Chicken Cordon Bleu

It was Kathryn and my wedding anniversary yesterday (29 years!) and, like any good husband, I'd asked her where she wanted to go for a nice dinner.  Like any cook's wife, she responded "The place I like to eat best is home, with your cooking". (ain't that sweet?)

So, of course the next question was "So, what would you like me to make?".  Without a moment's hesitation she said "Chicken Cordon Bleu".

I can almost hear your incredulous grunts and see your eyes roll.  "What?  That hackneyed old diner stand-by?"  Well, yes AND no.

Chicken Cordon Bleu, while French-sounding by design("cordon bleu" means "blue ribbon" in French), is a dish of breaded chicken breasts with ham and cheese that originated in the1960s in the United States.  It was quite popular on restaurant menus through the end of the 20th century and the basic flavor combination retains a following as is evidenced by the Chicken Cordon Bleu sandwiches etc that still pop up on fast food restaurant menus from time to time.  The U.S. even "celebrates" a National Chicken Cordon Bleu Day (it was on April 4th this year and now MY eyes are rolling).

The Chicken Cordon Bleu that Kathryn was requesting was one I'd made for her in the past and while classic in style and presentation, it is made exceptional by being able to use all ranch made and grown ingredients in its preparation. 

Another of what we like to call our "meals that are years in the making" I made this one with chicken breasts from birds we'd raised and butchered ourselves.  The ham isn't wasn't just "ham" but Capocola, a rich and spicy ham we cure and smoke right here from hogs that we've grown-out primarily on cheese whey and butchered here on property. I'd made the Swiss cheese for the dish  last winter from our own goat's milk. The veloutè sauce was made from the chicken stock I'd made and frozen when we butchered and processed the meat chickens last fall, I'd baked the bread I processed into bread crumbs for the coating, and even churned the goat's milk butter that the Cordon Bleu's were sautéed in.  It just doesn't get any more "home-made" than that!

Here's my process for making Chicken Cordon Bleu...

Sandwich each chicken breast between sheets of plastic wrap.
Gently flatten each chicken breast to 1/4" thick, or a little thinner

Like this

Remove the top piece of plastic wrap.
Lay pieces of thinly-sliced ham on the breast.
I used about 3 oz per breast

Make a cylinder out of 2-3 oz of grated Swiss cheese.

Fold about a third of the breast over the fillings.
Use the bottom plastic wrap to help you work.

Fold the ends up.

Continue rolling until the breast meat completely encases the fillings.
Repeat with remaining breasts

Wrap individually in plastic wrap and refrigerate to firm up

Basic Breading Procedure
Dredge each Cordon Bleu in well seasoned flour, then...

Thoroughly coat each Cordon Bleu in beaten eggs, then...

Coat each Cordon Bleu well with fresh bread crumbs.

Chill thoroughly.

Saute each Cordon Bleu in butter over medium heat to set the crust
and brown nicely on all sides.
Do not overcrowd the pan.

The Cordon Bleus will still be quite under-cooked at this point.
Refrigerate until about 40 minutes before serving or move directly to the next step.

Bake in a pre-heated 375 degree oven (350 degree convection oven)
until properly cooked all the way through and the cheese is melted
(about 165F chicken temp, 120F cheese center temp)
This took about 30 minutes in my oven.
Let sit at room temperature for a couple of minutes before plating.

Slice the Cordon Bleus into about 1/2" sections and arrange on plates
with accompaniments (in this case Saffron Rice and Zucchini Provencale)
Nape with a little chicken veloute sauce
(lightly thickened blond chicken stock)

Fresh Tomato-Herb Soup

One morning's harvest

It's only mid June and we are, already, experiencing an over-abundance of tomatoes... and these babies aren't even from the garden but from the few plants still going in the greenhouse!

Despite some recent strong opinions to the contrary on one culinary chat site (here: Acceptable uses of home grown tomatoes) I'd rather use my tomatoes by any means while they are fresh and at their peak rather than hang on to them in hopes that I will somehow be able to eat all of them, simply sprinkled with a little sea salt, before they go bad.  A fresh tomato-herb soup is as a good a utilizer as I know.

