With Love and Quiches (35 page)

Notes:
These tomatoes will taste quite sweet. Serve on salads, with cheese, or anytime as an elegant replacement for store-bought sundried tomatoes.

I will now share one of my most versatile secrets, a recipe that can be used in a dozen different ways. The quantities can be doubled or tripled or quadrupled for larger gatherings. I adore mushrooms, any kind, and include them someplace with almost every meal, even in quiche.

Remove tough part of stems from the variety of mushrooms being used, and slice thin.

Sauté first three ingredients in the olive oil in large sauté pan until soft over medium heat for about 10 to 15 minutes.

Add mushrooms (and tomato if used) to sauté pan and continue cooking until mushrooms begin to give up liquid. Add wine and reserved soaking liquid (if desired) to pan; continue cooking until liquids reduce but mixture still retains some moisture.

Season to taste. When it tastes just right, it is finished!

To serve: Use ½ cup per serving as appetizer component, ¾ cup per side dish, 1 cup per main dish component (i.e., as a pasta sauce).

Notes:
Other varieties of wild mushrooms such as chanterelles and morels are lovely, but they’re not so easy to find and are sometimes very gritty and hard to clean. This delicious basic mixture can be used in a dozen different ways:

Wild Mushroom Ragu
: Serve as is as a side dish with any roast, poultry, or fish. Complements almost anything very well. Add a handful of fresh chopped Italian parsley, if desired.

Warm Wild Mushroom Salad
: Dress mixed baby greens, mache lettuce, or other elegant small greens with a little olive oil and white or dark balsamic vinegar, a bit of salt, and fresh ground pepper. Divide evenly among six plates; mound some of the wild mushrooms on top of each.
For added interest
, mix a few tablespoons of toasted pine nuts into the greens, and/or sprinkle some top-quality shaved Parmesan on top of each salad plate.

Wild Mushroom Soup
: Transfer entire mushroom mixture to small stockpot. Add ½ cup of sherry and 3 cups of reduced salt chicken stock and simmer for about 20 minutes. Puree the mixture or leave as is, as desired. Add up to 1 cup light or heavy cream (I use light), simmer another few minutes, correct seasonings with a bit more sea salt and fresh ground black pepper, and serve.

Wild Mushroom Omelet
: Use some of the wild mushroom mixture with some shredded Gruyère or fontina cheese folded in, one part mushrooms to two parts cheese or one to one, as a great filling for omelets with lightly dressed greens on the side for an elegant brunch or luncheon dish.

Wild Mushroom Risotto
: Cook Arborio rice in broth, according to package instructions, using about ¼ cup dry rice per person. Fold into wild mushroom (to create a nice balance) in deep sauté pan, simmer a few minutes until heated through, adding a bit more broth
as necessary to achieve a creamy and moist (but not soupy) consistency. Correct seasoning. Serve with fresh grated Parmesan cheese, if available, or good quality packaged, as a main dish (about 1½ cups risotto mixture) or as an appetizer (about ¾ cup risotto mixture).

Wild Mushroom Pasta
: Boil orzo (a long grain rice–shaped pasta) in broth or water according to instructions, or thin spaghetti or linguini in water according to instructions. Use 2 to 3 oz. dry pasta per person (however, I use at least 3 oz. per person), drain (reserving a little cooking liquid), then stir into wild mushroom mixture (as noted above, about 1 cup mushroom mixture per portion of cooked pasta) and reheat for a few minutes on medium heat, adding some cooking liquid or broth as needed to keep the mixture loose but not too soupy. Toss in a handful of fresh chopped curly or Italian parsley. Adjust seasoning with salt and fresh ground black pepper, and serve as a main dish with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

For added interest
, sauté 4 to 6 oz. diced pancetta bacon or diced prosciutto until crisp; then drain away the rendered fat. Toss into wild mushroom mixture along with the cooked pasta while heating. Some finely diced fresh tomato, drained of liquid and seeds, is also very nice and adds a bit of color.

There are more ways to serve this delicious stuff. I have not been too specific on purpose. Be imaginative;
just do it. I
always have. The suggested quantities will vary depending upon who you are serving.

This recipe is elegant and easy, and defers to all my friends that prefer to eat healthy. It is delicious.

Serves 6 generously

Preheat oven broiler until very hot.

