Marie Rama's Blog, page 18

Blizzard chili

I love this. And we have 28 inches of snow! Thanks Marie.

2013 Blizzard Chili

With news of the snow storm coming, I knew exactly what I wanted to make for a dinner with friends to serve with a 2006 bottle of Mocali Brunello Di Montalcino — a warming pot of chili. To me chili is more than just ground meat, beans, tomatoes, and chili powder. It’s a chance to take these basic ingredients and jazz them up with many of my favorite seasoners. And since I use my cooking skills to make healthy meals, I knew I wanted to make a chili with lots of vegetables, tons of flavor, and a limited amount of fat.

I set out on my counter thick-sliced, chopped bacon, yellow peppers, fresh ginger root, dried mushrooms soaking in hot water, onion, fresh oregano, jalapeno pepper, and garlic. 

I

Is it necessary to put all these seasoning agents in your chili? No and that’s the beauty of chili — you can add whatever you want to complement the flavors of chili powder and the chili’s tomato-based sauce. 

First to go into the chili pot was 3 slices of chopped, thick-cut bacon.

Tip: I don’t want to sound like I’m contradicting myself, but bacon is essential to my chili. It adds flavor and renders enough fat to saute all the veggies.

Saute the bacon 2 to 3 minutes, until it browns a little and begins to render some of its fat.

Then add a chopped red or yellow pepper, a medium onion chopped, two  peeled and chopped carrots, a seeded and chopped jalapeno, about 2 teaspoons of chopped fresh ginger root, two teaspoons of chopped fresh oregano leaves, and two large chopped garlic cloves. Saute these ingredients over medium heat until the onion is lightly browned, turning them occasionally in the bacon drippings.

Tip: Using a nonstick pot like the one pictured, means you need only the fat rendered from sauteeing the bacon to soften and brown the vegetables. 

Move the sauteed veggies off the burner. Add about a tablespoon of olive or vegetable oil to a large saute pan, then add one pound each of ground pork and turkey. Cook the meats over medium heat until lightly browned, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon to break up any large chunks. 

Tip: Using ground pork and ground turkey means less fat than the more traditional ground beef choice for chili. 

Add salt and pepper (seasoning to taste) and your favorite chili spices to the browning meat. I usually start with 2 to 3 teaspoons of chipotle chili powder and about 1 teaspoon of regular chili powder. I love the smokiness the chipotle chili powder adds, and it compliments the smokiness of the bacon.  I also like to sprinkle in about 1/2 teaspoon each ground cumin and cinnamon, and 1 to 2 teaspoons of dark brown sugar. The cinnamon and sugar add a brightness that heightens the flavors of the other spices.

Transfer the ground meat into the pot with the vegetables and add one 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes, and about 1/3 cup red wine, if you have some on hand. If not, add 1/3 cup of water. 

You’re almost done! Add 1 large bay leaf, and if you have them, three to four dried, chopped mushrooms that you’ve soaked for about 20 minutes in about half a cup of hot water, along with the soaking liquid.

Tip: It’s not absolutely necessary to add the mushrooms, but dried and soaked mushrooms, just l ike bacon, elevate the flavor of sauces and soups. You won’t know they are there, but you will love the difference in flavor they make. Next time you make a vegetable or chicken broth based soup, trying adding a few dried, soaked, chopped mushrooms to the pot. 

Partially cover the pot, and let the chili simmer gently about 40 minutes. If too much of the liquid evaporates, use your judgement and add a little more water. Finally, add one can (14-1/2 ounces) rinsed and drained kidney beans. Stir the beans into the chili and simmer, partially covered, about 20 minutes more.

Tip: Chili lovers like varying amounts of “heat.” I like mine with a moderate amount of hot spice so it doesn’t overpower the other flavors in the dish. Taste the chili after adding the kidney beans, and if it doesn’t have enough “heat” for you, stir in more chili powder. 

Remove the bay leaf and serve over brown rice, sprinkling each serving with chopped cilantro, if desired. 

Serves 4 to 6

Having a pot of chili on hand takes the chill out of a winter storm, and a glass of “Mocali” Brunello Di Montalcino also helps!

The view from our front door, where on a clear day you can see the Hudson and …

… the view from inside our house the day after the storm. 

 

 

Two Entrepreneurs Open Bacon Emporium in NYC

A few weeks ago, on a very cold January afternoon, I ventured to the Upper West Side of Manhattan, 911 Columbus Avenue to be exact, to meet and visit with two young guys, Sean-Patrick Hillman and Wesley Klein, who are executing an exciting vision.

They are selling hand-made, preservative-free bacon desserts and snacks to retail shops and online customers all over America. Their store is called Baconery, and it’s a pleasant hybrid of a sit-down restaurant and a bakery.

The sun-filled front restaurant space welcomes diners to order assorted classic sandwiches, like a bacon and grilled cheese sandwich, while the back operates as an open-to-view bakery, where customers can see and SMELL chefs mix and roll out assorted cookies, pies, brownies, pretzels — all made with (yup!) bacon.

