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Braised Green Beans with Tomatoes and Olives

The links in these recipes are for products that I use and recommend.  

Green beans are transformed by slow cooking.

When designing dishes for restaurant menus, there are 5 rules that must be followed: it has to be pretty, it has to taste good, it has to be prep-efficient, it has to reheat quickly and it has to be cost-effective. This dish wouldn’t make the cut for a restaurant menu. Why, because it’s kind of ugly. It can only exist in the home kitchen where one is free from the constraints of the rules governing the food industry.

These rules are why the only green beans you will ever see on a menu (outside of the South) are those crunchy, vibrant, blanched green beans. The cooks make a big batch and use them cold on salads for the lunch shift, chopped up in the veggie soup, and quick-sauteed with some butter and garlic as a side dish for dinner. Don’t get me wrong – I like blanched green beans and when I was working as an Executive Chef, I too used them all over my summer menu. Blanching is the perfect method for tender young vegetables when you want to retain their bright color and capture the essence of their flavor. The thing is, sometimes we get beans that aren’t young or tender. Sometimes they are downright fibrous and borderline bitter. Sometimes we don’t want to capture their pure flavor, we want to transform their flavor with long-slow cooking.

This dish is a great example of the transformative power of heat – browning, reduction, flavor dispersion, and the enzymatic processes at work over a prolonged cooking time. The green beans become soft and sweet. Tomatoes, dry-cured olives, lemon zest, and herbs provide contrast and balance. You can throw in some marble potatoes and chicken breast in the last 15-30 minutes of cooking for an easy, no-fuss one-pot meal.

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Braised Green Beans with Tomatoes and Olives

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  • Author: Kara Taylor- Home Cooks Guide
  • Prep Time: 10 minutes
  • Cook Time: 2 hours
  • Total Time: 2 hours 10 minutes
  • Yield: 6 servings 1x
  • Category: Side Dish
  • Method: Braise
  • Cuisine: n/a
  • Diet: Gluten Free
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Description

These slow-cooked braised green beans are deeply flavorful and comforting. 

Ingredients

Scale

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 lb green beans

1/2 large onion sliced

1/4 cup oil cured olives

zest from 1/4 lemon

1 can diced tomatoes

8 garlic cloves

salt and pepper

1/4 cup water (optional)

1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves or Herbes d’Provence

1 Tablespoon chopped tarragon (optional)

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 325 F.

In a brazier, dutch oven or oven-proof skillet with a lid, heat the oil over medium-high heat and sauté the onions and garlic until tender.  Add the green beans, olives, lemon zest, and tomatoes (with juices).  Season with salt and pepper and heat this mixture until the tomato juices are boiling.  Cover a with a lid and transfer to the oven. 

Bake for 1 1/2-2 hours or until the green beans are nice and tender.  Stir in the tarragon if using.  Taste and season again with salt and pepper to taste.  If you would like it a little saucier, transfer the green beans back to the burner over medium-high heat and add 1/4-1/2 cup of water or broth and stir to deglaze the pan.

VARATION: Make it a one pot meal

Add 1 lb golf ball sized red or gold potatoes in the last 30 minutes of braising.  If using larger potatoes, cut them half.

Add seasoned chicken breasts in the last 15-20 minutes of braising.  Check the chicken breast for doneness and give it more time if needed.  Or use chicken thighs and braise with the green beans for the whole 1 1/2-2 hours.

Serve with good bread.

Equipment

Chicken Escarole Soup (Your new favorite Chicken Vegetable Soup)

This soup is an Italian riff on the classic Chicken Vegetable Soup using one of the most underutilized greens – escarole. The broth is bright and flavorful with garlic, lemon, and pesto. Mushrooms add earthiness and cannellini beans make it a heartier meal. Served with good bread smothered in butter (or duck fat), this is the perfect meal for a cool spring day.

Escarole, also called Batavian Endive, is a broad-leafed endive that resembles a huge lettuce head. The outer leaves are bright green and mildly bitter. The pale leaves at its heart are crisp and refreshingly bittersweet. When this green is cooked, the bitterness mellows, and the sweetness steps forward. In soup, escarole adds nuance and balance to the soup broth.

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Chicken Escarole Soup

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  • Author: Kara Taylor- Home Cooks Guide
  • Prep Time: 20 minutes
  • Cook Time: 100 minutes
  • Total Time: 2 hours
  • Yield: 4 quarts (approx) 1x
  • Category: Soup
  • Method: Boiling
  • Cuisine: Italian
  • Diet: Gluten Free
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Ingredients

Scale

1 3 lb chicken (more or less)

3 quarts water

1 onion

3 medium-large carrots

4 celery stalks

1 lb cremini (or other) mushrooms, sliced 1/8-1/4 inch thick

10 garlic cloves

3 Tablespoons Pesto

3 Tablespoons duck fat (or butter/ olive oil)

Salt and Pepper to taste

4 fresh thyme sprigs, leaves removed

2 bay leaves

1 14 oz can of cannellini beans, drained

half a lemon

1 head of escarole, chopped and rinsed

Instructions

Add the chicken, thyme, bay, water, and about 1 Tablespoon of salt to a pot and bring to a simmer.  Cover and simmer gently for about 1 hour or until the chicken legs wiggle easily in their sockets and the breast meat is cooked all the way through.

Remove the chicken from the stock pot and set aside, continue simmering the stock while you work on the rest of the soup, adding carrot peelings, onions skins, mushroom stems, and etc to this pot as you prep the vegetables.

Once the chicken is cool enough to handle, remove the meat and chop it into 1/2-inch to 1-inch pieces.  Add the bones and skin back to the simmering pot.

