Russelnod.com

1 large or 2 medium beets
Juice of 1 orange
2 tablespoons butter
Kosher or sea salt

Cook the beets: Cut the tops within ½ inch of the beet and scrub well. Place the beets in a pot, cover with water and bring to a boil. Simmer until a skewer pierces the beet with just a slight resistance. This can take as little as 40 and as long as 60 minutes, depending on the size of the beet. Drain and let sit until cool enough to handle. The skin should slip off easily. Slice into ¼-inch rounds, cutting in half or quarters if the beet is really large.

Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a saucepan. Add the beets and the orange juice. Simmer for 10 minutes, until the liquid is reduced slightly. Add salt to taste. Swirl in the remaining tablespoon of butter just before serving.

My daughter-in-law Katie makes this salad all the time. In the winter, the dark spinach, purple beets and white cheese make a really dramatic presentation as well as a tasty salad. You can use feta cheese as well, but a sharp blue seems to work best.

½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
6 tablespoons good olive oil
3 tablespoons vinegar (red wine, white wine or sherry)
1 medium clove garlic
2 cups spinach
1 large cooked beet, sliced
¼ pound blue cheese
Small handful of pecans or walnuts
Small handful of raisins or Craisins (dried cranberries)

Make the vinaigrette: Place the mustard in a small bowl. Add the olive oil and vinegar. Using a fork or tiny whisk, whip till emulsified. Peel the garlic clove, smash it, but leave it in one piece, and add to the vinaigrette. Let sit for up to an hour. Remove the garlic clove before serving.

Trim the stems from the spinach and wash and dry well. Place in a salad bowl. Toast the pecans or walnuts for 5 to 8 minutes, until they are fragrant. Let cool. Leave whole or chop coarse, leaving large pieces.

Top the spinach with slices of the cooked beet, cut in strips or quarters if large. Add the blue cheese in small pieces. Toss the nuts and raisins/Craisins over the salad.

Just before serving, toss with the vinaigrette and serve.

Some times you get it right. For dinner last Saturday, I wanted to do spare ribs. I started with a rub on Friday night–a mix of ancho and pasilla chilis, paprika, onion and garlic granules, brown sugar, and some cumin. I added some smoked paprika and smoked salt for a little smoke flavor.

By Saturday afternoon, the ribs were slightly wet and ready to go. I used a gas grill with a box of hickory chips, and cooked the three racks slightly offset on one another for about 3 hours at 300. By then, the tips were a little dry and the meat pulled away from the bone with some gentle pressure.

Meanwhile, I was making my usual sauce. The technique is to cook garlic cloves, cumin and coriander seed, and black and dried red pepper in molasses and honey for a half hour, then add tomatoes and vinegar and simmer for a couple of hours. It is a great sauce to make and I tinkered happily with it, adding a little scotch, some squab spice mix left over from a French Laundry recipe. My wife and her ex-sister-in-law ate the pineapple I was planning to add, so I used orange and lemon juice.

The punchline, of course, was that I hated the taste. There was a bitterness that I couldn’t get past. “It tastes like all your sauces,” my wife said, which did not improve my mood. So I made a quick sweet sauce with ketchup, brown sugar, ancho chili and dried mustard powder. No vinegar, no molasses, no tinkering. It was sweet and a little spicy and that’s what I served.

Time to research the traditional sweet sauces BBQ sauces again: the Molasses-Cumin-Coriander-Vinegar vs Ketchup-Chili-Mustard versions vs. the versions yet to be discovered.

Thanks to Nomi Leidner for the pictures.

Mark Bitterman, selmelier (think sommelier for salt), is trying to conduct a salt tasting for 30 food writers, chefs and other culinary professionals gathered for a symposium at The Greenbrier, a West Virginia resort. It’s long after dinner and the writers are in full party mode, making this an extremely difficult audience. But Bitterman smiles shyly and continues his disquisition, waving a bottle of fleur de sel.

As food professionals, we’re all way beyond iodized table salt. Boxes of kosher salt fill our pantries and flavor our recipes. But are we ready to abandon kosher salt, as Bitterman advises, in favor of a good sea salt?

