Dinner at a Greek Diner

Chicken with artichokes and roasted red peppers, served on a bed of garlic mashed potatoes and drizzled with balsamic sauce.

It came with a salad and a side veggie, too!

Verdict: Mmm . . .

Pizza Ruminations

I didn’t like pizza for a long time as a kid. I refused to touch it. I made myself a problem at almost every friend’s birthday party. Of course, I didn’t see it that way — I couldn’t understand why pizza was such a frequent guest when there were plenty of better foods.

And though I like pizza now, I still think it’s silly how much pizza is used to up the joy factor for children. American kids are taught that pizza is like the holy grail of foods, the one they should adore above all others.

It’s so true! Not only is pizza considered a highlight of birthday parties, it’s way overused in school. Kids demand pizza parties as classroom rewards more often than even ice cream parties, and (truly nasty in all forms) pizza made twice-weekly appearances in the school cafeteria where I worked. In high school, many clubs would raise funds by selling pizza from local chains for Friday lunch.

Enough already. It’s not like any of the pizza consumed in any of these situations is every any good. Even putting aside the weird Lunchables-style pizzas and the frozen slop in the school cafeteria, typical American pizzas are uniformly bland and greasy. We’ve been taught that pizza should follow the model used by the chains: a nearly flavorless, sometimes oily, pillowy crust; minimal sauce (it makes the cheese slip!), assuming you can call the tomato paste mixed with dried seasonings they use “sauce,” gobs of cheap, extremely mild processed mozzarella/provolone; and toppings that usually taste more like fat than spice (assuming you haven’t opted for the undercooked veggie toppings).

It should say something that it’s grown so popular to dip pizza in garlic sauce or ranch dressing. The fact that all that chain pizza I ordered during my two years in Vegas absolutely needed to be drenched in ranch to be complete in my mind should have been a signal to me that maybe I just didn’t care for the flavorless pizza in the first place.

Even now, I find it’s difficult not to long for American pizza, even knowing that I wouldn’t really like it without some sort of sauce or seasoning powder on top to make it taste like something. I guess I just crave the greasy feeling in my mouth.

I have to conclude, having had the time apart from the stuff to really consider it, that it’s not the bland pepperoni this place uses, or the industrial crust that place employs, or the ovens clearly not utilized enough by that Pizza Hut in Vegas that kept sending me soggy pies that’s the problem. It’s the pizza style as a whole.

Now, I didn’t have a whole lot of pizza in Italy. Some of the pizza I saw there even didn’t look great. But the pizzas I did try were delicious and made me conclude that for the most part, we’ve got it all wrong when it comes to pizza.

A good pizza is simple stuff. The crust style isn’t so important — I had thick, foccacia-like pizza and thin pizza — but it should taste like good bread on its own. The topping should have a big focus on tomatoes. They slather on straight-up crushed tomatoes, maybe with some herbs added in on particular pizzas, such as the ones that come with no cheese at all. And as for the ones with cheese, they come with a mere sprinkling of a high-quality variety, such as fresh mozzarella pressed and pulled into small pieces scattered over a sea of tomato.

The pizzas don’t generally come loaded with toppings, either. I did see salami pizza, which might be the closest analog to our pepperoni, but the salami slices were huge (sandwich-sized), thick, and well-spiced.

I’m hopeful that I’ll eventually be able to talk myself into making homemade Italian-style pizza more often than I order takeout pizza that I don’t like much anyway, but even I know it’ll be tough to beat tradition and convenience. Still, I think I am definitely going to swear off the ranch dressing habit so that if I do order delivery, I must subject myself to how it really tastes.

Soup Showdown! Chicken with Curly Pasta

Though I was raised on canned soup, I’ve come to detest the stuff over the years. Can after can of mushy veggies, disintegrating noodles, and questionable meat, all soaked in a broth that tastes like nothing but liquefied salt, left me disappointed and disillusioned.

Today, soup is a weekly meal in our home, but with a key difference: It is always homemade. Once a week, I cook up a big pot of the stuff, which provides a low-cal but filling dinner and then stretches to fill several lunches throughout the week.

