Texas chili

In honor of the Oscars Sunday night, I chose a recipe from a cookbook that’s a collection of menus tied to film themes. This one comes from the western genre, and is billed as Texas chili.

Texas chili, as Texans and watchers of “The Big Bang Theory” know, contains no beans, unlike the typical Midwestern version. As Sheldon explains in this clip, the bean-laced version may be tasty, whatever it is, but it’s not chili.

This is more like Minnesota chili in some respects, as the bacon, beef and salsa are all Minnesota products, and I only had so many green chilis to throw in the pot. But whatever this meaty, bean-less concoction is, it’s tasty.

Texas chili

Adapted from “Movie Menus” by Francine Segan

Ingredients

4 ounces bacon, diced

1 large red onion, diced

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 pounds cubed beef (½-inch squares)

2 teaspoons chili powder

½ teaspoon dried oregano

½ teaspoon ground cumin

4 cups stock (it calls for beef, but I used the tasty chicken broth I had on hand)

1 pint salsa

2 tablespoons chopped green chilis (the recipe called for 8 ounces, but this was all I had on hand, and it worked fine since the salsa had lots of heat)

3 tablespoons cornmeal

Method

Cook bacon until fat is rendered over medium heat. Reduce heat slightly. Add onion and cook until softened. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add beef and cook until browned. Add spices, broth, salsa and chilis. Bring to a boil over medium high heat. Reduce heat and simmer for 45 minutes.

Remove about a half cup of hot liquid. Mix in cornmeal and return to pan. Cook until thickened, about another 10 minutes.

Chicken, asiago and pear tart

 

When I told Dave the list of ingredients for this dish, he said, "So it's a pearza." 

Chicken, asiago and pear tart

Adapted from puffpastry.com, the Pepperidge Farm site.

Ingredients

1 sheet puff pastry (half a 17.3-ounce package), thawed

1 red pear, cored and thinly sliced

1½ cups cooked chicken

1½ tablespoons balsamic vinegar or less

¾  cup shredded Asiago cheese

Method

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a pastry sheet with parchment. Unroll pastry onto sheet. Spread pear slices over pastry, leaving a ¼-inch border. Top with chicken. Brush chicken with vinegar, being careful not to add too much or it will get soggy. Top with cheese. Bake for 25 minutes until puffed and golden.

Rating: Not bad flavorwise, as those flavors all work well together. The main trick is to make sure the pastry doesn't get soggy, so if your pear is on the ripe side, I'd cut back on the balsamic vinegar.  A very fast fix; doesn't quite rise to the company-rated level.

Leek and pancetta risotto with fines herbes

Leek and pancetta risotto with fines herbes

Adapted from the Williams-Sonoma catalog, this meal is another entry in my quest to try some long-ago clipped recipes. I’m not sure how long this recipe has been moldering in the files, but long enough that the gorgeous Ruffoni copper risotto pan the catalog was promoting cost $169.95. Now it’s $260. Still gorgeous, and still outrageous.

Ingredients

1 cup fresh parsley leaves

½ cup fresh chervil (if you can’t find this, up the amount of tarragon by a tablespoon and the amount of parsley by 3 tablespoons)

2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon

6 tablespoons olive oil, divided

3 ounces pancetta, diced

½ yellow onion, chopped fine

4 leeks, white and light green parts rinsed, sliced lengthwise if large and then thinly sliced

3 garlic cloves, minced

1½ cup Arborio rice

½ cup white wine

6 cups tasty broth, warmed

2 tablespoons butter

½ cup grated Parmesan cheese, plus optional shavings for garnish

Method

Combine herbs, 4 tablespoons of olive oil and salt and pepper to taste in a small food processor. Blend until smooth. (Or use an immersion blender and a bowl, as the catalog was promoting.) Set aside.

In a large saucepan, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat. Add pancetta and fry until browned, about 8 minutes. Add remaining tablespoon of oil and onion to pan. Saute until almost soft, about 7 minutes. Add leeks and cook until softened, about 15 minutes. Stir in rice and pancetta, cooking for a few minutes to coat rice. Add wine and cook until absorbed. Stir in broth, a half cup at a time, stirring continually until absorbed, a process that will take up to half an hour. 

(Note: As an English major, I deliberately use the adverb “continually” instead of “constantly,” which I find both unnecessary and unrealistic. Very frequent, attentive stirring yields the same creamy results. So unless you’ve got a household division of labor that lets you pull up a stool and spoon, glass of wine at your elbow while you use that as an excuse to have someone else prepare and dress the salad, incessant stirring isn’t an absolute requirement.)

When the rice is al dente, stir in the butter, cheese and fines herbes. Garnish with parsley shavings if desired. Serves 4 to 6 reasonably realistically.

