Smooth Cauliflower Soup

I love cauliflower. It's a vegetable that looks like the bland cousin of broccoli and is often a second thought when thinking of what vegetable to make. What people miss when overlooking this species of brassica oleracea (same family as broccoli, kale, brussel sprouts, and collard greens) is a rich and smooth vegetable that is great roasted, fried, steamed, or in this case, included as the main part of a soup. In this recipe, I found a way to turn this white, floral looking veggie into a smooth and creamy soup that is simple, basic, and delicious. The dish only has 3 main components and takes less than an hour to prepare. I recommend this for those looking for a healthy soup that is big on flavor and simple to prepare.

My Return to Ty's Kitchen! Shrimp, Scallop, and Leek Chowder

I'm back! After a far too long hiatus and a less than inspired year at Ty's Kitchen, I've returned to make the blog better than ever. New recipes, ideas and hopefully a lot more interaction with YOU, my readers! To kick off the year, I wanted to share a delicious and easy recipe for a seafood chowder that would be good any time of the year. I had frozen some scallops and shrimp from Cape May that I picked up a couple months back and was looking for a fun way to use them. I decided on making a scallop, shrimp and leek chowder that would remind me of summer in the cold months and also provide a rich and warming dish for a cold winter's night.

Creamy Tomato Soup

I remember when I was at sleep away camp, way back in the day, and when the lunch bugle sounded (yes, we had bugle calls for wake up, meals, activities, and taps for bedtime) we would all go running, hoping it was grilled cheese and tomato soup day. The soup we ate was probably Campbell's tomato soup or something like it, but it was delicious and we loved it every time it was on the menu. For a dinner party recently, I wanted to concoct a refined version of tomato soup for the starter course. I went with a roasted tomato and garlic soup with parmesan croutons. I wanted the soup to be creamy and rich, and the croutons to bring back the memories of the classic grilled cheese accompaniment, an elegant take on a lunchtime classic.

Soup and Sandwich? Make it yourself!

Sometimes a simple soup and sandwich is all you want on a Sunday night. While the easy solution would be ordering in or picking the meal up from the store, there is a really easy way to make this meal for yourself so you'll have leftovers for the week and feel like you've actually done something productive with your Sunday. This is an extremely healthy and tasty meal that won't take more than 30 minutes to prep and cook. The soup I decided to make was a potato, carrot, and leek soup, and the sandwich was mushroom, spinach, pepper, and onion with boursin cheese.

An Ode to Autumn at the Beach

The flavors of Fall are warm, rich, and crisp. This past weekend, I went down to Cape May to relax with my girlfriend, and I made a dish that celebrated both autumnal and beach side ingredients. I chose scallops over butternut squash soup with a crisp apple slaw. The warmth of the squash blended perfectly with the caramelized scallops, and the apple brought a bright flavor to cut into the rich soup and shellfish.

Hurricane Chili

As New York awaited the arrival of Hurricane Irene, weary and anxious for the unknown fury of mother nature, I made chili. I had competed in a chili competition in the Spring, and figured a day stuck inside will all stores closed would be an excellent opportunity to tweak my recipe a bit.

Impressing My Girlfriend's Friends

I heard from my girlfriend that one of her co-workers was a fan of the blog and wanted to get a meal cooked by Tyler. One of my goals is to create an in-home cooking class company, so I figured this would be a great way to showcase my talent to people who have been impressed by my food. Unfortunately, the meal was taking place in the dead of summer when my kitchen is about 100 degrees, so I wanted to start with a simple, cold cucumber soup. I pureed seedless cucumbers (though could have used normal cukes and just removed the seeds) with water and mint leaves. I then added salt, pepper, honey, and cayenne pepper and let it cool in the fridge. When it came time to serve, I topped it with a dollop of Greek yogurt mixed with honey, some chopped mint, and a cucumber that I cut into a ribbon. The soup was light, crisp, and refreshing in the sweltering kitchen.

Father Son Cooking Class

This past weekend, my father went back to Trinity College to celebrate his 50th Reunion. Prior to the weekend, the alumni coordinator had inquired if he had any interest in giving a lecture or teaching a class about something he is passionate about. He enjoys cooking as much as I do, so he proposed a cooking class. Being that both of us went to Trinity, the class was a perfect opportunity for a father/son cooking combo.

The dish he decided to cook was a Mediterranean fish stew with an avocado and onion salad. He first learned of the stew when my sister ate it in Israel with rave reviews. He figured out how to make it using cod in place of a typically Mediterranean fish like Sea Bream.

Once we setup the kitchen for the class and the audience arrived, we began cooking the meal, talking our way through the dish step by step. To begin, we boiled water and made white rice to serve the stew over. While the rice was cooking, we chopped up 2 yellow onion and 8 cloves of garlic. We began the stew by sauteing onions with a little salt and pepper in a large pot. Once the onions were translucent, we added garlic, a teaspoon of saffron, and some crushed red pepper. Once the garlic was cooked through, we added 2 cans of whole peeled tomatoes (breaking them up with a spoon in the pot), and 2 containers of Kitchen Basics fish stock, and let it cook for about 15 minutes.

