Chimpanzee Tea Party

Vegan Kimchi Secret Ingredient?

2012-01-27T11:30:00.000-05:00

Kenji, writing about his month adhering to a vegan lifestyle, has an interesting recipe for the old Chimpanzee Tea Party favorite: kimchi. For those who are unaware, the issue here is that your traditional kimchi is decidedly not vegan... at the very least it has fish sauce, but could also have salted shrimp or oysters. Always one of the tricky parts of finding vegan/vegetarian food in the Asian sphere is their propensity to put non-obvious fish products in places you'd never expect... everywhere from the aforementioned kimchi to the dashi used to make an unassuming miso soup. Now, you can simply exclude these fish products when making Asian dishes at home... as I did when I made vegan kimchi... but what's a temporary vegan to do when he doesn't want to give up that precious umami? Well, Kenji, of course, experimented:

What's the best substitute for the umami-burst of the dried shrimp? I tried a number of things including soy sauce, marmite, and pure MSG powder, but the best option was red miso paste, a similarly glutamate-rich condiment that's readily available.

I really want to make kimchi again, but I think Anna is deeply concerned about the current pickle proliferation and losing refrigerator space... so I might be on pickle timeout. But for the rest of you... definitely worth making and dead easy to do... plus it lasts forever... assuming you like the funk of "ripe" kimchi, as I do. Otherwise, I guess you have to eat it in a month or so, but there are plenty of things to make with it (kimchi quesadilla!).

Pink Pickles (aka Zuni Cafe's Red Onion Pickles)

2012-01-25T12:30:00.000-05:00

They are actually red onion pickles from the Zuni Cafe Cookbook... but that's a pretty brilliant shade of fuchsia for a pickle. You can find the recipe here. I haven't had a chance to try them yet so I don't have whole lot to say... but the recipe isn't quite as fussy as it sounds. Yes, you have to blanch the onions in the brine three times (in batches)... and yes, you need the onions to cool completely in between... and yes, that's along time to have your head over simmering vinegar (a good exhaust fan is helpful here)... but it really doesn't take as long as you might fear. Part of this was probably that I used a wider bottom pot than the 4 quart saucepan suggested, so my brine came back to a simmer quite quickly. In addition, spread out on a cookie sheet they cooled pretty fast. Plus, they're pickles... they have to sit around at least a day anyway, so they is no particular hurry.

I suppose the proof will be in the eating, as the repeated blanchings are allegedly the only way to get a great pickle flavor while maintaining the crunch of the onion. Certainly they do make for quite a pretty pickle.

Happy National Cheese Lover's Day

2012-01-20T16:00:00.000-05:00

In honor of National Cheese Lover's Day, here's a collection of photos (which link to the associated posts if you click on them) about Chimpanzee Tea Party's Adventures in Cheese over the past year:

Harvard’s Science + Cooking lectures Available on iTunes U

2012-01-20T11:30:00.000-05:00

From the LA Times:

...the real find here is Science + Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter from the Harvard School of Engineering and Science, 52 one-and-a-half- to two-hour videos from a lecture series that “discusses concepts from the physical sciences that underpin both everyday cooking and haute cuisine.” You have Ferran Adria of the late El Bulli presenting spherification, Jose Andres of The Bazaar (and minibar in Washington, D.C.) discussing basic components of food and gelation, and Wylie Dufresne (wd-50 in New York) on inventions with transglutaminase.

Just listen to the titles of some of the lectures: “Mixing the Unmixable,” “Sous-vide Cooking: a State of Matter,” “Meat Glue Mania,” “Olive Oil and Viscosity.” Heady stuff, and it’s free, free, free -- even the app.

So kinda cool... you can watch these lectures through the iTunes U app on iPhone or iPad... though they're also all available on YouTube here.

Vegetarian Southern Food

2012-01-19T12:30:00.000-05:00

The only contribution to this meal I made was those watermelon pickles I made back in September, but apparently never followed up on.

Well, they're good. Kind of like eating an Arnold Palmer (i.e. 1/2 lemonade and 1/2 iced tea). If you never had them (I hadn't) then I definitely recommend it. While I admit to being a little intimidated by the idea that a rind could ever end up as something tasty... no matter the pickle alchemy applied... this definitely made me a believer.

Otherwise what you see was made by Anna. Up front are a seitan based "rib" creation (from Vegan Diner), and in back is a riff on baked mac and cheese that subs in cauliflower for the pasta. Both were delicious.

UPDATE: Added links to the recipes.

45 Minute Tuscan White Bean Soup

2012-01-13T11:30:00.000-05:00

Technically this Kenji recipe is billed as "30 minutes", but since I assume anybody reading this blog is not so deft with the knife to be able to prep the mirepoix, garlic, rosemary and greens in the given ten minute prep time... I thought I'd label it more accurately. The only tweak Anna made when preparing this was to use veggie stock to make it vegetarian, and you could skip the Parmesan to make it vegan as well... however, if you're not vegan then definitely use the rind if you have one: that stuff is magical. Seriously. Parmesan rinds are a great way to get that vaunted "umami" into a 100% vegetable dish without really imparting much in the way of discernible cheese flavor... and Parmesan is so commonly used in cooking that it really doesn't take long to collect a bunch of rinds in the freezer. Do it.

As for the soup itself, I thought it was very nicely flavored: the chili flakes were a nice choice that works well with the greens. It's very easy to make on a weeknight, and it's quite possible you have everything you need sitting in your kitchen right now... which is definitely a plus.

BREAKING: Former New York Resident Discovers Mysterious Area Outside New York City Has Fewer Dining Options

2012-01-12T11:30:00.000-05:00

I've never lived anywhere but one of the coasts, with most of that time being in the Northeast, but even my coastal elite self finds this New York Times article about a NYC transplant to Kansas City having difficulty finding a vegetarian meal in the Midwest to be both condescending and nauseating:

But after the first three dinners in my new hometown, where I moved from New York to cover the Midwest for this newspaper, even this veteran vegetarian was flagging.

This city, after all, is celebrated as a Mecca of meat. And any newcomer should expect to start with a tour of the most venerable purveyors of cows, pigs and chickens in what I’ve been told are their most delicious forms.

So, yes, I’ve “eaten” at some of these famous restaurants. There was the meal at the Golden Ox steakhouse (baked potato), Stroud’s fried chicken (rolls) and Arthur Bryant’s barbecue, where, searching for vegetarian options on the menu, skipping over the lard-bathed French fries, pausing to consider the coleslaw, I ordered the safest option (a mug of Budweiser).

After three days of this, starving, I went alone to the nearest Chinese restaurant I could find, where I feasted on a steaming plate of meatless mapo tofu.

Ohnoes! Mapo tofu!? The indignity! What a man wouldn't give for a little Venezuelan or, dare to dream, some Ethiopian. I wonder how a visitor to a new town is ever to find such restaurants!? (Hint)

Maybe it's just me, but it seems problematic to expect a great vegetarian meal at either a steakhouse, a fried chicken joint, or a barbecue place. Granted, Anna does well making a vegetarian meal out of (non-lard or chicken broth cooked) sides up here at Redbones... and yes, as great as I think "bacon butter" is, I really don't think there is any real reason to cook veggies in it. However, newsflash to the ex-New Yorker, these are the issues every vegetarian who lives outside a major metropolitan area faces... even on the East Coast. In fact, that's kind of what makes it a "lifestyle choice"... and something well beyond wanting your dressing on the side or not liking cilantro. The world would be a better place if more places took vegetarians into account, but it's hard to deny that this has been improving pretty steadily in the past 5-15 years... and no matter how much better I hope it gets, you're still going to be an idiot if you're expecting a creative tofu preparation at a steakhouse.

I really have no sympathy for this guy, as there is apparently a vegan who has been blogging about veggie friendly Kansas City dining options for years. Yes, it's harder than being an omnivore... it takes research and/or calling ahead... but it's not impossible and presumably you made this choice because it was important to you? So maybe it's worth a little extra effort? Possibly?

Oh, and learn how to cook buddy. Just because an NYC vegetarian can subsist on takeout alone doesn't mean it's a great way to go.

Pepperjack Potatoes

2012-01-11T11:30:00.000-05:00

Since we were given a big chunk of pepperjack cheese over the holidays, I made these potatoes from a recent post on Simply Recipes... very tasty and I found the cream and the starch to combine nicely into a rather velvety sauce (not a diet dish!). I find Elise's obsession with not having crumbly potatoes a little odd... what's really the problem if they're falling apart a bit? But if you don't care about that or don't mind the suggested option turning "overcooked" potatoes into Pepperjack Mashed Potatoes, then it seems a nice low maintenance side dish... as it mainly just sits, covered, waiting for the cheese to melt and does well being zapped in the microwave a bit before serving.

The Pickleback

2012-01-10T16:30:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about pickles lately, and because I don't have anything else interesting to post, this is the "pickleback" I had on New Year's Eve at Woodberry Kitchen. Done in order: shot of bourbon, shot of pickle juice, beer chaser. It's a lot better than it sounds... I swear!

Zuni Cafe's Zucchini Pickles

2012-01-06T16:30:00.000-05:00

I suppose in 2012 it's a little passé to be posting about the Zuni Cafe Cookbook... roughly 10 years after it was first published... but I just got it for Christmas so whaddya want from me? Zuni Cafe's most famous recipe is for roast chicken and it has become some sort of food blogger right of passage. While I do want to make the chicken that popularized the concept of a "dry brine"... I thought I'd start with some pretty awesome pickles instead. While they've only been pickling a day or so at the time of this writing I can tell you that these babies are well worth making. They've got a little bit of sweetness that is tempered by the mustard's tang. Perfect for a grilled cheese or just munching on.

You can find the recipe at the LA Times.

A pound of zucchini and a small onion are all you need produce wise... but to get 1/16th inch slices of that zucchini you'll need a mandoline or far better knife skills than me.

Here they are sliced and covered in an icy brine in which they needed to sit for an hour. At the end of that hour the zucchini should be salty and somewhat soft. Appropriate texture achieved, I drained them and put 'em in batches in the salad spinner before drying them between paper towels... which was probably a little OCD... but Judy Rodgers said that excess water will dilute the flavor so I guess I took that a fairly seriously.

The dried zucchini and onions fit perfectly into a 1 liter jar.

Apple cider vinegar (2 C), sugar (1 C), mustard powder (1 1/2 t), mustard seed (1 1/2 t), and tumeric (1 t) simmered for three minutes. You need it to cool down completely before adding it to the zucchini and onions as you don't want them to cook at all. Believe it or not it also fit perfectly in the liter jar with no excess. You want to wait at least a day (refrigerated) for the flavors to meld and for the zucchini to turn neon yellow... but they will keep indefinitely in the fridge.

Cheese Tips from From Formaggio Kitchen

2012-01-05T12:30:00.000-05:00

This blog post is a great collection of cheese advice from the experts at Formaggio Kitchen:

How do I put together a cheese plate?
Do you eat the rind on this cheese?
What exactly are double and triple-crème cheeses?
What is a washed-rind cheese?
How should I store my cheese?
BONUS: a little bit of cheese history.

Bookmarked.

Too Cold and Sick to Cook? Ramen Hacks!

2012-01-05T11:30:00.000-05:00

I received an unwanted gift for New Years in the form of a cold that, while not debilitating enough to keep me from working, has made some of my more ambitious cooking plans for 2012 less appealing. In addition, apparently New England finally realized it was winter and has bestowed upon us single digit temperatures to match. Yay. It seems like a lot of people are sick and it's frigid everywhere, so maybe some of you are in the same boat as me.

Well I've had ramen on the brain for a while now (more on this theme in later posts: I baked some baking soda last night for those of you who know what that's for)... and soup is of course perfect when you are both cold and sick... but simple package of instant ramen isn't really all that satisfying and certainly isn't blog worthy. Enter Kenji with ramen hacks. A few simple additions can really upgrade those seventy cents of dried noodles into something... if not exactly "gourmet"... that is much better than dorm room fare. Indeed, I wish I had some concept of this when I was rockin' the microfridge in college, as it is really quite easy.

Basically I spiked the water I was going to simmer the noodles in with beef bullion, some dried seaweed, and chili oil. Once that was boiling I threw in a few snap peas and sliced shiitakes with the noodles... and while that was going on I fried up a little sliced bacon in another pan. Three minutes later I stirred in a bit of the seasoning packet (maybe a quarter) and topped with the bacon, some chopped scallions, defrosted frozen peas (just had them sit in hot tap water for a few minutes), and a squirt of sriracha. Pretty good stuff, though in retrospect I like my snap peas a little crunchier and thus should have waited a minute or two to add them into the simmering noodles. I like to avoid using the seasoning packet at all in future ramen hacks, but the broth tasted a little weak without it and I haven't figured out an appropriate spice combination to substitute for it. Suggestions welcome on that front. For my next attempt I will also do an "egg drop" for some more body and maybe scale back the veggies a bit to keep it from being too busy.

