The Best Chowder in the World as Far as I'm Concerned

Chowder is one of the worlds best foods, and Gail makes the best clam chowder I've ever had. Really, I'm not kidding here. Gail's not convinced, but she's never been able to show me better. The key is the bacon and the use of milk instead of cream.

Earlier this week we had some neighbors over for dinner. Gail adapted her clam chowder recipe into corn chowder as a way to use the volume of corn that all came ripe at the same time. I love corn chowder almost as much as clam chowder. Gail's chowder base makes it great.

Along with the chowder, Gail served garden beans two ways. The first was sauteed with garden tomatoes. It was good. But the second dish, with the green beans simply roasted with oil and light salt, was the best. Gail also made a tomato, basil, mozzella salad, dressed simply with a nice olive oil.

In addition to the apple crisp Gail made for dessert, our guests brought these flavored rice candies from his recent business trip to Japan. The rice candies are jellied. The green ones tasted like tea. The black and brown ones were covered with sesame seeds and filled with bean paste. Each is delicate and lightly sweet, a fun treat.





The Best Chowder in the World
Makes 2 cups

1 T olive oil
¼ c chopped onion
½ c peeled chopped potato (higher starch potatoes will fall apart and thicken chowder; lower starch will retain shape)
1 c fish or chicken stock
½ t salt
3 oz cooked or 4 oz raw clams
2 t potato or corn starch
½ c whole milk
freshly ground black pepper

1. Heat oil in heavy soup pot over med heat. Meanwhile, chop onion; add to pot; immediately reduce heat to med-low; saute until tender, about 5 min.
2. Meanwhile, peel potato; cut into bite-sized cubes. Drain seafood if necessary, reserving liquid;  cut seafood into bite-sized pieces. Add stock to any reserved seafood liquid to make required amount.
3. Add potato, stock and salt. Cover; simmer until tender, 15 min.
4. When potatoes soften, mash some right in pot with potato masher, if desired.
5. Stir potato starch into milk until all lumps dissolved; stir into pot.
6. Add seafood; heat through, making sure raw seafood is thoroughly cooked.
7. Best if cooled, refrigerated overnight, and reheated.
8. Serve with oyster crackers or in a bread bowl.
9. Season at table with freshly ground black pepper.

Variations:

• Corn chowder: Add ½ c corn niblets per serving, either in addition to or in place of fish.
• Add garlic.
• Substitute white fish or other seafood for clams.
• Start by sauteing 2 slices bacon in pan until crisp; use drippings in place of oil and salt; add chopped bacon to chowder; season to taste.

Olympics Day 15: French Quiche

It's been a few days without an Olympics feast post, but we're back. Noele is home for the weekend, so Gail wanted to make an international, vegetarian dish. Quiche fit the bill. In addition, we had a feast from Gail's garden including a sauteed vegetable medley and a green salad. We also had sauteed kale from the CSA vegetables our neighbors brought over. As if that wasn't enough, Gail made a berry pie for dessert and I contributed by making her a cappuccino. What's the vegetarian equivalent to the fatted calf?

The quiche had garlic from the garden and sauteed leeks. It came out light, creamy and set up well. It was a good centerpiece to our French feast. I added Gail's recipe to the end of the post.

The side dishes were the real stars though. The kale had intensely full flavors like collard greens. It had a smoky flavor almost like it was cooked in bacon. The other three dishes were straight from Gail's garden. Everything in the salad except the greens was fresh picked including radishes, tomatoes, and a lemon cucumber. The lemon cucumber was small and round like a lemon, with very mild cucumber flavor. The vegetable mix was delightfully sweet from our first ear of corn. It also included eggplant, tomatoes, green beans and summer squash. The new potatoes were simply boiled and had an amazingly bright taste: a star among stars.




The berry pie had strawberries and the biggest blueberries we could imagine. They literally popped in our mouths as we chewed them. A scoop of vanilla ice cream rounded out this definitive summer dessert.





