A Boston Legacy

Baked beans can be a sublime treat ... if prepared correctly.  First get yourself a real crockery bean pot (as above).  Then buy two packages of dried navy beans (they're cheap).  Next pour both packages of these beans into a copious amount of cold water ... sorting through them for small stones and damaged beans.  Change this water one or two times to remove all the dried-bean processing detritus.  Then cover and place them in a cool spot overnight.  In the morning change their water once again, drain them, and fill your bean pot to about 3/4ths full ... discarding the remainder.

Now add to this bean pot:
- one medium-sized onion, finely diced
- a teaspoon each of dried mustard and salt (It is actually safer to add the salt later in the cooking process ... in added water ...as this early addition can sometimes make the beans tough-skinned.)
- a good pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg ... and a small pinch of minced cloves and dried ginger
- a quarter cup each of black-strap molasses, ketchup, and dark-brown sugar
- a good splash of the juice (and spices) from a jar of sweet-mixed pickles

Next add cold water to this bean pot until the beans are just covered ... and stir well.  Cut a pound of sliced bacon in half (across the slices) and place one half part on top of the beans.  Place a small piece of aluminum foil on top of the bean pot before you replace the cover (to reduce its moisture loss).  Put the bean pot in a slow oven (about 250 degrees F. for six to eight hours ... checking every hour or so to keep its moisture content up.  You might be able to skip the last addition of water as you don't want the final result to be too juicy.

Serve with baked ham, knockwurst, or barbecue (chicken, pork, or beef brisket), a tossed salad, and crusty bread.

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Salad Days

Need I re-iterate? If you want a good chef’s salad, you must buy good ingredients. Two-bit substitutions will produce two-bit results. So take time to find a good deli with superior cold-cuts and select carefully. Here is the shopping list for this summer-time favorite (generously serves six):

- 1/3 pound deli-thin sliced Genoa salami (NOT prepackaged)

- 1/3 pound deli-thin sliced Swiss cheese (the nuttier the better)

- 1/3 pound deli-thin sliced Italian roast beef (w/ that hint of garlic)

- 1/3 pound deli-thin sliced baked ham (the real deal)

- 1/3 pound deli-thin sliced roast turkey (not that plastic-looking imitation)
- One large cucumber
- Two ripe tomatoes
- One bunch scallions
- Two packages Summer Salad mix or make your own with torn-to-bite-size frisee, Bibb lettuce, arugula, radicchio, etc, (no baby spinach).
- Your favorite salad dressings (I prefer home-made Thousand Island made with equal parts mayo, ketchup and relish), but Italian or Ranch or Parmesan/peppercorn will do.

Then:
- Wash and spin-dry the salad greens (even if prepackaged).
- Peel the tomatoes (take the time, it is important) and cut into bit-sized pieces.
- Peel, seed and cut the cucumber into bite-sized pieces.
- Clean three or four scallions and cut into bite-sized pieces.
- Cross-cut the cold-cuts and Swiss cheese into 1/8 inch slivers.

Next:
- Place the salad greens in a large salad bowl.
- Arrange the tomatoes, cucumber, cold cuts, and Swiss cheese in pie shaped segments on top of the greens (taking time to contrast the colors).
- Place the chopped scallions in the center.

Present the salad in all its glory to your guests and then toss it vigorously until it is well mixed. Serve to your salivating guest and let them pick their own dressing. If you choose Thousand Island dressing, top with some fresh cracked or ground black pepper.

Serve with a good white wine and crusty bread. Enjoy!

You Say Scalloped, I Say Escalloped

Potatoes that is. This is a relatively low-calorie version of the classic lyonnaise potatoes … without the heavy cream and loads of butter. I prefer saying “escalloped potatoes” because it makes it clearer that it does not contain those shellfish.

