Martha Stewart's 16-Recipe Hero Vegetables Special | How to Cook Mushrooms, Corn, and Onions

[Music] welcome to cooking school today's show is all about mushrooms mushrooms are a surprisingly versatile ingredient that add both texture and flavor to any dish in the past the only type of mushroom that you could find was the white button mushroom this little creature now there is a vast variety of wild and cultivated mushrooms we're using chanterelle today to create a delicious filling for savory buckwheat crepes we're using shiitake porcini and cremini mushrooms in a ragu so meaty that you won't believe it's vegetarian and then we're going to show you how to make a rich cream of mushroom soup made with a variety of mushrooms for an earthy flavorful soup and finally a modern twist on mushroom risotto using an ancient grain called farro i like serving mushrooms in many many different ways and rolled up in buckwheat crepes they are utterly delicious for this particular recipe we're going to use a half a cup of buckwheat flour with a half a cup of all-purpose flour for the batter itself use a blender one and a third cups of whole milk four whole eggs i add the liquid first and then the dry ingredients on top of the liquid and the batter for crepes should be made eight hours or more in advance the day before is best and with the four eggs we're going to add some melted butter three tablespoons unsalted some salt three quarters of a teaspoon half a cup of buckwheat flour and a half a cup of all-purpose flour if you used old buckwheat flour the crepes would be a little bit heavy so now blend this on low to start increase the speed a little bit so that's it now just decant into a measure like this you can make about 24 to 30 beautiful crepes make sure you cover this and refrigerate we have some that's already rested and here it is the consistency is like very heavy cream and this is a one ounce metal ladle i have some butter that's kind of at room temperature but i find that brushing the pans really works very well now first crep you put your ladle of batter and then [Music] just cover the entire bottom and when you see little tiny bubbling holes throughout the crep it is ready to turn so it really takes just a moment of practice and you'll become a crepe maker in your own right now that's a pretty crap you can see that just in a few minutes you will have lots and lots of crepes so now i'm making the mushroom filling three tablespoons of butter a large shallot and two big sprigs of fresh thyme you can use dry thyme if you don't have the fresh and what we're using today is chanterelle and cremini this is a cremini mushroom which is basically a variety of the white mushroom that we're so used to seeing in the grocery store it is brown though and very tasty and this is the beautiful chanterelle with the very delineated gills underneath the trumpet and the beautiful top up at my house in maine on mount desert island we have lots of these in the autumn especially if it's a rainy summer so all of these mushrooms go into the butter and shallot mixture 10 ounces of chanterelle 10 ounces of cremini and saute until the moisture starts exuding from the mushrooms themselves but look how pretty and oh so fragrant and now rage before they are done add a quarter of a cup of dry white wine now before you finish the recipe you should put these in a bowl just to cool a little bit before we add the creme fraiche half a cup of creme fraiche just to enrich them if you don't have creme fraiche you can use sour cream add a little bit of black pepper a little bit of salt and you're ready to form your crepes take the prettiest side and that'll be the outside and be generous with the mushrooms but not so generous that the crepe falls apart and just fold these into triangles like that so this can be done in advance of your party and these are going to go right into a warm oven 350 degrees until they're warm through and a little tiny bit crispy around the edges so the way i like to serve these crepes is with a fried egg i like a little color around the edge of the white and put the egg on your plate and two crepes and enjoy these preps will make an impressive addition to your buffet whether it be for holiday or every day [Music] a staple of northern italy's bologna region ragu sauce is typically made with meat usually three kinds of meat but you'll be surprised to learn that you can make an equally robust and flavorful vegetarian option using a combination of dried and fresh mushrooms the first step is to soak your dried mushrooms and these are two ounces of porcini cover with boiling water they not only plump up they get soft we're using just the mushrooms not the water in which they're soaked because that makes it just a little too strong what we're doing but look already the desiccated mushrooms are plumping up once the mushrooms are soaked strained and chopped just a small amount adds an enormous flavor to a dish porcinis are also known as sep so your grocer might think of them as seps next to start with the sofrito the basis of a lot of italian cooking sofrito is onion carrot and celery in other cultures the sofrito might be called a mirepoix in french or a trinity which is slightly different in the new orleans cuisine because it has green pepper in it and just chop this up kind of coarsely the beauty of this ragu is not everything is going to be hand chopped chopping in the food processor is perfectly okay about an eighth of an inch dice is what you want to do this you have to have a sharp blade in your food processor so into six tablespoons of butter melted in a deep pot like this start sauteing your onion first and then your carrot and celery the onion should have a little bit of salt gets that sweating process going very nice and quick way to deal with the onions if you don't have a food processor of course you can chop finely by hand see how nice this looks saved a lot of time scrape this into your onion and now the last thing to chop before the mushrooms the celery it's going to take about 25 minutes for this to cook down and caramelize a little bit so in this particular ragu we're using a mixture of cremini and shiitake mushrooms shiitakes have a really earthy flavor with a buttery texture this is the cremini cut these into quarters before