Saveur: The New Comfort Food (7 page)
Read Saveur: The New Comfort Food Online
Authors: James Oseland
In Jewish households around the country, chicken soup is so closely associated with comfort and well-being that it has earned the nickname Jewish penicillin. With the addition of matzo balls, it is often served at the Passover meal. This recipe comes from saveur contributor Pamela Renner, who adds a little seltzer or club soda to the matzo balls to ensure that they turn out light and airy.
12 sprigs fresh dill
3 sprigs fresh cilantro
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 small yellow onions, thinly sliced
1 bunch celery, cut into ½ -inch pieces Sprigs from ½ bunch flat-leaf parsley, plus 1 tbsp. chopped
3 large carrots, peeled and cut into ½ -inch pieces
1 turnip, peeled and cut into ½ -inch pieces
1 parsnip, cut into ½ -inch pieces
1 3½ -lb. whole chicken
1 lb. chicken feet (optional) Salt, to taste
2 tbsp. seltzer or club soda
1
/
8
tsp. dried dill2 eggs, at room temperature
½ cup plus 1 tbsp. matzo meal
Serves 8–10
1. Gather the fresh dill, cilantro, garlic cloves, onions, celery, and parsley sprigs in a piece of cheesecloth to form a purse; secure with twine. Make a second purse with the carrots, turnips, and parsnips.
2. Put the dill purse, chicken, chicken feet, salt, and 1½ gallons of water into a large pot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, for about 1½ hours. Add the carrot purse and simmer gently, covered, until the carrots are tender, about 30 minutes.
3. Remove and discard the dill purse and chicken feet. Transfer the chicken and carrot purse to a plate and let cool. Pull enough breast meat into fine shreds to make 3/4 cup. Reserve 1 cup of the vegetables from the carrot purse. Cover and chill the shredded chicken and vegetables. (Reserve the remaining chicken and vegetables for another use.) Set a fine mesh sieve over a large bowl and strain the broth; chill overnight. Skim off and discard all but 2 tbsp. chicken fat from broth; set fat aside.
4. Whisk together the reserved chicken fat, club soda, dried dill, and eggs in a bowl. Pour in the matzo meal while whisking. Cover and chill the matzo mixture for 15 minutes.
5. Bring 2½ qts. salted water to a boil over high heat. With wet hands, form the matzo mixture into 1-inch balls. Reduce the heat to medium and drop in the matzo balls. Cook, covered, for about 15 minutes. Stir the matzo balls gently and simmer, covered, until fluffy, about 10 minutes more.
6. Meanwhile, transfer the reserved shredded chicken, vegetables, and broth to a large pot and heat over medium heat. Transfer the matzo balls to the broth. Serve the soup garnished with chopped parsley, if you like.
In Texas, chili is practically a religion—and by chili Texans mean cubed beef chuck simmered for hours with tomatoes and chili powder and then thickened with masa harina (corn flour). Don’t even think about adding beans. Each year, scores of the faithful converge in the town of Terlingua, Texas, for the mother of all chili cook-offs; this recipe, created by home cook Woody DeSilva, took first prize in 1968.
4 lbs. beef chuck, trimmed and cut into ½ -inch cubes Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
4 tbsp. canola oil
5 medium onions, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 6-oz. cans tomato paste
4 tbsp. dried oregano
3 tbsp. chili powder
4 tsp. ground chile pequín or cayenne pepper
1 tbsp. sweet paprika
1 tbsp. Tabasco
1 tsp. ground cumin
4 tbsp. masa harina
Serves 6
1. Season the beef with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a 6-qt. pot over high heat. Working in 4 batches, brown the beef, about 3 minutes per batch. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the beef to a plate.
2. Add the onions and garlic to the pot, reserving a few tablespoonfuls of chopped onion for garnish. Cook, stirring, until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Return the beef to the pot, stir in the tomato paste, and cook, stirring frequently and scraping the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon, until the tomato paste is caramelized, 10–12 minutes. Add the oregano, chili powder, chile pequín, paprika, Tabasco, and cumin; cook, stirring frequently, for 1 minute.
3. Add 5 cups water to the chili and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the meat is tender, about 2 hours.
4. Stir the masa harina into the chili, season with salt, and simmer, stirring, until thickened, about 5 minutes. Ladle into serving bowls and garnish with the reserved onions, if you like.
