chicken noo-noos

this recipe was developed for j, who says that chicken noodle soup is "THE DEVIL" and has some choice things to say about chicken broth in particular, i believe.

ingredients:

• 1-4 chicken breasts, depending on how into meat you are
• 2 quarts chicken broth
• mirepoix
• 1 pound egg noodles, medium or wide, but not small (and, seriously, you can't just throw pasta in there and call them noodles. NOODLES are not PASTA.)
• sea salt & ground pepper
• 1/8 cup cold water
• 1/8 cup cornstarch (or flour, i think flour might work)

prep:

• boil the chicken in broth until past done
• chill until cool to the touch
• (chop up a large onion, a couple carrots and some celery if you didn't buy your prechopped mirepoix from trader joe's)
• shred chicken with fingers or forks

actual cooking:

• lightly saute mirepoix in the bottom of your soup pot
• add broth and bring to a boil
• add chicken & noodles (yup, all of them)
• boil as long as the noodle package says to (8 minutes, i think?)
• season to taste
• mix together cold water & cornstarch (this part is key-- it won't work if you just dump them both in the pot! and make sure it's not lumpy... nobody wants a lump of cornstarch.)
• add water/starch to boiling soup and stir
• boil for at least 2 minutes or until soup reaches desired thickness

this will be even thicker the next day-- more like a casserole than a stew. in fact, i won't blame you if you want to bake it with some breadcrumbs or crushed chips on top. yum.

perfect pie crust

finally, a pie crust worth blogging.

ingredients:

• 1 cup very cold shortening or butter (or a combination)
• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons salt
• ice-cold vodka (no, seriously)

prep:

• chill the fat, cubed, in the freezer for a couple hours
• chill the vodka in the freezer (the only reasonable way to store it, anyway) overnight

actual cooking:

• combine flour & salt
• add the fat and gently combine either by rubbing it between your fingers, cutting it in with two knives, a pastry blender or a food processor until the fat ranges in size from crumbs to peas
• make a well in the dry/fat mixture
• add vodka, a tablespoon at a time, fluffing together with a fork, until the mixture holds together
• shape into 2 disks and chill in the refrigerator at least 1 hour, preferably overnight
• let stand at room temperature for about 20 minutes
• gently roll out each disk on a generously floured board (preferably marble, but those suckers run about $130) to about 1/8 of an inch
• (roll one crust up in plastic wrap for freezing if you're making one custard or crumb pie)
• roll one crust around your rolling pin, move it over to your pie plate and unroll
• make sure the crust is resting in the pie plate fully, not stretched or away from corners
• trim edges so about 1/2 inch or so overlaps and tuck them under around the edge
• prick crust on sides and bottom
• chill for at least one hour
• preheat oven to 400 degrees
• crumple up a piece of parchment into a ball, now gently uncrumple it, now do the hokey-pokey...
• line the crust with the parchment and fill with dried rice and/or beans, or pie weights
• bake for 10 to 20 minute until almost baked through
• fill & cover
• bake as directed (at 375ish until brownedish, is my rule)

so, the three-day time frame isn't really ideal, but damned if this isn't the best crust i've ever made. and no, you don't get drunk. the alcohol bakes out leaving the crust flaky and perfect.

pork with a pineapple-ginger sauce

ingredients:

• pork medallions, pork loin or pork chops (or ham, or chicken)
• 1 cup crushed pineapple
• 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce

prep:

• cook meat however you like, seasoned lightly with salt and pepper

actual cooking:

• while meat is cooking, combine other ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat
• simmer until liquid is reduced to almost nothing
• remove from heat & allow to sit uncovered until meat is ready

so. freaking. easy. i served pork medallions with israeli cous cous and steamed snap peas. it was a hit. the only real problem is... i don't eat ginger, so it's possible they were lying to me. but they did continue to eat the sauce after the meat was gone, so that's something.

giant chocolate chip cookies

these are great for the impatient baker or when your cookie-dropper calls out sick. they also go over big in dorm rooms.

ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter at room temperature
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 6 ounces chocolate chips

prep:

• lightly grease 2 pie plates
• preheat oven to 375

actual cooking:

• cream butter and sugar
• add egg and vanilla
• beat until blended
• add half the flour, then the soda, salt, other half of the flour
• beat well
• add chocolate
• divide dough into two equal parts
• press gently into pie plates with greased fingers
• bake until the edges look golden/browned-- the middle will still look underdone!
• cool in pie plate until set, then release onto wire rack until cooled

it took my brother about 36 hours to eat these both, but only about five seconds to think of putting them on his butt for a picture.

duck a la' half-ass

"i think," i said, possibly before i even really had the thought, "i'll make a duck for christmas!" and then... it was. that was sometime in mid-november. i ignored the plan for about a month and then decided it was time to purchase the duck. (duck? is expensive. wow. the little 6-pound bugger i bought ran me $18! and you gotta figure, with a duck, about two and a half pounds of that was fat the just dripped off. but i digress.) so, i went to the "real" supermarket-- which is less intimidating than a butcher or a farmer's market where i might see feathers or something-- and snagged a frozen duckling.

all eating ducks are apparently ducklings. i discovered that in my internet research after the joy of cooking offered options for trussing and de-boning "the bird." also? they're mostly farm-raised, to the extent that you could call a thing that lived on average eight weeks having been raised. because they're mostly farm-raised, they're mostly not super fatty like wild duck, if you buy them frozen in the supermarket, at least. because they're not super-fatty, you do not have to prick the skin, no matter what your grandmother insists.

so, this is how i cooked the duck.

ingredients:

• a duck
• oil spray
• salt

prep:

• defrost the duck
• dump the blood, guts, neck and orange sauce packet out of the duck
• (call somebody to brag that you just handled duck guts on freaking christmas!)
• place duck breast-up on a roasting pan
• spritz with oil, sprinkle with salt
• preheat the oven to temperature prescribed on duckling packaging

actual cooking:

• put the duck in the oven
• follow directions on duckling packaging
• cook until duckling reached 180 degrees in the thigh joint
• warm up orange sauce
• move duck to a new plate and cut into edible pieces (note: the wings aren't worth a damn and the legs aren't worth much more. also: the whole damn bird is dark meat.)
• serve with orange sauce (the one that came out of the duck's, ahem, cavity.)

a duck, as a main course, will serve about a person and a half, maybe two. i served duck alongside ham, garlic smashed red potatoes, cornbread stuffing with onions, lima beans, roasted broccoli & cauliflower, brussel sprouts with bacon and rosemary bread.

christmas cookies 2008: finale

(sorry for the picture... i had a much more dramatic one planned, but for some reason blogger & i don't agree on how the picture should be oriented. and the sideways-cookie thing was not doing it for me. at. all.)

so... funny thing. when you're spending every free moment baking, it's hard to find a moment to write about baking. to sum it all up: they were wonderful. had i gone through it blow-by-blow, you can bet i'd have been singing a different tune. i was, in fact, in my kitchen, and it was a pretty bawdy tune. with crying. but i learned some things.

1. i need more flour-- like, twice as much.
2. vanilla does cost just as much at trader joe's as it does for the store brand at the supermarket-- the difference is, tj's bottles are twice as big.
3. it's difficult to buy chocolate when you boycott nestle and hershey's... trader joe's to the rescue!
4. the broiler won't just melt the jam... it'll burn the shortbread.
5. a candy thermometer makes all the difference.
6. a quarter of an inch is a lot thicker than i think it is.
7. a little less flour makes the dough softer. ummm, duh?
8. too much water will ruin gingerbread.
9. expensive non-stick baking sheets really are non-stickier than the regular ones.
10. wilton sells no-taste red food dye.

i made everything i was supposed to make, pretty well, plus some extra fudge for gifting. i had a couple mishaps, too, like when i broke the christmas tree plate for my cookie press with my super-tough dough. i overdid it, of course, but i'm sure the recipients of the extra bags don't mind-- and let's face it, everybody has a lonely, old neighbor who will appreciate being thought of (though, perhaps not as a "lonely, old neighbor"). now i have some new cookie recipes and ideas to work out before next year. maybe then, i'll get through it with a little less crying.

cooking-related christmas gifts: a pastry workshop (on sunday!), subscriptions to bon appetite and martha stewart's everyday food and a giant cupcake cake pan.

cooking-related new year's resolutions: cook one thing from each magazine and bake cookies year-round-- not just christmas!

oh, and one final thought:

christmas baking is not complete without a nice set of... giant chocolate chip cookies.