you put them into your processor and another thing to look for in mushrooms is that the cap of the mushroom is attached with that little fluffy skin all the way around the stem if it's separated on this kind of mushroom it is not fresh and look for others that are attached so we'll chop up the cremini that's good so after 25 minutes this is what the sofrito should look like and now you can add your mushrooms and i add them one by one as i chop them this of course is the crimini smells so good when they're chopped really fantastic and now you can chop your shiitake this is a shiitake mushroom with a stem attached usually a little bit of dirt on the stem just remove the stem and cut the caps into quarters shiitakes are a shaggy capped mushroom cultivated in china about 800 years ago they found them growing on fallen logs in hardwood forests such as oak or the she tree from which it gets its name and now of course they're cultivated in many places i've even successfully grown shiitakes in my basement so here is the cremini cooking with the sofrito and now chop your shiitakes the stems of the shiitake are really fibrous so leave those out but you can just add those to a stock pot they are very flavorful so here goes the shiitakes these cook down a lot because mushrooms are about 90 water now we're going to add our beautiful porcini mushrooms and now i'm chopping not in the food processor because these kind of turn into mush in the food processor these are the soaked porcini you can add that broth that water to your stock pot but don't put it into the sauce and so just chop these up to about the same texture as the other mushrooms you can see how tender they've become so these get added right to your ragu now doesn't that look kind of like meat nice browned meat you can imagine it is but actually it's more fragrant and extremely delicious so there these get incorporated and now four cups of crushed tomatoes make sure they are seedless skinless tomatoes and the last thing that goes into the sauce a little herb bouquet made out of fresh basil marjoram thyme and rosemary just make a little bundle and cotton cheesecloth and you can twist this tie it with a little piece of cotton string and so just drop that right in all the flavors will be imparted into your ragu and now simmer this for about an hour add some water towards the end of the hour and then cook for another say hour hour and a half and you will have a very very tasty ragu so our ragu is done now remove that we've cooked one pound of rigatoni and i like to get big noodles out of the boiling water like this and a little bit of moisture in the serving dish is good because it will help thin that very thick sauce now one cup of grated parmesan cheese sprinkle over your noodles [Music] and spoon over some of your beautiful ragu this can be completely mixed in and i don't like to use a metal spoon i sometimes find that it cuts into the pasta itself so use a wooden spoon serve with extra cheese extra salt and pepper and a sprinkling of fresh parsley [Music] and there you have mushroom ragu with delicious rigatoni enjoy mushrooms lend themselves very nicely to soups my mom always made her polish mushroom soup which we all adored growing up i still love it also cream of mushroom soup really delicious as a starter to a dinner party start with four tablespoons of butter and a half a cup of finely minced onion sweat the onion in the butter and while this is sweating you can prepare your mushrooms so the shiitake should be sliced like that and the cremini caps should be sliced crosswise like this thinly and evenly if possible and you'll need quite a few mushrooms all together three pounds of mushrooms and we have these beautiful oysters which can also be sliced lengthwise right through the whole bunch like this these are so tender these oyster mushrooms watch your onion you do not want to brown it as soon as they are translucent add six tablespoons of flour to the pot this will be your thickener and for the three pounds of mushrooms we're going to add 12 cups of flavorful chicken stock so this creamy mushroom soup creamy french mushroom soup is not a puree it is a flavorful base with the sliced cooked mushrooms in it and to the stock you can also add a couple sprigs of parsley dried thyme and one bay leaf so now you start to saute your mushrooms starting with the heaviest and densest mushroom the cremini in this case in four tablespoons of butter and a big skillet because ultimately we're just gonna have all the mushrooms to this skillet now remember if you add a little bit of salt it helps get the juices moving in those mushroom slices keep stirring gently don't press too hard you don't want to break those beautiful mushroom slices and because mushrooms have so much water content they really do cook down to a fraction of their volume so now add your shiitake mushrooms which are a little bit denser and heavier than your oyster mushrooms and these two can have a sprinkling of salt and add your most delicate the three mushrooms your oysters and these two will be sprinkled with a little bit of salt and the juice of half a lemon and cook these until they take on a little bit of color and we will then add them to our simmering broth so here are our mushrooms they are a nice color now this is the soup i like to strain it and put it through a fine sieve into another pot this will take out any little pieces of unwanted onion any herbs now for the enrichment four egg yolks and one cup heavy cream and one reason why it is so very tasty is the presence of cream now add a little bit of that very hot broth this will temper the egg yolks lightens the color of the soup [Music] and add the whole thing back to your broth keep the soup on low but keep it hot now add your mushrooms carefully add them to the enriched broth now if you find that your pans are too heavy to lift like this just spoon out the mushrooms i've gotten used to dealing with big pots notice how i'm picking up the pot with the spoon you have to do things like that to make it work so here is our cream of mushroom soup rather than boiling the soup causing it to curdle just ladle it into piping hot bowls and a little garnish parsley leaves will be delightful and this is a really fine beginning to a fine meal risotto the celebrated