Mouthing Off

With little notice, we are moving our Test Kitchen to temporary digs across town. Not only do we have to pack up equipment and tools, we have to empty our freezers—freezers that (in my case) have housed long-since-forgotten items, held on to for some future use. (I've had this fridge since 2002...) It's sort of liberating to get rid of things, but I must say, I'm very sad at tossing my two quarts of rendered duck fat. Yes, I could take it home to fry potatoes, but I'd like to someday meet my grandkids....
I did find several packages of frozen sweet cherries that I couldn't bear to toss (remember how thrifty/cheap I am). I didn't feel like baking them into a clafouti or pastry, so I threw them into a food processor with some honey and lemon juice and made a superfast sorbet. Since I can't eat it all in one sitting, it will have to go back into the freezer, but with a few more days until the move, I'm sure it won't get lost in there.

QUICK CHERRY SORBET
MAKES 4 CUPS

Two 10-ounce bags frozen sweet cherries
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup honey or agave nectar

Put all the ingredients into a food processor and puree until smooth. Transfer to a shallow bowl and freeze until firm, about 1 hour. Scoop and serve!

I like to think of myself as resourceful and clever  and not just cheap, especially when it comes to scraps  ("orts" if you do crosswords...). But this new use of broccoli stems is SO resourceful and clever, it makes me angry I didn't think of it first.

There's no lack of great small-batch pickles —ramps, beans, okra, watermelon rind, you name it-and no lack of great recipes, but I am definitely looking forward to trying these pickled broccoli stems, published in yesterday's New York Times Health section. Most of the nutrients in broccoli are contained in the crown, or the florets. But there is loads of much-needed fiber in those stems, and all it takes is a clever and resourceful cook to find ways to use them.

I'd buy Country Life butter—for no other reason than because I can't imagine a bigger disconnect between product and spokesperson. In this spot on British TV , John Lydon, a.k.a. Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols, is seen in a stuffy private-club reading room, at a cricket match, driving through the countryside in a vintage Bentley and on a country estate running from cows. All silly, indeed, but the biggest disconnect is the twee suburban kitchen where he breakfasts on tea and toast in a boring plaid bathrobe. (Probably not that far from the truth.)

There are more widely available (and less hawked by notorious D-list celebs) butters, like Meyenberg  (pale white) goat-milk butter, which is so delightfully goaty that I find it irresistible. Organic Valley cultured unsalted butter is another one of my favorites, with a slightly tangy flavor and lovely yellow hue. Both are great with steamed fish, which allows the sweetness and silkiness to come through. 

For quite some time now, the only lamb I've been able to buy is from New Zealand. Thanks to Costco, it's cheap and sold in bulk (good for feeding my family). The only downside is that I never find it all that flavorful. I guess that's fine if you don't like the taste of lamb, but then you should just buy beef...

A friend sent me eight lamb loin chops from an American lamb farmer, and I was eager to try them. After a quick marinade in garlic, olive oil and a hit of balsamic vinegar, I seared them and finished them in the oven. They were tender, succulent and lamb-y (not a baaaad thing, in my book). It was like the lamb of my childhood—packed with flavor, not like the overbred bland lamb I've grown accustomed to.  

Here's my easy recipe:

8 lamb loin chops, (preferably American), about 1 1/2-inches thick
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon chopped rosemary
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 425°. In a resealable plastic bag, combine the lamb with the garlic, rosemary, vinegar, 1/4 cup of the oil and very generous pinches of salt and pepper. Seal the bag and let sit at room temperature for 1 hour. Drain the lamb, reserving the marinade. Heat the remaining oil in a large ovenproof skillet until shimmering. Add the lamb and cook until browned all over, about 6 minutes, turning once. Add the marinade, transfer to the oven and roast for about 5 minutes longer for medium-cooked lamb. 

I'm very excited about an upcoming Tasting & Testing column for which I get to develop a great recipe for ramen—Japanese noodle soup. I've made it to a few New York City ramen shops, Rai Rai Ken and Ippudo —for some much-needed research. What's nice about the more low-key places (those that serve noodles at a counter facing the kitchen) is that I can pretty much see everything that goes into my bowl just by standing up—very helpful when working on a new recipe. I saw what went into the stock, how they cooked the noodles, how they dressed the bowls, etc.