In a separate soup pot 5-10 quarts in size, heat the duck fat (or other cooking oil).  Over medium heat, sauté the onion/leek, celery, mushroom, and carrot until the onions are transparent and the carrot and celery are about halfway tender.  Set a strainer over the pot (line this with a coffee filter or tea towel if you want a more refined broth).  Squeeze the half lemon over the strainer, then pour the chicken stock through it.  Discard the solids.

Add the minced garlic to the soup pot and bring back to a simmer.  Continue simmering for about 5-10 minutes more.  Add the escarole and simmer for 5 minutes.  By this point all the veggies should be tender, if not, simmer for a little longer.

Add the diced chicken and cooked beans to the soup and stir in the pesto.  Taste and season with salt and pepper.

If you make this soup, and I hope you do, please give the recipe a star rating. It helps google show it to more people 😉.

Quick and Easy Pasta with Red Clam Sauce

This Red Clam Sauce uses sweet and briny chopped clams, smokey ham, and spicy red pepper flakes for a quick weeknight dinner that is rich with umami flavors and packed with nutrition.

Chopped clams are an under-utilized and under-appreciated ingredient in most households and restaurants across the US. Only in the small Northeastern part of this country, where I grew up, are chopped clams commonly used. The daintier and more expensive manila or cherrystone clams grace pasta dishes and even chowders everywhere else, but the hearty unpretentious chopped sea clam is often overlooked. And that’s a shame. Chopped sea clams are packed with nutrients, lean protein, zinc, iron, iodine, potassium, and phosphorus. Clams are sustainable and low in mercury. They can be added in the last minutes of cooking or simmered for a long time (but nothing in between😉). Chopped clams are ideal for clam chowder, stuffed clams, and for clam pasta. Chopped clams are also compact. Whether canned or frozen, they are efficient and easy to store for prolonged periods of time making them a great pantry or freezer item to have on hand for whipping up a quick weeknight meal like this one, Pasta with Red Clam Sauce.

I recommend buying chopped clams from the seafood counter at your grocery store instead of buying canned clams. Most stores will have a small bowl of chopped clams that they have thawed from frozen. So long as they were recently thawed, these are going to be the best value and quality. Or you could do what I do, and ask the seafood counter to buy a whole bag of frozen clams. These are typically 4-5 lbs and frozen in a flat “brick” which can be broken into 1 lb pieces while still frozen and stored in these more usable portion sizes. This way, you will know that they were freshly thawed when you use them. There is nothing wrong with canned clams in terms of the clam quality, but the cans typically come in ridiculously small sizes (6 oz) and contain about 50% clam juice.

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Pasta in a skillet with a red clam sauce.

Pasta with Red Clam Sauce

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  • Author: Kara Taylor- Home Cooks Guide
  • Prep Time: 10 minutes
  • Cook Time: 12 minutes
  • Total Time: 22 minutes
  • Yield: 4–6 servings 1x
  • Category: Pasta
  • Method: Boiling
  • Cuisine: Italian
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Description

This is a delicious pasta dish that is packed with nutrition and comes together in 30 minutes or less.  Perfect for a busy weeknight.

Ingredients

Scale

2–3 Tablespoons Olive Oil

3/4 cup Onion, chopped

1/4 cup Dry-Cured ham, chopped (or store-bought, bacon works too)

8 garlic cloves, minced

1–2 lemon wedges, seeds removed

1 cup marinara

2 cups (1 lb) chopped clams, drained and clam juice reserved

1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes (more to taste)

1/4 teaspoon dried basil

1/8 teaspoon dried thyme

1 bay leaf

1 lb pasta, cooked el dente (2 minutes less than the recommended cooking time on the package)

salt and pepper to taste

2 Tablespoons cold butter, cut into thin slices

fresh chopped parsley and grated parmesan to garnish (optional)

Instructions

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

Meanwhile, in a large 12 inch skillet, heat the olive oil.  Add the onions and ham and sauté for about 5 minutes.  Add the garlic and sauté for 1-2 minutes longer.

When the large pot of water reaches a boil, add the pasta to it and set the time for 2 minutes less than the package recommends. 

Add the reserved clam juice, marinara, and spices to the skillet and bring it up to a boil.  Squeeze the juice from 1-2 lemon wedges and then place the wedges rind-side up in the skillet.  Using tongs or a wooden spoon, press the cut lemon pieces against the bottom of the pan while giving it a stir.

Boil the sauce for 5-10 minutes or until it thickens a bit but is still thinner than a basic marinara.

When the pasta timer goes off, drain the pasta and add it to the sauce with the chopped clams.  Continue to cook it in the sauce for another 2 minutes or until it is tender to your liking. 

Remove the skillet from the heat.  Wait for the sauce to stop boiling and then stir in the slices of cold butter. 

Season with salt and pepper and serve this delicious pasta sprinkled with parmesan and parsley (optional).

Making Ham at Home is Easy with this recipe!

The links in these recipes are for products that I use and recommend.  

This Dry-Cured Ham is deeply savory, seasoned with juniper, garlic, thyme, rosemary, sage, and honey. Thinly sliced this ham is worthy of featuring centerstage on a Charcuterie platter. It also makes a great ham sandwich, omelet, and quiche. Diced, it is perfect for salads, soups, stews, and sauces.

During my years at The Farm Table Restaurant and Charcuterie, this was our “house ham”. We used it all over the menu: brunch, lunch, and dinner. Tuesday was the day the restaurant was closed and the charcuterie was made. The day started by cutting pork. Usually, around 300lbs of pork shoulder would be carefully trimmed and sorted. 50lbs of coppa (aka the “money muscle” in BBQ competition lingo, or “pork collar”) would be removed from the rest of the pork shoulders for hams and the remaining would be turned into sausage and pâté. We rubbed the hams in the dry-cure mix and packed them tightly into a 50lb bin. Midway through the week, we would rotate them into another bin so the hams on top would be on the bottom. At the same time and in the same manner, we would rotate the pork bellies we were curing for bacon. When Tuesday came around again, we would cook the hams and bacon started last week and start the next batch. For 10 years, curing and cooking ham provided the bookend of my week.

