Category Archives: Cooking

That Cobbler Recipe: The Secret’s In The Sauce

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Okay, I guess it serves me right. You can’t post outright food porn — like this photo of the strawberry-rhubarb cobbler I made this afternoon — without having people ask for the recipe.

Now the first thing I have to admit is that this is not a personal recipe, but one that I Googled up last week after I came home from the farmers’ market with peaches and a stalk of rhubarb. It was posted on someone’s blog, called Eat and Run. So thank you, Helen, whoever you are, because I’ve now used this recipe twice and it’s delicious.

Last week's peach and rhubarb cobbler didn't look too shabby either.

There are two especially lovely things about this recipe. One is that it is very simple, and the batter can be used with just about any combination of fruit. Now that I’m haunting farmers’ markets again, I plan to use this recipe with whatever is in season. Fresh local fruit is the best, and it’s worth paying a little upcharge if you have to in order to get it.

The other thing that makes this cobbler version special is this. Lots of cobbler recipes called for simmering the fruit in a sugar syrup to soften it up a bit before it goes in the pan with the batter. Not many recommend a sugar syrup in which the liquid component is bourbon (the author also suggests sherry or brandy as an alternative).

The cooking and baking evaporates the alcohol, and what’s left behind are those trademark features of bourbon: the vanilla and caramel and butterscotch flavors that the whiskey picks up from the wooden barrels in which it ages. It is subtle in the finished cobbler, but it really adds a little something nice.

Anyway, here’s the recipe, almost verbatim from the other blog. Try it and let me know what you think, and if you add some tweaks that make it even better, pass it along.

Ingredients:

For cake -
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons butter, softened
2 tablespoons milk

For fruit -
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup sherry, brandy, or bourbon
5-5.5 cups of fruit

Directions:

Room temperature the cake ingredients. Soften the butter. Slice the fruits. Grease a 9 x 9 inch square pan or something like that. (As you can see in the photos, I use a 10-inch cast iron pan for this with excellent results.

Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, beat together eggs and 1 cup of the sugar. Add butter and milk. Add the flour mixture, stirring just to combine. Pour batter into greased pan.

Preheat oven to 375 farenheit.

In a saucepan, simmer together the sherry and 1/2 cup of sugar for 5 minutes. Add the fruit and stir to coat with the syrup. Let this simmer for 1-2 minutes. Pour this hot fruit mixture over the batter in the pan. (Don’t worry if some of your fruit sinks. Also don’t worry if the mixture is liquidy.)

Bake for 30 minutes.

Chicago Summer in the City: Cobbling Together An All-American Holiday Dinner

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I am in the process of opening a new avenue in my freelance journalism career that will emphasize personal passions such as food, drink and photography. This makes me wonder if they shopping run I made Monday, to Binny’s (a big Chicago beverage store chain, for those who don’t live here), Best Buy and Trader Joe’s is tax-deductible.

At least I can buy all the eats and drinks and camera equipment I want here on the Third Coast. I worked covering elections in Washington, D.C., for 30 years, and just never amassed the resources I would have needed to buy a politician.

We had a second consecutive day of record-setting heat. After getting the walk by the lake out of the way in the morning before it became too unbearable, I decided to spend some more time outdoors at the rooftop pool, addressing my long-term Vitamin D deficiency. Unfortunately, the stiff breeze at ground level was like gale force more than 400 feet off the ground. Having to deal with turbulence is bad enough when you’re flying, but it’s pretty weird altogether when you are laying on a chaise lounge. Half an hour of that turned out to be quite enough.

Monday, of course, was Memorial Day, a day to remember my father, who passed away at age 90 four years ago. Milton Benenson served in the Army Air Force as a navigator during World War II. He must have been pretty good at it, and he certainly was fortunate, as he flew 36 missions over Nazi-controlled Europe and lived to make, among other things, me. I’m not sure how much of the world is grateful for that latter part, but I am.

