Aunt Mary's Jambalaya

The next recipe in my family collection is my Aunt Mary's Jambalaya. I'm pretty sure all the Clark sisters have this recipe but no one owned it like Aunt Mary. It's s a yearly holiday tradition in the Polk household, usually on New Years, to have Jambalaya and tamales. We always felt fortunate to be invited to this final meal of the holiday cycle over the years. This Jambalaya isn't as spicy as the stuff they serve in Catahoula Parrish but that's a feature not a defect. It's perfect for large gatherings where the tolerances for spicy food vary widely. Besides there is always some Tabasco in the cupboard to spice things up, even if it's there just to mix bloody marys. I've taken the liberty of updating measurements and ingredients to more accurately reflect what's on the grocery store shelves these days and for changes in modern cooking techniques.

Mary Polk's Jambalaya

Ingredients

2 Tbs Olive oil or your preferred fat of choice
1 cup finely chopped onion
1 cup finely chopped green bell pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup cooked chicken, diced
1 cup cooked ham, diced
12 small pork sausages(little smokies) cut in pieces(1/4 inch)
1 20oz can diced tomatoes
1 cup uncooked rice (cooks note: parboiled rice such as Zatarains works best)
2 1/2 cups chicken stock
1/2 tsp ground thyme (cooks note: for fresh thyme use one or two sprigs. Remove before serving)
1 tsp dried parsley (cooks note: double or triple for fresh chopped parsley)
1/4 tsp chili powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add oil to a large dutch oven or saucepan and bring heat to medium high. Add onion, bell pepper, garlic, and saute till onions start to become translucent. Add the ham, sausage, and chicken. Continue sauteing for another five minutes. Add tomatoes, rice, chicken stock and spices. Stir well. Transfer the covered dutch oven to the oven or place the mixture in a covered casserole and place that in the oven. Bake for 50 minutes, stirring several times, as it cooks. Towards the end of the cooking time, check to make sure most of the cooking liquid has been absorbed. If it looks too wet leave the lid off and cook for an additional 5-10 minutes.

Pearl Barley Tabouleh

This is a variation on traditional Tabouleh that's very popular with my family. The differences are partially due to taste preferences in my household and partially due to availability of ingredients. I use pearl barley instead of wheat curd because I like the extra texture and punch of saltiness it adds. My recipe is also a little different when it comes to the type and quantity of herbs I use. I find traditional versions a little heavy on the parsley. The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients
1/4 cup pearl barley
2/3 cup of water plus 1 tsp salt
1/2 cup diced fresh tomato
1/2 cup diced fresh cucumber
4-5 scallions chopped or 1/3 cup chopped red onion
2 cloves garlic minced or pressed
1 Tbs minced parsley
1 Tbs minced oregeno
1 Tbs minced sweet basil
Juice of 1 lemon
4 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

Combine water, salt, and barley in a medium sauce pan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to lowest setting and cover. Cook for twenty minutes and remove from heat and let cool. Place the cooked barley and any water that's left in a bowl. Add the other ingredients and toss to combine them. Place in the refrigerator for two hours and then allow to come back to room temperature before serving. It's even better if you allow the flavors to mingle in the fridge over night.

Spicy Picadillo Empenadas

This recipe is something of a riff on Tex-Mex tacos and traditional empanadas. I point this out because empanadas are a wonderful vehicle for all kinds of savory and sweet fillings. Think latino hot pockets! They're great for holidays, pot lucks, and even Super Bowl parties. So feel free to experiment with your own variations. The filling I'm using today is a riff on the picadillo taco which is served for breakfast lunch and dinner at family taco stands in my native central Texas. It's a dish that's flavorful, satisfying, and most of all economical. Combine that with an empanada and you have the ultimate finger food! They are best served warm with chimichurri or other hot sauce for dipping. I'll start with the filling then follow with the dough recipe and assembly instructions.

Spicy Picadillo Filling

1lb ground beef
1/2 bell pepper chopped
1/2 medium white onion chopped
1 large russet potato peeled and chopped into 1/2 inch chunks
1 Tbs salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp paprika(preferably hungarian)
1 tsp comino(ground cumin)
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
2 Tbs water

In a medium sauce add potatoes and enough water to cover by several inches. Add a few dashes of salt. Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer covered for twenty minutes. Drain and set potatoes aside for later. In a medium sauce pan(I reuse the same one) brown the meat on medium high until just cooked, about 5 minutes, tossing and breaking up the meat as you go. Add the remaining ingredients except for the potatoes and continue cooking, stirring frequently, until the onions and peppers soften. About ten minutes. Add the potatoes, stir in well, and then set aside to cool. Now we can make the dough.