I had a Les Sans Culottes from Brasserie La Choulette. It had a grand sweet flavor, combining malt and hops. It was also slightly over bitter, and those great sweet flavors lingered a bit too long. Despite that, a pretty good beer.




Quiche

1 prepared pie crust
2 oz Cheddar cheese (1/2 c shredded)
4 eggs
1 c whole milk (sour milk is fine; lower-fat milks will not set as well)
2 T diced onions
¼ t salt
½ t thyme

1. Line pie pan with crust; preheat oven to 350 F; shred cheese.
2. Beat eggs; combine with milk, onion, salt and thyme; set aside.
3. Place pie pan on baking sheet. Layer shredded cheese into crust.
4. Pour egg mixture over cheese; bake 40 to 50 min, until set.
5. Cool at least 10 min before cutting. Serve warm or cold.

Variations:

• Use half-and-half, light cream, or heavy cream in place of milk for richer, firmer custard.
• Use 1/8 t cayenne pepper in place of thyme.
• Substitute Monterey Jack or Swiss cheese for Cheddar.
• Add 2 c broccoli or 1 ½ lb spinach (trimmed, chopped, steamed, drained and cooled enough to not curdle eggs) to pie pan before adding cheese; pour egg mixture over.
• Add ½ lb cooked crumbled bacon or ¾ c chopped ham.
• Top cooked quiche with layer of sliced tomatoes; broil 1 min.

Olympics Day 11: Moussaka and Greek Green Beans

I like the Olympics most for the sports I seldom see. I just finished watching the gold medal race of the men's track cycling sprint. Jason Kenny, the cyclist from Great Britain took the gold against Gregory Bauge from France. While it was called a sprint, the first half of the race was just the opposite. Kenny got out in the lead, and literally crawled while watching for Bauge to make a move. In the last lap, both men bolted for the finish. I have no idea why they chose that particular moment to start sprinting.

We almost forgot to celebrate Greece for the Olympics. That would have been an error. But I am glad Gail thought of it. She made moussaka with ground beef and Greek green beans for dinner. I say she made them, but I think she more accurately chanted over them. I put the recipe at the end of this article. The first slice of moussaka came out of the dish clean. This seems to be in part because she created a pan lining from the skin of the eggplant.

The flavor profile comes from the combination of cinnamon, pepper, clove and cumin. And there is a sweetness that comes from the vermouth and eggplant. Gail made the dish extra special by using potatoes she dug from her garden yesterday. She made a double batch, which used the one eggplant we had and another we got from our neighbors, Alan and Janice. Janice brought over the parts of their CSA share from Wilson Farm that they couldn't use. Thank you Alan and Janice.

Janice included some green beans, which Gail used to make a Greek green bean recipe she adapted from Allrecipes.com. Once again, the dish was extra special because it included tomatoes from her garden. The sweet-salt flavors worked well with the moussaka. I've also included this recipe at the end. Gail simmered the beans for only 20 minutes this time, which was plenty by my taste.

I never did get a Greek beer to go with this, so instead I poured Young's Double Chocolate Stout from England. It seems fitting to match Greece with Great Britain for these Olympics. We initially picked this beer because Gail noticed chocolate in the name and was interested. The word "chocolate" in stouts usually refers to the chocolate (or darkly roasted) malt. Young's brewery actually adds some real dark chocolate, hence the "double chocolate" name. You can taste a strong, malty sweetness with flavors of both chocolate and coffee. This is a rich and full-flavored beer, but isn't as creamy as other stouts I've had, although it was really yummy.

