Not long ago, I struck up a conversation with this lady while standing in line at the grocery store. I looked at her purchases and spotted vanilla wafers and cottage cheese. I asked who it was for and she said that it was for her kids. Man oh man, I used to go goobers over nilla wafers with chocolate milk AND cottage cheese with liberal amounts of salt and pepper! well as the story of life goes.. you move on, try new foods but never forget things that you’ve enjoyed. In my odd mind, I consider foods that I haven’t eaten in a while as old friends.

The two canapes that I’m featuring here are from my past and strike up fond memories. We made the bastilla for our HOG events two season ago; and I used to make 50 orders a day of the spring rolls over 10 years ago for a restaurant I worked at..It’s as easy and comforting to make a dish from your past as it is to slip into conversation with a long forgotten chum.

Chef Stephen from HOG nation.. happy cooking!

For the recipe of the Shrimp and Lemongrass Spring Rolls (photo on the right), click here.

“Bastilla”
Chicken, Phyllo, Saffron, Ginger, Cilantro, Almonds and Cinnamon
Makes 30 bastilla

Ingredients
1 pound chicken breasts, skinned and boned
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cups water
½ cup chopped fresh parsley
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 stick cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon saffron threads
¼ teaspoon fresh black pepper
3 eggs
8 sheets phyllo dough, thawed
4 tablespoons butter, melted
1 tablespoon granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
⅔ cup chopped blanched almonds

For the Garnish
½ cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Special Equipment
sheet pans
fine mesh strainer
parchment paper
pastry brush

Instructions
Preheat oven to 375°F.
In a large stock pot, add the chicken, water, parsley, cilantro, cinnamon stick, ginger, black pepper and saffron. Bring to a boil over high heat. Cover, reduce heat and simmer until chicken is tender, about 30 to 45 minutes.
Remove chicken from stock and allow to cool enough to handle. Shred the meat into bite-sized pieces. Strain the stock, discarding solids left in the strainer, then bring it to a boil over medium heat. Lightly beat eggs and pour slowly into the stock, stirring until curds form, about 1-2 minutes. Remove from heat. In a large bowl, add the chicken and almonds to the stock/egg mixture.
In a small bowl, mix the white sugar and 1 teaspoon of the cinnamon. Remove the phyllo from its box, unwrapping the plastic and unfolding the sheets. Keep the sheets covered with a damp cloth to prevent drying out. Brush one sheet of dough with butter, then place another sheet on top of it. Lay 4 sheets one on top of the other, with butter in between each layer. Sprinkle the sugar and cinnamon over the top sheet of phyllo.
With a sharp knife, cut the sheets lengthwise into thirds and cut each length crosswise into fifths, making 15 sections, each approximately 4 x 3 ½ inches in size.
Place a level teaspoon of the filling in the center of each phyllo section. Working with one section at a time, gather the corners of the phyllo over the filling and twist them gently to create a purse-like shape. Transfer the pastries to a parchment lined sheet pan.
Bake the pastries in the lower third of a preheated 375°F oven for 12-15 minutes, or until they are golden.
Sift the powdered sugar-cinnamon mixture over the baked pastries. Serve while still warm.

I was inspired to create this post after reading the latest Gourmet magazine. It had an awesome feature on southern cuisine and the late Edna Lewis, who was essentially the Julia Child of southern cooking. There were some great recipes indeed: dumplings, deviled crab, tomatoes and toast and ham. But for me, there was one main dish that put a smile on my face… the queen of southern cuisine… the thing that makes hound dogs yelp more than hush puppies… puts kids in a tail spin and makes them beg for more. Yes, this is of course, biscuits! Fluffy, buttery (lardy) biscuits. I say ‘baguette of the south’ because when we were growing up, THIS was our artisan bread. Baguette was a foot in length and usually only served as garlic bread with spaghetti (I suspect as was the case for a large part of the country). So, biscuits were the bread of choice eaten with pretty much every meal. And, if you were lucky, you’d have some hot hush puppies to boot.