Anyway, something to think about when you have some instant ramen in the pantry and some random veggies in the fridge and don't feel like cooking... hard to screw up but tasty. Nobody is going to declare you the next Iron Chef for making it, but there is nothing wrong with simple and satisfying food.

Tips for a Better Grilled Cheese

2012-01-03T11:30:00.000-05:00

Ruth Reichl has them. I already knew about how awesome mustard is on a grilled cheese, but mayo and/or a little cheese on the exterior is not something I'd ever thought of.

Happy New Year

2011-12-31T09:24:00.001-05:00

I probably should have written this post before I traveled to my ancestral homeland for the holidays, but Chimpanzee Tea Party will return in the New Year.

Beer Sommelier?

2011-12-22T11:30:00.000-05:00

There is an somewhat interesting article on Slate about the idea of classing up the serving of beer in restaurants and bars:

There may be agreement in the industry that great beer deserves top-notch service, but there’s not yet a consensus on what that means. In fact, there’s not even agreement on what to call a well-trained beer server. Engert’s job title is beer director, but he doesn’t mind being called a beer sommelier. (He has put some thought into this.) Some in the beer community find this term problematic, since "sommelier" is tied to the wine world and may imply a professional certification that doesn’t exist.

No one is working harder to coin a new title, and certification, than beer author and educator Ray Daniels. His ideal beer server is called a Cicerone (sis-uh-ROHN), a term he trademarked for the beer training program he started in 2007. The name comes from the word that can mean guide or mentor.

The program’s website states the claim that wine sommeliers might have known enough to choose a good beer for you a few decades ago, but now “the world of beer is just as diverse and complicated as wine. As a result, developing true expertise in beer takes years of focused study and requires constant attention to stay on top of new brands and special beers.” So Daniels set out to build a testing and certification program to create a standard level of knowledge and titles that would signify superior beer knowledge to consumers, similar to the way a Court of Master Sommeliers credential does for wine.

The industry has responded positively. A growing number of brewers, bartenders, and servers have signed up and tested to earn the ascending titles of Certified Beer Server, Certified Cicerone, and Master Cicerone.

I don't really have a problem with this, but the article doesn't talk at all about what I find to be the most important issue for the beer equivalent of a sommelier: pairing beer with food. I'm happy to have more knowledgeable and competent beer purveyors, but you can't consider yourself a "sommelier" unless you can see a tasting menu and come up with great beer pairings. I love beer a gajillion times more than wine, but the experience at a multicourse dinner in a fine restaurant where you are being offered wine pairings on the fly by a sommelier is beyond compare. That is what I want from my "Cicerone" or what-have-you... not the proper knowledge of what to do if the keg is too foamy.

Gougères

2011-12-21T11:30:00.000-05:00

I guess the Holidays are the time for gougères, since 101 Cookbooks just posted a recipe a few days ago, and a classic one from David Lebovitz was posted on New Year's Day a few years ago... which makes sense since these French "cheese puffs" are a pretty great thing to munch on with a glass of wine while you hang out with family and friends. I used Dorie Greenspan's recipe from Around My French Table (can be found on Epicurious here) since I thought it a little simpler for my first attempt at pâte à choux: "a light pastry dough used to make profiteroles, croquembouches, éclairs, French crullers, beignets, St. Honoré cake, Indonesian kue sus, and gougères."

I was a little scared, I admit, since Anna was off teaching and she's my go to resource for any thing pastry related (having worked in a bakery and generally being more inclined towards this type of cooking than me)... though, truth be told, being a vegan for much of her life means we were probably on equal footing here anyway. However, despite my fear, it wasn't really that hard... well mixing in five eggs by hand was a little tiring... but they tasted great and my poofs stayed puffed. In this regard, David Lebovitz gives the following advice:

The most common problem folks have with pâte à choux, or cream puff dough, is de[f]ated puffs. The usual causes are too much liquid (eggs), or underbaking. Make sure to use large eggs, not extra-large or jumbo, and use a dry, aged cheese, if possible. And bake the puffs until they’re completely browned up the sides so they don’t sink when cooling.

Of course the water is also an important part of why it puffs up in the first place. One interesting thing about hand vs. mechanical mixing is that Ruhlman says here that mechanically mixed pâte à choux will puff up higher... though I was by no means disappointed by the airiness of texture I achieved with elbow grease.

As you can probably tell from my "rustic" little gougères, I just used two spoons to get these guys onto cookie sheets... but you can pipe them for a more refined look. Next time I think I would add some herbs and maybe reserve some of the cheese for dusting on top, but overall I think they turned out pretty well for a first effort.

Vegetarian Junk Food

2011-12-16T16:30:00.000-05:00

Being that pizza and ice cream are vegetarian I think it's pretty obvious that not everything that qualifies as meatless is necessarily going to get your cardiologist's seal of approval. However in this particular case I think Anna did a nice job of putting out some fun "junk food" that at least isn't horrible for you. She made this meal in its entirety with no aid from me. Said meal consisted of some salt and vinegar oven baked potato chips and tofu buffalo "wings"... and then some green beans to make us feel better about ourselves. The recipe for the chips can be found here... they were really good, but the vinegar flavor (even after 5 minutes simmering) wasn't as strong as I prefer, and I suspect that doing a real deep fry would have been best flavor/texture wise.... but presumably the oven thing saves us some calories and there is no reason to complain about that. A good use for a mandoline/v-slicer if you've got one.

The buffalo tofu was really, really good stuff. Recipe here. Nice spice and a good crust... loved it, and definitely recommend it. Anna used butter, but you could obviously sub in margarine to veganize it (indeed, the recipe calls for vegan "butter"). There was no special treatment of the tofu beyond draining in a colander, which makes me wonder whether it would be improved by freezing or pressing. If you pressed the tofu you'd probably want to go a different direction and marinade it, but freezing will give you a chewier texture... which might be nice. However it really was great as it is, so there is no serious need to make any changes.

As far as "junk food" goes, obviously you can go a lot worse than the vegetarian fare pictured here... but I think you want to throw something green on there just so you can point out that there is a vegetable involved if questioned. Otherwise the chips and tofu are a great option for a vegetarian tailgate (yes, there are vegetarians who like sports).

Ruhlman's "Perfect" Roast Chicken

2011-12-14T11:30:00.000-05:00

This recipe for roast chicken is from Ruhlman's Twenty, but you can find both the recipe for the chicken itself and the pan sauce at Serious Eats.

Roast chicken is probably one of the easiest and tastiest meals to make in the world and here Ruhlman has really distilled the process down to its essence. It basically works out to 1) stuff, truss, and salt 2) roast at 450 or 425 for an hour, and 3) make a pan sauce while it rests. Now, it only takes an hour in the oven for a 3-4 pound bird, but the salting step adds another hour of the chicken hanging out at room temperature... and then there is another 20 minutes to make the sauce (which I definitely recommend since you have to rest the meat for that long anyway). While it does require a little planning, this is certainly doable on a week night... especially since the vast majority of the time here is hands-off.

I went with both lemon and onion in the cavity... though the it didn't really fit more than a half of each so it probably makes sense to pick one or the other. At the end of the cooking time the skin was well crisped and I was pleasantly surprised to find that, even though he doesn't tell you to cook to a specific temperature (just to cook until the "juices run clear"), the breast meat was perfectly in the 155-160 degree range at the end of the prescribed hour while the thigh meat was around 170.

While the chicken rested I made the "rustic" pan sauce, and it was both tasty and super easy. I used a vegetable peeler to "thinly slice" the carrots... took like two minutes... and the onions can be quickly sliced as well, so really all there is to it is the repeated deglazing steps. It comes together quickly with little fuss, so if you've never tried a pan sauce before, this is a good one to get your feet wet with. You also have the option of a more refined sauce, but I didn't have the herbs and knew I wouldn't really use them up before the holidays... so I opted for the simpler path.

While I think I prefer roasting some root vegetables along with the chicken as a better use of that rendered fat than a pan sauce, I can't deny that this is a really easy chicken to make and that it came out... dare I say... perfect. It definitely makes me question any kind of Cook's Illustrated style rube goldberg approach to roasting the perfect chicken... some things are just made to be simple and can't really be improved.

Homemade Vegan Treats

2011-12-13T11:30:00.000-05:00

I'm not much of a candy or sweets maker, but Anna certainly is... and I have to admit they are a great way to make some wonderful holiday presents that don't cost much money. While I think homemade items are always appreciated, this is especially true of making treats for her vegan mother and sister... where there are innumerable cookies and candies that could be somewhat simply veganized. The butterfingers you see above are naturally vegan, but she has also made vegan peppermint patties (required vegan evaporated "milk") in the past and has done caramels this year (using soy milk) for a variety of applications including pretzel twix and the salted version of said caramels. I'll try to get some pictures, as well as the recipes she used, as she boxes these babies up for Christmas... but if you have any vegan relatives or friends, this is a really good gift that I'm sure they will appreciate.

Pâté?

2011-12-12T11:30:00.000-05:00

This weekend's City Kitchen was all about pâté. I'm sort of fascinated by terrines, but also a little scared of them... something about the texture and coloring brings me back to my picky eater days and makes me reluctant to try them. Maybe I should think of it more like sausage without the casing... made into a loaf... which is more appetizing, I guess? (Note: Also still weird about meatloaf) I feel like I need to conquer this food fear, so maybe I'll try to make it. The difficulty would be in the different grinds the recipe calls for... not sure my butcher will do that or not... maybe the medium grind in the food processor and the coarse chopped by hand?

Final This Week

2011-12-06T11:26:00.001-05:00

I don't have a lot of spare time with a take home final due on Thursday, so probably little to no posting... but maybe some pictures if Anna does some cooking.

Rufous

2011-12-02T11:30:00.000-05:00

This is Anna's mother's new rescue. A cutie eh? More here.

Fig and Blue Cheese Savories

2011-11-30T11:30:00.000-05:00

Anna and I made these for a party from a recipe at Food52. Dead easy to make, though they do require fig preserves... which is probably not in every pantry, but said preserves pretty awesome to have around for any number of reasons. The texture is kind of crumbly (in a good way) and the flavor is a good contrast of sweet and tangy. Worth making in general, but a good thing to bring for a holiday party.

Boiling Bacon (or Sautéing Bacon the Ruhlman Way)

2011-11-29T11:30:00.000-05:00

After making Ruhlman's Coq au Vin, I was left with half a package of bacon... not a tragedy by any measure, and a situation easily remedied... but while paging through his 20 I ran across a recipe for sautéing bacon in water that just had to try. It's so simple you don't even really need a recipe: 1) put bacon in pan 2) cover with water 3) cook on high until water boils off 4) turn down to medium low until bacon is done to your desired crispness.

Now, this obviously takes a lot longer than cooking bacon in the pan normally, so what's the point? It tenderizes the bacon making it significantly softer with less chew. I didn't perform a side by side taste test, but I found it to be a pretty dramatic difference to your standard bacon. Obviously if you like your bacon so crisp that it shatters into fragments with a stern look then this method is of no use to you.

A concern here is the water leeching out the smokiness of our bacon... after all boiling in water is how you turn bacon into lardons... but since you boil all the water off you get all that flavor back in the glorious fat.

I've long been of the opinion that making bacon in the oven was bay far the best method... but when not making it for a crowd this really might be the way to go. You get a more tender product and none of that "curled up" bacon you get in a pan that irritates me to no end. (What? I like aesthetically consistent pork products, so sue me) I definitely recommend you try it.

Blog Down

2011-11-21T11:30:00.000-05:00

The power supply for my PC kicked the can last week... and thus I have been unable to upload photos or spend any serious time blogging... and while a new one is ordered and expected to arrive today or tomorrow... the fact is that it's Thanksgiving Day week and we are headed to Maine Tuesday night, so don't expect anything exceptional (it actually might be best for all involved if you never expect this) until after the holiday. We have cooked and I do have things to post about, but they're not about turkey and/or stuffing so they don't seem appropriately topical... though I suppose many get tired of seeing endless Thanksgiving posts, especially if you are not an American. Anyway, while I might put up a post or two, don't expect much until Monday the 28th.

Ruhlman's "Weeknight" Coq au Vin

2011-11-17T16:30:00.000-05:00

You know, I've always been a fan of Michael Ruhlman's books and blogging, but I haven't really made many of his recipes. I mean, sure, he taught me how to make a real quiche but otherwise I mainly think of him as yelling at people to make stock and being a charcuterie hero... and with Ratio I almost thought he had abandoned recipes in their entirety. But apparently recipes are not dead, as the principles of cooking in Ruhlman's Twenty are illustrated with one hundred of them... which may make this book more accessible to the beginning cook.

The dish you see pictured above is "Weeknight Coq au Vin" and it appears in the "Water" chapter. Yes, that's right, he has an entire chapter (and a handful of recipes) dedicated to the wonders of water. But you know what? I think he's right on with this: water is a very important element in cooking but it's obviously not one we often think of, and understanding how it works seems a good way to become better in the kitchen. In this particular case, water is used to tenderize the bacon and extract flavors from both it and the onions and garlic. What's clever about this is that in the Julia Child method of making Coq au Vin you turn regular bacon into lardons by blanching it, which neutralizes the smokiness... and added hassle that might not seem worth it... but Ruhlman achieves this, along with extracting sugars from the onions to help them caramelize, all in one step with the creative usage of water.

