By Blake Royer
The other day I was watching Iron Chef and Lidia Bastianich was a judge on the show. I'd never seen her in this role, and, frankly, it was scary. The woman is a strange blend of passion and unsmiling seriousness. Generally people who love food are laid back and groovy, and enthusiasm is usually tempered with a good dollop of sheepish self-consciousness: "I know I'm obsessed, and it makes me a dork, but I'm so excited I simply can't help telling you all about putting pickles in butter." Not Lydia. She's straight up hard. Sometimes, on her own show, she cooks with her daughter. The tension is palpable as she instructs her to "stir faster" and "don't turn the heat so high." You can tell that this daughter has been shown a relentless standard of perfection her entire life.
But I've found that I learn a lot when I watch her in any context: above all, she's one of the most dedicated and knowledgeable people out there about the specifics of regional cuisine and how to get things perfectly authentic. On this particular Iron Chef episode, she was criticizing someone's dish. Out of the blue, she off-handedly mentioned the way someone can saute risotto after cooking in the pan to get it all crispy. It's apparently a great way to serve the leftovers to counteract the tendency for soggy or mealy results--risotto is great when it's molten and creamy right after cooking; once that moment passes it'll never be the same. I literally stood up, ran to my desk, and wrote it down. "fry leftover risotto in the pan for crunch."
I did some searching around the Internet and quickly learned that this technique isn't something so secret; lots of people fry up leftover risotto into pancakes, or pack it into balls and deep-fry it in oil. But that's why I'm a food dork and Lidia isn't.
Nevertheless, it was the perfect thing for a risotto I made last weekend--a recipe which I made up myself. Taking advantage of the dwindling corn season, I put a few ears under a broiler with a red pepper and roasted them all until black while the risotto was cooking. I cut the kernels off the cob, peeled and sliced the pepper, then mixed it all together at the very end; each serving was topped with a dollop of goat cheese. My favorite part was the way each corn kernel was similar in size to the rice, providing a great contrast of textures between the two; a charred, sweet flavor throughout countered with the rich, tangy goat cheese.
And the next day at lunch: stir-fried risotto. Yes, I tried to make a single risotto pancake. Some recipes recommended an egg to bind the ingredients, but I tried it without. That pancake hope died quickly once I tried to flip the whole concoction in the pan. No matter. It ended up being an Italian version of fried rice, which wasn't a bad thing at all.
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03 October 2007 | Permalink | Comments (3) | 
By Nick Kindelsperger
Perhaps spurred on by Blake’s admittedly tasty-looking pickle butter, I finally caved in and decided to write about one of my favorite snacks. Though a tad less refined, and even a bit shameful, it’s something I absolutely adore. I wish it were more interesting. But it’s simply a thin crust pizza with a fried egg on top. Not exactly a revelation, but it’s quick and surprising better than it has any right to be.
I wish I knew what it was called. I’ve been searching the Internet for a hint of what to call this. All I could find was a little website claiming that there is a recipe from Alice Water’s Cafe Cookbook that has a similar recipe. I got the idea from my time in London when my roommate would prepare this from time to time. He thought it was French. I don’t know.
The biggest misconception about this recipe is that a fried egg is just tossed on any old slice of pizza. That’s gross, especially if said pizza comes from Ohio, which has mounds of greasy cheese on top. The pizza would be too big and would warrant more than one egg. It would get disgusting quick.
No, what is needed is the smaller, thinner kind: Naples style. It arrives for one, and is the perfect carrier for that one fried egg on top. When the yoke breaks, it drips on all the other slices commingling with the ingredients to create some glorious new dish.
Unfortunately, as we have explored before, Naples style pizza isn’t easy to come around. Most pizza ovens stay well below the 800 degrees needed to make the pies correctly. And most pizzerias don’t take kindly to bringing in your own egg. While we have been able to create some spectacular pizza at home, it is a pain, and only done once in a while. A shortcut was needed.
Which brings us back to the less refined, shameful feeling of the dish. The easiest way to have a thin crust pizza at home is, sadly, frozen pizza. And the one brand that stacks up best in all the categories is Totino’s. Yes, that 99 cent pre-packaged circle. It’s not authentic. But for some reason, some awful reason, it tastes really good when you put a fried egg on top. It's elevated from one of the palest imitations of one of my favorite foods, to something uniquely it's own.
Anyone have any idea what this is called?
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01 October 2007 | Permalink | Comments (3) |
By Blake Royer
Lately I've been making this sandwich over and over again. I don't know why. It's nothing that unusual: ham, bread, sometimes cheese. I've made it with the shrink-wrapped lunchmeat from my corner bodega; I've made it with thinly sliced Bayonne ham from the charcuterie.
The secret is in this invention I've taken to calling pickle butter. I don't think I invented it; I think I read about it somewhere. But it's sort of transformed the way I make a ham sandwich.
Usually, I put mayo on a sandwich. And I stand by this principle when making turkey. There's nothing like the tang of mayo against a mild turkey breast, complemented with sweet sliced tomato and crunchy lettuce, perhaps even an avocado to lend richness.
But the taste of ham is distinct enough that you start simplifying.
Pickles go with ham. Cornichons, the little French pickles, go even better (Though they look similar, these taste nothing like the little gherkin pickles you mostly find in American supermarkets, which are sour and sugary and don't appeal much. The French seem to flavor them differently. Since "cornichon" is French for "gherkin", buy anything with that name.)
But pickles don't do very well on a sandwich, and cornichons do even worse. They're not designed for sandwiches; they won't stay in.
Enter pickle butter. You take a few tablespoons of unsalted butter and mix it in a small bowl until softened. This is called "creaming" the butter. One that's done, you throw in some minced chives, salt, and lots of freshly ground black pepper. And as many minced cornichons as the butter can bear.
The result gets painted on the bread--ideally, a baguette--and stays there. Ham layered on top, cheese if you wish. Then, the bread.
It's like a charcuterie plate--rich, salty meat; toothsome, chewy bread; and the piquant palate cleanser pickle--transplanted onto a sandwich.