Since this is an improvised tasting, there are no vegetables or bread and butter on which to taste the salt. Instead, a volunteer passes through the crowd, spooning a tiny pile of salt on the side of each attendee’s fist in a manner reminiscent of other parties, a fact not lost on the crowd. A waiter circulates with bottles of water.

As we work our way through the salts, Bitterman describes, and we taste and ask questions. Since most finishing salt comes in larger crystals, one cookbook author wonders, “What about baking?” There is a ground fleur de sel, Bitterman answers. “If you could only pick one salt, which one would it be?” asks an editor. Bitterman points out the Fleur de Sel de Guerande from the Loire-Atlantique region of France.

Try as I might, it’s going to take a far better palate than my own to distinguish the minerals among the various salts. They seem mostly to vary in the shape of their crystals, which affects the intensity of their saltiness.

Bitterman moves on to the specialty salts: Turkish black salt, mixed with a touch of charcoal; smoked salts, dried over smoky wood fires; and an amazing truffle salt, containing small pieces of truffle that have infused the salt with an intense woodsy flavor. “That’s the one for scrambled eggs,” observe several authors almost at once.

Kosher salt is made for kashering, the process which draws blood from meat. It is 100 percent dry and absorbs moisture more rapidly than the moist sea salts. Bitterman recommends avoiding it in favor of a good sea salt. A number of chefs, no doubt thinking of the cases of kosher salt in their pantries and the cost of sea salt, seem reluctant to throw away their kosher stash. However, we all agree that a good finishing salt belongs on the table.

The next morning, I wake with a tongue that feels like the Bonneville Salt Flats and a newfound respect for salt.

Salt, the only mineral we eat in its raw form, is a simple chemical compound, sodium chloride. Both sodium and chlorine are essential for proper body functioning. Our bodies lose salt daily, through tears and perspiration, and we need to replenish it. There’s an old story about 18th-century bread recipes: They did not call for salt, because enough sweat dripped from the kneader onto the dough. In recent years, salt has been linked to high blood pressure and limiting salt intake has become something of a fetish. The culinary writer Jeffrey Steingarten, a contrarian to the last, has cited studies that seem to vindicate salt and instead blame fat and lack of exercise for health problems. Try telling that to Attila the Dietitian, my wife, for whom salt is only slightly less poisonous than arsenic.

Salt is hygroscopic — that is, it draws moisture out of plant and animal tissue. It also slows the rotting process long enough for the bacteria responsible for fermentation to grow, which is why salt preserves foods. Virtually every culture in history has used salt to preserve vegetables, fish and meat and created condiments with high salt content (soy sauce, fish sauce, the Roman garum, to name a few). What would prosciutto, herring, Maryland crab boils, bacalau, kim chee, sauerkraut, pickles, soy sauce or Tabasco be without salt? The Egyptians used natron, a naturally occurring mixture of sodium bicarbonate, sodium carbonate and sodium chloride, in the mummification process, although cut-rate mummies were preserved using only sodium chloride. If you are interested, I recommend Mark Kurlansky’s book “Salt” for a detailed look at its history.

In the earliest days of the planet, moisture washed away the soluble minerals which collected in depressions of exposed rocks. As the oceans formed, water evaporated, but the dissolved minerals stayed. Sodium chloride was among the most common of these minerals, and the oceans became increasingly salty over time. In fact, one method used to estimate when amphibians evolved is to measure the salt content of their blood and calculate when the ocean was that salty.

Sometimes parts of the ocean became blocked and evaporated, leaving salt deposits. Sometimes brine was forced from underground up into cracks in the rock, where it evaporated and left salt domes. Oceans, mines and domes are the sources of most of the salt we use.

The process for making salt from brine is essentially the same everywhere. You find a naturally occurring source of salt water — the ocean, a salt marsh, a brine spring — and evaporate it. As the water is reduced, the salt crystals form on the sides and the bottom of the container. The crystals are then raked into piles and removed.

When salt evaporates in ponds, most of it sinks to the bottom since brine is heavier than freshwater. In France, this salt often picks up traces of clay from the lining of the salt ponds, giving it a grayish color and a mineral taste. This salt is called sel gris, gray salt. Some salt evaporates as crystals that float on the surface of the ponds. This salt remains white and is called fleur de sel, flower of salt.

