Read Saveur: The New Comfort Food Online
Authors: James Oseland
Saveur: The New Comfort Food (27 page)
One of the best stir-fry cooks I’ve ever met is Pan Suefen (pictured), a native of Taiwan who lives in Beijing. Suefen is fanatical about sourcing her ingredients, and stir-frying is a technique that brings out their best flavor and texture. For instance, stir-frying shiitake mushrooms, which she dries herself in her own living room, magnifies their earthy taste and fragrance. For such a delicious ingredient, Suefen insists, no sauce, no aromatics are called for; just heat, oil, salt, and sugar, applied with care. Constant stirring and flipping ensures that every morsel gets equal exposure to the center of the wok, where the heat is the most intense.
The mushrooms are cooked with bok choy, and I love the pleasing transformation the vegetable undergoes in the wok: the crunchy white stem develops a caramelized flavor as it’s left alone for a minute with its cut surface in direct contact with the wok, and the leaves wilt slightly, acquiring a mild sweetness as they cook.
What strikes me as I watch Suefen cook is the way that just a few elements—wok, oil, a handful of ingredients—can produce endlessly varied results depending on how a cook chooses to use them.
—Lillian Chou
Sun Guoying, a home cook in Mutianyu, a village near Beijing, China, stir-fries a dish of eggs and scallions in her kitchen.
There will always be a place in our hearts for the 1950s-style version of this classic casserole, the one made with canned cream of mushroom soup and store-bought fried onions. Still, using fresh ingredients is nearly as easy, and, it must be said, the results are a whole lot tastier.
3 cups chicken stock
½ oz. dried shiitake mushrooms, stemmed Kosher salt, to taste
2 lbs. green beans, cut into 2-inch pieces Canola oil, for frying
1¼ cups flour
2 small yellow onions, thinly sliced
5 tbsp. unsalted butter
1
/
3
cup heavy cream Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Serves 6–8
1. Bring the stock to a boil in a small pot. Remove from the heat and add the dried mushrooms. Cover and let soften for about 20 minutes. Strain and reserve the broth. Thinly slice the mushrooms and set aside. Meanwhile, bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add the green beans and cook until tender, 6–7 minutes. Chill the beans in an ice bath, drain, and pat dry.
2. Pour oil into a large pot to a depth of 2 inches and heat over medium-high heat until a deepfry thermometer reads 350°F. Put 1 cup flour into a bowl. Working in batches, toss the onions in the flour, shake off the excess, and fry until golden brown, 3–4 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel–lined plate and season with salt.
3. Heat the oven to 375°F. Grease an 8-inch square casserole with 1 tbsp. butter and set aside. Melt the remaining butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in the remaining flour and cook for 1 minute. While whisking, pour in the reserved broth and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, whisking occasionally, until thickened, 15–20 minutes. Whisk in the cream, remove from the heat, and add the reserved green beans, half the fried onions, the reserved mushrooms, and salt and pepper. Transfer to the prepared casserole, top with the remaining onions, and bake until bubbly, about 20 minutes. Serve warm.
This casserole’s roots can be traced to midcentury America, a time and place that gave rise to a number of one-dish meals made with readily available and inexpensive ingredients. The version many of us grew up with was invented by the Campbell Soup Company in 1955 and called for a trinity of convenience foods: canned Durkee or French’s fried onions, Green Giant canned green beans, and Campbell’s condensed cream of mushroom soup. The recipe had been invented to fulfill a request from Cecily Brownstone, the prominent food editor at the Associated Press, who sought help in reproducing a dish she’d tasted at a press dinner. The dinner took place at the home of John Snively, a wealthy citrus rancher in Florida, and his wife, May. The conceit of the event was that the Snivelys had served a replica of the evening’s menu to Iranian royalty: Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi and his wife, Queen Soraya (pictured), who had recently paid a visit to the ranch. Mrs. Snively had presented a delicious green bean casserole made with cream sauce and mushrooms. The queen, Mrs. Snively told the assembled members of the press, had apparently loved the casserole and “had eaten [it] with gusto.” With that, Brownstone had her story and, thanks to some help from the Campbell Soup test kitchen, an easy-to-make recipe. The article she wrote was headlined “Beans Fit for an Iranian Queen,” and it sparked a national love affair with the dish. Over the years, the Campbell Soup Company has subtly altered the recipe, but the basics of the iconic dish have remained essentially unchanged.
Risotto alla Milanese
We usually think of olive oil when we think of Italian cuisine, but home cooks in Italy, particularly in the north, use plenty of butter, too. In Milan, for instance, they make this sumptuous risotto by sautéing rice in butter before simmering it in a saffron-infused stock, and then they stir in even more butter just before serving.
6 cups chicken stock
1
/
8
tsp. saffron threads9 tbsp. unsalted butter
1 small yellow onion, minced
2 cups vialone or arborio rice
1 cup grated Grana Padano cheese
Serves 4
1. Bring the stock to a bare simmer in a saucepan over medium heat. Put the saffron and ½ cup hot stock into a small bowl, cover, and set aside to let the saffron bloom. Cover the stock and keep warm.
2. Heat 5 tbsp. butter in a medium pot over medium heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring, until softened, 2–3 minutes. Add the rice and cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until opaque, 4–5 minutes.
3. Add ½ cup stock and cook, stirring often, until the stock is mostly absorbed, about 3 minutes. Add another ½ cup stock, stirring often, and repeat the process until all the stock is used, about 25 minutes total. Continue cooking the rice until just al dente, about 3 minutes more.
4. Set a fine mesh strainer over a bowl; strain the saffron-infused stock and set the saffron threads aside. Pour the saffron-infused stock into the rice and cook, stirring constantly, about 2 minutes. Gently stir in the saffron threads. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the remaining butter and half of the grated cheese. Serve the risotto with the remaining cheese on the side.
Finocchio al Forno
Chef Gabrielle Hamilton of Prune restaurant in New York City turned us on to this simple, classic Italian preparation. Baking fennel in the oven with cream and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese makes for a luxurious gratin with a delectable caramelized top.
1½ lbs. fennel (about 2 large bulbs), stalks removed, halved lengthwise, and cut into ½ -inch wedges
2 cups heavy cream
1½ cups finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, cubed
Serves 6–8
1. Heat oven to 425°F. In a bowl, toss together fennel, cream, and 1 cup cheese and season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a 3-qt. baking dish and dot with the butter. Cover dish with foil and bake for 1 hour.
2. Uncover the baking dish and sprinkle the top with the remaining cheese. Continue baking until fennel is tender and top is well browned, about 30 minutes. Serve immediately.
