Celebrating Cinco de Mayo in Germany

What’s cooking? Dulce de Leche and Spicy Pineapple-Tequila Sorbet

Yes, the Kitchen Goddess is in Germany, but that doesn’t stop her from wishing you a happy Cinco de Mayo! I’m not really sure if they recognize May 5 as having any special significance where I am – we’re just getting over celebrating King’s Day with the people in Amsterdam, and one national festival in a week is quite enough for me.

King's Day Revelers in Amsterdam

King’s Day in the Netherlands is a celebration of the King’s birthday, and the entire country parties, but nowhere as intensely as in Amsterdam. Everyone wears something orange, and many dye their hair orange, in  honor of the House of Orange-Nassau, which rules over the Netherlands. Orange plastic hats, orange synthetic leis, and orange wigs are everywhere – it’s sufficiently well-known that the population of Amsterdam doubles on that day. A day filled with eating and drinking and singing and drinking and parading in the streets and drinking and even a bit of marijuana smoking in the streets... Let’s just say that, unlike the Kitchen Goddess’s Dutch ancestors, these Dutch know how to party. The fellows in this photo are typical of the sort of over-the-top costuming that takes place.







By contrast, Cinco de Mayo isn’t nearly as significant of a holiday in Mexico as it is in the States, where it has become widely recognized by Mexican-Americans as a celebration of their heritage. And since the rest of us enjoy a good celebration as much as anyone – especially if it involves food and alcoholic beverages – you’ll find a large number of non-Mexican-Americans joining in the fun.

There’s nothing like dessert to help you celebrate. I served these at a recent group dinner party where the theme was Mexican cuisine. I give you two ways to make dulce de leche [pronounced DOOL-say day LAY-chay], which is sort of like the Mexican version of Nutella – a delicious caramel spread made from (1) milk and sugar, or (2) sweetened condensed milk. The second way is so easy it’s almost laughable, but being the KG, I of course had to try it both ways. The first produces a deeper, darker, thicker caramel, but given the ease of the second way, I’ll probably choose that when I do it again.

Spicy Pineapple and Tequila Sorbet

Adapted from Max Falcowitz at SeriousEats.com

For this sorbet, there’s nothing tricky at all and you will love the sweet-tart flavor of the pineapple-lime combination. I reduced the amount of sugar from the original recipe and doubled the lime, but you should play with the flavors however you like. The KG couldn’t really taste the tequila, even after doubling the amount called for in the original recipe (on the theory that you can never have too much tequila), but the alcohol does help keep the sorbet from freezing too hard.

Makes 4-5 cups.

Ingredients
2 pounds peeled, cored, and chunked ripe pineapple (about 1½  pineapples before trimming)
kosher salt
¼ cup water
¾ cup sugar
1½  teaspoons Aleppo pepper
2 tablespoons silver tequila
Juice of two limes (or to taste), plus zest of one of the limes (using a rasp)

Directions
KG note on pineapple: I had no problem finding already trimmed, ripe pineapple at my grocery, but if you are not so lucky and find only semi-ripe pineapple, apparently you can toss it with ½ teaspoon of the kosher salt and bake it at 450º in a glass baking dish for 1-2 minutes, or until pineapple is sweet and aromatic. Do not overbake.

Load the pineapple chunks with the water into a blender and purée until very smooth (at least 2 minutes). You should have about 4 cups of juice. Add the remaining ingredients and blend until sugar dissolves. Add salt to taste.

Pour the purée into a bowl or plastic container and cover tightly. Chill in refrigerator for at least two hours, or until very cold.

Process in an ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. Chill in an airtight container in your freezer for 2-3 hours before serving.

Dulce de Leche (two methods)

Adapted from Epicurious.com

I served this as a dipping sauce with churros – the Mexican equivalent to doughnuts, but you can also stir some into your coffee, or drizzle it over ice cream, or spread it on toast. You may find yourself eating it straight with a spoon – that’s okay, too.

Makes 1¼-1½ cups

For the classic method:

Ingredients
4 cups milk
1¼ cups sugar
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions
In a large (3-4 quarts) heavy saucepan, combine the milk, sugar, and baking soda.

Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat enough to simmer the liquid, uncovered, for 1½ to 1¾ hours, until it thickens and caramelizes. For the first hour, you will need to stir only occasionally and make sure the mix doesn’t settle on the bottom. After that first hour, the milk will begin to caramelize more intensely, and you’ll need to stir more often, to avoid burning.

