Sorry, Buddy, but I got plans for you!

It's finally Fall in Austin, Texas, USA. Which means that it's only 89 degrees outside instead of 95. It's also looking like rain. I say looking like because there are dark clouds in the sky, though it might be a trick. After a few years of EXTRAORDINARY drought, most of us have forgotten what rain looks like, and given the idiocy I saw on Lamar Boulevard when we finally got a few inches last week, I'd say that the average Austinite has forgotten how to drive in it as well. If they ever did.

[UPDATE: It's pouring down rain right now. I hope that rye grass seed I put down in the backyard doesn't wash away]

Since it's October (almost) and I'm feeling all autumnal even though I probably ought to put on sunscreen most days around here, I've got quite a hankering for long-simmering stews and such. A big fave of mine has always been Chicken And Dumplings. It's capitalized because it deserves to be. Also, if you happen to live in South Austin, where we Keep It Wierd with pride, it's a good way to get rid of that rooster the neighbors have been keeping in their misguided attempt to become Urban Farmers. You'll eat well and get to sleep longer in one fell swoop.

If you don't want to wait around all day for this Font of All Deliciousness to cook on the stove, the first thing you gotta do is get yourself a pressure cooker. Like this baby:

The one reason not to hate Emeril Legasse

I bought it for my lovely wife, Chef Leslie, to use in her catering business. Up late one night watching television, it was on HSN. I'd probably already taken my sleeping pill, so it counts as an Ambien-induced Shopping Experience (ASE). Remind me to write y'all about how I got our Dyson vacuum cleaner sometime.

The pressure cooker I got is branded by Emeril Legasse, the Most Obnoxious Man in New Orleans, but don't hold that against it. It ended up becoming my favorite kitchen tool. You don't have to heat up the kitchen. You don't have to wait hours. It does a great job on things like making chicken, beef, or veggie stock, cooking Sunday Sauce and meatballs, making a really good boeuf bourguignon and boiling chicken till it's falling off the bone in like fifteen minutes. Got kids and a job? It'll make cooking a real meal much easier, and you don't have to come home to the mush that slow cookers make out of everything that's not chili.

Now that I'm on Lipitor, I can profess my undying devotion to you, dear Paula.

The recipe I use, which I adapted from my homegirl, Miss Paula Deen, is if you'll excuse my New English, Wicked Awesome.  I feel a little conflicted about this because I learned a lot about cooking from my other homegirl, that Paragon of Southern Womanhood and Le Cordon Bleu grad, Nathalie Dupree, but she's not on the teevee around here anymore, which is a danged shame.

Nathalie Dupree, Godmother of New Southern Cooking

You never get over your first love.  Miss Dupree won my heart when I was a fat teenager camped out in the livingroom on hot summer days instead of playing football like all the other Texan boys. Her show on PBS was just wonderful. Later, I learned that she ran a write-in campaign against the premier jackass of all Washington, Senator Jim DeMint, saying that she wanted to "cook his goose." This was before DeMint endorsed Todd Akin, who infamously lectured the American public on legitimate rape and how women's bodies can "shut down" a pregnancy caused by one. Nathalie was just carrying on her long-standing policy of being ahead of her time. Plus, she taught me how not to overcook shrimp (see The Roux Goes On Forever, And The Gumbo Never Ends.)

CHICKEN AND DUMPLINGS

Chicken:

• 2.5-3 lbs chicken legs and thighs
• 3 ribs celery, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 head garlic, cut in half latitudinally
• 3 quarts water or stock to cover
• salt, pepper to taste

Roux:

3 tbs butter

3 tbs flour

Dumplings:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Ice water

Directions

To start the chicken: Place the chicken, celery, onion, carrot, bay leaves, garlic and stock or water in the pressure cooker. Cook under high pressure for 15 minutes. Remove the chicken from the cooker and, when it is cool enough to handle, remove the skin and separate the meat from the bones. Skim the fat from the stock. 

Make the roux in a sauce pan: melt butter until it stops foaming, then add flour and whisk for a four or five minutes. Ladle stock into the roux while whisking, and add this mixture to the remaining soup and stir.

Return the chicken meat to the cooker. Set the cooker to simmer and put the cover on loosely until it bubbles.

To prepare the dumplings: Mix the flour with the salt and mound together in a mixing bowl. Beginning at the center of the mound, drizzle a small amount of ice water over the flour. Using your fingers, and moving from the center to the sides of the bowl, gradually incorporate about 3/4 cup of ice water. Knead the dough and form it into ball.

Dust a good amount of flour onto a clean work surface. Roll out the dough (it will be firm), working from center to 1/8-inch thick. Let the dough relax for several minutes.

