The Great Chef

Last week, the Yale Traditional Chinese Painting Group decided to arrange a "cooking together" day. It was a wonderful opportunity for exchange recipes, bonding, and experience real Oriental flavors. I spend some time thinking about what could fairly represent Portuguese cuisine without presenting to my fellow (hope to be) painters a great challenge, flavor-wise. After some suggestions from friends and my husband, I decided that Portuguese kale soup it would be the perfect choice. At the end, it did reveal to be as such since everyone loved the soup so much that most of us had a second bowl! Here is the recipe for 4 to  6 servings. In a pot, bring 2 quarts (2 liters) of water to the boil. While the water is heating, peel 2 pounds of boiling potatoes and cut them in even medium size cubes (the small you cut the potatoes the fastest they will cook. Just make sure all cubes are around the same size so they cook evenly and at the same time). When the water starts boiling, add 1 t...

Among all nuts almonds stand, for me, as the most elegant and versatile. You can use them in a variety of ways, from savory dishes to decadent desserts without forgetting the milk, the perfect substitution for diary milk. In Portuguese cuisine, almonds are used mostly on desserts with the great majority of the recipes coming from the convents to us, along the centuries. One of the singular characteristics of the conventual desserts is the almost unbelievable quantity of eggs used. Portuguese conventual pastry was almost like a side effect of the excess of eggs produced within the boundaries of the convents. The result is a span of rich, creamy and gooey sweets that will embrace you in a wrap of sweet happiness.  The almond tart - one of the ex libris  of portuguese conventual pastry - is no exception. The other side of the coin shows that some people do not feel that much happy specially about the gooey part of the embrace. One of my friends is among those particular beings an...

If you are one of those special beings who can understand the greatness of eggs then we have something in common. I have probably said this before but I love eggs. They are one of my favorite ingredients by its versatility, nutritional goodness and delicate flavor. On many occasions, they can represent a fast meal. Not in this case, though. If you are reading this looking for a 10 minute recipe you can pass to the next link on your web search. All perfect things take time to accomplish and these scramble eggs are no different. The technique used is French (what else, right?) and it consists in cooking the eggs really slowly. That way they will remain creamy and soft, almost like a paste. For two people, beat four eggs, 2 tablespoons of milk (or water), a pinch of salt and white pepper. In a sauce pan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter over moderate heat. When the butter is melted, add the eggs and start stirring with a rubber spatula. Keep stirring. For the next couple of minutes nothing wi...

Do you know the feeling of trying to organize the freezer and start finding containers with unknown content? If that never happen to you it is probably because you are not as compulsive as me regarding food waisting. My fridge and freezer tend to turn into a "leftovers refugee camp" more often than desirable. And if that might mean that my creativity has to be active, it also means that sometimes I ran out of space to store everything else. At that point, I land on planet earth and eat what is eatable, discard what I should not have saved in the first place and, finally, can have my freezer/fridge organized the way I like. Yesterday was one of those "land on Earth" days. I open the freezer to figure out what I was going to cook for dinner and I started to notice a significant number of containers, some with their content identified, other completely anonymous. My eyes landed on one, next to a package of whiting fillets, that said "scallops stock".  I had m...