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Posted by Kyle on February 4th, 2010, at 5:39 pm
 Scrambled Eggs Glad to be back after a school related lapse. I will be continuing my trek through the Good Eats episodes with scrambled eggs from the first Egg Files episode. After going through life with mediocre scrambled eggs, I jumped at the opportunity to try a recipe different from my parents’ recipe. As it turns out, the key to great scrambled eggs is to induce steam and fold them instead of stirring them. This allows for a perfectly light texture that is still moist. That brings me to the main lesson of scrambled eggs: if the eggs look done in the pan, they will be overdone by the time they make it to the plate. This means that your eggs should still look moist when you serve them to the plate, because they will continue to cook.
So even if you think you don’t like scrambled eggs, I would urge you to give this recipe a try. Maybe you were like me and had mediocre scrambled eggs all your life. This recipe is simple, and once you get the guidelines you can do it without a recipe on hand. So give this recipe a try, and the next time you have guests for breakfast, you can wow them with the best scrambled eggs they’ve ever had.
 Eggs with a Side of Bacon Click through to keep reading Scrambled Eggs →
Posted by William on February 2nd, 2010, at 4:30 pm
This, mind you, isn’t your American cheese covered lasagna. It’s a meat and bechemel lasagna that packs quite a lot of flavor. I have nothing against the more common cheesy ricotta and mozzarella lasagnas–that’s what I usually make! But as I researched the bolognese recipe, I came across anecdotal accounts asserting that ricotta was not common in a the old-style Italian lasagnas. A few comments on Cooking For Engineers and on Chowhound mention that the tradational lasagna bolognese omits ricotta and mozzarella and instead uses a bechamel sauce.
 The layers of lasagna bolognese I didn’t need much more convincing to attempt a go at a new recipe. Replacing the combination of cheeses with bechamel worked like a charm. I didn’t even miss the ricotta or mozzarella from the recipe. The smooth, thick sauce was enough to give flavor and moisture to the dish allowing the layers to remain distinct (and to help hydrate the noodles).
I again found Cooks Illustrated and Epicurious helpful with ideas of where to start and how to assemble this. The assembly follows the Cook’s Illustrated almost identically and had a fantastic result.
Click through to keep reading Lasagna Bolognese →
Posted by William on January 28th, 2010, at 1:42 pm
Last week the BBC had a segment about Italian chefs campaigning for better spaghetti
bolognese. It seems that the traditional ragu has changed into something that they no longer recognize as bolognese. There are a few rules that the classically trained Italian chefs cling to when making the sauce that others seem to ignore. I’ve made plenty of meat sauces, and even one or two authentic bologneses (bolognii, how is that conjugated?). I wasn’t always aware that bolognese referred to a specific recipe style and recipe, but just as a square is a specific type of rectangle, a bolognese is a specific type of meat sauce.
 Bolognese with tagliatelle There are a few key ingredients and methods that are overlooked by many when attempting a bolognese sauce. It’s not quite as simple as mixing ground beef and tomato suace together–that may make a good meat sauce, but it’s not a bolognese.
The two most often overlooked ingredients in a bolognese are white wine, and milk. Yes, white whine, and milk. Sounds odd to many people. The BBC segment even has reaction shots of people discovering their their beloved dish should be made with milk!
A quick search online reveals many variations on the classic meat sauce recipe. Some recipes look nothing like the original with the additions of peppers, mushrooms, red wine, even cheeses directly into the sauce. I’ve attempted to keep my recipe basic without making any alarming changes. One difference I did adopt was instead of just beef and pancetta (or bacon), I use a mixture of beef, veal, and sausage to provide a complex base of meaty flavor.
Oh, and one thing the video points out is that is should be served with tagliatelle, not spaghetti. Italian chefs can be quick to point out that each shape and style of pasta is best suited for different kinds of sauce. The wide, semi-rough ribbons of tagliatelle make it ideal for thicker meatier sauces to cling to. Spaghetti can work, but it’s not ideal. The thin, round, slick strands make it difficult to hold the meat with the pasta. If you can’t find it in the store, go with fettuccine.
Click through to keep reading Bolognese →
Posted by William on January 26th, 2010, at 1:12 pm
A brief education on winter squashes and their applications is in order. I wanted to try to do this post earlier as they were coming in season, but grocery stores still have plenty in stock and they should be available for a bit longer still.
 Various Winter Squash. Image from Flickr user monado. Click the image to go to the photo page. Winter squash is a general term for a large variety of thick skinned, firm vegetables of the genus Cucurbita. Unlike their close relative, the summer squash, these are allowed to mature completely (hence the thicker skin, bigger seeds, and tougher flesh).
Despite the name, winter squashes are actually planted in warm weather and don’t like very cold temperatures. The seeds are susceptible to the cold and are easily damaged by frost. The ‘winter’ terminology comes from the fact that once squash matures to this stage, the vegetables can be easily and safely stored for use in the winter when less fresh produce is typically available. As the harvest season generally begins around September, these are ideal candidates for use in the cold winter months.