You can imagine the irresistible aroma of Baconery.

The macaroons I tasted were moist and struck just the right balance of bacon and cocoanut flavor. The oatmeal-bacon cookies were laced with generous amounts of cranberries and had soft, chewy centers. My first thought was, “What a great place to host a party!” and I quickly sent a text to my son Nicholas about it. They also sell artisanal bacon by the pound from Brooklyn Cured, Benton’s, Nueske’s, and other boutique producers.  

Baconery … 911 Columbus Avenue (bet.104 and 105 street) is open 8 a.m. to 8p.m. (917)675-3385. Check it out. 

Butternut Squash and Bacon Galette

Butternut Squash and Bacon Galette

Here’s a peak of one of our recipes in Bacon Nation. Available in early May and published by Workman, our cookbook offers 125 recipes —  all of them made with that irresistible flavoring ingredient — bacon.

Testing led to the discovery that pairing bacon with butternut squash is a great idea. Try this galette, a free-formed pastry tart, the next time you need a dinner party appetizer, or a side dish for a beef or poultry roast, or when you want to impress a friend with an elegant lunch. I add a bunch of pictures to help you through the process of rolling out and folding the dough over the bacon-butternut squash and tomato-leek filling.

Don’t you find the process of rolling out dough for pies and tarts very soothing? I used to watch my grandmother and mother roll out their doughs for homemade pasta, Christmas cookies, and fruit pies. And whenever I take a rolling pin to dough, I feel wonderfully connected to them again.  

 For the Pastry Crust:

1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus flour for rolling out the crust

8 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 Tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon

¼ teaspoon salt

3 to 4 tablespoons ice-cold water

1 egg, lightly beaten

For the Filling:

5 thick-cut apple wood smoked bacon slices, cut into ½-inch dice 

1-3/4 pounds butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 2 by ½-inch slices, (4 to 4-1/2 cups)

¼ tsp salt

Freshly grated black pepper to taste

2 large leeks, white and pale green parts only, halved and thinly sliced crosswise (about 1-1/2 cups)

6 cherry tomatoes, quartered

1 medium clove garlic, minced

1.) Make the pastry crust: Combine flour, butter, margarine, tarragon and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse corn meal. Drizzle 3 tablespoons of the water evenly over the mixture and pulse just until a ball forms. If necessary, add another tablespoon of water and pulse a few more times until the dough holds together. (Gently press the dough into a 5-inch disk; wrap it in plastic wrap and chill at least 1 hour, or as long as overnight. 

2.) Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

3.) While the dough chills, make the filling for the galette. In large, non-stick skillet, cook the bacon pieces in a single layer until brown, but not too crisp, and the fat is rendered, stirring often and adjusting the heat as necessary, about 5 to 7 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the bacon to a paper-towel-lined plate to cool; reserve the fat in skillet. (You should have about 2-1/2 Tablespoons fat. If necessary, add a little olive oil to pan or pour off a little of the bacon fat to make 2-1/2 tablespoons.)

4.) Transfer the cut squash to a large baking pan and drizzle 1 tablespoon of the bacon fat from skillet over the squash; sprinkle it with salt and pepper. Toss the squash to coat in the fat and spread out in the pan in one layer. Roast, about 17 to 20 minutes, or until golden brown around edges, turning once halfway through roasting. Remove the squash from the oven, and reduce the temperature to 375 degrees F.

5.) Heat the remaining bacon fat in the skillet over medium heat. Add the leeks and cook over medium heat, partially covered, stirring occasionally, about 5 to 7 minutes, or until leeks have softened and are lightly browned at the edges. Add the tomatoes and the garlic; partially cover and cook only about 1 minute more, or until the tomatoes have slightly softened, about 1 minute.

6.) Assemble the Galette: Roll the dough out into a 12 to 13-inch round (It will be quite thin.) on a lightly floured surface, using a lightly floured rolling pin.

Transfer to a large, ungreased, nonstick baking sheet. Arrange the squash in an even layer in the center of the dough, leaving a 2 inch border surrounding the squash.

Arrange the leek and tomato mixture evenly over squash.

Sprinkle the bacon evenly over the vegetables. Fold the border of the dough towards the center, leaving a 3 to 4-inch wide hole in the center of the tart.

Pinch the folds of the dough as necessary.  Brush the dough with beaten egg (you won’t use it all) and bake until crust is cooked through and golden at the edges, 30 to 35 minutes.

Set the baking sheet on a rack and let the galette cool 10 minutes before slicing like a pie and serving. Serves 6 to 8. 

Recipe Notes: 

For this recipe, I first used the very delicious Niman Ranch applewood smoked dry-cured bacon, which is relatively thickly cut. Niman’s bacon can be a little fatty, especially at the end of each slice, so if you wish, trim off a little of the excess fat before cooking. 

