Ed. note: See more of Joanna’s cooking — and gorgeous food photography — on her blog, Jojo’s Kitchen.

Sometimes putting together a meal from whatever scraps you have left in the cupboard and fridge yields ho-hum results.  Other times, magic happens. I’ll be so bold as to say that this dish falls into the latter category. Why, you ask? Just let me tell you a little story about the time I made these noodles.

Picture it: I was rummaging through my kitchen, trying to figure out what to make for dinner for myself and my boyfriend, who was already on his way over to my place. I had soba noodles. I had edamame. I had fresh ginger, garlic, and all kinds of condiments. I just needed ideas.  As often happens, I consulted epicurious.com and found this gem of a recipe from the August 2007 issue of Gourmet magazine (oh, Gourmet, may you rest in peace).  After a quick trip to the produce store down the street (which, I smile to point out, is called U Don’t Know Nothing Produce), I was in possession of some lovely shiitake mushrooms, some Napa cabbage, and scallions. Perfect. Before I knew it, I was chopping and sautéing them with the aroma of garlic and ginger filling my apartment.

So, how good was it? Maybe too good.  After preparing the sauce, veggies, and noodles, the whole dish came together as a delightful symphony of flavors and aromas that prompted us to start eating straight out of the pot. After dealing out heaping portions into a couple of bowls, I was pouring myself a glass of wine when I heard a small thud and an exclamation of, “Oh NO!”

I turned around to find my boyfriend contemplating a pile of shiitake mushrooms, noodles, and cabbage on the floor. “It’s okay,” I said. “There’s plenty more.”  He looked thoughtful for a moment, as if considering whether or not he was willing to sacrifice an entire bowlful. “Nah,” he said, “I think it’s okay. Besides, I’ll probably want more after this.” He scooped the noodles back into his bowl and, aside from a small bit on the bottom of the pile that had made the most direct contact with my living room carpet, ate an entire bowl of noodles that had fallen on the floor—all because they seemed too delicious and too precious to waste. And he went back for seconds.

This is a pretty easy recipe, though it does involve a whole lot of chopping. It’s the perfect kind of dish to make when friends/significant others drop by for dinner:  the work is pretty mindless, so it’s easy to enjoy a conversation and perhaps also a glass of wine while getting dinner ready. It’s also pretty versatile: it’s great hot or cold, and it works well with a variety of different ingredients. The original recipe is vegetarian- and vegan-friendly; I, however, have made this recipe both with and without shrimp. I’m sure it would be great with some seared tofu, too—just play around and see what you like.  I also swapped out the 1/3 cup of water that the original recipe calls for and replaced it with rice vinegar and sesame oil to round out the flavors—flavors so round that you may, um, find yourself eating it off the floor, too.

Spicy Soba Noodles with Shiitakes, Cabbage, and Edamame

Adapted from Gourmet

Serves 4

Ingredients

For the sauce:

¼ cup rice vinegar

A few tablespoons of sesame oil, to taste

1/3 cup soy sauce

2 or 3 teaspoons of Korean hot-pepper paste, depending on how hot you want it (Sriracha is also great here if you don’t have or can’t find the hot-pepper paste)

1 tablespoon packed brown sugar

For the Noodles:

3 tablespoons sesame seeds

¼ cup vegetable oil

2 tablespoons of finely chopped peeled ginger

1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic

10 oz fresh shiitake mushrooms, stemmed and thinly sliced*

1 head of Napa cabbage (1-1 ¼ pounds), thinly sliced (should yield about 8 cups—I know, that’s a lot).

6 scallions, thinly sliced

1 box soba noodles (8 or 9 oz). If you don’t have soba, I imagine you can also use a very thin long-cut pasta, but the buckwheat flavor of the soba noodles is especially nice.

1 cup frozen shelled edamame

A couple of handfuls of shrimp, peeled and deveined (optional)

*A quick note on the shiitakes: clean them using a clean, damp towel or a damp paper towel. Never, ever clean mushrooms by rinsing them!  It makes them rubbery, and it also interferes with the browning process.

First, stir together all of the sauce ingredients in a sauce pot over medium-low heat until the brown sugar is dissolved.  Set it aside. That was easy, no?

Toast the sesame seeds by stirring them in a dry skillet over medium heat until they are golden brown. Set them aside in a small bowl so you can use the same skillet for your veggies.

