Foraging in a Blizzard

Here we are in the second day of being snowed in and the third, (or is it the fourth?) day of snow and I am learning why it is that we have a winter garden, a good storage shed, and, naturally, a freezer. While the snow comes down sideways and the vehicles remain anchored in the ice, I am inside making the most, yet again, out of what we have put away for a rainy/snowy day. And yes, we are both praying prayers of hope that the power/water stay on.

The household foraging began a couple of days ago when I pulled a ball of pizza dough from the vast and icy deep and made a pizza with homemade sausage, garden onions out of the storage shed and tomatoes we had dried ourselves. Kathy had made a small provisions run when we heard the snow was coming and we had a nice combination of cheeses to make the pizza really sing.

Yesterday was chicken stock day and the house was filled with the aroma of nicely roasted bones simmering with their attendant and complimentary vegetables and the house still has that roasty rich smell hiding in different corners and down the back hallways. I've always contended that, rather than the"smell of chocolate chip cookies baking" theory that realtors proscribe to for selling homes, that the "aroma of homemade chicken stock" would work even better.

While the stock hoozled and goozled happily yesterday morning we went to the freezer yet again looking for food to feed unexpected lunch guests. Kathy's daughter, son in law and granddaughter made the trek up the hill to visit us, (but mostly to play in the snow) and we needed a cold day meal for them. We went deep into the freezer and came up a container each of chile and a multi-bean soup, made long ago, and along with some homemade biscuits we had just the meal for hungry and rosy cheeked sledders.

Today we woke to a healthy six inches of snow on the ground and the first flakes of another heavy fall just beginning to fly. I had pulled a chunk of chuck roast from our neighbor's last cattle harvest out of the freezer and the plan was for pot roast. I had, however, used all the carrots in the chicken stock and Kathy, who had promised for the last several days to pull up some carrots from their winter bed, was now faced with having to do it in the teeth of the blizzard.

And like the true Oregonian she is, she threw on a parka and hat, got down on her knees at the edge of the raised beds, dug through a half a foot of snow and yanked up carrots. Meanwhile I was making another treacherous run to the shed for the garlic and onions harvested lo, those many months ago, to accompany the carrots in their support of the chuck. Moreover, we had the remains of an old funky bottle of red in the back of the fridge that was just what my recipe called for.

The snowfall is thinning slightly and it appears that we will be able to venture out away from this property tomorrow. But the scent of the pot roast is alluring and serves as a reminder of the beauty of stored food. There are times when the thrill of finding those hidden chanterelles or fiddle head ferns under the scruffs of fir at the base of tall trees is a forager's dream. Other times, however, and these are those other times, the best foraging is done by rummaging at the bottom of the freezer, digging beneath the snow, or rootling around boxes in the shed for the last of the summer's harvest.

BURNT ONION GRAVY, and the nature of stocks and roux

Is Burnt Onion Gravy really made from burnt onions? And if it is, how the heck does that work?

A perfectly viable question and one made even more real to me when I posted a picture of a recent batch of the aforementioned gravy on my Facebook page and a friend asked, "So, was this a a mistake that you had to throw away?"

I explained to her, as gently as I could, that no, it was not a mistake, and that it was, rather, the name of the sauce/gravy. I also felt that I should mention, that I rarely posted pictures of my cooking errors on Facebook, although once I thought about it, the notion kept me rather entertained.

And so it struck me that perhaps I might write a bit about the nature and history of this Burnt Onion Gravy (from hereon out known as BOG), but also take the opportunity to discuss stocks and roux and how they go together to make sauces and yes, gravies. It does take a plan and a pretty good recipe as well to make something with the word "burnt" in the title taste good and I'm going to tell you how to do it.

I learned to make BOG from a friend and mentor, Philipe LaMancusa, while we were working in what was, at the time, a very hot San Francisco restaurant called Embarko. Philipe is, along with being a man who has a very real feel for food and what makes it taste good, also a man with a droll wit and a good vocabulary. We had dishes on our menu with names like "Jamaica Mistake?" (for a jerked pork dish), and fish dishes described as being served "with a squeeze and a pat" (lemon and butter, natch).

