Bodacious Albacore Bisque

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Look out people!  This soup is Bodacious!! By that I mean not for the faint of heart. Hardy, yummy, meal-in-a-bowl soup. I made a huge stockpot full last week and have been rationing it out to friends and neighbors all week. It’s also a great recipe to make hours in advance of entertaining and then just letting guests ladle out a bowl for themselves at their leisure.

My goal was to make a thick seafood soup without roux, the classic french soup thickener that’s in pretty much every chowder you’ve ever had. Roux starts with butter and white flour and I thought, eh– why go there? Other than texture, what’s the advantage? There’s no real nutrition with processed, bleached wheat flour,  and butter–well, it’s not on the top of my list as a superfood either. As a tantric yogini, I want more energy, more life force from everything I ingest and roux just didn’t make the cut!

So after literally a few years of contemplation and the great inspiration of my pal, Joel, who went fishing way south in in the deep seas west of Mexico, I bring you Albacore Bisque. One secret to this recipe is the absolutely fabulous 2  1/2 lb. of line-caught albacore from Joel. The other secrets are more subtle, as follows…

To achieve the smooth cream-like soup without using dairy either, I implemented a bit of knowledge I learned from web-cohort, Heather Van Vorous site, HelpforIBS.com. The site makes clear the distinction between two kinds of fiber: soluble and insoluble. The latter is all the fibrous ruffuge one thinks of as high fiber, as in kale, celery and most vegetables that still require a lot of chomping even after cooking to break down the stringiness. The former is what we love about vegetables that turn to silky mush when cooked, such as yams, potatoes, turnips, carrots, etc. (By the way, if you have irritable bowel syndrome, you want lots of soluble (mush) fiber and insoluble fiber only when it’s been well softened by cooking. This management of fiber appeases the overly-active peristalsis that’s symptomatic of IBS patients.)

So what other smooth, silky things could I add? I added  a full cup of one of my fav superfoods kudzu root powder and 20 oz. of tofu. Those along my top notch, soluble fiber vegies (white potatoes, a few carrots, a parsnip and a turnip and a huge celery root)  lots of slow cooking and pureeing, and finally the most amazing bisque.

If tuna isn’t at a good price, I recommend trying mahi mahi, swordfish, cod, tilapia, sole, or thresher shark. Enjoy all those omega fish oils, and as always, live long and prosper, my dear cooks!

Creamy Albacore Bisque

(wheat and dairy-free!)

2 1/2 lb albacore tuna

2 T coconut oil

2 medium onions

5 medium thin-skinned potatoes

1 turnip

1 celery root

1 parsnip

2” inches fresh ginger root

1 quarts vegetable stock

2 quarts fish stock

1 cup water

1 cup powdered kudzu root

20 oz tofu

3 T sea salt

1 t finely ground black pepper

1 t ground cardamom

1 T dry mustard

2 cups sliced celery

1 cup chopped carrot

Peel and chop 2 onions and sauté them in the bottom of a large stockpot on medium high with 2 T coconut oil and 1 t salt until golden brown. Add the stock, the whole potatoes, turnip, celery root and parsnip. Coarse chop the ginger and add to the pot, bringing it to a boil for 25 minutes.

Turn off the heat and use tongs to remove all the whole vegetables to bowl and  rub them with a clean dishcloth to quickly peel them when they are cool enough to touch. Break them up a bit and return them to the pot. Puree the soup that has now cooled a bit with an immersable hand blender or in batches in a regular blender.

Measure 1 cup of kudzu powder into a measuring cup and fill with one cup of water. Mix thoroughly and add to the soup with the tofu, remainder of the sea salt, finely ground black pepper, dry mustard and ground cardamom. Remove the seeds and membranes from the red bell peppers, slice and add to the soup to cook for an additional 25 minutes. Puree the soup again to incorporate the peppers.

Slice 4-5 celery stalks and leaves to equal 2 cups of ¼” celery slices. Chop 2 carrots into ½” pieces.  Add to the smooth and thickened soup to gently cook for 20 minutes.