Heat the vegetable oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. You’ll know it’s ready when the oil looks like it’s shimmering. (Vegetable oil is preferable here because its flavor, unlike that of olive oil, won’t compete with the other flavors of the dish.) Add the ginger and garlic and sauté for about 30 seconds until fragrant. Make sure that the garlic doesn’t burn.  Then add the shiitakes and sauté until they start to brown and get nice and tender. Then reduce the heat to medium and add the cabbage and most of the scallions, saving a little bit for garnishing the dish at the end. Cook until the cabbage is tender but still has some crunch to it, about 5 or 6 minutes. Then add the sauce and simmer it for another couple of minutes.

While the cabbage and mushroom mixture cooks, cook the soba and edamame together in a big pot of boiling, salted water until the noodles are just tender. (If you’re using shrimp, you can also throw them into the pot to quickly cook them, or you can sear or grill them and throw them on at the end. Up to you.)  Drain the pasta and edamame in a colander and then rinse them under cool water to stop the cooking.  Drain them again, and then transfer to a large bowl or back into your pasta pot. Add in the sesame seeds and cabbage mixture and toss it all together. Serve the noodles in bowls topped with the reserved scallions and enjoy.

A good friend of mine recently made the trek down to New York City, and a few of us decided to celebrate with a nice home-cooked meal. “What better thing to celebrate with,” we said to ourselves, “than steak?” The answer to this question (of course) is nothing. Nothing is better to celebrate with than steak.

Unless you count steak with mushrooms. I’m of the general belief that mushrooms improve any savory dish, and we happened to have some leftover mushrooms from a salad earlier in the week. Thus an attack strategy was formed:

1. Find steak and mushroom recipe.
2. Cook steak and mushroom recipe.
3. Eat steak and mushroom recipe.

Well, I guess step three was to eat the dish, not the recipe. But I like the way that sentence looks.

After some hunting online I settled on a recipe from Bon Appetit:

Steak:

2 sixteen ounce rib eye steaks, about 1 1/2 inches thick. I ended up cooking 6 steaks, but I’ll keep the recipe at this level to keep everyone’s math sharp.

Coarsely cracked black peppercorns

Dried rosemary

Mushroom Saute:

3 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

3/4 teaspoon dried rosemary

5 ounces fresh whole oyster mushrooms, trimmed

5 ounces fresh whole shiitake mushrooms, stems trimmed

2 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar or red wine vinegar

Awesome Sauce (My name, not Bon Apetit’s):

1/4 cup canned beef broth

I started by rubbing the steaks with the peppercorns and rosemary and letting them sit for a little bit. I don’t think the sitting accomplishes anything other than making you really really want steak. I substituted fresh rosemary for dried and used more than the amount called for, which certainly looked nicer on the plate, as you can see below:

The entire dish is fairly simple to cook. For the mushrooms, combine garlic, rosemary, and olive oil and sauté over medium-high heat for about half a minute before tossing in the mushrooms. Cook the mushrooms for 3 minutes or until they start to soften up and then add the balsamic vinegar. Throw in some salt and pepper and the fungi are ready to party.

Meanwhile, in a heavy iron skillet, put about a tablespoon and a half of oil (for every two steaks) over high heat. Cook the steaks for 2 minutes per side, letting them brown. After the outside has browned, turn the heat down to medium-high and cook for another 2-3 minutes on each side, depending on how thick the steaks are and how rare you like them. Before you know it, the steaks are done!

BUT WAIT! There’s more!

Whatever you do, do not slice the steaks immediately. Think of the juices, people! Check out this fascinating article for how to keep the delicious juiciness in your steaks simply by waiting five minutes before digging in. Or take my word for it, if you don’t want to read. Just wait a couple ticks and know that you’re making a wise decision.

Here’s something to keep you busy while you’re waiting: Awesome Sauce. In the pan in which you just cooked your rib-eyes, there will be deliciously meaty scraps, just itching for a second lease on life. Crack open a can of beef broth, and pour ¼ or ½ cup into that pan. Let it heat, stirring and scraping until it has reduced to a succulent glaze. By the time it’s done and saucy, the steaks will be prime for the slicing.

Order them like this: steak, glaze, mushrooms. Consume. Celebrate heartily.

albondigas, before frying.

I’m with Claire – meatballs are not a trend.  They’re a classic, and in Spain they’ve been making them, deliciously, for a long time. (And, per Kevin’s post earlier this week, in Italy. Maybe we are in the midst of a bit of a meatball craze, at least here at FJ.)  This, according to Carlos, is a standard recipe, and it combines a lot of my favorite aspects of cooking – local, fresh ingredients; pork products; and a straightforward process that yields excellent results.  New Yorkers, get ready – when I’m back, these are going to become a dinner-party standard.

