Category: Recipe

Chicken with Artichokes, Shallots, and Tomatoes with whole grain mustard

Chicken with Artichokes Scallions and tomatoes and whole grain mustard

 

Chicken with Artichokes, Shallots, And Tomatoes with whole grain mustard

Course: Main Course
Cuisine: Caribbean | Provençal
Prep Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours
Calories: 747 kcal

Chicken en cocotte with vegetables in a savory sauce

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Ingredients

  • 4 thighs Chicken whole, with skin and bones
  • 2 tbsp Olive oil EVOO
  • 1 tbsp Duck fat rendered, substitute butter if necessary
  • Sea salt as needed, fine, not coarse grind
  • Black pepper freshly ground as needed
  • 3 large Shallots peeled and split into cloves, cut each clove in two vertically
  • 8 oz Artichokes hearts, frozen defrosted, but not heated
  • 1.5 c Chicken stock home-made or unsalted/low sodium variety of boxed
  • 2 oz White wine or dry vermouth
  • 1 tbsp Wholegrain mustard preferably Dijon
  • 1 tbsp Dijon mustard strong
  • 6 oz Grape tomatoes cut in half, or substitute small slicing tomatoes, cored and cut into quarters or sixths depending on their size
  • 1 tsp Balsamic vinegar aged
  • 1 tsp Dried basil
  • 1 tsp Dried French thyme
  • 1/2 tsp Fish sauce

Instructions

Preparation of chicken

  1. Handle the chicken as little as possible, optionally wearing gloves, to prevent cross contamination. Dress the skin on each to cover the flesh. Leave any fat deposits except exceptionally large ones. Place the thighs on a thick layer of paper towels on a cutting board, skin side up. Cover the thighs with another thick layer of paper towels and press onto the surface of the skin. The chicken should be as dry as possible, for best searing without sticking.

  2. Uncover the chicken after no less than two or three minutes and discard the paper towel that was on top. Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and warm water.

  3. Generously cover the skin first with the sea salt, and then with a generous grind of black pepper, to your preferred level of coarseness. I prefer a coarser grind.

  4. Allow the chicken to sit while you prepare the cooking pot.

Cooking

  1. Heat the pot over medium high, large enough to hold all the chicken comfortably in the bottom in a single layer.

  2. As the pot begins to heat up, add the duck fat and the olive oil to the bottom, and swirl occasionally to coat the bottom. When the fat is ready it will shimmer and will be on the verge of smoking.

  3. Carefully place each thigh in the hot fat, using tongs if you need them, salted and peppered skin side down. The chicken will begin to sputter immediately. Work quickly and when all the thighs are in the pot, adjust their positions to make sure they each have some room. You can partially cover the pot to help minimize the fat splatter while it cooks. Before covering, though, salt and pepper the exposed fleshy side of the thighs evenly.

  4. Check the thighs occasionally. They should eventually brown to a deep golden color. This will take from six to eight minutes. Halfway through the estimated time, turn each thigh 180° to ensure even browning. After the skin side is browned satisfactorily, turn each thigh over and repeat the process of browning, though the reverse side will take less time. Turn each thigh through 180° on this step also.

  5. When the thighs are thoroughly browned on both sides, remove them, setting them aside on a plate or platter in a single layer. And remove the pot from the heat. Extinguish the burner to prevent accidents.

  6. Carefully remove the hot liquid fat from the casserole, and reserve three tablespoons of it, which will be returned to the pot. Discard the remaining fat safely or reserve it for some other use (it is a combination of the original duck fat or butter, EVOO, and the rendered chicken fat, and is a particularly rich fat for browning foods for other dishes, where appropriate).

  7. Replace the pot on the burner and turn up to medium-high. Add the reserved 3 tablespoons of cooking fat. It should take only a minute or two to reach temperature. But watch it carefully and be sure not to let it begin to smoke. Add the split and halved shallots carefully distributed so they can all brown at once. Move the shallots around with tongs and as each section browns turn it to brown another side of it.

  8. Browning all the shallots slightly should take only a minute or two.

  9. Add the artichoke hearts, evenly distributed in the fat in the pot, and with the tongs make sure each is coated in fat. Keep the shallots and artichoke hearts moving in the pot. The artichoke hearts will begin to brown immediately. Give them only a minute to brown.

  10. Add the white wine and stir. Using a wooden spoon, as the wine boils, stir the ingredients, scraping the bottom of the pan. All browned bits should dissolve and come off easily. Stir until the wine is almost all boiled off and lower the heat to medium.

  11. Add the chicken stock and stir gently with the wooden spoon. As the liquid begins to simmer, add, in any order, the balsamic vinegar, the thyme, the basil, the two kinds of mustard, and keep stirring as they dissolve and distribute.

  12. When the mixture has reached a steady simmer, lower the heat to medium low.

  13. Now, carefully and gently place the four chicken thighs in the casserole evenly, skin side up. Be sure to add the liquid that has collected in the plate on which you reserved the chicken to the pot and stir it in. The chicken thighs should sit in the liquid comfortably without being submerged. The rest of the ingredients should rise no higher than half-way up their sides.

  14. Make sure the simmer continues gently, and cover the pot.

    After about half the remaining time has elapsed, add the tomatoes to the pot, distributing them around and between the chicken. Gently use the wooden spoon or tongs to coat the tomatoes with the liquid in the pot. Re-cover, and allow to continue to simmer.

Finishing

  1. When the chicken is completely cooked, which should take no more than a half-hour, remove the thighs to a heated platter or plate. Unless the thighs you used are unusually large, or you did not preserve the simmer on the covered casserole, the meat should be cooked through and tender. To be absolutely certain, use an instant read meat thermometer, with a probe, to test the temperature, being careful to test the thickest part of the thigh and not to touch the bone with the probe. Chicken is done at 165°F.

    Once removed from the pot, the chicken will continue to cook to even more tenderness and doneness and the juices will recede.

    Meanwhile raise the temperature under the pot to medium or medium high, so that it simmers more forcibly and allow it to cook further, in order to reduce and thicken. Remove it from the heat after five minutes.

    You may replace the chicken into the pot, or serve this dish separately from the two containers: the chicken from the platter, and the stew from the pot.

Serving

  1. This dish is excellent served with broad egg noodles, or with whole grains (like barley, farro, or wheat berries), or with whole grain (i.e., brown) rice, either short of long grain.

    Serve each diner in a deep-bowled plate, first with a portion of the grain or pasta, place a chicken thigh on top of the grain, and then ladle or spoon a portion of the other ingredients over the chicken and grain.