Cut the dough into 1-inch pieces. Pull a piece in half and drop the halves into the simmering soup. Repeat. Do not stir the chicken once the dumplings have been added. Poke at the dumplings with a chopstick or a skewer to turn them over so they cook evenly. Cook until the dumplings float and are no longer doughy, 3 to 4 minutes. OR, cook under the low pressure setting for five minutes. They'll be wonderful either way.

Giambott, or Noni's So Good for You Veggie Stew

I could say that I grew these myself, but you all know better!

Giambotta, or Noni's So Good for You Veggie Stew

I really love summer in New England (in Texas, not so much, but that's another post.) When I was a small boy, I was fortunate enough to spend a lot of my summers hanging around my Italian mother's family. They all lived in a compound of three homes on my great-grandfather's several-acre place in what was then a rural part Worcester, MA-- on a low green  mountain right by Lake Quinsigamond. My Noni, or great-grandmother, Antoinette was a fantastic cook, and I definitely got my love of cooking from pestering her in her kitchen all summer.

She and the rest of the family were also very talented gardeners--100% organic, as a matter of fact. Peppers, tomatoes of all kinds, zucchini and yellow squash, broccoli rape, green onions, white onions, garlic, sweet corn, potatoes, turnips, lettuces, radishes, carrots, basil, parsley and other herbs. There were pear, apple, mulberry and cherry trees, wild raspberry and blackberry runners, and several treasured gooseberry bushes--which were a particular favorite of mine. I loved how the berries would turn from sour green to sweet red when they were ripe and would pop them in my mouth every chance I got. I usually tried to get my sister and younger cousins to eat the green ones--still paying that bad karma back, BTW.

There were three big vegetable gardens, a flower garden, and a grapevine-covered patio with a brick fireplace at one end and a marble-topped table big enough for everyone to sit together and eat underneath. Everyone weeded and watered the plants in the evenings, and then the whole family would gather out there after dinner, drinking coffee and sharing pastries, telling stories and enjoying each other's company, usually with a fire going. The fireflies would light up around dusk and we kids would chase them around, trying to catch them in jars. It was pure magic.

My Uncle Angelo, who had an impressive girth, wore a fedora, and talked a lot like one of the guys in Goodfellas. His trademark were these little twisted cigars called Parodis (or Guinee Stinks, according to my not-very-PC Irish dad) and he was famous for two things: his Fourth of July fireworks, which involved actual dynamite, and his numerous and mammoth zucchinis. Like baseball bat sized zucchini. So big there's no way you can eat it all. So big it's a challenge to figure out what to do with the whole damn thing. Fortunately, my Auntie Theresa, Antoinette, my great-grandmother, and Grace, my grandmother were outstanding cooks. But even they rolled their eyes when he pulled yet another one out of the garden.

People in Texas would understand the dilemma--during hunting season freezers from El Paso to Beaumont runneth over with venison, nilgai, wild boar and all sorts of very tasty meat that even Dr. Atkins would get sick of if he had to eat it every day. Imagine having to eat zucchini every day for three months and you see the point.

One of my least favorite of their dishes when I was a kid was giambotta. Pronounced "shambort" in Noni's Bari dialect, it was a meatless stew made up of all those veggies I mentioned earlier, and I hated it. They said it was "good for you," and that was practically the kiss of death to an eight year old. My mother would make it sometimes and I always felt like I was being punished for something I didn't do when she made me eat it.

As an adult I've come to love this dish, and its health benefits can't be denied. Unless you put a ton of grated pecorino or Parmesan on top right before serving and eat it with a big hunk of crusty, butter-slathered bread, which I always do. But you're eating zucchini, so fuggedaboutit.

Giambotta

3 tsb good olive oil
1 medium onion, fine dice
2 cloves of garlic, smashed
2-3 medium sized zucchini, medium dice
2-3 medium sized yellow summer squash, medium dice
1 bell pepper, large dice
4 plum tomatoes, medium dice
1 stalk celery, medium dice
1 carrot, medium dice
1 cup garbanzo beans, cooked and drained
1 large potato, diced
1-1/2 quarts vegetable or chicken stock
a handful of chopped parsley, basil or whatever herbs you have handy
salt and fresh ground pepper
(Option: a tbs of tomato paste if you want a thicker broth, added ten minutes before finishing)


Sweat the onions and garlic for ten minutes in the olive oil in a large enameled pot. When translucent (no color on them,) add the potatoes, pepper, carrot and celery and raise heat to medium. Cook for another ten minutes before adding the remaining ingredients. Bring to a simmer for 20-25 minutes, or until potatoes are cooked through.  Finish with a drizzle of good olive oil and lots and lots of grated cheese.

Note--I added that garbanzo beans for the protein, and you can use whatever vegetables you have an abundance of. Like most homestyle Italian dishes, it's all about using what you've got.