26 September 2007 | Permalink | Comments (4) |
By Blake Royer
I’ve never made jam before, and haven’t had that much desire. It seemed a lot of work, and prone to failure. Sterilizing jars, crushing fruit, learning the right ratio of sugar to pectin so that the end result is the right consistency—these things could be avoided by paying a few dollars for some nice important preserves from France. No harm done.
The other day a little blurb from the venerable Ruth Reichl in my Gourmet Weekly email—which, actually, you should check out because it consistently has some interesting gadget or ingredient to mention—arrived in my inbox. Ruth, also, confesses to jam virginity. Yes, the woman is fallible. She cites similar reasons, like the annoyance of sterilization, then mentions what changed her mind: freezer jam. It’s a similar technique to traditional jam-making, but instead of jarring the results, you just put it in the freezer. It lasts for months. Interesting.
This weekend the farmer’s market started selling concord grapes. I always buy some when they come in season out of sheer excitement. They’re delicious and have the novelty of tasting like that artificial grape flavor. (Boy do I have this backwards. But I suspect so does anybody who ate popsicles as a kid. So this is where they came up with that grape flavor!) But I also get tired of eating them for the same reason grape popsicles are always the ones left in the box--the flavor gets tiring. And because the insides are almost gooey, with two or three seeds suspended inside which take real work to dislodge. You can’t just pop these like a bowl of crisp red grapes. They’re work.
It didn’t occur to me that it would take just as much work to turn into jam. But it seemed easier than trying to eat them all. Elin’s mother is in town and she was enthusiastic about making jam. So we all plunged into the process with no idea what we were doing.
Our first score was to find a special kind of pectin that, unlike the traditional kind, does not require you to add lots of sugar for it to work. Apparently normal pectin, the secret ingredient that makes jam congeal, is sugar-activated. But this product proudly proclaimed that it’s calcium-activated, making lots of low-sugar jam making possible.
Our first problem: removing the seeds.
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20 September 2007 | Permalink | Comments (3) |
By Nick Kindelsperger
I tend to spend way too much time researching what I'm going to eat. Nearly every recipe is cross-examined against other works I have, just to make sure I'm doing things correctly. But I was on to this recipe the moment I saw Alton pull out his steaks. I didn't check if this was the authentic way to make this, I just went for it.
What could cause me to go into such enthusiastic fits? Steak au Poivre. I’d never had it. I don’t know how I made it this long without the French classic, but I had, and was ready to rectify the situation.
The only thing I thought might need tweaking was the price. For some good quality fillet mignon’s I was going to have to drop more than I wanted to for a weeknight meal. And there was also the cognac, something that never lasts long in my house (I love sidecars!). I decided to make exceptions.
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17 September 2007 | Permalink | Comments (4) |
By Blake Royer
Ever since writing about New York pizza and our travels from borough to borough on an insistent quest for the best possible pie, a steady minority of nagging naysayers have quietly made their case in a different direction. No matter how many subways, buses, or ferries one takes, they say, you'll never find the best pizza in New York. That's because it's in New Haven, CT.
I resist, because it doesn't fit the story. You know, the romance of an old New York pizzeria and a long tradition. The way New York is a convenient setting for just about any tale, making it larger and brasher and famous. Who wants to believe that the best pizza in America is way up in Connecticut?
But Lombardi's is arguably the most famous of New York pizzerias--the center of this New York pizza story--and it doesn't have the best pizza in our opinion. Once that Little Italy myth crumbles, the title is open again. For some time I've considered Brooklyn the home to America's best pizza. But I was ready for something new to try.
So this past weekend Elin and I took the train up to New Haven and managed to eat at three places in a 24 hour period (plus a fantastic breakfast place I'll post later on). The most famous pair of pizzerias, Pepe's and Sally's, were our first priority. In fact, the debate between which is better rages on to this day--they're located a couple blocks apart. Thankfully, when we drove down famed Wooster street we found Sally's to be closed for a month, making the choice quite easy. We had also heard of a place called Modern that garnered high praise on Chowhound and elsewhere. And finally we visited BAR, a more contemporary spot close to the Yale campus.
Despite its fame as a New Haven specialty, we didn't order any clam pies because I wanted as a direct a comparison to my New York experiences as possible. Often we ordered a simple tomato, basil, and mozzarella pie, sometimes with sausage or pepperoni.
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13 September 2007 | Permalink | Comments (5) |
By Nick Kindelsperger
I’ve been gathering cook books by whatever method I can...and beggers usually can’t be choosers. I borrow nearly anything I can lay my hands on. I owe lots of money to the library. And whenever I get to head home I usually make it out with an armful books my mom hoarded over the years ( I promise I’ll return them!). One of those was The Louisville Courier-Journal Cookbook. By all stereotypes, it should be a disaster of country-fried, grease-laden curiosities, made by grandmas with lots of packaged ingredients, and wistful anecdotes about how great things used to me. But it’s not.
Published in 1985, it contains a recipe for Osso Buco and Steak Tartare. Sure, there are dips and a few cheap oriental touches, but most of the book is made of solid foodie dreams, including a few particularly local dishes one could only wish were normal. That includes something called Kentucky Burgoo, Backlajannaya Ickra, and the most famous of Kentucky dishes, the Hot Brown.
Supposedly created at the Brown Hotel in the 1920's after a long night of partying, it seems like a glorified Croque Monsieur, only open-faced, loaded with bacon, and--in my humble opinion--better. The cookbook certainly realizes the sandwiche's importance and gives two different versions. The simple one is called the Louisville Hot Brown, and is just a cheese sauce covering turkey, a slice of tomato, and mushrooms.
The second recipe, dubbed the C-J Hot Brown, is ridiculous. Never have I worked so hard for a sandwich, and never have I been so rewarded. I should have known something was up when they told me to cook onions over low heat for 20 minutes.
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09 September 2007 | Permalink | Comments (6) |
By Blake Royer
I don’t think I can ever tire of the holy trinity comprised of tomatoes, basil, and carbohydrates. Whether it’s a straightforward pasta of raw tomatoes in olive oil with basil tossed with spaghetti, a bruschetta on grilled bread, or with fresh mozzarella and some balsamic or red wine vinegar—it always tastes fresh, simple, and surprisingly hearty.
