culinary flights of fancy

Home Cooking Adventures in Berkeley Heights

Author Archives: Craig


by Leave a comment

Classic Croque Madame

Ham, gruyere cheese, bechamel, and a fried egg with crispy, crusty bread...what could be better!?!

Ham, gruyere cheese, bechamel, and a fried egg with crispy, crusty bread…what could be better!?!

Classic Croque Madame:

This is a definitely a ‘go-to’ sandwich we love.  I love to use leftover fresh ham for this but any smoked and cured ham will do.  Likewise, prosciutto works well with this dish.  I think the key with the ham component is to use any that you like as long as you stay away from sweetly glazed or cured hams.  I think it is much better using a simple smoked and cured ham instead.  Otherwise, how could this not be great?  It’s ham, gruyere cheese, crusty bread, and a fried egg with béchamel sauce!  I mean, come on…it’s going to be pretty great.  Sometimes, we make these without the béchamel because we want something less heavy but let’s face it…it really is better with the béchamel.  Also, classically this sandwich is made with two pieces of bread with the fried egg over the top.  However, we often serve them open-faced with one piece of bread.  So, do as you prefer…

This is a pretty heavy, filling sandwich so we usually serve this with a large, simple salad with lots of greens and veggies.  Hint…eat a large salad first and then tackle the sandwich as it will fill you up more quickly and ensure you eat something healthy first before partaking in the less healthy sandwich.  Then if you end up eating the entire sandwich after that, then at least you can feel good about eating a decent amount of vegetables along with it!

Oh, just in case…béchamel is a French Mother sauce and their version of a white sauce.  It’s not made with cream, however. Instead, you make a roux with flour and butter and then slowly add milk until a sauce is formed.  Season it with salt, a pinch of cayenne pepper, and some freshly grated nutmeg and you are good to go.  It’s really great and a handy and fairly easy sauce to pull together for all sorts of things including a pretty incredible macaroni and cheese!  Recipe follows after the jump… Continue reading →


by Leave a comment

Vegetable Hash with Fresh Cranberry Beans, Greens, Mixed Vegetables, and Lardons

For a heartier dinner, add an egg, either poached or fried, over the top. It will add a nice creaminess to the vegetables.

For a heartier dinner, add an egg, either poached or fried, over the top. It will add a nice creaminess to the vegetables.

Laronds add a nice smoky flavor and a meaty texture to this otherwise vegetable oriented dish. Skip them if you want to keep it completely vegetable based.

Lardons add a nice smoky flavor and a meaty texture to this otherwise vegetable oriented dish. Skip them if you want to keep it completely vegetable based.

A while back I wrote a recipe for corned beef hash that had a number of different vegetables in addition to the usual suspects present in a hash.  In that post, I mentioned that hash is great with just vegetables or almost all vegetables.  Here, hash is lightened up with a mix of potatoes including sweet potatoes, fresh cranberry beans (which are in season right now), Tuscan kale, and a myriad of other vegetables all brought together with a bit of lardons and topped with a fried egg.  This is an easy ‘go-to’ dinner that Tara and I have not too infrequently.  It’s filling and fairly quick as it takes just under an hour or so to pull together.  I didn’t make this with an egg but usually will serve this with either a poached egg or fried egg on top.  I can’t remember why we decided against the egg the night I made this…we probably figured the hash was enough.  However, we love eggs and love eggs for dinner and this dish is a perfect canvas with which to use eggs.  So, it works for us on a number of levels…eggs or not!  Couple all the vegetables with the high fiber and protein of the fresh beans and this dish really packs a lot of nutritional punch.  Really, you can just look at the picture of the dish with all the various colored vegetables and you know it’s at least somewhat good for you.  They say eating the rainbow is the best way to get all of the various nutritional elements needed in your diet.  This dish succeeds in that regard.

If you are wondering what lardons are, it’s simply slab bacon that is sliced thick and then the thick slices are cut into thick matchstick-like shapes.  They are sweated over low heat, releasing the fat from the bacon.  They shouldn’t be overcooked and turned into little bacon bits.  Rather, they should be slightly chewy with some of the fat remaining on the inside while still having an ever so slight crunch on the outside.  They are very tasty and classically, they are used in frisee salads with a poached egg in French cuisine (and in other classic dishes as well).  If you can’t find slab bacon (unsliced), skip it.  There’s not need to use regular bacon here.  Just use grapeseed oil or some other vegetable oil.  Likewise, if you prefer to keep the hash completely vegetable based, just skip the lardons.  It will be great either way.

