Speedy Sausage, Kale & Potato Soup

Brrrrrr, early this morning the view through the window was wet, gray and totally uninspiring so I made the obvious decision to stay snugly tucked under the covers and read. Hours rolled by as The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt transported me into other lives, other worlds. No book review here; I'm still processing my many mixed responses to this lengthy Pulitzer Prize winning novel. But shortly after noon a series of annoying stomach rumbles reminded me that breakfast was a lost hope and I'd better get up and start moving on lunch prep. 

Soup fit my mood and the weather; quick comfort food is always a good thing on a cool, dreary day. The open bag of Halloween candy, my favorite Snickers bars conveniently stored on an adjacent kitchen counter, didn't even tempt as an emergency snack. Nope, instead some spicy chicken Andouille sausage, Yukon gold potatoes and curly kale prompted a flurry of chopping and cooking, tasting and seasoning without benefit of a recipe. The result? A warming bowl of soup that pleased us both. How do I know? RL ate two full servings and didn't even reach for the hot sauce. 

Lemon zest and juice added an extra pop to each bowl, brightening the flavor while avoiding a too-sour bite. Soups and stews typically improve with an overnight rest, so I am eagerly anticipating another bowlful at lunch tomorrow. 

 Speedy Sausage, Kale and Potato Soup

serves 3-4

1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, medium dice
1 Tablespoon minced garlic
2 links cooked sausage, sliced (precooked chicken Andouille today)
2 large Yukon Gold potatoes, cut in 1" dice
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 teaspoon dried basil
4 cups low sodium chicken broth
2 cups kale, destemmed & roughly chopped
zest of 1 large lemon
salt and pepper, to taste
1 cup instant potato flakes (optional)
lemon wedges to serve alongside
shredded Parmesan cheese, optional

Heat the olive oil in a medium kettle over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook for several minutes to soften. Add the garlic and cook for an additional minute or so until fragrant. 

Add the coins of sausage, diced potatoes and herbs; toss to coat. Add the chicken broth and cook until the potatoes are just tender. 

Add the kale and cook a few minutes longer until softened. Stir in the lemon zest. Taste and adjust seasonings.

For a thicker broth, stir in instant potato flakes, 1/4 cup at a time. (You could mash the cooked potatoes to thicken the soup, but I like a thicker broth and potato chunks.)

Ladle into bowls, sprinkle with shredded Parmesan and serve with lemon wedges.

Spicy Sweet Potato Fries

"So let the whole damn world go by

'Cause I just want to testify

From now on it's me and my

Sweet Potato Pie Fries" - with apologies to Ray Charles

Sweet potato fries are a recent addition to my favorite food list. Not too many years ago you wouldn't find sweet potato anything as my favorite, no way! Just mention sweet potatoes and my taste buds would recoil at the thought of another cloyingly sweet Thanksgiving casserole topped with brown sugar and mini marshmallows... but that's history. I have since learned to enjoy baked Hasselback sweet potatoes, nuked sweet potatoes mashed with a bit of butter, sweet potato wedges roasted with a hint of honey and cinnamon, and of course the ubiquitous restaurant-prepared sweet potato french fries. Sigh. if only I could replicate those crisp-on-the-outside fluffy-in-the-middle sweet potato batons, but baked in the oven and not deep fried. Baked seems so much healthier than fried, but the secret to a crisp exterior remains elusive. 

A Food52 recipe offered a promising start with a recipe that won Community Pick status. A spicy Southwest seasoning mix hit all of the right flavor notes, but the fries refused to crisp up enough to suit us me. We cheerfully ate almost the entire batch anyway. A remaining handful of baked fries were a tasty addition to the next morning's breakfast hash.

Hilary's new spiralizer was no match for two largish, unpeeled sweet potatoes so she cut most of the sticks by hand. The few shreds that came off the spiralizer hit a hot, lightly oiled skillet and proceeded to wilt more than crisp and taste too strongly of peel rather than tater. Forget the pan-fried approach for skinny shreds!  

The hand-cut, oven-baked method produced such tasty fries that we voted to give it another kitchen test... soon. Perhaps more time in the oven will do the trick; we'll be more patient in the future. I just can't get enough of those spicy sweet potato fries.

