Garlic and Herb Oven Fries

This month with the Cooking Light Supper Club we are allowing ourselves an indulgence, lightened up. One of my favourite indulgences is french fries. Don't get me started on those or I will be having them several times a week. I can honestly say that I can count on one hand the number of times I have eaten french fries since Christmas! This truly is a treat for me this month.

This recipe really works. The fries were crispy. I ate without the guilt of buying fast food. If you are one to love them with aioli this recipe will please you. The garlic butter they are tossed in hits the spot. To alleviate my guilt even more, I had them with my  homemade catsup. Did you know that a tablespoon of catsup contains one teaspoon of sugar? That is just gross. Making catsup is so worth it. My recipe for homemade catsup is here.

Check out the rest of our group for more amazing flavours you will want to make.

 

Sandi – Filet with Bourbon Coffee Sauce. 

Val - Salt Roasted Shrimp with Lemon Honey Dipping Sauce

Susan – Shrimp, Chorizo and Corn Salad

Shelby – Mirin Mushrooms

Jerry- Lemon Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Blueberry Sauce

 

Garlic and Herb Oven Fries

Serves 6 (serving size: about 1 1/2 cups)

2 lb. potatoes
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 1/2 tbsp. butter
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Preheat a roasting pan and oven to 450F. Cut potatoes into 1/4-inch matchsticks. Toss with oil. Arrange in pan. Bake for 5 minutes. Turn oven to broil. Broil 20 minutes or until browned, turning once. Melt butter in skillet. Add minced garlic and saute 30 seconds. Add fries. Cook 1 minute. Toss with salt and pepper.

Julianna Grimes, Cooking Light
JULY 2012

Ribbon Asparagus Salad with Rhubarb Vinaigrette

This may look a tad tedious to construct but actually it is a meditation. And isn't it oh so beautiful?

A mandolin is not necessary or even recommended. I use a vegetable peeler. A friend of mine always peels her asparagus regardless of the recipe. I thought it was craziness but I am now a believer. It is that outer part that can make asparagus stringy and tough.

I slice off a peel on two opposing sides to start and discard them. Then I make thin ribbons all the way through the stalk. Toss in a drizzle of olive oi. There is no worry about it turning brown. It stays vibrant green.

Place the ribbons of asparagus tossed with oil on a baking sheet. Place in a 375 F oven for 5 minutes. The flavour is much richer with roasting. Cool and toss with vinaigrette. Garnish with shaved Parmesan cheese.

In the picture I used my sea buckthorn vinaigrette and garnished with berries. It will also be lovely with another spring garden delight - rhubarb.

I have made this vinaigrette with and without vinegar and without has a much nicer rhubarb flavour. If you feel you need to use vinegar use only a tiny splash. The flavour of vinegar overpowers the rhubarb which becomes quite delicate upon cooking.

Rhubarb Vinaigrette

1 c. chopped raw or frozen rhubarb
1/4 c. olive oil
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
1 tbsp. honey
sea salt
freshly ground pepper

Cook rhubarb in 1/2 c. water until tender. Cool. Puree in blender. Add honey, mustard, salt and pepper. Puree until blended. With blender running drizzle the olive oil. It will emulsify and create more of a creamy dressing that doesn't immediately separate like a true vinaigrette.

Sea Buckthorn Vinaigrette

1 c. sea-buckthorn berries 250 mL

2 tbsp. honey 30 mL

1/2 vanilla bean

2/3 c. olive oil            160 mL

2 tbsp. white wine vinegar 30 mL

1 tsp. Dijon mustard 5 mL

2 tbsp. shallots            30 mL

1/2 c. whole pecans, toasted 125 mL

1 clove garlic, minced

sea salt, to taste

Gently simmer berries in enough water to cover. When berries have popped remove from heat. Strain through a jelly bag without squeezing the bag.  Boil the juice with honey until thickened slightly. Add a few more whole berries, scraped seeds from the vanilla bean and simmer gently. Cool.

Make the vinaigrette but adding oil, vinegar, Dijon mustard, sea buckthorn sauce, shallots and garlic to a jar with a lid. Shake to mix.