Making ham at home is an entirely different experience. Divorced from the hours of standing to cut meat, and the endless rearranging of heavy meat bines in an overcrowded walk-in refrigerator, curing a single ham at home is an easy, quick and enjoyable experience. A fun DIY kitchen project that takes up minimal (active) time and creates minimal mess. My recipe has been modified for the home kitchen. Some notable changes to the process: instead of curing the ham in large bins that need to be swapped out and cleaned (a challenge in itself with a small home kitchen sink), you can cure a single ham in a vacuum seal bag or gallon size zip lock back and simply flip it over once as it cures in the fridge. I also allow more time for forming the pellicle/ drying the surface of the ham before smoking it (or cooking it) because there’s less rush at home.

WHAT’S THE COPPA?

The coppa is a 2-4 lb well-marbled cylindrical muscle group within the pork butt (which is actually a shoulder). Pork butt is one of the cheapest cuts of pork. It also makes the best sausage, pâté, and ground pork. You could use this cure mix and general process to make ham from any cut of pork including pork loin (Canadian bacon) or the leg. The larger the piece of meat though, the longer the cure time will need to be.

Of all the cuts, the coppa is my favorite. It’s the perfect mix between fat and meat, has the best flavor and texture when dry-cured and smoked, is an ideal size and fits nicely on a meat slicer. It’s also one of the most economical cuts at $2-$5/lb (California prices), which beats the $14/lb for deli ham at the grocery store.

This is a good video showing how to find and remove the coppa.

Do You Really Need the Curing Salt (Nitrates)

The actual amount of sodium nitrite used in this product is 200 parts per million – a very small amount. This ingredient adds to the rosy hue of ham and bacon and in my opinion, makes a better-tasting product by preventing oxidation. It also extends shelf life. In some products, sodium nitrite plays an important role in food safety by preventing the growth of clostridium botulinum (the bacteria responsible for botulism). Botulism grows in non-acidic anaerobic (oxygen-free environments) at room temperature. Places like a sealed canning jar, a vacuum-sealed bag, or the inside of a sausage. However, it does not add much to food safety for this product as you are curing it under refrigerated temperatures and cooking it and cooling it relatively quickly so if you would like to omit it, go ahead. Just be aware, that bacon and ham made without it will not be pink (or quite as tasty).

There are 2 types of curing salt. Curing Salt No. 1 (Prague Powder #1, DC Curing Salt #1, InstaCure #1, etc) is used for cured and cooked products. Think duck confit, cooked ham, bacon, Canadian bacon. Curing Salt No. 2 (Prague Powder #2, DC Curing Salt #2, InstaCure #1 etc) is used for cured, air-dried meat like salami, capicola, and pancetta. Curing Salt is died pink so as not to be mistaken for regular salt. Sometimes it is referred to casually by meat processors as Pink Salt. This is not to be confused with Himalayan Pink Salt (which sometimes comes up on google if you search for curing salt). Himalayan Pink Salt will not cure your meat. For a detailed discussion on all the types of salt, check out this post Salt: The Most Important Ingredient in Your Kitchen.

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Dry-Cured Ham Recipe

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  • Author: Kara Taylor- Home Cooks Guide
  • Prep Time: 10 minutes
  • Cook Time: 2 1/2 hours
  • Total Time: 0 hours
  • Yield: 6+ servings 1x
  • Category: Charcuterie
  • Method: Cured and Smoked
  • Cuisine: French
  • Diet: Gluten Free
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Ingredients

Scale

For every pound of ham, combine in a mixing bowl:

10 grams (3 Tablespoons) salt

10 grams (1 scant Tablespoon) brown sugar

1.2 g (scant 1/4 teaspoon) curing salt (SEE NOTE BELOW)

1 gram (3 each) peppercorns

1 juniper berry, crushed

1 garlic clove crushed

1 sprig of fresh thyme

1 3-inch sprig fresh rosemary

1 fresh sage leaf

Honey for drizzling later.

Instructions

Rub this mixture all over the uncured ham and drizzle lightly with honey.

Place the ham with any of the excess Cure Mixture that didn’t stick to it in a vacuum seal bag and vacuum seal tightly.  If you do not have a vacuum sealer, place the ham in the mixing bowl and cover.  Transfer this to the refrigerator.

Every couple of days, flip the ham over.  If the ham is not vacuum sealed, rub it down with the liquid brine that has formed in the bowl.

After 6 days if vacuum-sealed or 8 days if not, remove the cured ham from the cure.  Rinse it well and place it in a bowl of clean water for 30 minutes.  Change the water once or twice during that time.  Pat the cured meat dry and leave it uncovered in the fridge for another 1-2 days to form the pellicle and allow the salt concentration to reach equilibrium throughout the meat.

Heat your smoker (or oven) to 200 F.  Cook to an internal temperature of 140-145 F.  Remove from the smoker (or oven) and let it cool to room temperature before refrigerating.  Slice it only after it has cooled all the way down.

Equipment

Notes

Kitchen Scale is Highly Recommended

Though I gave volume measurements I highly recommend using a scale and sticking with the weight measurements for these ingredients.  Volume measurements are approximate.  If making a 2-3 lb ham, the margin of error will be minimal.  However, the margin of error between the volume and weight increases the more you scale the recipe up.  For a 10 or 20 lb batch, you could be off significantly on your curing salt.  Too much curing salt is toxic.

Danish Rye Sourdough Recipe and the Open-Faced Sandwich

The links in these recipes are for products that I use and recommend.  

A hearty Rye and Whole Grain Sourdough Loaf, perfect for open-faced sandwiches.