What I missed there, I learned from watching Cooking With Dog on YouTube . On this show, a woman demos all sorts of Japanese dishes, from ramen to katsudon (fried pork cutlet) to okonomiyaki (Japanese egg foo yong). Beside her, perched on a wooden stool next to the countertop hot plate, sits a gray toy poodle. The eponymous "Dog," though not directly addressed, is very well behaved—never nibbling at the skillet or pawing at the ingredients or acting up, as dogs often do when in front of the camera. He just sits there like a curly gray Buddha, observing. He is rewarded, however, with a small treat at the end of each segment. There's much to learn about ramen here—for example, that the sliced, braised pork needs to be crisped under the broiler before it goes onto the soup, and that by squeezing the pork you release the fat (really?). But having once been the owner of an ill-tempered mutt, what I'd really like to know is, how did they train "Dog"?

Since it's just two days until Christmas, we all decided it would be nice to start the festivities a little early. When F&W wine guru Ray Isle asked how we in the Test Kitchen were, I replied, "We'd be better if we were drinking a little wine." No sooner had Test Kitchen goddess Melissa Rubel suggested something pink and bubbly than Ray returned with a bottle of Pierre Sparr, sparkling rosé. It accompanied the steamed fish I am testing (for April's Tasting & Testing column) brilliantly, not to mention lifted all our spirits. God bless us, every one!

Eco or cuckoo? Efficient or lazy? Resourceful or just plain cheap?  Given my family's distaste for leftovers, my near inability to make "just enough" and the rate at which my fridge gets emptied, I found myself tossing way too much moldy, rotten food in the trash. I'm now on a mission at home to waste as little as possible, especially in the kitchen.  

Sure, broccoli stems, rotisserie chicken bones and carrot butts all do double duty; I store them in Ziplock bags that date back to the '90s and use them for things like slaws and stocks.  But I'm always looking for more inventive dishes. Not to mention dishes that completely obscure the fact that they are made with leftovers. From Thanksgiving alone, I found several creative uses for mashed potatoes, stuffing, turkey and gravy.  Here are some of my discoveries.

Mashed potatoes: Whip mashed potatoes and grated cheddar into hot stock for a creamy, thick soup.

Stuffing: Moisten stuffing with egg and milk and knead it into ground meat for meatloaf  (a real revelation, as this eliminates the need to season, sauté onions or chop herbs!!).

Turkey and gravy: Whisk gravy into hot water or canned chicken broth for a soup base, then stir in diced turkey.

The Full Monty (mashed potatoes, stuffing, turkey, etc.): Finely dice everything together, stir in some grated extra-sharp cheddar and use as a stuffing for empanadas (meat-filled pastries).

I love to bake and I test a ton of baking books throughout the year so I get a little tired of seeing the same old recipes for chocolate layer cake and oatmeal cookies. Once in a while a great surprise will land on my desk, a book with originality that rethinks familiar sweets. Baked: New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito of Brooklyn's Baked bakery is '08's inspired dessert cookbook. Yesterday I made the Peanut Butter Crispy Bars, a cross between a Rice Krispies Treat, a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup and a Whatchamacallit (but for grown-ups, of course). A coworker called these luscious, silky bars "dessert's answer to foie gras."  Another one of my new favorite recipes: the Sweet and Salty Cake, a fairly traditional chocolate cake layered untraditionally with salted caramel and coarse salt.

In the Test Kitchen, we work on recipes three or four months in advance of publication. Occasionally, I fall in love with a few exceptional recipes. So, when a new issue of the magazine comes out, I'm often pleasantly surprised to see them again. I forget how frustrating it was trying to get something to work the way I'd envisioned it (sometimes upwards of four or five times) and champ at the bit to make it all over again. I can't wait (especially now that the weather is a bit cooler) to make the Skillet Chicken-and-Mushroom Potpie from the October issue—so soothing and satisfying.

My husband thinks I'm certifiable. He took the kids to the Mets game (third straight loss to Philly, but hey, they're still up 1 1/2 games) for the afternoon, giving me some much needed alone time, and what did I choose to do? Yeah, I cooked. Three big stews, to be exact—nine meals to be portioned, packaged and frozen for our insanely busy weeknights to come. I did one beef stew—a goulash—and two pork stews—a West African curry and a Riesling-braised stew.

Cooking in bulk like that was actually not all that hard. I found all the common ingredients-onion, garlic, carrots, herbs and stock-and tripled them. Then I browned all the meat at once and simply divided up the ingredients. Everything was bubbling away at roughly the same time for roughly the same amount of time. All that was required after that was enough fridge space to let everything cool down before dividing it up into containers.

Stay tuned for the recipes—I may have cooked them in 85-degree weather, but we won't eat them until it's closer to 50 degrees.