The other clever part of this recipe is another simple addition... and that is finishing the chicken under the broiler to crisp up the skin. Weak and flabby skin is the bane of any braise of chicken parts, but for whatever reason you seldom see recipes that try to mitigate it. It's a nice touch and it makes leftovers much more appealing, as you only have to put one leg per diner under the broiler... and if somebody wants a second serving, it's only 3 minutes to the table.

The one complaint I do have is the assertion that this dish can be prepared in an hour. Maybe if you have a sous chef who has all your mise en place all set up and the oven preheated when you walk in the door... but otherwise I'd say plan on an hour and a half if you are super efficient but I'd expect closer to two. Admittedly this kind of time underestimation is de rigueur in cookbooks... and I guess you just have to know the times are always ridiculous, but I can't help it... it's still a pet peeve. I feel like unrealistic times end up discouraging aspiring cooks who try a recipe expecting to get dinner on the table by 7, but are still slaving in the kitchen and fending off a hungry family at 8:30. I mean, how is that fun? Doesn't that push you to the side of "let's just get takeout"? Why not itemize the times and show where people who aren't as good in the kitchen where it's likely to take longer? Maybe that means less people will try cooking it on a weeknight, but I think it also means fewer frustrated cooks... which is a net positive in my view.

I also think the sauce needs to be defatted if you care about presentation. Maybe the bacon I used was especially fatty, but the sauce was swimming in it at the end... still very tasty, but I recommend letting it cool or a fat separator if you are trying to make an impression.

All in all, however, I thought it was a very good recipe. The flavors are great and it's easy to follow. You can find it here.

Zucchini Tart with Puff Pastry

2011-11-16T11:30:00.000-05:00

This dish was made by Anna a couple of nights ago (recipe from Epicurious), with I think the prime attraction being that you could make it with store bought frozen puff pastry dough instead of going through the trouble of making a pie dough... which would add a couple hours to the prep time. Using the puff pastry makes this at least conceivable (if not exactly "quick and easy") to do on a weeknight, as long as you are together enough to get the dough defrosted. I guess if I was trying to save time I'd defrost the dough overnight and roll it out before I went to work... and then prep the rest of the ingredients while the crust was blind baking.

With sundried tomatoes and lots of herbs this is quite a flavorful tart, but it's not overpowering. I liked it.

Turkey Stock

2011-11-15T11:30:00.000-05:00

Ruhlman exhorts us to get started on the Thanksgiving Day prep in the form of turkey stock:

I don’t know where we got the idea that a roasting turkey results enough juices to make gravy. It doesn’t. And you certainly want to have way too much gravy on Thanksgiving so that you have leftovers. My favorite day-after meal is hot turkey sandwiches, smothered in gravy.

It's also important to note that with this method you can make the gravy the night before and reheat it while the bird is resting... spiking it with pan drippings if you so desire. Not having to worry about the gravy could make the last push to get everything on the table a little more bearable, but if that's not enough then Melissa Clark has a list of other things you can do ahead.

Apps vs. Cookbooks

2011-11-10T11:30:00.000-05:00

The New York Times has a trend piece that asks: "Are cookbooks obsolete?" with the advent of a new style of cooking apps (i.e. not just a collection of recipes). The obvious answer being "No, don't be silly" since iPads still cost $500+ and I can get a cookbook for free at the library. Of course we all know that these kind of articles aren't really about any truly widespread change occurring, but about a small slice of early adopters that are excited about the possibilities in the future... and it is clear that there is some innovation going on in the cooking app world. "Baking with Dorie" and all the other apps they mention sound pretty neat, but I'm not sure I really buy the logic in this pronouncement:

Many developers say that recipe animation, either employing stop-frame photography, line drawings or infographics, is the future of digital cooking instruction. Video, on the other hand, while it can be valuable for bringing a personality into the kitchen, has several drawbacks. It is expensive to produce, and eats up precious memory. Because there is so much video in Baking With Dorie, its mere 24 recipes pushed the app to the maximum data size allowed by Apple in the iTunes store. In contrast, the app for “How to Cook Everything,” illustrated only with line drawings, holds 2,000 recipes.

Why on earth do the videos actually need to be contained within the app? A well produced video seems so much more valuable to me than an animated line drawing, and it seems there simply must be an internet (dare I say cloud) based solution to the issue of onboard memory and app size limits. Regardless, despite some strong promise in teaching people how to cook via app... having quick and easy access to technique videos in the kitchen sounds great (I've stopped cooking to look up how to do something on YouTube many many times)... I'm still not planning on ditching my cookbooks any time soon.

Homesick Texan - Carne Guisada

2011-11-09T11:30:00.000-05:00

I've only been reading Homesick Texan's blog for a few months... so I can't call myself any sort of longtime fan... but I definitely dig her style and the Tex-Mex thing even living all the way up here in New England. As a Baltimore native, I'm also well aware that regional cuisines often don't travel very well or very far - either not being available or only available in some bastardized form (see New England crab cakes)... and so if you want to eat the food you grew up with you have to wait until you go back home to visit, or make it your own damn self. To all of our benefit, Homesick Texan took the latter route, publishing recipes that allow those of us in places with terrible Tex-Mex scenes to still experience the food at home.

So enter the carne guisada that you see above. A type of "carne" I had never even heard of, but which translates into "stewed meat." Just by looking at it you can tell it shares a lot of similarities with chili, but calls for fresh green chiles and tomatoes (definitely a no-no in Texas chili). While I cooked this from her cookbook, the full recipe is also available on Homesick Texan's site, so there is no sense in reproducing it here. The only major change I made was using a mixture of pork shoulder and bottom round instead of just beef. I did this on a whim (because that's what looked good at the store), not for any specific reason, but I thought it came out great this way (though I have no point of comparison). The bottom round which was much better marbled than the pork, completely fell apart, imparting some nice body to the stew, while the pork stayed together in chunks - creating a nice contrast.

Pretty easy to prepare as most of the cooking time is hands off simmering and final dish is quite tasty. Not as complex as Texas chili, but quite hearty with a nice kick of heat. According to Homesick Texan you would traditionally serve it either in a bowl with some tortilla chips, with some refried beans and rice, or just wrapped up in a tortilla. As you can see I went with the simple bowl presentation, and enjoyed every bite.

Recommended.

Vegetarian Thanksgiving

2011-11-08T12:00:00.000-05:00

Obviously it can be tough to "vegetarianize" a holiday built around eating a bird, but the New York Times has got your back... with an interactive feature where they are allegedly going to add new recipes (some vegan, some with dairy/eggs) every day in November. If that's not enough ideas for you then you can go back to the 2010 recipe collection. So no excuses for making a boring spread... the pressure is on.

Waiters Hate Coupons

2011-11-08T11:30:00.000-05:00

They list five reasons, but I think it really only boils down to one: tip based on the original bill, not the discounted one.

Tom Colicchio on Gnocchi

2011-11-03T16:30:00.002-04:00

Some nice tips at the LA Times:

Moisture in the potatoes is the enemy because it means having to add more flour. So you want to start out with potatoes with lower water and higher starch content — Idaho or other russet baking potatoes work well, and Yukon Gold or other sweet, waxy varieties do not. Potatoes get starchier as they age, so older potatoes are actually preferable here.

You want to encourage the potatoes to release as much of their moisture as possible during the cooking process. Prick the skins all over with a fork before baking them; slice them open immediately out of the oven; and — trying your best not to burn yourself — scoop the steaming hot contents of the potato into a fine ricer or food mill as soon as possible. These three things will help steam escape.

Once you've riced the potatoes and turned them out onto a clean work surface, it's time to make the dough. Working a pastry bench scraper in chopping motions, distribute the potato evenly across your work surface, then drizzle that with your beaten egg yolk. Add pepper.

The flour that we use for gnocchi is what's called doppio zero in Italy — "00 flour" to us Americans — which is very finely milled and soft as talcum powder. It leads to a smoother, more supple, malleable dough, which is why it's often used in pizza dough and fresh egg pastas.

Much more, including a video and recipe at the link. I've actually only made gnocchi the one time, and Anna recently mentioned wanting to tackle the dish again, so maybe this will serve as inspiration. Giving clear directions on what you're trying to achieve (and why) is something many recipe sites and cookbooks fail to consistently do... and thus Colicchio's comments on gnocchi shows one of the main reasons I like these "Master Classes" by the LA Times... and note that it's value is completely separate from the recipe.

The Perennial Plate: Lobster Pie

2011-11-03T11:30:00.001-04:00

I'm generally in favor of all things Maine... with the notable exception of UMaine's college hockey team... so I found this episode of The Perennial Plate to be particularly interesting. Also, being from the Chesapeake Bay region... an area that seems to have a new depressing environmental report or endangered population story come out every day... it's really strange to see a seafood population as well managed as Maine lobsters seem to be. Thus I was fairly curious as to whether this particular lobsterman would have a different stance on government regulation than you typically see in watermen, but (not surprisingly) this do not appear to be the case. He seems to think the regulations actually made the pressure on the lobster population worse, which seems to me to be unlikely... but admittedly it's not an issue I've studied with any kind of thoroughness.

Mustard Oil

2011-11-02T11:30:00.001-04:00

I found this New York Times article appropos mainly because I was trying to find out what "mustard essence oil" is not more than a week ago. For us it is about making mostarda (a truly transcendent condiment) as a holiday gift, but according to the times American chefs are being a little more experimental:

While Bengalis mostly use it for sautéeing, reducing its intensity, American chefs usually finish dishes with a trickle of the sharp raw oil, as Jean-Georges Vongerichten does with blanched mustard greens in his new book, “Home Cooking With Jean-Georges: My Favorite Simple Recipes” (Clarkson Potter).

Mustard oil is a key ingredient in the “uni panini,” a sandwich with a cult following at Alex Raij’s Chelsea tapas bar, El Quinto Pino. Playing on the Japanese pairing of sea urchin and wasabi, Ms. Raij mixes it into butter she slathers on a ficelle and tops with sea urchin. “It has these great vapors, but it’s not the kind of heat that lingers,” she said. “I think because it’s an oil, it hits the tongue differently.”

Ken Oringer said he discovered mustard oil when the Indian cookbook author Madhur Jaffrey made a guest-chef visit to his restaurant, Clio, in Boston. Now he marinates jalapeños in mustard oil for Indian-inspired pickles and poaches fish in mustard oil before searing it with Spanish paprika. “There’s no ingredient that comes close to it,” Mr. Oringer said. “It brings so much flavor.”

Few American chefs have featured mustard oil as prominently as Michael Hodgkins, the former chef at Hung Ry, a hand-pulled-noodle shop in Manhattan. In his time there, Mr. Hodgkins used mustard oil as his go-to seasoning in everything from a simple salad dressing for shaved apples and local greens to a fried squid dish with fennel and coriander seeds, lime and honey.

“It doesn’t have that thick, fatty texture that coats your mouth,” he said. “You taste it, and then it’s gone.”

The catch? The FDA says it has to be labeled "for external use only" because there is some data out there that it causes heart problems in mice. But:

Ramanan Laxminarayan, a research scholar at the Princeton Environmental Institute, said any benefits, like any risks, have yet to be conclusively proved. But Mr. Laxminarayan said he has no concerns about the safety of a drizzle of mustard oil.

“I can’t imagine that at that quantity of use it could do much of anything at all,” he said. “Just as it would require a lot for serious health benefits, it would probably require a lot for any harm.”

Caveat emptor, I suppose, but I'd be pretty confident in taking my chances... it's not like Bengalis are keeling over en masse.

Pairing Drinks With Food

2011-11-01T11:30:00.002-04:00

A nice primer from Serious Eats.

Cheese Pronunciation

2011-10-30T18:06:00.001-04:00

I haven't had a single one of these cheeses, but there is just something about a goat speaking French that is awesome.

Young Cooks

2011-10-27T11:45:00.015-04:00

Jay Rayner on the issue that "nearly 60% of 18- to 25-year-olds are leaving home without the ability to cook five simple dishes":

I don't think I could really claim that I could cook in a meaningful way until my late 20s.

Hey, me too! Though I guess I was really just learning to cook at that stage, not really cooking "meaningfully"... but the point stands.

I certainly don't think it's any kind of culinary death sentence to escape college with no ability to cook... I turned out OK after all. However, from what I've seen... any youngin in the aforementioned 18-25 range gains a distinct advantage by being able to cook a prospective partner dinner, though it's probably more a more pronounced advantage for young men. Just sayin.

Ragu alla Bolognese

2011-10-26T11:45:00.001-04:00

The above was made from a recipe in the latest issue (November/December 2011) of Cook's Illustrated (sub required), apparently based on the Bolognese sauce of Dante de Magistris - chef/owner of Dante and Il Casale. I think pretty much everyone with a passing knowledge of Italian food knows about Bolognese sauce... basically it's the quintessential "meat sauce"... with ground beef, pork, and veal all making an appearance. What I didn't know is that there is some argument as to what role dairy ingredients should play in the sauce, with some swearing by their presence and others saying they have no place in a proper Bolognese. I've made Bolognese a couple of times but I've always made it with milk or cream, so the fact that this sauce was a "no dairy" version was kind of intriguing.