Tear the albacore tuna into 1” pieces, anticipating that they will naturally break up in the soup. Continuing to simmer the bisque, add the tuna at least 10 minutes before serving.

A Day of Cooking, a Nite of Sampling!

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Yesterday, I made Pistachio-Crusted, Stuffed Chicken so I could shoot its portrait for the book. Light off the glass building up the street at 5:55 p.m. provided just the light I needed. Plated on a vintage cream and white  plate and on top of a wine colored doily my great-grandmother crocheted, it looked delectable.

That evening an impromptu gathering of four met to eat the pistachio-crusted stuffed chicken and some turkey from a catering gig on Saturday. Then on to sampling latest bake of Phlip n Nick’s outrageous brownies. A little port, a lot of music and conversation and suddenly it’s 1:30 am!!

Pistachio-Crusted Stuffed Chicken Thighs

Recipes, Road Trip/Picnic Food, Wheat-Free No Comments »

Ok, friends. Without further ado, as promised, here is the little miracle of a recipe from last weekend. I skewered these stuffed chicken bundles for easily handled picnic food at the Hollywood Bowl. With a little planning, this recipe also makes a fantastic road trip meal.  You can resist burning road time and ingesting processed food at a roadside burger joint on the day when seated in car for hours and not apt to burn a lot of calories. Come on, be a good co-pilot and feed that man!  Yes, with your fingers! Here ya go:

1 lb boneless chicken thighs

10 grape-sized tomatoes

3 oz feta cheese

1 small onion

2 small or 1 large basil leaves for each filet

1 cup shelled pistachios

1 ½ T cumin

1 t poppy seeds

2 T. olive oil

¼ cup salt

coarse ground pepper to taste

Heat a skillet or a griddle, add 1T olive oil and the onion which as been cut into ½” pieces. Salt the onions generously to encourage caramelizing. Stir occasionally until well browned. Remove from heat and reserve.

Boneless chicken pieces should to be no thicker than 1/2”. Filet or pound them to ½” if necessary. Place the chicken filet on a work surface, dry the top side and sprinkle with coarsely ground pepper. If you brined the chicken do not add more salt here. If you haven’t, sprinkle with salt to taste. Place a long spear of feta cheese crosswise at the narrow end of the filet. Add a few grape tomatoes and some of the reserved onions. Hold the stuffing inside as you roll into a tight bundle and secure with a piece of kitchen twine.

Grind into flour ½ cup pistachios. Combine with cumin, poppy seeds and black pepper in a shallow bowl. Roll the chicken bundles in the mixture to evenly coat on all sides.

Reheat the same skillet or griddle on low without washing it. Add the remaining 1 T olive oil. Place the bundles on the heated surface and cover loosely with a piece of foil to insulate some of the heat. Slow cook the chicken bundles on the first side until well browned. Resist the temptation to move them before they are very brown on one side, so they retain their rolled shape. Carefully stuff any cheese back in that oozes out the side. Turn the bundles over and brown the second side. If the bundles are very large, brown all sides to insure chicken is cooked through. Remove from the heat and carefully cut and remove the twine before serving.

See blog post: To Brine or Not To Brine; That Is the Question. Coming Soon!

Magnificent Spinach Pie-Recipe and How-to-Video

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Slice of Spinach Pie is flaky, cheesy and vibrant with fresh spinach.

This recipe has created a lot of talk amongst my friends! It’s a sure fire crowd pleaser, that you can make ahead if you are entertaining. The marvel is it’s great hot right out of the oven, room temp, as a cold leftover or reheated. The controversy amongst my Greek friends has been that it doesn’t use frozen, defrosted, wrung out spinach. Oh please!  Would the Enlightened Cook use such a thing? No, no, no. I use 2 heads of fresh spinach and not that stuff you get in a bag either. Manufacturers use gas to make the spinach resist decomposing as it should when packaged in plastic. I go for whole, fresh heads of spinach and carefully wash all the sand out myself.

Eggs and Greek feta cheese add a rich creaminess.