P.S.- Parboiled means partially boiled and for potatoes, typically that takes between 15-20 minutes.  Bring the water to a boil, place the potatoes in the boiling water and cook 15-20 minutes or until you can put a fork into the potato easy but still meet some resistance in the middle.

Recipe follows after the jump… Continue reading →


by Leave a comment

Pea Pesto with Toasted Walnuts, Pecorino Cheese, and Mint

Use pea pesto as a dip or as you would in any dish that calls for traditional pesto.

Use pea pesto as a dip or as you would in any dish that calls for traditional pesto.

Nothing says spring like fresh peas.  Beyond simply enjoying peas cooked quickly on their own or tossed into salads, etc. peas also make a great pesto.  The sweet earthiness of the peas really complement the saltiness of the cheese and they blend beautifully.  Mint pairs nicely with peas as well to round everything out.  Enjoy this easy dish as a dip with bread or crackers or toss it into pasta as you would a classic basil pesto.  You won’t be disappointed either way!  Recipe follows after the jump… Continue reading →


by Leave a comment

Easter Celebration Menu: Fresh ham with Provencal Herbs and basted in French wine

Craig's avatarculinary flights of fancy

Image

Try this for your Easter celebration on Sunday.  It’s very easy, feeds a crowd, and is unbelievably good.  I used a red wine here but a good French wine will work just as well.  I plan to make a Swiss chard gratin, salad, bread, and some other sort of vegetable dish to be determined.  I haven’t sorted out dessert yet either but will post the full menu once I figure it out.  Until then, check this recipe out and give it a try!  PS- this is a recipe from last summer.  I’m reposting it because this is the dish we landed on for Easter this year…my Italian Easter Pie idea was nixed (boo!).

I don’t have a lot of experience with fresh ham. This is actually only the second time I’ve cooked one, though it’s such a massive piece of meat, you can adapt all sorts of recipes for leftovers…

View original post 1,369 more words


by 1 Comment

Lavender, Honey, and Sherry Braised Short Ribs

Lavender, honey, and sherry short ribs with risotto style farro and wilted greens.

Lavender, honey, and sherry short ribs with risotto style farro and wilted greens.

Raw thinly sliced radishes and spring onions add an earthiness and slight spiciness to the sweetness of the lavender honey sherry reduction. Balance the whole dish with a very small drizzle of sherry vinegar.

Raw thinly sliced radishes and spring onions add an earthiness and slight spiciness to the sweetness of the lavender honey sherry reduction. Balance the whole dish with a very small drizzle of sherry vinegar.

This is another seasonal transition dish that marries hearty braised short ribs with some liter, more spring-like flavors.  I paired the short ribs with risotto style farro, wilted greens, and the braising vegetables and garnished it with thinly sliced radishes and spring onions.  This dish would be great with any rice or grain.  You can also skip it completely and serve it simply with vegetables and maybe some crusty bread to soak up the beautiful sherry and veal stock reduction that’s scented with lavender and honey.  Here I used a sweet sherry and, coupled with the honey, was almost too sweet.  So, if you prefer your main meals more on the savory side of the spectrum, simply use a dry sherry instead.  It will be great either way.  However, if you do use a sweet sherry, the extra sweetness added a nice balance to the earthiness of the farro, greens, radishes, and onions.  If you don’t have sherry, feel free to use a good quality white wine…it will turn out just as great.  Recipe follows after the jump… Continue reading →


by Leave a comment

Classic Corned Beef Reuben

Classic Corned Beef Reuben with seeded rye bread, Thousand Island dressing, sauerkraut, and gruyere cheese.

Classic Corned Beef Reuben with seeded rye bread, Thousand Island dressing, sauerkraut, and Gruyere cheese.

