Pickled Red Onions + a Valentine’s Challenge

For topping the sliders I served on Super Bowl Sunday, I made a quick red onion pickle. I used Thomas Keller’s recipe from Ad Hoc at Home, which is super-simple but very good, and I think it’s really all you need to do to end up with a tasty pickle. The recipe says to let the onions pickle at least 24 hours, but you can certainly eat them the same day if you don’t mind them still being somewhat onion-y. Scroll down for the recipe, which makes a lot of pickles! I usually halve it or even quarter it, because we can’t go through that many pickles in a month.

My husband has neglected to provide me with a challenge for this weekend, so I came up with one for myself. I am going to make my husband and son a chocolate cake for Valentine’s Day. This may not sound like much of a challenge, but I have never made a chocolate cake before and I do not have a great track record with baked goods. We’ll see how I do.

Pickled Red Onions

Makes about 4 cups.

2 large red onions (about 1¼ pounds each)

1½ cups red wine vinegar

¾ cup granulated sugar

Cut off the top and bottom of each onion and cut lengthwise in half. Remove and discard the outer layer. Cut a V-shaped wedge from the bottom of each half to remove the roots and the very center pieces of onion. Put the onions cut side down on the cutting board and slice lengthwise into ⅛-inch-thick slices, following the nature lines on the outside of the onion. Pack the onions into a 1-quart canning jar; reserve any slices that don’t fit.

Combine the vinegar and sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the onions. Once the onions begin to wilt, add any remaining onion slices to the jar, gently pushing them down into the liquid to submerge them. Let cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate for at least 24 hours, or for up to 1 month.

Spring Onions & Skordalia

If you have access to a farmers market, get over there and see if they are selling spring onions right now. Cut off the root ends and all but an inch or so of the green stalks. Then roast with some chicken. You will thank yourself.

On a different note, I tried making skordalia — a dip made from pureed bread and almonds. The recipe came from Mark Bittman’s Food Matters, but it was way too redolent of raw garlic. He suggested eating it with large beans such as edamame. We ended up just eating all the edamame plain, with a little salt. Edamame is a favorite and unexpected snack of my two-year-old. The two of us can kill a whole bag at snacktime.

Related articles

• Quick Cooking Tips: Edamame & Couscous (simplycooking.wordpress.com)
• Have something delish (edamame) awaiting in fridge (pbpulse.com)

Potatoes & Leeks & Onions, Oh My!

So, it’s Sunday afternoon, and I have cut-up potatoes, onions and leeks moldering in my fridge. They need to be eaten or they will be tossed. So what do I do?

Make creamy potato-leek soup, of course! Other than those 3 ingredients, you only need butter and stock or water. I follow this formula for making pureed soups and vary the ingredients to suit.

With an excess of onions, it is also a good idea to caramelize some of them. To caramelize onions, slice the onion thinly. Melt some butter or heat some oil over medium-low in a nonstick pan. Add the onions, sprinkle with salt, cover and reduce the heat to low. Cook until very tender, about 15 minutes. Uncover and raise the heat to medium-low. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions turn golden-brown, another 20 minutes or so. To get a deeper brown color, sprinkle on a little sugar during the last 10 minutes of cooking. Caramelized onions keep about a week in the fridge and are good on omelets, pasta or just eaten on toast with some creamy cheese.

But I still have some odds and ends of root vegetables lurking about. A mixed root vegetable mash is the answer. Combine potatoes, carrots, celery root, leeks or whatever root vegetables are on hand and simmer until tender in just enough water to cover. Drain and add a little butter, seasoning and cream or milk. Mash with a potato masher. This makes a lovely side dish for pan-seared tuna, which is what we ate last night.

And all the root vegetables have now been properly disposed of.

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Garden Goodness: Mixed Sauteed Vegetables

When the garden starts really producing at the end of summer, you need to think of lots of ways to eat up all those lovely vegetables. You can’t go wrong with a mix of sauteed vegetables.

This versatile dish goes with so many things. Use it as a bed for grilled chicken, steak or fish, or top a heap of pasta or rice. Cool, toss with a vinaigrette and serve as a salad, or use them to top bruschetta. Sauteed vegetables also make a nice filling for tacos, omelets or sandwiches.

My favorite garden vegetables for sauteeing are onions, cherry tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, summer squash and zucchini. (The pictured mix is onions, cherry tomatoes and diced eggplant, sprinkled with parsley.) But experiment with different vegetables and combinations.

The technique couldn’t be easier:

1. Cut the vegetables into small slices or dice.
2. In a nonstick or well seasoned skillet, heat a small amount of oil over medium-high until the oil is shimmering.
3. Add the vegetables and cook, stirring frequently, until they are browned and tender. Most vegetables take 10-15 minutes.
4. Season and sprinkle with fresh herbs to serve.

Note: Watch the vegetables carefully while they’re cooking. If they’re browning too fast, reduce the heat.

