Staple, Thanksgiving Edition: Vegetable Stock

When I said I'd bring four sides to Thanksgiving this year, it seemed like a good time to make the vegetable stock in How to Cook Everything. There's a bunch of vegetarians in the family, so I couldn't use chicken or pork stock where I usually would--cooking beans, finishing soups, moistening stuffing--so, vegetable stock.

It's pretty simple. What you see above is a whole mess of chopped up veggies--carrots, celery, onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, parsley, some garlic--with some soy sauce and peppercorns. Throw them in a pot, cover with water, bring to a boil, reduce to very low simmer, and let cook for at least thirty minutes, more if possible. Bittman doesn't suggest a maximum time but if you've read Michael Ruhlman's The Elements of Cooking, you'll be completely terrified to simmer for anywhere more than an hour (though if you're like me, you probably don't remember the reason he gave). Also taking a queue from Ruhlman, I browned some of the veggies before adding the water for a deeper color and flavor.

Then you just strain, squeezing any excess water and flavor out of the veggies. The broth is delicious: savory with a touch of sweetness. It's very complex. The mushrooms even add a touch of meatiness, without imparting their distinctive--and, for people like my cousin Sara, dealbreaking--mushroomy flavor. You don't taste this and think "mushrooms." I can't wait to see how it works in the dishes I'm planning to make (the lentils, which I cooked beforehand in this stock, were good).

The Paupered Chef Will Teach You To Make Stock, If You Will Let Them

I've made chicken stock before, and I do it more and more now. It's not that hard, if you have the time, and it's worth it. I still keep some store bought stock in my pantry just in case I need it. I'm only human.

When I first made stock way back in the beginning of the HTCE project I didn't provide a ton of step by step directions. So I thought I'd pass along this post from The Paupered Chef's Nick Kindelsperger. It's a well written and beautifully photographed account of Kindelsperger's quest to make the best Jewish penicillin he can muster for his ailing wife. It is, dare I say it, better than Bittman's recipe in How to Cook Everything (there are ways in which the blog is a better forum for the recipe than the printed page, yes?).

Since I first made stock, I've been after the perfect recipe. Bittman's comes out light and simple, and it's not bad by a long shot. But I like a really strong, dark brown thing that I just didn't get from HTCE. I've been looking for tips all over, but what I think has made the most difference came from Michael Ruhlman's The Elements of Cooking, an essential text for the home cook looking to gleam some helpful knowledge from the pros. What you do is brown the chicken in the stockpot you're going to use before you add the water. The caramelized bits of meat give the stock a deeper darker color and flavor. You can also use this method to brown any vegetables you are using, to the same effect. Just don't tell Mr. Ruhlman that you keep canned stock just in case. He will NOT let it slide.

Well, Ruhlman's a bit of a snob (it's why we love--him someone's got to uphold these standards, right?) and I wouldn't go that far. But with that said, I can't recommend enough taking a crack at homemade stock. It's not difficult, it just takes time. Use Kindelsperger's recipe, or Arthur Schwartz's. or Bittman's or Ruhlman's or Pepin's or your grandma's or whoever you like. It's cathartic, and your house will smell incredible. And then when you inevitably get your first cold of the fall, there's Jewish penicillin right there in the freezer, waiting for you. And it's way better than canned.


Building a Better Chicken Soup [the paupered chef]
THE Best Time to Make Stock [michael ruhlman's blog]

Simple, Easy, Complete: Hainan Style Chicken, Mustard Greens with Double Garlic

So, as Bittman alludes to in his intro to this recipe, it's a bit bland. You definitely need a dipping sauce or three to rescue it. It's easy, though, and it left me with a ton of leftovers, including some stock. Also, it's really cheap since you can use a whole chicken, although I guess some people would rather use just breasts. If that's the case, I implore you, go bone-in. I think this would be really bland and dried out without the bone, since the stock probably wouldnt pick up all that much flavor from just plain breast meat.

All you do is boil water with some salt, ginger, and garlic, add chicken, cover and turn off the heat after 10 minutes and let it sit for an hour. This keeps it pretty moist and tender. Then you cook rice with the stock, and serve it with the chicken and Ginger Scallion sauce for dipping. It's nice and light, lets the chicken flaunt its poultriness, and tastes pretty good. Also, there was this whole thing in the recipe about tomatoes and cucumbers, but I didn't have any of those around, so I skipped it. Maybe the recipe would've been a bit more remarkable had I included it, but I mean, what are the odds of that?

I think next time I would slice up the chicken before serving, which would make it look a bit less sloppy, but other than that, this is a pretty good, pretty easy (if a bit time consuming) one pot dish. We made it with the How to Cook Everything recipe for dandelion greens (we substituted mustard greens), which was good, even though Talia oversalted it. Clownshoe.

There were pictures of this, but really, they didn't make it look very tasty, so they aren't getting posted here. It was worse than the Chicken with Yogurt debacle.

