Mom’s Fried Chicken Wings

MOM’S FRIED CHICKEN

• 12 chicken wings, cut into pieces
• 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon paprika
• 3/4 teaspoon salt or to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• shortening or vegetable oil

Rinse the chicken pieces and set them aside. In a large dish, mix the flour with the paprika, salt, garlic powder and black pepper. Coat the chicken pieces with the seasoned flour. Place them on a cake rack to air dry for 25-30 minutes. Heat the shortening or vegetable oil in a deep saute pan over medium-high heat (should be about 1/2-inch) to 365 degrees (a bread crumb will sizzle quickly when you add it to the pan). Add a few chicken pieces at a time (adding too many will make the cooking oil too cool) and cook, turning the pieces occasionally, for 8-10 minutes or until crispy and golden brown. Drain on paper towels.

Makes 12

Rumaki

Would you believe this is kosher?

I mean — looks like bacon doesn’t it?

But it’s Facon. Fake bacon. A new product from Jack’s Gourmet. It’s made with beef. It is salty, smoky and with just the right amount of fat to give it a rich, smooth feel.

I used it to make these Rumaki, which I served at my Academy Awards get-together. I can tell you this: some of my guests were not kosher, not Jewish. Everyone ate these and raved about them.

When people come to my house for dinner they know they’re usually going to get some experiment (or two or three) and are always wondering when it will come in the meal. But they didn’t think this was it and when I told them what this stuff was they were all flabbergasted.

So here’s the recipe:

Rumaki

• 1/2 pound chicken livers

• 1/4 cup soy sauce

• 2 tablespoons molasses

• 2 tablespoons honey

• 2 tablespoons water

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil

• 2 tablespoons crumbled crystallized ginger

• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped

• 1/2 star anise (or use 1/4 teaspoon anise extract)

• 1/2 pound Facon (or use other kosher bacon)

Cut the chicken livers into bite-sized pieces. Combine the soy sauce, molasses, honey, water, vegetable oil, ginger, garlic and anise in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer. Add the livers and poach them for 5 minutes. Preheat a grill or broiler. Remove the liver pieces with a slotted spoon and let cool. Cut the Facon slices into smaller pieces that are large enough to wrap around each piece of poached liver. Secure each Facon-wrapped liver with a toothpick. Broil or grill the rumaki for several minutes, turning occasionally, until the Facon is browned and crispy.

Makes 18-20 pieces

Crusted Mashed Potatoes

Prune or potato?

My mother, who was very funny, always said that when a woman gets old she becomes either a prune or a potato. You know, she gets thin, frail, fragile and wrinkled or, um, plump and not so frail or fragile (and not so wrinkled).

I like prunes. The dried plums and also some people I know who are senior citizens and slim, whom my mother would regard as prunes.

But potatoes! What can I say?! To me, there is nothing better than a potato, except maybe a cup of hot coffee, but that isn’t food.

Potato. Every kind, every way. That’s for me. 

Women? Men? I don’t really care about their girth or lack thereof.

Give me a potato to eat and I’m happy.

Today, National Potato Lover’s Day, seems made for me, don’t you think?

I’m having potatoes with dinner.

These:

CRUSTED MASHED POTATOES

5 medium all-purpose potatoes such as Yukon Gold

1/4 cup olive oil

1 small onion, chopped

1 large clove garlic, chopped

3 tablespoons lemon juice

3 tablespoons chicken or vegetable stock

salt to taste

pinch or two of cayenne pepper

3 tablespoons fresh bread crumbs

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Peel the potatoes, cut them into chunks and cook them in lightly salted water for about 15 minutes, or until they are fork tender. While the potatoes are cooking, heat the olive oil in a sauté pan and add the onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 3 minutes, then add the garlic. Cook for another 1-2 minutes, or until the vegetables are beginning to brown. Set aside. Drain the potatoes and mash them with a ricer or potato masher until the lumps have disappeared. Add the vegetables and olive oil and stir them in gently. Stir in the lemon juice, stock, salt and the cayenne pepper. Place the mixture in a baking dish. Sprinkle with the bread crumbs. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until the top is crispy and brown.

Makes 6 servings

 

Bones and Vegetable Soup

A friend of mine, who is not Jewish, asked me how to make “real Jewish chicken soup.” I gave him my recipe, which he said was similar to his mother’s Italian version (except mine included dill).

