Curried Turkey Waldorf Salad

Nearly a week after Thanksgiving, with a pile of turkey still left over, I am starting to disguise it so it doesn’t taste like we’re eating the same thing for days on end. No more potatoes, gravy, stuffing for us, preferring instead to lighten things up a bit. Not that this salad is all that light, but its piquant flavors, crunchy textures, pretty colors and service on top of bitter greens like local organic mizuna make it feel very distant from the groaning board of last Thursday. 

Waldorf Salad, hailing from the famed (and gorgeous) New York City Waldorf Hotel of the 1890s, is traditionally composed of apples, celery and walnuts in a mayonnaise dressing. I made a different dressing, with the requisite mayonnaise cut with sour cream and curry powder. I added raisins so that the dressing would become chutney-like, and sprinkled the apples with lemon juice, which in addition to keeping the fruit from browning, added spark to the ensemble. Plus cubed turkey of course. The bitter greens were a great counterpoint.  This was a successful impromptu arrangement that actually would be worth making again with chicken when turkey becomes a distant holiday memory. (The Turkey Board, if there is such a thing, would diss me for that statement, I’m sure.)

Curried Turkey Waldorf Salad

1½ c cubed cooked turkey (or chicken) breast

1 small apple, cored and cubed (1/2 inch dice), sprinkled with juice of ½ lemon

1 stalk celery, stringed and cut into ½-inch pieces

2 tbsp or more walnut pieces (toasted or not)

2 tbsp or more raisins

2 tbsp good quality mayonnaise

2 tbsp sour cream

1 tsp curry powder

Optional: a little milk

Optional garnish: sliced green onion tops or chives

Bitter greens such as endive, mizuna, radicchio, arugula

Combine the turkey, apple, celery, walnuts and raisins in a serving bowl. Combine the mayonnaise, sour cream and curry powder in a small bowl to make a dressing for the salad. If it seems too thick, thin with a few drops of milk. Toss the dressing with the other ingredients, combining well. Serve on bitter greens and garnish with sliced green onion tops or chives, if desired.

Serves 2-3

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Braised Chard Stems and Potatoes

I have the good fortune of having my in-town garden full of chard following a season of heartbreaking local crop failures due to an exceptionally wet summer, a hurricane and flood, and a freak October snowfall. Yikes.

I love being able to step out into my garden, which has followed organic principles for years, and harvest a bouquet of green chard for dinner.  I think it’s as picturesque as a bunch of flowers. The chard in my garden is tall so I have abundance of stems. They have the consistency of young celery stalks and are mild in flavor, but what to do with them? Sometimes I shallow boil them and serve them with the chard leaves. Here, I cut them into small sticks, combined them with similarly cut potatoes and added enough homemade chicken (or turkey) stock to about ¾ full.  They were braised in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes, or until the potatoes were cooked through. I added a few chard leaves to the top to wilt down. Chard leaves, torn or cut into ribbons, have been replacing parsley as my go-to garnish. I even served them for Thanksgiving over the top of oven-roasted root vegetables. If you wanted to add a few slivers of smoky ham to the potato and chard stem braise, you could make a whole meal of this. 

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Oven-Roasted Garnet Yams with Cinnamon and Garlic

The organically grown baby “garnet yams” in our local produce market were just too good to pass up. I roasted them, slightly covered in olive oil and lightly salted, in a 350-375 degree oven, accompanied by whole garlic cloves and chopped stick cinnamon. They were ready in 15-20 minutes. I thought I would share them as part of November’s Spice Rack Challenge.

The idea came from the New York Times food writer Melissa Clark, who describes the cinnamon infusion as a great reference to the flavors and aromas of the Thanksgiving season. While I began roasting the yams whole, I thought that slicing them would help the cinnamon infusion. So would lightly crushing the cinnamon sticks. You wouldn’t get the same result from ground cinnamon since it would probably just burn. 

The cinnamon sticks were from a jar of pickled grapes that I made last spring, and just replenished, starting with new sticks. As the old adage goes, “Waste not, want not.” This was a terrific way to re-use what would otherwise have ended in the compost pile prematurely.

