Movie Night at Ru and Lou’s

Movie Night at Ru and Lou’s

When thinking about movie food one usually thinks popcorn.  When I think movies I typically think cake!  In most movie theaters, even the upscale ones, I have yet to find the quality of cake that I would be willing to spend the big bucks on.  So instead, we created our own big screen movie theater at home and I make the cake for our guests.  Also typically not in the local movie establishment, the coffee that we serve is from Italy (illy dark roast whole beans) and the tea is from France (THE’ NOIR EARL GRAY).

This time I chose to make two cakes.  One is a winter holiday favorite, Pumpkin Bread.  The basic recipe comes from The New Settlement Cookbook: The First Classic Collection of American Ethnic Recipes (edited by Charles Pierce in 1991).  I purchased this cookbook when my copy of The Settlement Cook Book: The way to a man’s heart (1945) that was given to me by my mother began to disintegrate.  My version of this cake includes chocolate chips, toasted pecans (pronounced as it is spelled), and candied fruits such as cherries and pineapple.

The second cake was a first time experiment.  I only try out new recipes on trusted guests who I feel will provide honest feedback.  As in life, some people value honest feedback and some are personally offended by it.  I for one use the feedback to trash it, keep it, or try it again with some variation until it becomes one or the other.  Before any recipe becomes part of our regular repertoire, it must receive multiple thumbs up.  This cake was derived from a recipe that was in the October 2009 issue of Food & Wine magazine.  Basically, make a pound cake batter and get a jar of Nutella Hazelnut Spread.  Lay down one-third of the batter in a pan, spread one-half of the Nutella on the batter, repeat, and then top off with the remaining third of the batter.  I used my favorite pound cake recipe in this fashion.  All of the adults and the teenagers seemed to like it, so I guess it will stay in the recipe file.

p.s. The movie that we watched was Inception with Leonardo DiCaprio.  My goal is not to do movie reviews but…. great special effects, however a plot that was nearly impossible to coherently follow from beginning to end.

What To Do With Leftover Turkey

One of the things we like to do with leftover turkey is to make Tetrazzini.  This dish can also be made by using freshly cooked or leftover chicken.  This recipe was handed down by Louise’s family so we do not know where it came from.  Probably from a cookbook that someone had.

This recipe serves four, but it can be multiplied or divided to make more or less.  However, one of our mottos is “Why make less when you can make more and freeze it for another day?”

The ingredients are:

2 pounds cooked turkey or chicken

½ pound broken up spaghetti or broad egg noodles

2 tablespoons butter

6 tablespoons grated Gruyere cheese ¹

1/2 pound mushrooms

2 tablespoons butter

For the Béchamel sauce

½ cup butter

¾ cup flour

1 cup whole milk, warmed

2 cups turkey stock (or chicken stock), warmed

Salt and white pepper ²

2 tablespoons dry white wine

he assembly:

Cut turkey or chicken into large bite size pieces.

Sauté the mushrooms in the 2 tablespoons of butter in a hot skillet until browned.  Season with salt and pepper.  Set aside to cool.

To make the Béchamel sauce, melt the butter in a heavy sauce pan, then whisk in the flour (you are making a roux at this point).  Whisk constantly for five minutes to cook out the flour taste.  Gradually add in the milk and then the stock, whisking until smooth and thick.  Whisk in the cheese and salt and pepper to taste.  Add in the wine.  If too thick, add a little more milk.  Let cool for 15 minutes.

Cook the pasta in salted water until Al Dante ⁴.  Drain and place in a large bowl.  Mix in 2 tablespoons melted butter and 1 cup of the Béchamel sauce.  Add the turkey and mushrooms.

Spread the mixture in a buttered baking dish.  Cover with the remaining Béchamel sauce, grated Gruyere cheese, Panko bread crumbs, and a little more melted butter.

Bake for approximately 30 minutes at 350 degrees until bubbly.  If not fully browned and crispy on top you can put it under the broiler for a few minutes (watch it carefully to make sure it does not burn).

Gruyere cheese, Panko bread crumbs ³, and 2 tablespoons melted butter for the top

Eat some, freeze some, but most of all enjoy!

A second and simpler option is to take the turkey stock and make it into soup.  Cut-up parsnips, carrots, onions, and mushrooms are added to the hot soup, and the vegetables are cooked until tender.  Since the stock never had any salt added to it, this is the time for seasoning.  Some diced turkey can be added and heated until hot. 

Most traditional would be to add some noodles, thus making turkey noodle soup.  However, in our household we typically add matzo balls.

1. Even simple dishes are only as good as the quality of ingredients that you use.  Gruyere cheese imported from Switzerland is available at most better supermarkets.