I was first introduced to the open-faced sandwich while studying abroad in Moscow. It was not love at first sight. I arrived in Moscow late at night without my luggage only to learn that the hot water had been turned off on the entire city block of my apartment so the “pipes could be cleaned.” When I arrived at the language school that I was there to attend, I had been wearing the same clothes for 3 days and contrary to what you might think of Moscow, the summers are hot and humid. The school cafeteria had these sad open-faced sandwiches (or “Buterbrodi) on mediocre french bread with salami, hardboiled eggs, or salmon, wrapped in plastic wrap and sitting out in a basket at room temperature for who knows how long, maybe days.

After a rocky introduction to my new surroundings, the hot water came back on, my luggage arrived, the vodka flowed, and while in a more jovial and receptive state of mind, I began to see variations of these open-faced sandwiches everywhere I looked and came to understand their full potential.

Sitting in my Soviet-style apartment, I would make my own buterbrod for breakfast with the Chiorni Hleb (Russian Black Bread), Smetana (sour cream, the Russians make the best sour cream), and soft boiled quail eggs which were readily available at the grocery store. Drinking black tea on my little balcony on the 20th floor, I would nosh on these little open-faced sandwiches while looking across the yard at hundreds of identical balconies. By the time I was eating my breakfast at 7 in the morning, it had already been daylight for 4 hours. Years later, as a chef and caterer, I pulled from my experiences abroad to come up with an endless array of canapes for weddings and other events, essentially a mini-version of the buterbrod.

On a separate but parallel course, my husband spent a year eating a very similar type of open-face sandwich while working in Denmark. There the medium was a Hearty Danish Rye Bread instead of the Russian Black Bread, they are called Smørrebrød, and are often covered in liver paté, stinky cheese, or little shrimp.

I am still looking for a good recipe for Russian Black Bread (if you have a lead, send it my way), but in the meantime, I’ve developed this recipe for the Danish Rye Bread, loaded with whole grains and seeds, which makes excellent open-faced sandwiches and is super hearty and delicious. It also has the longest natural shelf life of any bread I’ve ever made (about 2 weeks!). This recipe is a combination of Magnus Nielson’s recipe from The Nordic Baking Book, the Rye Sourdough Recipe from the Perfect Loaf (an excellent resource for sourdough), and the Danish Rye recipe in “Artisan Sourdough Made Easy” by Emily Raffa. All are great resources for baking bread, although the Nordic Baking Book calls exclusively for fresh yeast so those recipes need to be adapted to use your sourdough starters.

We eat a lot of open-faced sandwiches in the Taylor house. These sandwiches are hearty and versatile. They can be simple or elegant. They can be a meal or an appetizer….and in my opinion, they are the correct ratio of bread to “stuff”.

Ideas for Open-Faced Sandwiches (Smørrebrød and Buterbrodi)

Essentially anything you would put on an appetizer platter together would make an excellent open-faced sandwich. Here are some favorite and classic combos to get the ideas flowing:

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Danish Rye Sourdough

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  • Author: Kara Taylor- Home Cooks Guide
  • Prep Time: 18 hours
  • Cook Time: 3 hours
  • Total Time: 21 hours
  • Yield: 3 loaves 1x
  • Category: bread
  • Method: baking
  • Cuisine: Nordic
  • Diet: Vegetarian
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Description

This recipe makes 3 loaves.  Why so much?  Because the shelf life is so long and you will definitely want more than one loaf.  These also freeze really well.

Ingredients

Scale

LEVAIN

100 grams (1/2 cup) active sourdough starter

470 grams (3 3/4 – 4 cups) rye flour

470 grams (2 cups) warm water

SEEDS

65 grams (1/2 cup) unsalted sunflower seed

65 grams (1/2 cup) unsalted pumpkin seeds

195 grams (1 cup) rye kernels

25 grams flax seed (2 tablespoons)

2 1/2 (+/-) cups boiling water for soaking

NOTE: You could sub the sunflower seed, flax, and pumpkin for more rye kernels for a more traditional loaf (may need more boiling water as the rye soaks up water and sunflower and pumpkin seeds do not).  Or you could omit the seeds altogether, but if you do, you may want to reduce the salt to 20 grams.

DOUGH

1040 grams Levain

280 grams (2 1/3 cups) rye flour

400 grams (3 1/3 cups) high protein flour 

585 grams (a scant 2 1/2 cups) warm water

60 grams (3 Tablespoons) unsulphured molasses 

24 grams (5–6 teaspoons) salt

Soaked seeds, drained

Variation:

Sub 175 grams dark beer (I’ve used Old Rasputin) for the Molasses and subtract 115 grams of warm water in the dough for a total of 470 grams.

Instructions

Start the Levain (I do this in the evening)

In a large mixing bowl combine the active starter with 470 grams of rye flour and water.  Let this mixture ferment for 12 hours at room temperature (or 24 hours in a cool place like a cold garage or refrigerator).  The bowl should be large enough to accommodate all the ingredients in the later steps.

Soak the Seeds

At the same time that you start the levain, combine all the whole seeds in a bowl and cover them with boiling water.  Let sit at room temperature to soak and soften until ready to use them.

Make the Dough

Drain the seeds and allow them to drip dry in a sieve while you prepare the rest of the dough.

Add the water and molasses (or beer if you are trying that variation) to the levain and stir to dissolve.  Add the remaining dry ingredients and the drained seeds.  Mix the dough with your hands or a spatula until all the flour is well incorporated.  This dough will resemble wet concrete at this stage.

Bulk Fermentation

Let this dough ferment for just a short while longer.  About 30-60 minutes.  Do not stretch, fold, or kneed it.

Proof

Generously oil or butter 3 loaf pans.  Divide the dough between the 3 loaf pans.  Smooth the top over with the back of a spoon or a spatula or wet hands.  If desired, you could sprinkle or decorate with more seeds.  Cover with a lid or plastic wrap for another 2 hours.