I usually start by cooking a bunch of tomatoes in a little butter until the juices have reduced by about 1/2.  As a variation I will sometimes first roast the tomatoes until the skins are black  for a deeper color and different flavor to the end product. Once well-reduced, I puree the tomatoes in a food processor and strain out the seeds and skin, pressing well on the pulp to extract every drop possible. 

This goes into a sauce pan and is thinned with milk (goat's milk in this case) to get the flavor concentration I am looking for.  I bring this to a boil and thicken slightly with a blond roux, adjust the seasonings (mostly salt and lots of ground pepper), and add some chopped fresh herbs.  Basil is an obvious choice but chives, thyme  and/or summer savory are all fine additions.

We like our Fresh Tomato-Herb soup served with a few toasted bread croutons tossed in for a contrasting/complementing texture.

Chicken Pot Pie

Tonight's dinner was Chicken Pot Pie and it really was "as easy as pie".

A couple of days ago I thawed a package of 4 each skinless chicken legs and thighs (from our own ranch-raised and butchered Cornish-Rock cross birds) and poached them until tender in a well-seasoned chicken stock. When done, I took them out of the stock to cool, strained the stock and got it chilled.  When the meat was cool enough to work with I carefully separated it from the bones, cartilage  and sinew and chilled it too.

Today I peeled and cut up about 6 carrots, an onion, 5 celery ribs and a dozen medium- large mushrooms and poached them all in the reserved chicken stock until almost tender.  While they cooked I picked over the chicken meat once more and cut it into small bite-sized pieces.

When done, I removed the vegetables from the stock then thickened the stock with a blonde roux, adding a little chopped parsley, leaf thyme, ground black pepper and adjusting the salt.  When thickened sufficiently I added back in the veggies and chicken and brought, once more, to a light boil then removed it from the stove.

While the veggies and stock were cooking I made a rich lard pie dough.  My recipe is:

Rich Lard Pie Dough

4 cups flour

2 tsp salt

12 oz cool, firm lard (home rendered as in my case is best)

4 oz water

1 egg

1 TBS red wine vinegar

Method

1. Combine the flour and salt well.

2. Cut in the lard lightly (I used the paddle on a tabletop mixer with a VERY light touch).

3. Combine the water, egg and vinegar well then add all at once to the flour mixture and combine just until the mixture holds together.

4. Turn out of the bowl and mix lightly with your finger tips to moisten any dry bits, wrap and let rest for at least 15 minutes. Can be refrigerated at this point but I prefer to  work with it at room temperature.

 .....................................................................

One of the people I was cooking for has bad food allergies to legumes so I ended up making two pot pies.  I removed about 1/3 of the chicken mix to an 8"x2" cake pan then added frozen peas to the remainder, heated it through again, and then moved it into a 10'x2" cake pan.

I then rolled out the dough for lids for the two pies (make them a bit bigger then necessary so you have enough dough to make a nice fluted edge), put them on and cut a few steam vents.  I had some left-over dough so I also rolled out and cut a few decorative pieces for the pies (leaves and such), applied them and washed the whole tops with an egg yolk wash.

Just before dinner I baked the pot pies in a 375F convection oven for about 35 minutes until they were bubbling well and the crusts were done and nicely browned.

Ham and Beans

I finally had the chance last week to use one of the ham shanks I'd cured and smoked a few months ago.

We were entering a very busy stretch as we approached the grand finale of this year's  kidding season with 10 does expected to kid within 5 days.  This was, of course, on top of our regular milking, cheese-making and other ranch duties.  It was more than the two of us could handle well so we asked some people Kathryn had met while giving a talk to a 4-H group if they wanted to help out.

Both the mother and daughter wanted to help over the course of the week but each had various schedule conflicts during that time so it worked out that one would come for a few days, then the other would come for a few days then the other would come back again for the big finish.  They would be staying in our Bunkhouse overnight (as there is no telling at what time of day a goat is going to kid) and we'd be supplying meals etc.

We expected to be ridiculously busy even with their help so I wanted to have a number of easy, heat and eat meals ready to go. One of the meals would be based on a big pot of Ham and Beans that I could make up a few days in advance and then just re-heat to serve.  This use is perfect as Ham and Beans improves with a day or so of letting the flavors marry and meld after  it is first made.