Sometimes around the end of summer, or the end of a late summer day, you can do pretty well at a farmer’s market as far as tomatoes are concerned. There’s also a chance for heirloom varieties of many colors, which gives the salad more color.
With a bulging carton of fragrant cherry tomatoes ready to burst, I didn’t have any stale bread, giving me two options: grilling it or toasting it. It’s important that the bread has some sort of crustiness to it, otherwise it’s prone to go soggy in the tomato juices. A very easy way to do this is to cut the bread into chunks and put them in a single layer in a large skillet that’s been rubbed with garlic and a thin layer of olive oil. Over very low heat, they just need a toss periodically as they brown and crisp into croutons. In the meantime, you can chop the tomatoes and whatever else is going into the salad.
And it doesn’t really matter. You need tomatoes, olive oil and either citrus or good vinegar. Otherwise, you can consider adding red onion, shallots, fresh mozzarella, garlic, fresh basil, or parsley. Or, take it in a Greek direction with feta cheese and cucumbers and a little dill. You can also bulk it up mesclun greens and a hard-boiled egg. You could also crumble some ricotta salata, a crumbly, salty version of soft ricotta. Or throw in bell peppers. Or olives or capers for something a little brinier. Or minced anchovies to deepen the flavor. Or Dijon mustard to spice it up.
A thrifty meal, even if you're buying fresh bread and making it stale yourself.
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05 September 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) |
By Nick Kindelsperger
I’m not sure why I never thought of this technique before. The biggest problem I have with most of the chickens I roast is that the white and dark meat are done at different times. It’s the great paradox of whole roasted chickens: they should probably be roasted separately. To get the dark meat done I usually have to dry out the white, or dig into a wing when I know it probably should have another 10 minutes in the oven. It’s a problem.
But an iron-skillet roasted chicken makes sense. The dark meat takes the longest to cook, so Mark Bittman places the chicken atop a heated iron skillet before it goes into the oven. The dark meat gets more direct heat. The white meat and the dark meat are done roughly at the same time. Not only that, but it’s done much quicker than any other roast chicken recipe I’ve tried. Honestly, it was done in 30 minutes.
Was it the best roasted chicken I’d ever had?
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03 September 2007 | Permalink | Comments (6) |
By Blake Royer
I’d venture a guess and say that there’s nothing I cook more than pasta. For someone as devoted to simple cooking with simple ingredients as I’ve become, there’s no dish more fitting and open to invention, nor in possession of a learning curve that’s forgiving at first, but can take a lifetime to master. It’s easy enough to make a tomato sauce and boil some pasta—college students everywhere do it all the time. But a well-prepared Pasta Carbonara, one that’s light yet fatty and flavorful, well-coated but not gluey? A classic like Bucatini all’amatriciana? Two people starting with the exact same ingredients or recipe can end up with very different outcomes. I think I’ll be cooking pasta for the rest of my life, and perfecting my technique every time I do. As Federico Fellini says, “Life is a combination of magic and pasta.”
So it was a surprise when I read somewhere that boiling pasta in salted water is not the only way to cook it. There's another method, sometimes called absorption pasta. I’d never heard of anything like this. And apparently this is how they cooked pasta before the boiling method become ubiquitous and standard.
If you’ve ever made a risotto, you’ll understand the basics here. The technique is to have some warm stock simmering next to the pasta pot, which you add in cupfuls as the dry pasta slowly absorbs it, along with the flavor of sautéed onions and other elements of the pasta dish. Instead of boiling pasta in a separate pot while making the sauce, then trying to unite the two later on, you keep them together from the start.
If you’ve ever under-boiled your pasta slightly, then added it to your sauce to finish cooking until al dente, you’ll understand what a difference it makes to have the sauce absorb into the noodles. So imagine if the pasta had been there from the start.
You may also have heard of the “pasta water” technique, when you save some of the pasta’s cooking water before you drain it, then adding some to your finished dish to help everything come together. What you’re doing is trying to save some of the starch the pasta gives off in the boiling water, which later binds the dish together and lends it a kind of creaminess.
Well, imagine if all of that starch never left the sauce. You’d have what I ended up with: a pasta dish that tasted like it had a cup of heavy cream, but had nothing more than a couple tablespoons of olive oil and some butter.
This recipe came from Alain Ducasse. It even goes so far as to add potatoes in the beginning which lends even more starch to the process.
Actually, the biggest danger here is ending up with a very starchy, gluey mess, which is entirely possible. If I were a better cook I think my own result would have been less so. In the future I would use a large, wide skillet, rather than a saucepan, so that the pasta could spread out and absorb the stock as needed. With a saucepan I was constantly stirring to ensure everything was being cooked, which ended up breaking down the pasta strands too much. I would also use a short pasta like penne, something sturdier and less likely to stick together.
The best part about this is not having to wait for water to boil. You just start cooking, and though the pasta has to cook for longer, I think it’s still less time overall. And the best part of all is the result will taste silky and soft, while still toothsome. In other words, your dry pasta will taste like it was fresh.
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29 August 2007 | Permalink | Comments (4) |
By Nick Kindelsperger
Before this point in my life--some 24 years in--I’d never willingly eaten cauliflower. Sure, it'd been sneaked into some of my dishes. But I know for a fact that it has not played an integral role in any dish I’ve ever made. A quick scan of our directory reveals only 1 mention of its name, and that was for a curried cauliflower dish that we didn’t even cook! One of Blake’s former co-workers provided the content.
Why such neglect? For me, it is the boring vegetable that is usually confined to some awful vegetable tray and destined to be doused with ranch dressing. I don’t particularly hate the poor thing, but I don’t think I’ve ever thought seriously about it, either. It never provided inspiration.
But there came a point last week when I looked back and I realized I’d eaten hot dogs, hamburgers, and deep-fried hard shell tacos for dinner. I got scared. Not only had a eaten this stuff, but I’d actually had the gall to write about most of it. What was I turning into? It was time for a deep cleanse, one where I would cook something ridiculous with an odd combination of vegetables. It needed to teeter on the edge of complete disaster, one so hideous that I would doubt the recipe, curse the pan, and come close to giving up. I needed a challenge.