Nutrition Facts
Chicken with Artichokes, Shallots, And Tomatoes with whole grain mustard
Amount Per Serving
Calories 747 Calories from Fat 432
% Daily Value*
Fat 48g74%
Saturated Fat 10g50%
Cholesterol 27mg9%
Sodium 1224mg51%
Potassium 1634mg47%
Carbohydrates 55g18%
Fiber 15g60%
Sugar 18g20%
Protein 21g42%
Vitamin A 1766IU35%
Vitamin C 41mg50%
Calcium 140mg14%
Iron 6mg33%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

Dressed Tuna Fish (tuna fish salad)

jars of tuna fish in olive oil
the right stuff

I’m always interested to learn what others do to make what they think of as tuna fish salad. Not interested enough ever to ask – I mean, if I think my preferences are not so much my business, but, simply, my preferences and unaccountable to anyone, everyone else is entitled to the same magnanimity; and there’s too much risk opening the conversation by asking, because too many people think it’s an invitation to friendly debate, and I’m not interested; it’s kind of like explaining your fierce loyalty, if you have it, to the local sports franchise, and choose your own sport, it’s all of equal indifference to me… when you start talking you have to realize, with even a gram (one twenty-third part of an ounce) of self-awareness, that there is no scientifically provable reason to root for the Pats or the Sox or the Sixers or the Hornets or the Wasps or the Bees – but when the information about tuna fish comes up spontaneously, I pay attention).

I’ve come to prefer to call it dressed tuna fish. I think tuna fish is the main attraction, and whatever is added surely should be there for its own alluring and tasty properties to be savored in their own right for sure, but added to provide a mutual enhancement, kind of like a chamber music piece with the tuna primus inter pares. I mean, most people wouldn’t, under ordinary quotidian circumstances at any random time of year, cut themselves a healthy slice of fresh onion (whatever kind of the usual suspects: white, yellow, red, etc.) and dine on it as a snack. I’ve been known to, but usually it’s around this time of year when the inestimable Vidalia (the AOC kind, not those anonymous “sweet onion” varieties available almost year-round at WFM (say) appears in the produce section in abundance) appears in the produce department.

To me, onion is the first thing to think of adding. I’ll get to the few other additions in a minute. But back to the star ingredient.

As I see it, usually the darker the meat, the tastier the tuna, and so, like the Europeans, but especially the French, the Italians, the Portuguese, and the Spanish (you can admonish me if I’m leaving somebody out, but there’s a limit to what’s available to me – and serves as context – to buy with regard to sourcing of the tinned and jarred varieties), I think the best tuna to use, if you’re not starting out fresh (to utterly different objectives) are the cuts of this noble fish usually abstracted from the Bonito, which is not strictly a tuna fish, but very close, and otherwise known, especially to Americans, as the Skipjack. The designation as to species sometimes reduces, depending on what country you’re in, to a matter of legalities and labels. But though it’s the same family as tuna, as I say, it’s a different species. However, the important thing is, seeing bonito on the label is assurance you are getting a darker, i.e., a gamier and somewhat tastier, usually, bit of fish flesh.

The best packing is olive oil. And it needn’t even be EVOO, though it’s out there in the form of more luxe products, with concomitant prices to match. But olive oil, with or without salt, and the fish of course, should be all the ingredients you see listed. Before I learned about the more premium brands, and alternatively, the more abundant equivalent, though ordinary supermarket, brands over in France, I used to buy tuna that was Pastene or Goya branded, i.e., in the “international food” section of what are otherwise white bread groceries in this country. Even the biggest chains today sequester a much smaller selection of much tastier foreign (and nothing says exotic, which it isn’t and shouldn’t be, like “foreign,” or “imported” or, yeah, “international,” which is a euphemism for “them” and “other” and always has been, and I don’t care what you say). And they congratulate themselves for doing so.

And the reason I bought it was because this was the authentic – or as close to that quality as one can find in urban centers, especially outside of New York and Los Angeles, and certain ethnic neighborhoods, if they exist, in other American cities – choice of tuna to crown the only thing I would eat that genuinely joins the words salad to tuna. I mean, of course, salade Niçoise, that amazing, and amazingly simple, and straightforward concoction that is a staple of my Mediterranean summers, when I am over there. It entails what you’d expect in a salad – fresh vegetables – and is garnished with three absolute essentials, the only natural food items that have anything done to them aside from being cleaned of surface deposits, with nothing stronger than fresh water: anchovies, small black olives (there are two or three optimal varieties, any one of which can be, and is, called Niçois), not pitted, and fillets of anchovy. But the crown, as I say, is a significant mound of tinned (or canned, if you prefer not to be British, or the jarred, which are usually the premium brands) tuna. And it’s usually dark meat, and it’s usually glistening with oil and nothing else, the oil it was packed in.

But back to my main subject: dressed tuna fish.

I like to use either of two brands, both caught and packed in Portugal (Ortiz brand) or Costa Rica (Tonnino brand), and usually to be found in one of three varieties of the fish species we all, let’s face it, basically crave periodically for inner peace: yellowfin, bonito, and albacore, or name your species. And unpredictably it’s available in greater or lesser abundance in either of two cuts. There’s the one that’s called “white” or “white meat,” and usually sources from the albacore, as well as from the bonito. And from the latter, also, the meat may have a much ruddier hue naturally, and there’s the one that’s called “ventresca,” which is what Sicilians call the Italian word for the belly of the fish, the “ventre.” And this latter cut is meatier, juicier, fatter, and hence more flavorful. And it’s also costing a prettier penny.

In any event, from those two brands, and from, admittedly, a good number of others, but these are the ones I see in my local stores, but there’s, for one, Genova Seafood, an Italian brand, and eminently typical of what can be found in even the most pedestrian of super markets in rural France (let’s say). These brands are a bargain, actually, as the same fish and the same cuts are packed in the same olive oil, and tinned usually in somewhat smaller packs (doubtless to keep the prices from seeming exorbitant). And you couldn’t go wrong with this category either.

I open the tin, but, purely as a matter of purely personal subjective preference, I prefer the glass-jarred products (maybe it’s that I can see what’s “swimming” in there; maybe it’s the somewhat false perception that glass is more readily sterilizable and clean than sheet metal, usually steel – I say all this, and then I’ll admit, when I’m in Provence, I do as the Provençals do, and I buy my thon [tuna, tonno, whatever] in a can). I upend the container with the fish and the oil into a strainer bigger than the opening of the jar and let the oil drain out into a fat and oil receptacle I keep nearby to keep the oil out of the household trash.