BOG was a the sauce that went on a pan fried pork medallion dish that passed through our menu for a brief while. The dish came and went, but the sauce, it's composition and, of course, its name, lingered with me right up to this very day. This sauce is the very essence of a series of ingredients coming together to make a huge flavor with the use of some classic and some not so classic cooking techniques (and a little imagination).

So let us leave this amusing story and its colorful folk, and talk about sauces and stocks, and what gives them the flavors that make one better, or at least different than, another. Really, what this is all about, and what I seem to write about more than almost anything, is FLAVOR. How to capture it; how to enhance it, and how to bring it out when it seems most elusive.

The first building block of flavor, not only in this particular recipe, but in so many, many more is the making of stock. In this case we're talking chicken stock. I know all of you are nodding your heads in abject boredom and saying, "yeah, yeah, yeah, Chef we know all about chicken stock", but none the less, at the end of this I will provide a recipe for chicken stock (the way I do it) and for everything else that we discuss in this particular blog post.

In the interest of creating and building flavor, however, we are going to take our chicken stock one step further and make chicken stock squared, or, "dark chicken stock". This richly flavored dark chicken stock is some killer stuff and can be used to bump the flavor level up in a great many of things you cook. It's a simple enough process, too, it just requires patience.

What you need to make this liquid gold is take all the ingredients you would put in your first chicken stock (which you need to have already made and cannot make this second batch correctly without), that is to say, bones, mirepoix, spices, etc., and put them in a roasting pan in a hot oven (400) until the are nicely browned and caramelized. You will then pull them from the pan, put them in a stock pot, deglaze the pan with a cup of two of your previously made chicken stock (taking GREAT care to really scrape up all the good browned bits off the bottom) and pour that and the remainder of your first batch of chicken stock over the nicely browned bones and veggies.

Got it? Now cook it like you cooked the first batch of stock and you will be amazed at the results. What you get by the time you have cooked it for several hours, strained it and refrigerated it so that the fat congeals on top (for easy removal), is a dark, rich and extremely flavorful nearly sauce-like stock that will bump up the flavor of anything to which you wish to add it.

What we are going to add our dark chicken stock to in this recipe is a roux that is made from the oil that a batch of onions have been cooked in until they are just past the point of caramelization and are definitely crunchy, if not exactly "burnt". Got that? Onions, oil/butter, flour. A roux, you say, you ask, you posit; isn't that just flour and oil mixed together to thicken something? Yes, I say, true indeed, but more than just being a thickening agent, a carefully cooked roux can influence, carry and change the flavors of sauces and soups to which it is added.

Roux was invented by the French and used, yes, almost exclusively as a thickening agent. In the French kitchen it is rarely cooked past a point of pale blonde and only then so that it will blend more easily and not separate in the liquid to which it is added. In fact, beurre manie, used to thicken a number of sauces, is merely softened butter and flour mixed together and never cooked at all.

There is some evidence of darker roux in some Swabian dishes of Southwest Germany, but it was the Creoles and the Cajuns in Louisiana who originated long cooked dark roux and created the dishes in which a dark roux would become flavoring agents rather than just thickeners. Gumbo, of course, and etoufee for another, are dishes in which the long cooked roux takes on a nutty subtle flavor that becomes an undercurrent in the final flavor of the dish.

Additionally, as the roux is cooked and the flour begins to change color, it loses much of its glutinous characteristics and becomes more a flavoring agent and less a thickening agent.

Now that we have our dark chicken stock and an understanding of roux, we can return to the cooking of our BOG and that starts with onions; lots of them, thinly sliced. For a batch of this gravy that will use 1 Qt. of dark rich chicken stock, use 5-6 large yellow onions. These onions will get cooked in a heavy skillet with high sides first in just oil and later with butter added until they begin to brown (the full recipe for this will appear at the bottom of this blog). The onions will, of course, have to be stirred, but not so frequently at the beginning as at the end.

