Umami. OOOOOO MMMMMM AAAAAAAA MMMMMMMM EEEEEEEEE! No, you haven’t walked in on me during wild abandoned sex, or caught me trying to peel roasted chestnuts with my bare hands (again). No, silly. I’m talkin’ ’bout UMAMI! THE FIFTH TASTE!  It seems that in addition to your garden variety tastes of sweet, sour, salty and bitter, a fifth taste has been isolated and thusly named. And this taste is the sort of savory, almost “meaty” flavor that occurs naturally in many foods and is produced by molecules called glutamates and ribonucleotides, WHATEVER that means! Umami is the DELICIOUSNESS, that certain something that makes you moan a little when you eat a bite of something and close your eyes while you are eating it so you can really, really taste it. Umami can be detected in ripe tomatoes (ooooo), bacon, (mmmmmm), Parmesan cheese (aaaaaaaa), soy sauce (mmmmmmm) and mushrooms (eeeeeeeee!) to name a few.

So it’s because of umami and it’s “meaty-ness”  that I decided to build a dish out of mushrooms to satisfy the vegetarians who are coming to feast with us on Thanksgiving. Normally, they make do with the abundant side dishes I’ll have on hand, but this year I wanted to make a strong vegetarian centerpiece dish that would make their plates more balanced and less like carbo loading before a marathon. It’s so savory and lip-smackingly delicious, I have a feeling it is going to steal the whole meal. Five different types of fresh mushrooms, gobs of sweet red onions reduced down to carmelized gold, dried porcini mushrooms coming to life in steaming water that you save to enrich the red-wine/cayenne infused reduction the whole thing swims in. Excuse me, I have to wipe the drool from the corners of my mouth.

I made the dish this past weekend for a cooking demonstration at the William Sonoma store in Danbury, CT and it was a huge hit. The smell of the sauteeing onions and mushrooms got people drifting in from the four corners of the mall. It was packed in the store and folks were lined up for tastes. I had 45 requests for a copy of the recipe! I love doing the demos…I get to cook great food, with an audience (!), using amazing cookware (Le Crueset). Above you see a picture of my 15-year-old Le Creuset 5 1/2 quart round dutch oven. I use it everyday of my cooking life and it looks it! But it is a work horse and there is nothing like cast iron to deliver the even heat distribution and heat stability that we love. The Le Crueset cookware is heavy…but it is a good heavy.

By the way…here is Tot. He’s my main audience when I’m cooking up things at home. Here I caught him sniffing my pile of mushrooms. He’s a strict carnivore, but I think the umami thing almost had him fooled too.

Here’s the finished mushroom/onion filling for the cobbler, naked.

and the now dressed up with a beautifully browned parmesan biscuit topping.

I know you probably already have your whole menu planned for Thanksgiving, but if you have left it to the last minute (like I did with this post!) and need a WOW FACTOR dish, this is it! Or save it for Christmas dinner.  Or on a wintery weekend night  you make it your main course, and pair it with a fresh salad with crumbled gorganzola and glass of cabernet.

UMAMI Thankgiving!

Wild Mushroom Cobbler

For the filling:

2.5 lbs red onions
2.5 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons butter
2 oz dried porcini
3-4 large Portabello mushrooms
1 lb shitake mushrooms
1/2 lb oyster or chanterelle mushrooms (whatever you can find )
one container of white button mushrooms
2 cloves garlic
pinch of dried thyme
pinch of cayenne
freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste
1/2 cup dry red wine
2-3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups reduced fat milk, heated

For the topping:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon coarse salt
4 tablespoons chilled butter
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1 1/3 cups buttermilk

Procedure:

1. Boil 1.5 cups water and pour over dried porcini. Let stand for at least 30 minutes

2. Peel and halve red onions. Slice thinly and evenly. I used a mandoline but if you don’t have one you can slice by hand or in a food processor using a slice attachment.

3. In a large, heavy skillet or dutch oven, heat 1-2 T of olive oil and 1-2 T of butter. Add onions and good pinch of salt. Cook over medium-low flame, stirring often, for 20 minutes or until the onions are nicely browned and thoroughly softened.

4. Using a damp cloth, wipe down the fresh mushrooms to remove any dirt. You can rinse them quickly instead with cold water, but don’t  soak them in water to clean. They will absorb too much liquid a get soggy. Slice all the smaller fresh mushrooms. Quarter and slice the Portobellos to 1/4 inch thickness. Remove the porcini mushrooms from their soaking liquid and finely chop them. Reserve the liquid for later use.