2. White pepper is preferable when making white sauces because you do not see black flecks in your sauce.  However, in a pinch, black pepper can be used.  A word about spices like pepper: their shelf-live is limited.  Packaged spices have expiration dates, check them.  I prefer to buy my spices in small quantities from a spice shop.  Having come from Illinois we still prefer to get our spices and spice blends from The Spice House in Evanston Illinois (http://www.thespicehouse.com/), a must stop for foodies when in the Chicago area.

3. Panko is a Japanese bread crumb that makes fried foods and toppings very crispy.

4. Al Dante is the Italian cooking term (“to the tooth”) typically used for pasta that is slightly under cooked so that it still has some resistance when bitten.  Since this dish will bake in the oven, you do not want the pasta to be mushy.

The Five Days of Turducken

This recipe for a Turducken (a chicken, inside a duck, inside a turkey) is based upon that of the famous New Orleans chef Paul Prudhomme.  In this recipe I have substituted two Cornish game hens for the chicken and used two ducks.  In the past I have also used squabs.  In addition to the three birds, this recipe also contains three different stuffings: one made of spicy andouille sausage, one made with cornbread and ground up turkey gizzards, and finally an oyster dressing.

Although this recipe does not necessarily need five days to make, having to work to buy the ingredients cuts into prep time.  However, two unexpected snow days at the Kent Washington School District did make the task a little less hectic.

Certainly one of the key cooking concepts for making a dish with as many steps as this one is the French term “mies en place” or everything in its place.  What this translates into is – prepare all of your ingredients and assemble all that you need before you start cooking.  Since all three stuffing recipes called for the use of the Cajun “trinity” (equal parts green bell pepper, onion, and celery), quite a while was spent cutting and dicing large quantities of each of these.

Here we go:

Day One: Saturday

I baked cornbread for the cornbread stuffing.  We always make more than we need because the outside edges are an especially good snack when covered with butter from France.

Day Two: Sunday


The end result of all that cutting and dicing.

 

Making the cornbread stuffing.
Cooking the ground up turkey gizzards.

Assembling all of the components.

Baking the cornbread stuffing.

Day Three: Monday

Making the andouille sausage stuffing.

Deboning two ducks.

Deboning the ducks and game hens requires the right tools and no lapses of attention.  First you need a very sharp “boning knife.”  This knife has a semi flexible blade that allows you to cut very close to and around bones.  You start with a slit down the back of the bird and follow down each side of the back and breast bones.  The ducks and game hens have all of the bones removed because they are inside of the turkey.  For the turkey you leave in the long bone of the leg and the wings to keep the appearance of an intact bird.  Finally, a word about attention.  A very sharp knife in very close proximity to five fingers can equal deboning of the medical kind.  The slightest lapse of attention can result in an unexpected pause in the cooking routine for a trip to the emergency room.

Two issues of food safety are also important to mention at this point: cross contamination and the temperature danger zone.  Especially with fowl, constantly wash your hands, tools, and prep area.  Touching something with unwashed turkey or chicken hands can result in food poisoning for yourself and your guests.  Nothing spoils the memory of a wonderful evening with family and/or friends like 48 hours in the bathroom.

Second, everything must be kept cold.  When hazardous foods remain within the temperature danger zone (between 40 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit), potentially nasty little bacteria can multiply, once again causing you to take up residence in the bathroom.  So only take out of the refrigerator what you are working on and quickly cool down everything when you have finished working with it or cooking it.

Debone two game hens.

Day Four: Tuesday.

Making the Oyster Stuffing.

Deboning the Turkey. 

It is good to start honing your skills with the ducks and hens since slight errors in deboning are hidden within the turkey.  However, the turkey is far less forgiving.  Any tears in the skin will be seen, resulting in it looking like the loser in a knife fight.  In fact, the hardest part of deboning the turkey is when just about all is done.  The final step is severing the connection of the ridge of the breast bone to the breast skin.  This paper thin connection must be very carefully cut by holding your knife tight against the breast bone and sliding it from front to back.  An error here would result in torn skin right down the middle of the breast.

Half the turkey breast deboned.

What to do with all those bones?  The turkey and hen bones were roasted in the oven, placed in a stock pot with carrot, leek, onion, celery, bay leaf, thyme, parsley, and peppercorns.  It was then covered with water, and over the course of several hours very flavorful turkey stock appeared.  The duck bones were frozen for later making duck stock.

Day Five: Wednesday.

Today is the assembly and the cooking of the Turducken.  As you will see, it truly takes a village to assemble one.



Step One:  After salting and peppering the turkey spread out a layer of andouille sausage stuffing.



Step Two:  Place the two deboned ducks on top of the turkey.

Step Three: Place the cornbread and gizzard stuffing on top of the ducks.

