Nikujaga (Japanese Beef and Potato Stew)

I don't remember where I found the book on slow cooker dishes that contained this recipe - it was collecting dust in someone's house, and I was bored and flipping through to pass the time.  While looking at soggy chicken stews, and "stir-fries" that you cooked 8 hours, I was despondent.  But somewhere in the back, buried way beyond the potato soups and the poached fish with mustard dishes, and just before the wine-soaked pears, I found this gem, which is most definitely authentic, and which does very nicely in the slow cooker.

Nikujaga is an interesting dish if you know Japanese food, mostly because it's got a lot of western influence.  I can't name too many Japanese dishes that have whole potato chunks - possibly golden curry, and some kind of croquette called a korokke, which I may now have to make after having looked it up.  But I assure you, mention Japanese beef and potato stew to someone from Japan and they will say "NIKUJAGA!!", which I have tried a couple of times with great results.

I really like the flavors in this dish, which is slightly sweet, very rich, and incredibly filling and warming.  And there's very little to this process - you chop everything, throw it in the slow cooker for the day, and come back later to eat a delicious meal.  I first tried this in the pressure cooker, which took an hour, and then tried it in the slow cooker, which took 6-8 hours, and which I thought tasted nearly identical but was ready when I walked in the door.  Your call.  Also, if you really want to get fancy, brown the meat first in a bit of olive oil, and then continue.  It will be notably better, although totally non-essential.

Saffron Chard Potato Omelette

Another winner from Yotam Ottolenghi's book Plenty, we made this at a cooking class and then were able to reliably duplicate it at home.  A delicious herbed omelette loaded with a filling of potatoes and swiss chard cooked in saffron, which is so good that you could eat it for just about any meal, and you could even eat the filling on its own.  Make sure you have a good non-stick pan to make your life easier, and don't skimp on the herbs or the saffron, both of which are essential to the dish.

Athenian (Greek) Chicken and Potatoes

For some reason, in my home town we don't have diners - we have a lot of Greek delis.  I don't know how this happened, somehow the American restaurant icon got disenfranchised by a local demographic and the customers discover that they would rather have a gyros omelette over scrapple and chipped beef.  One of the staple dishes I grew up with was called Greek chicken, also called Athenian chicken in places that charged you a dollar or two more for the fancier wording.  Regardless, it's good, ol' fashioned comfort food - healthy, fairly mild, hearty - that I have tweaked a number of times until getting something vaguely reminiscent of what I used to eat as a child.  Enjoy!


Athenian Chicken and Potatoes
modified from Bon Appétit, April 1992

• 1 4-5 pound chicken, quartered
• 3-4 russet potatoes (about 2.5 pounds), peeled, quartered, lengthwise
• 4 large garlic cloves, halved
• 1 cup canned low-salt chicken broth
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 2/3 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 tablespoon fresh rosemary, finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano, crumbled – perhaps slightly more
• Lemon wedges, for serving

Preheat oven to 375°F. Arrange chicken (skin side up), potatoes, and garlic in large roasting pan. Place at least one half of a garlic clove under chicken pieces, if possible.  Season with salt and pepper.  Pour broth over.  Whisk olive oil, lemon juice and oregano to combine.  Pour evenly over chicken and potatoes.

Bake until chicken is cooked through and golden brown and potatoes are tender, basting every 20 minutes with pan juices, about 1 hour 5 minutes.  Tent with aluminum foil, bake for another 10 minutes.  Serve with lemon wedges.  If potatoes are not browned, remove chicken and roast at 425 until cooked, up to 20 minutes more.

Serve with something green and make yourself a nice homecooked meal

Warm German Potato Salad (Kartoffelsalat)

Ah, potatoes - those tasty little tubers that seem to be on every menu in the Western world, and which can stump Dan Quayle in a spelling bee.  While potatoes are originally from the Americas (Peru, to be exact), some cultures over in Europe have managed to do amazing things with them in a the few centuries that they've been cultivated there.  And I'm not talking about the Irish.  I'm talking about the Germans, who transformed the potato salad of the United States into something entirely different.

