Orange Blossom Cocktail

The Orange Blossom


Oh what a lovely name this cocktail has - and the name matches the delightfully refreshing flavor! It's a bit deflating to realize that the name arose during Prohibition, when fresh orange juice was added to cheap bathtub gin in order to mask the hideous flavor - although redemption does come when you realize that this drink is therefore a part of American history. Partaking of one is like sharing in the collective story of our country. Hurray!

All right - that might be stretching things a little bit, although I will say that the Orange Blossom is at the top of my list of all time classic cocktails. It's just plain delicious, especially when made with really good quality gin and orange juice. If you move to a top shelf gin and freshly squeezed orange juice, then the Orange Blossom becomes something akin to a nectar of the gods. On top of that it's one of the few socially acceptable morning cocktails, joining the Screwdriver, the Bloody Mary and the Mimosa as one of the rare drinks that you can get away with ordering with your pancakes.



There are also several variations on the Orange Blossom, all with 'blossom' in their names, giving you a veritable bouquet from which to choose. Apple, Magnolia, Cherry and Hawaiian Blossoms all follow the same basic recipe, just swapping out the type of juice used. Feel free to sample them all!

The Recipe!


You'll Need:

Good quality gin

Good quality juice - orange or apple

a cocktail shaker

ice

For the basic Orange Blossom, fill the cocktail shaker halfway with ice. Pour in an equal measure each of gin and orange juice. Shake until frost forms on the shaker, strain and serve in a small highball glass.

For the Apple Blossom, use brandy and apple juice, with about two ounces of lemon juice added. Shake, strain and serve as above.

For the Hawaiian, use two ounces of gin, one ounce each of triple sec and pineapple juice, and two ounces of orange juice. Shake, strain and serve as above.

For the Magnoila - use 2 ounces of gin, and one ounce each lemon juice and heavy cream.

Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potatoes top every single list of people's favorite comfort foods. Rich, creamy and delicious, they just ooze delicious warmth. Topped with a little homemade gravy, and super simple dish can be elevated to Nirvana inducing levels. In this case creamy mashed potatoes are paired up with sweet and savory roasted garlic, which adds a depth and dimension that is to die for.



There are a few tricks for mashed potatoes. There's tons of information about how to do them correctly in Potatoes, How to Make the Most of Your Tubers. The best way to get the creamiest, silkiest potatoes is to use a ricer, but you can get great results with an old fashioned masher. The important thing is to not overbeat them - using a mixer or getting too enthusiastic with beating will break them down too much, and they'll be gluey and sticky instead of fluffy.

You can also change these up easily - my personal preference is for russet potatos, but Yukon Golds or Reds are also great - just a little waxier, so the texture is different. Feel free to leave the skins on if you'd like a 'smashed' version. You can also change out the half and half for all cream, or all milk, sour cream or even evaporated milk - whatever you have and however rich you'd like them.

This recipe makes enough to serve 6-8 - I usually double it to get leftovers to use on shepherd's pie or for potato pancakes. Those are awesome with a little fresh chives or parsley.

You'll Need:




2 medium heads of garlic

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

3 pounds russet, red or Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and quartered

6 tablespoons butter, softened

1 cup half and half

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350F.

Cut the heads of garlic in half, making sure to take off the tips of the cloves of garlic, but leaving them attached to the head. Remove and discard extra paper. Place the garlic on a sheet of aluminum foil, drizzle with olive oil and a sprinkle of salt. Seal packet, and place in oven for one hour. At the end of the hour, remove packet from the oven, open it to release steam and cool, and set aside.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Once boiling, add a big pinch of salt and add potatoes. Cook until tender, about fifteen minutes.

Place half and half and butter in a small saucepan over low heat. You really just want to warm these and melt the butter, not cook them. Squeeze garlic from the cloves in to a small bowl, and mash with the back of a fork, and add the garlic to the milk.

Drain and put back in hot pot, but off the heat. Add butter, half and half and garlic and mash. Stir in, and add salt and pepper to taste.

Sesame Ginger Noodles

I love how some of the flavors of Southeast Asia simply pop - the warmth of sesame oil, the bite of ginger, the crunch of cashew and the heat of chili flakes. Some of my all time favorite flavors come together in this quick and easy dish, and the best part is that the dish goes together in moments. Even better? It's just as good stashed in the fridge and chilled as it is hot.

