Mishalak

This is what I made for my grandmama last night. I understand this is her favorite dish.

Chop up one medium onion into about fingernail sized pieces, so that you have more than half a cup of onion. Also chop up one clove of garlic or else have the equivalent in garlic powder ready to go. Cut up three portabella mushroom caps (about half a pound), I know this looks like a lot, but as everyone who has cooked mushrooms knows they cook down a lot. Before you start cooking also have one pound (about .45 of a kilo for people with rational measuring systems) of beef cut up into strips about an inch long and dredged through a mixture of 2 tablespoons of flour, a teaspoon of salt, and half a teaspoon of black pepper.

Begin by sautéing the onion and garlic in one-quarter pound butter. I know that's a fair amount of butter, but it is going to be sopped up when you add the mushrooms after the onion is cooked to clear. Cook down the mushrooms then set the entire thing aside and use the same pan to cook the beef strips. I prefer my beef cut into almost ribbons because that way the center of the pieces cannot get dry in the cooking. After the beef is browned on the outside add 3/4 cup of red wine or water, if you have not got a mess of flour stuck to the bottom of the pan like I frequently do, it will deglase the pan. Add back the onion, garlic, and mushroom mix for a little bit of cooking, say ten or fifteen minutes. Then add one can of condensed mushroom soup, the kind with almost no actual mushrooms in it. Mix up the mess in the pan then cover and cook for one hour or more. Cook until the beef seems right to you.

While this is cooking have a nice conversation with your family or friends and heat up a pot of water to cook some wide egg noodles to go with it. Don't start them right away since you want to time them to come off about the time you get done cooking the stroganoff. At the very end as you are about to serve add on small package (8 oz. or about 220g.) of sour cream.

The grav lax I made was from a food network recipe that I found through google. I followed the recipie with a few departures that I shall note.

It said to start with a 2lb side fillet of salmon with the skin on. I had picked up a filet with the skin off. I decided not to worry about that too much. It also called for quite a lot of fresh dill, 3/4 of a cup once chopped up. I couldn't find any so I used dried dill and that seemed to work just fine. The preparation consisted of checking for bones (I couldn't find any) and washing and then pat it dry with some paper toweling.

I cut the fish in half across the length so I had two roughly 1 pound rectangular pieces. Putting on the dill in a even layer completely covering the fish. Then I sprinkled the fish with vodka. I think this was to kill off germs more than to add flavor and to stick the dill to the fish a bit. Previous to this I mixed up a cup of salt, a cup of sugar, and 2 tablespoons of fresh cracked white pepper. With the fish on a long strip of plastic wrap I poured the salt on the fish, then turned the two faces to each other. I also put a touch of the mixture on the backside as I wrapped up the fish. It was difficult to keep the sugar and salt between the two pieces as I wrapped the fish pieces in another layer of wrap.

I put my package in a glass pan then I put another glass pan on top of it with several wine and soda bottles on top. I'd estimate the total weight at about 5-8 pounds. Into the fridge with the set up for 12 hours. I started it in the evening so that 12 hours would fall in the morning. I kept turning it ever 12 hours for two days in total. The recipe said that two days was good and in no case should it stay in for longer than 3 days. It also says that if washed and then wrapped up again it will keep for several days. That makes sense, but I didn't try it. I preferred to time the fish being done in time for the party so I could just take it out, wash it off, and cut it up into thin slices with a sharp knife.

EDIT: Since this first time I've found a better platic wrap technique. I put a short peice across the pan and then a longer length down the pan, three times as long as one of the fish pieces. I then put down just a little cure mixture in the middle and center the first piece of fish on the wrap after having given it a rub with the vodka. Sprinkle on the dill pour almost all the cure on top. Then rub the other piece with vodka and sprinkle with dill and put it dill side down on top of the cure pile. Pull in one side and then the other of the long strip of plastic wrap. THen the short piece can pull in the sides without spilling as much of the cure. Wrap once more and you're ready to put it in the fridge with the weights.

