Kitchen Chick

Sunny-side up egg over chorizo-spiced pork and potatoes

During the weekdays, my breakfasts are simple and fast, and often eaten in snatched bites as I finish getting ready for work. Oatmeal or a bowl of cold cereal, sometimes topped with fresh fruit, and water. On the weekends, however, I get to cook something fun.

One of my favorite easy savory weekend breakfasts is chopped hard chorizo pan fried, diced potatoes pan fried in the flavorful oil left behind by the chorizo, and a fried egg. But I don't always have chorizo on hand. Fortunately, this very flexible dish can be made with sausage, diced ham, or ground pork. This morning, I used ground pork seasoned with chorizo sausage seasoning, ancho chili powder, and whole coriander and a touch of cayenne to add more heat, but you can use any number of different seasonings such as regular chili powder or for a smoky flavor chipotle chilie powder. Don't want a Southwest theme? What about diced ham with sage and garlic? The possibilities are endless.

I don't have amounts or even exact spice suggestions. This is one of those dishes I throw together, and season according to how I want them that day.

Fried Egg Over Spicy Potatoes and Meat

• Potatoes — I use red skin or yukons.  Peeled, and diced around 1/2 inch size.
• Meat — chopped if needed to a similar size as the potatoes. Your choice: good options are chorizo, sausage, ground pork, ham
• garlic — a few cloves, crushed and peeled
• spices — if your meat is unseasoned, you'll want to spice it. Examples: chili powder, ancho chili powder, coriander. But you can use whatever combination you enjoy.
• garlic — a few crushed cloves
• salt
• eggs

Peel and chop potatoes in about 1/2 inch size. Soak potatoes in a bowl of cold water to remove excess starch.

Chop the chorizo or sausage or ham. If using ground pork, mix with salt and spices. Possible spices are chorizo sausage seasoning, chili powder, coriander seeds.  Heat a bit of oil in a saute pan large enough to accommodate your potatoes and meat. Cook your meat but not dry. Remove from pan and leave any flavored oil behind.

While the meat is cooking you can drain the potatoes. I like to put the drained potatoes in a clean kitchen towel and shake out excess water.

Cook potatoes and crushed garlic in same pan. Add extra oil if necessary. Season with salt and add a bit of extra spices, especially if there wasn't enough spicy oil to flavor them. I like to use ancho chili powder. Cover and cook until done. Periodically press the garlic into and turn potatoes periodically to keep them from sticking to the pan too much, and to get the other sides to crisp up a bit. Want them crispier, then don't cover as that traps moisture. When potatoes are just about done, add meat, stir to mix, taste and correct for seasonings, and set to low to keep warm.

Heat pan, preferably non-stick, with a touch of oil. Cook eggs until desired done-ness. I like sunny-side up, but you can cook until set or even flip them to get both sides. I don't usually cook with non-stick pans, but they are fabulous for frying eggs.

Serve an egg over a serving of potatoes and meat along with some tabasco or your favorite hot sauce.

Buttermilk Cornmeal Mush

The first time I said to Joe that I was going to make cornmeal mush, he raised an eyebrow and said, "Isn't that a Depression-era dish?"

I didn't know about that. Fried cornmeal mush was simply something I grew up eating. But I guess it makes sense. If you have some cornmeal, hot water, salt, a bit of flour, and a bit of grease to fry it in (bacon fat, butter, or oil), then you have cornmeal mush. Simple and inexpensive ingredients.

A few days back I realized that I needed to use up my buttermilk before it went bad, and I had also run out of cornmeal. Those two thoughts collided, and the result was this experiment.

If basic cornmeal mush was made with water, why couldn't a richer variant be made out of milk or buttermilk?  As it turns out, there's not reason why not.

The basic cornmeal mush proportion is approximately 4:1 ratio of water to cornmeal. When I added buttermilk, I started with the basic Betty Crocker recipe and substituted buttermilk for only a portion of the water. The result is a dense slab of cornmeal mush with the decidedly sour tang of buttermilk. You don't have to use buttermilk. You can use regular milk instead, or even all water.