Spicy Sweet Potato Fries with Chili Cilantro Sour Cream Sauce

recipe closely adapted from the Food52 cookbook

serves 3-4

2 large sweet potatoes, unpeeled, cut in large sticks
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon smoky chipotle chile powder
1 teaspoon smoky paprika
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne, more or less to taste
Chili-Cilantro Sour Cream Sauce (recipe below)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 F.
2. Use your hands and toss the sweet potato sticks and olive oil in a large bowl.
3. Add the salt, cumin, chile powder, paprika, pepper and cayenne to a small bowl and stir to mix.
4. Add the spices to the potatoes and toss to coat thoroughly.
5. Arrange the potatoes in one layer on a baking sheet.
6. Bake in preheated oven on the lowest rack until the undersides are browned, about 15 minutes. Flip potatoes with a large spatula and bake an additional 10 minutes.
7. Remove from the oven and serve on a warmed platter. Offer Chili-Cilantro Sour Cream as an optional topping.

Chili-Cilantro Sour Cream Sauce
1 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon  lime juice

lime zest (optional)
2 teaspoons sweet Thai chili sauce
1 small garlic clove, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 heaping tablespoon chopped cilantro

Combine all the ingredients except the cilantro in a medium bowl and whisk together. Stir in cilantro. Chill until ready to serve.

Salmon Croquettes with Creamy Cucumber Tartar Sauce

These are SO very much Not-Your-Mother’s-Croquettes! Well, at least not my mother’s version of croquettes, those dreaded salmon patties of memory. My father absolutely loved those canned salmon patties with skin and bones included, while I was still in my non-seafood loving years, so it might not be fair to slight my mom’s cooking. I do remember moving them around on my plate, pushing them from side to side, wishing they would just disappear, long after the homemade crinkly French fries had been inhaled. But that was then, and these little cuties are so delicious they would tempt even the fish-avoiding me of long ago. 

Working with the previous night's salmon, grilled with our Not-So-Secret Sauce, I added an equal amount of Cheesy Mashed Potatoes loaded with grated cheddar & Parmesan cheeses, cream cheese and sour cream. Next came some Italian parsley, green onions and a few seasonings. Don’t have any great tasting leftover salmon or mashed potatoes? Get creative and add some onion, bacon, lemon zest, dill weed, cheese and seasonings to plain salmon and taters – you know you want to!

Salmon Croquette recipes abound online and in hardcopy, each version with its own slight variation in ingredients and technique. I skimmed a few seafood cookbooks from my onboard collection, then decided to wing it and improvise. Many croquette recipes use bread crumbs as a binder, a lot of bread crumbs, stretching a small amount of salmon into a meatloaf-sounding dish. Replacing bread crumbs with a mashed potato mixture creates a lighter, fluffier texture that doesn’t mask the salmon component, and the light panko coating produces just enough crispy crunch without making the croquettes too bready.   

Add some Cucumber Tartar Sauce to take this dish over the top.  Change things up a little and form tiny patties for appetizer plates. Or pop them into small biscuits or rolls to serve as Salmon Sliders. Perhaps make larger croquettes for a more substantial entrée. Mmmmmm, I get hungry all over again just thinking about the possibilities. 

Capt. Ron, it’s time to go fishing again.

Mini Salmon Croquettes with Creamy Cucumber Tartar Sauce

2 servings (6 croquettes)

For the Croquettes:

Generous ¾ cup cooked salmon (grilled with Not-So-Secret Sauce)

Generous ¾ cup Cheesy Mashed Potatoes

¼ teaspoon onion powder

¼ teaspoon garlic powder

½ teaspoon dried dill

Salt & white pepper to taste

½ cup panko flakes

¼ cup Parmesan cheese, freshly grated or even the dried variety in a can

1 tablespoon oil

1 tablespoon butter

Creamy Cucumber Tartar Sauce (recipe below)

Directions:

1. Add the cooked, skinned and boned salmon to a mixing bowl, and include as much of the cooking sauce (bacon, green onion, lemon, dill, etc) as possible. Add the mashed potatoes, onion powder, garlic powder, dill, salt and pepper; use a fork to mix thoroughly.
2. Divide the mixture into six equal portions and form into golf-ball sized spheres. For each ball, pack together firmly and then flatten into a patty about ½-inch thick.
3. Use a flat plate or pie tin and combine the panko and Parmesan cheese. Coat each salmon patty on all sides and leave on the plate with any remaining panko/cheese breading. Cover with plastic film and chill for at least one hour.
4. Heat the oil and butter over medium-high heat until bubbly but not smoking. Cook the patties, turning once, until browned on the surface and warm in the center, about 1 ½ to 2 minutes per side.  