Otherwise the meat profile here is: pancetta, mortadella, ground beef, ground pork, ground veal, and chicken livers. I'm a little intimidated by offal... and haven't really tried it since I was a kid, but I couldn't detect the chicken livers presence despite the fact that they are pureed and added towards the end of the cooking process... so keep that in mind if the liver thing is a turn off (or just omit them). On tip I would have if you are going to make this is to use a large/wide pan... I used our smaller dutch oven (3.75 quarts) and it held everything fine, but it took forever to cook off the liquid from the meat.

Regardless, good recipe and I didn't miss the dairy... certainly a little less silky, but the big and complex meat flavors stole the show. Worth making.

Peeper Ale

2011-10-24T11:30:00.001-04:00

Had this nice little pale ale over the weekend... not sure how hard it is to find in the New England area (presumably not available outside it), but I got mine at The Wine and Cheese Cask in Somerville. A very solid beer that isn't too hoppy and is pretty well balanced... you can find more in the way of reviews over at Beer Advocate.

Cheesy Heirloom Tomato Pie

2011-10-20T11:30:00.001-04:00

This is another recipe that Anna made out of Emeril's Farm to Fork (recipe here)... though he calls for Creole tomatoes and Anna used heirlooms from her mother's garden in Maine - hence the slight name change. Anna has actually made it twice, but this is the only time I've tasted it... not really sure how I missed it the first time, but I'm glad I tried it the second. While it didn't totally blow my mind, I thought it was a good dish... especially once it had fully cooled down. The tomatoes could probably use peeling, but that's a lot of work to add on to an already involved recipe.

Emeril calls for a deep dish pie plate... which we don't own... so Anna used the 9 inch ring mold we use for quiches. Worked out well with no leaking (always the worry when using a ring mold)... I'm sure the egg wash helped here.

Small Apartment Kitchen

2011-10-17T11:30:00.001-04:00

Things are crazy here at work with a move to a new facility coming on Tuesday, but I took some pictures of the new kitchen that I thought I'd post. Nothing that exciting, but this is the cleanest and most put together it will probably ever look so I thought to preserve it for posterity. I'm also proud of our use of space. So here we go:

Preserving an Open Bottle of Wine

2011-10-12T16:30:00.002-04:00

I wish this column at Snooth wasn't in slide show form, but it's a pretty interesting discussion of what causes and remedies there are for wine going bad when you can't finish a bottle... with this as the take home message:

1. Minimize surface area
2. Keep it cool
3. Introduce as little oxygen into the wine as possible

By which he means, if you know you're not going to drink a whole bottle of wine transfer what you plan not to drink it to a smaller container (minimizing surface area and exposure to air) and put it in the fridge (cooling it). Anna use the Wine Saver which the author seems to think isn't a great solution... his argument being you're sucking all the good aromatics out with the air... but we've had surprisingly good results with it... at least in the respect of the wine lasting well beyond when you'd think it'd be vinegar.

Sriracha Roast Chicken With Root Vegetables

2011-10-11T11:30:00.010-04:00

Sadly, I think it's no longer cool to like the omnipresent hot sauce known as Sriracha, but that didn't stop NPR from doing a column on the stuff five years late. But I'm not complaining since they can pry my Sriracha from my cold dead hands. This weekend I made the roast chicken with root vegetables you see pictured above. I didn't really detect any Sriracha flavor on the skin of the chicken, which was a little disappointing, if not surprising... but the veggies were great. Perfectly cooked and nicely spicy. I'd make it again.

You'll notice that the chicken is trussed... which I did not do myself. The Bell and Evans chicken I picked came that way. Kind of odd, but nice.

Quinoa and Kale Crustless Quiche

2011-10-07T11:30:00.000-04:00

I've been on a pretty long (unintentional) break from cooking... and even though I have some decent excuses (our kitchen is still in pieces, my lab is moving in a little over a week, etc.), Anna has still been cranking out the dishes and making me look bad. Whose food blog is this anyway? Well, for now... and I hope to rectify this over the weekend... I guess it's Chimpanzee Tea Party guest starring Anna.

Here is her effort on the Quinoa and Kale Crustless Quiche recipe from Food52 user Hillarybee. One thing she thought was important to note is that the recipe calls for caramelized onions, which can take quite some time if you're not risking a burned mess by rolling on high heat like some kind of culinary cowboy. So keep that in mind when you're figuring out how long this will take to make (probably longer than you expect).

While I played no part in making it, I did help with the eatin', and I can say that it's quite good. I would probably put the finger quotes around "quiche" when referring to it since it really doesn't have a custard base... it's more like a frittata variant in my view, but I suppose that's quibbling. Regardless, the flavors are really good and the hipster grain quinoa a welcome presence.

Chimpanzee Grill Party

2011-10-05T18:30:00.012-04:00

pan-sanma-ikebana by drawndie

If you've ever wondered where the name of this blog comes from, this video shows you the Japanese take on the concept. Originally... in the version popular early 20th century... it was just chimpanzees in a cage dressed up in suits/dresses having "tea" for the amusement of visitors... but grilling some fish and flower arranging share the same elements. Not to get all "deep" on what has become a full time food blog, but what I find interesting about these displays is what it says about our concept of humanity's place in the world. That we seem to need to dress up chimps in clothes to laugh at how bad they are at using chopsticks seems to reveal a deep insecurity. As I think our fellow primates insanely awesome, I find that need to distance ourselves from them both curious and a little sad. If you have any interest in the topic of humanity's relationship to chimpanzees I recommend The Ape and the Sushi Master.

But mainly the name is about me feeling like Pan-kun, trying to act like I know how to cook for (hopefully) the entertainment of others.

Affinage Controversy!

2011-10-05T12:30:00.001-04:00

Cheese nerd post: A couple weeks back I linked to a blog post from Formaggio Kitchen about their trip to the Jasper Hills cheese caves, hoping to improve their "affinage" (i.e. aging of cheese) operation back in Cambridge. Well today we've got a foodie controversy about the practice laid out in the New York Times:

“This affinage thing is a total crock,” said Mr. Jenkins, the cheese monger at Fairway and the author of the pivotal 1996 book “Cheese Primer.” “All it does is drastically inflate the cost of cheeses that have benefited zero from this faux-alchemical nonsense.”

Mr. Jenkins, a New York retail pioneer, argues that affinage is ultimately about marketplace savvy. Long ago in places like France and Belgium, the affineur first stepped in to extract profits by acting as the middleman.

“It has nothing to do with making cheese taste really good,” he said. “It has to do with getting paid. And it’s morphed into a typical ‘French things are cool’ thing that Americans have bought hook, line and sinker. They all think, ‘I can even turn this into a marketing tool, so people will see how devoted I am to my craft.’ ”

It suffices to say that affinage aficionados disagree. My cheese knowledge consists of a cheese making course and putting together a few cheese plates on the advice of experts, so I really have no idea how true this charge is on the merits... but you should read through the article and see the results of their blind taste test. I tend to be a skeptic on most things, but I think it's pretty easy to see the difference aging makes in a cheese... so why would it be surprising that there are ways to do it right and ways to do it wrong? Which is not to say there isn't some "faux-alchemical nonsense" mixed in there, but that seems true of almost everything.

2 Minute Mayo

2011-10-04T11:30:00.000-04:00

While we're on the topic of quick cooking hacks, here's a video by Kenji on how to make mayo with a stick blender... no slow dribbling of the oil required! You can read the full post here. I've honestly never had a problem making mayo before, though I've done it less than a handful of times so my sample size is pretty small... but I still feel like it's more intimidating to people than it needs to be. Well here's your excuse if you've never made it before (and own a stick blender).

10 Second Garlic Peeling

2011-10-03T16:30:00.001-04:00

Don't know how often I need to peel an entire head of garlic, but still pretty cool.

Jalapeno Cheese Bread

2011-10-03T11:30:00.001-04:00

Anna did all the work on this one, but I thought I'd post it because a) it was good, and b) the picture came out reasonably well. This one is from Homesick Texan, whose cookbook needs to be put on the library list methinks.

Curry Leaves?

2011-09-30T11:30:00.003-04:00

From NPR's Kitchen Window series (definitely check this out if you haven't), Monica Bhide talks about curry leaves:

Curry leaves have nothing to do with curry powder. Nothing at all. Curry powder is ground spices such as cinnamon, turmeric and coriander. It may or may not include curry leaves.

...

Though they look similar, unlike bay leaves, curry leaves are edible. Traditionally, curry leaves are used in multiple ways. First remove the leaves from the stem. You can add the leaves at the beginning of a recipe, sizzling them in hot oil and then adding ingredients such as vegetables, cooked basmati rice or poultry. As the final seasoning to a dish, the leaves are sizzled in hot oil along with other spices such as black mustard seeds, and the hot seasoned oil is poured over a prepared dish — for example, a bowl of plain yogurt or stewed lentils.

I definitely have never seen or heard of these, but I am somewhat notable in being the one person in the world who doesn't totally crush on Indian food. I can't imagine we'd have a lot of luck finding the fresh leaves in Boston, but there are a fair number of Asian grocery stores in the area that have all sorts of things that I am oblivious to and probably wouldn't comprehend even if I was made aware of them. So who knows?

Click through the link for a more full description and some recipes, including the intriguing curry leaf mojito.

Wild Mushroom Ragout on Creamy Polenta with Beer Braised Cabbage

2011-09-29T11:30:00.004-04:00

It's been a bit of a crazy week, with a trip down to Baltimore with some Red Sox fan friends (whoops, sorry guys!), all of my work computers seemingly exploding at once, and the kitchen in our apartment getting replaced. So that's why I've been completely silent on the blog front... and why this post will be on the terse side... but we did cook a few things this past weekend... not so much to say farewell to our old kitchen (which I will not miss) but so Anna had something to eat while they were ripping out cabinets.

Above you have pictured the meal Anna and I made together out of Emeril's Farm to Fork, which, for as cool as it used to be to hate on Emeril, seems to be a damn fine cookbook. He really does seem to have an honest interest in sustainability and the environment, and I guess Guy Fieri has replaced him as the celebrity chef everyone loves to hate... so maybe now we're allowed to like Emeril? Regardless of the ruling from the foodie thought police on that one: we made a great meal from his cookbook.

We had to go to the Whole Foods in Fresh Pond to get access to a fun selection of wild mushrooms (bluefoot, oyster, shiitake etc.), and I like my polenta a little wetter than Emeril (necessitating adding a little extra liquid)... but otherwise everything came together pretty easily and tasted great.

Charred Corn Tacos

2011-09-22T11:45:00.000-04:00

As a last gasp of summer, before turning to root vegetables and heartier dishes, I made these charred corn tacos from Smitten Kitchen. Smitten Kitchen is one of the most popular food blogs on the planet, but sometimes I've seen "real" cookbook writers grumble a bit that she's gotten so famous not (often) writing her own recipes. As someone who writes about food and also doesn't write recipes, perhaps I take such criticisms more personally than I should, but I can't help but point out that such criticisms really miss the point of her appeal: the lady has really good taste. Beyond the snappy writing and beautiful photos, it seems any dish you pick from her is a guaranteed winner, and her narrative and instructions seem to be prescient in anticipating mistakes... much better than many of the celebrated cooks and cookbook authors we've had some trouble with in recent months (Ottolenghi I'm looking at you). Anyway, looking forward to her cookbook... but on to the cooking results:

The City Hall Farmers' Market had corn, radishes, and squash in abundance... so ignoring limes, cilantro and the like, it was a relatively locally sourced meal. I'd love to claim that the knife work you see in the radish-yellow squash slaw above was my own, but I really have to credit the mandoline/v-slicer on this one. I enjoy julienning a carrot or two, but a half pound of radishes plus a squash enters into tedium... and there is just no way I could approach that kind of regularity in a 1/8 x 1/8 inch cut (though I suppose practice makes perfect). A mandoline is not something I think anyone needs, but if you have one you'll use it quite a bit. If you get one I'd recommend a cut resistant glove to save fingers.

The one thing I was a little dubious about when executing the recipe was that she calls for an entire medium white onion... which seemed like a whole lotta onion... but if you look at her picture that is indeed what she wants. Despite my skepticism, it really did work out well as they cooked down and paired nicely with the sweetness of the corn.

One tip I have for charring corn portion of the recipe: do not remove the stalks. If you just remove the husk and silk, you'll leave yourself a nice little handle so you can char the corn quite easily. While you can put it directly over the burner, that is a) a little gross depending on when you last cleaned it b) fairly inefficient since the flame comes out of the sides of the burner.

Anyway, a really good vegetarian recipe that can easily be made vegan by omitting the cheese.