Bake

Preheat the oven to 300 F.  Set the loaf pans on a baking sheet and bake the loaves for 2 1/2 – 3 hours (see note). If they are getting too brown, cover with tin foil around the second hour. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 1 hour in the pan.  Then remove the loaves from the pan and set them on a drying rack to cool the rest of the way.

Once completely cooled, wrap them tightly to store.  The loaf is even better the next day, but who can wait that long.  That’s why you made 3 of them😉.  They will last 10-14 days on the counter or you could freeze them.

Equipment

Notes

BAKING TIMES

In my research for this recipe, I have seen baking times for this type of bread vary widely from 1-3hours and at temps of 400-300 F.  I have baked a similar rye sourdough at 400 F for 1 hour and 15 minutes with good results.  When testing this recipe I baked some loaves for 2 hours and some for 3 hours at 300 F.  The loaves baked for 2 hours were slightly wet in the middle, whereas the loaves baked for 3 hours were not.  In the end, I went with the baking time that Magnus Nielson recommends in “The Nordic Baking Book”, but you should know that there is a lot of flexibility here with the baking times.  As with all loaves, they should sound hollow when you tap them and this one benefits from some deep browning and caramelization of the outside.

Available Now! New Year, New Start 7-Day Meal Plan!

I love the Holidays, but damn, they’re a lot. A lot of fun, a lot of family, a lot of money, a lot of planning and cooking and wrapping, a lot of salty, sweet, rich, and boozy.

I’m not one for lofty New Year’s Resolutions, but after the Holidays I do feel a real need to reset my palate and re-establish a regular routine and saner food budget. This is why I’ve created this 17-page eBook full of 21 wholesome and satisfying meals for your family (and mine) that won’t break the bank. I’ve created a version for 2 ppl and a version for 4. I’ve done all the planning for you so you can focus on starting out the New Year fresh.

This 7-Day Meal plan includes a shopping list, a prep schedule, and recipes for every day of the week. The average cost per meal is about $3.50 in California prices (so probably less where are you).

After 2 years of tinkering on this site, I’m excited to finally have my first digital product available for sale!! It’s about time. All purchases support my work at Home Cooks Guide😉.

Meal Plan for 2 $5.95

Buy

Meal Plan for 4 $5.95

Buy

The Best (and Fool-Proof) Candied Nuts For Holiday Parties, DIY Gifts, Snacking, and Salads.

This is a fool-proof way to achieve candied nuts with a perfectly glossy, glassy candy finish. I learned this method from one of my sous chefs, who learned it from an Armenian chef he worked with at another restaurant. This is how kitchen knowledge travels.

When I was a young line cook working at the Pearl Cafe in Missoula, candied nuts were one of my prep items. I hated prepping these things. The method used was to melt sugar (with balsamic) in a skillet, stirring the nuts until well coated, and then baking them. Sometimes they would come out perfectly. Sometimes they would come out all crusty looking. It didn’t seem to matter how diligently I followed the recipe, or how attentively I monitored the sugar mixture or the nuts in the oven. It was a crapshoot every time which way it was going to go.

When I opened my own restaurant, candied nuts were nowhere on the menu. That was until my Sous Chef Zach recommended this method and assured me it was fool-proof. It has never let me down. As an added bonus, you end up with Walnut Simple Syrup as a byproduct which is amazing in an Old Fashion.

When I make these nuts, I make a big batch. 5 pounds or so. Usually around the holidays. Packed into mason jars with a bow, they make perfect little Christmas presents and stocking stuffers. These candied nuts are also just great to have on hand for Cheese Boards, party bites, snacking, and salads. They last for a long time at room temperature in an airtight container. The method is the same for smaller batches, but you can use less oil and smaller pots.

What You Will Need

2 pots

Nuts (Walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, almonds, cashews, etc or a combination of)

Sugar

Water

Canola or Safflower Oil

A sheet pan with a drying rack.

A wire skimmer (aka “a spider”) or a sieve that will fit into your pots. If you have neither of those things a slotted spoon will work in a pinch for small batches only.

The Method

In one pot make a big batch of thick syrup.

Combine 2 parts sugar to 1 part water. For a 5lb batch 4 cups sugar to 2 cups water works well. For a smaller batch you can do half that amount. Heat this to a boil. Add the nuts and boil for about 10 minutes in this mixture. Fit as many nuts as you can keep completely covered in syrup and do multiple batches if you need to. (The more batches of walnuts you cook in this syrup, the more concentrated and nutty your simple syrup will be at the end)

While the nuts are boiling, heat the oil in another pot. I use a smaller pot for this (so I can use less oil) and I fry them in a bunch of smaller batches.

Fry the nuts

Check the oil temperature by dropping one nut in when you think it is ready. If it immediately starts sizzling, the oil is hot enough.

Using your spider or strainer, transfer 1-2 strainer-fuls into the hot oil. If you don’t have a strainer or spider that will work and are using a slotted spoon, transfer 1-2 spoonfuls. Don’t transfer more than that at a time as it will take a while to fish them out of the pot and in the meantime they will burn.

Fry the nuts until the bubbles slow down. Depending on how hot your oil is and how much oil you have to nuts, this will take anywhere from 10 seconds to 2 minutes.

Transfer the nuts to the drying rack to cool. Sprinkle immediately with salt (optional).

Repeat until all of the nuts have been fried.

Store and Serve

Once completely cooled, store these candied nuts in an airtight container or ziplock bag or package them up as gifts in mason jars.

Enjoy.

Chocolate Mendiants: Easy DIY Christmas Confections

The links in these recipes are for products that I use and recommend.  