Of course, the soup companies are always coming out with new varieties that sound enticing. So why not take a bit of inspiration from their product lines and create some soups truly worth supping on?

And so here it is — our very first Soup Showdown!

In one corner, we have a contender from Campbell’s, the granddaddy of canned soup companies: Campbell’s Select Roasted Chicken with Rotini & Penne Pasta Soup.

From Campbells.com:

Roasted Chicken with Rotini & Penne Pasta Soup
A delightful twist on traditional chicken soup. Our chef created a memorable soup that is chock full of generous pieces of oven-roasted white-meat chicken, chunky-cut vegetables and a combination of whimsical pasta shapes, all simmered in a rich chicken broth aromatic with savory herbs that will soothe your soul and delight your taste buds!

Campbell’s entrant offers a mere 100 calories per one cup serving, but watch out — there’s 860 mg of sodium in that same one cup! No wonder the stuff tastes so salty. And to think I used to eat almost the whole can at once.

Checking the ingredients, it’s clear that this is your typical chicken noodle soup, albeit with pasta replacing the usual egg noodles. Chicken, celery, carrots, dehydrated onion, garlic, and herbs, broth, seasoning — pretty simple stuff, and easy to improve upon.

Now, I wouldn’t claim that my recipe for this is the ultimate version of chicken soup. I’m not simmering a whole chicken for hours or spending more to buy a bunch of herbs that will rot away in my crisper after I make the soup. I’m certainly not above using a few shortcuts, true, but I also need to think contextually. I’m limited by my time (which I don’t want to spend all of in our tiny, isolated kitchen), my grocery budget (which is small), and, for now, the availability of ingredients at Slovak grocery stores.

Still, following my guidelines here will definitely result in a soup that’s fresher and tastier than anything you can get out of a can. It will take more time and effort upfront, but not any more than you would normally spend on cooking dinner. Plus, this recipe will make a huge batch that, when cooked as a dinner for two, will provide a quick-as-canned and satisfying lunch later on.

Let’s get cooking!

I often start recipes here with some of this olive oil spray. I don’t know exactly if it’s purely oil, but it’s the closest thing we’ve found here to nonstick spray. I like nonstick spray for many reasons, but right now I’m mostly using it to save a handful of calories in everyday cooking. I coated the bottom of my soup pot with a quick spray before I turned the heat on to low.

I had to share the price of these four carrots. For those of you who do not make regular transactions in Slovak korunas, these cost 21 U.S. cents altogether.

Anyway, you should peel each carrot, trim off the yucky ends, and then cut them in half lengthwise so that you have a flat surface on the vegetable for nice, stable slicing. Next, chop them into half moons that are, oh, somewhere between 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch thick. Or between half a centimeter and a whole centimeter thick, if you prefer metric.

Drop all your carrots into the slowly heating pan as you chop them. They’ll start to soften and get a little color as you chop the rest of the vegetables, but they won’t burn as your heat here is very, very low.

Tip: If things do threaten to get smoky, just add maybe half a cup of water to the pot as needed to keep the veggies from sticking to the bottom.

I used a nice, big onion in my soup because I enjoy the sweet flavor of cooked onions. But like any of the ingredients, you can adjust the amount as needed to suit your taste. My chicken soup is kind of heavy on the vegetables because they are low-cal and nutritious filler.

Just dice the onion as small as you like. Cut off the root and tip of the onion, cut the whole thing in half top to bottom, then peel off the outer skin layer. Lay it flat and slice against the grain (but not through the root end — you want to keep it together for now) to divide the onion into . . . columns. Yeah. And then slice crosswise to produce a dice. Don’t worry, the layers come apart as you cook so you don’t end up with enormous chunks.

Looks better than dehydrated onion, no? Dump all the chopped bits in the pot and stir.

Take four cleaned and trimmed celery stalks and . . .

. . . magically turn them into eight by slicing them in half lengthwise! Then chop ‘em up and throw ‘em in the pot with a good stirring.

Mmm . . . mirepoix.