But when I saw him a few days later he was dismayed about the soup. He said it tasted better than delicious but that when it was cold it got all gelled up and jiggly. His mother’s soup never did that.

Ah. Gelled liquid. The sign of great soup. Soup made with bones. Bones with collagen that melts slowly and surely and enriches the broth, giving it abundant, old fashioned flavor. Soup broth the way it’s supposed to be.

Memorable.

My friend was thrilled he hadn’t made a mistake. He smiled when I told him his soup was probably better than his mama’s.

Robbie’s success got me to thinking about making some soup of course. And fortunately I had just the right ingredients: chicken bones. Almost four pounds of them, from KOL Foods.

KOL Foods produces Glatt kosher poultry, beef and lamb and brings a new level of humanity to the way they treat their stock. For any meat to be kosher, the animals must be slaughtered in a particular — humane — way. KOL Foods upped the standard. Their animals are raised humanely too, with an eye toward sustainability. The chickens, turkey and ducks are free-roaming and fed an organic, GMO-free, vegetarian diet; they are not given arsenic, antibiotics or hormones.

The company has an eye for your budget too. Poultry can be expensive and kosher poultry even more so.

Hence the chicken bones, which the company sells in packages for shipment and are a lot cheaper than whole chickens or parts. The bones deliver a delicious broth and there’s enough meat on them to make a filling dish. My almost 4 pounds of bones yielded more than 3 cups of cut up meat.

This is the soup I made with them: rich, rib-sticking, comforting and wonderful. The liquid gels when it’s chilled. The way it’s supposed to.

Bones and Vegetable Soup

3-4 pounds meaty chicken bones

12 cups water

2/3 cup barley

2 onions, sliced

1/2 cup dried mushroom pieces, soaked, softened and chopped

3-4 carrots, sliced

2-3 stalks celery, sliced

2 parsnips, sliced

8 sprigs fresh dill

6 sprigs fresh parsley

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 15-ounce can white beans, rinsed and drained

1 small zucchini, diced

1 cup frozen peas

Place the chicken in a soup pot and cover with the water. Bring to a boil over high heat. Lower the heat to a simmer and for the next several minutes, discard the debris that comes to the surface. Add the barley, onions, mushrooms, carrots, celery, parsnips, dill, parsley and salt and pepper. Simmer, partially covered, for one hour. Add the beans, zucchini and peas and cook for another 50-60 minutes. Remove the bones and cut off bits of chicken; place the chicken meat back into the soup. Discard the bones.

Makes 8 servings

My Mom's Famous and Fabulous Nut Roll

Today would have been my mother’s 100th birthday and although she and my Dad died many years ago, I think about them a lot. You can’t possibly realize how much you’re going to miss people when they’re in your life. You only understand when they aren’t. And what happens from time to time is that something comes up during the day that reminds you of them. A smell. Or a magazine picture of a scarf in your mother’s favorite color. Or a song you hear on your car radio.

The memories can be sad or poignant or funny or thrillingly happy.

Today my memories are happy. I am celebrating with my brother and toasting our Mom, who was was funny and sometimes controversial and more than occasionally provocative, which would make us furious, but also make us think.

She was smart and interesting too. A feminist before the word feminist existed. I am sure that had she been born at an even earlier time, she would have been a Suffragette.

My mother was also a good cook. She mostly stuck to what she knew and wasn’t much for experimenting. She’d say “why change a good recipe?”

There is some wisdom to that, although I don’t follow it. My family never gets to eat the same thing too many times, except maybe for holiday dinners.

But for Mom, a winner was a winner, and she had so many it’s difficult to choose among her recipes to make one special thing for her birthday celebration.

I considered my Mom’s fried chicken (which was better than anyone’s, even Colonel Sanders) together with a dozen or so of the crispy-edged corn fritters she served with it.

For dessert? Her apple pie of course. It was legendary. We still talk about it every autumn, when I make a batch of my own.

Then again, speaking of apples, I remember how often she made that most wonderful apple crisp that was my Dad’s favorite and I would come in to their house through the garage and the perfume from the baking apples and the crunchy cereal crust would greet me before even they did.

Maybe I should choose that?

