Brussel Sprouts a la Colicchio

As I will be contributing a few dishes to the Thanksgiving meal that my brother and sister-in-law are hosting this year, it is now crunch time for me to perfect the items that I am planning to bring and prove my food blogging worthiness to my family. First up on my list is brussel sprouts, which I had been planning to simply pan roast with bacon. However, after coming across an interesting preparation for brussel sprouts in Tom Colicchio's Think Like a Chef, in which the brussel sprout leaves are blanched, then briefly sautéed in with bacon, I decided to see if it could improve upon the pan roasting method. While Colicchio's technique resulted in a wonderful vegetable side dish, with two blanching sessions and lots of brussel sprout leaves to separate, it is a bit too labor- and pan-intensive for Thanksgiving. For the big day, I will stick to the pan roast method. However, I will definitely keep this brussel sprouts technique in my fall repertoire as it produces perfectly tender brussel sprout leaves with no hint of bitterness.

Sautéed Brussel Sprout Leaves with Bacon
Adapted from Think Like a Chef

Ingredients:

• 3/4 lb brussel sprouts
• 1/4 lb bacon, diced
• salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. Cut the base off of the brussel sprouts and cut them in half.
2. Toss the halves into boiling, salted water and boil until the leaves begin to separate, about 3 minutes. Remove the brussel sprouts with a slotted spoon and rinse under cold water to stop the cooking process. Keep the water in the pot that was used to cook the brussel sprouts at a boil.
3. Separate the leaves of each brussel sprouts from the core, discarding the core. Place the leaves back into the boiling water and cook until they are tender, about 3 minutes. Drain the leaves and rinse them under cold water. Blot the leaves dry with paper towels.
4. Fry the bacon in a skillet over medium heat until the fat is rendered and the bacon is beginning to brown. Reduce the heat to medium-low and add the brussel sprout leaves. Briefly toss the leaves with the bacon and bacon fat. Taste the leaves for salt and pepper and serve them immediately.

Tom Colicchio's Braised Pork Belly

I thought that the best way to show my appreciation for Tom Colicchio after he kindly answered my questions was to cook one of his signature recipes. His recipe for braised fresh "bacon" in Think Like a Chef helped bring the pork belly craze into home kitchens. As simple as the dish is to prepare, it is certainly restaurant-quality. I served it with Chef Colicchio's lentils, celebrating the beginning of autumn in New York.


Braised Pork Belly
Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 2 lbs. pork belly, preferably with skin on
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 1 leek, white part only, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
• 3 cups chicken stock

Directions:

1. Heat of to 350F.
2. Pat dry the pork belly with a paper towel and season with salt and pepper.
3. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add pork, skin side down, and cook until well browned, about 15 minutes. Set pork aside.
4. Pour off all but 2 tbsp fat and add onion, carrots, celery, leek, and garlic. Stir to coat the vegetables with oil. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are soft, about 20 minutes.
5. Add pork belly to the pan along with 2 cups of chicken stock. Bring to a simmer, then transfer the skillet to the oven. Cook, uncovered, for 1 hour.
6. Add the rest of the stock and cook until pork is tender, approximately 1 hour.
7. Remove the skillet from the oven and let the pork cool. Once cooled, remove the skin with your fingers and discard or eat it. Score the fat, then cut the pork into 4 pieces.
8. Increase the oven heat to 400F.
9. Strain the braising liquid, discarding the solids, and return the liquid to the skillet. Bring the liquid to a simmer and skim off any fat.
10. Return the pork, fat-side up, to the skillet. Transfer the skillet to the oven and cook until the fat is browned, about 20 minutes. Serve immediately.

Three Questions for Tom Colicchio

I recently had the opportunity to ask Tom Colicchio a few questions. Although his fame is attributed to being co-host of Bravo's Top Chef and co-owner of the Craft restaurant empire, his cookbook, Think Like a Chef, is something that every amateur cook should own. It is a personal favorite of mine, teaching how to break away from the confines of recipes and make the most of your ingredients. He provided some valuable tips for getting through the fall cooking season with your sanity in check and some delicious meals on your plate.

When you’re living in NYC, you have a very limited kitchen and very limited space. What cooking advice can you give us New Yorkers?

I have a small kitchen myself. Keep yourself organized. When you’re actually cooking a meal, you shouldn’t have to use a knife anymore. All the prep work should be done. You can buy small containers and put your prep in it, so when you start cooking, everything is right there for you. You can just add things to the pan when you need it. You shouldn’t be chopping and cooking at the same time—you make a mess. Especially if you have limited space, you need to keep really organized. I cook on Christmas Eve for 16 people and I make 8 or 9 dishes and I have a little stove. You can do it.

What are some great ingredients for fall dishes?

For fall, we take duck, root vegetables and apples and we combine those three things in different ways. You can make duck ham, duck confit, cold duck terrine with roasted vegetables, roasted duck, duck with apples, applesauce… And, you can do a soup with pureed vegetables with apple and duck confit. There are always different ways to combine food. If you tell someone to be creative with unlimited options, it’s sometimes hard to come up with something. If you say be creative with these three ingredients, you can do it in many different ways. Just learn how to cook—there are five basic cooking methods. And after that, it’s about just learning technique. If you can cook one green vegetable, you can cook them all. Don’t overcomplicate things.

What one piece of Thanksgiving advice would you give to someone cooking the meal?

Don’t overcook that turkey! People think it takes a lot longer than it takes. If you’re going to cook your turkey breast to the point where it’s nice and juicy, the legs will be undercooked. So what I do is take it out at that point and let it rest for a good half an hour before you carve it. Then, get the roasting pan, clean it out, keep it hot, take the legs off, put the legs back on the roasting pan and back in the oven. Cook the legs separately.

When carving the breast—I don’t know why people think carving the breast on the bird is a good thing—take the breast right off. Cut right down the breast bone and take the whole breast off and put it in on the cutting board and slice it. Every time I tell people that, they can’t believe it.