Buttermilk Cornmeal Mush
Note: require refrigeration for ~12 hours, so prep the night before you want it.

3/4 C cornmeal (fine grind preferred)
3/4 C buttermilk
2 1/2 C boiling water
3/4 tsp. salt
flour

butter/oil/bacon fat for cooking (I usually use a mix of butter and vegetable oil)

Set some water to boil. A teapot works great for this. Mix the cornmeal and buttermilk in a pot large enough accommodate it all (2 quarts-ish). Whisk in 2.5 cups boiling water and the salt. Cook, stirring constantly, until it thickens and begins to boil (bit bubbles will come up through the mush). Reduce heat to a simmer, cover, and simmer for 10 minutes. Grease a loaf pan.  Stir the thickened mush and pour into the loaf pan. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 12 hours.

You can unmold the entire loaf of mush or carefully cut slices of the pan. You can cut thick slices or thin ones, depending your preference. Thick slices will have soft centers, and if you use buttermilk, its sour tang will be more noticeable. Thin slices will be crunchier.

Dredge the slices in flour. Pan fry in a bit of butter, oil, or bacon fat until crispy. Carefully turn and cook on the other side.

Serve with butter (if you like) and maple syrup.

 

Tomorrow is Paczki Day!

I've been in the clueless department this month, so in case any of you have been as crazy-busy to notice what time of year it is, I offer this Public Service Announcement:

Tomorrow is Fat Tuesday, which means it's Paczki Day!

I'll be picking up mine tomorrow from Copernicus, which brings theirs in from Canada. If you're ordering 3 dozen or more, you can call them at 734-222-9633 and they'll have them packed up and ready to go; otherwise, just show up at 617 S. Main St., Ann Arbor.

Amadeus makes their own fabulous paczki, but it may be too late to order from them. They haven't been answering their phone all day today. (They're probaby crazy-busy making those paczki!) 

Finally, some people are partial to Dom Bakeries.

Support a local business and make your co-workers happy, too: buy some paczki tomorrow!

The Waffle Quest

A mini waffle with Snow's maple syrup

A need for buttermilk can lead to new acquaintances.

I hadn't planned on a trip to the Farmer's Market today. When I woke this morning, I had it in mind that I would make buttermilk waffles, not only because waffles are a fine thing to make but also because, well, the buttermilk needed to be used. If you know what I mean. And then I'd do some gardening, and some piano practicing, and other stuff around the house. I had my dry ingredients measured, my eggs broken, and the buttermilk... well, it didn't need to be used anymore. If you know what I mean.

I thought to myself perhaps I could make a trip into town, swing by the Post Office, get fresh buttermilk at the food co-op, pick up some green onions and tomatoes at the Farmer's Market, and if I was lucky my egg lady would still have some eggs for sale... and just like that, off I was.

And because today is Everday Cook's last day, I decided to take a peek inside. I was expecting the line to be out the door — which is why I ate there yesterday, and so I was pleasantly surprised to see just three groups waiting to place their orders and only one of the desserts had been 86'd. Apparently I came in on the tail end of the rush, because the tables were packed. I spotted an empty seat and ask my table mates-to-be if I could join them.

This is the kind of town that Ann Arbor is: in line waiting to place my order, I ran into Heather O'Neal, and then I saw friends Andy and Sheila, and then my table-mates turned out to be Christine of Holy Basil and her husband Pierre. Christine and Pierre took a trip to Vietnam last year, and she has been sharing recipes on her blog for the dishes she enjoyed over there. Which reminds me that I'm just a little overdue (by a year!) to share photos and recipes from Joe's and my trip to Morocco.

Eventually, I made it home and I even remembered to buy the buttermilk (and Calder non-homogenized "natural" milk - I love non-homogenized). The waffle ingredients were all premeasured, just waiting for the buttermilk. And while a summer storm thundered its way overhead, rattling my cupboards (for real!), I finally made the waffles, just in time for an afternoon snack.

