white vermouth

3 tbsp cognac

1-2 cups grated Swiss or Parmesan cheese

 

For the toasted French bread

8 slices of French bread or sourdough bread, cut ¾ to 1-inch thick

Olive oil

Grated swiss or Parmesan cheese

 

Directions

Heat a heavy, 4-quart saucepan over medium heat until hot. Add 3 tablespoons butter and 1 tablespoon oil and all the thinly sliced onions. Turn heat to medium-low and cook the onions slowly for 15 minutes, while covered.

Uncover the saucepan, raise the heat to medium, and stir in the 1 teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon sugar, which will help them brown. Cook for 30-60 minutes, stirring frequently, until they have turned an even, deep and golden brown. They should be evenly golden, but not mushy.

Sprinkle the flour over the cooked onions and cook for another 3 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

In a separate pot, bring the stock to a boil.

Take the saucepan off the stove, once the onions are done, and blend in the 8 cups of stock, the white wine or vermouth, and add salt and pepper to taste.

Return the saucepan to heat and simmer for 30-40 minutes. Add salt and pepper as needed.

While the soup simmers, put the bread on a roasting pan and bake for 30 minutes, until the slices are dried out and lightly browned. After 15 minutes, baste each side with a teaspoon of olive oil. After the bread comes out of the oven, rub each piece with a cut piece of garlic.

Just before serving, stir in 3 tablespoons of cognac.

Either:

Pour the soup into individual soup cups or tureens, on top of the rounds of bread and pass out grated parmesan and Swiss cheese to be added by guests or

Pour the soup into individual oven-proof cups or tureens and float the rounds of bread on top and spread the grated Swiss and Parmesan cheese on top, then sprinkle with olive oil or butter.

Bake for 20 minutes in the oven and finish under a preheated the broiler for 1-2 minutes until the cheese on top of brown and serve immediately.

Recipe adapted from Julia Child, Chris Morocco and Petit Trois.

Mastering the art of beef bourguignon for a new Christmas tradition

As the weather begins to cool, I find that its time to think about warming foods, hearty foods and perhaps, most importantly, what to serve at dinner parties that will impress, will wow, that can double as a Sunday dinner, or even work for a holiday, like Christmas.

Enter beef bourguignon, the long-simmering French delicacy, a hearty beef stew made with a base of red wine (typically, burgundy), that takes hours to make and longer to simmer but is well worth the wait. Like most stews, it tastes even better the next day.

This French stew gets much of its richness from browning the beef before it goes into a pot, which then goes into the oven, for the long simmer (two to three hours). The rest comes from the wine that serves as the stew’s base, three cups of a full-bodied young red wine, like Chianti.

So too does richness come from pork fat, added in the form of blanched bacon, put in boiling water to remove its signature smoky taste.

Really, though, the richness in the recipe comes from a whole host of places. So too does it come from the pound of fresh mushrooms, sautéed in butter, and the small white onions, braised in stock.

The mushrooms, and onions, have their own set of instructions in the recipe, and should be done while the stew is in the oven.

When done correctly, the mushrooms will be lightly brown and will not exude their juices while being cooked. For this to happen, the mushrooms need to be dry, the butter needs to be very hot and the mushrooms can’t be crowded in the pan. Sauté too many at once, and they steam, instead of browning. If you don’t have a large enough pan or a hot enough stove, consider making the mushrooms in multiple batches.

The cooking for this recipe is done in either a large casserole dish (I’m a fan of enameled cast iron, like Le Creuset or Lodge), for the stew proper, or in large skillet, for the mushrooms and onions.

While it might be a stew, most of the long cooking time is spent in a casserole dish or pot in the oven. This is done to create a more uniform heating, rather than just the heating element at the bottom of the pot.

This recipe should serve six, with a basic ratio of 1 pound of beef per two people.

Julia Childs writes in “Mastering The Art of French Cooking” that beef bourguignon is typically served with boiled potatoes, but buttered noodles work as well. Personally, I enjoy some warm bread, either a crusty sourdough or a French baguette, with a little butter.