5. Remove softened onions from pan. Reserve. In the same pan, over low-medium heat, melt 1-2 T of butter and 1-2 T of olive oil. Add chopped garlic and stir about 1 minute without letting garlic color or burn. Add fresh mushrooms and a good pinch of salt. Saute the mushrooms, stirring often until they start to release their liquid. Add the chopped porcini, the thyme, cayenne and black pepper, and keep cooking over medium flame until the excess liquid has cooked away and the mushrooms are sizzling and beginning to color a bit.

6. Sprinkle 1-2 T of flour over mushroom mixture and stir to coat thoroughly and brown the flour a bit. Add additional fat if needed to keep it from burning. Add the red wine, stirring to deglaze the brown bits on the bottom of the pan. As the wine reduces and thickens from the flour, add the soaking liquid from the porcini. Add the reserved onions and simmer all together for a few minutes. Liquid should thicken. Taste and adjust seasoning.

7. Pour the mushroom mixture into a lightly buttered, or cooking spray coated gratin/baking dish, spreading it evenly. Hold and let cool.

8. Prepare the biscuit dough: combine all the dry ingredients in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse to combine. Add chilled and cubed butter and pulse briefly until the mixture has the texture of coarse meal. Add the Parmesan cheese and pulse again to combine. Add the buttermilk and mix briefly until just combined. Do not overmix. Dough will be thick and sticky.

9. Spoon the biscuit dough onto the mushroom mixture, distributing it more or less evenly over the top, but it’s OK to leave little pockets of “air” between the spoons of dough so the mushroom mixture can bubble and breath underneath when you are baking it. It should look rustic. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the biscuits are a light golden brown and firm to the touch.

You can also view this recipe at Relish.com

Make ahead, make ahead, make ahead.

This is the mantra of a Thanksgiving dinner that you, the cook, can actually sit down and enjoy. I’ve learned this lesson after years of waking up at 5 am on Thanksgiving Day (or fill in the blank on the holiday) revving up the ovens and stove, and cooking myself into a pajama-stained frenzy until 30 minutes before guests arrive. After tasting, tweaking and smelling food all day, I’m left with little energy to entertain, and even less of an appetite. I’m the person who actually lost 8 pounds while I was in a 9-month professional culinary program.

So here it is a good 10 days before the big day and I’m plotting and planning my “make ahead” schedule. I start with the items that can last the longest in the fridge and work forward to things, like the turkey, that have to be done on the day.

Cranberry sauce is the quintessential Thanksgiving condiment, and because it’s basically a preserve/compote/chutney/jam (sugar being the preservative in this case) it will store well in the fridge for at least two weeks, if not longer. So it is the perfect “make ahead” item.

I like to have more than one on the table to satisfy the two typical palattes of my guests: traditional (kids, older relatives, curmudgeons) and foodies (i.e., my chef son and his chef girlfriend, me). There is not much else to say about cranberry sauce except this: it is so easy to make…and so easy to make special and impressive for your guests with added fruits and flavors…don’t even think about using the canned stuff. Pahleese! You have gone to all the trouble to brine and bathe and baste the perfect bird, why let your guests slather some corn-syrupy gelatinous mess all over it? Make these instead, and whether you actually know the difference between a conserve and a compote (I can’t figure it out), you’ll never call it cranberry “sauce” again.

Jellied Cranberry-Apple Conserve
adapted from Food & Wine

Ingredients

12-15 oz. bag of fresh cranberries
1 large Fuji apple, cut into 1/4 inch cubes (any apple will do fine, but stick with a red one to balance tartness of cranberries)
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons light brown sugar Preparation

Spray an 8×4 inch loaf pan, or molding vessel of your choice with non-stick cooking spray.

In a medium saucepan, combine the cranberries with the diced apple, sugars and water. Bring to a boil and cook over moderately high hear, stirring frequently until the cranberries are completely broken down and the sauce is very thick, about 15 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes, then scrap the cranberry mixture into the prepared pan and refridgerate until chilled, about 3 hours. If serving right away, invert the jelly onto a serving plate and garnish with fresh cranberries and rosemary sprigs. Slice with a serrated knife to serve. If preparing ahead, just wrap the jelly in the pan, tightly with plastic wrap. Will keep in fridge for up to two weeks.

Cranberry & Dried Fruit Compote
adapted from Food & Wine

Ingredients

12-15 oz. bag of fresh cranberries
3/4 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup dried cherries
1/2 cup dried figs
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
1 1/4 cups water

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and cook over moderately high heat until the cranberries burst, about 7 minutes. Scrape the cranberry mixture into a bowl and refridgerate until chilled, about 3 hours. Can be kept in an airtight container and refrigerated for up to 2 weeks. Serve chilled or warmed.

