- 3 months ago
Martha Stewart shares some of her best cozy dinner recipes like classic arroz con pollo, a rich veal stew, and comforting pho. Each dish is warm, flavorful, and perfect for gathering around the table on chilly nights. With Martha’s trusted tips, these recipes are simple enough for weeknights yet special enough for entertaining.
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00:00I'm using an enameled cast iron Dutch oven for making arroz con pollo. Variations on this chicken
00:06and rice dish are beloved throughout Spain and Latin America. This one's studded with green
00:11olives and infused with the heady flavors of wine, onion, garlic, bay leaves, and saffron.
00:17So salt and pepper chicken thighs, six bone-in chicken thighs. Make sure the meat is dry.
00:25Put skin side down and a couple tablespoons of hot olive oil. I haven't salt and peppered the
00:32inside yet, which I will do, but we want to get the meat nice and brown. And starting with the skin
00:39side down is generally a good idea. The heaviness of the enamel cast iron and the tight-fitting lid
00:47really makes it the perfect vehicle for braising this rice and chicken all together. A little bit
00:54more salt, a little bit more pepper. And for the rest of the dish you'll need some white wine,
01:02a half cup, some saffron, finely chopped garlic, finely chopped onions, chopped tomato, and we're
01:10using Valencia rice. It's Spanish rice as opposed to Italian arborio for risotto. I make this with
01:18eggplant in it with yellow and red peppers in it. It's a very, very tasty and versatile dish.
01:26While the chicken is browning, put a pinch of saffron into the half a cup of white wine.
01:34The saffron will color the wine and add a nice golden color to the dish. Chicken thighs are a very
01:40good choice for this particular dish because they have lots of flavor and they're very moist and you
01:45can cook them without the skin and they'll still be deliciously tender if you are on a diet and don't
01:51want any skin. Chicken breasts tend to dry out and I wouldn't suggest those for this dish but chicken
01:57wings are very good. Now people always ask why bother browning the meat? Well browning the chicken will
02:04certainly give it color and develop a rich flavor base in the pot. So browning is important.
02:15Let's see, oh this is just right. A beautiful golden color, a little bit of crispy on the skin.
02:22That's what we want for our arborio. Now you can just remove these
02:27the baking sheet.
02:35And it has rendered a little bit of fat so take all but two tablespoons of the fat out of the pan.
02:43It's not too much but just a little bit. And you see there is a little bit of browning and that's
02:50going to really help color your final dish. This is one large yellow onion.
02:59Top quite small. And a cheap cable spoons of garlic, finely minced. And you can scrape up those
03:10little bit of brown bits on the bottom. You don't want to burn anything, okay? So be careful.
03:16Reduce the heat if you must. And now add one large tomato, finely chopped. Skin and seeds are fine.
03:26This turns such a beautiful color. And now add your wine. It's a half a cup of dry white wine and look
03:33at the color it has turned with the addition of the saffron. So add that. Make sure every saffron thread
03:39is in your pot. And boil that until most of the liquid has evaporated. But the flavor of course has stayed.
03:49Add two bay leaves and some freshly ground black pepper. About a quarter of a teaspoon. And a half a
03:58teaspoon of salt. And when it's still a little bit moist, add your rice. This is one and a half cups of
04:06Valencia rice. And this will start to cook immediately. It's a very short grained rice. Much smaller in grain
04:15than the Arborio rice. So now we're going to add our three cups of chicken broth. If you don't have
04:24chicken broth, you can add vegetable broth. But since this is a chicken dish, chicken broth is totally
04:29appropriate. Stir this around. Bring it to a simmer. Add your olives. One cup of pimento stuffed olives.
04:41A very traditional addition. And your chicken. Skin side up. Now the Valencia rice has a unique
04:48capacity to absorb large amounts of liquid. So it is the perfect rice to use for this particular dish.
04:59The chicken is so succulent already. There. And there's a lot of juice in the pan. Pour that into.
05:12Bring that to a boil. Reduce to a simmer. Transfer covered to a 375 degree oven. Now it's going to cook
05:20in the oven for approximately 25 to 30 minutes. And when you shake it out, let it stand for 10 minutes before
05:28serving. So this is ready to go. Cover. And that goes right into your oven.