Also, keep an eye out for the unique ingredients in this recipe (but I will give you substitutes in case your local Kroger doesn’t have them).  I’m particularly excited to introduce you to caldo de jamón.

Albondigas con Setas

Ingredients:

For Albondigas (meatballs)

Whole milk
Loaf of sliced white bread
Ground meat – mix of pork and beef– 14 oz.  (In Spain, they sell this mixture pre-packaged in the grocery store, which I hadn’t seen before.  Ask your butcher to grind the meat separately and mix together well in the bowl yourself if you can’t find a mixture.)
Garlic – 3 cloves
Parsley, 2 or 3 sprigs, finely chopped
2 Eggs, whisked
Salt to taste, dash of black pepper
Flour
Olive oil for frying

For Salsa:
Large mushrooms – we used locally procured mushrooms, but they resembled shitakes.  Anything that is sort of large and soft and able to soak up liquid and flavor will work.
White wine
Caldo de Jamón – Cured ham stock (!) (Chicken stock would be fine for substituting.)
1/4 of an onion, diced
Pinch of salt, black pepper, pimenton dulce – paprika to taste.  (I think red pepper flakes would be a good substitute if you’re not into paprika.  I also really recommend finding Spanish pimenton dulce if you can, not just any old paprika.)
Flour

To make meatballs:

1. Pour milk into a small bowl, just enough to cover the bottom of the bowl.
2. Place three slices of bread into the bowl to soak milk up.  Mix together with your fingers – break the bread slices up.
3. Add garlic and parsley to mix.
4. Add meat.
5. Pour whisked eggs into mix.
6. Add salt and pepper.
7. Mix with fork until you have ingredients evenly distributed.
8. Make the meatballs – one soupspoon scoop for each ball.
9. With your hands, squeeze balls until compact and roll through flour, thoroughly coating.  If the meatballs lose shape, re-roll in flour.
10. Fry meatballs in a large pan with lots of olive oil.  Cook until golden brown.
11. Remove from pan and place on plate with paper towel to absorb oil.

To make sauce:

1. In a large pot, add a small amount of olive oil.  Turn to medium-high heat.
2. Add onions, allow to brown.
3. Tear mushrooms in half, add to pot.
4. Add salt and white wine, lower heat.
5. Add black pepper and pimenton dulce.
6. Add one glass of water and one spoonful flour, sprinkling flour in a bit at a time and stirring.
7. Add ham stock to taste.
8. Allow to all simmer together for about 5-7 minutes, until sauce thickens and mushrooms have softened a bit.  Add meatballs for 1-2 minutes at the end.  Remove from heat and serve immediately.

Yields 4-6 servings.

Saute onions and/or garlic, add vegetables and/or meat, add water and/or stock, add grains and/or pasta, season. That is the recipe for pretty much every soup that’s out there, and once you’ve mastered it (which honestly takes about 15 minutes), you are a soupier extraordinaire.

In my eating adventures for my other blog, I recently ate the best bowl of mushroom barley soup I’d ever had, though to tell the truth, I can’t remember ever having had a bowl of mushroom barley soup before that one. I think “barley” had always scared me off by sounding a bit too much like a health food ingredient, but I won’t make that mistake again. Barley is delicious, and so is this soup.

This recipe is from Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor, MI, which seems to be a crazy and awesome place. Claire also has a book from there that I think she really likes. Claire?

I made few (by my standards) changes to this recipe: I used vegetable broth instead of meat, replaced the margarine with butter (Kashrut dictates that you can’t mix meat and dairy, but (1) I already nixed the beef broth and (2) I am a big fat butter-loving goy.), and skipped the parsley (you can almost always skip the parsley).

With regards to the broth, I used one quart of store-bought broth plus the mushroom water, plus enough water to make 2 quarts, and the soup came out plenty flavorful. Keep an eye on the soup after you add the barley, because you may want to add more liquid, as I needed to. Just add water a cup at a time and see how much the barley absorbs.

Additionally, instead of scooping the mushrooms slowly into the broth (Anyone know why I would do this?) I just poured the warm broth into the mushroom pot. It just seemed easier that way.

OK, so maybe I actually made more than a few changes, but the soup was good and the perfect supper for what I hope will be one of the last nasty days of this especially nasty winter.

