Pickle-egg salad toast

2019 is about to be toast. Will the toast trend be toast soon as well? In the meantime, I dipped into this book that breaks down the myriad toast possibilities by season. No avocados were harmed in the making of this dish.

Pickle egg salad toast

From “Toast: The Cookbook” by Raquel Pelzel

Ingredients

5 hard-cooked eggs, peeled and chopped (not too fine)

3 tablespoons mayonnaise

¼ cup chopped pickles

2 teaspoons pickle brine

2 green onions, chopped

1 celery stalk, diced

1 tablespoon fresh parsley, dill or other herb of choice

½ teaspoon Dijon mustard

½ teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon black pepper

Butterhead lettuce

4 slices toast, lightly buttered

Method

In a large bowl, mix eggs and mayonnaise, mashing them together lightly. Stir in pickles, brine, green onion, celery, herbs, mustard, salt and pepper. Serve on toasted bread that’s been topped with lettuce (I chose butterhead because it helps hold the egg salad in place on the toasts.)

Rating: If you like egg salad, this is a perfectly fine quick meal paired with a bowl of tomato soup for a weekend lunch. I opted for dill pickles because I have a lot and like them, but sweet pickles would work too. Next time I might dice the pickles.

Rhubarb cherry chutney

This recipe may seem counterseasonal, but bear with me. I first clipped out this recipe when it was the height of rhubarb season in my back alley. But I never got around to making it until this week, when I was in freezer purge mode and ran across a container of rhubarb I had frozen for later use. 

So how is this seasonal? The flavor profile fits perfectly with fall dishes, and it makes room for Christmas cookies in my freezer.

Rhubarb cherry chutney

From Meredith Deeds, as published in the Star Tribune Taste section. This was part of a recipe for grilled butterflied chicken, which I’m sure is dandy, but there's snow piled on the grill, so we opted for roasted chicken brined in the pickling liquid from hot dilly beans. It would also work on lamb or pork.

Ingredients

3 cups chopped rhubarb

1 cup chopped red onion

1 seeded and chopped jalepeño

1 cup light brown sugar

½ cup pomegranate juice

½ cup cider vinegar

½ cup chopped dried red cherries

2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger

½ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon black pepper

Method

Combine rhubarb, onion, jalepeño, sugar, pomegranate juice, vinegar, cherries, ginger, cinnamon and black pepper in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat until the rhubarb is tender and it has reduced into a saucier consistency. Season to taste with salt if desired. (A note of caution: When I first tasted this it seemed very mild, so you might be tempted to augment it with some heat or more salt, but upon sitting, the heat and flavor intensifies a bit.) Can be made ahead and set out to come to room temperature before using on warm meat.

Rating: This is a tangy sauce for use on warm meats or on cold sandwiches like sliced chicken. Basically, I would say you could use this anywhere you would use a cranberry sauce/chutney. I'm sure fresh rhubarb would offer a slightly different texture to this chutney, but flavorwise that tang survives.

Red wine pasta

 

When icicles grace the garage, the snow never seems to stop and the streets are skating rinks, it's clearly time to open a bottle of hearty red and serve it along side comfort food. This one has the bottle of red built in for convenience.

Red wine pasta

Adapted from Bon Appetit, Dec. 2019. I didn’t really intend to adapt this, merely to cut it in half, but I spaced on the first bit and chopped up the 12 cloves of garlic for the full recipe. I went ahead and used it, and I think it was a good call because otherwise I’m not sure it would be a detectable component.

Ingredients

1½ tablespoons olive oil

8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, divided

12 garlic cloves, finely chopped

½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 bottle dry red wine

1 pound bucatini or other long pasta

Grated Parmesan cheese for garnish

Method

Heat a large heavy pot over medium heat. Add olive oil, 1 tablespoon of butter, garlic and red pepper flakes and cook until garlic is fragrant but not brown. Add wine and increase heat to medium-high, boiling until wine is reduced by two thirds, about 20 minutes or so.

Cook pasta until it’s almost al dente. Drain and add to wine sauce along with remaining 7 tablespoons of butter.  Toss together and simmer sauce until pasta is al dente,  well coated and sauce is thickened, about 3 minutes. Season to taste with salt. Garnish with grated Parmesan. Serves 4.

Rating: I might up the crushed red pepper flakes next time, but overall it was tasty. And since I always have butter, garlic and red wine in the house, it's a great pantry-friendly meal. Which is great when the streets are buffed to a lethal sheen.

Overnight pear-almond bran muffins

These sound healthy, but they're good anyway. I'm not always a fan of bran muffins, at least not the kind that seem more like sawdust. But these are moist and tasty.

The original recipe called for either powdered ginger or crystallized ginger. At the time I first made these I lived in a backwater where powdered ginger was all that was available, and these tasted dandy. When I moved to the land where tasty food is widely available, I tried it with the crystallized variety, but didn't actually like them as well. I decided the key was to use both.

While they are tasty, one of the best things about this is that you can mix up the batter up to three days in advance of baking them, and can bake off just as many as you need.

Refrigerated Pear-Almond Muffins

Adapted from Better Homes and Gardens, January 1994

Ingredients

1 cup whole bran cereal

1 cup milk

1¼ cups flour

¾ cup packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoon ground ginger

1 tablespoon finely chopped crystallized ginger (plus more for optional garnish)

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup peeled chopped pears

1 beaten egg

¼ cup cooking oil

2 tablespoons sliced almonds

Method

Combine cereal and milk and let stand 5 minutes.

Whisk together flour, brown sugar, baking powder, ginger powder, chopped ginger and salt. Toss together with pears.

Add egg and oil to cereal mixture stir to combine. Stir into pear mixture. 

Cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line muffin cups with paper liners or grease well. Fill muffin cups about ¾ full (a scant ¼ cup or so in each). Makes 14-16 muffins.  

Sprinkle sliced almonds on top along with additional crystallized ginger if desired. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes until done.

Rating: A nice Sunday breakfast treat that's not overly sweet. I have made this countless times over the decades.

Black olive roast chicken

This one-pan chicken dish is one of those flexible recipes. If fennel isn't your thing, feel free to substitute another vegetable like carrots or any other root vegetable. If you're really short on time, using a cut-up whole chicken and placing it over the vegetables would work as well, and is likely to cook slightly faster. Any combo of herbs you like can go into the black olive paste.

Black olive roast chicken

Adapted from “The Herbal Kitchen” by Jerry Traunfeld

Ingredients

½ cup pitted oil-cured black olives

2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves

3 tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves

Zest and juice of 1 large lemon

2 cloves garlic

½ teaspoon kosher salt

1½ pounds potatoes, cut into 2-inch chunks

1 large fennel bulb, white parts only, cut into 1-inch chunks

1 roasting chicken

½ cup white wine

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Combine olives, thyme, rosemary, zest and lemon juice, garlic and salt in food processor and whir to make a paste.

Place potatoes and fennel in a large roasting pan. Toss them with about a quarter of the olive paste mixture.

Remove any chicken innards and save for another use. Rinse chicken and pat dry. Cut out the backbone. Turn the chicken over and spread it flat, tucking wings under. Loosen the skin over the breast and legs and work the olive paste under the skin evenly over the bird. Place the bird over the vegetables in the pan. Season well with salt and pepper.

Bake at 425 degrees for 60 to 70 minutes until golden brown and no longer pink between the thigh and breast. 

Remove from oven. Pour wine over roasted vegetables and toss to deglaze the pan. Let chicken stand at least 10 minutes before carving.

Rating: Tasty Sunday night supper comfort food.