Kosher steak class tonight!

By Meredith Deliso

The snout-to-tail movement has gone kosher.

Tonight, the Center for Kosher Culinary Arts in Midwood hosts a class called “Steak Night,” where meat lovers can learn how to make a homemade steak dinner the old-fashioned, and increasingly trendy, way: by butchering a 40-pound rib of beef down to the various, familiar parts that you’d usually start with at the supermarket.

“It’s an amazing class,” said Chef Avram Wiseman. “You start out with meat cleavers and boning knives and hacksaws and chop it into trim cuts and London broil.”

The session will also involve making some traditional sides, including crispy roast potatoes, creamed spinach, beer-battered, thick-cut onion rings, Caesar salad and more.

Best of all, once it’s all said and done, you get to eat.

“There’s nothing left but grease on the plates,” said Wiseman.

Steak Night at the Center for Kosher Culinary Arts [1407 Coney Island Ave. between Avenue J and Avenue K in Midwood, (718) 758-1339], June 23, 6:30–10:30 pm. Tickets, $75. For info, visit www.kosherculinaryarts.com.

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Salty and sweet — here’s one heck of a ribs recipe

Ribs are all the rage this month as the Brooklyn Kitchen hosts a class on how to slow-cook a rack on May 21. But you don’t have to wait until then to get cracking. “The New Brooklyn Cookbook” (remember that?) features a recipe courtesy of the General Greene in Fort Greene — a salt-pepper-sugar rub that’s dressed up with a spiced yogurt sauce. We can hear those lips smacking already.

Salt and pepper pork ribs with spiced yogurt sauce

From The General Greene

Serves four

For the rub

1 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup kosher salt

2 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper

16 St. Louis–style pork ribs (about 2-1/2 pounds)

For the spiced yogurt sauce

Kosher salt

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 pint Greek yogurt

2 tablespoons ground sumac (available in Middle Eastern markets) plus more for garnish

Finely grated zest of 1/2 lemon

Directions

Combine the brown sugar, salt, and pepper in a medium bowl. Rub the ribs generously with the sugar mixture to completely coat the meat side. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

To cook the ribs, place the ribs meat side up on a rimmed baking sheet and pour any liquid that has accumulated over the ribs.

Preheat the oven to 250. Position a rack in the lower third of the oven.

Place an empty deep 9- by 13-inch baking pan on the floor of the oven. Carefully pour boiling water into the pan — enough to fill it three-quarters full.

Place the baking sheet on the oven rack, above the pan of water, and cook the ribs, uncovered, for two-and-a-half hours, or until the meat is very tender. Set the ribs aside until they are just cool enough to handle.

Meanwhile, make the yogurt sauce. Sprinkle a cutting board with a pinch of salt. Place the minced garlic on top. (The salt will help to break down the garlic.) Use the flat side of a large knife to form a paste.

Combine the yogurt, sumac, lemon zest, and garlic paste in a medium bowl and mix until combined. Season to taste with salt.

Turn the ribs over so that the meat faces down and cut between the bones to separate the ribs.

To serve, spread a generous spoonful of yogurt sauce in the middle of each of four plates and place four ribs on each plate. Sprinkle with sumac and serve.

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Make Fort Defiance's muffaletta at home

By Meredith Deliso

“If this sandwich were an Olympiad, it would resemble 14-time gold medal-winner Michael Phelps.”

So write Jean Tang and Sarah Reistad-Long in their new cookbook, “The Big New York Sandwich Book,” about Fort Defiance’s much-praised muffaletta. Indeed, St. John Frizell has gained many fans at his Red Hook restaurant for his take on the New Orleans classic — piled high with Emmental cheese, provolone, mortadella, sweet soppressato, and, of course, olive salad.

And now, you can try your hand at recreating the tasty French Quarter staple, courtesy of the recipe below (though allow at least three days to create a proper olive spread).

Muffaletta

Created by St. John Frizell at Fort Defiance

Serves six

Ingredients

For the sandwich

Muffaletta bread loaf, about 1-inches round

9 ounces Emmental cheese, sliced

9 ounces mild provolone cheese, sliced

8 ounces hot coppa, sliced

8 ounces mortadella, sliced

8 ounces sweet soppressata, sliced

For the olive salad

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup vinegar

1/2 carrot, roughly chopped

3 cauliflower stalks, roughly chopped

1 celery stalk, roughly chopped

1 shallot, halved

1/3 cup kalamata olives, pitted

1/3 cup green olives, pitted

1 tablespoon chopped pimientos

1 garlic clove

4 parsley sprigs

1 teaspoon capers

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1-1/4 teaspoons canola oil

Directions

For the olive salad

Place the sugar, water, and vinegar in a saucepan to make a brine. Heat to a boil over high heat; then reduce the heat to medium and boil until the sugar is dissolved.

