Gigantic Stuffed Potatoes

This week’s challenge was to serve, as a meal, a stuffed baked potato. To be honest, I didn’t consider this to be much of a challenge. I love baked potatoes, and I have made stuffed potatoes many times before. But my husband said he wanted something different than the usual toppings, so I tried to get creative with this recipe. I also learned a new technique for crisping prosciutto, which definitely made the challenge worthwhile.

These were some really big potatoes! I made two, but my husband and I could only eat 1½ between us, so I had leftovers for lunch the next day. They were delicious as well as filling. We both agreed that this challenge was a success. (My toddler won’t touch potatoes unless they are of the french-fried variety, so he doesn’t get a vote this week.)

For the stuffing, I decided to go a bit upscale. Truthfully, I looked in my fridge and based the stuffing on what I already needed to use up. I combined sauteed spinach, sauteed mushrooms, crispy prosciutto, and gruyere cheese. The flavor combination was outstanding, and I felt like together these ingredients made for a more-or-less balanced meal.

I wanted to add something crispy like bacon to the stuffing, but not use bacon. I had some prosciutto in my fridge already, and I found this technique for crisping it like bacon. It worked beautifully. Now that I know how to do it, I will definitely be adding crispy prosciutto to scrambled eggs, salads, soups, and whatever else I can think of.

When I was shopping for this challenge, I found gigantic potatoes at the grocery store. They were as big as footballs, seriously. If you use reasonably sized potatoes, half a potato would make a great side dish as well. And this recipe is completely open to adaptation, just by varying what you stuff the potatoes with. But please, do use cheese. You have to have cheese on baked potatoes, in my opinion.

Here’s the recipe. I don’t have exact amounts for the ingredients, so you’ll have to wing it. But that only makes this recipe easier to scale up or down.

Twice-Baked Potatoes Stuffed with Spinach, Mushrooms, Crispy Prosciutto & Gruyere Cheese

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Figure on ½-1 russet potato per serving, depending on whether you’re serving this as an entree or side dish. Scrub the potatoes well and prick in several places with a fork. Rub them with olive oil. Place directly on the oven rack to bake until they give when gently squeezed, about 1 hour. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

Raise the oven temperature to 450 degrees. Arrange the prosciutto slices (about 1 per potato) on a wire rack and place that on top of a baking pan. Slide the whole thing into the oven. Roast for 7 minutes and set aside to cool. The prosciutto will crisp up even more as it cools. Save the baking pan, as you’ll need it later.

Lower the oven temperature to 375 degrees.

Heat some olive oil in a skillet over medium. Add sliced cremini or button mushrooms. Season with salt, pepper, and thyme. Saute until the mushrooms release their liquid and turn brown, about 10 minutes. Set aside in a bowl and return the skillet to the heat.

Add a little more olive oil, if needed. Put some baby spinach in the skillet (as much as you think you’ll need). Season and saute until the spinach wilts. Set aside with the mushrooms.

The potatoes should now be cool enough to handle. Cut each potato in half lengthwise. Carefully scoop out the flesh, leaving a shell of about ½-inch thickness. In a bowl, mash the potato flesh with butter, sour cream, and milk. Use your judgment for how much you need to achieve a creamy texture. I usually use 1 tablespoon of each per potato. Stir in shredded gruyere cheese, the reserved spinach and mushrooms, and the prosciutto, crumbled. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Carefully mound the potato filling into each potato shell. Top with a little more shredded Gruyere. Place the potato halves on the baking sheet and return to the oven for about 20 minutes, or until they are heated through and browned in spots, and the cheese is all melted. Enjoy.

A Simple Mushroom Salad

Yesterday we went to my dad’s house for the traditional New Year’s Day meal of hoppin’ john and collards. I don’t know if it’s still good luck to eat these things on the second day of the year, but I’ve gotta figure that at least some of the luck must still be around.