Below is Edna’s recipe. On New Years Day, we ate some with jam and clotted cream and others with grilled ham with stone ground mustard. Since grilling ham is a no-brainer, I thought I’d share the biscuit recipe along with some fun and easy jam. The clotted cream simply added to the decadence factor (and waistline). Oh heck, that’s what resolutions are made for. (Clotted cream can now be found at most specialty grocery stores or check with a cheese shop.)

Before I get the book thrown at me for using blueberries and blackberries in winter, I have to tell you that I was in Florida when I made the biscuits. The berries were from South America, the figs were from California and Florida tomatoes were in season. And no, I don’t like marmalade! nuff said..

Edna’s Biscuits with Fig Berry Jam and Clotted Cream
Makes 20-25 biscuits

For the biscuits
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 generous tablespoon single-acting baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup lard, cut in pieces
1 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons melted butter for brushing tops

For the jam
1 basket of fresh figs, tops removed and cut in half
1 pint blueberries*taste the berries to make sure that they are sweet
1 pint blackberries *taste the berries to make sure that they are not too tart
Juice of one lemon
½ cup sugar
¼ cup water
½ pound clotted cream To schmear on biscuit

Instructions
Preheat oven to 450 degrees

For the jam
Simply add all the ingredients to a heavy stainless sauce pot and cook over medium low heat until thick and jammy. *Make sure you stir the pot frequently as the sugars can easily burn.

For the biscuits
Measure flour and sift with the baking powder, baking soda and salt into a large mixing bowl. Add the lard pieces and work gently into the flour with your fingertips or a pastry cutter, until all is mixed together and the texture is fine and crumbly. Stir in the buttermilk with a spoon until well-mixed. (Do not overbeat or you’ll toughen the dough.) On a lightly floured board, turn out the dough and knead gently with your hands for about 2 minutes. Roll out with a rolling pin to about 1/2-inch thickness.
Using a 2-inch cutter, cut out the biscuits. Do not twist as you bring the cutter through the dough. Place about 1/2 inch apart on an ungreased baking sheet. Poke through each biscuit several times with the tines of a fork. Brush the tops of the biscuits with the melted butter. Bake for 8 to 12 minutes, until risen and golden. Serve immediately with butter or preserves.

To Serve
Slather jam on the bottom and clotted cream on the top

Please welcome our first ever guest contributor on the H.O.G. Food Blog. Our friend, Liz Lance, brought these amazing greens to our recent Thanksgiving potluck dinner:

The dinner table at the Lance home represented a melding of regional American cuisine – the hearty German meat and potatoes of my mother’s St. Louis upbringing and the fried seafood and overcooked green vegetables of my father’s Southern Georgia ancestry. Collard greens, spinach and green beans were boiled into oblivion with salt pork, and they became dishes to be endured rather than enjoyed. It was years before I learned that these green vegetables were so named because they were actually green. I only ever knew them as brown, mushy and utterly tasteless. Blech.

But, when I moved to Nepal in my early 20s and fell in love with Nepali food, I discovered the wonder of greens. Nepalis eat the same traditional meal of dal bhat – rice, lentil soup and a vegetable curry – twice a day, every day, and always with greens, or saag. Saag is cheap, plentiful and nutritious, providing iron, calcium, folic acid and vitamin C. Most Nepali cooks will quickly fry up saag with some combination of spices and chili pepper, cooking them just long enough to wilt and so they retain their dark green color.

I took my cues for cooking saag from two Newari families from Patan, the city just south of Kathmandu. The Newars are famous for their spicy varieties of food incorporating garlic, ginger, red pepper and cumin seed, and they have an amazing ability to use the same few spices in multiple dishes without everything tasting the same. In both the Bajracharya and Khadki homes where I have enjoyed countless meals, the simple and delicious preparation of saag always kept me asking for more. Newari saag has also become my signature dish at gatherings that call for traditional greens – Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day dinners. The best part is that my favorite greens, collards, kale and mustard greens, are at their best during the winter season!