Or her rice pudding? It was baked custard actually, with a smooth inside and crispy top. I haven’t cooked it in a while.

I could go on and on. About her most comforting and wonderful chicken soup. Or her family-famous cookies that we all called Fannies, but are actually plain old butter thumbprint cookies. Or her most welcome roast beef hash which she made out of leftover meat and mashed potatoes and more sauteed onions than you can imagine.

She said she hated to use leftovers, a consequence of having struggled through the Great Depression and never wanting the memories.

And yet she used leftovers. Cleverly and creatively but for simple, uncomplicated, unsophisticated dishes that became our favorites. Like her Macaroni and Cheese, put together with scraps and bits from the fridge.

There was only one dish she ever made that I didn’t like (potato salad).

And one dish — Nut Roll — I could never get the hang of, even though she told me how and showed me how to make it many many times. Mine just never tasted as good.

That’s the one.

That’s the one I decided it had to be. I’d give this one another try.

Which I did this morning (I made the dough yesterday because it has to sit in the fridge for a few hours).

It’s almost as good as hers. Maybe it is as good but the memories of hers are too good to let me think it is.

But my Nut Roll is enough like it, anyway, to celebrate with. Superb with coffee or maybe a glass of dessert wine.

My Mom used walnuts in her Nut Roll; because of allergies in my family I never cook with walnuts, so I used almonds. 

In the photos you can see the lump of one section of dough that I started with, then, in the second photo, rolled it thin. The third photo shows how to scatter the sugar and nuts over the dough and the fourth photo, how to roll the Nut Roll. The fifth photo shows what the rolls look like when it comes out of the oven. The last photo is a plate of slices — let the rolls cool, then use a serrated knife to cut the pieces.

Enjoy. Btw, the rolls freeze beautifully.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Lily Vail’s Nut Roll

 dough:

• 1/2 pound unsalted butter

• 3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1/2 cup sugar

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 2 large eggs, separated

• 1/2 cup dairy sour cream

• 2 tablespoons milk

filling:

• 1 cup sugar

• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 12 ounces chopped nuts (about 3 cups)

Cut the butter into chunks and place in the bowl of an electric mixer. Add the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and mix (using the flat paddle if your machine has one) at slow speed until the ingredients are blended and crumbly looking. Make a well in the center and add the egg yolks, sour cream and milk. Mix the ingredients at medium speed until a smooth, uniform dough has formed. Knead the dough 3-4 times on a floured surface; shape into a cylinder, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 8 hours.  Cut the cylinder into 3 parts. Mix the sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl. Working with one dough part at a time, roll out on a floured surface into a circle about 1/16-inch (very thin). Sprinkle each circle with 1/3 of the cinnamon-sugar and 1/3 of the chopped nuts. Roll up tightly into a compact roll, tucking in the sides. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Place the rolls in the refrigerator for about 20-30 minutes. Brush the rolls with some of the egg white. Bake the rolls for 40-45 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool and slice.

Makes 3 Nut Rolls 

Bitter Greens Salad with Orange

Bitter Greens Salad with Orange 

There’s always so much food on Thanksgiving that everyone I know complains, including me.

Before: there’s going to be too much food. Day of: there’s too much food. Day after: there was too much food.

The complaining is a necessary part of the routine IMHO, maybe in a way to forgive ourselves the plenty. And for overeating of course. 

But the whole idea of Thanksgiving IS the plenty. Isn’t that symbolic of all the things we are thankful for?

Well, I don’t want to get any more philosophical. So I’ll just say I like serving lots of food, even if everyone groans “there’s too much!” and then eats everything and then complains. Call it the Jewish mother in me.

But honestly, one thing I find helpful when serving a meal of plenty that includes heavy dishes like stuffing and potatoes and gravy and vegetables with crusts or sauces, is to have a salad too. Not just as an extra, another side dish to put on the table, but because salad ingredients, especially if they have robust greens (arugula, endive, radicchio, watercress and so on) and acidic dressings (vinaigrette as opposed to Ranch or thick sour cream dressings) help balance and lighten up the meal. 

Here’s a salad made with three kinds of hardy greens, cut with chunks of orange, a little crunch of nuts (you can leave these out if you wish) and a light citrusy dressing. It’s pretty too, adding a bit of color to the meal.