My contribution was, as always, a salad. I hardly ever use recipes to make salads anymore. Most of the time, I find an ingredient that looks good and build the salad around that. This time, it was cremini mushrooms. I sliced them thinly and tossed them with greens, diced red onion, crumbled bacon and goat cheese. I dressed the salad with a simple sherry vinaigrette.

The flavors went well together, but I think I am going to stop using goat cheese in salads. The texture is just too soft, and no matter how gently I toss, it seems to muddle with everything.

Planned for tonight: chunky chicken minestrone.

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Building Flavor for Soup: Mushroom Broth

Making mushroom broth.

Soup is one of my favorite dishes to make. During the winter months, I think we eat it at least once a week. Soup is a go-to dish because I can usually put together something hearty and satisfying just from what I have in my refrigerator and pantry in less than 30 minutes for a weeknight meal.

Lately, however, I’ve been experimenting with longer cooking soups. Putting together a soup over the course of an hour or three gives you the opportunity to really build up the flavors, and that can make a huge difference. A slow-cooked soup, starting with a homemade broth and then layering in the flavors, is just so much more satisfying and special. It’s well worth spending a Sunday afternoon on.

For our Thanksgiving meal, I made a wild mushroom soup that really showed the time I put into it. The flavors were intense but not overwhelming, rich and earthy with just a hint of acid, not too heavy. A small cup of the soup made a perfect start to the meal. I’m not going to reprint the recipe here, as it’s rather long and I didn’t vary it at all, but if you want to try it, pick up a copy of Fresh Every Day by Sara Foster. You won’t be sorry.

What I wanted to write about, though, is how easy it is to make a quick vegetable broth for a mushroom soup like that one, any other vegetable soup or even risotto. Making the broth takes about 1 hour, but it provides such a great foundation on which to build the soup flavors that it’s worth the extra time. If you make a big batch, it freezes well for weeknight cooking. And it makes use of all the vegetable trimmings and scraps I would have discarded anyway.

For this broth, I used the mushroom trimmings, but mushrooms have a strong flavor, so that may not be appropriate unless there are mushrooms in the finished dish. This broth can be made with any vegetables, though, so substitute freely.

Mushroom or Vegetable Broth

Time to make: ~1 hour
Yields: 2-3 quarts

Combine in a large stockpot or dutch oven:

• stems from 2½ lbs. mushrooms, cleaned
• 1 roughly chopped onion, unpeeled
• 1 roughly chopped celery stalk
• 1 roughly chopped carrot, unpeeled
• trimmings from other vegetables to be used in the soup (carrot peels, celery leaves, potato peels, leek greens, herbs, etc.)
• 3 bay leaves
• handful of whole peppercorns
• 2-3 quarts water (enough to cover the vegetables)

1. Bring to a boil.
2. Lower the heat to a slow simmer.
3. Simmer up to 1 hour.
4. Strain, pressing down on the vegetables with the back of a wooden spoon to extract all the juice.
5. Let cool a bit, then refrigerate up to 5 days or freeze up to 6 months.

Marinated Mushrooms

Marinated mushrooms are a natural for the antipasto platter. This technique uses the mushroom’s own juices for the marinade, so that the mushrooms are infused with mushroomy-lemony-garlicky flavor. Take it easy with the garlic, though, because it’s all too easy to make a batch overwhelmed with the flavor, as I discovered when I made them for h’ors d’oeuvres this weekend. These would also make a nice garnish or salad ingredient. The mushrooms will keep for a few days in the refrigerator. (Adapted from a recipe published in Cook’s Illustrated magazine.)

Marinated Mushrooms

Serves: Many people
Time to make: 15 minutes to cook; at least 6 hours to marinate

• 1 lb. cremini mushrooms, cleaned and halved or quartered
• 4 tbsp. olive oil
• hot red pepper flakes to taste
• 2 tbsp. lemon juice plus more to taste
• 1 clove garlic, thinly sliced (or to taste)
• salt and pepper to taste

Heat 3 tablespoons of the oil with red pepper flakes to taste over medium. Add the mushrooms and lemon juice. Simmer, stirring frequently, until the mushrooms release their juices and are browned, about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool. Mix in a bowl with the garlic. Season, cover and let marinate for 6-24 hours. Before serving, bring to room temperature; taste and add the additional tablespoon of olive oil and additional lemon juice as needed.

