Marianne Vallet-Sandre, the News' July Cook of the Month, serves this mayonnaise-free potato salad, brightened with fresh herbs from her backyard garden, alongside her beef roulade.
Salade de Pommes de Terres aux Herbes at a la Vinaigrette (French herb and vinaigrette potato salad)
Several varieties of potatoes may be used for this salad, but the ones which work best are new waxy potatoes. White or red-skinned work equally well. You can make more than you need for the first meal, as this mixture will keep several days in the refrigerator for subsequent servings, as long as you allow it to return to room temperature before serving.
Salad should be prepared a few hours before it is needed to allow seasonings to be absorbed by the potatoes. Do not refrigerate, while you wait to serve. Cover with plastic wrap and leave on the counter. Refrigerate leftovers for subsequent days.
- 3 pounds well scrubbed potatoes, skin on
- Salt
- ½ large sweet Spanish or Vidalia onion finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley
- 2 tablespoons finely chopped tarragon or basil, or both
- 1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh thyme or ½ teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped chives
- ¼ cup dry white wine
- ¼ cup chicken stock or broth
- ¼ cup olive oil
- Prepared vinaigrette for final seasoning:
- ¼ cup wine vinegar
- ¾ cup olive oil
- Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
- (Mix all ingredients and keep handy in a small covered jar)
Place well scrubbed potatoes in a large pot and add water to cover and salt to taste. Bring to a boil and cook until the potatoes are tender, (check after 20-25 minutes, cooking time will vary with size). Drain, let potatoes begin to cool in their skins.
Peel the potatoes and cut them into 3/4 inch cubes, or ¼ inch slices if you prefer. Place potatoes in a large mixing bowl, and while they are still warm, sprinkle with chopped onion, wine, stock, olive oil and herbs. Toss gently to mix. Add a little salt and pepper to taste. Allow the potatoes to absorb the liquids.
Just before serving, gently toss salad, and moisten with additional prepared vinaigrette as needed to obtain desired dressing moisture.
Was your sixth-grader going to spend next week watching the Food Network? Get them out of the house and into the kitchen, because there's still a few spots left in the
Area 1 BOCES "Culinary Kids" camp. You have to decide in the next day or two, so move fast if you're interested.
Those headed to sixth through ninth grade can enroll in the program, held in the state-of-the-art kitchens of the Potter Career and Technical Center, 705 Potter Road, West Seneca.
Kids tackle a different dish each day, from scratch: breakfast pizza, quesadillas, taco soup, macaroni and cheese and apple crepes.
"It's a state of the art kitchen, and we have all the facilities, so it's a great way to expose students to that kind of environment," said BOCES program coordinator Diane Scholl. "A lot of students think, macaroni and cheese, you just open the box. We're going to show them different."
The program has a half-day option, which costs $95 for two classes, including Culinary Kids. Sessions run in the morning and afternoon.
Parents who want to enroll their kids should pick a second class from the list. They include Video Production, Fitness, Team Challenges, hovercraft building, Nail and Hair Styling, Behind the Scenes (theater production), and Blank Canvas (acrylic painting). More description is available in the brochure,
here. Then call Scholl at 821-7390.
Quick, what's the difference between baking powder and baking soda?
I had to look it up, and I can't be the only one.
Here's
a clear, well-illustrated primer from
J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at
Serious Eats, complete with delicious pancake pictures.
The short answer is that baking soda, sodium bicarbonate, reacts with acids to make gas bubbles. Baking powder is baking soda with powdered acid and starch included, so all it has to do is get wet.
But that's just the beginning. Lopez-Alt's article is well worth the read for cooks who want to understand how their ingredients work, and make up their own recipes. Armed with that knowledge, you'll be one step closer to cooking on your own, no longer a slave to cookbooks whose recipes you might follow, but whose mysteries you will never understand.
A
noodle bar has joined the Seneca Niagara Casino's Koi restaurant in Niagara Falls. Open this week, it offers congee, rice bowls, dumplings and noodle soups to gamblers and other folks looking for Chinese Chinese food.
(Chinese Chinese meaning relatively authentic Chinese dishes, as opposed to the Sweet-and-Sour Fried Whatever that makes up the majority of American Chinese food found in Western New York.)
The Seneca Nation's gambling operations take care to accommodate Chinese folks, and the noodle bar is designed to feed people fast, between hands of Pai Gow poker or whatever. Diners can be in and out in 20 minutes, said Tony Astran, casino publicity manager. It's not the only place where you can find congee, or rice porridge, in Western New York, but it's quite likely the finest surroundings.