Mushroom Barley Soup
from Zingerman’s Deli

2 tablespoons dried porcini mushrooms
2 tablespoons margarine
1 large onion, thinly sliced
2 ribs celery with leaves, diced
1/4 cup parsley
1 carrot, peeled and sliced
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 pound fresh porcini or other mushrooms
1 tablespoon flour
2 quarts beef broth or water
1 cup whole barley
2 teaspoons salt
1. Soak the mushrooms in enough hot water to cover for a half hour. Strain through a filter. Reserve the water.

2. Coarsely chop the dried mushrooms.

3. Melt the margarine in a stockpot and sauté the onion, celery, 2 tablespoons of the parsley, carrot, garlic, and fresh mushrooms until soft, about 5 minutes.

4. Lower the heat and add the flour, stirring every 30 seconds for about 5 minutes or until thick.

5. In a soup pot heat the broth or water. Add a cup of mushroom mixture at a time to the pot, stirring.

6. Turn the heat to high, and add the reserved mushroom water and barley. Stir well and add salt to taste.

7. Simmer, covered, for about an hour or until the barley is tender and the soup is thickened, stirring often.

8. Add additional chopped parsley, mix thoroughly, and adjust seasonings.

And for all you fellow pasta-lovers out there, a charming website: http://www.ilovepasta.org/shapes.html. At least I found it charming, but sometimes my taste is strange.

I have no doubt however, that you’ll love this recipe should you make it. You cook pasta slowly in stock rather than water, just as you would risotto. The result is a pasta dish with a deep flavor and a creamy texture, as well as a kitchen with only a single dirty pot. Who would be ashamed of that?

Another staple of Food Junta, aside from pasta dishes, is Mark Bittman, so it won’t surprise regular readers that this is another one of his. I like to talk about recipes as guidelines, and he refers to this one as a “pattern,” which is a term that I really like and will promptly appropriate for my own purposes.

Look at this recipe as a pattern. You can use whatever kind of stock you like, whatever pasta shape, whatever vegetables, etc. Just follow the basic pattern below, and you’ll be fine. There’s also a huge margin for error here. If your pasta is still too al dente, just keep adding liquid, There’s no real chance of adding too much liquid. In the worst case scenario, you wind up with soup, and that’s a pretty good worst case scenario.

Attention Vegetarians: Yes, I know, there’s chicken in the picture and in the recipe. This post is tagged as vegetarian because I used vegetable stock instead of chicken stock, and the chicken could easily be omitted. Just wanted to make it clear I’m not an idiot. (At least not in this particular case. My broader idiocy is as yet indeterminate.)

Unless you have homemade chicken stock, I’d actually recommend vegetable stock. I find that store-bought chicken stock makes everything taste extremely like chicken in a way I don’t find desirable. Choose your own adventure, but that’s my two cents.

And my two metaphors.

Pasta With Chicken and Mushrooms, Risotto Style
From Mark Bittman

2 tablespoons olive oil, more as needed
1 shallot or small onion, chopped
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2 cups crimini, shiitake or button mushrooms, cleaned, trimmed and sliced
1/2 pound cut pasta like gemelli or penne, or long pasta broken into bits
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup dry white wine or water
3 to 4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 boneless chicken thighs, diced
Chopped fresh parsley, optional
Freshly grated Parmesan, optional.

1. Put 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large, deep skillet over medium heat. When hot, add shallot, garlic and mushrooms. Cook, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms soften and begin to brown on edges, about 10 minutes. Add pasta and cook, stirring occasionally, until it is glossy and coated with oil, 2 to 3 minutes. Add a little salt and pepper, then wine. Stir and let liquid bubble away.

2. Ladle stock into skillet 1/2 cup or so at a time, stirring after each addition and every minute or so. When liquid is just about evaporated, add more. Mixture should be neither soupy nor dry. Keep heat at medium and stir frequently.

3. Begin tasting pasta 10 minutes after you add it; you want it to be tender but with a tiny bit of crunch. When pasta is about 3 to 4 minutes away from being done, add chicken and stir to combine. Continue to cook until chicken is done — it will be white on inside when cut — and pasta is how you like it. Taste, adjust seasoning, garnish with parsley and Parmesan if using, and serve.

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Gnocchi.

Gnocchi who?

Gnocchi your socks off!

Monday, you got topless women. Wednesday, you got the recipe Martha considers the best she’s ever made. Today, you get knock-knock jokes. TGIF, right?