While the onions are browning, bring the dark chicken stock up just short of a boil and hold it on a low flame so it stays warm.

Start the onions in the oil, but once they have begun to take on a nice golden color, add the butter to hasten the browning process. Now you will have to watch them closely because the whole butter that you are adding contains milk solids that will brown (and even burn) very quickly. I use a wooden spoon for stirring the onions so that I can easily scrape them off the bottom as they begin to stick and become darker and crunchier.

And at last you will notice the thinner of the onion strands beginning to look dark, short of black, but definitely becoming darker. They will try to stick to the pan but be diligent; keep stirring, but watch them very closely, you are almost at the point where they will need to be removed from the pan. As we move beyond caramelization into a cooking to crispy of the onions, reduce the heat under the pan and remove them to a colander placed over a bowl using a slotted spoon. Some of them should be decidedly crunchy and nut brown to nearly black.

Now you have a heavy pan with onion flavored cooking oil and it's time to build the roux. Classically, a roux is made with equal parts of flour and oil, so if you have used two ounces of oil (plus a bit of butter) add two ounces (and just a bit more) of flour to the pan, turn the flame back on fairly low and whisk the flour into the oil in the pan. At this point, also, pour the drippings from the drained onions back into the pan.

The flour should immediately pick up a bit of color from the cooking oil and will be a muddy kind of brown. Keep whisking it in the pan over the low flame and you will notice two things about it. You will hear it beginning to cook, but you will also start to feel it cooking, as it will begin to thin a bit in the pan and will whisk more easily. This is an important part in the development of the roux and it means the flour is cooking in the roux, the glutens are breaking down and the roux MUST be kept moving in the pan; not fast, not necessarily briskly, just moving, always moving.

And now the roux will begin to become seriously brown, first to a color nearly like peanut butter and then closing in on chocolate. This is the all critical moment. It is time to add the stock to the roux. This is thrilling, but a bit dangerous, so it is important to do two things (once again): Add the stock to the roux slowly with a ladle waaaay over to one side of the pan, and; whisk continually on the side of the pan away from where the stock is being added because it will spatter. The sauce will thicken immediately with the addition of the first ladle of stock, but keep ladling and whisking until all the stock is incorporated. Now and only now, raise the heat below the pan and bring the gravy up to a slow boil.

Now wasn't that fun? You're almost there. You've mastered dark roux and you should have a deep rich brown (and slightly thick) gravy simmering in the pan. Pull the pan over to one side of the flame and once it is at a low boil, lower the heat again, stirring as you do. As the liquid bubbles on one side, it will push the impurities in the gravy to the other side and you can skim them off with your ladle. Add the onions back to the pan and now you have everything in your BOG. Allow it to continue to cook on a low heat for up to half an hour, but at least for 15 minutes, stirring it occasionally and skimming it as needed.

Check your gravy for salt and add it if you like. I like. And I also like to add a dash or two of hot sauce, a little bit of L&P (Worcestershire Sauce) and pepper. This gravy is great to use right now, but will refrigerate (and freeze) quite nicely. When you bring it back to heat (particularly if you have frozen it) you can add a third volume of water as the gravy will have become very concentrated and rich in flavor. I serve this gravy over roasted pork loin, roasted chicken breast, or I add it to soups and stews. It is also wonderful poured over a big bowl of garlic mashed potatoes. Now there's comfort AND flavor in a bowl.

BURNT ONION GRAVY

5-6 Large Yellow Onions, thinly sliced

2 oz. Canola Oil (or other light cooking oil)

1/2 Stick Unsalted Butter

3 oz. Flour

1 Qt. Dark Chicken Stock (hot)

S&P to taste

In a heavy and high sided skillet heat the oil and add the onions. Cook the onions over medium heat stirring occasionally, until they begin to turn a golden brown. Add the butter and keep cooking, stirring more often as the onions darken.

As the onions begin to take on a very dark color and change texture from soft to crispy, lower the heat to as low as it will go, and lift the onions from the pan with a slotted spoon and transfer them to a colander placed over a bowl.

