BostonZest

Roasted and Smashed Potatoes for Easier Shepherd's, Cottage, or Fish Pies

A bag of small potatoes that I had planned to turn into smashed potatoes recently inspired a new look at the traditional shepherd's pie. I had a package of ground lamb that my friend Liz suggested I try instead of always grinding my own. Naturally shepherd's pie came to mind, but I still wanted those crispy delicious smashed potatoes. 

I decided to have the best of both worlds by topping my meat mixture with smashed instead of mashed potatoes.

First I scrubbed and cut slits in the potatoes, tossed those plus some carrots and sweet potatoes in olive oil, salt and pepper, and roasted them on a full sheet pan lined with parchment paper. The next time I make this, I'll also roast some onions and garlic to add to the meat when I brown it. 

As soon as the potatoes were soft enough, I smashed them with a fork, sprinkled on a bit more olive oil, and returned the tray to the oven.

For this batch I diced two slices of bacon, cooked it, removed some of the bacon fat, and then browned the lamb, onions, garlic, and herbs in that pan. After the meat was transferred to a porcelain baking dish, I scattered the roasted carrots around, topped it with the cooked (but not totally browned) potatoes, and dabbed on a few bits of butter. I put the dish into the already hot oven for about 20 minutes for the flavors to meld and for the final crisping of the smashed potatoes.

When potatoes are a daily menu item, as they were for many of my Irish ancestors, having leftover mashed potatoes to turn a bit of leftover roast into a cottage pie was easy. However making the dish from scratch the way I often do can limit the number of times you enjoy this lovely meal.

By roasting off everything on a tray in the oven, it's much quicker and you have the bonus of that caramelized, roasty-toasty flavor on all the vegetables. And remember, you can use this method to make cottage pie with beef or a fish pie. You can also turn a tray of wonderful, roasted root vegetables into a meatless version.

Related posts:

10 Tips for Shepherd's Pie

Making Food in Layers Can Be Much Easier!

 

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Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2017 Penny & Ed Cherubino 

Three Meals from One Pot of Braised Chicken Thighs

The best way to avoid tiring of something you take the time to cook ahead is to have your initial cooking session create a product you can use to make other meals. In this case Penny braised a pan of chicken thighs in white wine, ginger, garlic, soy, and scallions. (Here are a bunch of recipes to help you find one to your taste.)

For our first meal, we enjoyed the thighs with brown rice, pea pods, and tomatoes. Penny cooked up a big batch of brown rice in our Instant Pot for us to use during a week with a lot of things on our to do lists.

On day two, the chicken was shredded and became part of a wok full of fried rice. This was a big batch so that second act for the chicken became two extra meals ready to go. (Just like when we order more takeout than we need for one meal.)

The third meal from our pot of braised chicken was a frittata with chicken, pre-cooked sautéed onions, a bit of the rice, a few scallions for color, and some grated pecorino. (Check out this post to learn about having sautéed onions on hand.)

Judith Jones in her delightful book "The Pleasures of Cooking for One" called this approach to using leftovers, "second rounds." We like that concept!  

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Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2017 Penny & Ed Cherubino 

Habits That Work in the BostonZest Kitchen

If you watch an experienced cook in the kitchen, you could pick up some good habits. There are things they do without thinking that should be part of all our cooking routines.

Work Clean

Wash your hands when you enter the kitchen to prepare to cook. This habit should be part of your food safety plan. As a person who prepares food for yourself and your family, you should be as serious about the topic of food safety as the restaurant chef who holds a Food Safety Certification.

If you are making a number of items, prepare the ones that will be used raw (such as the compound butter above) before you work with items that will be cooked, like the carrots and celery in this photo.

Beware of cross contamination. Use separate cutting boards and knives for meat and fresh foods or wash these items completely in hot, soapy water before changing what you are cutting. And, work on these raw proteins last. Keep them in the refrigerator until you are ready to cut them.

Cross contamination is also a factor if you are cooking for someone with a serious food allergy. 

In our small space, we have to clean as we go or there wouldn’t be any counter space left. While involved in a major cooking session, you'll see a container with hot, soapy water for us to toss in soiled utensils as we work.

Hand wash and dry your knives as soon as you finish using them. Knives in a bucket of soapy water are dangerous. Knives sitting on a counter among other cooking detritus are just waiting to cut someone.

Mise en Place and "Meanwhile"

There are times, like when you’re making a stir-fry, risotto, or a complex new recipe, when you should set up a complete collection of ready-to-use ingredients. Chef Sara Moulton came up with the term “meanwhile” for times when you should gather all the ingredients and equipment you need to make a dish and then get started.

Moulton suggests you, “Decide in what order you should prep the ingredients. For a pasta dish, for example, you should start by getting a large pot of water on to boil; meanwhile you can heat the oil in a skillet slowly while you chop the onion. Add the onion to the oil and cook it while you mince the garlic. Add the garlic to the onion while you chop the tomatoes, etc.”

Do you have a favorite habit that works in your kitchen? Share with us and our readers in the comments below!