Place the carrot, cauliflower, celery, and shallot into a large, heat-proof container. Pour the brine over the vegetables to cover. Refrigerate for at least three days.

Remove the vegetables from the brine. In a large mixing bowl, combine the pickled vegetables, olives, pimientos, garlic, parsley, and capers. Working in small batches, add the vegetable mixture to a food processor, and pulse until chopped, but not puréed. Toss with the olive and canola oils.

For the sandwich

Slice the bread in half lengthwise. Spread the olive salad on the bottom half. Add the Emmental, provolone, hot coppa, mortadella, and soppressata. Close the sandwich. Slice into six wedges, and serve. Store any leftover olive salad in the refrigerator.

From “The Big New York Sandwich Book” by Sara Reistad-Long and Jean Tang (Running Press, 2011).

Photo by Stefano Giovannini

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Grill up some citrus chicken

By Helen Klein

I’m the kind of person who will tiptoe through snow — as long as it’s not too deep — to grill dinner.

It’s no surprise then, that, now that the snow is long gone, I’m itching to barbecue.

For this meal, my inaugural 2011 cookout, I’m marinating chicken breasts, always a favorite, in a mix of citrus juices, spiked with vodka, and flavored with a bouquet of alliums — garlic, scallions and shallots — plus celery, a couple of my favorite spices, cumin and cayenne, and a bay leaf for good measure.

The combination of citric acid and alcohol is a heady one; both enable flavorings to penetrate deep into the meat, making for a more succulent finished dish.

And, cumin and citrus juice — here a blend of orange, lemon and lime juices, all freshly squeezed — is a natural pairing, found in the cuisines of regions as distant as Latin America and Asia. The dish is finished with fresh chopped cilantro, another nod to those areas’ culinary traditions.

Citrus Grilled Chicken

Serves four

Ingredients

3/4 lb. chicken breast cutlets, 1/2-inch thick

Juice of one large orange

Juice of one lemon

Juice of one lime

1/4 cup vodka

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 scallion, chopped

1 shallot, chopped

1 stalk celery, chopped

1 tsp. cumin

1/8 tsp. cayenne

1 bay leaf, crushed

Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Directions

Combine all ingredients except chicken in a mixing bowl and blend thoroughly. Add chicken and turn till all meat has been covered with the marinade. Marinate, refrigerated, for at least two to four hours.

Preheat grill. Cook chicken over medium-high flame, turning every three to four minutes, for eight to 10 minutes, basting occasionally with marinade.

Remove from grill when meat is seared (but not burned) on the outside, and cooked through.

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Sweet! Honey tasting course

By Laura Gottesdiener

Here’s an event with some real buzz.

New York City College of Technology professor Claire Stewart will have you swarming to a honey tasting next month at the Downtown school. And if you think you know the difference between tupelo and orange blossom, you don’t know nothin’, honey.

“The variety is extraordinary,” said Stewart, who is also a New Jersey apiarist (which is a fancy word for beekeeper) and will offer tastes of smoky and rich mesquite honey, dark and caramel-flavored buckwheat honey, a sharp, citric lime honey and others.

There are so many honeys because there are so many things for bees to eat. Often, your tea sweetener has a hint of rose petal and clover. But if the bees in question ate cabbage, kale, dandelions or artichokes — and they do — you’ll taste that, too.

No Brooklyn honey will be at this event, but the borough has emerged as a hive of apiary activity since beekeeping was legalized last March. But Stewart will bring some of her own creations from the Garden State. Rest assured, though, her bees don’t eat garbage.

Honey Tasting at City Tech [300 Jay St. between Tillary and Johnson Streets in Downtown, (718) 552-1170], March 14 at 6 pm.

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It's Purim - so get baking!

By Meredith Deliso

You can usually find hamantaschen — those three-cornered cookies filled with fruit or poppy seeds — year-round in bakeries. But traditionally, it’s a treat meant to be enjoyed during the Jewish holiday of Purim.

Yiddish for “Haman’s pockets,” the pastry symbolizes the defeat of Haman, the villain of Purim, which celebrates the deliverance of the Jewish people from a plot by the despot to annihilate them. So it’s one big party.

