Author: lukephillaryh

Sunday Morning Blueberry Muffins

On By lukephillaryhIn Ode to NYT2 Comments
Blueberry muffins simple recipe Julia Moskin recipe
Blueberries + Carrots + Walnuts = Perfection

Pancakes? Too sweet. Bacon and eggs? Too greasy. Yogurt parfait? Eh, been there, done that. Oatmeal? Don’t even ask. Sunday morning breakfast can be full of options, but with half of the weekend already over you deserve to be picky. You may want to lay in bed all day and treat yourself to an indulgent breakfast; or keep it lean before a 5 mile run. Hillary usually wants to be lay in bed a little bit longer while I’m gearing up to go…we compromise with a long walk. Whatever your appetite, day’s plan or mood, these whole grain blueberry muffins will surely satisfy.

This recipe comes from Julia Moskin via The New York Times. We omitted the orange streusel topping because we wanted these muffins to still have some simplicity. Filled with carrots, blueberries, oats, walnuts – there’s nothing more you really need. Indulgent, but still healty-ish, it’s the perfect way to start your morning. And if you take sometime to make these on Sunday morning, you’ll have muffin breakfasts for the rest of the week!

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 2/3 cup whole wheat flour
  • 2/3 cup yellow cornmeal (preferably fine-ground)
  • 2/3 cup rolled oats (not the instant version)
  • 2/3 packed light brown sugar
  • 4 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 2 tsp nutmeg (or additional cinnamon)
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 3/4 cups buttermilk
  • 1 1/3 cups coconut oil or neutral oil like canola
  • 2/3 cup maple syrup or honey
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 cups grated carrots or tart apple
  • 1 1/2 cups blueberries
  • 1 cup chopped toasted walnuts

Directions:

  1. Assemble all the ingredients on your table / countertop for birds-eye Instagram photo. You are baking on Sunday morning, it deserves documentation.
  2. Heat oven to 425°F. Heavily butter your muffin tin or use paper liners.
  3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: flours, cornmeal, oats, sugar, baking powder and soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt
  4. In a smaller mixing bowl, mix together the wet ingredients: buttermilk, oil, maple syrup and eggs.
  5. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and carefully mix. Don’t over mix, the batter can be a bit lumpy. Stir in carrots, blueberries, and walnuts.
  6. Let the batter rest for 15-20 minutes. You can use this time to post the earlier “prep” photo to your Instagram story. After resting, give the batter a light stir to make sure it’s thick and fluffy.
  7. Plop enough of the batter to almost fill the muffin indentation. Mound the center so you’ll get nicely rounded tops.
  8. Place tin in oven and reduce temperature to 400°F. Bake for 18-20 minutes. Cool muffins in the tin on a rack for 5-10 minutes and then remove.

Details: Makes about 24 small/medium sized muffins

Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese Sauce

On By lukephillaryhIn ClassicoLeave a comment
Marcella Hazan bolognese sauce
Classic goodness

Disappointingly, women today are still not respected, nonetheless celebrated. In this month of March when we celebrate Women’s History, it is important to pay tribute to the incredible women who shape and inspire us. Women who deserve recognition everyday, but some extra pomp and circumstance all March long. Marcella Hazan is one of those women. When reading about Marcella you come across many admiring quotes – famous chefs and food writers who credit Marcella for teaching them how to cook, care for, and love food. Interestingly, many of the chefs Marcella inspired were men. Marcella did begin cooking for traditional reasons – married in 1955 and living in New York she was first compelled to cook in order to”feed a young, hard-working husband.” Although her foray into cooking was more or less due to gender stereotypes, she quickly realized her skillfulness and wasted no time putting it to good work. Hazan went on to publish several cookbooks. Her first, The Classic Italian Cookbook, is legitimately the classic Italian cookbook. It is canonical. This March, Luke and I honored Marcella’s legacy by tackling her bolognese recipe.  We’d argue it’s the only bolognese recipe you’ll ever need. No need to cross reference with other cookbooks or websites, substitute one ingredient for another, or make many additions. Follow this recipe as is and you’ll have the perfect bolognese sauce.

