I’ve been wondering about this expression. Why does a watched pot never boil? I’m thinking that we’ve had it all wrong since the beginning. Itå’s not that an impatient cook will watch a pot and not be happy about how long it takes to boil - though that did often happen in the last kitchen I inhabited. I think it might be that if you carefully watch a pot, it will not boil. Let me explain: when you have protein or vegetables cooking in a liquid, stock or water or whatever, if you boil them, you rupture the cells and create tough meat or mushy vegetables. A never boiling pot is a good thing.

I received Michael Ruhlman’s new book, The Elements of Cooking, as a Christmas present. Before I even finished the first ten pages, I realized there was a project I needed to start pronto, as in sooner than soon. Veal stock. That’s right, the stuff that makes the difference between restaurant cooking and home cooking. Ruhlman rightly points out that almost nobody ever makes this at home and that the most popular comprehensive cookbooks, Fanny Farmer, The Joy of Cooking, The New Basics, don’t even mention it. But, as Ruhlman says, this is the essential. He also writes, “From such simple material comes not only one of the most exquisite tools in the kitchen, but something more akin to a natural wonder or a great work of art. Few people put veal stock in the same category as, say, the Goldberg Variations, or Plato’s cave allegory, and this lack of understanding amazes me. There’s a reason why veal stock is considered the backbone of the finest culinary tradition of the Western world, what many consider to be, in the hands of the right chef, true artistry.” (7) While some may think this an exaggerated comparison, you might want to try making and using veal stock before reaching a conclusion on this point.

I reviewed Ruhlman’s recipe and advice and looked at several variants. He is careful to stress the importance of a long slow, not boiling of stock. The only ingredient I didn’t already have kicking around for this recipe was the star of the show, the veal. I walked down the street to the butcher and dragged home a ten pound bag of bones. Then I got to work roasting them.

After a blast of heat in a hot oven, I let them cool and then threw them in a stockpot. The only problem was, they didn’t all fit. I took out stockpot number two and divided the bones among the two pots, added water and brought them up to a boil. Then they had an extended hot bath overnight in the oven set to 200 degrees. After that I added the aromatics, simmered some more, cooled, strained, reduced and was left with about 3 quarts of dark brown liquid. I used some of it in a soup (more on that later) and reduced the rest of it a little more and put it in the freezer.

I’ve got to admit something to you now. That part in recipes that says to strain out the vegetables and meat and discard them…I can’t do it. I’m too frugal. I strained out the carrots, onions, celery and bones, picked off all of the meat, and moistened it all with some of the stock. We ate a pot au feu, the classic French-style boiled dinner, with spicy Dijon mustard and sea salt on the side. If that watched pot never boils, the reward is a clear stock and silky smooth poached meat and vegetables.

veal stock (adapted from Michael Ruhlman’s The Elements of Cooking)

• 10 lbs. veal bones (knuckles, breast, shank)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 4 large carrots, peeled
• 4 ribs celery, cleaned
• 2 large onions peeled and quartered
• 5 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1/4 cup tomato paste
• 2 tablespoons peppercorns, cracked
• 5 stems thyme
• 5 stems parsley
• 2 bay leaves

Preheat oven to 450 degrees and rub two large baking pans with oil. Place veal bones on pans and put in oven and roast for 30 minutes, turn and continue roasting another 15 minutes or so. As Sara Moulton always says, use your nose on this one, when it smells good, it’s done.

Place the bones in a stock pot (or two as I had to do). If the what’s left in the baking pans that you roasted the bones on doesn’t look burned, you can pour off the oil, deglaze the pans with a little water and pour this liquid over the bones. Cover the bones with water by about two inches. Bring the water to a simmer (remember, no boiling) and skim off an scum and/or surface fat. Put the stock pot(s) in the oven and set it to 180 to 200 degrees (200 is fine if that’s as low as your oven will go). Let it cook for 8-10 hours. In the meantime, prepare your aromatics. An optional step is to roast the carrots, celery, onion, garlic and tomato paste for 20 minutes in a 375 degree oven (I did this and I think it makes a difference, but you can decide for yourself if you need an added step). Add all remaining ingredients to the pot(s), bring to a simmer, skim if necessary and put the pot(s) back in the oven for another 2 hours. Remove pot(s) from oven and strain first through a colander and then again through cheesecloth. Refrigerate the stock until the whole thing congeals and remove the fat from the top. At this point, you can use the stock or reheat it and put it in containers and freeze it. You could also reduce it if there’s too much of it to fit in your freezer.

Just before Christmas, some very close family friends invited me to help make their annual pile of pierogi. Joanne and her daughters Jane, Anne and Sara are the neighbors I had while growing up that were like an extra mother and sisters for me. They are of Polish ancestry and have a yearly tradition of making these for the holidays. I haven’t written about it until now because I was having a really hard time coming up with something to say that didn’t sound all sappy and nostalgic. So instead of a long intro, I’m going to give you more pictures than usual and the recipe at the end. If you want to make these, I suggest you invite a group of friends over the help you put them together; it is a little time consuming, but if you do it while sipping on some wine and reminiscing about the past, it won’t be tedious at all.

This is the set up. You can see on the right next to the bowl of filling the white plastic pierogi shaper, they use this, but also use just their fingers to crimp the edges.

This is Jane, Anne and their Aunt Suzy rolling out dough and filling the pierogi

This is Joanne cooking the pierogi and making the brown butter to drizzle on them.

Before boiling.

This is Anne eating and acting goofy.