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So here you go!  Video and Recipe pdf:

Fresh Corn Relish! Perfect BBQ salad

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Fresh Corn Salsa

3 ears corn

3 large leeks

2 blood oranges

3 T. rice vinegar (preferred) or white vinegar

1 t. raw sugar or unprocessed honey

3 sprigs fresh mint – minced.

2 scallions chopped

salt and fresh coarse-ground black pepper to taste

Select a pot large that will easily hold the leeks and corn, and pour in a few inches of water.  Put in a steamer insert, cover with a lid and bring to a boil. Cut the leeks in half lengthwise and trimming off all the tough green parts.  Wash the leeks under running water, being careful to remove all the mud that can collect between the layers. Chop the leeks into 1/8” slices and immediately add to the steamer to give them a head start cooking.  Strip the corn of its husk and silk and add the whole ears to the steamer, which should be steaming by now.  Steam the leeks with the corn for five minutes more on a medium-high heat with the lid on.

Peel off the skin and white pith of the oranges down to the flesh with a paring knife over a deep bowl, retaining the juice. Then cut the orange sections out as close to the membrane as possible, allowing them to drop in the bowl below. Then cut each orange section in half. When all the sections are cut out, squeeze the remaining membrane to extract the rest of the juice into the bowl.

Discard the mint stems and mince only the leaves. Chop the scallions into 1/4” pieces. Add the mint and scallions to the bowl of oranges, plus the vinegar, honey or raw sugar, salt & pepper. Mix with fork to dissolve the honey or raw sugar evenly into the dressing.

After allowing the corn to cool a bit, firmly hold one end of the cob resting it vertically on a cutting board.  Use a sharp knife in a downward motion to strip off the corn kernels. Scrape the cob with the blade of the knife to release its milk. Add the milk and the corn kernels to the bowl. Add the softened leeks and mix all ingredients thoroughly. Marinate the mixture for several hours or preferably overnight.  Serve chilled.

Homemade Hummus: Mellow and Pure

Recipes, Superfoods 8 Comments »

About two months ago I read the ingredient list on the side of each of the hummus containers I found at Trader Joe’s, a chain of markets Angelinos think of as offering healthy, all-natural foods. I was shocked at the length of unfamiliar ingredients, including emulsifiers and other things that looked suspiciously like chemical preservatives. Isn’t hummus simply garbanzo beans, lemon juice, tahini (sesame paste) and a little garlic, if you want to get fancy?
Well it is now. I purchased lovely, sprouted garbanzo beans from the lady at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market the followig week, who when questioned told me she does it the old Moroccan way; not in plastic, but in silk. Hooray! I’m all for cutting down on the chances that petroleum from plastic containers is leeching its way into my food.
Truth is the garbanzos sat in my refrigerator for a week before I could get to them. I searched on line for a tip on how to cook them, because raw garbanzos are mighty hard to digest. I couldn’t find a single site that was using sprouted garbanzos and when they did mention raw garbanzos, a raw hummus recipe followed. I’ve made this and I like it, but one cannot achieve the smooth satisfying texture of cooked hummus with the raw recipes.
So I opted to simply cover the beans with filtered water and let them simmer for 30 minutes. Once they cooled, I found it was easy to pinch away the semi-translucent skins from the beans, which I figured would make it still easier to digest. (Thanks for your help with that part, Paul.)
Tossed into a food processor with a good ration of tahini, lemon juice, some water, a few cloves of roasted garlic plus salt and pepper and a tablespoon of my latest superfood discovery, kudzu. Added for its property of soothing the entire gastro-intestinal tract, I knew the texture of the hummus would make the kudzu undetectable. I pureed all the ingredients for a full two minutes until it was sooth, streaming a bit more water thru the top o the food processor until it was the right consistency.
Tasting it, I found the flavor very mellow yet absolutely buoyant compared to any other hummus I’ve ever had. I suppose it’s because canned beans (like all canned food) have so little life force remaining in them. Roasting the garlic mellows its bite, so this hummus was as mellow as I had hoped. Adding nothing else allowed the fresh, clean unadulterated flavors of the garbanzos and tahini to be the focus.
Lately, I’ve been experimenting with a return to foods with a mellow flavor for their soothing effect. It’s one way I self-nurture and attempt to heal from the stresses of work and the economy. I suppose this outlook is guided by my knowledge of Ayurveda, which touts that spicy foods stimulate our energy and those with strong onions and garlic can pull us into lower chakra energy. On the other hand, mellow, soothing foods help us ground ourselves, heal and tap into intuitive thought. So I suppose my hummus and I will be meditating through the week. Happy Sunday to all of you!

