Springing Forward

What’s cooking? Pork Medallions with Fennel-White Wine Sauce

Well, it’s almost spring. Just not yet, even though here in Texas, we’ve got blooms aplenty on the flowering trees, and my pansies are exploding with happiness at having survived the winter. But I’m getting really tired of the hearty soups and roast chicken dinners. And the asparagus isn’t quite “local” yet, if you know what I mean.

So I was delightfully surprised to find a recipe for pork tenderloin that didn’t require roasting or bundling my prince up so that he could grill it in the cold.

I don’t remember ever having pork tenderloin from my mother’s kitchen. We often had pork chops, and occasionally pork roast, so maybe this is one of those cuts – like a tri-tip roast – that wasn’t really popular or well known back then. In any case, as a grown-up, I’ve become a big fan. It’s as tender as a beef filet but much less expensive; it’s also juicy, flavorful, and very lean. Would you like to know why it’s so tender? I thought so. The cut comes from an area along the spine, so it’s a muscle that’s used for posture instead of movement.

Even better, this particular treatment is so fast and easy, it blew me away. The cooking part of the recipe takes... drum roll, please... less than 10 minutes. Can you believe it? The Kitchen Goddess was more than a little skeptical until she made it herself.

If you’re not familiar with fennel, you may be tempted to try this recipe with celery or onion. Don’t do it. Just allow me a short digression on the vegetable, then go out and introduce yourself to it.

According to wikipedia, fennel is a highly aromatic member of the carrot family. (News to me.) It’s also a rich source of protein, dietary fiber, B vitamins and several dietary minerals. The plant came originally from the Mediterranean coast, which is why you’ll find fennel popping up in Italian cuisine. The tall, feathery fronds are often in salads or omelettes; the seeds look and taste a lot like anise; and the flowers produce a potently flavorful pollen that the Kitchen Goddess has raved about more than once. Fennel bulbs – which look like a marriage between a head of celery and a spring onion –  have a faint licorice-like taste when raw; cooked, they’re completely different. Aside from their use raw in salads, fennel bulbs make a wonderful addition to soups and risottos, and they’re terrific grilled or braised on their own. Here, the bulb adds a light, spring-like flavor to the sauce.

So now that you’re ready for the magic to happen, the most important part of the process is our old friend, mise en place. Remember: less than 10 minutes to cook? So there’s not a spare instant to pour the wine, measure the broth, or chop the herbs. Get it all ready before you turn on the stove; otherwise, you will find yourself deep in the weeds, as they say in the restaurant industry.

The recipe here is written for a one-pound piece of meat, which in my experience is about average for pork tenderloin. So it feeds two people, with some left over for a lucky soul the next day. At most, it’ll work fine for three. If I were cooking for four, I’d double the meat and use a whole fennel bulb that’s more of a medium size than large. The use of the herbs in the preparation is so fabulous, I’d at least double it if you’re cooking for four. You’ll also have to cook the meat in two shifts.

This recipe comes from A Good Food Day, by Marco Canora, chef-owner of Hearth, in New York City. In spite of (or perhaps because of) his success as a chef, Canora discovered, at age 40, that he was pre-diabetic, with high cholesterol and gout, and 30 pounds overweight. But he wasn’t willing to give up flavor for health, so he developed a way of cooking based on “simple, natural recipes fit for a food-lover’s palate.” Twenty-five pounds lighter, he published 125 of the recipes in this book.

Pork Medallions with Fennel-White Wine Sauce

Adapted from A Good Food Day, by Marco Canora (Clarkson-Potter Publishers, 2014).

Serves 2-3.

Ingredients
1 large garlic clove, peeled
1 rounded tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped
1 rounded tablespoon fresh sage, chopped
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1-pound pork tenderloin, sliced in ½-inch thick medallions
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
½ large fennel bulb, diced small (¼-⅜ inch dice)
¼ cup dry white wine
¼ cup flavorful chicken broth (or ¼ cup water and ½ teaspoon Knorr Chicken Broth Powder)

Directions
Mash the garlic clove with the flat side of a chef’s knife and chop it coarsely. On a cutting board, combine the chopped garlic with the rosemary and sage, and finely chop them all together. Set the mix aside in a small bowl.