Add the flour to the pan along with the juices from the onions and whisk until a paste forms. Raise the heat slightly and cook the roux until it begins to turn first the color of peanut butter and then reaches a shade just short of chocolate.

Very carefully ladle the stock into the roux, whisking continually. Keep adding the stock until it is entirely incorporated. Raise the heat again and, stirring continually, bring the thickened gravy to a low boil. Move the pot to one side of the flame, lower the heat (while still stirring) and allow the gravy to simmer. Skim what ever foam comes to the top and return the onions to the gravy. Allow to cook for 15-20 minutes and check for seasonings.

BASIC CHICKEN STOCK

5# Chicken Bones, rinsed in cold water

2 Large Carrots, cut in discs

2 Yellow Onions, cut in large dice

4 Stalks Celery, cut in 1/2" pieces

2 Heads Garlic, cut in half equatorially

2 Leeks, sliced in thin rings (optional)

Stems of one bunch parsley, rough chopped (optional)

5 Bay Leaves

1 Tsp Dried Thyme Leaves (or 7-8 stems of fresh thyme)

12-15 Whole Peppercorns

1 TBS Salt

Place bones and vegetables in a stock pot and cover with 6-8 quarts of cold water. Bring to a rapid boil and then reduce heat to a simmer. Skim foam from top of pot. Add spices and return the liquid to a boil. Once it is boiling, reduce it to a simmer and move the pot so that only one side of it sits over the flame and the liquid makes a small bubble up one side of the pot (this allows a film to form over the top of the liquid, trapping the flavor, rather than cooking it away). Cook slowly, maintaining the bubble at the side of the pot for 5-6 hours, replenishing water if it drops below the level of the chicken bones. Do not stir or mix the stock once it as this point!!!

Strain the stock carefully and refrigerate, taking care not to agitate the liquid. Allow stock to cool overnight and when ready to use, remove fat from top.

Purple Hulled Peas

I lived in Austin, Texas for a year and in that time became awfully fond of fresh field peas. Butter beans, crowder peas, lady peas, creamer peas, even black-eyed peas; these are all part of this family of peas, taken fresh from the field in their hulls, and traditionally cooked with a pork product, some broth and veggies. Yes, they are called "peas" and yes, for the most part, they more resemble "beans" in their dried form. Most of the field peas I have cooked are oblong, like a bean, and have that telltale dark (if not black) eye, off to one side of their center.

Of course, it's easy to find the dried version of these in a lot of stores and some of the specialty markets will even carry the more obscure varieties. But really, there is no substitute for the freshness of flavor of these peas when they are cooked right out of the hull. And my first admission, right from the get go here is that is not what I did, or should I say, not what I am doing, because the pot is simmering away even as I type. I am cooking purple hulled peas that my sister Barbara, who lives in Austin, was kind enough to bring me (in their frozen form) on her most recent visit a few weeks ago.

Most of the articles I've perused on the internet tell me that field peas are the sure sign in the South that Summer has begun. But it appeared to me, while I was living in Austin, that there are a number of varieties that produce well into the fall and it would seem that purple hulled peas are one of them.

One of the great delights of cooking field peas is one that I experienced as well in Costa Rica when I cooked frijoles tiernos (translated as, "tender beans) which are also fresh from the hull. They cook in an amazingly short period of time. While the frijoles tiernos took a whopping 35-40 minutes to cook (because, after all, they were real beans) my purple hulled peas have cooked to a lovely tenderness in the time it took me to write these rambling paragraphs. So now all I have to do is turn the heat way down and let them slowly simmer and marry their flavors with the ham hock I took from our Thanksgiving feast, the chunks of homemade chorizo I used and the aromatic vegetables and spices. And yes, the house is filled with the smell of the cooking soup mingled with the smell of burning oak from the wood burning oven. Take that freezing weather!!!