The way I make Ham and Beans it can either be eaten like a thick stew or thinned down a bit for a soup.  I personally prefer the stew but either way it is a full and satisfying meal, especially accompanied by something like a pan of cornbread hot out of the oven.

Ham and Beans

1. Rinse, clean and soak 1 lb of dried small white beans in triple their volume (or more) of cold, clear water for at least 12 hours.

2. Drain and rinse the beans in fresh water then put in a pot and cover with about three times their volume of clear water.  Cover, bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer.  Cook several hours until the beans are just tender but not soft or falling apart.

3. While the beans cook prepare about 4 cups of mirepoix, roughly equal parts of 1/4" diced carrots, onion, and celery.

4. When the beans are at the tender stage, add a smoked ham shank or two (depending on how meaty they are). Add more water to almost  cover the shank if necessary.

5. Simmer until the meat begins to loosen from the shank bones.  Add the mirepoix and continue cooking until the meat falls off the bones and the veggies are tender. Remove from heat.

6. Remove the shanks and meat from the stew.  

      When cool enough to work with remove all of the meat from the bones.  Pick through it carefully, removing all sinew, veins, cartilage etc, then cut the meat into 1/2" pieces. 

7. Skim any fat that has risen to the top of the stew.  Add the meat back to the stew and re-heat to eat or chill for later use.

Asparagus

'tis spring, 'tis spring

Da boyds is on da wing.

My woyd!

How absoyd!

I thought da wings was on da boyds!

(an old family rhyme, origin unknown)

It's spring on the Ranch.  This year, as usual, the arrival of spring ushered in our annual windy season. Wicked winds, gusty winds, sustained winds, sandstorm winds.  Very unpleasant indeed.  It makes outside work much more difficult and wreaks havoc in the gardens.

Not only do the wind storms make starting vegetable seeds and plants outside risky to the point of being a reckless gamble, the winds move so much sand around that even well-established perennial plants can have a rough time of it.  It is not unusual for me to have to take our tractor bucket loader and remove 24-30 inch-high "blow sand" dunes from the garden several times between March and June.

Other than the wind, the official arrival of spring (at least in my mind) is heralded by the almost-miraculous appearance of the first stalks of asparagus. They are miraculous from the usual point of view that it's like magic to see those beautiful sprouts pushing up through the cold, hard soil every year but also that they can further withstand the relentless assault of wind and sand and be so productive. 

One year I was not able to get into the garden for weeks after a bad sand storm.  Eventually I got to the asparagus bed and started digging it out, using a flat-bladed shovel. To my surprise, my first shovelful not only removed a bunch of sand but it also cleanly cut and exposed about a dozen gorgeous white asparagus stalks!  This, of course, is how this great culinary delicacy is intentionally grown... as the first shoots of asparagus begin to show through the ground they are covered up with a few inches of soil.  This is repeated every time the shoots begin to show until they are large enough for harvest.  Preventing exposure to sunlight keeps the chlorophyll from greening-up the plants and limited exposure to air keeps them very tender.  Anyway, that year we had a nice harvest of a truly special accidental vegetable crop.

Despite some wild winds this year, the asparagus bed has somehow remained pretty clear of sand.  Maybe my wind screens (both vegetative and manmade obstacles) are finally starting to work. For whatever reason, the asparagus are doing great!  Since our first harvest a few days ago we have had daily yields of from 12 to 30 beautiful, thick and tall spears and they have been on our plates for every dinner.

Today's asparagus harvest
(and some tomatoes from the greenhouse)

Our asparagus usually goes from the garden directly to dinner prep but if I need to store them for a short while I'll give them a quick rinse in very cold water, wrap a moist paper towel around the base end of the bundle then wrap the whole bundle lightly in plastic wrap, leaving the top end open for ventilation.  The asparagus will last in the fridge veggie drawer this way for a couple of days with very little loss of quality.

Pan-Roast Asparagus

My favorite way to prepare asparagus is a very simple pan-roast. 