Much sea salt, such as Maldon salt, is evaporated in a series of basins that use the same principle as a maple syrup evaporator. Early settlers denuded Cape Cod’s forests to make the salt used to preserve codfish until 1776, when John Sears built a salt works that used the sun to evaporate the water. Windmills provided the power to pump the brine into evaporation trays.

Salt mines, which contain a layer of salt from prehistoric sources, are often mined like any other ore. Sometimes the salt is dissolved in water, with the brine then pumped to the surface, where it is evaporated.

AFTER ATTENDING THE TASTING at The Greenbrier, I decided to conduct one of my own. I bought a starter set of finishing salts from Bitterman, who with his wife runs The Meadow, a salt, chocolate, wine and flower shop (www.atthemeadow.com) in Portland, Ore. I added the Hawaiian red salt I’ve been using for a couple of years, plus some other locally obtained sea and smoked salts. My wife set out tiny salt dishes and we spooned out 12 salts, plus slices of cucumber, tomato, and bread and butter.

As we progressed, I served grilled chicken thighs, baked potatoes and salad. For dessert, we had a selection of chocolate-covered caramels provided by some friends in the chocolate business, Cocoapelli Chocolates (www.cocoapellichocolates.com).

The results were interesting. People gravitated toward the French sea salts, especially the Fleur de Sel de Guerande and to the Maldon salt, an English sea salt with large flat crystals. Bitterman had rhapsodized about crunching Maldon salt on a salad or a piece of roast chicken. Previously, the only salt crystals I’d crunched had been on pretzels, not an entirely pleasant experience. I can say that Maldon crystals are much more delicate and that, yes, crunching Maldon salt on a salad or a piece of grilled meat is delightful.

Both the Maldon and a lightly smoked Halon Mon Gold were amazing on the caramels, especially the soft runny ones. See the tasting notes on this blog, Salt Tasting Notes.

The consensus seemed to be that finishing salts do vary enough to make the search for one you like worthwhile. The more fun salts added a nice note to the table.

For mail order, look at The Meadow’s Web site, which offers around 50 kinds of salt, including a slab of Himalayan pink salt that you heat in the oven and cook on directly. Locally, Whole Foods in Hadley has a nice array of finishing salts at the cheese counter and Cooks Shop Here in Northampton also has a good selection (I recommend the Iburi Jio, a heavily smoked Japanese salt).

Some salt-related suggestions:

Never use table salt because it is mixed with aluminum anti-caking agents and the crystals are too small. Use a crystal salt — sea salt, gray salt or, yes, kosher salt — for salting food while cooking or at the table.

Toss shrimp with a tablespoon of salt and let sit for an hour before cooking to revive the sea taste.

Toss salt on grilling chicken or steak for a simple yet powerful flavoring.

Dress a delicate summer green salad with a couple of tablespoons of good olive oil (I use an oil pressed with blood oranges), a splash or two of balsamic and a sprinkling of Maldon salt.

Try various salts on cut tomatoes.

Sprinkle a smoked salt on potato salad or grilled corn.

Don’t omit desserts from the list. My father has always sprinkled salt on his watermelon, and adding salt to chocolate or caramel has become a trendy dessert of late.

Recipes

Ma La Shrimp

Homemade Hot Sauce

Cucumber Salad

Orginally published in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, May 30, 2008.

Ma La, a Chinese term that combines “numbing” and “hot,” is primarily a mixture of Sichuan peppercorns and salt. Most recipes call for deep-frying the shrimp, but the version below simply sautes them.

When you peel the shrimp before you eat it, most of the salt is removed.

1 pound medium shrimp in their shells
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon crystal salt
1 teaspoon crushed Sichuan peppercorns or cracked black pepper
3 tablespoons oil

Wash the shrimp, then dry and toss them with the cornstarch. Mix the salt and pepper and set aside.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a wok and stir-fry the shrimp until they just turn pink. Remove to a plate. Add the rest of the oil and the salt and pepper mixture, and stir until fragrant. Add the shrimp and stir until the shrimp are coated with the salt and pepper and fully cooked.

