Sweet Potatoes

Man, the restaurant life really sapped my enthusiasm for cooking! My love for the kitchen, even to this day, has not recovered and I retired from the business five and a half years ago. I used to think nothing of spending joyful hours in the kitchen, but now there are days when I can barely be bothered to go back in the kitchen for two minutes to throw together a ham sandwich.

Kitchen Mojo: Sweet Potato Cakes, Pork Tenderloin, Cole Slaw, Chipotle Honey

Just after retirement from the restaurant, I had no love for the kitchen. But these days some five-plus years hence, my love of cooking comes and goes. In the last ten days or so, my kitchen mojo is finally on the wax, at least temporarily. That's a good thing in that I have accumulated of a bit of winter fat and I need to eat better. Also, my body is longing for fresh vegetables, something that it quite usual for me in this cold vegetable-challenged season. That longing in part spurs me to action in the kitchen.

Though many vegetables are now available 365 days a year, thanks to a worldwide supply chain, old habits die hard with me. I try to use ingredients only in season, though I have relented a bit from this imperative in recent years. Back in the restaurant days, as a seasonal restaurant supplied by local farmers, we were limited in winter to storage vegetables from the previous growing season, our farmers bringing us only the tiniest amount of fresh produce from their expensive-to-heat greenhouses.

Winter therefore meant sweet potatoes, bushels and bushels of sweet potatoes. Out of necessity, we had to find creative ways to use them so as not to bore ourselves or customers. Fortunately, the sweet potato is as equally useful as a regular potato and therefore lends itself to a myriad of preparations: boiled, mashed, baked, chips, fries, grated for latkes, and even hashed.

Exercising all my creativity, at one point during my restaurant career, I hit upon a sweet potato hash that quickly became a customer favorite when accompanying our Berkshire x Ossabaw pork, wild boar, Moulard duck, or any of the venison that would come and go on the menu throughout the course of the winter: red deer, white tail, caribou, or elk.

The hash at the restaurant would have started in a vast sauté pan with cubes of our slab bacon, or house-cured pancetta if we were between slabs of bacon, cooked just enough to release a bit of fat. Into the sauté pan would go diced onion and cubes of raw sweet potato. Like any hash, it would stay on the flame until the bacon was rendered, the onions browned, and the sweet potato cooked all the way through.

I have never been one to like sweet food (I'm that guy who does not eat dessert) and I have always frowned on sweet sweet potato preparations. Properly cured sweet potatoes have enough natural sweetness on their own that they really don't need any added sugar, except perhaps if they are being served as a dessert course. But I do make a slight exception for my sweet potato hash.

Just as the hash is cooked is where the sweetness comes in, though not via added sugar (at least not raw sugar). At this point, we'd add dried sweetened cranberries (or cherries) and then flambé the whole shebang with a good slug of Bourbon. Ann is not a fan of the sweet woody and vanilla notes that the Bourbon imparts nor has she ever been a fan of fruit in savory dishes. But this hash ticks my boxes: creative, savory, smoky, and oh so tasty.  For more on the hash technique see here and here.

I have finally got enough distance from the restaurant and its sea of winter sweet potatoes to want to prepare sweet potatoes again at home. So, to accompany a roast pork tenderloin, I made this hash again, omitting the bacon to keep the dish a bit healthier. In spite of Ann not being a big fan, every once in a while, I make a dish because I like it. My usual MO is to only cook the things that I know that Ann loves. Mea culpa.

I actually cooked two tenderloins and put the second one in the fridge along with a small amount of leftover hash, the perfect starting point for a leftover-based dish the next evening. But how to change it up so that it would be different enough from the night before? I didn't have enough hash left to serve one person, let alone two, so I thought about ways to stretch it. And it occurred to me that if I roasted a sweet potato, mashed it, and incorporated the leftover hash into the mash, I could make sweet potato cakes.

I find myself using rolled oats instead of bread crumbs or panko to bind things these days: meatloaf, meatballs, potato cakes, and so forth. The results are fantastic and to my mind, at least, the complex carbs in rolled oats are a healthier option than the more simple bread carbs. Although I put a little panko on the surface of the sweet potato cakes to yield a nice crust, I bound the cakes with oats.

Sweet Potato Cakes, Bound with Rolled Oats

Once I had made the sweet potato cakes and put them in the refrigerator to set up, the full dish came together in my mind: sweet potato cakes, thinly sliced pork tenderloin, a bit of my vinegar-based cole slaw that is always in the fridge, and a drizzle of spicy chipotle-honey (chipotle purée, honey, water to thin, and salt to taste).