Savory empanada dough for baking

3 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
6 oz shortening or butter
1 egg
1/2 cup milk or water

You can make the dough by hand or use a stand mixer with a paddle but I prefer using a food processor. Add the dry ingredients and shortening and pulse until the mixture becomes grainy. Add the egg. Add the water slowly and pulse until a clumpy dough forms. You may not need all the water depending on how accurate your flour measurement was. Empty the dough into a bowl and knead a few times to make sure any dry flour is worked in then form into ball. Now we're ready to assemble our empanadas. Pinch off the dough and roll it into 1 1/2 inch balls. I prefer to use a tortilla press to flatten the balls into disks but you can roll them out by hand on a floured surface if you don't have one. A note on tortilla presses, buy a cast iron one. The wood and plastic presses are a joke and I broke my aluminum one after a week. A good cast iron press can be had for about 25 dollars and will last generations if properly cared for. To use a press line both faces with plastic wrap, place your dough ball in the middle and give it a good squeeze. I find I get a rounder disk if I flatten the ball slightly in my hand before I press. The result looks something like this.

Place a spoon full or so of the filling in the center and fold the disk and press the edges together. Then take the empanada in on hand and use your other to pinch and flatten the edge. Then fold the edge back toward the body of the empanada and give it another pinch to seal it. Experienced empanada cooks use this last step to create an attractive fluted edge. I'm still mastering this myself so don't worry if your empanadas aren't picture perfect. They'll still taste great. Once assembled place your empanadas on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. If you still have left over filling, no worries! Just pop it in a warm tortilla and reward yourself for all that hard work. To give them a nice golden finish I brush them with an egg wash before they go in the oven. Bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes and serve while still warm. I hope you find making empanadas as satisfying as I do and stop buying hot pockets for cripes sake. Look for a sweet empanada recipe in the near future!

Mom's Pasta ala Bolognese

This is the first installment of recipes I'm sharing from my Mom's side of the family. Some by my maternal grandmother, "Honeygram", as well as my mother and her three sisters. I and my various cousins have inherited a wonderful culinary legacy from these matriarchs of our family and I'm proud to share some of their recipes here. My first dish is my mom's bolognese sauce. As you might have noticed I didn't refer to it as spaghetti bolognese even though that is the way we usually have it in my family. Although sauce ala bolognese exists in Italy, it is never served with spaghetti there. The Italians prefer a larger macaroni like Rigatoni which does a much better job of holding the thick chunky sauce. Now you know why you have such a hard time getting your pasta and sauce in the same bite! But there are no rules in cooking or the bedroom so spaghetti it is. What follows is my mothers recipe in her own hand. It's a wonderful dish for special occasions and I hope you enjoy it!

Bolognese Sauce(Fancy)

Ingredients:
4 to 5 bacon slices chopped int 1/2 inch pieces
1 cup chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 rib celery, finely chopped
1 lb ground beef
3/4 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup milk
1 large can(29 oz) plum tomatoes with liquid
1 cup beef stock or bullion
1/3 cup tomato paste (1/2 of 6 oz can)
1/2 tsp salt
1 bay leaf, crumbled
1 lb package spaghetti

In large saucepan, cook the bacon pieces over medium heat until crisp. Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. Reserve bacon for later. Add onion and garlic to the pan drippings and saute until soft and translucent. Add carrot and celery. Continue sauteing until tender. Increase heat to medium high. Crumble beef into vegetables. Saute 2 to 3 minutes until meat has barely browned, stirring and tossing to break up the meat. Increase heat to high. Add wine and milk. Boil rapidly about 5 minutes until liquid has reduced slightly.  Stir in bacon and remaining ingredients except spaghetti. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 90 minutes. Stir frequently and break up tomatoes with a spoon as they cook. When sauce is nearly finished, cook spaghetti in a large sauce pan according to package directions. Drain pasta and serve immediately with sauce. Makes 6 servings, about 510 calories each.

