This post is to let you all know – with very mixed feelings on the part of the poster – that this will be my last post on Food Junta as co-editor. Founding and running Food Junta with Claire has been an incredible experience, and I am so grateful to her, without whom I never would have done it, and to all of you, whose readership and supportive comments have made doing it worthwhile.

I will miss FJ, but I’m ready to say goodbye to weekly blogging. I’d like to blame my resignation on being too busy, but the truth is that I’m just ready to cook for myself for a while. Being in the kitchen is a source of stress relief for me, and I’m looking to forward to having it back all as my own.

But don’t take that to mean that Food Junta hasn’t been an enormous pleasure for me – it has – or that FJ doesn’t mean a lot to me – it does. And so I am very happy that Claire will be carrying on after I leave. I’m glad that the FJ will go on without me, and I look forward to submitting a contributor post every now and again.

So: Thank you all for reading, and best of luck in all of your endeavors, culinary or otherwise.

Yours,
Kevin

They are delicious, but certainly messy to eat. Normally I don’t mind being a slob in the name of good eats, but when I’m cooking for other people, I like to provide less messy options. That’s what led me to try a version of the elote loco that could be eaten with a fork. It was a huge succes, and I thought I’d hit on a great idea.

Well, I had, but so had Mexico hundreds of years ago. They call the dish esquite, and when I was in Mexico – not even a week after I made this dish – I saw it everywhere. So, while I don’t get any points for originality, I’m still glad to be able to share this tasty dish with you.

If you have a good Latin American grocery in your neighborhood, I’m jealous. But if not, don’t sweat it. Everything in this dish has a good American substitute. Parmesan works instead of cotija, and sour cream or mayo works just fine in the place of crema. If you or your eating companion are grossed out by these kind of creamy condiments (a lot of people are), I’d still urge you to try it. Just add the cream/mayo in moderation.

I’ve tried a lot of different techniques for taking corn off the cob, and the best way is carefully so as not to lose any fingers. Be sure to do it in a bowl rather than on a cutting board, or kernels will go everywhere. Also, unless you have a very sharp chef’s knife – I don’t – you might have better luck using a steak knife or other small, serrated knife.

Seriously, though, just be careful.

Esquites (Elote Loco in a bowl.)

Kernels from 4 cobs of corn
1/2 Tbs. cayenne pepper
1 tsp. cumin
salt
~1/2 cup crema (or mayo or sour cream)
1/2 cup cotija cheese (or parmesan)
Juice of 1 lime

1. Heat a saute pan with a small amount of vegetable or olive oil over medium-high heat. Add corn kernels, cayenne pepper, cumin, and pinch of salt. Cook until kernels begin to brown and then remove to a large mixing bowl.

2. While kernels are still warm, add remaining ingredients. Taste and adjust for consistency and flavor.

3. Serve, not mentioning mayo unless someone asks.

I also love beets. They’re an odd, brightly colored, and healthy vegetable, and I will eat them just about any which way. So the odds were very good that I was going to love this dish, which is an appetizer involving beets. Yes, please.

The cooking time here is long, but nearly all of it is totally hands off. The main step in cooking is “throw everything in a food processor,” and you don’t exactly need to be Jean-Georges to pull this one off. So take the plunge and start making some appetizers at home if you don’t already. This spread is the perfect place to start: The experimenting has already been done for you, and I can promise good results.

Despite how much I love appetizers, I seldom make them. Food Junta is targeted toward busy people, because Claire and I are busy people. I love cooking a meal at home, but not so much that I want to spend 100% of my free time doing it. As a result, I tend toward one course meals supplemented with a vegetable or a salad or maybe both. “Whipping up some quick crostini” isn’t really a thought that crosses my mind at 6 pm on a Tuesday when I already have the rest of a meal to cook.

But I’m trying to do more appetizing in the kitchen, and there are some aspects of appetizers that are making this easier: They generally require fewer ingredients, fewer steps, and less (or even no) cooking. They frequently can be prepared completely or almost completely ahead of time. Finally – and somewhat counter-intuitively – I’ve actually found they make cooking dinner for other people to be a lot easier. But wait, you say, how can cooking more food make cooking easier?