Avery Island, La., the home of Tabasco sauce, is a salt dome; it was the major source of salt during the Civil War, in fact. With summer coming, you might want to experiment with a homemade hot sauce as a way of preserving all those hot peppers. Start with bright red peppers. The proportions will vary, but one source suggests using a 32:1 proportion of peppers and salt.

Wash the peppers and place in a food processor with the salt. Grind to a paste. Be careful of the fumes when you open the lid, and when handling hot peppers in general.

Place the pepper paste in a glass or ceramic jar, press down and cover with a plate. Store in a cool dark place. Liquid will form overnight. If necessary, cover the mash with additional water.

After a month or two, the liquid will stop bubbling. Either serve as a condiment, or strain and dilute with white vinegar.

This is a great summer salad. It is good for picnics because there is no mayonnaise to spoil.

2 large cucumbers
1 teaspoon crystal salt
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons unflavored rice vinegar
2 tablespoons shelled peanuts, toasted and chopped coarse
Fresh dill or cilantro

Peel the cucumbers, slice lengthwise and, using a teaspoon, scoop out the seeds. Slice the cucumber halves into thin slices. Place in a colander, mix with the salt, and set the colander on a plate. Let sit for 30 minutes.

Wipe the cucumbers with paper towels and put in a serving bowl. Add the sugar and vinegar and mix well. Let sit for 15 minutes or more. To serve, pour off any accumulated liquid and top with snips of fresh dill or cilantro leaves and the chopped peanuts.

I usually fry these in a small skillet in about ½ inch of oil. You can use a wok or, if you are lucky enough to have one, a deep fryer. For a creamier version of this recipe, replace the dried chickpeas and bulgur with 4 cups of canned chickpeas that have been washed and drained and a slice of bread.

2 cups dried chickpeas
¼ cup fine bulgur
1 large onion, chopped
½ cup chopped parsley or a parsley and cilantro combination
1 large egg
4 large cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
½ to 1 teaspoon hot Hungarian paprika or ground cayenne
1 teaspoon baking soda
Vegetable oil for frying

Soak the dried chickpeas overnight in cold water; or alternatively, cover them with water, bring to a boil for 2 minutes, then let sit for an hour or so until they are softened. Soak the bulgur in ½ cup boiling water for 30 minutes before using.

Add the soaked chickpeas to a food processor with the onion and pulse until the mixture is thick. Add the drained bulgur, parsley or parsley/cilantro combination, garlic, baking soda and spices and blend. Let sit for an hour in the refrigerator.

Form the mixture into small balls about the size of a walnut and flatten them slightly. The mixture won’t hold together especially well, but it will be fine after it is cooked. Heat about ½ inch of vegetable oil in a small frying pan until it is hot. (Place the end of a wooden spoon in the oil. If bubbles immediately form, it is ready.) Fry five or six balls at a time. Do not flip them until the bottoms are nice and brown. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place on a rack or on paper towels in a cookie pan and keep in a 350-degree oven until the rest are done.

Serve in a warmed pita, with chopped romaine lettuce, cucumbers and celery, grated carrots and chopped scallions. Top with tahini or yogurt sauce (recipes follow) and sprinkle with hot sauce to taste. Or, serve the falafel over a Greek-style salad and top with tahini and hot sauce.

1 cup yogurt, whole milk or partially skim
2 cloves garlic
Juice of half a lemon

Mash the garlic on a cutting board with some salt and mince finely. Add to the yogurt with the lemon juice and stir. You can fold in a seeded and grated cucumber, if you like.

The recipes I’ve found are all a combination of minced garlic, lemon juice and tahini thinned with water. Israeli techina sauce adds cumin and cilantro to the basic mix. I like the combination below, but vary the mix to suit your tastes. You can add cumin, of course, or hot pepper, Cajun seasoning or Old Bay Seasoning for a nontraditional but tasty sauce.

½ cup tahini
3 cloves garlic, minced to a paste
Juice of 1 lemon
Water

Put the garlic in a small bowl. Whisk in some of the tahini with half the lemon juice. Keep mixing, adding water a tablespoon at a time until it is combined and smooth. Continue until all the tahini is incorporated. Add enough lemon juice to make it tart.