Now I really like garlic, so I used five cloves. The soup doesn’t get an overwhelming garlic flavor, but it does add good depth to the broth. If a bunch of little pieces of garlic floating around is going to disturb you, then just smash the cloves, pull off the skins, and dump them straight in without mincing. That way, you can easily pull them out at the end, once they’ve given their flavoring all.

But me?

I mince. Or sometimes use a garlic press.

Now that everybody’s in the soon-to-be bath, I season with salt . . .

. . . and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper. Use less if you don’t want it too spicy. Use more to really clear out that congestion.

Here we must accommodate to our circumstances. I have not yet found any canned soup in Bratislava, let alone packaged chicken broth. All soups seem to come in powdered form instead. But whatever. I doubt I’d be willing to carry home tons of broth cans in addition to everything else over public transit anyway. Two cubes here makes one liter of chicken broth, which is about four cups. I add them directly to the pot and turn the heat up to medium high.

Next comes one cup (or 250 ml) of water . . . and a steam bath.

I now get aggressive and scrape up the fond from the bottom of the pan. That’s all the browning stuff that’s stuck to the bottom that will help make your bouillon taste like real stock.

See what a nice, rich color the water is now? Go ahead and add three more cups of water. Or 750 ml, if you’re cooking in Slovakia.

Now, when it’s all wet like that, I toss in the dried herbs. Dried herbs are fine for anything you plan on cooking for a while. Can you guess what these are?

One teaspoon of dried dill, 1 tablespoon of dried chives, and 2 bay leaves enter the pot.

Here is the diced chicken I saved from the previous night’s stir fry. It’s disturbingly similar in color to my hand. I only had one spare breast pieces, so I cut it extra small to stretch it. You could always add more chicken if you’re not cheap like me.

The chicken will start to turn white as soon as it hits the hot tub. Let it soak in there for about five minutes before you add the macaroni. It may need more time if you used bigger pieces.

Ever since I arrived here, Tesco’s been getting on a Whole Foods kick. Organic beef and dry goods started showing up, and they promote the heck out of some reusable shopping bag that we’ve never seen outside of the pictures. Now, they’ve started carrying whole-wheat pasta. We like the taste, but if you don’t, well, I’ll never know that you used a less virtuous noodle.

Add about 1/4-1/3 a pound (or 125 grams here) of fusilli or whatever curly pasta you picked up.

I decided here that one liter of broth wasn’t going to cut it for cooking all that pasta. I added two cups (or 500 ml, whatever) more water for the fusilli to drink up. You could use broth instead.

Let the pot boil gently for as long as it takes for the macaroni to turn tender. Then . . .

. . . you’ll have this lovely pot of soup here. Mmm!

M’m, m’m, good, you might say.

Chicken with Curly Pasta Soup
Source: Colleen’s Cookbook
Yield: 7 to 8 one-cup servings

• Nonstick spray
• 4 medium-sized carrots, peeled, halved lengthwise, and sliced
• 1 large onion, diced
• 4 stalks celery, halved lengthwise and sliced
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• A few shakes of salt
• ½ teaspoon ground black pepper (use less for less spice)
• 4 cups chicken bouillon, prepared
• 2 cups water
• 1 teaspoon dried dill
• 1 tablespoon dried chives
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 chicken breast, cut into a small dice
• 125 grams fusilli (or other macaroni)

Put a large soup pot or Dutch oven over very low heat. Add the vegetables to the pot as you chop them, stirring with each addition.

Once all the veggies are in the tub, season them with some salt and the 1/2 teaspoon of pepper. Give the mix a good stir to distribute the seasonings, then turn up the heat to medium high. Add one cup of the bouillon and scrape the bottom of the pan firmly to bring up all the browned bits (this provides both depth of flavor and a cleaner pan for your significant other to wash!).

Add the rest of the bouillon and the water. To this, stir in the dill, chives, and bay leaves. Let the soup come up to a simmer, then add the chicken pieces. Allow the chicken to poach for about 5 minutes. Turn down the heat if the soup starts to boil rapidly.