When it’s fully drained, I empty the chunks, and they are usually large whole bits, intact, of even larger cuts of fillet, into a non-reactive bowl, usually stainless steel, and I gently break it up for a minute or so with a cooking fork, of the skinny three pronged variety. I then rinse the skin and towel dry a whole fresh lemon. I cut it into halves across the middle (that is, a latitudinal cut through the middle, rather than a longitudinal cut from stem end to south pole) and I use a juice squeezer to squeeze out of every drop of juice, and withhold every pip or seed, on top of the tuna.

I add the following (and these are approximate measures; as with so many dishes of casual, but still very vital and compelling, intimacy in my usual diet, I do it by eye and by hand… true enough, but if I told you “a scant handful,” it would mean very little, because you have no idea the size of my paw):

3-4 Tbsp of walnut halves, roughly chopped
3-4 Tbsp of your favorite fresh onion (Vidalia if you got, but this makes the result particularly mild), finely diced
1-2 Tbsp of poppy seeds (make sure they’re still fresh)
¼ – ½ tsp of celery seed

That’s it.

Now gently break up the tuna and blend with the other ingredients, until the tuna is in large shreds (at their smallest) and has blended evenly with everything else, and the tuna has absorbed the lemon juice, and so that all the ingredients mildly adhere to one another, so they would make a mound in a tablespoon without crumbling.

I like my dressed tuna in a sandwich of really good crusty bread – but it works in a ciabatta roll, or on strips of the same bread you prefer otherwise for a nice croustade or avocado toast. Really, it’s good on any decent bread you’ve got left before you can justify venturing out (literally, or virtually online) to get your hands on some more bread – unless of course, you’ve taken up baking your own. I will admit to liking mayonnaise, in incredibly moderate amounts. However, I’m not crazy for the iconic American diner version of tuna fish salad, in which the fish, and whatever else is added, which you can’t usually discern identifiably, is drowned in a sea of mayonnaise, so it’s more an unctuous tuna spread, and far removed from being “tuna salad,” never mind my more dainty designation of dressed tuna fish.

So I may (and I may not, though I usually do) put a thin layer of mayo, spread on at least one slice of the sandwich, as long as the mayo is really good and still fresh.

My thinking is, simply, in terms of culinary philosophy, the star and main attraction of this dish, if it’s to be glorified by even this clinical designation is… (the further I get in writing this, the more “dressed tuna fish” sounds not just kind of dainty and hoity-toity; it’s not honestly, this is just the way I like it)… the tuna. The other ingredients? Not just there for the ride, but as enhancements and amplifiers of the pleasure of eating this delicious fish. They are not there just to season it in a somehow organically complementary way, but to help glorify it a bit further.

I’ve made this version of this indubitable comfort food staple for at least 25 years now. I try variants, mainly by way of adding other ingredients, and sometimes by way of adding tinned (or jarred) tuna prepared in something other than olive oil. But I always come back to this basic recipe.

It’s tuna, and it’s the other ingredients working together, to their mutual esteem as a dish. And maybe to solemnize it, to the degree it really does deserve, as does all good food, however seemingly humble, to be thought of and consumed as having a sacramental quality, along with being pleasurable and nutritious and life affirming.

Dressed Tuna Fish (tuna fish salad)

Course: Quick Lunch
Cuisine: American
Keyword: lemon juice, onion, poppy seed, tuna
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 0 minutes
Servings: 4
Calories: 59 kcal

My favorite

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Ingredients

  • 1 jar bonito tuna in olive oil Ortiz, or Tonnino, or Genova brand (or other variety of fish: albacore, etc.)
  • 1 lemon halved and pitted and juiced
  • 3-4 tbsp walnut halves chopped
  • 3-4 tbsp onion finely diced; white, yellow or red, or Vidalia
  • 1-2 tsp poppy seeds
  • 1/4-1/2 tsp celery seed
Nutrition Facts
Dressed Tuna Fish (tuna fish salad)
Amount Per Serving
Calories 59 Calories from Fat 45
% Daily Value*
Fat 5g8%
Saturated Fat 1g5%
Cholesterol 1mg0%
Sodium 2mg0%
Potassium 44mg1%
Carbohydrates 3g1%
Fiber 1g4%
Sugar 1g1%
Protein 1g2%
Vitamin C 3mg4%
Calcium 18mg2%
Iron 1mg6%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

Old-fashioned Potato and Egg Sandwich

When I lived in Boston and Cambridge, my dentist, the redoubtable Racowsky, in addition to caring fastidiously for my teeth, introduced me to the simpler pleasures of the neighborhood adjacent to his. His office technically was in a converted wharf building on what had been the inner Boston harbor, the neglected Boston “waterfront.” In the late 60s, urban renewal saw the start of a long revitalization project – essentially the gentrification of what had for even longer been an abandoned part of the landscape, immediately adjacent to a thriving urban ghetto. The Italian North End, even in the 80s, had for decades been a mecca for tourists because of its many vital historical sites dating to the American Revolution, and for foodie tourism, because of the proliferation of Italian restaurants, bakeries, and cafes.

But the North End was also, and had long been, a living, highly vibrant neighborhood for its many residents. It was an enclave for a native population made up of first, second, and third-generation Italo-Americans who took enormous pride in their quarter, sequestered, in an ironic way more or less perserved, by the barrier of the infamous “Central Artery.” This had been a controversial project costing vast sums, planned in the late 1940s and early 50s, constituting an elevated limited access expressway intended to make access to the city from the northern and southern suburbs more expedient, while easing significant traffic in the cramped streets of downtown, which had first been laid down when Boston was an important colonial center and capital of what had started as the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Instead, the “Artery” became jammed with an overabundance of traffic, usually stalled high above the teeming streets for most of the daylight hours. In the meantime, it also saw, precipitated really, the obliteration of the West End of Boston, an ethnic residential center, and, in its day, also a vibrant neighborhood for wave after wave of immigrants, as the decades of the nineteenth century passed one to another.

[I’ve decided to insert an editorial interpolation here – decidedly and consciously a meta-commentary – about how this evolving elaboration might have occurred, perhaps, at best, pre-verbally, though I’m not sure how we refer to the mode of interiority that relates to how we form our conscious thoughts, and I will not get bogged down in a meditation on “voice” or “words” or any essentially nihilistic Wittgensteinian dead-end aperçus concerning “that whereof we cannot speak” – wherein some readers may be wondering how a very simple recipe, demonstrably so, especially for the prescient reader-cook if all you do is look at the highly resolved photograph of the product, an assemblage of not much more than cooked eggs and potatoes on two slices of toast, probably – in the illustration, the proverbial “beauty shot,” overly toasted to some tastes – has ended up threatening to be a short history of late nineteenth century through mid-twentieth century immigration movements in the metropolitan Boston area. As well as what might, at any moment, turn into a screed on the monstrous cluelessness of so much American urban renewal. And I will say unto you, wondering or not, this is how I tell it.