I decided this would be a good occasion for an all-American dinner. Cooking out isn’t an option, as our apartments have no balconies, but the wide range of cast-iron cookware that I have provides as close to cookout taste as you can get indoors.

Hot dogs (a brand of all-beef organic franks carried by Trader Joe’s), corn on the cob, onion rings, a homemade peach and rhubarb cobbler, washed down with a mint julep. Hard to get more American than that.

The cobbler is worthy of a close-up, if only because I do a lot more cooking than baking as a norm.

I actually had the more traditional strawberry-rhubarb combo in mind when I hit the farmers’ market on Saturday, but I ended up with a bag of peaches that I bought because I thought it was so unusual to see peaches this early in the year. Also, we ate too many of the strawberries that I brought home to make a cobbler out of them.

Anyway, I found a lovely, easy recipe on the Web that had this added benefit: the syrup in which the fruit is briefly cooked to soften before joining the batter in the oven is made of sugar and… bourbon. The alcohol cooks off, of course, but the bourbon adds a nice little vanilla/butterscotch flavor. You have to trust me, but it came out great. And since the instructions say the batter can be the base to any combination of fruit, I need not worry too much about going overboard at the farmers’ markets this summer.

This looks like as good a place as any to catch up on the Cooler on the Lake Shore Chicago vs. D.C. Weather Smackdown. According to Weather Underground…

Saturday, May 19: Chicago Midway reported a high of 91, a low of 64, and no rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 84, a low of 56 and no rain. The 90s, for me, are a bit too hot. Point D.C.

Sunday, May 20: Chicago Midway reported a high of 92, a low of 65, and .14 of an inch of rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 81, a low of 59 and .01 of an inch of rain. Point D.C.

Monday, May 21: Chicago Midway reported a high of 65 — yep, a quick transition back to spring — a low of 54 and no rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 75, a low of 66 and .03 of an inch of rain. Point Chicago.

Tuesday, Chicago Midway reported a high of 68, a low of 49, and no rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 81, a low of 66 and .01 of an inch of rain. Having experienced a lot of days in the 80s in D.C. that felt like they were in the 90s, I’ll give that one to Chicago.

Wednesday: Chicago Midway reported a high of 82, a low of 49, and no rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 81, a low of 66 and .33 of an inch rain. That’s a lot of rain. Point Chicago.

Thursday, Chicago Midway reported a high of 90, a low of 65, and no rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 83, a low of 69 and a trace of rain. Edge D.C.

Friday, Chicago Midway reported a high of 80, a low of 67, and no rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 86, a low of 71 and a trace of rain. We’ll give this one to Chicago.

Saturday, Chicago Midway reported a high of 82, a low of 63, and no rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 86, a low of 71 and a trace of rain. We’ll give this one to Chicago, too.

Sunday, a record-setting sizzler as Chicago Midway reported a high of 97, a low of 73, and no rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 87, a low of 70 and .05 of an inch of rain. We’ll give this one to D.C.

That brings the overall score to 162-135 in favor of D.C.

Spring in Chicago: A Long, Long Walk For Asparagus

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After the chilly weather of April that stretched into the early part of May, it looks like spring has finally arrived for real. Chicago had an official high temperature of 90 today, a first this year, though — as the name of this blog reminds — it was cooler by the lake shore.

Signs of spring are all over. The air conditioning, thank goodness, has been turned on in our apartment building. The rooftop pool likely is a week away from opening, but the deck is open. Here what Wrigley Field looked like this afternoon, through the haze and the scratchy plexiglass that is there to prevent the kind of bad things that can happen when you’re hanging out on a roof 400 feet off the ground.

There is lots of baseball (this photo taken Wednesday night at the game between the Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies), most of it bad, but that unfortunately is also a sure sign of spring in Chicago.

The boats are back in on the lake…

… and so are the birds.

And now, the farmers’ markets around the city are opening up. Possibly the best known is the Green City market, located at the south end of Lincoln Park (the actual park, not the neighborhood), and since I never got there after we moved last summer, I wanted to make a point of getting there early to check it out this year.