Next, stir in the fusilli. Cook this at a gentle boil for as long as the package instructions say, until the pasta is tender. Fish out the bay leaves and serve.

Notes:
You can shift around the proportions as you see fit. This produces a very chunky soup. If you prefer a thinner soup, add another pint of chicken broth.

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An Alternative to Lasagna

I’ve often seen lasagna (or is it lasagne? I don’t know my Italian) recommended as a Christmas party main dish, as it can easily be prepared in advance and then needs little supervision after it’s pulled out of the fridge and placed in the oven. Also, who doesn’t like at least some recipe for lasagna? It’s filling, comforting, festive (because it does take forever to prepare so isn’t exactly an everyday thing), and inexpensive to make for a crowd.

Still, since it is Christmas, why not mix things up a little and try a different variation on baked pasta as your entrée? In walks a Greek favorite — pastitsio!

For Christmas of 2005, Scott and I made both an enormous pan of lasagna and an enormous pan of pastitsio for the family Christmas celebration. I’d tried pastitsio for the first time at Erie’s summertime Greek festival, and I loved it so much that I wanted an excuse to make it myself. Since I knew lasagna was considered a festive pasta dish, I decided I could get away with trying pastitsio alongside, knowing that if everyone turned out to be too picky to try it there would at least be a fallback.

As it turned it, the pastitsio, not the (admittedly rather soggy) homemade lasagna, turned out to be the hit of the party. Guests raved about the spicy beef and cheesy crema, and though we had at least a quarter of the lasagna leftover, there was practically not a crumb left of the pastitsio.

Which kind of sucked, actually, because it was really good and I definitely wouldn’t have minded having more later. The meat mixture is like a delicious Cincinnati-style chili (or Greek sauce, if you will), and the pasta is insanely delicious with all that pecorino cheese mixed in.

Unfortunately, I cannot find the exact recipe we used back then on the Food Network’s site. It was a recipe that came from a restaurant or festival rather than one of their chefs, and so I guess it was a limited time deal. Still, although this recipe doesn’t look exactly as I remember it, it does look awfully close as far as the ingredients go. Maybe it is the same but my memory is faulty.

When we made the pastitsio, we boiled the pasta and cooked the meat mixture on Christmas Eve. We assembled the recipe up to that point in the pan and refrigerated it. The next day, we mixed up the crema layer right before we put the pastitsio in the oven to bake.

Pastitsio
Source: Stamie Koutouzis
Yield: 20 servings

• ½ lb. butter, plus 4 ounces melted
• 1 ½ lbs. ground chuck
• 1 onion, chopped fine
• Salt and pepper
• 1 can (12-ounces) tomatoes
• 1 can (12-ounces) tomato sauce
• 1 bay leaf
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 lb. ziti rigate or penne
• 3 cups grated pecorino Romano
• ¾ cup flour
• 3 ½ cups whole milk
• 5 eggs

In a hot pan melt 4 ounces of butter, add ground chuck, chopped onion, salt, and pepper. Add tomatoes and tomato sauce, bay leaf, and cinnamon and cook over medium flame for about 35 minutes.

Cook macaroni in boiling water, strain and put back in pot to keep warm.

Place a 1/4 of the grated cheese in a 11 by 14-inch pan, and then a layer with 1/3 of the pasta. Continue until both ingredients are used up. Spread on the meat sauce.

Mix the final layer, the Pastitsio Crema by mixing 4 ounces of melted, cooled butter and 3/4 cup of flour. Heat 3 1/2 cups of milk and pour a little over flour and butter mixture then pour the rest of the mixture into the milk. Add 5 beaten eggs and stir thoroughly over medium flame until mixture thickens. Pour the crema on top of the meat sauce and bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 1 hour or until brown. Cool for 1 hour before cutting.

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A Delectable Christmas Main Dish

In a normal year, right now I’d not only be baking cookies but also planning out a Christmas feast for about 3,000 folks coming over for the big family party. While I don’t do all the cooking for the Christmas dinner — people usually bring a dish, and my mom also pitches in — I’ve been slowly taking over much of the meal in the past few years.