German potato salad is pretty much the opposite of American potato salad.  It's served warm.  It has only a thin sauce to it.  It is almost entirely vinegar-based, as opposed to mayonnaise or mustard.  And you can practically eat it as its own meal, since it almost always has meat right in the dish.  And bad news for some of you - this dish isn't meant for the devoutly Jewish, as it contains bacon.

I mashed up this recipe from a few different sources, then tinkered to get the consistency I wanted.  The result is from too many places to cite just one, but if you look really hard you should see the same few ingredients in different orders or with different ratios all over the internet.  But you're here reading this one, so just roll with it.


German Potato Salad (Kartoffel Salat)

• 3 pounds Yukon gold or red potatoes
• 1/4 pound thick-cut bacon
• 3/4 cup finely chopped onion (white, yellow, bottoms of a green onion, and/or red)
• 1/3 cup white vinegar
• 3/4 cup water
• 2 tbsp flour
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tablespoon mustard seeds
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 3 green onions, tops, sliced thinly
• 2 tbsp parsley, chopped

Scrub potatoes and place in a large pot.  Add water until potatoes are submerged at least 1".  Boil the potatoes until they are cooked through, at least 20 minutes.  If you use Russets here, they will be mealy and gross.  Go with a waxier potato like a red or Yukon gold.  Drain potatoes and allow to chill for at least a few hours, or preferably overnight.  Once cooled, slice potatoes into 1/4" thick rounds and set aside.

Boil the potatoes the night before if you can.  Then assemble just before serving

If you want a little kick to your salad, place the mustard seeds in the cold water and let hang out for 10 minutes.  If not, just skip this step.  In a fairly large saute pan, cook bacon until crispy, and set aside.  Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of bacon grease from the pan.  Over medium heat, cook the onions until translucent, about 3-5 minutes.  I used the bottom of the green onion tops I would add later to complement red and yellow onions.

Saute your onion mix

Dissolve the flour in the water, and then add water, vinegar and mustard seeds, and deglaze the pan for a few seconds.  Add the salt, sugar, and flour, and stir to combine.  Now add the sliced potatoes to this and fold them into the sauce.  Once you have tossed this around a bit, added the parsley and green onions, and crumble the bacon and throw that in too.

Toss again to combine, and that's it!  Serve warm, and enjoy with whatever German food tickles your fancy.

It's bacon!

Roast Leg of Lamb with Potatoes and Onions

If you haven't tried cooking lamb, you're missing out.  A good leg of lamb is moist, rich, tender, with just a hint of a wild game flavor, and it takes to garlic and rosemary with dignity.  I made this dish years ago and it was so mouthwatering that I ate it out of the tupperware with my bare hands, like an animal, for probably a solid week afterwards.  Not that this is the raving endorsement you should be looking for, but I thought it was a pretty good story.  Cheers to my housemate for taking some very artistic shots this time, but jeers to him for making me realize that I need a better camera.

Ready to be sliced and served

Roasted Leg of Lamb with Potatoes and Onions
(Gigot D'Agneau Aux Pommes De Terre Et Oignons) 
Bon Appétit, May 1999

Serves 6 to 8

• 1 6- to 7-pound bone-in leg of lamb, excess fat trimmed 
• 3 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme or 1 1/2 teaspoons dried
• 2 teaspoons minced fresh savory or 1 teaspoon dried
• 1 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary or 3/4 teaspoon dried
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon ground black pepper 
• butter for roasting pan
• 3 1/2 pounds russet potatoes, unpeeled, cut into 1/4-inch-thick rounds
• 2 1/2 pounds onions, thinly sliced (about 8 cups)
• 1 3/4 cups beef stock or canned beef broth 

If you have a food processor, I highly recommend using it to slice the potatoes and onions.  It gives you a perfectly even cut and saves 10 minutes of manual labor.

Ready your root vegetables.  A bed of potatoes and onions serve to cushion the lamb against burning, and absorb the drippings

Preheat oven to 400°F. Using small sharp knife, cut 1-inch-deep, 1/2-inch-long slits all over lamb. Cut up the garlic into thin slices and insert garlic into slits in the lamb. Rub oil all over lamb. Mix thyme, savory, rosemary, salt and pepper in small bowl. Rub herb mixture all over lamb. Set aside. 

