Trout Meuniere

The menu for son daughter-in-law dinner was somewhat contentious. I got a text from son on Sunday morning after church, when he knew I might be prowling around Safeway on my way home from church. "Can we have corned beef and cabbage?" he demanded. Since it was the day after Saint Patrick's Day, corned beeves were in abundance in the meat department. However, the answer was regretfully, no.
Ever since the end of February, I have been on a diet known as the anti-inflammatory diet. Some of you long time readers, (all two of you) may have noticed a certain lack of commitment to the blog. Well, this is one of the reasons why. I have arthritis in my hips and in my toes and pains in my shoulders and every place else. Finally after repeated urging by my daughter, who also is on a diet avoiding certain foods, I took the plunge.
What it means is, the dieter is more or less restricted to fish, chicken, grains and vegetables. Also eggs and fruit. No pasta, cheese, red meat, cake, bread, etc, etc. It is way more healthy and when I stuck to it faithfully, I lost weight and had much more energy. However, The New York Times Heritage Cookbook and health really don't coincide. The recipes date from a time when people got much more exercise in the course of their daily lives and had to eat to fuel the engine.
So I haven't been cooking much, at least out of the cookbook.
Also, I have been working 12 hour days in the service of the DC Public Schools which doesn't allow a lot of time for pouring through the cookbook, tracking down ingredients, etc. etc. etc. When one has to create a phonics lesson, a lesson for a book to be read aloud to the class which is supposed to illustrate some point of literary craft such as character traits, a second phonics lesson for the children who need it, and a math lesson every day, not much time remains for breathing, exercise, or even chatting on the telephone to one's own children.
My daughter got justifiably upset when I told her last week I didn't feel like talking to anyone.
Inside my head, I was yelling, "I don't want to talk to anyone. Not you, Elvis, the Pope, the ghost of Lyndon Johnson (read more about him later), Harrison Ford or the President. I just want to be left ALONE!" So, that's been my life for the past few weeks.

However, Trout Meuniere fit in more or less with the diet. (More because it was not red meat, less because it used flour and milk. So, instead of corned beef and cabbage, we had that for dinner when the yms came over. It is easy to make, but do not let the fish man sell you more than you need. What you will need is not a whole trout for each person, but more like half a trout for each person, and maybe one extra trout half for seconds. As fish go, trout is reasonably inexpensive, so you will not be looking at a bank loan or a maxing out of the credit card to pay for your meal.

Trout Meuniere

6 trout fillets

1 cup milk

1/2 cup flour

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1/3 cup vegetable or peanut oil

1/4 cup butter

chopped parsley

lemon wedges

1. Dip the fillets in the milk and let stand until ready to cook.

2. Blend the flour with salt and pepper. Drain the fillets, but do not dry. Dip them in seasoned flour.

3. Heat the oil in a large skillet and cook the fillets until golden brown, turning once. Transfer to a warm serving pallet. Wipe out the skillet.

4. Add the butter to the skillet and cook until butter just begins to brown. Pour the butter over the fish, sprinkle with parsley and garnish with lemon wedges. Makes three to six servings.

Hancock Village Steamed Ginger Sponge

When one embarks on a project like this, one accumulates ingredients for dishes long before said dishes actually make their appearance. So it was with Hancock Village Steamed Ginger Sponge. I tracked the preserved ginger down at Rodman's, a very peculiar institution in our neighborhood that sells a wide and disparate array of goods, around Christmas. Pop it went into the cupboard until I had an event to serve it at. Son and daughter-in-law came to dinner and I finally got it together to make this for dessert.
It should be explained that sponge does not refer to either a cleaning implement or a cartoon character. Sponge is what the British call a pudding, which I certainly found confusing in my younger years since pudding to me meant Jello pudding and pie filling. This kind of pudding is steamed, which again may be unfamiliar to American cooks, but is not difficult. What you do need is a pudding basin, which is a smallish ceramic bowl with a rim. The rim is necessary because you have to stretch waxed paper over the top of it, and fasten it with a rubber band. Without the rim, the rubber band goes shooting off and the cook is left cursing.
Anyhow, everybody liked this so if you can run down Canton preserved ginger on the Internet, and have an hour and three-quarters before you may eat dessert to steam it, go ahead. Steaming involves putting the aforementioned pudding basin, filled with raw pudding, and waxed paper stretched over, into a large pot filled half way up with water. Turn on the heat and wait for the water to boil. It should not boil too violently as the pudding basin may tip over. After the water has a nice, even boil, put the lid on the pot to keep the steam in and go about your business.
In case anyone is wondering about Hancock Village, it is a reconstructed Shaker colony in far Western Massachusetts. The Shakers were great eaters, and this recipe has been handed down to us.

