Kitchen Sojourn » slice

Brussels sprouts with mayonnaise and bacon

Greg Turner — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:43:53 +0000

I first heard of this recipe during an Anthony Bourdain special. The one set at Dufresne’s WD-50, I think. One of the guests (maybe a camera man) mentioned his mom used to make him Brussels sprouts with mayonnaise and bacon, and everyone said it sounded amazing. I had to agree. But when I tried to find a recipe I came up empty, the only mention being a show summary on the No Reservations blog. So I improvised the following: Ingredients:

One package fresh Brussels sprouts
Three (or more) thick-cut bacon slices
Mayonnaise (about two teaspoons for each serving)

Directions Begin by salting some water and bringing it to a boil. While the water heats, preheat the oven to 400f, and slice each Brussels sprout nearly through, leaving just a bit on the stem end. Once the water is boiling, toss in the Brussels sprouts and boil them for five minutes. Use this time to chop up the bacon into half-inch pieces. Once the Brussels sprouts are finished boiling, drain them, then spread them in a single layer in a roasting pan or half sheet pan (or any pan with a lip, really). Sprinkle the bacon over top of them, and then set them in the oven for 30 minutes. When they’re done, take them out of the oven, and give them a careful stir to integrate all the bacon flavor. To plate, get a generous helping of sprouts and bacon and top with just enough mayonnaise to mix well. I made mine the other night, and they were so good I laughed out loud when I had my first bite.

Weekend pause (mid-day)

Greg Turner — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:00:04 +0000

Weekends are tough. Not for dinner. There’s time for dinner. And certainly time for breakfast. Weekend mornings are great for breakfast. A slow prep in a well-lighted kitchen, the house waking into itself. We enjoy the scent of freshly brewed coffee and have time enough to pause and enjoy it. Eggs or oatmeal, French toast or fruit. Lunches, however, are another matter.

In my house we sit down together for dinner nearly every evening, even weekends. In fact, Sunday dinners are one of my favorites; I have time enough in the kitchen to really cook. But lunch is often a solitary affair, each of us cobbling together nourishment from a hodge-podge of ingredients and scarfing it down between morning laundry and afternoon errands.

I think it might be time to stop the rush, to pause a moment and enjoy the mid-day meal. To make something worth eating. Worth enjoying. It doesn’t have to be complicated or fancy, and it doesn’t have to take forever. Indeed, it can’t. It just has to be good. Sunday’s lunch fit the bill nicely, based on a Rocco recipe (I know, right?).

Grilled cheese and roasted red pepper sandwich with fennel salad

Ingredients (serves 4):
8 slices of delicious bread
2 red peppers, roasted and peeled
Provolone cheese, sliced thin

2 medium fennel bulbs, shaved
Fennel greens, plucked and sorted
2.5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
kosher salt
ground black pepper

Techniques
shave
slice

Method
grill

Begin by placing a pan over medium heat. While the pan heats, cut the fennel. Halve the bulbs, remove the stalks. From the stalks, pick the tender greens. They look like dill. Use a mandolin to shave the fennel bulbs, then mix in the greens.

Make sandwiches using a half a pepper and two slices of provolone for each one. Swirl a pat of butter in the heated pan and lay in the sandwich, cheese side down. Let it grill for about three minutes, flip, then three minutes more.

During the final three minutes, toss the fennel and greens with the olive oil and vinegar. Add a couple pinches of salt and a dash of the black pepper.

The mid-day break was fantastic. Home from grocery shopping I sat in the living room with my son perched in his bouncy chair on the coffee table. He watched me eat and drink and I watched him laugh and play with a plastic bee. Would that all weekends could contain such pause.

The strawberries’ second season

Greg Turner — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 01:41:30 +0000

The strawberries’ second season arrived. We’re lucky that way, in Florida. If not for our poor soil, I imagine we’d give California a solid run in the agriculture department. As it stands, we do all right. Nearly 365 days of seasonal fruits and vegetables, though July seems too hot for many things. Most people face dearth in Winter. Bone cold, ice and snow send seeds to hibernation. Here we face summer’s brutal heat, the land parched and baked, though humidity sometimes stands over one hundred percent. Storm clouds gather over concrete then blow out to sea, bellies fat with rain.

The rest of the year, however, we enjoy bounty. Green beans year-round. Watermelons in November, sweet corn in December. And in January? Fresh strawberries from Plant City.

French toast with fresh macerated strawberries

Ingredients (serves 4)
the toast
1 high quality French baguette, a day old

the custard
2 eggs
1 1/3 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoon brown sugar
sprinkle of salt
4 tablespoons butter, separated
the topping
16 medium strawberries, sliced thin
4 (+4) teaspoons brown sugar
Confectioner’s sugar

Technique
macerate
slice

Method
Pan fry (yes, that’s really what you’re doing)

Slice the baguette on a bias, each slice about a half-inch thick, and set them aside. In a shallow container, like a glass pie dish, crack the eggs, add the milk and other custard ingredients, and mix the ingredients together with a fork. Make sure all the ingredients are well integrated. Egg beaten, cinnamon dispersed and the kitchen smelling slightly of vanilla.

Once the custard is ready, place a pan on a burner set to just above medium. Let the pan heat a while. It’s important the pan be up to temperature but not too hot. You want to make sure the French toast heats all the way through, the custard cooks, and each piece browns nicely. Go ahead and set the oven for 200 degrees while you’re at it.

While you’re waiting for the pan to heat, put the strawberry slices in a bowl, sprinkle with four tablespoons of brown sugar and heat about 30 seconds in the microwave. Once heated, stir the strawberries with a spoon. The sugar crystals will tear some of the strawberry cells, and the juice will mix with the sugar to create what is, essentially, a simple syrup. Dip a pinky into the mix and taste. If it’s not sweet enough for you, begin adding additional brown sugar until you reach your own sweetness ideal. Continue heating and stirring until you have a nice mix of syrup, in-tact strawberry slices and other pieces that have been reduced and are more like the bits in jam. Once it’s all done, cover to retain the heat.

Put a tablespoon of butter in the pan on the stove. It should melt immediately.

Set your bread slices in the custard mix and count to thirty. Flip them and count again. You want to make sure the mixture has a chance to work its way through the bread’s cells and crannies and nooks, filling air pockets with new pockets of pure deliciousness. I like five slices per serving because they can be arranged in a nice star pattern, once you’re ready to plate.

Once the slices have soaked, set them in the buttered pan about 2 minutes on the first side, then one minute, 30 seconds on the other. You want to keep an eye on them, though, as your pan may be hotter or cooler at specific settings. Remember, you can always cook longer. You can’t undo burnt French toast.

I doubt you’ll have a pan or pie dish big enough to coat and cook all slices simultaneously. Go ahead and set the pieces on a cookie sheet and place them in a warm oven. Once you have all the pieces cooked, it’s time to serve.

To plate, arrange the slices in a star pattern and spoon on the macerated strawberries. Then sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar for a touch of contrast.

Could you make this dish with frozen berries? Sure. I’ve done it before with blueberries and blackberries. I’ve also made french toast with fresh blueberries, fresh raspberries and, of course, fresh strawberries. There is no comparison. Fresh berries are brighter, sweeter, and more flavorful. They also don’t suffer from water imbalances as can happen so often with frozen fruit. No, there’s just something about fresh ingredients. When you have them, you know for certain. When they come to you this season, cherish them. They’re worth it.