Ingredients:

  • 1 TBS olive oil
  • 3 TBS butter + 1 TBS for tossing pasta
  • 1/2 cup chopped onion
  • 2/3 cup chopped celery
  • 2/3 cup chopped carrot
  • 3/4 pound ground beef chuck (80% lean, 20% fat is best)
  • salt & freshly ground pepper, to taste
  • 1 cup whole milk
  • a tiny grating (approx. 1/8 tsp) fresh nutmeg
  • 1 cup dry white wine
  • 1 1/2 cup canned whole tomatoes, cut up, with their juices (get good quality!)
  • 1 lb pasta (spaghetti or fettuccine)
  • freshly grated parm, for serving

Directions:

  1. Be prepared to spend the next 4 hours tending to your bolognese. Once it starts simmering it doesn’t take much work, but this sauce likes to be checked up on regularly.
  2. Put the oil, butter, and chopped onion in a heavy bottom pot or dutch oven and turn heat on medium. Cook until the onion has become translucent, about 5 minutes, and then add the carrots and celery.* Cook for an additional 2 minutes.
  3. Add ground beef, a large pinch of salt, and a few grindings of pepper. Stir meat well, so that it crumbles, breaking up with a fork if necessary. Cook until the beef has lost its red color.
  4. Add milk and let it simmer gently, stirring frequently, until milk has bubbled away completely. Add the freshly grated nutmeg and stir.
  5. Add the wine, and as with the milk, let it simmer until it has evaporated completely. Add the tomatoes and stir thoroughly to coat all the ingredients well. When the tomatoes begin to bubble turn the heat all the way down. You want the sauce to cook at a very gentle simmer. Cook, uncovered, for about 3 hours, stirring from time to time. During this cooking process, you will likely find that the sauce loses quite a bit of liquid.  Be wary of this! You don’t want the meat to stick to the bottom of your pot so add 1/2 cup water at a time when the liquid supply is looking low.* At the end of the 3 hours though no water should be left. Also check taste as you go, adding more salt as necessary.
  6. Add a tablespoon of butter to the cooked pasta, and toss with the sauce. Serve with plenty of freshly grated parm.

The recipe above is verbatim Marcella Hazan bolognese. We did not want to disrespect the queen of Italian cooking in this post. We did make the following 2 minor adjustments that you can consider making as well –

  1. With the celery and carrots, we also added a couple cloves of garlic, minced.
  2. We created a mixture of tomato paste and warm water (1 TBS tomato paste to 2 cups warm water), stirring the tomato paste into the water so that it would dissolve. We added this mixture to the sauce when it was drying out. We ended up using all 2 cups of this mixture during the 3 hour simmer.

Details: Serves 4-6.

Spicy Pan-Roasted Cauliflower

On By lukephillaryhIn VeggieLeave a comment
roasted cauliflower cast iron skillet NYT Food recipe
Cauliflower with a kick

Cauliflower is a versatile vegetable. Cauliflower can be steak. It can be mashed potatoes. It can even be pizza. Cauliflower rice is sneaking into recipes everywhere, turning carbohydrate laden meals into gluten-free miracles. But cauliflower is also delicious just as cauliflower. It needs no Hollywood movie before and after transformation. This recipe, courtesy of The New York Times, highlights cauliflower’s inherent sweetness and adds some kick. When cooked perfectly (which is easy to accomplish), you’ll have beautifully browned florets, tender but with a little bit of crunch. Quick and simple to make, we’ve been enjoying this recipe as a healthy weekday veggie meal. It’s also great as a sneakily addicting and seriously impressive side. Take a night to celebrate cauliflower for being cauliflower! It’s a star vegetable, all on its own.

Ingredients:

  • 1 cauliflower head
  • 2 TBS olive oil
  • salt & pepper, to taste
  • 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
  • 1 garlic clove, grated or finely minced
  • 1/2 tsp freshly chopped rosemary
  • 1/4 cup chopped parsley
  • zest of 1 small lemon
  • 1 red fresno chile, thinly sliced (optional, for a spicy garnish)
  • extra lemon, for serving

Directions:

  1. Quarter the cauliflower and cut out the core. Cut the quarters into 1/2-inch thick slices. Chop down the larger slices so that they are all about floret size.
  2. Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. When oil is hot, add cauliflower, tossing to coat in the olive oil. Season generously with salt and pepper.
  3. Continue to stir and flip the cauliflower, letting the slices brown as they cook. Watch the heat – you want to keep the cauliflower pieces sizzling but not scorching. Cook until tender and can easily be pierced with a fork, about 10 to 12 minutes.
  4. Add crushed red pepper, garlic, rosemary, parsley, and lemon zest. Stir well to coat and cook 1 minute more. Garnish with sliced chile, if you like spice, and serve with lemon wedges.

