Thinking outside the (blueberry) box: Pork Chops with Blueberries and Rosemary

Pork chops are quickly seared, then finished in a sauce of blueberries, rosemary, shallots, whole grain mustard and red wine. Recipe below.

Search for blueberry recipes on the Google and you come up with pies, pancakes, muffins, scones, cobblers, crumbles, crisps, buckles… you get the idea. All are absolutely delicious, of course, but this kind of typecasting troubles the folks at the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council. They’d like to see home cooks be a little more adventurous in their use of blueberries.

So they invited bloggers to participate in a contest to create recipes that use blueberries in fresh ways. The contest, called Blueberries Meet Their Match, specifically challenged participants to combine blueberries with one of four possible ingredients—bananas, coconut, balsamic vinegar or rosemary. I chose rosemary and immediately headed in a savory direction. Continue reading “Thinking outside the (blueberry) box: Pork Chops with Blueberries and Rosemary” →

Thank you, Charlie Trotter: Cardamom Beef Stew with Roasted Root Vegetables

In this recipe from Home Cooking with Charlie Trotter, a braised beef stew flavored with cardamom, garlic, onion, celery and carrots is topped with roasted potatoes, parsnips and celery root. Recipe below.

Charlie Trotter died last week. The groundbreaking restaurateur and chef—and Chicago hometown hero—was just 54. In the world of food, proclamations that someone “changed the way we eat” or “changed the way we cook” get bandied about a lot. In Trotter’s case, both are true and then some. His eponymous restaurant, opened in 1987 in a Lincoln Park townhouse, was an immediate success. And his innovative approach to cooking created a seismic shift in Chicago’s restaurant scene. As William Grimes put it in The New York Times, “In the blink of an eye, the city’s lagging restaurant culture… took a giant step into the future.”

Trotter was a self-taught chef. He became interested in cooking through a college roommate, who was an avid cook. After graduating from college, he traveled around the U.S. and Europe, dining at the finest restaurants, seeking to figure out how the “best” gained that title. His first cooking job was for another famous Chicago chef, Gordon Sinclair. He opened Charlie Trotter’s when he was 28. Continue reading “Thank you, Charlie Trotter: Cardamom Beef Stew with Roasted Root Vegetables” →

Old school, upgraded: Beef Stroganoff with Chanterelle Mushrooms

The classic Russian dish of beef, mushrooms and sour cream gets a delicious upgrade, with chanterelles. Recipe below.

Food has never been more interesting. Chefs are going global and hyperlocal, often at the same time. Molecular gastronomy is turning restaurant kitchens into science labs. The best restaurant in the world serves lichen, moss and other foraged goods. And home cooks are getting right in there with them, tapping into ingredients both worldly and local and fearlessly exploring new techniques.

In all the excitement over the next new thing, though, some classic recipes are being left behind. Beef stroganoff, for instance. Even when I was a teenager and just starting to explore dining out without my parents, beef stroganoff was outdated. Its appearance on a menu indicated a restaurant of a certain age—and perhaps aspirations to “fine dining” unattained. Continue reading “Old school, upgraded: Beef Stroganoff with Chanterelle Mushrooms” →

New pans, timeless techniques: Braised Lamb Shoulder Chops with Tomatoes and Sage

Lamb shoulder chops are pan seared, then quickly braised with San Marzano tomatoes, olives, shallots, garlic, sage and red wine. Recipe below—plus your chance to win a Calphalon Williams-Sonoma Elite Nonstick fry pan.

I love kitchen stuff. If left to my own devices in a department store, I don’t wander over to the big screen TVs. You’ll find me in the cookware department, checking out the newest pots and pans and gadgets. Our kitchen cabinets (okay, and various attic shelves) are crammed with assorted skillets, sauce pans, Dutch ovens, stock pots… So when I was asked to review some new Calphalon pans, I of course said yes. Continue reading “New pans, timeless techniques: Braised Lamb Shoulder Chops with Tomatoes and Sage” →

Cooking from the hip: Pork Chops with Peaches and Wilted Frisée

Pork chops are dry brined to keep them juicy and tender, then pan seared with rosemary. They’re topped with peaches and frisée quickly cooked in the same pan. Recipe below.

Forensic anthropologists would have a field day with my right hip pocket. It’s home to an ever shifting collection of folded scraps of paper, most covered with scribbled food notes. Some are shopping lists, folded and refolded to accommodate new lists. Looking at old lists, I can often reconstruct the meals I cooked based on the ingredients acquired. Continue reading “Cooking from the hip: Pork Chops with Peaches and Wilted Frisée” →

Six peachy (and apricot-y) recipes for summer

Peaches and apricots each play parts in six breakfast, lunch and dinner recipes that run from sweet to savory and first course through dessert. Recipes below.

