pam’s posterous

http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/recipe-of-the-day-cabbage-salad/

If Bitten’s cabbage tastes as good as it looks pretty, we’re in the game. Reminds me I want to try Margaret Fox’s red cabbage salad recipe using balsamic vinegar. My friend Sue Yates of Silverpine Lodge in New Zealand  cooks up an awesome wilted red cabbage that keeps improving with age. Local girl cooks good!

Ingredients
   * 1 small head white cabbage, about 1 pound, cored and shredded
    * 1/2 small head red cabbage, about
    * 1/2 pound cored and shredded
    * 1 or 2 carrots, peeled, trimmed and shredded
    * Salt as needed
    * Extra virgin olive oil to tast
    * Vinegar or lemon juice to taste
    * Black pepper to taste
    * Chopped fresh parsley leaves, optional

Method:
In a colander, combine cabbages and carrots. Toss with at least 1 tablespoon salt, enough so that leaves exude moisture within 10 or 15 minutes. If they do not, add a little more salt. Let sit an hour or two, pressing out moisture out with your hands once or twice. Taste, and if mixture is too salty, rinse and dry. Toss with oil, vinegar or lemon juice, and pepper; you may even need a little salt. Serve, garnished with parsley if you like.

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Fell in love with clafoutis when we used to frequent Café Beaujolais in Mendocino on summer vacations. Margaret Fox always served it hot out of the oven! Like a custard souffle with fruit, delicate, not too sweet, divine! Having moved away from the Bay Area, we’re not in driving range of Mendocino anymore – but maybe I can recreate the memory now with the help of dear Jacques!

Check out the whole 26 min KQED video with Jacques demonstrating Picante Mussel Pilaf and Onion-Crusted Sole with Anchovy Butter, as well as the Apricot Clafoutis:
http://www.kqed.org/w/morefastfoodmyway/episode211.html&feature=player_embedded

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From KQED, San Francisco:
"To celebrate Jacques Pépin's new series, KQED and Peet's Coffee & Tea brewed up a recipe contest featured on Facebook, the social networking site. The contestants submitted their favorite recipes that featured Peet's coffee as an ingredient and the winners received two pounds of Peet's coffee, a shiny new coffee grinder from Cuisinart, and an autographed copy of Jacques' most recent cookbook, Jacques Pépin: More Fast Food My Way."

Peet’s Coffee, if you don’t know by know, is my absolute favorite coffee. Beans are roasted daily, and if you mail order, they’re shipped the next day! Just discovered this fine recipe today, so I’ve not tried it. Let me know if you do. You can look up the recipe at this link: http://www.kqed.org/w/morefastfoodmyway/recipes.html#facebook. Or just grab it here!  ;-)

"Amazing Fudge Peets Brownies"
Recipe by Kanya Yoshihiro

Brownies (cook first):
    * Ingredients: 2/3 cup Butter
    * 3 oz unsweetened chocolate
    * 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
    * 1 3/4 cup sugar
    * 2 tsp vanilla
    * 1/4 cup turkish ground Peets Coffee (House 101)
    * 3 eggs
    * 1 cup all purpose flour
    * 1 cup chopped pecans

    * Preparation: Heat oven to 350 degrees
    * Grease square 9x9 pan
    * Heat butter and chocolate over low heat, stirring constantly until melted
    * Turn off heat to let cool slightly
    * Beat sugar, vanilla and eggs in mixing bowl on high speed for 5 minutes
    * Beat in chocolate mixture on low speed
    * Beat in flour just until blended
    * Stir in nuts and spread in pan
    * Bake 40 minutes till brownies begin to pull away from side of pan. Cool.

Fudge Frosting (cook while brownies are baking):
    * Ingredients: 2 1/2 cups sugar
    * 2/3 cup evaporated milk
    * 3 tbsp dark corn syrup
    * 1/4 tsp salt
    * 4 oz unsweetened chocolate
    * 2 tbsp butter
    * 1/2 cup brewed Peets Coffee ( House 101)
    * 2 tsp vanilla extract
    * 1/4 cup finely chopped pecans
    * 3 tbsp turkish ground Peets Coffee (House 101)

    * Preparation: Use an 8" round or square pan
    * Combine sugar, corn syrup, milk, butter, chocolate, pecans, salt and brewed coffee into saucepan. Cook on medium heat while stirring. Once it is at a rolling boil, stir constantly for 5 minutes
    * Remove from heat, stirring in vanilla and turkish ground Peets Coffee (House 101) coffee beans
    * Beat vigorously and continuously for 5 minutes
    * Pour into pan and allow to cool

Finishing and Serving the "Amazing Fudge Peets Brownies"
    * Remove brownies from oven and allow them to cool till warm or room temperature
    * Use a spoon to stir the fudge frosting
    * Take generous spoon-fulls of fudge frosting and spread evenly across brownies
    * Cut the finished "Amazing Fudge Peets Brownies" in 2" squares

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I set a small, thick-bottomed skillet (anodized aluminum as it happens, but iron, steel or copper are other options) over medium heat and let it get hot, but not wicked hot: for what it’s worth, after less than a minute, its surface temperature had reached about 360 degrees F. At that point I greased it with barely half a teaspoon of clarified butter; oil would be fine, of course — its purpose is to conduct the heat of the pan to the surface of the meat before the steak renders some of its own fat. A few seconds later I put in the steak and left it untouched — untouched — for four minutes, even lowering the heat a trifle after a while. There was not a wisp of smoke and hardly a spatter of fat. At that point I got rid of most of the fat in the pan and turned the steak, to find a beautifully seared, crusty surface. The steak got another four minutes on Side B; I turned it again and gave it a further 90 seconds on each side. I am convinced that the extra turnings promote even cooking, but I have no proof of that as I’ve never tried it any other way. Then it went onto a plate and rested for maybe six or seven minutes while I finished cooking the french fries. Because, in our house, a one-pound steak is for sharing, I sliced it, making sure not to lose any of the juices.

Those cooking times, of course, were for my particular steak, at its own particular starting temperature, and cooked in my particular pan over my particular fire. Still, they’re a good start for a steak of that size if you like it fairly rare but not “blue.” Use an instant read thermometer if you like, thrust through the side of the steak well into its middle; I’d pull mine off the fire at 120 degrees or even at 118. Julia Child once observed that after the internal temperature of a piece of meat gets to 100 degrees, it rises awfully fast. Even if that isn’t true, keep it in mind, because it encourages vigilance in the last fractions of a minute.

There’s nothing new here, really, except a reminder that moderate heat will cook a beautiful steak with all the sensory appeal of one charred over the fires of hell, and with none of the sensory distress of a house full of grease and smoke — so long as you leave it untouched to brown really well and let it rest for a while after it comes out of the pan.

Mmmmmm! Full article at Bitten: Mark Bitten on Food
 

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