rice dish of northern italy can just as easily be made with other grains such as faro today i'm combining this ancient nutty tasting grain with the earthy flavor of mushrooms and a delicious mushroom faro risotto so we're using four types of mushrooms in this risotto we're using the oyster mushroom these grow in these beautiful clumps on the sides of trees when cooked in butter they have a gentle flavor reminiscent of seafood that's the name oyster and they really do look sort of like oysters now hen of the woods mushrooms this is another clumpy mushroom they're a dark brownish gray cultivated mushroom that resembles a tightly ruffled puff edged with white or dark and these are beautiful too their name is said to come from the fact that its shape vaguely resembles the body of a hen and i think it does look that's like the tail of a nice can shiitake mushrooms we've already discussed but these are also cultivated they have a little bit of a tough stem so we're taking the stems off for this and slicing the tops and these are the morel these are a woodland mushroom they have very very tightly convoluted caps that are sort of like dunce caps and these have a lot of depth of flavor and these i've just washed and they are extremely clean done so now heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a big skillet and just saute until they're soft notice that the smaller shiitakes and the morel are just left whole these are to be served on top of your faro risotto and they will look beautiful and taste delicious so let these saute while you prepare the faro itself another two tablespoons of olive oil a half of a medium onion peeled and sort of finely chopped a little bit of salt and pepper and cook the onion until it is translucent don't brown it now your mushrooms they are looking so beautiful again watch the temperature so you can sprinkle these with salt also and a little pepper once the onions are translucent add your farro one cup this faro by the way has a dense chewy structure and a rich nutty flavor i'm adding this right to the onion and olive oil mixture and i want to lightly toast the farro you'll hear maybe a few little pops it's an ancient grain belonging to the wheat family dates as far back as 20 000 years ago and was the primary grain cultivated by the early egyptians and because farrow is easily digested and very low in gluten it can be eaten by people who are normally gluten intolerant very good grain my daughter feeds lots of pharaoh to her kids they love it let's see now look at look at the mushrooms how pretty they look now don't overcook them turn it down to low and as soon as the pharaoh is toasted and it looks good add a half a cup of white wine let that reduce by oh three quarters and then just as you would in a risotto you'll add your liquid little by little until it's absorbed and when the pharaoh stops absorbing you know that the pharaoh is done so you keep adding about a half a cup of broth at a time and i've enriched the broth you can use beef broth or chicken broth or vegetable broth depending on your preference and you can enhance the broth if it's canned broth by adding a carrot some celery a bay leaf some onion just to make it more yours and once boiled the faro should be tender but retain a pleasing firmness when you bite into it a normal risotto using arborio rice takes about 18 minutes this takes about 30 minutes so have patience so here's our pharaoh look how plump it got it really does double in volume season with a little additional salt and pepper taste of course and in the final moments you can add two tablespoons of butter just as you would in a risotto and approximately half a cup of freshly grated parmesan cheese it should be piping hot moist as this one is and oh a tablespoon or so of freshly chopped parsley and it is ready to serve i like serving it in a flat bowl like this with a topping of these spectacular mushrooms try to get some of each and there you have a spectacular faro risotto that will please pretty much everybody in your house i hope this lesson has inspired you to try different varieties of mushrooms in your cooking you're going to discover how wonderfully diverse their flavors and textures are thank you very much for watching and please tune into the next episode of cooking school remove the stems from shiitake mushrooms place the caps on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil turn and drizzle again season with salt and pepper roast at 400 degrees turning once until crisp 35 to 40 minutes season with more salt serve warm or at room temperature today's show is devoted to the glorious onion did you know that in addition to serving as food onions were prescribed to alleviate headaches snake bites and hair loss they were even used as rent payments and wedding gifts well times have certainly changed but onions remain key to so much of our cooking we will start with a rich french onion soup made with yellow onions and served with homemade croutons and melted cheese next i'll teach you how to glaze tiny red and white pearl onions with butter and balsamic vinegar a perfect side dish and finally everyone loves to order onion rings in a restaurant and today i'll show you how easy they are to make it home using a secret ingredient [Music] onions cheese stock and bread for simple ingredients that become a transcendent bowl of soup in this classic french recipe onions are slowly caramelized to bring out their natural sweetness and cooked in a rich beef stock and when topped with a crouton and melted cheese this simple soup is perfect if you're craving something warm and hearty and it's good all times of year to start with we're using big yellow onions and what i do is peel them and cut them in half this way top down and then slice them like this into thin pieces it makes a very nice presentation in the soup and it's a little bit unusual rather than slicing them that way this is a very pretty presentation so we'll need two pounds of yellow onions and if the onions are large and glorious such as these you'll need probably four of these my garden is full of great onions and i love making onion soup now four tablespoons of butter in a heavy pot like this [Music] with a wide bottom this is an 8 quart enameled cast iron i love cooking in something like this because