Sasha's Kitchen: Irish Potato Leek Soup

A couple years ago, my husband and I went on a great trip to Ireland. Ireland is probably not really known for its food, but it is known for its soups, especially those involving potatoes, which are a pretty traditional irish food going way back for historical reasons. Anyhow, while in Ireland, we tasted a few pretty delicious soups (my favorite being the Guinness stew at the brewery in Dublin), and I picked up a small book of Irish soups and breads. I've tried a couple from this book and they are all excellent. Here's the delicious potato leek soup we made last week.

Potato Leek Soup (from Irish Soups and Breads)

1 1/2 pounds leeks (I used three extremely large leeks)

3 medium potatoes

3 sticks celery

2 large cloves of garlic, chopped

4 T butter

5 1/2 cups low sodium chicken stock

salt and pepper to taste

3 scallions

croutons

my additions - bit of parmesan cheese and paprika

Peel and chop the potatoes into cubes, and chop the garlic finely. Clean the leeks and the celery well, and chop those too. Melt the butter in a large saucepan and add all of these vegetables to the melted butter. Cook gently for about ten minutes on medium heat, not allowing the potatoes to burn. I used a mixture of 1/2 olive oil and half butter instead of all butter, and that worked out well too.  Add 3/4 of the stock and simmer until the potatoes are cooked, about 15 minutes. Puree the soup in batches in the blender and add the rest of the stock.

To serve, I topped with croutons, a bit of parmesan cheese, diced scallions and a pinch of paprika. It was a pretty perfect Irish soup!

Sasha's Kitchen: Irish Potato Leek Soup

Sasha's Kitchen: Beef Tenderloin Medallions with Potato Risotto

I haven't had the chance to post yet this week, as I have been busy with my pre-birthday festivities with my husband. But I have plenty of new recipes that I just need the time to write up. This recipe is one that I found on Epicurious. I had bought medallions of petit filet from Fresh Direct because they looked good and were a lot less expensive than Filet Mignon, so certainly worth a try. I was doing some research on the best way to prepare them and came across a recipe for beef tenderloin medallions with a potato risotto and I was intrigued.  I love traditional risottos and thought that making a risotto style dish using potatoes instead of rice/pasta would be a fun and delicious variation. So I decided to give it a try. I seasoned the meat much differently than in the original recipe, so I am including my variations in the write-up below. The original recipe is here, and is from a February 2010 issue of Bon Appetit.

Beef Tenderloin Medallions with Potato Risotto
1 T butter or olive oil
2 cup finely chopped onion
1 lb mini Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into 1/8 inch cubes
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1 1/2 cups low sodium chicken stock
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup finely diced chives
4 6 oz beef tenderloin steaks
thyme, salt, pepper, rosemary and oregano for seasoning the meat

Melt the butter (or olive oil) in a large sauce pan and add the onion. Cook until translucent, stirring occasionally, for about seven minutes. Add the potato cubes and the pinch of cayenne, while seasoning with salt and pepper. Add the chicken stock, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium until the potatoes are almost tender. Add more chicken broth if needed, if the potatoes are too dry. Don't add extra though, or you run the risk of over-mushing the potatoes in the risotto. It is a delicate balance! Simmer for about 10 minutes, and then add the cream. Simmer until the potatoes are tender but still hold their shape, stirring often, for about ten minutes. Stir in the chives and parmesan cheese. This can be made ahead of time.

For the medallions, season the steaks with salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme and oregano to taste. Heat some olive oil in your grill pan and cook the steaks until done over medium heat, adding more oil if necessary.

Sasha's Kitchen: Beef Tenderloin Medallions with Potato Risotto

Sasha's Kitchen: Indian-Spiced Hanukkah Potato Latkes

Tonight is the second night of Hanukkah, the eight day long Jewish festival of lights. Traditionally, Jews make potato latkes - basically fried grated potatoes to celebrate Hanukkah. While traditional latkes are fun, I like to make my potato pancakes for the holiday with a bit of a twist. Last year I made these sweet potato chipotle latkes with Swedish lingonberries, which are still my favorite. We made those for Thanksgiving as the sweet potato side dish and they were amazing, as usual. Click here for the recipe.

This year for Hanukkah, however, I decided to do my latkes with an Indian spice variation, inspired by Floyd Cardoz's recipe from Tabla. Sadly, Tabla is closing its doors soon after a great run in New York, but its recipes live on. Anyhow, based on their recipe, I loosely crafted my own using my favorite Indian spices. You can find my inspiration recipe here. My changes - I prefer it with a couple eggs, added the cumin and left out the chat masala.