This cake is the very delicious answer to pears gone wrong. Who hasn’t gone to a farmer’s market or seen a lovely pyramid of glossy fall pears and bought way more than you could consume before they progress beyond dribbly eat-over-the-sink perfection into mushy mistake. Since there is a weekly market, a block from my apartment, that lines one end of Fort Greene park, I am a chronic over-buyer of pears and other irresistable produce.

My pears cried out to me from the counter. “Use us! Use us! TODAY! BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!” And so I did. And so should you because you will swoon over this cake. It is an angel’s chorus of three things I love: rosemary, sweet cornbread and butter-browned fruit. You don’t have to wait until you have sad pears around to make this either. In fact it’s a great thing to make with pears that aren’t quite ripe yet too. The roasting will make the hard fruit all melty and concentrate the sweetness in them.

You will need a cast iron pan. But you probably have one. Dig it out. And if you don’t have one, get one! Mine is a Le Creuset I’ve had for about 15 years and it is a workhorse. And I’m not saying that just because I’m doing cooking demos for Le Creuset all over the New York metro area in William Sonoma stores. I just love the way the cast iron is so heavy and substantial and distributes heat so evenly…and the Le Creuset is enamel coated and gets more beautiful to me with age and use. Mine are blue.

Serve with a softened bit of vanilla icecream or Hagen Daz Dulce de Leche for an added treat. Enjoy!

Roasted Pear Rosemary Upside Down Cake
adapted from Ger-Nis Culinary & Herb Center, Brooklyn, NY

Ingredients

8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick) separated into two 4 T portions
1 cup sugar, separated into two 1/2 cup portions
3 medium pears, skins on, cored and cut into wedges (I used this corer)
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary leaves
3 tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves, chopped finely
3/4 cup medium to fine ground cornmeal
3/4 cup all-purpose flour (or corn flour if you want gluten-free)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup heavy cream (or half and half)

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Melt half the butter (4 T) of butter in a cast iron skillet over medium heat, making sure to caot the sides. Add half the sugar (1/2 C) and cook until the butter starts to melt and turn golden brown—about 3 minutes. Add pear wedges forming a circle pattern covering the entire bottom of the pan. Sprinkle rosemary leaves on the pears, evenly. Place the pan in the oven for 15 minutes or until pears are tender. Set aside.

While pears are in the oven, combine cornmeal, flour, baking powder and soda, chopped rosemary leaves, and salt. Separately, in the bowl of a mixer (you can use a hand mixer, or do this by hand too) beat the other 4 T of butter (medium-high speed) and the other 1/2 cup of sugar, until fluggy. Reduce speed to medium and add eggs, one at a time, making sure to scrape sides of bowl as you go along. Next, add dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated. (Don’t overwork). Finish by adding vanilla extract and cream. Batter should be on the thick side.

Drop spoonfulls of batter over pears in the pan. Coat pears evenly. Ideally pears should be entirely covered with batter and not visible, but if they are it’s no big deal. Bake until golden brown and a tester comes out clean, 35-40 minutes. NOTE: For maximum coverage here, a 9-10″ pan is recommended. I used the only one I have, an 11-inch, and my cake came out on the thin side, but just as delicious. If using a larger pan start checking the cake for doneness at 30 minutes.

When done, let stand for 10 minutes, run a knife or spatula around the cakes edges and invert onto a large cutting board or platter. Inverting can be a challenge because of the weight of the pan, but resist the temptation to cut into this without turning it upside-down…it’s too beautiful to miss! Enjoy!

You can also find this recipe on Relish.com

How many people get to see themselves on TV as a fairly ridiculous cartoon character? Well, I’m happy to say that I can now add this to my eclectic and sometimes stranger-than-truth list of things I’ve done in my lifetime!

If you haven’t seen me as the Sneaky Teacher on a recent Good Morning America segment, than you can now! It was a lot of fun, the day beginning with being picked up by my own driver and whisked up to the gorgeous Connecticut home of Lara Spencer, the sassy lifestyle anchor for GMA, where I got to conduct a Sneaky Teacher cooking lesson for her and her two kids, Katie, 5 and Duff, 8. The “sneaky” part was getting in some math, science and reading in all while baking some “good-for-you” Ham and Cheese Muffins.

Here is my article on my “sneaky teaching” moments as it appears on abcnews.com for some tips on how to incorporate teaching moments for your kids as you are cooking with them.

