Χόρτα βραστά με λεμόνι - Boiled Grass With Lemon

This recipe is included in my Spaghetti Alla Pouttanesca entry but I would like to re-blog it here for search engine reasons. This is a GREAT side dish that you will love. It is very simple to make and you can find this type of grass just about everywhere. If you choose to pick your own grass you must go to a virgin field and not your back yard or a field or a property where people will have added fertilizer or weed killer.

About 23 years ago my parents were visiting from Hellas. My wife and and I had just purchased a nice house in NY and we were trying to make it our home. It was summertime and my wife and I were outside working in the backyard, pulling weeds and putting them in garbage bags. Sometime later I turned and looked towards the house and I saw my parents standing behind the sliding door knocking on the glass trying to get my attention. I knew something was wrong and I ran towards the house to see what was wrong. As soon as I opened the door my parents yelled at me because they couldn't understand why I was pulling the grass from the ground and putting it in plastic garbage bags. To make the long story short, they told me that I was throwing away good food.

Fast forward many years to...yesterday, May 26, 2013, at the farmers' market in Rhinebeck, NY, I purchased two bunches of grass, a.k.a. χόρτα or ραδίκια. From now on I will refer to them as "grass" because it is just a generalization.

Here are the two bunches of grass I purchased. This grass MUST be washed thoroughly because it is just full of dirt.

The Meatball Competition - The Very Best Meatball Recipe

I have this fantastic recipe for meatballs. It is original and it is mine but I cannot share it with you yet because sometime in July there will be meatball competition between my daughter and yours truly.

I have two "secret" ingredients that will surely catapult me to the very top of the meatball hall of fame.

I will come back here after the competition is over, and after I have been crowned the King of Meatballs, to share my recipe with you.

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Κοτοπουλο Κοκκινιστο - Chicken in Tomato Sauce

This dish comes from Hellas and is a very common one there. The only modification that I have made is that I used canned tomatoes instead of fresh ones. My mom used to make it and I would grab a loaf of bread and use it for dipping purposes. Ahhhh, the good old days when I was thin and my metabolism (metabolism is a Hellenic word, μεταβολή, and means change) worked like a Swiss clock.

Here are the ingredients for this recipe:

• one whole chicken, cut up, 
• two tablespoons of olive oil,
• two medium onions,
• garlic to taste, I used six cloves,
• three small zucchini, 
• two bell peppers, 
• one 28 oz can on diced tomatoes,
• two tablespoons tomato paste, 
• one cup of red wine, 
• oregano to taste.

In the image below I mistakenly included cinnamon instead of oregano. Oops.

Whore's Style Spaghetti - Spaghetti Alla Puttanesca

Leave it to the Italian prostitutes to come up with a crazy recipe name, Spaghetti Alla Puttanesca, which literally means Whore's Style Spaghetti. Some say it refers to the spicy aroma produced by its ingredients that enticed passing customers. Others claim that this dish was the easiest thing they could prepare between customers. We cook it today because it has a remarkable flavor, is easy, and is made of ingredients easily kept on hand.

I had heard about this recipe many years ago when I lived in Hellas and this is a modified Spaghetti Alla Puttanesca. You could also read more about the origin and history of this recipe from the web or wikipedia.

I had everything in the butler's pantry needed to make this dish:

• spaghetti in this case I used angel hair pasta because my wife and I love them, 
• about 20 olives, 
• 1/4 cup olive oil,
• 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes,
• 1/2 a can of 6oz tomato paste,
• I also added two tomatoes grated that if I didn't use them, I would have to throw them out the next day, 
• a handful of capers (I used a 3oz bottle), washed with cold water,
• about 10-12 anchovies,
• six cloves of garlic,
• oregano

I grabbed a small container of anchovies and washed them in the sink under cold running water. They are too oily and salty and by washing them you remove the oil and most of the salt. This time I used a garlic press to cream them and I set them aside. 

Chicken Stock - The Basics

Stock (beef, chicken, fish) is a flavored water preparation which forms the basis of many dishes, and in this case...I am making the base for chicken soup. When I make any stock at home I don't just make it on the spur of the moment. I plan for it for days or even weeks ahead of it. Every time I cook I save any vegetable or chicken parts. I don't save chicken liver, heart, and gizzards and I do throw them out. I do save the wings, back, and neck. I freeze them and take them out a few hours prior to using them.

This time, though, I didn't have any saved chicken parts and I went to our favorite supermarket, Adams Fairacre Farms, in Newburgh, NY and I bought two packages of chicken parts.

I have a plastic bag that I save the vegetable parts that I will use in my stock. For example, the top part of the leeks is a perfect example. Please think before throwing a piece of food in the garbage.

We do go to the supermarket twice a week and I always pay attention to the area in the vegetable section because they have an rack where they drastically reduce vegetables to get rid of them. So, I go there and grab whatever I can use, but always I have to use these vegetables the same day or the next.

Here are the ingredients:

• two table spoons of olive oil
• two medium onions
• tops from two leeks
• 3-4 carrots
• one pepper
• one zucchini
• parley
• three bay leaves

I also add:

• fresh ground pepper

The list is separated in two parts because after the first full boil you should skim the top of the pot and if you do that you will remove most of the pepper. For this reason I add the pepper after I skim the top.