Here’s how: No matter how carefully I plan, I always take longer getting a meal on the table for guests than I anticipate because I fail to factor in the time it takes me to welcome people, get them settled, fix them a drink, etc. This leaves me feeling rushed and anxious to get food out to my hungry guests. Not that my dinner guests have ever been impatient, but I think anyone who has ever hosted a dinner party knows exactly the feeling I mean. But, throw an appetizer or two in front of these people, and you can buy yourself all the time you need. By giving them something to nosh on, you can assuage your guilt about leaving them hanging and also – as is desperately needed with some guests – keep them out of the kitchen and out of your way.

“Here’s some beet spread, folks. Go wild, and I’ll see you in 20 minutes.”

Roasted Beet Spread
Adapted from the Bromberg Bros. Blue Ribbon Cookbook

3 medium beets (1 cup roasted)
1 medium red pepper (1/2 cup roasted)
1 medium red onion (1/2 cup roasted)
Salt and pepper

1. Roast the peppers over the flame of a gas burner, on a hot grill, or under the broiler, until the skin is black and charred. (The more you char, the easier the skin will be to remove.) Remove from the heat and place in a large bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit until cool enough to handle, about 15 to 20 minutes. With clean paper towels, wipe off the skin. Remove the stems and seeds and discard. If necessary, briefly rinse under cold water to remove any remaining charred skin. Slice or chop.

2. Rinse beets to remove loose dirt. Roast them whole and unpeeled in a 400 degree oven for about 90 minutes, or until you can pierce them through the middle easily with a butter knife. I wrap mine in aluminum foil and place them in a baking sheet, as beets tend to let off a fair amount of liquid and beet juice is a beetch to clean up. Let them cool, cut the tops off, and then the skins should be easy to remove with your fingers. Finally give them a rough chop, just small enough to go into the food processor.

3. After you start the beets in the oven, slice the onion, toss with a tablespoon of olive oil, place on a baking sheet or dish, and put in the oven with the beets. Cook until very soft. Cooking time will vary a lot depending on the oven, but mine took about an hour.

4. Combine beets, red pepper, and red onion in food processor. Add salt and pepper to taste. Process. If mixture is too think, add some olive oil. Taste and adjust seasoning. Chill. (The dip is good warm, but I think its better cold.)

5. Serve with warm pita.

Hunh?

Don’t ask questions. Just drink it. It’s delicious and that’s all you need to know, except how to make it. That’ll come after the jump.

(A quick aside: For those of you carefully examining every picture on this blog, you may notice that you’ve never seen these coutertops before. That’s because they are from the huge (for NYC) and beautiful kitchen in my new apartment in Long Island City. I wish I had taken a picture of the horrible postage stamp that was my kitchen for the last four years so I could really show you the contrast, but I didn’t. So just take my word for it, the new kitchen is a huge improvement. I am a very happy camper.)

This tasty beverage has three ingredients: Vanilla frozen yogurt, orange juice, and wheat germ. Yes, wheat germ:

The smoothie is good without it, but I’ve done the taste test, and it’s better with. It adds a certain kind of substance to the beverage that really works. I first saw this holy trinity on a diner menu, but I never would have tried it without a friend’s recommendation. I am now a complete convert. Wheat germ is great. Who knew?

You do now, so you’re out of excuses. Get to the grocery store. It’s smoothie season in America. Don’t get left behind.