I, for one, think knock-knock jokes are pretty exciting. Particularly when they concern gnocchi, otherwise known as the formerly unattainable dumplings of the gods. Everything I heard about gnocchi was always a horror story: boiling the potatoes, mashing the potatoes, sticky messess, hours of labor, all for a chewy, tough final product. Not so with this gnocchi! In just 15 minutes, you can perfectly tender pillows with little fuss or muss (or mess). They’re just not the traditional gnocchi…

These 15-minute wonders I speak of are ricotta gnocchi. I’m not sure they’re perfectly legit, but you know what? I don’t care. While gnocchi purists are slaving over their boiling pots of potatoes, I’ll have all the more time to collect knock-knock jokes.

I made these twice in one week — that’s how easy they are. Once, plain with brown butter and a caprese salad; once (preparing for a mushroom Iron Chef contest) with mushrooms added (pictured above and variation listed below) and a mushroom cream sauce. To my surprise, adding chopped mushrooms (rehydrated) to the dough really added some mushroom flavor (and I also found the speckles very beguiling). The sauce is earthy and unctuous and utterly delicious, and was primarily made by my cooking partner, who is moving up in the world from a usual diet of rice (made in a rice cooker) with ketchup. Which is to say that anyone can make this sauce! And the gnocchi, which he was also primarily responsible for the second time around.

Easy Ricotta Gnocchi
Adapted from Delicious Days
Serves 2

Ingredients
- 1 c. ricotta cheese
- 1 egg yolk
- ½ tsp. Fine sea salt
- ¼ c. grated Parmesan (or Pecorino Romano) cheese
- 2/3 c. flour, with a little extra for dusting the board

- Optional: 1  package dried mushrooms, rehydrated in boiling water (per package instructions), chopped finely. SAVE WATER and use in Mushroom Cream Sauce (recipe below).

1. Combine ricotta, egg yolk, salt, and Parmesan in a large bowl. Add the flour and stir until just combined. Optional: Add chopped mushroom and combine. The dough should still be sticky, but not unmanageable; if you are having a really hard time with it, you can add more flour (but remember, the more flour you add, the denser your gnocchi).

2. Start boiling a large pot of salted water. (Turn heat down to a simmer after it comes to a boil.)

3. Meanwhile, form gnocchi:
a. Generously flour a cutting board.
b. Scoop a tablespoon of dough onto the board.
c. Generously flour your hands (just grab some flour and rub it on your palms).

d. Roll out the gnocchi into a roll that is about as thick as your finger.
e. Dust a sharp knife’s blade with flour.

f. If you are feeling aesthetically precise, cut off the ends of the roll, so that each gnoccho will look the same. Then cut the roll into small pillows (about one inch long).
g. Place the finished gnoccho in the corner of the floured board or on a separate floured board or plate (so long as they’re still on flour).

4. Add gnocchi to simmering water (careful not to burn yourself). Once they’re all in, give them one gentle stir, so they don’t stick to the bottom.

5. Gnocchi are done when they all float to the top, after about 2-4 minutes. Remove using a slotted spoon or skimmer (don’t drain – they’re too delicate). Serve with the sauce of your choice: brown butter (with sage), tomato sauce, pesto, cheese/other creamy sauce…

Mushroom Cream Sauce
Adapted from Tyler Florence
Makes enough to cover pasta/gnocchi for 2

Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 garlic cloves, finely minced
- 5 sage leaves
- 6 ounces crimini (white buton) mushrooms, sliced
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 leek, tough upper green part discarded, lower part well-cleaned, cut in half vertically, and then sliced into half-moons
- liquid from rehydrating 1 packet of dried mushrooms
- salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1.    Melt butter in a saute pan over low heat. Add garlic and sage. Season with salt and pepper.

2.    Add the mushrooms, cook 5 minutes until slightly softened. Pour in cream and mushroom liquid and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, and let simmer until sauce has reduced and thickened somewhat. Stir in leek – the sauce should coat the leek and seem thicker, somehow. If still not your desired thickness, cook a little longer. Adjust seasoning, and serve.

Sometimes, you just get a craving for something. Now usually cravings are for a taste that you recognize, something that you’ve had before, often that is produced by your local pizza or pommes frites restaurant. Other times, the craving is not so simple.

I had just such a complex craving, beginning two days ago. I could start to see the tastes coming together in my head: pasta, yes, and mushrooms, definitely. I knew I wanted cream sauce as well. So there would be butter, and there would be thyme (because as I’ve discussed before, mushrooms love butter and thyme). But I could taste that dish in my head, and it wasn’t quite what I was looking for. So, I withstood the agony, and decided to let my thoughts develop. And then the next day, I realized: I wanted something sweet.