First I wash them really well.  Even though the sands are not piling up on them it is certainly blowing around a lot and they - especially the convoluted little heads - need lots of running water to prevent gritty food. 

After washing I'll trim the bottom ends just enough to remove where the skin is a bit tough. If the skin seems to be tough up more than an inch I will sometimes peel the bases. I'll then wash the spears one more time.

Next I heat a little butter in a sauté pan over medium-high heat.  When it is hot I put in the spears (trying to keep them all oriented the same direction for ease of cooking and subsequent serving) and give them a good sprinkle of salt and pepper.  Shake the pan fairly frequently to make sure that all the the individual spears get even pan-contact time.  If there is a lot of disparity in spear sizes - not an unusual occurrence for home harvests, I may withhold the smaller ones and add them part way through cooking the larger spears.

Cooking only takes a few minutes and I like them best if a few get a tiny bit of pan browning started.  Avoid too much browning or risk them tasting bitter.

Pan-Roasted Asparagus

This is one of the easiest, fastest and best vegetables there is, made especially good with freshly home-harvested spears. I could eat pan-roast asparagus at every meal, year 'round but the season is short so I'll just enjoy it while I can. 

Mac & Cheese

I have a confession to make. I have a few blue boxes of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese in my pantry, and worse... there used to be more of them. 

Yes, it's true.  Despite the fact that we grow almost all our own food right here on the Ranch -  from vegetables to beef, pork, chicken, duck etc; despite the fact that we are a certified goat cheese dairy, and make our own cheddar, Gouda, jack, Swiss, Havarti  etc cheeses; and despite the fact that I am a highly-trained and experienced former professional chef... Kathryn and I do, every great once in a while, make and eat boxed macaroni and cheese.

In our defense, it's always some sort of "special situation" that warrants breaking out a blue box.  It's usually one of those days when I'm working on a project that I can't get away from all morning that drags on way past lunch time and there's nothing in the fridge that Kathryn can easily heat up.  Barn cleaning day is a classic mac & cheese day as I'm stuck on the tractor all day.  K gets out the blue box and  whips out lunch (usually with the addition of some of our homemade smoked sausages) and calls me in for a quick break when it's ready.

Personally, I've attempted to make blue box mac and cheese just once.  It was about 4 years ago, and it was a total disaster.  I missed the part of the directions where you add the milk and stirred the dry powder directly into the cooked macaroni.  Oh-Lordy what a mess!  The whole thing seized up in about 10 seconds to the point I thought I was going to have to throw it all away - pot, spoon and all.  Completely inedible.  Since then mac-in-a-box duties have fallen solely to Kathryn. 

What can I say?  It's not a very good product, but at least it's a lot faster and easier than from scratch.

Or is it?

A few days ago I made a big batch of Baked Macaroni and Cheese and knocked it out in such short order (while doing a whole bunch of other things at the same time including helping birth-out a couple of goat babies) that I've come to the conclusion that the real deal is just as good a deal to make.

To start with, my recipe is drop-dead simple:

                         B M R Baked Mac & Cheese

Yield:   1, 4" Hotel Pan

Ingredients

2 Pounds  Elbow Macaroni

1 Gallon  Milk

4  Pounds  Cheese Blend , Shredded (see note)

Seasonings To Taste:  Granulated Garlic, Granulated Onion, Salt

As Needed:  Blond Roux (see note)

3 Pounds  Seasoned Fresh Bread Crumbs (see note)

Method

1. Boil the macaroni in plenty water until very tender.  Drain well.

2. Combine the milk and shredded cheese and heat on medium, stirring regularly to avoid sticking, until very hot and cheese is melted

3. Season to taste with garlic, onion and salt

4. Add the roux and bring to a simmer, stir almost constantly until thick, adding more roux as necessary .  Cook on very low heat for a few minutes.

5. Toss the macaroni in the sauce and pour into a lightly greased 4" hotel pan

6. Top with seasoned crumbs and bake, uncovered at 350F (325F convection oven) for about 45 minutes until bubbly all over and crumbs have browned nicely.

NOTES :

1.  Cheese blend: cheddar, jack, havarti, and/or gouda etc your choice.

2.  Blond Roux: equal parts by weight butter and flour, cooked over very low heat for 10-15 minutes without browning at all.  Rule of thumb: add cold (room temperature) roux to hot liquids or hot roux to cold liquids. Do ahead.  Always keep some on-hand.