“Jewish holidays are extremely serious, but Purim is really about having a good time,” said pastry chef Lynn Kutner. “And it wouldn’t be a holiday without food.”

Kutner will host a class in making the pastry at the Center for Kosher Culinary Arts in Midwood on March 13, which gives you plenty of time before the March 19 holiday to make dozens of batches.

The class will explore a variety of doughs, including nut, the traditional yeast, and sugar cookie. Below, Kutner shares with us a pâte sablée dough — a cross between a pie crust and a butter cookie dough.

“It’s not quite as sweet, since you’re already putting in sweet filling,” said Kutner. “It has a very lovely, falls-apart-in-your-mouth quality.”

You’ll notice the recipe has a choice of butter or margarine — the latter for Kosher cookers who can’t mix meat and diary. If that’s the case, make sure you double the vanilla.

“It kind of covers the taste of the margarine,” said Kutner. “You try to lessen its effect.”

And of course, it wouldn’t be a proper hamantasch without the filling, and Kutner will also teach you how to make a variety of those — ranging from raspberry to dried fruit to chocolate — for discerning tastes.

“Kids don’t like the dried fruit. At least with my kids, it’s chocolate or forget it,” said Kutner. “The dried fruit stuff is for your grandparents.”

Purim baking workshop at the Center for Kosher Culinary Arts [1407 Coney Island Ave. between Avenue J and Avenue K in Midwood, (718) 758-1339], March 13 from 9:30 am-1:30 pm. $75. Registration required. For info, visit www.kosherculinaryarts.com.

Hamantaschen

Courtesy of Lynn Kutner

Makes about 20

Pâte sablée dough

1-3/4 cups (unbleached) all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

Pinch of salt (1/8 teaspoon)

1 stick plus 2 tablespoons (5 ounces) butter or margarine, very soft

2-1/2 tablespoons sugar (3, if you are using margarine)

1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon vanilla (2, if you are using margarine)

Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar well with a wooden spoon. Beat in the egg yolk and vanilla.

Work the flour mixture into the creamed mixture, starting with the wooden spoon and finishing with your hands, until it comes together in a ball. Form dough into three disks, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate 30 minutes to overnight.

Two simple fillings:

Chocolate-nut

8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate

1 tablespoon butter or oil

1/2 cup chopped roasted (either salted or unsalted) hazelnuts or pecans

Melt the chocolate and the butter or oil together over hot water. Remove and blend well. Mix in the chopped nuts. Cool a few minutes before using.

Dried fruit

1 cup prunes (canned moist-pack, if available) or dried apricots

2 tablespoons sugar, approximately

2 tablespoons orange juice, apricot nectar, or pineapple juice

Puree the fruit with the sugar and juice in a food processor. Taste for sweetness. Add a bit more sugar, if you like it a bit sweeter.  (Note that different batches of dried fruit vary in sweetness.)

Rolling and forming hamantaschen:

Roll one disk at a time to a thickness of about 1/8-inch on slightly floured silpat or a lightly floured pastry cloth. Cut with a floured 3-inch cutter, as close together as possible. (Gather up the scraps to roll out after you’ve done all three disks.)

Place about 1 teaspoon of filling in center of each round, and pinch edges three times to form a triangle. Pinch very firmly to keep the edges closed while baking. Chill a few minutes while you preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Bake about 15 minutes until lightly browned.

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Quesadilla: Spanish for fast food

By Helen Klein

Quesadillas are a culinary standby in my home — they’re easy to make, and incredibly versatile.

Just put together a savory mixture of vegetables and beans, top with cheese, fold into a tortilla and broil for a couple of minutes, and you have a flavorful main course that’s ready for prime time.

For this recipe, I combined chopped onion, garlic, celery and red pepper and sautéed till they were limp and the onions were translucent and caramelized. Then, I added a can of black beans (drained) and small cubes of crookneck squash (you could easily substitute zucchini).

After the squash had softened a bit, I added about half a cup of homemade tomato sauce I had in the fridge, and flavored the mixture with cumin, a pinch of very spicy habañero chili powder and salt and pepper.