Hancock Village Steamed Ginger Sponge

1 cup butter
2 teaspoons granulated sugar (I put in more. I wanted it to be sweet.)
2 eggs well beaten
2 1/2 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1/2 cup Canton preserved ginger, drained and cut into small pieces
7 teaspoons syrup from preserved ginger
1 cup heavy cream
4 tablespoons confectioners' sugar

1. Cream the butter and gradually add the granulated sugar. Add the eggs.
2. Sift the flour with the baking powder and salt and add alternately with the milk to the batter. Add the ginger and one teaspoon ginger syrup. Pour into a buttered one-quart mold and steam one and three-quarters hours.
3. Beat the cream until stiff, sweeten with the confectioners' sugar and flavor with the remaining ginger syrup. Unmold the ginger sponge and serve hot, with the ginger cream.
Makes six servings.

Broiled Shad Roe

Shad roe was one of those things that my parents ate when I was very young. My parents operated on the British model. Kids, at least my brother and I, ate earlier in the kitchen. Adults, and my sister, who was four years older and had special family status, ate at 7:30 in the dining room. So I heard of shad roe, but never ate it. And frankly, it was all to the best. Although I ate most meat dishes that were put in front of me, fish was not a favorite, and if it had gotten out that fish eggs were on order, the results would not have been pleasant.

I actually had ordered shad roe a few weeks earlier in a restaurant. They were okay, somewhat mealy. But I had no idea what they looked like until I trotted around to the Fishery on a Saturday afternoon and ordered some in response to their hand lettered sign that proclaimed SHAD ROE. While seasonal foods have faded out, shad roe is only available for a few weeks in the spring, so I had to move while the shad was running. Or roeing. Or something.

Well, what they look like is brains.

When they are cooked, they look more like a sausage, so not to worry.

The recipe says to take care not to overcook them. Due to some fooling around with the broiler, and leaving a pan in the oven that has no other place to live, I did overcook them. That increases their mealiness. So, be careful.

Broiled Shad Roe

1 pair shad roe

4 slices bacon

2 tablespoons melted butter

Lemon wedges

1. Wrap the roe in the bacon slices and broil five minutes on each side, or until bacon and roe are done. Do not overcook.

2. Pour the butter over and serve with lemon wedges.

The recipe says, makes one serving, but my roes were large. One pair served for the two of us.

Maple Lace Wafers

I made these for the sudden retirement of a dear colleague. I envisioned that they would turn out something like the cookies my Long Island aunt used to make. They were molasses cookies made with very little flour, crisp, buttery and the cookies of my dreams. Her cookies flattened out on the cookie sheet and were lacy in consistency. Maple Lace Wafers are very good, but they are not as good as Aunt Chris's molasses cookies. Also, they are not lacy, at least mine were not.
The recipe says to drop the dough on the cookie sheet by the half teaspoonful. This makes ridiculously tiny cookies. I did that for the first few cookies and then dropped it on by the tablespoonful. The recipe also makes a paltry number of cookies. If you are going to make this, double the recipe because everyone will want more than one quarter-sized cookie.

Maple Lace Wafers

1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup butter
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine the syrup and butter in a small pan and bring to a boil. Boil hard, while stirring, thirty seconds.
3. Sift together the remaining ingredients and add all at once, stirring briskly (the batter will be lumpy. )
4. Drop by half teaspoonfuls onto a greased baking sheet, about four at a time. Bake six to eight minutes or until golden.
5. Let set on baking sheet a second or two and then, while still warm, quickly roll each wafer around the greased handle of a wooden spoon to shape a roll or a cone. Cool on a rack. Makes about 28 cookies,

Old Fashioned Clam Chowder

Sunday the 12th, was my son's 30th birthday. Imagine! Thirty years seems like a long time, but things have just rolled along until he's 30 and I am 61. Son of a gun! So naturally, there was a party. Son paged through the cookbook and found a dish that he would permit as the main course, chicken and dumplings. A week or so later, when we were discussing the guest list, he opted for pork loin and acted like he'd never heard of chicken and dumplings.
However, he did agree to clam chowder, which I may or may not have described as New England Clam Chowder. Be warned. This clam chowder is not New England Clam Chowder. He wasn't pleased.
"Why did you say it was New England Clam Chowder?" he demanded. Probaby because the page it is on had fallen out of the cookbook and been stuffed into the new edition of the cookbook, so I couldn't check it out ahead of time. However, New England or not, and even considering it contains the offending tomato, it is pretty good. I cut the recipe in half and even so, we had a ton left over. I sent some home with him and his wife, and we still have two containers in the freezer.
My husband went to great lengths to get things ready ahead of time so we could actually visit with the party guests. There also had to be much cleaning of rugs and floors as the dog continues to be an issue. Baby gates did improve that situation, even though they made me think of my sister, who had more dogs than anyone should ever have (12) and walled off the entire house with baby gates because the dogs fought.
His efforts were actually successful and we were able to sit by the fire and talk to the guests, Lin, my son's mother-in-law, and Alex, his brother-in-law. We had an almost catastrophe when Lin innocently inquired whether there was any shellfish in the soup. Luckily, Bob does not eat shellfish either, so there was some non shellfish soup lurking in the kitchen. Oh, yeah, I used canned clams. Perfectly acceptable. I also didn't thicken it with flour and butter, although I did put in the crackers. Pilot crackers, as I wrote in October, 2010, are not available anymore, except by mail. However, oyster crackers are the same thing and you can buy those at Safeway. It's hard to know what amount of oyster crackers to use, a cup maybe?