I also have a few pounds accumulated from the winter and the sedentaries associated with a big writing project I am just wrapping up, and since I’d already taken some pretty good strolls, I figured I’d walk down there and earn the barbecue brisket dinner I’d put on the menu for tonight.

I did, because it’s kind of a long walk. Two and a half miles, according to my best GoogleMaps estimate.

I can see this market is going to be a very big deal as the growing season progresses. For right now, it’s still mid-May in the Upper Midwest, and produce was a bit scarce.

I don’t regret the trek because I need the exercise, it was a beautiful day and there was little reason for concern that the NATO protestors would make a priority of Occupying Lincoln Park. Still, under normal circumstances, that would be a pretty long walk for a couple of pounds of asparagus, a bag of spring mix lettuce and a couple of containers of admittedly delicious feta cheese from (guess where) Wisconsin.

They did have stands selling fresh local meats and fish, though I decided that I needed cold packs for that given the temperature pushing 90. I will remember that for the future, because truthfully, when you’re walking that far on a hot day, cold packs are not a bad thing to have.

I will be back, for sure. But on the bus ride home (no, I didn’t do the five-mile round trip on foot), I passed what looked like a thriving farmers’ market in a schoolyard just a few blocks from where we live. For the next few weeks, at least until there’s a bigger choice of produce to be had, I think I’ll stick to the market closer to home.

By the way, the brisket, seared on the stovetop, then slow roasted in the oven with a late slathering of barbecue sauce, was delicious. I served it with a home-concocted version of elote, a corn dish that is a Mexican street food and which I first sampled at the White Sox ballpark when we attended the game last Tuesday. Nothing fancy about it: corn (on or off the cob) seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, a little mayonnaise, lime juice, and if you like (and I do) a sprinkling of chili powder. Comfort food to the max, and totally addictive.

I’ve gotten way behind on the Cooler on the Lakeshore Chicago vs. D.C. Weather Smackdown, so I guess this is as good a place as any to catch up. According to Weather Underground…

On Wednesday, May 9: Chicago Midway reported a high of 60, a low of 46, and a trace of rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 75, a low of 59 and .58 of an inch of rain. That’s a lot of rain. Point Chicago.

Thursday, May 10, Chicago Midway reported a high of 65, a low of 45, and no rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 70, a low of 56 and no rain. Virtual tie, but edge to D.C.

Friday, May 11, Chicago Midway reported a high of 78, a low of 48, and no rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 73, a low of 52 and no rain. Point Chicago.

Saturday, May 12 Chicago Midway reported a high of 67, a low of 51, and .25 of an inch of rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 78, a low of 52 and no rain. Point D.C.

Last Sunday, Chicago Midway reported a high of 69, a low of 53, and and no rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 80, a low of 62 and no rain. Beautiful day in Chicago, but to be fair, point D.C.

Monday, Chicago Midway reported a high of 78, a low of 46, and no rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 73, a low of 62 and .24 of an inch of rain. Point Chicago.

Tuesday, Chicago Midway reported a high of 84, a low of 56, and a trace of rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 79, a low of 67 and 1.22 inches of rain. Easy one for Chicago.

Wednesday: Chicago Midway reported a high of 63, a low of 52, and no rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 83, a low of 62 and no rain. Point D.C.

Thursday, Chicago Midway reported a high of 71, a low of 49, and no rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 77, a low of 61 and no rain. Edge D.C.

Friday, Chicago Midway reported a high of 85, a low of 57, and no rain. Washington Reagan National reported a high of 76, a low of 55 and no rain. We’ll give this one to Chicago.

That brings the overall score to 158-130 in favor of D.C.

 

Tales Of The Cast-Iron Griddle: Heavy Metal Burgers

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My wife Barb, over our more than 31 years as a couple, has expressed her love in many ways. But last Christmas, she provided cast-iron proof, in the most literal sense.