Beer Cooler Sous Vide: Some Thoughts

2011-09-20T11:30:00.000-04:00

I might put up a more substantive post on Kenji's concept of Beer Cooler Sous Vide, but I don't think I have it totally perfected yet... so I thought I'd just throw out some advice/issues I've had so far. Tried it twice, both times just making burgers. I thought using sandwich bags and slowly immersing them in water to force the air out worked pretty well... though you probably get a tighter seal using plastic wrap like Thomas Keller suggests, it's a bit more wasteful. The biggest problem was that my cooler lost about 10 degrees by the end of 45 minutes. I used water that started over a 130 degrees, so the food was still cooked fine (120 degrees is rare)... but it's obviously not ideal. Now the cooler I was using is not very big, so maybe the initial addition of the meat caused the drop... but I made sure the second batch of burgers was at room temperature. However some of the comments of Kenji's post suggests that the top of beer coolers tend not to be insulated (mine does feel pretty flimsy and possibly hollow)... so I should have used a blanket on top to hold in some more heat... apparently home brewers use beer coolers for a similar purpose (making a mash tun) and drill holes and use expanding foam to make their coolers more effective. I'm not particularly handy, so I think I'll skip the latter solution, but a blanket is fairly doable. The second idea to combat temperature loss is "preheating" the cooler with hot tap water for 10-15 minutes, which is also suggested in Keller's piece.

Oh, so how were the burgers? Not perfect obviously... but still pretty great. The best part being that they only take a couple of minutes to make after they've been cooked in the water bath, so it's much easier to bring together a meal with multiple moving parts. I'll probably have some more posts on this in the coming weeks as I experiment some more with perfecting beer cooler sous vide.

Sweet Paul

2011-09-16T11:30:00.001-04:00

Just found this online food magazine called Sweet Paul from a link in The New York Times Dining Section. The photography is top notch (better than what I could achieve even in my dreams), the design seems great, recipes look good... and, hey, it's free. Haven't looked at it long enough to see how good the writing is, but did I mention it's free? It appears to be quarterly and their archives go back to Spring 2010.

Korean Barbecue Meets Sloppy Joe

2011-09-15T16:30:00.002-04:00

In what I presume will be Sam Sifton's last recipe column, he details the preparation of a pretty natural fusion:

The dish is the Korean barbecue standard known as bulgogi — “fire meat,” is the literal translation — transformed into a sandwich filling, a sloppy Joe for a more perfect union. (File under “Blessings of Liberty.”) Fed to children with a tall glass of milk, the sandwiches may inspire smiles and licked plates, rapt attention and the request that the meal be served at least monthly — they are not at all too spicy for younger palates. Given to adults accompanied by cold lager, cucumber kimchi and a pot of the fermented Korean hot-pepper paste known as gochujang, they can rise to higher planes.

I guess I should make this dish in memoriam: one bite for me, one for my promoted hommies.

What I like about this dish, and what suggests it could be a keeper, is that it looks like you can put together the marinade, spicy mayo, and salsa (minus the scallions) on a Sunday and then finish it off pretty quickly on a weeknight.

Yes, You Really Should Buy A Kitchen Scale, Part XXXVII

2011-09-14T11:30:00.010-04:00

The New York Times on the case. I think I've made pretty clear my preferences on the topic, but it's always worth saying again: it's most essential for baking, but it's also really handy for anything where weights are involved (like cheese). The only thing remotely new to me here is this tip:

Dave Arnold, director of culinary technology at the French Culinary Institute, recommends that you make a chart with the standard equivalences, and tack it up next to the scale. The conversions sometimes require some math, but there’s a payoff if you can brave it.

“If you start cooking that way, it makes your life so much easier,” Mr. Arnold said. “You’ll do everything just so much faster.”

Hey, I know math! Hmmm.

Obviously kind of weird Ruhlman's book Ratio... entirely about cooking by weight... is not mentioned at all. Not exactly the greatest due diligence in evidence there New York Times.

"They are chefs cooking dinner for very, very rich people."

2011-09-13T16:30:00.006-04:00

Yesterday, a group of top chefs (René Redzepi, Ferran Adriá, Heston Blumenthal, etc) released an "open letter" to future chefs, talking about "nature's gifts" and serving as a "important bridge to other cultures"... among other things. Jay Rayner unloads:

Yes, of course good chefs ought to be serious about their ingredients. Yes they have a responsibility to source stuff ethically. But they also need to remember that they aren't secular saints. They are chefs cooking dinner for very, very rich people.

Just before it closed a couple of months back El Bulli flogged the entire restaurant for a night to a champagne company, who flew in some of their invited guests on a private jet, before helicoptering them in to dinner. (You also might enjoy Adrià's advert for Estrella beer; ah, how humanity sighed with pleasure at that one). Likewise, guests have regularly come to eat at Blumenthal's Fat Duck by helicopter (they tend to land on the cricket pitch at the end of the village of Bray). Huge brigades of cooks are involved in the preparation of the world's very best ingredients, often sourced from some distance away. A single meal at one of these restaurants will leave a carbon footprint an elephant could sleep in. All of which is fine. It is what it is. It's an expression of the market for gastronomic luxury. There are lots of things it isn't, among them, a prescription for world peace.

I agree that the world's food an environmental problems will not be solved by where some future René Redzepi forages for pine needles, but tend to err on the side of raising awareness. Rayner's argument shares a lot with anti-environmentalists who think that if you've ever flown on a plane you aren't allowed to comment on CO2 emissions, but on the other hand the "open letter" is pretty nauseating so I guess it deserves to be made fun of. Couldn't they have just done some bullet points about local sourcing and called it a day?

More Twitter Food News

2011-09-13T15:05:00.001-04:00

SamSifton Sam Sifton

I'm stepping down as restaurant critic to be the national editor of The Times. #checkplease

27 minutes ago Unfavorite Retweet Reply

Aaaaaand.... the official announcement.

Umami Vegan Broth?

2011-09-13T11:30:00.000-04:00

Michael Natkin wanted to highlight umami (savoriness) in his vegetable broth:

Umami, of course, is that famed fifth flavor, sensed by receptors that look for glutamate and various ribonucleotides - basically indicators that a food contains protein. It isn't so surprising that we'd be wired to like protein, right?

I want to pack so much umami into this broth that you have one sip and feel your eyes roll back in your head involuntarily. I want to evoke a guttural groan, and in my small sample of testers, that is exactly what has happened.

...

The vegetarian ingredients best known for high concentrations of glutamates are tomatoes, dried shiitake mushrooms, marmite, kombu seaweed, and parmesan cheese. I decided to include the first four, but omit the parmesan to keep this broth vegan.

Pretty informative. I don't think I'd ever considered what the "umami" ingredients for vegetarian cooking were. The recipe looks good too, but does require a pressure cooker.

Ruhlman's New Book

2011-09-12T11:30:00.001-04:00

I'll have to add this to the library list to see if it's worth owning. I like the idea behind this one... focusing on techniques with recipes to illustrate.

Inside Some Cheese Caves

2011-09-09T11:30:00.001-04:00

In a very informative blog post, Jessica Sennett, Cave Manager (cool title, eh?) at Formaggio Kitchen (Cambridge), visits the cheese caves of Jasper Hill. Perhaps only interesting if you're a cheese nerd, but I thought it was fun. We've known about Formaggio's cheese caves from our course with Ricki Carroll, but don't really know a whole lot about what goes on there. I don't see us aging cheeses anytime soon, but it's still cool to read about.

Sous Vide without an Immersion Circulator

2011-09-08T11:30:00.000-04:00

Thomas Keller at the LA Times has the details:

Rather than cooking the food using an immersion circulator, you can achieve similar results using a large picnic cooler and a probe thermometer.

Here's how you do it: Fill the cooler with hot tap water to preheat for 10 minutes and then drain. On the stove, bring water to the desired cooking temperature (you'll probably need to fill a couple of stockpots). Then transfer enough hot water to the cooler to fill it nearly to the top, reserving some water for later temperature adjustments.

Add the food and then check the temperature of the water and adjust as needed. If the temperature is too high, pour in a little cold water. If it's too low, add in some of the reserved hot. A good-sized, well-insulated picnic cooler with its lid on (we use a 28-quart picnic cooler) should maintain an even temperature for around one hour. For slightly longer cooking times, check the temperature periodically and adjust with fresh hot water as needed.

For even longer cooking times, you can use a pot of water on the stove, though it will be more challenging to control the temperature. If you do elect to cook on the stove top, keep in mind that a larger body of water will maintain a steadier temperature, so select a pot that is large enough for the meat you're cooking and an ample amount of liquid. Depending on how much control you have over the burners on your range, you may want to purchase a tool called a diffuser from your local kitchen store to provide separation between the pot and burner, making it easier to keep your water at a sufficiently low temperature.

It's worth clicking through since they also have a video from Rory Herrmann showing how to wrap and prepare some fish and chicken in a water bath on the stove (though I might call it poached, there is no need to quibble) and some additional tips and recipes.

While I've always been more of a project oriented cook who enjoys a nice long afternoon working in the kitchen, it's hard not to see the benefit of sous vide for a perfectly cooked burger or chicken breast... and I've been meaning to try the beer cooler method since I saw it on Serious Eats over a year ago. Seems like a good thing to try out before going all in on something like a Sous Vide Supreme or even a PID controller and a rice cooker.

I Didn't Even Know These Existed

2011-09-07T11:30:00.005-04:00

Stir-Fried Winged Beans from Michael Natkin at Herbivoracious. But I guess I wasn't alone:

I ran into a vegetable I'd never seen before at a farm stand in Kawaihae on the Big Island of Hawaii, in the middle of a preposterous but amusing adventure that involved driving back and forth over the same stretch of coast approximately seventy-three times. These pods were about 8 inches long, with ruffled leaves, somewhat crunchy like romaine lettuce, but with a central seed pod a bit like a green bean. Most unusual.

Worth clicking through just to see them, since they look like some kind of Star Trek vegetable to these Western eyes. Kind of neat to see someone who knows what they're doing experiment with something new.

The End of Good Eats

2011-09-06T11:30:00.001-04:00

Kind of sad:

altonbrown Alton Brown

Those concerned about science/food fix, fear not. I'm evolving not dying.

1 hour ago Favorite Retweet Reply

altonbrown Alton Brown

Final good eats finished yesterday. The end of an era.

Cooking with Beer

2011-09-01T13:30:00.008-04:00

Mark Bittman in this weekend's New York Times Magazine:

Cooking with beer makes sense: not only is it more flavorful than water, but it’s also more flavorful than any store-bought chicken stock and less ethically objectionable as well. And unlike wine or liquor, you can substitute beer cup-for-cup for stock or water when you’re braising or making soup. Yet like wine, beer is acidic, which comes in handy when you’re baking quick bread, cake or fried foods, because you need a little acidity to activate baking soda.

In fact, beer’s flavors are arguably more varied and complex than any ready-made liquid besides wine. And like bread, to which it’s closely related, beer loves to team with meat, cheese and strong flavors like onions, garlic and spices.

None of this is really earth shattering... people have been making bread and cheddar soup with beer forever, but you don't see quite as many braises with beer it seems. One of my favorite stews is carbonnade à la flamande, which is simply beef and onions braised in Belgian ale, but the sum is many times greater than its parts. I'll probaly try his cheddar and cauliflower soup, but you might be interested in his Dopplebock bread or carnitas. It certainly makes me anxious for Garrett Oliver's Oxford Companion to Beer.

EDIT: Hmmm... Blogger's new posting interface seems to have broken timezones, as this was supposed to post at 4:30... oh well, back to the old interface I guess.

Morning Pickles

2011-09-01T08:30:00.000-04:00

What you see above is a lot of cut up watermelon rind sitting in a vinegar syrup with spices in cheesecloth (allspice, clove, cardamom, ginger, and lemon). Poor planning led to me getting up early this morning for the second stage of watermelon rind pickle making... the first stage being simply cutting off the green skin and pink flesh (more tedious than expected) and brining the roughly 1/2 by 1 inch chunks for 6-12 hours. This morning it was simmering the rind for five minutes and making the syrup... and now it's another 12-24 hours of the rind and spices in the syrup before I actually jar the stuff. Kind of involved! Being that I've never even had watermelon rind pickles before, all this work for something I might hate has me a little apprehensive... but, hey, I like to live dangerously.

I haven't seen the recipe I'm using online, but it's from The Joy of Pickling and I'll post it once I've got the damn things in jars.

Creamy Stovetop Corn with Poblano Chiles

2011-08-31T11:30:00.004-04:00

We meant to make David Tanis's "Creamy Stovetop Corn With Poblano Chiles" at the beach (in addition to the gazpacho) but Irene intervened, so we made it at home with some fresh Massachusetts corn instead. It doesn't look particularly "creamy" because we couldn't locate any crème fraiche in the store and I didn't feel like making any... so I planned just to substitute in some sour cream... but didn't use enough. For some reason I had it in my head that crème fraiche is runnier than sour cream, but that's not really the case... it was crema I was thinking of, so the thinned out sour cream didn't really coat as it should have. It was still delicious though, with the sauce coming out almost like a spicy corn bisque... and it made Anna think it would be outstanding as is, but served on a bed of grits or polenta. Sounds good to me.