After 30 minutes...

After one hour...

After 90 minutes.

When the mixture is well caramelized, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla. Transfer to a bowl to cool.

Kitchen Goddess Recipe for Disaster: If you are making dulce de leche in the condensed milk method and asking someone – like your darling husband – to pour the water into the pan for the water bath, be sure to let them know that it goes into the larger, roasting pan and not the pie pan containing the milk. Because there’s no way to cook it down enough to get rid of all that extra water and you will end up with a small marital crisis on your hands and no way to get a picture of the final product unless you start over with another can of milk, which you might not have. Just saying.

Sweetened condensed milk method:

Ingredients
One 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk (not the same as plain evaporated milk, which has no added sugar)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 425°F. Move one of the racks to the middle of the oven.

Pour the contents of the can of sweetened condensed milk into a 9-inch pie pan (deep-dish if you have one) and place it in a roasting pan with sides at least 2 inches deep. Cover the pie pan tightly with foil. Add enough hot water to the roasting pan to reach halfway up the pie plate.

Bake the milk in the middle of the oven for 1½ hours, checking the water level at the 45-minute mark and adding additional water if necessary. Check milk at the end of the 1½ hours – if it’s not thick and brown, replace the foil and cook another 15 minutes.

Once the milk is thick and brown, remove pie plate from the water bath and cool, uncovered. Makes about 1¼ cups.

Dulce de leche will keep for a month, refrigerated. You can also freeze it. Even better, make Dulce de Leche Ice Cream, from this epicurious.com recipe.

¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

Bonkers, Intense, Sassy, Crazy – My New Favorite Cookbook What’s cooking? Pepperoni-crusted Cod with Pineapple

The Kitchen Goddess has been laid low with a cold for the past week. No cooking, no writing. We apologize for the interruption.

I know, today’s recipe sounds a little strange. Ok, maybe a lot strange. But so worth taking the chance.

One of my 2016 resolutions was to expand my palate, to explore new foods, new seasonings, and new ways of cooking in ways that won’t endanger me or my family. In the current Age of the Foodie, chefs the world over are trying new combinations of ingredients and flavors and textures, and it’s good to take a small leap when an idea shows up from a cook you trust. Try to see these combinations as creative and adventuresome, not weird or scary. After all, it’s only food. So come along on the ride with me.

One way to seek out these new challenges is to pay attention to the younger chefs. In that vein, I’ve recently discovered a guy named Justin Warner. Warner, who is 32 but looks and acts more like a member of the 15-19 age category, is probably best known for winning Season 8 of the Food Network series, Food Network Star, with Alton Brown. He’s self-taught – no formal culinary training, which by itself is remarkable.

He became part owner of a restaurant in Brooklyn called Do or Dine, which transformed a forbidden neighborhood into a culinary mecca, attracting even the Michelin gang, then closed abruptly after four years. (The cryptic note on their Facebook page: “Dreams>$.” Sounds like a funding issue.) In any case, the star’s wacky food sense has resurfaced in the form of a new recipe book, The Laws of Cooking, which I recently bought. (You can also find him in lively short-form video online at The Food Network.)

The “laws,” as Warner describes them, are those combinations of tastes and textures that inspire almost universal pleasure. There’s the Law of Peanut Butter and Jelly, the Law of General Tso’s Chicken, and the Law of Pesto, to name a few. Then Warner uses his genius to extrapolate a range of other dishes from each of the featured laws. After taking the plunge on a few of these creations, the Kitchen Goddess has emerged a complete convert, even more willing to try others she might have eschewed in her more conservative past.

Warner’s writing is fun and exuberant, the instructions easy to follow. None of the snooty tone you often find in the tomes of classically trained chefs. Even the occasional “project” recipe looks easy enough if you have the time. Warner is clearly enjoying himself in the kitchen and wants you to, as well. There’s lots of guidance on gear, and the occasional substitution if you haven’t got – or don’t want to buy – what he uses. Best of all, he gives do-aheads and a plating suggestion for each dish, so you’re not left wondering how the heck to serve it.

Take today’s recipe, for instance. In his chapter on The Law of the Hot Dog, Warner celebrates salty/cured foods. (And if Burger King’s announcement that they’ll be offering grilled hot dogs is a trend, this recipe may be a gourmet answer to it.) Now the Kitchen Goddess admits to a fair degree of skepticism when she first cast her baby blues on this dish. But on the heels of three previous successes out of the book, she took a chance. And was amazed. Even her hubby and son – both even more skeptical – pronounced it good.

