The Impatient Chef Recipe: Potatoes au Rotten

Sometimes a name just pops into your head, and it won't let go.   And sometimes, even though the name is not at all appetizing, you have to make the dish around it.  This is one such occasion.
In the lead-up to Christmas, I was planning the meal which my family would partake of, and I needed a potato dish.  I had read a news article about the queen of England just a few minutes before, and The Sex Pistols song "God Save the Queen" popped into my head.  Then, it struck:  Potatoes au Rotten, named for the lead singer, Johnny Rotten.  I would make a spiced up version of the regular dish, and give it spiky, red hair with the addition of shredded carrots on the top.  A side dish was born.

The Impatient Chef presents:  Potatoes au Rotten.

Photo Credit: Rex (no last name given)

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 lbs russet potatoes, sliced into 1/4 inch rounds
• 1 large onion, sliced into rings
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Fresh, ground pepper
• 1/2 tsp mustard powder
• 3 heaping tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 3 tbsp (or more) Cajun Seasoning (or other zesty mixture)
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup buttermilk (or more milk)
• 6 oz shredded Pepper Jack cheese
• 4 oz shredded carrots.
• 1 cup panko

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Butter a 1 quart casserole dish. 
2. Layer 1/2 of the potatoes into bottom of the buttered casserole dish. Top with the onion slices, and add the remaining potatoes. Sprinkle the Cajun Seasoning over the top. 
3. In a medium-size saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Mix in the flour and salt, and stir constantly with a whisk for one minute. Add about 1/4 cup of the milk.  Stir until incorporated, and then slowly stir in the rest.  Stir in dried mustard powder.  Cook, stirring, until mixture has thickened.  Stir in cheese all at once, and continue stirring until melted, about 30 to 60 seconds.  Pepper to taste.  
4. Pour cheese over the potatoes, sprinkle the shredded carrot over the top, and cover the dish with aluminum foil.
5. Bake 1 1/4 hours in the preheated oven.  
6. Remove from the oven, and sprinkle panko over the top.  Bake the remaining 15 minutes uncovered.  Allow to rest for 10 minutes.  Serve.  

The Impatient Chef Food Frolic: The Anatomy of a BLT

The Impatient Chef: Anatomy of a BLT

Some would ask "why bother with the BLT?"  It's so simple.  It has 3, no wait, 4, ingredients including the bread.  But, there's mayo, that makes 5.  You can put onion on it.  That makes it  BLOT (pronounced as written).  Subtract Onion, and add avocado.  That makes it a BLAT (see previous pronouncement guide).  If you add both onion, and avocado, it becomes, yes, you guessed it, a BLOAT.  Add some salt and pepper...  BLOSPAT?  Well, you get the picture.

So, let's start this anatomy lesson with a simple listing of parts:

Basic Parts

Okay, that wasn't the one I was looking for. Let me see...  Ah!  Here it is:

The Correct List

Let's start with the essentials.  First: the bacon.  The bacon should be uncured.  There has been research that has pointed to chemical curing with sodium nitrites leading to cancer.  The jury is still out on this, but why take the chance?  In my opinion, uncured bacon also tastes better.

The other controversy surrounding bacon is thick slices versus thin.  I prefer thinly (but not too thin) sliced bacon for BLT's.  I've had thick bacon come out of the sandwich as a slab when I bit into it, and I don't want to have to rebuild my sandwich constantly.  I have learned over time that slightly thinner is better.

Pepper bacon versus just bacon.  Your choice.  Both are heavenly.

Next comes bread: I prefer a good sourdough.  You want a bread without a meaty crust for the same reason you want thinner bacon.  There's nothing more annoying than having your sandwich self-destruct as you struggle to gnaw off the first bite, and the first bite has other ideas.  BLT's are not internally self-adhesive.  Why make it even harder?  This being said, if you use mass-marketed, sappy white bread, you're missing out on a lot of taste.

Don't toast your bread too long.  I find that a lighter toast makes it easier to keep the sandwich together.

Mayo:  This is where I part ways with most foodies.  The best mayo in the world, other than what you can make at home, is available at any grocery store in the known universe.  West of the Mississippi it's called Best Foods; in the east it's called Hellmann's.  You really can't go wrong with it.  It has flavor while not getting in the way of the rest of the sandwich, and it isn't greasy.  Use Miracle Whip only if you have an allergy to regular mayo.

Lettuce:  Romaine.  Fresh.  Organic.  Experiment with spinach, arugula, or even some exotic lettuces, but romaine, even the crinkly type, is always an excellent choice.

Tomato:  I prefer locally-raised, and / or heirloom tomatoes.  I want flavor.  In the late summer to early fall, I get them from my itsy-bitsy garden.  Other times, I try to find any tomato that wasn't bred for shelf life.  The standard, supermarket tomatoes (you know the anemic tennis balls that taste like cardboard aspic) are simply not worthy of a good bacon.  I prefer brandywine tomatoes.  Warning, the juice from these will run down your chin, but... Oh. My. Lord.  They are good.  Experiment.  Find your favorite.  Skip the tennis balls.

Extras:  

Pepper: I have found that salt and pepper are not actually extras, but some folks may think they are.  I keep two pepper grinders in the kitchen.  One is set on coarse grind, and one on medium.  I use the coarse on BLT's to get a bigger flavor.

The Other Ones

Salt: I buy kosher salt, sometimes from Pensey's, and sometimes from whoever carries the large flake, or coarse version.  I use different coarsenesses for different purposes.  For the BLT, I want a coarse flake salt.  It adds an occasional little crunch accompanied by a salty goodness that brings out the best in the tomato.