Reuben.2 (2)

Well as I indicated in my last post, I have this last little recipe to use up the rest of the corned beef from last week.  This can be as simple or as complex as you’d care to make it.  The Reuben is one of Tara’s favorite sandwiches so I decided to go all out.  I made a loaf of seeded rye, made Thousand Island dressing using homemade mayonnaise and homemade spicy ketchup with harissa, homemade sauerkraut, and we used gruyere cheese.  If you want to go to some or all of those lengths to tackle this classic sandwich, I can assure you that it definitely tasted great.  The good news is that you don’t really have to in order to produce a good quality Reuben using your own corned beef.  Recipes for homemade ketchup are readily available on-line and each one has slight differences in flavor, heat, and sweetness.  So, look around and see if you can find one that suits your taste.  The sauerkraut that I made came from the Kitchn.com and involved only cabbage, salt, and time…super easy and super good, though your arms will get a workout when you massage the water out of the cabbage for 10-15 minutes.  Otherwise, that’s all it takes.

If you don’t want to make your own bread (something I find really rewarding), try to find the best quality seeded rye that you can.  Even if you don’t feel like making your own mayonnaise or ketchup for the Thousand Island dressing, it definitely is worth it to make your own using good quality store bought versions.  As I said, this can be as simple or as complicated as you wish to make it!  And with this, we conclude the corned beef recipes until next year around St. Patrick’s Day 2016!  Recipe follows after the jump… Continue reading →


by Leave a comment

Corned Beef Hash with Mixed Vegetables

Lighten up a traditional corned beef hash by added greens, different types of potatoes, herbs, and other vegetables.

Lighten up a traditional corned beef hash by adding greens, different types of potatoes, herbs, and other vegetables.

Use a heavy bottomed pan or cast iron pan to cook the hash.

Use a heavy bottomed pan or cast iron pan to cook the hash.

If you are like Tara and I, then you celebrated St. Patrick’s Day in some way.  For us, that meant homemade corned beef and cabbage last week.  If you ended up making or buying corned beef, you likely had at least a bit of corned beef left over.  I love left over corned beef as it makes great Reuben sandwiches as well as awesome hash.  Often we have breakfast for dinner and this is a dish we would definitely make for dinner.  However, it certainly could be used for brunch or a hearty breakfast.

Traditionally, corned beef hash consists of shredded corned beef with cubed or hash brown potatoes and some onion and served alongside a fried or poached egg.  This dish definitely has all of that, but I tend to take a kitchen sink approach to it in terms of adding additional vegetables.  I like to add greens, peppers, a mix of potatoes, and any other vegetable that I might have on hand that needs to be used.  By preserving the crispy potatoes and corned beef as a base, adding additional vegetables simple adds complexity, color, and more nutrition to the mix.  It also lightens it up.  Make no mistake, this is still a hearty dish.  However, it just is not quite so meat and potatoes focused.

In order to make the potatoes crispy, there are really a number of ways to go.  One, you can cube the potatoes and cut them very small, thus shortening the cooking time in the pan (so that the potatoes brown and crisp at the same time they cook through…otherwise you can end up with browned potatoes that are not cooked through or black potatoes that spent too long in the pan, so they burned).   Another way you can go is to shred or grate the potatoes and then wring out the excess water, which allows for improved browning.  I decided to go a different route and keep the potatoes in relatively larger pieces.  You can do that while at the same time avoid burning them by parboiling them.  That is, cooking them in boiling water for 10 minutes or so (depending on the size of the potatoes) until they are half cooked.  I then dunk them in ice water, which stops the cooking.  From there, you simply dry them off and cut them in larger sized pieces.  This allows the potatoes to finish cooking in the hash pan, browning them as they finish, without risking burning them (or at least reducing that risk).

If you don’t have corned beef or if you don’t care for it, you can certainly use sausage, bacon, ham, or any meat you’d prefer.  If you want to make this a vegetarian meal, skip the meat completely and stick with the vegetables or add cooked beans or lentils at the very end for additional protein, fiber, and flavor.  At any rate, you can’t go wrong with hash and you can certainly make it your own based on your personal tastes while using ingredients you have on hand.

In programming notes, a Reuben recipe using the leftover corned beef is coming tomorrow.  That will be the last of the corned beef for a while and I don’t know about you, but I am definitely glad (though it was good).  Also, later this week a veggie hash with fresh cranberry beans, a Croque Madame recipe, and not too far on the horizon, a double veal chop coupled with spring vegetables in a white veal stock and cognac sauce.  So, stay tuned!  The recipe and more pictures follow after the jump… Continue reading →


by 1 Comment

Roasted Leg of Lamb with Tuscan Herbs and Garlic

Whole leg of lamb just prior to carving.