Well not really polish, except that I was inspired by the Polish love of walnuts and my love of salmon. I just decided to name my dish this on a whim and the basis that I'm 1/4 Polish without any evidence that anything like this has ever been cooked in Poland. Also though I give exact amounts here for some things, mostly I'm just throwing things together until it looks right. These measurements are not holy writ, interpret them as seems most useful to you.

Chop up a small handful of nuts, say about 1/3 cup or 100 ml of walnuts into little bits. They should be smaller than pea sized. To this add olive oil until they are very thoroughly soaked. Grind up black pepper to taste and add two spoonfuls of honey to the nuts as well. Spread the mixture over a small portion of salmon (about 8oz or 200g) in a pan. The mixture should cover the top of the fish to about the thickness of a pencil. Cook in a 350ºF or 175ºC oven for about 20-25 minutes.

This is one of my favorite ways to cook salmon. The walnuts get this warm toasty flavor without actually getting totally roasted (if you want to do that cooking under a broiler works pretty well) and protect the salmon. The olive oil helps make the fish very moist and I am very careful to no over cook it. When I cook fish it is just barely flaky.

Tonight I'm eating my salmon with acorn squash and one of the last peaches of summer, used as my user pic tonight as a matter of fact.

I'm cooking for Grandmama today. This is what I'm making:

Ingredients
2 1/2 chuck roast
2-3 beef bones
1 pound of spicy sausage filling
Bunch of beets cut into 1/2 in strips (about 4-6 depending on size)
One large onion chopped up
3 bay leaves
8 whole peppercorns
8-10 whole allspice
4 carrots pealed/cut
2-3 tomatoes or 1 can tomato sauce
2-3 potatoes
1 green pepper, seeded cut up
1/2 cabbage or the leaves from the beets
Salt to taste
Sour cream for garnish
For Serving: A Black Rye Bread

Directions
First off you do not need all the ingredients on the above list. Making Borsch (or any other soup for that matter) is not an exact science, so feel free to leave out whatever you wish. Or to experiment.

What needs to be made first is essentially beef broth. The way to do that is with beef bones, whether covered in meat or not. I have come to prefer meatless soup bones, but neck bones or even chuck will make a fine broth. The reason I like doing it meatless is because I prefer borsch with pork sausage rather than beef, and that's what I did today.

Whatever method you choose the bones should be washed a little bit to help get rid of the bone chips. Then place them in your crock-pot or or kettle and cover them with water. To this is added the 3 bay leaves, 8 peppercorns, 8 allspice, and two pinches of salt. If using a crock-pot set it on low for about eight hours, on the stove top it should take 2-3 hours at a simmer.

Tips: Putting the allspice and peppercorns into a tea ball makes them much easier to remove. Also you might want to skip ahead a bit and prepare some of your other ingredients so there is less work in adding them later.

If you are adding sausage to the borsch it works out best if you cook them soon after you set the soup bones to cooking. Roll pieces of the uncooked sausage into flattened balls and cook them in a skillet without any extra fat or oil in small batches. Once they are done set them out on paper towels to drain and set aside to be added after the broth is done. (Try to get the pork well cooked, but don't worry if they are not perfect, they are going to get thoroughly cooked later on.)

Now you have a decision. You can either get out all the little bits of bone that will have settled to the bottom during cooking of the broth or you can leave them in and just not scrape the bottom of the pot too much. I often do the latter as I am not the most finicky of eaters and I don't mind extra calcium. But if you are doing this for a fancy dinner or something it would be a good idea to gently pour the broth into another container after you removed the beef bones. Give the pot a scrub and rinse it out then pour the broth back in through a cheesecloth or strainer. Then put it back on the heat.

Now is the time for meat. If you are doing this with beef cut it up and put it back in the broth. If with sausage this is the time to put in your precooked pieces. Then set the crock-pot on high or turn up the simmer a bit if doing this on the stovetop.