Serves 4

I have combined two common Spanish dishes since I like the flavor that the chorizo imparts and I like the spinach and chickpea combination. You can add 3 cups of chicken stock and serve this as a soup or serve the version below, which is drier. A shot or two of a vinegary hot sauce, like Frank’s or Texas Pete, is a great addition at the end.

½ pound dried chickpeas or two 15-ounce cans cooked chickpeas
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 link chorizo sausage
1 medium onion, minced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
½ cup chickpea cooking liquid, chicken stock or water
1 pound spinach or 1 bunch Swiss chard
Salt and pepper to taste

Soak the dried chickpeas overnight in water and drain. Slice the sausage in half lengthwise and then crosswise into half moons. Brown the pieces in a large pot with the tablespoon of olive oil. Remove the cooked sausage and reserve.

Saute the onion in the oil until it is transparent. Add the garlic and saute until it is fragrant. Add the chickpeas and liquid. Simmer until the chickpeas are soft, 1 to 1½ hours. If using canned chickpeas, simmer for 15 minutes only.

Wash and stem the spinach. If using the chard, wash, remove the central stem and slice into ribbons. Stir into the chickpeas and simmer uncovered for 5 minutes or until the leaves are wilted. Chard may take a little longer. Add the chorizo and simmer until it is hot. Add salt and pepper to taste. The dish should be moist, but not soupy. Serve in a soup bowl with a good crusty bread.

I’ve always liked applesauce. My wife loves to make applesauce. She also likes roast pork, which, of course, is a natural pairing. Often, there will be a lot of loose apples in the vegetable bin of the fridge that, rather than watching them go bad, she whips up into applesauce.

It is incredibly easy and requires very little in the way of a recipe: wash and cut 3-5 lbs of apples (macintoshes work well) into sixths, place in a pot with a couple of splashes of water. Bring to a boil and simmer until the apples are well cooked. Add a tsp or two of sugar if you need to. Puree in a Foley food mill. The skins give an appealing pinkish cast to the sauce and the texture is sublime–larger pieces than a puree but smooth.

She was out of town last night and I had the taste for the sauce. It was 8 and I didn’t feel like cooking or cleaning up, so I stopped at Whole Foods and bought some unsweetened organic applesauce. Ugh. Puree smooth, it was baby food without the fresh taste of apples. Now I’m left with most of the jar and wondering what to do with it. Sorry, my dear. I’ll never stray again.

This is white Chicken Stock, made with unroasted bones. For a heartier flavor, you can roast the chicken bones in a 450 degree oven, deglaze the pan and use the bones to make your stock.

10 pounds of chicken backs and other bones
8 quarts water
2 large onions
4 large carrots
3 stalks celery
1 leek
Parsley stems, black peppercorns, bay leaf

Wash the chicken bones well. Place them at the bottom of a large, deep, heavy pot, add the water and bring to a boil. As soon as it boils, reduce the heat to a simmer. Skim the foam from the top frequently in the first half hour. Nudge the bones, but don’t stir them.

Dice the vegetables into ½-inch pieces and set aside until needed.

After three hours, add the vegetables and the spices. You can tie the parsley and bay leaf together or tie everything in a cheesecloth bag if you like. Bring back to a simmer and cook for another two hours. Taste the stock. You may want to take out a couple of spoonfuls, cool them and salt them in order to taste them. The stock should be flavorful. If necessary, reduce the stock after you strain it to concentrate the flavor.

Strain the stock carefully through a chinois or a colander into another large pot. If necessary, wash the stockpot and restrain the liquid back into it through the chinois or a strainer. Cool quickly with ice cubes or a convenient snowbank.

When it is cold, lift the fat off the top. Spoon the stock into smaller containers, leaving as little air as possible, and freeze. Defrost as needed.

½ pound mushrooms
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
¼ cup Marsala wine
½ cup chicken stock
Salt and pepper to taste

Slice the mushrooms and saute in the butter and olive oil until they are cooked. Remove to a small bowl. This can be done several hours in advance.

Saute chicken or veal scallopini until almost cooked. Remove to a plate and cover. Pour off any fat, leaving the browned bits in the pan. Hold the pan off the heat and add the Marsala. Turn up the heat and reduce the Marsala to syrup while scraping up the browned bits in the pan. Add the chicken stock and any liquid from the mushrooms and mix well. Reduce over high heat until it is half gone and the sauce is thickened. Add the sauteed chicken or veal, top with the mushrooms and stir briefly to coat the pieces with the sauce and reheat them. Pour the mushrooms and sauce over the pieces when you serve. 