As the cook in our home, I have long favored cast-iron cookware because it conducts heat so well. I don’t think there is anything better for the “keep it simple” method that is my preferred way to cook just about any kind of meat: Sear the outside at high temperature for about half the cooking time to get a little char on the surface, then lower to medium until cooked to the desired doneness.

But I didn’t go all in on cast-iron until after we moved last summer from Washington, D.C., to Chicago, and into my first-ever apartment with ventilation sufficient enough that high-temperature stove-top cooking didn’t immediately set off the smoke alarm. So onto my Christmas list went a couple of items I had been desiring: a two-burner griddle that is flat on one side and a raised grill on the other, and a deep 12-inch skillet.

I would have been happy if Barb had gotten me either. But she went to a nearby cookware store and got both.

Then lugged 30 pounds worth of old-school heavy metal several blocks to where she parked.

I will take this as affirmation that my wife does indeed love me. And enjoys my cooking.

The Lodge two-sided griddle, as I expected, is now my Best Christmas Gift Ever. It cooks anything that doesn’t steep in liquid, from pancakes to pork chops. Long cuts of meats, including bacon strips, can cook without being cut up or crammed into a pan in which they don’t quite fit. And, if cast iron is seasoned correctly — meaning given a light veneer of vegetable oil after every use — it is at least as non-stick as the synthetic stuff.

(With the one essential disclaimer about cast-iron cookware: handle with extreme care, and truly heat-proof hotpads. I had a slip a couple of months ago and painfully branded my left index finger. I’ll have more to say about care and maintenance of cast iron pans in a future post.)

But the best part is that it is a perfect tool for the kind of nice and easy, two- or three-ingredient cooking that provides a restaurant-quality meal at home, usually in a half-hour or less.

The following dinner idea follows these principles. The next night, I made cod fillets with Greek seasoning on the flat side of the griddle, accompanied by a saute of diced green pepper, onions and pimento-stuffed green olives, and I’ll follow with these instructions in the next day or two.

Enjoy, and may all your cooking be heavy lifting. In the good sense.

CHEESE-STUFFED TURKEY BURGERS (makes 6)

2 lbs. ground turkey

About 2 oz.cheese — Crumbled (I used Salem blue, and feta is also excellent) or shredded is the easiest to handle for this, but any hard cheese (such as cheddar) diced small works fine, too.

Salt and pepper to taste, or your favorite seasoning blend: I used Penzey’s Old World seasoning, but their Greek seasoning also is great with turkey burgers, especially if you use feta cheese

Canola oil to coat

* Turn the two-sided griddle grill side up and place over two burners on the stovetop

* Preheat to medium high (7 out of 10 on my stove)

* Divide meat into six even portions (about a third-pounder each).


* Make a little well in each portion and fill it with the diced or crumbled cheese, then coat lightly with seasoning.


* Fold meat over so the cheese and seasoning are covered, but don’t overhandle.

* Coat the surface lightly with canola oil (helps hold the seasonings and brown the meat), and season to taste.


* Place burgers on the grill-griddle, and cook at medium-high heat for 4 minutes on each side.
* Turn heat down to medium (4 on my stove) and cook for another four minutes on each side. [See note]


* Check for doneness, and serve on buns with your choice of condiments and garnishes.

Note: The pan will give the meat the kind of grill lines you would get in outdoor cooking. If you want to do a cross-hatch, rotate the burgers 90 degrees about midway through cooking.

While these go great with the typical burger sides, such as fries and cole slaw, I served these with roasted asparagus, which is one of the world’s easiest preparations. Rinse and dry a pound of asparagus, break off the tough ends, sprinkle with a little olive oil, salt, pepper and granulated garlic, and roasted in the oven on a baking sheet at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.

If You Want Holiday Dinner Southern Style, You Better Bring Home The Bacon

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My friend Tammaye Grissom Murray lives in Canada, but she is a proud daughter of the U.S. South. And when I solicited holiday cooking tips in my post-Thanksgiving blog post, Tammaye produced a menu that is just dripping in Southern pride.