Because I enjoy it, gorsh durn it.

Last year’s entrée came to us courtesy of the show Good Eats, which has to be the most entertaining and educational of all the cooking shows out there. Rachael Ray has her word coining, America’s Test Kitchen has its thoroughness, and Julia Child has her flying food, but Good Eats — Good Eats has puppets.

Anyway, I’d actually seen several recipes for braciole in the lead up to Christmas (including an apparently delicious rendition by Debra on Everybody Loves Raymond), but I settled on the Alton Brown version as it had the most detailed directions.

Well, it looked tasty, of course, but when it comes to making something new it’s important to have all the information you can at your disposal. Otherwise, you might roll the flank steak up in the wrong direction and end up with your guests spending all of dinner chewing rather than singing your praises.

I can tell you from last year’s experience that two recipes’ worth are enough to feed a crowd when there are ample holiday side dishes — just don’t expect any leftovers. Also, it is possible to leave out the parmesan cheese and still turn out a tasty roast should anyone in said crowd be lactose-intolerant (or should they simply refuse to eat cheese).

The result is a very, very tender beef roll with a highly flavorful stuffing. I did find ours to be on the dry side, but apparently I was the only one who cared as everyone spent the rest of the night telling us how amazing and jaw-droppingly wonderful that beef thing was. Unprompted.

But if it concerns you, plan to pull it out on the shorter end of the time suggested, I suppose. Naturally, I recommend using homemade tomato sauce for the braising liquid, but I doubt anyone will notice if you use canned or jarred sauce. They’ll be too busy wiping up the drool.

Braciole
Source: Alton Brown

• 3 cups tomato sauce
• 1 ¼ cups flavored croutons
• ⅓ cup grated Parmesan
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped rosemary
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped thyme
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 lb. flank steak, pounded to 1/4-inch thick
• Olive oil, for brushing
• Salt and pepper
• Vegetable oil, for searing

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place the tomato sauce in a 9 by 13-inch baking dish and place in the oven to heat.

In a the bowl of a food processor mix the croutons, cheese, eggs, herbs and garlic until it forms a paste.

Brush the pounded flank steak with the olive oil and season generously with the salt and pepper. Spread the filling evenly over the meat. Roll tightly and tie with butcher’s twine.

In a large saute pan heat 1 to 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil and sear all sides of the rolled meat. Remove from the pan.

Add to the hot tomato sauce, cover with a tin foil tent so that the foil is not touching the meat. Braise for 35 minutes or, up to 3 hours.

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Thanksgiving Menus

Mulling what to serve for the big meal? Or perhaps wondering what category of Thanksgiving dinner is most your style? Check out this blog entry on Thanksgiving menus from Editor’s Picks over on Yahoo Food. Options range from typical traditional and country-style meals to more unusual international and grill-based menus.

Myself, I would pick and choose from several of the lists. The Creamy Cauliflower Purée looks tasty, and I’m all in favor of Turkey a la Carte over the big bird.

Here, we’ll probably be having some even more stripped-down turkey, as in just some cutlets for two. Still, I’ll be trying to make as much as I can convert to being cooked either on the stovetop or in the microwave.

Recipe of the Day: 30-Minute Shepherd’s Pie

Love It: Rachael Ray has another version of this recipe in one of her cookbooks that calls for ground turkey, which is the version I have made before. You have to really know what you’re doing to get one of her recipes done in 30 minutes or less, but they generally make for some tasty home cooking. Nice and comforting one here.

Fear It: I imagine part of the comfort in comfort foods is the food coma all the starch and fat sends you into post-dinner. To keep this reasonable, use reduced-fat versions of the dairy (sure to dismay Rachael) and meat, and take Rachael Ray’s suggestion to sub broth for cream. By the way, while you can use ground turkey for your meat, it won’t save you any calories over 95% lean beef unless you look for the ultra-lean ground turkey breast.

Teach It: This recipe uses a classic strategy of the 30-minute meals genre — do most of the cooking on the stovetop then pop the completed dish in a hot oven for just a few minutes to melt or brown the top.