Black Bean Quesadillas

Serves four

Ingredients

1 small onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 stalk celery, chopped

1 colored pepper, seeded and chopped

2 tbl. olive oil

1 15-oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 summer squash, cut into 1/4-inch cubes

1/2–3/4 cup favorite tomato sauce

1 tsp. cumin

Pinch habañero chili powder (substitute regular chili powder if you don’t like very spicy food)

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

5 oz. Monterey Jack with jalapeño peppers, coarsely grated

4 eight-inch wheat tortillas

Non-stick cooking spray

Extra virgin olive oil, for brushing quesadillas

Directions

Preheat oven to broil.

Sauté onion, garlic, celery and pepper till softened in olive oil over medium-high heat, stirring to prevent burning. When vegetables are soft, add squash and beans, and continue cooking till squash is tender, adding a splash of water, as necessary, to prevent burning.

Add tomato sauce and spices and continue cooking another 5-10 minutes to blend flavors and heat through.

While vegetable mixture is cooking, spray a baking sheet lightly with non-stick cooking spray.

When the mixture is done, place a tortilla on the baking sheet, and top with a generous scoop of vegetables and beans, all to one side. Top with a generous sprinkling of cheese and fold over. Brush top with a little extra virgin olive oil. Continue with remaining tortillas.

When all tortillas are stuffed, place baking sheet in broiler and cook till top is golden and crisp, 1-3 minutes. Keep a careful eye on the quesadillas, as the tortillas can go from golden to burnt in just a few seconds.

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Spring ahead with this pasta

By Helen Klein

Bringing the flavors and fragrances of spring into the kitchen while it’s still winter proper takes a bit of culinary magic. Even out-of-season vegetables can taste delicious, though, if they are cooked with care and a degree of calculation.

In this pasta dish, for instance, the pepper and onion are cooked over moderate heat for long enough to caramelize their sugars, adding sweetness to slowly cooked tomatoes that, otherwise, would be unremarkable.

A generous handful of chopped fresh basil and parsley provides additional grace notes, as does the sliced garlic, evoking the warm breezes of the Mediterranean, even in February.

This dish is quick to make, and easy to alter to suit your tastes or what is in your pantry. Switch the herbs around if you like, substituting fresh oregano or dill for the basil. Vegetables can also bow in and out, with zucchini standing in for the yellow squash. Or, try asparagus or fresh green beans. Just make sure there’s an array of colors, which makes the finished dish look as good as it tastes.

Spring pasta

Serves four

Ingredients

1 tbl. olive oil

1/4 purple onion, coarsely diced

1 colored pepper, cored and coarsely diced

1 yellow squash, cut into 1/4-inch-thick half moons

2-3 plum tomatoes, coarsely diced

3 cloves garlic, sliced

1/4 cup chopped fresh basil

1/4 cup chopped fresh flat leaf parsley

2-3 tbl. extra virgin olive oil

8 oz. wagon wheel pasta, cooked till al dente and drained

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions

Heat olive oil in large non-stick frying pan.

Add onion and a little salt and sauté over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, till limp. Add colored pepper and continue cooking until pepper has softened. Add garlic, and continue sautéing another two to three minutes. Add squash, and continue sautéing until it has started to soften and turn translucent.

Add tomatoes, and cook until they are softened and their juices have rendered (about five to 10 minutes). Add basil and continue cooking another two to three minutes, stirring as needed.

Toss pasta with vegetable mixture in frying pan and cook to heat through. Remove from heat, and toss again with parsley and extra virgin olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste.

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A quick and easy tabouli - with couscous!

By Helen Klein

The ingredients to a mouth-watering Middle Eastern side dish may lie just in your cupboard. All you need is couscous, that highly versatile pasta.

Tossed with citrus juice, chopped herbs and a little olive oil, a pint container of the stuff is reinvented as tabouli, almost effortlessly morphing into a side dish for lunch or a light dinner that also adds a note of brightness to a cold winter day.

I used cilantro, cumin, lemon juice and scallions in my version because that’s what I had at hand, and the combination evoked the myriad delights of the Middle Eastern table. But, I could just as easily have used garlic in place or in addition to the scallions, ground coriander instead of the cumin, and dill or mint and parsley instead of the cilantro.

Couscous Tabouli

Serves 6 as a side dish

 

Ingredients

2 cups cooked couscous

3 scallions, chopped

1 loosely packed cup cilantro, chopped

2 tbl. freshly squeezed lemon juice

4 tbl. extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp. ground cumin

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Chopped tomatoes, for garnish

Directions

Toss the couscous with the scallions and cilantro, breaking up clumps of the couscous as you mix.