Chili powder is to Texas what peanut butter is to jelly: you can’t think of one without the other. With its deep red color and robust aroma, chili powder is the very essence of Tex-Mex food, seasoning everything from the meat for chilies and tacos to the sauce for enchiladas. The powder is made from seemingly mundane ingredients—dried chiles (usually ancho), oregano, cumin, garlic, and, sometimes, salt—that, when processed together, make a substance whose properties are nothing short of magical. Chili powder disperses its color and potent flavor when fried in oil or grease, melding with the beef and tomatoes in a pot of chili to create its distinctive taste and look. Rubbed onto a steak before grilling, it lends a striking hue and char. Chili powder was invented in Texas; by whom is a matter of some dispute. The chili historian Joe Cooper maintains that a German immigrant named William Gebhardt invented the first chili powder in 1896 in the town of New Braunfels, which lies between Austin and San Antonio. Gebhardt operated a café in the back of a place called Miller’s Saloon and devised a way of pulverizing Mexican dried chiles using a meat grinder (probably in an adaptation of the Hungarian method for making paprika). He sold his new product as “Tampico Dust” but later changed the name to Gebhardt’s Eagle Chili Powder, as it is still called today.
Tom Yum Goong
Fragrant with lime juice and lemongrass, this hot and sour soup is served throughout Thailand, with subtle regional variations in heat, sweetness, and pungency. Pictured are Wai Smitaman and his wife, Kiew Krislas, a home cook in southern Thailand who provided the recipe upon which this one was based.
3 large stalks fresh lemongrass
4 cups chicken stock
12 fresh or frozen Kaffir lime leaves
1 cup canned straw mushrooms, drained
2-4 tbsp. roasted Thai chile paste (nam prik pao)
8 oz. medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
1½ tbsp. fish sauce
4-6 Thai chiles, stemmed and smashed with side of a knife
3 scallions, cut into 1-inch lengths Juice of 1 lime
2 cups cooked rice (optional)
Serves 2
1. Trim tip and root ends of lemongrass stalks and remove and discard tough outer layer. Using a meat mallet or the side of a knife, smash lemongrass to flatten it; tie stalks into a knot; set aside. Pour stock into a 2-qt. saucepan and bring to a boil. Add lemongrass and half the lime leaves, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until fragrant, about 5 minutes.
2. Remove and discard lemongrass and lime leaves and increase heat to high. Stir in mushrooms and chile paste, to taste, and boil for 1 minute; add shrimp and fish sauce and cook until shrimp are just cooked through, about 45 seconds. Combine remaining lime leaves with chiles, scallions, and lime juice in a serving bowl or tureen. Ladle soup into serving bowl, stir, and serve immediately, with rice, if you like.
For my 13th-birthday dinner, my parents and I drove from our home in Falmouth, Massachusetts, to Boston to eat at a popular Thai restaurant called the King and I. This was a big deal. We didn’t go to Boston often and we’d never eaten Thai food. In small-town Massachusetts at that time, the brick oven pizzeria was as urbane as it got. The place was bright and loud and packed. The waiter came over and we each ordered pad Thai—the noodles were enough like pasta to assuage my father, who would rather have been at a red-sauce joint—plus a bowl of tom yum soup for me, which I chose because it included shrimp. The soup arrived first, a brown crock of cloudy broth with a few mushrooms, a sprig of cilantro, flecks of chopped something (lemongrass and Kaffir lime leaf, I would later learn), and just one pink shrimp. No matter; it was the broth that floored me. It had an unfamiliar sourness that was round and sweet, but it also had an intriguing fishy flavor and a beautiful citrusy fragrance. Then the pad Thai arrived, a heap of rice noodles tangled with stir-fried egg and scallion, sprinkled with peanuts, all of it strange to me and addictive. I remember looking around to see how the other diners used chopsticks, and then back at my quiet family who twirled our noodles around forks. After that meal, I’d sit in algebra class and dream of tom yum, the memory of its tartness making my mouth water. I’d spend weekends making pad Thai for my friends, once I realized that the “international foods” section of the Stop & Shop carried fish sauce. That soup made me lust for places like New York City, where surely everyone ate things like Thai food every night. And when I finally moved there—and realized that they didn’t—I felt at home anyway.