Whole leg of lamb just prior to carving.

Plated leg of lamb with polenta, roasted sweet potatoes and carrots, veal demi-glace, and tomato reduction. Garnished with watercress. Notice the three different pieces and their varying levels of doneness.

Plated leg of lamb with polenta, roasted sweet potatoes and carrots, veal demi-glace, and tomato reduction. Garnished with watercress. Notice the three different pieces and their varying levels of doneness.

I don’t absolutely love lamb so I don’t make it very often.  However, Tara really loves it and when my parents visited last weekend, they requested that I make a lamb dish.  So, I opted for roasting a leg of lamb.  It feeds a crowd and is pretty forgiving.  The other bonus is that it produces slices of meat with varying levels of doneness so if you enjoy rare meat, it’s there.  Likewise, if you prefer your lamb on the medium or medium rare side, the leg provides slices at that temperature too.  I think a lot of people might get a bit intimidated with the leg of lamb because of both the size of the meat as well as the perceived time it takes to cook.  The good news here is that it really doesn’t take longer than a traditional roast pork or beef.  I started it at a very high oven temperature and allowed it to cook for about 20 minutes and then lowered the temperature, removed it from the oven, and rubbed it all over with the garlic and herbs before returning it to the oven at a much lower temperature to finish cooking for about an hour.  As it turns out, everyone (myself included) really liked the lamb so I will definitely make it again at some point in the near future.

I paired the lamb with roasted vegetables and polenta and accented that with a veal reduction and tomato reduction and a touch of watercress.  It was very good that way but if you don’t want to make the veal reduction or the tomato reduction, you can certainly skip one or both.  The dish would be delicious without it as well.  Recipe and more pictures after the jump… Continue reading →


by Leave a comment

St. Patrick’s Day Celebration: the Pictures

Sorry it has taken me until now to post the end result pictures from yesterday.  We didn’t eat until late.  Everything turned out really well though.  There’s a ton of corned beef left so we will have enough to freeze (to enjoy another time later) and to make a sandwich or two!  I also plan to make some corned beef hash at some point next week.  So, all in all, we will get a good number of meals out of this holiday meal.  Hope you had as nice a day and meal too!

CornedBeef.3

To start, we dove right into this Irish pub salad. I used the basic recipe outlined in my previous post but added pickled onions, soft boiled eggs instead of hard boiled, and used a homemade mayonnaise for part of the dressing. I used an aged Irish Stout cheese as well.

To start, we dove right into this Irish pub salad. I used the basic recipe outlined in my previous post but added pickled onions, soft boiled eggs instead of hard boiled, and used a homemade mayonnaise for part of the dressing. I used an aged Irish Stout cheese as well.

More photos after the jump… Continue reading →


by Leave a comment

Pioppini Mushroom Salad with Watercress, Soft Boiled Egg, and Pickled Red Onion

MushroomandWatercresssalad.3

MushroomandWatercresssalad.1 (2)

This is a great little salad that can be used as either a starter or a main dish.  Pioppino mushrooms have a mild flavor with a long stem and small button on top and are light to dark brown in appearance.  They can be found in farmer’s markets and at specialty food stores.  If you have difficulty finding them, simply substitute your favorite mushroom.  The watercress with its pepper flavor and almost vine like appearance provides a nice balance in color and flavor to the mushrooms.  The pickled red onion simply adds a bit of color and a touch of acidity.  If you don’t like pickled onions or simply do not feel like making them, chives or green onions would work well too.  Finally, the soft boiled egg adds color and protein and brings a creaminess to the salad.  It also adds another level of heartiness to the meaty mushrooms.  If you prefer, hard boiled eggs would work as well, though I think the creaminess of a soft boiled egg or even a poached egg adds a nice touch that would be missed if you go that route.  .

All of this produce (except the onion) came from Just Farmed…I believe they are accepting new participants for this year (which starts in May.  Do yourself a favor and inquire as the service is very good!  If you live locally in New Jersey, it’s a great way to bring farm fresh produce right to your door every week.  Recipe follows after the jump… Continue reading →