For the Creamy Cucumber Tartar Sauce:

Scant ½ cup mayonnaise (homemade or purchased, or substitute MiracleWhip if you really must)

1 dill pickle sandwich spear, minced (about 2 tablespoons)

1 tablespoon dill pickle juice

2 tablespoons chopped Spring onion, green and white parts

1 teaspoon creamy horseradish

1 teaspoon lemon juice

2-inch piece of English cucumber, diced small

1 teaspoon dried dill weed

2 tablespoons fresh Italian parsley

Pinch of salt

Combine all ingredients in small bowl. Taste and adjust to suit your taste. Refrigerate until serving time.

German Potato Salad - the family version.

What is sweet, sour, tangy, loaded with bacon, and both smooth and crunchy all in one bite? Of course, it's Kartoffelsalat, Mom's German potato salad. Just thinking about it returns a craving for this satisfying side dish. It's cool-weather comfort food, though at times it has also been a popular item at summer evening potlucks on the dock.

Why haven't I posted this recipe before now? Maybe I take it for granted, it has been a family favorite forever. Two generations, often three, expect this warm potato salad to accompany homestyle entrees like pork schnitzel, kraut-roasted pork, grilled wurst, braised rouladen, etc. Or forget the accompaniment idea, RL finds German potato salad a satisfying lunch all by itself, it's just that good. 

Mom was born in Austria, and this recipe is based on her version of German Potato Salad. Hmmm, does that make it an Austrian-German Potato Salad, or an Americanized version of a Bavarian regional recipe. Whatever! authentic or not, we love it. Be aware, I  typically don't measure ingredients when preparing this dish, adjusting by taste and consistency as I go to find the right proportions and occasionally adding other ingredients. You'll find it quite adaptable too as you balance the sweet and sour to suit your taste.

The recipe below records this week's dish, with measurements noted as close as possible to account for several rounds of "taste, then adjust." 

Mom's German Potato Salad

4 generous servings

4 thick strips bacon (not maple flavored)
1 yellow onion, chopped (approx 1 cup)
4 stalks celery, strings removed, diced
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup water 
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 generous teaspoon celery seed
kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper, to taste
fresh Italian parsley and green onions (optional)
5 fat Yukon Gold potatoes

Directions:

1. In a skillet, cook the bacon until crisp. Drain on paper towels, chop and set aside. Save 2 to 3 tablespoons of the fat.
2. Reheat the skillet of bacon fat over medium heat and cook the onion and celery until softened.
3. Sprinkle flour over the top of the vegetables; stir to incorporate. Add the water, vinegar and sugar and cook until the sauce thickens. (It will be fairly loose and soupy, just what you want since the potatoes will absorb quite a bit of the liquid.) 
4. Add celery seed, salt and pepper; taste and adjust.
5. While making the sauce cook the potatoes until barely tender. Peel and dice or slice into bite-sized chunks. Add to the sauce while still warm and gently fold in with a heat-proof spatula.
6. Let the potatoes rest in the sauce for a few minutes; stir again; taste and adjust seasonings and the sweet:sour ratio.
7. Top with parsley and green onions (optional) and serve warm or at room temperature. Enjoy.

Daring Cooks' Pate Chinois

Shepherd's Pie or Cottage Pie: a meat pie with a crust of mashed potato

Our Daring Cooks’ December 2012 Hostess is Andy of Today’s the Day and Today’s the Day I Cook! Andy is sharing with us a traditional French Canadian classic the Paté Chinois, also known as Shepherd’s pie for many of us, and if one dish says comfort food.. this one is it!

I must admit I approached this challenge with caution, reluctant to prepare a dish I have successfully avoided my entire life. It has always reminded me of some oddball Hamburger Helper concoction, and not in a good way. But that's just me. The concept of a meat pie with a potato crust is hardly new, it's been around for centuries. Wikipedia notes:

The term cottage pie is known to have been in use in 1791 when the potato was being introduced as an edible crop affordable for the poor (cf. "cottage" meaning a modest dwelling for rural workers). In early cookery books, the dish was a means of using leftover roasted meat of any kind, and the pie dish was lined with mashed potato as well as having a mashed potato crust on top. The term "shepherd's pie" did not appear until 1877, and since then it has been used synonymously with "cottage pie", regardless of whether the principal ingredient was beef or mutton. More recently, the term "shepherd's pie" has been used when the meat is lamb, the theory being that shepherds are concerned with sheep and not cattle.