The KG recommends that you endeavor to make each bite include bits of pepperoni, fish, and pineapple. Mmm-mm. The Kitchen Goddess trusted Justin Warner, and we know by now that you trust the Kitchen Goddess. So dive in. You won’t be sorry.

Pepperoni-crusted Cod with Pineapple

Adapted from Justin Warner in The Laws of Cooking (Flatiron Books, 2015)

Serves 4.

Ingredients
1 20-ounce can pineapple slices
4 thick cod fillets, 6-7 ounces each*
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1 egg, beaten
3-4 ounces thinly sliced pepperoni (large deli slices)*

*Kitchen Goddess note: (1) Cod doesn’t come in nice even lengths or thicknesses for this dish. But you can take a single thick fillet and cut it down the center seam to produce two fat “tubes” of fish and cut them into segments weighing 6-7 ounces each. With the thinner ends, I doubled each fillet under itself to create a piece of fish that was about the same thickness as the fatter ones and would therefore cook in the same amount of time. (2) I recommend getting your pepperoni from your grocer’s deli counter, where it’ll be in larger rounds and they’ll slice it thinner than you can get with pre-packaged meat.

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350°.

Line a large rimmed baking pan with parchment paper. For each serving, place two slices of pineapple in a line. Pat the fish dry with paper towels, then salt/pepper both sides. Using a pastry brush, brush both sides of the fish with the beaten egg and lay a piece on top of each pair of pineapple rings.

Layer the pepperoni on top of the fillets, like fish scales. Press the pepperoni down onto the fish to get it to adhere, and brush the remaining egg on top of the pepperoni.

Bake 20 minutes at 350°, or until the fish flakes easily with a fork. Use a large fish spatula to move the stacked fish and pineapple together from the parchment to the plates.

Kitchen Goddess note: Warner recommends serving this dish with cooked beans. (I used a combination of small red beans and pinto beans.) He’s right – it’s a delicious combination.

One Fish, Two Fish, Old Dish, New Dish...and Dessert What’s cooking? Fennel Flounder, Spicy Crab Linguine, and a Dessert Bonus

The Wall Street Journal this week reported that seafood consumption in the U.S. has been in a steady decline since 2004, from 16.6 pounds per average consumer to a low of 14.4 pounds in 2012, the last year for which they have figures. That’s compared to 46 pounds of pork, 57 pounds of chicken, and a whopping 82 pounds of beef. I’d say “holy cow,” but it would just sound like a bad joke.

The Kitchen Goddess, for one, has been doing her part to lift seafood consumption. At least for the Lenten season. From Salmon Cakes and my best Broiled Fish, to Tuna Spinach Souffle – I’ve done what I could to give you a nice range of techniques and types of fish for your Friday Lenten dinners. And today, I have not one, but two more options for cooking and eating seafood. See what a good friend I am?

Let’s just start by reviewing the facts.

1. Most fish and other seafood have at least some omega-3 (unsaturated) fatty acids.

2. Omega-3 fatty acids are proven aids in reducing inflammation in the body, which helps prevent both heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.

3. One study of 20,000 men found that eating fish once a week slashes the risk of sudden cardiac death in half. And fish lovers have much lower rates of Type 2 diabetes. The American Heart Association recommends two servings of fish or other seafood each week.

4. All kinds of seafood are also great sources of protein.

5. Seafood is delicious.

So, ladies and gentlemen, let's eat some fish!

The first preparation today is one that I’ve posted about before, but never with a photo. Yes, sometimes, the Kitchen Goddess will actually cook something and forget to get the camera out. Mostly, that happens when she is either really really hungry or her husband is really really hungry and threatening who-knows-what. But this week, I made that dish and remembered just in time to take a photo or two.

There’s a lot of chopping with this dish, but it’s very easy and takes little time to assemble. The fennel sweetens as it cooks, and that sweetness presents a great counterpoint to the acidity of the tomatoes and just perks the fish right up. In this photo version, I used overlarge tomatoes, with the result that the dish was soupier than ever before, but just as tasty. (I ended up serving it in bowls.)

Fennel Flounder

Serves 4.

