Blues and leftovers

It is important to sometimes splurge on a Monday. Mondays are notorious for blues and leftovers, but I managed to wipe both of these away with a night filled with baked Camembert, coq au vin and a wicked chocolate pistachio cake.

When my Aunt and Uncle cancelled their trip to Chicago because of the impending blizzard, I was left with a clean house, a chocolate cake, a fridge full of chicken and stinky Camembert. I knew I needed to capitalize on all of the above and immediately invited my colleague, Holly, to join me for a last minute dinner and trashy TV. We share a guilty obsession with The Bachelor, and I knew we could whip this little supper up before Brad Womack started handing out roses.

The chocolate pistachio cake was waiting patiently as I walked through the door. I achieved a small victory when I managed to dissuade Martin from digging into it the night before.

This a flour-less cake that uses the ground pistachios instead of flour. It's rich and dense and best of all, topped with chartreuse shards of my favorite nut, the pistachio.

You can serve it with some pistachio gelato, but I opted for a little mascarpone cheese whipped with some orange zest. Please note: I can't take credit for the attempt at professional food styling below- credit is due to Holly Lignelli.

Chocolate-Pistachio Cake

Adapted from How To Be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson

Serves 10-12

for the cake:

5 oz bittersweet chocolate

1/2 cup sugar

5 ounces pistachios (not-salted)

1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp soft unsalted butter

6 large eggs, separated

1/2 lemon

pinch of salt

9-inch springform pan lined with parchment or wax paper and buttered

for the ganache icing;

5 oz bittersweet chocolate

1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp heavy cream

drop of orange-flower water (optional)

2-4 tbsp coarsely chopped pistachios

Preheat oven to 375F

Melt the chocolate in the microwave or double boiler.

Process 1/4 cup of the sugar with the pistachios until they are like dust. Add the butter and the 1/4 cup of sugar and process until smooth. Add the egg yolks one at a time, pulsing after each, then, with the motor running, slowly pour in the melted and cooled chocolate.

Wipe the inside of a bowl with the lemon 1/2 and in it, whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt. When peaks form, slowly add the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar until glossy and firm.

Add a big dollop to the cake batter in the processor and pulse a couple of times to lighten it. A third at a time, add the cake batter to the whites and fold in gently but firmly.

Pour the mix into the prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes. Then turn down the oven to 350F and bake for a further 20-25 minutes or until cooked.

When the cake is ready, it should be coming away from the sides. Leave it to cool for 15 minutes and before un-molding. Don't ice it until it's completely cold.

for the icing:

Break the chocolate into a heavy-bottomed saucepan with the cream and orange flower water if you're using it. If this breaks, let it cool slightly and add a little more cream and it should come back to a glossy icing you intended. When it's melted, start whisking and when it's thick enough to coat, pour it over the cake on its plate. Let it run down the sides and sprinkle the cake with the chopped pistachios.

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As Holly helped me prep our chopped onions, bacon and mushrooms for Nigel Slater's Coq au Riesling, we plucked the wafting Camembert from the fridge and cracked open a bottle of wine.

Baked Camembert

I removed it from it's wooden box, placed it on some aluminum foil and quickly scored the top of the rind with 6 swift slices. I stuffed a garlic clove into each and drizzled some truffle oil in each hole. I decided not to be mean with the truffle oil and was rewarded for this decision.

After wrapping it up like a pressie, it received 10 minutes in a 350F oven. If you've done this before or are planning on trying this, as I would urge you to do, keep checking the cheese after 10 minutes. The objective is NOT to produce a pool of hot cheese, which can easily happen if left too long. It should simply ooze when prodded by your knife before you spread it onto some french bread. You can also try this with a little fig jam if you're going for something a bit sweeter. We opted for fig jam on the side rather than cooking it. In my house, truffles trump any challenger.

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If you're used to making a coq au vin that takes hours, this is a real find. Once your prep is out of the way, it takes about 30 minutes and is every bit as intoxicating as you'd hope it would be- the wine/cream combo is understandably swoon-worthy.

This serves two, but I find by keeping the sauce as is and just adding more chicken joints, you can feed 4-6 easily. The sauce that is leftover can and SHOULD be tossed with pasta and more fresh parsley the day after. I dare say I like it the second day better than the first.

Coq Au Riesling

Adapted from Real Food by Nigel Slater

Serves 2

3 tbsp butter

a tbsp of olive oil

100 g streaky bacon or pancetta, diced

2 small onions, peeled and chopped

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped

4 joints of free range chicken on the bone

2 handfuls of small brown mushrooms (your choice) roughly chopped - keep some whole

2 cups Riesling or other medium-dry white wine

1 1/4 cup heavy cream

small handful of chopped parsley

Melt the butter in a heavy based casserole dish and pour in the oil. Cook the diced bacon or pancetta and let it color a little, then add the onions and garlic. Leave to cook over moderate heat until the onions have softened but not yet colored. Scoop the bacon and onions out with a draining spoon and leave the cooking juices in the pot. Add the chicken and let them brown lightly on all sides. Use moderate heat here and add more oil or butter if it's browning too much.

Add the mushrooms and continue cooking for a few more minutes, then return the bacon and onions. Turn up the heat, pour in the wine and bring to the boil. Turn it down to simmer and cook everything at a gentle simmer for 25 minutes, turning the chicken from time to time.