PURPLE HULLED PEA SOUP/STEW

1.5# Bag Fresh or frozen Purple Hulled, or any field, Peas

1 Big Yellow Onion, chopped

2 Carrots, cut in medium dice (1/2" X 1/2")

2 Stalks Celery, cut in medium dice

6 Cloves of Garlic, smashed and chopped

1 Meaty Ham Hock

1 Spicy Smoked Sausage (chopped)

1 TBS Bacon Fat or a (sigh) canola oil

2 Bay Leaves

1/2 Tsp Dried Thyme (or 2-3 sprigs of fresh)

1/2-1 Tsp Louisiana variety spice mix (I use Kitchen Witch, produced by a friend of mine, but you could use any blackening-type spice mix, I suppose

32 ounces Chicken Stock, boxed broth or water, plus 1 Cup Water

I use a heavy cast iron dutch oven to make this in, but any heavy sauce pan will work.

Heat the pan and add the bacon fat and the chopped sausage. Simmer them until the sausage begins to color and is yielding its fat.

Add the chopped vegetables, the dried herbs and the spice mix. Stir and cook over medium high heat until the vegetables begin to wilt and give off an aroma.

Add the peas to the pot along with the ham hock and cover with the broth and water.

Bring the soup/stew to a slow boil and then turn it down to simmer for 20-30 minutes until the peas are tender. At this point I like to turn the heat down to the lowest simmer and let the soup/stew sit on low heat to allow all the flavors to marry into absolute deliciousness. This will be good today, better tomorrow and better still the following day. And it freezes quite nicely.

SHORT RIBS; or, Heading Into Winter in a Big Hurry, Slowly

Short Ribs; or, Heading Into Winter in a Big Way, Slowly

Are short ribs the answer to the pre-winter blahs? Well, on a deeply economic, sociologic and psychic level perhaps not. But cooking and subsequently consuming a batch of short ribs certainly can be good for what ails you. It can warm your kitchen and your belly and your heart, and it can give you a little of that free time that you need to read or go for a walk while it is in one of its long developmental processes.

This recipe is all about braising and I love to braise. I am a braising fool. I braise beef, lamb, pork and even chicken and duck. I am smitten by the way tough cuts of meat are rendered mouth wateringly tender by a long oven bath in herbs and wine and vegetables.

Short ribs represent to me the pinnacle of braising and braising is all about steps, or processes, if you will. The rewards, that culinary pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, is, to me worth the steps. But I tend to like the steps along the way as well. I cook for a living yes, and it helps me to just barely pay my bills, but I also cook because the process makes me feel good. The acts of food preparation beginning with the procurement, through the chopping and searing and all the way up to forking that first bite into my mouth are all part of the reward I get when I cook.

Short ribs are cut from the rib and plate primals and from one end of the chuck so tender all on their own, they ain't. Short ribs are generally cut into either English or "Flanken" cuts which involve the fatty but meaty heavy end of the ribs being cut into 1 1/2-2" sections. There is also a Korean cut of short ribs, but it involves the ribs being cut into long ribbons of meat and bone and isn't what we're talking about here. Short ribs are held together by intercostal muscles and a lot of tendon and what that means to us, the cooks, is that they will need to be cooked for a long time to break down all that connective tissue and render the meat what we know as "fallin' off the bone tender".

Braising is essentially two cooking methods in one; dry and wet heat are both used. First the meat involved is browned in a pan to provide that caramelization both on the meat and in the pan that provides a strong burst of flavor. Secondly the meat is entirely, or partially, covered in a rich liquid and cooked slowly in the oven so as to break down those collagen holding connective tissues and turn them into a deeply flavored gelatinous sauce.

Okay, enough science talk; let's cook. Well, no, first let's shop. I look for short ribs that are cut about an inch and a half and are not too overly fatty (this is sometimes just not possible). If you need to go to the butcher to order them a day in advance, remember, this is all just part of the process. It used to be, perhaps 20 years ago, that short ribs were something the butcher would beg you to take off his hands, but, as with all cuts of meat "rediscovered" by the foodie revolution this is no longer so. I just paid $2.99/# for some short ribs I thought were pretty nicely cut and trimmed, so you might want to use that as a bench mark (or not).

