Gourmet, Unbound

Last night I made my recipe from a May issue of Gourmet. This one was from 2000,which it's hard to believe is ten years old already.

Each month, I start searching for the recipe I'll test for Gourmet, Unbound by going to my shelf of old issues, and checking for pages I might have tabbed back when I first received that magazine. This month I decided to try one of the recipes I'd tabbed in 2000. I checked the recipe on Epicurious.com and found a range of reviews. Some reviewers loved the dish, and others thought it was bland. After testing it out last night, and enjoying the light, yet distinctive flavor, I think I've figured out the problem some of the reviewers might have had. It's possible that those who thought the dish was bland just didn't have really fresh asparagus. I was lucky that this is the beginning of high asparagus season in this area so I had asparagus fresh from the fields via the farmstand. I wonder if the Mexican or Peruvian imports have as much flavor.

Surprisingly, this dish does not overwhelm with the taste of asparagus. Even the less exuberant asparagus eater in my house enjoyed the dish. The lemon (I used one of my last Meyer lemons) lightened the flavor perfectly, though I added a little lemon juice - probably 1/2 lemon's worth - at the suggestion of many of the reviewers. The sauce is silky due to the addition of the pasta cooking water and, apart from the white pasta, is relatively healthy. It's mostly vegetable based with a hit of olive oil and parmigianno reggiano. I reduced the olive oil slightly from the recipe with no ill effects. I used three tablespoons of olive oil instead of a quarter cup.

The dish appears so simple with its brief ingredient list, but there are several steps to the process that you need to plan ahead for. Prep the asparagus, zest the lemon, and most importantly, put that water up to boil right away - you need to boil the pieces of asparagus spears for six to eight minutes (which I thought seemed a little to much so I reduced it to four or five minutes), and then blanch the tips, before you cook your pasta in that same water. If I wasn't also preparing a salad and a salmon dish to go alongside, it probably wouldn't have been a problem. When I make this next, I would not concurrently prepare something that requires last minute attention, as this is an of the moment sauce that should be served immediately.

Click here (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Pasta-with-Asparagus-Lemon-Sauce-103382) for the recipe at Epicurious.

Gourmet, Unbound - February Edition

As I did in January, I am participating in the February roundup on the blog Gourmet, Unbound, a forum for bloggers and Gourmet devotees to honor the now defunct magazine by cooking a recipe from a February Gourmet from any year. This month I chose an Algerian tagine made with apricots, orange marmalade and spiced pine nuts from February, 2008. Though the dish itself is a little sweet, the spiced pine nuts balanced that pretty well so it wasn't cloying. Everyone seemed to enjoy the dish. Ideally, I'd serve this with whole wheat couscous.

This dish is not too far off from the basic parameters of healthierkitchen. To ramp up the health factor, I added some cut up carrots and butternut squash (which I purchased already cut up at Trader Joes). I also omitted the butter, but it's not such a big deal with this recipe as it calls for only 1 tablespoon for the whole dish.

The largest change I made, apart from adding the vegetables, was to use about 2 pounds of boneless, skinless thighs in lieu of the whole chicken. Because I didn't have the bones to make the broth richer, I added chicken stock instead of water later on. I added about two cups of stock instead of the the 1 cup of water, as I had added a mound of vegetables.

Here's the link to the recipe: http://www.epicurious.com/food/views/Chicken-Tagine-with-Apricots-and-Spiced-Pine-Nuts-241506

In honor of Gourmet

I have been receiving Gourmet, monthly, since 1990 and, until a few years ago when I began clipping the recipes I wanted to try and then recycling the remainder of the magazine, I saved them all. I guess I'm a pack rat of sorts, honestly come by via my Dad. My kitchen is packed with over a hundred cookbooks as well as assorted issues of Bon Appetit, Food and Wine and my shelf of Gourmet. These magazines somehow made the cut (or wholesale purge of extraneous possessions) during moves in 1990, 1994 and 2006. With each move, the commitment was greater - the first time, there were fewer than a year's worth, while during the last move they filled a couple of boxes. A few months ago, I considered tossing them, or maybe donating them to a school yard sale, but didn't and now that Gourmet has closed up shop, I'm so glad I saved them.

I've always enjoyed reading Gourmet, even in the earlier days when I worked long hours and carry out was my best friend. Cook or no, there was much to love about the magazine, with it's literary articles, glossy photos that draw you right up to the table and the extensive travel features. All you needed was a love of food. For me, travel is always intricately tied in to the food of the locale, so I loved reading about how food affected and even guided other people's trips. This was especially so after Ruth Reichl took over. It's been a treat to travel the world with Gourmet.While many of the recipes might have been more complicated or time consuming than I would make regularly, others have been simple and delicious.

I've been skimming some of the collection lately and am planning to participate in a monthly project in which food bloggers cook an item from that month's issue from any year, and then submit it to one central blog called Gourmet, Unbound. Sort of a Gourmet tribute blog. In preparation for the January event, I made a soup from the January 1990 issue - my very first - called Portuguese Kale and Potato Soup.

I prepared this soup in anticipation of a snow storm cum blizzard which eventually dropped 23 inches of snow according the the tv news. Pretty unusual for the DC area! We initially ate it as we watched out the window for the snow to begin, which unfortunately happened before our teenaged son could get home from an evening activity. The snow began falling around 9 p.m., and the roads iced up pretty quickly, making for a white-knuckle trip home for him around 10 p.m. By morning, we must have had almost a foot of snow. We cleared the walkway and front steps, window well covers, HVAC units and the car left outside and parts of the driveway a total of three times, twice on Saturday and again on Sunday. Between the two bouts of shoveling on Saturday, we were able to eat the leftovers for a warming and delicious lunch.

I had planned to use the kale I had growing in my outdoor ornamental pots, sort of a pre-snow final harvest, but the plants were saggy and wan due to the recent cold snap. Instead, I used some really perky and bright chard I had found at the grocery store earlier in the week and had not yet figured out how or when I would use. While at the store in a final pre-storm shopping trip, I also tried to replace the moldy chorizo that had been hiding in my deli bin for more months than I can remember. Though successful with the chard, I was unable to find chorizo in that store and substituted Portugese linguica sausage which is pretty similar. I figured that it's a Portuguese soup anyway. In fact, this is really a caldo verde, which should use linguica. Lastly, I didn't even bother to remove the russet potatoes from the pot to a blender. I simply crushed the chunks against the side of the pot with the back of my spoon.

Healthwise, with a pork sausage, there's always a little fat. However, you could easily substitute a lower-fat spicy turkey or chicken andouille sausage. As always, though, check the sodium content on the stock and sausage! With all the greens, and carrots, though, this is not so bad a choice, especially after a good shovelling workout.

Funny, as I searched Epicurious for a link to the recipe, I found that in the last issue Gourmet published, November 2009, they included a similar soup. While they didn't rename it, this time they acknowledge that the soup is actually a Portuguese caldo verde, and recommend using either chourico or linguica sausage, as I did.

It was delicious and warming for this time of year, and relatively easy to prepare. You can find the recipe as printed in 1990 at:

www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Portuguese-kale-and-potato-soup-10261