Lay salmon filet into heavy oval ovenproof ceramic serving dish, large enough to lay filet flat, or rimmed broiling pan (although it is tricky to transfer whole onto serving platter).

Season with the salt and pepper.

Spread bread crumbs evenly over the filet.

Spray olive oil over entire surface of crumb-covered salmon to completely cover the bread crumbs (to avoid burning the crumbs).

Pour the wine all around the edges of the pan, but not
over
the salmon filet.

Sauté the onions in a frying pan in the oil until soft and translucent. Add the sugar and continue to sauté for a few more minutes. Set aside.

Place the salmon in top third of oven and broil for 5 minutes.

Pull the pan out and spoon the onion mixture over the white wine around the edges of the pan.

Return to the oven and broil the salmon for 4 or 5 more minutes
only
for medium rare. Do
not
overcook.

Serve at table, dividing into 6 slices and spooning some of the onion and white wine sauce onto each plate. Sprinkle a bit of the parsley over each serving.

Serve with mustard sauce, recipe below.

One of my tried-and-true staples, good with almost any meat, fish, poultry, or vegetable.

Combine first two ingredients and simmer in saucepan (low heat to prevent burning) on stovetop until reduced by exactly half. Use a marked stick to keep track. This process takes time; be patient. Remove from heat.

Stir mustard into warm, reduced liquids.

Season with the salt and pepper, and serve.

Notes:
Can be refrigerated for up to three or four weeks. Reheat
very
gently to avoid curdling. This recipe can be doubled, tripled, or quadrupled for larger gatherings, but increases the reduction time for the liquids quite a bit. Be patient.

This method will produce a crackly, dark skin. My friends and family are big eaters, and each chicken will feed no more than three, maybe four, tops.
So two chickens are a better bet, with leftovers for the next day. In my notes at the end, I’ll give some quick instructions for Chicken Under a Brick for the more ambitious cook.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Remove any giblets from cavity; rinse and pat chicken dry. Rub with lemon and orange half and allow to air dry a few minutes.

Rub chicken inside and out with the butter, salt, and pepper.

Place the remaining lemon and orange halves, the onion half, the shallots, and rosemary in the cavity.

Place chicken breast-side up in a roasting pan, on a
rack
so that the back won’t stew in its own juices. Bake for 40 minutes. Flip to breast-side down and continue to roast for another 15 minutes. Flip again to breast-side up for another 5 minutes—1 hour total. Remove from oven. Test for doneness by piercing flesh of the leg with a knife tip. If juices run clear, it is done (or instant read thermometer inserted into thickest part of leg reads no higher than 165 degrees F). Do
not
overcook or breast will be dry; cook just until done.

Carve chicken into 8 to 10 pieces, and serve with the sweet and tart barbeque sauce described below.

Notes:
For
Chicken Under a Brick
, use one baby chicken or Cornish hen per person, cut in half down the back, backbone removed, opened like a book and flattened. Season with same ingredients for roasted
chicken above, bake skin-side down in very hot 475-degree F oven in preheated cast iron skillet, weighted down with a preheated tinfoil-covered brick which conducts heat quite well (be very careful to use oven gloves to handle). Thirty minutes should be enough time to cook the birds through.

This “no work” sauce keeps forever in the fridge and is always a big hit. Everybody loves it!

Combine all four ingredients in saucepan, mixing well.

Cook gently on stovetop over low heat, to prevent sputtering, for about 10 minutes.

Nothing else is needed for this perfect sauce.

This is one of my favorite recipes, quite low in calories and easy to scale up for a crowd. I usually also throw in some shiitake mushrooms while sautéing the onions and leeks—not to sound too redundant or obsessive about my mushroom use.

Serves 6 generously

In a deep stockpot, over medium high heat, sauté first three ingredients in the oil until translucent and softened, but not too brown.

Add bay leaves and white wine and simmer for a few minutes.

Add the stock, tomatoes, salt, pepper, and oregano, and simmer for about ½ hour over low heat, adding a bit more wine or broth to keep the mixture soupy. Remove the bay leaves.

While the sauce is simmering, boil 4 qt. water in another deep pot, adding the salt, oil, and vinegar. Add pasta, stirring occasionally, and cook, al dente, as instructed. Drain, reserving some cooking liquid.