Something sweet? That can’t be right. How do you make pasta sauce sweet, and also edible? Well, for starters, a lot of things you eat — and a lot of pasta sauces — are slightly sweet, so it really isn’t such an outlandish idea. But how do you do it, and without just pouring some sugar in? Honey. Honey, my friends.

Honey is the star of this dish, yet it shouldn’t be so overpowering that you actually know that it’s there at all. It should bring out the earthiness of the mushrooms and the silkiness of the cream and make the whole thing taste slightly more extravagant (it helps when you are using star thistle honey that came in a little test tube sized sample). But, since we can’t have things tasting too extravagant or the dish gets boring, the dish got yet more spontaneous as I went along — first, a healthy dose of freshly ground black pepper; next, a small pinch of some really fresh crushed red pepper flakes (both flakes and the idea to use them courtesy of my roomate Wills); and, finally, a nice dousing of lemon juice. Just like the honey, none of those finishing touches should be too obvious on their own. Still, the dish would taste markedly different without them.

And then, in an encore performance, they all show back up as the finishing finishing touches — the garnish on the dish when it is about to be served. All those things again (all in greater moderation, particularly the lemon juice) as well as some freshly shaved pecorino romano, and this dish is going to shine. Serve with a chardonnay and a green salad; that easy drinking wine is called easy drinking for a reason, often because of its notes of honey.

Mushroom Pappardelle with Honey-Lemon Cream Sauce

Serves 2

Ingredients

-    XX pappardelle (wide egg noodles)
-    1 tablespoon butter
-    4 c. or so oyster mushrooms, sliced into varying chunks
-    1 ½ tablespoons thyme
-    ½ – 1 cup white wine (if you have leftover, or if you buy a bottle to drink with)
-    ½ c. heavy cream
-    1 ½ tablespoons honey
-    juice of ½ lemon
-    freshly ground black pepper
-    salt
-    couple pinches crushed red pepper flakes

1. Melt butter in a medium skillet over medium-high heat.

2. Add mushrooms, sauté, stirring regularly, until browned on all sides.

3. Add salt, to taste.

4. Add thyme.

5. Add wine; bring to simmer. Simmer until wine is reduced to almost a glaze but still with some liquid in the pan, about 5-10 minutes.

6. Add cream; bring to simmer. Add honey, stir to combine. Simmer until sauce is beginning to thicken. Add almost all the lemon juice, reserving just a tiny amount. Stir to combine. Adjust salt and black pepper. Add a pinch of crushed red pepper flakes. Continue simmering until sauce reaches desired consistency. Taste and adjust seasonings.

7. Serve topped with shaved pecorino and more freshly ground black pepper, red pepper flakes, and a small squeeze of lemon juice over the top.

I found about the contest through a comment on this blog, and decided to enter just for fun. Reading the entries, I was struck by how elaborate and traditionally written the recipes were. As you all know by now, simplicity is the name of the game for me, but I have also been thinking a lot lately about how recipes are actually written.

I don’t have the patience to write out recipes as lists of ingredients with numbered steps, so I’ve been writing them as narratives with the ingredients interwoven. This is maybe not the best format if you need to make a shopping list, but I’m really becoming convinced that this is a superior way to write recipes. My friend sent me some Thai recipes (coming soon) written this way, and I found them much easier to follow than a “traditional” recipe format.

I’m interested to hear what people think. Has anyone out there tried any of the techniques I’ve described or others written in a similar fashion? How do you like it? Would you prefer steps 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.? Lemme know…

In the meantime, here’s the recipe. Props to my good friend Gordon Jenkins for teaching me this technique. And please excuse the flowery language. I don’t know what got into me.

Mushrooms en Papillote

Make those morels shine with this simple recipe that provides gentle accents to help the flavor of the morels explode:

For each serving, place 1/2 to 1 cup of roughly chopped morels in the center of a square of parchment paper. Dot with bits of HIGH QUALITY butter. Sprinkle with fresh rosemary.

Now fold the parchment square in half over the mushrooms and begin rolling in the open edges tightly to make a small, crescent-shaped envelope. (Think about those pre-packaged apple pies they sell in convenience stores. Shape it like that.) Pop the packets in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.

This simple technique allows for really fancy-seeming presentation, as well. Place a packet on each diner’s plate, and let them slice it open. The steam will escape all at once, and they’ll be smacked in the face with buttery, mushroomy awesomeness.

Impressive, simple, and a great way to highlight the flavor of morels.