Recipes by Ingredient + Prep – Page 15 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Sausage and Cod Stew with Garbanzos

People who love to drink while cooking will tell you to cook with the wine you’re drinking. I don’t have a problem with that idea except that I’m usually drinking a really good and expensive bottle to be cooking it. There isn’t a dish good enough that deserves cooked Barolo wine, or in this case, I was drinking a Vouvray. Save the nice wine for you and your loved one and pick up a less expensive white for this.

This sausage and cod stew, I think, is Spanish-inspired even though I still ended up using a different white wine from the Loire Valley. I wanted something hearty but not as thick as a winter dish. I initially planned to do some kind of meatball stew, but the fresh sausages in the supermarket were hard to resist. And when I saw how good the cod steak looked too… well, then.

The chiles here are optional. I used two of the dried Sichuan peppers I brought back from Bhutan, but I gather you can use almost any red chile. It’s really just for a quick kick. It won’t ruin the dish if you decide to skip it. I also used a steak of cod rather than a fillet; that way, it will hold up during cooking and for storing after.

Ingredients:
oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 dried red chiles
a handful of fresh basil
3 fresh sausages, sliced in 1-inch pieces
1/2 bottle white wine
4 red potatoes, quartered
1 can of plum tomatoes
1 can of chickpeas, washed, drained
salt and pepper
a handful of green beans, stringed, halved
1 steak of cod, sliced
a handful of parsley, roughly chopped

1. Heat some oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat and sauté the garlic, chiles and basil. Add the sausages and cook until browned.
2. Pour in the white wine and add the potatoes, tomatoes and chickpeas. Season well with salt and pepper and simmer for 20 minutes, until the potatoes are tender and while stirring every couple of minutes.
3. After the soup has simmered, it should have thickened a little, so stir in about 1/2 cup of hot water. Add the green beans and bring everything to a boil to cook the beans. Add the fish and parsley and cook for another 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and let sit, uncovered.

Pasta with Peppers and Balsamic Vinegar

It’s officially autumn in New York City! Even though bell peppers seem to be a summer vegetable, I used them in this pasta dish with balsamic vinegar to bring out a different flavor. I chose red, yellow, and orange and skipped the more raw green kind. With the vinegar, their colors seem more muted and fall-like rather than bright and summery.

I used penne here because it’s what I have handy, but feel free to use rigatoni so that the ridges hold the vinegar in for a more dramatic presentation. Parmesan cheese is the way to go, but again, I used what I had and that was a beautiful truffled cheese. I used it minimally because I didn’t want the truffle smell to overwhelm the fragrant peppers and vinegar.

Ingredients:
3 bell peppers, seeded and sliced
oil
salt, pepper
1 red onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
a handful of parsley, finely chopped
2 tbsps balsamic vinegar
a handful of grated truffled cheese
about 2 cups of penne

1. Put all the peppers in a large frying pan over medium heat with a little olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper. Cover and cook slowly for 15 minutes until softened.
2. In the meantime, cook the penne al dente and drain. Set aside until ready to assemble the dish.
3. Add the onion to the peppers and cook for another 10 minutes. Add the garlic and parsley and cook while tossing for about 3 minutes. Add the balsamic vinegar and let it sizzle away.
4. Add the cooked pasta and toss with the cheese and more parsley. Drizzle with a little bit more olive oil before serving.

Lemon Chiffon Cake

I’ve been making this cake for 10 years now and I’ve only had one fail, Haewon told me when she gave me a copy of this tried-and-true Martha Stewart recipe for lemon chiffon cake. Haewon’s version was so fluffy and light–it was the cake for me. Even after I stored mine in the fridge overnight, it did not harden.

You’ll need a tube pan for this, but I got away with an antique bundt pan that I bought for 50 cents at an estate sale and skipped step 6 below. If you’re using a bundt pan, make sure you invert it right away on a smaller bowl as soon as you take it out from the oven. (I thought that the air will still circulate with a bowl rather than inverting and suffocating it onto a plate.) It will only take a few seconds before it collapses and you want to avoid that as much as possible.

My cake did stick on the bottom a bit because of the old pan. The recipe does not call to butter or flour it and I didn’t want to experiment more by lining it with parchment paper. I had to make a more gentle effort to remove the cake from the pan. I could not make a prettier slice than this photo, but hey, it still tasted like a lemon chiffon cake!

Ingredients:
3/4 cup non-self-rising cake flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup plus 1 tbsp white sugar
3 large eggs, separated
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp grated lemon zest, from about 4 lemons
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

1. Heat oven to 325º and prepare an ungreased 7-inch tube pan. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and 3/4 cup granulated sugar. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together egg yolks, vegetable oil, 1/3 cup water, lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla. Add to the reserved dry ingredients and beat until smooth.
3. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat egg whites on medium speed until foamy. Add cream of tartar and beat on high speed until soft peaks form, about 1 minute. Gradually add remaining tablespoon of sugar and beat on high speed until stiff peaks form, about 2 minutes.
4. Fold egg-white mixture into the batter. Start by folding in 1/3, then fold in the remaining 2/3. Mix a little bit to combine. Pour batter into pan. Using a spatula, smooth the top.
5. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean and the cake is golden, about 45 minutes.
6. Remove cake from oven; invert the pan over a glass soda bottle for 2 hours to cool. Turn cake right-side up. Run a table knife all the way down between cake and pan; invert again, and remove cake. Dust cake with confectioners’ sugar before serving.

Related post/s:
Haewon bakes at Purplepops

Mussels with Chorizo and White Beans

New Yorkers got respite from the summer heat this week when temperatures dropped to 70 degrees. There was soft rain and a chill in the air–the perfect time to tuck in a bowl of mussels with a 2012 Rosato di Cabernet Franc from Channing Daughters.

Ingredients:
olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
about 4 inches of dried chorizo, diced
10 cherry tomatoes, halved
red pepper flakes
salt, pepper
1 15-ounce can cannellini beans, drained
2 pounds mussels, scrubbed and debearded
a handful of parsley, roughly chopped

1. In a large Dutch oven, heat the olive oil and sauté the garlic until light brown. Add the chorizo, the cherry tomatoes and red pepper flakes, and season with salt and black pepper and cook for 3 minutes.
2. Add the cannellini beans, mussels and 1/2 cup of water, cover and cook over high heat until the mussel shells open, about 3 minutes; discard any mussels that don’t open. Turn off the heat and toss in the parsley and mix well. Transfer everything in deep serving bowls and serve with crusty bread.

Watermelon Salad with Farro

I’m not going to take credit for this easy summer watermelon recipe. Thanks Mark Bittman, I now prefer ricotta salata over feta cheese!

Ingredients:
3 cups watermelon, deseeded, cubed
2 cups of farro
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
ricotta salata cheese, crumbled
a handful of parsley, roughly chopped
olive oil
lemon juice
salt, pepper

1. Cook farro in boiling water for about 15 minutes, or until farro is chewy. Drain and let sit to cool. Fluff with a fork.
2. In a large bowl combine all the solid ingredients and toss gently. Drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice, sprinkle with salt and pepper, toss and serve.