How to Make the Perfect Stir-Fry

The secrets to a successful stir-fry are organization and preparation, which are also the keys to accomplishing pretty much any complex task. Cooking is a small mirror held up to life (profound, huh?). If you can pull off a good stir-fry, you can probably successfully manage three complex software development projects with deliverables expected in late December, or the equivalent. We’ll see.

Before you even start cooking, you’ll want to get yourself and all of your ingredients organized. When the cooking starts, it goes fast, so you’ll need to have everything ready and at hand. The first thing I do is cook the starch, either rice or noodles, such as Chinese ramen-style noodles or angel hair pasta. The rice will steam and then stay warm while I’m preparing the stir-fry. The noodles will be done fast and then can sit in their pot until I’m ready to mix them in and reheat them.

Second, prepare the protein. I usually use boneless chicken breast for this dish, but turkey, pork, shrimp, scallops, fish or tofu should also work just fine. For 2 people, I use about ¼ pound of protein. Remember, traditional stir-fries are skimpy on the meat and generous with the vegetables. Cube the meat and let sit in a mixture of 1 tbsp. soy sauce, 1 tbsp. sherry and ¼ cup water while you prepare the vegetables.

Choose 2-3 vegetables for the dish, enough to make ½ pound. Keeping it simple keeps both you and the stir-fry from getting overwhelmed. Dice or slice each vegetable into as nearly uniform pieces as you can make them. Arrange the cut vegetables in bowls in order of their cooking time, with the longest cooking vegetables first:

1. Mushrooms: 5-10 minutes, depending on type and thickness
2. Cabbage, spinach, other greens: 4-6 minutes
3. Asparagus, broccoli, carrots, green beans: 3-5 minutes
4. Peppers, snow peas, sugar snap peas, summer squash, zucchini: 2-3 minutes
5. Bean sprouts: less than 1 minute

These are just suggestions. You may want to try other vegetables.

In addition, mince 2 garlic cloves and ½ tbsp. ginger root, and place them in line behind all the vegetables.

Next, prepare the sauce. My base stir-fry sauce is a mixture of ¼ cup chicken stock, 2 tbsp. soy sauce, 1 tsp. cornstarch and 1 tbsp. flavoring, such as a bottled Asian sauce, sake or rice wine, or fermented black beans soaked in sherry. Feel free to experiment. I give a suggested variation at the end of this post.

Finally, get your garnishes together. Chopped nuts, sliced scallions, raw bean sprouts and minced fresh herbs all make good garnishes.

The last step is to prepare a coating for the protein for cooking it. Drain away the marinade and toss the chicken (or whatever you’re using) in a mixture of ½ tbsp. sesame oil, 1 tsp. cornstarch and 1 tsp. flour.

Now you’re ready to assemble the stir-fry:

1. Heat 1 tbsp. peanut oil in a nonstick skillet over high until shimmering
2. Add the protein in a single layer and cook without disturbing until browned
3. Flip each piece and brown the other side in the same manner
4. Remove the cooked protein to a plate
5. If needed, add another ½ tbsp. peanut oil to the pan
6. Add the vegetables in order of their cooking times and stir-fry, keeping the food moving constantly, until tender
7. Add the garlic and ginger, and stir-fry 30 seconds
8. Reduce the heat to medium
9. Return to the protein to the pan and mix in the sauce
10. Stir-fry until the sauce thickens
11. If using noodles, stir them in and heat through
12. Remove from heat, garnish and serve

Sweet Chili-Garlic Stir-Fry Sauce

Serves: 2

Mix together:

• ¼ cup chicken stock
• 2 tbsp. soy sauce
• 1 tbsp. honey
• ½ tbsp. rice wine vinegar
• 1-2 tsp. chili sauce, depending on taste
• 2 tsp. minced garlic
• 1 tsp. cornstarch

Mmm-mmm Mushroom Soup

First of all, I’m not even going to review last night’s Top Chef. I thought it was a really boring episode altogether. The challenges were boring, the food was boring and the results were boring. Even the great cheating “scandal” was boring. I understand why they couldn’t kick anyone off, but that doesn’t make for entertaining television. (And why was a camp for fat kids named Camp Glucose? Doesn’t glucose mean sugar? Doesn’t that seem kind of cruel?)

