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Week of February 18, 2008

So what does a foodie eat? Lately I have been cooking more at home. I am a minimalist cook. That means I am not a chef by any means and if it takes me more than hr to 45 min. to finish dinner I am not interested in doing it. Mostly it is a matter of a lack of time and those skills a chef has that enables them to be so productive in such a short period of time. Being a minimalist means simple preps for the most part and also the use of good ingredients which brings me back to where I started, what does a foodie like me eat and cook for my family? Let tell you about a recent dinner in my home.

Last Friday (I am off on Friday) was a good day to cook, the kids were off from school and my oldest Tori was home from work in Washington D.C. We went to movies in the afternoon and after coming home and deciding to eat in, I started. The night before I had taken some excess raspberries and blueberries and cooked them down into a simple sauce. I put this sauce in two individual ramekins and topped them with my favorite Savanna Bee honey. Stuck them aside not knowing what I was going to do with them until tonight. Meghan in the cheese and specialties dept had given me four duck confit leg quarters from D’Artagnan. These come in cryovac, so after a while they become dated. Dated food in the store often becomes my dinner. Duck confit is an ancient way of preserving meat for times when there is not much. The legs are salted for up to 36 hours and then poached for a long time in fat. . The legs are stored for up to six months a tightly closed jar. So you can see I was not worried about the dating.
Anyway I cooked the legs in the microwave and shredded it off the bones. It took all of 2 minutes in the micro and shredding not much longer that either. This delicious meat topped with the honey and mixed berry sauce becomes one course. It was delicious, looked very gourmet and most would have thought I had spent hours in the kitchen. Instead it was minutes.

Next I had taken home from Trish in our butcher area a nice small Hampshire pork tenderloin from Coleman. Hampshire pork is special natural pork deeper red in color with fine marbling. This was my first taste. I seared the meat after coating it with my favorite salt rub from Vignalta in Italy. It is Italian sea salt with pepper, rosemary and other herbs naturally dried in the salt. After a few minutes in the pan searing all sides with a just a coating of a nice EVO the meat was ready for the pan and into the oven at 375 degrees till medium. These days you do not have to cook fine pork to death and you shouldn’t. Use a quick read thermometer to get the pork to 130-145 degrees depending on your liking and it is ready to cut into medallions to serve with the duck. The sauce went nicely on this dish too. The pork was delicious and I can highly recommend the Hampshire pork if you have not tried it. My wife Leslie is allergic to duck so we had the pork too. Small bites of everything; it is a good way to eat. Large portions bother me.

For sides, we had two of my favorites, fresh broccoli rabe and fresh haricot verts (those skinny French string beans). The rabe is easy. Make sure it is very fresh and trim the stems so there is a fresh cut. Toss them in a large sauce pan of boiling water about a half and inch deep and cook until tender. Probably all the water will evaporate, if not drain the rabe, add olive oil to the pan and put the rabe back in and sauté lightly adding salt, a little crushed red pepper and fresh chopped garlic. When it looks done it is. Very simple. Next the beans, steam them till just done and drain and chill them with ice water. They will remain tender yet with a slight bite sort of like cooking pasta al dente.. Toss them with EVO and top them with thin planed slices of your favorite t cheese. I suggest Cave aged gruyere or nice parmesan. Drizzle the cheese with good balsamic vinegar and you have an excellent dish that everybody raves about. “It is so gourmet”, and very simple. You just need the right ingredients.

Finally fresh fruit and cheese littered the table for dessert. But not just any cheese, more of the cave aged gruyere, Shelburne farms cheddar, Maytag Blue, and Jarlsberg Swiss ( a little of the ordinary will not kill you. The fruit were oranges and mangoes, but not just any ordinary oranges and mangoes. Right now we have Kent mangoes in. These are the finest examples of Mangoes. They are fine fleshed, never stringy, sweet, juicy and with unmatched flavor. When they are very ripe they have nuances of coconut and pineapple. There are the foodies mango. Fine mango goes very well with citrus so the oranges are a good match, but these are not just any oranges, they are Honey Belle tangelos. Probably the finest orange out of Florida, and normally only available by mail order but when it is a good year they become available on the open market and are worth every penny they cost for the short 3 weeks they are here.

So fruit is good, and cheese is good, and very easy. Mind you this all looks great on the table. The final touches to a Foodies delight meal of simplicity are the bread and the water. The bread was a nice rosemary ring from Balthazar. It goes with the pork, the duck and the cheese. For drinks Fuji water with Meyer lemon slices. Add a little nice wine, we had a Zind Humbrecht Riesling and you are in foodie gourmet heaven very simply and if you coordinated right all within 45 minutes.

Your time is precious; savor it as much as you do the wonderful food above. Good fast food is obtainable and doable.

Eat Fresh and eat the good stuff!

Bob

P.S. Have you joined..."The Good Stuff Club," yet?