Both of these recipes are reasonably healthy if you fry them in Canola Oil, as I did - or at least a lot healthier than they would otherwise be! Happy Hanukkah!

Sasha's Indian Inspired Potato Latkes
4 large Idaho potatoes
2 eggs
2 Macintosh Apples
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 cup diced fresh cilantro
2 T grated fresh ginger
1/2 cup blue cheese, crumbled
pepper to taste
1/2 of a diced jalapeno pepper (optional- I left it out this time)
Canola oil for frying

First, grate the potatoes. Then, peel and grate the apples and mix in the grated apple mush with the potatoes.  Mix in the grated ginger, cumin, coriander, eggs, and diced cilantro. Stir in the blue cheese crumble, and the diced jalapeno if you choose to add it. Allow the canola oil (about 1/3 of a cup to start) to heat up in the pan and then fry the latkes in the oil on both sides until done, cooked through and browned.

How should you serve these? The best way would probably be with an Indian chutney, maybe slightly on the spicy side. I didn't feel like making chutney tonight, so I used some Fig-Pear jam from Hurd Orchards, with a little bit of sour cream, which was also a delicious combination. Yum! The spices were great with the potatoes and a bit of apple - it really jazzed up a holiday tradition.

Sasha's Kitchen: Indian-Spiced Hanukkah Potato Latkes

Eric's Kitchen in NJ: Potatoes Au Gratin

Recently Jenn and I had our engagement party and my Uncle Doug and his wife Tara got us these wonderful le Creuset dishes that are perfect for this! We had some amazing Aged Dubliner cheese that we wanted to use up so we thought we'd make some potatoes with it and put our new dishes to use. That being said, for some reason I thought I'd need to fill both dishes and ended up making WAY too much. So this recipe probably feeds about 8...

Ingredients:
1+ lbs. Peeled and sliced Russet potatoes
1/2 cup of 2% milk
1/2 cup of half and half
Aged Dubliner cheese
Gruyere cheese (honestly not sure how much)
Cracked black pepper
Paprika
Garlic powder

I had never done this before so I looked up a few recipes online and most of them called for heavy cream but I really didn't want to have heavy cream sitting around and knew I had some half and half left that I usually use for coffee. It probably would have tasted better with the heavy cream but tasted pretty fantastic with the milk and half and half so I didn't feel like I missed out.

I pre-heated the oven for 400 degrees and started layering the potatoes, covering each layer with a generous amount of grated Gruyere and Dubliner cheese. You can kind of get a sense from the picture here. Once I had the layers built up on both I mixed the milk, half and half and some black pepper and garlic powder and poured it over the potatoes before adding the last layer of cheese. I then added a little more black pepper and some paprika at the end before putting it into the oven. I cooked it covered with aluminum foil for 30 minutes and then uncovered it and put it back in for another 30 minutes. They were nicely browned and crispy at the top by the end but some of the potatoes weren't cooked quite enough at the end. We had plenty of leftovers and when reheating those in the toaster oven they have been perfect.

Eric's Kitchen in NJ: Potatoes Au Gratin

Brad's Kitchen: Belgian Frites with Spicy Mayo

My wife Sasha and I are taking a trip to Europe in a week and a half and one of the places we plan to visit is Brussels, Belgium. Belgium is probably best known for its food, including Belgian waffles, frites, beef carbonnade, mussels, chocolate and beer. We can't wait to try all of those things on our trip. Since Sasha & I both love Belgian frites with spicy mayo, we decided to try our hand in making them at home as a preview for our trip. It was actually not too difficult and the result was pretty authentic and quite satisfying.

Brad's Belgian Frites
5 medium sized potatoes

Canola Oil

salt

mayonnaise

1 T dijon mustard

cayenne pepper

To prepare the frites, first peel five medium sized potatoes. Then slice the potatoes into strips which are about the size of the fries that you want to prepare. I used our hot pot to deep fry the frites. I made the fries in two separate batches, filling the hot pot about half way with canola oil and placing the metal basket with the sliced potatoes into the fryer. I set the temperature to 375 degrees and fried for about 10-15 minutes until each batch was golden brown. The first batch took longer than the second one, because the oil needed time to heat up to the right temperature.

I salted the frites immediately after removing them from the fryer. Just like in Belgium, we ate our frites with spicy mayo, which we prepared by simply combining lowfat mayonnaise with a bit of dijon mustard and a healthy amount of cayenne pepper, to taste.