So I pulled out his Babbo Cookbook and searched for something. And there, amongst the brain ravioli and beef-cheek, was a cauliflower pasta. So even though I’d never really liked cauliflower and had never cooked with it, I decided to see what trouble I could get in. Even if it was awful, I'd still have made something without meat. I could rest again.
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27 August 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) |
By Blake Royer
On my way home from work every day, I walk down Lexington Avenue and risk the smell, squeeze, and auditory onslaught that is the Grand Central station subway stop. I never get to see the beautiful, soaring interior of the actual terminal, which looks like a starry night's sky. No. Only the passage where everyone else shoves into this awful, grubby stairway under a Strawberry clothing store that often smells like a sewer. All to enter the even more crowded 4-5-6 train line (which, incidentally, carries more than the combined ridership of San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston's entire transit systems.) The 6 minutes in this stairwell, shuffling along, may be my least favorite of my day. I'd even go so far as to say that this particular stairwell may be my least favorite place in New York City.
Why am I tell you this? Lately, to feel better about myself, I've been avoiding the stairwell altogether. Just before it is a set of nice glass doors off the street that lead to the Grand Central Market. Inside is a wonderful, overpriced collection of food vendors, from Murray's Cheese to a butcher called Ceriello to some place called "Dishes at Home" that serves pre-made food like lasagna for people to train home to Connecticut and put into the oven. It's like homemade!
It is also home to one of the most highly respected fish mongers in New York, Wild Edibles. These guys sell the best stuff out there to the best restaurants. And they're not afraid to charge for it. The prices for tuna often approach the $30 mark; even farmed salmon doesn't seem to dip below $20. I used to just wistfully admire the glistening fillets on ice, until one day I discovered the oysters at the far end of the stall, which sell for a comparatively modest $2/piece. If you ask, they'll shuck it behind the counter, hand it to you, and you can slurp it down on the spot. People stare. But it's cheaper than eating downstairs. And it's enough slippery pleasure to last the commute.
Eventually I'll get to the point of this story. Next to the oysters is the crab meat, possibly the most expensive offering of all. For $39.99 plus tax, you can own one single pound of lump crab meat.
At some point, I decided crab cakes were pretty much out of reach. I'd eat them every time I went to The Good Fork and that would be that. This absurd price for crab, I reasoned, is what led the American public to happily chew on Imitation Crab Meat, that rubbery concoction of fish parts, sugar, artificial gums and flavors that my mother used to put in the fettuccine Alfredo.
Then, one day recently, I was in Trader Joe's, a place which sells the type of frozen fish that had Nick waxing poetic last week. Whistling along with a bag of white popcorn and a tub of ginger snaps, I suddenly encountered this can in the refrigerated section.
One pound of crab meat. $9. What on earth?
Wild fantasies came rushing through my head about the possibilities. Crab ravioli, crab bisque, and of course, crab cakes. Suspicious but hopeful, I got home and began to research the story behind this mysteriously cheap product.
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23 August 2007 | Permalink | Comments (11) |
By Nick Kindelsperger
I eat a lot of tacos. I keep a pack of corn tortillas around at all times. Thanks to folks like Rick Bayless, I’ve even branched out to mushroom and swiss chard tacos, huevos rancheros, shrimp, and the granddaddy of them all, our very own Fish Tacos. Glorious, ethereal fish tacos.
This is all rather strange coming from someone who only ate hard shell tacos for the first 16-17 years of his life. Tacos used to mean one thing: a fried tortilla filled with hamburger, lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese. Once I was turned on to the pleasures of soft corn tortillas, simply prepared meat topped with onions, cilantro, and fresh squeeze of lime, it was hard to think that Taco Bell was not only unauthentic and unhealthy, but also boring.
I actually hadn’t had a hard shell taco in some 7 years until a few nights ago. I was at a bar and tacos were available for 99 cents. Like I said, I haven’t had a hard shell taco in some 7 years. I picked one up and bit down. Crunch.... The crispy shell mixed with the sour cream, beef, and the quick shock of fresh veggies. That shell reminded me of so many tacos I used to chow down on during my younger years. It was kind of a beautiful moment. Was my snobbery getting the better of me? Should this crunchy bastard deserve a place in my taco repertoire? I decided I needed to make some...from scratch.
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22 August 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) |
We don't usually have hot dogs on Sunday night. I've got nothing against the sausages, but Sunday night is usually dedicated to my more adventurous cooking escapades. You know, Shrimp Etouffee, and other meals that take hours and hours. But tonight was going to be different. We needed some time, so we planned ahead and got perhaps the easiest comfort food to prepare.
Why such a hurry? Well, because of the other dog in the picture. That's Clinton. He's a Beagle/Lab mix that's about 10 weeks old. He pees everywhere he can. I swear. He pees when he's happy, when he's scared, and when other people try to pet him. He has peed on the carpet, kitchen floor, bathroom tiles, or anywhere else he wanders to. But we can't scold him for now because he's the most adorable little dog I've ever seen. Abby and I have had him for one day.
Abby has experience with miniature dachshunds, but this is my first ever dog. I haven't the slightest clue what I'm doing. I'm sure this peeing fit is fine. I just got back from the corner bar so I could pick up some of the weekly free papers. Maybe he'll pee on those. Otherwise our house will smell bad.
And if getting a new dog wasn't celebration enough, the hot dogs were also phenomenal. In fact, they were some of the best ones I've ever had. I picked them up at the Columbus North Market from the Bluescreek Farm Meats. They butcher their own animals, and use natural casing for the dogs. These had a big beefy flavor with that nice crispy exterior. I cooked them exactly like Nathan's would: on a stove top, lapped with butter, and cooked until the skins started to pop. I then slathered it with lots of mustard and never looked back.
Clinton didn't much care for the dogs, or eating on his first day. But I'm hoping he helps me along later on. Anyone else cook with a dog in house?