Get the garlic deep down into the slits in the meat

Fresh thyme and rosemary really make this dish.  If you don't have fresh rosemary, don't even bother this time.

  

Grease up that lamb!

Rub the herb mixture all over the surface of the lamb

Generously butter large roasting pan. Combine potatoes, onions and stock in large pot (stock will not cover vegetables). Bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until potatoes are halfway tender, about 10 minutes. Transfer potato mixture to prepared pan; spread evenly in pan.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 375°F. Place lamb in roasting pan atop potato mixture. Roast until thermometer inserted into thickest part of lamb registers 130°F. for medium-rare, about 1 hour 50 minutes. Remove from oven. Tent with foil and let stand 15 minutes. 

Thinly slice lamb. Arrange lamb on large platter. Surround with potato mixture and any juices from pan and serve. 

Moroccan Chickpea Stew

In a bizarre fit of vegetarianism, I decided to make a chickpea stew the other day.  I had something similar at a French bistro, and it was so good that I decided to try it at home.  The beauty was that I had most of the ingredients in my pantry already, so I just had to buy some yogurt (which makes the dish, so don't skip it).

Moroccan cooking is heavily influenced by the French, so that's why I've added thyme to my recipe.  You won't see it in the original pictures, but I added it to the leftovers the next day and reheated on the stove, and it really brought a sweet, perfumed flavor to the dish that elevated it from a somewhat bland stew to something that seemed more, well, global.  If you really want to get crazy, the advice I got yesterday was to add za'atar, an Arab spice blend containing sesame seeds, sumac, thyme, salt, and other spices.  You can also cook this in a tagine if you're lucky enough to have one.

Moroccan Chickpea Stew, served over rice and garnished with greek yogurt

Moroccan Chickpea Stew

Adapted from Cooking Light

• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 cup diced yellow onion (about 1 medium)
• 1 cup diced carrot (about 1 large)
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 jalapeño pepper, minced, seeds mostly removed
• 1 1/2 cups cubed waxy potato such as Yukon gold, peeled, about 1 large
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 tsp fresh thyme, minced, or 1/2 tsp za'atar seasoning (optional)
• 1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained, or 4-5 fresh tomatoes, peeled
• 1 (15 1/2-ounce) can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), rinsed and drained
• 1 (14-ounce) can vegetable broth
• 3 cups hot cooked rice or couscous
• 1/2 cup plain low-fat yogurt, preferably greek

The setup.  You can use either canned chickpeas or the dried kind, but you'll need to cook them extra if you choose the latter.  FYI, I used a russet and was careful with the cooking time, but Yukon gold is preferred.

I should have used canned tomatoes, but I liked using my heirlooms from my garden.  If you're using whole though, peeling them would be preferable.  See my guide on that here and here.

Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.  Add onion, carrot, garlic, and jalapeño to pan; sauté 6 minutes or until tender.  You can brown these slightly, but make sure not to burn anything.

Saute the more hearty vegetables first

Stir in the potato and next 8 ingredients (through broth).  Bring to a boil.  Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes or until potato is tender.  If you use waxy potatoes like Yukon golds, you have some safety margin on overcooking.  If you use russets though, the starch will dissolve and your potato will turn to mush if you go too long.  Just something to be aware of.

Once you've sauteed the stronger vegetables, add the quick cooking potato, tomato, and chickpeas, along with the broth and spices.

The finished stew.  Everything cooks down quickly, so it's a very fast dish.

To serve, plate over rice or couscous.  A nice presentation I had once was to serve in a roasted eggplant half, which is then placed on a bed of couscous.  Top with yogurt and perhaps minced cilantro.

Shepherd's Pie

If the British are known for one thing in their cooking, it's for being about as exciting as a toothache.  But if you like meat and potatoes, forget about going anywhere else, because these folks have this market cornered.  Bangers and mash, kippers and neeps (technically a turnip, but same deal), shepherd's pie, meat pasties - you name it, and folks from the mother land have taken a stab at it.  And by and large, they screwed it up.

