Good Luck Lentils

It’s the New Year. I was thinking all about how well it was going. There were lots of happy, uplifting stories like this and this and this. I was smiling.

Then this happened, which infuriated me in the it is easier to buy a gun and ammunition than it is to buy beer kind of way. Later on, I watched this and I thought the world is really, seriously going to hell in a hand basket and what happened to Happy New Year and all that.

It is a few days, alright nine or so, past New Year’s Day but I turned the clock back at our house and we are going to eat lentils, lots of them.

Italians eat lentils on New Year’s day and in the new year. They eat them in hopes of money and good fortune. And let’s face it, the money sure would be nice but the good fortune part? It’s essential.

Good Luck Lentils with Fennel and Chard

1 large onion, finely chopped

5 large cloves garlic minced

Fennel - I had five sweet little bulbs - you should have about 1 cup chopped stalks and 1 cup julienned bulbs

1 cup diced carrots

1 bunch chard chopped

1 cup lentils- I used De Puy but you can use brown or green. I wouldn't use red though. I was going to use black beluga lentils which are awfully pretty but not always to hand.

3 tablespoons olive oil

3 cups stock (chicken or vegetable)

1 cup halved cherry or grape tomatoes (or diced tomato)

Few sprigs fresh thyme

Salt and fresh ground black pepper

Parmeggiano-reggiano shaved

In a large pot, sauté the onions, garlic, carrots and chopped fennel stocks with the olive oil until the onions are translucent. Stir in the lentils and the thyme.

Add the stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for about 20 minutes, until the lentils are almost tender.

Add the chard and the julienned fennel bulb. Cover and simmer for five minutes. Add the tomato and simmer for another three minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve in bowls with a little drizzle of nice olive oil, some fennel fronds and some shaved parmeggiano. A nice chunk of crusty bread goes well here too.

Happy New Year - again!

Eat Your Greens

There are lots of greens in our CSA lately. Luckily, Poppy shares my love of them so with two avid eaters, one reluctant partaker and one hysterically unimpressed refuser, we manage to get through our allotment each week. Along with a big bunch of kale, dandelion or spinach and the huge bunches of greens on top of the beets and turnips, we have been getting a big bag of ‘braising mix’ for the last few weeks. I usually whizz it up into undetectable pieces and throw it into just about everything. You see, as soon as the green bits get too big everything in the mouth is spat out in a big head shaking, literally tongue wiping, dining room spraying mess. Until now, because of this, we haven’t been able to enjoy our greens as they should be. Or, at least as I have decided they will be.

The braising mix would not make its way into the food processor today. The greens would be supper.

I had a little look around for the right way to cook the greens, which were a mix of collard, mustard, spinach, kale and turnip greens, by looking up recipes for collard greens mainly. I was surprised by how long they all told me to cook them for. I was also dismayed that most recipes called for bacon fat or ham hock baths and various other cured pork remnants. I am not opposed to said pork remnants but after the consumption of the last two weeks I was looking for something a little less hearty. So, I strayed from the right way, favouring my way.

Years ago, that makes me sound so old, we served creamed spinach with raisins and pine nuts at Lolita’s Lust. It was pretty damn tasty. Our braising mix had spinach in it, the rest was green, this was where I would start.

The resulting bowl of greens probably took a little more chewing than your average Southern greens eater would approve of but delicious nonetheless. I would happily sit down to eat a bowl of these with nothing else but the rest of my family, save for Tilly who, after one bite, spat, wiped her tongue and pushed her plate away, had them with the Man Bread I made today, post to follow.

The raisins add a little chewy sweetness to the slightly bitter green while the almonds give a toasty crunch. Onions and garlic sweeten and deepen a tiny bit of cream that ties all the flavours together without them seeming too rich.

This couldn’t be much simpler and can be made with whatever type of greens you have to hand, just adjust the cooking time accordingly. Spinach will take less time, a greater proportion of collard greens will take more. How long you cook them also depends on how soft you like them to be. I cooked the mix, covered, for twenty minutes and a further 7-10 minutes to reduce the liquid before I added the cream.

If you do use spinach alone, you may want to use two pounds instead of one as it will cook down quite a bit more than the others do.

Braised Greens with Raisins and Almonds

1 medium onion diced

3 large cloves garlic minced

2 tablespoons butter

1 cup stock - vegetable or chicken

1 pound mixed greens, cleaned and chopped into strips

1/3 cup raisins

1/3 cup heavy cream

1/3 cup toasted slivered almonds

Salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

Melt butter in a pot large enough to hold the greens. Add the onion and garlic and sauté until translucent. Add the stock and bring to a boil. 