Related Post:

The Kitchn's "Kitchen Habits of Good Cooks" Series Is Our Friday Link

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Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2017 Penny & Ed Cherubino 

(Adapted for BostonZest from one of our Fresh & Local newspaper columns.)

Building Your Cultural Food Shopping Skills

Do you hesitate to explore markets specializing in specific cultures because of a language barrier? Do you find it frustrating when you can’t read the labels on packages of food? I’ve recently added a new tool to enhance my international shopping skills.

Image from Google's information on this feature

Last winter a press release from Google announced a Japanese language expansion in their Google Translate app saying, “With Word Lens, you just need to fire up the Translate app, point your camera at the Japanese text, and the English translations will appear overlaid on your screen.”

My mind immediately saw this as a food shopper’s dream. I could see myself standing in a Japanese grocery store using my phone to read and compare the ingredients on packages. What’s more, since this app supports nearly 30 languages, you can point your phone at a package in any shop and it will do its best to figure out what language it is seeing and translate the information on that item.

Ask a Friend!

Far better than using a phone and app is exploring another culture with a friend who is part of that community, speaks the language, or who is far ahead of you in learning about that particular cuisine.

Ed and I enjoyed our first taste of Indian food with a couple who had lived in India. They not only explained the food, but also the dining etiquette.

Friends from Thailand wrote out, in Thai, a list of dishes we should try at a local restaurant that had a separate menu for anyone who wanted a meal made the way it would have been served in Thailand. We only had to point to a paragraph to order dishes prepared the way the customers with greater knowledge of Thai cuisine would prefer them. 

Take a Tour

If you’ve spent much time in the North End shops, you may have seen one of the tour groups learning more about the Italian offerings available in this neighborhood. Many home cooks may feel they know Italian food and the ingredients needed to make it, but I know that I learn a bit more each time I interact with North End shopkeepers.

In this area you can find tours of other neighborhoods and cultures as well. Penny recently took one of Jacqueline Church's Boston Chinatown Tours - Food, Fun, Fables and loved it. Even after years of visiting the neighborhood, dining there, and shopping in area stores, she learned a lot. (She'll be writing a full report on that experience soon, so watch for it!)

For anyone trying to make Vietnamese food, the book Into the Vietnamese Kitchen: Treasured Foodways, Modern Flavors has both photos and detailed notes on the herbs you might want to add to your shopping list.

Photo Notes

Another way that I put my phone camera to work is by taking photos of ingredients I’m seeking from the pages of one of the many ethnic cookbooks that have glossaries of food and equipment used in the culture the book covers.

A visit to your library’s cookbook section is a great place to begin exploring a cuisine. Grab a few books on the topic that have reference sections and borrow one or two that seem to supply the information you want.

Pick a recipe and take a photo of the notes or glossary entry on that ingredient. Then you can pull out your phone and show it to the shopkeeper or read it as you explore the shelves in an ethnic market.

Dedicated Guide Books

Author Linda Bladholm’s wonderful “Take It With You” guides to three ethnic cuisines were recently released as ebooks. Now you can have a copy on your phone for impromptu visits to Indian, Asian, or Latin cuisine. “The Indian Grocery Store Demystified,” was her first guide. The others substitute the culture “Asian” and “Latin & Caribbean” in their titles. Food Writer Bladholm takes you on a walk through the aisles of each culture with clear insight on the items offered. I highly recommend all three.

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Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2017 Penny & Ed Cherubino 

(Adapted for BostonZest from one of our Fresh & Local newspaper columns.)

Making Food in Layers Can Be Much Easier!

When I say, "Layers of food," does lasagna come to mind? Did you know that the etymology of the word lasagna is the Latin word “lasanum” meaning container or pot? That gives us the freedom to layer all sorts of food in a lasagna pan or, as was done during our region’s colonial days, in a pot that hung in the fireplace.

Chowder in Layers

I normally make clam chowder in a stockpot on my cooktop, but I’ve learned that in early chowder days the dish was made by layering the ingredients in a cauldron.

 

Here is a recipe for fish chowder from the 1832 edition of The American Frugal Housewife, by Lydia M. Child ...

“Four pounds of fish are enough to make a chowder for four or five people; half a dozen slices of salt pork in the bottom of the pot; hang it high, so that the pork may not burn; take it out when done very brown; put in a layer of fish, cut in lengthwise slices, then a layer formed of crackers, small or sliced onions, and potatoes sliced as thin as a four-pence, mixed with pieces of pork you have fried; then a layer of fish again, and so on. Six crackers are enough. Strew a little salt and pepper over each layer; over the whole pour a bowl-full of flour and water, enough to come up even with the surface of what you have in the pot. A sliced lemon adds to the flavor. A cup of tomato catsup is very excellent. Some people put in a cup of beer. A few clams are a pleasant addition. It should be covered so as not to let a particle of steam escape, if possible. Do not open it, except when nearly done, to taste if it be well seasoned.”

  

In the first photo, you see a favorite Portuguese Fisherman’s Stew recipe from Yankee's Lost & Vintage Recipes that is made in layers. Aromatics – onions, garlic, parsley, and herbs – are sautéed and then layered with white fish, potatoes, and tomatoes in a white wine broth. You can cover this and simmer it on top of the stove, in an oven, over a campfire, or in a fireplace.

