Best Recipes of 2010? Um, no ("Cooking Light", How Far You've Fallen In My Eyes)

I have two very good magazines that I picked up randomly at grocery stores a long time ago in highschool. You know when you're waiting at the check-out and you see these beautiful pictures and you browse, but rarely buy. Magazines are not cookbooks, so the amount of quality you get for your money is not as high, in general. Sometimes, however, maybe once in a blue moon, there are pictures that are just to die for. I do admit to having bought a magazine for the gorgeous picture of just one recipe on the front cover. I generally try to look through and make sure there are other recipes I'd want to try, to justify the purchase, but light versions of banana cream and custard pies are sometimes impossible to resist.

In these rushed decision purchases I've only ever bought Cooking Light. Other publications are aimed at mothers, and I'm just not attracted to "20 Minute Meatloaf: A World of Variation" and other such things. I haven't bought a magazine in a long time, mostly because I don't really go to big grocery stores anymore, but when I saw Cooking Light's compilation of the best recipes of 2010 when I was home over Christmas (where are not so many small grocers or markets from which to buy my foodstuffs) I figured it was a safe bet. Surely a magazine that had given me some truly delicious recipes on other occasions would give a great "best of..." version. The recipes all looked fine...just fine, not great, but I held out on faith in a brand and added the magazine to my cart.

So this was the first recipe I tried - Spiced Potatoes and Green Beans. It resembled a lot of the Indian recipes I had been making lately, so I figured it would be great. I also love using new mexican chile, and I have some dried ones sitting in my cupboard waiting to be used. What an opportunity. Quelle chance (this is horrible French. Never use it...).

Unfortunately, no, this was not a stupendous recipe. If I published a magazine of all the recipes I've personally made in 2010 this recipe would not be included. I think the focus of Cooking Light has changed. Since this disappointment I've looked at other recent editions, and some published books including "The Best of Cooking Light" and been really upset at all the cheats they use. Like fat-free caramels to make an icing. "Healthy" is not what these caramels are. Yes, they're "low fat" but I don't want to put that in my body. They call for fat-free mayos and sour creams. These are pretty standard, and do get the fat content down, but my biggest complaint with the recipes is that they're just not that adventurous. It seems like the editors are now catering to the same market as "Canadian Living" and "Chatelaine", just making things a little less fatty. The "ethnic" ones aren't particularly exciting, being rather North American-ized versions of the originals. In the magazines I'd bought years ago they'd had some great, authentic recipes along with stories of families with different cultural heritages making these traditional recipes in North America, celebrating different customs, and generally being entertaining. Still, it's all about flavour, and I've got a few more recipes to try before I say, decidedly, that this isn't a great publication anymore.

Anyway, here's the recipe, in case you're looking for a recipe that's not spectacular, but not hard to make either.
Ingredients:
1 New Mexican Chile (It didn't say if it should be fresh or dried, but it's impossible to find fresh ones, so I figured it had to mean dried. New Mexican Chilies are pretty mild, and in a pinch you could replace the one in this recipe with another large chili. Anaheim would be a good choice)
2 tbsp canola oil (maybe it was worse because I skimped on the oil. Really, potatoes fried in more oil get a better crust, but even then there wasn't a lot of flavour - spice flavour - to season)
1/2 tsp brown mustard seeds
1 big onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander (I even ground fresh ones but they couldn't save the recipe. I think next time I would toast these in a frying pan over medium heat until they're aromatic, and THEN grind them)
1 tsp fresh ginger, minced
1/4 tsp ground turmeric
1 pound potatoes, cut into small chunks (I even used yukon gold like they suggested. You can also use red. I don't think it makes it any better. I think you need more spice for the amount of potato called-for. I weighed mine, so I know I had the called-for ratio)
1/2 cup water (now here's where the recipe could be automatically improved. Try chicken or vegetable broth instead of water. The trend in restaurants would be to use duck fat, but that's just ridiculous. No Indian would use duck fat. Ghee yes, duck fat, no...an Indian cook would laugh in your face...unless it was Vij in Vancouver, but there are many reasons I don't care about ever eating at that restaurant)
3/4 tsp salt (I usually skimp on salt, but don't skimp in this recipe. It's already skimped-on)
8 oz asparagus, cut into 1" pieces (the original recipe is for green beans but I know this didn't make my recipe any worse)
1/4 cup fresh cilantro

You need to process or blend the chile in a coffee grinder, blender or food processor, but again, the recipe doesn't say if it becomes a paste (fresh chilies) or a powder (dried). Bad editing?
Then heat the oil over medium-high, and when hot, add the mustard seeds. 30 seconds later (I thought this was going to be a good recipe because they did the Madhur Jaffrey-style procedure or sauté-ing things for 30 seconds, or 1 minute, or very precise amounts of time per spice and per ingredient addition. Alas, no) add the onion. Stir for 2 minutes, then add the chile, garlic, cumin, coriander, ginger and turmeric. Stir for 30 seconds then add the potatoes. Stir to coat for 2 minutes, then add the water and salt. Bring the pot to a boil, cover, reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 8 minutes.

The potatoes should be tender. Then add the asparagus, re-cover, and cook for 5 minutes more. They shouldn't be lifeless, the asparagus. Leave them just a little crisp, but at a point where you won't have trouble chewing them. Then stir in the cilantro. If there's excess liquid, remove the lid and boil it off to a consistency you can live with. There are many things you can live with. Fortunately, bland potatoes are one of them.