19 August 2007 | Permalink | Comments (7) |
By Nick Kindelsperger
I wondered often about what I'd have to give up, culinary speaking, when I moved from New York to Ohio, but most my fears have proved to be unwarranted. There is a fantastic farmer’s market and utterly divine regional specalities (try Jeni's ice cream!). But fish has been hard. Most of the stuff in grocery stores looks decent, but it has been previously frozen and thawed at the store. There are a couple fresh options, but most of those are prohibitively expensive. However much I’d like to be angry, it does make sense. Ohio is far from a ocean, and it shouldn't have fresh fish teeming out of every store. The costs of importing the fish and the amount of fuel that would take to transport it make it an unrealistic everyday option.
It was becoming a problem. I don’t think I ever bought frozen fish in New York. I might have been sneaked one unwittingly on occasion, but I believe the majority of it was fresh. Our local fishmonger could tell us were all the catches came from, and Fairway had whole fresh fish available for the carving.
While we were walking through Trader Joe’s we weren’t looking for any kind of answer. But when we passed the frozen section we came across a whole freezer stocked full of fish. Instead of hiding the fact that they had been frozen like the grocery stores did, they proudly advertised that these fillets had been frozen only once. The more we thought about it, the better that sounded. This fish had been frozen right off the boat, and would be thawed only when we were ready for it. All the grocery stores around the area could have thawed the fish and refrozen it any number of times, diminishing the flavor each step.
Better still was the price. Fresh tuna steaks can run anywhere between $10-$20 a pound, but these hard chunks were a cool $4.69 a pound. If they were bad we could just throw them away, all for the price of a couple cans of Starkist.
While they lacked the bright red color and didn’t reach the same heights as their fresh counterparts, they were very good--surprisingly good, actually. We sauteed them over high heat exactly like we would a tuna steak, and they held up perfectly. They also thawed completely in about an hour, which is much better than those rock hard chicken breasts can do with twice the time.
This is such a new phenomenon to me. I presume it’s just business as usual to half the population of the country. But I'm thrilled with the option of buying great fish at low prices, even if the label does say it was caught in Indonesia. Does anyone else have any opinions of frozen fish?
15 August 2007 | Permalink | Comments (3) |
By Blake Royer
Part of the reason I bought a wok in the first place was because I read the excellent, thorough, and inspiring post at Chez Pim called "Pad Thai for Beginners." It made a mysterious dish of the takeout world suddenly, approachably attainable. Every step was lovingly explained, each ingredient inspected. Pad Thai could be mine.
With a wok bought, seasoned, and oiled, I set off to Chinatown to procure the necessary ingredients. A quick search on Chowhound.com revealed two clear winners for shops that stock Thai ingredients, and one of them had a "great" dumpling shop next door. Bangkok Center Grocery (104 Mosco St., near Mulberry St.; www.thai-grocery.com) was described as friendly and well-stocked, on a tiny street in Chinatown only one block long.
Inside, I set about looking for the staple sauce ingredients: tamarind, palm sugar, and fish sauce, feeling like the requisite culinary tourist looking to make, of course, Pad Thai. But they were extremely friendly when I asked for help, darting around the tiny three-aisle store handing me jars and bottles and plastic bags in a whirl of energy. I ended up with a giant bottle of fish sauce, a block of tamarind paste, a jar of palm sugar (extracted from a palm tree, so essentially, I suppose, coconut sugar), a bag of "rice stick" noodles with enough for at least 15 portions of Pad Thai, and a bag of salted pickled turnip. Everything came to just over eight dollars.
Next door, the famed dumpling shop was dishing them up to a revolving crowd of people. I wish I had my camera, but I'd forgotten, so let me describe: a tiny room with two women behind a counter. One was shaping fresh dough into dumplings, while the other was frying them up. For a single dollar, you get 5 big dumplings on a tiny paper plate that folds under their weight. Across from the counter are a few stools and two condiments in squirt bottles: soy sauce and chili sauce. I doused them in soy sauce and put some chili on the side, balancing the plate in my arm, which was already weighed down with heavy bags of Thai ingredients sure to last me a year.
Thankfully, a quarter block away is Columbus Park, where I unburdened myself long enough to enjoy the dumplings.
On my way back to the Grand st. subway station, I stopped by the competing produce stands on the corner of Christie st. and Grand, right over the subway stop. These places are crazy and cheap--I got my bean sprouts, an entire pound, for 50 cents (just imagine an entire pound of airy bean sprouts), and a bunch of garlic chives for about the same. Just before descending into the underground, as I was passing a fish monger, a giant, angry, flapping tilapia vaulted itself from the bed of ice and landed on the sidewalk, flailing and slapping the pavement. A focused, unsurprised man scooped it up with a net and threw it from the net, catching it in a clear plastic bag. He then fished two more out of the plastic tub of water, still alive, and put them in also. "19 dollars!" he yelled at the buyer, while tying off the top. The woman took them gingerly from his hand and held that at arms length all the way around the corner and into the subway. I love Chinatown.
Once home, making the Pad Thai was remarkably easy, if fraught and nerve-wracking. You can only make one portion at a time, and it's a high-heat, high-octane affair with oil splattering, ingredients sizzling on the thin wok metal, the ever-present fear that something will go in at the wrong time. Really, if you want to make it you should just visit Pim's blog, where everything is detailed to an incredible degree.
These are my pictures, with a little overview of the process.
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13 August 2007 | Permalink | Comments (4) |
By Blake Royer
Usually, when you're buying cookware, the rule is this: spend more for better quality. Sure, those big boxed sets of cheap, thin pots and pans at IKEA or Target are tempting, in that pre-packaged, one-stop-shop sort of way: but how good can you really do with pots and pans that average out to $5 a piece? Your sauces will burn, your food will stick, you'll be unable to simmer anything because only a small circle right above the flame will actually heat up. In the end, the thinking goes, your investment in All-Clad or Le Creuset will provide not only better cookware, but it will have a longer lifespan and you'll take better care of it. It reminds me of the line from the late, great comedian Mitch Hedburg: "I bought an 7 dollar pen, 'cause I always lose pens and I got sick of not caring."
