Be My Valentine

My husband and I have a grand Valentine’s Day tradition that sprang up a few years ago in response to overcrowded restaurants and jacked-up menu prices on the big day of love. We cook at home. Together. We plan the menu, shop for the ingredients and heat up the kitchen, just the two of us. We’ve cooked rib-eyes and Cornish hens weighed down with a foil-wrapped brick. We had our first risotto on Valentine’s Day. Once we did potato nests with shrimp. We’ve made crab cakes. We try out extravagant desserts like Molten Chocolate Cake and Mocha Ricotta Cream.

Coming up with this year’s menu went something like this:

Me: “What do you want to cook for Valentine’s Day this year?”
Him: “Pork chops.”
Me: “That sounds good. How should we fix them?”
Him: “Let’s stuff them with something. How about crab meat?”
Me: “Mmmm. What else should we have?”
Him: “Potatoes au gratin, grilled asparagus, and chocolate bread pudding.”
Me: “Done, done, and done.”

And now my secret is out. I am useless coming up with ideas. I like to think I can, however, execute to perfection.

These pork chops, for instance, are succulent and juicy. The crab meat with its sautéed aromatics adds a nice touch of the sea, and the port reduction sends them over the top. Feel free to use jumbo lump crab if you have extra money to blow; I found the claw meat, at a third the price per pound, more than satisfactory.

Crab-Stuffed Pork Chops with Port Reduction for Two
2 1½- to 2-inch-thick bone-in pork chops
brining solution made from ¼ cup kosher salt dissolved in 2 cups of water
1 tablespoon butter
¼ cup finely diced celery
2 tablespoons grated onion
1 clove garlic, minced
4 ounces crab meat
2 tablespoons beaten egg
1 tablespoon whole-grain mustard
1 teaspoon kosher salt
freshly-ground black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 teaspoon butter
additional kosher salt and freshly-ground black pepper
1 shallot, diced
¾ cup port
¾ cup low-sodium beef broth

Place the pork chops in the brining solution. Cover and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours. Remove and dry thoroughly. Discard brine.

Preheat oven to 325˚.

Pick over the crab meat, removing any bits of shell. Place the crab meat in a medium bowl.

Melt the butter over medium heat in a small heavy skillet. As soon as the foaming subsides, add the celery, onion and garlic and sauté until softened, but not browned.

Add the sautéed vegetables, egg, mustard, salt, pepper and cilantro to the bowl of crab meat. Stir gently but thoroughly and set aside.

Cut a pocket in each chop about 2 inches wide and deep starting from the side opposite the bone. Do not cut all the way to the bone. Lightly stuff 2 to 3 tablespoons of the crab mixture into each pocket, reserving 2 heaping tablespoons. Refrigerate remaining crab mixture.

In a large, heavy, oven-proof skillet, heat the canola oil and butter over medium heat until foaming subsides. Season chops with salt and pepper. Cook chops on one side until browned, about 2 minutes. Turn carefully so that crab stuffing does not fall out.

Insert a meat thermometer into one chop, preferably into a portion of the chop that has not been cut, and not touching the bone. Transfer the skillet to the oven and cook until the thermometer registers 155˚, about 10 to 15 minutes. Remove chops from skillet and place on a warm platter. Cover with aluminum foil and let rest until temperature reaches 160˚, about 10 minutes.

Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of fat from the skillet. Heat skillet over medium heat until fat is hot. Cook reserved crab mixture until it is heated through. Transfer to a small bowl.

In the same skillet, cook the diced shallot until tender, 3 to 4 minutes. Pour in the port and bring to a boil, stirring and scraping the browned bits from the bottom, until port is reduced by half, about 4 minutes. Pour in beef broth and bring to a boil. Cook until liquid is reduced by half, stirring occasionally.

To serve, plate each chop and mound a heaping tablespoon of hot crab mixture on top. Spoon a bit of the sauce over and around the chop.

The chocolate bread pudding was truly a delight, and comes to you courtesy of The Gourmet Cookbook. I left the crust on the bread and was very happy with the result—a pudding that was chewy in spots and soft in others. Using Ghiradelli 86% chocolate in place of the lower quality unsweetened chocolate available in my grocery store gave me a custard that was rich and balanced. The accompanying cherry sauce is our own invention, inspired as we were standing in the grocery store aisles.

Chocolate Bread Pudding
from The Gourmet Cookbook
4 cups cubed (3/4-inch) day-old Italian bread
½ stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped
2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
Accompaniment: whipped cream

Toss bread with butter in a large bowl.

Put chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Bring milk and cream to a simmer in a 2-quart heavy saucepan and pour over chocolate. Let stand for 2 minutes, then whisk until smooth. Add eggs, sugar, vanilla, and salt and whisk until well combined. Pour custard over bread. Cover pudding loosely with plastic wrap, then place a smaller bowl or plate on top and weight with a heavy can. Let pudding stand for 1 hour so bread absorbs custard.

Put a rack in middle of oven and preheat oven to 350 F. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan.

Transfer pudding to pan. Bake until just set but center still trembles slightly, 40 to 45 minutes; do not overbake (custard will continue to set as it cools). Serve warm or at room temperature, with whipped cream [and cherry sauce; recipe below].

Sweet Cherry Sauce
12 ounces frozen dark sweet cherries, thawed
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon honey
1/8 teaspoon chipotle powder

Puree all ingredients in a blender. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve.

