Duchess Potatoes, Winner Winner Christmas Dinner

Duchess Potatoes are mash potatoes all dressed up. Like fancy bundles of baked mashed potato goodness.

Now if you have been following this blog you know how big I am on Mashed potatoes but Duchess potatoes are kinda like the royalty of mashed potatoes. Butter, Eggs and Cream nothing poor or low calorie about this dish. It's definitely a special occasion dish.

SO for Christmas this year the house feast will include these very luxurious potatoes and they will be paired with some big meat. But given the body and richness of  these beauties I think whatever the protein will be it will have to work hard to keep up. I mean lets face it all these giant holiday meals are all about the side dishes.

So if you want to make a little something that looks fancy and is stupid good make these and everyone around your table will think you worked way harder than you did and love them. Winner Winner Christmas Dinner!

Duchess Potatoes

Ingredients:

5 lbs of Yukon Gold or other yellow potato
8 egg yolks
1 stick butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
2 eggs beaten with 2 tablespoons water

Method:

Cut potatoes into pieces and boil until soft
Drain really well and put on to a baking sheet then bake in a 350 degree oven for about 20 mins
Place in a bowl and mash well or put through a ricer
Add the eggs and butter and cream and mix well
Add salt and pepper and taste for seasoning and adjust if you want
Let cool down then place into a pastry bag with a large flower tip ( you can get this at a kitchen store)
Pipe into small florets onto a baking sheet or two
Place into the fridge to cool
When ready preheat oven to 350 then to serve remove from fridge and brush with egg wash
Place in oven and bake for 30 mins. or until it browns.
Serve while hot. Be a winner!

Oktoberfest Menu: The Midwest Makes It Best: Brats, Apples and Onions and Raclette with New Potatoes

The American Midwest is really called the heartland for a reason beyond it's geographical location. It's called the heartland because that's where so many of the ideals we take as "all American" reside in a way that other parts of the country just don't embody them.

Strong working class communities and craftsmen as well as farmers and tradesmen made the Midwest a place which created the work ethic we speak of yet today as the "Midwest work ethic" and more inclusively the "American work ethic". It was the proving grounds for major US. industries and the backbone of the industrial machine which made up much the power base for growth which has fueled the American dream after the second world war.

The Midwest was a place that saw a huge influx of immigrants from central and northern Europe during the mid to late 1800's and early 1900's. Chicago a city in the center of it all had large ethnic neighborhoods which grew up along side one another preserving in some respect the language, traditions and foods which those people brought with them from their homelands. Many of these foreign traditions and foods slowly found their way into mainstream American life. Some are represented yet today by regional holidays, regional traditions or regional foods.

German and Scandinavian immigrants were two of the largest groups to move into the area. Their influence can yet be felt all over the region. Festivals celebrating various food and cultural traditions are common and they are often well attended and woven into the area's holiday seasons.

So I have spoken before of my sojourn in the land of cheese and dairy better known as Wisconsin. I worked for about a total of one  and a half years of my life at the Fireside Theater. I got to see a lot of that state while I was there and became very interested in the local food scene. I later spent time working in Milwaukee and got to know some of the German heritage foods that are popular in that town.

When we think of German traditions popular in the US. today one comes to mind immediately. Octoberfest which is celebrated in southern Germany as a form of harvest festival has found it's way into the American landscape and has become a fun beer and food festival celebrated all over the US.

So I wanted to make a dinner the other day that sort of evoked the whole Oktoberfest thing. I decided on Brats which I love. I also wanted to make sides that would be fun and a little different. So a very fall and very German thing is baked apples and onions. I wanted to ramp that up a little bit so I decided to add chopped sweet and hot cherry peppers and the result was delightful. Sweet apples baked soft with the sharp and sweet contrast of the onions and then the chopped peppers added a spicy unexpected The brats were first slowly simmered in beer then thrown in with the apples and onions to bake to a golden brown.

The other part of this menu was the side dish. Potatoes boiled and served with melted Raclette cheese which is a Swiss and French dish garnished with pickled veggies. I decided on a oven version melting the cheese over sliced boiled potatoes and crisping the top with the broiler right before serving.