After we put them in the pans and poured the browned butter over them, we covered them with aluminum foil. We got some to take home with us and Joanne put the rest in the refrigerator; they make them a day ahead of time and reheat them when they need them.

pierogi

Joanne makes two traditional fillings for pierogi: potato with cheese and sauerkraut with mushrooms. When they are boiled and drained, she pours a small amount of browned butter on them. That’s right, brown butter. Some people like their pierogi with applesauce or sour cream, but the brown butter really obviates the need for any other accompaniment.

for dough

(ingredients listed below are for one batch of dough; Joanne makes about 10 batches to use up all of the filling in the recipes listed below)

• 2 cups all-purpose flour, not sifted
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup cold water

Place flour and salt in a bowl large enough to contain all ingredients, whisk to combine. Add egg and cold water and mix until dough forms a shaggy mass. Gather dough together and form into a ball. Let dough sit for at least 10 minutes or refrigerate for 1-24 hours. To make enough dough for all of the filling in the recipes below, repeat this process 10 times to make 10 balls of dough.

for potato cheese filling

• 2 1/2 – 3 lbs. Yukon gold potatoes
• 3/4 cup half and half, more if necessary
• 4 T butter (1/2 stick)
• 1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 small onion, diced

Peel potatoes, cut into quarters, place into pot and cover with water. Heat on high until just boiling then turn heat to a bare simmer. Cook potatoes 20 minutes or until fork tender. Drain and return potatoes to pot. Add half and half and mash potatoes using a potato masher (alternatively: use a ricer and then add half and half). Melt butter in a sauté pan and cook onions are just soft. Stir into potatoes, mix in cheddar cheese. Let cool before using. May be made and refrigerated up to two days in advance.

for sauerkraut and mushroom filling

• 1 32 oz. jar vlasic sauerkraut, drained
• 1 4-6 oz. package dried porcini mushrooms, reconstituted with 1 cup boiling water, diced (do not discard liquid)
• 1 T butter
• salt and pepper to taste

Melt 1 T butter in pan an sauté mushrooms for 2-3 minutes, add mushroom liquid and reduce until almost completely dry. Add sauerkraut and salt and pepper as needed. Let cool before using. May be made and refrigerated up to two days in advance.

for assembly and serving

• 1 stick butter (or more to taste)

Roll dough out to about 1/8″ thickness. Use a 3″ cookie cutter or other round implement (such as a pint glass) to cut rounds of dough. Place one tablespoon of filling in center and moisten edges of dough with water. Fold dough over and pinch edges to seal or use a pierogi crimper. Cook pierogi in boiling water until they float to the top (not all of them will always float, so check for doneness after about 8 minutes). Remove pierogi with slotted spoon and drain on paper towel. Heat butter in a small pan over medium heat until solids separate and fall to the bottom of the pan and butter begins to brown. Arrange pierogi in 2 large roasting pans and drizzle with browned butter. You may serve them immediately or cover them with aluminum foil and refrigerate until needed; reheat in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes.

If I haven’t been posting about the food much in the last few days it’s for a few very good reasons. First, I’ve had some technical difficulties that are finally cleared up (I hope). Second, I’ve been wanting real comfort food lately; old standards that I probably don’t need to give you recipes for, like French onion soup, pasta with red clam sauce, grilled ham and cheese, bangers and mash, macaroni and cheese. I think I might even make meatloaf and mashed potatoes this week. We’ve also been having some of our favorites that I’ve already told you about like pizza, sirloin on arugula, lentils, milaneses, and roast chicken.

I think I’m also feeling a little of the post-holiday deflation. My parents went back to western Michigan, my sister and her boyfriend have gone back to the West coast and I miss them. The tree is put away, though there’s still glitter all over the place that needs to somehow be cleaned up (any suggestions on glitter removal?). We’ve made our New Year’s resolutions and have put ourselves through a mini-detox. Now we have to get back to work and back to fixing up this new old house of ours.

On that note, I was having a serious light deficiency issue in the kitchen and with the sun setting at around 5 p.m., it was just too dark in there to do dishes and forget about pictures. We solved that problem with a little trip to Ikea for a light fixture that my parents helped me put up. Why is it that seemingly simple jobs like that always end up taking hours? For this one I even learned how to use a bolt cutter. I love the fixture and I absolutely love how much light there is now in the kitchen, but there’s a problem people. Without any light, we hadn’t been able to see just how filthy it was in there.

I do not want to make a clichéd bunch of resolutions for this new year; of course I want to look better, take care of my health, be more focused on my work and be a better friend, sister, wife, daughter, etc., oh, and I want to eat better food.

What I want is to taste some things and make some things, go new places and develop some habits that will expand my repertoire and make my food more fabulous this year. So here are the top 12 things I’d like to try, not ranked in any particular order:

• make sausage; I’m especially wanting to make merguez
• make more southeast Asian food: especially Indian, Thai, Vietnamese
• make sushi more often
• only eat at really good restaurants; that means trading frequency for quality
• focus more on whole grains and vegetables and less on meat; we’ll eat better and save money
• go to at least one really fabulous restaurant this year; Chicago is close by, so maybe we’ll make it to Alinéa?
• make friends with the butcher down the street
• visit some of the ethnic food hot spots in the Detroit area: Mexican town, Greek town; Hamtramck for Polish food; Dearborn for Lebanese food
• go mushroom hunting; my little brother has promised to take me to his morel spots!
• make veal stock; I’ve been reading the Elements of Cooking, have you?
• sign up for a CSA; we just missed the deadlines last year when we moved here and couldn’t get on anyone’s list, so this coming year will be our first; I’m getting geeked about it already
• visit my sister in Portland, Oregon; obviously I want to see my sister, but I also want to try out the food and wine there

Anything else you think I should try this year?