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Cinnamon Pickled Grapes and a Refreshing Grape Shrub

Getting ready for the year-end holidays, I decided to pickle a new batch of grapes with a cinnamon stick and simple syrup made of sugar and vinegar. Brilliantly easy, provocatively mysterious yet delicious, the grapes can be served with pâté, meats and poultry, and probably with a root vegetable terrine of some sort. They’re addictive, so make lots. They can be ready in a matter or days or kept in a tightly sealed jar in a dark place for months. The cured batch illustrated here hailed from last spring, and while the skins are a little tough, the flavor is extraordinary. And so is the liquid as the base for a type of vinegar-based drink called a “shrub.”  A double treat. 

The source of the recipe cracks me up. In 1986, the famous food writer M.F.K. Fisher annotated a 1967 edition of Catherine Plagemann’s cookbook Fine Preserving, and the marginalia are as charming as the original recipes and their stories. This one in particular is a real period piece. First, Fisher declares that this is one of her favorite recipes in the book and then goes on in her slightly feisty way to take it apart and reconstruct it, leaving out the onion saying, “I don’t think it adds anything.”  She uncharacteristically doesn’t pick up on an amusing mistake Plagemann makes about Moroccan food (which I’ll write about sometime), and describes the hot syrup as “really a kind of bar-mix, called ‘simple syrup,’ I think.” I love it. 

Using Fisher’s take on the recipe, this couldn’t be simpler to make. Place washed and thoroughly dried grapes in a container with a tight lid. Insert a cinnamon stick. Simmer sugar and white vinegar (or white wine vinegar) for five minutes, pour the hot liquid over the grapes, seal the jar and set aside in a dark cupboard for a week to several months.  Plagemann claims the grapes are ready in a day, but they’re just barely coated by then. Fisher says to use them after a month, and I agree, since by then they’re well infused with the spiced syrup and the skins of the grapes haven’t hardened too much. They’ll be perfect by Christmas.

By the way, don’t throw out the liquid from the pickled grapes. It makes a terrific drink with added seltzer water. A drink made with a fruit base that includes vinegar and sugar is called a shrub and makes a refreshing beverage.  Characteristically, I also re-used the cinnamon stick since it still was potent, adding it to a pan of oven-roasted baby garnet yams and garlic.

Cinnamon Pickled Grapes after Catherine Plagemann and M.F.K. Fisher

For each pint jar:

1½ c light red grapes, stemmed, washed and thoroughly dried

¾ c granulated sugar

½ c white wine vinegar or white vinegar (I used white vinegar)

1 3-inch stick cinnamon, in two pieces

Place the grapes in a very clean pint jar that has a tight lid. Bring the sugar and vinegar to a boil, lower the heat and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Pour over the grapes and insert the cinnamon stick in the jar. Use a skewer or chopstick to release any air bubbles. Cap tightly and store in a dark cupboard for a month before using.

Variation: Plagemann added minced onion to hers and Fisher omitted it. I am going to make a batch with halved rings of red onion and white wine vinegar to see how it varies the outcome.

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Roasted Cauliflower and Leek Soup with Cheese Dipping Sticks

Cauliflower is among the few local crops that astonishingly have flourished despite the horribly wet growing season that rotted the majority of the fall harvest. Purple, green, orange and white heads of cauliflower are mounded in the farmers’ markets and even in the local grocery store, where they are specially called out as local.  I love the orange ones, which we ate earlier in the month simply steamed or roasted and combined with pasta. We were in the mood for soup, which was good, since I have an amazing amount of turkey stock — some light and some condensed – and little room in the freezer. I had made light stock from fresh necks and backs for Thanksgiving gravy, and thought that it would work fine for a cauliflower soup. (Otherwise I would have used chicken stock.) 

I wanted a soup with oomph so I first roasted the cauliflower and combined it with a sliced leek that I had slightly browned in a little butter. Stewed with stock, flavored with a couple of squeezes of dried thyme from a bundle I harvested at our CSA last summer, pureed and thinned with a few drops of milk, the cauliflower and leeks made a hearty and full-flavored pureed soup.