The Food Lab's Gazpacho

2011-08-30T11:30:00.003-04:00

This was one of the recipes we took down to the beach to make while we were on vacation. Gazpacho is of course the dictionary definition of "perfect summer dish", as it both takes advantage of the plentiful summer produce, and is also served cold to beat the heat. In addition, it gives you a great excuse to check out the local markets wherever you are vacationing( for example: Lewes Farmers' Market).

The special technique that separates this gazpacho from others is the concept of "cryo-blanching", which, while it just means "freezing", is a pretty cutting edge culinary technique pioneered by Ideas In Food. I'll let Kenji explain:

The idea is that as ice forms inside the vegetables' cells, the sharp, jagged crystals end up rupturing and weakening the walls of the cells. What you end up with is a vegetable that's soft as if it's been cooked, but still retains its fresh, raw flavor.

So in his recipe, Kenji uses a combo of salting and cryo-blanching to extract as much liquid from the vegetables as possible and then blends everything together to produce his gazpacho. One advantage of this approach is that this is a pretty easy dish to prepare compared to gazpachos with lots of fine dicing. On the other hand you definitely do need to strain it. To many this may seem overly fussy, but we tried it both ways... and even though I had to use the tiniest fine mesh strainer in the universe and thus had to strain the soup by the ladle-full... the strained version was infinitely better. The non-strained version isn't more "rustic"... it just tastes like a weird vegetable salsa, not a soup. Though as someone who does generally prefer rustic soups to purees, I advise reserving a little extra tomato and cucumber so that you can dice up a garnish to get a texture contrast.

Anyway, recipe is here. Definitely worth making.

Jam Bistro in Rehoboth Delaware

2011-08-29T11:30:00.002-04:00

I've mentioned before that while I like taking pictures of food and also like eating in nice restaurants, I'm not really into whipping out the DSLR every time I'm eating out. Unlike some, I don't have a problem with people taking pictures of their food, but I don't generally approve of using a flash without explicit permission from the people around you and the lighting is generally too terrible to get a decent picture otherwise. So unless I get one of those cool spotlight things (unlikely), you'll probably only see me post "I ate this" pictures when I happen across the rare instance of great natural light in a restaurant.... which, as it so happens, occurred last week at a great lunch we had at Jam in Rehoboth. Jam has a fancy big sister restaurant next door called Eden, but from what I can tell Jam is the casual laid back sister who is most comfortable in jeans.

This is mainly a food pr0n post, not a serious review... as I don't consider myself a serious reviewer. How could I hope to give an honest review after sampling only three dishes on a single afternoon? I only really post about dinning experiences I enjoy and keep things firmly in the impressions area. So with that in mind...

This dish was fantastic... one of those sadly rare experiences that instantly makes you think about how to recreate it at home. From what I could gather, they were simply fingerling potates that were smashed up a bit and then presumably pan fried... though I suppose you could get a similar effect roasting in the oven. Then they were topped with blue cheese and doused in a buffalo sauce vinaigrette. Obviously a little on the decadent side, but hey, we were on vacation.

Anna ordered this, and I didn't even taste it, but she loved it. It was a salad of candied walnuts, pretzel croutons, and pears... all under a maple/dijon dressing. I totally dig the presentation and wonder why we don't see wedge salads very often. I guess it's horrendously out of fashion... being made with butter lettuce and not mesclun, but I've seen a lot of talk lately about how iceberg lettuce is suddenly hip again, so the wedge salad is clearly seems primed for a comeback (if it isn't back already).

Pretty simple... just a lamb gyro, but the meat was quite tender and the Tzatziki sauce was excellent. Though I might go as far to call the pita the star of the dish since it seemed clearly house made and brushed ever so slightly upon flatbread territory in a really pleasant way.

All in all a great lunch and restaurant I heartily recommend.

Lewes Farmers' Market

2011-08-27T17:00:00.002-04:00

We're back from out vacation a little early... as we fled the beach late Friday night as the governor of Delaware called for a mandatory evacuation in the face of approaching Irene, so I thought I'd put up a slideshow of the wonderful Lewes (pronounced Lewis) farmers' market we visited the weekend previous. As you can see on their website, the market is located in the center of Lewes' fairly historic downtown ("first city of the first state") and it's open from 8 am to noon through the summer. The number of vendors and high quality of the produce was quite impressive... honestly better than anything I've seen up here in Cambridge/Somerville... definitely worth a look if you're in the Rehoboth area. While we were on vacation, we still like to cook a meal or two even so... it saves some money and summer produce is just so fantastic it's hard to pass up.

And here's hoping everybody stays safe and the area comes through with minimal damage.

To the Beach!

2011-08-18T16:30:00.001-04:00

Leaving tomorrow for ten or so days in the Rehoboth/Lewes area, so probably not a lot of posting. I will have an internet connection, but no promises. While I enjoy blogging, I still want to have a real vacation... though admittedly I will be taking my camera down to check out things like the Historic Lewes Farmers Market and photograph whatever we cook from the bounty we acquire there (some preliminary thoughts: gazpacho and creamy corn with poblano chiles). We'll see how it goes. Everybody have a good week and pray for my pasty white skin.

Opal Basil Pesto and Substitutes for Pine Nuts

2011-08-17T11:30:00.004-04:00

Last night I made a simple pesto with the leftover opal basil (i.e. the purple kind) from the farmers' market. The only problem I had was that I couldn't find any pine nuts at the local market... not to mention that the last time we made a dish with pine nuts Anna got pine mouth (nuts were from Trader Joes and imported from various countries in Asia)... so instead of running all over town and getting more pine nuts of dubious provenance, I decided to try a substitute. I could have just made pistou, which is essentially pesto without nuts, but I decided I wanted to see what the alternatives are like. A perusal of the internet suggests (like this Serious Eats thread) that basically any nut can be substituted, but walnuts, almonds, and pistachios seem the most favored. According to Saveur's latest issue walnuts are the most traditional choice (since there is a Northern Italian variation using them), but that you should either lightly toast or soak them in water (for at least an hour)... to remove the bitter qualities of the raw nuts. Unfortunately I did not see that issue of Saveur on my coffee table (with a big "Why we love pesto!" headline) until after I made mine sans toasting or soaking... whoops!

Well I definitely recommend doing one or the other if you are substituting for any reason... the bitterness was noticeable, if not overwhelming... so I'd definitely do it in the future. Oh, and the recipe I used was Simply Recipes... not that I'm sure you really need a recipe for pesto, but I like the security blanket.

Palate Determined in Womb?

2011-08-16T11:30:00.002-04:00

From NPR (via Bittman):

Mennella says this had already been observed in rabbits, so she decided to test it in human babies — with carrots. Pregnant women were divided into three groups. One group was asked to drink carrot juice every day during their pregnancy, another during breastfeeding and a third to avoid carrots completely. Then when the children began to eat solid food, researchers fed them cereal made either with water, or carrot juice and videotaped their responses.

"And just like the European rabbit, the babies who had experienced carrot in amniotic fluid or mother's milk ate more of the carrot-flavored cereal," says Mennella. "And when we analyzed the video tapes they made less negative faces while eating it."

I'll have to ask my mom to be sure, but I'm think they were vegetarian when my mother was pregnant with my bother but not with me... and he loved veggies as a kid and I hated them. So there you go, Q.E.D. Pretty interesting, but I guess it won't be long before we have maternity classes that involve tasting menus.

Mediterranean Tomato Sandwich

2011-08-11T11:45:00.000-04:00

Apropos of my Tuesday post, I made it down to the City Hall farmers' market yesterday afternoon and picked up over a pound of heirloom tomatoes, a large bunch of purple basil (purple pesto time?), and a baguette from When Pigs Fly bakery. I had been jonesing to get my hands on some farm fresh tomatoes for David Tanis's tomato sandwich recipe since I first saw it, and while I've also been waiting for ages to use said summer tomatoes in dishes like panzanella and gazpacho... on this particular day, the Mediterranean take on a simple tomato sandwich just called to me more. As a bonus, even when you're buying heirloom tomatoes at $4.50 a pound and $3 bunches of basil, it's still a cheap meal that takes 20 minutes to put together (though admittedly you'll still have to wait an hour to eat the sandwiches).

So besides the fresh tomatoes and basil (from the market or your garden) and a loaf of great bread, all you need are pantry staples: garlic, olive oil, red wine vinegar (I want to make it), capers, and red pepper flakes. Anchovies are also called for, and would certainly boost the ever popular umami, but since I was serving this to a vegetarian they were omitted.

Tanis calls for slicing the tomatoes thickly or cutting them into wedges, but I thought very thin slices would melt in your mouth and meld all the flavors a little more. But, on the other hand, if you see more value in texture contrast you'll want the thicker slices.

One great thing about this sandwich is the hour wait while all that tomato goodness penetrates deep into the bread which... while it doesn't seem that great when you're staring at it on the counter wanting to eat it... makes it a perfect sandwich to make for a picnic or hike. Obviously there is an upper limit here, but it will get better as it sits.

Definitely recommended.

Zombie Squid!

2011-08-10T11:30:00.001-04:00

This video is not safe for people who fear cephalopods and/or reanimated corpses.

On the other hand, it's also kind of cool:

From the Daily Mail:

The high salt content in the sauce reacts with ions in cells of the squids' tentacles creating voltage differences, and making the squid move.

Tomato Ideas

2011-08-09T12:30:00.001-04:00

I nice interactive feature in the Times Magazine from Bittman. Simple and quick recipes that highlight the tomato... which is exactly what everybody tells you to do at the height of tomato season.

We got rained out of the farmer's market this weekend, but I think I will try to stop by the City Hall one tomorrow. What to make though? One of Bittman's ideas? Or perhaps David Tanis's non-whitebread and mayo tomato sandwich?

Espagueti Verde

2011-08-08T08:30:00.000-04:00

A fairly odd dish, it must be said... who knew they ate pasta in Mexico? I certainly didn't. The spaghetti is served with a kind of chile pepper "pesto" whose heat is tempered by a fair bit of crema. I got the recipe from Serious Eats, but it's originally from Zarela's Veracruz.

The dish pictured above doesn't look especially "verde" because I tried to substitute random medium heat large peppers, but really used an insufficient number to match the fleshiness of the poblanos. I was worried about making it too spicy but ended up making it a bit too mild, so next time I won't be so shy with the heat but I might stick to mixing different peppers for the added complexity.

Even though I didn't execute it quite to perfection, I still thought it was quite good... an easy (and cheap) dish to prepare with a lot of potential.

Hainanese Chicken Rice

2011-08-05T08:30:00.001-04:00

Many consider Hainanese chicken rice to be Singapore's national dish, but to an outsider it's hard to imagine a blander looking meal. I mean, boiled chicken served on white rice? What's that even about? If you're a "No Reservations" fan you know that Bourdain absolutely raved about the stuff in an episode on Singapore, but even so, it's a little hard to get excited about something so... monochromatic.

I don't really recall what led me down the path making this dish, but make it I did, following a recipe from Steamy Kitchen. One nice thing about this recipe is that the ingredient list is certainly not too intimidating, requiring little beyond the chicken itself and pantry staples... in addition, it takes about an hour to get the final dish on the table so it's perfectly doable on a weeknight. Everything went off without a hitch, so I can't really think of anything you should be especially cognizant of if you decide to make it yourself... other than to spend a little extra on a good quality chicken since it is basically the star, director, and executive producer of the meal.

So what did I think of Singapore's national dish? The chicken itself was moist and delicate and the rice was fantastic (I had never washed rice before, but I guess maybe I should from now on?). The chili ginger lime sauce was also great, but I'm a big fan of Sriracha even though it is no longer cool to be so. However I have to say the broth was pretty disappointing... I'd go so far as to call it insipid. Though I don't know why you'd expect anything different after only 30 minutes of simmering. Conceivably you could cut up the chicken before the simmering and make a stock from the back and wings to poach the rest in and get much better results, but it's not my national dish is it? The skin, with the ice bath, comes out a little bit gelatinous and weird... but I think that's the intention. Not entirely sure how I feel about it, but some recipes call for discarding the skin, and I probably lean that way.

Still, even with the lackluster broth I think this is pretty nice dish.

Apricot Fruit Leather

2011-08-04T08:30:00.049-04:00

"Fruit leather" isn't, I think, the most appetizing name for a snack. You wouldn't, for example, say that something "tastes like shoe leather" and mean it as a compliment. But... regardless of how bad fruit leather's marketing department is, it's really a pretty tasty snack that doesn't require any special equipment to make. Yeah, a dehydrator would make the process much quicker and not heat up the kitchen... but if you're like us and have no general need to suck the water out of various food products, then this is a pretty good way to use up super ripe fruit in your fridge that might go bad before you can eat it.

Anna made this Serious Eats recipe (spice of choice = allspice) a couple of weeks ago, and we've really enjoyed the finished product. Once it's dried you can just take some scissors to the parchment paper (leaving the fruit leather attached) and you can make some fruit roll up-esque strips that are easy to take with you.