These were interesting factoids, and I was especially cheered at the mention of leftover roasted meats. That made it easy to ignore the recommended ground meat preparation and work instead with a favorite recipe for Boozy Beef Stew in Wine Sauce, aka Boeuf Bourguignon. I've already raved about that recipe in a previous DC challenge (link). This choice was an invitation to prepare an extra-large batch of stew and a largish pile of gremolata. We served the stew to friends P and R for dinner earlier this week and still had quarts left to play with. Some mashed potatoes from the same dinner were re-seasoned, piped into mounds similar to Duchess Potatoes (link), and voila! I had a great start on a personalized version of cottage pie.

The short version: 
Using your favorite stew recipe, ladle a generous serving of warm stew meat, vegies and gravy to fill small ramekins. 

Sprinkle a teaspoon of minced flatleaf parsley and lemon zest gremolata over each bowl. 

Whip some sour cream, additional butter and shredded parmesan cheese into warmed "regular" mashed potatoes; fill a bag fitted with a large star-point tip, and pipe the potatoes into circular mounds on a silpat or parchment-covered baking sheet. 

Broil or heat in a 500 F oven until the potatoes brown slightly.  

Cool and place atop each ramekin.
OR you could pipe the potatoes directly onto each stew-filled ramekin, but my potato-piping skills needed developing.
Bake in a hot oven until warmed through (or use a microwave).

The Results: Version One 
The ramekins resembled cute savory cupcakes; an interesting if slightly strange presentation. As usual, the gravy was my favorite part of the dish. It tasted divine and bathed the meat in a silky sauce, keeping it moist and tender through the reheating. Carrots and onions retained their texture, though the mushrooms melted away a bit more than I would have liked. Mixed reviews on the potato topping though: the browned outer edges contrasted nicely with the soft, flavorful interior but the potatoes cried out for more gravy. A side pitcher of gravy will take care of that in the future.

A Second Try:
Fill a small 8"x8" baking dish about two thirds full with the same BoozyBeef Stew with Vegetables and Wine Sauce. Loosely scatter parsley/lemon zest gremolata over the top like edible confetti. Frost the cottage pie in irregular peaks and valleys with cheesy, sour cream mashed potatoes. Heat in a 500 F oven until the potatoes brown slightly. 

The Results: Second Try
The dish looked like lumpy potatoes, nothing more. It was still tasty, but not as attractive or appealing as serving the elements separately in a wide soup bowl. Picture the vivid colors of carrots, parsley and lemon zest plus a snowy mound of potatoes nestled in a pool of mahogany gravy with golden slices of mushroom and richly browned cubes of beef.  I missed that colorful visual when I gazed at my tater-topped cottage pie. 

Conclusions: Pate Chinois/Cottage pie/Shepherd's pie is much tastier than I had imagined. All those years of wrinkled-nose avoidance and rejection were a silly, uninformed response to an unfamiliar dish. Playing with your food is always fun, and I might pipe potato mounds again. Sigh! embracing the dish is another matter; it's still all about the abundance of a great gravy and it's hard to beat the original presentation. 

Colcannon with Kale

A Saint Paddy's Day Treat

Colcannon is a favorite dish on any day. It's not just a St. Patrick's Day special, though it is a perfect choice to accompany a piece of corned beef and a pile of orange and honey sauced carrots. With a dish this tasty, why would you ignore it the rest of the year? Well, we don't.


Many traditional colcannon recipes call for creamy mashed potatoes mixed with shreds of cooked cabbage, a few scallions, heavy cream and a lot of melted butter. Oh yes, a whole lot of butter. A few recipes call for crumbled bacon, most have no bacon at all. I found one over-the-top recipe that suggested serving a colcannon volcano, complete with a depression on top to hold a pool of melted butter. That same recipe also called for rashers of crisp bacon stacked vertically around the volcano's outside edge. Could you argue that the shreds of green cabbage made this a healthy dish? Mmmmm, maybe not healthy, but it must be an amazing sight at the table.


My current version is tasty, quick and easy to prepare, but clearly not an Irish classic . No matter, we love this colcannon made with kale and a bit of butter... bacon optional. 

Colcannon with Kale

serves 4-6


2 strips bacon (optional)
2 large russet potatoes (baking potatoes)
1 bunch skinny kale (lacinato or dinosaur kale), destemmed and cut in fine shreds
1 small bunch green onions, chopped
1/2 cube butter (2 oz or 4 tablespoons) divided
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
1/4 cup low-fat milk
Salt and pepper to taste

1. If you're using bacon, cook it till crisp and set aside. Use the microwave or do this on the stovetop.
2. Use the microwave to nuke the whole potatoes; set aside and keep warm while you cook the kale.
3. Melt a generous tablespoon of butter and a bit of olive oil over medium heat in a heavy bottomed pot. Add the shredded kale a handful at a time until it wilts, and then add the chopped green onions. Stir in the broth and milk and bring to a simmer and reduce the heat to low. Add the remaining butter to the pot.
4. Slice the cooked potatoes lengthwise; use a fork, to shred the insides into the kale mixture. Mix together with the fork and roughly smash into the  desired consistency (I like mine rustic rather than smooth and creamy). Season with salt and pepper to taste. 
5. Top with the crumbled bacon if using, or stir it in. Consider minced parsley as another topping option.