Details: Serves 4 as a side, 2 as a main. Can easily be doubled to serve more!

Madeleines

On By lukephillaryhIn ClassicoLeave a comment
Madeleines powder sugar David Lebovitz
Powdered perfection for any occasion

If you haven’t noticed yet, Hillary and I love a good *dusting* of powered sugar. Our breakfast palačinkes, afternoon canelés, and xmas linzer cookies always come with a light coating of sugar. The act of “dusting” has recently reached the big stage thanks to a certain Turkish chef aka #Saltbae. We’re glad to see he salts his steak with the same care as we do with our delicately powdered desserts. In our attempt to share some of Saltbae’s spotlight, we recently whipped up some dusting-friendly madeleines. These desserts are great with a lemon or chocolate glaze, but a subtle coat of sugar is really all you need.

The recipe is adopted from one of our favorite chefs / Instagrammers David Lebovitz. His recipe makes 24 medium sized madeleines – the perfect amount for any party or dessert/breakfast combo.

Ingredients:

  • 3 eggs at room temperature
  • 2/3 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/8 tsp salt
  • 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp honey
  • 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
  • zest of 1 small lemon
  • 9 TBS of unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature + a bit of butter for the baking sheet molds

Directions:

  1. Begin by brushing melted butter into each madeleine baking sheet mold. Dust with flour and put in the fridge or freezer until ready to use.
  2. With a standing mixer or hand mixer/bowl, whip the eggs, sugar and salt until thick and frothy (about 5 mins)
  3. Pass the flour through a mesh sifter into a small bowl. Gradually fold the flour into the egg mixture until incorporated. Let the batter rest in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
  4. As the batter sits in the fridge, prepare the melted butter and lemon zest mixture. Start by melting the 9 tablespoons butter and let it cool to room temperature (15-20 mins). Add lemon zest to cooled butter and let sit.
  5. Remove batter from the fridge. Gradually spoon butter into the batter and simultaneously fold until incorporated. Add honey and vanilla as you fold in butter mixture. Return to fridge and let sit for another 1 hour.
  6. Preheat oven to 425°F. Plop enough of the batter to fill 3/4th’s of the baking sheet indentation. Do not spread, but give the baking sheets a few knocks on the counter-top before placing in the oven.
  7. Turn oven to 400°F and bake for 8-9 minutes, keep a close eye on the edges to make sure the bottoms don’t burn. Remove from the oven and dust with powdered sugar.

Details: Makes 24 medium sized madeleines. Store uncovered or loosely covered so they don’t loss their crisp.

Sweet Potato Tacos

On By lukephillaryhIn Hillary's DishesLeave a comment
Sweet potato and black bean tacos
Weekday deliciousness

I’ve been making this meal since college. It’s inexpensive, healthy, easy, and quite tasty. And with the sweet potato’s recent growth in popularity (in 2015, farmers produced more sweet potatoes than in any year since World War II) this recipe turns out to be in vogue as well! For Luke and I, sweet potato tacos are a reliable weekday meal. We often neglect this recipe, as it’s almost too basic. But, when we made it recently and spruced up our tacos with a couple extra fixings we looked at our plates and both said, “Damn! These tacos are kinda good looking!” Like, cover of a magazine good looking. We decided they’re worth sharing. This recipe is somewhat of an original, though the black beans are a riff on a Goya recipe, courtesy of the back of the can. Shout out to Goya Foods!