So, let’s talk instead about an easy, warming, cold-weather soup. This recipe uses whatever mushrooms you like, although it’s better if you mix in some different types of wild mushrooms. When I made it last night, I used dried shiitakes, portobellos and button.

Mixed Mushroom Soup

Serves: 2
Time to make: ~30 minutes

• 1 ounce dried mushrooms (any kind)
• 1 tbsp. butter
• ½ lb. mixed mushrooms, sliced
• salt, pepper and dried herbs to taste
• 1 leek, sliced
• 1 tbsp. shallot, minced
• 1 tsp. garlic, minced
• up to 2 cups chicken stock
• 1 tbsp. sherry
• parsley for garnish

Soak the dried mushrooms in hot water for 15 minutes to rehydrate. Meanwhile, heat the butter over medium. Add the fresh mushrooms and let cook, stirring occasionally, 10 minutes. Slice and add the dried mushrooms to the mixture, reserving the mushroom soaking liquid. Season with salt, pepper and dried herbs of your choosing. Add the leek, shallot and garlic, and let cook 1 minute. Combine the mushroom soaking liquid with enough stock to make 2 cups and add it to the pot, with the sherry. Bring just to a boil. Garnish with parsley and serve.

How to Roast Vegetables

It has turned cold and wintry here this week. The wind is whipping the leaves off the trees, and when I walked my dog this morning, I had to break out my hat and gloves. I expect we’ll have a few more days of this and then we’ll get our Indian summer, which is the bonus we get for living in North Carolina. Until then, though, we’ll warm our tummies with roasted vegetables.

Roasting is a great method because it is low in fat but high in flavor. The sugars in the food caramelize, turning vegetables into candy. I like to use this method for two kinds of vegetables: those with a lot of water, as the dry heat draws out the moisture and intensifies the flavor; and firm vegetables, which become sweet and tender after a slow roasting. In the first category are asparagus, eggplant, mushrooms, summer squash and zucchini. In the second are carrots, onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes and winter squash.

Recently, at the exhortation of Cook’s Illustrated, I tried roasting green beans. They came out shriveled and ugly, but they tasted so sweet. We gobbled them right up. This only goes to show that every now and then you’ve got to try an old method on a new ingredient and see what happens.

Here’s the standard guide for roasting vegetables:

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees
2. Cut your vegetables into fairly large pieces, cubes or chunks or thick slices
3. Toss the vegetables with a little oil
4. Spread the vegetables out on a baking sheet (covered with aluminum foil for easier clean-up) and put them in the oven
5. About halfway through the cooking time, shake the pan to redistribute the food or turn each piece over, if you’re the patient sort

This is a good time to add seasoning or herbs, which may burn if added at the beginning of the cooking time.

6. They’re done when they are browned and tender

The only variation to this method is the time each kind of vegetable needs to roast, which is something you learn as you go along. Just keep checking and use your common sense. Firmer vegetables need longer to cook, while thinner vegetables like green beans and asparagus will require only 15 minutes or so. If you’re roasting a lot of vegetables together, which is a very simple and good side dish for any meal, you may have to add them at different times to get them all to come out done together.

Some Notes About Seasoning

When a recipe directs you to “season,” right off you should read it as: “add salt and pepper to taste.” Unless the recipe is already very salty or very hot from other ingredients, these are absolute essentials. But here is what the cookbooks won’t tell you: The rest is up to you. The seasonings you pick should depend on the ingredients you are working with, the flavor theme you are going for and your personal tastes. Forget what the recipe says!