they have to get really really caramelized to get that dark perfect onion soup so add your onions and start them cooking down this takes quite a long time about an hour it's that caramelization process that cooking down of the onions that really starts the soup tasting the way it should as soon as they start to exude a little bit of their moisture add one teaspoon of just granulated sugar this helps speed up the caramelization process this helps color the onions giving it that sort of nutty brown color that is very desirable i also add a little bit of olive oil just to keep the butter from burning stir stir cook cook hook now i do have a swap out of this so that we don't have to stand here for an hour now can you believe two pounds of onions have cooked down to this it did take an hour but they are exactly the way you want them and now onto the hot onions in the hot pan add one tablespoon of flour this flour is the thickening agent for the final soup it doesn't make it a real thick soup you don't want that but you want a little bit of thickness because we're adding about three and a half cups of stock so cook down the flour as soon as the flour is cooked add a half a cup of sherry you could add cognac you could add white wine cherry is traditional and you'll see the adding of the liquid actually helps you scrape up that foam that is in the bottom of your pot that is the brown bits that's the color for your final soup so you want all of that scraped up and i'm using one of my favorite wooden spoons the flat bottom spoon because it really does allow you to scrape without hurting your pot okay so this looks really good and already there's a little creaminess because of that flour and now add your stock this is a thick rich homemade beef stock it's very gelatinous can you see the lumps that's just the natural gelatin in the cold stock i keep quarts of stock like that in my freezer so that when the mood strikes me and i have the right onion i will make my onion soup now add two teaspoons of thyme leaves fresh thyme leaves are best season with a large pinch of salt you'll have to adjust that seasoning so now bring this to a boil reduce the heat to a simmer if all your ingredients are added and everything looks like this a nice dark brown color just simmer for 30 minutes and your soup is done really really important to use good quality ingredients it will certainly make a difference in the flavor and the appearance of the soup we have the soup ready to ladle i love these these are traditional onion soup bowls from france you can use this kind or this this has a handle this has the two little ears this is traditionally how it's served in a french restaurant or in france a regular soup bowl will do if you don't have that it's a little messy because those onions are long pieces but divide this evenly and actually my favorite part of the soup is what's around the outside when it's finished i like sitting there in the restaurant pulling that off or at home just pulling off the excess melted cheese each soup bowl gets three ounces of a mixture of fontina gruyere and swiss cheese if you want to serve a larger crowd or you want to put some of this soup in the freezer i suggest making two times this recipe you can wipe up a little bit and now for the topping this is french bread a baguette cut on an angle you'll need two of these according to the recipe you'll need them cut about three quarters of an inch thick the bread gets very soggy and kind of incorporates itself into the soup so now four ounces of gruyere divided evenly this is delicious this topping and the three kinds of cheeses really add a lot to the final dish and some fontina you could use all gruyere if you like that's pretty traditional or you could use swiss all fontina is a little strong and here's the swiss and i hope some of it melts down the sides use it all you've graded it you deserve it preheat your broiler so that it's at its hottest this is going to go right into the oven under the broiler just until the cheese is melted and a beautiful beautiful brown placing your bowls on a rimmed baking sheet will allow you to more easily transport the supers to the oven also will prevent a lot of nasty cleanup afterward because if this bubble's over you'll have a mess watch it you don't want it to burn but you do want it to melt and get a beautiful crusty brown they're very very hot be very very careful and the way i like to serve these straight out of the oven on a plate so that you don't have to touch the little soup pot a piece of delicious baguette [Music] that is lunch first course or snack it's delicious just the thing to make when you want to warm up on a cold day i have a pot of boiling water on the stove and i'm going to glaze some delicious pearl onions glazing is a technique that cooks vegetables in simmering water and when the water evaporates the sugars left behind produce a lovely glaze balsamic vinegar is added in this recipe to flavor and to make them look even more fabulous now to peel just take a little bit of the root end off with a point of a sharp knife and cut an x in the root it's important not to remove the whole root end just the hairy part because you don't want the onion to fall apart you want it to keep its shape so here we have a bowl of white onions with their peels still on put those into the rapidly boiling water for just about 60 seconds this will loosen the skins and start with the white onions if you're doing red and white and i have a bowl of 10 ounces of red already prepared with the little x right in the bottom that's important because it does allow you to just slip off the skin and have a bowl of iced water with a strainer this will chill them just enough to enable you to handle them well put them right in this spider this wonderful strainer on a stick we call it a spider is so handy for something like this and it's also handy for putting these onions into the boiling water now in the meantime you can try to slip off the skins from the white onions this should work very simply see how easily they just peel right off just like magic i love when things like this work well and generally the outer skin and maybe the first layer of the onion should be removed for a pretty presentation the stem end is also intact that'll keep the onions