At least temporarily, my kitchen mojo is back and functioning at a decent level and I'm still making good use of winter storage vegetables: sweet potatoes, onions, cabbage, and carrots. And Ann is going to forgive my use of sweet dried fruit and Bourbon in the sweet potato cakes.

Sweet Potato-Quinoa Cakes

Going through the pantry the other day, I ran across a very large container of quinoa, something that I don't eat very often because it just doesn't do anything for me. Don't get me wrong. I will eat just about anything, quinoa included, but I've just never found it to be worth the effort to prepare. Ann likes it more than me which is probably why we have so much on hand.

Sweet Potato-Quinoa Cakes

In an effort to start using it, I thought that I might try to make some kind of cakes. In trying to figure out how to hold the quinoa together in a cake, I thought I might try mashed sweet potato.

To that end, I sautéed some onion, poblano, cilantro stems, and garlic with a little cumin, then added a drained and rinsed can of black beans, a cup of cooked quinoa, and then a couple of medium roasted sweet potatoes. The resulting mix was very tasty and would have made a great vegetarian stuffing for poblanos rellenos, but proved to be really soft for cakes.

I added a cup of rolled oats to the mix and refrigerated overnight to see if I could stiffen them up. They were stiffer and I was able to form cakes, but they were a bear to handle in the frying pan without breaking them. Still too soft I would judge. And the quinoa was not noticeable either.

Delicious but not ready for prime time, I judge this dish. Tasty, but without adding a lot more undesirable carbs, I just don't think this idea is going anywhere. To be honest, I would just as soon do a hash by sautéing raw cubes of sweet potato with the onion and poblano and then mixing them into quinoa for a warm salad.

Ginger-Miso-Green Onion Meatloaf with Soy-Lime Sauce

Ann is pretty good about surfing the internet looking for food that she wants to eat. One afternoon a couple of recipes showed up in my inbox courtesy of her, one for chicken meatballs flavored with ginger and miso and the other for a soy-lime dipping sauce that looks very suspiciously like a classic Vietnamese sauce, nuoc tuong.

I don't need or really even use recipes. All I need is the basic gist of an idea and I am off to the races. Ann sends me recipes for ideas and I really appreciate that: coming up with what to cook for dinner is a universal struggle among cooks.

Ginger-Miso-Green Onion Meatloaf with Soy-Lime Sauce

For a quick dinner, I don't really want to roll out and cook meatballs, so I opted for a meatloaf flavored similar to a filling for pot stickers along with broccoli that would roast at the same time as the meatloaf was baking. You could make meatballs out of this very same mix, but I was feeling lazy.

Mise en Place

Here are all my seasonings and the finished soy-lime sauce to spoon over both the meatloaf and the roasted broccoli. The seasonings for the meatloaf are soy sauce, shiromiso (white miso), garlic, ginger, and green onions.

I have been loyal to one brand of soy sauce since I was a kid: superior soy sauce from Pearl River Bridge, a lighter 100% soy Chinese-style soy versus the heavier and darker 50% soy, 50% wheat Japanese-style (tamari) embodied in Kikkoman or San-J, a fine sauce made in Virginia. 

Soy-Lime Sauce

For the sauce, I mixed in a small bowl:

one quarter cup soy

one quarter cup lime juice (juice of one large lime)

one clove garlic, minced

one teaspoon minced spicy chile (my stand-in for a fresh Thai bird chile)

one teaspoon agave syrup

I use agave as a sweetener in sauces because as a liquid, it mixes in to the sauce better than a granulated sugar. Adjust this sauce to your taste. If you find it too acidic, you can add more sweetener to balance the acid and/or some water to dilute it a touch. After you've made a couple of similar sauces, you'll get the hang of it for your palate.

Ginger-Miso-Green Onion Meatloaf 

Meat Loaf Ready for the Oven

Mixing up a meatloaf is child's play. First, you mix the liquid and seasoning ingredients in a bowl. Then you add the meat and binder and mix well, but gently, until all the ingredients come together. Then you drop the meatloaf on a sheet tray and shape it. After a quick bake and a brief cool-off period, dinner's done.

1 tablespoon soy sauce

2 tablespoons white miso

1/4 cup chicken stock 

4 green onions, sliced

1/3 cup minced fresh ginger

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 pound ground turkey

1 cup rolled oats

Mix the soy, miso, and chicken stock well until the miso is dissolved. Then add the green onions, ginger, and garlic and mix well. Finally, add the turkey and rolled oats and mix gently, but well.

Mound the forcemeat on a sheet tray in an even rectangle. The thicker the rectangle, the longer it will take to cook. This one took about 25 minutes, maybe 30.