Varieties
I won’t list them all here, but I’ll mention a few of the ones I normally purchase. My first impulse is always butternut squash, but acorn comes in at a close second. Butternut squash has orange flesh that is slightly sweet. The exterior is cream to light-orange colored and shaped like a large pear. Acorn squash is normally green and often speckled with orange or yellow patches. The flavor is nutty and somewhat sweet. I don’t particularly fancy pumpkin, but many do. Spaghetti squash is nice, but a bit stringier (like spaghetti-go figure). Here are a few other popular types: buttercup, calabaza, delicata, Hubbard, and sweet dumpling.
 Winter Squash. Photo by Flickr user m kasahara. Click the image to go to the photo page. Uses
Nearly everyone has heard of pumpkin pies and pumpkin breads, but almost any thick winter squash can be substituted for pumpkin in these recipes. Most people cannot even tell a significant difference between a butternut squash pie and pumpkin pie. The smoother, less stringy flesh of butternut squash can actually make for a better textured pie.
Squash is commonly peeled, diced, and roasted or boiled/steamed for use in other preparations. Cubed squash can be roast with potatoes and other root vegetables. Roasted or boiled squash can be blended into soups for flavor and to increase the thickness.
A couple other ideas to get you started include:
- roasting the seeds from any type of squash with savory or sweet herbs/spices
- roasting with apple chunks and a dash of cinnamon and maple syrup
- using the strings of spaghetti squash as a low-carb pasta
- serving roasted or steamed squash mixed with brown rice, asparagus and roasted squash seeds
Click through for preparation tips, storage advice, and nutritional information.
Posted by William on January 20th, 2010, at 2:35 pm
Chicken enchiladas are nearly a comfort food. They come together quickly, can be prepared cheaply, are nice and cheesy and hot and filling and tasty and a run-on sentence. I haven’t specifically talked about comfort food in a while (though the Potage is a good example), but this definitely fits my criteria.
Considering the relatively few ingredients, these enchiladas pack quite a bit of flavor. Using chili powder is a handy shortcut for flavor as it is really a mixture of several spices. For extra tender chicken, use thigh and leg meat. I ended up with breast meat for two reasons, first, it’s a bit healthier, and second (and this was the deciding factor), it was on sale for a ridiculously low price. I also used whole wheat tortillas instead of corn or white flour ones. Personally, I’m a fan of the earthier taste of whole wheat so I tend to eat whole wheat breads fairly often (the one big exception is hearth breads and baguettes, but that’s another story). I’m not sure that those changes really classify as making this a healthy dish anyway, so I won’t claim it is. But it’s not unhealthy and it was tasty. Really tasty.
 Chicken Enchiladas Oddly enough, I had never made enchiladas before. Now that I have, I am confident that it is something that I will make again. I even like how it lends itself to a lot of advance preparation. This would be a great dish to serve for a casual evening with some Mexican beers and margaritas. When it comes time to prepare it, all that would be left to do is move the dish from the oven to the fridge for 25 minutes or so.
Click through to keep reading Chicken Enchiladas →
Posted by William on January 14th, 2010, at 3:17 pm
This chili is a fantastic, healthy interpretation of the classic meat stew. Chili, like barbecue, can stir up some fights about methodology and contents, and I’m sure I broke a few rules here. This isn’t meant to be authentic. It’s more of an homage than anything else (call it a derivative work if you don’t like it).
This version is light, zesty, and flavorful–but just heavy and soupy enough to still make it a good contender for cold weather comfort food. (Though it could easily be a feature in a Spring picnic.) The key to making this chili is lots of peppers, at least three different kinds, in fact. A few cans of beans, and some shredded turkey breast later and you have what you can satisfactory call a turkey chili.
 Turkey chili. I particularly like this recipe because it provides a healthy and lighter alternative to to the heavy and often fatty stews often served during the cold weather. Those have their place, but sometimes it’s nice to know you managed to have a great meal and eat something healthful too.
Click through to keep reading Turkey Chili →
Posted by William on January 12th, 2010, at 3:25 pm
The French just seem to have a knack making soups. One of my favorites is a potage; It’s a type of thick vegetable soup that loosely translates to “it’s cold outside and I want a good soup to warm me up.” Alright, no, it doesn’t translate to that at all. But that’s how I remember it.
Every year as the weather started getting colder, my mother would start boiling away vegetables in a large pot to make this soup. As I started to develop an interest in cooking, I tried to pay attention to what she was putting into the pot but I could never figure it out. Just when I thought I understood, I realized that the recipe was different than the previous ones! She seemed to say something about potatoes, leeks, and “n’importe quel légume frais”. This always baffled me. Not because I didn’t understand French (I did, she was saying “any fresh vegetables”), but because it seemed impossible to consistently make the same soup over again.