And bacon fat.

Let’s face it, there are two things that make food taste better than anything else: 1) fat in general and 2) bacon fat in particular. So I have no doubt that the following suggestions are to die for. No pun intended.

That said, I recommend that vegetarian readers… and cardiologists… and friends who keep kosher… please go no further.

Thanks to Tammaye for her ideas, and y’all have fun pigging out at Christmas.

“But Bob, where’s the pork fat?!? Here’s the Southern feast menu:

* Turkey (jealous of your TJ’s brined bird! and impressed with the turning, an unwieldy challenge with a 4 pound chicken – what’s your technique?).

* Cornbread (made with bacon fat) Stuffing: Sausage stuffing (more pork!) made with cornbread. Our tradition is to make the cornbread the night before and have some right out of the oven. Southern corn bread has no flour or sugar, and you use bacon fat for the oil in the recipe. Preheat the iron skillet in the oven with more bacon fat for a crispy crunchy crust. So good it’ll make you smack your grandma!

* Mashed taters with my mama’s gravy (made with bacon fat roux and milk).

* Green beans (with ham hock).

* Sweet potato casserole (with brown sugar and pecans).

* Squash casserole (with Ritz crackers and cheese).

* Fresh cranberry & Jello mold (with walnuts and oranges).

* And the piece de resistance: fried corn (made wiiiiiiiiiith… BACON FAT!) How to make Southern fried corn: cut corn off the cob and put in a hot iron skillet with hot bacon fat and coat kernels, add water to steam and cook down a few times with lots of black pepper. LOVE.

 

Does The Vodka Go In The Pie Crust Or The Baker?

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When I published my Thanksgiving dinner post, I started a hopefully ongoing conversation on holiday cooking tips. Here are some helpful ideas from my friend Janet Harris, fresh from her kitchen in Oregon.

I need to follow up with Janet to find out if the vodka she suggests for the pie crust recipe goes into the dough or the baker. I totally endorse her suggestion for adding other fruit to the cranberry sauce… and I have a super-easy cranberry orange relish recipe I can share later on.

* For the cranberry sauce, try adding diced pear or apple. You can either cook them down with the cranberries (in which case I suggest boosting the volume of cranberries or reducing the liquid in order to make sure there is enough pectin for it to set up) or dice fine and add raw for a little crunch — kind of makes it a cross between cranberry sauce and cranberry relish. Also, since you like orange in your sauce, add some orange zest at the very end of the cooking process to kick it up a notch.

* For the pies, check out the Cook’s Illustrated recipe for never-fail pie crust. Secret ingredient: Vodka!

The Cooler Kitchen: Thanksgiving Dinner — All Good

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You know you’re on a Thanksgiving dinner roll when one dish comes out as kind of a mistake… and everyone loves it anyway.

I made a sweet potato casserole that was supposed to have a marshmallow crust, as requested by our company for the evening. Somehow, the marshmallows disintegrated and blended into the sweet potato puree. But the result was really tasty… the marshmallows added a mellow sweetness and enhanced the silky smooth texture of the dish.

In fact, this was as good a holiday dinner as I’ve ever put together, as well it should have been. It’s the first time in years that I’ve had a kitchen that was suitable for cooking a meal this large. It’s the first time in years that I wasn’t crashing on some Thanksgiving week deadline, and thus could make some of the dishes in the days leading up to the holiday.

Admittedly, this was a Normal Rockwell Thanksgiving menu, and not a super-fancy foodie fantasy “how can I get some foie gras into this meal” meal. Here’s the menu, in case it provides some ideas for the next holidays coming up in a few weeks.

* We started with pumpkin soup. Almost completely from scratch, as I used canned pumpkin. Nice comfort food for a starter.

* The turkey…

… was a 13-pound kosher bird that I bought at Trader Joe’s. Since all kosher birds are brined, that resolved the “to brine or not to brine” debate for me.