Eat It: With a tall glass of milk and soft dinner rolls. No salad — too light!

30-Minute Shepherd’s Pie
Source: Rachael Ray
Yield: 4 generous servings

• 2 lbs. potatoes, such as russet, peeled and cubed
• 2 tablespoons sour cream or softened cream cheese
• 1 large egg yolk
• ½ cup cream, for a lighter version substitute vegetable or chicken broth
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, 1 turn of the pan
• 1 ¾ lbs. ground beef or ground lamb
• 1 carrot, peeled and chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 cup beef stock or broth
• 2 teaspoons Worcestershire, eyeball it
• ½ cup frozen peas, a couple of handfuls
• 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves

Boil potatoes in salted water until tender, about 12 minutes. Drain potatoes and pour them into a bowl. Combine sour cream, egg yolk and cream. Add the cream mixture into potatoes and mash until potatoes are almost smooth.

While potatoes boil, preheat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add oil to hot pan with beef or lamb. Season meat with salt and pepper. Brown and crumble meat for 3 or 4 minutes. If you are using lamb and the pan is fatty, spoon away some of the drippings. Add chopped carrot and onion to the meat. Cook veggies with meat 5 minutes, stirring frequently. In a second small skillet over medium heat cook butter and flour together 2 minutes. Whisk in broth and Worcestershire sauce. Thicken gravy 1 minute. Add gravy to meat and vegetables. Stir in peas.

Preheat broiler to high. Fill a small rectangular casserole with meat and vegetable mixture. Spoon potatoes over meat evenly. Top potatoes with paprika and broil 6 to 8 inches from the heat until potatoes are evenly browned. Top casserole dish with chopped parsley and serve.

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Chicago-Style Hot Dog

Every Friday on my dinner planner is “Fun Food” night.

In general, I try to keep our household limited to meals that are either especially healthful (Monday’s soups, Wednesday’s salads, and Saturday’s stir-fries — based on how Scott cooked for himself all the time in Seattle, as it happens) or especially cheap (Sunday’s pastas, Tuesday’s baked potatoes, and Thursday’s beans and eggs). But you can’t be good all the time when it comes to food, or you come away feeling deprived.

Thus, every Friday, I plan on serving burgers, pizza, or some other indulgent meal that the two of us especially enjoy.

I do try to make these meals slightly better for us, don’t get me wrong. I use low-cal cheese singles and light butter on the patty melts, for example. No need to derail the diet completely.

This past Friday, the special meal was a celebration of the city where Scott and I first met — Chicago.

OK, so we actually met in Evanston, Northwestern University’s college town, but it was part of Chicagoland. The bright lights of the big city were only a few el stops or a cold swim in Lake Michigan away.

The hot dog, I have discovered, is an intensely regional dish. You might say it comes in species.

I can’t say I’ve met many hot dog species I didn’t like. I’m all for chili-cheese dogs and coleslaw dogs (though I don’t think I’ve ever tried one of the latter). I’ll only turn my nose up for sure at New York-style dogs smothered in sauerkraut and those with ketchup.

Because as anyone familiar with Chicago dogs knows, ketchup on a hot dog is a travesty.

Save the ketchup for the fries, I say. I’m always running out of ketchup for my fries anyway.

An authentic Chicago dog is a steamed Vienna Beef frankfurter (with natural casing) served on a steamed poppy-seed bun and topped with celery salt, yellow mustard, electric-green sweet relish, a kosher pickle spear, chopped white onion, sport peppers, and tomatoes (sometimes green ones).

I know, it sounds like a lot — and it is! Half the fun is fitting the thing in your mouth! — but with a good beef hot dog under it all, the meaty flavor is never overwhelmed. The toppings instead provide a spicy and acidic counterpoint to the fattiness of a beef wiener, giving the whole sandwich the perfect balance.

But as you might expect if you’ve seen previous entries here, I couldn’t make a true Chicago dog for our tribute dinner. In fact, I’ve never really seen poppy-seed hot dog buns outside of Chicago, let alone in Slovakia, where people like to eat their dogs out of something resembling a hollow breadstick filled with a squirt of mustard before the frank is inserted. It’s kind of like a pretzel dog in appearance.