Rating: If you like risotto, you’ll like this recipe. (If you don’t like risotto, why are you even looking at this page?) Nice and creamy, with depths of flavor beyond the usual cheese-butter notes.

Pork medallions with pomegranate sauce

No, those aren't small golden potatoes, those are grapes. I'm familiar with the concept of grapes in a warm sauce (red grapes, shallots and chicken are particularly nice), so I wasn't put off by the concept. But this recipe called for both grapes and catsup in the same recipe. I figured it would either be possibly really good, or just really odd, so I had to try it to find out.

Pork medallions with grapes in pomegranate sauce

Adapted from “Jacques Pepin: More Fast Food My Way”

Ingredients

1 pork tenderloin (slightly over a pound), cut crosswise into 1-inch slices)

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

½ cup pomegranate juice

½ cup chicken stock

2 tablespoons ketchup

3 tablespoons dried cherries (or cranberries)

1 cup small green seedless grapes

¼ cup shredded arugula

Method

Heat butter and oil in a large skillet over high heat. Sprinkle pork with salt and pepper. Cook in skillet about 2 to 3 minutes a side until just lightly pink in the middle. Set aside and keep warm.

Add pomegranate juice and stock. Cook over high heat to reduce. Add ketchup and cherries. Stir until mixture thickens slightly. Add grapes and toss to coat. Serve pork topped with sauce and sprinkled with arugula.

Rating: The pomegranate, stock, ketchup and dried cherry combo works just fine as a sauce; the pork medallions are perfectly tender and the arugula garnish was a nice contrast of color and texture. But the grapes, well, not so much. It being winter in Minnesota, small green grapes are not an option. (Well, really, they never are.) I think champagne grapes would have worked nicely, or as a second choice, red grapes would have paired better. Even sliced in half the green grapes just kind of stuck out like the odd men out. But the ketchup incorporated nicely to make a smooth sauce that's a good fast fix. Worth experimenting with, at any rate.

Squash and lentil soup, aka how to survive February

The best way to survive a Minnesota winter is to escape from it, at least briefly. But if that's not feasible, here are five coping mechanisms:

1. Book a week at your favorite cabin for the peak of sweltering summer, when cool lake breezes will seem like a good thing. Cabin 1, here we come.

2. Get together with good friends for great food and entertainment (indulgent double chocolate bread pudding, a well-worn DVD --plus cats!). The warm feeling lasted long enough to get us home in the stupid cold to a kitchen free of dirty dishes . Bless you, Sonja and Bernie! (You know you're in Minnesota when your friends say, well, it was your turn, and they mean not the effort of cleaning and cooking but bundling up in the cold weather.)

3. Create a cave of cuddly throws and pillows, put on the teapot and then the fingerless gloves and curl up by the light of the Kindle or Netflix. It's a safer binge than the vodka that gets Russians through this same seasonal stupidity.

4. Valentine's isn't the only excuse for fresh flowers, but it's handy that the holiday hits when they're most needed for a pick-me-up.

5. Haul out the soup pot and make the thickest, heartiest soup you can come up with, the kind that almost has structural integrity, like this one.

Squash and lentil soup

Adapted from “Great Good Food” by Julee Rosso. It’s subtitled “Luscious Lower-Fat Cooking,” but for pity sake, this recipe has a bacon garnish. It stipulates lean bacon, but bacon only gets so low fat.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon butter

½ cup finely chopped onion

½ cup finely chopped carrot

½ cup finely chopped celery

5½ cups broth, divided

2 cups lentils

1 large butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 1-inch chunks

½ teaspoon dried thyme

2 slices bacon, cooked crisp, drained and crumbled

Method

Heat butter over medium heat in large saucepan or Dutch oven. Add onion, carrot and celery and saute until softened but not browned. Add lentils and 4 cups of broth. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer for an hour. Check in toward the end to make sure mixture isn’t going dry, adding more broth if necessary.

Add squash, thyme and remaining broth. Simmer until squash is tender, another 30 to 45 minutes. Season to taste with salt, pepper and more thyme if desired. Serve topped with bacon crumbles.

The recipe claims it serves 12, which is probably the heart-healthy-size serving that clocks in at a mere 163 calories and 25 grams of carbs. Realistic winter survival servings are more like 8, tops.

Rating: Fine enough choice on a cold winter day when the snowflakes won’t stop swirling outside. The lentils pretty much give up, which makes a sort of flavorful paste to thicken the soup. The bacon helps with the flavor component, but it would be OK without if you’re looking for a vegetarian alternative. It’s a pretty mild soup, and might be the better for just a hint of some other flavor note. Maybe ginger next time, or red pepper flakes to perk it up.

At any rate, it's left me with one less squash that might go bad, only two partially opened packets of red lentils instead of three, and about 46 days of the worst part of winter to go.