To accompany the soup, I made long croutons – dipping sticks – from sourdough bread crisped in the oven with grated hard cheese mixed with thyme. I used an American-sourced cheese called Sole Gran Queso Reserve featured at Whole Foods this week. The dipping sticks were fun and delicious and a great vehicle for eating the soup.

Roasted Cauliflower and Leek Soup

Half a medium head of cauliflower

Olive oil

Salt

1 leek, white and light green part only

2 tsp butter

3-4 c homemade chicken or light turkey stock

½ tsp dried thyme

Optional: ¼ c milk, half & half or light cream

Optional: a sprig of fresh thyme, leaves removed

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Separate the cauliflower into florets and slice each one vertically into several pieces (the point is to achieve flat surfaces). Slice the tender part of the core the same way. Sprinkle the cauliflower with a little olive oil and salt and roast for about 10 minutes or until brown on one side. Flip and roast until tender, another approximately 5 minutes. Reserve a couple of attractive pieces as garnish.

While the cauliflower is roasting, prepare the leeks.  Slice the leek vertically and wash, making sure to remove the sand that hides among the layers. Slice it crosswise and sauté it slowly in butter, letting a few of the edges brown.

When the cauliflower is done, add it to the leek and pour in some chicken or turkey stock. Add a little dried thyme and let the mixture simmer for about 15 minutes. Puree (use an immersion blender, food processor or food mill) and return to the pan. Thin with a little more stock or will milk or cream, if using. Adjust for salt. Garnish with reserved grilled cauliflower slices and a few leaves of fresh thyme. Serves 3-4.

Cheese Dipping Sticks (makes 4 pieces)

1 slice of bread, ½ thick, crusts removed and sliced the long way into ¾-inch wide strips

Butter

2 tbsp grated hard cheese

A pinch of dried thyme

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Butter both sides of the bread and place it on a baking sheet. Bake for about 5 minutes or until brown on one side. Flip them over, sprinkle cheese-herb mixture on the crisp side and continue to cook for about 5 minutes until the sticks are crispy and brown. Serve warm.

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Waste Not Want Not – Getting the Most from Your Food: Apple Jelly with Thanksgiving Herbs or Spices

After peeling and coring eight organically grown apples for a Thanksgiving pie and sprinkling the slices with the juice of a fresh lemon to keep them from browning, I had a pile of leftovers that could have gone into the garbage can or the compost heap, but why? They make the perfect combination for jelly. Natural pectin is developed from the peels and seeds of both apples and lemons, so I simply covered them with water, simmered them with herbs until soft and drained the liquid in a jelly bag overnight. I used sage, rosemary and thyme as the flavoring but alternatively I could have used the peelings and scraps of fresh ginger, which I’ll do next time. With added sugar, and 5 minutes of boiling the next day, we had a gorgeous, aromatic and very tasty jelly for our morning biscuits (or in the case of the ginger, we would have a glaze for a fruit tart).

People often ask me how I have time to preserve so much stuff for my pantry. The simple answer is that once you’re comfortable with the technique, this type of jelly takes no time or focus. It took me longer to post this than to make it, but each under 15 minutes and while I was doing other things. Like toasting my homemade gluten- and dairy-free cornbread for stuffing, making turkey stock, baking pumpkin and apple pies, and otherwise preparing for the big feast.

I didn’t can this jar, which would have added 10-15 minutes’ more effort, but I am giving you the directions to do so.

Herb Jelly from Apple and Lemon Peelings

Peels and cores from 8 (or so) large apples

1 lemon and its seeds after juicing, chopped

Sprigs of herbs (sage, rosemary, thyme) or trimmings from fresh ginger

Water

Sugar (proportional)

Put the apple and lemon trimmings and the herbs or ginger in a large soup pot and barely cover with water. Bring water to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook, covered, for 30-45 minutes or until very soft. Pour into a jelly bag suspended over a bowl (or a sieve lined with cheesecloth) and let the mixture drain a minimum of two hours or overnight.

If you are going to preserve the jelly via water bath canning, prepared the jars and lids.