Something to note as well, AND THIS IS IMPORTANT, before beginning, is that this is not a recipe for a dish you are going to eat the first day it comes out of the oven, and if I had my way, you would not even eat it on the second day. Short ribs will taste their best after 48 hours of refrigeration have allowed them to "settle in" to their sauce, open up a bit, and absorb the cooking liquid.

Braised Short Ribs ala Chef of the Jungle

3# Beef Short Ribs, cut 1 1/2" (two good pieces per person will suffice)

1 Bottle Red Wine (as good as you feel comfortable cooking with)

1 Onion, cut in medium dice

1 Medium Carrot, cut in 1/2" dice

1 Parsnip, cut in 1/2" dice

1 Turnip, cut in 1/2" dice

6 Cloves of garlic, smashed and chopped fine

3 Bay Leaves

4-6 Sprigs of Fresh Thyme

2 Oz. Cooking oil

2 Cups of Chef of the Jungle Roasted Tomatoes (see other posts), or, 1 14 Oz. can of chopped tomato product

1 Qt. (this may be excessive) of Homemade Stock or, broth from a box

The first thing I do is season the short ribs with a good hit of sea salt and black pepper and then I sear them. There are two way to go about this searing process (yes, another process); the first is to sear them on the stove top in a heavy dutch oven or whatever vessel you plan to do your braising in. This works nicely, although I am not a big fan of the splattering grease involved. The second method, and the one I prefer, is to heat the oven to 400 degrees or so and put the short ribs in for about 35-40 minutes or so. You may want to turn them once.

There are two things you are hoping to accomplish by doing this. The first is that you want to render away some of the fat that coats the outside of your ribs. There can be a lot of fat. The second (and to me, more important) thing you're trying to accomplish is to get the ribs to brown and stick to the pan. That stuff that sticks to the pan (the French call this the "fond") is the source of a tremendous amount of flavor.

And now we are going to deglaze; ready? You will need red wine. When your ribs have gotten a nice brown color and they are sticking to the bottom of the pan, remove it from the oven, move the ribs to a plate, pour off the fat and put the pan on a lit burner. When the pan begins to sizzle and pop pour in about a cup of red wine and start scraping. Reduce and scrape for about 30 seconds or so until you have gotten all the good bits off the bottom of the pan. Pour your "fond" off into a cup or bowl.

Wipe the cooking pan clean (relatively speaking) with a towel and heat the cooking oil up in the pan. When it is hot, add all the vegetables (with the exception of the tomatoes) and let them saute. Go ahead and stir them around a little, but you want them to stick to the pan a bit; vegetables have flavor, too, you know. When the vegetables are starting to brown add the second half of the red wine and stir up whatever has stuck to the cooking pan. Let the wine reduce by half and add the tomatoes, your prized "fond" from the meat deglazing, and the herbs. Stir to mix, then return the short ribs to the pan, nestling them down into the vegetables. Add 2-3 cups of the stock, or enough to nearly cover, but not quite cover, the ribs.

Return the whole pot, uncovered, to the oven and adjust the heat to 35o. And now, get out of here. Got take a walk, read, make love, do something that will take your mind off the masterpiece that is beginning to form in your oven. In an hour come back and take a look. The tops of the ribs should be browning, so turn them over to get more of that brown flavor into the sauce and return the pan to the oven for another hour and a half. If the liquid has reduced to the point where over an inch of the ribs are showing, add a bit more stock. And remember, relax, this is a process, I told you that.

After two and a half hours, take the pan from the oven, put it on a cooling rack or a trivet and let it come to room temperature. When it has cooled down sufficiently, cover it and put it in the refrigerator and just walk away. The next day, when you take a look, all the fat will have hardened into a reddish (this is from the tomatoes) layer over the top of the pan and you will be able to remove it and dispose of it quite easily with your fingers, or, if you're just that way, a spoon.

Now at this point you can reheat the short ribs (very very slowly, please) and serve them and their amazingly rich sauce over buttered noodles (Chef of the Jungle's favorite), risotto, polenta, or any of the mashed root vegetables, solo or mixed (I am particularly fond of celery root and yukon golds). It will be wonderful, ethereal, comforting and just the very thing for a chilly evening. BUT, and I tell you this in all sincerity and seriousness, if you can wait another day, it will be SO much better. Really, trust me on this. It's all about the process.