Even the simplest of dishes is invested with a whole universe of associational facts and matters of chronologically ordered sequences of events, and without that particular and peculiar sequence which led to my consumption of my first potato and egg sandwich crafted at the grill of some now anonymous Italian grocery/delicatessen at the fringes of the, let’s face it, perpetually mean streets of the North End, and the series of similarly concocted luncheon sandwiches the consumption of which culminated in my internally persuasive perception that I had mastered a sense of how to craft such a rough delicacy myself, the recipe and the product of following might have ended up a decidedly different entity, substantively, sensibly, and gastronomically. And not only that, but to bestow upon myself, through temerity and an innately incalculable level of confidence, the idea that I could formulate a recipe or receipt the following of which would permit any but the most inept of cooks to replicate the sandwich sufficiently well not only to satisfy a hunger for such a means of satiation, but to essay further, repeated, attempts until the reader has achieved a level of a sense of mastery to permit adding this receipt to whatever repertoire of dishes they call upon in the need.

But, to the point, suffice it to say, I don’t believe even this highly interpreted – not to mention idiosyncratically so – and derivative formulation could not have resulted in the form it takes, virtually for sure here on the channels of the internet, and literally, however fortune and the specific qualities (or lack of them) of the ingredients the reader has assembled have pre-determined aspects of the results of concocting this delicacy (a word derived from delicatessen, not surprisingly a word of either German or Dutch origin, further derived from the, let’s face it, more French sounding, well, no other way around it, French, word for “delicacy,” which I have taken to mean, always, having grown up with what is now indelicately called a largely secularized Jewish upbringing – more cultural than religious, more gustatory than liturgical – not so much dainty foods, as foods that require some care in preparation, if not as well in the consumption, and not the least of the characteristic qualities is the savory aspect, however simple, even in a sample size tid-bit. I mean, at the very least, it’s not a bludgeon-sized St. Louis pork rib, done to a turn and dripping barbecue sauce onto a sheaf of paper towels, let’s say cheap paper towels, held roughly in the hand around the already gnawed bone; there is nothing dainty about this sandwich, but it also is not only a step or two above mere raw paleolithic sustenance, but much more, so much much more).

And so, I submit to you, every bite is not only informed somehow, let’s say spiritually, and let’s not get silly about it, as well as seasoned and made more savory, however subtly, by every moment of the immigrant experience in the aggregate: every instant of striving, ambition, frustration, anger, triumph, longing, and fulfillment. I would like to ascribe the accretive aspect of how the product of this recipe manifests perceptible, if not strictly analytical separable, qualities it could have acquired only through the passage of time, of history I mean to say, and spiritually imbuing the result with an ineffable strain of definition that is differentiable from some other, in all other respects virtually inseparable set of qualities that are similar but not precisely, not minutely, the same – occurring a block over and a week later, if you will – but I won’t in the end talk about these matters spiritually. I am innately ultimately driven by a faith, if in anything, in science, and also, and likely more importantly, because mentioning anything spiritual will get me into a very trying position vis à vis certain friends of mine, whose relationships I do not mean to or want to disturb about a matter too many people, wholly unrelated to my life, might consider a relentlessly trivial matter. An inconsequentiality. In other words, not Chinatown, but merely a potato and egg sandwich. For some people nothing at all depends on a potato and egg sandwich. Unlike what does depend on a red wheelbarrow.

So I’ll stick to concrete matters, especially when the ingredient list is so short.

Like the French omelet and, more pertinently, like the Italian frittata, there is a whole tradition, if not a sub-cuisine, a genre unto itself, of avian eggs whisked into a simple aerated batter, and fried with, more often than not, animal fats, in a pan with bits of whatever vegetables, fresh, and perhaps even on the way out, but still quite flavorful and nutritious, that have been cooked first, for softening, tenderizing, and caramelization and which become immersed in the emulsive and binding embrace of the eggs allowed to cook to a soft doneness, firmer than scrambled, and more tender than a custard—because yes, if you are tempted to add cheese, preferably grated, any cheese really would do, but provolone and cheddar and swiss are the usual choices in the salumeria-derived original, you should go ahead and do so.]

The potato, native in terms of modern botanical history essentially to what are now called “the Americas,” were first introduced to Europe by the Spanish, who brought them from the Andes (where some 3000 species originate) and who somehow or other first propagated them not on the mainland of the continent, but on the Canary Islands (among their posssessions at the time), and from around the start of the 17th century they proliferated and were added to the cuisines of the usual suspect nations. There are not many recipes which feature, never mind highlight, the potato as a significant ingredient in Italian cuisines, but there are a fair number of recipes in the authoritative, if not canonical, cookery book in English of what the title of the book calls “Classic Italian” preparations by the estimable Marcella Hazan. And in fact, one of these is a frittata featuring, in a reduced set of key ingredients, besides the requisite eggs, not much more than onions and potatoes.

For me, the key factor in preparation, though not out of the ordinary in the way of the preparation of most versions of this versatile dish, is that the potatoes are cooked in oil to a specified level of crispiness in advance.

Precisely as with this sandwich recipe. If either dish, but especially this lowly sandwich, deserves elevation to a place in some taxonomy of dishes worth bothering about, however little actual bother their concoction represents measured in energy expended, it is because it falls under the category of what do with leftovers. Who hasn’t prepared more potatoes than needed for other purposes for more formal dishes and been left with a small bowlful that sits in the fridge, waiting for the inspired and sudden yearning for a satisfaction that fits neatly and trimly between two slices of bread?

Old-fashioned Salumeria Potato and Egg Sandwich

One of the most affordable pleasures of the North End, Boston

  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/2 cup roasted red potato
  • 2 slices whole-grain sandwich bread
  • 1 Tbsp duck fat (or butter)
  • 1 pinch sea salt (or kosher salt)
  • 1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper

Prepare ingredients

  1. Chop cooked potato into bite-size chunks (about 1/2 inch cubes or equivalent

  2. Crack eggs into a stainless or glass bowl and whisk thoroughly as if for scrambling

  3. Heat cast iron skillet over medium heat

  4. Place two slices of sandwich bread into toaster, ready to be toasted

Cooking

  1. Heat duck fat in skillet until starting to shimmer

  2. Add potato chunks to skillet and coat with hot fat well. Keep stirring and moving in the pan until potatoes begin to brown very slightly.