Combine lemon juice, olive oil, cumin, salt and pepper in a screw top jar and shake to combine. Dress couscous mixture and stir to blend, taste and correct seasoning, then turn out onto serving plate.

Distribute tomatoes around the edge of the couscous mixture to garnish.

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Where to shop for that Chinese feast

By Erica Sackin

Chinese New Year is a great time to enjoy a full restaurant banquet. But if you want to make your own Year of the Rabbit feast, your first (and only) stop is the Hong Kong Supermarket on Eighth Avenue in Sunset Park.

The enormous grocery store is stock full of foods traditionally cooked for the New Year — dried fish and vegetables, noodles, dumplings and a full butcher case. The supermarket’s real draw, however, is its colorful array of holiday candies, located in a special seasonal section in the front. There, you’ll find stacks of dried fruit trays, special sesame balls and sticky cakes — all traditional sweets for the New Year.

Best of all, the prices themselves are enough to celebrate — few of the huge platters and boxes of sweets will cost you more than $10.

Hong Kong Supermarket [6013 Eighth Ave. between 60th and 61st streets in Sunset Park, (718) 438-2288].

Photo by Stefano Giovannini

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Get to the root of it all with this slaw

By Helen Klein

It’s in the frigid depths of winter that root vegetables can really come into their own.

When the kitchen becomes a refuge against howling winds, and summer produce — freshly picked tomatoes or crunchy cucumbers — is but a distant memory, cabbage, radishes and carrots shine. They are crisp and flavorful, and, when served cold in a salad, provide a balance to the warm, soft, spicy foods which fit the bill when the mercury dips.

I developed this slaw, for instance, as a counterpoint to curried butternut squash that I had mashed and fried up in spring roll skins. The cilantro and poppy seeds were chosen to provide a vaguely Eastern flavor, though the dish would have gone equally well with tacos, as a side dish for a quick lunch sandwich, or stuffed into a piece of pita bread on top of chunks of grilled chicken.

Like pretty much everything I make, the recipe lends itself to variation, as long as you keep in mind the general principle of contrasting flavors. Raw turnip could stand in for the radish. All red or green cabbage could be used (though you would lose the gorgeous color contrast). Instead of carrots, you could throw in a handful of raisins for sweetness.

Confetti Slaw

Serves six as a side dish

Ingredients

1/4 green cabbage

1/4 red cabbage

4-inch length daikon radish, peeled

2 carrots, peeled

1/4 sweet onion

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

1/2 cup cilantro, chopped

1 tsp. poppy seeds

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions

Shred cabbage, radish, carrots and onion. Set aside.

In small bowl, combine lemon juice, mayonnaise, garlic, cilantro, poppy seeds and salt and pepper. Add to vegetable mixture and stir thoroughly to combine.

Chill for at least 1 hour.

Adjust flavorings and serve.

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This meal is simply stew-pendous

By Helen Klein

I have a few basic rules for weekday night food.

The first is that it should taste good (well, this goes for any night of the week). I also favor food that’s easy to prepare, would yield leftovers for at least another night, or can be easily reinvented for another meal, is nutritious and has a sensible number of calories.

That may sound like a hefty list of requirements, but it is fairly easy to achieve. Just take this chicken and chickpea stew. All you have to do is slice some vegetables, chop a couple of cloves of garlic, chunk the chicken, do a quick sauté, then open a couple of cans, tip some vermouth into the pot, and braise everything over low heat.

Thanks to the addition of saffron, garlic, oregano and basil, the finished dish is both fragrant and savory, and, because of the white vermouth, the meat is tender and infused with the flavors of the Mediterranean. The calorie count is kept under control by the judicious use of olive oil — trust me, only a couple of tablespoons is sufficient to sauté the vegetables and the chicken.

Mediterranean Chicken Stew

Serves four

Ingredients

2 tbl. olive oil

1 lb. chicken breast cutlets, skin removed, and cut into 1-inch chunks

1 medium onion, preferably sweet (Vidalia, Maui or Walla Walla), thinly sliced

1 red or orange pepper, cored and sliced into thin strips

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 large can diced tomatoes, with juices

1 tsp. Spanish saffron

1 tsp. dried oregano

1 cup white (dry) vermouth

1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1/4 cup chopped fresh basil

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Directions

Heat oil in large sauté pan. When oil is hot, add chicken, and sauté, turning as pieces are cooked on one side, till chicken is lightly browned on all sides.

Add onion and pepper slices to pan and continue to sauté, salting  and adding a splash of water, if necessary, to prevent vegetables and chicken from burning.