If You’re Snowed In, This One’s for You

Chili is one of those dishes. You know the kind I’m talking about. Chili is the thing you crave when it’s been snowing, and it’s cold, and the wind knifes through your coat on your way home from work or the store. It’s the dish you make on a cold, dreary Saturday with everyone trapped in the house because it’s cloudy and freezing and precipitous outside. On a day like that, you need a big pot of chili. You make it, and it’s delicious. It’s so good you eat some more the next day. It’s even better. On the third day, tired from work, you have another bowlful. By the fourth day, you’re royally sick of chili and want something like fried chicken. You put away the big chili pot and swear you’ll never crave it again.

But along comes another cold front, another snowstorm, God forbid another blizzard, and you start to long for the warmth of a big bowl of chili. That’s the kind of dish chili is.

When that urge strikes, this is the chili you want. It has big chunks of beef, not the ground stuff that disappears underneath the kidney beans. Mind you, this chili has kidney beans, and tomatoes, and all the flavors you look for in chili, plus a few surprises. One of those surprises is chicken. I love how the smokiness of the chipotle infuses the chicken. The chipotle is another surprise. Here I use it in two ways—chopped in its adobo sauce, and powdered. Coriander, cumin, chili powder, and red pepper flakes round out the heat. And don’t be shy about the cinnamon. It’s probably not the most orthodox of ingredients for a savory dish, but this is food we're talking about, not religion, so go ahead and throw it in. It’s the thing that brings all the flavors together.

Sometimes when I cook chili, I add a few handfuls of elbow macaroni at the end of cooking, just to give more body to what is essentially a stew. Feel free to do the same.

All you need to go with this meal is a big spoon. A pan of cornbread wouldn’t hurt, either. For all you folks snowed in, you have my sympathy, and now you have my chili recipe. Hang in there, spring’s coming. Make this chili before it does.

Smoky Beef and Chicken Chili
2 pounds beef for stew
4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into 1- to 2-inch cubes
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons canola oil, plus more as needed
1 large onion, diced
1 large sweet green bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 stalk of celery, with leaves, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons finely chopped chipotle in adobo
3 15-ounce cans diced tomatoes, drained, liquid reserved
2 16-ounce cans light red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
about 2 cups beef broth
1 tablespoon chipotle powder
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon ground coriander
2 teaspoons chili powder
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
½ teaspoon dried thyme
½ of a stick of cinnamon
toppings: shredded cheddar cheese, sour cream, thinly sliced scallions

Pat the beef and chicken dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat the canola oil in a large heavy Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Brown the beef in batches, then the chicken, and remove to a bowl with a slotted spoon. Add more oil as necessary. Reduce the heat to medium. Cook the onion, bell pepper, and celery in hot oil until softened, but not browned. Add the garlic and chopped chipotle in adobo and cook another 30 seconds. Stir in the tomatoes and kidney beans and cook until tomatoes start to break apart a little, about 3 minutes.

Meanwhile, pour the reserved tomato juice into a measuring cup and add beef broth to equal 3 cups. Pour the liquid over the vegetables and beans in the pot. Add the chipotle powder, cumin, ground coriander, chili powder, red pepper flakes, and dried thyme. Stir well to combine. Drop in ½ stick of cinnamon. Return beef and chicken to the pot, along with any juices accumulated in the bowl. Bring just to a boil, cover, reduce the heat, and simmer 2 to 3 hours, or until the beef is tender, stirring occasionally. Remove the cinnamon stick before serving.

Serve with a sprinkle of cheddar cheese, a dollop of sour cream, and a few sliced scallions scattered on top.

Tinkering with Tools and Toys

Let’s talk about kitchen utensils. I took a shopping trip recently to spend a hardware store gift card that I’d been given for Christmas. Of course I spent the whole thing on gadgets.

You’ve probably got your favorite gadget you couldn’t do without, and you’ve probably got something in a kitchen drawer or cabinet that you haven’t used in years. I do, too. Funny thing is, the chances are pretty good that what I can’t do without you’d consider junk. But the reverse is likely true, as well.

So the beauty of a gadget is definitely in the eye of the beholder. Or in the hand of the user. Or on the user’s countertop. Here are some gadgets I consider very beautiful.

Like these cutting boards, for example. Now that I have enough to have separate surfaces for slicing apples and chopping onions, our apple crisp will not also have a faint flavor of raw onion.

This knife sharpener is pretty handy, too. I’m not sure how I’ve survived so long without it. I have a very nice set of Victorinox Fibrox knives which my husband gave me a Christmas or two ago (the best knives I’ve ever used), and though I’ve been using a steel and a cutlery stone, nothing honed these knives like the Wüsthof sharpener.

One of the things I’m most excited about is my new utensil crock. An admission here: I’ve never been a big fan of countertop utensil crocks. To me they seemed more decorative than useful and in a kitchen like mine, where every square and cubic inch is allotted, I never thought I could have much space for decoration. But after destroying one large whisk by cramming it into a drawer with other assorted utensils, I realized I needed to store my new one up and out of harm’s way.

Decorative, yes. But since it sits right near both stove and cutting board, it’s useful, too.

Finally, check out this little bit of tin.

I am so tickled by this doodad designed to keep butcher’s twine clean and unsnarled. I don’t use kitchen string all that much, but I never seem to have any left when I do need it. And for some things, there just are no substitutions. Believe me. I’ve tried paper-coated wire ties and they make a lousy stand-in for twine. Armed with a clean supply standing by, however, I might just tackle something ambitious like boned and stuffed duck. All I need now is a trussing needle.

A big thank you goes to my husband and my mother-in-law who provided the ways and means for the shopping excursion. I can’t leave out my children who lent their uncanny buying advice and were sorely disappointed that I didn’t get the apron that said “One Hot Mama.”