Bitter Greens Salad with Orange

• 3 navel oranges

• 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

• 3 tablespoons olive oil

• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

• 3 large Belgian endives

• 1 bunch watercress

• 1 small head radicchio

• salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

• 3-4 tablespoons toasted pignoli nuts, optional

Grate enough of the peel of one orange to equal one teaspoon. Place in a bowl and add the white wine vinegar, olive oil and mustard. Halve the orange that has been grated and squeeze the juice from one of the halves into the bowl. Mix to blend the ingredients completely and set aside. Reserve the other half of the orange for other purposes. Peel the remaining two oranges and remove all the white pith that surrounds the segments. Cut the orange flesh into thick slices, then cut the slices into chunks and set aside. Wash and dry the endive leaves and cut them in half. Place the endive in a bowl. Wash and dry the watercress, discard any thick stems and add to the bowl with the endive. Wash and dry the radicchio leaves, cut them if they are large, and add them to the bowl and toss the greens. Pour the dressing over the leaves and toss. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Scatter the nuts over the salad if desired.

Makes 8 servings

Essie’s Soup

It’s awfully dark out there. And although it looks like the usual gloomy morning when a hurricane-is-about-to-strike, somehow this one seems more ominous. Maybe I’ve just listened to too many news and weather reports, but I’ve prepared for Sandy like never before.

Water, batteries, ice. Check, check, check. Take in the outdoor furniture. Check.

Everything is closed. Schools, stores. No government services, like garbage pickup.

Judging by the lines at the gas stations, the horns honking too often when a light turns green, the empty shelves in the supermarket and number of people using ATMs, it seems as if everyone around here in Connecticut is stressed out.

I’ve prepared just-in-case food. Just in case we lose power, which is almost a certainty. During hurricane Irene we were out of power for 4 days.

I fried chicken cutlets and cooked (and sliced) a pot roast so we could have sandwiches. Bought fresh carrots and other vegetables we can eat raw, canned tuna, and milk for cereal. Baked some cookies so we could nibble something sweet.

And made soup. One of my favorites, which we call “Essie’s Soup,” because it was concocted years ago by my cousin Essie.

When my son-in-law Jesse first tasted some he said “what’s the difference between this and cholent?” And I had never thought about that before, but he nailed it. Essie’s soup is as thick as cholent, loaded with beans and dried peas, plus a few extras like: barley, lentils, wheatberries and stuff. Sometimes I add fresh carrots, onions and celery, but didn’t this time because, to tell you the truth, I forgot.

Essie’s soup is very very thick and gets thicker the more it cooks.

There’s no particular recipe really, so I’ll give you the broad parameters in a recipe.

This is a soup I can rewarm on my portable cooktop (which I use for cooking demonstrations). I did also buy extra butane canisters. But it’s also the kind of thing you can eat at room temperature in case that becomes a necessity.

Essie’s Soup

6-8 marrow bones

2 packages Streit’s or Manischewitz packaged vegetable, split pea or lima bean soup

2 cups mixed dried beans

1 cup split peas

1/2 cup barley

1/2 cup wheatberries, farro or spelt

4 carrots, sliced, optional

2-3 stalks celery, sliced, optional

1 large onion, peeled and sliced, optional

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Rinse the bones and place them in a large soup pot. Add water to within 3-inches from the top of the pot. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and skim the surface for a few minutes. Add the entire contents of both packages of soup (including the contents inside the seasoning packet). Add the beans, peas, barley, wheatberries, carrots, celery, onion and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil over high heat, lower the heat to a simmer and cook for several hours (at least 5), stirring occasionally, until the soup is thick. Cook longer if desired. If soup is too thick, add water and heat through. Makes a lot, depending on how long you cook it, but about 4 quarts

Old Fashioned Carrot Soup

In our family, when there’s a baby about to be born, we cook a bunch of stuff to freeze so that the tired, sleep-deprived new Mom and Dad don’t have to worry about dinner. My daughters Meredith and Gillian and I make stuff like Spinach Pie, Baked Ziti, Bean Soup and so on, pack them into family-size containers and put them in cold storage until the time comes.

So it’s a good thing we start well ahead because SURPRISE, we got a call at about 4:00 a.m. on September 30th that Gillian was on her way to the birthing center, 17 days before the due date and lickety-split, baby Carina Joy was born before we could even get there.