Not that much of it, but a little, including a few cookbooks. I want to share my thoughts on these books with you – and to keep getting free stuff – but I also want to be careful in navigating the potential ethical issues at play here, so I’ve come up with a little policy. It’s mine, not FJ’s, so you can think I’m a shill if you want, but Claire maintains her integrity. My ethical policy has two parts: First, I promise that when I discuss a book or product I’ve gotten for free, I will very clearly disclose that fact. Second, since I don’t really consider myself an authority on much of anything, I won’t do real reviews. Instead, I’ll recommend anything that comes my way that I think you, the loyal reader, might be interested in. Sound fair? Here we go:

Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food: Fresh Flavor Fast (which I received for free from the publisher)  is a welcome addition to my cookbook shelf. It has good recipes and gorgeous full-page pictures, but the reason I really like this book is that it is an extremely well-curated collection of dishes. Weighing in at 250 recipes, the book is actually pretty concise as cookbooks go, but that just makes choosing something to cook all that much easier. And I haven’t found any bad choices yet…

I’ve been using this cookbook for a few months now, and I am quite pleased. I already told you how good the Chicken and Dumplings and the Chicken, Edamame, and Udon Stirfry recipes are, and there’s lots more here worth your while. The second in her “Everyday Food” series (the first is subtitled Great Food Fast), the book is obviously marketed as a guide to quick and easy meals. But the recipes all reflect a good balance between quality and convenience. The recipes are simple dishes with a minimum of ingredients, not weird casseroles using prepared foods.

I described the book as “well-curated,” and here’s what I mean by that: There’s been a trend in cookbooks recently toward the encyclopedic. The most obvious example is Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, which comes surprisingly close to delivering on its titular promise. I love HTCE, and it will always have a prime position on my bookshelf. But the problem with these gargantuan cookbooks is that they don’t really work when you want a book to flip through for inspiration. There aren’t many pictures – if any – and there are just too many recipes. Fresh Flavor Fast, on the other hand, is perfect for this purpose. There aren’t thousands of recipes here, but the 250 that are included are well-chosen and intriguing. Every time I pick this book up, I find something new I want to make, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is a good thing.

My only real complaint about the book is that the binding comes apart almost immediately, but a well-loved cookbook is a beat-up cookbook, so I don’t really mind. Plus, it’s actually kind of nice to be able to take a page out of the book rather than trying to keep the whole thing propped open. So: Really not a big deal.

With clear descriptions of basic cooking techniques, Everyday Food: Fresh Flavor Fast is a great guide for the kitchen novice and with creative recipes for easy weekday meals, it’s a good resource for everyone else as well. Consider it shilled.

Cooked chicken is a great thing to have on hand. You can make sandwiches out of it, throw it on a salad, use it for quesadilla filling, or whatever else your hungry heart desires. If you roast chickens on a regular basis (I do not), you’ll already know what I mean. But even if you don’t roast many chickens, you may still like having cooked chicken in the fridge.

In recent years, pre-cooked chicken has become a very popular grocery item, but those bags of chicken chunks can cost an arm and a leg and in the end don’t really taste all that good. But there’s a better way, and it takes only 5-10 minutes: Poaching. After the jump, I’ll tell you all about it.

Poaching is just a fancy word for boiling. Or rather, it’s a more specific word that means boiling meat. Poaching’s cousins – simmering, braising, stewing, and pot roasting, to name a few – are all the same basic technique: Heat water (or other water-based liquid, i.e. not fat) , then cook meat in it. The different terms generally indicate different amounts of liquid (you use much less in braising) or cooking times (stewing is long and slow), but there are no hard and fast rules.

There are two main advantages to poaching chicken. The first is that it’s fast and easy, and the second is that it helps the chicken retain moisture. Restaurants love to use grilled chicken as a salad topping, but the truth is that grilled boneless chicken without any marinade can be dry even in the best of circumstances. Overcook it even a little, and it can taste like shoe leather. In my opinion, poaching is the way to go.

How to Poach Chicken: Start with any boneless cut of chicken. Take a sauce pan large enough to accommodate the chicken and the cooking liquid and place it on the stove. Add your water-based cooking liquid (see below) and bring it to a boil. Add chicken, reduce heat, and simmer for 2-5 minutes, depending on thickness of the cut. Fin.