Nonetheless, I used a method that I learned years ago in a cooking class that, while a little extra work, has also turned out an evenly browned and very juicy turkey every time. You start by cooking the turkey breast side up for 30 minutes at 425 degrees, then carefully rotate it and cook it breast down for 30 minutes at high heat. Then turn the temp down to 325, roast for an hour and a half (for this size bird) and again rotate it breast-side up to finish browning. Use a meat thermometer to ensure that the meat — and the dressing, if you stuff the bird (as I did) — is of a safe temperature to eat.

The reason why to go to all this turning trouble is this: Oven cooking forces the juices in meat to flow from top to bottom. If you stick the turkey in the oven breast-side up and leave it there for three or four hours, the juices will run into the cavity and pan. Cooking it at least half the time breast side down ensures that the white breast meat will stay juicy.

As for seasoning, I use my own blend of kosher salt, black pepper, granulated garlic, a pretty heavy hand with paprika, and french thyme. My added wrinkle is that I lift the skin (very carefully, to avoid tearing), apply some canola oil to the meat and then coat with the spice mix both on and under the skin. This, not surprisingly, gets a lot more flavor on the meat.

Also, trussing the legs with kitchen string really helped keep the stuffing inside the bird where it belonged, a boon considering that the turkey was turned twice during cooking.

* The stuffing was really basic: Cubed, dried white bread, seasonings, finely chopped celery, onion, carrots and parsley, some butter, broth and a couple of eggs. But here’s one of those areas in which a little extra trouble makes a big difference. Instead of just mixing raw vegetables into the dressing, saute them first. It provides a whole additional blast of flavor.

* Corn pudding. Super easy to make, as it starts out with two cans of cream-style corn. Ask me for the recipe if you’re interested.

* The aforementioned sweet potato casserole with deconstructed marshmallows.

* Mashed potatoes: Nothing fancy here. A bunch of Yukon Gold potatoes, unpeeled and cut into relatively even-sized pieces, boiled until soft, mashed with a potato masher. Add butter/margarine and milk/broth until you reach the right consistency. Season to taste.

* And, of course, homemade whole cranberry sauce. Which is ri-donc-ulously easy to make. Seriously, make it once and you’ll never buy canned again. Here’s the whole deal: Dissolve a cup of sugar in a cup of water or orange juice (I prefer the latter). Bring to a boil, then simmer for about 5 minutes. Add a package of rinsed fresh cranberries (usually 12 ounces), then simmer until they pop and start to thicken a bit. This should take another 10 minutes or so. It shouldn’t be watery, but doesn’t have to be completely jelled… it will continue to set as it cools.

OK, I cheated on dessert with a bought pie brought by our guests. I just took a pie-baking class on Monday, but that would have been one thing too much to do. Never fear, Christmas dinner is right around the corner.

So, that’s my story. If you’ve got a recipe or menu ideas you’d like to share, and might help folks with their upcoming holiday dinner plans, please share and I will post them with the appropriate credit.

Hope your Thanksgiving weekend is going as nicely as mine.

The Lake Short View: Chasing Down A Hoodoo… In Cooking Class

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I’ve mentioned before that Halloween isn’t a very big deal to me. Which helps explain why I’m heading downtown this evening, dressed as my only-slightly-scary self, to take yet another cooking class, where I will learn more about making New Orleans favorites such as crab cakes with remoulade, chicken and andouille sausage gumbo, and bananas foster.

But maybe taking a Cajun cooking class on Halloween isn’t all that off-message after all. After all, N’awlins prides itself on being the home of voodoo and hoodoo and all kinds of mysterious doo-ings. Maybe something supernatural will arise from the gumbo. If nothing else, you can certainly find some macabre connotation in the name of the cooking school/cookware store: The Chopping Block.

It is a chilly but pleasant fall day for Chicago’s trick-or-treaters (and for the annual Halloween parade a few blocks from our apartment in Boystown, which is the actual name given long ago to the center of the city’s gay community).