shaped that nice pointy tip of the onion do not cut that off it's pretty there perfect okay so these are ready to remove this technique of partially cooking is called blanching it's used extensively when you're making crudite you can blanch your string beans your broccoli your peas your snow peas your sugar snap peas and see how pretty the red onion is just perfect good so now we're ready to glaze these onions put your blanched onions right into three tablespoons of melted butter and stir them around so that they get coated i have the heat on high and in two measuring cups we have a half a cup of dry white wine and one cup of water using the right amount of water is important if you add too much it can cause your vegetables to get too soft if you don't use enough your vegetables won't cook enough so follow the recipe stir the onions around for a minute or two just to warm them make sure that they are getting ready to cook in the wine and water bath so i'm going to add a half a cup of white wine and immediately add one cup of water a little bit of salt and pepper a good guideline is to add just enough liquid to almost cover the vegetables glazing like this is very nice with carrots but i find that it also works extremely well for parsnips for turnips for fennel all of those glaze extremely well so the glazing is occurring all the liquid has evaporated and now add the flavor which is a quarter of a cup of good balsamic vinegar balsamic vinegar is an aged red wine vinegar and as it ages and evaporates it gets sweeter and sweeter and sweeter and what you're left with is an amazingly pungent taste but a sweet pungency so here you have beautiful glazed onions i'm going to add a little bit more salt and a little bit more pepper when you turn up the heat the water evaporates and the sugar is left behind mixed with the fat the butter to coat the vegetables with what's called the glaze and these have glazed absolutely perfectly cook until the onions are tender you can test it with the point of a knife i've already done that i know that these are tender but they're not falling apart they still have their shape and that whole process takes approximately 15 minutes and once complete you can put these right into a serving dish and what you have is a dish that's simple enough for a weeknight yet special enough for a holiday dinner [Music] when you bite into an onion ring texture is just as important as taste a good onion ring should have a light crisp exterior with a soft sweet onion inside many people are intimidated to make onion rings but after today's lesson you'll see just how easy and delicious they are when made at home now i'm using two beautiful yellow onions onions that look like this and they're been peeled and i'm slicing the onions themselves into half inch slices these slices will then be broken up into onion rings be very careful use an extremely sharp knife a sharp knife because it cuts straight through the fibers of an onion actually cuts down on the tearing the emission of gas from the onion so just let these break into rings it'll take a little coaxing but that's an onion ring all over the world onions are a very ancient and popular flavoring for food and they've been cultivated for about 5 000 years and now we're using safflower oil you can use canola oil best to use a vegetable oil with a high burning point okay well that's enough rings for now and we will make our batter one cup of flour all-purpose flour is good a quarter of a teaspoon of white pepper a teaspoon of salt and surprisingly but important half a teaspoon of baking powder whisk all these together and now here's the secret ingredient beer one cup of a lager beer the beer contains carbon dioxide which actually adds to the crispiness of the fried onion so now this is a little bit lumpy don't worry about it you want two tablespoons of iced water it's a little similar to tempura batter [Music] so here we have it and alongside some all-purpose flour to first dip the onion ring in then in the batter and you just want one layer of onion rings in your batter at one time i find it best to stir with a fork and drop with a finger and they cook very quickly they get golden brown very fast don't make a big big batch of the batter just make it multiple times if you're making a lot of onion rings for a party or something you want the action of the carbon dioxide from the fresh beer to be active keep the temperature around 375 degrees and use a deep fry thermometer that clips onto the side of your pot it's a very useful tool in monitoring oil temperature flip this look at the great color oh my gosh now you don't want to overdo right onto a paper towel lined baking sheet check your oil temperature constantly the best way to keep fried food from absorbing too much oil is to keep your oil at the ideal temperature and for this it is 3.75 so as quickly as you can sprinkle with coarse salt while they're hot and arrange in a serving dish i like to serve them on parchment like this they look kind of pretty of course for me ketchup very important condiment for onion rings a delightful little snack one that we don't have very often but when we do we want them to look and taste and be just like these these beer battered onion rings are great on their own or topped on a burger or steak try it you'll enjoy another way to enjoy onions is to pickle them this quick pickling method is great because it preserves the pink color of the red onions and it doesn't require the many steps of canning so in a pan just heat a tablespoon of mustard seeds and a tablespoon of coriander seeds just warm them just to get the flavors going three cups of white balsamic vinegar this is a little bit difficult to find but a good grocer will probably have white balsamic vinegar three quarters of a cup of water six tablespoons of sugar and six tablespoons of salt this is your pickling brine just heat that up a little bit just to dissolve the sugar and the salt and now the onions are just cut in half and then slice like this similar to the method i used for the onion soup a nice way to cut onions it's a little bit different and test your knife skills use a very very sharp knife essential for cutting onions now all of these onions two red onions and two white onions will be packed in a canning jar red onions