05:44Set your timer. 25 minutes. So here's our casserole out of the oven. Would you like to see what it looks
05:51like? Unbelievably delicious. Mushrooms lend themselves very nicely to soups. My mom always made her Polish
06:01mushroom soup, which we all adored growing up. I still love it. Also cream of mushroom soup.
06:08Really delicious as a starter to a dinner party. Start with four tablespoons of butter and a half a cup of
06:15finely minced onion. Sweat the onion in the butter. And while this is sweating, you can prepare your
06:24mushrooms. So the shiitake should be sliced like that. And the cremini caps should be sliced crosswise
06:33like this. Thinly and evenly if possible. And you'll need quite a few mushrooms. Altogether three pounds of
06:43mushrooms. And we have these beautiful oysters, which can also be sliced lengthwise. Right through the whole
06:52bunch like this. These are so tender, these oyster mushrooms. Watch your onion. You do not want to brown it.
07:02As soon as they are translucent, add six tablespoons of flour to the pot. This will be your thickener.
07:11And for the three pounds of mushrooms, we're going to add 12 cups of flavorful chicken stock.
07:18So this creamy mushroom soup, creamy french mushroom soup, is not a puree. It is a flavorful base
07:26with the sliced cooked mushrooms in it. And to the stock, you can also add a couple sprigs of parsley,
07:34dried thyme, and one bay leaf. So now you start to saute your mushrooms, starting with the heaviest and
07:42densest mushroom, the cremini in this case, in four tablespoons of butter in a big skillet. Because
07:50ultimately we're just going to have all the mushrooms to this skillet. Now remember, if you add a little
07:54bit of salt, it helps get the juices moving in those mushroom slices. Keep stirring gently. Don't
08:02press too hard. You don't want to break those beautiful mushroom slices. And because mushrooms
08:07have so much water content, they really do cook down to a fraction of their volume.
08:14So now add your shiitake mushrooms, which are a little bit denser and heavier than your oyster
08:21mushrooms. And these two can have a sprinkling of salt. And add your most delicate of the three
08:31mushrooms, your oysters. And these two will be sprinkled with a little bit of salt and the juice of half a
08:39lemon. And cook these until they take on a little bit of color. And we will then add them to our simmering
08:47broth. So here are our mushrooms. They are a nice color. Now this is the soup. I like to strain it.
08:56And put it through a fine sieve into another pot. This will take out any little pieces of unwanted onion,
09:07any herbs. Now for the enrichment. Four egg yolks and one cup of heavy cream. And one reason why it is so
09:18very tasty is the presence of cream. Now add a little bit of that very hot broth. This will temper the egg
09:28yolks lightens the color of the soup. And add the whole thing back to your broth. Keep the soup on low,
09:39but keep it hot. Now add your mushrooms.
09:45Carefully add them to the enriched broth. Now if you find that your pans are too heavy to lift like this,
09:54just spoon out the mushrooms. I've gotten used to dealing with big pots. Notice how I'm picking up
09:59the pot with the spoon. You have to do things like that to make it work. So here is our cream of mushroom
10:06soup. Rather than boiling the soup, causing it to curdle, just ladle it into piping hot bowls. And
10:15a little garnish. Parsley leaves will be delightful. And this is a really fine beginning to a fine meal.
10:25This is called a white stew because the meat is never browned. The stock is thickened first by a roux
10:31and then by a second thickener called a liaison, which in this case is eggs and cream. And the eggs
10:37and the cream make the sauce exceptionally rich and delicious. So the first thing to do is to have your
10:45meat, two pounds of boneless veal shoulder cut into one and a half inch squares. We're going to make a
10:53bouquet garni in a cheesecloth. So one carrot, one small onion, and you can just roughly slice this onion.
11:03This too is going into our bouquet garni. This is going to cook right in with the veal and the other
11:10aromatics to make a flavorful veal stew. Here's our parsley, like four or five sprigs of parsley, some
11:18thyme, one clove of garlic smashed, and two bay leaves. And you can break the bay leaves if you like.