For the mirepoix:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
2 large carrots, diced
1 medium onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced

1½ pounds flounder filet (or other relatively flat fish)
1 large fennel bulb, trimmed and thinly sliced
tomatoes – about 2 cups diced (fresh tomatoes – not canned)

Heat oil/butter in a skillet over medium heat and add mirepoix, stirring frequently for 7-8 minutes. Spread the cooked vegetables on the bottom of a medium-sized (approx. 2-quart) casserole dish. Arrange half the fish in one layer, and sprinkle with half the fennel. Arrange the rest of the fish in the next layer and top with remaining fennel. Scatter tomatoes evenly on top. Season with garlic salt and lemon pepper. Bake, covered, at 400º for 30-35 minutes, then remove cover and broil until the tomatoes get slightly toasted (about 2 minutes).


Kitchen Goddess note: I have made this recipe using a 4-inch deep casserole dish, and using a low, flat dish. If your casserole dish is low and flat, you may only need one layer of the fish and one layer of fennel. Either way works.

The second dish is from a recipe I spotted in The New York Times this week, and simply couldn’t resist. Now I know you might have seen this recipe and thought about making it. But you don’t know David Tanis (the writer), and he’s being paid to give you these recipes, so how reliable can he be? On the other hand, you know the Kitchen Goddess, and you know she gives you these preparations out of pure love. So you can believe me when I say you should make something. This crab dish is one of those somethings.

It’s a great dish for dinner with roasted asparagus, or as Tanis suggests, on Easter Sunday as a lunch entrée. If you chop up the herbs and other seasonings first, and have them ready in a small bowl, you can put this dish together in almost no time. I took the trouble to find fresh pasta – which cooks faster than dried – at my grocery store, and the entire meal took about 20 minutes to cook. It’s creamy but with a bright green freshness that really livens up your taste buds.

Kitchen Goddess note: Do not ignore the jalapeño pepper. If you are a heat-avoider (which I am), go with the jalapeño and remove the seeds and ribs; for more heat, leave some seeds in or buy a serrano pepper instead. But the jalapeño keeps the dish from being too rich, provides a nice spark, and heightens the taste of the herbs.

Spicy Crab Linguine

Adapted from David Tanis in The New York Times

Serves 4.

The seasoning bundle:
1 medium-sized jalapeño chile (seeds and ribs removed), finely diced
2 tablespoons finely cut chives
5-6 scallions, sliced thinly and on an angle
1 tablespoon fresh tarragon leaves, chopped
1 pound linguine
½ cup low-fat plain Greek yogurt
½ cup crème fraîche
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
Pinch of cayenne pepper
1 pound cooked crab meat, lump if possible and fresh (not pasteurized) if possible
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Cilantro sprigs, for garnish

Prepare the seasoning bundle, combine and set aside.

Bring a large pot of water to boil with a couple of tablespoons of salt. Add the linguine and cook until al dente.

At the same time that you add the pasta to the water, combine the yogurt and crème fraîche over medium heat in a large, deep skillet. (I used a 3½-quart Le Creuset cast iron braiser to cook and serve the dish.) Whisk in the mustard and cayenne, and season to taste with salt and pepper. You are only trying to get the mixture warm, not boiling, so adjust the heat accordingly.

Fold in the crab meat so as not to break up the lumps, and heat through.

When the pasta has reached the al dente stage, drain it and add it to the skillet mixture. Fold it gently into the sauce, again so as not to break up the crab meat too much. Add the seasoning bundle and stir to distribute evenly.

If you are serving in a separate dish, be sure to heat the dish ahead of time, as the linguine with sauce needs to be served warm. Garnish with cilantro sprigs.

And now, because I am such a generous soul and know how much you like dessert, I have a short, easy idea for dessert – the very same dessert I served with the crab linguine. I knew I had it right when, at the grocery store, the clerk checking out my ingredients for that evening cast her eyes across the collection and said, “Can I come to your house for dinner?”

I love fresh pineapple, and the ones showing up now in my local grocery stores need only a day or two on the kitchen counter to get lusciously ripe. To serve it as dessert, I turned to pineapple’s long-time best friend, the coconut. I found coconut gelato in one store, but if you are not so lucky, I know that many supermarkets now carry at least one brand of coconut-milk-based ice creams (to satisfy lactose-intolerant customers), which are quite good.

I piled diced pineapple on top of the gelato, and spooned some of my ground cherry shazam – that syrupy stuff made from cape gooseberries (also called ground cherries) that I told you about last summer. You did make some, didn’t you? Ground cherries have a faintly pineapple taste, so it worked well with the fresh fruit. If you don’t have any shazam, you could drizzle a bit of honey on top, or dilute your favorite jam – peach jam or orange marmalade would both work. So easy, and so yummy looking!