Lift the chicken out of the pan and pour in the cream. Season with salt and pepper and stir in the chopped parsley. Continue cooking at an enthusiastic bubble to let the cream thicken slightly. Return the chicken to the pan and make sure it's thoroughly hot and the sauce has the thickness of heavy cream.

Serve with a crisp green salad and some french bread to mop up the juices not forgetting to leave some of the sauce for pasta the following day. You won't regret your restraint.

Mostly cloudy and frigid

When your digital weather station reads: "mostly cloudy and frigid," you know it's a good day to make a pie. Fish pie that is. A fish pie needs to be piping hot, topped with mashed potato, and somehow provide real sympathy to the lack of times you'll step foot out of the house today.

Having lived in London for so long, I'm partial to a cottage pie (beef) or a shepherd's pie (lamb), but the one I've made dozens of times and always go back to, is fish. It must include the best fish you can get, and you can pick any kind you like. My chosen fish was always smoked haddock, but it's hard to find here in Midwest America. Cod, if properly sourced, is tasty. You can add several different kinds of fish including salmon, shrimp, whatever you like. Ultimately, it's the creamy, mustardy sauce and hard-boiled eggs that makes this pie irresistible.

This is certainly one of my top 5 Jamie Oliver recipes that I simply could not do without. As he suggests, I add a touch of class and serve it with tomato ketchup and heinz baked beans.

Fantastic Fish Pie

Adapted from The Return of the Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver

5 large potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks for boiling and mashing

a few tbsp of olive oil for mashing the potato and frying the onion & carrot

2 free range eggs

2 large handfuls of spinach

1 onion, chopped

1 carrot, halved and chopped finely

1 1/4 cup heavy cream (or double cream)

2 handfuls of grated mature white cheddar cheese

juice of 1 lemon

1 heaped teaspoon of English mustard (Colman's)

handful of parsley, chopped

1 lb of fish- your choice: haddock, cod, salmon, or a mix- skinned, boned and cut into bit size chunks

salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 450F. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and add the potatoes. Bring the water back to the boil and cook for 10 minutes. Add the eggs once the water has boiled. Use a colander on top of the boiling potatoes to cook the spinach (using a pan lid on top of the colander to trap the steam.) At the end of the ten minutes, your potatoes and eggs will be cooked. Remove the spinach to drain and squeeze the excess water out of it.

Drain the potatoes. Set both the eggs and spinach aside to cool. When the eggs are cooled, peel and quarter them.

Mash the potatoes using a little olive oil and salt & pepper, put a lid on the pan and set aside. You can use butter and a little cream if you'd like, but the sauce underneath is creamy enough. The olive oil makes the mashed potato crisp up in the oven.

In a separate pan, add a little olive oil and slowly cook the chopped onion and carrot until cooked (about 8- 10 minutes). Add the cream and bring just to the boil, then remove it from the heat. Add the cheddar, lemon juice, English mustard and parsley. Salt and pepper to taste and get ready to start layering your pie.

Using a lightly oiled casserole dish of your choice (8x10 in size at least), start by placing the pieces on the bottom and strategically arranging the spinach and eggs around the fish. Make it so that each person will get a bit of everything.

Pour the sauce over the top of the of the fish, eggs and spinach and top everything with the mashed potato.

Cook for 25- 30 minutes until bubbly and the potatoes are golden brown on top.

Serve with a salad and/or heinz baked beans and don't forget the ketchup.

Happy Holidays from Hunger Habit

You can see that we've been roasting meats this holiday season. The two below are some of my favorite celebratory roasts and we'll definitely be needing a detox after filling up on such juicy and delicious dinners over the last few weeks.

This is the first year I've abandoned the traditional English turkey. Don't tell the in-laws, but turkey comes last on my list of roasted meats, so I was happy to see it behind us after Thanksgiving.

The first roast is the uber-famous Zuni Cafe Roast Chicken with Bread Salad. I'm not the first person to blog about this dish and I certainly won't be the last. I've professed my love for it after visiting Zuni Cafe in November. I was immediately taken under Judy Roger's spell, as all good food lovers who have pre-ordered her chicken should be.

The chicken is salted at least 24 hours in advance and you need to pat it dry during several occasions after it's sat in the refrigerator. It's a delicious roast chicken, but the bread salad is something very remarkable. The currants, scallions, toasted pine nuts and crispy bread are all bathed in a sharp vinaigrette and married together by sitting in your oven while your chicken rests. If you haven't been to Zuni, get there. If you want a new way to roast chicken, try this. Immediately.

The recipe on the link above is just as it is in her cookbook. I didn't adapt it at all. Some things should not be messed with.

The second triumph was my sister's (okay, Martha's) Christmas Roast Pork with Crackling. After abandoning the traditional roast beef, we settled on pork, but it needed to be BIG. She proceeded to order the pork leg from her local butcher and she and my Dad wrestled with this huge beast to ordain it with three heads of garlic. If you need pork to feed a crowd, this should be your choice. You certainly need some muscles to man handle this in and out of the oven. You've been warned.

You can see that the crackling turned a perfect golden brown and we crunched it greedily. The pork was juicy and spiked with the garlic pearls, thanks to my Dad's hard work. When paired with my black truffle dauphinoise and some simple green beans, the Christmas feast was memorable.

So here I am, staring 2011 in the face and a meatless weekend ahead. It's been worth it.

Happy New Year from Hunger Habit. Peace!