11:28And then just make a little pouch. You can tie this without string and you can just do this
11:36in a knot. And make sure you use cotton cheesecloth. So here's your little pouch ready to go.
11:42And bring one quarter of a cup of white wine to a boil. And we're going to add the veal straight
11:49into the white wine. And this is typically like a navarrena of lamb. When the veal is young, the
11:57vegetables are tender and young. And this is what a spring stew is all about. Stir the meat into the
12:05white wine. And add six cups of water. Cold water. And to this, one teaspoon of salt.
12:18And oh, I forgot to put the peppercorns into the bouquet garni. I'll just throw a quarter of a teaspoon in.
12:30You can pick those out later. But they are an essential ingredient in the aromatics.
12:35So stir the meat a little bit. You're going to bring this to a boil, reduce to a simmer. And once it
12:41starts to simmer, add your big bouquet garni. And cook for one hour, skimming with a spoon like this,
12:50to take the scum off the surface. Okay, our veal is just coming to a simmer. With a spoon,
12:57make room in the center for your bouquet garni. And the aromatics will continue flavoring the meat for
13:04the entire hour in which it's going to cook uncovered gently at a simmer. So here is our veal.
13:12The liquid has reduced to, oh my gosh, a fraction of what it was. This is after one hour. Now add to
13:20the pot three large artichoke hearts. So cut this into six pieces. Depending on the size of your
13:29artichoke heart, it's going to take anywhere from say 20 to 25 minutes to get these tender. It's been
13:35cooking for an additional 25 minutes with the artichoke hearts. Now add your green peas, one pound,
13:43doesn't look like a pound, but it is, of fresh green peas. If you can't find fresh, you could use the
13:49baby frozen. Okay, so that's three minutes. You want to now strain your liquid. Remove the bouquet garni.
13:59So gently remove the peas, the meat, the artichoke hearts to a bowl.
14:05And you can strain the rest right through a sieve. And we're ready to do our roux.
14:20Four tablespoons of butter. And we're going to add a quarter of a cup of flour.
14:24And you just have to cook it for about one minute.
14:32Add your stock. And this is a velouté.
14:40Now as this comes to a simmer, it will thicken a little bit more. And you'll be ready to create the
14:46liaison of egg yolk and cream. Oh, so this is smooth and it is thickening. So turn the heat way down.
14:56You can break your egg yolk right into the bowl. Save the white for something else.
15:04Meringues and other things. And add one quarter of a cup of heavy cream.
15:16Add a little bit of the velouté now to the egg and cream. Now this is called tempering.
15:28You want to add just a little bit at a time so that you do not curdle the egg yolk.
15:35And now you can add this warm mixture to the pot.
15:40Stir it in. So you have our meat, our fava beans, or I can put those right here.
15:51These are going to be added. This is one pound. And now just add your veal right back to the pot.
16:01At this point I like to stir everything with a rubber spatula because I don't want to break anything.
16:10And one last lovely little addition is the juice of one lemon.
16:23Spectacular. Well, there you have it. Your Blanquette de Vaux Spring Veal Stew.
16:30And I like to serve this in a spectacular bowl like this.
16:38Now you could serve this over a beautiful risotto or that could be on the side.
16:46Some freshly chopped parsley and freshly chopped dill.
16:51Sorrel has grown wild for centuries in Asia, Europe, and North America.
16:55This is what a sorrel leaf looks like. Long stem, a leaf that looks kind of like an elongated spinach leaf.
17:02It's easily transformed into a delicious cream soup served hot or cold.
17:08We've washed all the leaves. You need about three cups for this particular recipe.
17:13Remove the stems and cut into half-inch pieces. Generally, cream soups in France are based on a
17:20bechamel sauce. But today we're using a velouté, which is based on a stock. We're using a chicken stock.
17:29My mother often made sorrel soup because we all love the sour taste.
17:34Sorrel is a hearty perennial herb. It belongs to the buckwheat family.
17:38Very high in vitamin A, contains some calcium, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, and vitamin C.
17:44So it fulfills a lot of our vegetable requirements. To make the soup, melt three tablespoons of unsalted butter.
17:53And saute a third of a cup of finely minced white onion. You could also use a shallot.