In my experience, poaching is a pretty forgiving enterprise, but here are a few tips to put you on the right track:

1. You can poach in water alone and achieve good results, but I think poaching in stock is much better. I think the chicken stays moister.  Canned stock is fine, and I actually use half stock and half water.
2. There’s no magic ratio of liquid to meat. You want to be sure you have enough to cover the meat completely, but don’t go crazy. You’re not making spaghetti.
3. I wouldn’t recommend using chicken that’s cut very thick. This can cause the outside to overcook and become dry before the inside is cooked through. If you buy jumbo boneless breasts, I’d cut them into strips before poaching.
4. Finally, let the chicken cool in the poaching liquid. Chicken absorbs liquids best at temperatures below where you would normally cook it. Allowing the chicken to cool in the liquid will allow it to reabsorb some of the moisture it lost in the cooking process.

Once the chicken is cooled, you can just pull it apart with your fingers. Toss it in a tupperware or ziploc and store it in the fridge. It should be good for a week or so, but I’d be surprised if it doesn’t disappear well before that.

Edamame and udon might be two of my favorite foods, so my attention was grabbed by this recipe the moment I flipped to it. I’ve also been meaning to add more “Asian food” (I hate saying “Asian food” – Would you ever say European food? – but it’s the easiest way to get my point across. Sorry, Asia.) to my repertoire, so this dish scratched several itches.

But most notably it satisfied my pretty ravenous hunger on a recent Tuesday. It’s easy to shop for and fast to cook, and the leftovers are great the next day. It’s a welcome addition to my wok, and another sign that M. Stewart knows her stuff.

You probably won’t believe me, but I actually made only one change to this recipe. Seriously, just one. My better half is actually a very open-minded eater, but he does have a few items on his culinary blacklist. Cabbage is one of them. I suggested bean sprouts, which have a similar texture, as an alternative, but apparently texture is the whole problem with cabbage in the first place. So bean sprouts were no solution, and I forged ahead without any crunchy ingredients. I was worried the final product might be lackluster without any crunch, but it was still great. So go for the cabbage if you like it, but rest assured that the dish can survive without it.

Martha says that you can use linguine instead of udon, and while I’m sure that you could, I’d really recommend getting udon if you can. There’s something about the texture that really sets it apart from Italian pasta; I don’t know enough about noodle-making to explain why this is, but it is. Buy udon.

And if you don’t like cutting up raw chicken, you can often buy “stirfry cut” chicken at the supermarket. If not, the butcher will usually be happy to slice up a tray of breasts or cutlets for you.

To accompany the stirfry, I made this salad that’s based on those “oriental” or “Asian” salads you see at chain restaurants:

It’s just mixed greens with mandarin orange slices and chow mein noodles. For dressing, I used Trader Joe’s sesame ginger, but any similar product will do. Though it’s not of any reputable ethnic origin, it’s a tasty salad and a very nice change from the endless parade of spring mix and balsamic vinaigrette affairs I make.

And that’s dinner, with a little help from Auntie Martha.  I was very pleased with the results, and the more I use this cookbook, the happier I am that she’s out of the hoosegow.

Chicken, Edamame, and Udon Stirfry

Coarse salt and ground pepper
8 ounces udon noodles or linguine
2 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (6 to 8 ounces each), cut crosswise into thin strips
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 small red onion, halved and thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/2 napa cabbage (about 1 pound), thinly shredded
2 cups frozen shelled edamame
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce

1. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook noodles until al dente, according to package instructions. Drain, and rinse under cold water; drain again, and set aside.
   
2. While pasta is cooking, in a medium bowl, toss chicken with cornstarch; season with salt and pepper. In a large nonstick skillet, heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium-high. Cook chicken in two batches, until light brown on the outside and opaque throughout, 2 to 4 minutes. Transfer to a plate (reserve skillet).
   
3. Add remaining tablespoon oil to skillet; add onion and garlic. Cook, stirring frequently, until softened, 1 to 3 minutes. Add cabbage, and cook, stirring frequently, until tender, 2 to 4 minutes.
   
4. Add edamame, vinegar, soy sauce, chicken, and noodles; season with salt and pepper. Cook, tossing, until noodles and edamame are warmed through, 3 to 5 minutes.

