Ask Dave

Do you have a cooking question you'd like me to answer, or a recipe you'd like to see?  Send me your questions and requests in an email or post them as a comment to this page.  I'll do my best to answer it for you.

I've redesigned the "Ask Dave" page to show the most recent question first.
I don't know what happened here - when I updated the last two questions, for some reason, the last question (about pork chops) and the recipes in answer to it disappeared!  I'll try to recover them, but I don't have any great hopes.  Meanwhile, if anyone printed it out, or has a cached version of it somewhere, please send it to me!  Thanks! 

Dear Dave,

I need something low in sodium, with decent nutritional content. Perhaps a good poultry recipe. It can't have milk ingredients, though (I am kosher at home). Got anything?

Nicole G., Montreal, QC

Dear Nicole,

I certainly do!  This is a nice way to cook chicken so that it is low in sodium and fat, but not dried out.

Baked Chicken with Lemon and Herbs

4 chicken legs or half chicken breasts, skinned
2 medium lemons
1 medium onion
2 T fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme, or oregano)
Pepper to taste

Spray a baking dish large enough to accommodate all the chicken pieces with cooking spray.

Slice the lemons and the onions thinly.  Arrange the skinless chicken pieces in the baking dish.  Sprinkle them with the fresh herbs and pepper.  (If you wish, you could sprinkle them with salt, but if you're going for low-sodium, you probably shouldn't.  The herbs, pepper, onions, and lemons will compensate for the salt.)  Cover all the exposed areas of the chicken first with onion slices, and then with lemon slices.  The onions and lemons will serve to both flavor the chicken, and keep it moist.

Bake in a 350° oven for about 30 minutes, or until the chicken pieces are cooked through and the juices run clear when the chicken is pierced.  Serve with steamed vegetables and brown rice, if you want something really healthy.

Dear Dave,

I am fortunate enough to love vegetables and am able to cook most of them well (by "well", I mean "to my liking"). However, I haven't been able to master asparagus or eggplant - I aim for "soft" but usually get "overcooked" or "mushy". If you have any cooking tips or dairy-free recipes for either or both of these, I'd love to hear them. btw - I do share your love of garlic - so, if it was included, that would be a great bonus.

Joanne K., Toronto, ON

Dear Joanne,

Asparagus and eggplant can both be tricky.  I love them both, but I don't cook either of them very often.  I don't have many good recipes for eggplant, unfortunately.

Preparing asparagus actually takes a little bit of work. Unlike many vegetables, with asparagus, smaller doesn't necessarily mean younger and more tender.  The best asparagus is actually the spears that are quite thick.

First, forget everything you have ever heard about breaking off the bottom of the asparagus spear where it breaks naturally.  If you do that, you are throwing away a lot of perfectly good (and expensive!) asparagus.  Instead, you need to peel the asparagus.  Cut off the very bottom of the spear if it is woody or dried out, and then peel the asparagus up to about halfway up the spear.  You need to peel off more at the bottom than you do further up the spear, because the tough, inedible skin is thicker near the bottom than at the top.  So you should peel off a thicker layer of skin near the bottom, and gradually cut less until you are about halfway up the spear, where the skin is no longer tough.  Do this with a paring knife, not a vegetable peeler.  The vegetable peeler will cut off a uniform thickness, which is not what you want with asparagus.

Once the asparagus has been prepared this way, all you need to do is steam it.  You can buy asparagus steamers that allow you to steam the asparagus upright without breaking the spears, but who needs such a specialized piece of equipment in their kitchen?  Just put the asparagus in a small amount of water in a skillet large enough to accommodate it, and steam it just until tender.  You can then serve it plain, with a little melted butter, or a little squeeze of lemon juice.  You could also saute it briefly in a little butter or olive oil and garlic, if you'd like.  The prepared asparagus can also be drizzled with olive oil and roasted in a 350° oven for about 15 minutes.

My favorite way to prepare eggplant is to cut thick slices of it, rub it with a cut clove of garlic, drizzle it with olive oil, sprinkle it with salt and pepper, and grill it or broil it for a few minutes on each side.

Hope this helps!

OK, so now that I have mastered Roasted Squash Soup .. please tell us your favourite roasted root vegetable recipe. Do you have one that is low on herbs and high on spices for seasoning? Herbs and I don't do well together, for the most part. 

Emily N., Kitchener, ON

Dear Emily,

I don't usually use a recipe for roasted vegetables.  Generally, I just chop them up, drizzle them with olive oil, sprinkle them with salt and pepper, and pop them in the oven.  But I suppose if I had to write a recipe for them, it would be this:

Roasted Root Vegetables

Root vegetables (Carrots, onions, rutabagas, turnips, parsnips, beets, potatoes, or any combination thereof)
Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper

Preheat oven to 350°.