Add the greens. Reduce the heat and cover. Simmer until the greens are tender. Remove the cover and reduce the coking liquid until it is almost dry. 

Add the raisins and cream. Bring to the boil and reduce just until it coats the greens. 

Add the almonds.

Season with salt and pepper and eat.

Brisket à la Caplansky

I will happily admit that while I completely approve of nose to tail eating, I myself, am not nearly brave enough to adopt it as practice at our house. My meat eating, when it happens, is generally limited to the better known and leaner cuts. I know that in the big picture of nose to tail that what this post is all about is not even close to brave, not even close to really even being considered nose to tail and for huge numbers of people, it is everyday meat. Not so for us. Even Stephen was concerned.

A while before American Thanksgiving, my near-vegetarian daughter, piped up and asked for brisket. I asked if if she knew what it was, she didn’t. I explained and asked if she still wanted to have it, she said she did. I realized I had never cooked it and, I am pretty sure, had never eaten it, at least not knowingly. I wasn’t sure where to start. 

I did set a date though. I couldn’t face the thought of turkey three months in a row, so we would have brisket for Thanksgiving Round #2.

When I was sure that at least one person was going to eat it, I started looking around and thinking about recipes. After realizing that the brisket recipe world was not for one as inexperienced as I am, I turned to the Master of All Things Brisket. If Zane couldn’t help me out, I was sure there would be no chance of pulling it off. Zane obligingly supplied the recipe and moral support for the endeavour.  I tried as hard as I could to stick to the recipe too, no minor feat.

I set about looking for a brisket which, low and behold, you can pretty much get at any butcher shop. I went searching a little further and found a place that sells as local as it gets, grass fed beef and they said they had a brisket. We walked into the butcher shop, the styliest I have ever been in, I asked for the brisket. He set about getting it from the fridge and Poppy noticed through the glass window that there was an entire deer, skinned but with head, antlers and face still intact hanging in the fridge. She asked whether it was alive. I told her it wasn’t. She asked why it still had its face on. I told her that all animals have a face. She asked why they hadn’t cut it off yet. I didn’t really have an answer. I did say that I thought it was nicer to look at the animal with its face still on and she agreed. The topic of conversation for the rest of the afternoon was set. And, she is still as interested in meat as she was before which isn’t a whole lot but she seems unaffected by the butcher shop experience.

I am not going to tell you how much I paid for this piece of meat, it was more than I imagined it could be. I don’t think you need to spend this much money on a brisket and I won’t again. I was happy with where it came from and what it ate and how it lived though. I think that any grass fed flavour was lost in the six hour braising though and, in hindsight, I should have thought of that.

I chose to do this in several steps. I cooked it. I removed it from the braising liquid. I refrigerated the brisket and the liquid separately overnight. I skimmed the fat off the top of the liquid before reducing it. I also sliced the brisket cold. I had read somewhere that it is much easier that way. Then, after reducing the braising liquid, I heated them up in the oven to serve. This certainly didn’t speed the process up any but everything was very easy. 

Was it worth the time? If anyone asks for more than it is worth the time. It hasn’t turned Poppy into a drooling carnivore but I didn’t really want it to. Stephen loved it.  He had firsts and seconds and leftovers and seconds and a brisket sandwich and seconds. It was after the first round of seconds that he admitted that he had not been looking forward to it but was pretty excited by it. Poppy was pretty happy with the meat but the sauce was too spicy, it wasn’t but she is four and was saving room for the Magnolia cupcakes we had for pudding. Tilly ate lots. She shares her father’s food preferences.

I am going to throw this out there, but I realize it is pretty obvious. This is not fast food. Plan ahead. You will be happy you did.

Barbecue Brisket adapted, just a little, from Zane Caplansky

5 pound brisket 

4 chopped white onions

A head of garlic chopped

Two large tins diced tomatoes

4 cups beef stock

A few sprigs of fresh thyme

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

1teaspoon ground chipotle pepper

Fresh ground pepper

1/2 cup red wine vinegar

3/4 cup brown sugar

Preheat oven to 300º.

In a large pan sear the brisket on both sides. Put it in a large roasting pan, or baking dish or a huge dutch oven, if it fits.

Sauté the onions and garlic until soft. Pop them on top of the brisket. Add the tomatoes, stock and spices. Cover with a lid or foil and braise for about five hours, or up to six hours of your brisket is bigger. Zane says it should cook for about an hour per pound up to about six hours.

When it is nice and tender, remove the meat from the liquid and cool, if you want to, and slice. Here is where I put it in the fridge overnight, before slicing.

Put the liquid in a saucepan and add the vinegar and sugar. Reduce until it is barbecue sauce thick.

Pour the sauce over the sliced brisket and reheat in the oven, if necessary.