Mastering the art of beef bourguignon (a French beef stew with a red wine base) could be the key to a new Christmas dinner tradition.

 

Ingredients

6 slices bacon, cut into small strips or cubes

3 1/2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

3 pounds stewing beef, cut into 2-inch chunks

1 large carrot, sliced

1 large white onion, sliced

1 pinch coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3 cups red wine

2 1/2 to 3 1/2 cups beef stock

1 tablespoon tomato paste

2 cloves smashed garlic

1/2 teaspoon thyme

1 crumbled bay leaf

3 1/2 tablespoons butter

 

For the onions

18 – 24 small pearl onions

½ cup chicken stock, white wine or water

2 tablespoons butter

1 herb bouquet (4 sprigs parsley, 2 sprigs thyme, 1 bay leaf)

 

For the mushrooms

1 pound fresh mushrooms, quartered

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon oil

Salt and pepper

 

Directions

Remove rind from the bacon and cut bacon into sticks 1 ½ inches long. Simmer rind and bacon for 10 minutes in 1 ½ quarts of water. Drain and dry. Skip this step to retain some smoky flavor in the stew.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

In a 9- to 10-inch fireproof casserole, at least 3 inches deep, Sauté the bacon in the oil over moderate heat for 2 to 3 minutes to brown lightly. Remove to a side dish with a slotted spoon. Set casserole aside. Reheat until fat is almost smoking before you sauté the beef.

Dry the stewing beef in paper towels; it will not brown if it is damp. Sauté it, a few pieces at a time, in the hot oil and bacon fat until nicely browned on all sides. Add it to the bacon.

In the same fat, brown the sliced vegetables (but not the mushrooms or pear onions). Pour out the sautéing fat.

Return the beef and bacon to the casserole and toss with the salt and pepper. Then sprinkle on the flour and toss again to coat the meat lightly with the flour. Set casserole uncovered in the middle position of the preheated oven for 4 minutes. Toss the meat and return to the oven for 4 minutes more. (This browns the flour and covers the meat with a light crust.) Remove casserole, and turn the oven down to 325 degrees.

Stir in the wine and enough stock or bouillon so that the meat is barely covered. Add the tomato paste, garlic, herbs, and bacon rind. Bring to simmer on top of the stove. Then cover the casserole and set in the lower third of the preheated oven. Regulate heat, so liquid simmers very slowly for 2 ½ to 3 hours. The meat is done when a fork pierces it easily.

While the beef is cooking, prepare the onions and mushrooms. Set them aside until needed.

For the onions, place them in a saucepan or skillet with ½ cup white wine or chicken stock. The butter and the herb bouqet. Cover and simmer very slowly, rolling the pearl onions in the pan periodically, for 40-50 minutes. The onions be tender but keep their shape. Add more liquid if it all evaporates. Remove the herb bouqet and reserve.

For the mushrooms, put a skillet on high heat with the butter (2 tablespoons) and oil. Once the butter foam subsides, add the mushrooms. Toss and shake in the pan for 4 to 5 minutes. In the first few minutes, they should absorb the fat, which will reappear on the surface as they begin to brown. Once browned, remove to a separate dish until later on.

When the meat is tender, pour the contents of the casserole into a sieve set over a saucepan. Wash out the casserole and return the beef and bacon to it. Distribute the cooked onions and mushrooms over the meat.

Skim fat off the sauce. Simmer sauce for a minute or two, skimming off additional fat as it rises. You should have about 2 1/2 cups of sauce thick enough to coat a spoon lightly. If too thin, boil it down rapidly. If too thick, mix in a few tablespoons of stock or canned bouillon. Taste carefully for seasoning. Pour the sauce over the meat and vegetables. The recipe may be completed in advance to this point.

 

For immediate serving: Covet the casserole and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, basting the meat and vegetables with the sauce several times. Serve in its casserole, or arrange the stew on a platter surrounded with potatoes, noodles, or rice, and decorated with parsley.

 

For later serving: When cold, cover and refrigerate. About 15 to 20 minutes before serving, bring to the simmer, cover, and simmer very slowly for 10 minutes, occasionally basting the meat and vegetables with the sauce.

