Recipe Notes: Roasted Delicata Squash

20 January 2020

Recipe from Cook's Illustrated, November 2018.

I had never heard of delicata squash until seeing this recipe in Cook's Illustrated about a year ago. It looked very simple to prepare and worth trying, especially as I try to up my side-dish game. However, I wasn't able to find it in the store until this season. I finally got to try this recipe this winter  to find out if it is a worthy addition to our regular winter menu.

An attractive trait of these squash is their tender skin which does not need to be removed before cooking. The recipe was for three squashes but I used just one. The ends were trimmed, the squash was halved lengthwise, the seeds were removed, and the halves sliced crosswise into ½-inch thick pieces. These were tossed with oil and salt and arranged on a baking sheet which was covered with aluminum foil. After roasting at 425° for about 20 minutes the foil was removed and the squash roasted until it was golden brown. The squash slices were then flipped, butter was added to the sheet, and roasting continued until the second side of the squash was also browned. Total time was only 40 minutes.

The delicata squash lived up to its name. It was very attractive with the striped, gently grooved skin. The flesh had a very delicate flavor, especially when comparing it to butternut squash which we had eaten recently. The skin, however, was very crunchy. While this sort of textural contrast is usually positive, in this case it detracted from the dish. With the crunchy skin, very mild flavor, and thin layer of flesh, we weren't big fans so probably won't have this again.

Recipe Notes: Chicken Scampi

12 January 2020

Recipe from Cook's Country, December 2018.

Diane often orders shrimp scampi in restaurants. I don't enjoy shrimp so we are not likely to serve this at home. I discovered an ATK recipe for chicken scampi and mentioned it to Diane. She replied that she'd been thinking it had been a while since she had a chance to enjoy shrimp scampi so she was certainly up for trying the chicken variant of shrimp served in a garlic butter sauce.

The recipe called for chicken tenderloins. Not seeing these in the supermarket I used the suggested alternative, boneless skinless chicken breast sliced into ¾-inch strips. These were patted dry, seasoned with salt and pepper, dipped in lightly beaten eggs, dredged in flour and fried in vegetable oil. After setting the chicken aside and wiping out the skillet, the sauce was made by cooking red bell pepper and sliced garlic in vegetable oil, thickening this with flour, then stirring in dry white wine and chicken broth. After simmering to reduce the mixture, butter was stirred into the mixture until it melted and the chicken was returned to the skillet. Total time was 50 minutes.

This relatively quick dinner (two dinners for us using one pound of chicken) was good. The sauce was very buttery and garlic though Diane doesn't recall having eaten scampi sauce that included red bell pepper. Even though I didn't take the temperature of the chicken while it cooked it was all cooked through and still tender and moist despite the variation in sizes. The leftovers were just reheated in the microwave and they were still goo. This dish is worth making again as a reasonably quick chicken dinner that uses common ingredients.

 

Recipe Notes: Carrot Sheet Cake

8 January 2020

Recipe from The Perfect Cake, America's Test Kitchen, 2018, p. 110.

America's Test Kitchen has several recipes for carrot layer cake, one of which made their list of the 20 most popular recipes in the first 20 years of the TV show. I may try these some day, but for my first carrot cake I made a simple sheet cake. This recipe is available online with the same ingredients, but unlike the recipe in the recent cookbook that I used, where the ingredients are mixed by hand, the online recipe uses either a food processor or mixer. I can't recall ever having homemade carrot cake so I was looking forward to this one. 

One pound of peeled carrots was grated using the food processor, which made a quick job of it. The dry ingredients—AP flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cloves—were whisked together in a bowl. In a separate large bowl, eggs, granulated sugar, and light brown sugar were whisked together.  While continuing to whisk, vegetable oil was slowly added to the mixture until it was combined and emulsified. The flour mixture was whisked into the liquid mixture, then the grated carrots were stirred in. The batter was poured into a greased and floured 13x9-inch baking pan and baked at 350°. After cooling it was finished with the traditional cream cheese frosting. From start to the end of baking the cake took about 70 minutes to prepare. Making  and applying the frosting took an additional 20 minutes once the cake had cooled.

This is a good cake and worth making again. It is nice and moist with a good amount of spice, not so much to be overwhelming but still up front in flavor. At first I didn't like the cream cheese frosting but the more I have it the more I like it. The cake is easy to make with the most difficult task being whisking in the oil.

Recipe Notes: All-Purpose Cornbread

5 January 2020

Recipe from America's Test Kitchen

Cornbread comes in two basic varieties: southern and northern. Among the distinguishing features is the absence of sugar in the recipe for the southern style. I have tried both, including a hybrid style from ATK, but I have not settled on any one recipe. After my recent cornbread failure I saw that the hybrid, all-purpose recipe made a list of the top 20 recipes in the 20 years of the America's Test Kitchen TV show. As I was planning to make a pot of chili it seemed like a good time to revisit this recipe.

This was an easy recipe to follow. Dry ingredients—flour, cornmeal (Bob's Red Mill medium grind), baking powder, baking soda, and salt—were whisked together in a bowl. The remaining ingredients were processed in a blender (as the food processor was dirty) until smooth: brown sugar, thawed corn kernels, buttermilk, and eggs. The wet ingredients were folded into the dry then melted butter was folded into the batter. This was baked in an 8-inch square pan at 400°. Total prep time was just 20 minutes and from start to dinner plate the time was just 70 minutes.

The cornbread had a good texture, coarse and rustic though the crumb was not so coarse as to be crunchy. The crust provided a good crunch when the bread was fresh. The bread had good corn flavor and was not too sweet. While eating this cornbread was not a wow! experience, this is a very practical, serviceable recipe.