This particular dish calls for soba noodles. Soba noodles are thin Japanese noodles made from buckwheat flour. If you can't find them, and I often can't in my little town, then feel free to use whole wheat spaghetti. That's what I almost always end up using. The shape, texture and flavor is similar enough to make a great substitution. If you can find them though - give them a try. They're delicious and pretty high up the nutritional scale.

The only 'required' ingredients for this dish are the ginger, garlic and sesame oil. Everything else can be changed as you wish - swap out other vegetables you may have. Juienned snow peas are great, as is fresh green, red or Napa cabbage. All of the veggies work raw, or briefly steamed or stir fried. Feel free to change the cashews for peanuts if you'd like. Swap the cilantro for fresh parsley if you prefer, and as always, add or subtract the chili flakes to suit your preferences. Easy peasy, quick, simple and delicious - Bombshell baby!

The Recipe!

You'll need:

•1 16 ounce package soba noodles or whole wheat spaghetti

•1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

•1/4 cup soy sauce

•2 tablespoons seasoned rice vinegar

•1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated

•1 clove garlic, very finely minced

•1 tablespoon sesame oil

•1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

•1/2 cup water

•4 green onions, including green tops, thinly sliced

•1/2 cucumber, seeds removed, julienned

•2 radishes, julienned

•1/2 carrot, julienned

•1/4 cup cashews, chopped

1.Heat large saucepot of salted water to boiling over high heat; add noodles and cook as label directs.

2.While the noodles cook, in a medium mixing bowl, whisk together peanut butter, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, sesame oil, red pepper and water. Set aside.

3.When noodles have cooked, drain them, and rinse them well under cold water.

4.Place noodles in a large serving bowl. Add vegetable and sauce, tossing well before serving. Top with cashews.

Schmaltz

Serious eats...


Stay with me for a minute before you freak out - all right? Schmaltz is fat. Period.



Now there are various kinds - the most widely known schmaltz is chicken fat, used widely in Jewish cuisine, but strictly speaking, all rendered or purified animal fats are also schmaltz. Southerners have long been familiar with the glories of bacon grease and lard, and rendered duck or goose fat has been used in traditional French and Italian cooking for centuries. Even McDonald's used beef lard to fry their french fries until health concerns caused them to swap to less heart attack inducing oils for frying.



Why? Why in the world would you want to eat that stuff? Well - because it's seriously delicious. How many of us have lamented that the fries don't taste like they used to at the Golden Arches? And the best pie crusts you've ever had were most likely made with lard or butter or both. The fats I described have all been worked with, to use as a replacement for butter or other cooking oils - to fry other foods or as a spread on various breads. Some are even used to further preserve foods, as in goose or duck confit.



You also have to realize that schmaltz is not simply fat - in all cases it's been treated, rendered, purified or worked with in some form or fashion, to make it more useable. Plain chicken fat is not much use for anything - but chicken fat that has been turned into schmatltz and gribenes is pure lovliness. It can be doled out in tiny, golden precious portions to add a one of a kind flavor to all kinds of dishes, just as pork, duck or beef schmaltz can be.



And none of them are used in large amounts. While it's true that with making confit you need to have more than a tablespoon or two, the end result - the confit itself and the flavored fat resulting - is then parceled out in tiny amounts. Most of the time these types of fats are 'hard' to get - it takes me weeks, if not months to get enough chicken fat to make schmaltz, and duck fat is usually a once a year treat around the holidays, at least at my house.



If you want to elevate some of your dishes - and we're talking put-them-on-a-pedestal elevation here, then try a touch of one of these. Start with chicken schmaltz - if you don't want to try to gather the materials yourself, chances are you can find a butcher who will give you his trimmings, and you can experiment. Try the gribenes on a good winter salad. Make a basic potato kugel with it. Try just a touch with a sprinkle of salt on crusty warm French bread....see what you think. I can almost promise you'll be hooked. And it will happen once in a blue moon - just enough to have you looking forward to the next time.

The Method

You'll need:



1.Fat - a good bit. Try to have at least half a pound of chicken fat. I usually trim my own, breaking down whole chickens, and saving the bones for stock. When I do, I toss the skin and fat into freezer bags until I have enough to make schmatz. This works for duck too - check out the videos, where I've done both.