There are only a few basic ground rules you need to know about seasonings. The first is that the seasoning should be entirely to your taste. What’s overly spicy hot for you may taste on the mild side to me. That’s another reason why you can’t trust cookbook recipes, which I think often err on the side of blandness, and you have to taste, taste, taste while you’re cooking. I usually like to taste and add seasoning at each major step in the recipe.

You should also know that cookbook recipes often make seasonings more complex and mysterious and time-consuming than they really have to be. Do you really have time to be grinding whole spices in a mortar and pestle, or mixing together 1/8 tsp. of 18 different kinds of powders? That’s not cooking, that’s witchcraft.

One of my favorite time-saving secrets is to use seasoning mixes and dried herb mixes. That way, I don’t have to painstakingly measure out all those different kinds of herbs and spices; I just throw in the equivalent amount of seasoning mix. It’s not cheating — it’s smart. I get my spice and herb mixes from Penzey’s, where the quality is really good and there are a lot of varieties to choose from. I like to have several on hand at one time, so I can make my meal taste Spanish, Southwestern, Indian or Thai — whatever I’m in the mood for that night. The mixes also make great rubs for meats, flavor spikes for vinaigrettes and marinades, and bases for salad dressings and dips.

Still, there are a few seasonings you’re going to want to have on hand at all times. Here’s a quick rundown:

• Fats: butter, olive oil, peanut oil and vegetable oil

We’re all so fat conscious these days, but fats are an absolute necessity for bringing out the essential flavors in foods. Each recipe will start with some fat. To maintain that essential balance between good health and good taste, I figure on ½ tbsp. or less of fat per person per dish, less if I’m using nonstick and cooking over a high heat (as in stir-frying). Also, avoid trans-fats; there’s nothing wrong with good, old-fashioned butter.

• Aromatics: onions (including shallots, scallions, leeks and all the various colors), garlic, bell pepper, chiles, carrots, celery, mushrooms, ginger

Pretty much every cooked recipe is going to start with sauteing some aromatics in some fat. They’re called aromatics for a reason: they add aroma to a dish. They are the building blocks of flavor. You can’t go wrong with onion and garlic, no matter what you’re cooking. Your mileage may vary but generally, you’ll want to figure on ¼ of a small onion, ½ shallot or 1 clove garlic per person. Beyond that, you can vary the aromatics to vary the style of the dish. Keep some of each in your fridge and throw in what seems right to you. As as general guide, use ½ pepper, ¼ carrot or celery stick, ½ tbsp. ginger and/or ¼ lb. mushrooms, all minced, per person.

Chef’s tip: Dried chiles and mushrooms keep forever and are always on hand for enhancing dishes. To rehydrate, just soak them in hot water for 10-15 minutes. The soaking liquid makes a terrific flavor enhancer, as well.

• Seasoning and dried herb mixes: start with 1 tsp. per person and add to taste
• Fresh herbs: mince and throw in 1 tbsp. per person at the end of cooking (otherwise, they’ll lose their flavor)
• Lemon and limes: Use 1 tbsp. (½ fruit) juice and 1 tsp. zest per person; also best added at the end of cooking
• Vinegars: Have a full selection on hand, including balsamic, red wine, white wine and sherry; these are stronger than citrus juices so start with 1 tsp. per person
• Mustard: use 1 tsp. per person and buy lots of flavors
• Soy sauce, fish sauce and Worcestershire sauce: All essentials; generally use around ½ tbsp. or less per person
• Flavored oils (such as chile oil, sesame oil, etc.): use 1 tsp. per person
• Prepared sauces (such as barbecue sauce, hoisin sauce, plum sauce, black bean sauce, mayonnaise and horseradish): Use 1 tbsp. or less per person
• Spice pastes (such as anchovy paste, chile paste, curry paste and sun-dried tomato paste): These are great timesavers; figure on 1 tsp. per person
• Hot sauces: 1-2 dashes per person is usually sufficient, but again, tastes vary widely — pass more at the table