While the stew was cooking, we made our avocado and onion salad. We sliced up 6 avocados and 2 sweet vidalia onions, and then made a simple dijon vinaigrette using lemon juice, red wine vinegar, dijon, salt, and olive oil. We tossed the salad with the dressing and set aside.

Once the stew had cooked for a bit to expand the flavors, we added the cod (6lbs for 15 people), which we had cut into 2x2 pieces, and some chopped cilantro. The fish was cooked through in about 12 minutes, and we served the stew over the white rice alongside the salad.

The class went really well. The audience was very engaged and asked a lot of good questions, and they were impressed with the ease and efficiency of making the dish. My dad and I had a great time teaching, and we're hoping to do it again at another Trinity alumni event.

Tyler's Not Award Winning Chili

A couple weekends ago, I competed in a Texas alumni chili competition. The competition was open to all, and each team was required to provide 5 gallons of chili. If you’re not familiar with measurement amounts, 5 gallons is a massive amount of chili. Our team of 5 people was named “To Bean or Not To Bean” (we beaned). My job was to plan and execute the making chili, with my friend Andrew and my girlfriend Devon as my sous-chefs.

Wrapping my head around the sheer volume of ingredients needed for this amount of chili was one of the hardest parts of the preparation. I had never made that amount of anything before, so I had to do a bit of guessing in terms of what quantities to buy. My normal chili recipe feeds about 6 and is about 1-1.5 gallons, so I figured I could just quadruple that and be set for the competition. 

I picked up 20 lbs of meat (10 of a ground beef blend of chuck and sirloin and 10 of boneless short rib). I like using boneless short rib because it’s a very marbled cut that breaks down well when cooked for a long time. Chunks of short rib give chili a nice texture and a bit more heartiness than using only ground beef. In addition to the beef, I bought 3lbs of onions, 2 lbs of carrots, 2 celery hearts, 2 garlic cloves, 1 lb of jalapenos, 4 cans of diced tomatoes, 6 cans of kidney beans, 2 bars of 100% dark chocolate, brown sugar, 2 4oz cans of tomato paste, 2 16 fl oz boxes of chicken broth (I like Kitchen Basics, Pacific Organics, or Whole Foods brand – most other ones are too salty and have some artificial ingredients in them), and 2 bottles of Yuengling beer. In order to transport all of this, I had to bring my large rolling duffel bag to whole foods and pack everything nice and tight to I could get it home.

Once home, we started on the chili. Andrew diced the vegetables, while Devon cut the boneless short rib into small cubes. I made my special spice rub which consists of toasting and grinding whole peppercorns, cumin seed, mustard seed, and crushed red pepper, and mixing those with paprika, chili powder, cayenne, cinnamon, and salt. Once the spice mix was done, I mixed some of it in with the ground beef and began to brown all of the meet in a couple heavy bottom pots. Browning the meat gives it a nice caramelized flavor that you wouldn’t get if you just tossed it in the chili, and it cooks off a lot of the fat content, making the chili a little healthier and a little less greasy. I did reserve the fat for use while cooking, as it does have great flavor (I just didn’t want to use all of it).

Once I browned all of the meat, I started cooking the vegetables. Because I was making so much chili, I wanted to use 2 pots to cook so that it heated more evenly and I could better prevent burning at the bottom of the pot. I did my best to divide the ingredients proportionally between the two pots. I cooked the onion, celery, and carrot until translucent, and added the remaining spice mix, the peppers and garlic. Once all of the veggies were ready, I added the meat in, the tomato paste, the cans of tomatoes, the broth, and the beer. I also put in a couple bay leaves to give the broth more flavor. I had wanted to add beef bones to the broth, but Whole Foods didn’t have any. These would have added a rich beefy quality to the liquid. Once everything was stirred, I let it simmer, and then let it simmer some more.

The chili cooked for about 3 hours that night. After hour 1, I added the chocolate and some brown sugar. After hour 2, I added the kidney beans. I stirred it about every half hour, and watched it go from a brothy red to a thick reddish brown. The texture was perfect. You want chili to be a little thicker than a stew. As you cook it, it begins to grow an identity of its own. The color changes, the textures change, and the flavor develops and expands.

Once the chili was done, I put all of it in a big 5 gallon pot, and put it in the fridge to sit until the competition. On competition morning, I got up early, divided the chili between 3 pots to heat it, and stirred it constantly to avoid burning. I also added a little more sugar and some crushed red pepper and cayenne. The chili was good! It had a rich flavor that was sweet at the beginning and hot at the end. We brought it to the competition, setup our table (led by Keeli and Lily, the other two team members), and served the chili to judges, competitors, and attendees. Everyone seemed to like it a lot, other than the judges...

We didn’t make it to the finals because the chili was too sweet and not hot enough. Next time I will make the chili with less sugar and use habanero peppers instead of jalapenos to add more spice. We had a blast at the event nonetheless, and now I have a clear goal for my chili making throughout the year - perfect my chili, and win the competition!!