It all came together. Browned and crisped skinned plump Brats piled over a mountain of roasted apples and onions spiced unexpectedly with the cherry peppers joined creamy melted Raclette on soft boiled potatoes with cold pickled veggies and onions. It was delish. Served with a German style cole slaw it was an amazing meal. Here is the Brats apples recipe more to follow. Grab a beer and enjoy ya'll!

Brats roasted with Apples, Onions and Cherry Peppers 

8 Fresh Bratwursts from the Butcher
2 bottles of pilsner style beer
4 red apples cored and sliced into wedges
2 spanish onions also cut into wedges
6 to 8 sweet and hot cherry peppers roughly chopped

In a pot add the beer and 2 to 3 cups of cold water
Bring to a boil turn off the heat and cool for 15 mins
Add brats
Let sit in the liquid for about 30 mins
Drain and remove the brats

Turn oven on to 350

Next on a sheet pan toss the apples the onions and the peppers with some olive oil with salt and pepper and some garlic powder
Place brats on the bed of the apples and onions and place in the oven for about 20 mins then turn the brats over and place back in the oven for another 20 mins.

Remove from the oven and platter the apple and onions then top with the brats and bring to the table.
Serve with a potato side and a salad. I did a Raclette which is a traditional Swiss dish it's so easy!

15 small boiled potatoes cooled slightly and then sliced.
1 lb Raclette cheese sliced
1 large red onion sliced and quick pickled
1 large jar of Pickled Veggies
1 small jar Cornichons french styled pickles

Place the sliced potatoes in a small oven proof dishes
cover with the cheese
place in the oven till cheese melts them place under the broiler till bubbly and slightly brown
Serve with the brats and apples.


 Enjoy!!

Breakfast Pot Pie a New Twist on Biscuits and Gravy

So my first entry about some of the exciting and fun foods that I saw and tasted in San Diego will start with this dish Breakfast Pot Pie. And why not, it's the first meal of the day so it's just seems fitting to start with it.

Now I LOVE biscuits and gravy. And as many who have had mine will tell you, I make a mean version. However, while in San Diego my friends Tom and George with whom I was staying took me out to one of their favorite places for breakfast and brunch. Snooze, the place is called, and is an interesting concept restaurant based in Denver that focuses on only Breakfast and Brunch foods and drinks served in a casual, yet very cool environment. We went twice to this place and each time we did it was packed and the wait was at least 40 minutes. I mean that's a buzz and success that most places ( including the not very busy one's surrounding Snooze) want to have.

Now let's be clear these people did not reinvent the wheel when it comes to breakfast foods, and in fact while the menu is interesting it does not step much out of the box in terms of foods that one would traditionally expect to find on a menu like this. It's more the manner in which the dishes are presented or the way that flavors are layered to give the overall dish a really great flavor effect. I mean let's face it there are only so many ways to fix eggs and pancakes but what you put on them or in them can take them from "Ordinary" to "Eggtraordinary", sorry couldn't resist that!

So to this dish. Now I have a real love for creamy delicious gravy based foods. Nope not apologizing! So when I saw this on the menu I knew I had to try it. Basically it's a portion of hash browned potatoes with a puff pasty raft tilted on it covered in a cream gravy flavored with sausage and rosemary and bits of carrots, celery, leeks and onion floating in it, topped with a sunny side up egg. Yum!

So while this seems and looks kinda complicated it is so not and if you want to impress your friends and family one morning with a breakfast or brunch dish that is different and delish this would be one to try. So here's the recipe as nearly as I can figure it. Enjoy ya'll!

Breakfast Pot Pie ala Snooze in San Diego

First thing you need is the gravy (makes about four cups)

For the Sausage Gravy:

Heat up 1 quart whole milk 

2 cloves minced garlic
2 leeks, cleaned and chopped (discarding leaves)
2 celery stalks (chopped)
1 sprig of rosemary (finely chopped)
1 lb. bulk breakfast sausage (browned and drained)
3 Tbs. unsalted butter
½ c parmesan cheese (grated)
½ c all purpose flour
Salt and pepper to taste 

Melt butter in a large heavy bottomed pot (Dutch oven or stock pot) over medium heat. Add leeks, carrots, celery, garlic, and rosemary and sauté until vegetables soften (about 10 min.). Stir in flour and continue to cook until the flour is well incorporated. At this point, stir in the cooked sausage, milk and parmesan cheese. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and allow to simmer (stirring occasionally) until the gravy thickens (about 10-15 min.). Season with salt and pepper to taste. 