18:00So let that saute just until the onions are translucent. It'll take six to eight minutes or so.
18:06While these are sauteing, you can do one more thing that you need for this particular cream soup.
18:12We need two large egg yolks. So separate the whites from the yolks. And you mix the egg yolks
18:20with three quarters of a cup of heavy cream. And you can just do that in a little bowl with a fork.
18:27This is what makes the soup really good. Get those egg yolks really well mixed with the cream.
18:35Add your sorrel leaves right to the onions. Three cups. You can immediately smell that
18:42delicious sourness that sorrel emits as it cooks. And as the sorrel's cooking, add a half a teaspoon of
18:49coarse salt. Where's the sorrel? It cooks way down. And now just sprinkle two tablespoons of all-purpose
18:57flour over your sorrel leaves. And cook. This is sort of like the beginning of a bechamel.
19:03Now six cups of hot chicken stock. This ladle, pre-measured, is one cup or eight ounces. Someday,
19:14when you're home on a weekend, make some stock. Keep it in quart containers so that you have exactly
19:21what you need when you want to make a really great soup like this. Now bring this to a simmer. And then
19:28we're going to create the liaison. Here's our eggs and cream. And now with a whisk. This is very, very hot.
19:36So very carefully add one cup to your cream and egg. And very slowly add your cream stock and egg yolk
19:47mixture. And that is the liaison. In cooking, a liaison is a thickening agent for soups, sauces,
19:53and other mixtures. So that's it. This is our soup. I would add a little bit of black pepper. You'll taste
20:02it as it cools for salt. And then right before serving, incorporate about one and a half tablespoons
20:11of butter into the hot soup. This adds just another little dimension of flavor. If you're planning to
20:19serve the soup cold, you don't have to add the butter. So now just ladle into your serving bowl.
20:27And you see it's thin, but it has texture. And it has really unusually good taste. So that's your hot
20:37sorrel soup. I like the sprinkling of spring chervil and a little tiny dollop of creme fraiche.
20:45That is a beautiful soup of sorrel. Now, if you want to serve it cold, chill overnight. You can put it
20:53in a pitcher like this for easy serving. And this too can have a sprinkling of chervil
21:02and a dollop of creme fraiche. Known as one of Asia's best street foods, pho,
21:08pho, p-h-o, pronounced f-u-h, is a Vietnamese beef soup with noodles. And there are countless
21:17versions of this street food. No one vendor will taste like any other vendor. I really can't get
21:25it that way. It's a family secret, the broth that is the basis for the noodle dish. And a lot of
21:32preparation goes into the making of pho. Today I'll teach you the secret to making this delicious soup
21:39our way. So into a pot of boiling water, add four pounds of marrow bones, three pounds of oxtail.
21:50These oxtails have been cut into about one and a quarter inch slices. I just found a great source
21:57for oxtail in my neighborhood. It's a Spanish marketplace. And then on top of all of that,
22:03two and a half pounds of a beef brisket. Doesn't that look good? Put that on top of the bones.
22:11You're going to bring this to a boil. What we're doing is pretty much clarifying the bones themselves,
22:17just cleaning up any blood from the meat and the bones. And we will skim that off and then discard
22:24this water using just the meat and the bones. This will boil for five minutes. In the meantime,
22:30we are going to toast our spices. And there are lots of spices that go into a traditional soup like
22:36this. Six pieces of star anise. These are these beautiful spice, has lots of little seeds in the star
22:44points. Two black cardamom pods, some Vietnamese cinnamon, which is a lot thicker than regular cinnamon.
22:51And use two sticks. Ten whole dried cloves. Two teaspoons of black peppercorns. A teaspoon of fennel seeds.
23:01That has that nice licorice-y taste. And two teaspoons of coriander seeds. So over low heat, toast these
23:10spices. You'll start to smell them. And heating it just enlivens the flavors of the spices. And then over a low
23:18flame. Toast sliced ginger, just as they do at the street vendor. And whole onions. Two whole onions.