 A potage soup. Of course, her reply was that you wouldn’t want to make the same soup! I insisted that you could make a good recipe and remake it for yourself or guests if needed. “Oh, mais c’est toujours bon,” she would say, proclaiming it is always good.
If it was so seemingly straightforward, what was there to worry about? Honestly, I was afraid that I would end up with baby food. Isn’t that what you think of when you think of blended, boiled carrots? It seems that the French don’t automatically think that. Instead, they think that it would probably taste good in a soup. You know what? They are right. Again.
Click through to keep reading Potage →
Posted by Kyle on January 8th, 2010, at 11:03 am
I would be the other character you see on this site. Nice to meet everyone, I’m Kyle. Watch as I effortlessly slip into third person to talk about myself…
Based on Kyle’s predominantly German and Swedish heritage, the outcome of his culinary creations looked bleak. But somehow, he was able to overcome his genetics and expand beyond the realm of sausages and pickled herring. He spent many of his younger years a sous-chef to his father, which mainly consisted of icing Christmas cookies. It wasn’t until his was exposed to the flavorless, mediocre food of the dining halls in college that he ventured to cook for himself.
Through numerous failures and successes, a beacon of light appeared! It was the Food Network! Through the adept tutelage of Alton Brown on Good Eats (as well as others), Kyle surpassed his father and went on to make numerous delicious dishes. Sharing the same drive as William to perfect his culinary technique, he continues to research and try new dishes of many cultures (he even sometimes does cook sausage).
This is why William begged Kyle to become a partner in his food blog.
According to Kyle’s stalker, he is currently in graduate school for a Doctorate of Physical Therapy. He even occasionally posts on the food blog, although it is sometimes a rare sighting. It occurs as often as Kyle’s teachers let him come out to play, so keep your eye’s peeled for his next post.
Other than that he enjoys Martial Arts, beer, and has been known to occasionally strum a guitar.
Posted by William on January 5th, 2010, at 9:21 pm
It’s about time I tidy up a few things on this site, like the “About Us” section. Here is my story…
When William was a young boy, his father took him aside and said, “Ei up, come ‘ere lad. The reason being yur English, you must know how make beans on toast, like your father used to do when ‘e was a young lad. Now listen carefully…” And brutal simplicity of English cooking was bestowed upon the child.
Soon after, his mother took him aside and said, “Viens ici! William, because you are French, it is necessary that you know how to make a béchamel. If not, you will be ridiculed! I will teach you, Voyons…” And the cunning complexity of the French cuisine was bestowed upon the child.
(On a related note, upon his birth, the doctor that delivered him took one look upon the boy and said, “I know this child is here to make the perfect BLT” So the doctor tried to make a BLT with him (har har har), but before he could be eaten he was whisked away and this photo was taken.)
 Baby, Lettuce, and Tomato William was reared in the Southern United States, surrounded with cornbread, mashed potatoes made with so much butter they are yellow, sweet tea, collard greens, biscuits, Waffle House All Star Specials, and plenty of other food which shouldn’t make sense, but does.
William also somehow developed this character trait where if he has to do something and it’s something he likes to do, he will find out everything he can about it and will practice it to perfection. When he left for college, he had to feed himself and this lead him to an obsession with everything edible.
So if you think about it, it was kind of inevitable that he would make this website for you.
(a version of this post will be posted on the “about us” page.)
Other than that, William can drive stick, run marathons, brew his own beer, and is an INTJ.
Posted by William on December 29th, 2009, at 1:27 pm
Pronounced like ‘gone’, not like ‘bone’. (Though I promise note to scoff if you pronounce it like the latter.) Either way, I don’t really take issue with the way people choose to call it. Instead, I rally against what most people think of as scones.
 Dried Cranberry Scones Scones, in the US at least, tend to fall into one of two categories. The first can be identified as the overly sweet, cakey desserts sold in overpriced coffee shops. The second type are the wedge shaped triangles that are so hard that they can be used to drive nails into a wall. Either variety may be so chock full of nuts, berries, or other things that they resemble trail mix wrapped in bread. Somewhere along the way the real scone was lost.
Scones should be slightly flaky, have a moist interior, and be made with plenty of butter or even cream. The fattiness and moisture is what helps keep a proper scone tender. The dough itself is folded a few times, but not overworked to get flaky layers of biscuit-like texture.
Though these scones were largely a success, I’ll have to make them again. I presented these to my family and though they were very much enjoyed, my father took issue with the chosen shape. The scones he was familiar with back in England were traditionally round, not triangular. He also claimed that he did not remember his mother using cream in the dough. The only way to settle this is to find a recipe my father has tucked away in the house somewhere and make those. We may have to wait a while for the results as I may not be back home in a while, but you can be sure the result will be documented here.
 Dried Cranberry Scones. Click through to keep reading Scone →
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