According to Weather Underground, Chicago O’Hare on Sunday reported a high of 57, a low of 33, and .17 of an inch of rain that arrived after dark. Washington Reagan National had a high of 55, a low of 35 and no rain, a nice bounceback from the wintry mix mess D.C. had on Saturday. So we’ll give that point to Washington, bringing the overall score to 54-34 in Chicago’s favor in the Cooler on the Lake Shore Chicago vs. D.C. Weather Smackdown.

If you’re more of a Halloween-ie that I am, have fun tonight and be careful if you’re doing any door-to-door candy canvassing. I’ll let you know how those crab cakes turn out.

 

The Cooler Kitchen: French (Slow-Cooked) Comfort Food For Fall

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The weather forecasters were spot-on, as yesterday’s taste of Indian summer has segued into a raw mid-autumn day, with the temperature below 50 and a steely mantle of clouds hanging over the city and masking the upper stories of the downtown skyscrapers.

I have more to say about the weather below, but the general dreariness is as good a pretext as any to continue our conversation about the handy slow cooker and the thing it perhaps does best, which is to provide mass quantities of hearty comfort food.

One of the better dishes I’ve tried so far from “Slow Cooker: The Best Cookbook Ever” is called Bistro Chicken Thighs. A take on the French dish coq au vin, it is really easy, and the finished product is certainly good enough to serve company.

The only extra work on this dish is browning the chicken thighs on the stovetop and then sauteing some onion, garlic and dried thyme in the same plan. Prep time should be well less than a half-hour.

[Note: As mentioned in an earlier slow cooker article, if you're in a hurry, you can always skip the precooking steps and just throw everything into the pot to cook. If you do have the time, though, browning the meat and softening the veggies, which also helps concentrate their flavors, is totally worth the effort.]

Here’s what the dish will look like when ready to serve:

So here goes:

* Sprinkle about 10 skinless chicken thighs with a total of 1-1/2 teaspoons (or 1/2 tablespoon) of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of ground black pepper.

* Brown the thighs on all sides in two tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. (If you’ve got a big enough pan, you can do all at once, or you can do them in batches. Don’t crowd them, though, because they won’t brown properly if you do.)

* While the chicken is browning, chop 2 medium onions and mince 3 cloves of garlic.

* Remove chicken from the pan, placing into the slow cooker, then melt 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter in the same pan and add the onions and garlic with 2 teaspoons of dried thyme. Saute until softened (about 5 minutes).

* Add one cup of red wine and a 15-ounce can of crushed tomatoes in their juice to the pan and scrape up any browned bits.

* Transfer these ingredients from the pan to the slow cooker with the chicken, cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.

* Taste, adjust seasonings if necessary and serve.

A quick note about wine in cooking. If you take any cooking classes at all, they will tell you that when a recipe calls for wine, to use a quality that you would want to drink as well. If you go too cheap and use bad wine, it will be reflected in the taste (or tastelessness) of the dish. And it’s practical advice as well: Since few recipes actually call for a full bottle of wine, you’re going to end up having to drink some of it anyway to finish it off.

That doesn’t, however, mean that you have to bust your budget. Unless you are one of the (in)famous 1%, you are not going to use a bottle of $40-50 red as cooking wine.

Fortunately, there is a lot of good inexpensive wine on the market. Not great — I don’t want my wine connoisseur friends all over me — but certainly good enough to use in a dish like this one and to drink on the side when you serve it.

If you happen to have a Trader Joe’s supermarket near you, it’s a good place to go for wine bargains. They have a knack for buying up big lots of relatively inexpensive wine that is perfectly palatable. I used a Bordeaux wine that they somehow were selling for $5 a bottle, and it worked just fine.

As always, let me know if you tried this dish and whether you agree that it’s mighty tasty. Next up: chicken legs slow cooked in a homemade barbecue sauce.