2.If you make your own stocks, then you've already got a source for the fat. When skimming the stocks, simply run the fat you skim off through a strainer and toss the fat in the freezer as well. One benefit to this is that it tends to be 'cleaner' - lighter in color in taste, since the proteins and impurities have already been skimmed off and discarded with the skimming from the stockpot.

3.When you're ready, you'll also need one thinly sliced onion. I use one small/medium onion per pound of fat or so. There's no strict ratio, but that's about right.

4.Place the fat and onion over medium heat in a medium to large saucepan. Slice any skin you're using as well (which makes the gribenes - the little crispy bits), into thin slices, and throw those in as well.

5.You'll see the fat almost immediately begin to melt and liquefy. The skin will also begin to render - poultry skin is rather fatty. In this case, you want the fat to render from the skin. What will remain for the gribenes will be a very small amount - but wil become crispy.

6.That's it - for a long while. Keep the mixture at a nice simmer - it will depend on how much you're making and how much moisture is in with your raw ingredients. I've made it in an hour, and I've had batches take both less and more time. You want the schmatlz to quit steaming, and the entire thing will turn a beautiful golden brown. The gribenes will become a darker color.

7.Strain the whole thing - separate the gribenes, and place the liquid schmaltz into a glass container. Cover tightly and store in the fridge. I've never had a batch last more than a couple of weeks, so I'm not sure how long it lasts. I do know duck confit can be stored this way for about a month, so keep that figure in mind.

Now - let me say this. This stuff is seriously disaster laden health wise. This is not a food that you wish to make part of your regular diet. We are talking pure animal fats here. But...beyond the fact that it is nearly as rare as hen's teeth and almost as hard to get, you don't need but a teaspoon drizzled over potatoes, or a few tablespoons baked into a casserole, or a bit with which to saute off green beans or a bit of chicken, veal or lean pork. I personally feel free to use the single cup of schmaltz or duck fat, all I'm able to produce every few months, with happy abandon on the three-four dishes I can make while it lasts. The rest of the time I behave, and wield my extra virgin olive oil. And wait...

Chicken a la King

This is one of my favorite things to do with leftover chicken or turkey. It takes only a few minutes to put together, (despite the apparently long list of ingredients), simmers off nearly unattended, and the result is pure lusciousness.
Chicken (or turkey) a la king is often served as a dressed up meal, although it doesn't have to be reserved for a formal occasion. Sure - dress it up if you wish - but I love this one as much for a go-to family meal as anything else. This is also one of the most adaptable recipes I know - feel perfectly free to make substitutions at will. Change out the mushrooms for anything you have - my favorite is criminis or brown mushrooms, but I'll use whatever I have.
There are a couple of easy ommissions as well - if you don't have good sherry - the real, honest to goodness thing, then please don't use that stuff off the shelf at the grocery. It's just nasty. And of course skip it if you're feeding kids - most of the alcohol burns off, but not all of it. If you don't have fresh nutmeg, don't worry about it. The fresh is yummy, the ground stuff just isn't. And change out whatever you'd like to serve it over - I love puff pastry shells when I have them, but cut sheets into squares and it works just as well. Or use toast points, or biscuits, or rice or noodles...

See why I love the adaptability of this one? Because on top of everything else, the result is a beautifully creamy, silky chicken dish that epitomizes comfort food. Give it a shot and you'll be hooked as well.

The Recipe!

This looks like a lot of ingredients - but check them out. Almost everything is a simple pantry staple, and nothing is unusual or exotic.
You'll need:
•5 tablespoons butter, divided

•¼ cup shallots, minced

•6 tablespoons all-purpose flour

•1/4 cup dry sherry (make it real sherry, not cooking sherry from the grocery)

•4 cups chicken or turkey broth, homemade if possible

•4 sprigs fresh parsley

•1 tablespoon fresh parsley, minced

•1 sprig fresh thyme

•1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt, plus more to taste

•½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more, to taste

•Scant pinch of cayenne pepper

•1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (if not freshly grated, skip it)

•8 ounces fresh mushrooms, sliced, button, brown, crimini or shiitake

•1/2 cup cream

•4 cups cooked turkey or chicken, cubed

•Fresh chives, minced to garnish

•In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt 4 tablespoons of the butter and sauté the shallots or onion until fragrant and becoming translucent – about five minutes or so.