Place a saucer in the freezer before you start so that you have a cold surface to gauge the gel.

Measure the strained juice and for every cup, add ¾ cup of granulated sugar. Combine the apple-lemon-herb liquid and sugar in a wide pot and bring to a boil. Boil rapidly for 5-6 minutes (or longer, not to worry) until the gel point is reached (when a drop placed on a cold saucer doesn’t run and wrinkles when touched).

Spoon the jelly into prepared jars. If you are planning on inserting herbs, let the jars cool for 5 minutes so that the jelly becomes stiff enough to suspend them. Dunk the herbs in boiling water before inserting in the jars. And make sure that they are not trapping air at the edges. Cap with sterilized lids and place in water bath canner. Cook at a rolling boil for 10 minutes, then turn off heat, remove cover and let stand for 5 minutes until removing the jars to cool completely before storing.

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Fish Curry Sri Lankan Style

Our local market recently had fresh albacore tuna from a fisherman whose boat, the Frances Anne, sails the Atlantic from Barnegat Light. This is close enough from here to be considered “local,” though of course the sea makes it anyone’s guess how far. Whenever I can, I purchase just-caught fish from day boat fisherman, and so I was happy to find these beautiful tuna steaks from a reliable local source.  The tuna was light in color and not very dense so I decided it needed to be lightly poached to retain its flavor and moisture content.

I was casting about thinking of colorful local peppers and onions but decided that they would overwhelm the firm but delicate fish. I opted instead for a lovely fish curry with coconut milk from At Home with Madhur Jaffrey, a highly accessible cookbook about the cuisine of the Indian sub-continent.  I could literally cook my way through this book since so far, every recipe has been informative and delicious. Jaffrey calls for any firm fish and while she doesn’t mention tuna, the albacore is as mild as swordfish, salmon and haddock, among her several choices.  I used less fish than she did, about ½ lb per person, which was more than adequate for us, since this is served with jasmine rice (though rice noodles would be perfect). I preferred the higher broth to fish ratio since the sauce is delicious. 

The fish curry starts with mustard seeds popping in the pan, fennel seeds and red onions lightly stewing with tomatoes and basil (a substitute for the curry leaves I don’t have) and other flavorings. With the addition of a little water, the base becomes a flavorful broth for lightly poaching the fish. When the fish is ready to flip, a little coconut milk is added to round out the flavors. Since I was using basil instead of the denser curry leaves, I add it later in the process than Jaffrey did.

Sri Lankan Fish Curry from Madhur Jaffrey

½ – ¾ lb fresh firm fish (albacore tuna, swordfish, haddock, salmon), ¾-inch thick

Salt

1 tbsp olive or canola oil

¼ tsp whole brown mustard seeds

¼ tsp whole fennel seeds

½ medium red onion, chopped (about 1/3 c)

1 clove garlic, chopped

1 medium tomato, chopped

1/8 tsp turmeric

¼ tsp cayenne pepper (or to taste)

12 leaves fresh Genovese basil

½ c water

½ coconut milk

Cut the fish into individual servings and lightly salt both sides.

Warm the oil in a sauté pan over medium-high heat and add the mustard seeds. As soon as they pop (a few seconds) add the fennel seeds and onion. Cook over medium heat until the onions soften. Add the garlic and stir, cooking the garlic lightly. Add the tomato, turmeric and cayenne pepper and stir. Add the basil to wilt. Add water and ½ tsp salt and simmer gently, covered, for 10 minutes.

Adjust the heat to medium-low and place the fish in the pan until one side turns opaque. Turn the fish over and add the coconut mil to the pan, gently stirring it and spooning it over the fish until the fish is opaque all the way through, another 2-3 minutes.

Serves 2-3.

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Homemade Seasonal Granola

There’s nothing store-bought that I’ve come across that matches homemade granola. It’s crazy to think of spending 4-5 times the cost of the ingredients to make an inferior product. Especially when making your own is a cinch. Granola comes in all kinds of assortments, a veritable kitchen sink of ingredients. Rolled oats (organic preferably) constitute the base and to that you add nuts and seeds. With the addition of a sweetener such as honey or maple syrup (and a little vegetable oil to help the browning process), the mixture is baked in the oven. Dried fruits, if you’re using them, are added after the cooked grain mixture has cooled.