Peel (except for the potatoes - just scrub them) and chop root vegetables into large chunks.  Place on a large baking sheet.  Drizzle them with olive oil, and sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper.  Mix thoroughly with your hands to be sure all the vegetables are lightly covered with olive oil and the salt and pepper is evenly distributed.  (If necessary, pour off any excess olive oil - pools of olive oil on the baking sheet will cause the vegetables to burn.)

Roast in a 350° oven for 20 minutes.  Remove from oven and turn all the vegetables over.  Return to oven and roast for another 20 - 25 minutes, or until golden and the vegetables have begun to char slightly.  Serve piping hot.

First note - Beets take slightly longer than the other vegetables to roast.  If you are roasting them along with other vegetables, either cut them into smaller pieces, or put the beets in the oven about 10 or 15 minutes before the other vegetables.

Second note - the above process also works for brussels sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, or cabbage wedges, but total roasting time is somewhat less, around 30 minutes.


Hi there. Do you par chance have a superb recipe for some kind of winter soup that's squash/pumpkin based? Easy, cheap to make?
Thx. 

Emily N., Kitchener, ON
 


Dear Emily,


As a matter of fact, I do!  Squash/pumpkin soup always left me unsatisfied - it seemed to be lacking substance.  But I discovered that roasting the squash first gave it more flavor, and that adding some red lentils gave the soup more body.  Here's how I do it:


Roasted Squash Soup

1 medium butternut or buttercup squash
4 T. olive oil
Salt
Pepper
1  medium onion, chopped
2 or 3 cloves garlic
2 tsp. minced ginger
1 pinch of ground cloves
1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. cumin seeds
1 tsp. coriander seeds, crushed
1/2 cup red lentils 
4 cups chicken stock (optional)


Preheat oven to 350°.


Peel and seed the squash, cut it into large chunks, and place the chunks on a baking sheet.  Drizzle the squash with 2 T. of the olive oil, and season generously with salt and pepper.  Roast for about 45 minutes, turning once, until the squash is tender and nicely browned.


In a soup pot, saute the onion in the remaining olive oil until translucent.  Add the garlic, ginger, and spices, and continue sauteing until they are golden.  Add the roasted squash to the pot, along with the red lentils, and cover with water (or the optional chicken stock).  Simmer gently for about 20 minutes.


Puree soup roughly right in the pot with a hand mixer or blender.  Serve with a big hunk of crusty bread.


If you don't have fresh squash, you could always use frozen or canned squash or pumpkin puree - but I think the roasting adds a great deal of flavor.

Dear Dave,

I am going to make sandtarts with Alice on Tuesday.  When you say brush with an egg wash, is that using the egg white or the whole egg?

Ann S., Riverdale, MD

Dear Ann,

The whole egg, beaten.  You can add a tablespoon of water to the beaten egg.  Have fun!

Love, Dave



Dear Dave,

I'm sure you will get tons of requests - so, maybe I should put mine in early - if you have a recipe for an authentic Italian tomato sauce, I'd LOVE to see it.

Joanne K., Toronto, ON

Dear Joanne,

It just so happens I do!  One of my favorite cookbooks,  The Classic Italian Cookbook by Marcella Hazan, has several.  This is the one I prefer.  You can make it with either fresh or canned tomatoes, but since it's winter, I'll give you the version for canned tomatoes.  Just be sure to use a good-quality can of plum tomatoes.  (Please note that I've modified Hazan's recipe a little, notably to reduce the salt and oil.  You can always add more if you feel the sauce needs it.)

1 small yellow onion, finely diced

1 medium carrot, finely diced

1 stalk celery, finely diced

1/3 cup olive oil

2 cups (one 796 ml. can) plum tomatoes, with their juice, chopped

a pinch (1/4 tsp) sugar

1 tsp salt

In a large saucepan, saute the onions in the olive oil over medium heat just until they are soft and translucent, but not browned.  Add the carrots and celery, and saute another minute.

Add the tomatoes, the salt, and the sugar, and simmer gently for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

If you prefer a smooth tomato sauce, you can put the sauce through a food mill after 30 minutes, and return the pureed sauce to the saucepan for the last 15 minutes of simmering.

Another variation is to add 2 teaspoons of rosemary leaves and 1/2 cup of diced pancetta when sauteing the onions.

Enjoy!

Dave

Hi Food Guru,

Situation:

Frozen chunk of beef

Gets thawed and cooked. Is delish but too much for one person and a pile of kids.

Question: Can it be safely re-frozen now that its been cooked?

Thank you sir.

Emily N., Kitchener, ON

 

Dear Emily,

Yes.  Absolutely.

Here's a suggestion:  Make some TV dinners.  Portion out slices of the roast beef, mashed potatoes, and vegetables, and freeze them together in a freezer-safe container.  Then, when you're rushed one evening, just take out the frozen dinner, and pop it into the microwave.