Step Four:  After next placing the two game hens, layer the oyster dressing on top.

Step 5:  Here’s where it takes a village.  Our neighbors Paul and Laurie came over to help hold the Turducken in its proper shape so I could sew the back closed.  While Laurie took pictures, Louise and Paul held the bird as I, armed with a 10 inch trussing needle with butcher’s twine, began the suturing process.

The proud parents of an assembled Turducken.

Oh, did I mention that it weighted 33 pounds when finished?

 

The Turducken went into the oven at 12:00 midnight on Wednesday/Thursday.  Not just any oven, but a Rational SCC 61 SelfCooking Center.  This oven is capable of using a combination of precisely controlled heat and humidity to bake or steam anything, while keeping the food moist and never overcooked.  We had to have ours shipped from Germany configured in single-phase electrical rather than the typical restaurant required three-phase electrical, so it could be installed in our home.  Don’t look for one at Sears.  Although the choice between a Rational oven or a Volkswagen took a few minutes, I sort of knew which way I was going to lean before I started the deliberation.

The Turducken cooked at 190 degrees Fahrenheit in 10 percent humidity to an internal temperature of 160 degrees.  Don’t worry, the carry over cooking (the internal temperature continues to rise even after you remove something from the oven), took it to over 165 degrees.  The total time in the oven was 10 hours, followed by hot holding it until we headed south for Thanksgiving dinner.

Our new Northwest tradition is to have Thanksgiving dinner with our friends Bill and Vreni.  Their daughter along with her business partner own Helsing Junction Farm, the CSA that we get our organic produce and fruit from.  The typical guests vary from year to year, but in addition to their family, Selma and Mark the owners of Bone Dry Ridge (where we get our meat from each year) are always in attendance.  So we wrapped the Turducken in several layers of foil, put it in a cooler and dove the 83 miles to Rochester, Washington.

The Turducken is a deceiver.  It looks like a regular turkey, but the unknowing are always surprised when a knife cuts right through the center of the bird without encountering any obstacles.  Here, Bill and Vreni inspect the bird when it comes out of the cooler.

Although Bill seems to resist being called a Chef, he did own the Village Smithy Restaurant in Glencoe, Illinois.  He has an amazing ability to put together wonderful combinations of food, often by walking out of his house and cutting or pulling vegetables right out of the ground.  As always, he made a fantastic array of side dishes (potatoes, Brussels sprouts, and two kinds of cranberry sauces), as well as pumpkin pies.

Let the slicing begin.

Seconds and thirds were had by all.  However, a not insignificant amount of leftover Turducken came back to Renton with us.  On Friday Laurie and Paul invited us for dinner at their house, adding in their invitation that it was OK if we bring the left over Turducken.  Our neighbor Greg, and three teenage boys also helped to polish off the remainder of this venture.

Finally, when all was said and done, the few dregs of Turducken left on the platter and some cooked out carrot and giblets from making the turkey stock were strained out, who comes to the rescue to help clean up?  None other than Danechka the kitchen dog.

Our First Kitchen Blog

We came to the northwest with the idea of changing our lifestyle.  Coming from Chicago where I worked as a Pediatric Neuropsychologist, I had the opportunity one day to cut back my practice and take several classes from Chef Patrick Chabert who, upon arriving from France, worked at the famed Le Francais restaurant for 17 years before starting a cooking school.  These classes turned into seven years of two day per week of learning, assisting, and later teaching cooking classes.  Also in Chicago is the French Pastry School which brings famous pastry chefs from France to teach.  Several of the classes that I took along the way included those from Chef Christene Ferber (France's premier jam and jelly maker), Chef Albert Adria, and Chef Pascal Caffet.  Topping off my experiences was the opportunity to have several lessons on bread making in our wood-fired pizza oven from Chef Jorie Downer, who along with Chef William Leaman from Seattle's Bakery Nouveau won the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie.  Travels to most of the regions in France have also honed our palettes for fine regional cuisines.

Upon moving, Louise (my trusty Sous Chef) and I have sought out the fine products that the Northwest has to offer.  We now belong to the Helsing Junction Farm CSA from which we get wonderful organic produce, including mushrooms and local fruits.  We also purchase free-range lamb, pork, and beef from Bone Dry Ridge.  With these organic products in hand, along with a fair amount of products from France (e.g., Valrhona chocolates and Patis France almond paste), we set off on a cooking adventure.

Over time we hope to share with you aspects of our kitchen, recipes, and dinners that we share with our friends.

Our first adventure will be the step-by-step process of making a Thanksgiving Turduckhen (a hen inside a duck inside a turkey with three different dressings).

Stay tuned.  Below is our puppy chef, Danechka.