Moussaka

Serves: 3

Hands-on prep time: 90 min

Start-to-finish time: 3 hrs

1 egg

1 med eggplant

3 T olive oil

¾ c chopped onion

1 clove garlic

10 oz ground lamb

¼ c sweet vermouth or port

1 t ground cinnamon

1 t salt

½ t ground cumin

½ t ground black pepper

¾ lb baking potatoes

1. Bring egg to room temperature during preparation. Wash eggplant; cut in half lengthwise; score cut side without breaking skin; soak in cold water 10 min to keep from absorbing too much oil when cooking.
2. Heat half of oil in large heavy skillet (if deep enough to boil potatoes in later, even better!) over high heat; drain and pat eggplant dry while oil heats; wear apron to protect against spatters. Place as many eggplant halves as will fit in hot oil, cut side down; sear 1 min without disturbing. Measure 1 T water for each half and add all at once, being careful of spattering; cover; reduce heat to low; steam 10 min. Transfer to platter to cool.
3. Add remaining oil to skillet; adjust to med-low heat. Add onion; cook until tender. Add garlic; stir until fragrant. Add lamb, cook until lightly browned.
4. When eggplants are cool enough to handle, scrape pulp with teaspoon; chop pulp into bite-sized pieces. Reserve skins.
5. Add pulp to skillet; stir in vermouth and spices. Continue cooking, stirring constantly, until liquid evaporates, 5 min. Transfer to platter to cool at least 30 min.
6. While eggplant mixture cools, boil salted water for potatoes. Peel and slice into lengthwise chips, about ¼" thick.
7. Par-boil potatoes 3 min; drain.
8. Place oven rack in middle of oven; preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly oil deep casserole dish.
9. Beat egg lightly; mix into cooled eggplant mixture. If mixture is too hot egg will curdle!
10. Line casserole with eggplant skins, skin side down, allowing extra to hang over sides.
11. Estimate number of layers you have enough potato slices for (this will depend on the sizes of both dish and potato slices). Layer potatoes and eggplant mixture, starting and ending with potatoes.
12. Fold eggplant skins over top of layers to seal. Cover with lightly oiled foil if skins don’t meet.
13. Bake 90 min; use a baking sheet to prevent spills; cool on rack 10 min before serving.

Variations: 

• Substitute ground beef or poultry for lamb.
• Sprinkle cheese over each layer of potatoes.
• Substitute mashed potatoes for boiled slices.
• Top with béchamel or tomato sauce

Greek Green Beans

Makes: 1 ½ c

2 t olive oil

¼ c chopped onion

1/16 t minced garlic

1 c green beans, trimmed & snapped into bite-sized pieces

¼ c chopped tomato

¼ t sugar

¼ t salt

1. Trim and snap green beans. Heat olive oil in heavy skillet over med-low heat; sauté onion and garlic until tender and fragrant.
2. Stir in remaining ingredients; reduce heat to low; simmer 45 min until beans are tender.

Olympics Day 3: Traditional English Breakfast

Yesterday we picked up a few coffees to extend the international fun. From Starbucks, we got the Brazil Peaberry Yellow Bourbon. From Peet's we got the New Guinea Highlands, Costa Rica, and Kenya Auction Lot, which I'm drinking right now. We were surprised that Starbucks didn't have more variety, and that they only had pre-packaged beans.

The Kenyan beans were notably shiny. We ground and brewed them the way we usually do, using half a scoop per cup. I expected strong aromas, but the cup lacked any aroma. The flavor started out watery, but finished strong and bitter with a taste of iron.

When we were in London last year we enjoyed the traditional English breakfast. Gail made one this morning including eggs, bacon, sausage, fried potatoes and tomato. This is sometimes called a fry-up for obvious reasons. Look how nicely the eggs came out of the pan. The most unusual part of this breakfast was the tomato. That was an excellent sweet addition to the saltiness of the sausage and bacon. Looks like I'm developing a taste for sweet-salty.

The traditional English breakfast is supposed to be a hearty, "full" breakfast with eggs, two meats, and various side dishes. The potatoes and tomatoes are very common, as are beans. We decided to skip the beans thinking our intestines were sufficiently full of cabbage.

Tomatoes at Wilson Farm