Roasted Cornish Game Hens (or Chicken Breasts) with Wildflower Honey & Orange

2 Cornish Game Hens (1 1/2 to 2 lb. each)
6 tbsp. plus 1/3 cup dry white wine
1 1/2 tbsp. honey
1 1/2 tbsp. chopped fresh thyme
2 bay leaves, preferably fresh, each torn into about 4 pieces
Pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
1 medium orange
1 small yellow onion, cut crosswise into quarter-inch-thick slices
salt and pepper
1 tbsp. butter
1 cup chicken broth

I didn't use cornish hens, but if you do, here's how to prepare them:

Discard giblets and use kitchen shears (or muscle backed by a good knife) to cut along both sides of the backbones and remove them. Then cut each hen in half along the breastbone. Trim off the wingtips.

I cut the chicken breasts into halves and put them in the called-for large bowl.

In a small bowl you combine the wine, honey, thyme, bay leaves, and red pepper flakes and stir to dissolve honey. Give up if the honey doesn't dissolve. It won't matter. Oh, I used sweet vermouth instead of a dry wine like pinot grigio or sauvignon blanc. I figured there would already be a fair bit of sweetness in the dish thanks to the honey so a little extra wouldn't hurt. Really, I just happened to have a tiny bit of vermouth left over and didn't have any wine. Another substitution was blueberry honey for the wildflower honey. Again, it was what I had.

Peel the zest from the orange into large strips and 'let the strips drop into the bowl with the hens". I'm sorry, does it disturb the hens to have the zest thrown haphazardly into the bowl? Well, I dropped them delicately just in case.

Add the honey mixture and sliced onion and toss well. Apparently it's okay to toss once everything's added but the hens have a problem with the orange zest by itself. Like a blind double date. You don't like being alone with the stranger and can't relax until your well-meaning, adorably-cute couple of friends show up. Maybe I just don't like oranges...(see post for rosemary chicken thighs).

Cover and refrigerate 4 hours or overnight. Fortunately that nervousness goes away, and some oranges are of rather easy virtue.

A half hor before cooking you're supposed to remove the hens from the marinade, but this seems ridiculous. You're supposed to then throw out your marinade. 6 tbsp. of vermouth and some beautiful honey down the drain? No, no, no. Originally I thought to boil the marinade on the side but the recipe already gives you pan drippings to make a jus. So I did it in the slow cooker. The recipe says to discard the marinade and pat the hens dry, which I believe is because the sugar in the marinade would burn quickly in the oven, but in the slow cooker it won't. After cooking in the slow cooker (about 4 and a half hours on high), you just transfer the hens to the oven and broil them for about 2 minutes, or cook less in the slow cooker and finish them in the oven (350F) to brown. If you do them in the oven completely, let the hens sit first for 30 minutes at room temperature and preheat the oven to 450F.

Season the hens with 1 tbsp of salt (I forgot this part...) and some pepper. Roast skin side up and baste occasionally with 2 tbsp. melted butter (or the marinade juices, as I did, for less fat. The hens will give a little marinating juice themselves). Cook for 30 minutes or until a meat thermometre registers 175-180F. Transfer the hens to a serving platter and tent with aluminum foil. This makes the hens more juicy. It's the same thing you would do at Thanksgiving and Christmas, if these are turkey holidays for you. If you cut into the meat right away it will be dryer. It also gives you time to make the jus or gravy.

While the baking sheet that you baked the chicken on is still hot add the remaining 1/3 cup of wine (or vermouth) and scrape the brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Then pour the pan contens into a small saucepan with the chicken broth (Slow cooker option: pour juices from the slow cooker into a small saucepan. No scraping required, but remove the bay leaves and orange zest!). Boil the sauce 2-3 minutes until a little thicker. Remove from heat and whisk in a tbsp. of butter. I actually did do this and it made the whole dish a million times better. Just a little bit. You really don't need the two tbsp for basting. I don't find you can even taste the flavour that way. To serve, you pour a little sauce around the hens and pass the rest at the table, but I found that the flavour was wasted by pouring it around. Instead a little bit with every bite, like a dipping sauce, worked much better.

Verdict?? I couldn't really taste the orange, so I liked it. The meat was so tender (thank you slow cooker), and the dipping sauce gave me the great taste of organic butter without making me horribly lactose-intolerantly-sick. Would I go out with M. Orange again (That would be Mr. Orange for all the anglophones out there)? Maybe without all the fuss. Skip the marinade altogether if you're using a slow cooker. Don't bother with dried spices, like the bay leaves and thyme, if you don't have fresh. Probably skip the orange. It gives it a nice aroma but it's not necessary, at least not if you use a sweeter wine or a sweet vermouth, where it will be overpowered. If you want the orange to cut through, use some juice from the zested orange. You're just going to eat it anyway.

I'm not inspired to cook this again, but I think I would definitely use the general strategy for the jus/dipping sauce again.

Oh, yeah, to go with it I made a risotto in the slow cooker. I'd been meaning to try it since short-grain brown rice risottos take way too much time to stir by hand. So I took some leftover roasted root vegetables (squash, turnip), and sautéed) them in 2 tsp. of olive oil with a small diced onion. Add a cup of rice and stir to coat. Add the root vegetables and a tiny bit of wine or vermouth (again, what I had) to deglaze and toss into the slow cooker with 4 cups of water. 4 cups was a wild estimate. Usually it's 2 cups of water for normal rice (1:2 ratio rice:water) but risotto is creamier and recipes say 1:6. Taking into account the fact that the water evaporates as you stir on the stovetop, in the slowcooker I decided to go halfway and try 4 cups. It worked really well. Just a note that I decided to make risotto after seeing a recipe by infamous Chef Louis Rhéaume ( see "Thai Green Curry soup" post) and wanting to see if he could do Italian better than Thai. But my confidence was shattered so I took his recipe and bastardized it and, in my opinion, saved myself the disappointment. Sometimes a woman is better off...