Ingredients:

  • 2-4 sweet potatoes (depending on size), cut into 1-inch pieces
  • olive oil
  • salt & pepper, to taste
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • 1 tsp chili powder
  • 1 can black beans
  • 1 small onion, chopped
  • 1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 jalapeno finely chopped (optional)
  • 1 TBS red wine vinegar
  • 1 1/2 tsp oregano
  • 1/4-1/2 cup water
  • 8-10 soft tortillas
  • cilantro, finely chopped (for topping)
  • feta cheese, crumbled (for topping)

Directions:

  1. Begin by roasting the sweet potatoes. Preheat oven to 425°F. In a bowl, mix the sweet potatoes with 1-2 TBS olive oil, cumin, chili powder, and 1 tsp salt and pepper. Move sweet potatoes to a large baking sheet and spread evenly. It’s best if each sweet potato has some breathing room. You don’t want them overlapping! Roast for 30-35 minutes, making sure to check halfway through. Give em a shake so they get a little brown on all sides.
  2. While sweet potatoes are roasting, make the beans. Heat 1-2 TBS olive oil over medium-high heat in a medium saucepan. Add onions, bell pepper, and jalapeno. Cook for about 6 minutes, or until onions are translucent and peppers are soft. Add garlic and cook 1-2 minutes more. Pour in the beans, with their juices. Fill the can with water a little less than halfway. Stir water around to make sure all the contents of the can are loose and pour into saucepan.  Add red wine vinegar, oregano, and 1 tsp salt. Bring beans to a boil and then simmer uncovered. Simmer for 15-2o minutes, or until sauce has thickened.
  3. When sweet potatoes are finished, mash slightly on the sheet. You want them to be a little chunky.
  4. While everything is finishing up, we advising warming up your tortillas. Either for 1 minute in the microwave, or a little nicer, individually in a skillet (this will give them a bit of charring).
  5. Assemble your tacos to your liking! We start with a base of sweet potatoes, a scoop of beans, a few drops of Valentina Salsa Picante, some freshly chopped cilantro, and a scattering of feta cheese.

Details: Serves 2-4. You’ll have plenty of beans, so roast more sweet potatoes if you’re trying to feed a few more mouths!

Mimi’s Wonton Soup

On By lukephillaryhIn ExoticLeave a comment
wonton soup homemade Mimi Thorisson recipe
Happy New Year!

The Mimi of this wonton soup recipe is Mimi Thorisson. Her food blog Manger and two cookbooks are portrayals of idyllic life – lots of beautiful, fresh food, adorable children, even cuter dogs, and a photographer husband, capturing every single moment perfectly. It is almost suspiciously serene. But while her pictures evoke envy and a bit of skepticism, we do love to look at and cook her food.

Luke and I celebrated New Year’s Eve separately, he in Philadelphia with friends and me alone on a plane. To make up for missing each other on December 31, this past weekend we made a special meal for Chinese New Year (新年快乐!). Admittedly, this soup is so easy to make it may not warrant being called “special.” But the wontons do possess a certain je ne sai quoi. With a scattering of scallions and a swirl of sesame oil, these brainy wontons are subtlety elegant and delicious.

We enjoyed our bowls of soup reflecting on the past year and hoping that in 2017, amidst these already troubled times, we can do more good and experience more good than in 2016.

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 – 3/4 pound peeled shrimp, coarsely chopped
  • 1/2 – 3/4 pound ground pork (not too lean)
  • 1 egg white
  • 1 TBS soy sauce
  • 1/2 TBS oyster sauce
  • 1/2 TBS rice wine
  • 1/2 tsp sesame oil (plus more for serving)
  • 1 TBS grated fresh ginger
  • pinch of sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • pack of square wonton wrappers
  • 2 quarts chicken stock
  • chives, scallions, cilantro (freshly chopped) for garnish

Directions:

  1. Begin by making the wonton filling. Mix the shrimp and pork in a medium sized bowl. Add the egg white, soy sauce, oyster sauce, rice wine, sesame oil, ginger, sugar, salt, and pepper and mix well. Set the filling aside for 20 minutes.
  2. Lay out a large piece of parchment paper and sprinkle with flour. Take your pile of wonton wrappers, one at a time, covering the pile with a damp towel so that they do not dry out. Add a little over 1 tsp of filling to the center of a wrapper. Wet the edges of the wrapper with water (we set out a little bowl of water and wet with our fingers) and fold in half to make a triangle, pressing down firmly. Make sure the seal is secure, you do not want any little gaps. Then, gather the 2 opposite corners of the wrapper, dot them with water, and join them together. Again, press firmly to seal. Set wrapped wonton on a lightly floured baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining wrappers and filing, until you have about 25-30 wontons. You will likely have leftover filing and definitely leftover wrappers. The filing keeps for 2-3 days so more wontons can be made later.
  3. Bring the chicken stock to a boil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Season with a bit of salt and pepper, to taste. While doing this, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Once boiling, add the wontons and cook in batches (roughly 12 at a time). The wontons are finished when the rise to the top, about 5 to 8 minutes. Transfer to a plate as they are cooked.
  4. Add the cooked wontons to the chicken stock and bring back to a gentle boil. To serve, ladle about 6 wontons into a bowl and top with some chicken stock. Sprinkle with chives, scallions, and/or cilantro and a few drops of sesame oil. Serve with chili oil on the side, if desired.