•Sprinkle the flour over the butter/shallot mixture and whisk well until the flour is fully incorporated. Add the sherry if using, and the broth, whisking constantly, and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat to maintain a bare simmer. Add the sprigs of parsley and thyme, and cook the sauce for about half an hour, stirring frequently. Don't let it boil too hard or it will scorch.

•While the sauce simmers, in a medium skillet over medium high, melt the remaining butter. Add mushrooms and sauté until they are golden brown, about 6-7 minutes. Add salt and pepper.

•Carefully add the sauce to the mushrooms, and add the cayenne and nutmeg. Add cooked turkey or chicken, and taste. Re-season for salt and pepper if need be. Stir well to combine.

•Gently stir in the cream, bringing the temperature up but making sure not to allow the mixture to boil. Remove from heat and add remaining fresh parsley. Serve over your choice of pastry or toast points, and garnish with a little fresh minced chives.

Turkey Gravy, How to Make Perfect Gravy

Think of gravy as the ultimate accessory. It will take any dish you make, and give it the perfect, crowning touch. Of course when serving gravy with turkey, it can do even more. There seems to be an unspoken rule for turkey that gravy is simply required. If by chance your bird didn't come out perfectly, all will be forgiven if the gravy is wonderful. It can take a plain Jane bird and turn it into a rockstar dish.


As a Southerner, I grew up with gravy all over the place. I've long understood the power of gravy, and I was blessed with a mama and granny who could make fabulous gravies of all kinds. Turkey gravy is no different from almost any other kind - you simply take the lovely stuff from the bottom of a roasting pan, get rid of the grease, make a little roux and add liquid. There are seriously only four steps.

Now with that said, there are some tips and tricks to keep in mind to make sure that the gravy you get is rich and silky instead of lumpy, pasty or the wrong consistency. But they're simple tricks.



1.Make sure that you remove the grease from the pan drippings - you'll need some to make the gravy, but probably not all of it by any means. If you remove as much as possible, then you'll be able to determine exactly how much you'd like to add back. This takes care of the greasy issues.

2.When adding flour, make sure that you really whisk it in well at the beginning. If you have lumps when making the roux, you'll have lumps in the gravy.

3.There are two main flavor components to the gravy - the pan drippings, and the stock. Although commercial stock is all right in a pinch, if you can use homemade it'll be fabulous. The stock is critical because there is so much of it in the gravy.

4.One tablespoon of flour will work with one tablespoon of fat to thicken one cup of liquid. This formula will make sure that your gravy isn't too thick or too thin. If you want a slightly thicker gravy, use a tablespoon and a half of flour. It's also easier to think gravy than to thicken it after it's too thin, but even thickening it isn't that hard.

5.To thicken gravy, you can make a slurry. Mix a tablespoon of flour with a quarter cup of cold liquid. Mix well, and whisk into the gravy. Bring to a simmer and allow it to simmer for at least one minute. You can also allow the gravy to reduce to the desired consistency if you wish, although this takes longer.

6.And at the end, if you end up with lumps - just strain it! That takes care of a myriad of problems and no one will know your secret.

The Method!

This is certainly a method instead of a recipe, since the proportions work in any combination. It will halve or double with ease - so simply adjust to make the amount you need.

You'll need:

•The drippings from a roast turkey

•6 Tablespoons all purpose flour

•4-6 cups turkey stock, or chicken broth

•kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste

1.Take the roasting pan and drain off as much of the grease as possible, with a spoon or a turkey baster.

2.Either place the roasting pan on the stove top, or scrape as much of the drippings as possible into a large skillet or saucier. If you have lots of lovely brown bits simply stuck to the roasting pan stick with that - that's flavor and you don't want to lose it.

3.Measure back four tablespoons of the grease into the pan, and turn the pan to medium heat. Whisk the flour into the fat, making sure that you've whisked out all the lumps. You really want the roux to be smooth at this point.

4.Slowly add half the stock to the pan, whisking constantly. Allow the mixture to come up to a simmer. It will most likely be very thick at this point. Simply add in enough additional stock to bring it to the consistency you like. It will be fully thickened at each addition after it simmers for a minute.

5.Taste and adjust for seasoning, adding kosher salt and pepper if need be.

6.Serve immediately - that's all there is to it!

Grilled Chicken with Alabama White Sauce