On the menu: Noodle soups are $10, including pork and shrimp wonton, beef tendon and curry fish ball. Congees, $8, include preserved egg and lean pork, and fish fillet with cilantro. Dumplings, $8, include har gau (shrimp dumplings) and steamed juicy dumplings, known elsewhere as "soup dumplings."
Turns out chicken wings aren't that bad for you. Wait, that's not quite right.
Buffalo-style wings aren't the worst dish in New York State, at least according to Health.com's list of the fattiest foods across the United States.
Tipping the scales was the Garbage Plate at Nick Tahou's. Notorious drunk food for Rochester college boys, the plate boasts a mountain of home fries, mayo-slicked macaroni salad, meats like cheeseburgers or grilled white hots, baked beans or french fries, doused in Texas hots meat sauce, mustard and onions.
"While there’s no official dietary analysis for the various versions of garbage
plates," Health.com writes, "estimates and homemade recipes clock in at anywhere from about 93 grams
of fat per plate to an astounding 203 grams, enough for more than three days."
They didn't even include the Garbage Plate's customary throw-in, a plate of bread and butter. So eat hearty, wing lovers. There's nothing for the digestion like chowing down while thinking, "It could be worse."
(Related Metafilter thread with stories of Garbage Plate and high-calorie hijinks.)
Kraft is
looking for a real live giggle to polish up its newest Jell-O ads, and
the campaign will stop in LeRoy - home to the Jell-O Museum - this weekend. The auditions will happen on Sunday, in a recording truck at the
Oatka Festival, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Children older than 7 and adults can stop by the Jell-O stand for free samples, T-shirts and a shot at giggling their way to Hollywood. The winner of the nationwide search, to be chosen by returning Jell-O pitchman Bill Cosby, gets a trip to Hollywood to film the commercial.
Here's a recipe from Robb Walsh's "Tex-Mex Grill and Backyard Barbacoa Cookbook" (Broadway, $19), reviewed in today's News. The dish was developed by Lebanese immigrants to Mexico who adapted their traditional shawarma recipes to local ingredients.
Tacos al Pastor
Makes 12 Tacos
City health departments in the United States have outlawed tacos al pastor because the pork on the vertical roaster is uncooked. Here’s a recipe that captures the same flavor.
¼ cup granulated garlic
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon powdered chile
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Pinch of ground cumin
Salt
2 cups freshly squeezed orange juice
1 tablespoon achiote paste (optional)
2 pounds boneless pork loin, thinly sliced
½ pineapple, peeled, cored, and cut into long, thick strips
FOR SERVING
12 tortillas, warmed
Onions and Cilantro
Picante Sauce
In a medium bowl, combine the garlic, vinegar, oregano, chile powder, black pepper, cumin, salt to taste, orange juice, and achiote paste, if using. Add the pork slices and turn to coat both sides. Marinate for at least 1 hour.
Heat the grill. Place the meat over hot coals and cook, turning once and basting with any leftover marinade during cooking, until crisp. At the same time, grill the pineapple strips, turning as needed, until lightly browned.
To assemble, chop the grilled pork into ¼-inch pieces. Cut the pineapple into ½-inch pieces. Place the pork on the warmed tortillas and top with onions and cilantro and pineapple pieces. Serve the picante sauce on the side.
Pancakes can surely be beautiful, especially when glossed with butter and maple syrup.
But
Jim's Pancakes are art. Jim is a dad who started out trying to delight his 3-year-old daughter with fanciful designs, and got into it in a big way.
Hello Kitty pancakes? No problem. Bumblebees? Crabs? All in a morning's work.
You have to sign up for a
free email newsletter to get Jim's batter recipe, which is kind of a drag.
But tips for making them - and the inspiration they provide - come no strings attached.
It's the Fourth of July weekend, so lots of cooks are going a bit grill-crazy. Well, Mark Bittman was there way ahead of you.
With his 101 Fast Recipes for Grilling, the New York Times writer lives up to his role as "The Minimalist" by offering quick sketches of dishes, based on fruit, vegetables, meat and bread, that can use a little charcoal kiss. They're ideas, not blueprints with measurements and serving sizes and such. So read it for concepts, summon up some culinary courage, and strike out on your own.
Some of the suggestions are pretty out there - grilled guacamole? - but it's going to be a rare eater who looks through the list and can't pick out 10 intriguing options.
Grilled salad? Grilled watermelon? Grilled chicken parm? Yes, please. For every grilled beet vegan delight, there's a carnivore crowd-pleaser, like the Philly cheesesteak burger.
You can't get more minimalist than No. 41: "Bacon-wrapped hot dog. You know you want one."
A NOTE FROM YOUR CORRESPONDENT: I'm on vacation and will probably not post here until I return July 12, hopefully rested, and definitely hungry for more.