are milder than yellow onions as are white onions much much milder these are vidalia onions and vidalia onions were discovered by some farmers in georgia they discovered an onion with a really sweet and delicious flavor and now it is a giant crop in georgia so pack the onions in a pickling jar mixing white with red i like these jars with the clamp tops and the rubber rings they are very very effective and pretty you could use all one kind of onion for this it seems like everybody's into pickling these days pickled food is very good for you and the fermentation that goes on in pickling adds some very good features to vegetables it's very good for your digestive system and when you're pickling it's very important that you use kosher salt or pickling salt it has no iodine no added minerals or anti-caking agents and many other salts have so be careful about your choice of salt when pickling so look how pretty this is this is great add bay leaves to your jar you can just stick them down the sides and three sprigs of thyme these two can be pushed down into the onions they're going to decrease in volume as they pickle so don't worry about having too many onions in a jar you can press them down even further with a rubber spatula i learned the art of pickling at my mother's side she did so many different kinds of pickles and i still like to make pickles we have our warmed spices coriander and mustard and our brine is almost ready so just check to see that all the sugar and salt is dissolved i think we can now pour the pickling liquid into a heat proof measuring cup this will make it easier to pour into the jar i don't trust pouring from a pot into that mouth of the jar and i must tell you it smells very good that balsamic vinegar has a unique aroma so now this gets poured right into your onions cover all the solids by about a half an inch and then this can be covered and kept in the refrigerator for up to a week or 10 days this is what happens after a week do you see the difference between this and this all of the onions have taken on the pinkness of the red onion they are crispy tasty mellow and a wonderful wonderful accompaniment to grilled fish chicken they're wonderful on hamburgers oh my gosh so good and they don't leave your breath smelling oniony so try pickling some onions it's a great way to complement the sweet flavors of onions thanks for watching and i hope to see you on the next episode of cooking school combine two caramelized vidalia onions with one cup of sour cream two ounces of cream cheese and one and a half teaspoons of white wine vinegar finely chop one quarter cup chives and add those to the bowl season with coarse salt and pepper and stir to combine chill until thickened about one hour then serve with crudite or chips and enjoy welcome to cooking school growing up in new jersey i used to think that jersey corn was the best but now that i have a house on long island i think long island corn is even better and i know each and every one of you has your favorite source for fresh corn in today's show i'll share some of my favorite corn recipes starting with crisp corn fritters small savory and deep fried they are delicious sprinkled with salt and served with surprisingly honey then the ultimate summer corn chowder filled with small bites of potato and seasoned with fresh thyme and chives and last my recipe for creamed corn enriched with butter and cream it will become your family's favorite [Music] i cook with corn all summer i love it steamed with butter and salt i love to prepare it like they do in mexico with chili and lime and cheese and i also love to make corn fritters which is my first recipe to teach you today so first you need two cups for corn fritters of corn removed from the cob husk the corn take off all the silk as much as you can and then with a very sharp knife on a cloth line tray as i'm doing strip the kernels from the cob now the kernels from one regular ear of corn like this should equal approximately one cup of corn kernels so let's see you need two cups of corn kernels for this particular recipe very close and see how easy it is if you do it on a cloth like this to just sort of pick them up and put them where you want them there certainly is just about one cup so here's our two cups of corn i've already done one ear reserve this one for the second batch and it's funny thing with fritters and pancakes there's always a second batch now there's no correlation by the way between the corns color which is derived from carotene and its sugar content but i must tell you the fresher it is the faster you cook it the sweeter and better it will be and people's preferences for corn color largely based on where they come from and what they ate as a child for instance new englanders generally prefer yellow corn or butter and sugar corn which is that nice bi-color variety this is a butter and sugar corn and californians usually favor white corn we're using butter and sugar today so we have egg one egg i'm making the batter now break up the egg and the egg gets mixed with one tablespoon of sugar two tablespoons of cornmeal cornmeal adds a nice crunchiness to your batter three quarters of a cup of unbleached flour one and a half teaspoons of coarse salt one and a half teaspoons of baking powder a quarter of a teaspoon of cayenne pepper and a half a cup of milk this is a stiff batter you don't want a very wet batter because you're going to be dropping this batter with the corn in it into the hot safflower oil which is heating on the stove right now better adjust the temperature let's see we're up to 330. so adjust the flame so that the oil comes up to about 375. during cooking the oil temperature should be around 360 degrees it does cool off as you add your batter so add your two cups of corn kernels and easy as horn fritters you have a very nice light fluffy batter and this is ready to drop into the hot oil as soon as it reaches temperature and i found that using an ice cream scoop makes nice round fritters you can use if you don't have one this is a small one it's about a tablespoon and a half size if you don't have one of these you can use two spoons and push it off two spoons okay so now our temperature has just reached 375 and i'm going to use this little scoop and you just plop it right in do it