Enchiladas Verde

This week I followed up the roast chicken from my previous blog by picking the carcass and turning he leftovers into Enchiladas Verde. Verde is, of course, Spanish for green and the green for the enchiladas refers to the sauce and the sauce comes from tomatillos. Tomatillos, oddly, are not at all related to tomatoes, but are, rather, in the gooseberry family as their little husks may indicate. And, as luck and seasonality will have it, this is harvest time, at least in this area, for tomatillos.

The tomatillo has a bright, slightly acidic flavor and is a wonderful foil for the richness of the melted cheese, sour cream, avocado and all the things that make enchiladas a wonderful and perfect winter meal. And while I made these particular enchiladas with chicken as the main part of the filling, I absolutely LOVE this sauce with Dungeness crab enchiladas, a seasonal treat in my family for years.

My friend Lynda Lee Wieland, who used to pick me up hitchhiking in Costa Rica while she was VERY pregnant has been kind enough to ask for this recipe. So, Lynda, here we go.

ENCHILADAS VERDE

For The Sauce

12-15 Ripe Tomatillos

1 Jalapeno Chile

1 White Onion

3 Cloves peeled Garlic

1 Anaheim or Poblano Chile (optional)

1/2 bunch cilantro

Husk the tomatillos, and rough chop the other vegetables. Cover all of them with water (except the cilantro) and bring to a low boil. Cook for about ten minutes or until the tomatillos are tender. Using a slotted spoon transfer the cooked vegetables to a blender, add the cilantro, and pulse (careful, this is hot) until you have a smooth sauce. Save the cooking liquid in case the sauce seems too thick. Pour 1/4 of the sauce into a baking dish or casserole large enough to hold 12 enchiladas

For The Filling

2 Cups Cooked Chicken

1 Large White Onion, cut in strips or half moons

2 Large Anaheim Chiles cut in strips

1 Poblano (Ancho) Chile cut in strips

1 Oz. Canola oil

1/2 Cup Chicken Broth

1/2 Bunch of Cilantro, rough chopped

2 Ripe Avocados, cut in strips

1# + 1/2# Grated Monterey Jack Cheese

4 Oz. Softened Goat Cheese (this is my secret ingredient and is, of course, optional)

12 Corn Tortillas

Preheat your oven to 350.

Heat a skillet with the oil and saute the onions and chile strips until just soft. Add the cooked chicken and toss to mix. Pour in the chicken broth and allow to come to a simmer. Heat the chicken and vegetables just through and add the cilantro.

Heat a second heavy skillet and heat on tortilla on both sides until it softens. Put in two tablespoons of the chicken filling, a sprinkling of grated jack cheese, a little dollop of the goat cheese and two avocado slices. Carefully roll the tortilla around the fillings and place it in the casserole. Do this with the remaining tortillas and filling taking care to make sure you have just enough of everything left at the end. Pour the remainder of the Salsa Verde over the rolled enchiladas and top with the second part of the grated jack cheese.

Bake the enchiladas for 30 minutes covered with aluminum foil. Remove the foil and bake for another ten minutes. Serve carefully and with love, topped with sour cream and more avocado.

Brussels Sprouts; Somebody Likes 'Em

The other day I stopped in at one of our local farmstand markets and there on a long low table were giant wands of green; full stalks of brussels sprouts in their natural state. And I, of course, had to buy one, a nice full one, nearly three feet long, with sprouts both small and large.

Brussels sprouts are one of those classic things you either love or hate. There is very little middle ground when it comes to them. And the faces people make to express their dislike for these cute little round members of the brassica family are among the classics in the annals of food dislike.

I happen to like brussels sprouts, but it wasn't always so. In my household when I was a child, they were, like most vegetables of the 50's, cooked into a grayish mush that guaranteed that no child alive could or would like them. I am sad to say that in this particular era in food history my mother took similar approaches with zucchini, asparagus and anything else green from the garden. Fortunately her tact changed as he children grew.