Shells from 1 pound of shrimp
1 carrot
1 stalk celery
1 onion
Bay leaf, parsley stems, black peppercorns

Wash the shrimp shells and place in a 2-quart pot. Add the remaining ingredients and cover with water. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat so the stock is at a slow simmer. Cook for one to two hours. Strain into a clean pot and bring to a boil. Reduce until the liquid is almost gone and the stock is brown and syrupy. Be careful not to scorch it. Stir in a pat of softened butter and some fresh thyme or chopped parsley and serve over grilled or broiled shrimp or fish.

Makes enough for 4 servings.

This is adapted from cookbook author Joanne Weir’s recipe. Make sure you start out with a large enough glass container as you will more than double the amount of liquid in it before you are done; a 5-gallon container works well. Or, divide the ingredients among several smaller glass jars. It is hard to predict how much you will get since there seems to be a “spillage and evaporation” factor, even when the containers are tightly covered. Because the vodka is diluted by the sugar syrup, you start with a 100 proof vodka. I have also seen recipes that call for grain alcohol, if you happen to have any on hand.

The bottling can be messy. I do everything in my sink or at my picnic table, which can be hosed down afterward.

15 organic lemons
1.5 liters 100 proof vodka
4 cups sugar
5 cups water

Wash the lemons with soap and water, scrubbing them well. Using a vegetable peeler, peel the lemon zest in large strips and place in the bottom of your container. Try to avoid getting any white pith as it is bitter. When you are done, cover with half the vodka. Close the container and place in a cool dark place for about 40 days.

After 40 days, make a syrup by heating the sugar and water until the sugar is completely dissolved. Let it cool and add it to the container with the rest of the vodka. Cover and let sit for another 40 days. Run your bottles through the dishwasher on a regular dry cycle or wash well in hot soapy water and rinse thoroughly. Strain some of the completed limoncello into a 2-quart pitcher, and pour into the bottles. Repeat as many times as necessary. Cork the bottles and wash the outsides thoroughly.

Traditionally, you store limoncello in the freezer and serve it ice cold by itself or over ice cream.

When I made this at home the day after the class, I ended up using organic milk that I had on hand, and the curds were very soft. I let them sit for 10 to 12 minutes and they still fell apart. I eventually was able to form them into a ball the size of a softball. The flavor was good.

A more detailed version of this recipe appears on Carroll’s Web site, www.cheesemaking.com.

¼ rennet tablet or ¼ teaspoon liquid rennet
¼ cup cool nonchlorinated water, plus an additional ½ cup
1½ teaspoons citric acid
1 gallon whole milk (not ultrapasteurized)
1 to 2 teaspoons kosher salt, sea salt or other large-crystal salt

Crush the rennet tablet and dissolve it in the ¼ cup cool water and set aside.

In a large pot, dissolve the citric acid in the ½ cup cool water. Stir in the milk, then heat to 88 degrees Fahrenheit over a medium flame. When it reaches that temperature, take the pot off the heat, add the rennet solution and stir gently for ½ minute. Allow the curds to set for 5 to 8 minutes. The curds will look like custard and the whey will be a yellowish liquid.

Cut the curds into 1-inch cubes with a knife that reaches to the bottom of the pot. Use four cuts: lengthwise, crosswise and two at 45-degree angles. Lift the curds into a microwaveable bowl and pour off the whey that forms. Microwave for 1 minute on high, then drain off any additional whey. Add the salt and knead quickly with a spoon or your hands to form a ball. Microwave for 35 seconds and work again. The curds will be hot; they need to reach 135 degrees internally in order to stretch. When they stretch like taffy and the curd is shiny, it is done.

Place the cheese in ice water until cool. Eat immediately or wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate.

Try sandwiches of mozzarella and fresh basil and tomatoes. In the winter, you might top some mesclun greens with mozzarella and drizzle it with olive oil and a few drops of balsamic vinegar.

