Matzo Ball Soup

There wasn’t much of a Jewish influence where I grew up, in a small town on the inner peninsula of Washington State. Since moving to the east coast and marrying into a family with both cultural and religious Jews, I decided it was high time to explore some of the traditional cuisine.

From what I can gather the real backbone of matzo ball soup is not just the texture of the dumplings themselves, but the character of the chicken broth (pun intended?). You can make a passable version, I’m sure, with storebought stock or broth, but it is really elevated to the next level if you take the time to roast our own chicken to make the stock. Roasting a chicken is simple, hands-off task and its presence in the stock makes a huge difference.

You can either reserve the meat of the bird for another purpose, or do what I did (though it’s not pictured) and slice the breast into pieces and lay them at the bottom of the bowl.

The debate consistently rages over whether one should have light and fluffy matzo balls or dense and substantive matzo balls. These are of the latter category, largely because I used whole grain matzo meal because I liked the 5 grams of fiber per serving. Keep that in mind if your family prefers the light and fluffy dumplings.

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Cajun Jambalaya

Fat Tuesday is fast approaching and with it the requirement to enjoy true N’awlins style cuisine. Years and years ago I worked at a casino and made friends with a nice guy who’d just moved to the Seattle area from Louisiana. One of his hobbies was sharing his Southern food with us “Yanks.” He’d set up a booth at local festivals and dish out dirty rice, red beans, and jambalaya in Styrofoam clamshells with a healthy sprinkling of Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning – the only true Creole seasoning according to that Southern boy.

His jambalaya recipe was my first foray into the intriguing world of Cajun and Creole cooking, a style of cooking so rich in history and tradition you can’t help but be sucked into it. I’ve never looked back.

This is a Cajun style jambalaya, that is sans tomatoes. It relies on the browned sausage and chicken to deepen the flavor and a precise ratio of liquid to rice to get the final dish perfectly fluffy instead of soupy like its Creole cousin.

When you’re browning the sausage and chicken, really give it a chance to let the Maillard reaction take place – this is where you get that nice brown crust and those lovely little browned bits that stick to the bottom of the pot, also known as “the fond.” It’s this browning reaction that creates the nice deep flavor we crave in so many Southern dishes. Use a little oil in the pan, and try not to use a nonstick pan if you can. It will still work with nonstick pan, just not quite as well in my experience.

Really give the meat a few minutes to cook – don’t go fiddling around with it, pushing it around. If you give it a little nudge with your cooking utensil and it doesn’t want to move, listen. Leave it alone for a little while longer and it will be ready to give way – that’s when you know the browning reaction has taken place.

Also, make sure you don’t crowd the pan too much. If there isn’t enough room around each piece of meat for the water to evaporate, you’re going to end up with steamed sausage and chicken – not browned.

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truffled chicken milanese

This is one of those perfect weeknight entertaining dishes that looks impressive but is incredibly easy. It's a kind of cross between a chicken milanese and a latin chicken milanesa a caballo. The best part about this recipe is how make ahead friendly it is. You can bread the chicken hours before you need them and pull them out and fry them whenever.

They are exceptionally moist and the truffle salt adds such a luxurious level of flavor - even I was surprised at how well all of the flavors really meshed together. The crispy coated, moist chicken, the umami earthiness of the truffles, the acidic bite from the lemon-dressed salad, and the creamy richness of the poached egg. If you have it on hand I can't imagine that a drizzle of truffle oil would hurt the finished dish, either.

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seared chicken with mushroom sauce over barley

A fresh breeze to ruffle the feathers, sun to warm them, freedom to run about and peck at whatever they should choose. Delicious vegetarian feed and a life free of antibiotics and hormones. That's how chickens should be raised.  Not in cages or factory farms where they never see the outdoors a moment of their lives. Not where they crawl with bugs and peck each other to death out of fear, anxiety, and a blind attempt at self preservation.

It's not a very appetizing thought, is it? Sadly, it's the reality of commercial farms, the predominant source of meat throughout the US.

It can be difficult to find an alternative to factory farmed meat, though, and the difficulty often outweighs one's conscious. It's so easy to just pop over to the neighborhood supermarket and pick up a pound or two of chicken for dinner and not think about where it came from.

It's an issue that's plagued me significantly since moving to North Carolina. In California it was so easy to find humanely raised meats at nearly any market, but in North Carolina it's been impossible - at least until last week.

Carolina Grown, a relatively new business in central NC, is offering an amazing new service. Produce, dairy, and meat from solely NC growers delivered directly to your door for a surprisingly reasonable flat fee.

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Chicken Pot Pie

It seems like the style of recipe that pops it's head up most frequently around the interwebz are those that can be made quickly and cheaply. In other words, a weeknight kind of meal that can be popped in the oven after a long day of work/school/child-rearing and taste like hours spent slaving over that proverbial stove.

If one of those recipes happens to be of a quintessential comfort food - say like chicken pot pie - then it seems to be even more popular.

I made these a weekend or two ago when my in-laws came to visit. I like the versatility of this method that allows for immediate consumption or night-before preparation. If you'd like to make these a day ahead just prep the filling, fill the ramekins, and cover with the puff pastry. Brush with a beaten egg right before popping in the oven and enjoy - home cooked meal on a weekday night.

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