Use paper towels to blot the pork dry, and season the medallions on both sides with salt and pepper. Have a warm plate ready to receive the pork once it’s cooked.

Kitchen Goddess note: The hot oil and the moisture in the meat will make for a fair amount of grease splattered around your skillet. If you have one of those clever things called a splatter guard or splatter screen, the KG recommends you dig it out of its place behind those cake pans, or whatever obscure place you keep it. You’ll save yourself a lot of clean-up.

Set a 12-inch skillet with high sides over medium-high heat. Add 3 tablespoons of the olive oil to the skillet, and bring the oil to a shimmer. Once the oil is hot, add the medallions in a single layer and cook – without touching – for 1½ minutes. Using tongs, turn the medallions and cook the other side – again without touching – for another 1½ minutes. Transfer the meat to the warm plate to rest.

See those nice bits of brown crustiness? That's what comes from NOT TOUCHING the meat while it cooks.

While the meat rests, add the remaining tablespoon of oil to the skillet – still on medium-high heat – along with the fennel and a pinch of salt. Cook for 1 minute, using a wooden spatula or wooden spoon with a flat edge to stir the fennel and scrape up the fond (those bits of brown meat that stuck to the bottom of the skillet).

Stir the garlic and herb mixture into the fennel for 30 seconds, then add the wine, the broth, and any juices from the meat that have accumulated on the plate.

Bring the sauce to a boil and cook for 2 minutes, until it reduces by about half and thickens. Spoon the sauce over the pork medallions and serve.

The sauce is so delicious – light and herby – that I like to have something to soak up any that I can’t get with the meat, so I usually serve the meat with French bread or rice and a salad or green vegetable. If you choose rice, you’ll want to prepare it completely before you start cooking the meat, and let the rice stay warm, covered, in its saucepan while you cook the meat and sauce.

Bon appétit!

Survivor Soup

What’s cooking? Chick Pea Soup with Tomato and Rosemary

The Kitchen Goddess was working on a post about hors d’oeuvres, but the topic began to seem frivolous in light of the difficulties so many friends and family are experiencing in the aftermath – and we hope it can now be considered aftermath – of Hurricane Harvey. So today’s post will be more focused on cooking during difficult times. Call it a Harvey Hangover remedy. And later this week, we’ll have a nice post about hors d’oeuvres.

In the South, where I grew up, there is no occasion that cannot be celebrated with food. Even tragedy – or maybe I should say especially tragedy – sends Southern cooks running to their kitchens in an all-out assault on pain, grief, and other forms of suffering. Succotash as succor.

Twelve years ago, in the aftermath of Katrina, I cooked gumbo for 160 people as a fund-raiser at our church in New Jersey. With rice made by the minister and his wife, garlic bread baked by the Committee on World Fellowship, and divine desserts brought by another member of the congregation, it became an astonishingly heartwarming effort that had everyone digging deep into their wallets. We sent the proceeds – $8,000 – to a small church we’d connected with in New Orleans.

These days, I don’t have the kind of kitchen such heroic efforts demand. Instead, I’ll give you a recipe for a terrific and terrifically easy soup that even those whose pantries may have been ravaged by the storm might be able to put together. Light but filling, it’s a good soup for any weather, with amazingly vibrant flavors. The secret is in the short cooking time. And sometime during the cooking or the eating or the clean-up phase, I hope you will take time to count your blessings –  however large or small – and send a contribution to the Central Texas Food Bank, which is a major player in the relief effort for the victims of Hurricane Harvey.

* * *

The author of this recipe is the creative and clever Amanda Cohen, chef-owner of a wildly successful vegetarian restaurant called Dirt Candy, in New York City. She is the first vegetarian chef to compete on Iron Chef America. Her cookbook, Dirt Candy: A Cookbook, is the first graphic novel cookbook to be published in North America.