Recently I have cooked brussels sprouts two different ways that were well loved in our household and not just because the both involved the contribution of bacon or pancetta, although it never hurts, does it? These are both incredibly simple recipes. The first involves shredding the sprouts as if one were making mini-cole slaw out of mini-cabbages and sauteing them; the second just calls for them to be halved, but then roasted. Try either of them with pork or chicken on a chilly Fall evening.

Shredded Brussels Sprouts with Pancetta

2o Brussels Sprouts; halved and then sliced thinly

3 oz. Pancetta; diced fine

1 oz. olive oil

S&P to taste (but I like a lot of black pepper on my brussles sprouts)

Water or chicken stock

Heat a heavy saute pan over the flame and add the olive oil and pancetta. Cook until the pancetta begins to crisp slightly and throws a bit of oil. Add the shredded sprouts and toss with the liquid in the pan until they begin to wilt slightly. Add about two ounces of water of stock to the sprouts and toss again. Cook for a minute or two until the liquid is nearly absorbed and serve.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Bacon

20 Brussels Sprouts, halved

2 Thick slices of smoked bacon cut into 1/2" pieces

S&P to taste

Water or chicken stock

Pre-heat the oven to 400 while you are halving the sprouts. Put the cut bacon into an oven proof saute pan and add the sprouts. Cook in the oven until the bacon begins to render, then toss to mix. Return to the oven and cook until the bacon is almost cooked through. Add an ounce or two of water or stock, toss and return to the oven for another three or four minutes.

The sprouts will have lost a bit of color, but are, at this point, ready.

Roast Chicken Redux

The last time I wrote about Roast Chicken and the very act of roasting a chicken, the circumstances were significantly different. I was living in a house at the edge of, or perhaps right in, the jungle on the south Pacific coast of Costa Rica. The weather was tropically gorgeous; and the doors (doors? We had doors?) and windows were all open so that the sounds of the birds and the noises from the early evening habitues of the jungle were a soundtrack for the browning of the bird. I was wearing shorts, perhaps a light, and if so, unbuttoned short-sleeved shirt, and I was definitely, very definitely barefoot.

I wrote about the gently meditative quality that roasting a chicken offers to one's existence, even in a nearly equatorial environment. The simple act of seasoning the bird, placing into the hot oven and then drifting away into a book and some jazz was as close to cooking serenely as I could possibly imagine. The rich and comfortingly familiar smells of roasting chicken, coupled with the gentle sounds of a jungle evening were, at that time, the very definition of comfort.

This afternoon, one in which the sun is already so far gone it feels like evening, I am preparing another bird for roasting. But this is Oregon. And more specifically, Fall on the Eastern side of the Willamette Valley; right up against the slopes of the Cascades. The temperature is in the low 40's and the birds have all hit the skies for the south. The colors of the trees, at least the ones that are still in possession of their leaves, are golden, scarlet and rust made all the more striking by being set against the dark green of the firs.

In Costa Rica, I kept the accompaniments simple, not really much in the Roast Chicken canon goes with the tropical weather, and in truth, a good deal of the chicken ended up served over a neighbor's lovely creekside grown watercress. Here, I've got the weather on my side to create the full-on roast chicken experience. I've got a stalk of locally grown brussels sprouts and smoked bacon. I've got fat golden potatoes and pungent heads of garlic from our own gardens. And best of all, I've got a supply of rich chicken stock for the gravy that should so rightfully come from the pan once the chicken has vacated it.

I still have the jazz, oozing and snaking from the speakers, but this time the music wafts up into the smell of the smoke from our wood burning stove (not to mention the early scents from the chicken arising from the oven). The fading light from the jungles has been replaced by a wonderful steam on the windows and rather than easing into a cooling jungle evening, we are cozy and warm here in our wooded house on a cold Fall night. Best of all, I am not alone for this roast chicken, and it is SO much better to have someone with whom to share such a simple but basic realization of pleasure and yes, comfort.