Greek inspired Lamb Manicotti and an Alternate Meatball Recipe

This is one of my oldest recipes. I came up with it when I was 15 or so after a three week trip to Europe when I was 14. My father is an artist and was at the time on the art faculty at Texas State University. At that time we had a sculpture teacher by the name of Alex Kritselis who was originally from Athens, Greece. You can find his bio here. While Alex was at Texas State he always hosted a traditional goat roast each easter and the first one was at my family's home in Wimberley, Texas. I paid close attention to his meat rub of herbs, olive oil and lemon, and the flavor was always amazing even though the meat was always tough as leather. Goat is not something thats available at the local grocery in Texas so I assume he got a freshly slaughtered animal from a local rancher. What I'm sure he didn't know, since only professional butchers know, is the carcass needs to hang under refrigeration for two weeks in order for the muscle fibers to break down and render the meat tender. Fresh meat ironically is tough meat. In any case, in the summer of my fourteenth year, Alex arranged an art showing at a private art gallery in Athens for the entire art faculty and my parents used this opportunity to take an extended European trip for three weeks. We spent the first week in the UK and France, the second in Italy, and the last in Greece. Needless to say I could describe a lot of experiences but I'll leave that for another time. The important roots of this dish involve a dinner we were invited to at the home of Alex's parents in Athens. His mother was an extraordinary cook. She made sheets of Baklava so large they had to be taken to a local bakery to be cooked. Her homemade cherry preserves and goats yogurt was one of the greatest culinary experiences of my life. I can no longer remember all of the courses but it was a meal fit for Alexander the Great himself. The one dish that stayed with me was her meatballs which were simple and rustic yet sublime at the same time. The recipe that follows is a fusion of those meatballs and the goat roasts that cemented in my mind an impression of flavors, while not traditional, of my experience of Greek cuisine. This was originally a meat ball recipe but as my skills in in the kitchen improved I bumped it up a notch and the manicotti version became a family favorite. Stuffing the manicotti does require some skill so I'm including instructions for the meat ball version at the end for those who find it a bit daunting. First things first...

Ingredients:

Meat mixture

1 lb. ground lamb(you can substitute beef but lamb is better)
1 TBS minced fresh flat leaf parsley finely minced
1 TBS minced fresh spearmint finely minced
1 TBS minced fresh oregano(preferably Greek) finely minced
If you must substitute dry spices use half as much(no judgement!)
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 lemon
1/2 cup Italian bread  crumbs
1 TBS salt
1 egg

Sauce

1 large can Italian plum tomatoes(pony up the fifty cents for the real deal. It matters)
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 TBS extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic minced or pressed

1 package Manicotti pasta

Place the ground lamb in a bowl and add the parsley, mint, oregano, black pepper, salt, bread crumbs, and egg. Add the zest of the whole lemon and the juice of half of the lemon and reserve the other half. Work the meat mixture with your hands until all of the ingredients are well incorporated and the meat takes on a slightly sticky texture. When your done it should look like this.



Cover the meat and place it in the fridge. Next we need to cook the manicotti pasta. This recipe yields eight or nine manicotti, less than a package contains, but I usually cook the entire package. Stuffing the pasta can be tricky and there might be ruptures so having spares is a good idea. I usually either give the extras to my pigs or chop them up for a pasta salad the next day. Follow the package directions, but reduce the cooking time by two minutes. Leaving the pasta slightly undercooked makes the stuffing process easier and they'll finish absorbing moisture from the sauce in the oven. When the pasta is cooked drain into a colander and rinse with cold water till cool. Next we stuff the manicotti. I've used a pastry bag to good effect but I prefer it for stuffing pasta with cheese fillings. Buy one, it's worth the coin. Usually I pinch off small pieces of meat mixture and push them in with my finger. To do this hold the pasta in the palm of your left hand with your thumb covering the opening at one end and your fingers gently curled around the pasta. Use your right hand to pinch off  little bits of meat and push it in the other end. Your thumb keeps meat from coming out the end and curling your fingers prevents pressure from meat accidentally bursting the manicotti. As you fill each manicotti place in a shallow baking dish. Try to choose a dish sized so the manicotti will fill the dish as much as possible. This will ensure good coverage of the sauce. Before you start the sauce preheat the oven to 350 degrees. You'll make the sauce while the oven heats. The sauce is very simple. In a medium sauce pan add the tomatoes. Using a spatula cut the plum tomatoes roughly in half. It doesn't have to be perfect, we just want the tomatoes to be the center of attention. Add the sugar, cinnamon, and garlic. You may add salt if you like but it isn't necessary. Heat on medium high, stirring frequently, until almost bubbling. The sauce will actually cook in the oven. Remove from heat and spread the sauce evenly over the manicotti. Cover the dish loosely with aluminum foil. You want to cover all the manicotti but allow steam to escape at the edges. This will help the sauce reduce and thicken. Place in the middle rack of the oven and cook for 45 minutes. After 45 minutes remove the foil and check the sauce. If it needs to thicken more cook another 15 minutes uncovered. Remove from oven and let stand. Now I promised you a meat ball version. It's pretty simple. Prepare the meat mixture like a above and roll out one inch meatballs and place in a baking dish. Cover with the sauce as before and bake uncovered 30 - 45 minutes until sauce is thickened. Serve over the pasta of your choice!