Chef Cohen says this soup should take less than 30 minutes to make. I will confess that the first time I made it, I took about three hours. But that’s because I obsessed over the size of the cans – had to do an extra trip to the store to check the available sizes – then got completely sidetracked watching the team trials for this year’s world championships in bridge. Finally, I decided, Okay, fine, I’ll just do the math, then at least I’ll know how much to adjust the other ingredients.


The second time I made it, I used cup measurements, and was much happier. And now that’s done for you, so you should be able to breeze through the process.

Kitchen Goddess note: Flexibility is the key concept for this soup. The proportions aren’t strict, and neither is the rest of the recipe. You can try the dish with cannelloni beans or black beans or any other beans you like. You can substitute basil or thyme or tarragon or oregano for the rosemary – each will contribute its own distinct flavor. If you don’t have fresh, use dried. And if you want a slightly richer soup, try chicken broth instead of the water. This is a dish that’s meant to be quick and easy, so use what’s at hand in your kitchen. And for those of you in Houston and on the Texas Coast, I’ve put in parentheses various alternatives to the ingredients.

Chick Pea Soup with Tomato and Rosemary

Adapted from Amanda Cohen, chef-owner of Dirt Candy, in NYC.

Serves 4 (or 2, with seconds, as at my house).

Ingredients
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 cup diced red onions (Alt: yellow onions, or 3 tablespoons dried onion flakes)
¼ cup carrots cut in ¼-inch dice (Alt: parsnips or skip them entirely)
½ teaspoon Aleppo pepper (Alt: a small pinch of chili flakes or a dash of Tabasco)
2 tablespoons minced garlic plus 1 tablespoon minced garlic (about 9 cloves, or Alt: 4½ teaspoons of dried garlic flakes)
One 19-ounce can chickpeas, drained (about 2 cups) (Alt: cannellini beans, navy beans, black beans)
One 19-ounce can diced tomatoes (about 2 cups)
3 cups water (enough to cover)
1 large sprig of rosemary (6-7 inches long)
juice and zest of 1 lemon
¼ cup chopped parsley (Alt: 2 tablespoons dried parsley)
¼ cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (Alt: Grana Padano or Pecorino Romano)
1 teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste

Directions
In a small soup pot or large saucepan set over medium-low heat, combine the olive oil, onions, carrots, Aleppo pepper or chile flakes, and cook, stirring for 4 minutes or until the onions become translucent. Add 2 tablespoons of the garlic and continue to cook, stirring, for another minute. Adjust the heat to make sure neither the onions nor the garlic burn.

Stir in the drained chick peas and the tomatoes, and add the water. Drop in the rosemary.



Simmer the mixture for 15-20 minutes, then add the remaining tablespoon of garlic and simmer another 2 minutes. Turn off the heat; remove the rosemary from the soup and discard. Add the lemon zest and juice and the parsley. Add salt and pepper to taste.

If you prefer a thick soup, purée 2 cups of the soup in a blender, and add it back to the pot.

Serve with Parmigiano-Reggiano sprinkled on top. And invite a friend over to share.

Whoops! Looks like I forgot the Parmesan cheese...

No Tricks – Just a Holiday Treat What’s cooking? Rosemary Shortbread Cookies with Tomato Jam

I read somewhere that most children think Halloween is the most important holiday after Christmas/Hanukkah. Makes perfect sense to me. After all, who doesn’t like pretending to be someone or something else and getting candy as a reward? Even the spooky/scary part is fun for many, because deep down, you know it’s not real fear, but excitement.

For me, the scariest part about Halloween is sticking my hand inside the giant pumpkin. I’ve mentioned before that the Kitchen Goddess isn’t fond of slimy or gooey, and hardly anything beats slimy and gooey more than a pumpkin’s innards. So I really have to brace myself before the annual pumpkin-carving ritual.

And it is a ritual. No one else in my family – and that would be my husband – seems to have any interest in buying the beast, deciding on the face, and gutting/carving the flesh. Just saying it that way makes me feel a little creepy. But I love Halloween even if no little ’weeners show up at our doorstep. More candy for me.

These days, I also have to send Halloween cookies off to New Jersey. One batch for the grandkids and another for the hospital staff where my younger son is a third year resident. I figure it can only help his popularity to show up with a tin of cookies now and then.