For the Hash Browned Potatoes: 

Saute an onion in a good amount of oil and add 1 bag thawed shredded hash brown potatoes to the pan stir and cook then let the bottom brown to golden. Using a ring mold cut the potatoes into circles and using a spatula place on the plate.

For the Pastry: 

1 Sheet puff pastry rolled out to 1/4 of inch and then cut into 4 by 6 inch squares brush with egg wash place on a baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees till puffed and slightly browned. 

To assemble: 

Place a scoop or shaped round of hash browns on the plate, cook eggs sunny side up and place a pasty puff on each plate divide the gravy and top with the egg and garnish with a little paprika, Enjoy Ya'll! 

Purple Parmesan Mashed Potatoes, Easter Colors and the Pocono Mountain House DInner

The Pocono mountains are beautiful in the early spring when the weather warms and kisses the trees with bright green buds of spring. And the world slowly wakes from it's winter slumber and life feels lighter and more alive. This is the season of Easter and as Easter is a celebration of the rising from death to life again so the Spring reminds us as a metaphor for the message of Easter that renewal brings fresh things to life and that new opportunity awaits us.

Several years back my very talented and dear friend Tony Parise bought a home in the Poconos and we would go up to visit it and spend long wonderful weekends cooking, eating, drinking, talking, telling stories, and generally having a relaxed wonderful time. Both of us were at a place in our individual lives where a little renewal was in order. And wonderful dinners and cocktails on the long summer evenings, seated al fresco on the deck beneath a blanket of twinkle lights and candles, seemed to be some of the best therapy we could have asked for.

I have great memories of those weekends. Long talks and long walks through the woods and around the lake. Trips to Bushkill falls, antique shops and outlet shopping. We would always cook up delicious meals and we even celebrated several holidays there as well. One such holiday meals I remember was an Easter dinner that was as colorful as it was delicious. Tony was quite the food stylist and meals with him had to look as good as they tasted. So it was with this easter dinner.

On the menu were amongst other things a roasted ham, purple mashed potatoes, buttered carrot coins , spring peas, onions and sauteed lettuces, and a yellow squash casserole. The ham was an incredible thing but it was the side dishes with all the colors of easter right on the table that took the spotlight. Each of these dishes were really easy to prepare and came together for our easter meal.

Now as I have stated before I LOVE mashed potatoes! They are simply some of the best things you could put in your mouth. I had never seen blue or purple potatoes before I lived in NYC. I understand you can get them many places now but they instantly became fascinating to me. I loved the color and the nutty flavors. Very interesting indeed. This recipe could not be easier. It's a bit of a play on potato salad but come out delish when made this way. I simple mash the potatoes with butter, blend in some milk and some white potato instant flakes to lighten the color and give them more depth of flavor. Then I add Parmesan cheese which pairs well with the nutty flavor of the potatoes and a bit of mayonaise to give them that extra silken touch and luscious mouth feel. Chopped chives add color and a slight oniony backdrop. All in all delish! If you want a different potato dish for your dinner this is the one to try! Goes well with Ham or the Bird or the Beef or the Lamb. So you can't lose! Enjoy Ya'll!

Purple Parmesan Mashed Potatoes
serves 4

2 to 3  lbs purple or Peruvian Potatoes
1/2 cup potato flakes instant
1 cup warm milk
4 tablespoons Butter
2 tablespoons mayo
1 cup grated Parmesan
1 small bunch chives finely chopped

Skin and Slice potatoes into pieces
Boil in a large pot of water about 20 to 30 mins until fork tender, drain well reserve warm
Next add flakes to potaotes and add butter and milk mash together and stir till well combined adding water if the flakes need more liquid till smooth and creamy
Add cheese and mayo and stir should tighten up but if too loose add more flakes if to tight add water.
Add chives and stir reserving a few for garnish
Place in a serving bowl and serve right away while hot or reserve and reheat.
Garnish with chives and serve enjoy!