That's right, I said it.  I entertain your rebuttal in the comments.  Despite this, I still like British food, because sometimes a man needs to just eat a bunch of meat, served in stew form, with naught but the most basic of flavors.  But in searching for a good Shepherd's Pie recipe, I came across some that I might feed to a dog, but none that I would feed to a diner who wants more than just 'people food'.  So I had to borrow from the French and add some flavor to the recipes, as well as adjust the preparation method to get the most out of the different ingredients.  I even tried to get fancy and pipe my potatoes on the top of the stew, but that didn't quite work out, as we shall see.

Shepherd's Pie is a simple recipe, consisting of a meat stew with a mashed potato crust.  To be proper, I actually made a "Cottage Pie", since shepherd's don't really raise beef but mutton or lamb, but nobody calls it that so I'll stick to my guns on this one.  The dish came about as a way to spread the usage of the potato as an edible staple for the poor in England - kind of like the American history of corn syrup (or, if you go back far enough, whiskey), but a little bit more wholesome.

The finished Shepherd's Pie, with one serving briefly removed and replaced before I remembered to take a picture

Shepherd's (actually, Cottage) Pie
from nowhere in particular, designed by me for a change

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 large onion, peeled and chopped
•  2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1.5 pound ground lamb or beef
• 1 cup beef or chicken broth (use good stuff if you can - I used homemade stock)
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh or dry rosemary (fresh is greatly preferred)
• 1 cup dry red wine
• 1 cup frozen peas
• salt and pepper, to taste

For the potatoes:

• 2 pounds russet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup milk (any fat content)
• Kosher salt to taste

 

Get your ingredients ready.  The list is fairly short.  If you have mashed potatoes left over from something else, the list becomes even shorter.

Grind your meat with a coarse blade.  You don't have a meat grinder?  Maybe your butcher will do it for you, if you flash a little skin.

These three ingredients represent the shortcomings of English food - aromatics, and complex flavors.  Garlic, rosemary, and red wine turn this from mess hall chow to something you could serve to a weary chef.  Or shepherd, I suppose.

Preheat oven to 375°F.

In a large sauté pan over high heat, heat the oil and brown the meat in 1-2 batches.  Season with salt and pepper during browning, and be sure to keep the heat high and not just boil the meat.  You want to see some brown bits, even if it means things sticking to the pan for a while.  Meanwhile, bring the potatoes to a boil in salted water. Cook until tender, about 20 minutes; drain.

To the pan with meat, add the onion and carrot, and cook until softened, 3-4 minutes.  Add garlic, and cook until moisture has been released from onions and carrots are beginning to soften, another 4 minutes.  Add the red wine and boil until liquid is mostly evaporated, 4-5 minutes.  Add the broth, tomato paste, and rosemary, and reduce the heat.  Simmer until the juices thicken, about 10 minutes, then add the peas.

Here's the mix, after reducing out the wine, browning the meat, and adding all of the vegetables and aromatics.

Mash the potatoes with the butter, milk, and salt, and set aside.  If you want to pipe them, prepare a piping bag after letting the potatoes cool slightly, and get a tip that will let you dispense a good bit of potato at once.  Or, use my cheap method:

Don't have a piping bag?  Use a zip-top.  Just put the potato in...

...twist the bag to squeeze the potato down to the corner, and then cut off the corner and pipe.  Focus on putting pressure on the bag from the top, with the part of your hand between your thumb and index finger.  Keep twisting the bag to keep air out of the piping section.

So close!  But I ran out at the end, and had to spread the potato on after all of the effort.  Next time I might put a real tip on the bag to get something that doesn't look like a bunch of uncooked breadsticks, or something worse.

Spread or pipe the potatoes over the meat mixture, then crosshatch the top with a fork.  Bake until golden, 30 to 35 minutes.

The 'pie', after dragging a fork to create a nice browning surface

The finished pie, not quite as browned as I would like, but every bit as delicious as a hearty French stew