When onion has begun to turn golden and translucent, add garlic and continue sautéing another minute or two.

Add tomatoes and juices, saffron, oregano, vermouth and chickpeas. Bring to a boil, then turn heat to low and cover. Braise for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally and adding a little water if the pan seems too dry.

Taste, and continue cooking another five or 10 minutes if necessary. Add basil, salt and pepper, and cook another five minutes.

Serve on a bed of egg noodles.

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Burgers, burgers, burgers!

It's all about the burgers in this week's issue. We've got a rundown on the expensive burger trend that's running rampant in our fair borough, the latest edition being the $15 offer at Fatty 'Cue (pictured); a list of the best under-$10 burgers in the borough, as well as a recipe from Morton's chef Joe Raiola on how to make a killer burger at home. All that's missing is the bun!

What do you think? Are burgers becoming too expensive? Or are they priced fairly? And where do you go to grab a good burger for under $10?

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Come to this jerk-off!

By Erica Sackin

Beef jerky: it’s a favorite snack food in truck stops, cattle ranges, and … Brooklyn?

Yes, according to Matt Timms (pictured), will throw the “World’s Biggest Jerk-Off” — our borough’s first-ever all-jerky food competition — on Jan. 23 at the Bell House to see who makes the most delicious dehydrated delicacies.

Timms has thrown about 40 competitive cookoffs in the past eight years, covering creations such as chili, grits, bacon and lamb, but jerky is where the rubber hits the road.

“You don’t think about jerky being huge in the city,” said Timms, “but we didn’t think chili would be huge either, but people are rabid about their chili opinions.”

You’re still more likely to find homemade jerky on a ranch than in a Brooklyn rental, but that’s changing quickly, thanks to the ease with which jerky is made — all you need is a food dehydrator or an oven that can be set below 200 degrees. And before you break out the beef, remember, almost anything can be made into jerky. “I’ve eaten salmon jerky in Alaska, smoked and dried by Eskimos in this little village I worked in about 10 years ago,” Timms said. “You can find turkey, pig, venison, even saitan jerky!

“I definitely hope some veggies enter,” Timms added. “This is a no rules event, and I’m not going to get pompous about the definition of what jerky is.”

Aspiring cooks who think they have what it takes to out-jerk the rest of Brooklyn still have time enter, and of course the general public will be welcome to taste the results. But does Timms really think Brooklynites will tear into this trend?

“They already are making their own jerky!” Timms said, referencing the number of Brooklyn-based home-jerky makers that have popped up in the past year. “People get addicted to that tough texture, and all the flavors and interpretations. It’s cheap to make, super yummy, and an awesome form of protein for active people. My brother, who is in the Marine Corps, LOVES jerky for camping or when he’s out on patrol somewhere dangerous!”

World’s Biggest Jerk Off at the Bell House [149 Seventh St. between Second and Third avenues in Gowanus, (718) 643-6510], Jan. 23, 4 pm. Admission is $10 (includes jerky).

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'Tis the season for soup

By Helen Klein

When the weather is as cold as this, there’s no such thing as too much soup.

The next candidate for the stockpot in my house was a butternut squash, whose flame-colored flesh became sensationally sweet when roasted. Spiked with some ginger, cinnamon and ground coriander, and smoothed with a teaspoonful of honey, the squash had a vaguely Mideastern flavor that both soothed and satisfied.

This seductive soup was easy to make, too, its creamy texture achieved through a few whirls of the food processor.

And, if you don’t have a butternut squash, there are other options. Acorn squash would work well for this recipe, as would a couple of sweet potatoes.

Add some warm bread (freshly made baking powder biscuits are de rigueur in my home), and you’ve got the makings of a light lunch or dinner that’s perfect after a session of shoveling or sledding.

Butternut Squash Soup 

Serves four

Ingredients

1 small butternut squash, halved and seeded

2 tsp. cinnamon

1 slice fresh ginger, about the size of a quarter, peeled and chopped

1 tsp. ground coriander

2 tsp. honey

1 cup vegetable stock

1/2-1 cup water

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions

Lightly oil cut side of squash and roast at 450 for approximately one hour, till fork-tender.

Peel squash and cut into chunks. Purée in food processor or blender till smooth. Add cinnamon, ginger, coriander, honey and stock and whirl to blend. Add water, slowly, till creamy but still thick. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Reheat if necessary over medium heat, stirring occasionally.

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