Castelvetrano Olives

The first thing I do when I visit my parents’ house in Cleveland is search the refrigerator for Castelvetrano green olives. These jade, buttery orbs lack the bitter aftertaste of many lesser olives, and are meaty enough to make for a satisfying snack. I have searched Italian stores across Boston for Castelvetranos for years, with no success. Every so often I bring home other types of green olives, but they never measure up. 

I had pretty much come to terms with the fact that I would never find Castelvetrano anywhere except my parents’ refrigerator. Then, while shopping for olive-stuffed pork tenderloin at my local Italian grocery, what should I find but a bounty of Castelvetranos displayed proudly in the center of the store.  To think that they had been available all this time a mere five minute walk from my house.  It is too good to be true.      

Olive-Stuffed Pork Tenderloin

 

During my recent trip to Cleveland, my future mother-in-law prepared a delicious olived-stuffed sole with a tomato spinach sauce. The dish was such a hit that I decided to cook it for Alex, who missed the dinner party. I began thinking of ways to tinker with the recipe, deciding to omit the tomatoes and serve the spinach as a side dish. And why not put some of the oranges that have been wasting away in my refrigerator into the stuffing? Some butter couldn’t hurt, to be sure. The more changes I made, the bolder I became, until I finally realized what was needed to perfect the dish: pork.  

First I toyed with adding some bacon into the stuffing, but I ultimately decided to simply replace the sole with pork tenderloin. The results were delicious, albeit somewhat less healthful than the original sole.  

A Chicken in Every Pot

Roasting a chicken is an exercise in compromise. The breasts, which are done at 160 degrees, will be dry and tough if the thighs are allowed to fully cook to 170 degrees. Perfectly crisped skin requires the considerable sacrifice of ideally succulent meat. While anyone can produce delicious results simply by throwing a seasoned bird into a hot oven, the quest for the ultimate roast chicken is a formidable, quixotic challenge.

One solution is to concentrate your efforts on perfecting one element of the roast. Although this approach is somewhat defeatist, I definitely felt like a winner last night, when I made the juiciest chicken of my life, poulet en cocotte. This classic French dish roasts a whole chicken inside a pot at a low temperature. The enclosure prevents moisture from evaporating, producing a concentrated, rich flavor and meat so moist that the juices flowed off my cutting board and onto the floor, even after resting for a full twenty minutes. Unfortunately, this came at the expense of the skin, which remained a rubbery, embarrassed pale yellow (although more sightly than the raw chicken photographed above).   

Alex and I tried to have a serious conversation about the dish’s merits, but kept breaking into laughter about how ridiculous we looked with chicken dripping down our chins. In the end, we decided that the dish was a success, but it won’t be replacing my usual roast chicken recipe anytime soon.

Lentil Soup

Late January is usually the time when I abandon my new year’s dieting resolution. During the first week of the year, I cook wholesome foods like tofu and exotic, crunchy grains. For the beginning of 2008, I even went so far as to drink a juice cocktail of carrots, parsley, garlic, and wheat grass – a sobering experience indeed. As time progresses, my cocktails begin to include alcohol, and I begin to crave heavy, winter fare. 

This year, however, I have an added incentive to keep my resolution: the terror of looking like a whale in my wedding dress. I know all brides are supposed to be beautiful, but the camera adds ten pounds and wedding pictures last forever. So, when I normally would have been braising short ribs or pan-frying chicken, I instead started off January’s fourth week by preparing a lentil soup. This hearty dish satisfied my winter appetite without causing a crisis in my midsection. 

Unfortunately, my virtue wasn’t absolute. I couldn’t help but sneak a little salt pork into the soup. But, I limited myself to a tiny slab, using it as a subtle flavoring. I added all the vegetables of my ill-advised juice cocktail, excluding the wheat grass, of course. Needless to say, they were far tastier in this incarnation, which was delicious and provided enough leftovers for healthful lunches for the rest of the week. 

Cheap Meat

My first trip to McKinnon’s Meat Market lasted about five seconds. I took one whiff of the store’s nauseous bouquet of rotting meat and chemical sanitizer, turned around, and walked right out the door. In the two and a half years I’ve lived in Davis Square, I never returned, even though the shop is a mere four minutes from my house and I am desperate for a decent butcher. That is, until yesterday, when I finally braved the stench and took a chance on McKinnon’s.

Truth be told, shopping at McKinnon’s wasn’t much of a gamble, since their prices are so low that many of the store’s Internet reviews posit that it must be owned by the Mafia. How else could they afford to sell New York strip steaks at $4.49 per pound, chicken pieces for $0.69 per pound, and the hanger steak that I purchased for $1.00 per pound? How else could a little store with no parking carry a wide selection of exotic meats, including oxtails, tripe, and chicken feet?

The kicker is that the meat is actually delicious. We grilled the hanger steak quite rare, and its robust flavor made Alex remark that this was his new favorite cut of beef. It wasn’t just the cooking; the meat truly was first rate. I paired it with a jalapeno jam from Jeffrey Fournier of 51 Lincoln. The sweet, spicy jam was a perfect match for the rich meat. The entire meal of steak, eggplant, jalapeno jam cost a mere $6.00, and included a bonus sandwich for lunch today.

Unemployed, but Not Starving

A wise man once said, “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.* Now that I have graduated culinary school, these words seem truer than ever. I have finally chosen to pursue a job I will love, and am therefore doomed to unemployment.

This is probably a bit pessimistic, since I only just started my job search. On the bright side, I now have time to cook the elaborate dinners Alex envisioned when I started cooking school. And, I have time to write the about these creations. Starting tomorrow.

* This quotation is often wrongly attributed to Confucius. Like most fortune cookie translations, the master’s actual words have little to do with the English saying, which was probably derived from 知之者，不如好之者；好之者，不如乐之者, or Knowledge is not equal to devotion; Devotion is not equal to joy (translation from confucius.org).