When Chef Stephen asked me to bring a low-fat, non-starchy vegetable to his and Molly’s Thanksgiving table, I jumped right in with my Newari greens. They looked beautiful plated up next to a beet salad and bright yellow delicata squash, and they even reappeared on turkey sandwiches in the days after the holiday. Here is the recipe. Enjoy!

Newari Greens
3 bunches dark leafy greens (kale, collards or mustard greens are the tastiest!)
6 cloves garlic
3-inch long piece of ginger
3 tablespoon whole cumin seed
crushed red pepper to taste (a teaspoon to a tablespoon)
2 tablespoon canola oil
salt to taste

Grind the ginger and garlic together in a food processor, adding a pinch of salt or a splash of lemon juice to aid in the blending.
After washing (well!) and rinsing the greens, cut off the thick stems. Stack ten or so leaves up, roll them up and cut them cross-wise every inch or so in a chiffonade. Repeat until all greens are chopped. Heat the canola oil over a medium-high flame until oil is hot. Add the cumin seed and fry until seeds are dark brown. Add the salt and the garlic-ginger mixture. Lower the flame to medium and add the crushed red pepper. Quickly follow with the greens, adding them in batches until they are all just wilted, but still bright green.

It was 10:00 am on a Wednesday. I’d been up for a few hours already and was feeling pretty good; the day was flowing as well as it could have been during the work week. The sun was out and an old David Bowie song was blaring from the radio of our van while driving through produce alley; and that’s when Budd called. I picked up the phone and said…“Hey Joe what gives?” “Oh you know” he replied… we yammered on for a bit and before our conversation ended I said “Hey why don’t you and your people come around for dinner tonight?” Joe graciously accepted and said that he would catch up with us at the house at 8:00 pm.Well… as 5:00 pm rounded the corner I was getting a little tired and realized that I had also called a few more people in the wake of my earlier cloud floating. Oh darn! What had I done?? What to do when you don’t have a moment’s spare time and you really want to put out a happy spread but you’re drive and creativity has left the building?

Well, folks I have a solution for all us weary last minute cooks: have a party that engages your guest’s food sensibilities. That’s right, in plain Jane English, have them make their own food, and if they don’t… oh well, late night arches for them… hehehe …as devilish as it might sound …. it really is that much fun for everyone.

So, this is all I had to do for our dinner party: Organize the ingredients (one hour); place them in nice display dishes (15 minutes), scrub the floor (5 minutes) and fill my beer mug (priceless).Joe, Mike, Molly’s brother Ted, Gordo, Will, Sarah, Roger and his wife Desiree all showed up ready for arts and crafts time…Sarah brought over some killer chocolate chip cookies and captain Roger of course did his thing in big style. Do you see the drink with the straws? It’s Crenshaw melon, prickly pear and tapioca. Wowwyaza! Go Roger!We made sushi, tortillas and some wonderful Indonesian fish falafel that Molly had found in an old edition of Saveur. The fat came from the almonds, the salt from the shrimp paste, mint was the backup singer, Thai chilies made your mouth rattle and fresh lime took it home with a delightful tart citrus sting… Below is the recipe.

So remember…. When time is short; get a little help from your friends!