  3. With a spatula concentrate potato chunks to one side of skillet

  4. This would be a good time to start your toast.

  5. Pour whisked eggs over potatoes.

  6. Moving quickly, with the spatula scrape egg that runs over onto the potato mound. After egg has begun to set, flip the whole melange over to allow cooking on the other side. Watch carefully and adjust heat so eggs do not brown. Flip the egg and potato mixture once or twice, like an omelet, to ensure eggs cook through.

  7. Remove pan from heat.

Final Steps

  1. Place toast slices on your plate side by side.

  2. With the spatula, lay the cooked potato and egg on one slice of the toast. Salt and pepper to taste and cover with the other slice of toast.

  3. Heaven with five simple ingredients.

 

My Perfect Drip Iced Coffee

Iced coffee pitcher and a serving

I use the same grinder and coffee maker that I do the rest of the year. I am fastidious enough to grind whole beans fresh each morning, measured out from their vacuum sealed container on a scale in a precise ratio of water to beans, which I measure in grams. With my particular setup of equipment, the brands and models of which I note below, I long since calculated through experimentation what that ratio should be. And this recipe records those measures. In other words, your mileage, which is to say your weights and volumes may vary.

This iced coffee concoction using the same equipment as for hot coffee meant another round of trial and error. My knowledge of what likely approximate dilutions would occur with the addition of water in the form of ice, to cool off the hot brew, made it short work.

Please note that I deliberately repeated the phrase “hot brew.” I am well aware of the current very popular trend to concoct coffee as a “cold brew,” which is to say, to prepare coffee as an infusion of water that starts cold and remains cold. All this requires considerably more time than the few minutes that a coffee maker does, using water heated to near boiling to extract the same components from the same grounds to make coffee ready to serve as a hot beverage. Passionate advocates debate  the burning questions of variant levels, depending on the brewing process conditions, of the resulting caffeine, acid, and other salient properties of the product.

I’ve settled the question for myself by trying a number of different cold brew concoctions made under domestic and commercial conditions. None my own preparation. I’m fastidious and lazy enough to know that I just can’t face the mess to be put in order afterwards. It results, to start, from brewing grounds with cold water that then have to be filtered, usually twice. Then you must find the means to discard the result. I won’t mention cleaning the greater number of vessels required to brew, hold the filtrate, store the filtrate, the additional filtering apparatus, etc. In short, if it’s that much additional labor—and leave us not forget the fact that this labor begins the night before, and ends the morning of—it better be several standard deviations of improved coffee drinking experience to redeem the cost in time and effort.

It isn’t.

As with so many other categories of popular favorites among the standard repertoire of food and drink to the American taste I may simply lack the sophistication, never mind the physiological conformation of taste and associated sensory organs, to tell fine, never mind subtle distinctions. I include such, to me, esoteric categories as wine and beer, and now coffee, as it turns out. Since the so-called second wave of commercial coffee roasting-grinding-brewing establishments, there’s an alleged “third wave” which seems mainly to my cynical, if not alter kacker, sensibility to be a branding strategem designed to justify a price of $29 for a brewed cup in a coffee shop (calling a spade a shovel).

Even when scientific data is available—nothing like an actual laboratory analysis of the amount of acidity in a cup (or any measure) of a liquid—I understand the anticipated effects of one level of fineness vs. another on the act of ingestion, in terms of culinary experience. Again, I will not mention consequential somatic reactions (including heartburn, belching, dizziness, headache, etc. etc.). If I don’t have such reactions as a consequence, it’s not so much I’m not convinced as it doesn’t matter.

And with what I feel strongly is a common sense approach to these things (and to the ethos I try to evince in this blog about dining and food), I think the only and ultimate criterion is whether I am satisfied. Especially with a product I hope to consume day after day, for at least a whole season, if not longer. Summer is not the only time I drink iced coffee.

The only other note to be added is that, if you prefer it, or your guests do, this coffee will stand up to lighteners and sweeteners and so you should have these on hand. When the summer begins, I start off slow, using a lightener—my favorite is half-and-half—until I’m several days into the cycle of having iced coffee with my breakfast every single day, and I switch to black. No sweetener. As a beverage to cool off, say later in the day on a particularly sultry afternoon, I may tempt myself into sweetening the brew and my preferred sweetener is simple syrup, already chilled, at least to room temperature.

There are other choices.There was a product for the longest time from Domino Sugar (and probably from some of its competitors), they called “Superfine,” a form of “instant” dissolving sugar that doesn’t appear in the groceries I shop in, and just as well on the principle that if I don’t have it, I won’t use it. As for alternative sweeteners, including natural ones (and that includes what’s really really trendy these days, Stevia), they all taste unnatural to me, and the lab-concocted ones taste primarily of chemicals whose detection on my tongue I find suspicious and anxiety-provoking.

Black iced coffee, after all, is the least work. And that’s my standard after all.

The coffee maker I use is a Capresso MT900, which only six months ago replaced the magnificent MT600 from the same maker, which put in a good 20+ years of service before giving up the ghost by springing some leaks deemed not worth repairing. The MT900 is at least as reliable, offers a thermos-type carafe, and differs hardly at all in quantities required to produce the same results as the 600, and is, in my opinion, better engineered and easier to use. The coffee grinder is also a Capresso, a burr grinder model no longer offered, though they have a new model which appears to have similar specifications, in a model line they style “Infinity,” which comes in different configurations of features and price points.

For what it’s worth (because all these things, even if you use the exact same equipment, will require some personal trial and error to formulate the best results for your taste) I use the setting on the grinder that produces results that are a little finer in coarseness than the “medium” grind usually recommended as a starting point for drip coffee makers.