Sneaky Teaching Through Cooking

Why not use the promise of warm muffins coming out of the oven as a way to teach your kids more about math, science, reading, history, geography and agriculture! While they are mixing, measuring, tasting and touching, they won’t suspect they are getting more than just a chance to get messy and cook!

Chef Rachel Willen, whose FoodFix business brings her brand of fun, informative culinary classes right into clients own kitchens, worked with Lara Spencer’s children, Duff, (age?) and Katie (?) today to bake some Ham and Cheese Breakfast Muffins and sneak in some “teaching moments” that enriched the educational experience, and actually made it more engaging for the kids too.

Here is are some of the teaching opportunities that came up in the 20 minute prep time it took to get these delicious and protein-rich breakfast muffins in the oven.

• Reading: Recipe reading is still reading! Have kids take turns reading the ingredient list. After you’ve had them help prep all the items on the ingredient list, read aloud the procedures as you go along. It keeps them engaged in every step of the process and they will come across words and phrases they may have questions about. Our ingredient list let us to questions like, “what is baking powder and why do you need it?”

• Math: Each item on the ingredient list has a measurement preceding it. This was a chance to discuss types of measuring devices used in the kitchen. One set of cups for dry ingredients, one for wet..we looked at the lines and fractions printed on the measuring cups and how they correspond to those in the written recipe. We decided to “double” the recipe and make 2 dozen muffins so the kids had a chance to multiply each item by 2 and figure out how much we needed. The fact that they had to figure something out and then measure it out, as opposed to just being told what to do, really kept their interest!

• Science: We talked about how baking is a science, namely chemistry! It’s mixing exact amounts of certain compounds (ingredients) to create a reaction (wet gooey stuff becomes fluffy, puffy, airy, yummy stuff when you add heat) and a result that is different than what the ingredients are by themselves. (or, in other words…MAGIC!) Baking powder is a particulary “scientific” compound made up of an acidic agent, an alkalizing agent, a moisture absorbing agent, that when combined with a liquid will release carbon dioxide gas…and this gas is what’s responsible for making cakes and muffins rise during the baking process. The cooking eggs in the batter hold the gas in place to insure a beautiful and puffy result! But make sure you don’t over mix the batter or let it sit too long before you bake it… otherwise your CO2 gas gets all used up and your cake will fall flat!

• More Science: Why doesn’t oil mix with water. With a 5 and 8 year-old you don’t want to get into molecular structure but it was easy to see that when we added the oil to the milk and eggs the oil just sat on top and wouldn’t mix. A simple explanation and analogy got them interested and talking. The oil is made up of tiny parts called molecules and the oil molecules are lighter than the milk or water molecules so the oil just sits on top. “Did you ever meet someone who is really shy and stands away from the crowd? They just don’t “mix” in very easily? Well sometimes you have to work a little harder to get that person to join in with everyone else…and it’s that way with the oil and water…we work a little harder, with our whisk, to get them to be friendly with each other!”

• Food and Argriculture: These questions got the kids talking and guessing. Do you know where eggs come from? Lots of kids haven’t made the connection between the chicken and the egg! And other connections between food and their sources…like where does ham come from, or milk or cheese! What’s the difference between white and brown eggs? The answer is: the color! White eggs and brown eggs are essentially the same in today’s mainstream markets, but brown eggs come from certain varieties of chicken, like Rhode Island Reds or Plymouth Rocks that are bigger, and eat more food than other chickens, so that’s why brown eggs can sometimes be more expensive. Eggs that come from chickens on small farms, where they get to eat commercial feed as well as bugs and other more natural chicken foods, will have yellower yolks and a more distinct flavor.

• Cooking skills: Last but not least when you cook with your kids you are giving them skills that will serve them for a lifetime…and studies show that the more they know about good food and the more they cook for themselves…the longer and healthier that lifetime will be.

In today’s lesson we touched on skills like safe cutting, different types of measuring tools, whisking, stirring by “folding”, lining muffin tins so the batter won’t stick, setting the temperature on the oven, setting the timer, and safety when handling hot things. We also got our five senses involved with touching, naming textures, tasting and discerning flavors (sweet, sour, salty, bitter), as well as smelling and commenting on the finished product. This kind of activity builds a more diverse palatte and helps get kids to get off the “white food only” treadmill and try new foods.