 

Easier in Layers

When I’m craving stuffed cabbage but don’t have the time to make the dish the traditional way, I make a casserole with layers of sauce, meat and rice mixture, and sautéed cabbage. For a potluck, you can make a big dish of this without the fuss of rolling individual servings. Sometimes I tuck a layer of kielbasa slices among the usual ingredients.

Just think of the variations on lasagna. You can use eggplant or zucchini and keep it vegetarian or load it with sausage, cheese, and meat for hearty appetites.

Other favorite, layered main courses are the famous meat and potato pies from the British Isles: fish pie, shepherd’s pie, and cottage pie.

If you have a favorite dish with some fussy preparation steps, think about making it as a layered casserole.

Related post:

10 Tips for Shepherd's Pie

 

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Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2017 Penny & Ed Cherubino 

(Adapted for BostonZest from one of our Fresh & Local newspaper columns.)

Portion Control: Small Dishes Are Healthy Eating Tools

For the past year, we have both been eating in a much healthier way. Today's "Friday Link" is to some reports on portion control and how important the concept is to our overall health. 

First you have to understand that what we consider a "portion of food" today has changed over the years. Business insider gives a breakdown of the change in size of some popular items we eat. 

Over on VegKitchen there is a breakdown of how the size of dinnerware has increased.

The Mayo Clinic has a post on visual cues you can use to remember what a portion of various food groups should be. For example, your protein portion should be the size of a deck of cards and four dice-size cheese cubes = one portion.

Tips and Tricks

One of the tricks that Penny has used in her successful weight loss program is serving herself on smaller plates. 

This light supper of avocado toast and vegetables looks like a full plate when it's served on a small bread & butter dish. 

A little treat like ice cream is served in espresso cups. That way a treat does not become a threat to a healthier lifestyle. 

Other nibbles, like almonds, are measured out in mini mason jars in the morning, assuring that she knows how many she's eaten that day. 

In fact we have lots of mason jars in various sizes. These can hold about one portion of pretzels or grapes for snacking or pre-measured servings of soup or a casserole for a meal.

When Dining Out

Often Penny will order an appetizer as her main course or we'll share an entrée and appetizer or an entrée and dessert. She has also discovered that if she chooses a food that takes time and attention to eat – such as clams, mussels, chicken wings, or artichokes – she'll take her time and eat less. And a slice of grilled bread (like the one in the photo above) is always shared with Ed, the resident bread-a-holic. 

When faced with an oversized portion, you can decide how much you can eat. Ask for a sharing plate. Put the portion you want on that plate and either offer the rest to your dining companions or ask the server to put that in a take-out container to have for another meal. While there are certain dishes we love ordering, the portions are often so large that we can enjoy two or sometimes three meals from them.

If you make yourself more aware of what a portion should be, you'll eat healthy quantities and perhaps decide that you would rather buy smaller portions of local, sustainable food instead of large portions of cheap food from big commercial producers. 

 

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Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2017 Penny & Ed Cherubino 

Freeze Those Bones for Fabulous Chicken Soup!

This luscious bowl of chicken noodle soup was made from the remains of three rotisserie chickens, a few fresh vegetables, and some leftover noodles.

We're sure many of you have turned to one of these fully-cooked birds when faced with a busy week. They're great for a simple meal and, the second day, they can be added to a salad or sandwich for another quick supper. 

But, do you save the bones, skin, and that wonderful gelatin in the bottom of the container for when you have time to create a great soup? Everyone from your Grandmother to the honorary Great Aunt of a generation for cooks, Julia Child, has told you to stow your cooking scraps in the freezer to make stocks. 

In this age of wasted food, it really feels good to turn something that would have been trashed into a great meal.

The pot in the photo above contains the contents of a bag of chicken bones, skin, and gelatin that we had added to, over a month or so. Penny took it from the freezer on a rainy afternoon and turned it into a lick-smacking, rich, sticky-with-goodness chicken stock. 

When she prepped the flavorings of carrot, onion, and celery to make the stock, she chopped up enough to create a soup when the stock was finished.

 

After lifting out as many bones and bits as she could with a spider (like the one above), she strained the broth into a bowl through a fine sieve. After it sat and settled, she removed most of the fat with paper towels.

A quick wipe of the pan assured there were no bone bits remaining. That let her make the soup in the same pan – one of her favorites. She lightly sautéed the waiting veg in a bit of olive oil before returning enough stock to the pan to make a few servings of soup. Once the vegetables were cooked, she added some pieces of white meat from the last of the chickens that became the stock.

If you've never tried this method of making chicken stock, you are missing out on some big flavor. Remember to go easy on the salt because those chickens have already been seasoned and may have been brined.

Penny never added any salt to ours, but she did add a dribble of soy sauce for depth of flavor. This batch also had pieces of ginger, star anise, clove, and a touch of sherry vinegar right at the end. 

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Words: Penny & Ed Cherubino
Photos: ©2017 Penny & Ed Cherubino