Once Halloween is over, though, the real pressure sets in. It’s the start of the holiday season, with all sorts of demands for hostessing and gift-giving. (I refuse on principle to use the non-verb “gifting.”) So today, I will get you started in that regard with a recipe for terrific shortbread cookies and a savory tomato jam you can use to turn those cookies into delicious tea cookies. It’s a combination from the kitchen of David Lebovitz, whose book, The Perfect Scoop, is my bible for frozen desserts.

I found this recipe on Epicurious.com, where it received almost universal raves, for the cookies alone or as sandwiches with the marvelous tomato jam. The cookies are buttery but light, with a really sophisticated flavor that’s only mildly sweet. And the tomato jam is also terrific with a sharp cheese.

Rosemary Shortbread Cookies with Tomato Jam

Adapted from epicurious.com and Ready for Dessert: My Best Recipes, by David Lebovitz

Makes 40-44 cookies, or 20-22 cookie sandwiches.

Ingredients
2 cups (260 grams) all-purpose flour
¼ cup (40 grams) yellow cornmeal or polenta
½ teaspoon salt
10 tablespoons sugar
6 ounces (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 ounces Crisco
2 large egg yolks
1½  tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves, finely chopped
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
Tomato Jam (see below)

Directions
In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the sugar, butter, and Crisco together at medium speed, just until smooth. Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating until well combined, then mix in the chopped rosemary. Add the dry ingredients in a couple of batches, mixing until the dough is smooth and holds together.







Divide the dough in half and place each half on a sheet of wax paper lightly dusted with flour. Using your hands and the wax paper, mold each half into a log about 6-7 inches long and 1¾-2 inches in diameter. Wrap the wax paper around the logs, and place the logs in the fridge until firm, at least an hour. (You can refrigerate the logs overnight, but if you do, wrap them again in Saran Wrap to keep them from drying out.)




When you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350º, with racks positioned in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. To make the dough easier to slice, stick the logs into the freezer for 5-10 minutes.

Line a couple of baking sheets with baker’s parchment. Slice the logs into disks about ¼ inch wide, and place the disks on the parchment about ½ inch apart. Bake about 12 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through. Keep an eye out as the time grows short, because they can get overbrown quickly. You want just the edges of the cookies to brown lightly.

Kitchen Goddess note: The KG must be more hot-blooded than she thought, because at some point the logs got a bit soft from holding them while she sliced, producing “disks” that were slightly off-round. Undeterred, she simply mashed them into shape, which meant that some of the disks had more of a mound shape. But they still developed a flat side in the baking, and made perfectly decent sandwiches. And they still tasted great. The lesson here is not to get your knickers in a twist over the shapes, as long as they’re reasonably round.

Let the cookies cool in the pan for a few minutes, then transfer to racks to cool completely before making them into sandwiches.

To make into sandwiches, spread 1-1½ teaspoons of the jam on the underside of a cookie, then add a second cookie, with the flat, bottom side into the jam. You can store the filled cookies in an airtight container for 3-4 days; or you could store the cookies without jam – again, in an airtight container – and add jam when you’re getting ready to serve. Also, you can make the dough and store it in the freezer for up to a month.

Tomato Jam

Adapted from epicurious.com and Ready for Dessert: My Best Recipes, by David Lebovitz

Makes 2 cups.

Ingredients
2¼ pounds ripe tomatoes (about 5 large)
2 cups sugar
2 or 3 fresh grinds of black pepper
⅛ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon Aleppo pepper (optional)
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

Directions
Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil. With a paring knife, core the stem end of each tomato, then cut a shallow X on the bottom.

Place the tomatoes, one or two at a time, into the boiling water for about 30 seconds, then remove with a slotted spoon and let cool. The skins will have loosened, so once the tomatoes are cool enough to handle, peel the skins off. Discard the skins and the water.

Cut the tomatoes in half horizontally and gently squeeze or spoon out the seeds and juice. Dice the tomatoes into ½-inch pieces.