Russian Salad - Potato Salad - Carle Olivier Salad

I remember my mom's Russian salad that she used to make back when I lived in Hellas. It was just a great dish. You may say that it was a modified potato salad. It had diced potatoes, carrots, whole eggs, capers, and A LOT of mayonnaise. Here in the US, when I visit supermarkets I always look around at their deli case to see what they have and what ingredients they incorporate in their dishes. A few days ago, I was examining/spying their potato salads and this is what I have to say to them: easy with the mayonnaise. All salads are swimming in mayonnaise.

Please check the Wikipedia page to learn about the history of the Russian salad. The history of this salad is truly riveting.

Fast forward to today in our kitchen here in New York where I was going to make a modified Russian salad.

I got the ingredients for the Russian salad together and I was also going to make bbq beans and a salad with Romain lettuce.

Before starting I sharpened my knife. Always before staring to cook I sharpen my knife(s). Get used to it too and it will always be a pleasure to use your knifes.

Ingredients for the Russian salad.

• five small-ish potatoes.
• three carrots
• three hard-boiled eggs (I used six eggs because I saved three of them to use them at a later date)
• one small container of capers, drained and washed
• one small can of peas, drained and washed
• leftover rotisserie chicken or ham or turkey
• one large Granny Smith apple
• four spears, kosher dill pickles, diced
• 3/4 cup of mayonnaise 
• 1/4 tablespoon mustard
• one large mango, if available, or orange

 

Ingredients for the salad.

• Romain lettuce
• one anise bulb
• two peppers
• one cucumber
• one tomato

Ingredients for the beans.

• one large can of kidney beans, drained and washed
• two small onions
• two cups of my modified Neeley bbq sauce
• four cloves of garlic

For the salad I was going to mix in anise, which is sweet and very aromatic. I already had used the top of the anise in a soup that I had made earlier and now I had the bulb only to use. I sliced the bulb and then diced it and placed it in a sieve for washing. I didn't use any type of onion because I didn't want it to clash with the anise.

 Wash, wash wash...and put aside.

Place the eggs in a pot and cover them with cold water. Bring the water to a boil and cover the pot with the lid. Remove the pot from the heat source and let them stand for 12 minutes. I set the timer and this way I don't forget. After the 12 minutes, I run cold water in the pot and this way I stop the cooking and I let them sit for some more time. After that I peel the cooled-down eggs and set them aside.

In a pot filled with cold water I add the potatoes and carrots (both washed previously well). As you can see I had to cut the carrots in half for them to better fit in the pot. I didn't peel the skin from either to enhance their natural flavors.

It takes about 15 minutes for the potatoes and carrots to cook but you should check if they are done with a fork. If the fork goes in with ease, they are ready.

For the salad you just have to chop the ingredients. Make sure you discard any parts that you wouldn't eat otherwise you will have whining diners.

Take a look at the romaine lettuce that is a little brown. You should cut and discard that part if you want the diners to be satisfied.

Here are the two peppers and tomato ready to be processed. As you can see I chose two different peppers to have a nice mix of colors.

At the same time I check the blog stats. Nice! I do get a lot of visitors every day and this is because the content is fresh and also because I use the correct keywords and titles for every blog entry. So far today I have 47 page views. Sweet!

Here is the chicken I will add to the salad. If you use ham or turkey you will have to cut the pieces small and of uniform size. I used chicken because that is what I have in the refrigerator. 

Of course I had to give Raspy a nice portion of the chicken because she wouldn't leave me alone. She got her little tummy full and then she left me alone. Isn't she a beauty? Look at her. look at her, I tell ya.

For the bbq beans I added two tablespoons of olive oil in a pan and got it nice and hot. Then I added the two small onions and the four diced cloves of garlic. I stirred that for three minutes and then added the beans and the bbq sauce. I set the range timer to 60 minutes and I made sure to check the pot every 10 minutes and gave it a good stir.

I diced and peeled the apple...

and also diced the potatoes and carrots. Once the potatoes and carrots were ready I removed them from the heat source cooled them down by running cold water on them and started to process them. Each carrot was sliced in half and then each piece was sliced in thirds, this way each carrot was sliced in sixths. After that I diced the carrot slices. The carrot pieces must be small. The potato can be cut in a little larger pieces but not too large.

I used a large glass bowl and added the cut potatoes, carrots, apple, mayonnaise, mustard, and capers. I mixed all of them well and then I added the peas and I mixed those too.

Here is the salad with all the ingredients.

I cut the three eggs in thirds, and added the sliced mango. It looks scrumptious. The mango was sooooo sweet!

 I added diced chicken on the salad too. You will have to gauge the amount of chicken by the number of diners. In my case I had just two people.

For the regular salad I made a basic thousand island dressing with:

• 3/4 cup mayonnaise
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• grated three kosher dill pickles
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder

Here is the table as I had set it...

A small portion of the salad was on the plate, the beans were nice and warm and the Russian salad was ready to be devoured. My wife and I thought that the Russian salad was excellent. The amount of each ingredient was perfect and the bbq beans complemented the Russian salad very well. I also added two containers with our favorite olives to complement the salad.

 
Good day and good luck.

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