Mmm, pretzel dogs. Can someone airmail me one of those?

So what had to change? The bun was switched out for a chunky garlic breadstick from the Tesco bakery. They fortunately turned out to be just about the right size to be split and filled. They also had a spicy saltiness that helped make up for the lack of celery salt.

Actually, sport peppers and bright-green sweet relish are also never-seen-outside-Chicago ingredients as well. I usually forego the peppers and substitute regular sweet relish (it tastes the same anyway), but you know what? They don’t sell pickle relish here. I had to make my own, mincing some cukes, garlic, and onion, and soaking them in a sugary brine overnight. I bought a can of whole pickled jalepenos from the Mexican section of the store (have I mentioned how popular Mexican food is getting over here?) to sub for the peppers, but as Scott tells me real sport peppers aren’t so spicy, I’d suggest getting pepperoncini or mild banana pepper rings instead.

We haven’t stumbled upon any sour pickles here yet, so I also pickled my own spears. I prefer the punchy flavor of homemade pickles anyway.

Every other ingredient is easy enough to come by here . . . but, with a certain trepidation, I did elect to go with the chicken hot dogs Scott discovered in one of the many sausage cases at Tesco rather than seeking out the genuine beefy article. Chicken dogs are much less fattening, but I once tried some Empire Kosher chicken dogs that had absolutely no spice. The experience scared me off from non-beef franks ever after.

But wait! These chicken hot dogs turned out to be just as spicy-tasting as American beef wieners. You have to hand it to the Slovaks; they know their sausages.

The end result was a close enough facsimile to the real thing that it was like being transported back to the days of huddling with strangers under the only two heat lamps on the el platform in the winter and pushing through the crowds on Michigan Avenue toward Marshall Field’s. And that one time when I finally talked my parents into driving us out to Superdawg.

We ate five over the course of 24 hours.

Chicago Style Hot Dog
Source: Vienna Beef
Yield: 1 hot dog

• Vienna Beef hot dog
• Poppy-seed bun
• Yellow Mustard
• Bright Green Relish
• Fresh Chopped Onions
• Two Tomato Wedges
• A Kosher Pickle Spear
• Two Sport Peppers (careful!)
• A Dash of Celery Salt

Heat in water, steam, grill or microwave to 170°F. Place the authentic Vienna Beef Hot Dog in a steamed poppy-seed bun. Then pile on the toppings in this order:

1. Yellow Mustard
2. Bright Green Relish
3. Fresh Chopped Onions
4. Two Tomato Wedges
5. A Kosher Pickle Spear
6. Two Sport Peppers (careful!)
7. A Dash of Celery Salt

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Recipe of the Day: Mistral’s Chicken with Garlic

Love It: Mmm, garlic. Nice, toasty, roasted garlic. Sweet and succulent, and with 40 cloves, there’s plenty to go around.

Fear It: Wine, being alcoholic adds a surprising number of calories. Have you seen how many calories are in vodka? But it’s only a little bit for eight pieces of chicken, after all. Just be careful not to catch the pan on fire pouring it in (having set several kitchen fires myself, I always do it off the heat).

Teach It: It’s not mentioned in the recipe proper, but in the accompanying article in this week’s New York Times, it’s recommended that you seek out already-peeled cloves for this recipe. You can find them in jars or plastic bags in the refrigerated part of the produce department, or, if you have a Costco membership, you can pick up an enormous jar of Christopher Ranch peeled cloves back by the cheeses and prepared foods.

Eat It: Alton Brown made a similar recipe on his garlic episode of Good Eats, and he used the excess oil in the pan to make garlic toast. Then, he took a roasted clove and smooshed it all over the top of the bread. That’ll keep the vampires away! Yum.