Details: Serves 5

Smothered Chicken with Gravy

On By lukephillaryhIn Classico2 Comments
Craig Claiborne Smothered Chicken
Classic comfort food

As if New York in January isn’t dreary enough, we now have Trump’s inauguration looming. Friday, January 20th. How did this date come so quickly? Back in November, I attempted to write an election related post. The draft begins, predictably, with a rehashing of my 24-hour emotional journey, from the morning of November 8 to the morning of November 9. There’s some political correctness. I avoid outrightly bashing Trump supporters and admit to living in a liberal enclave. And then there’s a recount of the meals I ate in the days following. They’re decadent, definitely self-indulgent and all international in origin:

On Thursday, Luke and I had ramen topped with a thick slab of pork belly and a perfectly poached egg, all swimming in a rich, miso spiked broth. Friday night, I ordered in. Chicken tikka masala and samosas, India’s ultimate comfort food. There were no leftovers. And on Saturday, I enjoyed a slightly more than I can afford Italian dinner, complete with a few glasses of Tuscan wine.

On Sunday, Luke and I agreed we had to return to cooking. 

For dinner we made Craig Claiborne’s Smothered Chicken. Americana comfort food at its finest, it was a reminder of our country’s wonderful unconventionality. Craig Claiborne, a child of Mississippi, grows up and becomes the preeminent food editor of his time for the most sophisticated U.S. publication, The New York Times. He’s credited with broadening Americans’ food horizons, but he still had a deep appreciation for classic American home-cooked food. Easy, delicious, heartwarming – we finished this meal feeling a little lighter. Not necessarily in calories, but certainly in spirit. Our country no longer felt like such a foreign place.

Remembering this dinner and these days, I’m still wondering how I can do more. And what could that “more” mean? In a muddled way, I’ve thought about “more” a lot and have ended up not doing much at all. Perhaps the answer is to think less and simply act more. Not necessarily through a grand initiative, that takes a lot of toiling to think up, but with positive, incremental actions each day. Make an effort to be consistently informed and accountable. Make an effort to think constructively and avoid defaulting into a pessimistic mindset. Make an effort to be open, to question, to listen. Make an effort to understand. This election, for me, has been a reminder of some personal complacency. And in these next four years I don’t want to be comfortable. So while I may be enjoying comfort food, I’m making it my personal mission to avoid a metaphorical food coma.

Ingredients:

  • 1 whole chicken (the smaller the better), spatchcocked
  • salt & freshly ground pepper, to taste
  • 2 TBS unsalted butter
  • 2 TBS all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 cups chicken broth

Directions:

  1. We maybe should’ve started this post with a disclaimer…Craig Claiborne insisted that a cast iron pan be used for this recipe. But, we won’t discourage you from trying it out with a large skillet! Start by making sure the chicken is at room temperature and thoroughly dried off. If your chicken has been in the fridge, season with salt and pepper, and then let it rest on your counter for 30 minutes before preparing. After 30 minutes, pat the chicken dry with paper towels.
  2. Melt the butter in your cast-iron skillet. Add chicken, skin side/breast side down. Fold the wings under the breasts to secure. Cover the chicken with a plate and the on top of the plate place a brick or 2-3 heavy cans – something heavy to weigh the plate down. You want good contact between the chicken and the skillet. Cook over low heat undisturbed until skin is nicely browned, about 25 minutes.
  3. Once browned, remove the weight and plate. Turn the chicken so the skin side is up. Replace the plate and weight and continue cooking for 15 minutes more.
  4. Remove the chicken and pour off fat from the skillet, leaving about 2 TBS in the pan. Add the flour to the fat and stir with a metal whisk over medium heat. Then gradually add chicken broth. When thickened, return chicken to the skillet, skin side up. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cover with plate and weight and continue cooking for 20-30 minutes, until the meat is exceptionally tender. Finish by spooning the sauce on top.
  5. Cut into serving pieces and enjoy immediately! We served with mashed potatoes, though rice, biscuits, or crunchy bread would also be tasty. Anything to sop up the gravy!