Feast for a Knucklehead: The Simplest Paella, Seared Baby Bok Choy with Bacon Vinaigrette, and Roasted Asparagus

Sunday was the one week anniversary of my least favorite brother Jonathan's 26th birthday. In honor of this occasion, I told him I'd make him and his friends whatever he wanted (so long as it was in How To Cook Everything, of course). So that's how we ended up with Paella, a deceptively easy dish that takes much less time than everyone thinks. Since it was a special occasion, I replaced half the shrimp with squid and added some chorizo to the recipe for good measure. Check it out:


Basically, it works like this: saute some onions in olive oil, add chorizo if you're using it, and then add the rice (preferably paella rice, though I used arborio at Bittman's suggestion and it worked) and cook it for a minute until it looks "shiny." At this point you add the stock that's been heating up with saffron in it (if you're me, you add the saffron with the rice instead of letting it heat with the broth, resulting in a still very tasty but less orange dish), stir in the shrimp and squid, and throw it in a 450 degree oven for 15 minutes.


It actually took more like 30 minutes, but my oven is trife). When the rice is cooked through and the top is getting a nice brown layer, you're good. This was completely delicious and the chorizo was predictably a great call.

For veggies, we had two dishes. Roasted Asparagus is something I've made 100 times before, and it turns out is also in HTCE. I burnt them a little. They were still good, in fact I think they were better than usual. That's one veggie that does real well under high heat. I think next time I may even try the broiler (the recipe was for Grilled, Broiled, or Roasted Asparagus so there's a lot of room for interpretation as long as the heat is high).


But that was overshadowed, I'm afraid. It's not that it wasn't good (which it was) and it's not that I forgot the lemon wedges Bittman recommends (which I did). It's just that the other vegetable dish last night had bacon in it. So you see, it wasn't really fair. Seared Baby Bok Choy with Bacon Vinaigrette is simpy unfuckwithable, and not just because of the bacon. You boil and shock baby bok choy, cut it in half, and then cook it cut side down, so it gets just a bit charred.


It's a really interesting flavor, one I didn't think would work at all, but oh how it did. The bacon vinaigrette is just, you cook some chopped up bacon (about 6 oz, I used less) deglaze with some sherry vinegar, salt and pepper, and then whisk in some olive oil. Pour that on top of the baby bok choy and you have a serious side dish. For those of you who don't like to cook with bacon, there's an alternate recipe with a chili vinaigrette that also looks killer.


I served it all with a salad, not from the book. Our guests were Sean, Eva, and Mike, who it should be noted really loves a good, creamy rice and a cool, icy glass of red wine. I expect all of your comments below. Diana, you need to try harder. Happy Birthday big guy.

Oh! And for dessert I broiled some nectarines. The were so SO good. They didn't even need the ice cream, though it certainly didn't hurt.


One thing that's so great about roasting or grilling fruit is that it doesn't even have to be that great quality fruit. The nectarines were hard as rocks going in, but in the broiler they became these super sweet, sorta tart warm soft charred flavor bombs. I think it was Sean who said it was like pie, without the pie. Awesome.

(just kidding Diana, I owe you one, hope you're feeling better)

Sort of a Throwback: White Cut Chicken with Scallion-Ginger Sauce

Back when I was in middle school (I think) my mother went to see Mark Bittman do a cooking demo at Macy's Cellar, where he made Steamed Chicken with Scallion-Ginger sauce. I'm going out on a limb here, but I think that this was the recipe that turned into White Cut Chicken, and the Ginger-Scallion sauce that Bittman suggests serving it with. See how he flipped it?


Mom got a ton of mileage out of the Scallion-Ginger sauce recipe. Basically, she used to just steam some chicken breasts (bone-in) and serve them warm or room temp with the real star of the recipe, the dipping sauce. It's just a mixture of scallions, ginger, a bit of garlic, neutral oil, soy sauce, and a little bit of sesame oil. It doesn't sound like much, but it's a light, clean, complex flavor that actually compliments the blandness of chicken breasts, which are usually not my favorite. There's no cooking, but the longer you can leave it hanging out before it's time to eat, the better. Ginger-Scallion sauce, on the other hand, doesn't have soy sauce or sesame oil in it, and you heat the oil before adding it. How is it? I don't know, I haven't made it yet. But Scallion-Ginger sauce, what you see here, is one of the tastiest dips ever, and it goes really well with White Cut Chicken.

Well, on Saturday I decided to use the cut-up chicken I'd bought to make... something. I flipped open the book to find a recipe I had the ingredients for (sidebar: I need to get out of chickenland, but I don't think I know how). White Cut Chicken jumped out. It's basically poached chicken, but it leaves you with a really nice broth, because you poach the chicken water flavored with ginger, scallions, salt, and sugar. You boil that, add the chicken, reduce it to a simmer, and then turn off the heat altogether and let it chill for a while.


Then you let it come to room temperature and serve, either with Ginger-Scallion sauce, or Scallion-Ginger sauce, or whatever you like, really.


One question: what should I do with the broth? Any ideas? I don't think it's as versatile as regular chicken broth, but it is packed with scalliony, gingery, sweet and salty flavor. Maybe I'll use it to make some rice. Leave your suggestions in the comments.