Waffle Toast!

Joe says to me, "We have that stale brioche. I bet it'd make fantastic French toast."

And it would. No betting about it.

But I didn't really want French toast. I was thinking that buttermilk waffles sounded better. Fresh, hot, with melting butter and syrup pooling in the little squares. Sadly, we were (still are!) out of buttermilk, but that sadness didn't last because being buttermilk-less lead me to the idea of "waffling" the brioche.

"Waffling the brioche?" Joe was intrigued.

Let me just say if you have a waffle iron and some stale brioche, I can think of nothing more fun to do than reforming your brioche into a crispy waffle grid.  And you know what?  It's really good!

Waffle Toast!

Soak slices of stale brioche (or other bread) in an egg and milk mixture until thoroughly soaked, just like for French toast. Heat waffle iron. Carefully place slices in the iron. You may need to use a spatula to keep the slices from falling apart during the transfer. Cook in the waffle iron until brown and crispy (but not dry!). I pressed on the waffle iron lid to make sure that the bread was well imprinted with the waffle grid. Serve with butter and maple syrup.

We used Zingerman's brioche, which by the way is awesome, even if we somehow didn't manage to finish it before part of it got stale.  You can use whatever sounds good...

Fabulous French Pastries at The Croissant Shop

Clockwise from the top: cinnamon roll, almond filled croissant, chocolate croissant, brioche, butter croissant.  Click on the photo for a larger (and even tastier) view.

Ann Arbor has a number of good bakeries, but it's also got a well-kept secret: The Croissant Shop, where CIA-trained (the culinary one) baker Kurt Boyd makes delicious French pastries for restaurants, cafés, bakeries, and caterers by hand. Its existence isn't secret — what's secret is that you don't have to be a restaurant to buy from The Croissant Shop.  You, too, can enjoy these gorgeous fresh pastries at great wholesale prices (that's to say, far less than what restaurants charge). It just requires a bit of advance planning.

We've actually known about this for some years, since before I even started Kitchen Chick. I would order them on occasion when we had house guests, but this holiday season we decided to treat ourselves and family.

The butter croissants were everything you expect a croissant to be. Buttery layers encased within a deliciate flaky outside. (They also make great croissant french toast. Carefully slice them horizontally and soak in whisked egg and milk. The outside crust doesn't absorb a ton of the egg, but the soft insides will soak it right up. We enjoyed them for Christmas Eve brunch dusted with some confectioners sugar and served with maple syrup.)

The almond croissants have a sweet almond filling and are dressed with a bit of glaze and ground almonds on top, and the chocolate ones have a streak of rich dark chocolate filling. Joe loved his brioche. He dived into it as soon we got home [well, actually as soon as she was done taking pictures — Joe] because these breads are best when fresh. It was light and rich, like a good brioche should be.

I really adore the cinnamon rolls. These are not the usual super-sugary, heavy rolls that sit like lead in your stomach. The dough is light and moist, the layers are filled with lots of cinnamon, the glaze delicate and delectable. These rolls really live up to the name of cinnamon rolls. I like to eat them in a deconstructionist manner — unrolling the pastry and eating each layer.

The Croissant Shop also sells pecan diamonds and pecan rolls, several kinds of baguettes and breads, savory-filled croissants, and mini-croissants and mini-filled pastries. We haven't tried those yet, but we will.

There is, of course, a catch: you can't just walk in and buy a couple croissants. You have to order at least 24 hours in advance (no later than 9:00am the previous day) and then you can go get your order on the morning of your pickup day.  He'll need to know the specific time you plan to be by. But these treats are well worth a little planning.

Pastries are best eaten the day you get them, but they'll keep for a day or so in the cardboard box, or you can try freezing them. Storing them in a tupperware will make the flaky crisp outsides go soft, but a few minutes in a toaster oven can help with that.

The Croissant Shop
3660 Plaza Dr # 1A
Ann Arbor, MI 48108
(734) 662-7424
Monday through Saturday

Egg, Chorizo, and Tomato Tortilla

Egg, chorizo, and tomato tortilla just about done cooking.