As mentioned before, onions and avocados also go nicely on BLT's.  They are truly extras, and many times serve only to make the sandwich fly apart when you least expect it.  Despite the challenge that they provide, they can still be good on a BLT.  I prefer red onions and ripe avocados.

A barely ripe, or tack hard avocado is not edible.  Some attention must be paid to learning when one is ripe.  Usually, you find out that avocados are ripe in retrospect, as in "Oh, this was ripe yesterday.  Now, its a mass of blackened goo."  Getting your avocado fingers is kind of like getting your sea legs.  You have to give it time, and fall down a lot.

I hope this tour of the anatomy of the BLT has been helpful.

--The Impatient Chef.

The Impatient Chef Recipe: Southern Red Beans and Rice

Red Beans and Rice is a staple of the south, especially around Louisiana.  I decided to try my hand at it.  The cooking went nothing like the recipe used said it would, so I improvised.  What I got was the recipe I am sharing here.  It was the best I have ever had.

Ingredients:

For red beans:

• 4 tablespoons olive oil, or better yet, bacon grease.  
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 medium red bell peppers, chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, pressed, or thoroughly crushed in a mortar and pestle
• 3 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 large carrot, diced
• 2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 pound smoked ham hock, bone in
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme
• 1 teaspoon Louisiana hot sauce, or approved equivalent.  
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 2 quarts water
• 1 pound red beans (not kidney), rinsed and picked of debris.  

For rice:

• 6 cups spring or filtered water 
• Fine sea salt 
• 7 ounces (1 cup) Anson Mills Carolina Gold Rice 
• 2 to 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces 
• ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 

Directions:

For beans:

Soak the beans in water with a teaspoon of salt stirred in overnight in a crock pot.  Use enough water to more than cover the beans.  In the morning, drain the beans, and add a fresh 2 quarts of water to the beans, and turn it onto high.  I have an older crock pot, so I have Off, Low, and High for settings.  I prefer this kind of crock pot over newer ones with programs and Wifi.  When the beans are starting to simmer lightly, turn it to low.   

1. About 2 hours before you want to eat, dice the peppers, onion, carrot, and celery.  You probably don’t have a mortar and pestle like the one pictured, but you should.  Put the garlic in the mortar, and smash it up good.  add the thyme, and kosher salt.  I start this with a coarse kosher salt because it adds a little grinding action.  We want to release the oils in the thyme leaves.  
2. In a 7-quart Dutch oven set over medium-high heat, add the oil (or bacon grease), and let it get hot.  Don’t use extra virgin for this, because the smoke temperature is too low.  Add the onion, bell pepper, celery, carrot and pepper.. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onions and celery are semi-translucent and the bell peppers and carrots are tender, 6 to 8 minutes. Add the garlic and thyme mixture, and cook for 1 to 2 more minutes, stirring constantly.  Add the ham hock, bay leaves, thyme, hot sauce, cayenne pepper, water and pour the beans from the crock pot into the dutch oven, and increase the heat to high.  Eat a bean to test its firmness.  If they are soft, and not at all gritty, skip the lid-on part of the final cooking.  If they are not soft, continue with the next step.  
3. Cook, stirring frequently until the mixture comes to a boil, approximately 6 to 8 minutes. Decrease the heat to maintain a simmer, cover and cook for at least 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.  Keep an eye on how tender the beans are.  When they are just about as tender as you want them, move to the uncovered cooking.  
4. After the covered cooking is done, uncover the pot, remove the ham hock.  Let it cool on a plate.  
5. Increase the heat slightly to maintain a steady simmer and continue to cook, stirring often, for another 30 to 40 minutes.
6. When the ham hock is cooled, remove it from the bone, remove the fat, and tear it up with a couple of forks.  Return it to the pot.  
7. When the beans are tender and the sauce is thickened to your liking, they are done.  If they aren’t thickening, cook a little longer.  You don’t want to turn the beans to mush, though.  You may not get this right on the first try.  You can adjust your cooking times on future attempts.  It’s worth it. 

For Rice:

Follow the Anson Mills recipe for Carolina Gold rice as follows:  

For this recipe, you will need a rimmed baking sheet, parchment paper, a heavy-bottomed 3½-quart saucepan, a wooden spoon, a fine-holed footed colander, and a spatula.

Directions:  

1. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 300 degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a heavy-bottomed 3½-quart saucepan, bring the water and 1 tablespoon of salt to a boil over high heat. Add the rice, stir once, and as soon as the water returns to a boil, reduce the heat to low. Simmer gently, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the rice is just tender with no hard starch at its center, about 15 minutes. Drain the rice in a fine-holed footed colander and rinse well with cool water. Shake the colander to drain off excess water.
3. Distribute the rice evenly on the prepared baking sheet. Place the baking sheet in the oven and allow the rice to dry for about 5 minutes, gently turning the grains from time to time with a spatula. Dot with the butter and sprinkle with the pepper and salt to taste. Return the baking sheet to the oven and allow the rice to warm through, occasionally turning the grains, until the butter has melted and the rice is hot, about 5 minutes more. Transfer to a warmed serving bowl and serve immediately.

Why Use Anson Mills Rice?

If you’re asking this question, you haven’t tried it.  You can use rice from you local supermarket, or natural food store, and this dish will be good.  Just remember to add some butter, salt and pepper to the rice in the quantities listed above.  However, the Anson Mills ice kicks the deliciousness up a notch.  Give it a try.