Mistral’s Chicken with Garlic
Source: New York Times (originally from Patricia Wells)
Yield: 4 servings

• 1 3- to 4-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces, at room temperature
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• About 40 large garlic cloves
• ½ cup dry white wine
• ½ cup chicken stock or canned broth

1. Season chicken liberally with salt and pepper. Place a deep, nonreactive skillet or Dutch oven over high heat, and add oil and butter. When fats are hot but not smoking, add chicken pieces skin side down and cook until skin turns an even, golden brown, about 5 minutes. Work in batches, if necessary, and carefully regulate heat to avoid scorching skin. Turn pieces and brown them on other side for an additional 5 minutes.

2. Reduce heat to medium. Bury garlic cloves under chicken to make sure they settle in one layer at bottom of skillet. Sauté, shaking or stirring pan frequently, until garlic is lightly browned on all sides, about 10 minutes. Add wine and stock, scraping bottom of pan.

3. Cover and continue cooking until juices run clear when a thigh is pricked, 10 to 15 minutes more. Serve chicken with garlic and pan juices and, if desired, rice or sautéed potatoes.

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Steak Bites with Bloody Mary Dipping Sauce

Happy Halloween! Here in Slovakia Land (I made that up), Halloween’s really more an All Hallows Eve; that is, it’s the night before All Saints Day, which is apparently a huge holiday here.

At home, the only sign that it was All Saints Day was that we were whisked off to church the morning after trick-or-treating for the holy day of obligation. Surely the priests and other religious out there were taking special care to pray for the poor children’s souls post-mischief, but otherwise no one seemed to celebrate.

Here, the tradition is closer to how Mexico celebrates Día de los Muertos, with families trekking off to the cemetery to decorate graves, according to Scott, the resident Slovakia expert.

While there were a few bits of Halloween decoration available at Tesco today (it’s an English chain, after all), they were well overshadowed by the bouquets of flowers available for the coming day. The perfume in the air was overwhelming.

Still, Scott and I chose to keep with our American traditions for the night, and I put together a ghoulish meal, soon to be followed by some candy indulgence.

On the menu this evening: Worms and Maggots (soy sauced-spaghetti with white beans), Toilet-Papered Trees (broccoli with strips of white cheese draped artfully about), Vampire-Scaring Garlic Breadsticks (from the Tesco bakery), and some Bloody Steak.

I’ve made Rachael Ray’s Steak Bites with Bloody Mary Sauce in the past, and originally I did cut the beef into cubes. They turned out pretty tough; I don’t know if that was from overcooking (likely with such small pieces) or from ending up with a gristly cut of meat. At any rate, I took no chances this time. I scrupulously removed any white bits and membranes from the steaks and left them whole so I would be less likely to overcook.

I also poked them several times with my knife tip to be extra sure of tenderness as I had no idea what part of the cattle I had ended up with. The only cut we could identify in the beef cooler was the one labeled in English “rump steak.” So we just picked based on what looked decent.

Anyway, here is the recipe for the main course. You can replace the vodka all or in part with water. And after all the holiday celebrations, perhaps I will get caught up with the Recipes of the Day!

Steak Bites with Bloody Mary Sauce
Source: Rachael Ray
Yield: 6 servings

• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• ½ cup vodka
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 2 teaspoons hot pepper sauce
• 1 cup tomato sauce
• 1 tablespoon rounded prepared horseradish
• Salt and pepper
• 1 ⅓ lbs. beef sirloin cut into large bite-sized pieces, 1 by 2 inches
• Steak seasoning blend or coarse salt and black pepper
• 6 to 8 inch bamboo skewers

Heat a small saucepan over medium heat. Add oil and onions and saute 5 minutes. Add vodka and reduce by 1/2. Add Worcestershire, hot sauce, tomato sauce and horseradish. Stir to combine the dipping sauce and return the sauce to a bubble. Add salt and pepper and adjust seasonings.

Heat nonstick skillet over high heat. Coat meat bites lightly in oil. Season with steak seasoning blend or salt and pepper, to taste. Cook the meat until caramelized all over, about 2 minutes on each side. Transfer dipping sauce to a small dish and place at the center of a serving platter. Surround the dip with meat bites and set several bamboo “stakes” or skewers along side meat.

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