Details: Serves 4

Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake

On By lukephillaryhIn Ode to NYTLeave a comment
Olive Oil Cake with blood orange Melissa Clark recipe
The perfect cake for dessert or breakfast 🙂

Citruses make the winter much more manageable. When December roles around, I’m always happily surprised to see lemon, orange, and mandarin dishes populate restaurant menus and appear on my favorite food blogs. They’re so cheerful and bright, I forget their best time is wintertime. Of all the citruses, the blood orange is an easy favorite. Tangy, sweet, and aesthetically delightful, its color adds a lovely pop to any plate. I’ve been intrigued by olive oil cake as it sounded like a dessert I could enjoy, without guilt, at all times of day. It is also incredibly easy to prepare. Our fav Melissa Clark provides the recipe for this cake. Don’t skip using good olive oil. It makes the cake more flavorful. And stock up on blood oranges! There’s no reason to be skimpy, they’re in season.

Ingredients:

  • butter (for greasing the pan)
  • 3-6 blood oranges (more if you’d like to make compote)
  • 1 cup sugar
  • approx. 2/3 cup buttermilk or plain yogurt
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 tsp honey (optional, for compote)
  • whipped cream (optional, for serving)

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Grease a 9-by-5 inch loaf pan (we used a 9-inch round pan, 8-by-8 square pan works well also). Grate zest of 2 oranges and place in bowl with sugar. Fully incorporate the zest and sugar, using your hands to rub the ingredients to ensure even distribution.
  2. Supreme 2-3 oranges (these you will mix into the batter, so supreme more if you like more fruit chunks). To do this, cut off the bottom and top of the orange so it can stand upright on your cutting board. Then, with a sharp knife, cut away peel and pith, following the curve of the fruit. Cut the orange into segments along its connective membrane and let fall into a bowl. Set aside.
  3. Squeeze juice of 1-2 oranges into a measuring cup. Add yogurt or buttermilk to measuring cup until you have a little less than 1 cup of liquid. Mix and then add to bowl of sugar, whisking to fully incorporate.  Whisk in eggs.
  4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Add the dry to the wet ingredients, a bit at a time, whisking to incorporate. Switch to a spatula and then slowly add the olive oil. Fold into the batter and be mindful to incorporate before pouring in more. Fold in orange pieces. Pour batter into a pan.
  5. Bake for 55 minutes, or until a knife/toothpick inserted into cake’s center comes out clean. Cool on rack for 5 minutes, then unmold and cool at room temperature until ready to serve. Tastes even more delicious when served with whipped cream and honey-blood orange compote.
  6. To make compote, supreme 3 more oranges and mix with 2 tsp of honey. Let sit for 5 minutes then stir once more.

Chicken Noodle Soup from Scratch

On By lukephillaryhIn Classico1 Comment
Chicken Noodle Soup from scratch
Classic comfort

This chicken soup recipe is very apropos. Why? We’ve got three compelling reasons. Reason one, winter is here, aka cold season. Maybe you’ve got some sniffles already. Or feel the flu coming on. Chicken soup is the OG penicillin. Reason two, it’s the New Year and you’ve made some New Year’s resolutions. Like cook more. Or, stop eating so much processed garbage. Put this homemade goodness in your body and you’re satisfying both of those resolutions. Reason three, it’s January, the drabbest month of the year, and all you want to do is sit in front of your SAD lamp. Make this chicken soup this weekend and you’ll have an excellent reason to sit on your couch and watch Netflix all day. Tell your friends you have amazing, homemade chicken broth simmering on the stove and can’t leave your house. Foolproof excuse.

This homemade chicken soup fulfills all your current life requirements. And it’s delicious! Julia Moskin provides the original recipe (with a beautiful video), which we did some slight tweaking too. Enjoy!