Notes: 

- On the boat I use the microwave for the entire dish rather than the stovetop. It adapts easily and the results are similar - delicious!

- Leftovers reheat well in the microwave, or even as potato patties on the stovetop. 

- Thinned with more chicken broth, any leftover colcannon turns into a tasty potato soup. If you need to stretch it a bit, add some instant potatoes to the soup (I won't tell).

- Skip the bacon, substitute vegetable broth, and the recipe works on an Almost Meatless Monday menu.

Poblano Potato Salad

Give me one week of solid sunshine and I'm ready to launch into summer. It's barely February, not even close to Spring, yet I found myself daydreaming about summer fun, summer weather and summer food with strong, bright flavors. It helped too that the kitchen was overstocked with the fresh green colors of cilantro, tomatillos and Poblano peppers. So I roasted those green veggies and took a mental road trip into summer adventures.


The aroma of roasting peppers filled the house, reminding me of a tempting recipe I had bookmarked months earlier. Bookmarked, and then resisted. Last June (link) I stated a preference for vinaigrette dressing on potato salad. Actually I ranted on and on, dismissing potato salads with a mayonnaise base as too goopy and weighty. Then HomesickTexan featured a Poblano Chorizo Potato Salad post in July and I was tempted. Poblanos, chorizo, potatoes - who could resist? But it called for mayonnaise, so I resisted. Resisted until this week, when those lovely just-roasted peppers demanded star billing. So I worked on my version of that tempting bookmarked recipe.


I roasted a dozen tomatillos and five peppers, knowing they could be used in several familiar dishes. While the online recipe called for two Poblanos, I only used half of one large pepper. It was hot enough to make it's presence known! You know the feeling, when your lips tingle a bit but you don't quite break into a sweat or cry. 

Basic kitchen ingredients combined to make a tangy dressing, not at all goopy or weighty. Cumin can be overpowering in scent and taste, but it played nicely in this dressing. The same can be said for the garlic.

That vibrant green color hints at the flavor punch a Poblano can pack. Mmmmm, love those peppers!

RL raved over this recipe, declared it his new favorite and promptly ate two helpings. That's translates to two thumbs up at our house. So now we have another "favorite" version of a sunny, savory potato salad. Every cook needs more than one great potato salad recipe in their repertoire, right? What's yours?

Poblano Potato Salad

adapted from a recipe by Lisa Fain, the HomesickTexan

Ingredients:

1 or 2 roasted poblano chiles, in small dice (use more or less to taste)

2 pounds red or yellow potatoes, cubed

1/4 teaspoon chorizo spice mix

1 large clove garlic, minced

1/4 cup cilantro, chopped

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

2 tablespoons lime juice (add more to taste)

2 tablespoons seasoned rice vinegar

2 tablespoons light Best Foods mayonnaise

2 tablespoons light sour cream

Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

a handful of cotija cheese or pepitas for topping (optional)

Directions:

1. Roast the poblanos under the broiler until blistered and blackened on all sides. Put the chile in a closed paper sack and let it steam until cooled. Then peel off the skin, remove the stem and seeds and chop the flesh into small dice.
2. While the chile steams, put the potato chunks into a pot, cover with cold water, and bring to a slow boil over medium heat. Cook until just tender, then drain and rinse with cold water.
3. Mix together the chorizo spice, garlic, cumin, lime juice, vinegar, mayonnaise and sour cream for a dressing. 
4. Place the cooled potato chunks in a large bowl; add some or all of the diced Poblano pieces and the chopped cilantro. Chiles vary in heat, so adjust to your own taste. Toss gently to distribute evenly. 
5. Add the dressing and mix gently to incorporate.
6. Adjust the seasonings, you may want more lime juice or Poblano. (I used 1 additional tablespoon of lime juice, but only one half of the Poblano - it was really hot! Add salt and pepper to taste.
7. Serve warm or chilled, it's delicious either way. Top with a sprinkling of Cotija cheese crumbles if you like.