Try this Bacon and Tomato Sauce for your next dish of pasta. Let...

Try this Bacon and Tomato Sauce for your next dish of pasta. Let me know what you think and any of my Bacon Nation recipes; all you comments and personal favorite uses for bacon are welcomed! 

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Walking the beach in Bali!

Walking the beach in Bali!

Everything's Better with Bacon!

It’s the day after Thanksgiving and my two sons and husband are watching the Alabama-Auburn football game and eating the bacon cheese sticks I made for them just minutes ago. These pastry twists have the texture of croissants and are a snap to make using store-bought puff pastry. I am in the first weeks of writing a cookbook, with food writer and friend Peter Kaminsky. Peter, the author of Pig Perfect, also agrees with me that almost everything tastes better with bacon, and that’s why we’re on this food journey. 

I hope to use this blog to release some new recipes and test your reactions to them. But I also want to share with readers, who are as passionate as we are about bacon, my recipe testing process. I began this book naively thinking that I could simply take my favorite recipes and make them better by adding bacon. While there is some truth to this, there are also times when bacon doesn’t work, or when the recipe, which looks great on paper, fails to impress or satisfy. My criteria for accepting or rejecting a recipe for the book is based on three principles: I have to like the recipe I tested enough to make it again. It has to be easy enough that a good home cook can make it (nothing too chefy or complicated as people want food that’s simple to prepare). Finally, there should be something about the recipe that is different from other bacon recipes already on the Internet or in a cookbook. This last point, that I call the Peter Principle b/c it’s Kaminsky’s rule, is actually the most difficult to implement as there’s so much out there that uses bacon. Peter has been insistent, for example, that we stay away from the classics that combine bacon and cheese.  Offering these dishes, he aruges, would be a cheap trick or a cheat to the reader. Of course bacon and cheese works!  So, while we’ll have a few of these classics in the book for people who love them (and who doesn’t!), in the end we hope to find new ways to impart food with flavor by adding bacon. Bacon contributes the creaminess of animal fat, a distinct element of salt, a hint of smokiness, sometimes a note of apple, maple or hickory, (depending on how it’s been smoked), and often its crispy crunchiness is the quality that makes the dish sing. 

This will be an honest blog; You’ll hear my testing failures as well as my success and learn all that I learn as the recipe developer. I hope as you follow me, you agree that the kitchen testing journey is as much fun as the dinner destination. So, come along and let me know what you think of these recipes. Cooking and tasting in a vacuum is a lonely, limited process. This blog makes it possible for me to share with you what I think works and have you voice your agreement or dissent.

My next post will share a recipe and ask for your comments. 

PASTA SAUCE IS BETTER WITH BACON

Over the Thanksgiving weekend on a Sunday, I made what we Italians call a “red-led” tomato sauce. It’s a rich combination of browned beef bones, pork, ground beef, oregano, parsley, garlic and red wine. Now I’ve made this sauce several times for my family, and on this day something was missing. Its flavor needed a significant boost, and even my boys, who usually love everything I make, politely commented on the sauce’s blandness. Fast forward to the following Tuesday morning when I’m testing a red sauce with bacon for the book and using my weekend experience to produce a sauce with more personality. I start this sauce sauteeing 5 slices of bacon in my deep saute pan. I’ve found it’s critical to saute the bacon until its just lightly browned, not crisp. You want to retain some of its rendered fat because the bacon will cook further in the dish, releasing its fat into the other ingredients as it cooks. Then I add ground pork, and I’m thinking to myself how these two ingredients are cousins to each other; one compliments the other, they are natural partners. The sauce isn’t much different from the other red sauces I’ve made, except for the addition of bacon and the absence of beef bones, and yet at the end of the cooking process, it definitely has a more satisfying, flavor and I can’t stop tasting it right out of the pot. So, what have I learned … bacon is the ingredient I’ve been missing in my red sauce all these years. Wow! I can’t wait for the kids to come home again for Sunday pasta. 

Let me know if you taste the difference bacon adds to this red sauce. 

Quick Bacon and Tomato Sauce

4 slices bacon, finely chopped

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 pound ground pork

1/3 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley

2 medium cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes with added puree

1/3 cup water

2 bay leaves

2 teaspoons chopped fresh oregano or 1 teaspoon dried

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

In large deep pot or Dutch oven, cook bacon over medium-high heat, about 2 to 3 minutes, until lightly browned and some fat is rendered. Add onion and sauté until softened, about 5 minutes. Add ground pork, parsley and garlic and sauté until pork browns, breaking up with wooden spoon and stirring occasionally, about 8 minutes. Stir in crushed tomatoes, water, bay leaves, and oregano. (I like to swish the water around the inside of the tomato can to capture any remaining tomato juice.)  Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, stirring occasionally, until sauce thickens and flavors blend, about 25 minutes. Remove bay leaves. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper, as needed. Makes enough sauce for about 12 ounces of pasta.