For the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, I used seasonally compatible ingredients: pecans, pumpkin seeds, cinnamon and dried cranberries.  I happen to like  flax seeds, but sesame seeds work well too. Sprinkled on yogurt (oh yes, you can make that too), this makes a great and nutritious breakfast.  I typically halve this recipe but with family and friends around for Thanksgiving, I might need to make a second batch!

Granola

6 c rolled oats

1½ c chopped nuts (I used 1 c slivered almonds, ½ c pecans)

3/4 c mixed seeds (I used ¼ c flax seeds, ½ c pumpkin seeds)

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ -¾ c honey

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 c dried cranberries, lightly chopped

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Lightly warm the honey and oil together in a saucepan and pour the liquid over the oat mixture, stirring to distribute it. Spread in two large baking pans and bake for about 30 minutes, stirring frequently, until brown.

Cool in pan, add the dried cranberries, and store in a tightly covered container.

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Chicken in Salsa Verde: Quesadillas and Enchiladas

With the abundant tomatillos and poblano peppers at the end of the growing season, I made great salsa verde two ways: roasted in a hot oven and gently poached on the stovetop.  I had lots of chicken meat from a roast chicken, and the last bit of cilantro from the garden, so I made a filling for either quesadillas or enchiladas, incorporating chicken, salsa verde, additional chopped roasted poblano peppers and torn cilantro leaves. 

For the quesadillas, spoon the chicken and salsa mixture onto flour (or corn) tortillas sprinkled the mixture with Monterey jack cheese, and grilled the disks on a stovetop griddle. These made delightful wedges for snacks or lunch.

Rolled in tortillas and topped with more salsa verde and cheese, the chicken mixture made a great filling for baked enchiladas topped with a few oven roasted baby poblanos. Every time I make one of these dishes I wonder why they’re not a weeknight staple.  With ample tomatillo salsa in the pantry and a new technique of roasting the sauce on a baking sheet in a really hot oven, I could be on to something.

Quesadillas with Chicken in Salsa Verde

2 flour or corn tortillas (I used 9-inch flour tortillas)

3 tbsp shredded chicken

1 tbsp sautéed or roasted green pepper (combination sweet bell pepper and poblano)

3 tbsp salsa verde

Torn cilantro leaves

3-4 tbsp finely shredded Monterey Jack cheese

Vegetable oil

Accompaniments: pico de gallo, salsa verde, sour cream

Preheat a stovetop griddle to medium high heat. Place the tortillas next to each other on a flat surface. Combine the chicken, pepper, salsa verde and fresh cilantro. Sprinkle half the cheese on one tortilla, add the chicken mixture and top with the remaining cheese and the second tortilla, Glaze the heated griddle with vegetable oil and place the tortilla on the griddle, weighting it with a grill press or a teakettle. Cook for a few minutes until brown and crisp, flip and cook the other side. Serve warm, cut into wedges and accompanied by homemade pico de gallo (tomato salsa), salsa verde and sour cream. Serves 1 or 2.

Chicken Enchiladas with Salsa Verde

1 c shredded chicken

¼ sautéed green pepper (combination sweet Bell pepper and poblano)

1 c salsa verde, divided

Torn cilantro leaves

Hot pepper sauce or chopped jalapenos

4-5 flour tortillas

Vegetable oil

1/3 c finely shredded Monterey Jack cheese

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Combine the chicken, pepper, 1/3 c salsa verde and cilantro. Taste for seasoning and increase the heat by adding prepare hot sauce or chopped fresh hot peppers such as jalapenos.

In a baking dish large enough to hold the finished tortillas (a 10×10 baking dish held 5 filled tortillas), smear the bottom with a few tbsp of the salsa verde.

Place ¼-1/5 of the filling on each tortilla, wrap it into a tight cylinder and place it in the baking dish. Pour the remaining salsa verde on top and sprinkle with the grated cheese.

