That Bulgar Keema Thing

So far I've been trying to post some of more tried and true recipes, or even items like the French Silk Pie which was someone else's recipe and basically I documented my experiences with it.  (All good, by the way.)

However, that is not how I usually roll in the kitchen.  Tonight's dinner was more typical.  Leaving the office and walking to my car I thought to myself, "I really need to cook or freeze that ground beef that's in the fridge."  This was soon followed by "Ugh.  Why do I buy ground beef?  I make the same boring stuff with it ... burgers, spaghetti sauce, meatloaf.  AGH!"  And I trudged along for half a block and then thought, "Wait a minute.  Indian cooking uses a lot of spiced ground meats.  So does Turkish cooking and ... well, wow, there's just a whole lot of options out there that would be so much more interesting."

By the time I got to my car I was rifling through my pantry in my head, determined not to stop at the grocery store for anything.  What would it be good with?  Oh, I know, I have bulgar wheat!  And I could use that lemon juice, olive oil, cinnamon dressing that I do ...  oh wait.  No lemon.  Ah-hah!  But I have limes!  And fresh parsley!

And so it went on the drive home.  By the time I got into the kitchen I was in full wing-it mode, talking to myself as I poked around in the fridge and cupboards.  Oh look!  There's that baby spinach salad I got the other day for lunch and never ate.  That would go great chopped up with the parsley.  Ah, and a quarter of a red onion.  What's this?  A can of chickpeas?  Perfection.  Oh, and next to the lime is one sad looking tomato that really needs to be cooked in something.  Peachy!  Chicken stock in the fridge.  Yay!

The end result was pretty much a keema mixed with a bulgar pilaf.

I'm going to try to capture it here for myself (and my husband who kept saying "This is really good!" every third bite), and for anyone who would like an idea of how I usually roll.

The Stuff...

...for the bulgar.
1 Cup bulgar wheat
1 1/2 Cups good quality chicken stock (not broth, stock)

... for the keema.
1/3 lb of good quality ground chuck
1/2 C canned (or cooked) chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans)
1 medium ripe tomato, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed into a paste
1 inch of ginger, crushed into a paste
1/2 tsp ground cayenne pepper (or more or less depending on your heat tolerance)
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp garam masala
Salt and black pepper to taste

... to make it a pilaf.
chopped baby spinach
raisins (or currants or dried cranberries...)
chopped red onion
chopped fresh parsley
anything else that you think would be yummy. 

Like chopped green olives?  or chopped toasted almonds or pistachios?  pine nuts? Ooo... next time, yah yah.

... to dress it all up.
1/4 C good quality extra virgin olive oil
juice from 1 lime
salt and pepper

The Way with some Ideas thrown in.

In a medium saucepan heat the stock to a boil and pour in bulgar wheat.  Return to a boil, cover with a tight fitting lid and turn heat very low (gas) or off (electric).  Leave it alone for 10 - 20 minutes depending on your bulgar.  Alternatively, follow the cooking directions on the package if you bought it that way.  I find most commercial bulgar cooking directions call for too much liquid and produce a cooked cereal thing not a pilaf thing.

Saute garlic, ginger, ground beef, cayenne, cumin and coriander until beef is browned.  Add chickpeas and tomatoes.  Cook until tomatoes are softened and all the flavors have had a chance to meld.  Maybe 5 minutes.  Add garam masala and stir.

Toss any dried fruit you may be using on top of the cooked bulgar and put the lid back on it to let it steam for a couple of minutes.  The drier the fruit, the longer the steam.  You don't want it mushy though.  Fluff the bulgar before adding it to the other ingredients.

In a small bowl, whisk olive oil and lemon juice together until emulsified (this is seconds if you have a good whisk).  Add salt and pepper to taste.

In a large bowl, combine all your chopped fresh veggies and herbs with the bulgar mixture and beef mixture.  Toss it together.  Drizzle with the olive oil dressing and toss again.
 

Taste it.  Adjust taste with salt and pepper.  I found mine needed a little something and concluded that it wasn't more salt, but rather a little sweet - which often fixes a salt problem when you find yourself adding more salt and more salt and more salt and not getting what you're after.   So I drizzled on a little agave nectar (honey would work) and that did the trick.

I served it up on bright red soup plates and topped it with a green olive.  This made enough for my husband and I to both have it for dinner, and I would say there are probably 4 servings left.  At least some of it's going to the office with me for tomorrow's lunch.

Also ... this whole thing was concocted, served and eaten within 30 minutes.  Definitely a workable work night dinner. Also a testament to how fast we can inhale food around here.