23:26A four-inch piece of ginger. And I've already blackened four shallots. The French had a long-standing
23:35relationship with Vietnam. And many French techniques, like boiling the bones, skimming impurities from the
23:42surface of the water, is really the way you would make a clear consomme. And that comes from French
23:47cuisine. And it was adopted by the Vietnamese. So you'll see a lot of fat floating to the top of the
23:56water. Have a big casserole like this. I'm using an enameled cast iron pot. It's big enough to hold all
24:04those bones, the meat, the vegetables. And you're going to simmer for six to eight hours. I can smell
24:11all my spices. We don't want to burn them. So these are going to go straight into the pot. You can add
24:18your shallots. Four beautiful shallots. So that ginger looks good. Ready for the pot. So now that is
24:29perfectly blackened. And this one's done. So once the water starts to boil, look what comes to the top.
24:39These are the impurities, the little bit of blood that's left in the marrow of the bones. Don't think
24:46about what it really is, but just skim it off. And then you'll have nice clean bones to add to your
24:53beautiful, fragrant stock. That is the basis for every pho that's served in Vietnamese restaurants,
25:02in Vietnamese homes, and on the streets of Saigon. So five minutes is up. Remove the meat.
25:12You can just pick it out and just put it into the pot. Here's a marrow bone.
25:19Dogs love when you make this soup. These marrow bones are delectable.
25:27Once you get the meat into your big pot, add eight quarts of water. Bring that to a boil,
25:33reduce to a low simmer, cover, and cook for anywhere from six to eight hours.
25:40Constantly skimming off any fat that rises to the surface of your water.
25:45So here's our stock. It's cooked for eight hours. There's lots of evaporation. You can see it's down
25:53about two inches from where it was. The brisket is fully cooked. Remove this to a tray. And you have to
26:01let this really cool before you slice it. It slices very easily after it cools. The rest of this stock,
26:10we're going to strain through a cheesecloth. We want it very fine. So I am just going to ladle the broth
26:17into the cheesecloth. The bones I'm going to reserve because they have a lot of good meat on them that
26:24you can pick off. They can be part of your pho if you want to serve it. And the marrow, if you're a marrow
26:32aficionado, you can reserve the marrow also. So once this is done, you're ready to rock and roll. There's a lot of
26:42really tasty condiments that you can serve with your pho. Mint leaves, Thai basil leaves, bean sprouts,
26:53watercress, all of this very muscly sinewy beef that comes from the legs, shoulder, neck. These are the
27:03parts where the meat is very tender once it is cooked for hours.
27:09And now I'll let the rest of this drain into here. So here's our broth. Add a third of a cup of
27:21Vietnamese fish sauce, which in Vietnamese it's nongk mam, and in Thai it's called nampla, made out of a
27:30salty dried fish. So into the hot stock, add a one and a half inch piece of yellow rock sugar. It's
27:39sweetens the broth. You can use two tablespoons of regular white granulated sugar or the yellow rock
27:46sugar, which is traditional in this kind of cooking. Now the noodles, here we have these beautiful rice
27:53noodles. These are the noodles for pho. This is about enough for one serving. Use one of these
28:00noodle cooker baskets that sits right in boiling water to cook and warm the noodles. And you just
28:07stir them up and the noodles stay in here just until they're softened, pliable.
28:15I think they're ready. See what a handy thing this is. And here you can take out your noodles,
28:21either with the chopsticks or a pair of tongs. Choose as many as you like right into your bowl.
28:29So now this is eye of the round. Add one or two slices of this. The trick to thinly slicing the eye
28:38of the round is to freeze it until firm and then thinly slice it. Two pieces of the cooked brisket,
28:45some onion, some scallion cut on the diagonal. And again, you choose what you want to put in the bowl.
28:57Make sure you get the stock while it's very hot. Pour it right over that beef. It's cooking the beef as it
29:05pours over. And here is your delectable, exquisite pho. Remember, every single one of these bowls is
29:16different. And you can add bean sprouts, some of these red hot chilies if you dare, some Thai basil for
29:27flavor. And a sprig of mint. And you can add some hoisin sauce if you like, some chili paste. But this is
29:39traditional, delicious Vietnamese pho. And then just pour your piping hot broth right over the noodles and
29:51the other ingredients.
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