Chocolate Mendiants (pronounced MEN-dee-ants) are a popular French Christmastime confection. Traditionally, these chocolate discs are topped with dried figs, raisins, almonds, and hazelnuts. Each ingredient representing a different monastic order. Today, they are made with a variety of toppings by those not feeling bound by Catholic tradition.

Aside from being delicious and beautiful, chocolate mendiants are ridiculously easy to make and a fun kitchen project for kids (and grown-ups). If you use disposable piping bags and parchment-lined sheet pans, they are mess-free too! That’s right, mess-free! You can make about 150 of these in 30 minutes with no dishes. Move over Christmas cookies.

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Assorted Chocolate Mendiants on sheetpans

Easy Chocolate Mendiants

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  • Author: Kara Taylor- Home Cooks Guide
  • Prep Time: 10
  • Cook Time: 30
  • Total Time: 30
  • Yield: about 150 mendiants
  • Category: Sweets
  • Method: Prep
  • Cuisine: French
  • Diet: Gluten Free
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Description

Beautiful, delicious and easy Chocolate Mendiants make for perfect DIY Christmas gifts!

Ingredients

3.5 lbs Chocolate Chips or Baking discs (I use TCHO 81% dark)

Toppings of your choice prepped and in individual cups or piles.  Here are some ideas:

  • lavender, pistachio
  • maldon sea salt
  • toasted coconut, dried cherry and hazelnut
  • toasted almond and dried cherry
  • instant espresso powder or whole coffee beans
  • toffee bits
  • pepitas and chili powder
  • garam masala powder
  • candied walnuts
  • crushed candy cane

Instructions

Fill your disposable piping bags with chocolate, leaving enough room to securely tie the bag.  You will need about 5 bags for this size recipe.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.  Toss the tied-off chocolate-filled piping bags into the water.  Turn off the heat and cover for 15-20 minutes or until all the chocolate is completely melted.  Smoosh it around gently and make sure there’s no hard bits hiding in the center.

Disposable Piping Bags filled with chocolate in hot water.

When all the chocolate is melted, remove the bags from the water.  Dry them off thoroughly with a towel (water drips on your chocolate will make them ugly).

Line baking trays with parchment or silicone mats.  Snip the tip of the piping bag.  You want the opening to be about 1/8-1/4″ wide.  Any larger and it will be difficult to control the flow of the liquid chocolate.  Gently squeeze the chocolate out making discs 1 1/2-2″ in diameter.

While the chocolate is still melted, top the discs with your toppings.  Let cool to room temperature or refrigerate.

Enjoy sharing these with friends and family!

Chicken Bacon Chestnut Pâté Recipe aka “The Gateway Pâté”

The links in these recipes are for products that I use and recommend.  

This Chicken Bacon Chestnut Pâté is the perfect Holiday Party appetizer or fall picnic fair. Studded with seasonal chestnuts, garnished with fresh herbs, wrapped up in caul (or bacon or swiss chard), this pâté is both impressive and approachable.

When I started making pâté commercially in the California Foothills over 10 years ago, charcuterie was not quite hip yet and pâté was not widely appreciated. It took a lot of convincing to get my Farmer’s Market customers to give it a try. On top of general hesitancy about “strange organ meats”, many people had recently discovered that they were allergic to gluten which was another thing stacking against the humble pâté, as most pâté uses bread or flour as a binder. I developed this recipe to be a “Gateway Pâté”. To remove all the reasons not to try it. To be the pâté that you could serve at a party where everyone had different dietary preferences. This recipe is gluten-free and contains no offal. It is a Country-Style pâté- a sliceable loaf. One loaf pan serves about 30 people as an appetizer or 15 as a lunch portion, and it freezes well. Stock your freezer to have on hand for spur-of-the-moment gatherings or as luncheon meat for yourself and your family at home.

Making Country-Style Pâté is a lot like making sausage. It’s a bit of a project. For that reason, I usually triple this recipe and make enough to freeze and give away as presents. It’s just as much work to make one loaf pan as it is to make 3😉.

Steps to Making Country-Style Pâté

1. Prep the Mixture

Dice the chicken and bacon and mix with sauteed shallots, fresh herbs, and dry spices. In a separate bowl, combine the garnishes. I like textural variation in country pâté, so I dice a little bit of the chicken breast and set it aside as an internal garnish with the chestnuts. In a third bowl mix the eggs, cream, and sherry or port.

2. Grind or Chop the Meat

For small batches like this recipe, you can pulse the meat in your food processor or put it through the grinder, or buy the chicken already ground and hand mince the bacon by hand. If you scale this recipe up through, I recommend a good grinder. I grind half the mixture through the medium die and half through the course die, that’s a personal preference.

3. Mix the Meat

This is how you hand mix pâté or sausage. Mix the meat, add the cream, eggs, and sherry or port and mix for 5 minutes. Make sure the mixture is very cold when you start. You may want to put it in the freezer for 30 minutes after grinding. For a small batch like this recipe, you could use your kitchen aid mixer and the paddle attachment.

Once the seasoned meat is mixed with the liquid mix, fold in the garnishes. In this case, the chopped chestnuts and diced chicken breast.

4. Wrap the Pâté Loaf

Oil the loaf pan. Line it with caul fat. Alternatively, you can line it with overlapping bacon slices or you could use swiss chard leaves (destemmed). Swiss chard leaves give the pâté a dramatic look. You can use swiss chard leaves and caul fat together (as I have done) with the caul on the outside of the loaf. I use swiss chard leaves on the pâté that is going to be eaten within a couple of days. The pâté that I plan to store and freeze, I make without the swiss chard because I believe it decreases the shelf life of the product.

Another variation to making a full loaf is to wrap individual portions with caul to make “crepinettes”. Pack these crepinettes into the loaf pan so they fit snugly. If you don’t have a vacuum sealer, I think this works best for long-term storage as the caul fat prevents oxygen from having direct contact with the pâté.