It was to my surprise, then, as I was reading about buying a wok, that many say buy the cheapest wok you can find, as long as it's made of carbon steel. Most you see at restaurant supply stores or Asian markets are made out of carbon steel. The idea is, when you're cooking with a wok you'll never be simmering anything over long periods of time. A wok is designed to serve as the quickest possible conduit between the raw flame of the stove and the food you're cooking--the thinner, the better. You want the wok to respond to changes in heat right away, not like a big dinosaur dutch oven that will keep cooking your food for ten minutes after you turn off the heat. The wok should be nimble and quick.
The only catch is this. Like that other well-known bastion of cheap, reliable cookware, the cast iron skillet, a carbon steel wok must be seasoned. You can't take it home from Bed Bath & Beyond and cook a little stir-fry with no oil on your nice, shiny non-stick surface. The wok comes home from the store smelling like steel and machine oil, requires scrubbing and cleaning and burning large quantities of oil over the stove, which will fill your kitchen with oil smoke and turn your wok colors. But you'll only have to do this, in theory, once or twice, and you'll have the personal satisfaction of having created your own homemade nonstick surface made naturally. From then on, the more you cook in the wok the better the seasoned surface becomes, and the less oil you'll have to use. And unlike a teflon commercial non-stick surface, a wok's seasoned surface will begin to add flavor to what you're cooking as it builds up. And you never have to worry about having the heat too high and releasing strange chemicals.
Best of all, the wok should cost about 8 dollars.
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10 August 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) |
I just watched Emeril make shrimp etouffee in about 10 minutes. I’m sure some of that time was saved thanks to the precut vegetables, pre-made stock, and carefully placed commercial breaks. But it was still a little disconcerting to see Emeril whip up a slow moving dish with such manic energy. He made it look quick and easy. Not only does this version have lots of ingredients, it also takes an inordinate amount of time. Thanks to the stock, this little preparation took about 2-3 hours, all with constant watching. I enjoyed every second of it.
There is something to be said about intensely enjoying a process, and none tends to make me as happy as slowly piling on the flavors for shrimp etouffee. Each step ups the flavor profile by what seems like an insurmountable amount, before it’s done again. And with the time to actually watch all this go down, it can be a feast to the senses before it ever hits the plate. In fact, it feels less like recipe and more like a relaxation process.
If this sounds an awful lot like barbecuing, that’s because it does. Both offer an escape from other responsibilities while they are occurring--you can’t very well clean while a fire is roaring--, and both usually necessitate something cold in hand. The most crucial difference is that this one is done indoors, and with a lot more control.
Perhaps my sense of this dish would change if I could pull this together as quickly as Emeril. Watching every stage proceed at a snails' pace adds to the enjoyment of the dish as I can see regular items turn into an extraordinary whole. And while this does take time, if probably planned out it doesn't feel like a laborous process. It, actually, is one of my favorite recipes, and one that only pull out occasionally when I have the time to dedicate. This just happens to be the first time I remembered to take pictures of it.
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06 August 2007 | Permalink | Comments (6) |
By Blake Royer
Ever since I started reading about "raw" milk, I've wanted to try it. Illegal in New York and most states, raw milk has a strange mystique about it: proponents claim that unpasteurized milk has remarkable health benefits, is drinkable by even the most lactose intolerant people, and tastes twice as good as the milk you're used to. Once you drink your milk raw, they say, you'll begin to notice regular milk tastes "cooked" and flat. Others claim you'll catch half as many colds per year. What to make of these claims? Could something as mundane and simple as milk really hold this power, if only our milk producers didn't constantly subject it to high temperatures?
Why is most milk pasteurized? Well, it's much safer. But so is a well-done steak, and I'll never eat that. The problem is, in the process of pasteurization, raw milk enthusiasts say many good pathogens bacteria are destroyed in the effort to ensure against bad ones, especially those that help the human body digest milk (hence why many lactose intolerant people can drink it without problem). The story of milk pasteurization dates back to the 19th century, when "city" cows would live in cramped, dirty quarters in Lower Manhattan, and farmers would build their dairies next to whiskey distilleries to feed cows the leftover mash. The cows got sick, bad milk was produced, people got sick. Milk was the scapegoat, and rightly so. But is the situation the same today?
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01 August 2007 | Permalink | Comments (16) |
By Nick Kindelsperger
A glistening can of Busch doesn’t excite many culinary possibilities in my mind. Had we not been tempted by fate, that sad can of piss-beer probably would have sat undisturbed in the fridge for a long, long time. But the events were right for a breakthrough. I feel safe in saying that this little can of beer fulfilled its highest culinary possibility.
It was the last thing I expected to happen. We are getting ready chow down on a very typical American summer meal of cheeseburgers and fresh summer corn. We had drinks, good weather, and all the condiments needed to complete the meal including a big, honking monster-pickle I scored at Anderson’s. That’s when my sister suggested frying the pickle.
I consider myself a man of the world. I attempt, in whatever way I can, to be knowledgeable about what’s going on. But for some reason I’d missed fried pickles. I won’t blame my upbringing. Anyway, she had first discovered the delicacies in Los Angeles of all places, and pressured all her friends to try when she returned, including a very skeptical husband. Now it was my turn.
So we decided fried pickles must be had. We didn’t really look at any recipe, except for how to make the batter, which is where that Busch beer came into the picture. We thought a nice and light beer batter would probably work best, and when we glanced in the fridge there was a lonely can sitting in there from a Forth of July pitch-in. I’m not sure if a better beer would make a better batter, but the fried pickles were great regardless. Thanks Busch beer, for allowing us to use you in a constructive way where we didn’t have to drink you.
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29 July 2007 | Permalink | Comments (6) |
By Blake Royer
Right above Standard Baking Company, where we had the fantastic bread, lies Fore St. An unassuming front door opens out into a open, lofty, yet warm room with charming leaden windows lining the back and sides. On one side of the restaurant is an open kitchen , with seating nearby. There is also seating along the outside of the restaurant, where they sat us, thankfully, next to one of the big windows.
We had high hopes for Fore St.. Gourmet magazine named it the 16th best restaurant in the country in 2002, and the head chef, Sam Wayward, has received a James Beard award for best chef in the Northeast. The restaurant has been around for more than ten years, and was one of the first stars in Portland's rise to culinary destination-hood. While there are many new and exciting restaurants in Portland, the tried-and-true seemed our best bet with only time for one meal.