Most unfair of all, I think, are the indictments against her cooking. Yes, her show is all about  cooking dinner in 30 minutes, but I think the meals she makes are generally pretty appealing. Call her annoying, but I don’t think she’s a bad cook. She uses some prepared ingredients – canned stock, frozen vegetables, etc. – but you know what? So do I. And she’s certainly no Sandra Lee, who I recently saw make a “cake” by buying some cakes, stacking them up, and piling cupcakes on them. The fact that she and Andrew Cuomo are dating may honestly lose him my vote.

But I’ll save my Sandra Lee rant for another day. Today, I want to defend Rachel Ray and offer up this very delicious and simple to prepare all-in-one meal dish.

I don’t roast enough chicken. It’s an easy and affordable way to make a filling meal, and we (meat-eaters, anyway) should all do it more often.

Two of the biggest challenges in roasting chicken are getting the skin crispy and avoiding drying out the bird. This recipe dodges those hazards by pan-frying the breasts to start and then piling on veggies that have been par-boiled in stock to keep everything nice and moist.

The recipe is straight-forward enough, but I did make a few changes/encounter a few issues. First off, I didn’t have a cast-iron pan handy, so I just used a skillet and then transferred everything to a pyrex baking dish. The main problem was that my chicken breasts took 15-20 minutes longer to cook than she prescribed. I don’t know if that was because my meat was not cut up small enough or because I didn’t use a cast-iron pan. Either way, just make sure you cook your poultry fully.The vegetables might get a little soft, but they’ll still taste great. Also, you won’t die from salmonella.

I used stock instead of wine to deglaze the pan, and since I had so much more fresh rosemary that was called for, I added a bunch to the vegetables as well as the chicken. As for the “balsamic drizzle,” I’d recommend it. The recipe is here, but all you do is mix balsamic vinegar with a bit of brown sugar and reduce it over medium heat. A tip, though: If you’re like me and do not spring for the fancy balsamic, there’s probably enough sugar in what you’ve got. Just boil it down to thicken.

The end result here is pretty great, and so the next time somebody starts Ray-bashing, just nod your head quietly and feed them some of this. Then tell them who’s responsible. Rachael Ray may be a little too cute, but you can’t say she doesn’t deliver the goods.

Quick Rosemary Chicken and Potatoes
from Rachael Ray

1 pound baby Yukon Gold potatoes
1 small head cauliflower, cut into florets
8 cloves garlic, smashed and peeled
Salt and pepper
1 cup chicken stock
2 tablespoons EVOO – Extra Virgin Olive Oil
4 bone-in, skin-on chicken breast pieces, halved across the breasts with sharp knife
4 sprigs rosemary, finely chopped
1 cup dry white wine
Optional garnishes: giardiniera or balsamic drizzle

Preheat oven to 450˚F.

Place the potatoes, cauliflower and garlic in a pot with tight-fitting lid. Season with salt and pepper, add stock and bring to boil. Cover and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook 10-12 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat a large, cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Pat the chicken dry with a paper towel, and season with salt, pepper and rosemary. Add EVOO to skillet, 2 turns of the pan. When oil smokes, add chicken skin-side down and cook 10 minutes or so, turning once.

Remove chicken to a plate and add wine to the pan, scraping up the drippings. Add potatoes, cauliflower and garlic to pan, and top with the browned chicken. Transfer to oven and cook 10-12 minutes more, until vegetables are very tender and the chicken is cooked through.

Serve chicken, potatoes and cauliflower with giardiniera alongside or topped with a little balsamic drizzle, if desired.

Happy Fourth of July everyone. To get you ready and to help distract you from your job for the remaining hours before the holiday weekend, I offer up these tasty links for your gustatory and procrastinatory enjoyment. I hope that you all have an excellent weekend and that you follow those wise words of advice from The Simpsons and “celebrate your country’s independence by blowing up a small part of it.”

101 Fast Recipes for Grilling: This one has been flying around the internets like wildfire 2.0, but it’s great, so I thought I’d repeat it here just in case you missed it. I know that lots of you will be firing up the grill this weekend (or at least standing near someone who will be), and this list has some great ideas if you’re sick of burgers and Ballparks. I particularly want to try #21: Quick Grilled Pickle and #85: Glorified Grilled Cheese.