Really easy and definitely worth trying.

Another Mansell Mountain Hike

2011-08-03T16:30:00.000-04:00

Mansell Mountain: Long Pond to Mansell Peak to Perpendicular Trail

EveryTrail - Find the best Hiking in Acadia National Park

I feel like I'll be able to hike this mountain blindfolded soon(probably not a good idea), but we did another trip to the top of this under trafficked peak with some friends this past weekend. However the path we took this time is not quite as strenuous as the hike we did a few weeks ago, though it is significantly longer (5 miles vs. 3.2). The fact that the ascent is gradual and the descent is down carved stone steps meant that it wasn't too hard on one of our friend's bum knee. Mansell doesn't have the 360 degree panoramic views of many mountains in Acadia, but it does have some beautiful ones and the walk around Long Pond was lovely. A nice choice for a more peaceful hike (ignoring the motor boats) in Acadia during the hectic summer months.

An Argument For Boxed Wine

2011-08-03T11:30:00.006-04:00

Eric Asimov, writing for the New York Times, points out that no matter how maligned, boxed wine is actually a fantastic idea:

Despite the almost reflexive elevation of noses at the mention of boxed wines, one significant detail undermines these smug dismissals: the idea of putting wine in a box, or more accurately, in a bag within a box, is brilliant. The packaging solves significant problems that have dogged wine for millennia, whether it was stored in urn, amphora, barrel, stone crock or bottle.

No matter how elegant or handy those containers may be, their fixed volumes permit air to enter when wine is removed. Air attacks and degrades wine, making it imperative to drink up what remains, usually within no more than a few days.

The bag-in-a-box, to use the unlovely industry term, resolves this problem of oxidation by eliminating space for air to occupy. Wine can stay fresh for weeks once it has been opened. But while the packaging may be ingenious, what’s inside has been a problem.

They go on to taste test some fancy pants boxed wines (click the link for rankings), and while the typical price point for these paragons of boxed wine quality appear to be around $40 for 3 liters, that's still a pretty decent deal since the volume works out to be 4 standard bottles of wine. Since I live with a wine drinker who seldom finishes a bottle before it tastes of vinegar (even with a "wine saver" gadget), the idea of quality boxed wine is somewhat intriguing... but the volume is probably too high, even if it lasts for weeks. Still, pretty interesting, and possibly valuable info to the more high volume wine drinkers out there.

How to Poach an Egg

2011-08-01T16:30:00.011-04:00

Part of a continuing "How To..." series? Nope, it's just a weird coincidence that my last two posts were instructional (I swear!), and actually more evidence that I was in Maine this weekend than anything else. Anyway, here's a video from the Kitchn on how to poach an egg:

I found the video interesting mainly because I... ahem... have never poached an egg before. In part this is due to the fact that I'm a reformed picky eater who has been somewhat slow in embracing all forms of egg-i-ness... but it's also because I didn't know how to do it and had always heard it was hard (doesn't seem that hard in the video). But Sam Sifton told me I need to know how to do it, and who am I to argue with Sam Sifton? Next up? Fried eggs maybe?

How to Roast a Suckling Pig

2011-08-01T11:30:00.000-04:00

Pretty awesome (and very detailed) guest post over on Ruhlman's blog about roasting a suckling pig. It's all great, but I liked this nugget:

We plowed through about 150 pounds of charcoal over 8 hours for each pig, keeping a couple of chimneys full of fuel the entire day.

Talk about a cooking project! Making cassoulet over the course of a couple of days suddenly doesn't feel so heroic.

Tortilla Soup

2011-07-29T11:30:00.003-04:00

Tortilla soup is one of the earliest dishes I learned to make... so early, in fact, that my favorite recipe is nowhere to be seen on this blog. Scandalous! So in an effort to rectify that I whipped up a batch this week... and whipped up is the right word, as this is definitely a solid week night meal option. Except for the garnishes, which can be pulled together along the way, there really isn't a whole lot of prep or fancy knife work here... just some simmering, food processor-ing (not a word, I guess), and straining. Easy and delicious.

There are actually even easier recipes out there, like this quick classic from Rick Bayless, but what I like about this particular recipe is that you punch up some store bought broth during the process of poaching the bone-in thighs. So obviously if you've got your own homemade stock then, by all means, go the quickie Bayless route... but no matter how many times Ruhlman and Bittman exhort the miraculous culinary powers of homemade stock, roasting a chicken every week in a household of two (where one of the two is a vegetarian!) is not super practical. Don't get me wrong, I love to use homemade stock when I have it, I just don't have it in my freezer that often... and I think this Cooks' Illustrated method is a very nice compromise.

Note that if you have some spare corn tortillas, then feel free to fry them up, but I sort of feel it's not generally worth the effort since they soak up the soup and become soggy almost instantaneously... so I go with those tortilla strips they sell for salads or chips unless I have some corn tortillas I need use up. Clearly freshly fried tortillas will make for a sexier presentation than I achieved, so your call.

The original Cooks' Illustrated recipe is here (sub required). You can also find it in the March 2005 issue of their magazine. I've slightly adapted it to my preferences, but the general outline is the same.

Soup

4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (about 1 1/4 pounds), skin removed and well trimmed of excess fat
8 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 very large white onion (about 1 pound), trimmed of root end, quartered, and peeled
4 medium cloves garlic, peeled
Table salt
8 to 10 sprigs fresh cilantro (or 1 sprig of epazote if you can get it - I can't and am jealous of you)
2 medium tomatoes, cored and quartered
1 medium jalapeño chile, stemmed
1 chipotle chile en adobo, plus 1-2 tablespoons of adobo sauce according to taste
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Garnishes

Tortilla strips or chips (if chips break them up a bit)
1 lime, cut into wedges
1 avocado, diced fine
Fresh cilantro leaves
8ounces cotija cheese, crumbled, or Monterey Jack cheese, diced fine
Minced jalapeno pepper
Mexican crema (or crème fraiche or sour cream)

Bring chicken, broth, 2 onion quarters, 2 garlic cloves, cilantro, and 1/2 teaspoon salt to boil over medium-high heat in large saucepan. Note that you are only using half of the garlic an onion here, the rest is for the puree.
Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer until chicken is just cooked through (roughly 20 minutes).
While the chicken is poaching, puree tomatoes, 2 remaining onion quarters, 2 remaining garlic cloves, jalapeño, chipotle chile, and 1 tablespoon of adobo sauce in a food processor until smooth and set aside.
Once the chicken is done, transfer it to large plate to cool and pour broth through fine-mesh strainer, discarding solids.
When it's cool, shred the chicken into bite-sized pieces and discard the bones.
Heat the vegetable oil in heavy bottomed pot over high heat until shimmering.
Add the reserved puree and a dash of salt, cooking while stirring frequently, until the mixture darkens in color (10 minutes).
Stir your strained broth into the tomato mixture, bring to boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer until flavors have blended (15 minutes).
Check your seasonings, and add up to 1 tablespoon additional adobo sauce if you likes the hot and smokey stuff.
Add your shredded chicken back in and simmer until heated through (5 minutes).
Ladle your soup into bowls and pass around the garnishes.

Clambake Guides

2011-07-28T11:30:00.002-04:00

Clambakes are a nice seeming New England tradition that I have never participated in... similar in some respects to the crab feasts I grew up with in Baltimore, but with the added "cooking on the beach" vibe. Bittman provides a "recipe" (with diagram!) and some advice:

Do not underestimate your firewood needs: enough to fill the trunk of a midsize car is not too much, and any less than that might not be enough. If the beach you select doesn’t look as if it has enough, bring it. You need a very hot fire.

You also need kindling, newspapers (not virtual ones) and plenty of matches or a lighter. Other must-have items that you won’t have in the kitchen: a shovel or two to dig the cooking pit, several heavy-duty garbage bags for the seaweed, a bucket for seawater and a large canvas tarp to cover the fire. (Thick blue plastic — the stuff used in roofing — will work, but it’s not as nice.) Bring flashlights, even if you’re planning to eat before sunset — clambakes tend to run late, and cleanup in the dark is a huge hassle.

Don’t forget the usual beach and eating equipment, especially (here I name things I have forgotten): insect repellent, drinking water, a colander, potholders, dish towels, more dish towels, tongs and knives. I use cheesecloth and string to make little packages of shellfish and vegetables — they are cute beyond belief — but you can use aluminum foil (easier, cheaper, uglier) if you prefer. Also remember that lobsters don’t crack themselves, though you can smash them with rocks if you forget the nutcrackers.

Wow that's a lot of stuff to handle/keep track of. Pretty intimidating I'd say, but he also adds this sage wisdom:

Get all the help you can. Try to relax. And don’t start drinking too early. Unless you’re a veteran, something is likely to go wrong; you can roll with the punches more easily if you’re at least partly sober. Trust me.

I can speak from experience that just having a couple beers while cooking can dull your ability to react to mishaps and correct mistakes... at a mammoth undertaking like a clambake that involves open fires and white hot stones I think I would abstain until at least the food was cooking.

However, what if you want to experience a clambake without starting a fire on the beach? Well Bon Appétit has you covered with a one pot clambake, though it's a really big pot (30 quarts!). But if you cut the recipe in half to serve four then you're down to a more manageable 8-10 quart stockpot (x2).

There's still plenty of summer left for these types of cooking adventures, but they're a little beyond my ability to plan and organize methinks.

What To Do With Vegetable Scraps

2011-07-27T11:30:00.000-04:00

From the New York Times article on chefs trying to be more "stem to root" with veggies comes a bunch of suggestions on how to use vegetable scraps:

CARROT, CELERY AND FENNEL LEAVES Mix small amounts, finely chopped, with parsley as a garnish or in salsa verde: all are in the Umbelliferae family of plants. Taste for bitterness when deciding how much to use.

CHARD OR COLLARD RIBS Simmer the thick stalks in white wine and water with a scrap of lemon peel until tender, then drain and dress with olive oil and coarse salt. Or bake them with cream, stock or both, under a blanket of cheese and buttery crumbs, for a gratin.

CITRUS PEEL Organic thin-skinned peels of tangerines or satsumas can be oven-dried at 200 degrees, then stored to season stews or tomato sauces.

CORN COBS Once the kernels are cut off, simmer the stripped cobs with onions and carrots for a simple stock. Or add them to the broth for corn or clam chowder.

MELON RINDS Cut off the hard outer peels and use crunchy rinds in place of cucumber in salads and cold soups.

PEACH LEAVES Steep in red wine, sugar and Cognac to make a summery peach-bomb aperitif. (According to David Lebovitz’s recipe, the French serve it on ice.)

POTATO PEELS Deep-fry large pieces of peel in 350-degree oil and sprinkle with salt and paprika. This works best with starchy potatoes like russets.

YOUNG ONION TOPS Wash well, coarsely chop and cook briefly in creamy soups or stews, or mix into hot mashed potatoes.

TOMATO LEAVES AND STEMS Steep for 10 minutes in hot soup or tomato sauces to add a pungent garden-scented depth of tomato flavor. Discard leaves after steeping.

TOMATO SCRAPS Place in a sieve set over a bowl, salt well and collect the pale red juices for use in gazpacho, Bloody Marys or risotto.

TURNIP, CAULIFLOWER OR RADISH LEAVES Braise in the same way as (or along with) collards, chards, mustard greens or kale.

WATERMELON SEEDS Roast and salt like pumpkinseeds.

Since we live in an urban apartment with no composting options, we dispose of a fair bit of vegetable waste. Not something I feel great about, but you don't usually hear too many recipes calling for corn cobs or tomato scraps. Nothing earth shattering, but some interesting ideas. Still seems the best way to use these many of these scraps remains just use them to make a stock.

Soft and Hard Herbs

2011-07-26T11:30:00.008-04:00

I'm not a gardener by any means, so this information from Ruhlman was new to me:

Herbs are roughly divided into two categories, “hard” and “soft.” The soft herbs are herbs with soft stems, such as parsley and tarragon. The soft herbs are best used fresh; they’re fine dried, but they lose their magic, all the beguiling qualities that make them so powerful a la minute.

The hard herbs, those herbs that when allowed to grow develop tough woody stems, are fabulous dried. The best as far as I’m concerned is thyme, also one of my favorites fresh. Oregano and marjoram are excellent as is sage, which I have a forest of now.

Kind of intuitive I guess, but good to know. Unfortunately We were negligent this year with our window herb garden, forgetting to start it until it was too late to be worth it... but we don't get enough sunlight for excess herbs to really be an issue. Next year we'll hopefully go through with the plan to mount our window boxes on the railing of the fire escape... thus exposing them to a bit more time of direct sunlight... to theoretically grow a little better.

Two Corn Recipes

2011-07-25T11:30:00.000-04:00

I've got corn on the brain for some reason, and nothing ready to post, so here are two recipes for corn dishes I've been eying: charred corn tacos from Smitten Kitchen and a corn and black bean salsa from Homesick Texan.