Sasatay - Banda-Style Tuna Falafel
from Saveur

1/2 lb. boneless, skinless tuna, cut into 1 inch cubes
1/2 lb. blanched whole almonds
1 tsp. trassi (Indonesian dried shrimp paste)
10 large mint leaves
4 cloves garlic, chopped
4 red thai chiles, stemmed and halved lengthwise
3 shallots, chopped
2 tbsp. fresh lime juice
1 tsp. cumin seeds, toasted and finely ground in spice grinder
1 inch piece fresh turmeric, peeled and coarsely chopped or 1/2 tsp. dried ground
1 egg, lightly beaten
Peanut oil
Salt

Bring a medium pot of lightly salted water to a boil over medium heat. Add tuna and gently boil until cooked through about 5 minutes. Drain and reserve.Put almonds into a food processor and pulse until finely ground. Add tuna and pulse until well ground and combined with almonds. Transfer to a medium bowl and set aside.Put shrimp paste in center of a 5″ square piece of aluminum foil, fold edges to form a package and press down with the heel of your hand to flatten paste into a 1/4 inch dish. Heat a gas burner to medium-low or an electric burner to medium-high and place the foil package directly on burner. Toast until paste begins to smoke, 1-2 minutes. Using tongs, turn over and cook for 1-2 minutes more. Remove from heat, unwrap disk and set aside.Put shrimp paste, mint, garlic, chiles, shallots, lime juice, cumin, turmeric and salt to taste into the food processor and pulse to a smooth paste. Transfer to bowl of tuna-almond mixture, add egg and mix well. Form half of the mixture into 1″ balls and the other half into small triangles about 1 1/2″ on each side, using 1 tbsp. to make one ball or triangle.Pour oil into a heavy medium pot to a depth of 2″ and heat over medium heat until temperature registers 350 degrees on a deep-fry thermometer. Fry falafel in batches until golden, about 1 1/2 minutes. Drain on paper towels. Serve hot, warm or at room temperature.

Don’t ever assume that your store bought veggies have been washed or are clean. A lot of folks think that certain herbs, veggies and even packaged greens are as clean as a whistle. Not long ago I had a dinner party and served asparagus for the first course. The only problem was that every bite was ruined by invasive sand that “wasn’t” washed off. Boy it was worse than egg shells! gnarly! Even old kitchen dogs get bitten by forgetting common everyday sense. Not to mention all of that prep that went down the drain…

Roasted Asparagus with Cherries and Pecorino

Serves 6 people… turn on oven to 550°

1 bunch asparagus, washed and ends removed
1 heaping tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 heaping tablespoon lemon juice
Salt and pepper

1 shallot, peeled and minced
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
½ cup red wine, cabernet or shiraz
½ lb pitted and rough chopped cherries
½ cup chicken stock *water works fine
pecorino or parmesan, shaved with veggie peeler

In a small sauce pot, sweat the shallots and thyme in a dab of veggie oil. Add the wine and cherries and reduce by ¾. Add the stock and simmer until the cherries start to break down and thicken the sauce. Take off the heat and season. If it’s too acidic, then mix in some extra virgin olive oil to round out the taste. Toss the asparagus with the extra virgin olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper. Place on a sheet pan lined with parchment. Roast until done, anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes. Place a few spears on plate, spoon over sauce and lay down a sliver of cheese. Fantastico!

I’ve slow cooked everything from big hunks of meat to salmon, tomatoes, sauces, soups and ragouts. Slow cooked fruits? Sounds more like chewy dried and tough. So, as I was flipping through a local magazine called Edible SF, I came across a recipe for slow roasted strawberries… I gave it a shot… all I have to say is double wow! and sweeeet! These berries have a rich, almost molasses like complexity with just the right amount of developed sugars. Firm yet supple textures and some fresh vanilla to round out the flavors. Great with gelato, rice pudding or basic cakes.

Slow Roasted Strawberries

1 lb strawberries, top removed
1 cup sugar
Pinch kosher salt
2 vanilla beans

Turn on oven to 275 degrees. Mix sugar with salt in a bowl. Add vanilla bean seeds to sugar and mix well with the tips of your fingers. Toss sugar with berries and place in a roasting pan or cookie sheet. Just make sure you make one layer and not stack on top. We want to roast and not steam! Slow roast for for 3 hours gently spooning juices over berries every 1/2 hour. Delish!!!!