Retro Recipes and Traditional Fare

With Thanksgiving around the corner, my wife and I have started talking about the menu. Mostly we want to enjoy favorite dishes. One of those is a turkey liver pate I adapted from a chopped liver recipe my mom made when I was a kid.

Even people who love chicken livers view turkey liver as too much of a good thing. Whoever has the job of prepping the turkey on Thanksgiving Day frequently looks with bewilderment at the large double-lobed liver in the bag tucked ever so neatly inside the turkey.

Following my mother's lead, my solution is to turn lemons into lemonade or, in this case, turkey liver into pâté. My mother prepared chopped liver using a shallow wooden bowl and a beat-up, double-handled, single-bladed mezzaluna knife that her mother had given her.

She would cut up and sauté the turkey liver with a chopped up onion. Two eggs would go into boiling water. Once hard-boiled, they would join the sautéed liver and onion in the wooden bowl, which she would hand to me along with the mezzaluna. While she prepared the turkey, she put me to work.

After cooking up a bunch of boneless and skinless chicken thighs the other day, I decided to turn some of them into chicken a al king. I don't know what made me think of this dish from the past – white sauce with chicken and vegetables stirred into it. For one thing, I've never really cared much for it. It brings back bad memories of creamed chipped beef and canned peas that my mom used to make when I was a child. She'd serve it over toast. The peas were mushy, the toast was soggy and the chipped beef was – well – chipped beef. I did not like it. Not one bit.

So, why would chicken a la king even drift through my mind? I used to make it every once in a while, but that was years ago. When I mentioned chicken a la king to my husband the other day, he said it had been so long since he'd even heard of it that he'd forgotten all about the creamy gravy-like dish.

I dug out my old recipe and gave it another try. I have to say that on a cool autumn evening, the dish was very satisfying. And quite tasty. I made toast cups to serve with the a la king. I didn't have one, (remember, I don't care for soggy toast) but my husband was raving about what a great match the crunchy toast cups and the hot, creamy chicken a la king were.

Okay, It is true, I admit it!  I make skillet jam, no really, I DO...No fanfare, no canning jars or water bath cauldrons just a non-stick skillet, some ripe, fragrant fruit, sugar and a lemon. That's it! This may not sound like a shortcut, but once you put this on the table some Sunday morning you'll forget that it took you half an hour or so to make. Well maybe 45 minutes until you get less nervous about making jam...

I prepare the fruit by peeling and cutting it into inch-size pieces or in the case of berries mash lightly with a potato masher.  My formula is 3 cups of fruit, 1/2  to 3/4 cup of sugar to taste and all the juice of half a lemon. Start on medium heat, stirring to combine the sugar into the cut fruit with your best wooden spoon. If it seems like there isn't enough liquid add water or wine or fruit juice-be creative, there are NO rules and this is suppose to be fun and it is all YOUR creation, no one else's!  I let the fruit cook down (simmer happily) but if the there are some fruit pieces that are too large for your liking use your wooden spoon to "gently" breakdown the fruit into the size you prefer. Taste it, does it need more lemon juice? Perhaps more sugar, a touch of vanilla extract?

There used to be this hole-in-the-wall place in Hollywood serving these super-juicy out-of-this-world burgers. Cheese and kraut were literally melting and dripping down the sides as well as my fingers and chin. I swear these burgers were messier than a Tommy's burger, and that's saying something. I used to frequent this place when I was interning for an entertainment company right across the street from the old Grauman's Chinese Theater.

I wish I could remember what the place was called, but twenty years have passed and I can barely remember last week. It was the type of eatery only locals frequented or knew about. The bead board walls were shabbily painted red. There were a few scratched up tables and not much else but a giant flat top grill and a register. Two guys in the back flipped some of the best burgers I can recall. They took "cash only". Who knows if they are still around, but their kraut burgers have lived on in my mind.

Since Father's Day is on the forefront it's time to start thinking about "manly food" and what to make for the dad's in our lives. Fermented foods like sauerkraut have also been on my mind. My current work with Sargento has me investigating fermented foods as a culinary trend.