We sat down next to our window with anticipation.
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23 July 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) |
By Blake Royer
I should apologize before I begin, because what I write about Portland is no doubt going to sound like a tourist ad. After just a few days spent there, it became one of my favorite cities. It has a number of things on its side: proximity to the water; an industrial, scruffy charm; a relaxed, West Coast vibe; and above all, more than a couple world-class restaurants.
Hugo's, for example, is steered by a chef named Rob Evans, who came from the French Laundry. Five-Fifty-Five is a co-effort by another ex-French Laundry chef, Michelle Corry; the other half is Steve Corry, formerly at Domaine Chardon in Napa Valley. In 2002, Gourmet Magazine rated Fore St. as the 16th best restaurant in the United States.
With only so much time and money to spare, we decided on Fore St. as the must-visit. We also went to Duck Fat, an offshoot soup and sandwich spot by the chef at Hugo's, giving us a chance to sample some of this cooking. It has a menu based, of course, on duck fat. Putting aside Mr. Evans former-French-Laundry pedigree, there's no way in the world I wouldn't visit a place called Duck Fat.
We arrived just after lunchtime. The front of the restaurant has a kind of French bistro look, with gold lettering on the windows and two tables outside.
A little stand holding menus sits at the entrance. At one table was a couple finishing lunch; the other table seated a gentleman with a giant black beard reading the paper, and his bookish-looking daughter of, say, 11 years old, who was frowning over a novel. We picked up a menu to peruse, as if we hadn't already convinced ourselves to eat there. After a moment, the bearded man's hand began to nonchalantly, lazily creep towards us. He hands me a golden-brown french fry, saying nothing. We say "thanks," and he nods, barely looking way from his paper. We bite in, murmur. He returns to reading without a word.
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23 July 2007 | Permalink | Comments (4) |
By Blake Royer
After some disappointing lobster rolls, the raw beauty of a national park was just what we needed. We drove into Acadia after dark, paid for a campsite, pitched our tent, and fell asleep immediately. The sun rose hot and early, and I woke up squinting. For a few minutes I thought we were going to start the day at 5 in the morning, but then I was able to pull the hood from the sweatshirt I was using as a pillow to enclose my face, and we slept in until ten--long after most people had left the campsite. Slightly embarrassed, and with trails to hike, seafood shacks to eat, towns to blow through, and a hotel waiting for us back down in Portland, we strapped on shoes, packed up the tent, and hit the trails.
The best I can say is that the Maine coast is as beautiful as they tell you it is. It's a happy combination of rocky outcroppings and smooth beaches, trees that belong in forests growing next to the ocean, the bluest water and the palest sky. At least this far north, it's a very soulful part of the earth.
We also stood at the furthest east tip of the continental United States (then it struck me why the sun rose so early). On our way back to the car, we came across some kind of Mini Cooper convention (Acadia National Park has a road that allows you to drive through much of it). There were at least 35 Minis, one after another.
On our way back south towards Portland, our first stop was at Blue Hill, the town where E.B. White used to spend summers. It's a cute place with a tiny town center which boasts two bookstores and a great food coop--and in a summer house, that's about all you need, really. The food coop had some beautiful produce and prepared food, and we bought a book of White's essays at the bookstore.
But what you probably want to hear about is the food.
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20 July 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) |
By Blake Royer
After we left Portland, we didn't have much of a plan. We knew we needed to arrive at Acadia National Park, about 150 miles away, by nightfall. On the list was, of course, lobster. We also wanted to see the famed L.L. Bean store. A friend had insisted we see a place called Popham beach, and we also wanted to visit Blue Hill, where E.B. White used to spend summers.
Armed with page after page of recommendations for lobster rolls from magazine articles, blogs, and Chowhound.com, we headed for the shack that seems to be mentioned in everyone's list: Red's Eats. It's impossible to miss--right on the corner of Route 1 as you pass through Wiscasset, ME. This would be Elin's first taste of lobster.
Sure enough, when we got to the strip of road that is Wiscasset, Red's was right there. We pulled off, parked, and approached.
Suddenly, I had the distinct déjà vu that I was looking at Shake Shack in Madison Square Park. Granted, not the sleek metal aesthetic, but nonetheless: little hut, long line of hungry, grumpy people, the promise of a "worth it" culinary revelation.
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18 July 2007 | Permalink | Comments (7) |
By Blake Royer
Elin and I decided to go to Maine because the fate of our relationship hung in the balance. She had never tasted lobster, ever, having made an admirable promise in early high school to keep it that way until she got to Maine. For her, the first experience of something is infinitely important. It should be carefully orchestrated, fully appreciated, the best it can be.
Of course, Maine didn't seem too far off at the time this promise was made, ten years ago. And she is a stubborn woman of her word. After ten years of turning down lobsters left and right, the situation was approaching collapse. I, for one, wanted to buy the lobsters at Fairway in Red Hook, the ones they were hocking at $8.99 a pound. I also wanted to try my hand at cooking a lobster bisque. And I really wanted to see the look on her face after she tasted a lobster roll at Pearl Oyster Bar. This gaping hole in my food life was beginning to wear on both of us. "My first lobster will be in Maine," she was prone to repeat.
As the weather got warmer, we made plane ticket reservations in desperation; New York to Portland, just over 100 dollars round trip. The same for a rental car for the week. We planned out an itinerary beginning and ending in Portland, Maine's largest city at 64,000 (though they see over 3.5 million tourists a year), with a two day drive up the coast in between. There was this romantic idea of driving up Route 1, munching on lobster rolls, slurping on oysters, admiring the rocky outcroppings and meeting reclusive-but-charmingly-so locals.
Was the trip all this cliche promised? Yes and no. We did have one of the best long weekends we've ever spent together. We did eat some stunningly good food, though not exactly when and where we expected it.
All this week I'll be posting about our trip, which, as usual, is guided by every meal we ate. After the jump is our first meal in Portland, breakfast at the Porthole Restaurant right on the water.