I have three papers due this week. Short papers, but still three different topics to think and write about. Tonight's paper was on Jack Kerouac's Introduction to Robert Frank's The Americans. Tomorrow night it's Cartier-Bresson. But I'm still thinking about last night's dinner.

As I mentioned in my last post, I was looking to make something North African and Joe suggested using the chorizo we had as a substitute for merguez. Mmmmm.... merguez. I may have to learn how to make my own merguez because the mere thought of it makes me swoon. But not having merguez, I went with the chorizo, which is itself its own kind of wonderfulness. The resulting dish probably wouldn't be classified as North African, but this was inspired by a recipe in From the Lands of Figs and Olives.

I served it up with slices of toasted and buttered pumpernickel bread and the previously mentioned carrot and olive salad. I used a 12 inch skillet, which made for a rather thin tortilla. Next time I using my 10 inch skillet. Joe and I both agreed that this tortilla would make a fantastic breakfast dish. I'm thinking about making it again tomorrow because I still have a bit of chorizo that needs to be used before it goes bad and the dish was just that tasty. Unless a better idea comes to mind...

Eggs, Chorizo, and Tomato Tortilla adapted from From the Lands of Figs and Olives

1/4 C olive oil

1/2 lb. chorizo, cut into chunks

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1/4 tsp caraway seeds

2 large tomatoes, cut into eights

1/4 C. water

salt and pepper to taste

4 eggs

Heat oil in frying pan over high heat until shimmering hot. (Use a 12 inch skillet for a thin tortilla, and a smaller one for a thicker tortilla.) Add sausage, garlic, and caraway. Stir frequently until sausage is lightly browned.

Add tomatoes, water, salt and pepper. Lower heat to medium and cook until most of the liquid is absorbed. This can take 10 minutes or so. With chorizo, after the water is absorbed/cooked off, you'll have a fair amount of oil in the pan. I guess you could drain some of it off. I didn't. There's too much flavor in that oil!

Break eggs into a bowl and whisk briskly. Pour into sausage mixture. The original recipe says to stir gently over low heat until eggs are done. I prefer to stir very little at all and let the mixture set like an omelet or Spanish tortilla. To get the top of the eggs to cook, I put a lid on the pan to trap the heat.

The original recipe calls for:

- Polish, Italian, or similar sausage. I suspect this is a substitution for merguez.

- 2 sweet bell peppers with seeds removed and cut into 1/2 inch strips

- and uses only 3 eggs

The bell peppers are added after the tomatoes cook and the water is absorbed, and the mixture simmers for 10 minutes more. The eggs are stired gently, making a scrambled-egg dish instead of a tortilla-style dish.

Egg, chorizo, and tomato tortilla on pumpernickel toast

Gliding and Blueberry Muffins

View looking over the left wing of the glider at around 2,600 feet.

Last weekend I went up in a glider. It was so exciting that I just had to share, even though it has nothing to do with food. Well, that's not completely true. My friends shared their amazing sandwiches (I must get the recipe) and I shared some blueberry muffins (recipe at end of post). See? I did make it food related.

Kitchen Chick's Great Gliding Adventure
The plane is very small, with absurdly long thin wings. We used a small tractor to tow it down to the end of the grassy runway. At least one person has the "walk the wing" to keep it moving straight. The runway is a former strip of farm land embedded in the middle of a working farm.

You do multiple checks of the plane. A complete inside and outside visual check over when you take the plane out of the hanger, and more checks when you ready the plane for take-off. The belt is a four-point harness. A two-seater glider has identical controls for both seats. I just had to keep my hands off of them. (And keep my knee from knocking the canopy release, too.)

Everything was going fine until we closed the hatch, and it hit me this was real. I was going to go up in the air with just a thin shell around me and those long delicate wings keeping us aloft. Then the tow pilot got the go signal. The grass goes rushing a scant foot below your butt as the tow plane drags you down the grass runway...