You can form the curds into balls of different sizes. If you like, marinate them in good extra-virgin olive, chopped herbs, garlic, chopped chili peppers, etc. for a few hours. Use small balls for tapas or party appetizers.

You can also stretch the curds into a sheet. Place the sheet on a piece of plastic wrap and strew with your choice of basil leaves, oil-cured sun-dried tomatoes, chopped olives, roasted red peppers, chopped oregano, pieces of roasted garlic, prosciutto, etc. Roll jellyroll-fashion into a tight log, then wrap it well in plastic wrap and cool in ice water. Store in the refrigerator. To serve, remove the wrap and slice the roll crosswise.

Whey Ricotta 

You can make whey ricotta from the whey left over from your mozzarella. In a heavy pan, heat the whey to 195 to 200 degrees, stirring often. When the curds separate from the whey, remove the pan from the heat and let sit for 10 minutes. Ladle the curds into a colander lined with butter muslin and drain for 20 minutes. Add salt or herbs.

Ricky Carroll says that you can add 1 quart of whole milk to the whey to increase your yield, which I plan to do the next time I make it.

Whole Milk Ricotta

Makes 1¾ to 2 pounds

Citric acid crystals — sometimes called sour salt — are available in the spice sections of grocery stores. My grandmother used sour salt in her sweet and sour cabbage soup.

1 gallon whole milk
1 teaspoon citric acid diluted with ½ cup cool water
1 teaspoon salt (kosher, sea salt or any other large-crystal salt)

Pour the citric acid solution into a stainless-steel or nonreactive pot and add the milk, stirring as you do. Heat the mixture to 195 degrees, stirring often to keep it from scorching. When the curds and whey separate, turn off the heat and let sit for 5 minutes.

Line a colander with butter muslin. Ladle the curds gently into the cloth. Tie the cloth into a bag and hang over a bowl or the sink to drain for ½ hour or until the desired consistency is reached. Sprinkle the salt over the cheese and mix gently. The cheese is then ready to eat. It will keep for two weeks in the refrigerator.

Serves 6

Lamb shanks are always available at Whole Foods Market in Hadley and often in the other local supermarkets as well. A serving is one shank per person. Yes, it is a production, but it is delicious and worth the effort. It is a perfect dish for entertaining, since you get it ready before your guests arrive. It can sit for while, if necessary.

I usually cook the dish in a large turkey-roasting pan.

6 lamb shanks
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
2 bay leaves
1 bottle red wine (Merlot, Cabernet, Syrah or Zinfandel)
6 to 8 cups chicken stock
2 heads garlic
4 ribs celery
8 large carrots
2 large onions
1 pound mushrooms
Several sprigs fresh rosemary or 1 teaspoon dried

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Trim any fat from the lamb. Heat the oil in a frying pan over high heat. Brown the shanks, 3 or 4 at a time, over medium-high heat. As they are done, transfer them to the roasting pan. Take your time with this step. The results will be worth it.

Using ½ cup of stock, deglaze the frying pan and add the liquid to the roasting pan.

While the meat is cooking, prepare the vegetables: Cut each rib of the celery in half. Peel 4 of the carrots and cut into halves or thirds. Remove the loose, papery skin from the garlic bulbs and slice the bulbs in half crosswise. Remove the stems from the mushrooms. Reserve the mushroom caps separately from the stems.

Tuck the bay leaves, rosemary, carrots, celery and mushroom stems around the meat. Sprinkle with the peppercorns. Add the bottle of wine and enough stock to cover the meat. Bring to a boil on the stove. Place in the oven uncovered and cook for 2 hours, or until the meat is tender and almost falling off the bone. Turn several times during the cooking. The liquid will cook down. Add some stock if necessary.

When the meat is done, remove to a plate and cover to keep warm. Strain the liquid into a 2-quart pot. Keep 1 cooked carrot and 1 of the garlic heads. Degrease the liquid if necessary. Simmer until reduced by a third. Peel and cut the remaining carrots into 1-inch chunks and cook in the broth until done. Saute the mushroom caps in a little butter until cooked. Add whatever liquid is in the mushrooms to the sauce, but reserve the cooked mushrooms.