Summer is under way, and stone fruits are filling produce shelves. Peaches, apricots and numerous varieties of plums beckon with their rich colors and heady aromas. Sure, they’re delicious to eat out of hand, their juices running down your chin. But they’re also great to cook with. Here are a half dozen recipes from the Blue Kitchen archives that do just that. Continue reading “Six peachy (and apricot-y) recipes for summer” →

More umami, less meat: Mushroom Lamb Burger

Mushrooms marinated in soy sauce, brandy, garlic and Chinese five-spice powder replace half the lamb in these burgers, for a healthier, umami-rich and satisfyingly meaty meal (and yes, you can substitute ground beef for lamb). Recipe below.

Tom Robbins advises us to “Breathe properly. Stay curious. And eat your beets.” I’m not sure if I do the first and I’ve only in the last few years started doing the last, but I nail the one in the middle. Sports and actuarial tables aside, pretty much everything interests me, and I want to know more. I have what I call a magpie eye, always ready to latch on to some shiny new thing.

Which leads me to another quote—one of my favorites—by one of my favorite photographers, Walker Evans: “Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.” I’ve said here before that I’m not a great cook. But curiosity makes my good cooking better than it might otherwise be. Continue reading “More umami, less meat: Mushroom Lamb Burger” →

Earth and smoke: Grilled Pork Tenderloin stuffed with Mushrooms and Pear

A butterflied pork tenderloin is stuffed with sautéed mushrooms, pear, shallots and sage, then grilled both indirectly and directly. Recipe below.

We’re experiencing the season’s first real bout of don’t-heat-up-the-kitchen weather here in Chicago. So this weekend, I fired up the grill. For my inaugural grilled meat meal of the year, I turned to a recipe inspired by one of our favorite vegetarians. You may remember the recent vegetarian pasta dish based on a side served by our friend Laura. Well, even though she doesn’t eat meat, she knows how to cook it.

Two elemental flavors come together beautifully in this recipe. With two cups of chopped mushrooms, the filling delivers a delicious, earthy taste. And a combination of indirect and direct grilling adds plenty of smokiness to the pork tenderloin. Continue reading “Earth and smoke: Grilled Pork Tenderloin stuffed with Mushrooms and Pear” →

Stir frying for good: Black Pepper Beef with Kampot pepper from the Pepper Project

Black Pepper Beef is a weeknight-quick classic Chinese stir fry. Onion, fresh ginger, red bell pepper, celery, garlic and lots of black pepper offer plenty of flavor. And the Pepper Project helps Cambodian pepper farmers and communities. Recipe below.

One simple ingredient can often make all the difference when you’re cooking. And now that’s more true than ever. The ingredient in this case is black pepper—freshly ground, of course, instead of pre-ground and packed in a tin. Freshly ground peppercorns pop with flavor and fragrance, becoming a true flavor, not just background noise, and you can control the grind, from fine to coarsely cracked.

And in Cambodia, the Pepper Project is making a difference, with pepper. Run by the husband and wife team Tom Gordon and Cris Peterson, the Pepper Project is a not-for-profit enterprise devoted to introducing products of Cambodia to the United States. Through the sales of these products, primarily pepper, they support fair trade for farmers as well as organizations that protect street children, disabled children and victims of sex trafficking. Continue reading “Stir frying for good: Black Pepper Beef with Kampot pepper from the Pepper Project” →

Bánh Meatloaf: Classic Vietnamese sandwich gets American comfort food treatment

Pork and beef meatloaf is flavored with basil, scallions, garlic and Chinese five-spice powder, topped with pickled carrots and daikon, then served with baguette slices for this American take on Vietnamese bánh mì sandwiches. Recipes below.

We love border-crossing cooking. When ingredients and techniques travel across boundaries and cultures, food gets interesting. Vietnamese cuisine is a perfect example. Not only does it share herbs and spices with its Asian neighbors, but it borrows from its culinary past as a French colony.

A family favorite here at Blue Kitchen is Marion’s Vietnamese Beef Stew. The slow cooked, meaty, multi-spiced dish is served with a French baguette instead of rice and eaten with forks and spoons, not chopsticks. Similarly, bánh mì—in the West, delicious, usually meaty Vietnamese sandwiches—are served on baguettes. In Vietnam, the term bánh mì actually means bread or, more specifically, French bread. Continue reading “Bánh Meatloaf: Classic Vietnamese sandwich gets American comfort food treatment” →