Put the diced tomatoes in the saucepan and stir in the sugar, pepper, and salt. Cook over medium heat for about 1 hour 15 minutes, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon to keep the tomatoes from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Once most of the liquid has evaporated – i.e., you can draw the spoon across the bottom of the pan and the jam doesn’t immediately come back together – remove it from the heat and stir in the Aleppo pepper and lemon juice. If, during the cooking, you see foam  rising to the top, you may want to skim it off with a large spoon. (Removing the foam makes the jam clearer.) If you like to use a candy thermometer, the jam should reach 220º when ready.

Ladle the jam into clean jars. Cover tightly and let it cool before refrigerating. It’ll keep at least six months in the fridge. Or you can process it like preserves and it’ll keep outside the fridge for a year.

Happy Halloween!

Preserving My Sanity What’s cooking? Red and Yellow Cherry Tomato Confit

I spent 10 days in Italy, and all I got was this sinus infection. That’s not really true, but it is what’s most on my mind right now. So while I try to get my ears to unclog, and gather my thoughts for a couple of posts about the most foodie-friendly place on earth – that would be the Amalfi Coast – I have something for you to do with your spare time this weekend. You’re welcome.

It’s the end of the official tomato season, and what better way to hang onto it than to literally preserve some. I know, I’ve beat this horse till it’s probably long past dead in your minds, but in the middle of winter, when everything outside is gray and brown and white, you will thank your lucky stars that your good friend, The Kitchen Goddess, persuaded you to put some of these goodies away in jars.

Let me start by saying that this is sooooo easy, and yet the results will make you the envy of all your friends. I’ve checked my local Whole Foods, and it seems that those really sweet cherry tomatoes are still available. So whether or not you have a Whole Foods nearby, you can probably find both red and yellow cherry tomatoes in stock at your local grocer or farmers’ market; if not, go for just red or whatever color you can find. I like the mix of red and yellow just for the color. And while I’ve used rosemary as my herb of choice, that’s mostly because the stuff grows like cactus down here in Texas, so I’m always trimming back my rosemary bushes and just throwing the branches away. You could also go for fresh oregano or some combination of oregano, thyme, rosemary, French tarragon, dill, or basil.

Confit (pronounced “con-fee”) originally developed as a way to preserve meats, salting and seasoning them and cooking them for a long time in their own fat, then cooling and storing them in the fat. Nowadays, many fruits and veggies are made into confit by just cooking the hell out of them. In fact, Giada has an apple and onion confit that looks delicious, though I only just discovered it in the process of writing this post. Have to try that. And lemon confit, which is used as a seasoning, and in which the lemons are preserved for 1-3 months in salt, is a whole different animal, but well worth trying.

This cherry tomato confit is completely wonderful as a topping for bruschetta, and Melissa Clark, from whom I adapted this recipe, says she serves it over fresh ricotta with crusty bread. I most often serve it on pasta, though it would go equally well over polenta or quinoa or creamy risotto. Straight from the jar, it makes a bright, really flavorful topping. All you might want to add is some grated parmesan, but I could see stirring in some sautéed mushrooms or sliced Italian sausage. So make a big batch, preserve some in jars, and leave the rest for dinner this week. In fact, even without that whole processing-in-boiling-water business, if you put the confit in jars, it will last at least a month in the refrigerator.

Red and Yellow Cherry Tomato Confit
Adapted from Melissa Clark in The New York Times

1 pint red cherry tomatoes
1 pint yellow cherry tomatoes
3-4 large cloves garlic, minced
¼ cup olive oil
leaves from 3 6-inch stems of fresh rosemary (a scant ¼ cup)
¼ teaspoon Aleppo pepper (alternatively, a pinch of crushed red pepper)
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

Preheat oven to 375º. In a large bowl, with a wooden spoon, gently stir together the tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, and rosemary. Spread the mixture out evenly onto a sheet pan, and sprinkle with Aleppo pepper (or pepper flakes), kosher salt, and pepper. Bake 45-50 minutes, until the tomatoes start to look wrinkled. Shake the pan a couple of times during the baking to keep the tomatoes distributed in the oil.

If you’re not eating them immediately, store the tomatoes – along with the oil, garlic, and herbs –  in jars. Keeps one month in the refrigerator.