Food52: Grilled Bread with Thyme Pesto and Preserved Lemon Cream

2011-07-22T11:30:00.000-04:00

Not an example of my best food photography, and not a dish I have a whole lot to say about... but it was surprisingly tasty, so I thought I'd still post it. For us the main attractions were 1) an excuse to use some of our preserved lemons, and 2) using the the George Foreman grill meant not turning on the stove in the middle of a heat wave. Loved the flavors of the lemon cream and the spinach/thyme pesto, and while we certainly didn't get the same quality grilled bread you'd get on an actual grill, I still think it came out well... and was quite easy to execute.

Recipe from food52, and certainly recommended.

Charles Square Farmers' Market

2011-07-21T11:30:00.004-04:00

So my computer is back up and running with a new hard disk drive (though sadly it looks like I've lost some data - frequent backups kids!), but I've been so busy with it that I really haven't done much interesting cooking this week. We did do the "Grilled Bread with Thyme Pesto and Preserved Lemon Cream" from food 52, but I haven't had time to even look to see if the pictures came out, let alone write it up. So what does that mean? Time for a slideshow of one of the two or three local farmers' markets we regularly stop at. Here we have the Charles Square Farmers' Market, located at the Charles Hotel courtyard in Harvard Square (map here).

The market is open on Sunday from 10AM to 3PM and Friday from 12PM to 6PM. Obviously Sunday is pretty popular and is when we normally visit to pick up veggies for the week. We're well into the high point of farmers' market season here New England, so now is definitely the time you want start going if you haven't already.

Dietary Salt Intake

2011-07-19T16:30:00.001-04:00

Only have time for a couple interesting links from Scientific American I saw via Ruhlman. The first is the case against salt having much of an effect on blood pressure by Melinda Wenner Moyer and the second is an interview with Marion Nestle the other side. In brief: 1) intervention studies show little effect of low salt diets 2) but certain people seem to be very sensitive to salt while it doesn't effect others 3) and given the prevalence of processed foods and restaurants, are truly low salt diets even possible (1500 mg is less than a teaspoon of table salt)?

I don't have any answers of course, but I tend to think it's not something to obsess over unless you have hypertension or family risk factors for it... but in either of those cases diet is the first thing I'd go after (with the approval of my doctor of course). Certainly cooking more meals at home is the safest way to go, even if you don't think salt's a big deal.

Computer Down

2011-07-16T14:03:00.000-04:00

The hard disk drive on my home computer died a painful death, so posting might be sparse while I wait for a replacement.

Ideas in Food: Macaroni and Cheese

2011-07-14T11:30:00.005-04:00

If you're not familiar with the blog Ideas in Food, you probably should be. They're not your typical food blog, in that they don't really post highly detailed posts about the execution of recipes (though there are recipes)... they post most often about, well, ideas about cooking. Ideas that can be a little bit weird to the average home chef, like this post about watermelon breast, or this one about a corn omelet. Not stuff I'd necissarily ever want to replicate (though Michael Natkin has a really interesting riff on that seared watermelon idea), and many of their experiments are directed more towards professional chefs who are pushing the boundaries, but it's still quite interesting to see the thought process laid out. However, not everything they do requires an immersion circulator and a centrifuge... they also bring their culinary knowledge to bear on humble classics like macaroni and cheese, a recipe for which you can find in their recent book, Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work (the recipe is also available in PDF form here).

So what exactly can highfalutin fancy pants food science bring to a dish as seemingly "settled" as macaroni and cheese? It's just cheese, cream, and pasta... what else do you need? Well they have two big ideas in play in this recipe. The first of which is soaking pasta:

Yeah, I know, right? You soak beans, not pasta... so what's going on here? Well it's related to that Harold McGee article about how you don't need a giant pot of water to cook pasta. As long as you have enough to hydrate the pasta, you can cook it in much less water than is traditional, so your pasta takes less time and energy to make, but you have to keep stirring it so that it doesn't stick... so not necessarily a trade off that seems worth it. Aki and Alex handle this by separating the hydration and the cooking with a cold water pre-soak of the pasta. While the soaking takes an hour or two, it gets the pasta to a "just before al dente" phase that really speeds up cooking, which you can drain and keep it in your fridge for a 2-3 days... and since the starch has been washed off of the surface of the pasta you don't need to worry about it sticking together. In other recipes they take this a step further and use the soak to infuse flavors into the pasta (like bbq sauce), but in this one it just gets your pasta elbows to the perfect state of doneness for use in macaroni and cheese without ever boiling water. It was perfectly cooked when it came out of the oven, and really quite impressive. While I don't know how often I'm really going to set aside an hour to soak pasta, I still think it's pretty awesome how well it works.

The second big idea, which I've mentioned before, is using a can of evaporated milk instead of cream as the dairy element. As someone who has curdled some dairy dishes (see the link above), I think this idea is fairly genius. You're getting a fraction of the fat compared to heavy cream, but it's just as stable and resistant to curdling. In addition, the slightly caramelized flavor of evaporated milk really works in this application, pairing nicely with the cheese and cayenne. I'm a big fan

So a pretty cool recipe, and a pretty cool cookbook. Would I make this macaroni and cheese again? Probably not exactly, but I learned a lot in the making and I'll certainly use these ideas moving forward... and what more of a cookbook can you ask than that? Expect to see a couple more posts about my experiences with their recipes in the coming weeks.

Eater: Boston Heat Map

2011-07-13T16:30:00.000-04:00

I've eaten at none of these places, which tells you how hip and plugged in to the food scene I am... though we've been meaning to make reservations for Bondir for ages, and Area 4 sounds interesting.

Save the Environment: Eat Invasive Fish

2011-07-13T11:30:00.002-04:00

There was a Slate article about this topic a few months back, though it focused solely on the lionfish. Now the New York Times reports the "if you can't beat 'em, eat 'em" approach seems to be going mainstream for other invasive species. However there still seem to be some hurdles in getting the culinary world on board:

Cookbooks do not say much about how to filet an Asian carp, which has an unusual bony structure. And even if one developed a taste for, say, European green crab soup, there is nowhere to buy the main ingredient, though it is plentiful in the sea.

To increase culinary demand, Food and Water Watch has teamed up with the James Beard Foundation and Kerry Heffernan, the chef at the South Gate restaurant in New York City, to devise recipes using the creatures. At a recent tasting, there was Asian carp ceviche and braised lionfish filet in brown butter sauce.

Lionfish, it turns out, looks hideous but tastes great. The group had to hire fishermen to catch animals commonly regarded as pests. Mr. Heffernan said he would consider putting them on his menu and was looking forward to getting some molting European green crabs to try in soft-shell crab recipes.

There is at least a lionfish cookbook. It's easy to be skeptical of this kind of thing, but it would be pretty sweet if we could harness our ravenous appetite for fish to actually help the environment for a change.

Mansell Mountain Hike, Redux

2011-07-12T11:30:00.004-04:00

Mansell Mountain: Perpendicular Trail to Great Notch Loop at EveryTrail

So after having my first lobster roll we headed to Mansell Mountain for a quick hike before our 7pm dinner reservations in Bar Harbor. Mansell was the scene of one of the first hikes I ever blogged, but it was before I was doing the GPS thing so I thought it worth a trip back... especially since circa 2008 me seemed pretty enamored with the trail. Unfortunately I would have to say that 3 years of hiking around Acadia later that I don't think it's quite that awesome anymore. Perpendicular trail is still pretty strenuous and a fair bit of fun, but there aren't a whole lot of beautiful views and the hike gets quite easy after you reach the top... that may sound banal, but many decents are actually quite strenuous... and this is not one of those. A big part of the problem was that we missed the trail head for Razorback and ended up going down Great Notch, so if we did what we set out to it might have been a more satisfying hike.

That said, it's hard to really complain about any hike in Acadia, and the absolute best thing about Mansell is that hardly anybody goes there. Hard to believe we only ran into one other couple in the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday in July. While I think there are better 3 mile loops out there, this is a pretty good one that will get your heart rate up over the first mile or so and is barely trafficked. It's got a similar feel to the Norumbega Goat Trail Loop we did last year (i.e. hard at first and easy thereafter) but it's not quite as pretty.

My First (and Second, and Third, and Fourth) Lobster Roll(s)

2011-07-11T11:30:00.001-04:00

Despite living in Boston or Cambridge on and off for the better part of 17 years (gasp! has it really been that long?)... and going up to Maine fairly often... I had actually never eaten one of New England's famous lobster rolls. Part of this is dating a vegetarian, since lobster pounds and seafood restaurants generally come second only to steakhouses in their inability to comprehend that some people only eat vegetables... but the biggest reason is that I was pretty sure I despised mayonnaise until fairly recently, and even though I dig the mayo in fullness these days... I've still been a little slow to really embrace dishes, like a lobster roll or potato salad, where it's a central component. A side issue is that as a Chesapeake Bay boy, my first love in the subphylum Crustacea is the blue crab... and so eating lobsters feels a little like being unfaithful. But the fact that lobsters are really, really tasty has helped assuage any guilt.

So being that I've made it for well over a decade without feeling the need to eat a lobster roll, why catch the bug now? Well it started with Kenji's post over at Serious Eats about how to make the perfect lobster roll. I was intrigued, and thought it would be a great summer cooking project to blog about... but wait I minute, I had never even had a lobster roll, so how would I be able to judge whether my efforts were any good or not? I mean, certainly I've made various ethnic cuisines without ever having sampled a paragon of the style, but I live in freakin' Cambridge not Kansas... I have access to the best lobster rolls in the world: so why not sample some before severing any lobsters' central nerve ganglia? Seemed prudent, and Serious Eats answered the bell with their "17 Lobster Rolls We Love in the Northeast"... but unfortunately, their list only covered Southern Maine, so I had to ask for recommendations for options more Down East. The name that came back most frequently was Thurston's Lobster Pound over on the quieter side of M.D.I. in Bass Harbor, and since we were already planning a hike up nearby Mansell Mountain, it seemed like a pretty obvious destination for lunch (for me at least - Anna ate beforehand and got some corn for a snack).

So what did I think? Well, it was pretty awesome to be honest. I was shocked at how key the freshly buttered and toasted (still hot) roll seemed to be to the experience. The light level of mayo also seemed perfect. But I was just at some random lobster pound (though recommended by SE) and had no experience with lobster rolls, so what did I know?

I will say to the Yelp!ers that it's a lobster pound: so don't expect ambiance. You're eating under a big yellow tent at picnic tables and you order at a window, though the view out into the harbor is nice. Just thought I'd throw that out there after looking at some of the reviews.

But after the hike, we had dinner at one of the best restaurants in Bar Harbor (I believe at least) in Cafe This Way. I enjoyed the earlier lobster roll so much I ordered their "Lobster Roll Trio" (Traditional, Asian, Southwest)... and I would have to say, that while good, they weren't even close to what the humble lobster pound produced. They used brioche that was cold... I guess expecting the inherent butteriness of the brioche to compare to a buttered hotdog bun, and that with a cold lobster salad hot bread does not matter... it did not, and it does. The mayo was also too heavy, overwhelming the lobster to some extent. The "Asian flavors" (sesame/soy) were interesting, but the Southwest action seemed to consist simply of corn added to the mix, which I found odd.

Anyway, I had my first, second, third, and fourth lobster rolls all in one day... but I think I begin to understand why native New Englanders are so passionate about the issue.

Off to Maine Again

2011-07-08T14:00:00.001-04:00

Just for a quick weekend, alas... but we should get a hike in on M.D.I. (possibly Mansell, which we've hiked already but I've never GPSed), maybe my first(!) lobster roll, and definitely dinner in Bar Harbor.

I feel pretty caught up, so I hope to resume normal posting on Monday.

Tom Colicchio on Vinaigrettes

2011-07-07T11:30:00.001-04:00

From the LA Times a "Master Class" on the vinaigrette:

Consider the vinaigrette, which I rate as the most under-appreciated sauce in existence. It is a sauce, after all, and relegating it to cold salads ignores its vast potential with fish and meat, where it can work as a marinade, as a braising medium and as a finishing sauce. Likewise, limiting yourself to the same old combination of red wine vinegar and olive oil misses out on the huge range of flavors achievable in a vinaigrette.

Let's start with the basics. A vinaigrette is a mixture of acid, liquid fat and seasonings. Most herbs and spices are fat-soluble, which means their flavors really bloom in the presence of oil. Fat also provides the body necessary to help a sauce cling to the surface of foods. The function of the vinegar, in addition to dissolving aromatic compounds found in herbs and spices, is to brighten up a dish, adding a tangy counterpoint to earthy, rich or spicy flavors.

A traditional vinaigrette is a temporary emulsion — a finicky mixture of one liquid dispersed in another (in this case, oil in vinegar). The challenge with an emulsion is to combine two liquids that do not dissolve in each other. One way to do this is mechanically: use the force of a whisk or, better yet, a blender, to physically break the oil into millions of individual droplets.

Colicchio provides lots of information and options for spicing up a sauce that's really easy to make, but yet I almost never do. Something I should rectify.