Old Fashioned Clam Chowder


60 to 72 chowder clams, scrubbed until water runs clear
1/2 pound salt pork, diced
6 large onions
4 to 6 leeks, cleaned and sliced
3 tomatoes peeled and chopped
2 cups canned tomatoes
3 ribs celery sliced
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1 teaspoon thyme
1 bay leaf
3 large potatoes peeled and diced
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons butter
2 large pilot crackers, crumbled
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2 to 4 teaspoons Tabasco sauce


1. Place the clams in a large kettle or clam steamer with one-half cup water. Steam the clams until they open, about ten minutes, depending on the size.
2. Reserve the broth. Remove clams from shells and remove the logn necks and coarse membrane. Chope half the clams, leaving remainign clams whole. Reserve.
3. Cook salt pork in a heavy kettle until golden. Add onions and leeks and saute until tender.

4. Measure the reserved broth and add water to make up to two quarts and add to the kettle. Add the chopped tomatoes, canned tomatoes, celery, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, potatoes, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and simmer, covered, about thirty to forty minutes.

5. Blend the flour with the butterand, while stirring, add a little at a time to the hot soup. Add the crackers, Worcestershire, Tabascp and reserved clams. Reheat and test for seasoning. Makes 15 to 20 servings.

Potato Puffs

Potato Puffs, from the great state of Missouri, (Several years ago, I taught in a classroom that had a rug displaying the United States on the floor. I used to tell the kids to sit on the great state of whatever. Once somebody asked me why I referred to the states as great states. I couldn't really tell them I was imitating the people who speak for their states at the Democratic National Convention, so I just said they were all great states. ) are delicious. Incidentally they contain all the things I am not supposed to eat right now, such as butter, whipped cream and Cheddar cheese.
We made them for son's birthday dinner. Daughter-in-law described them as "scrape the pan clean good," and they were. The recipe says to put them in individual greased custard cups, but we just put the mixture in a pan. It's pretty simple if you don't mind the calories.


Potato Puffs


3 cups hot cooked riced potatoes. (riced potatoes go through a potato masher. I just used the mixer.
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup grated sharp Cheddar cheese

1. Preheat the oven 350 degrees.
2. Beat the potatoes with the butter, salt and pepper. Three-quarters fill greased custard cups with the potatoes.
3. Combine the cream and cheese and spread it over the top of the potatoes. Bake until brown, about 15 minutes. Makes six servings.

Batter Fried Chicken

In a winter that has been so warm that the children at school play without their coats and come in sweating, we finally had a day cold enough for a fire. On Saturday, I went riding with our daughter, and my husband and my brother went to the Auto Show. When we came back from riding and visiting various branches of the DC Public Library to find Maurice Sendak's Chicken Soup with rice, I went out to the woodpile and brought in a load of wood.

Bob and George eventually made it back from the Auto Show with tales of negotiating Metro, DC's subway system, which has been tied up with maintenance closings since it was discovered that in the first 25 years the system was open, it had done no maintenance. Bob dragged out an enormous box of file folders and began going through them. George read the paper, and I read a profile of Newt and Calista Gingritch in The New Yorker while the fire crackled and snapped.

George decided to stay for dinner, and I made batter-fried chicken.

This is a weird recipe. The chicken is parboiled and made flavorful through being steeped in broth to which vegetables and herbs are added. It appeared that the batter had no seasoning at all, and it tasted like a load of nothing. Add salt to the batter, folks, I thought. However, when I typed the recipe, it does call for salt. It just doesn't include salt in the list of ingredients. It says to add half a teaspoon later. I included the salt in the list of ingredients.

The recipe says, use a fry basket. If you don't have a large enough kettle to use a fry basket, just use a large frying pan, and turn the chicken. You don't have to run out and buy a fry basket to make this chicken. Also, keep the already fried chicken in the oven while you are frying the rest of it. That way, it won't get cold, the way mine did.

This is good chicken. The only drawback is, your house will smell like a Chinese restaurant and you have the problem of getting rid of the oil.

Batter-Fried Chicken

1 two-and-one-half pound to three-pound frying chicken, cut into serving pieces

1 rib celery

1 carrot

1 bay leaf

1 small onion

salt and freshly ground black pepper

chicken broth (depending on the size of your frying pan, you will need a quart or more)

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups milk

2 tablespoons melted butter

1/2 teaspoon salt

fat or oil for deep-frying

1. Place the chicken pieces in a skillet. Add the celery, bay leaf, onion, slat and pepper to taste and enough broth to cover barely.

2. . Bring to a boil and simmer gently fifteen minutes. Drain and dry pieces of chicken and let cool.

3. Combine the flour, baking powder and one-half teaspoon of salt in a bowl. Beat the eggs with the milk and stir into dry ingredients along with the butter.

4. Dip the chicken pieces in the batter using a fry basket, drop into the fat or oil heated to 375 degrees. Fry until golden and drain on paper towels. Serves four.