Back to the weather. A pretty meh day outside…

Yesterday, according to Weather Underground, Chicago O’Hare reported a high of 74, a low of 45, .02 of an inch of rain and a lot of window-rattling wind. Washington Reagan National had a high of 68, a low of 49 and no rain. Without objection, I’ll give that point to D.C., bringing the overall score to Chicago 52, Washington 31 in the Cooler on the Lake Shore Weather Smackdown.

The forecasts, from Weather.com:

Chicago: Through 8 p.m.: Cloudy with temperatures steady in the low 50s. Winds NNE at 10 to 15 mph… Tonight… Cloudy with a few showers. Low 43. Winds NNE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%… Thursday… Rain showers in the morning becoming more intermittent in the afternoon. High 53. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%.

Washington: Through 9 p.m.: Showers and thunderstorms ending by 4 p.m. Decreasing cloudiness with temperatures steady or falling to near 64F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%… Tonight… Mostly cloudy with some showers after midnight. Low 57. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%… Thursday…. Cloudy with showers. High 64. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.

 

The Cooler Kitchen: Can A Bowl of Texas Red Be Full Of Beans?

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It is hard to imagine that anyone who has owned a slow cooker for any length of time has not made some sort of chili in it. Most chili recipes call for a long, slow cooking time, so the protein and the vegetables and spices blend to maximum flavor. That makes it just about the perfect dish to make in a slow cooker.

Chili fans out there know there are lively debates about which state makes the best chili and which ingredients make that chili recipe “real.” For example, “real” Texas chili is supposed to be made with cubed beef, rather than ground beef, and it is supposed to be made with no beans.

But there are some of us who like to make the steak version of chili now and then, but also like beans. Fortunately, the author of my current crockpot bible — Slow Cooker: The Best Cookbook Ever — is of the same mind. Though her recipe, titled Lone Star Sirloin Chili, includes black beans, and could therefore get them picketed by Texas purists, I think it’s mighty satisfying.

And easy, of course. Here’s all there is to the recipe:

[Note to Spice Girls (and Guys) out there: This is a pretty mild chili recipe. If it ain't chili for you if you're not breathing fire after eating it, take the chili powder up a few notches. But don't get carried away -- if it's not spicy enough, you can always adjust the seasoning upwards toward the end of the cooking cycle.]

* Cut 2-1/2 pounds of beef into one-half inch cubes. The recipe (not surprisingly, given the name of the dish) calls for sirloin, but I used a mix of chuck stew beef and steak tips and it worked well.

* Salt the meat evenly (about 2 teaspoons) and add a light sprinkling of cayenne if you like. Then add olive oil to a pan (or pans), heat to medium-high, then brown the meat in batches on the stovetop, making sure not to overcrowd the pan (or the meat won’t brown well).

* When the meat is sufficiently browned, remove to the slow cooker. Then, using the same pan(s), add 2 large, coarsely chopped sweet onions, 2 cloves minced garlic and a chopped jalapeno with a couple of teaspoons of chili powder and a half-teaspoon each of cumin powder and dried oregano (adding more olive oil if the pan is too dry). Reduce heat to medium-low and saute until the veggies are softened, about 5 minutes, stirring often. [Note about the jalapeno: If you want really spicy, leave the seeds in; if you want milder, leave them out.]

* Add 1/4 cup cornmeal when the vegetables are about done and stir for about 1 minute, then stir in 2 cups of beef broth and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and add to the meat in the slow cooker.

* Almost done. You just have to add 12 ounces of beer (they recommend Lone Star for authenticity — I used a dark beer bottled under the Trader Joe’s label), which adds flavor and helps tenderize the meat; one 15 oz. can of tomato puree; and two 15 oz. cans of black beans (drained and rinsed) to the slow cooker. Stir it all together, and set it on high for 4-5 hours or low for 8-10 hours. Taste and adjust seasonings, if necessary.

I’ll try a ground meat version soon and share it if I like it. If you’ve got a great crockpot chili recipe or a stovetop version that can be easily converted, let me know.

And happy tailgating!