Parmesan Crusted Roast Asparagus

I teased with this picture in yesterday's post and that just isn't fair. These are so gall darned good that everyone should take a look. And they are purdy, too!

The recipe comes from Cooks Country. I love watching this program on Detroit Public Television and all the current season's recipes are available free online. There is a video on their website showing how to make this. It is a fun watch.

The recipe suggest pricking the stems all over with a fork, sprinkling with salt and letting sit for 30 minutes so excess water is leached out. In theory this should work but in reality it was a waste of time. There was so little water to come from these and the finished product was not soggy so I would suggest just skipping that step. Be sure to thoroughly dry the stalks after washing. I had some problem getting the breading mixture to stick.

Parmesan-Crusted Asparagus         from Cooks Country

Avoid pencil-thin asparagus for this recipe. Work quickly when tossing the asparagus with the egg whites, as the salt will rapidly begin to deflate the whites.

• 2 pounds (1/2-inch-thick) asparagus, trimmed
• Salt and pepper
• 3 ounces Parmesan cheese, grated (1 1/2 cups)
• 3/4 cup panko bread crumbs 
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• Pinch cayenne
• 2 large egg whites
• 1 teaspoon honey

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 450 degrees. Line rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray with vegetable oil spray. Using fork, poke holes up and down stalks of asparagus. Toss asparagus with ½ teaspoon salt and let stand for 30 minutes on a paper towel–lined baking sheet.

2. Meanwhile, combine 1 cup Parmesan, bread crumbs, butter, ¼ teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon pepper, and cayenne in bowl. Transfer half of bread-crumb mixture to shallow dish and reserve remaining mixture. Using stand mixer fitted with whisk, whip egg whites and honey on medium-low speed until foamy, about 1 minute. Increase speed to medium-high and whip until soft peaks form, 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape into 13 by 9-inch baking dish and toss asparagus in mixture. Working 1 spear at a time, dredge half of asparagus in bread crumbs and transfer to baking sheet. Refill shallow dish with reserved bread-crumb mixture and repeat with remaining half of asparagus.

3. Bake asparagus until just beginning to brown, 6 to 8 minutes. Sprinkle with remaining ½ cup Parmesan and continue to bake until cheese is melted and bread crumbs are golden brown, 6 to 8 minutes. Transfer to platter. Serve.

Roasted Asparagus Soup

It's a lazy day in the kitchen. I am cleaning the refrigerator in anticipation of my trip out of town. Odds and ends of vegetables were juiced. My thinking is that they might be consumed faster if I drink them! A couple of my jars of honey have solidified. They are sitting in hot water to return to liquid state. And I am waiting for some sunlight, which may not happen today, because I want to take pix of my asparagus soup.

I spent Saturday testing rhubarb recipes. My own rhubarb in the garden is just poking through the earth so I purchased from the grocery store. The problem with writing is that you need seasonal ingredients before they are in season. When the newspaper hits the mailbox home cooks will have an abundance of it and looking for recipes.

Initially I planned to feature 'spring flavours' including asparagus. I soon realized that both can't be covered properly in 1100 words. Asparagus will have to wait for next year. However, I tested a few asparagus recipes and photographed them. I am sharing one now. This soup brings back memories of 3 young women who, while cycling across Canada, spent 2 nights with me last summer. We had a wonderful dinner together and they made a delicious and rich asparagus soup for us.

Today's soup is a simple purée and employs a velouté sauce rather than a cream sauce as its base. Velouté is one of Escoffier's five 'mother sauces'. Can you name the other four? Wait, do you know Escoffier? Auguste Escoffier was a French chef and restauranteur and a leader in updating and modernizing French cuisine in the 1920's.

Back to the sauces. Escoffier considers these to be the 'mother sauces' from which all else is derived - tomato, Hollandaise, Béchamel, espagnole and velouté. Velouté is the adjective form of velour meaning silky smooth. This is a silky smooth sauce made with a vegetable, fish or chicken stock where the bones have not been roasted. It is a light sauce.