New American Cooking, Smokey Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Horseradish and Sour Cream

OK. So Thanksgiving is over. But the holidays are just beginning and if you are like me you are getting ready to find a way to perk up those dinners you might be having for friends and or your family which celebrate the season.

There are all the usual suspects to be found on my Thanksgiving dinner table. The turkey, dressing (aka Stuffing), you know all the regulars, but I have an aversion to one of the mainstays of the holiday table. The sweet potato! Well, that is till this year. You may well ask why do I not enjoy the potato of sweet with it's brilliant orange color and deep sweet flavor. Eh...who knows but I guess it has to do with liking regular potatoes so much I can't imagine sweet potatoes taking their place. But as I said this year was different.

Now the sweet potato is probably one of the earliest indigenous foods that the Pilgrims took over from the Indians when they landed in the New World. Sweet potatoes were a mainstay in the Indian diet all over South, Central and North America but it would have been one of the crops that the settlers saw and tasted along with corn that they saw themselves also planting. So needless to say in the early part of the culinary history of our country the sweet potato was pretty common. Sweet potatoes are not Yams and should not be confused with them. Yams were brought to this country by Christopher Columbus to his credit, and are from Africa. It was not until the rise of the white potato that Americans crossed over into eating the sweet potato as an afterthought. Mostly popular in the American South sweet potatoes graced the tables of my family my whole life. And I never really liked them. "Healthy", "Good for You", were all phrases attached to this vegetable's name. ( tell a kid that and it's never a good thing) And for me the worse part was... they were sweet. And while I like a little dessert now and then, I have already discussed how I would rather eat a bag of doritos over a gallon of ice cream, so I definitely did not enjoy the sweet flavor aspect at all.

As an adult I have come to appreciate the sweet potato for it's place in the culinary pantheon, but I still would rather eat creamy salty buttery white mashed potatoes any day! Also while I do enjoy a traditional preparation of the sweet potato as a casserole, it is cloyingly sweet and seems to almost be a dessert. However, this Thanksgiving it was requested that I make sweet mashed potatoes. So I did. However, I decided to try them the way I have prepared white mashed potatoes before, that is with savory ingredients. And I have to say... I not only liked them, I loved them! I used sour cream as the dairy element and I used Horseradish as the flavor choice. I also used a touch of my favorite secret ingredient liquid smoke as a background flavor and a touch of honey to compliment the sweet in the sweet potatoes. They came out really well and were a huge hit during the meal. In fact two people took them home with them. So here's the recipe. maybe you can mix it up a bit this season and find a little savory in your sweet.

Smokey Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Horseradish and Sour Cream

3 pounds of sweet potatoes washed peeled and cut into chunks
1 cup dairy sour cream
1/2 jar prepared horseradish (more or less depending on the potency and your taste)
1 1/2 Tablespoons honey
1 1/2 Tablespoons salt
1 Tablespoon black pepper
4 drops to start with of liquid smoke add more after you taste the potatoes, it should be a background flavor so keep that in mind or it will end up tasting like charcoal!

Boil the sweet potatoes in highly salted water till they pierce easily with a fork about 25 mins.
Drain well and rinse again with warm water to drain off some of the excess starch
Mash roughly
Add sour cream
Mash into the potatoes
Stir in the Horseradish and the honey and season well to taste, you might want to add more salt and pepper. Add in the liquid smoke and taste, add more to your liking if necessary! Enjoy!

Better than Hillstone's Loaded Potato, Super Stuffed Twice Baked Potatoes with Attitude

As many of you who are reading this know I have a slight compulsion with starch. I mean I love it! It's the glue that ties all meals together. It's a safe bet to assume that where there's starch there's flavor. Which is what brings me to today's entry.