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups sprouted garbanzo beans

2 cups water

1/2 t. sea salt

1 T. kudzu powder

1/4 cup lemon juice

¼ cup tahini

¼ t. black pepper

1/4 t. cumin

1/2 teaspoon lemon zest (optional)

Directions:

Bring the garbanzo beans and 1½ cups of water to a boil and reduce to a simmer for 30 minutes. In the meantime, create a foil pouch and place in it 3 unpeeled garlic cloves, 1T. olive oil and 2 T. water. Place in the oven for 30 minutes to roast at 350º.
After 30 minutes, remove the garlic from the oven and remove the soft centers when cool enough to handle. Discard the papery shells. Then strain the remaining water off the garbanzos, rinse with cold water in a mess strainer, and roll the beans around vigorously so the translucent skins pop off. Pluck most of the skins out with your fingers, but don’t feel the need to be fastidious and discard every single one. Place all ingredients into a food processor or blender. Pure for 2 full minutes, adding ¼- ½ cup water gradually, until the hummus is as smooth as peanut butter, but a bit thinner.

Serving Suggestions:
Chill and serve with raw vegetables, bread or crackers. Hummus also makes a great low calorie, high protein alternative to mayonnaise on sandwiches.

Adventures in Calamari

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A friend of a friend, Enrique, caught a Humbolt Squid in the cool California waters between San Pedro and Catalina Island a week ago. At sixty-five pounds and with dandling tentacles, is stood almost as tall as our handsome, statuesque fisherman. Brought on Friday night, I was too intimidated by the looming threat of it cooking up as tough as a fat tire, so instead we opted for the deli that night.
Next day, I took my surgically-sharp knife to the defrosted section that looked strangely like a KKK hood. Slithering and eerie with a faint briny odor and pushed into my bamboo cutting board with a firm palm, I slipped the blade under the membrane of this slippery white mass and pushed. With some guiding I pierced the place between the white flesh and the membrane, until it was my fist working to the other side of this slab of an animal. A weird sense of victory came in spurts each time a significant strip of membrane ripped off the main flesh. Great fun, and I must say, very primal!
Next I cut the calamari into 2-3” strips that were a mere ¼” wide. Then I took the whole slithering pile of them into a bowl, covered them with goat milk, a bit of kosher salt and plastic wrap and set them in the refrigerator to marinade. The enzymes in the goat milk break would down the proteins that make calamari tough, or so says the owner of Frankie’s on Melrose Blvd, whose restaurant makes the best calamari on either side of the Mississippi.
Thirty-six hours later, milky strips emerged visually unchanged. Now it was time to compose a batter that would be both light and crisp and yet adhere when fully cooked. Borrowing secrets from tempura, I opted to combine rice flour and an effervescent liquid––in this case beer. First I mixed rice flour, eggs, salt and pepper, and saved adding the beer until the final dredge through coarse corn meal was eminent. )Recipe will be postedin 3 days.)
My last consideration was on how to achieve the crispness of deep fried without the fat content or the danger of boiling a quart of oil! In my opinion it’s too dangerousto boil a quart or so of oil in the home kitchen. So I heated my Lodge iron griddle until it was searing hot. Rapid cooking is imperative for tender, crispy calamari. Then I mixed in ½ a bottle of beer to the rice and egg batter. Now with the speed of an assembly line, I dipped each drained strip of calamari into the batter, dredged them in the cornmeal, and plopped them on the hot griddle, which had just enough safflower oil on it create a crust.
Turning only once and cooked to golden brown in just two minutes, they were placed on a paper towel lined dish, where they were served with a hot, spicy tomato marinara sauce I made the day before.
Wow! Wow! Wow! What threatened to be chewy, had turned out––according to every one of my guests–became the most tender calamari any of us had ever had! Success!!!!
Unfortunately Enrique and his lovely wife, Lucia were down with the flu, so they did not taste their local catch, but waiting for them in the freezer is a fully dressed quart of calamari ready for the skillet as soon as they are well.
So does anyone else have something they’ve caught that I can tackle? Bring it on!!
Enrique’s video of of his live catch is on his facebook page here. Thanks, Enrique!!
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1307649981661