Beef Stew for Dave

My good friend Dave was turning 26 and a celebration was in order. Instead of dropping a lot of money at a restaurant, we decided that a home-cooked meal would be best. Dave is one of my favorite people to cook with and a very good chef himself, so I wanted to be sure to deliver a meal to remember. He has requested beef stew with mashed potatoes and brussel sprouts, and I obliged. The plan was to meet around 5 in Williamsburg for some drinks and oysters and then head to my place for dinner.

I picked up the ingredients from Whole Foods and rushed to get the stew on so that it would have enough time to cook before we met up for drinks. I wanted to do a classic beef stew, so I got about 4 lbs of stew beef, carrots, cipolini onion, mushrooms, red wine and beef broth. For the potatoes, I wanted to do a horseradish and chive mash, to give a nice tangy flavor as a counter to the warm and hearty stew. I picked up 4 lbs of yukon golds, some chives, greek yogurt, and horseradish. For the vegetable, I grabbed 4 lbs of brussel sprouts.

With my very heavy bag of groceries in tow, I headed home to get cooking. I cut up the carrots into thin discs, sliced the mushrooms, peeled the cipolinis and cut up some garlic. Once my vegetable prep was done, I salt and peppered the meat and browned it in batches so that I didn't overcrowd the pot. Once the meat was browned, I poured off the fat and sauteed the vegetables until they were starting to brown. I added the meat back in, tied up a bunch of thyme and bay leaf, and covered everything with about half a bottle of malbec and 4 cups of beef broth. I brought the pot to a low boil, covered it and put it in the oven at 375 for about 2 hours (taking off the cover for the last 45 minutes to let it thicken.)

For the potatoes, I peeled the yukons and put them in a large pot of boiling water. I boiled them for about 15 minutes until tender, drained them (saving a little of the water) and mashed them up. I added in about a cup of greek yogurt, 2 tablespoons of horseradish, 1 tablespoon of butter, salt and pepper. I then used a hand blender to make the mash very smooth, and once it was smooth and rich, I added in about half a cup of chopped chives.

For the brussel sprouts, I cut the rough base stem and then sliced them in half. I tossed them in olive oil, salt and pepper and cooked them for 35 minutes at 375 until they were brown on top.

The meal turned out great. We shared a nice bottle of Belgian style beer and laughed the night away while we enjoyed the meal. One thing I did realize is that beef stew is very difficult to photograph in an appetizing way. Despite the aesthetics, the dish was beautifully balanced and exactly what Dave wanted for his birthday dinner!

Braised Moroccan Pork Ribs

I was in the mood for something braised and warm on a cold winter’s night. I was thinking Osso Bucco, but it was too expensive, so I decided on braised Moroccan pork ribs. I decided this in Whole Foods, so I had to wing the ingredients based on my knowledge of Moroccan flavors. I wanted the sweetness of apricots and saltiness of olives to come through and compliment the rich fatty flavor of the ribs. Rather than typical bbq or roasted ribs, I wanted to have the warm stew-like feeling of braised meat. I got home and got to cooking. I threw a bunch of spices that reminded me of Mediterranean flavors and got the ribs braised. The pork worked perfectly with the spices and the braising liquid was a great accompaniment on top of the potatoes. The kale offered a nice change of texture from the pork and mash, and the whole meal almost made me forget there was a couple feet of snow outside. If you don’t want to make the potato parsnip mash, the dish would work really well over polenta, couscous or another fine grain.

Braised Moroccan Pork Ribs over Parsnip and Potato Mash with Crispy Kale

Ingredients:
1.5 lbs St. Louis Pork Ribs
1 tbsp each of cumin, pepper, coriander, mustard seed, cinnamon, turmeric, sugar and salt (if you have extra, save it for another use)
1 carrot
1 yellow onion
3 garlic cloves
2-3 cups of chicken broth (enough to cover ribs)
Cinnamon stick
2 bay leaves
1 lemon sliced
1 cup olives
1 cup Turkish dried apricots
2 tbsp honey
1 lb potatoes
½ lb parsnip
Milk
Butter
Salt Pepper
Kale
Olive Oil

To Cook!

Spice Mix:
Mix cumin, pepper, coriander, mustard seed, cinnamon, turmeric, sugar and salt and grind in a mortar and pestle or spice grinder until fine.

Pork ribs:
Coat the ribs in the spice mix and sear both sides. Add the carrots, onion and garlic around the ribs, stirring so that they don’t burn while the ribs sear. Add the broth to cover it along with a little more spice mix, the cinnamon stick, bay leaves, lemon slices, olives, apricots and honey. Braise for 1.5 hours until ribs are just falling off the bone.

Potato and parsnip mash:
Bring water to a boil, add salt and boil the potatoes and parsnips and boil for 10 minutes until they are fork tender. Strain, reserving a little of the boiling liquid and mash them. Add salt, pepper, milk, and butter and mash until very smooth.

Crispy Kale:
Preheat oven to 350. Wash kale and dry thoroughly with paper towel. Massage the leaves with olive oil, and put in the oven for about 8 minutes until lightly browned and crispy. Toss with salt and serve on top or on the side of the ribs.