Another slight obsession of mine is dining at the Hillstone ( aka Houston's) restaurant chains. Not obsession, just a preference perhaps, but my love of their food, service and atmosphere is shared by many. They have in their repertoire an astoundingly good baked potato. Perfectly prepared and served up "loaded" with butter, sour cream, bacon, white vermont cheddar cheese, and scallions. Amazing. In fact I recently took a friend there and he commented that it might be the best baked potato he had ever had. This may be true for me as well. It is first off HUGE! Then perfectly baked, and perfectly topped and they give you double toppings if you want! Cause that's heathy! Well OK it's not but it sure as shooting is good once and awhile.

                                                  Loaded Potato at Hillstone in NYC


Well you know I like to take things a bit further than they are done elsewhere. So on with the story.

In my travels I came across the twice baked potato which was brought to my attention at a young age while eating at an Naval Officers Club in Hawaii (story for another day) and I thought it was the best idea in the world! Well, these potatoes were baked split in half and then stuffed with their loaded mashed insides and baked covered in cheese. Wow, were they were good. I have over the course of time made twice baked potatoes many times before. And I have always halved them like with the blue cheese stuffed baked potatoes I blogged about in an earlier entry.

However, the other day it occurred to me it might be tasty to serve them up stuffed but the whole thing, like a double stuffed loaded potato. So that's what I did. Taking the whole potato I baked it, spilt it open, scooped out the flesh, mashed it with all the "loaded" toppings, re-stuffed the potato and served it with a sprinkle of cheese and more scallions for color. And can I tell you it was da Bomb! So good.

So this Summer when you are serving up baked potatoes with your grilled deliciousness, try these decadent beauties. Enjoy Ya'll!!

Forrest's Double Stuffed Jacket Potatoes

4 giant Idaho Baking potatoes
4 tablespoons butter
1 cup non fat greek yogurt
1/2 cup dairy sour cream plus 1/2 cup for garnish reserved
4 tablespoons chopped bacon
1 cup shredded white extra sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 cup shredded extra sharp yellow cheddar cheese
Salt and Pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 cup chopped green onion
plus 1/4 cup for garnish
2 teaspoons veg. oil
Sea course salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees
Wash and scrub potatoes till clean
Rub with the oil and sprinkle with the sea salt
Pierce with a folk several times
Place potatoes on a foil lined baking sheet
Bake in the oven for 50 to 60 mins until soft when pierce by a fork
Turn down oven to 300
Remove and cool
Once cool enough sliced the potato's very top off exposing the flesh inside.
Carefully scoop out the insides being careful not to break the skin
Mash the potato with all the remaining ingredients except for the garnish items ( yellow cheese and extra green onions)
Carefully re-stuff each potato till flowing over and puffed out on the top
Replace potatoes on a foil lined baking sheet
Bake for about 25 mins till warmed through
Remove sprinkle with the remaining  sour cream, yellow cheese and green onion, enjoy!!

St. Patty's Potato Joy... Potatoes Colcannon

I love mashed potatoes. They are probably on the scale of one to ten in the top 9 percentile of the foods I love. I have had them in so many ways I cannot even tell you. My friend John makes them with rosemary and lots of cream cheese. I love them loaded like at Vickery's my favorite bar restaurant in Charleston, and I love them whipped into perfection with lots of butter and cream like at a fine French restaurant.

So it only makes sense that at some point I would talk about mashed potatoes. And since it is St. Patricks Day and everyone in the world is offering up a dish for the holiday I decided to get in the swing and offer up one that might be a little fun.

Now I am supposedly a little Irish on some level, what with my father's family coming from the English and German stock they did. Irish is always in the mix there somewhere I suppose. But whether or not one is Irish or not St. Patricks Day is a fun and rowdy time for all. And a time to enjoy some of the fine dishes that that country has brought to these shores.