This recipe is quite simple and delicious: Peel and thinly slice (a Mandolin helps) three or four medium to large Russet potatoes soaking the slices in cold water for about fifteen minutes. In the meantime peel, crosscut and thinly slice a very large onion (or two smaller ones) and saute these slices in some olive oil and a dollop of butter until they are dark brown but not burned. Add a little salt, pepper and dried thyme and mix well. Butter the bottom and sides of an oven-proof dish that fits in your toaster oven.

Now, layer the dried-off potato slices and onion mixture in this dish, lightly salting and peppering the potato slices as you go. Don’t go above four or five layers stopping on the potato layer. Now add enough boxed chicken stock to come up to the top of these layers. May I suggest the new product called “rotisserie chicken stock”. It is darker and more flavorful (or make your own chicken stock from a leftover rotisserie chicken.) Cover the top with grated Gruyere cheese.  (Don’t skimp on the quality or quantity here.)  Place in the toaster oven set on 350 degrees and bake for 45 minutes. At the end, if the top is not bubbly and brown, put the toaster oven on broil for a few minutes until it is.

Enjoy with a baked ham, a meat loaf (with some bottled horseradish), or a roast beef (ditto on the horseradish).

Ham It Up

Ham, to me, is a production in three acts: baked ham, ham salad, and split-pea soup with ham. Generally every Easter we have ham and I follow the following ritual with a certain compulsive slavishness:

Baked Ham – first make sure that you have a real ham, no boneless varieties, none of those “modern” hams with a cuticle of some sort of plastic coating (ugh!), no ham overly plumped up with a saline or nitrate solution, and, preferably, not a spiral-sliced one (the front slices always dry out when it is baked). And if you must use a country ham (not recommended), make it a sugar-cured one and not a salt-cured one. I am talking about a real old-fashioned smoked ham with all its bones, a nice coating of pork fat and as little skin as possible. Now bake it according to the directions on the label. About a half-hour before it is done, baste it with a glaze made as follows: place ½ cup of dark brown sugar in a sauce pan with ½ cup of orange juice and ½ teaspoon of ground cloves (takes the place of whole cloves stuck in the ham, but you can do it the other way it you must). Stir and simmer this mixture until it is about the consistency of honey. Cover as much of the baked ham as possible with this mixture and return it to the oven, continually basting it with any glaze that slides off. Serve with whatever is traditional in your household (how about some real home-baked beans, escalloped potatoes, and a tossed green salad?)

Ham Salad – the next day, after you have had your fill of ham and Swiss cheese sandwiches or Blodgets  (see earlier recipe), take the majority of the remaining ham meat from the bone (with its fat, but not its skin – at least two good handfuls) and put it through a meat grinder (not a food processor) alternating it with the contents of a jar of sweet gherkin pickles. Into this salad base add at least two heaping tablespoons of mayonnaise and a little bit of the pickle juice. Mix well and serve either on some lettuce as a scoop of salad (even better, also add a scoop of tuna salad and some Thousand Island dressing), on a sandwich, or as hors d'oeuvres  on some nice crackers.

Split-pea Soup with Ham – dice two ribs of celery (avec leaves is better), one medium onion, and three large cleaned carrots and sauté them in some good olive oil until transparent. Rinse well in a colander one package of picked-over, dried split-peas (I like the green ones, but you can use yellow) and add to the vegetables with a large pinch of salt. Immediately add about three quarts of water, three bay leaves, five whole allspice, and seven whole peppercorns. Then slip in the ham bone with as much meat remaining as you favor. Cover and simmer for at least four hours until the ham meat is falling off the bones. Turn off the heat and let cool until you can safely handle the ham bone. Remove it and pull the ham meat from the bones and discard all the bones. For those with an old-fashioned pallet, you might also save some of the softened gristle. Chop up and put this meat (and gristle) back in the soup, adding more water if it seems necessary. Remove the bay leaves and add about ten squirts of red Tabasco sauce. Reheat briefly and stir well. Eat some of this soup now with some crusty French bread and butter, but it is even better the next day. The soup might appear a little thin now, but, trust me, it will thicken up over night in the refrigerator. The next day, ask over your best friends, heat and devour what’s left.

Applause for the emoter.  Curtain …