Magnificent Spinach Pie

Entertaining, Good Info, Recipes, Superfoods 2 Comments »

EC Blog Posts

1/20/10

Spanakopita: Magnificent Spinach Pie

See video at bottom of post!

Spinach Pie

If 3 Greeks are any indicator this crowd pleaser recipe is one worth saving for generations to come! I guarantee it will be the freshest, most vibrant, bursting with goodness and flavor spinach pie you’ve ever had.

Greek #1: Gratefully, my close friend’s sister gave me her grandmother’s recipe, though I quickly baulked at the instruction to use thawed, frozen, wrung out spinach. Blasting I said I was quite sure “the ancient Greeks did not use frozen spinach” and commented that the recipe was probably created in the 1950’s when using frozen vegetables was commonplace. I openly vowed to augment and improve it with more wholesome ingredients, which frankly did not go over very well. Yet I remained determined to apply the same holistic sensibilities I do to each of my recipe and created an updated, vibrant recipe that’s worthy of inclusion in my upcoming book!

Greek #2: My client, Paul from Professorit.com, hired me to host a bunch of cooking segments.  Not realizing he was of Greek decent and had probably had countless spanakopita made for him by family members, I planned to make the spinach pie in one of our video segments. Several friends had already flipped for this nutrient-packed recipe, so I remained confident. At 11pm, we wrapped the shoot and he tasted it. Low and behold, he said it was “the best spinach pie” he’d ever had! Eureka!! I was vindicated!!

Greek #3:  Jason, who is a student through my yoga DVDs is standing by now for this recipe.  Originally from Cyprus, his entire family are apt to be discerning tasters.  So Jason, this is for you.  Sincere hopes you and your family enjoy it as much as my friends and I have.

Spanakopita: Magnificent Spinach Pie

4 cups coarsely chopped fresh spinach (approx. 1 bunch)
2 T (approx. 20 fresh mint leaves)
¼ cup flat leaf parsley
8 oz feta cheese
2 eggs
8 sheets of filo dough
1 T butter
¾ t sea salt
½ t fresh ground black pepper to taste
¾ T + 1t sesame seeds
¼ t poppy seeds

Defrost the filo dough at room temperature for 30 minutes without removing the plastic wrapper.

Place a pie plate or shallow casserole dish in the oven and set to 375º.

Snap off the large stems as you wash the fresh spinach thoroughly in a colander with cold water, removing all the sand. Gently pat the spinach leaves very dry with a cotton dishcloth.

Remove the heated pie plate to a heat safe surface like a wooden cutting board and quickly add ½T butter to the heated pie plate. When the butter melts, spread it evenly around the bottom, sides and over the lip of the plate with a pastry brush or paper towel. Place 4 sheets of filo dough in the pie plate. If the plate is round, cut overhanging edges off with a scissor, retaining an extra ½” all the way around so the crust does not shrink smaller than the plate. Retain any cut pieces. Prick the filo dough with a fork so it doesn’t puff up while baking and return the plate to the oven. Allow it to bake for approximately 10 minutes. When the dough becomes very crisp, but not yet brown, remove it from the oven. Place the remaining ½T of butter in a small ramekin or oven-safe cup to melt in the hot oven for the top of the pie.