 

Adapted from Julia Child’s “Mastering The Art of French Cooking”

Chicken (noodle) soup in an (electric) pressure cooker

Learning a pressure cooker, or in my case, an electric pressure cooker (brand Instant Pot) means trying out new recipes and seeing what it can do.

In the case of chicken noodle soup, the answer is a whole hell of a lot.

When I made it, I went online to see what the general suggestions, and recipe directions/ingredients are for chicken noodle soup.

The best suggestion, which I heeded, was to cook the noodles separately because of the difference in required cooking time.

Other included cubing the chicken before cooking it (for people using boneless chicken breasts or thighs) and suggestions on how much broth and water to include in the pot.

Finally, I was reminded that cooking bone-in chicken means leftovers will be a little gelatinous, from the natural binders in the chicken cartilage.

(See just the recipe here.)

Chicken noodle soup made (mostly) in an electric pressure cooker (Instant Pot). Bone-in skin-on chicken legs were used, as well as green chiles (Anaheim peppers).

I didn’t see any particular instructions on what to do with chicken legs.

Chicken legs are probably the cheapest meat I can get and when I went to the store to get ingredients, they were only $1 a pound, by far the best deal in the store.

They also go on sale for $4 for a 10 lb frozen bag.

If you’re looking for a cheap chicken soup, this is it.

I put the metal steam rack in the bottom, put in two chicken legs, the cut veggies (squash, zucchini, carrots and green chiles), poured in six cups (32 ounces) of chicken broth, a little water, half a bullion cube, locked the lid and turned it to 15 minutes .

After it finished cooking, and I allowed it to “natural release” for 15 minutes, I vented the unit and extracted the first chicken leg with a gloved hand and started taking the meat off the bone and putting into a bowl. Once both chicken legs has been stripped of their meat, I threw them back in the pot and started stirring. Meanwhile, I already drained the pasta and, after realizing everything would be easier in a larger pot, I transferred everything to the pot the pasta had been in.

I added the noodles and realized it lacked salt, so, remembering a Cook’s Illustrated I read on the topic, I grabbed my trusty light soy sauce, my trustier fish sauce and seasoned the soup.

Voila!

Unfortunately, for leftovers, the pasta continued to soak up the broth. I was fine with it, but one could have added a little more.

What did I learn?

Chicken legs or (bone-in) thighs work just fine, so long as you’re willing to fish them out, strip the meat off the bones and put it back in the pot.

 

Pressure cooker chicken noodle soup

Makes 10 servings

Ingredients

2-3 chicken legs (bone in, skin

6 cups chicken stock (48 ounces)

2 cups water

1 bullion cube (optional)

1 lb carrots

1 medium onion (optional)

1 zucchini, Mexican squash, yellow squash or other squash

2-5 green chiles (Anaheim peppers) or other peppers of choice, such as bell peppers or Poblanos.

1/2 to 1 lb pound mushrooms (optional)

Other vegetables as desired, including celery and garlic

Soy sauce to taste

Fish sauce to taste

Pepper to taste

1 lb noodles

Directions

1. Cut all the vegetables into bite-sized pieces.

2. Place the steamer rack at the bottom of the (electric) pressure cooker, then place the chicken legs on top.

3. Put the vegetables in the pot, followed by the chicken stock, the bullion cube (if using) and the water.

4. (Electric) Set the pressure cooker for 15 minutes. Allow for 15 minutes of natural release, and then vent, if desired. If using a stove top pressure cooker, bring to pressure and cook for 15 minutes.

5. While the soup is cooking, in a medium pot, heat water to boiling. Salt the water, then add the noodles and cook as per directions.

6. Once the soup is vented, or the top can be opened, remove one chicken leg at a time and, being careful not to burn your fingers, with a fork, knife or both, remove the meat from the chicken bones. Cut the meat into the desired-sized pieces. Continue with the rest of the chicken legs. Add the meat back to the soup.

7. Drain the pasta and combine with the chicken soup. If desired, transfer the soup from the pressure cooker to the pasta-cooking pot.

8. Season with soy sauce and fish sauce, until soup reaches desired saltiness.