Though there has been an empty, stomach growling space of time since my last entry, let me assure you there has been no lack of cooking and eating going on around here since my son, Max, has been home from school. My boy (hardly that at 6’5″) is six weeks away from graduating from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY. Most mornings Max would wake up, wander down to the kitchen and still groggy-eyed ask, “what do you want to do today?” which I took to mean, “what are we cooking?” We’d fan through cookbooks (a lot of fanning through Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc, where everything reads delicious, and not-surprisingly, ends up as such on the plate). I met the chef when I attended the Bocuse D’Or Finals at CIA this past January (sort of the Olympics of cooking) and got him to sign my copy, and my chef coat from culinary school. OK, so I’m a chef groupie. I admit it.

This last week we were joined by Max’s bright-eyed, easy-going girlfriend, Teresa, also a student at CIA, who totally won me over the first time she was in my kitchen with these words: “anything I can do to help?” Thus, my oversized fridge and freezer have been stuffed with produce and meats from the farmer’s markets and the maze of plastic containers of all shapes and sizes holding the absolutely indispensable leftover morsels of meals, compotes, marmalades, sauces, reductions, chutneys, and ice creams.

Teresa is especially adept at desserts we discovered. My counter tops were untidy with the results of experiments involving butter-laden brownies, brownie-stuffed cookies, chocolate chip littered bread pudding and much more that I can’t remember and am sad to say did not photograph. I was too busy having the time of my life to step aside and observe it. This is an unusual state of affairs, as anyone who knows me will tell you I OVERTHINK everything. My German-accented mother would often listen to me go on about things with a puzzled look on her face and declare “YOU ANNA-LIZE TOO MUCH!!!” So the last few weeks of just being and doing without thinking and recording are the closest I may ever get to enlightenment. And all this is going on while I am also in the throes of moving from a 4-bedroom house in semi-rural New Jersey to a loft apartment in Brooklyn. We are doing “Green Acres,” but in reverse. In this case both my husband and I are Zsa Zsa Gabor (minus the fur and hair-do helmet) longing to get back to the urban lifestyle and energy that we love. Doug’s office is in the city and he was commuting up to 4 hours a day for all this bucolic splendor. So, after eight years in Hunterdon County, NJ we are thrilled that we will soon be hitting the pavement as a family in the wonderful Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. Just two subway stops and 12 minutes from Doug’s office (right near the amazing Union Square farmer’s market), life will be streamlined and downsized and “greener” for us in many ways. We are trading in cars and endless driving for mass transit and more walking, taking back our weekends from the bottomless pit of lawn, landscaping and home maintenance chores, and will be heating and cooling a smaller space among other changes I have yet to predict. Here’s Doug in the new ‘hood.

Max and Teresa have headed back to CIA for their last six weeks and the minor renovations in the new apartment are almost done. We are moving officially in two and a half weeks and I have so much to do to pull it all together. Even so, I wanted to give you something to tide you over until the end of the month…which is probably when I’ll be able to breathe and start focusing on posts again. This chicken was a “try-out” of a recipe from the American Bounty menu at CIA that he will be executing during his last weeks of school. Students work the line in one of four campus restaurants as their final leg of their culinary education.  What better way to familiarize himself with the dish than to try it out during break with good ole Mom? The result was stunningly delicious and though it looks fancy schmancy, with a few home-cook oriented fixes, like using store-bought ground chicken instead of boning out whole legs and thighs and grinding them as we did, it is really easy to make. It’s straightforward enough for any meal, but it’s so impressive looking and tasting that you’ll want to save it for a dinner party so you can hear everyone swoon over it.

The American Bounty menu pairs the chicken with “Hoppin John Succotash with Crispy Southern Ham,” which Max made (recipe to come in a separate post) substituting bacon for the mysterious southern ham, and dumplings which we skipped in order to save the carbs for those desserts. We did make the sauce, creamy and buttery and herby, but reduced the butter a bit and used half and half instead of heavy cream to feel better about ourselves. Still, it’s all real food, with wholesome ingredients and when you cook for yourself you will always have a lower fat, lower salt version of what you could possibly get eating out…or taking out. Not to mention a big serving of satisfaction.

When making sausage, make a fry test to sample seasoning and adjust. This is just a matter of making a tiny burger out of the raw mixture so you can taste it and adjust. We did this and the filling was so yummy that we used the leftover filling to make little sausage patties that we ate with scrambled eggs the next day. With this recipe/technique in your head there will never be a reason to buy nitrate, sodium and chemical filled store-bought sausage patties again. You can make this with a ground pork and veal combo as well and change up the herb/seasoning profile. Add diced apples, maple syrup and cinnamon or spinach, feta cheese and oregano—anything your heart and palatte desires and have a satisfying sausage in no time!