We are thrilled of course. New babies do that. Carina has a head-full of hair and two fat dimples. Gillian, who worked out almost every day and is fit as ever, is doing well and looks great.

All of this happened suddenly to Gillian and Jesse after a big move and in the middle of pre-school applications for Remy, age 2 (for next year!).

So yesterday I opened the freezer and brought them a few stored items, including this carrot soup. Dinner was all done.

Old Fashioned Carrot Soup

·      2 tablespoons butter or margarine

·      2 tablespoons vegetable oil

·      1 medium onion, coarsely chopped

·      2 pounds carrots, coarsely chopped

·      2 medium all-purpose potatoes, peeled and coarsely chopped

·      1/4 cup chopped parsley

·      2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

·      1-1/2 teaspoons salt, or to taste

·      freshly ground black pepper to taste

·      7 cups vegetable stock

·      pinch of sugar

·      1 cup cream (any kind) or cream substitute

Heat the butter and vegetable oil together in a soup pot over medium heat. When the butter has melted and looks foamy, add the onion and cook for 3-4 minutes or until softened. Add the carrots, potatoes, parsley, dill, salt and pepper and cook for 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the stock and sugar. Bring the soup to a simmer. Cook, partially covered, for 45 minutes. Puree the soup in a food processor or blender (or use a hand blender). Return the soup to the pan. Stir in the cream. Heat the soup through and serve.

Makes 6 servings

The Kugel to End all Kugels

This is the kugel to end all kugels.

I mean it. I am a kugel-eating expert, if only because when I grew up my grandmother and mom made salty kugel stuffed with mushrooms and onions and it was only when I was grown, married and with kids that I had my first taste of this. That taste was a transforming moment.

My friend Susan brought this dish to my annual Break-the-fast (she got the recipe from her friend Linda and I don’t know where Linda got it).

For years after that I have tasted more kugels than you could possibly imagine (including those hard, dried up things they sell in some supermarkets) always trying to surpass that moment of culinary discovery. 

I was even a judge once in a kugel contest.

I have made some wonderful kugels since then. But this is still my favorite. I always ask Susan to make an extra one so there will be leftovers. I pack pieces of it in my freezer so I can have a little treat whenever.

Don’t even think about the calories. Just enjoy.

Susan/Linda’s Sweet Noodle Kugel

      1 12-ounce package egg noodles

      1 8-ounce package cream cheese at room temperature

      1/4 pound unsalted butter at room temperature

      1 cup sugar

      2 cups dairy sour cream

      6 large eggs

      1 teaspoon cinnamon

      1 cup raisins, optional

      2 cups crushed frosted flakes or corn flakes

      4 tablespoons melted butter

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cook the noodles in slightly salted water until al dente (not soft). Drain and set aside. In an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter until thoroughly blended and softened. Beat in the sugar until well blended. Add the sour cream and blend thoroughly. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Stir in the cinnamon and raisins, if used. Pour the mixture into the noodles and toss to coat them completely. Place in a baking dish. Combine the frosted flakes and melted butter and sprinkle on top of the noodles. Bake for about 40 minutes or until the top is crispy. 

Makes 8 servings  

Apple Cake

Sometimes simple is best. This is the time of year I buy a load of apples and bake pies and fancy cakes and gorgeous French apple tarts.

But, with all the cooking and baking I’m doing now, I also try to make a few really easy desserts that are light and fresh tasting so we can eat them even after a heavy holiday meal.

This one is a classic. Good plain, with a hot cup of coffee or tea. Or with ice cream of course.

I think I could write a whole book about different kinds of apple cake.

Apple Cake

3-4 medium tart apples, peeled, cored and coarsely chopped

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1-1/4 cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

1/4 cup apple, orange, peach or mango juice

1 teaspoon grated lemon peel

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 10-inch springform pan (or a 9”x13” cake pan). Combine the apples, 1/4 cup sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl and set aside. Place the flour, baking powder, salt, 1-1/4 cups sugar and vegetable oil in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat at medium speed for 2-3 minutes or until thoroughly blended. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Stir in the juice, lemon peel and vanilla extract. Spoon half the batter into the prepared pan. Spoon some of the apple mixture on top. Repeat the layers. Bake for about 65-75 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

Makes one cake