3.   Seasoned Fresh Bread Crumbs: Fresh bread pulsed in a food processor with salt, pepper, granulated garlic, granulated onion, parsley and a little olive oil to a medium-fine crumb. Can be done ahead.  Can be frozen for future uses.

Of course, my elbow macs didn't take any longer to cook than the ones that come in the blue boxes nor were they any more difficult so that's a wash.

I always keep a container of roux at-the-ready so the sauce only took about 15 minutes:  While the pasta was cooking I started heating the milk.  While the milk heated I grated the cheese (took about 2 minutes to cut into chunks and chip fine in the food processor) then added it to the milk.

Once the cheese was out of the food processor bowl it was only another couple of minutes to make the fresh bread crumbs in the same bowl - no need to wash between. 

By that point the sauce was ready for thickening. 

While the sauce simmered I drained the elbows.  When the sauce was ready I tossed in the elbows.

At this point you have something akin to the boxed product (but infinitely better) in about 20 minutes - but I wanted Baked Mac & Cheese.

I poured the macaroni and cheese sauce into the hotel pan, topped it with the crumbs and put the pan into the pre-heated oven.  About 45 minutes later it was perfectly done.  Time to eat.

This was some real top-notch Mac & Cheese and it wasn't a whole lot more time or work than from the box.  And an added bonus... this recipe makes a LOT!  Even after a couple of meals featuring Baked Mac & Cheese, I was able to freeze 8, 2-person portions so future meals are as easy as popping them into the microwave or oven to heat.  Faster AND easier (and way better) than the blue box stuff!

Bagels

We don't have breakfast around here very often.  Mornings are always full and often hectic with the morning chores, feeding all the animals, milking the goats - which leads right into the day's cheese-making activities etc.  By the time we've stopped to catch our breath, it's 10am - too close to lunch time for a meal.

Some days, we know lunch is going to be very late (order processing days are infamously so) so we'll try to grab a little something in the morning to tide us over.  Maybe a piece of fruit or a muffin, but our go-to breakfast of choice is a toasted bagel with freshly made goat cheese, just out of the draining bags.

For the longest time we struggled with finding a good source for bagels. We're 100 miles form the nearest bagel bakery (not that Arizona is exactly well known for the quality of it's bagels to start with!) and the grocery store bagels we'd tried were insipid imitations at best.  "Bagel-shaped bread" Kathryn called it.

There is one little bagel shop in Tucson we'd discovered when we lived there that could make a really good bagel (depending on who was baking that morning).  In the years since we moved to The Ranch I'd make it a point whenever I was in town to pick up a couple of dozen to carefully bag and freeze upon getting home.  We'd dole out those bagels like they were solid gold.

As our time up here went on, I found my need for trips to Tucson getting fewer and farther between.  What had, at one point, been trips down about every other month became 2 or 3 times a year.  Now I get down there maybe once a year.  We needed a new bagel source.

The obvious solution was to make them ourselves.  I'd been baking for 35 years but, for some reason, had never attempted bagels.  I guess they seemed too complicated and specialized to be able to do a good job of on a small-scale/home basis. I knew there were several cooking steps and had read a couple of recipes that called for things like "Non-diastatic Malt Powder", whatever that was.

Whatever my phobia/excuse/aversion, it was time to "man-up" and learn to make bagels.  I read everything I could find about the process and while there were plenty of "easy", or "one-step" types of recipes out there, the more I looked into it, the more I became convinced that there were no good short cuts, cutting corners or substitutions that didn't, in some way, act to the detriment of the final product. 

If I was going to do this I was going to do it right so I took several well respected and authentic formulas (some for practically industrial quantities) and made a melange of their similarities and differences and came up with a solid, scaled-to-home-use base, from which to start. I also ordered some of that mysterious Non-diastatic Malt Powder online.  By the time it arrived, I was ready to give it a shot.