Squeeze the reserved garlic cloves into a small bowl and add the reserved carrot. Mash well and add some of the sauce to make a paste. Add to the simmering sauce and stir. This will help to thicken it without additional flour.

To serve: Place the lamb shanks in a large tureen, bowl or slope-sided platter. Place the sauteed mushrooms and carrot chunks around the sides and pour some of the sauce over the platter. Serve the rest of the sauce on the side. This is good with garlic-smashed potatoes, mashed white bean puree, mashed potatoes or baked potatoes.

Winter is here with a vengeance. With summer months away and a trip to warmer climes just not an option, your only solution is to fill the house with the smells of something delicious. Braising - cooking meat and/or vegetables in a flavored liquid - fills the bill like almost nothing else. Your kitchen is awash in fragrant steam and a comforting aroma seeps into the rest of the house. A braised dish is a perfect Sunday-afternoon dinner, although chicken, fish and vegetables can be braised in an hour or so, making them a good choice for the middle of the week as well.

Braises, soups and stews may seem the same, but there is a difference. For a soup or a stew, you cut ingredients into smaller pieces, submerge them completely in the cooking liquid and keep them submerged. For a braise, you typically use larger pieces and put them in a liquid that comes no more than halfway up the ingredients. As the ingredients simmer, the liquid cooks and tenderizes them, releasing flavors that enliven the broth.

Most of us think of braising meats like pot roast, short ribs, veal or lamb shanks and the like. Certainly most of my favorite braised dishes are beef- or lamb-based. But cooking vegetables in a little liquid, such as the cabbage dish below, gives them a sweetness that other quicker methods lack. Chicken, too, becomes moist and tender, and if the liquid is flavorful, a perfect foil for rice or couscous.

The technique of braising is pretty straightforward. If you are using beef or lamb, you typically select a tougher cut, such as brisket, chuck, short ribs, shanks and so on. Since these are less desirable, they are usually less expensive, offering the double payoff of good flavor and lower cost.

For the best results, brown the meat slowly and deeply. Whether or not you flour the meat, you want to season it with salt and pepper, plus any spices the dish calls for. Heat some olive oil in a frying pan and saute the meat over a medium-high flame. If you are using pieces, don’t dump them in at once. Give the pieces some room; otherwise the meat will steam and turn gray and the dish won’t have as much flavor. Let the meat brown on one side before you turn it. Brown it thoroughly on all sides and remove to a plate. Then add more pieces until you’ve browned all of it.

If your recipe calls for sauteed onions, garlic and aromatic vegetables (carrots, celery, etc.), add them next. For maximum flavor, cook the onions first until they are as brown as you need, then add the vegetables. Stir the bottom of the pot to loosen all those brown bits and incorporate them into the vegetables. I like to add the chopped garlic at the very end and stir it just until you can smell the garlic cooking.

Stock, wine, beer and apple cider are all good liquids for braising. If you use canned stock, dilute it with some water or other liquid. If you use wine, you don’t need to add a $50 Barolo, but do use something you would drink, not the dregs of bottles that have been in your cupboard for months. Deglaze the pan by adding a half cup or so of your liquid. Stand back and let the steam rise, then use a wooden spoon or heat-proof spatula to loosen all those brown bits. Add your meat and other ingredients, pour in the rest of your liquid and bring to a boil. Cover the pot, turn down the heat and let it simmer slowly. A simmer is when small bubbles come to the surface, not a rolling boil. If you like, skim off the grayish foam that collects on the surface for a clearer finished dish.

You can simmer over a burner or you can braise in a 350-degree oven, which is my preference. The oven provides even heat and the ingredients are less likely to stick to the bottom and burn. You don’t have to peek and stir so often, which means you aren’t tied to the kitchen for the whole time. Plus, the heat of the oven will warm your kitchen.

If you are interested in braising, look at Molly Stevens’ cookbook “All About Braising.” She gives a good explanation of the method and covers the topic pretty thoroughly, from vegetables to chicken, fish and red meat. If you are stuck in a pot-roast rut, she includes recipes from Morocco, China and Thailand, as well as Europe and the United States.

Recipes

Braised Lamb Shanks

Moroccan Chicken With Green Olives

Originally published Daily Hampshire Gazette, December 28, 2007 ]