Bake the Pâté

Bake the pâté for about 1 hour to 1 hour and 15minutes in a 300F oven. Temp the center, it should be 155.

Left Pan: Crepinettes. One wrapped with swiss chard and caul. I’ll eat that one first!
Middle Pan: Crepinettes.
Right Pan: Pate Loaf, partially wrapped with swiss chard.

Cool and Weight the Pate

Let the pâté sit on a cooling rack until just warmer than room temperature. If you have a cool garage, go ahead and let it rest in there. Press plastic wrap onto the surface of the pâté and wrap the loaf pan thoroughly. Cut a piece of cardboard to fit the loaf pan. Set it inside the loaf pan on top of the pâté and place a couple of cans from your pantry on it. Place the loaf pan in the fridge on a wire rack to facilitate cooling.

Store Until Ready to Serve

After a day or 2 in the fridge, remove the pâté to serve or prep for long-term storage. Use a small spatula to separate the pâté from the loaf pan, or set the loaf pan in some hot water for about 1 minute to melt the fat inside. Invert the loaf pan onto a cutting board. Slice the pâté to serve or cut chunks of it, vacuum seal or wrap very tightly with plastic wrap and freeze in portions.

In the loaf pan, this pâté will last about 1 week in the fridge. Vacuum sealed in portions, it will last for 1-2 months in the fridge.

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Chicken Bacon Chestnut Pâté Recipe. 1 Loaf Pan

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  • Author: Kara Taylor- Home Cooks Guide
  • Prep Time: 1 hour
  • Cook Time: 1 hour
  • Total Time: 2 hours
  • Yield: 1 loaf 1x
  • Category: Charcuterie
  • Method: Baking
  • Cuisine: French
  • Diet: Gluten Free
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Description

This recipe has been scaled down to make 1 loaf pan.

Ingredients

Scale

1 1/2 lb chicken (boneless skinless thigh/ breast)

1/3 lb bacon (preferably Dry-Cured)

20 grams (3 T) diced shallot or onion

1/3 cup chopped fresh herbs (thyme, chives, parsley, tarragon, and/or sage)

12 grams salt

1.3 grams Curing Salt #1 (optional)

2 grams ground black pepper

pinch of ground nutmeg

pinch of ground ginger

pinch of ground coriander

pinch of ground clove

1 gram ground allspice

2 bay leaves ground (easier if you to this with the peppercorns)

1 eggs

2 T Sherry or Tawny Port

1/3 cup cream

1/3 cup chopped prepared chestnuts (fresh roasted and peeled, jar or frozen)

caul, thinly sliced bacon or swiss chard for wrapping

Instructions

In a large bowl, add the diced chicken, diced bacon, sauteed onion, and minced herbs.  If you want to, reserve some diced chicken breast for the garnish.

In a small bowl bowl, mix together all the dry spices then add these to the meat and mix to combine.

In another small, add the chopped chestnuts and diced chicken breast if you would like to include that in the garnish.  Refrigerate this.

In another bowl or liquid measuring cup, whisk the egg, cream and port or sherry.  Refrigerate this.

Grind or chop the meat, either using a grinder or pulse it in your food processor in small batches.

Place the meat mixture in the freezer for 30 minutes or the refrigerator for 1 hour.  This is a good time to get reorganized and do some dishes.

Preheat the oven to 300 F.

Once the meat is nice and chilled, put it in your stand mixer (or you can mix this by hand).  Add the cream and egg mixture and mix on medium for about 5 minutes or until well combined and sticky looking.

Fold in the chestnuts and diced chicken breast (if you reserved some).

Oil your loaf pan.  Line it with caul, or overlapping bacon slices.  If you would like, layer swiss chard leaves on top of the caul.  Then fill with the force meat.  Pressing down as you go to minimize air bubbles.  Fold the caul (or bacon) over the top of the pâté.

Bake the pâté for 60-75 minutes or until your probe thermometer reads 155 F (That’s not a typo.  For more info on cooking temperatures I recommend this read, How to Cook Meat Part 1) Remove the pâté.  Let it cool in the loaf pan on a cooling rack until it is about room temperature.

Cut a piece of cardboard to fit inside the loaf pan.  Press plastic wrap onto the surface of the pâté and fully wrap the loaf pan.  Place the cardboard on top of the pâté and weight it down with cans from your pantry.  Refrigerate for 1-2 days before serving.

To Serve:

Loosen the pâté from the loaf pan with a spatula or set it in hot water to melt the fat.  Invert the loaf pan onto a clean cutting board and slice it into portions.  

Store about 1 weeks worth in the fridge. With the rest, cut it into portions and very tightly wrap with plastic wrap or vacuum sealed.  Vacuum sealed it will last 1-2 months.  It will freeze for up to 6 months.

Serve this pâté with good bread or crackers, preserved fruit, nuts, cornichons, and/or mustard.

Equipment

Porchetta: The Ultimate Holiday Roast!

The links in these recipes are for products that I use and recommend.  

Porchetta is an Italian specialty roast that is often served around the Holidays. Made from suckling pig, pork shoulder, or pork belly, what makes this roast so special is the pork rind crackling and the heavily seasoned meat.

Porchetta is popular all throughout Italy with each region having its own variations. In the region of Abruzzo, porchetta is seasoned with rosemary, garlic, and pepper. In Umbria, it is stuffed with offal, garlic, and wild fennel. In Treviso, a whole young pig is slowly roasted with garlic, fennel, and white wine all day. This version is my own. I’m making no claims here as to how authentic and traditional the seasonings in this recipe are. I am making a claim to how delicious and decadent this roast is! My version is made from pork belly and pork loin and seasoned with fennel, citrus, chili flakes, and herbs.

Leftover porchetta makes a delicious panini and pizza topping.