Cut up your beets either at this point or earlier, then add them to the soup. The easiest way to deal with the beets is to have the ones with tops still attached. This provides a convenient handle to hold while peeling the beats. Once you have a beet pealed cut the top off and cut it into strips of finger size or narrower, put them in the pot and note the time. It will be ready from about 90 minutes after you put in the last of the 5 beets. Don't throw away the beet tops. You'll wash them and add them to the soup later. (Trust me, it is good, thought I couldn't today since the beets didn have leaves.)

Chop up the onion into smallish pieces, less than 2 cm (1/2 inch) long. Then cut up the green bell pepper (be sure to remove the core) into pieces no more than 2 cm square. Add both to the soup. Now cube your 3 potatoes into pieces about 1 cm on a side, but there no need to be precise. Note that if you have scrubbed them well there is no need to take off the skins of the potatoes. I don't add my potatoes until the last 45 minutes of cooking, because I like them a little less well done, but it is perfectly permissible to add them earlier. I also add the can of chopped tomato and the washed and chopped beet tops right after I add the potato cubes, no less than 30 minutes from the finish time. The beet leaves should be cut into long ribbons about 2-3 cm (1 inch) in width. Leave out the stems though, I made the mistake of putting them in once and they were unpleasantly stringy.

Once the borsch is done turn off the heat and start serving it up. If will stay hot for quite a while and reheats rather well if you have leftovers. Serve with the sour cream and rye bread (especially black rye or schwartzwalder) is good, but not strictly necessary. I just like a dollop of sour cream in my borsch. It looks and tastes so good that way.

Makes enough for four hungry people or enough for seven if served with other things.

One of my friends from Minneapolis, davidschroth, suggested that I should make the famous DASFA molé chili for the consuite at Minicon. I would, but I would need the use of a kitchen, a serious one, if I were going to do this... But just for the heck of it I thought I would share. Now this is a variation on some recipe no doubt stolen from some website somewhere about five years ago and then modified. I use more cocoa and paprika. I added the honey, because I like it and I put in more hot sauce than is listed.

Now someone else can do the work for me since I’m not the only one with the knowledge. <grin>

1 medium-size onion, diced
1 pound ground turkey
2 cloves minced garlic or equivalent
1 can (about 8 oz.) tomato sauce
1 can (about 14 ½ oz.) stewed tomatoes
1 can (about 15 oz.) red kidney beans drained and rinsed
1 tablespoon molasses and almost as much honey
¼ teaspoon Tabasco sauce or equivalent
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
1 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon oregano and dry basil

In a large pot (say about 5-quart) combine onion and ¼ cup water. Bring to a boil over a medium-high heat. Stir occasionally to keep the onion from sticking as the liquid evaporates and the onion begins to brown (about 5 minutes). Deglaze. This means you add another ¼ cup of water and stir to get the caramelized onion juice off the bottom of the pan and up into the water and on the onion. Continue to cook as you did before until the onion browns again. Repeat the deglazing step again. Then just cook it down or repeat the steps once more if you have the patience.

Set aside the onion. Crumble your turkey into the pan with the garlic. Cook and stir until the meat is no longer pink and most of the liquid has evaporated, but don't dry out the turkey. Add everything, including the onion and any juices to the pan, mix and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer at least 30 minutes to let the flavors blend.

Alternatively cook the onion as above and the put everything into a crockpot to cook overnight or all day (about 8 hours). Do it on high with the lid partially off at the end to get rid of excess liquid.

Serve with tortilla chips. Yields: 4 to 6 servings.
Prep time: 1 hour 15 minutes

When preparing for 100 people multiply the recipe by 10 and use a great proportion of beans and tomato. Don't skimp on the spices. Use a giant 4-5 gallon stockpot and don't worry about it getting cold. If brought to a boil it will have enough thermal mass to stay warm for the hours. Though having something to perk it up in is not a bad idea.