in small batches because you don't want to lower the temperature of the oil too much but you see how easy it is to use this instead of two spoons and it really does free up your other hand be careful not to drop it in you don't want to splatter the oil you want to be very careful have a piece of paper towel on a platter ready to take the fried fritters as soon as they come out of the oil but they're turning a beautiful golden brown in just a matter of a minute or two this kind of chinese spider is a very very good tool for deep frying like this it does enable you to lift and not take too much oil with it and you can really smell the corn those kernels of corn are cooking right in the pretty fritter so isn't that a pretty sight i'll put one more batch in this is a handy tool i don't know if you know what this is but that's a splatter guard just to keep the oil from splattering all over you little nubbins of corn so if you start with oil that's 375 degrees i would try to keep it at around 370 throughout the cooking process for good golden brown fritters that are cooked through and through in just a couple of minutes so these cute little fritters can be served as a snack as a side dish and they can also be served as a first course so we're getting about 26 that's pretty good arrange the drained fritters on a platter heated platter and serve these piping hot they don't get better as they sit out they don't taste as good as when they are pretty hot golden balls of delicious seasonal corn serve them with honey [Music] and a little bit of sea salt really delicious [Music] so when you're cutting off kernels of corn from the cobs don't throw away the cobs this makes a delicious corn stock it's very simple and easy to make and it is delicious as a base for any dish where you may want to maximize the flavor of corn now this is perhaps the simplest recipe in all of cooking school five or six corn cobs kernels removed one large onion i'm using a big white onion that's peeled and cut into quarters this just goes right into the pot and add eight cups of water or so this will give you a really flavorful corn stalk which can be kept in the refrigerator for four or five days but frozen for up to three months bring this to a boil reduce to a simmer and cook for 45 minutes you can flavor risotto with it corn chowders any kind of chowders also tortilla soup very tasty you'll enjoy it simple as that good corn chowder there are by the way about 90 million acres of land planted with corn in the united states but only about one percent of that is sweet corn the kind that we like to eat off the cob so once this is cooked for about 45 minutes turn it off and pour it into a strainer this is my favorite way to pour a large amount of bulky stuff just hold the cover so all the corn cobs and those onions stay right in the pot and here you have a nice clear extremely fragrant corny stock i love how something as simple as this can be so utterly delicious [Music] now we associate chowder with places like new england and manhattan and today's chowder is made with fresh corn potatoes and cream it is delicious so let's get started four tablespoons of butter melted one large white onion peeled and diced about five cups of corn kernels freshly cut off the cob salt about a teaspoon and cook this over a medium to low flame until the corn starts to exude its liquid and don't forget a little bouquet garni of five or six sprigs of thyme i like to wrap it up in cheesecloth like this because i don't want a lot of greenery in my chowder for stock we're using corn stock made out of the corn cobs very simple as you saw and just let this cook slowly for 20 minutes give it a stir every now and then do not burn or brown so the corn has been cooking for about 15 minutes now it's almost time to add the potatoes these are fingerling potatoes which are in the markets pretty regularly now and it's a small stubby potato the length of a finger peel it clean and then cut it into like half inch disks these will cook nice and evenly and they're in odd shape so they're kind of curious i like that and we have five cups of corn stock you can add that right now and now add your one pound of fingerling potato discs and you're going to continue cooking until the potatoes are tender to the point of a knife so watch them carefully you don't want the potatoes to fall apart but you certainly want them tender and edible so remove the little herb bouquet the thyme packet looks very good now we're going to remove about a third of this and puree it see how gorgeous and well cooked everything is i'm going to take out a lot of the solids and puree what's left in the pot using an immersion blender it works so well and this will make the soup the chowder very nice and thick [Applause] now be very careful when pureeing hot liquids like this don't splatter it on yourself be very careful not to look away from the job it's a little frightening to get hot liquid splattered on you [Applause] and don't lift it out of the liquid while it's still going [Applause] so there that looks good now add to the pureed portion of the soup three quarters of a cup of heavy cream or i'm using half and half that's rich enough for me nice sprinkling of black pepper a sprinkling of salt [Applause] stir that around you can see what the consistency is it's lumpy a little bit but still greatly pureed from what's here now i would pour the hot liquid right over the still intact corn and potatoes serve this while it is piping hot i think i'm going to have a big bowl of this soup this is really pretty each bowl can be gently garnished with very finely cut very nice with the corn and the potatoes you can let people add more salt or pepper as they like and if you're like some people in my family make sure you have a little hot sauce on the side it really enlivens the flavor of the corn so hot sauce for you none for me [Music] beautiful beautiful corn chowder i grew up in nutley new jersey and i must say there is nothing we wait for more than july and august corn people look forward to it all year long corn begins to lose its sweetness the moment it is picked all those delicious sugars start to turn to starch so the faster you cook it after it's picked the better and i always ask when was this corn picked when i go to the farm stand