Perfect Drip Iced Coffee

Course: Drinks
Cuisine: American
Keyword: iced coffee
Prep Time: 4 minutes
Cook Time: 6 minutes
Cooling off: 5 minutes
Total Time: 15 minutes
Servings: 5
Calories: 1 kcal

Starting with whole beans, and ending with a pitcher in the fridge

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Ingredients

  • 80 g whole bean coffee organic, breakfast blend
  • 32 oz filtered water
  • 12 oz ice cubes by weight

Instructions

Prepare and weigh beans

  1. Weigh out the beans on a scale, and reseal the container for the beans

  2. Grind the beans

  3. Fill the filter of the coffee maker with the ground beans

Fill water reservoir

  1. Measure 32 oz of filtered water, and fill coffee maker reservoir

Brew coffee

  1. When the coffee is done, pour it from the pot or carafe into the pitcher

Ice the coffee

  1. Weigh 12 ounces or so (err on the high side, if you must) of ice cubes in the measuring cup

  2. Add the ice to the coffee in the pitcher

  3. Place the pitcher in the refrigerator, for a minimum of five minutes, during which time the ice will melt

Serve

Nutrition Facts
Perfect Drip Iced Coffee
Amount Per Serving (6 oz)
Calories 1
% Daily Value*
Sodium 12mg1%
Calcium 7mg1%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

Deep Dish Pizza Spinach and Broccoli

Deep Dish Spinach & Broccoli pizza served in its baking pan

This recipe is a bit of a departure for me. For one, unlike many recipes inspired by a dining out experience, usually of a classic dish, representative of a terroir rather than a personality, that was particularly well-rendered at a specific restaurant, this one calls for – demands – a shout out, as the dish is original to, is a signature of, the retailer. Moreover, that retailer is not merely a restaurant, not even merely a national chain, but a brand. Pizzeria Uno® has now been around a long time, since its beginnings: a single pizzeria, owned by Ike Sewell, with his idiosyncratic take on the deep dish pizza native to his home city, Chicago, and first offered in 1943.Pizza had been known to Americans, after its transit from Italy as the now universal flatbread phenomenon, but its popularity skyrocketed when American soldiers, stationed in Italy for the latter part of World War II, were demobilized. It’s not clear, and not worth an inquiry here, what caused the simultaneity of the Sewell innovation, and the advent of pizza as the country’s most popular street food.Deep-dish pizza, which apparently has several variants in the Chicago area, is itself just one of several modifications imposed on the basic recipe of a baked crust covered with savory toppings, the iconic ones being tomatoes and cheese. Usually pizza is understood to consist of a relatively thin crust of a simple yeast-raised dough consisting of the most essential of ingredients, flour, water, and salt, beyond the requisite yeast. Deep-dish pizza differs, at least in the version available from Sewell’s Uno, in that it is more reminiscent of the buttery crust, without yeast (indeed, without any leavening), that is characteristic of the French tarte or Italian torta.Personally, much as I prefer the “Spinoccoli” – it has the status of favorite on the now rare occasions I dine at Uno – in addition to having, as an ex-ad-man, a strong distaste for the name, which always comically reminds me of Sean Penn’s character, Spicoli, in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” I always thought the crust, admirable for its richness, because of all the butterfat, was the weakness of this pie, because of its thickness and toughness: I’ve never experienced it as flaky, but always as at least slightly overcooked and hard to chew.The other departure for me in presenting this recipe in the present state is that it is a work in process. What is presented here is the current state of the art in concocting not a mere simulation of the original, but a conscious improvement. This particular rendition, though far from optimal in my view, is more than presentable: certainly for family and good friends. Part of what bestows enough confidence to present it in this form is the success of the crust, which is, after all, a tried and true formula that has worked very successfully for another truly deep dish savory pie (or actually a tart, given that its filling is a savory custard (of eggs and cheese and cultured milk products), à la quiche, studded with an overabundance of vegetables, still toothsome and colorful and loaded with flavor. Though please note, if you are reading quickly, there are no eggs, and no cream in this recipe. It is an alternative non-ethnic pizza, not a savory tart.Although the combination of flavors in this recipe is clearly very close to the ideal proposed by the Uno original, this pizza still requires some finesse in terms of the texture and integrity of the ingredients as they combine in a very hot oven – there’s still a bit too much moisture for my taste, which makes for slightly sloppy serving and eating. It’s not quite ready for holding a slice in the hand and going at it, New York style. But some adjustment will fix that, and when I’ve succeeded in finding the right combination of adjustments, I’ll amend this recipe.The chief culprit (but not the only one), as the recipe already notes, is the kind of mozzarella. I used the mozzarella I had, which was a local Vermont-farm hand-crafted and very fresh high-moisture cheese. This would be great were I lucky enough to have access to a very high temperature wood-fired pizza oven, and I were making a classic, very-thin crust Neapolitan pizza with a classic yeast-raised dough. What the deep-dish style wants is more resiliency, elasticity, and less water in the cheese. The cheddar and parmesan provide that, but so should the mozzarella. So the recipe now specifies low-moisture, aged, whole milk mozzarella, available in any super market. Save the buffala for your caprese course.

Deep Dish Pizza Spinach and Broccoli

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
dough resting: 1 hour
Total Time: 35 minutes
Servings: 3
Calories: 1003 kcal
Author: Howard Dinin

Inspired by one of the original favorites from the chain Pizzeria Uno. A non-traditional take on pizza crust combined with all fresh vegetables and three kinds of cheese

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Ingredients

Crust

  • 112 grams high butterfat butter grass-fed, at least 82-score
  • 225 grams all purpose flour King Arthur recommended
  • .125 tsp sea salt fine or medium granulated
  • 5-6 tbsp ice water as needed

Toppings

  • 3 medium roma tomatoes ripe, skinned and cored
  • 1 cup broccoli florets
  • 1.5 cups spinach leaves rinsed clean and dried
  • 3 cloves garlic peeled and thinly sliced
  • 3 tbsp parmesan or grana padano finely grated
  • 1 cup whole milk mozzarella low-moisture, aged, coarsely grated
  • 1 cup cheddar aged sharp or extra sharp, coarsely grated
  • .25 cup olive oil extra virgin
  • sea salt to taste
  • black pepper fresh ground to taste

Instructions

Crust

  1. The crust needs preparation ahead of time. You'll need at least an hour to start, before beginning to prepare the other ingredients. The time is necessary to allow the dough to chill and rest in the refrigerator before rolling it out (which will require another good ten minutes to do it properly).

  2. In a food processor with at least a 7- or 8-cup capacity bowl, fitted with the usual general purpose (or multi-purpose) blade, after locking the bowl in place and inserting the blade, first dump in the flour evenly, cut the chilled butter into pieces about the size of a ½-inch die, and dump these in evenly. Add the scant ⅛ of a teaspoon of salt.

  3. Lock the bowl cover in place, and pulse the mixture in very short bursts, until it attains the appearance of very coarse cornmeal. Add one or two tablespoons of ice water through the food chute and pulse again. Keep adding water in similar very small amounts (you may have to add more than the total 6 tablespoons specified, so have more on hand), pulsing between dollops. The idea is to moisten all the dough, but only until it begins to form very small clumps.

  4. Do not allow the dough to form a solid mass. Stop when it still looks very loose.

  5. Dump the contents of the food processor bowl (being careful of the blade falling out) onto a sheet of wax paper on the countertop.