Bake in a moderate oven at 350F until a meat thermometer registers 160F in the center of the loaf. Remove from the oven and let stand for 5-10 minutes. As the meatloaf cools, it will continue to cook in the center and will finish at 165F or higher.

As a chef, I don't always follow USDA Food Code guidelines about temperatures (they often want you to char your meat in the name of safety), but with poultry, I don't fool around. They say ground poultry must be cooked to 165F to kill any pathogens and I am with them in this regard. If you don't have a thermometer, go buy one and learn how to use and calibrate it before you embark on this recipe.

I use rolled oats in preference to other binders (such as panko or other breadcrumbs) because oats are relatively healthy for you.

You'll notice that there's no salt in this recipe. The soy and miso have plenty of salt to compensate.

This dinner was delicious, like eating a plate full of pot stickers without the pastry. I know that the pastry around those dumplings is awesome, but not when you're trying to lose your accumulated COVID gut!

Simple Trail Mix Recipe

As a chef, it always concerns me when people buy simple foods that they could make for pennies on the dollar, foods such as trail mix. As a hiker, it often amuses me what passes for commercial trail mix. Clearly some people making trail mix have never considered what happens to chocolate when it gets warm.

Simple 6-Ingredient Trail Mix

Trail mix is not necessarily about being healthy; it's about providing fuel that is part instantaneous and part long-term to keep you going on the trail. If you've ever bonked after three or four miles of tough trail because of insufficient fuel, you know exactly what I'm talking about. The following recipe delivers simple sugars and carbs, complex carbs (bonus: plenty of fiber), and lots of salt to keep you going. It's not what your cardiologist or dietician will recommend, but when you're burning 4-5000 calories on a hike, you need lots of easy-to-ingest fuel.

Here's a really simple 6-item trail mix recipe that takes just a few minutes of active work and can be prepared from ingredients readily found in your grocery store.

Simple Six-Ingredient Trail Mix Recipe

4 cups/12 ounces high quality rolled oats (that is, not Quaker and not steel cut)
2 cups/7 ounces slivered almonds
1/2 cup/4 fluid ounces amber (grade B) maple syrup
2 teaspoons Kosher salt
2 cups/8 ounces dried sweetened cranberries (or other fruit of your choice)
2 cups/11 ounces peanut M&Ms

Yield: 2-1/2 pounds trail mix

You'll need a half sheet tray or other rimmed cookie sheet, preferably with a silicone mat to keep clean up a breeze. And you'll need a big bowl to mix everything in.

Start by preheating your oven to about 350F. In a large bowl, mix the oats, almonds, maple syrup, and salt. This quantity of salt will make it taste very salty. When you're out on the trail sweating away, you're going to want this salt. You'll crave it with every fiber in your being. Trust me on this. Too salty when you're not exercising is just right.

Spread the oat mix on a sheet tray (and silicone mat if you have one) and place it in the oven. It's going to take about 30 minutes to get to a consistent golden brown. The oats will brown from the outside of the pan to the middle, so you want to mix it periodically for even browning. I stir it after 10 minutes, again after 10 more minutes, and finally after 5 more minutes.

Bake to Golden Brown, About 30 Minutes

Remove from the oven once it is evenly golden brown and let cool thoroughly, at least 30 minutes and preferably longer. You want all the remaining moisture to evaporate so that mold is not an issue. Pour the oats, cranberries, and M&Ms into a gallon seal-top bag, seal it with plenty of air space inside, and shuffle it about in your hands to mix the contents well.

Lay the bag flat, press out all the excess air, and re-seal for storage. Ann and I repackage it into smaller bags for each hike.

A word or two on ingredients:

Oats. If you don't already know, Quaker rolled oats suck. (Indra Nooyi, call me. I'll tell you just how bad.) High dollar steel cut oats have to be cooked to be edible. Buy the best quality rolled oats you can find. I get mine in bulk from my dry goods supplier.

Maple Syrup. Chefs and pastry chefs use grade B and leave grade A for the tourists. Grade B is cheaper, darker, and more flavorful. Mine comes from Highland County, Virginia.

Salt. It's always Morton's Kosher for me and my restaurant kitchen. Always reliable. If you use another salt with a different crystal size, you may have to adjust the quantity of salt in the recipe.

Peanut M&Ms. I rarely ever use pre-prepared foods. I want really salty peanuts and chocolate in my trail mix. If you've ever rolled your own with chunks of chocolate, you know why Mars has made a fortune telling you "melts in your mouth and not in your hands." Just don't turn the bag over and read the ingredients. Be bad. You're burning a ton of calories on the trail.