Beat Eggs

Beat Eggs In A Large Bowl

As the filo bakes, beat eggs in the bottom of a large bowl.  Finely chop the parsley and mint. Use the parsley stems, but discard the mint stems. Add spinach to the pile and continue to chop coarsely to large 1” pieces. Add the chopped ingredients to the bowl and crumble the feta into ½” pieces over it with your hands.  Add the salt, pepper and ¾T of the sesame seeds. Lightly toss the ingredients until well mixed, being careful not to crush the spinach.

Spinach, Feta and Egg Mixture

Spinach, Feta and Egg Mixture

Blind Baked Filo with Spinach Mixture

Blind Baked Filo with Spinach Mixture

Lightly place a mound of the spinach mixture into the pie plate or casserole dish, on top of the cooked filo dough.  Nudge the mixture with a fork toward sidewalls of the baking dish.

Spinach Pie with top filo layer

Spinach Pie with top filo layer

Place any reserved scraps of filo dough in an even layer on top of the spinach. Cover these with four un-separated sheets of filo dough. Trim with a scissor leaving ¾” of dough all the way around the dish.  Carefully tuck the raw filo under the lip of the cooked under layer of filo for a neat and finished edge. Remove the melted butter from the oven and brush the top layer with it, especially around the edges.  Sprinkle the poppy seeds and remaining sesame seeds on top of the buttered filo dough and return the pie dish to the oven.

The finished pie

The finished pie

Bake for 35-45 minutes or until well browned. If the top crust is browning too quickly, place a sheet of aluminum foil across the top. Ovens vary, so after check periodically for doneness after 30 minutes baking time.

Slice of Spinach Pie

Photos and text Copyright 2008-2010 Marlon Braccia

Kick Off Enlightened Cook Blog with Superbowl Wings!

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Hello Cooks and welcome to the Enlightened Cook’s first blog post!!

I thought I’d kick off with something timely like Superbowl Wings!

The Wing Story

One of my dearest friends, Vicent Grupi, whose since passed on, told me he had fabulous chicken wings at a party, and he was told they were made with yogurt.  He remarked that it seemed a very strange combination, yet they were the best wings he’d ever tasted.  I wondered how anyone, especially Vinny, could get that excited about chicken wings. To me they were greasy junk food with little culinary merit. Yet somehow the thought of deriving a recipe from that one piece of information, stuck in my mind for 15 years. By then I knew marinating in yogurt was part of India’s Tandoori tradition, in which foods are slow-cooked in an oven for a long time.

Finally, when I looked down at the meat counter one day I saw a package of the plumpest wings I’d ever seen.  They were hormone/antibiotic-free, organic chicken wings and still very inexpensive, and that was a great place to start. So I decided to do what I often do when I cook; I “winged it.” I dreamed up what I thought would taste good and marinated these wings for 3 days, before bringing them raw and swimming in sauce to Candy and Will’s Labor Day BBQ. Being from Texas, Will’s a master griller and knew to cook them slowly on a cooler part of the grill. My rock star date, who I’m sure prefers to go nameless, was licking his fingers with delight over them and our drummer friend, was stomping his foot with speechless appreciation. Everyone at the party said they were the plumpest, most succulent wings they’d ever had, except Will.  Unfortunately, the wings were all gobbled up before he got one.  Sorry, Will!

Try to plan ahead on this one, so you can marinate for the full 3 days.  I think you’ll be amazed at the result. And please, save one for the host!

SUPERBOWL WINGS

4 lbs chicken wings

1 quart plain yogurt

3 oz. beer

Juice of 2 limes

1 1/2” ginger root- coarse chopped

2 t. dried thyme

1 t. dried lavender

1 t. black pepper

3/4 t. sea salt

Rinse and poke holes into the wings with a sharp knife, so the sauce penetrates the flesh of the chicken.  Mix all the ingredients together and marinate 1-3 days. Stir the mixture twice a day.

Grill very slowly on the BBQ or bake on a lightly oiled baking sheet in the oven at 325º for 45 minutes.  Goes good with a beer. Enjoy!

Join my new facebook group, The Enlightened Cook at

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