The Food Lab: This is just one link, but it’s hours worth of good reading. Each entry in this new series on Serious Eats takes a thorough and scientific approach to a dish or a cooking question. The writing is good and the experiments are generally fascinating. Recent examples include using green food coloring to show how hot potatoes absorb seasoning better than cool ones and burning breadcrumbs to demonstrate the uneven cooking that happens in a convection oven. It’s great.

Dear FloFab: I don’t know what it says about me that two of these three links are from the New York Times. Maybe it makes me a member of the liberal elite? Whatever. I wasn’t going to leave you without Florence Fabricant’s sassy new food/etiquette advice column. She is one frosty biatch, and the results are hilarious. Her advice to a reader who wanted ideas on how to slow down her boyfriend’s eating? “Try being a wittier conversationalist.” Youch.

Apparently this is the time of year for asparagus and goat cheese, as Claire and I both prepared dishes with this combo totally unbeknownst to one another. Hers was lentils, mine is pasta, and both just go to show what a great match these two ingredients are.

I always like a fast recipe, but I think I have even more appreciation for elegant recipes, recipes where one step flows cleanly into the next, you never feel rushed, and you wind up with a tasty dish and a minimum of dirty dishes.

And that’s exactly what you get with this terrific new addition to my repertoire courtesy of the wonderful blog Smitten Kitchen. The asparagus cooks in the pasta water and the whole dish is put together in a single bowl. Perfect for lazy hungry people like me.

I’m giving you the SK recipe verbatim, because Deb is a great recipe writer and because – as stated above – I am lazy. A few scattered thoughts:

Despite Sonny’s excellent herb inspirations, I’m actually not sure I’d ever cooked with tarragon before, but as soon as I tasted it, I went “Ohhhhhh! THAT’s what tarragon is.” It was a very familiar flavor that I had never connected with its source. It’s probably not my favorite herb in the whole world, but I think it added a good edge to this dish. Licorice-haters beware: Tarragon tastes of anise (the flavor of licorice) and if you absolutely hate anise (which lots of folks do), you might not be too crazy about tarragon. That said, tarragon is a lot milder and more well-rounded than anise, so I would urge you to give it a try. Just add tarragon to an individual serving of pasta so you don’t ruin the whole bowl if you hate it.

If you don’t have a lemon zester, you can use a vegetable peeler to shave of strips off lemon zest (which are also great for garnishing cocktails) and finely chop them. Just be careful not to take off too much of the bitter white pith along with the zest. This isn’t quite as good as a zester, but it’s close enough.

Finally, I highly recommend using the largest pasta spirals you can find (the ones I used were rotelle as opposed to rotini). The gaps in the spirals are perfect for catching up just the right amount of goat cheese and for some reason I just don’t think this dish would be as good with penne.

Asparagus, Goat Cheese and Lemon Pasta
From Smitten Kitchen, who adapted it from Bon Appetit

1 pound spiral-shaped pasta
1 pound slender asparagus spears, trimmed, cut into 1- to 1 1/2-inch pieces
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon peel
2 teaspoons chopped fresh tarragon plus more for garnish
1 5- to 5 1/2-ounce log soft fresh goat cheese (the pre-crumbled stuff will not melt as well)
Fresh lemon juice to taste (optional)

Cook your pasta in a large pot of well-salted water until it is almost tender, or about three minutes shy of what the package suggests. Add asparagus and cook until firm-tender, another two to three minutes. Drain both pasta and asparagus together, reserving one cup of pasta water.

Meanwhile, combine olive oil, lemon peel, tarragon and cheese in a large bowl, breaking up the goat cheese as you put it in. Add hot pasta and asparagus to bowl, along with a couple slashes of the pasta water. Toss until smoothly combined, adding more pasta water if needed. Season generously with salt and pepper, and lemon juice if you feel it needs a little extra kick. (We did.)