    The dough should adhere to itself easily, but not be sticky. If it is still slightly sticky and moist, dust your fingers and hands very lightly with flour. Though you should refrain from touching the dough with your bare skin. Your body heat can affect the texture and elasticity of the dough. The object is to keep the butter from melting.

    From the outside of the wax paper, using it as a barrier, form the dough into a ball, and minimally form it using your fingers and hands to a uniform shape with a smooth surface. If it's still sticky at all, very very lightly dust it with flour and use your hands directly to smooth it out.

    It should be about the size of a regulation baseball (hardball), about 3" in diameter.

  6. Wrap the ball of dough in plastic wrap completely, and place in the refrigerator for at least an hour. This is to allow the dough to relax whle the butter and flour bond.

Preheat Oven to 400°F / Continue to Prepare Crust

  1. After an hour or longer, with a small cup of flour handy, if needed, for dusting, take the ball of dough out of the fridge and unwrap it. Place it on your usual rolling surface, dusted with flour, and cleared sufficiently to roll out a 12-13" in diameter circle of crust.

    Even after an hour, the dough should be very firm. First, gently tap the top of the ball using the roller as a hammer. Slightly flatten the top. Turn the ball over, and repeat the flattening of what had been the bottom of the ball. Make sure the surface of the ball on the rolling surface is dusted with flour.

    After three or four repetitions on top and bottom of the dough, it should begin to take on the appearance of a very thick disk. When it has a diameter of about two inches, make sure top and bottom surfaces have a dusting of flour, and begin to roll evenly in all directions (to keep the dough circular).

    Every minute of rolling, invert the dough, and continue to roll evenly in all directions.

    When you have an even crust (it should be about ¼" thick) that is about 1 to 2 inches wider than the outer diameter of the skillet in which you will bake the pie, you are done rolling.

  2. Carefully fold one half the crust over the other and center on the cast iron skillet you will use to bake the pie. Unfold the crust, and gently tamp with your fingers to have the crust conform to the interior surface of the skillet, rising on the sides to drape over the edges of the side.

    Fold the edges of excess dough over into the pan and crimp at the top, which will make the top edge slightly thicker.

    Prick the bottom and the sides of the crust with the points of the tines of a dinner fork, every ½-inch or so.

  3. In an oven pre-heated to 400°F, place the skillet with the crust on a middle rack, and bake for 10-15 minutes, until the crust has just begun to show some color – a very pale gold.

    Remove the skillet to a heat-proof surface until ready to fill the crust with all the toppings.

Preheat Oven to 500°F for Baking

Preparing the vegetables for filling the pie

  1. After skinning and coring the tomatoes, quarter each one lengthwise.

    With a paring knife remove any pith and roughly seed each quarter.

    Cut the quarters in half crosswise, and set aside all these sections for a quick sautée in garlic and oil.

  2. In a separate pan or skillet, heat a tablespoon of olive oil briefly over a medium burner. Add the sliced garlic, and when it begins to cook in the oil, add the tomatoes and mix well with the garlic and oil.

    Add a few pinches of salt and fresh ground pepper to the tomatoes as they cook.

    Cook slowly, stirring often, for 5-10 minutes, until the tomatoes begin to soften. They will give off a fair amount of liquid. When the liquid begins to reduce, remove the tomatoes from the heat, and drain the tomatoes in a stainless or other non-reactive sieve. Drain well, and set aside.

  3. In a medium saucepan, add enough water to cover the broccoli. Bring to a slow boil. Add a tablespoon of granulated sea salt.

    Add the broccoli florets and parboil, uncovered, for four minutes.

    Remove all the florets with a slotted spoon and set aside in a bowl.

  4. Make sure the spinach has been thoroughly rinsed clean.

    To the still boiling salted water in the saucepan add all the spinach leaves at once. After a minute, drain the spinach in a colander or sieve, and after a minute of draining, gently press out any residual water.

    Add the spinach to the bowl of broccoli and gently mix the vegetables until evenly distributed.

Adding toppings/Filling the pie

  1. Sprinkle half the grated parmesan or grano over the bottom of the crust in the skillet.

  2. Distribute the tomato sections evenly over the bottom of the pie.

  3. Add the broccoli and spinach to the pie, distributing them evenly, mixed with the tomato sections.

  4. Mix the shredded mozzarella and cheddar together until distributed evenly, and then spread over the vegetables evenly. Add fresh ground pepper over all to taste.

    Sprinkle the remaining grated parmesan or grano over the toppings.

    Drizzle with a moderate amount of olive oil overall.

Cooking

  1. Put the skillet with the pie on the middle rack of a pre-heated 500°F oven.

    Cook for 10-12 minutes, or until the cheeses are just beginning to brown, and the crust is golden.

    Remove the skillet from the oven and place on a heat proof surface or trivet. 

    Serve slices from the pan at the table.

Recipe Notes

You will need an 11" or 12" seasoned cast-iron skillet as the baking pan and the serving container all-in-one. No other special preparation is needed for this pan. The recipe also calls for other pans in the preparation of the ingredients.

Nutrition Facts
Deep Dish Pizza Spinach and Broccoli
Amount Per Serving
Calories 1003 Calories from Fat 639
% Daily Value*
Fat 71g109%
Saturated Fat 35g175%
Cholesterol 153mg51%
Sodium 933mg39%
Potassium 337mg10%
Carbohydrates 62g21%
Fiber 3g12%
Sugar 1g1%
Protein 29g58%
Vitamin A 3200IU64%
Vitamin C 32.2mg39%
Calcium 570mg57%
Iron 4.6mg26%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

“Accra” – Beignets de brandade de morue (saltcod fritters)

fritters made from salt cod
“Accra” or beignets de brandade de morue

"Accra"

Course: Appetizer, Starter
Cuisine: Caribbean | Provençal
Prep Time: 1 hour
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
Servings: 6
Calories: 368 kcal
Author: Howard Dinin

A meeting of two related recipes.: the "accra" or saltfish fritters of the Caribbean, (often identified with Trinidad and Jamaica, though variants from each are very different) and the beignets de brandade de morue, which are fritters from Niçoise cookery, made with the core recipe for the saltcod fish mousse that is one of the masterpieces of Provençal/Cote d'Azur cuisine

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Ingredients

  • 150 grams all-purpose flour scant cup
  • 270 grams boneless saltcod about 9 oz. by weight
  • 2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes probably two, skinned and quartered
  • 30 mL olive oil about 2 Tbsp
  • 9 grams white peppercorns fresh ground; about 2 tsp
  • 9 grams smoked hot paprika about 2 tsp
  • 1 large egg beaten
  • 250 cc water about a cup; to trickle into the batter
  • 9 grams baking powder about 2 tsp
  • 1 small onion peeled and minced
  • 3 cloves of garlic crushed in a press

For cooking

  • 250-375 cc cooking oil, high smoke point use sunflower, grapeseed, canola, or peanut oil, or any combination of these; approximately 1 – 1½ cups

Instructions

Prepare the boneless saltcod; store unused portion

  1. Most saltcod, especially of the boneless variety, seems to come from Canada. I used what turned out to be a fine product that was sold in one pound poly bags at the local super market in the refrigerator case.