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17 July 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) |
At the Red Hook Community Farm, a farm literally on top of a parking lot. Read here, and see here.
12 July 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) |
By Nick Kindelsperger
Before beginning even the most basic of recipes, I usually consult a few dozen cookbooks and online sources to make sure I’m not missing some essential technique I’d skipped the previous dozen or so times I made the meal. It's a compulsory action, one that drives other people nuts, and very often myself. But I just want to make absolutely positively sure that I'm doing something that right way. Among the many texts I peruse is Cooks Illustrated. What happens when I get there is a different beast.
It began as a search for decent roasted green beans. I'd been loving the way they’d caramelize and take in the flavor of whatever I was roasting in that specific pan (usually a chicken). But they would come out all mangled and gnarly, and I was hoping that with a little help and guidance I could make some delicious beans--and look upon them without feeling a deep sense of shame.
When I searched for roasted green beans I quickly got distracted, and found a little link for “Spicy Stir-Fried Green Beans and Scallions.” Though I had a perfectly hot oven--and a chicken--ready to go for roasting, this new recipe sounded even better than the old plan. So, I pulled out my iron skillet, turned the heat to high, and let it warm up for a good 10 minutes until smoke started to sprout up, and I had lost any sort of coherent theme for the dinner. Classic roast chicken with potatoes and...stir-fried greens beans. Anyway.
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12 July 2007 | Permalink | Comments (4) |
Our first-ever print article is published in The Washington Post today! It's about what to do with all those leftover herbs in the fridge. If you can get your hands on a print copy, it looks quite good on the page, too. Enjoy!
11 July 2007 | Permalink | Comments (10) |
By Blake Royer
Last weekend, some of Elin’s friends that she met while getting her master’s degree in England came for a visit. Max and Chris are both from South Africa. They spent a long weekend with us and we did our best to show them our way of life in New York—playing the good hosts. Often, guests find New York overwhelming, or they find the idea of it overwhelming. “Where do I start?” they ask. “What should I see, and in what order?” We offer them a street map, some ideas for places to visit, a bottle of water for the trip. But it’s really hard to get them to go. It’s somewhat bizarre.
I think what it boils down to is they’re interested in seeing how we live our lives, how it works in Brooklyn. They want some sort of inside scoop. And as we’ve had various friends come to stay with us over the last few months, we’ve noticed that what we're most capable of as hosts is foisting our love of food on unsuspecting guests.
Granted, it is the perfect tool with which to explore an unknown city. Looking for good food gives you a purpose, and a reward waiting. Just as you’re nearing the sort of exhaustion that only trekking around a hot city can give you, you finally find that hallway of a store in Chinatown, the one that sells flattened squares of salty, spicy, homemade pork jerky. You sit down in a chair, take a deep breath. The food rejuvenates you.
That's Max, with a guy from the infamous Creation Museum in Kentucky (Max and Chris visited during their roadtrip across the Midwest, posing as earnest young Christians taking notes). We took Max to the Red Hook Ballfields for quesadillas, pupusas, and grilled corn; we tried to take him to Lucali, but they closed because the oven wasn’t hot enough, or something (Bar Tabac was our alternative, and we got to sit outside on the sidewalk with our own bottle of wine, dining on Merguez sausage and mussels). The all had a burger at Corner Bistro, and towering sandwiches at Katz’s deli.
Gracefully, the favor was returned, when they offered to teach us how to “Braai” (rhymes with “cry&rdquo
, the traditional South African way of barbecuing. Braai, a word from Afrikaans meaning roast or barbecue, can be used as a noun or verb, just the same as barbecue can. Elin participated in one of these meat fests with this couple of rowdy fellows in England, and has talked about it a lot ever since. In the late afternoon, Chris and his brother, Simon, rolled in from Whole Foods with more friends and bags of vegetables and meat, and began taking over the kitchen, cutting meat, asking for spices, sharp knives. Max and I and gathered armfuls of firewood and lit it in the base of the grill like a campfire. Then I stood back and watched it all unfold. That's Chris, below, with a characteristic look of intense concentration.
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10 July 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) |
By Nick Kindelsperger
It's been a while. I know. I'm sorry. But I haven't been lounging around, skipping work, or shunning the internet. Hell, I haven't even really been on vacation.
What I have been doing a lot of recently is driving. It took well over 500 miles to get an aging car to the Midwest. The car promptly threw a fit when we parked it in the driveway, overheating then leaking, until we had to go give it a lot of money to nurse it back to health. My fiance and I have been walking a lot since then. Luckily we live here now.
We're in Columbus, Ohio so she can go to grad school at the Ohio State (for free!!). I'm taking the security deposit from our Brooklyn apartment and living the good life for a month or so, or until I find some kind of a job. I'm starting a new column over at Serious Eats called "Dinner Tonight", where I'll be writing a little short blurb about a simple meal recipe each work day. It should be up soon. It's going to be a great summer.
Anyway, It’s a big move, one that breaks apart the exclusively New York-centric content of this blog, and those weeks about pizzas, hamburgers, and other things the city seems to do so well. But don't worry. Blake is still hunkered down in his gorgeous new apartment, and will keep the New York end of the site up and kicking.
And it's home for me. I was born and raised in Indiana, so I'm having a much easier time settling down here then I did when I wandered off to New York. I also live in the Short North area, a tree-laden stretch of land just north of the downtown loop. It is gorgeous.
The only thing I’m really worried about is the food. In Brooklyn, I lived a short walk from one of the best grocery stores on the planet (Fairway), some of the best pizza (Lucali), and a butcher who made his own sausage everyday (Esposito). That doesn't even mention the bread shop that still made everything on site (Mazzola’s Bakery). Besides Panera, the only bread producing place I've found here is the Wonder Bread factory down the street. I'm not kidding.
But I’m ready to look. When I was last here I was content to check out the chains, but not any longer. If you’re sitting pretty in Ohio and have some good ideas, or just want to meet for drinks, please let me know. I'd love to meet other foodies around the area. Otherwise, it is off to the kitchen. I've got a lot of food I need to take pictures of.
09 July 2007 | Permalink | Comments (5) |
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