The thickening for the sauce is a blond roux. A roux is made with equal parts fat and flour. The fat, in this case butter, is melted and the flour added. It must be cooked out a little so there is no starchy flavour but a blond roux has no colour. Only cook until bubbly and do not let the flour become brown.

These sound so gourmet but when I grew up on the farm my mother always made a roux to thicken gravy and make sauces. A white sauce was common. Milk is used rather than stock. We even occasionally had a brown sauce. The roux is cooked longer to develop a brown colour and stock is added. I can't remember exactly but I think this was a gravy when we didn't have any meat stock. Unlike the Americans, Canadians don't like white gravy.

Parmesan Crusted Asparagus  from Cook's Country is another recipe I tried today. It's delicious. I chopped off some asparagus tips to use as a garnish for this soup.

Roasted Asparagus Soup

1 lb. fresh asparagus
1 stalk celery, diced
1/2 c. onion, diced
olive oil
2 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. all purpose flour
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
Parmesan or asiago cheese
2 c. chicken or fish stock
pinch cayenne

Trim woody ends from asparagus. Roughly chop reserving a few tips for garnishing. Toss asparagus, celery and onion in olive oil, season with salt and pepper and roast in 375 F oven for 5 minutes.

Melt butter in saucepan. Add flour and mix well. Cook until bubbly but not browned. Slowly whisk in stock. Bring to a boil while whisking. Remove from heat and set aside.

Add roasted vegetables to blender. Add velouté sauce. Purée until silky smooth. Serve. Garnish with Parmesan croutons or Parmesan encrusted asparagus tips.

Exciting Times ... Supplies Arriving for Market Season

Our farmers' market opens in 7 weeks, 1 day, 22 hours and 17 minutes....not that I'm counting! Yes, I am counting. This weekend I will fire up my bread oven to be sure it is in fine working order and to get my bread making touch back.

These are some of the supplies I ordered and have arrived. You can see some are from the San Francisco Baking Institute. On the bottom is a proofing board. It is amazingly light compared to my homemade boards last year. I'll give it a test drive on Saturday and probably order a few more.

I will be adding baguette to my menu this summer. You can see the bags I purchased and the board with SFBI logo is the board I need to nicely lay it on the stone floor of the oven. Blue wrapped blades for scoring the tops, linen couche for proofing them and a nice big pair of oven mitts. No burns on my lower arms this year! And last but not least is hardware so I can make a broom to sweep out my oven.

And I almost forgot. I have new bags with a flat handle. They are a little larger than my usual so I can better fit all that bread into it.

Now it is 7 weeks, 1 day, 22 hours and 10 minutes.

The Definitive Guide on How to Peel an Egg

It sounds so easy, so simple. Peel an egg. I am a home economist and an avid home cook. I have peeled a lot of eggs but when I took on the challenge to make pickled eggs for an organic farmer friend, I had no idea of the challenge that lay ahead.

I have lost count of how many eggs I have peeled but it is in the neighbourhood of at least 100 dozen. That's 1200 freaking eggs! Even with easy peeling eggs this is a lot of eggs! What was I thinking when I said yes I would help him out?

His organically raised free range hens produce an egg with a very hard shell. I swear you could drop it and it wouldn't break. Under that hard shell is a very tough membrane. Producing picture perfect peeled eggs has been a learning curve. Here is the system I use ...

Step 1   Do not use fresh eggs. Stale work better.

Step 2   Place eggs in a pan of cold tap water.

Step 3   Heat to boiling and turn off heat. Let sit in hot water with lid on for 12 minutes.

Step 4   Forcefully dump eggs into sink so they will crack. If all eggs do not crack, crack them. The more they are cracked the better.

Step 5   Place in ice cold water and let soak for at least 30 minutes and up to overnight.

Step 6   Using a stainless steel spoon peel the eggs. Be sure to get under the membrane and gently move the spoon around so the shell is loosened from the egg. If you use a silver spoon it will become very tarnished very quickly. The air sac is usually on the blunt end of the egg and this is a good place to start.