  2. Follow the directions on the packaging. They will likely be along the same lines whoever the packer or supplier is.

  3. Essentially, soak a pound of saltcod, boneless, in 6 cups of cold water and store the bowl in the refrigerator between changes of the liquid. Change the water three times in the course of 24 hours. Drain well, and use as directed in the recipe. Any unused portion of fish can be stored in a clean poly storage bag in the fridge for two or three days.

  4. I don't know if the restored (desalinated and rehydrated) fish can be frozen, but I also know of no reason not. I'd suggest a sealable freezer grade poly storage bag, squeezed free of air and stored in the freezer for up to six months. Defrost in the refrigerator over 24 hours.

Prepare ingredients for the batter

  1. After de-salting the cod and draining it well, weigh out 270 grams. Shred roughly in a food processor by pulsing it. Set aside.

  2. Peel and quarter the potatoes. Bring a quart of water to a boil and add two teaspoons of coarse kosher salt. Drop in the potato quarters and boil until tender (only to the point where a carving fork tine enters with little resistance).

  3. Drain the potatoes immediately and set aside in a bowl large enough to mash. Using a tool designed to mash softened vegetables, or a large kitchen fork, mash the potatoes coarsely and set aside.

  4. Skin the onion. Slice it, and mince fine. Set aside.

  5. Peel the garlic cloves and trim of stem ends. Set aside, ready to be crushed in a press at the time you add the garlic to the batter (see instructions further along).

  6. Beat the egg well until white and yolk are uniformly combined.

  7. Complete your mise en place by preparing the peppercorns, flour, baking powder, olive oil, and water in proper containers, ready for adding, as you would with any recipe.

Preparing the Batter

  1. In 2 quart non-reactive bowl (stainless steel or glass), combine the dry ingredients.

  2. Add the wet ingredients in any order, mixing each in well with a cooking spoon or silicon rubber spatula. When they have all been added, make sure they are combined well.

  3. At this point, you may allow the batter, which will be fairly stiff, to sit for about a half hour, at which point you will add the fish and potatoes. Or you can add first the fish and then the mashed potatoes at once. If you add them after the batter has rested (and risen somewhat), they will be easier to combine prior to adding the water.

  4. After adding the fish and potatoes, combine as well as possible to a state of uniformity. The batter is now ready to add the water.

  5. Add the water in a trickle, or in small amounts (two or three tablespoons worth at a time) and keep mixing with the fork or spatula. Keep adding water until the batter is sufficiently liquid to hold its shape but to drop off a spoon easily.

    It should be more fluid than dough, and more viscous than batter. It will drop off a spoon, but will not pour.

Frying the beignets

  1. In a seasoned cast-iron skillet (or similar heavy-walled, heat-retaining material) nine or ten inches in diameter, add the cooking oil to a depth of at least an inch. Heat over medium-high burner until the oil reaches a temperature of 360°F on a candy thermometer or an IR-reading digital thermometer.

  2. While the oil reaches cooking temperature, prepare an absorbent landing pad for the beignets in a safe location near the range using paper towels folded two or three layers thick.

  3. For each beignet, load a tablespoon with a heaping scoop of batter, and drop into the oil near the surface. There should be room in a skillet of the indicated size to fit five beignets comfortably. Assuming the oil is sufficiently hot to begin with, the batter will not stick to the surfaces of the skillet. With a heat-proof cooking spoon, make sure the beignets are able to move freely in the hot oil.

  4. After two or three minutes of frying, turn over a couple of the beignets in turn to see how well browned they are. When a beignet has turned a rich golden brown, turn the beignet over to cook on the other side.

  5. When the beignets have cooked uniformly to the same doneness, remove them one by one and deposit on the absorbent paper towels.

  6. You may keep the beignets warm and crispy by placing in a single layer on an oven proof pan or sheet and keeping in a 200° oven until ready to serve.

  7. This recipe should make from 24 to 32 beignets depending on the portion you used to fry the batter. Sufficient as appetizers for six people.

Serving the beignets

  1. These are excellent with a dipping sauce, or perhaps a choice of sauces. Accra are traditionally served with what is called in the Caribbean a "sauce chien" (dog sauce) which is sweet and savory at once, with some spicy kick.

  2. I prefer these with an "aigre-doux" (sweet and sour) spicy sauce that is much simpler as served in my favorite restaurant in Nice, France, where I first learned about "accra." This recipe provides for a reasonable substitute for the dish that's served at Le Safari year-round. Though these are somewhat more moist, and with not quite as crunchy a crust. I infer they fry theirs in a fryolator, which keeps the oil hotter when the batter is added.

  3. I will post a recipe for a sweet-sour spicy dipping sauce in the next few days.

  4. It may not be to everyone's taste, but I also like these beignets dipped, potato latke style, in sour cream or crème fraîche, chilled in the refrigerator.

Storing leftovers

  1. These will keep, though they'll lose some crispness overnight in the refrigerator, if allowed to cool on the countertop and then stored in the fridge in a sealable poly storage bag with excess air expelled. A freezer bag will allow freezing for a longer storage period.

  2. You can refresh the refrigerated leftovers to a reasonable degree of restored crispness if you reheat them in a pre-heated oven or toaster oven at 350°F for six or seven minutes on a sheet of parchment paper in a baking sheet or tray.

    If you have frozen the beignets, I suggest reheating them in a pre-heated oven or toaster oven on parchment paper on a baking tray or sheet. Set the oven at 400°F and heat for 13-14 minutes.

    Do not allow the reheated beignets to brown any further in the oven

Nutrition Facts
"Accra"
Amount Per Serving
Calories 368 Calories from Fat 135
% Daily Value*
Fat 15g23%
Saturated Fat 2g10%
Cholesterol 99mg33%
Sodium 3179mg132%
Potassium 903mg26%
Carbohydrates 23g8%
Fiber 1g4%
Protein 32g64%
Vitamin A 845IU17%
Vitamin C 3.2mg4%
Calcium 158mg16%
Iron 3.1mg17%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.