Glazing Vegetables

Glazing vegetables is an extremely useful technique for punching up an otherwise boring vegetable side dish. I used to avoid recipes that used this technique, because I associated glazed vegetables — specifically, carrots — with a sugary, syrupy sweet dish. If I wanted to eat dessert, I’d have ice cream.

But I was wrong. The traditional method for glazing requires very little or no sugar. The technique relies on reducing a flavorful cooking liquid, such as chicken stock, to a glaze and thickening it with butter. While this technique works very nicely on carrots, many other vegetables can also benefit from it, such as brussels sprouts, pearl onions, sweet potatoes, turnips and winter squash. The other night, I made some delicious green beans also using this technique. So I encourage experimentation.

Here is how you do it:

1. Prepare the vegetable by slicing or cutting into bite-sized pieces, if necessary.
2. In a large skillet, add the vegetable, a pat of butter (about 1 tbsp.), salt and just enough good (preferably homemade) chicken stock to halfway cover.
3. Bring the liquid to a boil.
4. Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover and simmer the vegetables until tender, adding a little more liquid if necessary.
5. When the vegetables are done, raise the heat to medium-high and add 1-2 tbsp. butter. If desired, stir in 1-2 tbsp. sugar.
6. Stir until the liquid reduces to a glaze coating the vegetables; there should be very little liquid left, and the glaze should be thickened and browned.
7. Remove from the heat and stir in a couple of teaspoons of lemon juice to finish.

French Onion Soup

Patricia Wells is my new best friend. I have had her cookbook, Bistro Cooking, for a while but only recently began cooking out of it. The recipes are simple but hearty French bistro fare that rely on the best ingredients for flavor, and each one I have attempted has been delicious. Her Marinated Goat Cheese, for instance, should be a pantry staple; it keeps for a long time, and it is a tasty snack and a useful ingredient to have on hand for salads and other dishes.

This week I made two soups from Bistro Cooking: a superb French Onion Soup that relies on braising the onions in wine rather than sauteing them for its deep flavor (recipe follows), and a surprisingly delicious Double Celery Soup of celery, celery root and leeks, which has to be extremely good for you as well as just being good. Both soups are so simple that they absolutely rely on homemade chicken stock for their foundation — otherwise, they would have no body.

Wells’ book Bistro Cooking encourages you to keep great ingredients on hand in order to quickly put together satisfying meals that don’t require the fussy handling and intricate preparation we often associate with French cooking. I love turning my kitchen into a French bistro.

French Onion Soup

Yields: 2 servings
Time to make: ~1 hour

What you need:

• 1 lg. onion, thinly sliced
• 1 cup white wine
• 1 tbsp. butter
• 2 cups homemade chicken stock
• 2-4 slices baguette or French bread
• 2/3 cup grated Gruyere or Emmenthal cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees
2. Combine the onion, butter and wine in a shallow baking dish, and braise in the oven until the liquid has been absorbed, about 45 minutes
3. While the onion is cooking, bring the stock to a simmer
4. Remove the onion and toast the bread in the oven until crisp, about 5 minutes
5. Divide the onion among two oven-proof bowls and ladle the stock over
6. Top each portion with 1-2 pieces of toast and half the cheese
7. Heat the broiler
8. Broil the soup until browned and bubbly, about 5 minutes

Notes: For a lower fat version, omit the bread and cheese, and puree the soup. Whisk in a little butter to finish. Adapted from Bistro Cooking by Patricia Wells.

More classic French bistro recipes from other blogs…

• Croque Monsieur Ham and Chese Sandwich from Simply Recipes
• Chicken with Mustard Sauce from Petit Pois
• Hangar Steak with Shallots from Lunch for Two

Sweet & Sour Onions

Some people have a sweet tooth, but my husband has a sour tooth. He likes anything pickled or vinegared. His perfect vinaigrette is one part oil and one part vinegar — or more. In the summer, I make him lots of vinegar-marinated cucumber slices to snack on, which are so sour after one day of bathing in vinegar that I can’t even eat them anymore. And we both like chowing down on these onions, which have a tiny bit of sweet to cut the vinegar. They are great snacks for serving with nuts at cocktail hour. But since not everyone has such a sour tooth, I always have a lot left over. I would appreciate any suggestions for what else to do with them.

Sweet & Sour Cocktail Onions

Serves: many people
Time to make: ~30 minutes, plus time to cool

Combine in a saucepan:

• 1 lb. frozen pearl onions
• 1/3 cup red wine or sherry vinegar
• 1/3 cup water
• 1 tbsp. sugar
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• 1½ tbsp. tomato puree
• 2 bay leaves
• salt and pepper

Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cover and let simmer until the liquid is reduced, 20 minutes. Uncover and cook the sauce down to a thick syrup.

Serve a room temperature. Keeps 1 week in the refrigerator.

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