We served the frites as a side dish for our dinner along with some healthy chicken bratwursts that we got from Fresh Direct.

Belgian Frites

Brad's Kitchen: Belgian Frites with Spicy Mayo

Eric's Kitchen On The Road: Canary Islands Wrinkly Potatoes with Mojo Sauce

Last summer Jenn and I spent almost a week in Tenerife, one of the islands that makes up the Canary Islands, a Spanish Autonomous Community. Tenerife is a pretty amazing island and has lush greenery and farms on the North half and dry desert-like areas in the Southern half. It's a very popular location for European tourists and most of the Southern half seemed to cater to British tourists in particular. We rented a car and drove around as much of the island as we could, seeing the volcano park, and lots of different beaches that came up every few miles along the coastline.

The two menu items we encountered most frequently were Sangria and these wrinkly potatoes with mojo sauce. The Sangria was far better than any we had had here in the States and I may have to tackle that sometime as well. The wrinkly potatoes are very simple and didn't blow us away but I found myself missing them and wanted to take us back to our sunny getaway and forget about all the cold weather and snow we've had here around NYC. They are supposed to be wrinkled and have a slight salty crust to them and are usually served with a tangy, spicy sauce.

For these potatoes, you basically just boil them in very salty water, I used about 2-3 tbsp of sea salt in water that just covered the potatoes and boiled them for maybe half an hour, until they were soft enough to stick a fork in them easily. Then you pour out the water and let them dry, wrinkling the skin and revealing the salt. I probably could have used more salt and less water for more of a salty crust but they wrinkled nicely.

The mojo sauce was a little more complicated. I found this recipe here that I used because I felt I could get these ingredients easily and make this work.

The ingredients are as follows:
1/2 cup of red wine vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 tsp. fresh minced parsley
3/4 tsp. cumin seeds, toasted and crushed
3/4 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. salt to taste
1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes

I didn't measure these exactly but wisked the oil and vinegar together and then added the other ingredients and wisked them in as well. The result wasn't too close to what we had in Tenerife as what we had there was always a little thicker and and more finely blended but the taste seemed correct. I might try it in a blender, if I get one, next time.

Either way, for a little while it took us back to our lovely vacation when we didn't have a care in the world and it was very nice.

Eric's Kitchen On The Road: Canary Islands Wrinkly Potatoes with Mojo Sauce

Amasea's Kitchen in Sun Valley: Carroty Latkes

With a big bag of awesome organic carrots in the fridge, I couldn't stop with just one carrot recipe (by the way, in case you don't know, carrots should never be put near apples in the refrigerator -- it'll make the carrots hairy and bitter, just like Robin Williams' career).

It being Hanukkah time, I was inspired to make something vaguely latke-ish.
Into a bowl went half a diced white onion, two very large diced roasted garlic cloves, four small grated red potatoes, and a large grated carrot, and that got mixed. In went a couple tablespoons of almond flour and a couple of white flour, salt and pepper. It honestly could have used a little smoked paprika or hot pepper powder, a little zing to balance the flavor profile, but I didn't think of it.

Then we got to the eggs. Because it's utterly cold here, the chickens aren't laying, so I haven't been able to get eggs from our local growers' co-op, Idaho's Bounty. I got my usual backup store brand, Eggland's Best, but stupidly didn't open the carton until tonight. You can see what's coming.

I removed the eggs that weren't egg-white-glued to the walls of the carton, then used a knife to halve open the eggs that weren't broken but couldn't be removed, and used a spoon to scoop out what egg interiors I could before throwing the rest away. In total, I think approximately 4 and a half eggs got into my latke mix.

I started with a medium-heat fry pan, with a tablespoon or two of olive oil, and added my first batch. After some experimentation, I ended up on the higher end of medium-high by the last batch, with about half a tablespoon of olive oil per batch.

Being kind of a salt junkie (though don't think that means I'm absent a sweet tooth -- the fiance brought home white, dark and milk chocolate Lindor truffles on Saturday, and I've been having a really hard time staying out of them!), I topped the latkes with sour cream and sauerkraut. Which was absolutely perfect. The chilled pickled cabbage was utterly delicious atop the hot, crispy latkes.

So there you go, my carroty Hanukkah experiment. Now I need to figure out what to make for Kwanzaa!

For another latke recipe using sweet potato and lingonberry, click here.
Akitcheninbrooklyn.com is doing a roundtable on carrots for the month of December. For additional carrot recipes, click here for my Sweet Gingery Carrots.

Amasea's Kitchen in Sun Valley: Carroty Latkes