Most of the recipes that you’ll find on this blog are straightforward and easy to make at home. This is not one of those recipes. This is a project for the ambitious home cook. Making this roast takes 2-3 days. Scoring the skin is difficult and dangerous. Even after years of professional meat processing, I am always amazed at how hard it is to cut through pork rind. That being said, the end results are well worth the effort.

Achieving perfect crackling

When doing research for this dish, I came across several techniques for making the crackling perfectly crispy. Such as pounding the skin with a tenderizer. Or rubbing it with baking soda and salt and then rinsing that mixture off before cooking. Well… I ignored all of these techniques. Wouldn’t pounding it damage the texture of the meat which is perfect in its natural state? Intuitively, it didn’t make sense to me to dry the skin by rubbing it with salt and baking soda only to make it wet again right before cooking. Wouldn’t the baking soda get into the scored parts? Yuck. And if you rubbed the skin with baking soda and rinsed it all off before scoring and tying off your roast, you would need to add another day or two onto the prep. No no no, that is all too much trouble.

I decided to do minimal intervention on this roast (it’s already pretty intensive) in order to assess if an intervention was even necessary. And I am happy to report that it is not. When the skin is scored, it bastes in the fat rendered from the pork belly during cooking and crisps up really nicely at 500 F. For the first porchetta roast that I made years ago, I didn’t score the skin and it was very difficult to cut through once cooked. So scoring the belly is a necessary step in this process but you can ignore the advice online to overcomplicate things.

I may try the baking soda thing on plain unscored pork belly just because I’m curious. I’ll report back on that at a later time.

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Porchetta Roast

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  • Author: Kara Taylor- Home Cooks Guide
  • Prep Time: 24 hours
  • Cook Time: 3 hours
  • Total Time: 27 hours
  • Yield: 6–8 servings 1x
  • Category: Meat
  • Method: Roast
  • Cuisine: Italian
  • Diet: Gluten Free
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Ingredients

Scale

1 1/2 lb pork loin

3 1/4 – 3 1/2 lbs Skin-On Pork Belly (this should be cut to match the length of the pork loin piece)

1 Tablespoon fennel seed, whole

1 Tablespoon Black Peppercorns, whole

1/2 teaspoon ground clove

1 Meyer Lemon, very thinly sliced (or substitute zest of 1 regular lemon)

1/4–1/2 Tablespoon Hot Pepper Flakes

2 Tablespoons Salt (20 grams)

4 3″ sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaves removed from stem and minced (4 grams on stem)

Small handful of fresh sage leaves (about 3 grams)

For the Pistachio Gremolata

2 garlic cloves, grated with microplane or finely minced

1/2 lemon, zest only

1/4 cup minced parsley

2 Tablespoons chopped pistachio

pinch of red pepper flakes

pinch of salt

Instructions

Prep the roast

A day or two before you plan to cook this roast, make your spice mix.  In a skillet, toast your peppercorns and fennel seed until fragrant.  Remove from the hot pan immediately, and once cooled, grind.  Mix these spices with clove, salt, minced fresh rosemary, and hot pepper flakes.  Pick the leaves off the sage stems and very thinly slice the Meyer lemon.  Set all this aside for a bit.

Remove the belly piece and the pork loin from the package.  Pat dry with paper towels.

Place the pork belly, skin side up on a cutting board and score the skin by cutting crossing diagonal lines about 1″ apart.  I have found the best (and safest) way to cut through pork rind is to use a serrated knife and a gentle back and forth sawing motion.  If the belly is slightly frozen (put in the freezer for 30 minutes prior to scoring), it’s a little easier.  Cut all the parallel lines first and then come back and cut the lines going in the opposite direction so you end up with a grid on the diagonal.  Careful not to cut too deep into the meat.

Score the belly and cut flaps in the ends that will come together around the loin.

Place the belly skin side down on a cutting board.  Score the pork belly all over, cutting a grid about 1/2″ deep into the meat.  Cut a flap on each of the two ends of the belly that will come together when you wrap the pork loin.

Rub the meat side of the pork belly and the pork with the spice and salt mixture.  Lay the lemon slices and sage leaves all over the pork belly.  Place the loin on top.

Season the meat.  Oh, and did you notice how sweet that knife is?  My buddy and old sous chef makes those under the name Lost Bison Forge.

Wrap the pork belly around the pork loin, overlapping the flaps over the pork loin.  Tien the roast tightly with butcher twine.  For a how-to video on how to tie a roast, here’s a good one, How to Tie a Roast.

Sprinkle the outside of the roast with a little more salt and refrigerate uncovered in the refrigerator for 1-2 days.

Prior to cooking, press tinfoil onto the open ends of the roast and secure with twine.  This will insulate the loin while the skin crisps up at 500 F.

Cook the roast

Preheat your oven to 500 F.  Rub the roast with oil.  Place the roast on a rack on a baking sheet covered with tin foil and cook at this high temperature for 45 minutes.

Tinfoil on the ends insulates the pork loin interior while the skin crisps up at 500 F.

Remove from the oven and reduce the heat to 250 F (or preheat your smoker to this temp).  Remove the tinfoil.  Continue cooking the roast until the internal temp of the loin reaches 145 F (2 1/2-3 hours).  Remove the roast from the oven or smoker and let it rest for at least 10 minutes.

While the roast is cooking and resting, make the Pistachio Gremolata.  Mix all ingredients in a small bowl.  Using your fingers break up the clumps of grated garlic so all the ingredients are evenly distributed.

 

Slice the roast and serve with Pistachio Gremolata and bread.

Equipment

Notes

For the Gremolata: you can substitute hazelnuts, walnuts, pine nut or almonds for the pistachio for variation.  This gremolata compliments braised lamb shanks, leg of lamb, osso bucco, and pork loin roasts as well.

This post Originally Published on HomeCooksGuide.com 12/18/2020