Creamy Maple Polenta

When I was a child, my mother would dredge slices of cornmeal mush in flour and pan-fry them until they were crispy, and we'd eat it slathered with butter and maple syrup. I thought this was a perfectly ordinary dish well into adulthood until my friends expressed surprise. "A Depression-era dish", some called it.

Well, I don't know if it was specifically a Depression Era dish. It was common in the southern and mid-Atlantic States, but not so much in Michigan. It was also apparently common among Italian immigrants. After all, what is fried cornmeal mush but a kind of polenta? And because it was cheap, it was probably common during the Depression Era, too. All I knew, as a kid, was that this fried cornmeal stuff was fabulously tasty, and I always treated it as a special meal.

In any event, I have very fond memories of cornmeal mush, so when I saw this creamy maple-flavored polenta recipe in Bon Appétit those old memories of cornmeal and maple sryup quickly had my mouth watering and I knew I had to try it. Right Then and There. And since I had a big bowl of blueberries in my fridge, I knew just how I was going dress it up.

It was a good call. The blueberries were divine in the polenta. So divine, that I added another big handful of blueberries after taking the above photo. (Imagine if you will, little explosions of cool blueberry flavor mixing with warm creamy polenta with a hint of maple syrup. Mmmm...)

Diana Morrison's Creamy Maple Polenta
Bon Appétit August 2006

1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup water
3 cups whole milk
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp pure maple syrup (I actually added a bit more)
2 Tbsp butter (1/4 a stick)

Whisk cornmeal and water in medium bowl to blend. 

Bring milk and salt to a simmer in a heavy, large saucepan over medium-high heat. (A large saucepan with high sides is a plus.)

Gradually add cornmeal mixture, whisking constantly until polenta comes to a boil.

Reduce heat and simmer until polenta is very thick, stirring occasionally. About 10 minutes.

Mix in maple syrup and butter.

Season to taste with pepper.

Serve immediately if you want a mushier polenta, or you can let it stand to set a bit.

Diana recommends it as a side-dish or for breakfast. In spite of the maple syrup, this is not an especially sweet dish. If serving for breakfast, I would add a bit of extra maple syrup to sweeten it up. Blueberries were perfect in this dish, both for the flavor and the beautiful gold and blue combination it made with the polenta (hey, I went to Michigan...). Joe added slices of browned Italian sausage to his, for more protein and a tasty savory combination.

Fast & Easy Chilaquiles

When I'm feeling ambitious I make huevos motuleños*, but when I want my breakfast fast I make chilaquiles. This is one of my favorite breakfasts. It's easy, and the variations are endless.

Quick Chilaquiles
All amounts are approximate. Adjust to your tastes.

4-5 corn tortillas, cut into wedges
2 Tbs of butter, maybe a bit of vegetable oil
2 Tbs of finely diced onion, or more if you like
2 lg peeled and diced tomato (or a cup scoop of canned, diced tomato). Add more if you like.
3 eggs or so, beaten
salt and pepper
meat or beans of choice (optional)
garnish of choice (chives, cilantro, whatever you like)

Saute tortillas in butter/vegetable oil until mostly crisp. Add onion and saute a bit to soften. Add tomatoes and simmer 1-2 minutes. Add eggs. Season with salt and pepper. Scramble slowly until eggs are finished to your liking. (I like mine a bit wet.) You can add cheese, if you like. Garnish with chopped chives, or chopped cilantro.

I often add diced bacon. I chop the bacon before cooking and fry it up in a separate pan to minimize the bacon fat in the final dish. I don't like my bacon fat to overpower the flavors of the tomato and tortillas. Or sometimes I add black beans or chorizo.

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*You see, with huevos motuleños there's the fried eggs, and the fried tortillas, and the sauce, and the beans, and ham and peas... And I make two-layer motulenos, so there's food stacking involved. Well, as you can see, it's a bit of work and my stovetop is a mess when I'm done. But they sure are delicious. I'll have to post them sometime.