Let's just say the first batch was a "learning experience".  It's not that they were inedible, or anything, but they needed a lot of help.  For one thing, I didn't realize how much they would grow through the boiling and baking processes.  Called "oven spring", the rapid expansion of the dough when it meets high heat is a combination of the yeast's gas-producing effect briefly increasing and the expansion of the dough as some of it's moisture turns to steam.  Anyway, I didn't account enough of it and my first bagels ended up without any holes at all and were more like large rolls.  On the up-side, the flavor was excellent, the texture was dense and chewy and the crust was shiny and crisp.  In short, a pretty good bagel (if you didn't look at it).

A couple of tweaks to the recipe and some re-thinking about how I was forming the dough and I was ready for another shot.  They came out MUCH improved in form and just as good otherwise. I made some notes for a few small changes.

Subsequent batches went easier and easier.  I optimized my set-up so it took less space, time and clean-up.  I converted the mish-mash volume/weight/measure/English/metric ingredient list to primarily metric weight to ensure best possible future repeatability (something I've been working towards on most of my recipes for years).

Anyway, this morning I made bagels.  "Everything bagels" are our favorites and so that's the type I made this time.  The process was smooth and fluid and while, sure, bagels have a few more steps than a loaf of white  bread, it's hard to remember what all the drama was about in finally making my first ones.

Here's my recipe and some process pictures...

BMR "Everything" Bagels

Yield: 12 Bagels

Ingredients

12 Grams Dry Yeast

70 Grams Non-diastatic Malt Powder

24 Grams Sugar

1 pint Warm Water

720 Grams Bread Flour

16 Grams Salt

As Needed (about 300 grams total) Topping: Your choice combination of: Sea Salt, Poppy Seeds, Sesame Seeds, Onion, Garlic, Caraway, Etc.

For Water Bath

3 Quarts Water

50 Grams Non-diastatic Malt Powder

24 Grams Sugar

Method

1. Combine the yeast, malt and sugar in a mixer bowl

2. Add the warm water, mix, and let the yeast proof for a few minutes.

3. Add the flour and the salt then knead the dough till smooth.

4. Shape the dough into a ball place it in a lightly greased bowl covered with lightly greased plastic wrap, and allow it to rise till doubled in bulk, 1 to 1-1/2 hours.

5. When the dough has risen, release the air and transfer it to a clean work surface.

6. Put the water into a 4-5" deep pot about 10" in diameter -- the water should be about 3 inches deep -- and add the malt and sugar. Bring the water mix to a boil while shaping the bagels.

7. Scale the dough at about 3.5 oz (100 grams, .22 lb) which should make about 12 pieces. Roll the prices into balls.

8. Working with one piece of dough at a time, shape it into a ball, poke a hole through the center with your index finger, and twirl; the dough will form a ring.

9. As you get 3 or 4 bagels ready, boil them immediately for chewiest bagels, or let them rise a bit (see notes). Keep the water bath at a simmer. Don't crowd the bagels in the water. Simmer them for about 30 seconds on each side, then drain briefly.

10. While still hot and moist, dip the bagels top and bottoms, in topping mix, then move them to a parchment-lined sheetpan, liberally sprinkled with corn meal.

  

11. Bake the bagels in a preheated 425°F oven for about 20 minutes, or until they are a deep golden brown.

NOTES :

Second rise or not?

Boiling the bagels immediately after shaping will produce chewy, dense bagels. Letting the bagels rest and rise for 30 minutes or so after shaping, will yield a lighter, puffier bagel. Be advised that rising the bagels before boiling will make them more fragile and more difficult to handle (they will want to deflate in the water bath).

What's with the "Non-diastatic Malt Powder"?

Malt Powder improves the flavor of the bagels and, more importantly, when used in the water bath it gives them a shiny crust. Non-diastatic malt powder is made from sprouted barley kernels which have been roasted (to intensify their natural sweetness), ground, filtered in water (to remove husks and bran), then dehydrated. The resulting powder, has a characteristic sweet caramel taste and aroma. Regular (diastatic) malt retains enzymes which gives yeast a boost - a desirable characteristic in some applications, but not for bagels. Non-Diastatic Malt is much more stable here. Too much Diastatic Malt might cause the bagels to collapse or even start breaking a part in the simmering water.