Bake for 35 minutes or until bubbly. Let sit for 5 minutes and serve hot, on top of rice combined with sautéed hot peppers and chopped fresh cilantro or alongside a dish of black beans and rice.  Serves 2-3.

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Salsa Verde Two Ways: Roasted and with Ground Cherries

During the last weeks of October, leading up to our Halloween weekend snowstorm, we were harvesting ground cherries and tomatillos in considerable volume, a quart of tomatillos a week, or more if you could use them. Also in abundance at our CSA were ground cherries. Sometimes referred to as husk cherries, these are sweet-tart fruits (vegetables?) that look like miniature tomatillos, and are harvested when they fall off the vine (hence the moniker ground cherries).  Earlier this year, I cooked them into a jam first as- is and then a second batch infused with the piney flavor of rosemary.  

 At the end of October, I also had a giant poblano pepper plant in my garden, so huge that I nicknamed it the “great ancho-lada,” ancho being the dried version of poblano. It was five feet tall and had at least two dozen peppers on it after I’d already harvested at least a dozen. (It came from Seed Savers Exchange.) Right before the storm hit, everything left on the vine was harvested and stored in the refrigerator.

 What to do with such simpatico ingredients a couple of weeks later? I considered canning another batch of tomatillo salsa but I already have more in the pantry than I can imagine eating. I decided instead to make two versions of Mexican salsa verde: one roasted and the other gently poached on top of the stove, combined with ground cherries that were poached and then roasted on a baking sheet to deepen the flavor and diminish the liquidity. The latter method was so successful that I might try it on the canned tomatillo sauce this winter since, in order to gain the proper pH level for canning, the canned sauce contains a good amount of lemon juice.

The combination of ground cherries and tomatillos was perfect with a bowl of chips (my husband’s obsession), and the roasted salsa verde found its way into quesadillas and enchiladas.  

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa Verde

1 quart firm tomatillos, husked and rinsed

Vegetable oil

Salt

1 medium onion, peeled

1 clove garlic

1 jalapeno pepper (or more to taste)

1-2 small young poblano peppers (optional)

Cilantro leaves, torn

Lime juice

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Halve the tomatillos, toss them in a little oil and salt and place them cut side down at one end of a heavy baking sheet. Halve the onion lengthwise and slice it crosswise. Cut the garlic in half lengthwise. Toss the onion and garlic with vegetable oil and salt and place in their own zone on the baking sheet. Cut the peppers in half lengthwise, seed them (being careful not to touch them with your hands, using a sharp knife and a thin-tined carving fork).  Sprinkle on a couple of drops of oil and place them cut side down on the baking sheet. (Since my poblanos were tiny, I roasted them whole and cut off the flesh after cooking.)

Roast the vegetables or about 15 minutes, keeping an eye on them to make sure they don’t burn, removing them to the bowl of a wood processor as they are done. Process them to a smooth sauce and set aside to cool. When cool, taste for seasoning. Serve with torn cilantro and a squeeze of lime juice.

Salsa Verde with Ground Cherries

1 quart firm tomatillos, husked and rinsed

1 medium onion, peeled

1 clove garlic

1 jalapeno pepper (or more to taste), seeded

1-2 small young poblano peppers (optional), seeded

1 pt ground cherries, husked and rinsed

Water

Cilantro leaves, torn

Lime juice

Additional hot pepper (optional)

Cut the tomatillos in half and coarsely chop the onion, garlic, and peppers. Place in a saucepan and add a water to come up on the vegetables about 1/3 of the way. Place the ground cherries in another saucepan and add water to come up on the ground cherries about 1/3 of the way. Bring both pots to a boil on top of the stove, lower the heat and simmer until the vegetables are broken down, about 10 minutes. Mash the ground cherries a little. When cooled, combine the two pots of ingredients and chill.  When serving, add torn cilantro leaves and a squeeze of lime juice.

Optional reduction step: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and place a baking pan in the over. After the ground cherries are cooked, scrape them onto the hot baking pan and cook, stirring occasionally, to evaporate excess liquid and add a roasted depth of flavor.

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