Ingredients for broth:

  • 1 chicken, 3 to 3 1/2 lbs (or the smallest you can find in your supermarket) with skin on, cut up into 8 pieces
  • 3 celery stalks, cut into chunks
  • 2 carrots, peeled and cut into chunks
  • 1 onion, quartered
  • 1 parsnip, peeled and cut into chunks (optional)
  • handful of parsley springs
  • 10 or so black peppercorns
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 2 tsp kosher salt

Ingredients for soup:

  • reserved chicken fat (up to 3 TBS)
  • 2-3 leeks, rinsed, trimmed, halved lengthwise, and sliced into thin half-moons
  • 2 shallots sliced thinly
  • 2-3 celery stalks, diced
  • 2-3 carrots, peeled and diced
  • 1-2 TBS freshly chopped herbs (parsley, tarragon, thyme, dill all work wonderfully)
  • kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
  • 3-4 handfuls of egg noodles (or something starchy – pasta, rice, beans)

Directions:

  1. Making the broth is easy, just start a day in advance. Place cut up chicken (here’s a how-to), vegetables, salt, peppercorns, and bay leaves in a large soup pot. Cover with cold water by 1 inch.
  2. Bring to a boil over high heat. Once boiling, turn heat all the way down. You want hardly any bubbling. Cook uncovered for 1 1/2 hours. Alternatively, you could turn the heat all the way off, cover, and let the chicken sit in the warm pot all morning and/or afternoon.
  3. Once the broth has cooled down, remove the chicken and place in a separate container. Notch up the heat just a little bit and let the broth simmer. You want it to get concentrated and flavorful. An additional hour should suffice. Just don’t let all your broth cook off! Then strain your broth through a fine sieve (colander lined with cheese cloth also works well). Discard solids.
  4. Refrigerate chicken and broth separately for at least 8 hours (up to 3 days) until a layer of yellow fat has risen to the top of the broth. Once ready, skim the fat and set aside. You can also now shred the chicken into bite size chunks. Shredding the 2 breasts should yield enough chicken pieces. You can reserve the dark meat for something else.
  5. You are now ready to make the soup. Place 3 TBS of chicken fat (+butter, if necessary) into a soup pot. Add leeks and shallots and cook over medium heat until leeks begin to fry and shallots are translucent and soft.
  6. Reduce heat and add celery, carrots, and a heaping TBS of herbs. Sprinkle with salt. Cover pot and cook until vegetables are tender, about 5 minutes. Don’t brown! And don’t worry. They will cook more in the broth.
  7. Add broth to the pot and heat to a simmer. Add noodles and continue simmering until noodles are cooked through. Add the chicken chunks and salt and pepper, to taste.
  8. Serve with a sprinkling of freshly chopped herbs on top.

Details: Serves 4

 

 

The Ultimate Philly Lunch

On By lukephillaryhIn Adventures2 Comments
Best Italian hoagie lunch in Philadelphia
The perfect homecoming

 

The Thanksgiving holiday offers us the chance to see friends and family while gorging on the usual spread of turkey, mashed potatoes, yada yada yada. This year, however, it wasn’t the meal on Thursday that brought me the most pleasure. On Wednesday afternoon, I decided to skip the pre-Thanksgiving fast and walk to Cosmi’s Deli in South Philly for a Italian hoagie. Philly has recently gotten a lot of love for its pizza, fried chicken n’ donuts, and – yes, New York, even bagels. Most trips home I’ll head straight to Washington Ave. for Vietnamese pho, vermicelli, and hoagies aka bahn mi. Something must’ve been in the air this time around because I was craving the most quintessential Philly food I know. And, no it doesn’t begin with Cheese.

Admittedly, I have exclaimed on more than one occasion that I make the best Italian hoagie in the country. This is complete hubris, because although my version is pretty damn good – the guys at Cosmi’s will show you how it’s done.

I won’t leave you with a recipe, but I will give some instructions.

  1. Walk, bike, or drive down to 8th & Dickinson streets
  2. Go up to the counter and say, “Can I get a Italian on a seeded roll, lettuce/tomato/onion, roasted peppers, oil/vinegar, salt/pepper/oregano.”
  3. Grab a bag of Herr’s chips and a can of soda
  4. Pay for everything + a couple bucks tip
  5. Find the nearest place to enjoy the best meal Philly has to offer.