and if the answer is anything but oh an hour ago or this morning i don't buy the corn so i want to show you basically one way to cook the corn because people are always asking how long do you cook it what do you do with it how you serve it and this is just stove top corn in a large pot of boiling salted water some people add milk to the water some people add sugar to the water i just add salt especially if you have good fresh sweet corn put your corn cobs into the rapidly boiling water and try to clean the corn really well get all the pieces of silk off it and you want to shuck it so that the ears are nice and clean and let that cook and time it five minutes for a fresh picked small kernel corn maybe a few more minutes for the larger kernels like this bring it to a rapid boil when you're choosing corn always look for ears with bright greens snuggly fitting husks and golden brown silk and inside the kernel should come all the way to the very top and you want to buy the corn that you love the best yellow corn has larger fuller flavored kernels white kernels are generally smaller and sweeter this has been in for six minutes just drain it on a cotton towel and you can cover it with a cotton towel too that will keep it nice and steamy hot till you get it to the table looks good smells good so what i like to do is just take the ear of corn and a tablespoon of butter and just hold it like this and coat the whole thing with butter and then as much salt as you like sprinkle the whole thing and just start chomping away that's corn on the cob now here is an alternative method of eating corn that i find utterly delicious i went to mexico city last year and i couldn't believe how fabulous the mexican street corn was it's served on sticks like that and the corn is coated with either sour cream or a tablespoon or so of mayonnaise hot corn just slather on the mayo ugh it's so good and now sprinkle with a little cayenne pepper all over and roll this corn right into queso fresco mexican white cheese and serve that just like that with some wedges of fresh lime that's mexican corn on the cob it's best to spread the condiments on the corn while it's still hot and that'll ensure that the fats will melt in between the kernels providing even more succulent eating so whether you choose to have mexican corn like this or just plain corn on the cob with butter and salt they're both delicious enjoy [Music] i'm sure when many of you think of creamed corn it brings back memories of something that can easily come from a can but this popular side dish was common in the american midwest long before it became an american canned staple made with fresh corn kernels and cream this homemade creamed corn is nothing like the canned version and it's very easy to make so i'm just finishing cutting off the kernels from eight ears of corn and as soon as i'm done with this take the pulp from the cob with the edge of a spoon what comes out from each and every one of these little indentations is what's known as corn milk and just scrape it like this so you can see that's what corn milk is put that right in with the kernels it's very flavorful very tasty it's sweet and adds a great great flavor that the kernels alone just can't match so this is an essential part of the traditional american creamed corn all this gets added to the bowl and in a big skillet saute and some butter 4 tablespoons of butter 1 onion finely chopped so just start the onions cooking a little bit then add your corn kernels and corn milk and one cup of water let this cook for approximately 20 minutes now add one cup of water bring that water to a boil and it'll come to a boil rather quickly reduce it to a simmer and cover and cook until the corn is very tender 25 to 30 minutes and don't discard those cobs turn that into your wonderful corn stalk very very easy as i showed you onion corn cobs and water it's boiling reduce it to a simmer cover and cook now this has been cooking for 20 minutes it looks very pretty add one and a half cups of heavy cream this is not diet food but it is good food bring this to a boil and cook until the mixture thickens while that's happening you can add one teaspoon of sugar oh about a half a teaspoon of salt and a quarter of a teaspoon of black pepper so no bechamel no flour nothing but corn to thicken corn and i think this with a pork roast with a nice big pork chop remember most of the corn in the united states is grown in iowa where there's also a lot of pork and that's where they make a lot of creamed corn very very delicious serve it piping hot and it really is best just served immediately after making it takes about four to six minutes for this to thicken up you can use some of this creamed corn pour it into the center of a cornbread before you bake it it adds an extraordinary texture and you can also probably turn this creamed corn into a very nice corn pudding with the addition of egg and grated cheese adjust the seasoning to your liking there this is nice and thick and it looks really really different than the version that comes from the can so there i think that's cooked enough ladle that into your serving dish and serve creamed corn an american classic thanks so much for watching and i hope to see you for the next episode of cooking school [Music] coarsely chop two tablespoons of cilantro transfer to a bowl with four tablespoons of room temperature butter add a half a teaspoon of grated lime zest and one and a half teaspoons of lemon juice for a classic mexican combination add a quarter teaspoon of chili powder season with coarse salt and pepper and mix to combine this tangy spicy butter is just right with a grilled ear of sweet corn

Channel: Martha Stewart

Views: 436,467

Keywords: martha, stewart, martha stewart, martha stewart living, food, cooking, kitchen, recipe, recipes, how to, how to make, marthas cooking school, martha stewart recipe, vegetables, mushrooms, corn, onion, mushroom filling, crepes, mushroom recipe, onion recipe, corn recipes, mushroom ragu, cream of mushroom soup, risotto, mushroom risotto, pearl onions, glazed, corn fritters, corn stock, creamed corn, corn on the cob, corn chowder, sweet onion dip, onion dip, pickled onions

Id: 8PcQXFvoUaM

Length: 71min 57sec (4317 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 25 2022