It is a little funny to me though, that my introduction to this very Irish dish was through a very American restaurant called the Cherry Creek Grill in Denver, Colorado. Cherry Creek Grill is a member of the Hillstone corporation family of restaurants.Now I don't know how many of you know this, but the Hillstone Corporation is a never ending source of interest for me. Not just because I love to eat there, but also because they have succeeded where many other chain restaurant companies have failed in creating excellent and fresh menus at price points that keep people coming back. They serve food which, as a colleague of mine puts it, is what people want to eat! I was on tour with Cameron MacIntosh's "Oliver" National tour, and we sat down in Denver. A guy I knew in Denver took me to dinner at the Cherry Creek Grill and I had the potatoes colcannon there for the first time. And I have to say they were awesome. Creamy and rich mashed potatoes mixed with sauteed cabbage and onions and lots of butter. Yum!

Now Potatoes Colcannon or "white headed potatoes" as there are known from lore in Ireland are a dish which normally contains potatoes and cabbage and onions and maybe scallions and of course loads of butter! So when I set out from that point I thought about what I do and don't enjoy about the idea of cooked cabbage. I think maybe it's from having too much boiled cabbage growing up but I sort of don't fancy it. However, I am intrigued by how the two elements of mashed potato and the cooked cabbage made such a great dish when I first tried it at that Hillstone restaurant. However I knew after all this time and the foodie things I have experienced that if I were to make them, I could up the anty.

My thought processes about this made me think about two things. I have read that colcannon can be made with Kale. I like Kale. So I thought why not work with that. The second thing I thought about was that I like green foods. So if I were to make colcannon I would like it to be a little more green than the version I had at Cherry Creek Grill. Now I have expressed before in the blog my love of colored foods. Foods that take on a different color shade due to some emulsion of another food or addition of herbs etc. are so great to me. Great to me from a taste standpoint first, but also from a composition standpoint when talking about putting foods together on a plate. So I wanted to make a greener spicey and more flavorful version of the dish I loved so much when I had it the first time, whew...not a short order!! Cause why.....Hillstone rocks but here it goes!!

My first inclination was to take example from one of the Chefs at work who created gorgeous green basil ( not pesto ) whipped potatoes a couple of years back for the Spring menu that year. He told me the trick was to blanche the basil so that even when it was added to the warm potatoes it would retain it's green color and not turn a pasty brown. An old culinary trick but an effective one. Next I thought about my ingredient list. I already had the Kale, but why stop there. So I added for the onion more green power, leeks and scallions. And for a bit of a kick a bit of garlic for even more added fun. For the consistency I decided that buttermilk would do a better job and flavor than just cream and of course lots of butter.

To insure the dish had both color and texture I decided that blanching the greens quickly then pureeing them with some buttermilk and butter would be the emulsion that would color and flavor my colcannon nicely. Then for some texture a few reserved scallions for garnish as well as a big "knob" of butter to finish off the dish. Sounds yummy. You bet! So enjoy trying this and Happy St Patty's Day.

Potatoes Colcannon with Leeks and Kale

Ingredients
4 or 5 good sized Yukon gold or golden yellow potatoes scrubbed and diced into pieces
handful of salt
2 leeks cleaned light green and white parts only
2 cups chopped kale packed tightly
1 large bunch scallions thinly sliced on the bias 1/2 cup reserved for garnish
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup sour cream
1 stick butter cut up
1 tablespoon minced garlic
salt and pepper to taste

Method

Place potatoes in a heavy bottomed pot with salt and bring to a boil
Cook till potatoes are easily pierced with a fork
Then remove from heat and hold warm.
Meanwhile bring another pot of water to a boil
Prepare an ice bath in a large bowl.
Add kale and leeks and blanche quickly until the kale turns bright green then remove from the boiling water  about 4 to 5 mins and place into an ice bath in a large bowl to stop the cooking.
Drain on paper towels and set aside.
Place greens into a blender with the scallions and blend with 1/4 cup buttermilk and 1/4 stick of room temperature butter
Blend until pureed and still a little chunky (ie. not thin think texture).
Open potato pot lid and add the emulsion mashing the potatoes until mashed add sour cream and 1/4 stick butter salt and pepper to taste and the garlic.
Mash and stir till well combined. If not loose enough add the buttermilk a little bit at a time till you have the consistency of whipped mashed potatoes.

To serve place the potatoes in a large serving bowl and garnish with the remaining butter and scallions or serve in small bowls and place a knob of butter in each and garnish with the scallions.

Enjoy!!