Crusty Crostini

Everything is on crostini lately, and food magazines yell at me that I must follow their secret to success, usually involving a grill, if I want my parties to be the talk of the season.  Thankfully, I'm not worried about being the talk of anything and I watched Julie & Julia so I know that you can make heart breakingly yummy food on a small stove in a cramped apartment.

When it comes to cooking, I am inspired by an unpredictable assortment of books, movies, sights, scents ... in the case of crostini, I was enchanted with the scene where Julie is making grilled bread in a cast iron skillet on her stove.  The colors were so vibrant, the technique so simple, the equipment something I already had, the end result mouthwatering.

And I thought: Hey, I can do that!

And I did.

The Stuff
Good quality bread (and I don't mean Pepperidge Farm sandwich!)
Olive oil and/or butter

The Way
Slice the bread into @1/2 inch slices - thick enough to be sturdy, thin enough that you won't have to dislocate your jaw to get a mouthful of the bread plus toppings.
Heat a cast iron skillet (oh, okay, any skillet, really) over medium heat.
Brush both sides of the bread with olive oil (or a combination of olive oil and butter).
Snuggle bread slices into skillet and cook on each side until golden brown with some dark brown almost burnt parts.
Serve topped with your choice of yumminess.

Ideas
Rub a halved clove of garlic over the hot, crunchy bread before topping.
Don't bother topping it at all and just inhale.
Top with...
     fresh mozzerella, basil and tomato.
     chopped tomatoes, roasted red pepper, minced onion.

Talk back: What's your favorite topping?

Rosemary Chicken Dinner

Years ago I picked up a cooking magazine that featured a "French roast chicken dinner" on the cover.  I don't know if I ever cooked the dish according to that recipe or not, but I do know that the ideas took root and became one of my "go to" dinners. 

This is one of those mindless throw-it-all-in-the-oven dinners that fills your home with heady aromas, hits the table looking like a million bucks and causes that most sought after of responses ... the pause, the groan, and then the deep silence of what our family calls "happy eating sounds."

So, without further ado, I present to you my Rosemary Chicken.

The Proportions
1 chicken, cut-up (or one cut up chicken, however you like to deal with it)
4 medium sized russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 2 inch chunks
1 large white onion, minced
2 tsp salt
2 tsp black pepper
2 Tbs fresh rosemary
1 Cup white wine

The Method
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Mix minced onion, salt, pepper, potato chunks and chicken pieces together in a large oven proof pan.
Bake chicken and potatoes at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, or until chicken is just starting to brown.
Add white wine to chicken and cover with foil.
Lower oven temperature to 350 degrees.
Bake for 30 - 45 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. 
Remove foil.
Bake for another 20 minutes or until chicken is a deep golden brown and sauce has reduced.

The Tips
Can we talk chicken here for a minute?  The spongy white @#$% sold in our grocery stores isn't worth the price (no matter how low) you pay.  It's crammed with pesticides, antibiotics and hormones but even worse - it's tasteless!  It's been processed by being submerged in ice cold water until it's completely water logged and then frozen for shipping.  Is it any wonder that it resembles its styrofoam packing?  Even if you can't afford or find true free range organic hens, I do recommend that you seek out something like Smart Chicken that is air chilled instead of drowned in dirty water.  It really will make a difference.  By the way, if you haven't ever worked with a "real" chicken before?  Yes, the fat is supposed to be bright yellow, the breast meat is supposed to be a dark pink and the thighs really are meant to by that ruby color.

So ... anyway.  Buy good chicken.  Please.

Fresh herbs.  I'm not even going to say more.  Except that sure, I've made this dish with dried rosemary any number of times.  It's yummy.  Fresh herbs are just better, that's all.

Potatoes?  I listed 4 russet potatoes because that's what I had when I made this tonight.  There were sort of sad so I peeled them.  It could just as easily be 8 red skins, skins on and halved.  Or 12 baby potatoes.  Or whatever floats your potato boat.  It's going to get coated in chicken fat, salt, pepper, rosemary and white wine.  It's kind of hard to go wrong.

A few last thoughts - make sure that your baking dish is large enough that the potatoes and chicken fit in a single layer without being too crowded.  I use a huge skillet that is also known as my chicken frying skillet (we'll get to that one day).  I got it from my Mom.  She got it from her Dad.  He made it, or so the story goes.

You can substitute chicken stock for the white wine if you prefer not to cook with alcohol (although all the alcoholic content bubbles off).  Just remember one thing.  Skip or significantly lower the amount of salt you use if you're using stock in place of wine.  It's best to realize you don't have any white wine in the house after all BEFORE you add the salt ... just ask my son Michael.  He'll take great delight in telling you exactly how inedible the end results are if you don't adjust the salt for using stock instead of wine!