 I usually start off the meal with a Greek Meze platter of Dolmades, marinaded artichoke hearts, and greek salad dressed with extra virgin olive oil. I slice the remaining lemon in to wedges and add those to the platter. Dolmades are particularly good with a little lemon juice.



After the Meze I plate the manicotti, sauce and greek baked beans, and serve with warm garlic bread. The beans pictured at the top are a recipe from Diane Kochilas for baked beans with spinach and feta.  It was excellent! If you wish to explore Greek cuisine further I highly recommend her site. It not only is a treasure trove of authentic recipes, but a source for Greek history, culture, regional cuisines and influences. You can visit her site here. Meanwhile enjoy the fruits of your labor and keep scrabbling on!

Homemade Dried Pepper Flakes from my Garden

I had a bumper crop of Jalapenos this year so after I finished making hot sauce and pickling nacho slices I turned my mind to using ripened peppers. In the past I've dried them whole and then chopped them in the food processor. I was never totally satisfied with the finished product and it's very hard on the machine so I tried something different this year. First I chopped the fresh peppers in the processor until I had a uniform paste. Then I spread the paste on my dehydrator trays like so.



Most dehydrator manufacturers sell fine mesh plastic screens for this purpose as an accessory. However this is the Hardscrabble Gourmet and we like to do things on the cheap so I made some from left over aluminum window screen. Worked like a charm! Set your dehydrator at 98 degrees if it has a temp control and let her rip. When it's dry it looks like this. It took mine 48 hours but the weather was humid so your mileage may vary.



Using a spatula, I scraped the dried pulp out onto a sheet of newspaper. This is a trick to use with all your dried herbs. When your finished crushing them simply fold the newspaper to transfer your herbs to a container and then through it away. No fuss, no muss, and no clean up. Back to the peppers.



The sugars in the ripe peppers cause the dried paste to clump so I used a rolling pin to roll out and gently pound the stuff until I got a nice fine consistency perfect for measuring in the kitchen. Now I'll really be heating things up! If your looking for something to cook with pepper flakes try out my Summer Squash Marinara. There's still a little summer left to enjoy it!

Easter Sunday breakfast: Eggs Goldenrod

On Easter Sunday morning the first thing I would do is check to see if someone left me a chocolate rabbit during the night, the second thing would be to hunt for Easter eggs in the yard. Priorities! After the hunt my mother always turned my new found multicolored bounty into eggs goldenrod for breakfast. Its a simple breakfast that's fast and easy which makes it perfect for getting the family off to church. Not going to church? Why are you dying Easter eggs in the first place? Come on! Get thee to the chapel, it might do you some good. Without further ado, here's the recipe.

This makes four servings
5 or 6 hard boiled eggs
2 TBS butter or margarine (butter's better but if you must...)
1 TBS all purpose flour
1 cup milk
salt and pepper
toasted bread (I prefer white. Hey, this recipe's seriously white on multiple levels)

Peel the eggs and separate the white from the yolks and put the yolks aside in a bowl. Chop the the whites into roughly 1/2 inch chunks, put aside. Next heat a skillet to medium high and add the butter. When the butter melts, add the flour and stir until completely incorporated. Next add the milk and continue stirring until it bubbles and starts to thicken. Add the eggs with a dash of salt and pepper. Continue stirring until the mixture thickens to a nice gravy consistency then remove from heat. Spoon the egg mixture on to a piece of toast. Next take a cheese grater and grate the yolk on top until nicely coated and serve. You usually end up with some extra yolk so give the dog a little treat. Don't have a dog? Seriously, get a dog. They'll always appreciate your cooking! I hope you enjoy this little Easter tradition as much as I enjoy sharing it. Happy Easter!